"No, you're not all right?" Martha asked, because that usually wasn't the response she got to that question. Usually it was more like 'yes, but my body part feels funny', or 'I'm okay except for this pain in my blah-de-blah'.

She scrutinized him, almost on autopilot, but got hung up on the tattoos on his face. They weren't like any she'd ever seen or heard about, like Maori or other Polynesian ones. It made for an interesting puzzle. Maybe not an Earth culture, then.

"A girl I met said it's an alternate universe," she supplied. "It doesn't strike me as much of a prison, personally." Though perhaps it was like that telly programme with the Welsh village and not being a number.