"Goodnight, Doctor." Amy said as she slowly climbed the stairs in a way that looked severely impractical and more clumsy than him. And he was so clumsy this regeneration, he learned that over the last few days. She turned and smiled at him, leaning against the rail.
"No nights on the TARDIS, Pond," He called back up to her, enjoying how that sounded more than 'Amy'. Amelia, he liked Amelia, but Amy wasn't quite the same on his tongue. Pond, Pond was a nice, easy name that rolled nicely with "come along." He watched as she vanished down her corridor, and sighed once she was out of sight. He hurt, all over, inside and out, and he instantly opened his mind as wide as he could and sought out Rose. Her presence was a bit stronger, though not nearly to the caliber he'd have preferred. He wanted to feel her caress, her every emotion, all of it.
He stretched, feeling his back crack in the effort, then headed for the stairs and down a different corridor than the one Amy had traveled.
The Doctor approached the door he'd partially avoided since his regeneration, the one with the image of the wolf chasing the storm. The one that had his and his wife's names brought together. He missed that, too. Only been a few days, but he missed her saying his real name. The last time hadn't been in passion or joy, or even good humored anger. It was her asking him to be safe, and in the end he'd let her down and regenerated. He hated that more than anything at the moment.
The Doctor entered the room, not enjoying that it changed along with the rest of the TARDIS. What once was pink was now gold in tone, the dark wood having lightened. The flowers one the tables no longer looked like cheery blossoms, but snap dragons. He avoided looking at it too long and headed into the adjacent washroom. He noted the added bowl and basin on the counter beside the sink, and filled up the latter. He grabbed a cloth, then carefully carried the bowl and basin out the washroom, out the bedroom, and across the hall. The TARDIS had opened all the doors for him, which was nice because he almost tripped on his own feet twice and sloshed water from basin to bowl three times before setting it down on the table by Rose's bed side.
Smiling down at her, he kissed her lips in a peck. "Hello Sweetheart," He greeted her, lifting her up and slipping the top of her dress down before resting her against one of his arms. "Thought you'd like to be cleaned up a bit while I tell you about my day. Well, my last couple of days, really." He said, shifting to pour the water into the bowl and dampening the cloth. He felt a spike of pleasure from her mind when the warm cloth touched her bare skin, though it wasn't much and didn't last nearly as long as he'd like. Still, he smiled. "Amy is turning out to be an excellent companion, I think you'll really like her. She keeps me in line since you can't, and I appreciate that a lot." He paused, focusing on washing her skin a moment. "She's observant, or can be when she chooses anyway …."
~WD~
"This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland," The Doctor said to Amy as they looked at the space ship over the monitor. "All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and," he paused. "Shopping." Amy chuckled, overwhelmed and giddy by the whole of it. "Searching for a new home." He added, and she looked at him with awe she felt down to her core.
"Can we go and see?" She asked, clutching his arm.
"Course we can. But first, there's a thing." He said, turning more toward her.
"A thing?" She asked suspiciously.
"An important thing. We are observers, we try not to interfere wherever possible." He said, something on the monitor catching his eye, and he leaned forward toward it enough that his arms slipped from her grip.
There was that 'we' again. He claimed he'd said 'me' a little bit ago, but she swore it was 'we' and here it was once more. Maybe we meant he and her, and if that was the case, Amy didn't mind in the least. She supposed she should though, a little. What with the whole getting married to Rory in the morning bit.
But then the Doctor showed up, and she didn't quite remember him being handsome as a child. An odd, boyish kind of handsome, but still. Muscle definition was enough to turn a head when you knew what was under that professor look he had going. Oooh, naughty professor. She could get behind that.
No, no she was with Rory. Beautiful, wonderful, sweet Rory. And she loved him, she really, truly did down to her toes.
But she was also deprived a proper send-off, her best friend in jail for stealing a car, and the other girls in town all busy at home with their little ones or husbands. This trip with the Doctor, it was her send off, and if she wanted to fantasize a tiny bit over him than she would.
