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[hammer]

[ The image of a rather ordinary, unremarkable looking man fills the screen. He’s clean-shaven, wearing a pair of black-framed glasses, and he’s got brown hair, cut short and though it’s a little messy, there’s something about it that suggests that it had been styled at one point earlier in the day. He’s just slightly disheveled, which those familiar with the comings and goings of individuals to Keeliai might recognize as a sign of a new arrival. ]

So this is… [ There’s a moment of silence, as he trails off and glances away from the camera. ] …different.

[ It only lasts for a second, before he looks back and rolls his eyes. ]

The whole—I mean, well… Whatever.

[ He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and pulls himself together. ]

Right, okay. I was given a place to live but no job, and I’m guessing that it isn’t free rent forever. So if there’s, I don’t know, a job center? Help wanted ads? Some turtle world version of Craigslist? Something? Could someone point me in the right direction?

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[refusing]

Why's everyone jumping straight to finding jobs? Why not try volunteering to just...I dunno, help out?

[She's making conversation just for the sake of it at this point, chin resting in the palm of her hand and a small smile on her face.]

[hammer]

Well, that's what the guy said. After the whole "here's your place, settle in because you're not going home any time soon" speech. I'm just...

[ He shrugs, frowning slightly, wondering if he's already made a social blunder on his first day. ]

Don't get me wrong, if someone needs help, I'll help.

[refusing]

[She shrugs in return, smiling in amusement.]

It's not like that, you don't have to or anything. Volunteer instead of work for money, I mean. But I'm pretty sure it's okay if you do one or the other, just as long as you're doing something.

[hammer]

I have to do something. I'm not an idle guy. I like keeping busy. I just, you know, they said we need to pay for things.

[ They also said he only has to work for three hours a day. ]

Maybe I'll volunteer in my spare time. It sounds like we've got a lot of it. Is there—Do you know anywhere that needs help?

[refusing]

Oh, I know what you mean. I'm not an...idle kind of girl. Don't worry 'bout explaining it to me.

[She bites at her lip so she doesn't laugh or crack a smile.]

There's some rebuilding that needs to be done after all this -

[What's a nice, gentle way of describing what happened last week?]

Stuff happened last week?

[hammer]

The uh... mini-armageddon? Or was there something else?

[ He looks doubtfully at the camera, obviously concerned by all of this catastrophe business. ]

Are we in some kind of hell? Is that what this is? Weird turtle hell?

[refusing]

Y'know, I'm starting to think that myself. I think I was just on a planet that had some kinda hell underneath the surface. This place? So much worse.

[She's not being overdramatic either. She's entirely restless here.}

[hammer]

What planet were you on before?

[ Please tell him that it's not one with flying space whales. ]

[refusing]

Dunno the name of it, it was kinda...impossible? Stuck out someplace it shouldn't have been.

[No space whales, just the devil.]

[hammer]

Is that something you do often? Travel to other planets?

[refusing]

Um...a bit here and there, in between visits back home to see Mum.

[hammer]

Is that like a, a superpower or something? Traveling to other worlds?

[refusing]

[She bursts out laughing.]

Me, with superpowers? Dunno if the universe would be ready for something like that. [No, really. She had a brief stint with power and it didn't go so well for anyone involved.]

Thinking it's best that I just stay Rose Tyler, perfectly ordinary human. I go to other places in a spaceship...thing. It's not mine, either. It belongs to a friend, he's the one that makes all that traveling possible.

[hammer]

[ Well, at least he made her laugh, right? And it's nice to hear that there's someone else besides him here who isn't able to fly or whatever. ]

So he's got special powers, then? Or he's some kind of technological genius guy who made a space-traveling machine?

[ He's probably some other world's Tony Stark too. Hell, maybe it is Stark. ]

I'm Justin, by the way. Justin Hammer.

[refusing]

Rose Tyler. [She flips her hand up to wave.]

And nah, the Doctor doesn't have any special powers. [Ones that she'll mention, anyway.]

It's more of the second. Kinda. [She's not going to get into how the TARDIS isn't built, it's made and all that.That's when things start sounding weird.]

[hammer]

It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Tyler.

[ As fantastical as it sounds, he feels somewhat more at ease with a guy who can build an interstellar vehicle than one who used magical powers to get there. ]

So this doctor of yours is a techie, huh? Good to know. I'm familiar with a few of them myself.

[refusing]

Yeah, pretty sure you could call him that. A techie, I mean. It's kinda his thing. By familiar with a few of 'em, do you mean you're one yourself? 'Cause if you can build something that might get us outta here -

[She will do whatever you want, within reason.]

[hammer]

Yeah. Yeah, I think you could call me that. That's what my company did. Designed technological things. Weapons for the military, for the most part, but engineering's engineering no matter what you're building.

I can try. I mean, doorways to other dimensions, it's usually some kind of energy discharge that causes them. [ Or so the science-fiction books he's read and movies he's watched have said. ] It would take a lot of time, but yeah, I'll try.

[refusing]

Weapons?

[Normally that would upset her, but if his company built weapons for the military, then he's definitely the kind of guy that she needs to talk to here. Someone who can build a weapon that forces cracks in the fabric of the universe.]

I wanna help. If you're gonna try, I can't just let you do it all by yourself.

[hammer]

Guns. Specialized vehicles. Armor. That kind of thing.

[ He could add drones, because there had been more drones over the years than the failed Iron Man knockoffs. But the word leaves a bad taste in his mouth now and he doesn't want to go there. ]

You want to help? Really? Okay. Sure. That's—that's great.

[refusing]

You mean you'll actually let me?

[She's surprised by that, usually she faces some sort of patronizing comment or resistance.]

[hammer]

Sure. Why not? I mean, I can always use another set of hands. And if that sort of thing interests you, building machines kind of stuff, I can teach you how to do it.

[ Justin can be horrifically patronizing when he wants to be, but there's none of that in his voice now. The notion of someone wanting to help him is kind of novel. It might even be fun. ]