Reviews loved, don't own Doctor Who, all that good stuff.
"Amy, how many times do I have to say I'm sorry? It was an accident!"
"People don't just 'accidentally' get married, Doctor."
Amy was pacing the floor of the TARDIS console room, a million thoughts buzzing in her head like furious bees. "Isn't there some way to annul it?"
"Like I've said a million times, you can't just annul something put in place by the laws of the universe. It's just about impossible. The universe takes 'till death do us part' a little too seriously."
Amy sighed and sank down on one of the steps. She glanced once more at her left hand. As soon as the Bonding Waltz had come to an end, a strange mark had appeared on the ring finger, like a henna tattoo twisted into the likeness of a vine. The only difference was that it refused to come off.
The Doctor sat down next to her. He understood what she was going through: first being burdened by immortality, then saying goodbye to the world she had grown up in, and now joined with him for the remainder of her life. He hadn't intended for any of this to happen.
"Maybe being married isn't such a bad thing. I mean, it would be easier to explain when we visited places, especially the planets with more staunchly traditional cultures," the Doctor thought aloud. "Believe it or not, there are a number of times and places where an unmarried woman traveling alone with a man who is not related to her in the confines of a box would be considered scandalous."
Amy wanted to say that traveling around in a big blue box was enough to make people talk, but she held her tongue for once. "What am I supposed to be called now, anyway? Do you even have a surname?"
"You'll find that surnames become largely irrelevant in the future, Amelia. And besides, I wouldn't change your name for the world. It's like a fairytale." The Doctor smiled, brushing a stray ginger lock away from her face.
"I just wasn't prepared for something like this. It kinda threw me for a loop, and I don't know what to do." Amy leaned her head against his shoulder wearily.
"Come on now, that doesn't sound like that confident little Scottish girl I know," the Doctor said playfully, pulling away for a moment in order to lightly punch her in the shoulder. "Oi! Okay, I take it back," he added after receiving a not-so-light punch in return.
"So we just go on pretending like this didn't happen, yeah? Exploring all of time and space, just you and me. The best of friends."
"The mad, magnificent Amy Pond and her imaginary friend," the Doctor replied, refusing to look her straight in the eye. For some reason he didn't feel like entirely forgetting what had happened on Dulkis.
Amy patted his knee and got up, heading to her room in order to get ready for bed. As soon as she had disappeared, the TARDIS hummed disapprovingly.
"What? You heard her. She doesn't want to be a time traveler's wife," the Doctor told his ship.
The TARDIS made another noise, one that only her pilot could understand.
"What do you mean, 'in love with her'? I'll have you know I'm just a mite fond of her and nothing more. She doesn't want anything besides friendship, anyway." The Doctor paused, listening. "Well you are a cheeky little thing, aren't you? I am not in denial."
"Doctor, are you talking to yourself?"
The Doctor nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized Amy was standing at the top of the staircase, dressed in a linen nightie. Her red hair had been brushed out and now cascaded over her shoulders in soft waves. The Doctor gulped.
"Just having a little chat with the TARDIS. Old girl's been a bit ornery as of late," the Doctor said, scrambling for an excuse.
This seemed to satisfy Amy, although she walked away muttering something about strange alien men being on their own for much too long.
The following days were filled with all the adventure Amy could have ever dreamed of. They visited a settlement on Mars in the thirty-fourth century that was being plagued by a so-called 'crater monster', which the two of them sent packing—only after they were nearly eaten by it. The next stop was somewhere in the Himalayas, where several villagers had sworn they'd seen a Yeti stealing their children at night. It turned out to be an alien, as the Doctor predicted, that landed on Earth by accident and was making the best of it. He was a little easier to deal with; at least after Amy learned he was partial to bright shiny things and successfully lured him into a trap.
"Whew! That Yeti-impersonator wasn't one for personal hygiene, was he?" Amy remarked, catching a whiff reminiscent of sewage coming from the two of them as they reentered the TARDIS.
"Well Migoi do have a rather intense dislike of water," said the Doctor, his eyes stinging after sniffing his sleeve. "This was my favorite jacket too. It's going to take at least three good turns in the washing machine to get the stench out."
A proper shower and a change into clean, Migoi odor-free clothing later, both he and Amy returned to the console room feeling a great deal better. The Doctor wasted no time in accessing a map of one of the Milky Way's sister galaxies on the screen and showed it to his companion. "So, where to next, Pond?"
Amy was just about to pick out a planet at random when the TARDIS began to shake violently.
"Doctor! What's happening?" Amy yelled, grabbing a hold of a nearby railing.
"TST, feels like!" the Doctor shouted back, clinging to the console.
