Disclaimer: Doctor Who and related characters and situations are the property of the BBC. No money changed hands and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.
Author's Notes: This goes after "The Beast Below." It was inspired by a thread on the Gallifrey Base forum entitled "Is Amy Wearing a Pair of 10's Trainers?" Plot bunnies say… :)
I am an American and I spell like one, however I do try to have the characters talk like they're not Americans. Please feel free to let me know wherever I have failed in that regard. Seriously. I welcome any help in cleaning that up. Along with any other criticisms you'd care to make. Even flames.
Amy gasped as they entered the wardrobe room. "There's…this is enormous!"
It wasn't a room, precisely. More like a multi-level library. Only, rather than books in the stacks, there were four solid stories of racks and racks of clothes. Men's clothes, women's clothes, alien clothes, space suits, historical clothes, warm clothes, cool clothes, trendy clothes, dowdy clothes, and any other kind of clothes possible.
"I've never quite managed to go through it all," the Doctor said a bit sheepishly.
"Why do you have so many clothes?" Amy asked, amusement practically dancing in her eyes.
"Well, I didn't put it all here!" he exclaimed.
"Of course not," Amy nodded.
"The wardrobe was here when I got the TARDIS!" the Doctor protested.
"I see," she said. She was grinning.
The Doctor scowled playfully at her. "In any case, since I'm clearly not begging in the streets, you can have whatever you like. Just…avoid the stuff on the stands."
Amy began hunting through the various racks, quickly discovering, to her very great annoyance, that none of the room was in any sort of order. Medieval ermine capes were on hangers right beside outfits that looked like they'd belonged to showgirls in Blackpool. And the Doctor kept running up from other spots, tossing sweatshirts, or trousers, or—on one hilarious occasion—bags full of toe socks at her.
They were good-naturedly arguing over the exact amount of ridiculousness of a particularly unfortunate Christmas-looking sweater when she noticed an incredibly lurid coat on the stand of a nearby wall. "There! This sweater is three-quarters as ridiculous as that coat!"
The Doctor looked at the coat and burst out laughing. "It is a ridiculous coat, isn't it? No one could talk me out of anything back then."
"And now you're so different," Amy said, with a sardonic expression. "Don't tell me you wore that."
"All right. I won't tell you I wore that," the Doctor answered.
"Never! You! I mean, bow-ties are one thing, but that coat!"
"Bow-ties are cool!" the Doctor retorted. "Besides—oh, you may as well see them all."
He pulled Amy over to the wall and said, "Amelia Pond, meet my old clothes."
On the far left was a very nice black-and-white three-piece suit. Amelia cast her eyes of a succession of outfits, noting a ferociously long scarf and that coat were probably the most outrageous things in the collection. Finally she landed on a blue suit and a brown pinstripe suit that looked a bit…familiar.
"I thought you left this in the hospital," Amy said.
"The TARDIS makes copies and sticks them on the wall. I the last time I tried convincing her to stop she stuck my bedroom in the swimming pool."
"So you're like…a serial monogamist with your outfits?" Amy asked.
"Well…I go through phases. Oh, bugger it. There's something that happens to me. When I'm about to die," the Doctor said.
"What?" Amy asked, looking alarmed.
"It's not happening now!" the Doctor said. "Honestly, Pond."
"Sorry."
"Anyway, I don't die. Or at least, I haven't yet. Because if I'm about to die, if my body is beyond repair, it…regenerates. Every single cell in me is renewed. But, they shift around a little bit and I end up…looking different. Being different, too. I'm still me, I'm still the Doctor, but I'm a me from another life."
"So, each of these outfits belongs to you from before you…you changed? You'd just changed when I met you?" she asked, now sounding horrified. "Doctor! That's…"
"That one was a bad change, actually. I mean, it's never a good thing, but some of them are worse. The one before wasn't so bad, for example. I saved my friend's life. But this one…" He trailed off, staring at the brown suit.
"But here you are. Doctor, surely it's not so bad? Bein' you, I mean," Amy said.
The Doctor looked at her as if he didn't understand what she was driving at. "Bad? Of course it's not bad! Why would it be bad?"
"You just looked so upset."
"Oh, Amy. You gain something with every regeneration. But you lose something, too. It's not bad being me, but it was good being him, too. It was good being all of me. Even when I was wearing the coat."
"Oh."
He paused for a moment and then reached down. Beneath the blue and brown suits were a selection of canvas trainers. He picked up a blue pair and handed them to her. "There. These shoes have a little more running left in them, I think."
"Won't the TARDIS be angry with you?"
The Doctor grinned. "No. Not for this. These shoes were made to run all over the universe."
Amy looked at the shoes. Just trainers, but she knew. The other Doctor must've loved to run. Must've loved to run with his friends. A bit like the Doctor now. And now, in a way, he still would be.
"Well, come on, then! We haven't even looked at half of this stuff!"
Amy set the shoes down on her growing pile of clothes. Surely, somewhere in this wardrobe, there was at least one complete outfit to go with them?