Amy made her way through the many corridors and passages between the rooms that made up the TARDIS. From the blue swimming pool it took her ten minutes to reach the control room, a route that usually only took her around five minutes, proving just how tired she really was.
It was hard work trying to keep up with a time lord, who, for the record, only slept once a week and somehow managed to constantly forget that she was a human who had to sleep once every twenty four hours. 'He never used to forget,' she thought miserably to herself. Although recently she felt as though she was missing something herself. Something huge.
She entered the control room and walked across the glass floor to sit upon the rail running around the outside. Although she made no noise, and he didn't look up, his sharp senses knew she was there.
"Good morning!" he said cheerfully, "or should I say 'evening'?" he added with a soft chuckle, enjoying the human joke he'd picked up; night or day doesn't matter onboard the TARDIS.
"Really?!" she exclaimed, shocked at how long she'd slept for. "Ah well, you can't blame me, it's your fault for tiring me out!"
He sighed. "Well now you're up, where would you like to go? I was thinking that maybe you'd like to go and visit New York in 3030. There's a great carnival there that year which really is magnificent."
"What, like me?" said Amy with a wink.
"Of course," he said sarcastically, with an amused tone to his voice.
Amy hit him playfully, "Hey!" she shouted.
"Okay then, Magnificent Amy Pond, how would you like to visit Magnificent New York, 31st century?"
"Sure thang," she said in a cheesy American accent, "maybe we could have a cawfee on the side-walk."
"Whatever we do, don't talk like that," he said lightly.
She laughed.
"No really. I mean… don't…"
He pulled down the green leaver, and switched a few buttons and the TARDIS made it's familiar sound like nothing else in the universe could, and then came crashing to a standstill.
"Right then," he said excitedly, running towards the doors. "This is America in one thousand and twenty years!"
Amy had never been to New York in present day, only on TV. So she dived out the blue doors and looked around with an excitement parallel to that of a six year old's on Christmas morning.
Her jaw dropped.
"Why is everything… green?"
The Doctor was already walking around outside, checking out the city for himself. "The Big Apple!" he shouted.
"Oh I get it!" Amy said, "colour coded cities, right?"
"You're good," he said with a smile, and then "where first then, miss?"
She thought for a second- "Anywhere but Manhattan," he said, shuddering.
"What's wrong with there?" she said. It was as if he had read her mind.
"Just… bad memories."
"It's not like you to run away…"
"This isn't running. This is staying out of what shouldn't be meddled with," he said quickly.
Amy could tell he was probably going to go into a rant at the small comment she had made, and so was about to switch off, when the Doctor trailed off himself. "Amy… is it just me, or is something not right with those cabs?" Amy knew what he meant. Every driver was wearing a mask, a mask of the same man. And the Doctor knew it was not just any man.
"That's impossible! Amy, they're not real masks. Look, there's not one thing different about each of them."
"Okay… A bit creepy, but is that really so bad?"
"It is when you know who that man is – what that man is."
Amy shot him a confused look in the silence that now seemed to have fallen over the whole city, spreading out from where they were stood.
"He's like me."
"But I thought you said-"
"They are. And he already has. Twice."
"Twice?!"
"Never mind that… Thank God I worked out how to transfigure the TARDIS in to something pocked sized. This in his hands… That'd really be the end."
Watching the TARDIS shrink was one of the weirdest things Amy had ever seen. And that was really saying something.
"Bonus points if you can tell me what it is," the Doctor said smiling, despite how serious the conversation had been just seconds before.
Amy's eyes widened.
"It's still just as big on the inside…"
"Bingo!"
"But that means –"
"-if we get in to trouble we can just shrink ourselves and get out, and by the time you next exit the doors, you're as big as before!"
"That's what she said. Wait, no, that's the opposite of what she said... Wait…"
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"Right then!" he said slipping the miniaturised TARDIS into his pocket along with the paper and screwdriver, "let's catch a cab!"
The Doctor grabbed her hand and ran over to where the majority of the cabs were lined up, and jumped in the nearest one.
"Right, take me to your final destination!" he said, flashing the psychic paper at the driver.
"Oh thanks," Amy murmured to herself, "now I feel a lot better…"