"What in the world is that?"
"Time Space Turbulance! Perfectly normal, nothing to worry about. The only problem is, I haven't taken off yet!"
Amy was about to ask him how the TARDIS could have taken off by itself when the ship jerked one last time, so roughly that it caught her off guard. She lost her grip on the railing slid across the floor, slamming into the nearest wall.
"Amy!" The Doctor let go of the console and sprinted across the room, pretty sure his hearts had stopped beating for a second.
Amy was sitting up, apparently unhurt apart from a nasty lump forming on the back of her head. She touched it and inhaled sharply from the pain. "You know, it may be a good idea to install a couple seatbelts in this thing. And perhaps pad the walls or something," she said with a groan.
Regardless of Amy's protest, the Doctor inspected her bump and other bruises to ensure they weren't too serious.
"There's no sign of concussion or bleeding, so I suppose you're fine," he said, concern written into the lines of his face that were both ancient and not at the same time.
"Shouldn't it be the TARDIS we should be worrying about? That last jolt felt an awful lot like a crash," Amy remarked, trying not to notice he was so close she could feel the body heat pulsing from his skin. She much rather preferred her head be clear if they were experiencing some kind of crisis.
"Yes, right," the Doctor said, looking a little distracted. He jumped to his feet and helped Amy up, and together they headed for the door. The Doctor opened it a crack and stuck his head through the opening, checking to make sure the atmosphere was stable before leading the way outside.
The TARDIS had landed inside what looked like an abandoned corridor, the walls, floors, and ceiling of which were made of bolted steel. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered as if to enhance the ominous feeling the corridor instilled.
"Doctor, where are we?" Amy asked, not feeling particularly confident at the moment.
"Dunno. Looks like a service corridor, below the decks of…some sort of craft," the Doctor replied, a myriad of thoughts running through his head as he examined their surroundings. He glanced at her with an audacious gleam in his eye. "Only one way to find out."
"Yes, because I always wanted to go galumphing down a hallway where something that wants to kill me is probably lurking in the shadows," Amy muttered. Despite this, she followed close behind her friend. His presence made her feel a sense of security no matter what kind of danger they faced.
Further exploration revealed a metal spiral staircase curving up to higher decks. The higher they went, the nicer the corridors became. Eventually they reached a short, red-carpeted hallway, at the end of which stood an ornate wooden door. Without hesitating, the Doctor turned the crystal doorknob.
Beyond the door was a marble-tiled ballroom with a gold-enameled ceiling that soared sky-high, from which hung a crystal chandelier. Most of the walls were covered in mullioned windows that looked out on the vast, cold nothingness of space, the only stars that could be seen twinkling faintly in the distance.
"Enjoying the view?"
With a start, Amy realized for the first time that they weren't alone. The Doctor, on the other hand, seemed not at all phased. He watched the man in the corner calculatingly; a guarded look that nevertheless revealed that he was slightly impressed.
"Truly amazing, how you were able to manipulate the TARDIS like that. The Time Space Turbulance idea was ingenious, I must say," he said, his eyes never leaving the man.
"I try," the man said proudly, moving closer. He was quite young, probably only a few years older than Amy, yet his eyes were black and hard and bore no trace of the joy of youth. His hair was nearly shoulder length and wheat-colored, reminding Amy of a lion's mane. The suit he wore was crisply-pressed and plainly expensive, complete with a silk tie and silver cuff links, and his black patent leather shoes were polished to perfection.
"The thing is, only a Time Lord could possess that kind of ingenuity, that kind of knowledge." The Doctor walked up to the stranger and circled around him, as if it would help him figure out the mystery. "Who exactly are you? Have we met before?"
"No, dear Doctor, I have never had the misfortune of meeting you in the past. But I believe you knew my father for a very long time. And my mother, although briefly." The man smiled twistedly, revealing a row of white, even-set teeth. "My name is Leonard Saxon. Figured it out yet?"
Okay so I have to admit I really haven't seen that many 10th Doctor episodes, but I did see the Sound of Drums, which influenced this chapter a bit. In the episode, the Master creates an alias on Earth as Harold Saxon, a successful politician, who aspires to the post of Prime Minister in a short expanse of time by sending out subliminal signals influencing the people to vote for him. He has a wife, Lucy Saxon, who I found interesting considering she ends up being his undoing. When I was trying to create a villian for this particular chapter, I thought, what if the Master and Lucy had a child that no one knew about? And what if he had it out for the Doctor because of his messed up family life? So yeah, hope it flows okay.
Oh and by the way, Migoi is a Tibetan word for 'wild man', and is used in reference to the Yeti.
