You're going to have to bear with me in this chapter guys, there is quite a bit of jumping around. A LOT happens in this chapter so please, take your time if you need to! Anyway, I won't keep you! Don't forget to review even if you just feel like leaving a silly message or saying hi! Feel free to ask questions as well~
I.
The ship gave a groan, metal shrieking as it propelled him out the front door with an invisible kick.
Stunned, covered in sand, and just a little bit offended, the Doctor glowered up at the TARDIS as it faded away. "What are you doing? This is no time for games!"
But she wasn't listening.
"This isn't necessary you know, I already said I would go check things out!"
But soon his beloved space ship, with his beloved companion still inside, was gone.
"Okay…" He stood up slowly, brushing grains of sand from his person, and looked from the empty spot where his ship once sat to the suddenly daunting valley of dunes and tombs behind him. Since I don't have much of a choice, I guess I better go that way.
II.
"How about 'Jack'?"
"No! Absolutely not! Jacks are nothing but trouble and they never stop flirting with you or your mates. They defy all sense and reason. And even though he has an admittedly charming smile, he is just no good for you or any bad situation you're sure to get into while he's around. He's no good. No good. At all."
"So…that's a no on 'Jack' then?"
"Definitely."
"Were you speaking from personal experience by any chance?"
His sigh was so heavy it added another layer of air to the room. "Unfortunately, yes."
Both of her eyebrows shot up, clearly interested. "Oh? Will I ever get to meet him? He sounds like a good time." He could hear the grin in her voice, "Oh! He can be the fun uncle!"
The Doctor looked at her as if she had just suggested one of his mortal enemies be the babysitter, utterly horrified by the very idea. "He does not need to be anywhere near our child, Pond."
She rolled her eyes, gently shaking those red curls back and forth. "Oh all right. It's your turn then."
The game of settling on a name other than "Mini Pond" had started the moment Amy started having what they deemed "false alarms". There was nothing like having a scary pregnant woman yelling at him to step on it ("There isn't any gas! I can't step on anything!" He'd say, she would only glare.) The TARDIS was of no help with the situation either, as every time Amy thought she may be going into labor all these alarms throughout the entire ship would go off, blaring with an absurd amount of insistence.
(It was like having that one relative around who panicked at the first sign of trouble and caused a ruckus, making sure everyone knew that there was a cause to panic. The Doctor didn't know how many more of these false alarms he could take. First he would panic, then get ahold of himself ("ahold" being applied very loosely), then he would get excited ("It's like Christmas!" He would say at Amy's hunched over form), then he would be disappointed when she straightened up and tiredly announced it was only a false alarm.)
Amy was now sitting among a mountain of pillows, blankets, and other soft things between his legs while he toyed with her hair. Her eyes fluttered closed. She loved the feel of his bony fingers stroking the hair from her face, brushing across her cheek, weaving her red strands into the most glorious of braids.
"Hmmm," he grinned then, as if some great idea had just dawned on him. "How about, Gandalf?"
Amelia Pond titled her head back to give him her best stern mother stare.
"What?"
"Guess."
His face scrunched in thought. "What's wrong with Gandalf?"
"This isn't bloody Lord of the Rings! None of that stuff even exists!" Was that keen disappointment? How could he resist?
"Don't be so sure. I haven't taken you everywhere yet." She saw a glint of promise in his eye as he chuckled above her.
She looked torn between the ideas of celebrating this new found discovery versus maintaining her serious demeanor to prove a point. "Let me ask you this then: is he going to be a wizard?"
"Pardon?"
"Is our kid going to come out magically endowed, as a wizard named Gandalf or Merlin should be?"
A touch of offense as he stiffly adjusted his bowtie. "Of course not! He'll be one hundred percent Time Lord!"
She held up her hands in a "my point proven" gesture.
He huffed. "All right. Your move then, Pond."
She didn't hesitate, "Lily?"
