A/N: This chapter is dedicated to David Tennant, for being the BEST Doctor! My Doctor. He will be heavily missed.
A Noble End
Chapter Three
"Amy!" Wilfie hollered as he burst through the front door. "What the blimey hell is so important that you had to call us all over here for?"
Amy stepped out of the kitchen, where an apron and holding the handle of a laser knife in her hand. "Oh good," she grinned, ignoring his question. "Glad you all arrived so promptly."
The youngest child, a ruddy haired girl about twelve or so with thick bangs not unlike Donna's, was dressed as a bride, with a tiara tucked within her hair, a while veil flowing down her back, and a shimmering white gown. "Amy," she glowered, "this best not cut into my trick 'r' treatin' time. Mum promised we'd go right after Wilfie's classic Halloween marathon."
"You'll like what I've got in store better than any ol' trick 'r' treatin', Sylvie." Amy stepped aside, motioning towards the kitchen.
"Is someone else here?" Joshua asked, knitting his eyebrows curiously. "Ella?" he called.
"Mum'll be here any minute."
"I thought she had to work today?" Wilfie mumbled.
"Oh, she does. Like I said, everyone needs to be here."
"Why?" Sylvie demanded, swinging a white beaded purse in a circle.
The Doctor stepped out, waving his hand and smiling sheepishly at the Noble-McAvoy family that stood before him. As he expected, they all seemed thoroughly confused. "You must be Joshua," he said, stepping up to the oldest man in the group. "Nice to meet you, sir. I'm-"
"The Doctor," Sylvie breathed, her eyes wide. "Just like in Anne B. Noodle's adventures!"
"Impossible!" Adele yelped, pointing accusingly at her niece. "Amy, what kind of rubbish is this? This isn't funny! Pulling all over here just to introduce some bloke dressed up like the man from your grandmother's books."
"He's not just a man," Amy hissed, her cheeks flaring with color. "He's Granna's Spaceman! The Doctor. Alive. Standing right 'ere in my livin' room!"
"He don't even look like The Doctor," Adele pointed out, flinging her finger at him.
"'Cause he's gone and regenerated," Amy spat. She waved her hand up and down his torn clothes. "But look! Really look! He never changes, 'member?"
"Prove it." Wilfie crossed his arms, staring speculatively at The Doctor. "Prove you're real. You seem to have my cousin pretty convinced, yeah? Well convince me."
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Amy, who nodded eagerly. He contemplated his options: there were endless ways to prove who he really was to them. But he decided to opt for the best one he could possibly think of. "How would you like to-" he stopped as the door opened to reveal a middle aged woman, just a bit older than Joshua with strawberry blonde hair. "'Ello!" he called, waving to the woman he assumed must be Amy's mother. "You must be Ella. A little late to the party, but not to worry. I was just inviting your family, you too of course, to my TARDIS. I'm The Doctor, by the way."
Ella gripped the door handle, looking as if she'd been hit with a stun gun. "Did you just say…T-T-T-TARDIS?"
"Absolutely." He frowned as Ella dropped dramatically to the ground, prompting both Joshua and Wilfie to bend down around her, fanning her and tapping her face, prompting Ella to wake up.
"Well of course she'd faint at nothing," Adele snorted. "Your sister has always been so dramatic, Joshua."
"Let me see," The Doctor instructed, pushing through the family to kneel down beside Ella. He touched the side of her face, then checked her pulse on the side of her neck. "She'll be good as new in a few spots," he said, quickly sliding his arms under the strawberry-blonde and lifting her up. "Onto the TARDIS, then?"
Amy clapped her hands. "We're all here, lest not waste another minute. You all get on now, I'll be outside in just a minute. Give Mum some fresh air." She hurried back into the kitchen, where the roast was carved on the center of the table. She placed a metal shade over it to keep the eat in and set down the laser carver beside the tray, then picked up her grandparents' urns and slid them into an oversized purple purse and scuttled back through the house, where she met up with her extended family in the backyard.
