Title: Monotony's The Key.
Author: justice incarnate.
Word Count: 2,733.
Summary: "It was seemingly impossible that anyone with all of space and time at the tips of his fingers could be bored. But here the Doctor was, in my ear, voicing his monotony." (Slight Amy/Eleven.)
Author's Note: If I had to fit this into a specific time frame, it would be anytime before the Weeping Angels.
"I'm bored," the Doctor said, with so much conviction in his voice, so much emphasis lacing through his tone - like he'd just discovered something so important to the very frabication of human beings, that without his sheer genius, my kind would never have come into existence - that I nearly jumped out of my skin. The TARDIS was quiet before he'd spoken, and I was filing my uncared for nails, longing for a manicure. The daisy-yellow nail file slipped from my hands and onto the floor at my feet. I stared at the Doctor, not quite sure I'd heard him correctly.
"Come again?" I pondered, turning my right ear in his general direction.
He strolled away from the control panel he was moments ago precariously twittering with, put his mouth real close to my ear and shouted, as if I were hard of hearing (though after the shouting, I sure felt like I was), "I'M. BORED."
I craned my neck back to look into his face. It was seemingly impossible that anyone with all of space and time at the tips of his fingers could be bored. But here the Doctor was, in my ear (literally), voicing his monotony. Voicing it quite loudly too, that I was almost positive anyone in any dimension and time period could hear his childish whining. "You're bored?" I asked skeptically. He could do virtually anything he could ever think of. I wouldn't be bored if I were him.
"Yes, today is a rather boring day, isn't it!" He exclaimed, throwing his arms up in an overly dramatic manner. His face reflected his annoyance with the day and all the boredom it harbored. "You're over there-" he gestured to me, "-doing...whatever it was that you were doing-"
"Being hygenic," I told him with a smirk, but he just rolled his eyes.
"-While I'm over-" he skipped over to where he stood minutes ago, right in front of the control panel, "-here, doing absolutely nothing but looking at buttons and lights and wondering when this vexing day will suddenly become interesting!"
"Like they normally do?" I asked. "You know, become interesting?" I had expected him to put on a big show about, yes, that was exactly what he meant, and, my God, when in the hell would it happen?
But he just looked at me. "Amy, my life knows no normal."
I shrugged. He did have a point. "Well," I began. "Let's go somewhere."
"It's not that simple," he dismissed my silly thought with a wave of his hand.
"It's not?" I asked.
"No, you don't understand how old I am. I've been virtually everywhere numerous times. So basically, there's nothing I haven't done." This bothered him, for his eyebrows crinkled in the middle and a look of severe annoyance flashed across his face, before melting away again as fast as quicksilver.
"How old are you, anyway?" I questioned lightly, almost as if I were disinterested. But on the inside, curiosity licked at me like the flames of a fire. It wrapped around me like the ropes of a cowboy. It...well, I began to run out of similes. But, to shorten it, I was very curious.
The Doctor suddenly became interested in the switches and keys on the control panel. He looked away from me and answered in a pre-occupied, distant tone, "Let's just say I'm old enough to be your great-great-great-great grandfather's great-great-great grandfather."
I prompted him even more. "Which adds up to...?"
"Old," he finished simply, his tone of voice ending the conversation about his age then and there. Needing something to occupy myself, I stooped to the ground and grabbed my nail file, trying to return to the task at hand (which was beautifying my hands). But a little nag inside made the silence become unbearable.
I couldn't take it anymore. I finally burst out, "C'mon, there's gotta be somewhere you haven't been!"
He looked at me for a second, and I felt a little heat rise to my cheeks (though I couldn't explain why). His eyes were calculating, studying my face as if it held the key to the destruction of the Daleks, and he was roaming for it across the contours of my cheekbones, eyes, nose, chin, and mouth. Maybe that's why I was blushing. "The American Revolution," he said finally, but I'd lost thread of the conversation.
I had to say, "What?"
"The American Revolution," he repeated. "I've never been to the American Revolution." He shrugged. "I've never really cared much for it."
"Oh," I said. "Well, that's reasonable, then. Anywhere else?"
