The Universe's Mixer

Time. Time was an issue. Time was always an issue unless time wasn't, but usually time was an issue. There was a time when time wasn't a problem, other than finding how to spend it. Time as a commodity; time was valuable. Ticktock and they don't stop?

Charlie Crews was a little confused. His mind tumbled over and over on time. Now and then it would hit on memory, and even on loss with acceptance and gain. He didn't understand what exactly was going on, but that really wasn't a new feeling. The confusion was a little new; he usually had an idea of what he didn't understand or know.

He woke up in an empty cell, feeling a little like he'd gone on a bender, which wasn't what he normally did. Not usually. He took a deep breath, cleaned himself up with some things in his office, and headed out. He had to find answers and to start to straighten out what exactly the question was he needed to answer. He also felt the need to find Ted and Jennifer, and a few others.

So, with the need identified, he decided to go walking. While driving was more fun, walking didn't hurt. He'd been a beat cop once, and with some of things he did, he wouldn't be surprised if he was demoted to it again. He'd just walk the streets until he found an answer, or a question.

Tired eyes fluttered open to a white wall and the forgotten blares of a morning alarm. He rolled over and reached for the ghostly shell of nothing on the side table like clockwork, and when his fingers curled around emptiness into a loose fist, he forced himself to get up out of bed.

The morsels of anticipation that had been stuck in his throat died swiftly at the sight of still curtains and the table lamp in his room.

He had hoped without hope that the universe would correct itself and return him home somehow, but this was not the home he had wanted to return to. The silence stretched after he switched the alarm off, as if he was waiting to be sure that he was neither where he was before nor where he wanted to be. As if he was waiting for someone else's voice or even the whines of a hungry puppy to cut through the silence.

But there was nothing.

The city continued to offer its cornucopia of disappointments as he wiped cold water off his face, got dressed and headed out into once-familiar streets. Instead of taking the shortcuts he'd learnt what felt like a long time ago and cutting straight into the heart of the city, his seemingly aimless wandering took him to places where an off-chance glance in an unspecified direction might find someone that would alleviate his worries.

Peter wasn't dead or gone. He was here. Not on the island, not with the TARDIS, but in a city nearby with Leeloo, and that was enough. Once she was certain she hadn't lost her best friend to circumstance, she returned to the TARDIS to spread the word about what had happened, about what the rumbling had been, about their changed reality...

... only that's not what Evey did. She walked into the TARDIS, yes, and she walked down the corridor where the living quarters were, yes -- but she was as capable of explaining or reassuring as a wall was capable of those things. When her feet took her to the end of the corridor, she turned around and walked back in the direction she'd come. Eventually, she found herself in Storage Room #3, sorting building materials.

There was no real thought to it. She simply worked, hand over hand, foot after foot. When Peter's thoughts and emotions got too loud, she closed herself off from him again and kept working. There was daylight left, yet, or there should have been. This night cloaking the TARDIS now was artificial and therefore unreal. She needed to work.