It was early in Amy's time on the Tardis when she found the odd little altar. She was still trying to find her way around and had gotten lost somewhere between her bed and the wardrobe, where she had picked up a house-robe. At first she had tried only taking right corners but that lead to a dead-end so after that she just turned randomly. After a while she noticed a change in the lighting.
Some of the hallways were lit with a purple-red colour, mauve-like. Others were tinted bright blue, a colour that was hard on Amy's eyes. There was a third colour too, pale pink and soft. At first Amy took no notice of the lighting until she went down a mauve corridor to see the first intersection blink between bright blue and the regular goldish tint of the Tardis as if it was trying to get her attention. She went down that hallway to the next juncture which had blue light from two directions and the soft pink from straight ahead. As the pink was easier on her eyes (and seemed more selective) she headed down that way. She followed the pink light, staying clear of the mauve, until she reached a door at the end of a dead-end hall. A soft pink light bulb blinked above it.
Most of the doors on the Tardis didn't have handles… or at least not handles in the same way that Amy was used to them – with twisting nobs or overhead motion sensors. The Tardis had – mostly – small oblongs of metal with three glowing white lights attached to the wall next to the door. This one was no different. Hoping that this was a way to her bedroom Amy waved her hand in front of the oblong exactly as the Doctor had shown her that very first night. It worked, the door unlatched and Amy was able to push it gently open. Inside was a small room with no other doors. Amy almost turned back around to find a blue hallway (sod her eyes: she was tired) but the small, low table of to one side drew her attention.
It didn't take long to twig that the table was in fact an altar. A really odd altar but Amy didn't expect a normal Anglican altar to be anywhere on the Doctor's radar (she hadn't really expected to find any sort of religious – anything on the Doctor's ship but if she was going to find one a weird little altar made much more sense than an Anglican one. He was an alien after all). There was a soft silken cloth draped over the honey-coloured stone altar. The cloth was the same soft pink colour as the light that led Amy to the room. There were a number of sacrifices (for want of a better word) placed carefully along the surface too. In the centre was a smallish black stone bowl filled with gray ash. The ash was so fine that Amy was surprised it didn't puff away with her breath as it ghosted over the altar. To the right of the bowl was a vase filled with (fresh) forget-me-nots, the vase was cracked and broken but someone had repaired the damage with gold which made it beautiful. On the left of the ash bowl was a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a bookmark sticking out of the top. Amy had never really read the books – she watched the movies because Rory wanted her to but she just couldn't get into the books – so she didn't understand the significance of the death of Severus Snape but that was what the bookmark was for. On either edge of the low altar there were incense sticks with smoke gently spiralling towards the ceiling (which was quite a ways away, now that Amy looked). They filled the small room (with an oddly high ceiling) with the soft scent of spring rain.
Now that she had looked up Amy noticed the bright yellow-gold wall hangings that helped absorbed the sound of her breathing in the quite room. There were two of them, they hung on opposite walls with the altar falling between them. They were the same size and shape as the athletics banners that hung in her high-school gymnasium but they weren't full of names. Instead at the bottom were two patterns. The one on Amy's right was exactly the same as the one on the left except it had an extra gear-cog (for want of a better word) added in the middle. Someday soon Amy would learn that the language was from the Doctor's home but at that moment it just looked pretty.
"Pond, what are you doing in here?" Her Raggedy Doctor had poked his head into the small space. His voice was soft as if he was afraid of waking – something – within the room.
"I got lost," Amy replied honestly, "I think the Tardis led me here. What is this?" She gestured toward the altar. She was caught off guard when the Doctor passed her on the way to the altar where he fell to his knees and … started drawing in the ash.
"This is… something the Tardis set up for me a long time ago. She never wanted me to forget the Bad Wolf." He trailed off. Amy glanced over the Doctor's shoulder to see what he'd drawn in the ash Bad Wolf. "She gets temperamental if I don't come here often enough." Amy wasn't sure if the 'she' in question was the Tardis or the Bad Wolf.
