"Miranda!" What have you done with my boots?"
His voice carried through the TARDIS to where she sat in her bedroom. He'd gone swimming, and now, apparently, was trying to get dressed again. Interesting that the first thing he noticed was his missing boots.
"Dunno. Did you check with your other things?" She called back through the TARDIS' corridors, not really knowing how far away he was. The TARDIS, as it rearranged itself, always seemed to carry messages from the two of them.
"My other... MIRANDA! Where are my other things?"
She laughed, and oh, he heard that, judging by the string of curses she heard echoing through the halls. "Don't be cross," she teased.
"Oh, you want to see cross, my dear. Just wait til I find my boots."
She flipped a page and shrugged her shoulders against the threat, breathing in his scent as it rose from the leather jacket. She had pilfered it, of course, along with everything else he had discarded to jump in the pool. She'd hidden them around the TARDIS, who was conspiring quietly to cheer up her thief. He'd been quiet of late, as though sensing something on the air that he didn't want to talk about. He needed distracting. She needed distracting.
It was only a matter of time.
The book was a copy of the first folio, the play Hamlet. It had been a gift, ages ago, when they'd stopped in on the Globe Theater, albeit at the wrong time - they'd stumbled upon London as it began to burn in earnest, with a few buildings collapsing between them and the TARDIS. The Doctor had snatched up a few books for her benefit at some point during their escape. She had considered it highly romantic as he read John Donne to her later. Even if it had been "The Flea."
She smiled briefly at that, even as her eyes settled on the page of Act I. "There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy." She mumbled the words to herself, even as the noise of the Doctor clanking through the garage rang through the ducts of the TARDIS. "Oh, how true that is." She wondered briefly at Shakespeare's insight - that he could write something like that while being so earthbound.
She heard the Doctor exclaim something that sounded like, "So there's my boots!" Which meant he was getting close to the end of the scavenger hunt she'd arranged. Soon enough, his wanderings through the corridors would lead him back here. She flipped another page, then thought better of it, setting the book aside. It was strange. She'd seen copies of the first folio, at a library in Washington, in her life before all of this. It had looked so old and foreign. This one was still fresh, the leather binding new and supple. It had never had a chance to age before it disappeared from history into the TARDIS.
Her own unwrinkled hand smoothed over the cover. Removed from history, and thrown through time. More things than any philosophy she might have had before.
"Miranda Larsen, you think that playing tricks is going to…" She turned, trying to suppress a grin as she heard him gulp.
"To do what?" She set the folio down, grinning as she turned to look at him. "Did you find your other things?"
His voice was low, and he stood in the doorway, unsure of whether to move toward her. "Yes. All but my jacket." Of course he saw she was wearing it. It was the only thing she was wearing, her legs stretched out across the open space between her chair and the edge of the bed where she was resting her feet. He gulped again.
"Maybe I should help you look for it?" Her voice was teasing and light in contrast to his. Her eyes danced with flecks of gold. She was his, and she was perfect. He closed the door and crossed the room.
"I'll just look for it later…" He kissed her forehead and pulled her to her feet, sliding his arms around her under his jacket.. "What did I do to deserve you?"
"Whatever sin that was, you should repeat it." She smiled and kissed him. She closed her eyes as she felt the golden strands in her mind start to warm, and pushed them away. This moment was for her and the Doctor. Whatever else was happening to her, to them, it could wait.