He looked away from me again, his lower lip curling and his eyes narrowing in the way they always did when he was in thought. I couldn't imagine having to roam through centuries of the past and the future, plucking out each thought individually to try to determine where I haven't been yet. But this was the Doctor, and he only needed a few seconds to be deep in thought before saying, "Cleopatra's suicide."
"Seeing someone kill them self isn't at the top of my list of priorities," I told him petulantly.
He hadn't looked up at me yet, and if he was anyone but the Doctor, I would have accused him of not listening. As it was, he didn't need to pay attention to the conversation, for he'd catalogue what you say and go back to it later when he had the chance to mull it over.
After a few minutes, I began to file my nails again, trying to shape them just right, when he said, "Fine. Where has Amy Pond never been?"
"Everywhere," I said simply. "There's so many places I haven't gone."
"More specifically, please?"
I thought about it. Where did I really want to go? "Egypt," I said finally, because I now had Cleopatra on the brain.
"Before, during, or after the Pyramids were built. Or were the Pyramids not what you were aiming at?" He asked, now looking up at me, like he already knew the answer. Because he did.
"That's what I was aiming at," I told him. "But it's not about me right now. We're curing your boredom, just so you won't whine like a child." He glared at me, but I simply asked, "What does the Doctor want to do?"
He seemed to be giving it some serious thought. I waited briefly while he thought it over, trying to guess his age. How old was my great-great-great-great grandfather? Giving up hope on ever solving that equation, I looked into his face while he thought, and wondered what he could possibly be pondering.
He didn't notice my ogling, even as my eyes swept over him. And if he did notice, he said nothing about my checking him out (for lack of a better choice of words, ahem. It wasn't like I was checking him out like that. I was engaged, for Christ's sake!). He wore something I'd grown to find to be his trademark - a bow tie. He also wore red suspenders, a baby blue button up, and light-colored khakis. He wasn't extremely built, but he wasn't wimpy looking either. He fell somewhere in the middle, with a wide chest, thinning into his abdomen.
He was exactly my type, I couldn't help thinking. I didn't go for the beefy type, huge muscles could sometimes be gross. Then I blushed for thinking it. He wasn't my type. He was the Doctor. I don't think he was any body's type - just a lone wolf wandering within the pack, visiting for only a brief time. I knew our adventure would have to end somewhere, somehow. But it wasn't ending now, and I was okay with that.
I began to think of how I longed to run a comb through my mused hair - because how did I look in his eyes? - when he exclaimed, "I've got it! I know exactly what I want to do!"
I perked up, eager to hear what he had to say, what amazing, out of this world experience would happen today. "What is it?" I asked.
"I would like to go bowling," he said simply, and I sat stock-still for a moment, shocked and a little disappointed. He thought for five minutes and came up with bowling? I've been bowling millions of times. I was hoping for something more like jump roping on the moon or dropping by Mt. Olympus and visiting Zeus (the Doctor was probably pen pals with him, for all I knew.)
"Bowling?" I asked. When he nodded, I asked again. "Bowling?"
"What's wrong with bowling?" he asked, stung.
"Well, that's hardly the kind of reality-defying good time I was looking for," I told him.
"Bowling's fun," he said simply. "And I haven't been in roughly six decades, which seems like nothing, but feels like forever."
No, six decades actually didn't seem like nothing, but I didn't say this. "So, you're serious about go bowling?"
"Yes!" he exclaimed jovially. "Yes I am!" And, after rapidly punching in something in the control panel, I felt the rattle of the police box, the familiar whir of the engine, and that stomach-dropping sensation of flying through time. I wondered where we'd be bowling, but suddenly, we landed, and my question was answered.
The Doctor skipped merrily off toward the exit, yelling excitedly, "C'mon Amy, I can't do this without you!"
I followed reluctantly, and gasped upon seeing in front of me...my house. Well, my old house. I looked at the Doctor. "Bowling at my house."
"No, in your town," he corrected. "But this seemed like an appropriate spot to land." He was grinning at me, and my heart nearly stopped.
"And what day is it?"
He shrugged with a fun smile. "Who knows. Who cares."
I cared. If I were to run into Rory...well, things would've been awkward. There'd be questions, and jealousy (he knew of my obsession with the Doctor when I was younger). I really prayed this wasn't going to happen.
