A/N: Oh, you darling readers. Aren't you all just a little bit of wonderful? Thank you so much for the reviews. I apologize for the delay in updates. My DSL at home has been down and the almighty powers-that-be haven't been too concerned with getting out here and repairing it, sooo... I will be posting a massive block o' updates when this one goes up. I hope you'll read them all. And not shoot me.

Anyhoo, on with the show.

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. ~Jan Glidewell

I.

At the Doctor's insistence, they'd gotten dressed again before they'd left the room despite her frown.

Amelia was against the idea. "It's a waste of time. You and I both know where we're going, and clothing, when we get there, is just going to get in the way."

"You are always in such a hurry." He kissed her gently, and when her hands began to roam in a manner designed to distract him, he laughed , shaking his head and pushing her back to rummage through one of the piles of clothing strewn around the room. "Haven't you learned anything yet? Sometimes taking one's time can be a good thing..." His voice was amused, and he gave her brief flashes of the pleasure he'd had from tasting her earlier, making her gasp. "And besides, we can't just run about the place naked, Amy. Well, that's not technically true. I suppose we could, but the corridors have a tendency to be a bit cold, uncomfortably so, really, with nothing on and it is quite a long way from here to there, well, I mean it usually is unless she's remapped things lately...We're not going to, anyway."

She'd snorted, arms crossed in such a way as to highlight some of her more obvious charms, and he'd simply thrown her shirt at her, hitting her in the face, grinning unrepentantly at her when she emerged from it to give him a killing glance. She muttered and began to pull on her clothing.

*Besides...I seem to recall you having this unhealthy obsession about my bowtie, something about undoing it with your teeth... Might be your chance to indulge in that...*

She finished doing the fastenings on her pants and looked at him. He already had his trousers on and was doing up the buttons on the front of his shirt. Her frown became a reluctant grin which turned genuine and then seductive in quick succession. She crossed the short distance and ran a finger upwards along the row of buttons on his shirt front. "Hmm...Might be my chance to indulge in any number of things, mightn't it, now?" And the smile she gave him was dangerous as she grabbed the undone ends of his tie which were sticking out from under his collar and pulled him down for a kiss. It was some time before they finished up with the rest of their clothing.

II.

They were stumbling down the corridor toward the last-known location of their rooms, holding hands and colliding with each other a little too frequently.

"Doctor, I'm not usually this clumsy, you know. Feels like I've had a wee bit too much to drink or something..."

He smirked. "Go with the 'or something' portion of that theory, Amy."

She poked him with her index finger. "Ha-ha. Aren't we a rolling comedy club tonight? You're not doing so well, yourself, Mr. High and Mighty."

He grinned. "It appears I also may have overindulged just a bit."

She snickered.

"You should be proud, you know." He circled his thumb over the palm of the hand he was holding, a gentle caress that made her laughter die and a shiver flicker up her spine.

"Yeah? Why?"

"It's not easy to intoxicate a Time Lord. Two hearts, redundancies in so many of our systems, all of that. Most things cycle out of my system very fast if they even affect me at all. Only something very potent will do it." He thought again briefly of that liquor of Rishell made from the little golden moon melons. What did they call that stuff again? Tasted like honey and happiness and harp music...ah yes...Lunacy...

She bumped into him, giggling, and the two of them tumbled into the TARDIS wall. He smiled at her, and she slipped her arms around his neck. Lunacy, indeed...enchanting stuff...addictive if one isn't careful, too, as I recall... Without seeming to be able to help himself, he leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers with a little sigh of pleasure.

*You know, something's off about this...* He mused a few minutes later as they kissed, unable to resist...

Off? / slightly offended / Like what?

He slid his hands down from her back to her waist. He felt her lips start to curve against his as she caught the image in his mind, that imprint from her own fantasy flung at him unintentionally before she'd known he could see...

*Well, for example, I'm almost positive that in the original version of this particular little scenario, I was standing...more like...* And he turned her suddenly so her back was to the wall. He broke away from the joining of their mouths, kissed her neck, pressing his lips against the fluttering of her pulse there.

Amelia groaned, but she wasn't going to be one-upped, not in any situation. She took a deep breath and...Oh, right. Yes. You're absolutely correct. And then, of course, I was like this, I think? And she brought her leg up to wrap it around his thigh. Her hands slid up through his hair, cradled his face.

