"Doctor." A pause, and then a giggle, "Doctor, wake up."
The imperative. First thing in the morning and she's going to start giving orders. And to me. After all I've done for her, after all the times I've proven myself the only person in the current company capable of or worthy to give orders. 'Wake up', like a programmed command to summon a primitive computer system out of sleep, 'Wake up'. No. No, I simply will not, as a point of principle, of morality, of hierarchy and moreover because the light hurts when I try to open my eyes and I'm still sleepy.
"No, seriously, Doctor. You have to see this."
I resist.
"Please?"
That's a bit better. I open one eye, find it sore and constricted and bleary and try the other. The other is a great improvement. Mostly what I am looking at is a dishevelled version of last night's Pond, with the curls in her hair slightly wild and tugged up on one side and what I am assured is a 'smoky eye' smoking its way towards her ear. Still giggling too, which is quite nice to wake up to. I should get a recording, set an alarm. Not that I ever need an alarm. I could wake up to it and then just roll over until I'm good and ready to get up, which I'm not right now, but there is something she very much wants me to see.
I reach up to move her out of the way. My hand is strangely watery and detached. It does everything I tell it, but one inch down and two to the left of where I tell it to.
I see what she wanted me to see. And I too giggle.
The murky Los Angeles sunrise is pinkening over the chlorine green pool, in the centre of which, atop an inflatable crocodile, is the matching bookend to Last Night's Pond; Last Night's Mr Pond. With a five o'clock shadow and the neck of his dress shirt open and his long black tie trailing like a banner from a hand that has fallen into the water.
It is then that I remember that it is 1946, and that we slept on sun loungers in the back garden of Howard Hawks.
"Where did he get that?" I ask Pond. She lies back, laughing, shielding her eyes from the morning sun, and smiles.
"Tardis."
"I do not own an inflatable crocodile."
"Oh yes you do. You sent him out to get it."
"What? When?"
"When he was bored and you were flirting with… the real girl of whoever Gwen Stefani played in The Aviator..."
"Jean Harlow? I was talking to Jean? How is she, at this point? I know ti doesn't end well…"
"I don't know, Doctor, you were the one flirting with her."
"Talking to, married man, Pond."
"That's what I said."
"Why don't I remember all this? …Why is the last thing I remember the smell of popcorn?"
Pond, with evident difficulty and the pain of a headache, sits up, reaches under the sun lounger and, after kicking all the fishtails of her dress out of the way, comes up with a matching clutch. And it is a lovely match, and a lovely outfit. And when I ask where she got it she says again, "Tardis."
"I do not own-"
"Yes," she says, "Apparently you do."
"Why don't I remember-" Pond pulls out a mirror compact featuring a cartoon cat in diamante, which I can only presume she brought with her. My face, that other eye I was talking about, the one that was just that little bit dodgy before, is all purply and swollen and rugged-looking.
"Because Humphrey Bogart punched you in the face."
"Why?"
"Because you asked him to dance."
"…The video phone, you own a video phone, did you use the video phone? Is there phone-video of me being punched in the face by Humphrey Bogart?"
She starts to shake her head. The strength of my disappointment is such that it actually gives me the energy to sit up from the lounger, so that I can properly look her in the eye (and I do mean that singular) when I tell her how disappointed I am in her. "Too many people. They would have asked questions and been interested and other kinds of awkward things."
While nodding, I reach out and take the mirror from her, and as we converse I study my fresh new bruises. What I believe is called, 'a shiner'. I have a shiner. A shiner has been given unto me by Humphrey Bogart at a party at Howard Hawks' house. An event which is bitterly, salted-woundishly, not on video, of phone or any other kind. "You are very sensible and I am still disappointed. Pond?"
"Mmh?"
"Who were we last night?"
Pond grabs my face by the chin and turns me away from the mirror. Peering into each of my eyes and starting to smile, "Just how hard did Humphrey Bogart punch you in the face?"
"We went to a movie premiere in 1946, who did I say we were to get us in?"
She stops and tries to think. She tries so hard she makes her headache a little worse, winces and gives up. "Nope, no idea."
"Oh dear."
"What?"
"Come with me, if you will, through a little scenario, Pond. Mr Hawks wanders out of his fine, palatial home in the Hollywood hills, sunglasses on, Bloody Mary in hand. Spots three strangers sleeping in and around his pool. Him having been to the same party as us, his memory is a little foggy. And the one he approaches shows him a psychic paper reading something completely different to last night."
"Oh," she murmurs. Starting to gather up her clutch and glittering fishtails.
"Yes."
"We should probably go before Mr Hawks does that."
"I concur."
There is a moment of silence, in which I know for a fact we are both thinking the same thing. We are about to raise our voices above this early morning hush, and it is going to hurt.
Then, in near perfect unison, the same weary 'don't-make-me-swim-out-there' tone, "Rory!"
Nothing. Of all the horribly selfish things to do when neither Amy or I is much of a mind to move, he does absolutely nothing. Not so much as flinches. Doesn't grumble, doesn't shout something embarrassing out of his dreams. Doesn't, as I had hoped he might, try to roll over and fall into the pool, that would be fun. Nothing. Of course, I know better than to say anything of the sort to his ever-faithful wife. She wouldn't like anything of that sort to be said.
No, what she'd rather do is pick up a handful of the gravel from the potted palm and hurl it at him, and mutter things under her breath that I, being a man of education and erudition, would not repeat.
When that doesn't move him, we share a glance, and confirm amongst ourselves that we are worried.
"Pond, on your right and behind you is a small shed, and leaning against it is a pole with a hook. We can accomplish what need be accomplished with minimum effort if you would lean back and pass it over to me."
She lies right back on the lounger again, grabs it from over her head. Sitting up, she feeds it hand over hand towards me. I take it hand over hand from her, edging to the bottom of my own lounger, and ease forward. And just, just, I can get the hook around the black plastic handle of the crocodile that came from the Tardis, whether I believe that or not, and start to draw Rory back in.
"I swear, if he wakes up, you're turning him over."
"I may well turn him over anyway for wilfully making trouble."
"Oh, yeah, Doctor, wilfully. Turn him over. No. Get him in, tell him you're going to turn him over, then turn him over." She only notices that I'm staring at her when she notices that Rory has stopped moving. "What?"
"…And I thought that was just my marriage. Anyway, I've reeled him in. Over to you."
Amy balks. She thinks I expect her to lift him. I knew that would happen. But she's funny when she's indignant. I haven't the heart to tell her otherwise. "For what?"
"Just think of him as a sleeping princess. While I try and remember where I parked the Tardis."
Grudgingly, she climbs down and kneels by him, rolls him from crocodile to tiles and starts to try and wake him. Meanwhile, I use the pole as a crutch in order to stand up and cast my eyes about. The Tardis is probably on the hill below the house, here at the back, where it will be relatively hidden on the rocks. Worst case scenario is – "Doctor." – we got a lift from the premiere to the party back here – "Doctor, please." – and my poor Tardis currently stands abandoned in downtown post-war Los Angeles, which simply will not – "Doctor!"
"What, Pond, do you want, when I am thinking!"
"He won't wake up."