But I swallowed nervously, and began to walk. The Doctor stayed put, but after I said, "The bowling alley's this way, not too far. Come on."
The bowling alley was downtown, about a twenty minute walk in which I had time to assess my surroundings. From the looks of everything, it was right around the time I left, which made me nervous. I tried to hide my face, and prayed Rory was working. Hell, I just prayed no one noticed me. I'm sure the whole town knew of my disappearance. I bowed my head, listening the Doctor's careful strides match my own.
The Doctor seemed completely unfazed my discomfort. He walked along, happily following me. I struck up a conversation with him, just to occupy my thoughts. "Why this bowling alley?" I asked.
"Hmm?" he mused, not really listening. I paused for a second to let him catch up to me, then I politely nudged him in the ribs. He looked wildly at me, like how could I have the audacity to be so impolite? I just smirked, and he asked, "What?"
"Why this bowling alley?" I asked again, curiousity running under my voice. "Why my hometown?"
He shrugged. "This town has you written all over it. I thought it'd be nice."
I look away from him, trying to hide my blush. I hoped he thought it was just my hair reflecting the sunlight onto my cheeks, and said, "Oh," because I had nothing else to say, and the silence sunk in again. I didn't want the conversation to end there, though, so I asked another question.
"Are you ever going to tell me how you old you are?" I pondered, looking back at him. He had his hands in his pockets, walking on, looking forward. He walked so gracefully, it could hardly be described as a walk. It was more like a flow.
But he smiled. "Maybe."
"That's no fair," I told him, pouting slightly.
"How about I tell you when you beat my age?" He joked, still smiling.
"You cheat," I scoffed, widening my eyes and faux-gasping. This made him chuckle.
"Sometimes, that's how you win," he said so simply, that I had no choice but to believe him. More silence, and I racked my brain for more conversation starters, but he seemed to read my mind, and this time, he initiated the talking.
"So, what do you think so far?"
"Of what?" I asked, confused.
"My world," he said.
I thought for a minute, then decided to joke a little bit. "Well," I said. "It's certainly not boring," and this made him smile broadly. He turned his glittering eyes toward me, and I felt my breath clutch in my chest for some unexplainable reason.
"I'm glad it doesn't bore you," he told me.
"It bores you," I pointed out.
He shrugged and looked away from me again, his eyes studying the clouds in the sky. "Eh. Not usually."
"Just today?" I asked.
He glanced at me for a brief moment, then looked ahead. Maybe ten feet ahead it the bowling alley, with a few cars in the parking lot. The neon sign is flickering in the broad daylight, and I can already see the mushroom clouds of smoke billowing from cigarettes hanging from people's mouths. "Not anymore," he told me. And he turned around, beginning to walk in the exact opposite direction, the direction we just came in.
I stood, confused, for a moment, before jogging to catch up with him. "What was that?" I asked loudly. "I thought you wanted to bowl."
"I wanted to cure my boredom," he corrected me.
"And...?" I prompted.
"I'm not bored anymore," he said with a grin. "You, Amy Pond, are the one cure for boredom."
I stared at him, my mouth gaped open. "I cured your boredom?" I repeated in a questioning voice. "How?"
"Talking. Conversation is nice, sometimes. It can chase away boredom."
It took a moment to sink in, but when it finally did, I smiled widely, so widely, I thought he could see all my teeth, but I couldn't help it. I reached out slowly for his hand and intertwined our fingers, butterflies settling comfortably in my stomach at the skin contact. He didn't look at me, but he couldn't squelch the grin that breaks out all over his face.
I figured the only thing left on the walk back was more conversation. "So, what is your name, anyway? Do you have a name?"
"They call me Eleven," he told me.
"Why?"
"You'll find out," he says ominously, and I pinch his hand slightly, not quite hurting him, but making him jump. He stares at me, and I stare at back, and it's decided in that silent moment between us that he'll be telling me very soon. But it's also decided it's his turn to ask a question.
And so it continues this way, a game of twenty questions as we walk back to the TARDIS, him telling me of all his adventures, and I telling him my life's story. When we finally board the TARDIS (and I thankfully wasn't noticed by anyone), he walks over to the control panel and asks, "So, Pond, still wanna go to Egypt?"
And the adventures begin all over again.