Warnings: All Eras, No Spoilers, No Warnings
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: Water, comprised of my usual overly thinky ramblings. Standard wandery-blithery within (youse has been warned) though more wandery and blithery and likely nonsensical than usual. Mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. As always, I apologize for any repetition, mispellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery and unbeta'd.

Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

From barren, rocky wastes to forests so large they could cover Earth twice, to deserts that made the Sahara look tropical – the Doctor had seen them all (and shared more than quite a few).

He had been to the highest peaks ever comprehended and the lowest valleys one could conceive of (and no, that wasn't a metaphor) – and he had shared those as well.

He had shared space, time and the lanes in between: star-dazzled skies, the golden shriek of the vortex and the Void between them. He had been almost everywhere his machine could possibly go (and a few places rather impossible) and had laid his eyes on wonders so staggeringly beautiful he couldn't retain the memories without madness, so he promptly locked them away in that special place behind his hearts and let his Old Girl remember for him. He had seen the ugliest of places and the most breathtaking wonders the Universe had to offer (and a few that the Universe had neglected to create), but even he needed refuge.

He was asked what his favorite place in all the worlds could be – and his answer was (naturally, if you knew him at all), Earth. He knew all the customs of all the worlds that were, could be and might have been. He knew the languages, the ideals and the peoples as if they were his own.

Everywhere that is, except the planet he called his home away from home (and his only home once Home itself was no more). There he found the customs, languages, ideals and species difficult and interchangeable – fluid even. Ever shifting like tides, the waves lapping over one another in the rush to dash themselves against the shore. The people were like that in a way. That was there one constant – forever rushing on, hardly ever looking back as they stretched ever ahead.

He could relate to that.

So it was no wonder that his response to the question 'what is your favorite place on earth' was considered 'standard' for this humble, frenetic planet that barely rested long enough to breathe before the next plunge into the future. He could only say (in that vague way he had) 'the ocean' and most people would let it go at that. For such unpredictable creatures, humans were very predictable in their assumptions that others were more predictable than they were; so the shrug of shoulders and vague nods to his answer was always something to smile about.

'Ah!' They'd say, 'a man who appreciates a good beach.'

But that wasn't what he'd said at all.

The Doctor drummed his feet against the ocean floor, smiling indulgently at the startled creatures that were attracted to the light above the TARDIS – his Old Girl purring (mute and contented), in one of the shallowest trenches of the Atlantic. The creatures here were simpler – and it was a good way to take a rest (that he would never admit to) from that hectic rush to the future that he was always indulging; these beings below the waves just as fluid, changeable (assuming) and hurried as their counterparts above.

So when he was asked such silly things as preferences to landscape, (assumptions predetermined at the answer given); what he really meant (above the sky, beneath the waves) – was 'Yes'.