A/N: Alex's outfit for this chapter can be viewed on my Tumblr, under the name 'darksideofparis'.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

It was another late night in the TARDIS. The Doctor, dressed to the nines in a white dinner jacket, white dress shirt, black pants, black shoes, and a spiffy new black bowtie, walked down one of the staircases leading into the control room, whistling all the while. He was in a rather cheerful mood, for a couple reasons.

First off, Alex hadn't been having any more attacks. It had been weeks since she had one, and even then, she'd only had two. Even though he was still a little worried about what had caused the attacks in the first place, the Doctor couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at how they now appeared to be over. He knew it was starting to get on Alex's nerves how he kept fussing over her and checking her with the sonic screwdriver every half hour, but he couldn't help it. He wanted his Ally to be well. And it looked like she was, thank God.

The second reason he was so cheerful was because he and Alex had been growing a lot closer and more intimate in their relationship. No, they hadn't slept together yet (contrary to Amy's persistent beliefs) but recently, their hands had started wandering a bit whenever they made-out. Even though they were taking their relationship slow, their desire for each-other was cropping up and eventually, they'd want to get it out of their systems . . . and on each-other.

The Doctor smirked to himself as he adjusted the euphonium he was carrying. While he was certainly looking forward to that day whenever it came, he did like the regular days where he spent time with Alex, wandering from planet to planet, saving the day a few times in the process. He loved spending time with her, especially now that they were no longer hiding their feelings for each-other.

It was too bad Alex needed regular sleep though and couldn't run around with him on his nighttime adventures. After Amy and Rory went to bed, she'd stay up a little while longer with him. She'd often read aloud to him, laughing and giggling at his objections whenever she happened to be reading a sci-fi novel, or they'd just talk. Sometimes, it was about adventures he had gone on, other times it was about some childhood antic she'd experienced back in Bristol, and a few times, it was about Gallifrey. The Doctor had yet to go into depth about his personal life on the planet before he started traveling, but he had told her more about Romana, a few bits and pieces about the Master (before he went crazy) and some stuff about Susan. He was just glad that Alex knew when not to press him on something, like whether he had been married before and how many children he'd had. He was sure he'd tell her eventually, but it wasn't going to be today.

Whenever the two tired of conversation and reading, they'd head into the TARDIS auditorium and watch a movie or two. Alex had been shocked at the size of the room, which boasted a full proscenium stage, an orchestra pit, row upon row of lush velvet chairs and couches, a pull-down movie screen, and a separate room that housed alphabetically-arranged DVDs on shelves along all four walls.

The Doctor rather liked those late nights doing nothing but watching movies or old TV sitcoms. He and Alex would recline on one of the large velvet couches in the exact center of the auditorium. The TARDIS would provide them with popcorn, candy, and drinks, and they would watch whatever one of them picked out, taking a few breaks every now and then to kiss. More often than not, Alex ended up falling asleep before whatever was playing was over, but he didn't mind. Instead, he'd watch her snooze for a little while before hoisting her up and carrying her to her room. He'd put her in bed before joining her and pulling the covers up over them both. He did this quite a bit, sleeping in the same bed as her. Sometimes, like tonight, he'd leave after she'd fallen asleep so he could go and have another adventure or two. Even though he loved wrapping his arms around Alex as she slept, there were times when he needed to combat his restless spirit with another adventure or two.

Tonight had been a movie night. Alex had found a copy of the French version of Beauty and the Beast, La Belle et la Bête, which she had previously seen in her French class in high school. Luckily for them, the film had English subtitles, eliminating the need for the TARDIS to translate it. Alex had fallen asleep around the time Belle left the Beast to go and tend to her ill father, and the Doctor had carried her off to bed. He had stayed with her for a little while before going off to have a few more adventures.

Tonight's adventures had been a little . . . weird. For starters, River had shown up, which the Doctor hadn't minded, but he knew Alex would when she learned of it. Alex was still a little wary of the woman, which the Doctor understood since, on some level, he was the same way. He mostly used these adventures as a way to keep an eye on River and see how much she knew about him.

