Stump It Up

Well, it took Thomas maybe less than a minute to settle in and track me down. The promise of a jam session seemed to be the thing that was keeping his energy at maximum capacity. There was only one slight problem, but the TARDIS soon took care of that by giving us arrows to follow until we came across the Music Room. Hooray for no more animatronic mixups this time.

"So, do you play any instruments?" Thomas asked me as we walked down a rather long corridor. I laughed at the mere thought.

"You've got to be kidding me. I can't even play Guitar Hero, let alone an actual instrument. The most I can do is play the intro to 'Welcome to the Black Parade,' on the piano," I said, "I did take lessons, but I never really learned much."

He laughed, "Well you can sing, so it's okay."

"How did you know I liked to sing?"

"I asked Amy if there was anything I should worry about on the TARDIS. She said I should only worry about how loud you can get in the morning."

I must've had a really appalled look on my face because Thomas was cringing rather dramatically.

"I'm just telling you what Amy told me! I'm sure you have a lovely singing voice! Please don't hurt me."

I laughed so hard that I had to lean against the wall for support.

"It's okay, Tom! Can I call you Tom? I'm not the type of person to shoot the messenger or anything."

"Okay good, and yeah, Tom's all right. Now, where's this Music Room? I feel like we've been walking for hours!"

Well, it just so happened that the next door we came across had a giant music note on the front, so we just assumed it was what we were looking for.

It was almost as if we had just walked into a recording studio where the musicians had just left for the day. There were extension cords all over the carpeted floor, guitars of all kinds were propped up on stands, and a drum kit sat in the back next to a keyboard, all with studio microphones placed in front of them. Behind a glass wall was a whole array of sound tech and an empty office chair. There was even a mini fridge and snack cupboard!

"Whoa," Tom and I said, stepping further into the room.

Tom made a beeline for a cherry red electric guitar, hastily plugging it up to an AMP and absentmindedly shredding out a solo.

"Well, I don't know how much longer I have with this voice, so let's get down to business. What should we play first?" I asked, messing with the lone microphone in the middle of the room.

"20 Dollar Nosebleed?" the song title couldn't wait to burst forth from Tom's mouth.

"Can you sing Brendon's part?"

"Sure."

"All right. Let's do this!"

I made my way to the keyboard and sat at the mic, thankful for the piano lessons my school offered me, and began playing out the intro to the song.

I'm pretty sure we got through all of Folie A Deux before someone else knocked at the door.

"It's open!" I shouted over Tom's guitar.

Without another word, Amy and Rory slid through the doorway and onto the other side of the glass wall, messed with a button on the sound tech, and lowered our volume.

"Hey, what gives?" Tom grumbled, "I was about to give Jimmy Hendricks a run for his money!"

"Dinner's ready in the kitchen. The Doctor told us to let you know it was the kitchen that didn't look overly industrial and that Ginny would know the difference," Amy said, glancing to me, "Do you?"

"Well, yeah," I said.

"Could you take us there? We can't find it," Rory chimed in.

"All right. Come on, Tom. I can show you some of their new stuff tomorrow."

With that, Tom begrudgingly put up the guitar and made his way to the door.

"There better be some chips with dinner, or I'm gonna have words," he said, walking up next to me as Amy and Rory tailed behind.

"Me too," I said, my voice sounding somewhat more feminine, "Oh, hey, it's wearing off now."

In fact, my voice was completely back to normal when we reached the kitchen. Before we could enter, however, Amy made a move to barricade the doors.

"Something the matter, Pond?" I asked, trying to maneuver around her human shield.

"Well, the thing is, we left the Doctor in charge of cooking."

"Oh dear."

"Yeah, so whatever we find in there, we have to try not to be disgusted by."

I laughed, "Oh come on, Amy. What could possibly be worse than fish fingers and custard?"

When I opened the door, I was struggling more with not laughing than I was with being disgusted. While the food was normal (I mean can you really go wrong with sub sandwiches), the Doctor looked simply like a chaotic chef. It was like walking in on a kid who tried to do something creative in the kitchen and completely messed up.

First things first, he had flour smeared all over his face and forearms. How it even got there in the first place is a mystery to me. His chef's hat was almost falling off of his head, and don't even get me started on the apron. Just don't. And then there was the matter of the disaster area that occurred in the actual kitchen part of the kitchen. Pots and pans were left with unknown materials minging inside of them, the counter didn't look it's normal shade of white, and somehow the stove and refrigerator switched places. Again, don't ask.

The Doctor tried to keep a smile on as we entered the baking apocalypse, but it didn't last maybe more than half a minute.

"All right, the TARDIS improvised after I got the stove angry," he said sheepishly, sinking down onto a barstool.

"Doc, I think you should just stick with fish fingers and custard whenever you cook," I replied, piling a hoagie roll high with bacon. He laughed.

