You May Live on Earth

Amy

"I thought… I could have sworn someone said pancakes," Rory examined his dinner very closely. Amy had the exact same reaction to what was on her own plate. What they had been given looked more like an omelette, but it didn't smell like an omelette and didn't have the right texture to contain eggs. Donna and Shaun were equally confused, but Amy's suggestion of getting takeaway had been completely dismissed by Tentoo, who – in all of his boredom – had decided he was going to cook. And he had not chosen something normal, like pizza or stir fry or spaghetti, but something else. At first, she thought it must be alien.

"It's Banh Xeo," Tentoo declared proudly.

"You definitely said pancakes," Amy reminded him. He looked dishevelled, especially compared to his twin. She could have sworn she saw a few stands of grey hairs on his head, hardly any gel in it to achieve his usual, spiky style, and he'd been growing a beard. No longer would it be impossible to tell them apart, side-by-side – the last few months had treated them both very differently.

"Sizzling Pancakes," he explained, "Savoury pancake. It's got shrimp and pork in it. You're meant to wrap it in rice paper – but we haven't got any rice paper."

"How tragic…" said Donna, eyeing it. Amy certainly didn't know about combining pancakes, shrimp and pork all at once.

"Picked the recipe up when I was in Vietnam," said Tentoo, sitting down and tucking into his own 'sizzling pancake' immediately. Shaun, who was evidently starving, did the same thing. One of those men who would basically eat anything – Mickey Smith was the same. Amy once saw him pick chips off a plate that had been sitting, cold, next to the sink for at least two days. Obviously, Martha told him off, but it seemed like a fear of her wrath was the only think which kept him from stealing other people's leftovers, not basic hygiene. Shaun clearly didn't dislike these strange pancakes, though, because he kept eating, indifferent. "So, then! What's going on in the TARDIS, Amy and Rory? I love you two. Such good names. Both end in Ys. Am-y, Ror-y. That's brilliant."

"Yeah, I suppose it is brilliant," said Amy, "Syllables. Exciting."

"Still, though. TARDIS? Anything? Donna's always saying there's nothing at all." Amy thought he must not know about Rose and Ten's looming wedding, which didn't surprise her in the slightest. Especially going by the warning look Donna was giving her, almost glaring.

"Not a lot that I can think of," she said. Rory had noticed Donna's expression, too – but he wasn't going to go upsetting anybody, he had no reason to. It wasn't like he thought what Rose was up to was all so great, either, and keeping the truth from Tentoo was probably for the best. And even if it wasn't, she definitely didn't want to be the one to break the news. How long had it been since she had last seen him? Almost three months? It felt like much longer. "Remind me, erm, what have you heard? About the TARDIS?" She looked between him and Donna.

"Next to nothing, I've only been here for a few weeks, and Donna spends most of her time with Shaun when she's here." Shaun continued to devour his pancakes.

"So, uh… do you know about… what about the cats? Did you hear about the cats? Did you even know we got a cat?" Amy asked.

"Cats? I used to hate cats, but then I warmed up to them," Tentoo said, "Rose always liked cats." He looked at his food, and Amy glimpsed Donna glaring at her. How was she supposed to know he associated cats with Rose? He probably associated everything with Rose.

"Adam can't work out what he wants to do with them," Rory continued, not catching Donna's eyes.

"Is Adam still there? Is he still with Oswin?"

"As far as I know."

"I always thought they'd break up."

"I doubt it," said Amy, "They never seem to have any problems. They don't even argue. Anyway, they're not normal cats, they're Time Cats. Born on the TARDIS. Really weird. One of them has tentacles and floats around."

"Really? That's ridiculous! Never heard anything like it. Time Cats, can you believe it, Donna?" Obviously, Donna could believe it, because she saw the kittens all the time. "And you said he doesn't know what to do with them? I'd love one. How many are there?" Amy didn't actually know.

"Five," said Rory.

"How old are they?"

"Blimey, must be…" he stopped to think, "Around two weeks. Can't really walk, just waddle. They're tiny – they're so cute, I've seen them loads recently because Mickey keeps lurking around them. They live in the medibay, with their mother, this ginger cat we rescued from a space station. Didn't realise it was pregnant at the time."

"Crazy story about the pregnancy, though," said Amy, "Someone found this test in a bin in the bathroom and oh my god, everybody went mental trying to work out which one of us was pregnant. Then Jenny shows up and says it's hers. It was honestly insane."