She'd half zoned out, watching the monitor, finding it off that it was so focused on a little girl crying. The Doctor appearing on it startled her, and she looked to where he was before and found him no longer there. Looking back at the monitor, the little girl was gone, and he was waving her out of the ship.
Grinning, she darted out, pausing as a computer voice warned her she was being monitored. The sky above her was visible through the glass ceiling, stars dotting the skies in a way she'd never seen before. When the Earth was moved and there were planets in the sky not that long ago, she tried to see the beauty in the clear skies above. Hard to do when there were homicidal pepper pots patrolling the streets and killing random people. Her smile died for a moment as she recalled it was during that time that Rory proposed.
"If we make it through this, we should get married." He had said. "I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
She'd said yes, and meant it, and when the world was returned and he bought the ring she was glad. She went about planning everything and didn't think it through much. Because the world was saved, as it had been before from the pepper pots, and the creepy robots. Supposedly there was a time when everyone was lead to the roof, and posed to jump but she didn't remember that all that well. She'd been one of those people on the roof. And after each of those events, she'd do something to celebrate, like have her first drink, or lose her virginity. Getting engaged just seemed like the obvious next big thing. But on the night when the stars were shining bright above them along with other planets she'd never seen, she thought of the Doctor and wondered if he'd save them.
So was it really so implausible to find herself far from home on the eve of her wedding with the man who crossed her mind when Rory asked her to marry him? Especially is she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go through with it anyway?
She didn't have time to dwell on it, because Amy took in the rest of the market place they'd seemed to be in. There was future mixed with the past, things from her time mixed with pieces and electronics of times yet to come. And it was wonderful.
"I'm in the future." She said with sudden realization as the Doctor came up to her. "Like hundreds of years in the future. I've been dead for centuries."
"Oh, lovely. You're she a cheery one." He said as he took her arm and guided her at a quick pace in what seemed to be a very specific direction. "Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?" He asked.
"What's wrong?" She asked him, wondering how he could go from praising it so highly to saying it was wrong.
"Use your eyes," he said with agitation. "Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?" He prompted, and Amy took in the surroundings once more.
"Is it the bicycles?" She asked, pointing out a rickshaw. "Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles."
"Says the girl in the nightie." He retorted, and Amy stopped to look down.
"Oh my God! I'm in my nightie." She said, looking down at the garment. Then she realized something: he'd let her float in space. Outside the ship. Holding on to just her leg. He'd have been able to see right up it, to her knickers. The Doctor saw her knickers. She wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"Look around you," he said, getting her back on track. "Actually look." He emphasized, and she took a look around her as they walked. "Life on a giant starship, back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me." He paused, moving to a couple at a table and taking one of their glassed of water and setting it on the floor. Amy didn't really see the fear he spoke of anywhere, though there was an odd, stifled feeling. But that could be easily ignored as she watched the alien who looked like a man set the glass back on the table, say something to the couple, and then tap his nose and walk away.
"Why did you just do that with the water?" She asked him as they moved alone.
"Don't know. I think a lot, it's hard to keep track. Now, police state." He said as they continued on. "Do you see it yet?"
"Where?" She asked.
He snapped his fingers and pointed to a little girl crying on a bench. The same girl he approached on the monitor. "There." He said. He moved to sit on a bench facing her, and Amy sat down beside him.
"One little girl crying, so?" She asked, watching him watch the girl.
"Crying silently." He said. "I mean, children cry 'cause they want attention, 'cause they're hurt or afraid. When they cry silently, it's 'cause they can't stop. Any parent knows that." He said without taking his eyes off the child.
"Are you a parent?" She asked him.
"As a matter of fact, I am. I have a daughter." He replied easily enough.
"Where is she?" Amy asked, watching the Doctor, gaging his reactions. "Is she with her mother?" She asked, glancing down at his left hand and seeing it naked. Not married then, at least not in a human way.
"No, she's away at school." He replied. "But that's why I don't understand what I'm seeing. Hundreds of parents walking past this spot and not one of them's asking what's wrong."
