A/N: Hello, all! Thanks for checking out my story! (And, for those of you who followed this story over from the "Torchwood" section, thanks for coming back! And yes, this is a different title than the one I'd mentioned; I came up with a better one hehe.) Sorry for the somewhat lengthy note that's about to follow, but this story requires a bit of explanation…

Like I mentioned in the summary, this is the sequel/continuation of my story from the "Torchwood" section of this site, "The Impossible New Life of Cate Thomas;" but, also like I mentioned, you don't need to have read that story to understand this one (you may miss a reference or two, but nothing essential). All you really need to know is that Cate is a girl from our dimension, who fell through the Rift and wound up at Torchwood Three, which she used to think only existed in a TV show (all necessary details are in this chapter – it's a bit of an introduction/recap). Cate decides to keep track of her adventures in a diary; those diary entries are what you're reading.

For the record, Cate starts traveling with the Doctor sometime between "Voyage of the Damned" and "Partners in Crime," as seen from the Doctor's point of view (Cate's knowledge of events ends with "Last of the Time Lords," since she switched dimensions before it aired; she also missed all the Series 4 spoilers). This story will eventually start going along with the events of Series 4.

I should also mention that there's a very small reference in this chapter to an idea from the "Doctor Who" novel, "Forever Autumn," but it's entirely irrelevant to the novel's plot.

(And, in case it's unclear, the "being that invaded the timeline" that will be mentioned is the Trickster from the "Sarah Jane Adventures." In my other story, I had the Trickster make good on his promise to take the Doctor out of the timeline.)

Finally, I don't own "Doctor Who" or anything affiliated with it. All credit goes to the brilliant people who created all this and keep it going now. (I did come up with Cate, though.)

Sorry again for the long note, and thanks again for reading. Enjoy!

Entry #1

"So, where do you want to go?"

Those seven, simple words really aren't that interesting on their own; even together, they make a very common question. But, when it's the Doctor, a 904-year-old (approximately), time-and-space-traveling Time Lord, who's asking it, suddenly it's the most exciting question in the world.

In the universe, make that. I suppose I should start getting used to thinking… bigger. Because I, Cate Thomas, just so happen to be that lucky human being, being asked that most exciting question in the universe, by the Doctor. And my answer can be just about anywhere, anytime. How great is that!?

But, before I got to give the Doctor my answer – really, before I was even officially asked The Question at all – I had a bit of explaining to do.

"I only got an abridged version of your story back in Cardiff," the Doctor said, after he'd called me out of my room on the TARDIS and into the control room. "Before we pick a place to go, why don't you tell me a bit more about yourself, hm?" He sat down on the nearby bench-couch thing, and patted the space next to him. "You can sit, you know. I have a feeling this may be quite the tale, and you might get tired of standing. Plus, erm, she can get a bit… shaky," he said, referring to the TARDIS. (We were already zipping through the Time Vortex, but at that point we still had no destination set.)

"Oh. Oh, right." I took a seat. (I must say, the couch is more comfortable than it looks.) "So, you wanted to know about me." The Doctor nodded. "Okay. Where to begin…" I thought for a moment, and decided to start with the basics. "Well, as you know, my name is Catherine Thomas, but I prefer 'Cate." I'm 18 – although, technically, by October of 2008, I should be 19, but I skipped all those months, so I'm not quite sure how that works…"

"When's your birthday?" the Doctor asked.

"June 6, 1989."

"Got it. Don't worry, I'll let you know when you're 19," he said with a smile. In response to my confused look, he added, "Time Lord, remember? I'm kind of good with time." Then it was his turn to look confused. "Wait, what do you mean you skipped months?"

"Oh, right, I'll get to that; I figured I'd go through the background stuff first before I explained how I got here," I said, and he nodded his approval of my plan. "So, yeah, I'm 18 and I'm from Stowe, Ver – "

The Doctor interrupted again, but this time with far more energy. "What!?"

I wasn't sure what he was objecting to. "Um… Sorry?"

"Where'd you say you were from?" he asked quickly.

"Stowe?"

"What!?" he repeated, more emphatically this time. He looked at me in sheer disbelief. "What!? But – but – I thought you were supposed to be from Earth!"

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. "Er, Doctor… I am from Earth."