It was fairly obvious within the first five seconds of seeing her tonight that this River was a much earlier version than the one who had bitterly admitted that pining after him for so long had been a waste of her time. She'd been flirting at him all night, but now that he was with Alex, he had recognized it and was able to thwart her quite a bit by refusing to respond in a similar manner.

He'd also run into Marilyn Monroe. Again. He winced, remembering the encounter. Unlike the last time they'd met, when Marilyn couldn't wait to dig her nails into him, she looked pretty furious tonight, shooting him glares left and right. He wanted to ask her what was wrong but, not really wanting to risk her slapping him or pulling him into a closet for a quick lip-lock, he refrained.

Now, the Doctor entered the control room, still whistling. He headed down the platform stairs over to the doors. "River!" he called out. "I'll see you later! Tell Marilyn she's too late, she'll have to use the biplane." The last thing he wanted to do was give Marilyn Monroe a ride home. "Take care!" He shut the doors and headed back up the platform, digging out his sonic screwdriver as he went. He buzzed it over the euphonium, making it emit a loud sound not dissimilar to someone belching, before pulling down a lever on the console and sending the ship into the time vortex.

"Do you do this every night?" a voice suddenly asked.

"Oh!" the Doctor jumped, whirling around as he hid the euphonium behind his back. Sitting in front of him at the top of one of the staircases was Amy, dressed for bed in a nightgown and bathrobe. "Hello."

Amy smiled at him, but her gaze was currently fixed on his hands. "You're trying to conceal euphonium guiltily. Has that ever been attempted before?"

"What? Oh! This!" He looked down at the instrument. "Oh yeah, it's one of those, um . . . euphoniums."

"Okay. . . So, is this what you do at night when we're sleeping?" Amy raised an eyebrow. She was a bit surprised by this development. She figured he did it every now and then, but not every night. "Have extra adventures?"

"You sound surprised. What did you think I do every night?"

"Snog Alex," Amy said promptly.

The Doctor's face reddened, and he suddenly became very absorbed in getting the euphonium to rest properly on the jumpseat. Amy giggled and snickered a little as she watched him fumble with it, his cheeks and earlobes getting redder and redder as the seconds went on. Finally, once the instrument was settled to his satisfaction, the Doctor turned back around. "Uh, uh . . . well, y-you're . . . you're not completely wrong," he mumbled, "but I do other things too!"

"Like have extra adventures?"

"I don't sleep as much as you," he replied, not really answering the question. "I keep busy."

"Doing what?" Amy persisted. "And actually tell me for once. You're my friend, one of my best friends, so tell me what it is you do." She waited a moment for him to say something, but he still seemed to be hesitating. She sighed. Time to pull out the big guns. "Alright. If you don't tell me what it is you do at night, I'll go straight to Alex and tell her that you were out with River and Marilyn Monroe tonight." She knew those two names in the same sentence would throw Alex into a tizzy, something the Doctor, if he was smart, would strive to avoid.

The Doctor somehow kept a smirk from creeping up his face. It was suddenly clear that Alex was trying to keep Amy in the dark about her relationship with him, since the Scot wasn't even aware that he and Alex had talked about River and (mostly) settled their issues with her. Of course, they'd never mentioned Marilyn.

He thought back to when they had first met the actress, at the party they'd attended with Kazran and Abigail. Alex had seemed upset that he was going to marry Marilyn – something that hadn't come to pass, thank Rassilon – but at the time, they were both denying their feelings for each-other, so it was likely he hadn't really registered the fact that she was jealous.

And now, here Amy was, threatening to tell Alex all. He couldn't let that happen. If anything, Alex deserved to hear it from him.

But, seeing that Amy was expecting an answer, he finally sighed and said, "Okay. I just helped out a possessed orchestra at a moon-base, before that I prevented two supernovas, wrote a history of the universe all in jokes, and did a bit of local work in Brixton. Lovely practice, very short-staffed." He paused for Amy's reply but instead she just stared at him. He frowned. "What's wrong?"

