(Untitled)

[di_or_dci]

[Just pre-Milliways: It's the freakiest show.]

Sam Tyler had been hoping that somewhere between leaving his flat and getting to what he still thinks of as his office, something would have happened. Something like waking up, getting home, realizing it had all been some strange fever dream, finding out that he was still a DCI after all

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[isaysimplewords]

Cal is just settling himself at a table near the door, complete with a fresh cup of raktajino, when he glances up and sees the new arrival.

It can't be.

The extraordinarily spectacular end to Harold Saxon's career came just a couple of weeks before Cal moved to his new world; naturally, such an epic clusterfuck in international politics held Cal's attention for some time even as he adjusted to his new surroundings.

And he knows that Milliways doesn't really screen for homicidal tendencies, but surely someone like Saxon would have a much harder time getting in here.

. . . no, he concludes after a few seconds' study, it really can't be. He's seen clips of Saxon and pictures of him, and after those few seconds, he finds himself thinking of Jack and what he's been told about the differences between them that override the physical resemblance. This is another doppelganger situation.

Probably.

"Hi," he says brightly. A few minutes' small talk will tell him what he needs to know. There aren't many things about himself Cal has much faith in, but the ability to identify a certain kind of person is one of them. And Harold Saxon was definitely that kind of person.

[di_or_dci]

Sam turns, smile settling a little uneasily into place.

"You're not about to tell me we're long-lost cousins or somewhat, are you?"

Because really, it's been a hell of a day.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal blinks. Of any number of responses he might have anticipated, that . . . was not one of them.

"I seriously doubt it," he says.

[di_or_dci]

"Well thank bloody hell for that."

It's not like a lot of tension goes out of Sam, but -- something sure does.

"That would've taken the oddity factor way too high for me."

Unlike, you know. 1973.

Or a pub in place of his front door.

Or.

[isaysimplewords]

Yeah. Unless Saxon was an even better actor than they all thought (and, if the rumors of the satellite subliminally influencing people are true, he wasn't even that good), this isn't him. Cal smiles, relaxed and friendly, as he goes into welcoming-the-newbie mode.

"Let me guess," he says. "Your first time here?"

He should warn the guy about Saxon, because Cal is far from the only person from his world here and someone else could "recognize" him, but first things first. Especially with the Milliways Introduction. He'll get to that.

[di_or_dci]

"Here being -- "

Sam only looks a little hunted, a little out of place.

"Somewhere not-2006, I'm guessing."

Even if a man might hope, the clientele here is just far, far too strange.

[isaysimplewords]

Interesting. Not really a newbie kind of remark. Unless he's a time traveller or something?

"It's not really any particular year here, I don't think," he says. "This is Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe."

He follows this up with a gesture toward the Observation Window. It doesn't always erase people's skepticism, but it helps.

[di_or_dci]

" . . . . . . Well, that's certainly something."

What that something is, he's not sure. And he'd get a little lost in it except --

"Wait. What's that about not being a particular year? How is that possible?"

[isaysimplewords]

The Window doesn't seem to be worrying him too much. It's having the usual effect, yeah, but it really freaks some people out, so Cal keeps an eye out for that.

"I don't know," he admits. "Same way that window is possible, I guess. The people in here are from all over the timeline, though. Different worlds, too. I'm from New York in 2008. My name's Cal Chandler," he adds.

[di_or_dci]

"Different worlds. And times. Bloody brilliant."

Someone is caught halfway between depressed and hopeful. It's an awkward situation.

"You didn't recently wake up somewhere completely different from what you'd call normal, did you?"

Sam couldn't get that lucky, meeting someone who's been through what he's been through in the last two days.

Could he?

[isaysimplewords]

Cal, who woke up this morning in a world where aliens attack on a semi-regular basis and where a man who could be his twin works in Cardiff fighting them, can't help but find the question funny. It's clearly a serious one, though, so he does his best to stifle the flash of amusement.

(His best in this instance is far from perfect, but at least he tries?)

"I - woke up where I always do," he the answer he decides on. He gestures to his empty table, asking, "You wanna sit?"

[di_or_dci]

"Never mind," Sam says, in response to that flash of amusement.

"Forget I asked. It's been a day, is all."

[isaysimplewords]

"Sorry," Cal says, with a wryly apologetic grimace.

"It's just that my definition of normal, uh, isn't what it used to be. Milliways changed it. Yours'll change too."

Everyone's does, once they find Milliways. Even if that definition was pretty flexible to begin with.

[di_or_dci]

"Good of you to know that about me already."

For just waking up, it sure has been a long day.

A long two days, not to put too fine a point on it.

"How'd Milliways change your idea of normal, then?"

[isaysimplewords]

"I sit around at the end of the universe," Cal points out mildly, "and talk to people from other worlds and times. When I go back to my world, which has aliens and which I wasn't born in, no time has passed, so my day has twenty-six or -seven hours in it instead of twenty-four. None of that was normal before I found this place.

"And that's all just a start." He hasn't gotten anywhere near the weird shit yet.

[di_or_dci]

"Aliens."

Right.

"You sure you're feeling all right, mate?"