Word Count: 924
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
Note: I think this will be around four parts; each will be around a thousand words.


Amy introduces herself with a bright smile. He grins back and before he can stop himself his old name falls off his lips. The Doctor, he tells her, that's his name. But she hardly seems phased. Quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, she looks intrigued; amused, even. A smirk tugs at her lips and she leans forward.

"The Doctor, eh? Doctor who?"

He smiles but he shakes his head and corrects himself; his name is John, John Smith. This time, she frowns, falls back into her seat and tells him that that's a rubbish name if she's ever heard one. She'd call herself Doctor too if she had a name as boring as that.

He tries to protest, but he can't. (Of course it's a boring name. That's why he's used it all these years; no one ever looks twice as a John Smith.) In the end he tells her to shut up. She tosses her head back and laughs. It's loud and a bit obnoxious and her ginger hair shakes around her, but somehow a bit magical and so her. He smiles.

He can definitely see why he likes this Amy Pond.

.

Rose is just finishing dinner when he comes home that night. She gives him a quick kiss and their son, Jack, laughs at the sight of his father. He grins and kisses his son on the head before he turns to set the table. Rose smiles, turns off the stove, and asks him how his day was.

A bit of guilt swells in his stomach but he doesn't miss a beat, and tells her it was the same as ever. Humany wumany and all. What else can he tell her? Oh, it was brilliant, Rose. I met the girl my other self is travelling with now. Hm? How do I know that's her? Well, you see I've been dreaming about her for quite some time. But you have nothing to worry about. Yeah, that would go brilliantly.

So instead, he smiles and changes the topic. He eats dinner with his family and puts his son to bed after. He walks around his house in pyjamas and a blue robe. He has a glass of wine and rereads his favourite Virginia Woolf novel while Rose watches some rubbish soap on the telly. They go to bed at eleven-thirty and he falls asleep with his wife in his arms.

That night, he dreams of Starship UK; of the starwhale and the girl who understands the lonely, old man better than he ever could.

.

He goes back to the café the next day and finds Amy there again. She doesn't miss a beat and, the moment she spots him, she comes over and sits down across from him as if they are the oldest and best of friends. She steals a few chips off his plate; he protests but grins and doesn't try to stop her. She just grins, pops a chip in her mouth, and asks him what's new.

It happens again the day after that and the day after that and the day after that, until it just becomes some sort of unspoken agreement that they meet for lunch every day. And, really, that's all it is: lunch. Nothing wrong with that. Just two friends having lunch. And they are friends. Of course they are. It doesn't matter that this is the wrong universe, that they're not travelling time and space together, that she has absolutely no idea about their other selves.

Because he's still the Doctor and she's still Amy Pond.

.

Sometimes he calls her Amelia, just because he knows she hates it. Every time he does, she whacks him on the arm and tells him to shut up. He just grins at her and before he says it again. She calls him an arse, but still laughs.

She never calls him John. He asks her about it once and she tells him that it's because it's a rubbish name, one that belongs to overweight middle-aged, balding men. Doctor, she explains, suits him more. She doesn't know why, but it just does. It has a nicer ring than John Smith too. Doc-tor. Much better, yeah?

He stares at her for a moment before a smile tugs at his lips. Yeah, he agrees, much better.

.

He thinks it might be the little things that amaze him the most about her. Like how her favourite colour is the exact shade of blue as his TARDIS or that sunflowers are her favourite because of the Vincent Van Gogh painting. The way her eyes light up anytime anything Roman is so much as hinted or the way she ends half of her sentences with a question.

How he sees her almost every day and learns all these details about her, but she still somehow manages to remain a mystery to him. How she never tells him about her family or her life in Scotland. Or how she never asks him about his personal life or his past. How she just seems to know that those subjects are off limits.

It's the little things that amaze him the most. But they're also the things that make him the most nervous. That tell him that maybe now would be a good time to stop. That this may not end well if he doesn't. Only, the funny this is that it's the little things that draw him to her the most.

That makes it impossible to let her go.