Amy stood and walked down the steps. "We're such tiny parts of your life, aren't we?" she observed, a touch of sadness in her voice. "All the friends you make just flicker in and out. You must hardly notice us."

"Amy, you are enormous parts of my life," the Doctor assured her. "And you are all I ever remember."

A little reassured, Amy nodded at his words. But she wasn't completely at ease. There was something else she wanted to talk to him about, something she'd been trying to talk to him about for a while now. "Speaking of which. . ." she said slowly, ". . .my life doesn't make any sense."

"I know," the Doctor murmured.

"That's what I've been trying to talk to you about." Even before she first left the TARDIS, she'd been trying. The first time she tried to broach the subject had been when Rory dropped that thermo coupling and launched them all into a space-time loop, which kind of ruined the intimate chat she'd been hoping for. A couple weeks ago, she tried to bring it up again, but that was when Alex first learned of his nightly adventures with River, and then Amy herself had learned the Doctor and Rory took turns handling her, so that had been out too.

But just a few hours ago, she'd managed to talk to Alex about it. Alex was her other best friend, and Amy knew that if there was anyone who might have an idea on what was going on in her life, it was Alex. Alex had been sympathetic, but even she wasn't quite sure what to say other than 'time can be rewritten'. She'd recommended talking to the Doctor and had advised Amy to wait in the control room for him to come back on one of his nighttime adventures, which he'd mentioned to her earlier he would be doing that night. And thankfully, it had worked.

"I know."

"Like . . . when I first met you, I didn't have parents. I never had parents. And then you did whatever it was you did and rebooted the universe and, suddenly, I . . . had parents. And I've always had parents. And I remember both lives, in my head, both of them, in my head, and at the same time. Rory remembers both too, but not Alex." Though, considering Alex's mind, that was hardly groundbreaking.

The Doctor nodded, having expected those outcomes. "That's fine, isn't it?"

"But it shouldn't be. Why is it fine?"

"Rory was a Roman for 2,000 years."

Amy shrugged this off. "He says he hardly remembers it."

The Doctor smiled slightly, remembering what Rory had told him about his time during those 2,000 years when they were trying to come up with a plan to get the girls back from the Silence. "Ahh, but sometimes you'll catch him just staring. . ." Seeing Amy consider the truth in his words, he went on. "The thing is, Amy, everyone's memory is a mess, life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on, a party they never went to, or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that."

Amy was silent for a few moments, absorbing this. Finally, she quirked an eyebrow and proclaimed, "That's ridiculous."

The Doctor merely beamed. "Ah, now you're starting to get it!" He quickly stepped around her to another section of the console. "Put your hand here," he directed, tapping a specific instrument with his fingertips before moving on to flick a few levers.

Amy obediently placed her hand on the device. "What is it?"

"TARDIS telepathic circuits."

"What do I do?"

"Nothing. Just relax." He reached over and tugged a lever down before moving over to the monitor beside her. He peered at it. "Your saddest ever memory was at a fairground in 1994," he announced. "Can you remember why?"

"No," Amy said promptly, but then she paused. Actually, now that she really thought about it, there was an inkling of a memory there. "Hang on, did I . . . did I drop an ice cream?" Her voice was incredulous. "That can't be my saddest memory."

"Remembering ice cream's always sad."

At that moment came the familiar thump of the TARDIS landing. Amy looked around in confusion. "Did we just land? Where are we?"

Instead of answering, the Doctor asked, "What happened after you dropped the ice cream?"

"Nothing, I . . . I cried." But then, another stirring of memory came to her. "No, no, hang on. . . There was a lady and she bought me another one."

"Oh, good for her. What did she look like?"

"She looked like she. . ." Amy smiled as the memory replayed before her eyes. "She had a funny dress, a night dress, she had red hair. Doctor. . ." She looked up, seeing that he was no longer beside her, but down by the doors. "I don't understand. Why are you doing this? What is the point?"

"The nice lady," the Doctor said, purposefully not answering her questions. "What did she say to you?"

"Cheer up," Amy said flatly. "Have an ice cream."

