Dinner

"Have you been in here for the entire day?" Mickey stared at Amy Pond when he and Martha came back into Nerve Centre at roughly six o'clock that evening.

"I'm supervising the kittens," she answered. The kittens had been roaming in and out of the medibay for hours, because she had requested to Helix that the door be kept open, as the litter trays were in there. Not that the kittens were very good at using the litter trays, and she had cleaned up multiple tiny poos so far that day and one puddle of wee, so it was a lot of watching them and trying to work out when they needed the toilet and then carrying them very quickly into the other room and plopping them down in the gravel.

"Do you actually do anything? Ever? Why don't you get a TV in your room so you never have to leave your bed?" Martha questioned, making a beeline for the kitchen to see what was in the fridge.

"Listen, I know the two of you think Torchwood and alien catching is hard work, but living in New York during the Great Depression doing menial labour? That's hard work. And I'm going to enjoy being able to sit here watching reality TV for as long as I can until the Doctor kicks us all off. This can't last forever, Martha."

"No…" Martha agreed solemnly, thinking again about that whole 'baby' thing. That was all she and Mickey had been discussing, all of that day so far and all of the previous day. And every subsequent day for the next twenty years, at least, and possibly every other day after that. It was daunting to think about, and part of her desperately wanted to pretend it wasn't happening. "Right, then. We've got nothing in to eat."

"I'm going shopping," Amy said, "Eventually. There's a shopping list on the table behind me if you want to add anything to it." Martha was looking for something to drink while Mickey meandered over to look at the list. And what a list it was – already it was huge and written on in at least half a dozen people's handwriting. He picked up the biro sitting on top of the page and began to scrawl things on it, too, all kinds of junk.

"We never normally do a list," he said.

"And people always forget things," Amy told him, "And they never buy enough milk or bread or washing up liquid. Or wine. Me and Donna are always running out of wine."

"Maybe you and Donna drink too much wine," Martha commented, realising there was nothing to eat or drink in the fridge, just a few bags of vegetables that were turning black and two bottles of milk which were going furry. "Right. This is disgusting. I'm cleaning the fridge out. Helix, open the waste disposal chute and keep it open."

"Affirmative, Dr Jones." The rubbish chute, which was about the size of an oven, opened in the wall nearby. She did not know where the stuff that got thrown in their actually went, but presumably it ended up incinerated somewhere. Maybe it got launched into the Eye of Harmony, or even fly-tipped in outer space somewhere. She put on the washing up gloves no one ever used before she dared touch some of the things in that fridge, which was the same height as an ordinary fridge-freezer but triple the width and presumably transdimensional in some aspect.

"I thought Donna was in here with you?" Mickey asked Amy as he wrote things on the list. Martha made a retching noise and threw a bag of mushy, dark carrots down the garbage chute. He supposed that must be the stuff making the fridge stink…

"She was, she's in the console room talking to the Doctor. He came to find her because Rose is still out with Clara. Wedding stuff. He seems a bit worried about it."

"Doesn't surprise me," said Mickey, "It'll be like our wedding, don't you think, Martha?"

"How do you mean?" Martha called back.

"Well, you know, because stereotypically the bride does more or less all of the work along with her mother, and the groom just has to agree to say yes to everything she suggests. But sometimes that doesn't happen and you get a really indifferent bride who's allergic to making decisions and then she goes out for an early hen party and makes the groom go buy the flowers because she's too hungover-"

"Oi!"

"And then has a go at the groom for picking the wrong flowers even though she refused to come." Amy was laughing.

"I told you to take my mum," Martha reminded him, "And you didn't listen."

"You made me go out the day before the wedding to buy more-"

"And that time you took mum with you so it was alright."

"It was more like I was marrying her mother than her," Mickey spoke to Amy, "And I'd rather marry her sister."