"The TARDIS!" Sylvie spoke dreamily, batting her eyelashes at The Doctor as they walked. "I've always dreamed of being able to see the TARDIS!" She practically skipped down the dirt path in the backyard until they came to the wreckage, where most of the smoke had cleared and the fire had been put out.
"Well, here we are." The Doctor said, surveying the mess of his spaceship.
"This?" Adele hissed. "I knew it was a trick!"
"It's not a trick," The Doctor snapped, offended. "It crashed. I'll have to repair her."
"Repair it? Bollocks! This is wreckage. Nothing to see 'ere!"
"That's not true!" Amy cried, kneeling down and pushing black charred wood away, revealing the Police Call Box sign. "Look! This is it. The TARDIS of Granna's dreams. Everything's right here. Her whole entire universe."
"This could take a week," The Doctor mumbled as he surveyed the remains.
"A week?" Amy frowned. "That's too long!"
"Well I can't just pull a TARDIS out of my hat, Ms. Pond. And a week is if all goes exactly as planned. A week. Seven days. The TARDIS will be as good as new, ready to go to the stars. And considering that a full grown TARDIS takes thousands of years to grow, a week is bloody fast."
"Grow?" Joshua echoed.
"Oh yes," The Doctor replied cheerily. "TARDIS coral." Me motioned towards the scattered coral chunks on the ground. "Just put about a mouse sized chunk in a little salt water and it'll start growing. But lucky for me, all the pieces are right here, so I don't have to grow a full TARDIS, I just need to mend the pieces back together of the one I've crashed. And," he winked, "I also know a way to increase the growth factor by fifty-nine."
"How?" Wilfie asked skeptically.
"Couldn't tell you even if I wanted," The Doctor replied with a wag of his finger. "An old family secret, I'm afraid."
"It's still too long," Amy interrupted. "You have to do it today."
"Today?" The Doctor laughed, staring at Amy as if she were insane. "That's impossible!"
"Well make it possible," she snapped, exuding her grandmother. "You are The Doctor, after all."
"What's so important about today?"
Wilfie huffed. "She's into all that Wiccanism-"
"Wicca," Amy corrected with a sneer. "'Wiccanism' isn't even a word!"
"Wicca." Wilfie rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Anyhow, she seems to think today's a special day for the dead-"
"It is!" Amy yelped. "All Hallows Eve."
"Ah," The Doctor coughed, realizing Amy's urgency. "The ancient Pagan holiday of honoring those who have passed on."
"Exactly," Amy replied. "If there's any day to send Granna and Grandad to the stars, today is the day."
In his arms, Ella was starting to come to. The Doctor looked down at her and smiled. "'Ello again."
Ella shook her head. "You can't be The Doctor," she replied woozily. "He's not real."
"Sure I am." He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it at pink and white cameo around Ella's neck. The sonic screwdriver began to buzz and then the cameo locket popped open, revealing a picture of Donna on one side and a picture of a very young Ella on the other. "And if your mother was here," he pointed the tip of the sonic screwdriver to the necklace, "she'd agree with me." His face contorted and he quickly slapped a hand to his mouth, covering a belch of stray cellular energy.
Amy squinted her eyes. "That stuff that keeps coming out of your mouth," she spoke, indicating the dissipating energy. "Regenerative energy, if I recall?"
"So?"
"So…couldn't you, I don't know, funnel it into the TARDIS? Make it grow faster or something?"
The Doctor cocked his head, eyeing Amy curiously. "I…" he pondered the idea as he walked Ella over to a lawn chair and set her down. "I never thought of that before. It's fairly brilliant, actually."
Amy tossed her red hair, pleased with herself. "Well, I did graduate valedictorian."
"I can't say that it would work though," The Doctor replied skeptically.
"But you could try."
He coughed another puff of regenerative energy. "I could try," he agreed. With dropped to his knees and began to scoop up the TARDIS into a pile.
"Well what are you waiting for?" Amy asked, glaring at her family. "Come now, help The Doctor. I'll go get the salt water!"
The Doctor watched her run into the house from the corner of his eye. "Using regenerative energy to pump up the generation of the TARDIS," he mumbled under his breath, his voice laced with impress. "Why didn't I think of that?"