The Doctor eyed her for a moment, waiting for her to get the point he was trying to make. When she didn't, he elaborated. "Amy, time and space is never, ever going to make any kind of sense. A long time ago, you got the best possible advice on how to deal with that. So! I suggest. . ." He turned around and opened the doors, allowing the sounds of laughter and rides starting up to spill into the control room. ". . .you go and give it."

"Okay, okay," Amy frowned as she made her way down the steps towards him. "So, I ask you a big, important question about life, and you're basically telling me to go and buy myself an ice-cream?"

The Doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "No, Amy, I'm telling you to go and buy us both ice creams," he corrected. "I love fairgrounds."

"I hate you."

He grinned. "No, you don't." He ushered her forwards, out onto the brightly lit fairgrounds. "Do you get scared on ghost trains? I get a bit scared, so is it okay if I hold your hand?"

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

It was only twenty minutes later, long after Amy had given her younger self a new ice cream, that things started to go wrong.

Surprisingly, there were no sudden fires breaking out, the stomping of Cybermen boots, or the robotic voices of the Daleks shrieking "EXTERMINATE!" There wasn't any trickery going on anywhere (unless you counted the fortune-telling booth, which the Doctor knew was a ton of rubbish). Nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. The Annual Leadworth Fair was quite peaceful, like its hometown usually was. People were laughing, kids were running all around carrying cotton candy, and the air reeked of a plethora of fried foods.

No, nothing was going wrong at the fair. It was back in the TARDIS.

The Doctor was standing beside Amy at a small craft stand, watching as she perused several handmade rope bracelets, bottle-cap earrings, and other homemade accessories. The girl behind the counter, a fourteen-year-old in a Girl Scout-type uniform, eyed their attire oddly, but didn't say anything so as not to ruin a possible sale. The Doctor was just wondering if he had any money stashed in this jacket in case Amy wanted to buy something when a sudden telepathic presence came into his head.

'Thief, you must get back to me now.'

The Doctor frowned. The TARDIS rarely communicated with him like this whenever he was out on an adventure. She only did it in real emergencies, and he couldn't remember the last time a big emergency had happened. 'What is it? What's wrong?'

'It's Ally. She's having an attack in her sleep.'

The TARDIS didn't need to say anything more. Within a split second, the Doctor had grabbed Amy's arm and was pulling her away from the stand. He dragged her along after him as he ran back to the TARDIS, parked in the shadow of a lawsuit-waiting-to-happen Ferris wheel.

"Doctor! Doctor!" Amy cried, tugging on his hand as he continued to force her to run after him. "What's going on?!"

"It's Alex," he said hurriedly. They were ten steps away from the TARDIS, ten steps too far, in the Doctor's opinion. "She's having another attack."

Amy's eyes widened and she immediately pulled away from him. She surged ahead to the TARDIS doors, which had automatically unlocked for this emergency. She sprinted up the steps leading to the platform, the Doctor already a quarter of the way up the stairs leading to the rest of the TARDIS. "I'll wake Rory!" she called to him as he ran down the hall.

The Doctor didn't bother to acknowledge her words, for he could now hear a sound that he truly, truly hated: Alex's bloodcurdling, agonized screams. They seemed amplified as they spilled out from behind her closed bedroom door to the hallway.

The Doctor skidded up to the door and shoved it open. He dove into the room as the door bounced off the wall from the force of its opening, nearly slamming shut. Not that the Doctor noticed. His attention was fully captivated by the terrifying sight before him.

Alex was in bed, writhing around uncontrollably. The duvet had been tossed to the floor due to her thrashing and the white sheets were currently tangled in knots around her legs. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her hands were scratching and clawing at whatever they came into contact with; the sheets, which already had several jagged fingernail marks in them, the nightstand, even her hair. Somehow, Alex had managed to tear quite a few brown-blonde strands out, spilling them onto the pillows, mattress, and the floor. Now, a hand reached up and clutched at her hair as she rolled over onto her back, her legs kicking and fighting against the restraint of the sheets.

"MAKE IT STOP!" she shrieked, tears of pain running down her face and into her mouth as she spoke. "IT HURTS!" A guttural scream tore itself out of her throat, echoing in the otherwise still air of the bedroom.

