The Doctor spent the rest of the trip playing least in sight, claiming that he had preparations to make for his 'mad plan' as he'd taken to calling it.
Amy kept visiting Mels, who spent the whole time locked up in the Zero Room. She never complained about her incarceration, or the lack of attention from the Doctor. When Amy had asked her cautiously about it, Mels had responded with high spirits.
"You've traveled with him, you know what he's like. If he's 'ignoring' me, it's because he's working on a way for us to be together. And how can I complain about that? Besides, you as good as told me that he succeeds. We have adventures together, and I'm not trying to kill him in those. I've waited two lifetimes to be with him. I can wait a little longer if it means we get our Forever." She said the word as if it held deep importance. "I could go for a cuppa, though," she added cheekily.
Amy laughed and went to get the tea.
ooOO00OOoo
They landed on New Earth in the fifty-first century. Mels was relaxed and smiling in a pair of handcuffs. When the Doctor had approached her with them, the smile she'd given him had contained enough heat to power a small town.
"Ohh, Doctor! Where'd you get those? Handcuffs? Kinky."
His face had flushed a delightful shade of red, but he'd snapped them securely on her wrists when she offered them to him, her laughter ringing out like a bell.
Now, they sauntered to the hospital, the crushed grass under their feet releasing the scent of apples.
Rory sniffed. "What's that smell?"
"Apple grass," the Doctor and Mels answered together. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
"Look at them," Rory grumbled to Amy. "She just met him and she still has more of a connection to him than we ever could."
"I think it's sweet," Amy said with an indulgent smile. "You heard their story. I'm glad they're finally reunited after all this time."
"Not for long, though," Rory replied darkly, and Amy was reminded of the events at Lake Silencio.
"Well, he won't go now, surely? Now that he's got her again?" Amy fretted.
"I don't know, Amy," Rory replied, moving to catch up to the Doctor and Mels. "I just don't know."
ooOO00OOoo
"Aww," Mels said when they were checked into the hospital by an octopus. "I was hoping for cat nuns."
"What?" Rory asked.
Mels simply winked.
The Doctor said, "Never trust a cat in a nun's wimple," and hurried them to the elevator. He and Mels got in one, and as the doors closed, he said "floor eleven, and watch out for the disinfectant."
"What?" Amy called.
"If they get possessed by a flap of skin, I am never going to let you live it down," Mels teased and lunged, fingers curled into claws aimed at his eyes.
The Doctor snapped one hand up and snagged the chain linking her wrists together, jerking her hands up and then down behind her neck. He stepped out of the way as her forward momentum carried her to the wall of the elevator. He pinned her there by the simple expedience of forcing one leg between hers and leaning against her. With one hand still grasping the chain between her wrists and the other bracing himself against the wall by the head, he had her very efficiently trapped.
She groaned and thumped her forehead against the wall. "Dammit. I am so sorry!"
"It's fine," he told her, not loosening his grip. "I knew it would happen."
She craned her head back and to the side, trying to see him, but it was about that time that the disinfectant started, and she promptly ducked her head with a muffled shriek to avoid getting a face full of liquid. He chuckled and leaned in, brushing his lips over the skin of her arm in the lightest of kisses. So light she wasn't even sure she felt it.
It took the whole disinfectant cycle for her muscles to relax into his grip. And only then did he release her, confident that she was no longer actively trying to kill him. She turned to face him as the cycle ended, her face a brilliant red. He laughed again and leaned in, brushing his lips over hers in an all-too-brief kiss. When he pulled back, she was only just starting to close her eyes.
And she snapped them back open with a look of pure indignation. "Doctor-!"
The doors slid open and he laughed, grasping the chain between her wrists between two fingers, playfully tugging her out of the elevator.
"Ohh…I hate you!" she snarled in frustration.
"No you don't," he sang with the air of someone who was completing the end of a horrible pun.
The other elevator dinged, and Amy and Rory emerged, Rory with a grin and Amy with a rather fierce scowl. "'Watch out for the disinfectant'?" she growled.
The Doctor was saved from answering by a hanar floating up. "Miss. Pond?"
Amy and Mels both looked. "Yes?" they said.
Rory grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her to his side. "No, no. You're Mrs. Williams now."
Mels stepped forward. "That's me."
"This one offers to humbly lead you to your room." The hanar was a species that was undeniably alien. Six slender legs extended six feet up in the air to terminate in a brilliant pink creature without any sort of visible orifice. It had no mouth, no eyes, no ears, just smooth skin that sort of reminded Amy of a speed boat. The mechanical voice it used to speak with was obviously a translator for the brilliant flashes of light that rippled up and down its flanks in complicated swirls and patterns of color. It was rather mesmerizing.
"All right." Mels made to follow, then stopped when she realized no one else had moved. "Doctor?"
He slid closer, bracketing her face in his hands. Hers came up to wrap around his wrists.
"This isn't goodbye," he told her. "You'll see me again. I promise." He leaned forward and laid a tender kiss on her forehead, then another on her lips.
She squeezed his wrists in her strong grip. Then she let him go. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, but her voice was strong. "Until next time."
The Doctor moved back and Amy and Rory came forward to say goodbye.
ooOO00OOoo
She was in the hospital for a week as they ran endless tests on her. She'd been admitted with psychological problems, but they had a hell of a time finding them. For all that she'd just tried to kill the man she loved, they could find no evidence of mental tampering on her. Far as the hospital staff was concerned, she had no conditioning to get rid of. So long as the Doctor wasn't around, she wished him no ill will. It was apparently only in his presence that she turned violent. And since he wasn't around, there wasn't much they could do. The news was more than a little depressing. She trusted the Doctor, she did. But she would never be sure that the conditioning was gone; that she wouldn't turn murderous the moment she saw him again. It would probably be best if she never saw him again. It was all very heartbreaking. How young and foolish she'd been when she'd said that she would give him her forever. She had so much more time to offer him than she'd ever thought she would, but now she dared not do so.
She escaped from the hospital as soon as she was able, and it was with a sense of profound relief that she put proper clothes on again. Inside her bundle of clothing was a TARDIS blue envelope. She opened it to find a key and a folded piece of paper. In Amy's shaky hand was a map leading someplace that looked residential. She studied the key, noting instantly that it wasn't a TARDIS key. As much as it hurt, she understood. She couldn't be trusted.
She stepped out of the hospital and into the sunlight, tipping her head back to bask in the rays. It didn't matter. They may not be together, but they were no longer apart.
The key opened an apartment, as she thought it would. It was sparsely furnished, leaving her plenty of room to put her own personal touch on it, which she appreciated. She'd just have to figure out what her touch was. She wandered the rooms, casually touching a table here, a bookshelf there, until she came to the bedroom, where there was a small blue notebook with TARDIS panels on the front. She flipped it open to see the Doctor's beautiful circular writing inscribed on the inside cover. The inside was completely blank. A journal, hmm.
Underneath, she found a slim tablet, with another folded note on top, this one in Rory's handwriting. "Runs on solar power," it said. She turned on the tablet and was absolutely delighted to find out that it was unequivocally a primer on the Gallifreyan language.
She hugged the note, tablet, and journal to her chest. "Thank you," she whispered.
ooOO00OOoo
She went to university. She needed something to do, her previous attempt at getting a degree had been derailed by the Doctor's arrival in her life, and she had no information about the time period. She started as a general studies major, but that rapidly changed to history and then to archeology as she realized that all she really wanted to do was track what the Doctor was doing, if only from afar.