A/N: Clearly, I should not be allowed to watch hours of Doctor Who, because it only ends in me writing Doctor Who fic about rocking chairs, and I don't write Doctor Who fic, and I don't write about rocking chairs, so this is all just some horrible mistake.
Oh well.
It's kind of a nice horrible mistake, at least.
While we're talking, I don't own Doctor Who.
Prologue.
POV: First Person as told by Amy Pond.
There is a rocking chair in the TARDIS library. It's a simple wooden thing that one might not notice if not for the bright pink cushion tied onto it by four pink ribbons, each one tied in a neat bow. The chair stands alone in a corner of the library – there's no other furniture around it and whether this is by some intentional design or not, I can't say. The chair does not match any of the other décor in the grand room. The library is all metal shelves and sleek lines and complex modern furniture that you have to struggle to sit on comfortably… And here is this chair, all wooden and carefully carved, standing out in its simplicity.
When I first arrived on the TARDIS, I assumed it was just a favorite of the Doctor. It was easy enough to believe – nothing else about him made sense, so why shouldn't his favorite chair be a rocking chair with frilly pink bows? It seemed that my theory was confirmed when, upon looking at the newly rebuilt library for the first time, he spotted the chair and his lips stretched into a smile that I now know as the smile he often wears when thinking about his past. After a moment, he looked away from it, but not before stroking the wall affectionately and thanking the TARDIS for keeping the chair around.
The thing is though, he never sits in it. Sometimes he sits near it and occasionally, if you watch, you can catch him looking at it thoughtfully, but he never, ever sits in it.
And he doesn't seem to like other people sitting in it, either; once, when Rory and I were doing some research in the library, the Doctor came in to find Rory sitting in the chair. He looked so completely horrified that Rory, without really knowing why, stuttered his apologies and moved to sit somewhere else.
It's funny. I've never been on to hold my tongue about things. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite. If I want to know something, I come right out and ask, no matter what. But that chair… So many times, I've wanted to ask the Doctor about it, to demand to know why it's significant to him, but every time, I've stopped, asked him something else, covered up my original question with a question about whatever alien planet we're visiting next.
It's like I know, without even having to ask, that that chair is off limits. That asking would just cause trouble. So I don't ask, I don't say anything, I don't even glance pointedly at it when he's in the room…
But sometimes I still wonder about that chair.
I still wonder, but I'll never ask.