"Is that why you went up to her?" Amy asked.
"It was." He replied, looking at her now. "I'm a parent, I see a child crying, I go up and ask her what's wrong. No one else is, you know why? 'Cause they already know, and it's something they don't talk about." He leaned a bit toward her. "Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows. Whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen. Which means it's everywhere. Police state."
~WD~
"Knicked the girls ID and sent Amy to find her." He continued to tell Rose as he washed her back, shifting her curls when needed. "She asked me if there were other Time Lords aside from me and Jenny." He paused in his ministrations. "I didn't tell her about the war. First companion since you I haven't talked about it with. Probably because you weren't there to make me feel guilty for lying. How much do you think I would have lied if I hadn't had you these past hundred odd years, hmmm?" He resumed washing her back, only to realize he'd run out of skin to wipe down.
The Doctor blushed profusely as he realized he'd have to move on to the front.
"It's not like you haven't seen it before." He said to himself in a quiet voice. "Many, many times." He said, recalling it all with clarity. "But new eyes," He gently laid Rose back, took one look at her, and giggled. "Oh brilliant," he said, looking anywhere but at Rose. "I'm going to make such a fool of myself when you wake up. Be like an hundred year old adolescent doing it for the first time. Or worse, a human adolescent doing it for the first time." The TARDIS hummed a laugh, and he gave a good nature glare to the ceiling before schooling his features into a serious one.
Rose was in a coma, to heal from an injury he caused. The last thing he should be doing is getting giggly over body parts he'd seen countless times. He forced that part of his brain to shut down, to go about washing her down in a clinical fashion.
"So, yes. Amy finds the girl and somehow manages to get herself to a poling station where she chooses to forget Starship UKs worst secret: that they were essentially torturing a star whale, the last star whale, in order to get it to fly them through space." He felt a spike through his bond with Rose, though not a pleasant one. "We ended up inside it's mouth, and I had to make it … well, it wasn't my finest hour, or escape, but I got us out." He sighed, but then perked up. "You'll never guess who we met afterward, though …."
~WD~
"Nice moves on the hurl escape." The beautiful, goddess like woman in robes complimented the Doctor, though Amy was still a little miffed. Being puked on was bad enough, being the puke itself was worse. "So, what's the big fella doing here?"
"You're over sixteen, you've voted." The Doctor replied, his tone making it clear he didn't trust her. "Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it."
"No," She shook her head. "Never forgot, never voted. Not technically a British subject." She added the last bit with a bit of cheek.
"Then who and what are you, and how do you know me?" He asked, becoming a touch scarier despite being covered in sick.
"You're a bit hard to miss, Love. Mysterious stranger, MO consistent of higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot." She teased.
The Doctor looked about to argue but stopped and ran his hand through his hair, scrubbing at it.
"Often, but not always, you have a woman with you. A blonde woman," This woman said, glancing at Amy and looking away quickly. "I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was."
"Your family?" The Doctor said incredulously.
One of the robotic things with the creepy, smiley faces twitched from where it was shot down. "They're repairing," The woman said. "Doesn't take them long. Let's move." She gestured the way she came from, and the Doctor and Am followed. After they rounded a couple corners, the woman said, "The Doctor. Old drinking buddy of Henry XII, Tea and scones with Liz II. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you and your beloved on the same day. Lizzy liked you enough, but she adored Rose."
The Doctor's eyes widened in understanding, which was good because Amy hadn't had a clue what was going on.
"Liz 10!"
"Liz 10, yeah. Elizabeth X. And down!" She shouted, turning around with guns drawn. The Doctor pushed Amy down, but she turned her head to see two more robot things go down. "I'm the bloody Queen. Basically, I rule."
The Doctor got back up, smiling. "Rose would have loved you." He said with a sincere smile but sad eyes. Liz seemed to notice them too, and her own smile fell.
"I'm sad I didn't get to meet her." She said with a bow of her head.
