"One trip."
She didn't seem surprised but she hugged him, Amy noticed. The Doctor caught her scowling and tried to detangle himself from the young girl.
"Lucy, please let go." The Doctor looked at Amy with pleading, puppy-dog eyes. 'One trip,' he mouthed to her. She folded her arms. "Seriously Lucy, please."
"Sorry!" She finally let go of him. He took an unnecessarily large step backwards away from her, into the TARDIS. She caught his arm so he couldn't turn away but, with an angry glance from Amy, let go again quickly. "You don't have to be scared of me, Doctor." 'Her on the other hand…' she thought, catching Amy's stormy eyes. She smiled desperately at Amy who turned away. 'Snap.'
"Doctor," Amy beckoned. Once he had crossed the control room to her she started whispering to him. "Who is she and why is she so… you know."
"I don't know who she is," he looked round at her again as she leaned against the central console, making herself at home, "probably someone from my future. I'm pretty sure I've never seen her before."
Amy inwardly beamed, 'elephants never forget, unless they want to.'
"And I really don't know Amy, what are you on about?" The Doctor looked genuinely, utterly confused.
"The hugs? The glances? the advances? C'mon Doctor," she stepped closer to him, whispering more harshly into his ear, "not even you can be that blind."
"No, I know." He turned back to the young girl. "Do you want to look around at all? As you can see…-"
"Yes, she's bigger on the inside, no I don't need to look around."
"Why aren't you surprised?' He placed his hands on her shoulders, looking for answers in her face again. "You've never been surprised, this is a TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside, it's made of wood, the last of it's kind."
"I know, you've told me all that." She looked confused.
Now he was the one looking confused, "oh right." He dropped his hands from her shoulders.
"One trip?" she asked. "My choice of time and place?" She lifted a black sleeve to look at her chunky silver watch. "Seventeen hours." The last was a statement.
"Riight. So where? When?"
She shrugged. "Not here, not now," was her unhelpful reply, "somewhere nice."
"Nice and boring." The Doctor sighed.
"I didn't say boring." Lucy thought for a moment, then her mouth tugged into a smile. "I know!" She started bouncing round the console, flicking switches and pressing buttons with the same childish excitement as the Doctor usually had.
Only now he watched her, his face as hard as if it had been carved in granite.
"What are you doing?"
Lucy stopped suddenly, looking up at the Doctor like a guilty child before regaining her nonchalant composure. "I was flying the TARDIS. What did it look like?" She placed her palm gently on the console, "He is slow isn't he? I don't know how you've put up with him all this time." She smiled up at the time rota.
The Doctor looked at her in perplexed silence for a moment. "Who are you?" he asked again, "and why seventeen hours? This is a time machine, we can have all the time we want."
"Just good to keep track," she raised her chin to match his height, with her grey-eyed scowl, "don't bite my head off."
"Who taught you to fly my TARDIS?" he asked, impatiently.
For a moment she was silent. She scrutinised the floor as if the evasive answer was printed upside down on it, unseen by the Doctor she rolled her eyes when she found the obvious answer, then she looked back into his eyes. "You did."
He looked back at her incredulously, "Of course." He let a bright smile grace his face. "So where? When?"
"I was thinking…" She tapped the console lightly, "Midsummer on Mirad the pirouetting planet." She did a little spin to demonstrate then looked at Amy's face, which showed an obvious lack of understanding. "Mirad," she elaborated, "goes around two suns in a figure of eight. Midsummer lasts a whole four days there, when the planet is exactly between the two suns. For four whole days both sides of the planet are unified under the dual suns light" She smiled in memory, "All the water has to be covered with sheets of glass to stop it all evaporating into thin air."
While Lucy explained the Doctor smiled mischievously, creeping slowly, silently round the console pushing buttons and making 'careful' adjustments here and there. He suddenly threw the handbrake and both the girls in his space-time machine were thrown gracelessly to the floor.
Amy stood almost immediately, leaving Lucy on the floor to wait for the TARDIS to come to a halt. Folding her arms she glared up at the Doctor. "You did that on purpose."
"Not on purpose." He forced a shocked look on his face before he burst into fits of laughter. He offered his hand to Lucy and she took it. He raised her to her feet single-handedly. She still had to look up at him, meeting his eyes with malice.
While Lucy tried to kill the Doctor with looks alone (and she was doing a pretty good job of it,) Amy swung a well-aimed punch at his arm.
"Owww!" he whined, "stop it." He broke Lucy's death-stare and, grabbing his tweed jacket, practically sprinted out the TARDIS doors.