Marie snickered a bit at the joke.

"Ideally," the Doctor said. "We need to find whatever's been stirring up the space-time around here."

"That's your area," Jack said with a bit of a grin. "I'll keep these lovely ladies company."

Jess snickered a little at the blatant flirting.

The Doctor just sighed.

"I really can't take you anywhere," he said.

Jack grinned and waggled his eyebrows at him. "And yet you keep doing it," he said.

"Someday I might even figure out why," the Doctor replied. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his sonic and pointed it at the wrinkle. Time to figure out where the thing had come from.

"Well, someone's got neat little gadgets," Jess said, looking at the sonic screwdriver.

"Isn't it?" the Doctor said with a bit of a grin. "Sonic screwdriver. Handiest little tool in the universe."

"Sonic screwdriver? Never heard of that one before." Jess looked at him. "So what exactly are you two going to do?"

"Figure out what's causing the wrinkle, make it stop, and hope the wrinkle smooths out," the Doctor said. The sonic screwdriver whirred for a moment, and he looked at it. He made an odd sort of face. "Well, that's... impossible."

"Impossible is a very strong word," Jack said, looking over his shoulder. "How impossible are we talking here?"

"Extremely," the Doctor replied. "The wrinkle seems to have been caused by time energy. Bologically produced time energy. And it wasn't mine."

"Well there are other time travelers," Jack pointed out. "I'm one of them. Maybe one is on assignment here, or something."

The Doctor shook his head.

"It's not the right wavelength of time energy for a regular time traveler," he said. He was quiet for a moment. "This is Time Lord energy. And that's why it's impossible."

"Right, because there are no more Time Lords," Jack said, frowning a bit. "So then where is the energy coming from? You're not sticking around here in a previous incarnation are you? Or a future one?"

"I can safely say I've never been here before," the Doctor said. "Whether or not I'll come back is up in the air, but even still. This much energy had to accumulate over time. This isn't just me visiting."

"Right. So we've got a mystery."

"We've never noticed anything odd here before," Jess said with a little frown. "This... wrinkle appeared about two and a half weeks ago, but we're here all the time, have been since we were little, never noticed anything out of the ordinary."

"It takes a lot of time energy to tangle up space and time, even a little bit," the Doctor said, adjusting the settings on his screwdriver briefly. "The little bit given off by a Time Lord would have to build up for years before it could do anything like this."

"So you're saying a Time Lord has been coming around here for years," Jess said, raising her eyebrows. "Which is apparently impossible because there aren't any?"

"I'm the last one," the Doctor said, nodding. "Which raises the question of how this wrinkle happened."

Jess looked at Marie to see if she'd noticed any other weird people like the Doctor around before, raising an eyebrow. Jack just stood back to let the two ladies figure things out.

Marie was trying to work through a couple of things in her head. Something about what the Doctor was saying seemed familiar, somehow, but she was sure she'd never heard any of it before.

"I wouldn't even know the first place to look for someone like that," she finally said.

"Well, you're in luck," the Doctor replied. He held up the sonic screwdriver. "Because this little beauty can help."

Jess shook her head a bit. "Wouldn't you know already if there was another around?" she asked, frowning. Something was making her head start to hurt, like pressure against her temples.

"Normally, yes," the Doctor replied. "Which is why this is so odd." He had an inkling of what might have happened, but he wasn't certain and he didn't want to give himself that sort of false hope.

Marie also felt a sort of deep throbbing in her head, as if something was trying to get out. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache.

"I know, it's a lot to take in," Jack said when he noticed Marie pinching the bridge of her nose. "Just sit down for a few minutes. It'll pass."

Jess managed to ignore the headache for the moment, instead watching the Doctor, because she knew that somehow whatever he found was important.

The sonic screwdriver gave a high-pitched whine, and the Doctor swung it around. Once he'd determined the direction to go, he started to walk. The faster he found the source of the time energy, the faster he could find out exactly what was going on.