To Claire's surprise, his question made her blush. She immediately decided not to tell him her real reason for searching him out, lest it hurt his feelings that she'd only come in here to 'see the freak.' She bit her lip in confusion as to why it should matter so much that she was trying not to upset him. "My friend Trixie said there was a new bloke brought in to surgery, and I decided to see who it was," she told him, inwardly writhing with how lame that sounded.

"Oh." He laid back down. "I'm afraid I'm not worth the effort," he stated, staring up at the ceiling. "You've wasted your time coming to see the freak."

Claire's face was burning now. With his bald statement of the reality of why she'd searched him out, she felt compelled to prove it to be just the opposite. Not to mention the pang it gave her heart to hear him describe himself in that manner—even if it was, in a way, true. Compared to all the other people running around here at U.N.I.T. headquarters, he was something of an oddity. A freak.

Claire had never been able to bear hearing someone depreciate their worth, in any way. She was an encourager; she often tried to cheer people up in her own small way. It suddenly didn't matter to Claire that this strange man looked like a corpse or a ghost. He was someone with a hurting heart, and Claire wanted to heal that hurt. She bit her lip again, and clenched her hands into fists. Pulling in a quick breath, she darted forward towards the man.

For hours afterward, Claire found herself going over and over what had happened, wondering what had made her act not only so impulsively, but downright brazen as well. It wasn't like her to do anything like that. Her only excuse was that he had looked so sad, like the weight of the world was pressing him down, that she had to do something to make him feel he had worth and value to someone. Why it had to take the shape of what she did do was beyond her comprehension. She blushed furiously every time she thought of it.

What she did remember of it was how wide his eyes opened in surprise as she flew to his side, bent down, and kissed him firmly on the lips.

And surprising to her was the feel of him kissing back, just before she pulled her lips away. For a second she stared into his wide eyes, then she backed away and fled from the room, slamming the door behind her. She barely remembered fleeing down the corridor, almost crashing into her desk in the computer room, dropping into her chair, panting and out of breath, then flopping forward onto the desk, burying her face in her arms.

I am never going to be able to face him again, she thought. It astonished her to realize how much that mattered to her.

She kept pointedly away from surgery for the next few days, and from Trixie. No sense in her friend finding out she'd gone to see the 'freak'—especially since Claire wasn't sure she'd be able to keep from furiously blushing while talking about it. The thought of her actions that day in that room still made her inwardly writhe with confusion. She buried herself in her work, helping to write code, testing programs. On the third day since she'd met the odd man, the other odd alien at U.N.I.T. came swanning in, looking for a printout of some information he needed. Claire decided to take a chance and ask him who the new stranger was.

As the Doctor scanned and checked the pages of code, Claire sidled slowly up to him. She took a deep breath and plunged in with her question. "Who is the strange, pale man in surgery?"

The Doctor looked up and over at her, seeing her as if for the first time, even though he'd been in the computer lab at least twice since she'd started working there. "Why do you want to know?" he asked in return.

"Dunno. I've heard about him, just wondered where he'd come from. Talk is he's rather strange in appearance." She willed herself from blushing, keeping her voice steady.

He looked up towards the ceiling, as if in thought, perhaps wondering how much of the truth to tell her. Then he brought his gaze back down to her. "We don't really know. He hasn't said much about himself up to now, he only just appeared here a week ago. But what we do know, is he's a time traveler. He's come from the future."

"How do you know that?" Claire asked, surprised at his answer.

"I tested him and found he has been exposed to artron energy…the kind of energy that affects time travelers. Not sure yet how far into the future he's from," the Doctor replied, and turned to go.

"One hundred and twenty-eight years," Claire murmured, remembering the pale stranger's words, and realizing their significance.

"Sorry?" the Doctor said, turning back to her.

"Something I heard about him," Claire fumbled in response. She didn't want to reveal she'd been to see him, especially not to the Doctor, who might not appreciate her meddling in an area she perhaps had no business being in. And certainly, she didn't want it to get out about the kiss. So far it seemed the odd stranger hadn't said anything about it himself to anyone.

"Hmm. If that's true, that would make sense," the Doctor mused. He gave her a quick smile. "Thanks for the printout." With that he left, off on his own business.

Claire sat down to think about what had just occurred to her. One hundred and twenty-eight years…no wonder the pale man was confused. And…did all humans look like that in the future?

If she hadn't blundered and kissed him, she'd try to go back and talk to him, to ask him more about it. Another of Claire's traits was a heaping helping of curiosity, and she was buzzing with it now. But the memory of her impulsive gesture froze her from seeking him out again, to ask him more about himself and the world he came from.

Unknown to Claire, it didn't matter whether she had the nerve to find him again. Someone else had become interested in finding her.