The Doctor sprang up onto the mattress. He planted his hands on her shoulders and began shaking her forcefully. "Ally, Ally, wake up!" he shouted. "Alex, wake up!"

"Alex!" Rory cried in alarm as he and Amy ran into the room. Rory dropped the ties on his red bathrobe that he'd been trying to work into a knot, and immediately ran to the other side of the bed. He climbed up onto the mattress and began shaking Alex as well. Amy stood off to the side, nervously biting her lip and looking on at her friend in terror.

"Alex, wake up! Wake up!" Rory begged.

"Ally, come on!" the Doctor yelled, his voice cracking as Alex's yells became louder. "ALEX! ALLY, WAKE UP!"

And then, as though some part of her subconscious could hear him, Alex's eyes burst open. They were neon green and hideous, but the Doctor had never been so delighted to see them. Alex continued shaking a little, but her hand dropped from her hair and her legs stilled. She looked around in panic, a hand going up to rest on her chest. She could feel the horrible, terrifying pain she'd been experiencing in her slumber slowly dying away, but that didn't make her feel any better. Then, much to her shame, she burst into tears.

The Doctor quickly settled himself next to her and gathered her up in his arms, pulling her back to rest against his chest. "Shh, it's okay," he soothed, his voice going low as he tried to calm her down. "Shh, love, it's okay, you're fine now, I promise." He planted a kiss to her sweaty brow as Amy and Rory hastily undid the sheet knots around her legs.

Alex clutched onto the Doctor tightly. Her nails, now jagged and torn from tearing at the sheets, dug into the soft fabric of his jacket. She shuddered as more tears fell and dribbled down her cheeks. "It . . . it hurt," she whimpered, her voice slightly hoarse from screaming. "S-so bad. . . It was a p-pain in my chest. . ." Then, as if this was too much for her to acknowledge, she shuddered again and buried her face in the Doctor's neck.

The Doctor rubbed a hand up and down her back, noting how her teal, long-sleeved shirt was plastered to her skin from sweat. "It's alright, love," he murmured into her hair, just as sweat-slicked as the rest of her. "Shh, everything's fine now, I promise."

"We need to get her to the med-bay," Rory said quietly, reminding the Doctor of his and Amy's presence.

Nodding at this statement, the Doctor carefully readjusted Alex a little before getting off the bed and carrying her out of the room. He mentally asked the TARDIS to move the med-bay closer to them, only to see the door directly in front of him swinging open, leading into the white-walled room. Murmuring a thank-you under his breath, he headed inside and placed Alex down on the bed.

While Rory set up the collapsible scanner at the foot of the bed and Amy hurried off to make a pot of tea, the Doctor attempted to pull out of Alex's grasp. But the brunette wasn't having any of it. Her grip on his jacket only grew tighter, and she made a sound of distress when he tried to pull away.

"Shh," the Doctor shushed. He ran a hand through her hair as he dragged a chair over to the bedside with his foot. "I'm not going anywhere, Ally, I promise." He settled into the chair, scooting it forward until it was practically touching the bed. He continued running a hand through Alex's hair while the other went up and grasped one of her own hands. He squeezed it and, after a moment, Alex squeezed back.

For the next several minutes, the Doctor watched Rory scan Alex and Amy bustle around worriedly with a tea-tray. She handed the men cups, but no one was drinking, a first for them in times of crisis. Throughout this, Alex lay wordlessly on the bed, her eyes going back and forth from the ceiling to the Doctor, as though unsure whether or not he was actually here. Every time he caught her glancing at him, the Doctor squeezed her hand in reassurance, though he knew it'd better help if he were holding her.

A minute later, Rory was examining the results. He frowned, his brow furrowing, and he shook his head. "Negative," he announced with barely-concealed frustration. "It says there's nothing wrong with her."

The Doctor swore under his breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive. You can look for yourself if you'd like, but it's negative."

"Are you sure that thing even works?" Amy asked from her position on the other side of the room. She was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed as she skeptically eyed the scanner.

