Amy's and Ginny's Choices - Part One

Figures it would happen right as I'm on a fictional breakthrough. Before I could even get my laptop open to start hashing away at the story, screaming erupted from downstairs.

"I swear if this is another false alarm, I'm gonna have some words," I grumbled, picking up my phone from the desk and dialing Tom's number; he picked it up within the first ring.

"It's happening, isn't it?" he asked.

"I can never tell with her crying wolf like this. I mean, after four false alarms, you'd think she would be able to tell the difference between the real thing," I said, grabbing my jacket and heading downstairs, "How far away are you?"

"I'm really close actually, and I've got something for you too."

"Thomas Pond, if you've gotten another crappy sci-fi movie—"

"They aren't crappy! And you can't start talking about the name changing yet, dear. The wedding isn't until June."

"I know, but there's nothing wrong with being excited!"

I crossed into the kitchen to find no pre-delivery chaos, but rather a redheaded baker snacking on a bowlful of cake batter. I rolled my eyes.

"Tom, we've had a fifth. I'll call you back."

With that I hung up, found a spoon of my own and joined Little Miss Unpredictable and her mother by the kitchen counter. I didn't have to say a single word for my point to get across to Amy because as soon as I scooped a spoonful of batter she had started defending her case.

"Why don't you try having a baby? See how you handle the false ones!" she said in-between mouthfuls of cake batter.

"Amy, living with you for the past nine months has only made my decision clearer," I said.

"What decision?"

"Adoption."

We had a good laugh before the front door flew open and the boys both entered looking confused, Rory more so than Thomas.

"Another one?" he asked, sitting next to his wife.

"Well, I don't know what it feels like. I've never had a baby before."

Tom sat down next to me and pulled out a bag from the local electronics store. From what I could tell, there was a cd case-shaped object inside. I snatched the bag out of his hands without a seconds hesitation.

"You didn't," I said.

"That's for you to find out," he said, winking.

I pulled the case out from the bag and found myself holding the latest Fall Out Boy album. I immediately held it aloft Lion King style and said thank you more times than I could count. I was about to just abandon all social interaction to listen to the album when suddenly, a familiar sound graced my ears. It was a worn-out grinding sort of sound, like the sound you would expect a time machine to make after the parking breaks had been left on.

"He's back?!" I said breathlessly, running out the door just in time to see that bright blue box materialize into view.

Nearly tripping over Amy's various flower arrangements, I situated myself right in front of the TARDIS, waiting eagerly for that madman to emerge. When he did, with that same floppy hair and bowtie as all those years ago, I met him with a tackling hug that nearly knocked him off his feet.

"Good to see you, Virginia Pond!" he said, returning the hug, "You haven't changed a bit."

"Well someone had to stay constant in the group," I said, hearing the door open again, "Isn't that right, Rapunzel?"

"Oh shut up," Rory replied. Upon hearing his voice, the Doctor managed to trip over a few bricks in a hurry to greet him.

"Rory! I've crushed your flowers," he said.

"Oh, Amy will kill you."

"Where is she?"

"She'll need a bit longer. She changed the most," I said.

"Really? Whenever you're ready, Amy," the Doctor called into the house. Shortly after, Amy waddled out and the Doctor's eyes bugged out of their sockets. He was probably starting to wonder if this was what actually happened to the Lost Moon of Poosh when it vanished; Amy just ate it.

"You've swallowed a planet!" he exclaimed.

"I'm pregnant!" she said.

"You're huge!"

"Yeah, I'm pregnant."

"Look at you. When world's collide," the Doctor glanced back and forth from Amy to Rory.

"Doctor, I'm pregnant." With every repetition of this fact, Amy reminded me more and more of a tutor with very little patience towards the student she was teaching. Honestly, I was giving my best effort not to break out in laughter.

"Oh look at you all," the Doctor said hugging Amy, "Five years later and you haven't changed a bit apart from age and size."

"It's good to see you, Doctor."

A semi-satisfied silence fell upon us before the Doctor delivered either his most oblivious observation or his most thought-out joke.

"Are you pregnant? he asked. I gave an exaggerated sigh but against my wishes it led into a bout of laughter. This seemed to spread to the rest of us humans and left the solitary Time Lord appearing confused as all get out.

"What, did I say something funny?" he asked, which only made us laugh a bit more.

Eventually we came to our senses and showed the Doctor around the house. I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face when me and Tom told him we were getting married. One would've thought he had just witnessed the most spectacular supernova in the whole universe. He also seemed quite humbled when I told him that I was writing a book based loosely off our adventures as a group. Granted I knew this sort of thing must've been commonplace for him, but it was quite a surprise to see how genuine his reaction was.

After the tour of the property we all decided to take a walk into town. It was a relatively nice day and we wanted to take advantage of it before the rain came in tomorrow.

"Ah, Leadworth. Vibrant as ever," the Doctor mused as we walked through the quiet village.

"It's upper Leadworth, actually. We've gone slightly upmarket," Rory said.

"But drastically lower in entertainment," I said, "I mean, sure there are some nice restaurants and a pretty cool bookstore, but me and Tom have to drive a good half hour to find the closest electronics store. The WiFi is pretty awesome though."

"Okay it may not be an entertainment hotspot, but it's really restful and healthy. Loads of people here live well into their nineties," Amy said.

"Well, don't let that get you down," the Doctor said.

"It's not getting me down!" Amy said, rather defensively. She, Rory, and the Doctor proceeded to sit on a bench leaving me and Thomas to lean against the brick wall next to them.

"Well, I wanted to see how you were. You know me, I don't just abandon people when they leave the Tardis. This Time Lord's for life. You don't get rid of your old pal the Doctor so easily."

In response to his rambling I gave him my best, 'cut the bull crap,' look while Amy put my thoughts into words.

