Scarlett yawned and rolled over in bed, finding the spot next to her empty, as was typical for the morning. She sat for a few moments, considering marital life. After a few minutes, she allowed herself to focus on the time, and could almost precisely countdown the seconds till the door opened.
Sure enough, 12 seconds later, the door slid open and in bounced her husband. "Hello, lovely wife! I've brought you tea to get your morning started!" Scarlett just grinned and shook her head. The Doctor frowned a moment. "What is it? Is something wrong? This is your favorite tea—" He glanced between the tea mug and her, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Nothing is wrong, Doctor. I love you. Three weeks into marriage and you bring me tea every single morning at precisely the same time – exactly five minutes after I wake. How do you manage that?"
The Doctor smiled again and continued the journey across the room to their bed. "Oh, that! It's easy—I can tell when you wake through our bond. It helps that you wake up at almost the same exact time every morning, give or take a few minutes. The TARDIS helps. She gets the kettle started and all I have to do is go in and get it poured and brewed." He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed, setting the mug down on the bedside table long enough to lean in and give Scarlett a kiss.
She couldn't help but chuckle as she felt him grinning in the middle of their kiss and pushed gently away. "You really are enjoying married life, aren't you?"
"Immensely." He continued grinning.
Scarlett set the mug of tea back down on the bedside table and grinned back at him. "Come here, Time Lord."
The Doctor came out of their quarters an hour later, he was adjusting his tie as he entered the control room.
"That was a long tea break," Donna said with a grin as she glanced up from the book she read. She was sideways in her pilot chair, feet propped over one arm of the seat. She grinned even more as the Doctor blushed and cleared his throat. "Oh, come on, Spaceman. You're not the only newlyweds on the ship, no need to be shy."
The Doctor cleared his throat again before finally saying, "Speaking of which, where's my brother?" the Doctor spoke as he checked settings on the TARDIS console. "We need to continue our discussion regarding growing the TARDIS coral I gave him."
Donna frowned and sat up in her chair. "Trying to get rid of us so quickly? I'm sorry, Doctor, I was just joking with you. I didn't mean to embarrass you or anything—"
The Doctor's face quickly turned back towards her. "Oh, no, no, Donna. No getting rid of you!" He came over to her and squatted down in front of her. "You're still my best mate, and still traveling with me forever—we're a family now, remember?" Upon seeing her face seem to lose some of its earlier worry, he moved to sit on the small jump seat attached to the pilot chair as he continued to explain, "No, we want to get you and Jacob your own TARDIS as a precaution. It will be a backup in case of emergency. We've already been working on plans how to dock the ships together as one unless we need to separate them. Not to say we couldn't go on separate adventures or missions later on if we wanted, but I promise Donna—I wouldn't ever want to 'get rid' of you. Why would I? You're brilliant!" He grinned at her.
Donna sighed and smiled back at him. "You still think that, even after finding your soulmate, Doctor?"
"Think what?" Scarlett asked as she came in. Her hands were still finishing up the bun she had twisted her hair into. As she finished she came over and sat sidways on the Doctor's lap, grinning at him and the red-head next to him.
"Donna here is questioning if I still think she's the astonishingly brilliant being that I've always known she is," the Doctor said, with an eyebrow raised.
Scarlett scowled momentarily as she considered the thought. "Why would you change your mind about that? Has something changed?" She turned to Donna, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips, though she tried to keep a straight face. "Donna, has marriage changed you?"
"Well," Donna considered. "Of course it's changed me, but not who I am as a person."
"Well then." Scarlett shrugged. "Your brilliance hasn't changed, so why should the Doctor's opinion on it have changed?"
"I just thought that maybe—" Donna hesitated a moment.
It was long enough a pause for Scarlett to discern Donna's concerns. "Donna Noble," she said quietly as she leaned forward, closer to her fellow Time Lady, "the Doctor and I are both beyond lucky to be able to consider you a friend. You two have been through so much together. I would never consider coming between your friendship. You are a part of who the Doctor is today. If I took that away from him, he wouldn't be the amazing person he is."
"Ditto!" They all turned to see Jacob standing at the entryway to the control room from the hallway. He was smiling, leaned against the wall, with arms crossed over his chest. "Just the other way around." He grinned and pointed between the Doctor and Donna.
Donna's shoulders relaxed visibly, and Jacob came over to pull her up from her chair and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She smiled as she looked over her shoulder at her husband, then back to her best friends. "How did I ever get so lucky?"
The Doctor grinned as he looked at Scarlett who had wrapped her arms around his neck, then back to his brother and best friend. "I'd ask the same thing."
"Well, enough commiserating over how lucky we all are—I'm hungry—it's time to land the Old Girl so we can go have breakfast with Sylvia, and the 'Wednesday Girls,'" Scarlett said.
The Doctor frowned. "Remind me again why we're doing this?"
"Because Sylvia wants to show off her daughter's new husband and his family," Scarlett kindly reminded him.
"Can we go back over our cover story?" Jacob asked as he playfully rested his head on Donna's shoulder.
"All we have to say is that we work for the government," the Doctor explained.
"Oh, you're not going to get away with just that, Sunshine," Donna responded with a smirk.
"We're scientists, and Donna is our team coordinator," Scarlett added. "She keeps us organized, on task, and on mission."
"Oh, I like that!" Jacob grinned as he kissed his wife on the cheek.
"Not a bit of a lie in that job description, either." The Doctor mirrored his twins grin.
"Like you said, Doctor—brilliant our Donna Noble! And we're going to make sure all her mother's friends know it!" Scarlett smiled at her friend. "That's our mission for today."