"Yes!" the Doctor cried, outraged, though that was more from the fact that he hadn't considered that possibility himself than anything. "That's a top-of-the-line med-scanner from the planet Gradius. It makes Earth X-rays look like torch beams in comparison. Not to mention, but I updated the software. It should be working perfectly."

Rory sighed and switched the scanner off. "Well, unless you have any other scanners lying about, there's nothing else we can do."

The Doctor closed and rubbed his eyes. "No, there aren't any others." He sighed and clutched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger. "You two go on back to bed. There's nothing else we can do."

"You sure?" Amy checked.

"Yes. I can watch her. I do it every night, as you know, Pond."

Amy smiled slightly before pushing off the wall and heading over to the door. "Goodnight," she and Rory said together as they started out the door.

"Night," Alex said quietly.

The Doctor immediately turned to her. "Hey," he murmured, his hand automatically running through her hair again. "You alright now?"

"Physically, yes," Alex replied. "But emotionally and mentally? Not so much."

"That's what I thought." The Doctor stood and put his arms underneath her, ready to lift her again. "We'll just go back to your room so you can—"

"No!" Alex cried in alarm. The Doctor jumped a little at her interruption, and then stared at her curiously, waiting for her to elaborate. Her eyes met his, turning into his own dark green in a split second. "I don't want to sleep, I c-can't, I. . ." She trailed off and shivered. She really didn't want to try sleeping again anytime soon, not after she experienced that awful pain even while deeply snoozing.

"Okay." He moved down and planted a kiss on her forehead, his hands coming up to cradle her face. "Well, what do you want to do? We can do anything at all, love, whatever you want."

"Can we go to the library?" Alex requested. Lying in front of the fire with the man she loved would certainly help her calm down.

The Doctor nodded in agreement and quickly lifted her up and into his arms. Alex frowned a little. "Doc, you know I can still walk, right?"

"Yes, I know," he smiled. But he didn't make a move to put her down and Alex didn't object again.

It was only a short distance to the TARDIS library. Upon entering the room, Alex felt her relaxation level rise. She'd always been comfortable in libraries and this one was no exception. The TARDIS library was huge, at least two football fields long in length. The walls were a dark red that you could just make out in the perfectly dim light coming from the plethora of chandeliers overhead. Tall dark bookcases were a little further along in the room, packed with books in jewel-colored covers. Numerous leather club chairs were scattered around the room, floor lamps and dark cherry-wood desks and tables interspersed among these. On one side of the room was a large stone fireplace, a fire already roaring.

The Doctor carried Alex over to a couch sitting directly in front of the fire. He laid her out on it before motioning to lift her head up so he could sit down. Once he was seated, Alex laid her head back across his lap, her hair spilling over his trousers like a brown-blonde waterfall.

"Comfy?" he asked.

"Very comfy," Alex smiled. She pulled her legs up to her chest. She ran a nail down one of the lines on her teal, black, and white plaid sleep pants, trying not to think about the horrible pain she'd experienced just a little while ago.

The Doctor ran a hand through her hair, his eyes on hers. He watched as they slowly turned from dark green to copper. Alex's eyes were probably the most attractive thing about her . . . besides her lips, that is. And her legs. . . Don't go there, he mentally scolded himself. Not while Ally's ill.

Alex watched him watching her for a moment before her gaze drifted down to his white jacket. "Go to a party again?" she teased, running a finger over the white satin material.

"Possessed orchestra at a moon-base," he explained. "Also ran into River." Alex merely hummed in response. The Doctor hesitated before adding, "And Marilyn Monroe."

He didn't miss the way Alex tensed up, not in a pained way, but in a jealous-beyond-belief way. Her now topaz-colored eyes turned dark, and she glowered up at the ceiling. "Really?" she spat, her voice tight.

The Doctor winced and continued running his fingers through her hair, hoping that this action might calm her down. "Don't worry, I didn't marry her," he attempted to joke, but Alex didn't even crack a smile. She continued to glare up at the ceiling. Sighing, the Doctor reached down and put a finger under her chin, tilting her head up so that she had no choice but to look directly at him. "Ally, I know that we weren't . . . what we are now when we last met Marilyn but . . . I want you to know that even then, she meant nothing to me. I really didn't want to marry her, I swear."