"Lily!" the Doctor looked like he liked the sound of that name for about five seconds before his face scrunched up as if he had just smelled something terrible. "Not Lily. It's too…generic."
"Generic? How can a baby name be generic? What does that even mean?"
"Lily sounds like you're trying to be clever and original and girly but the first thing everyone with that mindset thinks of is a flower name so it's really not that cool." He was getting the "you're stupid" face again, so he elaborated. "It just—well it just doesn't sound that...time ladyish."
"So that's a no on 'Lily' because it doesn't sound cool enough to you?"
"Basically."
"Oh we're never going to agree on something are we?"
III.
"Unbelievable!" the Doctor sounded incredibly fed up, grumbling unintelligibly as he suddenly turned in the doorway of the TARDIS to lift Amy in after him. Apparently her previous pace wasn't fast enough.
She gave a squeak in surprise, automatically gripping his shoulders when his arms wound around her, she was once again reminded of his deceptive strength.
"Absolutely unbelievable," he grumbled again.
A bundle of wrinkles appeared on Amy's forehead. "They can't help it, you said so yourself! They're scared and desperate. Pretty much like everyone else we come across on our adventures actually…" She didn't have time to reminisce because the moment she was safely aboard, she was herded into the nearest place to sit. The Doctor had gotten so fussy lately. Always wanting her to sit, monitoring what she ate, insisting she relax—god he was worse than her aunt Sharon.
In a very domesticated boyfriend manner: he fluffed and then adjusted and then re-fluffed and readjusted the pillows in the chair behind her.
Hang on.
Was he her boyfriend? Boyfriend sounded too plain. Lover? Lover sounded so refined and classic and elegant and…not right for her and the Doctor at all. She definitely wasn't going to start using those synonyms for "boyfriend" terms just to sound fancy. They certainly weren't married or anything like that. Did Time Lords even get married? If they were, Amy didn't really see herself as the marrying kind. Was it some weird, freaky, space ritual type deal? No—actually scratch that. She'd rather not know.
He must have read the confusion in her expression, because he was suddenly chuckling again. "Pond, are you sitting there fussing about something silly?"
She was brought from her revere, "What? No. It's just…" The rest of that thought took a few moments to process. "What exactly are we, Doctor?"
The next several moments passed with extraordinary slowness. He seemed stuck, as if her question had completely derailed him. Judging by the way his mouth was now ajar, it probably had. His hands hovered between them, fingers twitching as if grasping at some thought or answer or solution to this abrupt turn in the conversation.
He closed his mouth. Waited a beat. Gave her a small smile. And then in a very Doctor like fashion, he changed the subject. "Aren't you going to ask what my problem with those people is?"
A twinge of disappointment, he could see it flicker across the green in her eyes.
Why did he always have to make things between them so difficult? She sighed, resigning to the hard truth: he wouldn't really be the Doctor if he sat down and talked about his feelings and worked out actual adult problems now would he? "What's your problem with those people?" She echoed, trying her best to remain uninterested.
She didn't succeed very well, and she could tell, because he was grinning the next moment.
"My problem, Amelia Pond, is that you humans can't seem to keep your hands to yourselves." He began, kneeling to start the process of working her shoes off. "You humans…" It was almost nostalgic, as if he were speaking of an old friend. "Every time you come across some ancient temple or burial ground or some object that might be cursed—basically anything you really shouldn't touch, what do you do? You touch it! Rather than leaving well enough alone you lot have always got to bloody touch something. Rule number three: don't touch anything. It's a rule for a reason." He paused. "Oh and that's rule number four."
"It's a rule for a reason?"
"Yep."
Amy rolled her eyes. He was using his "matter-of-fact" voice. The one he always used when he was scolding her, the human race, or when he was showing off how much random information he could retain.
