I am so tired of being the only sane person in the box. It's too much of a burden. I feel like their babysitter more than their friend sometimes, it's not fair.

"Is it time yet?" the Doctor says, for the third time in ten minutes.

Rory, for the third time in ten minutes, tells him no.

To put things in context, Jessica is sleeping. The Doctor, for reasons he's keeping to himself, no surprises there, wants to wake her. Seems to think she knows something about something but that's as specific as I can get out of him. Rory, rather than just let him and get it over with, is being such a nurse. She had a rough time with the Tir, she's mentally and physically drained, needs rest, blah, blah, blah.

"Just because you don't sleep, Doctor-"

"I do. Sometimes. And anyway, it's been ages."

"It's been half an hour!"

Not strictly true. It's been half an hour since Jessica woke in the temporal decompression chamber and realized somebody had taken the horse away and she wasn't comfortable anymore. Don't ask, long story. She then dragged herself half awake up through the console room to the little door at the top of the stairs where she usually sleeps. But it's been about six hours total. I could jump in with that, in the interests of truth and fairness, but I'm not giving the Doctor the satisfaction. I'm a good wife, who's been under a lot of stress lately and been forced to appreciate the things that she has.

Anyway, he counters with, "That's ages. She only does it in the defiance, you know. She only does it because she can. After a lifetime of military regulation, she's just enamoured of doing what she pleases when she pleases."

My mind takes a second decoding that one. The Tardis can do everything from Mandarin Chinese to provincial Sontaran, but for some reason she doesn't translate him. Which makes me think she's just used to him, and my heart goes big with pure pity. "Wait, you're saying she does it to get back at Kovarian?"

"Yes. Simple, petty vengeance."

"Great, let her sleep."
"Pond!"

I shrug. I can't help it if he puts forward a better argument against himself than for. I told you, it's tough being the last sensible person here. But the Doctor doesn't understand that I'm the sensible one, he never has. He thinks I'm just being contrary, and so he will not accept that he's been defeated on this one. You can see it, almost, all the little cogs flying round in his mind fast as planets, looking for another angle.

It's not going to get him anywhere, you know. Rory's not going to be moved on this one and now that I know what I'm fighting for neither am I. He'll never get around both of us, there just isn't an argument in the world he could come off with now that's going to make a blind bit of difference to how we feel on this particular subject. He can give her the full hour at least and nothing's going to change my position on that one.

He leans right forward, over his knees. "Alright," he says, quiet and serious, "I'll be straight with you." Which means that's the last thing he's going to be. Rory knows it too, I see it when he looks at me. "Don't start, you two, I'm being serious. It's about River."

Oh.

Yeah, well, that'll do the trick, usually.

River enters, then, from down below, towelling her hair. Changed out of her Xena gear, finally. That kind of thing looks alright when you're going about Tirinnanoc on a noble white steed, but it started to get a bit like fancy dress in the Tardis. And I'm ninety-percent sure she was wearing the same slatted leather skirt as Rory used to, which was just… disturbing.

"What's about me?"

The Doctor turns in his chair, leaning over the back to watch her. And he does watch, you know. Doesn't just look. Always watching, like he's committing her to memory. "Not you, love, the other you. Is that… Does that count as spoilers?"

"Yes. Do you want me to…?" And she points back out the door.

"If you wouldn't mind."

"Give me a shout when you're done."

And off she goes again. Just like that. I don't know how she can, how she walks away from that kind of tease. Must be used to it. I don't know that I'd ever get used it. Anyway, we wait until she's out, until her footsteps have faded again.

"The other River," the Doctor continues, "the one from the Tian Lu Quan, the one we couldn't save at the time. Jessica is the key to finding our way there, and the sooner I get to work the sooner we can do something about that."

He means it, too. And he has done for days. It was all over him in Dublin. Torn, like he'd made a mistake, like there was more he should have been doing. He thinks I don't notice, but it's just that I don't say anything. What would be the point? It's not my job to make him feel worse.

No, more like it's his job to get us all out alive and it's my job to be the sane one when he can't.

"I want to help," I say to him.

"Right, then, tell your husband to stop glaring at me every time I look at the stairs."

"No, I mean, with whatever you need to do. I want to be part of it."

"Out of the question."

No, sorry, Doctor, wrong answer, unacceptable. "Why?"

He says nothing. A terse half a smile like he's going to, but he doesn't. Nothing at all. Which, I don't know if you've gathered, isn't normal. I know him better than to believe that little old me could get him lost for words, that to such a stupid little question as 'Why' he couldn't even come up with some facetious fob-off like he normally does. So him saying nothing is not a good thing, because it means he knows exactly what he wants to say and he's just not saying it. If you follow. It means she doesn't even want to lie to us.

Rory sits up straight all of a sudden, eyes wide. "Doctor, what are you going to do to Jessica?"

That's it, Rory, get your priorities right. Don't think just because we've fought about this already that I can't go another round, mister, because I can go another ten when it's about River.

Anyway, the Doctor gets all affronted and puffs his chest out. Says, "Nothing!"

This one, this time, this definitely means he's lying. Doesn't mean he intends to hurt her, though, probably just means he doesn't know. But like I said, I'm the only sane one still here, so Rory doesn't take it that way.