"Shut up, or I'll tell Tish's boyfriend you said that, and he won't think it's nearly so funny," Martha said, then she added to Amy, "He's a bodybuilder. Does those male physique shows and stuff, and bloody hell is he tall. You should see how Mickey behaves at Christmas dinner, he does this really weird voice to sound more manly."

"…No I don't…" Mickey mumbled (but he was lying.)

"…to think about, you know? I can't wrap my head around it, Donna," Ten was whining as he followed Donna back into Nerve Centre from the console room. Donna had not been enjoying listening to him rave too much, though, especially since he was worrying about a bunch of things she was sure Rose could take care of. And she had a whole spaceship full of bored women (and Jack) to help her if she couldn't.

"Are you cleaning the fridge?" Donna cut Ten off to speak to Martha.

"Yes. It's disgusting. Do you want to help?"

"…You're alright. So, wait, is there no food? At all?"

"I'm. Going. To. Go. Shopping," Amy said loudly and slowly. Then she pointed out the list to Donna.

"What. Are. We. Supposed. To. Eat!?"

"I. Don't. Know. Maybe. You. Should. Go. Buy. Something. Because. You. Are. Rich!"

"Do you have to talk to each other like that…?" the Doctor asked.

"YES," they both said together. It didn't seem like Donna was particularly inclined to go and buy anything, though, even if she was rich. Mickey wondered how rich she was, and how much she had left over from her lottery winnings, since unlike Adam Mitchell, Donna wasn't in the middle of a constant cash flow.

And speaking of Adam Mitchell, it wasn't long until he returned to the scene, having been notably absent since that morning. Only this time he actually had Oswin in tow.

"Before you ask, yes I'm cleaning the fridge, the shopping list is on the table if you want to add anything to it, and no there isn't anything to eat," Martha told them immediately, cutting over whatever Oswin had been saying, though nobody had been listening to her.

"Doesn't really affect me, I was thinking about getting pizza," Adam said.

"Pizza?"

"Someone said pizza?"

"I'll have pizza."

"Pizza sounds great."

Only after he heard all this did Adam Mitchell realise he had made a terrible mistake in declaring his plans to get pizza, because now he was obligated to also get pizza for everybody else. And probably pay for it as well. Oswin thought this was very funny, and a new sheet of paper was produced seemingly from thin air to take down what everybody wanted to eat before Adam had a chance to argue at all. He stood there in the middle of the room completely helpless and too generous for his own good. Oswin touched his arm for a second and smiled at him before going and sitting down on a sofa that hadn't been overrun by kittens.

"You can pick up husbandy on the way," she told her boyfriend.

"Me? I can't fly the TARDIS."

"I'll go with him," Donna volunteered, "I can fly it.."

"Good, because I can't carry ten odd pizzas on my own…" Adam sighed, going to wait for the list to finish being dictated to Mickey, who was copying it down simply because he had been closest to the pen. It didn't take long, because everyone was hungry so they were rushing, and then Donna and Adam left and Ten came to sit next to Oswin, who was glaring at one of the cats. The friendly calico.

"You really don't like cats, do you?" Ten said to her.

"I don't understand the point of them," she said, "What purpose do they serve? They're so domesticated that they're completely redundant when it comes to actual ecology, and therefore are irrelevant and wasting resources. And they poo on the floor."

"How is that boy still dating you?" Amy asked her, "A cute billionaire with a heart of gold decides he wants to go out with a washed-up dead girl who hates animals?"

"He can also sing," Oswin added, "Do you know he built an orphanage this week?"

"Sounds like the perfect man," Martha remarked.

"I heard that," said Mickey. Martha smiled at him and went back to trying to scrape an old pool of disintegrated rotting something from the plastic shelf of the fridge. At one point she took off the washing up gloves and tried to burn the stains away with pyrokinesis, but that went about as well as expected (not well at all.)

"Well I wish you lot would say that sort of stuff to his face," Oswin told them, "Maybe then he wouldn't be so insecure. Do you want some help with the fridge, Martha?"

