A little in between story between my previous story An Adventure Through Time And Space and its sequel (which still has to come out)
If you haven't read An Adventure Through Time And Space you might find this story confusing, however, if you have you might find it entertaining...or at least I would hope so.
Take place during the events of The Day of the Doctor
River woke up early that morning in her bed in the room she shared with the Doctor when they were at her parent's house , the sun already shining brightly through the curtains.
She stood up and went to the bathroom to get dressed for the day. As she walked down the stairs she could already smell the food her parents were preparing, so it wasn't a surprise when she came into the kitchen and found them just doing that - preparing. Amy and Rory were both preparing the lunch and eventual dinner they were going to hold for everybody that day. They had invited the Smith-Jones, Jack and Sarah Jane to spend the day there, the Doctor was also going to come later on with Clara.
The Doctor had promised Clara he would take her on a voyage somewhere to celebrate that she had gotten work as a substitute teacher in some school he seemed to be very fond of and later come back for lunch and dinner with everybody. He had promised Amy, Rory and River like a dozen times that he would be there just in time for the lunch and would then spend the whole day with them all.
"Good Morning", she greeted Amy and Rory as she sat down at the table and poured some milk on her cereal.
"Morning", chorused Amy and Rory.
"Did you sleep well?", asked Amy as she sliced a potato into small little pieces.
"Yes", she smiled at them, "And you?"
"Quite well", said Rory as he washed the tomatoes in the sink for the salad, "The Master was quiet for this once in the backyard."
They had been living for a long time with Master, he had gotten a piece of coral from the Doctor's TARDIS and spend every moment of his time trying to build components for his new TARDIS when he finished to grow it. The Doctor had once proposed they take the coral and leave in some inhabitant planet for a few thousand years and then come back to the fully naturally grown TARDIS, but the Master had refused the idea after citing all the contras and what could happen to the growing TARDIS and since the Doctor hadn't found a good counter for his arguments the Master had stayed in their backyard.
He had refused to come live inside, but Amy and Rory had made a guest room ready for him for those very few times he decided he needed to sleep, which were really few and only made Amy wonder - and a little concerned - if the Doctor slept just as little. He also refused to come inside for any other, 'stupid', reason as he called it so he lived his days through outside building and tinkering with any other kind of machines or contraptions that nobody else in the universe had, never mind Earth.
"He was, now?", she said, almost surprised, the Master had been making an awful lot of noise during the last nights and every time they asked he refused to say what he was doing.
"It's good that he stopped the commotion on his own, I didn't want to tell the Doctor to tell him to silence up a bit", said Amy as she threw the potato pieces into a pot.
"Why do I doubt he would have listened to the Doctor?", said River and took another bite of her breakfast.
Amy sighed, "I also doubt it", she set the pot on the stove to boil.
"Have you tried to get something out of him?", asked Rory and prepared the bowl for the salad.
"No, that's the Doctor's battle", joked River, "Let me help you with that dad", she said and went to help Rory.
They continued to prepare lunch for hours after that and finished just in time for when Mickey and Martha rang the doorbell.
"Hello, Martha, Mickey", greeted River as she entered the living room.
"Hi River, how are you?", asked Martha, she, as well as all the others were still adapting to the fact that River was the Doctor's wife.
The moment they had found out about it they had all sat in silent shock for a while, Martha was the first one to snap out of it when she noticed Jack was getting purple as he chocked on his tea. Fortunately Rory had noticed the same so he also ran to him and along with Martha tried to make him breath again. Thanks to their commotion as they attended a very purple Jack the other also snapped out of their shock and began to ask if Jack was okay.
A few moment later and after Jack had returned to his normal skin color they all rushed to the Doctor's room - and found him sleeping. Grace had then insisted they all let him sleep as he needed it so they settled to question River.
If they had ever thought they were going to get answers from her they were dearly mistaken. She kept chuckling now and then at them and loved to say the word 'Spoilers'. Needless to say they never got much more from the Doctor except a furious blush.
"Fine and you", she heard Mickey answer for and snapped out of her reverie as she went to the living room and sat down on one of the armchairs.
"Fine as well", said River with a smile.
"Is the Master still here?", asked Mickey.
"And as noisy as ever", said Amy as she came into the room and nodded.