"But you're from – "

"Stowe," I cut him off. "The town of Stowe, in the state of Vermont, in the country of the United States of America, on the continent of North America, in the northern hemisphere of the planet… Earth."

The Doctor blinked. "OH!" he exclaimed suddenly, causing me to jump. "Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense, then!"

"I'm glad, Doctor," I said, although I was still confused. "If you don't mind my asking, though, what's wrong with Stowe?"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "I was on a ship not long ago, and met a woman from a planet called Sto – that's S-T-O, Sto, instead of S-T-O-W-E. Astrid, her name was… nice woman," he said. "She was going to come with me, actually, travel around…" He paused. "Didn't work out. She died saving the world. Yours, in fact; Earth."

I looked at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he answered. "Me too." He sighed, and then suddenly was all smiles again. "But, I believe you were in the middle of an explanation."

I looked back up at him. "Right. Um, I think that's all of the important background info, for now, at least… So, you want to know how I got here. Well, as you know, I'm from a different dimension. Where I'm from, all of this is a TV show – you, your adventures, Torchwood, everything." I paused, realizing something. "Actually, all of this is three TV shows. And I happen to be a fan of these TV shows. So, when my parents brought me to the U.K. as a high school graduation gift, I was excited to get the chance to see the place where three of my favorite shows were set – among many other reasons, of course; I'd always wanted to see the U.K. in general, hence why that was my gift.

"When we were in Cardiff, I really wanted to get my picture taken in front of the water tower in the Roald Dahl Plass, seeing as, in the TV show, it was the secret door to the Torchwood Three Hub, and, being the somewhat cheesy person that I am, I thought that would be cool." The Doctor smiled at my comment. "The picture was taken, and then my parents and I headed off to find lunch. I was walking slightly ahead of them, but after a little while, I realized that I couldn't hear them talk anymore. I thought that I'd just gotten really far ahead, but I soon realized that my parents were nowhere to be found.

"It turns out that I'd somehow fallen through the Rift – I figured that out when I went to talk to the police, and they wound up calling in Torchwood. Boy, was I surprised when Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper showed up at the police station, especially considering that I had just been thinking about Torchwood at the water tower! I was also surprised to find out that, where I'd arrived, it was a year and a couple of weeks after I'd left from, which had been July of 2007 – that's what I meant by 'skipping months,' Doctor." The Doctor gave an, "Ah!" of understanding. "Anyway, long story short, Jack wound up hiring me to work for Torchwood, and Gwen Cooper let me stay with her and her boyfriend, Rhys. And that's how things went, until I met you," I finished.

"You know, I never really got the whole story on that, either," the Doctor said. "I mean, obviously I know what happened after you met me, since I was there, but how precisely did that come about?"

"Oh! Well, one day, at Torchwood, I was talking to Jack about the job he had me doing, and – again, long story short – he mentioned that you had died."

"That I had what!?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"That was pretty much my reaction, actually," I nodded. "He told me that I had told him that you had died, because you chose to remain John Smith after that affair with the Family of Blood."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well that's just ridiculous."

"Again, that was pretty much my reaction. Especially since I hadn't told him anything of the sort. But, with a bit of research, I found that he was right: that was how it had happened. Clearly, though, that was wrong; besides, I knew that just the day before, Jack was under the impression that you were alive and well. So, I decided to take Jack's Vortex Manipulator – which you hadn't gotten the chance to break – and travel back to 1913 to see if I could fix whatever had gone wrong. Which is where you come in," I said, smiling at the Doctor.

"I wound up in 1916, instead, and found John Smith happily living his life. But, I managed to get him to tell me about that being that had invaded the timeline and convinced him – er, you – to stay as a human, which successfully removed you from the current timeline. Then you – I mean, you, you – showed up, and we convinced Mr. Smith to call back the being who'd made him the offer, and take back his choice. Which he did, and we were all zapped back to our proper places in time and space."

"But then I realized that I was quite impressed with you, and thought you'd make a good travelling companion. So, I came to find you," the Doctor added with a grin.

"You showed up at Torchwood a couple of weeks after I went back in time, and presto! Here we are," I finished.

The Doctor whistled. "Sounds like you've had a fun time in the past couple of months, eh?"