"No, it's fine."

"You were just asking Donna to help you," Amy pointed out to her.

"Well – yeah – but – you know, Donna's – she's not – and Oswin – I just mean-"

"Is this about my legs?" Oswin asked, "I can sit on the floor and go through the freezer if someone helps me back up again." And because Oswin had offered where nobody else had, and didn't seem to be doing it only to be polite, Martha ultimately accepted, and she came limping over. Then Ten decided he was going to put the cats away in the medibay before they got over-excited about the pizzas that were soon to arrive, so he enlisted Mickey's help in going around and picking them up.

It was only when they got to the last one, the black Maine Coon, that they encountered a problem. The Doctor cooed and, despite warnings from everyone else, put his hand underneath the sofa to entice it out. They all heard it growl, and the Doctor yelped when it apparently went for him. It was possibly trying to tear off his skin, and it was quite horrible for them all to watch so helplessly. As soon as this happened Martha had to go to his rescue, and lay down at the back of the sofa to hold her own hand under there and conjure flames from her fingertips. This scared the cat enough that it shot off to a different sofa in the blink of an eye.

"Reckon you should just leave that one alone," said Amy, "It hates everybody."

"These are some nasty scratches," Martha said, "It got you worse than it got Mickey this morning."

"This is why I don't like cats," Oswin called through from the kitchen, where she was still sitting on the floor organising everything out of the freezer into piles of things that were no longer good. "Let Mitchell deal with it, it never normally attacks him. I don't think it likes him, but it's never done that to him."

"It is quite nasty," said Ten, "Are you sure you want to risk Adam moving it?"

"Risk it?" Amy asked Ten, even though he wasn't speaking to her.

"Because he can't heal anymore," Ten said.

"Then I'll get Clara to scoop it out telekinetically and levitate it back into the medibay." Ten was still examining his hand when Martha told him to go and put a plaster on it and then wandered off back into the kitchen to continue scouring the fridge.

"So why are you and Rose getting married in a week and a half?" Mickey asked the Doctor. There was a bang in the kitchen and Martha stopped what she was doing.

"Fucking hell!" Oswin exclaimed, though nobody except Martha could actually see Oswin, who had just dropped an entire frozen chicken on the floor (hence the bang), "A week and a half!? Are you mental?"

"We just want to get married quickly," said the Doctor, "Rose wants to get married quickly."

"So this is all Rose?" Mickey asked him.

"It's an equal decision."

"Which is man-code for 'it's all Rose,'" Amy 'translated.'

"No, we decided, jointly-"

"You decided jointly that Rose wants to get married as soon as feasibly possible."

Ten was in the middle of very unconvincingly arguing that he had just as much say in his relationship as the other half of it did when the pilgrimage to the cheapest possible takeaway returned. Them having a time machine really did mean things happened quite fast. Adam and Donna were carrying all the pizzas, while Rory and Eleven were carrying sides and drinks between them. They were also very muddy, having just been retrieved from their football match with Craig Owens. Martha took off the washing up gloves again and helped Oswin to stand back up, leaving all the old food just on the floor where it could be thrown out soon.

"Have you heard this?" Amy spoke to Eleven, but Eleven wasn't paying attention, he was bragging about the fact they had won their match and he had scored a hat trick. "Doctor?" Ten and Eleven both looked at her, and she gave Ten an apologetic expression before pointing at Eleven and saying, "That one."

"What?" Eleven asked while Ten sorted out which polystyrene boxes contained chips and which contained onion rings.

"That he's getting married in a week and a half."

"A week and a half!?" Eleven exclaimed, dropping a handful of cans of fizzy pop onto the table where Mickey had to scramble to stop them landing on the floor.

"Well – at least we're not eloping," said Ten.

"I think that's worse than eloping," said Amy, "At least they were drunk when they decided to get married quickly. You've decided to get married quickly while completely sober."