"What!?" Tentoo exclaimed, "Jenny's pregnant!?"

"No, the cat was pregnant," said Donna, "Were you listening? I don't think girls can get each other pregnant usually."

"Girls?" Tentoo asked, "What do you mean?"

"Have you told him anything?" Amy asked Donna, "He doesn't even know about Jenny?"

"I… I never know where to start," Donna admitted.

"Bloody hell – Jenny's gay now. She's going out with the Clara from the other universe."

"I thought she had a boyfriend? I think I remember being there for that. In the school."

"He's dead," said Rory. "Now she's dead, too."

"She's a vampire," said Donna.

"Honestly, it's kind of sexy," Amy added.

"A vampire?" said Tentoo, "As in, one of the Great Vampires?" He was understandably alarmed, but Amy didn't know the answer to his question. She was very disengaged from anything that was going on with that side of the TARDIS crew, especially because Ravenwood didn't live with them and it was next to impossible to coax Jenny into talking about her personal life; Amy had never been particularly interested, either. "But they need human blood to survive."

"She gets a lot of it from Jack and our Clara," Donna explained.

"Jack gives his ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend his blood?"

"I must only ever understand ten percent of what you're talking about," said Shaun, still wolfing down his sizzling pancakes. Donna smiled at him, a smile which said not to worry about it.

"Ex-wife," Rory corrected Tentoo, "They got married. Sort of. Briefly." Tentoo now seemed to regret questioning them about what was going on on the TARDIS. Amy supposed it was a bit weird to get your head around if you were hearing it all at once and not living through all the changes as they happened.

"…You were saying about the cats?" he changed the subject, and Amy was glad of it. She was focusing more on her pancakes now, anyway – they weren't actually as bad as she thought they were going to be when she heard about the fatal combination of pork and shrimp.

"Well, I think Other Clara has claimed one of them," Rory went on to explain, "It hates everyone except her. This black Maine Coon."

"You're giving them away, then?" Tentoo asked, "What are the others like?" Donna looked at him suspiciously. She mustn't like the idea of him bringing a cat into her flat – maybe she wasn't too fond of animals. Amy herself wasn't too fond of them. "Maine Coon, one with tentacles?"

"There's that freaky-looking bald one," said Amy, "I hate hairless cats, they're so weird."

"And there's a Calico and an Abyssinian."

"That's a lot of different breeds," Shaun said.

"Time Cats," Amy reminded him.

"I don't know what that means."

"Well, a Time Lord can really change into any other species when we regenerate," said Tentoo, "Sort of. Change our whole appearance, and everything. Well, not me, obviously I'm not… anyway, different cat breeds isn't so weird. But this tentacle one…"

"I think Adam's trying to get it so they keep the tentacle one and give away the mother, instead," said Amy, "Oswin really hates the cats, though."

"Jenny named it 'Princess Sparkle Tutu,'" Donna added. She had set down her knife and fork after sort of mashing up her weird 'pancake' enough that it looked like she'd at least attempted to eat it, though Amy highly doubted that she had partaken in one single bite. "She's a ginger tabby and she just sleeps a lot. Never does much of anything."

"Brilliant. I'd love a cat. Do you think I might get a cat?" he looked around at all each of them in turn when he said that.

"Not in here," Donna said, "The owner says we're not allowed."

"Who's the owner?" Tentoo asked.

"I am." He made a sad face. Amy really wondered what was going to happen to the other kittens, who was going to take an unruly Time Cat off their hands. Maybe Tentoo would get one after all – it would probably do him some good. Seeing him now, though she hardly knew him, so obviously lonely, was not pleasant.

"What about Mickey and Martha? Are they alright?"

"Oh, god knows…" muttered Amy. Tentoo frowned, tearing off bits of his pancakes with his hands and eating them.

"What's that supposed to mean? Something wrong with them?"

"I don't know, they're just spending loads of time together recently," Amy said, "I don't even know the last time I talked to Martha. And like Rory said, Mickey's just been sitting around with those kittens."

"I keep telling you they're probably just happy together," Rory shrugged, "It's not really our business."

"I like talking to Martha," Amy told him. And it was true, she did.

"…But Jenny's alright, though?" Tentoo asked. He was very fixated on finding out about Jenny. Amy looked at Donna to prompt her to answer, since Donna seemed to know more about that than she did.

"I really don't know," Donna answered, "It's hard to get her to talk about herself. She gets on with Eleven better now, though. She refuses to speak to either of the others."