"Me too," He said, nodding once then gesturing for Liz to lead on.
After a couple steps, Amy leaned toward him, whispering. "Who's Rose?"
"My wife." He replied without hesitation, though he said the word like it weighed heavily on his heart.
"Where is she?" Amy asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer in anyway.
The Doctor looked at her with glistening eyes that showed her how utterly heartbroken he was. "Not here." He said.
He said there were no other Time Lords other than he and his daughter, and it suddenly hit Amy what that would mean: his wife was probably dead. A widower. No wonder why he invited her along, what with his child away and his wife gone. He was lonely.
~WD~
"Liz kept glasses on the floor with water. Reminders, Rose. Reminders that something wasn't quite right and she needed to figure it out. You would have loved her, I'm sure of it. Though I don't know why she thought Elizabeth the first was so fond of you. Or why she called her Lizzy, but neither here nor there, I suppose. An adventure for the future I'd wager." He lifted her again, getting the top of the dress back on her.
He grabbed the table, sliding it across the floor and making a lot of racket while also sloshing an absurd amount of water on the floor. The TARDIS hummed in protest.
"Sorry," he said to the ceiling, and the hum simmered down to a grumble. He then gingerly lifted the skirt of Rose's dress, fighting back the childish urge to giggle, and continued. "Now, where was I in our story?"
~WD~
"Doctor, stop!" Amy said quite suddenly, having finally done what the Doctor asked and properly looked. Heard. And she realized that the Doctor was wrong, he didn't have three options, all ending in death. He didn't have any options at all. The children had petted the thing attached to the whale, and it triggered her memories of everything he'd said, that Liz said, and she pieced it all together.
"Sorry, you Majesty, going to need a hand." She said as she took Liz 10 over to the chair where she sat while they watched the video that put them in this awful spot in the first place. The one that had the same information Amy chose to forget, therefore deciding for the Doctor not to step in. Which, if his threats about taking her home were any indication, was precisely the wrong thing to do.
But now she was seeing things for what they were, and that was the Star Whale, last of its kind, was not being forced to do anything. It was enduring torture for no reason.
She forced Liz 10 to push the abdicate button, and the whale bellowed with what was likely relief.
"Amy, what have you done?" The Doctor asked as they lurched forward.
"Nothing, am I right?" She asked, her smile growing as the older man who monitored things noted the increase in speed.
"It's still here." Liz 10 said, not really believing what she was seeing by the look on her face.
"The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago, it volunteered." She explained to the Queen. "You didn't have to trap or torture it, that was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry." She glanced at the Doctor who smiled back at her proudly, and she had to wonder if maybe his whole spewing about killing the whale and needing a new name was just his way of testing her after her voting mishap. She didn't think she'd care if it were, because she'd just saved a creature and all of the people riding on its back, and it felt good.
It was a bit later, after they spoke to Liz 10, and she handed the Doctor her custom mask as a promise that there would be no more secrets aboard the starship that they were back on the TARDIS. He'd put them somewhere called a Vortex, and she sat on a seat and watched him at the controls.
"You saved everyone on that ship." He said, turning his head toward her.
"I did." She said with a nod.
"For the rest of their lives, they'll have you to thank. Oh, the songs they'll write!" He said, his eyes looking distant as though he was thinking of someone else. Maybe he was thinking of his lost wife. "Never mind them, though. Big day tomorrow." He said.
Amy's heart stopped. "Sorry, what?" She asked, gaping at him.
"It's always a big day tomorrow, we've got a time machine." He said, using that 'we' again, though she was now nearly positive he meant her and him.
Which made her chew her lip a moment. "You know what I said about getting back for tomorrow morning?" She asked, sitting forward and following him with her eyes as he came toward her. He leaned against the console, arms folded, waiting for her to continue. "Have you ever run away from something because you were scared, or not ready, or just … just because you could?" She asked, slowly getting up to stand beside him.
"A few times." He admitted.
"What happened?" She asked.