"That's true," said Eleven, "I don't even remember getting married. How much of this wedding lark have you got planned?"

"Well, Rose is, erm… she's…"

"In charge of everything?" Amy suggested, finally getting up from where she had been laying on the sofa for the last five hours or so, to go and claim her food. Everyone was flocking over to the two white kidney-shaped tables now, while carefully avoiding the corner of the sofa underneath which lurked the black cat (who could sometimes be heard growling.)

"No!" Ten continued to argue.

"There's no shame in letting the bride have her way," Donna said, "Especially if the bride has superstrength and can control the universe. Better let her do as she likes."

"Exactly," Eleven said, "Clara is sorting out almost all of the arrangements for our next one."

"When's that?" Mickey asked him.

"Two weeks, knowing him," Amy quipped.

"Actually, I haven't got a clue," said Eleven, "It's an incredibly slow-going process and I can't say I'm particularly inclined to hurry it along. Where are Clara and Rose?"

"They went shopping together," Donna answered, and he stared at her.

"Shopping? Together? Clara and Rose? My wife and his fiancée?"

"Yes, for wedding dresses," Donna said.

"What!?" Oswin shouted, "Clara's gone wedding dress shopping without me!? I'm the bloody chief bridesmaid! This is disgusting behaviour. I'm going to do something horrible to her, just wait and see…" Eleven did not try to argue with her, probably because he knew that if he did, Oswin would do something horrible to him, too.

"I'm sure she had a good reason," Adam said.

"Don't defend her. I hate her now, we're not friends anymore." Adam sighed and gave up. "That reminds me, though, I need to use everyone's phones. Which I can do remotely, I just thought that I'd warn you in advance I'm messing with all your phones."

"You better not be changing the names again," Martha warned her, "It took me weeks to work out that 'Cum Guzzler' was my mum. She was really annoyed when I kept rejecting her calls."

"No, actually, me and this weird boy who follows me around have done something so clever," she said, indicating Adam.

"What…?" Amy asked very suspiciously.

"Made an app for Helix," Adam explained, "So we don't have to share the big handset."

"It was Mitchell's idea; basically made me cream my knickers when he suggested it."

"Eurgh!" Amy exclaimed, "We're trying to eat here!"

"That's quite gross…" Martha muttered too.

"What? I'm just telling the truth…" Oswin grumbled. Clearly, she had said it on purpose though, because she was filth.

"Where are you having this wedding?" Amy carried on questioning Ten, then she asked Donna before Ten even had a chance to speak, "And how come you're alright with it being so soon? Aren't you the best man? Or woman."

"It's their wedding," Donna shrugged.

"We were thinking of a hotel," said the Doctor.

"Will there be a free bar?"

"Yeah, will there?" Donna repeated.

"Ask Rose."

"Are we staying in the hotel? All of the guests?"

"Ask Rose."

"What kind of facilities does the hotel have?"

"What kind of food are you going to have for the wedding breakfast?" Mickey joined in.

"Wedding breakfast?" Ten frowned.

"Is it gonna be a religious service?" Oswin inquired.

"I don't really-"

"Who do I have to speak to to get a look at the seating plan?" Amy persisted.

"Well, that's-"

"How many guests are you even having?"

"Are you sending out proper wedding invitations?"

"Where are you going to honeymoon?"

"How much champagne are you going to buy?"

"Are there any plus ones?"

"Stop asking me!" he shouted finally, cutting them all off, "I don't know! Fine, I admit it, Rose is doing everything, it's all Rose, I have basically no say in anything, and I'm going to eat my chips in my room now away from you lot." He stood up and skulked away, and got swiped at by the cat on his way out, which made him yelp again like a wounded fox. Then he glowered at them all in turn and vanished into the Bedroom Circle.

"I'm not sure they've got enough time to plan a wedding, you know," Martha said.

"As long as they remember the free bar, I'm sure it'll be fine," said Amy, then she settled in to eat her pizza with the rest of them.