He brought his hands down to her hips, lower, supporting her, lifting her up and against him, pinning her between him and the wall with a little growling sound of approval. She wrapped her other leg around him, both settling high around his waist. His mouth sought hers, and he took, tongue sliding in as his mouth devoured, feasting hungrily. She clung to him, the hand in his hair tightly fisted. She stroked his temple, his face, and she felt his hips rock against her, once, twice, his hands gripping her hips.

He broke away from the kiss and rested his forehead against her shoulder a moment, and she felt a shiver slide through him. *And mainly, of course, I think there was far less clothing in the original impeding progress...*

She struggled against the sensations washing through the bond toward her, through the intensity of his wanting her and the reciprocal sensations it created in her to find a reply. Her mind couldn't seem to disengage from the image of the two of them naked against the TARDIS wall, that fantasy of hers she'd just come very close to living out... See, she managed, I told you we should have...

*Amusement / arousal / frustration / I know. I know. But not the first time. Another time. I promise. Come on...*

III.

"I've decided I'm going to start keeping score of these things," she was saying as they stumbled around the corner.

"What? You're going to what? What things?" They were still holding hands, and he was looking at her incredulously.

"All the things you put off for later," she said with a vague gesture. "All the things you promise me," she said, and she poked him lightly in the chest with her free hand.

He caught her offending hand and rolled his eyes. "Good Lord, Amy. You're honestly standing there telling me you're going to keep a ...a... to-do list and check items off as I get to them, is that it?"

She grinned, evilly, leaning away from him, caught by both hands. "Might, yeah. Why? Is that a problem?"

"Only for you, Pond. Only for you. Have you never heard that old phrase about being careful what you wish for?" He pulled her back, reeling her in slowly toward him.

She laughed, teasing, taunting. "Ha. Yeah, well, I guess I'll worry about that when and if I ever get it..."

He had drawn her against him and opened his mouth to deliver a very witty and not entirely tasteful reply when they heard a most unwelcome voice in the corridor up ahead echoing somewhere around the next couple of turns.

"Amy? Doctor? Is that you two? I've been looking for you for ages. I was wondering if either of you knew when we were going to be landing next..."

It had the effect of a bracing bucket of cold ice water dumped unceremoniously on the couple stumbling their way happily through the passages of the TARDIS. Amy actually flinched as if she'd been struck, and her color went pale, her large green eyes going huge in her face as she stared up at the Doctor. Rory! How can I have just forgotten that he's here... Even though I don't want...even though he and I are... and the Doctor and I are... I can't just... I need to... Rory... Without even thinking about what she was doing, she'd guiltily jerked backwards, pulling her hand free from the Doctor's when she'd heard Rory's voice and stepped just a little away from him, running her hand down the leg of her pants nervously.

The Doctor's reaction was less dramatic, but no less definite. Amy felt surprise followed by sharp pain and a flash of incandescent fury flow through the bond for a scant second, and then it was muted, hidden, gone. The last had come so fast she wasn't quite sure it had been there at all. She suddenly realized that the entire presence of him that she'd grown accustomed to so quickly was now largely absent, no more than a mere whisper of the sense of him remaining in her mind, and the loss of it was breathtaking. Her eyes met his in question, but she was stunned by the change in him. The happy, playful, open light she'd been seeing dancing in his eyes was extinguished. She could see the mask of distance, the armor of detachment, that slightly humored and terribly weary facade that he always wore for the world clicking back into place. A faint sardonic smile curve his lips to complete it. She saw something sharp-edged and dangerous was glittering now in his hooded eyes.

His gaze ran slowly over her, appraising, weighing, and he softly reached out and took her hand in his, gently caressing her hand once more. He bowed over it gracefully, a gesture she'd only ever seen in the theater or historical movies, lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss whisper light to the back. It should have been silly, clownish, the sort of thing no modern man could pull off certainly, but from the Doctor, it was none of those things. There was something heartbreaking, elegant, tender, and sad in his gesture, in the way his eyes came up to meet hers for just a moment over their lightly-joined fingertips. Then the diamond-hardness returned to his gaze. He released her hand, turned, and walked away. He did not look back.

A moment later, Rory rounded the bend to find her standing in the same spot the Doctor had left her, staring down the corridor after him. Rory's puzzled, earnest gaze and tentative smile were almost more than she could bear.

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