"I believe you." Alex granted him a small smile. "I do, I really do. It's just. . ." She trailed off. For a moment, the Doctor thought she wasn't going to say anything else, but then she surprised him by heaving herself up into a sitting position, then scooting backwards until she was seated on his lap.

"It's just," she tried again as his arms wrapped around her waist, "I . . . I don't like thinking about you with other women. It . . . it makes my skin crawl and my blood pound just imagining them kissing you or touching you." Alex winced. "You know me, Doc. I get jealous way too easily."

"I know." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But if it helps, I don't like thinking about you with other men either."

Alex burst out giggling. "Oh yeah, you're very subtle about that!"

The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle along with her. "Well, you don't have to worry about Marilyn Monroe anymore," he said, placing a hand on her upper thigh as he spoke. Alex did her best to concentrate on listening to him instead of thinking how if the fabric of her pajama pants wasn't in the way, he'd be touching bare skin. "She was delivering a message to me via River. When she saw me. . ." Now it was his turn to wince. "Let's just say she wasn't very happy to see me."

Alex flashbacked to the phone-call conversation she'd had with Marilyn when she was trying to push her away from the Doctor. She bit down on her lip in an effort to keep up an innocent act. "Really?" she said, trying to act surprised.

Luckily for her, the Doctor was too absorbed in remembering his latest interaction with Marilyn to really notice that she knew something he didn't. "Yeah, she kept shooting glares at me every five seconds. Oh! I almost forgot. She asked about you."

Alex bit down harder on her lip. "Oh?" she managed to choke out without laughing. She could just imagine what Marilyn had been thinking in that moment. "What'd she say?"

"'How's Alex?' Although, she more spat it than said it."

That did it. Even though she tried, Alex could no longer hold back her laughter. She burst into a mad fit of snickering and giggling, flopping back over the armrest. The Doctor stared at her, slightly alarmed by this sudden switch in mood. His baffled expression only served to make Alex laugh harder. She clutched her sides as she continued to cackle.

"What are you laughing about?" the Doctor demanded. He then became aware of a fast hum sounding through the walls. It sounded like the TARDIS was having a laugh too. He stared around the room, bewildered. "Seriously, what is so funny?"

Alex rose back up and placed a hand over her mouth to control her laughter. Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, she lowered her hand and smiled at the Doctor. "I know why Marilyn Monroe was so angry at you."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "You do?"

Alex nodded. She wondered just how he was going to react when she told him about the phone conversation she'd had with the actress. "Yeah. Um, do you remember when Marilyn called the TARDIS phone after we saved Amy and Rory's ship from crashing, and I said I'd handle it?"

"Yes. . ."

"Well, I went in and asked her what she wanted and . . . she said you." She smiled sheepishly. "You can probably guess how I felt about that and so I decided to . . . do something to her."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"I . . . may have asked her to be done with you by eleven and when she asked why, I may have told her all that denying we're a couple and flirting with other people was foreplay."

The Doctor's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "FOREPLAY?!" he shouted.

"Yeah," Alex confirmed quietly. "And that's not all. I also said, and I quote, 'all of that jealousy we get when we see or hear about the other with someone else, it makes the sex that much hotter, steamier, and incredible. My husband comes up with some pretty fantastic ideas'."

The Doctor closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. For a moment, Alex worried he was mad at her and was getting ready to tell her off, but then she saw that his shoulders were shaking and his lips were tightly pursed. He wasn't mad at her. He was laughing.

"Doc?"

The Doctor pressed his head against the back of the couch. He opened his eyes. They were watery from the tears of laughter threatening to spill over. "I can't believe you told her that!" he gasped out before exploding into a bunch of laughter.

His amusement seemed to be contagious for Alex found herself laughing hysterically alongside him. "Believe it, baby," she said in a wispy voice in an attempt to imitate the bottle-blonde actress. This launched the Doctor into another round of cackling, Alex giggling right alongside him.