But the lecture wasn't done. Oh no. "And if you should happen across a sealed room, it likely means that something very, very bad is behind that door. So why in the name of sanity, would you think," His voice went several octaves higher, "Oh look, a door that's been sealed for hundreds of years! Better grab the nearest tool to savagely pry it open so we can see what's inside!" His voice fell back to its original tone, "Disturbing things that were probably closed off for a good reason, nothing bad could possibly happen." He eyed the wall with distain.
Until that point, Amy had been doing a remarkable job of keeping a straight face. Her gentle laugh made the Doctor's irritated expression soften. "Do you feel this way about all humans?"
It was his turn to roll his eyes. He set the pair of baby blue Converse aside to peel off her socks, cracking a smile at the polka dot pattern. (The sight made his hearts swell). "As much as I'd like to say 'yes', there are a few exceptions to every case."
"Oh? Like who?" He didn't miss the suggestive hint in her tone.
"Well there was that nice fellow we met by the pyramid." He just chose not to acknowledge it.
"The hobo?"
"We don't know that he was homeless. This is Egypt! Maybe he was just taking a break." He gave her knee a gentle squeeze before he stood up, Converse and socks in hand. He ducked under the console for a few moments, then reappeared with a pair of slippers.
"You keep slippers under the console?"
"Well yeah. I keep all sorts of things under the console. Is that strange?"
"Kind of. I mean…how do they even fit under there? I thought it was all wires and mechanical parts."
"The TARDIS can travel throughout all of time and space. You don't think she can manage a few cubbies here and there?"
"Point taken."
They dabbled in several unimportant conversational topics, as part of their usual routine. Go somewhere new, explore for a bit until Amy got tired, retire to the TARDIS, rest a few days (the Doctor's orders), rinse and repeat. It was nice. It gave her some semblance of a regular life. Well…as regular as life ever really got with the Doctor. She didn't broach the topic of the group of people they had left outside again until he moved to take off.
"Wait. You're really just going to ignore this?"
"I told you, Pond. The only way we can help them is if we go down there. And we are not—I repeat—are not going anywhere near that place."
"Why not? You didn't even investigate, so how do you know it's that bad?"
She jumped a little when he swung around as if she had just insulted his beloved space ship. "Why not? Look at yourself! Think about how impossible it is for that to be happening and how it's basically a miracle! You're an impossible miracle! And I don't know if you're aware of this Amelia Pond, but miracles do not happen around me very often. So when and if they finally do, I do everything in my power to make sure they don't get screwed up. That is why not."
Oh no. He was having another one of his overprotective episodes. Feet now snuggly slipper-clad, Amy rose slowly and approached him. "Doctor…"
"No. No. I know that look. That look is never good news for me. It's the look you give me right before you trick me into doing something stupid. You humans are so good at making that guilty puppy face. Stop it."
For all his protests, he didn't resist when she took his face in her hands. "Doctor. Whether they're stupid or not, they're still just people. People that need your help."
"I'm not leaving you to go help some silly humans dig a hole."
"Oh stop. I'll be in the TARDIS, so I'll be fine. She won't let anything happen." The reasonable mother voice. How did she have that before the baby was even born? Her thumb stroking his cheek was a comfort, however small. The TARDIS gave a pleasant hum, as if she too were offering a small comfort. "Come on, Raggedy Man. You know better than that."
The Doctor had many skills, but being able to deny Amy Pond was not one of them (especially when she had turned his own space ship against him). With a heavy sigh he leaned forward, gently knocking her forehead with his. "Amelia Pond, you are going to be the end of me one of these days."
Result. She grinned, tilting back to press a kiss to his forehead. "Gotcha."
IV.
By the time the TARDIS finally landed and the world had righted itself again, Amy felt the familiar squeeze of nausea. Stumbling out the front door, she clutched at her flimsy stomach, with the Doctor hovering uselessly behind her.
"I don't understand how you could have gotten food poisoning," He glanced warily at his ship. "She's usually so good about getting food that isn't expired…Have you done something to upset her?"