As we ate, plenty of stories were passed around. Not only on the Doctor's part of recapping our latest endeavors, but also featuring anecdotes from Amy's and Rory's childhoods. Pretty soon the lovebirds were arguing over who had a rougher home life.

"You don't know torture until you've heard my mum singing Dusty Springfield from the top of her lungs at daybreak every day, and Thomas chiming in with her. I never asked for an alarm clock because I was already related to two of them," Rory said.

"Music never sleeps, brother mine," Tom replied, leaning back in his chair, "You could've always gotten earplugs."

"Well, they wouldn't have done much good!"

"Oh, you want to talk about loud relatives? My uncle Neil was the worst snorer on the planet!" Amy brought up, "He could have been a narcoleptic lumberjack for all I know! Sawing trees in his dreams."

We collectively laughed at her vivid description.

"Actually, if a person is snoring, then they aren't dreaming," the Doctor said.

"Well that proves it then. He really was sawing wood down there rather than sleeping."

"What, he would just wake up in the middle of the night and be like, 'Oh, I'll just saw out some planks and finish the porch or something'!" I said, mimicking a really thick Scottish accent.

"It wouldn't surprise me, Ginny. Do you have any loud relatives?" the redhead asked.

"Yeah, how's it been growing up for you?" Rory asked.

"Um, well…" I glanced nervously to the Doctor who understood completely, "Who really wants to know about my life, huh? I'm just along for the ride. Oh, would you look at the time? I should be getting to bed. Thanks for dinner!"

Among the many confused mumblings of the time only being seven thirty, I hastily made my way out of the kitchen and down a corridor without assessing my bearings.

I really don't know why this kind of stuff makes me nervous. Perhaps it's the idea of being placed on the spot and not having anything interesting to say, or being given pity I don't need for the life I've led up to this point. This swirling vortex of conflicting brought me to a set of large oaken doors with golden handles. Above these doors, a quote was written in swirling calligraphy.

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."

- Charles W. Eliot

"This must be the library," I said, taking a step towards the doors and pushing one open.

Well, there wasn't a swimming pool in there anymore, but there was a jacuzzi in the Biographies section, and a magnificent stone fireplace surrounded by shelves upon shelves of fiction from every era. Between some of the shelves, smaller oak doors led to different genres of books, such as children's books, textbooks (whose door was gaining a large deal of dust), and mystery novels. There was even a sort of virtual reality section in which you could place a book of your choice into a slot, and suddenly the whole library would turn into the setting for the book. I could visit Hogwarts without even needing a wand!

The idea was about to become a reality when someone else opened the doors and entered the page-riddled halls. His footsteps didn't click, so I automatically knocked the Doctor and Amy off of my list. Their shoes are so loud that I'm surprised by the level of espionage they can pull off.

"Ginny, are you in here?" Tom called, "The Doctor's got us all looking for you. Are you okay?"

Time to fess up, I thought, "If you want the truth, Tom, listen to an MCR song."

I think I heard him jump out of his skin going by the large amount of shuffling that occurred.

"Dear god, that's terrifying. Could you come out? It's like a maze in here."

For the next half hour, Tom and I sat by the fireplace as my past was placed in the spotlight for the second time in the past two days. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting the reaction that Tom gave me. I thought he would have been all sympathetic and gushy and crap like that, but he wasn't. And I was really happy it didn't happen because I can't just cry in front of the guy who literally saved my neck.

"You can't run from your past, Ginny. It'll always be there," was all he said on the matter, and then we started to explore the library together.

"So what's your favorite book?" I asked, plucking The Shining from its resting place and delving into the first chapter.

"Nothing by Stephen King. That's for sure," Tom replied quickly.

"Aw, is someone scared of an author?"

"No! I'm not scared of an author! I'm scared by the author's works."

"Well then what books aren't you scared of?"

"The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan."

"Oh I love those! Did you see the Lightning Thief movie?"

Tom visibly shook, "Don't even mention that gaping plot hole of an adaptation to me."

"I know right? The thing was screwed from the moment Logan Lerman was cast as Percy! He's supposed to be twelve, not sixteen!"

"Exactly! And that Camp Half Blood was not what I was expecting!"

"Oh hon, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Well, anyone who read the book."

"Hon?"

"I'm comfortable around you, so now you've got petnames. Enjoy it."

"I am."

We sat on the fireside couch for awhile, engulfed in the books of our choosing. Engulfed so much, in fact, that neither of us noticed how tired we had suddenly become. We didn't notice the birdsong in the TARDIS, we had no idea of how far back into the couch we were leaning, and we certainly didn't realize how close together we were lying. Honestly, I sort of just accepted the fact that I was entangled in Tom's arms and simply gave into the unforeseen bout of exhaustion that overcame us.