"Do you wanna know what she said after I told her all that?" Alex asked once they managed to calm down.

The Doctor took a deep breath before nodding. He just knew that this next part would amuse him just as much, if not more, than the previous parts. "Shoot."

Alex smiled mischievously at him as she repeated, "Ew! That's sick! You people are disgusting! Forget it! Go play your sick games elsewhere!" Sure enough, the Doctor burst out laughing again. Alex continued smiling as she rested her head on his shoulder, watching him cackle.

"I should probably scold you about letting your jealousy get the better of you," the Doctor commented once he managed to calm down again.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead then."

The Doctor turned his head so he was properly facing her. He reached out and placed a finger on her nose. "Don't let your jealousy get the better of you," he mock-scolded, punctuating each word with a tap on her nose.

Alex giggled and playfully swatted his hand away. "There's a nice example of the pot calling the kettle black."

He shrugged. "Perhaps."

"No 'perhaps' about it." Alex reached up and tapped his nose as she said, "You get jealous, too."

The Doctor growled lowly in his throat, making Alex want to kiss the living daylights out of him even more than she already wanted to. "Damn right," he agreed as he grabbed her finger and lowered it. He held it in his grasp and studied it with the kind of interest he usually gave life-forms he'd never encountered before. "You should be careful where you tap this," he warned. "Never know what might happen."

Alex arched an eyebrow, sensing that they were now entering high-level flirting. And boy, did she enjoy this kind of flirting. "Like what?" she asked, making her voice sound innocent and naïve, something she knew would drive the Doctor wild.

She wasn't disappointed. In an instant, the Doctor had her finger in his mouth. He sucked at the tip of it as Alex's heart sped up, a fresh load of adrenaline running through her system at wildfire speed. Her eyes darkened as he swirled his tongue along the sides of her finger before abruptly pulling it out of his mouth. "Like that."

Alex didn't bother trying to formulate a witty reply. Instead, she swooped down and pressed her lips to his. This seemed to be the reaction he'd been expecting, for the Doctor's hands immediately traveled to her hips, maneuvering her until she was straddling him. Alex let out a sound similar to a purr at this new movement, the Doctor swallowing it as he forced her mouth open with his tongue.

He swept inside, running it around every inch of her mouth before he pulled back to allow her to breathe. "You know," he smirked as Alex panted, "this isn't really helping you relax."

Alex stopped panting and laughed a little. She settled back until she was seated on her haunches. "Really? Let's see." She tilted her head in consideration. "Relaxing . . . or kissing you for God knows how long?" She smirked. "No contest really."

The Doctor chuckled and pulled her back to his lips. He groaned delightedly as her body melded into his, her lips entwining with his in a slow burn of a kiss, as they allowed the night to pass them by.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

A/N: Fluffity fluffy fluff! I had so much writing the part where the Doctor learns what really happened between Alex and Marilyn in the phone call at the end of 'A Christmas Carol'. I figured he should find out and that it would make for some great comedy. :)

Sorry about the lack of update yesterday. My family and I are vacationing in Charleston, SC and we went all around exploring, Fort Sumter is AMAZING! It gave me an idea for another place where we might see Daffy and Liv working at some point in the future. :)

Notes on reviews (from original version of chapter 20). . .

Guest - I'm not sure how you mean by 'ruining it for you' so I'm just gonna say if you don't like Daffy, that's fine. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. :)

NicoleR85 - So glad you liked the chapter and the surprise ending! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)

Sam Fraser - It will be interesting when Alex learns about the War Doctor. I've planned exactly when that moment occurs, and I can go ahead and tease that it will be before 'The Day of the Doctor'. :) That's an interesting opinion. I personally don't agree, but to each their own! :) Lol, I agree, it will be fun to see people's reactions when Daffy is properly introduced. :)

bored411 - Yep, stuff's happening that upsets even Daffy. I can't wait to reveal how things work out either. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)

ShadowTeir - Lol, I'm glad to hear I made you speechless! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)

TheBlueRiver - They do! So much fluff and some baby-making! I'm SO happy to be back too! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)