"You came here by mistake, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, bit of a mistake. But look, what a result. Look at this bench. What a nice bench. What will they think of next?"

"Running low on things to ramble on about?" I asked.

"Just a tick, Ginny. Just a tick."

"Same here, Doc. We did settle in what is most likely the most boring place in the known universe, after all."

"Ooo, speaking of that. What do you do around here to stave off the boredom?"

For a few seconds none of us could come up with an answer. There really was nothing to do around upper Leadworth, but eventually Rory served up an answer.

"We relax," he said, causing the Doctor to mouth the same word in confusion, "We live."

At this point it seemed even Rory was straining to find something to do, but just in the nick of time, a songbird started chirping away.

"We listen to the birds!" he said enthusiastically.

"Yeah! See?" Amy added, "Birds. Those are nice."

Everyones' minds were clearly running on empty. The lack of conversation between the five of us would be enough to put anyone to sleep, and it seemed to be working a bit when Thomas let out a yawn.

"We didn't get time to listen to birdsong back in the Tardis days, did we?" he said.

In that moment it seemed as if the bird was either right behind us, chirping through a megaphone, or both because it became infinitely louder. I looked into the tree behind us in an attempt to find the culprit, but to my surprise there wasn't a single bird on any branch.

Suddenly my eyes became heavy and my thoughts grew foggy. I clung to the side of the bench for a bit of support but ended up toppling to the damp gravel, eyes slowly closing.

I woke with a start to find myself back in the library and, much to my surprise, found myself staring headlong into a My Chemical Romance shirt. When I looked up I found Thomas staring right back at me, and in that brief moment of confusion and closeness we both realized what we were doing and quickly separated.

"Honest to God I have no idea how that happened, Thomas said, a nice pink resting on his cheeks.

"Same here. Wanna just agree to never speak of this again?" I asked. He hastily nodded his head as we rose from the couch.

"We should probably regroup with the others."

"Yeah."

So together we walked towards the control room in an awkward silence. I occasionally glanced over at him, remnants of the dream I just had playing over in my head. Why was my subconscious thinking of marrying this boy I had just met? He's just a friend!

A friend who happens to be fairly good looking, have an awesome music taste and is one hell of a kisser, part of me thought. Before I could dwell any more on that, I heard Amy up ahead.

"Yes, I was huge. I was a boat!" she said.

"So you had the same dream then? Exactly the same dream?" Rory asked her.

"Are you calling me a boat?" Amy sounded a touch defensive, but once she looked up and saw me and Thomas her tone went back to being slightly confused.

"And you two were engaged," she said pointing up to us.

"Yeah, and we were sisters for some reason," I said.

"Wait, did you guys have the same dream too?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah, and Doctor you were visiting," Rory said.

"Yeah, yeah you came to our cottage." Amy said.

"How can we have had the same dream? It doesn't make any sense."

"And you had a nightmare about us. What happened to us in the nightmare?"

"It was a bit similar, in some aspects," the Doctor said.

"Like all of them?" I asked.

"Well, maybe," he said sheepishly.

"So you had the same dream?" Amy asked.

"Basically."

"You said it was a nightmare," Rory said.

Oh boy were the tensions on this time machine getting high.

"Did I say nightmare? No, more of a good… mare."

"Nice recovery, Doc," I said.

"Look, it doesn't matter. We all had some kind of psychic episode. We probably jumped a time track or something. Forget about it. We're back to reality now."

As soon as that last utterance left his lips the same bird from the dream began to chirp, and I felt that same sluggishness from before start to kick in.

"Doctor, if we're back to reality, how come I can still hear the birds?" Amy asked. I sat down on the stairs in anticipation of what was about to happen.

"Yeah, the same birds. The same ones from the—"

Rory was cut off when I fell asleep again, only to finish his sentence when I woke back up on the ground in upper Leadworth.

"Dream. Oh! Sorry, nodded off. Stupid. God, I must be overdoing it." he said. The Doctor quickly rose from the bench and I followed suit. Course, while he went to examine a pebble off the ground, I helped Thomas get back to his feet.

"I had a dream that we were back on the Tardis," Thomas said.

"Wait, you all just had the same dream, didn't you? Rory asked.

"Weren't you just saying the same thing?" Amy said.

"But we thought this was the dream, didn't we?"

"I think so. Why do dreams have to fade so quickly?"

"Doctor, what's going on?"

"Is this because of you? Is this some Time Lordy thing because you've shown up again?"

"If by Time Lordy thing you mean actually interesting, I'd say yes," I said.

"Listen to me. Trust nothing. From now on, trust nothing you see, hear, or feel," the Doctor said.

"But aren't we awake now?" Thomas asked.

"We thought the same thing on the Tardis though. Something fishy is going on," I said.

"But we're home," Amy said.

"Yeah, you're home. You're also dreaming. Trouble is, Ponds, which is which? Are we flashing forwards or backwards? Hold on tight. This is going be a tricky one," the Doctor said, and soon afterwards, the birdsong started yet again.

A/N: Now I know what you're thinking, "PRAISE BE TO THE FANFIC GODS IT FINALLY UPDATED!" Trust me, I'm just as happy about this as you are, but first I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies with the hiatus I took. For awhile I lost my interest in Doctor Who and writing in general. I constantly felt like I should be writing something but for some reason nothing was coming to mind; and then slowly but surely it started to come back. Now, I cannot promise that they will be as frequent as they were before my hiatus, but updates will be coming out. If you can continue to be patient with me as I face the dream-crusher known as college, I'll try my best to finish what I've started. I'd like to thank you all for continuing to have some interest in this story, and I hope you'll stick around until the end of this first installment on Ginny's adventure.

Until the next chapter,

Soulless (Raggedy)