"I still can't believe he gave him a TARDIS coral or whatever he calls it", said Mickey as he shook his head.
"How are the children?", asked Rory as he also came into the room, trying to change the subject from the Master.
"Zack and Penelope are fine, thanks", said Martha with a huge smile.
The doorbell rang again, "I'll get it", said Rory and went to open the door.
"Hi Jack", he greeted the immortal man as he entered the house.
"Hi there Roman, Sarah Jane was just behind me on the road, you might as well just wait for her there for a moment", he said and walked into the living room. Jack knew their house quite well already, he had come many times already, most of them just to check the house was still in one piece and that the Master hadn't gone back to his old ways.
"Hi there", Rory heard him greet as he entered into the living room.
Sarah Jane came up to the door only a moment later, "Hi Rory", she greeted.
"Hi Sarah Jane, how's the gang?", he asked, he had heard a lot about how she and the kids in her neighborhood dealt with various alien ploys.
"They're all fine, and you?", she said as she walked past him and into the house.
"Silent", he said and she laughed, everybody had heard about the Master's noisy experiments in their backyards.
It was almost near lunch time and Amy had already started to warm up some of the food in the kitchen when River changed the channel on the TV to the news channel.
Rory checked his watch and wondered how long was the Doctor still going to take, "He should be here already", he said to no one in particular.
"He might be having a very nice adventure somewhere", said Martha.
"Yea", agreed Mickey, "Didn't he say he was going to take Clara somewhere to celebrate that she got work at that school?"
"Yea, but he said he would be early", said Rory with a sigh.
"Has Clara's class already come out?", asked Jack.
"Yes it has", said Amy from the kitchen.
"Calm down, you'll see how he comes running in from that door at any moment now", Sarah Jane tried to convince them.
River suddenly gasped, "Look!", she yelled, pointing at the TV.
"What?", asked Rory but soon saw what she was talking about.
On the TV there was the TARDIS being flown around the center of London by a helicopter, with the Doctor about to fall out of her.
River stood up quickly and ran to the backdoor, opened it and yelled, "Master, you better come see this!", and ran back to the TV.
He was in the living room in about the blink of an eye, "What the-", he pause mid-sentence when he saw why she had called him.
The Doctor was now clinging for his dear life on the bottom of the TARDIS as the helicopter continued to fly around the center of London.
"DOCTOR!", they heard Clara's voice and then saw her head poke out of the open doors of the TARDIS.
After a while the helicopter finally lowered the TARDIS and the Doctor managed to get to the ground, then, when the TARDIS was on ground, Clara ran out of the TARDIS to check the Doctor, the news then went back to the TV station as they blamed some guy for what had just happened. Honestly, River hadn't heard a word of what they said, she was way too astonished after what she had just seen happen.
"Well, you don't see that every day", said the Master gleefully, he seemed to be enjoying himself a lot, turned around and retreated back to the backyard.
"What. Just. Happened.", said Amy in short pauses.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think he'll be on time for lunch", said Jack as he stifled a laugh.
"Or for dinner", added River as she sagged back into the armchair.
"No, I think he'll be here before dinner, River", said Amy and ushered everybody to the dining room. They had lunch and had a nice afternoon without even the smallest news from the Doctor or Clara, they had kept the TV on in case there happened anything else, but nothing ever happened further that day - on the TV at any rate, for all they knew there was a giant alien invasion going on somewhere and they just couldn't see it.
Dinner came by and Amy had to eat up her words she had earlier said that day. She went to the backyard to speak with the Master, "Do you want anything for dinner?", she asked, he usually never wanted anything, but sometimes he did.
He seemingly ignored her as he only continued to fiddle with the cables of some contraption he was working on, "Master!", she yelled and his head quipped up.
"What?", he asked and she could see he genuinely hadn't seen her come in nor had heard when she asked if he wanted dinner.
She rolled her eyes, "Do you want dinner?", she asked again.
He seemed to think about it, "Yeah, today is not a normal day so I'll have it, thanks", she nodded and went back to the kitchen. As she understood it, it was weird that he was ever considerate and completely not normal that he even talked with her and completely from another world that he said thank you, but she still saw him as an idiot.