He shrugged. "Depends on what I was running from."
"Right," She looked to her feet. "Doctor, there's something I haven't told you," She started to say, but there was a ringing from somewhere behind them. She furrowed her brow. "Hang on, is that a phone ringing?"
"Well it is a phone box." He smiled, moving toward the phone and flicking a few switched before taking it off the hook. "Hello, and who is this?"
"Doctor!" An older man said, his voice echoing around the room. "Winston Churchill here," He said, and Amy had to keep her hands over her mouth to prevent her from saying anything embarrassing. "Tricky situation. Potentially very dangerous. I think I'm going to need you."
"Don't worry about a thing, Prime Minister. On the way." He said, hanging up and moving about the ship, inputting stuff and pressing buttons. He looked to Amy. "Might not want to do this one in your nightie." He said with a sly grin, and Amy left the room in a hurry."
~WD~
He set Rose's skirt back in place, tossed the cloth into the bowl, and flopped down into the seat beside her. He reached over and took her hand in his, running his thumb along her knuckles.
"Today … was hell." He admitted softly. "We'll never be rid of them, Sweetheart. No matter how long we live, how far away from the war I get, those damn, bloody Daleks will constantly show up in our lives. In a small way, I was glad you weren't there." He grinned. "Though given when it was, you may have been. With ol' leather and big ears me. Got a big chin this time, case you don't remember. Better nose though, in my opinion. I think I'd have called myself a pretty boy. I was tempted to go see if I could find you, but I didn't. You would have had to meet Jack and all that, and I'm not sure I would have stopped myself from interfering. Then again, had my own problems to worry about. Had I known then that there was another Dalek so close to where we were." He leaned forward, resting one arm and his chin on the bed beside her head as if he was going to whisper secrets in her ear.
~WD~
When the Pepper Pot came out, Amy was too scared to react. The Doctor becoming enraged and demanding didn't help matters much. When they'd entered the cabinet war rooms again, Winston Churchill handed the Doctor proof that the pepper pot was invented this go around, with blueprints, statistics, even photos, but the Doctor just looked at him as if her were thick.
"They're Daleks, they're called Daleks," He insisted.
"They are Bracewell's Iron Sides," Churchill countered, admittedly looking a bit more sure of the situation than the Doctor. "He approached one of our brass hats a few months ago. Fella's a genius."
"A Scottish genius," Amy remarked, hoping to lighten the mood. Before she could form another word, the Doctor hushed her.
"He didn't invent them, they're alien."
"Alien?" Churchill asked.
A whirring noise grew louder in the hallway, and Amy watched the Doctor's shoulders tense. Her eyes flickered between him and the doorway while she watched the Pepper Pot go by, seeming to mind its own business. She shuddered, swallowing back the nervousness as it passed them.
"And totally hostile," The Doctor concluded after it passed.
"Precisely." Churchill decreed. "They will win me the war!" He waved them along, out the office and down a corridor. The Doctor followed instantly, and Amy took a second to scramble and catch up.
"Why won't you listen to me?" The Doctor asked the Prime Minister.
"When I rang you a month ago, I must admit, I had my doubts. The ironsides seemed too good to be true. But imagine what I could do with a hundred, a thousand." Churchill replied with gusto, a Pepper Pot going by them at the same moment.
"I am imagining." The Doctor said through his teeth as Churchill ducked into another room.
"Doctor," Amy said in a low voice, glancing around as she stepped closer. "Are they really the same things that came 'round a few months ago?"
"Yes," The Doctor replied, equally quiet. "Without a doubt, they are Daleks. Not some sort of miracle invention to win the war. How did I not know before?" He asked himself.
"Doctor?"
"Posters, Amy. 'To Victory'. This is London in the middle of the war, where there are air raids, and barrage balloons. Out there, right now, possibly earlier, maybe a little later, is me. Me and Rose, and we are facing … something. Not this. But if there are propaganda posters with Daleks on them, how did I not notice?"
Amy shrugged. "Posters not out yet? You too busy saving the world from another problem?"