"Yeah," I smiled, "I really have." I shook my head. "Honestly, if someone had told me just three months ago that, in the near future, I would be in – literally, in; not 'acting in,' but 'living in' – my favorite television shows ever, I probably would have referred them to the nearest psychiatrist. But, look at me! I'm an ID-card-holding employee of Torchwood Three, and now I'm standing in the TARDIS, about to start travelling around with the – " I paused. "Well, with you!" I beamed at the Doctor.

Then the enormity of what I'd just said fully hit me. Not so much the Torchwood part – I'd had that moment already – but the second half of it. My jaw dropped. "Oh, my gosh," I said, more to myself than the Doctor (although he was looking at me with a puzzled expression). I stood up and walked slowly around the console, taking in the room around me. That control room really is large; they aren't kidding when they say, "bigger on the inside." I looked at the Doctor from around the column in the center. "I'm in the TARDIS."

"Yup," the Doctor nodded. "That you are."

"No, but, really. I'm in the TARDIS. You've invited me to travel with you. Through time and space."

"Uh huh."

I couldn't help it. I squeaked a little. At first I was embarrassed, but the Doctor just laughed and sprang off of the couch to come over to me. "Speaking of travelling," he started with a grin, "that sounded to me like it was the end of your explanation."

"I do believe it was, Doctor," I said, smiling back up at him. (Yes, "up." He is tall. And I'm average height, too, so really, he is tall.)

"Then I do believe it's time to pick a destination!" He bounced around the console, hitting various buttons and pulling various levers before coming back to me and saying, "So, where do you want to go?"

There it was! The Question! This was my first chance to answer it, so I knew it had to be good. I thought about it for a couple of seconds. "Well, we did a bit of astronomy in my physics class last year, and my teacher was telling us how, here on Earth – wait, there on Earth – we have no way of knowing what the universe looks like more than 14 billion light years away, because the light from those stars hasn't reached us yet. I mean, we can't see what anything looks like currently, because of the time it takes light to travel, but past 14 billion light years, we can't see at all. But travelling with you, I could see it! I could see the stuff that no one on my planet even knows exists yet!" I realized that I was getting quite energetic, so I calmed myself down a bit. "So, do you think we could go to some planet that's more than 14 billion light years from Earth?" I finished.

"Certainly!" the Doctor answered. He squeezed his eyes shut and tapped his head. "Think think think… Aha!" he cried, opening his eyes and turning to me. "There's this nice little planet 14 billion, two million, six-hundred thousand, nine-hundred-and-three light years from Earth, which your people will call Mancaterra when they're eventually able to see it."

"Mancaterra?" I asked. "Hold on, isn't that sort of… Italian?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "The first human to visit the planet was of Italian descent, and the planet's name in its people's native language was unpronounceable in any human language, so…" He trailed off. "It's not really grammatically correct Italian, mind you, but it's a good attempt."

"Mancaterra, though? Doesn't that essentially mean 'missing land'?"

The Doctor frowned. "Aw, I was hoping that it would be a surprise! You know Italian, apparently?"

"I took it for four years in high school… I'm not fluent, but I can translate relatively well."

"Ah, that would explain it," the Doctor nodded. "Oh well. But yes, there's no land above the oceans on Mancaterra; the only solid ground is the sea floor. The entire civilization survives in huge bubbled-in cities under water!"

"Like Gungans!" I smiled.

"Where do you think George Lucas got the idea from?" asked the Doctor, mischievously.

"He did not go to Mancaterra. He didn't." I paused. "Tell me he didn't!"

"Nah, he didn't go," the Doctor laughed. "But sometimes, a person's great idea is actually some piece of psychic energy that drifted through space. Or across dimensions, apparently – remember, I was a TV show where you came from," he winked. "The person who gets this 'message' has no clue what's really going on, so it just gets interpreted as a shining moment of creativity."

"That's totally bizarre," I said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but it's brilliant, isn't it?" he asked, smiling. His grin widened when I enthusiastically nodded. "Well," he continued, rubbing his hands together, "good ole Mr. Lucas may not have travelled to Mancaterra, but we, in fact, are doing just that, so, hold on to… well, anything stationary, and, without further ado…" The Doctor hit a couple of buttons and pulled one last lever with a flourish; the TARDIS jerked onto its new course. "Away we go!" He extended his arm, holding out his hand. "Welcome aboard, Miss Thomas."

I shook his hand, beaming. "Believe me, the pleasure's all mine."