"Oh, really?" Tentoo seemed surprised, "Why him? Out of all of them?"

"He's made the effort," Rory explained, "I was with him today – he talks about her constantly these days. I think it's good."

"Well, do you… do you think she would speak to me? Has she ever asked about me?" No one answered him. These were some tricky questions, which didn't have good answers – to Amy's knowledge, she had not.

"I'll… ask her," Donna finally offered, "I'll talk to her." Good, Amy thought – she didn't want to be the one to ask Jenny, a woman whose usual response to any emotion was punching something very hard, personal questions. "Let's talk about something else, though, eh? Something good. It's been a hard day." Amy had already explained the day's events to Rory and didn't fancy talking about them again. It wasn't so pleasant having to go to a late dinner with weird food after cremating a global hero.

"…How'd you two meet, then?" Rory changed the subject completely, addressing Donna and Shaun. He'd just about finished his pancakes and set his cutlery down, leaning on the table and picking up his glass of very expensive wine, courtesy of Donna.

"I love telling this story," Shaun spoke before she could, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

"It's really embarrassing," said Donna.

"No!" he protested.

"I'm sure we've heard significantly more embarrassing stories," Amy said, "I'll tell you something embarrassing – Rory fancied me for basically as long as we knew each other, and I thought he was gay. Literally because he was never interested in anyone else I just assumed he was gay. And then Mels-"

"Who's that?" Donna asked.

"Melody. River. Same person, complicated, our daughter, from the future, grew up together before she regenerated into River, it's very weird," Amy waved her away before continuing, "Anyway, she pointed out that he actually fancied me. And the rest is history."

"It is quite embarrassing," said Tentoo.

"Go on, then," Rory prompted Donna and Shaun, "What's your story?"

"Well," Shaun began, "It's definitely not as weird as all that you just said-"

"Few things are," Amy assured him. Even Jenny's love-life was probably less weird.

"Basically, we used to live a few streets away from each other, before we ever met, and we used to go to the same laundrette because, well, washing machines are expensive, it was just easier. Didn't have much money before the lottery win. Anyway, I accidentally stole a pair of her knickers."

"You what?" Amy exclaimed, laughing.

"She forgot them in the dryer before me, then I had my stuff in afterwards – didn't see her in there. Didn't even realise until I got home, and I was folding it all, and there were these women's pants. So, I did what any decent bloke would do and took them back to the laundrette and I went there every day for two weeks – had the time because I was stuck on a bloody zero hours contract – and I was showing these pants to every girl who walked in trying to return them."

"To be fair," said Donna, "They were very expensive from La Senza."

"Ooh, nice," said Amy.

"Got them on sale."

"Oh really?" she was intrigued. Donna leant over the table and lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Seventy-five percent off."

"Bloody hell," said Amy, "They're giving them away, it's basically scamming them taking advantage of a deal like that."

"She went mental when I gave them back to her," said Shaun, steering the conversation back on track, "Thought I'd just nicked them then out of her laundry basket or I was some pervert. Took ages for me to explain enough to get her to believe me, and then – well, I suppose you just know, don't you?"

"Unless you're Amy," Rory quipped.

Amy shrugged, "It's a fair cop."

"It's not like I could really let it go without finding out what the girl who owned those knickers looked like wearing them."

"Stop it," Donna warned him, though he obviously just said it to get on her nerves and thought it was very funny. Amy thought it sounded like one of Clara Oswald's sleazy lines.

"You two are adorable," Amy said.

"That's what I've been saying!" Tentoo exclaimed.

"Alright, alright," Donna waved him away. "Let's change the subject. I'd like to propose a toast."

"Really? What to?" Shaun asked.

"You'll see," she told him.

"I hope it's to cats," said Tentoo, picking up his drink, which was a glass of blackcurrant squash while everybody else had wine. Donna ignored him.

"To Amelia Earhart," she said. Everyone lifted their glasses at once, having already been related the bleak story of the day, "Even if no-one knows the truth about what happened to her except us, she'll always be remembered as a hero, a pioneer, a legend of aviation and women's history, and I hope that she's reached her place among the rest of the stars in the sky."

Everyone bumped their glasses together and said, "Cheers."

Amy didn't say so, for fear of Tentoo asking questions, but she thought to herself that though it had ultimately been a very short toast in front of a group of only four other people – three close friends and her husband – she was sure Donna would be able to deliver her best man's speech at Rose Tyler's wedding in a few days' time, and that it would be great. Maybe even more so than Jack's.