Was he still going on about the TARDIS's grocery shopping protocols? "I don't think it was her fault. She was leaning on said spaceship for support. Although I really wish it was her doing…
"Then what?" His eyes raked down her body, specifically looking for any outward signs of anything wrong. She might have been disappointed by the lack of appreciation in his assessment if she didn't feel so sick. But the idea of his concern was nice. "Why do you keep getting sick?" He briefly dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver to scan her for the eleventh time in a row.
"I told you, it's probably just a stomach bug. The flu or something like that."
That comment did a lot more harm than good. "Just a stomach bug!" And suddenly a crisis was upon them. The Doctor was a flurry of hurried, buzzing, green flashes of light, pacing around her at a dizzying speed. Okay. Maybe not the best way she could have phrased that, especially since the man with her was a nine hundred and seven year old worry wart who had seen just about every sickness in the book and then some.
Amy anchored him in front of her with a hand at the elbow. Still hunched and poised for a scan attack, he gave her a bewildered look, as if she were the one not acting accordingly here. A small bit of annoyance coiled in her belly, but it was quickly squashed by the next wave of nausea. "Stop freaking out. I think—I'm pretty sure I know what we have to do."
He straightened at the mention of a solution, proverbial dog ears perked up. "What do you propose then, Pond?"
"Well," Her green eyes took in their surroundings, the ship had landed right in the middle of a parking lot—which should surprise her but somehow doesn't—she recognized the convenience store almost immediately. Amy cast a brief glance at the wooden blue box. You really do take us everywhere we need to go don't you? Then looked toward the store again, "What we'll need is in there."
The Doctor followed her gaze and then blanched. "What is that?"
She doesn't bother hiding her eye-roll. "It's called a 'convenience store'. Humans use them all the time."
It takes twenty minutes for her to explain in detail that not everyone is an alien with a space ship that magically—("It isn't magic, Pond! The ship has this sensor that reads each inhabitant's…blah-blah-blah,")—produces food and does the automatic grocery shopping. Humans did grocery shopping the manual way.
Another ten minutes later Amy stood alone in the middle of the toiletries isle. She felt frozen until the Doctor swung into the same eerily empty isle all long limbed and awkward, glowering down at the plain green basket hanging from one arm. He had this amazing ability to look frustrated and hilarious all at the same time. If she hadn't been desperately trying to come to grips with the situation she would have appreciated the sight.
V.
Two hours is how long it takes for the Doctor to find some semblance of life in that great big desert. The small group of so called "archaeologists" is huddled around the entrance to one of the great tombs in the Valley of Kings (he can tell by the feel of the ground beneath his feet). He can also guess through the process of elimination that he is most definitely somewhere with a ton of sand and dead people. Thus his first guess was naturally: Egypt.
These archaeologists (he had to actively suppress the urge to point and laugh at them) made him exceedingly uncomfortable. All he really wanted was for his TARDIS and his—whatever Amy was—to come back so he could leave all that heat and sand and all these daft archaeologists behind.
Regardless of the strange noises that were definitely coming from behind that sealed door ahead—no.
Hang on.
The group gasped when he suddenly dropped, pressing his ear to the ground, he held his breath and listened. There was sand in his hair, the tiny grains wiggling their way into the folds of his clothes, and there was definitely some stuck between the space of his lapels and his chest. He resisted the urge to obsessively brush himself off.
With a sudden jerk, he's sitting upright, earning another series of startled gasps from his audience.
"What is it?"
"Definitely movement. But why? Where's it coming from?" His voice dropped to a whisper, "What's down there?"
"The king's tomb?"
VI.
Amy's not quite sure how he manages nearly knocking over three shelves worth of toiletry products when he bends his arm awkwardly to beam the sonic at the obviously threatening plastic basket.
"Doctor." She hissed, straightening her tired frame.
"What?" He glanced up, an innocent party in this whole misunderstanding.