"Who was the Bad Wolf?" Amy asked gently. Even after knowing the Doctor for just a short time she knew he was a little bit damaged. After the Atraxi and Prisoner Zero she would have known that. The trip to Starship UK only confirmed it. Amy didn't want to spook her Raggedy Man.
"The Bad Wolf is a goddess – or as close to one as I have ever seen. I've seen quite a few gods and goddesses in my day." He sighed softly. "She only ever exists in two exact and finite points of time but sees all that was, is, or could be. I think she can also see what must never happen but I didn't get the chance to ask her. She was the first Child of Time and she twisted life and death to her will.
"The Bad Wolf burned as bright as the sun and had starlight in her eyes. For exactly two moments in time she was Time and understood the vortex. She loved me and knew she couldn't always be with me so the Bad Wolf took life and death and made them her own. She created life from nothing – twice that day. She was amazing and it killed me."
"Killed you? What does that mean Doctor?" Amy asked. She figured she'd leave the rest for now focus on the doctor saying he died (Part of what the Doctor had said sounded like mythology anyway – Amy didn't feel confident enough in their friendship to question the Doctor's religion, not yet anyway).
"I've died almost a dozen times now, Amelia Pond. I always get better. One of the times I died it was to save the life of Rose Tyler, my pink and yellow human," he described her with a soft indulgent smile, "who created herself by spreading the name Bad Wolf through time and space to draw the two of us together.
"She's gone now. Lost forever to me in another universe but I am convinced that she has been what draws me to humans. I never know why, I only know who. It took me hundreds of years to accept that but now I think it was the Bad Wolf all along." He seemed to be lost in thought – probably thinking of all the people the Tardis had shown Amy. Amy wondered if the Bad Wolf had been among those images.
"So Time Lords have Religion?" Amy asked after an awkward pause. "A goddess?"
"It would be more correct to say that a goddess has a Time Lord, Pond. She chose me, not the other way around." He snuffed out the incense sticks between his thumb and forefinger, "The Tardis loves her though and refuses to forget her. She set this up using the ash of Daleks, her favourite book; the flowers are fairly self-explanatory." The Doctor carefully pulled up the old incense sticks and swept up the ash from their trays before placing two small cones in their place. He murmured to himself, "this is from Babylon, Rose, you'd have loved it there." As he lite the cones. They smelt of wheat and old books to Amy.
"Now then, you said something about being lost! Let's get you to your room. You look knackered." With that he bound to his feet and clapped his hands. Amy wanted to ask what a Dalek was and when the Doctor had been to Babylon and about one hundred other things but the Doctor had clearly closed the subject. She followed him out of the room. The lights in the halls had gone back to their usual golden glow but the Doctor knew where he was going. In just fifteen minutes he had her back to her bedroom.
"I won't forbid you from seeking out the Bad Wolf's Lair: you humans are far too curious to leave well enough alone, but I will ask that you not disturb the things that the Tardis leaves out for her." The serious, soft tone was back in the Doctor's voice. His eyes searched out the depth of Amy's soul. She hadn't felt quite so exposed in a long time.
Amy nodded her agreement.
A few weeks later Amy asked about the lighting: Blue is good (the Doctor promised to dim the blue lights so they wouldn't hurt Amy's eyes) Mauve is bad (Red is universally seen as camp, who knew?) and Pink was the Tardis lighting the way to the Bad Wolf's new room (after the crash 14 years ago, Amy's Linear Time, it had become lost).
End
Notes: Mauve as bad comes from the Ninth Doctor's Episode the Empty Child. I think that The Tardis chose to let Rose rip her heart out because of love for both the Doctor and Rose. I also think that The Bad Wolf had a Lot more influence on the Doctor's life than just the Game Station and bringing back Jack (I think she brought Jack back so that he could tell the Doctor about Yana, considering how far in the future that was for Jack, what else did she do?)
The vase is somewhat important but I don't want to give it away. Review if you want to know and I'll reply. Review if you know as well: I wanna see what people think!