"Dancing," A ghost of a smile came over the Doctor, and his eyes looked momentarily distant.
"Right, yeah, dancing. Fantastic."
"It was," he said, his grin becoming more boyish as he met Amy's eye, and she felt something clench in her stomach that she knew had to be pushed aside for the time being. Examine that later.
"But they invaded the Earth in the future, which means they couldn't have succeeded now."
The Doctor shrugged a single shoulder, turning to the room Churchill disappeared into. "Time can be rewritten. Daleks invade and win in the 1940s, suddenly the world you were born in never existed. But it does, and we're going to keep it that way. But before we can stop them, we have to find out what they're up to. What are they after?" He asked as they entered the room.
"Well, let's just ask, shall we?" Amy said with a shrug before marching toward the Dalek with confidence despite the Doctor yelling her name. She knocked on the Dalek's head, and it's scope thing looped around and pointed at her.
"CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?" Even polite that thing was painfully loud.
"Yes, my friend over there reckons you're going to destroy the world. That true?"
"I AM YOUR SOLIDER." It replied.
"Yeah, got that bit. Love a squaddie, but are you really on our side?" She looked right into the scope thing, attempting to stare it down in someway.
"PLEASE EXCUSE ME, I HAVE DUTIES TO PERFORM."
~WD~
The Doctor studied Rose's face in extreme detail with his new eyes. His memory of her from when they first met was both fuzzy and very clear. The surroundings he had a hard time remembering over a century later, but she was clear having hardly changed at all in all that time.
"It was the first time I've faced the Daleks without you since after the Time War. And you want to know something? I made everything go wrong. I was so angry that they had been there, acting passive and serving tea, that I lost it. And because I lost my cool there are now more Daleks out in the Universe. Sorry," he apologized to her, stretching a finger out and caressing her cheek. "Amy was brilliant though. Helped me out with Bracewell in the end, used love over pain to trigger his humanity. Love, darling, how could I forget that?" He diverted his eyes. "I forgot because I'm in pain. You're in this bed and not at my side, and it's making me forget for a moment that you're alive, and not dead, and I just have to remember you'll pull through." He sighed. "But I need to tell you the end of the story, don't I, Love? Because there's more to it. Once we left good ol' Winston, who I really should introduce you to sometime, Amy and I returned here."
~WD~
"And here's me thinking we'd just be running through time, being daft and fixing stuff." Amy said as they headed up the ramp, and the Doctor started doing his little dance around the controls. "But no, it's dangerous."
"Yep. Very." He said, pausing and meeting her eye in utter seriousness. "Is that a problem?"
"I'm still here, aren't I?" She asked, arching a brow and teasing. He grinned slightly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Is the danger what happened to Rose?"
He stiffened, what grin he had leaving his face entirely. "Yes." He said bluntly.
"And did you think it was your fault like you had today with the Daleks?" She asked, inching slowly toward him, watching him carefully.
"It was most definitely my fault." He said, flipping the switch.
She studied him as he watched the uppy-downy thing in the middle bob about. "Been thinking about her a lot today?" She asked, and the smile partially returned.
"I'm always thinking about her." He said softly, turning to Amy and leaning against the uppy-downy case. He was quite dashing, one would even say hot, and the glimmer in his eye didn't hurt. Amy attempted to tamp down the jealousy that stirred, because was it really her place to be jealous of his dead wife? Especially when she had a very live fiance back on Earth her time?
Yes, she'd been thinking about pulling a runner. She loved Rory, she did, but the idea of nothing more ever happening to her had scared her to death. Now the more was happening, her Raggedy Doctor came for her, and as a grown woman she could appreciate his charm and appeal in a way she never saw at seven. Part of her wanted to grab him by the bracers and haul him in for a good snog, cheer up the handsome widower. Part of her thought of sweet Rory, and it was that part that stopped her.
"You should get some sleep," The Doctor said quite suddenly, looking away. "The TARDIS will get you a room." He paused as if he were listening. "Second corridor, look for a door with a Pond on it."