"What the hell are you doing?" She sighed, so beyond done with this situation.
"Just—you know. Checking that everything is in order?" He reminded Amy of a sweet little puppy who happened upon their owner at a bad time.
"Well stop." She doesn't intend to sound so…mean about it. Guilt weighed down her heart the moment the light in his eyes began to dim. The frown on her mouth was heavy and felt wrong. Especially in his presence. The sight of his shoulders slumping is what does her in. "I'm sorry. It's not…I'm not mad at you. It's—" and she can't believe she's really saying this, "it's just me."
He gave her a curious look, like he's not really getting it. She can tell by the way his forehead creases that he has absolutely no idea what she means but is trying his best to figure it out. Which is probably for the best.
"Right. So…" A subject change, that's also probably for the best. His blue eyes drifted to the daunting display of shelves in front of them. It's a conglomerate of bright colors, squares and rectangles, all in different sizes. "What are all those for?"
VII.
The Doctor gave him a look that must have shown annoyance because the short hedgehog of a young man shrinks back and slinks behind their leader—who might as well have dressed to teach a class at Oxford. The Doctor doesn't mean to sound so cross when he hushes the next suggestion before any one of them can ask it, "How long has this noise been going on?"
The leader, a tall well-built man (now that the Doctor was really actually looking at him) was the one to answer. "About three weeks now."
"Three weeks?" The Doctor stood in one fluid movement, ignoring the bits of sand sticking to him everywhere. It made him look just a little crazy—ruffled even. He could tell by the way the runt of the group was staring at him.
"Three weeks." Their leader confirmed.
"Three weeks?" The Doctor said it like the idea was insane.
Professor man, who up until this point has been the most composed, faltered. "That's—that's what I said. Is that bad?"
The professor flinched when the Time Lord gave him a slow, calculating look. He was really trying to quell the surge of annoyance in his belly. Rule five: don't ask stupid questions. "Bad? Do you think all that noise coming from underneath the ground—from the inside of an old Egyptian tomb is good news?"
The group looked impossibly more concerned. Whoops. He could have been nicer about that. He hadn't meant to make them panic. Oh well. They're archeologists. Who really cares?
VIII.
She exhaled noisily to get his attention.
He didn't notice at first.
So she cleared her throat.
Nope. He's still standing there like a twit beaming that bloody screwdriver at all the colorful boxes he can get his hands on. Amy felt like she could cry as she stood there with a mad man furiously scanning a bunch of different pregnancy tests.
"You do realize that the brand name doesn't have anything to do with how effective the tests are, right?"
"Oh hush up, Pond." He was still beaming away, using that "I know better than you voice."
After another ten minutes and she's had enough. "Doctor! Will you just pick one already?"
He evolved from scanning to examining, looking back and forth between a pink box and a blue one.
"I can't."
A groan.
It did nothing to speed things along. "Why?"
"Well this one," he flashed the pink box at her, "gives you results in three minutes and it has unsurpassed accuracy. But then there's this one," he switched to the blue box. "It's only 99 percent accurate but it still works in three minutes, and it even gives you the results in clear written out words! But then there's—" He picked up several more boxes for comparison.
He doesn't seem fazed by Amy's utterly blank stare. "What?"
"Just—" She worked really hard to stay calm. "…just pick one, please."
"There are so many choices! Besides it was your idea to bring me along."
Yeah but I figured you'd be more distraught about the whole pregnancy possibility. Wait a minute. "Why aren't you more…freaked out?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Well this is pretty serious. Shouldn't you be flailing around and talking really fast about things, and saying words that are so bad the TARDIS wont translate them, and going on and on about Time Lord stuff that I don't understand?"
"Why would I do any of that? It's only a cold. You said so yourself. I never knew you could use these little sticks to figure that out though."
Amy gaped for a full minute before dissolving into laughter. "They don't—they're only pregnancy tests for god's sake! You don't use them to find out if you have a cold you numpty!"