"Then you won't mind if we stick about to help."

The phone starts ringing. More to get away from them than anything else, I start to get up. The Doctor tells me to sit down again, to ignore it. Then tells Rory, "Why don't I drop you all off somewhere? Nice bit of family time with River. I won't be jealous, I promise. Well, a little bit, but just enough to help you enjoy it all the more-"

"We're not going anywhere."

"-That's how you humans work, isn't it? You enjoy it better when somebody else would be enjoying it more? I'll be chronically jealous if that'll help you all out. What about Brighton?"

It doesn't end the argument, but it shuts Rory up for a long empty second. During which the phone is still ringing, and I hate that, I hate a ringing phone. I move to get up again and he tells me, again, to sit down.

Then, from my ever so concerned husband, "All the universe and all of time at your doorstep and you'd send us to Brighton?"

"…I like Brighton. Hanging Gardens of Babylon, then."

I chip in, "Been there."

And again, somehow, because it's me it's a betrayal. He looks at me, glaring, cuts his eyes at Rory as if asking me for help. As if I should favour one of them in this battle of wills or step back entirely.

In the quiet, behind me, the phone goes to the answering machine. Yeah, I was surprised too, but there it is. Actually, the Doctor was surprised to discover it; you can hear it in his message. Which isn't so much a message as the background noise of an imminent crash 'out of all space and time.' He's such a drama queen. He looks surprised to hear it again, then shudders at the memory.

After his recording, the message comes in.

A man's voice, sounding hoarse, distressed, kept down low like someone might be listening in. "Doctor? Doctor, are you there? Oh, to hell with it. Look, I don't know if you remember me, but it's Crayshaw Hannigan." I watch him thinking back at that one. You'd think a name like Crayshaw Hannigan would stick, but apparently not. "Look it up if you don't remember, because I can't talk about it now but… Doctor, one of them's alive. It's talking to a little girl, going about with her, somehow. I know her, Doctor, and she's not lying. It's alive somehow. Somehow… Please, I didn't know who else to go to for help."

Now, around about halfway through this man's heartfelt plea, begging him for assistance, the Doctor got that look on his face again. The cog-turning one. It could go either way, you know; he might be being a good Doctor and thinking about how he can help. Or he might not be. Now, as the message ends with one last mutter of 'It's alive', like Doctor Frankenstein with the batteries running down, he leans his face on one hand, scratching his chin. Looking very far away, very distant.

"Oh, now, that is unfortunate… Awfully bad timing…"

"What is?" I ask. Because he obviously meant for somebody to ask and Rory's not in the mood to oblige him.

"…Awfully bad timing indeed…" he says, pretending not to have heard me. Like I can't tell when he's pretending. So I prompt him again, with my foot this time. "Hannigan," he says, "needing me and River, needing me, all at once. I… I need two of me, when was the last time I was bored, I can send this back to myself… Oh, but then the time-streams will cross and everybody knows you must never, never cross the streams. What to do, what to do… I mean, I need to stay here with Jessica and… You two just aren't buying this at all, are you?"

Rory shakes his head. "No."

And then the Doctor does something I never thought I'd see him do. In a perfectly normal, genuine, non-facetious way, he looks at both of us and says, "Please?" What do you even say to that? He said please. Since when does that happen? "Look, there are two jobs and I can only do one of them. I'd like to put my best people on the other. River will be here anyway. Nothing's going to happen."

This is a trick. This is lies and trickery and appealing to the fact that we're good, honest people who wouldn't like to see anybody stuck. He's preying on our honourable natures and preoccupations as parents. And he also called us his best people. He did. Said it like he meant it, too. Like, out of all the other humans he knows and has known, and the non-humans as well, we're his best people. No better people for the job. Trusting us with this, too.

Now, I'm not smiling, because I don't want him to know I'm flattered. I don't want him to think I say what I say next because I'm flattered. No, this is all to do with that first bit, about being nice and honourable. That's why I'm doing this.

I nudge Rory. Make sure I get eye-contact and ask him, "What do you think?"

Rory, somehow, still doesn't like the idea. He's still thinking about Jessica, and I try not to let that annoy me, but I just don't understand. The Doctor tried to explain it to me before. Said Rory doesn't understand it either. Something still programmed into his brain from that whole Los Angeles mess. I don't care; I don't like it. I think Rory sees that. I think that helps.

Eyeing the Doctor and not me, he says, "Yeah, alright."

All of a sudden the Doctor is on his feet and at the console, ready to take us there. "Good!" he says, very loud and very fast, "Take overnight bags; in fact, take two, at least two, two over-nights, two overnight bags makes sense. And you'll need formalwear, and Pond, don't think you'll get away with the same dress twice, people will talk. Plenty in the wardrobe, do take that dark blue one again, the one you wore at Howard Hawks' house, it suits you. Rory, match her or they'll think she's single. Off you go now, quick-quick, we'll be there before you know it."

Rory grimaces.

I didn't know what a grimace really was until I started going about in the Tardis, but I'm telling you, I've learned.

He grimaces.

"He really just did that to us, didn't he?"

The break might do him good. Do us good. So I start pulling him out of the room before I tell him, "Yeah, he totally got us. Fooled the both of us completely. Hook, line and sinker, Rory. I never suspected."