"Seriously?" She asked.
"Sentient ship, she takes care of our guests." He smiled again, more warmly this time. "And tomorrow … how about a planet?"
Amy beamed, giddy stirring in her chest. "Planet sounds fantastic." She said, a skip in her step that turned into a swish of her hips as she headed up the stairs. "Goodnight, Doctor." She said as she turned leaned against the rail.
"No nights on the TARDIS, Pond." He said fondly, and she decided then and there that she liked that. Pond. Simple, her. She'd never change her name, now.
~WD~
At some point he'd fallen asleep for eight hours. When the Doctor stirred, finding himself laying with his head beside Rose's, his back aching from still sitting in the chair, he'd realized he was telling the story from within his mind. And if he strained, if he really tried, he could feel that she had been listening.
He had put off his first post-regeneration sleep off for too long, so it didn't really surprise him that being brushed right up against his wife's mind, her scent surrounding him and her warm presence so close that this was when his body gave out.
Sitting up with a stretch, the Doctor noted the table was back in its original spot, and the bowl and basin absent from the room.
"Thank you, dear." He said to the ceiling, feeling the happy hum in compliance. "She's coming around slowly, isn't she?" He asked, and the TARDIS gave a hummed confirmation. "Do we have an ETA?" A negative reply. "No matter. She's coming back to us, and that's what counts in the end." He stood, kissed Rose's forehead, and left the room.
He somehow guessed Amy wasn't up yet, but would be soon, and he did promise her a planet.
The Doctor was considering the choices he had before him as he walked to the console room. He entered with a slight skip to his step that had him nearly falling down the stairs, did a little twirl before stopping in front of the controls. He looked at the coordinates, considering all the wonderfully tame places he could take his newest companion, when Rose's phone rang.
He stared at it as it moved a tiny bit with each ring from where it sat on the console, debating if he should answer it. Then he caught a glimpse of the name on the screen and snatched it immediately.
"Tim! I'm sorry, Rose is a little…."
"In a coma? I know." And the Doctor mouthed along with him as he said, "I see shit."
"What would you like, then?" He asked, admittedly not feeling all that great about this conversation if Tim already knew Rose wasn't going to be the one to answer.
He heard a rustle of papers on the other end of the line. "Delerium Archive, any time after eleven slash pine cone. Look for the home box."
"What?"
"It's a message that I was asked to pass on, slightly under duress." He said, more exasperated than anything.
"Who's making you do it?" The Doctor asked.
"Can't say." He said with a sigh. "And I have to get back to work, have a deadline to meet."
"One more thing," The Doctor said, and he imagine he just caught Tim before he hung up. "Why didn't you notice the difference in my voice?"
"Because I've already spoken to this version of you." Tim said. "And for the record: bow ties are not that cool."
"They most certainly are!" He retorted like a petulant child, earning a chuckle from Tim.
"Later, Storm boy." And with that, the call ended.
Maybe he should have asked more questions, but seeing as how Tim didn't sound all that upset, the Doctor didn't worry too much about the supposed duress his friend was under. Instead, he put in the coordinates, and waited for Amy to wake up.
A/N: Hello all! Thank you again for reading, favoriting, following, or leaving a review.
americangirls, CupcakeFlake, Nyx MG, WaitingformyDoctorintheTARDIS, micbb, PanoramaGirl, Fleur24, Sommerlee, Darkelvoriplorellion Tyler, pyro-pixichik (you are right on the money with the reference), annabethfan15, Loca8892, Nayru Von Karma, and RaziOUAT, thank you all for leaving word. Always love hearing form you.
Many, or most, mentioned Rose awakening. Where I am now she has just woken up. It will not happen for you guys for a few posts. Sorry. However, the next episode has some HUGE changes to it, including someone who wasn't there before. So I can promise that there won't be constant rehashing, and that's exactly why this chapter is the way it was: addressing the changes without doing everything scene by scene.
Until next post!