His forehead crinkled, she had his attention again. "So what you're saying is…"
She tried her best to keep her giggles contained as the situation dawned on him. But she found herself frowning when he started chuckling because she could tell he didn't really get it. "You think you're pregnant?
Why was he smiling like that? As if the idea were insane?
"Oh Amy that's—" It was outright laughter now.
Her frown deepened. What was so funny? Pregnancy scares are meant to be scary not funny. She remained silent while he got ahold of himself. "That's just impossible!" The admission sent him into another fit of laughter.
"Is it?" Clearly he didn't notice the anger in her tone, only managing a "yes" in between low chuckles.
"Oh really?"
He was turning red in the face from lack of air. He barely had enough awareness to nod in response. If she weren't so mad she would have found the sight adorable. Now she only found it insulting.
Amy snatched the plastic basket from his feet, but he just kept laughing and grinning and grinning and reminding her once again how different they were.
Here she was, trying to make the best out of a terribly weird situation and there he was laughing at her. It gave her the same feelings as his "I'm an alien and therefore better because you silly humans don't know what you're doing" lectures did. Hurt. That was the feeling. She felt hurt. Did he think he was better just because he happened to be of some weird alien race?
With a speed that surprised even herself, Amy grabbed at the first five boxes on the nearest shelf and tossed them into the basket. Each box clattered loudly against the green plastic. She was tossing them in harder than she needed to.
That caught his attention.
The Doctor caught her elbow by the seventh box. "Have I upset you?"
Oh no. That sickly sweet honey tone was dripping into his voice. The voice he used whenever he was explaining something very, very simple to someone very, very stupid. A sharp stab of frustration cut through any left-over nausea. He just didn't get it.
Amy glowered at him. Curious amusement shone in his eyes. She could tell he hadn't meant to be offensive. (He never means to be offensive. He's just the Doctor and the Doctor always offends at least one person a day). Her heart clenched, caught between anger and misery. "Just forget it."
The amusement faded, mouth turning down. That's just what she was afraid of. Now they're both upset.
"What's wrong?" He tried reeling her in for a hug, to comfort her, trying to show he cared.
She was tempted, oh so tempted, to resist. A part of her wanted to keep him at a distance, push him away, yell at him, tell him that they weren't children and he couldn't just glaze over their problems with a hug and a smile and not talk about serious things, and then she wanted to slap him really hard just once—but a much bigger, much more worn out part of her wanted to hug him so much more than all of that. She was tired, and young, and very worried and scared. The prospect of being pregnant with an alien baby—an alien baby that would end up being an endangered species and hunted by everyone and everything in the universe. And on top of all that she didn't even know what to make of her relationship with the Doctor—what did she really mean to him anyway? What were they? If she were being honest with herself, which was a rarity in Amy's case, all she really wanted was nothing more than a hug from her Doctor. To have the feel of his arms around her waist, the soothing little circles he rubbed into her back, the gentle murmur in her ear.
So it may have been pathetic or childish, but the moment his arms wound around her she melted, sliding her own tired arms under his, pressing her ear to his tweed covered chest. The drumming of his dual heartbeats softened the hard anger in the pit of her stomach.
With a sigh she said, "Never mind. It isn't important." But it was. "You can just forget it." But she didn't want him to forget it.
What Amy really wanted was for him to sweep in and save the day, to solve everyone's problems like he always did. She just didn't know how to ask him for help.
In the checkout line he holds her hand.
Despite all the annoyances of the night, Amy found herself clinging to his arm, her fingers squeezing his, holding her breath when the teenage clerk began scanning the seven different pregnancy tests with a worried look. And despite what an oblivious idiot the Doctor can be she's glad he's there with her.
Any questions yet? Will they ever agree on a name for Mini Pond? Is Mini Pond a boy or a girl? What the hell is going on in Egypt?! All will be answered in due time my lovelies! All in due time!
