Title: Intrinsic
Summary: The Doctor reflects on Amy's actions, and his own.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or anything related to the show.
Rating: G
The Doctor slumped against the central console of the TARDIS. It had been a hectic few days. He'd regenerated, saved Earth, or at least part of it, twice. He'd lost a body and gained a companion. An involuntary smile fluttered across his lips as he caught sight of said companion. She sat at the front door, her legs dangling out in to time and space. She looked lost in her own thoughts as she gazed at a collapsing supernova.
He couldn't believe he had nearly taken her back to Earth. After her actions on Starship UK he didn't want to let the human out of his sight. She'd taken him completely by surprise. Humans were intrinsically selfish beings. Give humanity the choice to save millions of their own kind, who have spread through the universe like an infestation anyway, or one magnificent ancient creature, and most humans would choose to save themselves. Except Amelia Pond was not most humans.
Even the Doctor had been ready to wipe out the last surviving Space Whale to save Starship UK. Not Amy though. She'd pressed the abdicate button without a moment's hesitation. She'd been sure she was right; but that didn't change the fact that she had gambled millions of lives, including her own, in order to save the ancient beast. She didn't look at the big picture. For her the means had to justify the end. She saw the little things. Things the Doctor had been overlooking for a long time.
The time he'd spent without a companion, after Rose and Donna and all the others...it had changed him. Hardened his armour and chilled his blood. He'd become bitter, once again beginning to loathe humanity and its selfish nature. Then Amelia Pond came along and shattered the walls he'd built around himself. He needed her as much as she had needed him as a child. He needed someone around to anchor him to the world; to stop him from returning to the cold and distant man he had been before he'd met Rose Tyler.
The Doctor needed to be saved from himself.
Amy's eyes fluttered closed before she turned her head to face him. For a second she looked older beyond her years. Beyond the Doctor's years even. The risk she had taken was undoubtedly weighing heavily on her mind. She'd taken on a burden the Doctor knew all to well. To have to chose between one life and another. Even if you made the right decision in the end, the very act of deciding could haunt your every waking minute.
"I'm taking you to see the seventh moon of Ewrokyn! It's got this amazing waterfall of-"
"I'm tired." Her voice was small and meek. Humans, even the more exceptional ones, were fragile things. Nothing a large cup of hot chocolate and a good night's rest couldn't cure. "But, I don't want to go to sleep." Her eyes were wide and pleading and the Doctor understood.
"I'll still be here when you wake up. Promise." His wide smile reassured her and she seemed to perk up a bit.
"I know...but will I?" Her words stung him, but he supposed it was his own fault for threatening to send her back.
"For as long as you want to be here." Not forever. No, he could not promise her forever, just as she couldn't promise to stay with him forever. Time, fate or death would rip them apart before the end. He knew it. Felt it deep inside his brand new bones. She could stay for as long as fate allowed. She belonged in the TARDIS just as much as the Doctor did.
Getting to his feet he closed the distance between them. Holding out his hand he waited for her to take it.
She hesitated.
He was offering the whole of time and space and she was hesitating. This one was going to keep him on his toes for sure. He smiled as she eventually laced her fingers through his.
"Might stick around for a while then."