"For the last time, you two, this is not a snog box." The Doctor put his hands on his hips. He tried to be stern with them—no one changed the atmosphere of his TARDIS from magnificently exciting to mildly uncomfortable without his consent—but they were happy. The Doctor liked his companions happy. They were much easier to handle when they weren't demanding to get each other back.
"Says who?" Amy pouting, giving Rory's arm a playful tug.
"Says me. Now are we going to see the birth of a universe or not?"
"Fine, fine." Amy let go of her husband and jumped to the lower level. "Ready for a baby universe, big boy?"
The Doctor twisted the knots on the control panel with a rare contentment. Now, finally, he could make his way to one of the finest shows among the stars—
"You have accessed the hologram system." The announcer's monotone voice interrupted his freedom.
"I have not!" The Doctor retorted, jabbing his finger on the touch screen in an effort to dispel the distraction. "I'm not letting anyone else delay this trip."
"Could be a message from the TARDIS," Rory pointed out.
"Well…" He tilted his head back and forth as if weighing the arguments by his ears. "Oh, fine." He accepted the message and an image of the 10th Doctor popped out.
"Who—who is that?" Amy asked, suspicion turning the corners of her mouth down and raising one perfectly tweezed eyebrow.
"Well…that's me. The old me. Quicker wit, questionable fashion sense." He got closer. "Well I'm not letting you come back, if that's what you want."
"But I thought you liked me." The voice that came out of the hologram's mouth was distinctly feminine, humming with amusement and static electricity. A matching smirk cut its way through the image. Dark curly hair and navy blue eyes greeted him as the once-hologram gasped for air, solid and living and two feet from The Doctor
"And you are?" The Doctor said, not unkindly. The girl fainted by his feet. "Hold on!" Just as he knelt by her, she pushed herself up and found The Doctor's eyes awfully close to her own.
"I'm your TARDIS," she announced, snappily jumping up as if she made it a habit of nearly losing consciousness on hard metal floors. "And I'm not leaving your side again."
"Remarkable," The Doctor breathed, twitching his hands around the girl's head, brushing against her almost-black hair and pulling back before he could touch her.
"Still not a snog box, Doctor?" Amy teased as the Time Lord stared, spellbound, at the girl.
"Not in front of the lady, Amy," he said, circling the materialization of the best ship in the universe. "You said you weren't leaving. Did you…mean that?"
"Yes, Doctor," she said plainly. "I can't let you travel alone."
"Can't travel alone, indeed." He took the TARDIS's hand. "Come on! We have a universe waiting for us." He swiveled the monitor so it was suspended between them, while the TARDIS piloted the controls by his side. Amy cocked her head.
"She's better at it than he is."
"Well, of course," Rory replied. "She is the TARDIS."
"Don't you think they look like a couple?" Amy stage whispered. The TARDIS turned around and winked at her, and Amy was struck by how it wasn't just her and her boys anymore.
"I think…" Rory said carefully. "Travelling is going to get a lot more complicated."