These were one of the days she wished she and Rory hadn't offered for the Master to stay at their house, the Doctor had been intensely happy when she offered and almost accepted in the Master's name before even consulting it with him. It was still hard on the Master to leave San Francisco, he apparently had made some very precious friends that were difficult to say good-bye to. The Master and the Doctor had a long and serious talk and after some time took the TARDIS for a ride and came back with a small piece of paper she never got to see what it was, which they apparently left at their house and came back both with big grins on their faces.
It was already after the dinner, they were all about to leave, even the Master had quieted for the day in the backyard when they heard the TARDIS materialize in front of their house.
"At last!", declared Amy, rather angry at the Doctor for arriving so late.
But all her words of anger died when he stormed into house like a maniac and began to shout on top of his lungs, "THEY'RE ALIVE! THEY ALL LIVE!", he grabbed her first since she was standing near the door and swung her around and around happily as he continued, "THEY'RE ALIVE AMY, THEY'RE ALL ALIVE!", he let go of her and ran like a maniac into the living room where he saw Martha and did the same with her, "THEY ALL LIVE MARTHA, I DIDN'T KILL ANY OF THEM, THEY ALL LIVE!", he continued to exclaim till he let go of her as well.
"WHERE IS HE?!", he said in his over enjoyed stupor and ran upstairs like only a maniac could, "WHERE IS HE?!", they heard him yell from upstairs.
"Whatever got into him?", asked Mickey and Amy had to admit that she was starting to get concerned about the Doctor's state.
"WHERE IS HE?!", he asked as he ran back downstairs and looked around frenetically, then turned to the kitchen and then ran out the backdoor and caught the Master in a tight embrace in which Amy was sure he couldn't breathe properly.
"THEY LIVE MASTER, THEY ALL LIVE, I DIDN'T KILL ANY OF THEM!", he continued to yell on top of his lungs.
The Master looked like he was trying to say something, but the Doctor was successfully cutting off his breathing. Fortunately for him River came forward and separated them, "Honey, honey, honey", she kept saying trying to make him stop bouncing like a maniac as the Master wheezed and panted, trying to get back his air, "Doctor", she finally commanded, but he still was too ecstatic to listen to her, "What are you talking about, who didn't die?!", she ended up yelling at him.
"GALLIFREY!", he said and embraced her tightly.
"What?!", yelled Jack and in that moment Clara came running in.
"What just hapeeeeeeee-", began River but the Doctor began to swing her also around.
"How can Gallifrey still live?", asked the Master seriously.
"He says the truth!", began Clara happily, "We were with Kate and then there appeared this time loop and we met this version of the Doctor with a stripe suit with Elizabeth the first and then we meet this older - well - younger version of him of when he was in the Time War and then we went to the planet he was on when he was about to destroy Gallifrey, but then the three of them - him - whatever made a plan to save Gallifrey, but something - I don't know what - made it so that they would not remember it but only this Doctor would", she rambled in as few breaths as she could, "Then all the Doctors appeared and they all moved Gallifrey to another universe or something", Clara looked unsure as to where exactly, or how exactly, but that hardly mattered to anyone now.
"What, wait, Doctor, you have to explain to me how you-", began the Master but stopped when he saw the Doctor. He was crying uncontrollably into River's shoulder as he clung at her like his life depended on it. None of them could hardly blame him, he had gone through hundreds of years believing not only that he was the last one but also that he had been the one to end his entire race.
"They're alive, River", he whispered happily into her hair.
"It's wonderful, Sweetie", she said genuinely, "It's wonderful."
Amy had tears of happiness in her eyes as well as all the other ones, she walked forward and hugged both the Doctor and River and it wasn't long before everybody, except for the Master who chose to just stand watching, joined into the hug group.
"You're all wonderful, you are", he said in a quavering voice, "Thank you."
"No Doctor, thank you to you", said the Master, who was now smiling at him genuinely.
He smiled back, closed his eyes and tightened his embrace on River.
End
I'll give cookies to anyone that guess right what little piece of paper the Doctor and the Master left at Tom and Danny's house.
So this is my take on how the Doctor must have felt when he realized that Gallifrey was still alive, I hope you like it and please expect my sequel of An Adventure Through Time And Space one of these days...in the probably not so near future but not in the far future at least :x
Hope you liked it!
Please Review!