M - R
A/N; Soooo....this took a bitch-ass long time to write. XP Does not approve. But hey, at least its finally done.
All letters are PG - 13
except for "N" which has been moved to the very end of the fic & then placed under it's own separate LJ-CUT OH NEVER MIND STUPID LJ! I can't do two lj-cuts...blfffsjfsl....
Alright, fine. I made it so there is adult content. I'm miffed. I wanted to be clever.
Enjoy the fic. I love you.
click to read A-F
click to read G-L
- 11 -
Memory - the act or power of remembering.
The Doctor turns the gem over in his hand. He knows why Bridget gave this gem to Amy. It's special, different, and it's just what she needs. Amy Pond needs to remember.
She deserves to remember.
He's thought about what she might do once she remembers. She might leave and the darker parts of him cackle in amusement at the fact that he will break if she leaves. Yes, he'll do the right thing, give her a smile and a hug and tell her to take care. But, once she's gone, he'll feel her absence like a flame too close to his skin. He'll travel with others, but none, none will or can compare with Amelia Pond.
When he regenerated, he was so painfully alone, nobody in the TARDIS, just him and this new strange body. She was the very first person he met. A mystery with red hair and a Scottish accent in an English village. Without even knowing it, Amelia Pond had shaped him and continues to do so.
He can't bare to think of her as a solider like Martha and Rose. He could never wipe her memory like he had to with Donna. He can't lose her. He needs Amy Pond.
He wants her in the worst way, the most selfish way, he wants Amy Pond for his own and in his darkest dreams she is his. But, that's wrong, very wrong, and foolish to think like that. (Yet, he can't help it). This affection for her, this great big ball of stuff that he feels towards her, will be the death of him. The Doctor runs his fingers across the gem. It's rough but, it shimmers brightly in the firelight. It was birthed from the heart of the volcano and crafted from the high priestess's hands. He examines the gem at a different angle. The TARDIS shows him that Amy is in the kitchen making tea and he sighs, too much time alone makes him think too much. He pockets the gem, makes way for the kitchen and he can hear the kettle purring.
“Doctor~” Her voice is so airy and light, it makes him smile.“Would you like some tea?” She reaches up into the cupboard to find another teacup.
“Amy.” He takes her wrist and Amy's pulse does a little jump. “Do you remember why Bridget gave you this?” He asks as he places the gem into the palm of her hand.
Amy blinks, looking down at it, “She said it was to remember them and to give strength on a journey to come, why?”
“This gem is special, Amy. It's important...so important...” He encloses her fingers around it with his hand on top of her own, Amy looks up to meet his intense gaze and her throat goes dry. “It'll help you remember.”
“Remember what?”
The Doctor walks away and she can hear a cloister bell, typical-he's back to fixing his motor. Amy opens her hand to look at the roughly cut gem, “Remember what?” She repeats in a whisper.
Amy is sitting on the floor of his study with the gem in her hand and the Doctor is lying beside her (asleep). He said he wasn't tired, said he didn't need to sleep, but then he started reading some book and then bam! Out like a light. Amy looks at the gem with one eye closed and holds it up. She doesn't know what he wants her to remember so badly. She also doesn't know how this gem is going to help at all. Amy sneaks a glance at the Doctor, he looks so young...and his breath is hitting her knee.
She sets the gem down and situates herself next to him, their shoulder's touching and his face turned towards her cheek. Amy stares at the shadows the fire makes on the ceiling, listens to the sound of all the clocks, and closes her eyes. It's not that she's tired...she's just trying to remember.
When he first arrived, she was seven, and her aunt Sharon wasn't home. When he came back, she was home alone. It had always been just the two of them.
The Doctor and Amy Pond.
She feels his fingers lace with her own and Amy turns her head, but he's still sleeping-or just really good at pretending.
“I don't know what you want me to remember.”
His green eyes open and they look so ancient, it's amazing that Amy ever thought he looked young.
“That's okay.” He sits up and pulls her to her feet “You will.”
Amy holds the gem near her lamp and squints at it. Her hair is still damp from the shower she just took and she's in her nightie. There's no way they're going on any adventures right now. The Doctor would have to tell her something very clever and very impressive to get her to leave this room.
That's when there's a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Amy asks in a sing-song voice. She drops the gem onto her bed.
“What kind of question is that?!” The Doctor says from the other side of the door. Amy laughs, resting her palms on the wood.
“An honest one, what if I wasn't decent?”
The Doctor makes this noise between a yelp and a grunt. She faintly hears him clear his throat before speaking. “Are you decent, Pond?”
“I'm in my nightie, but you've seen that before.”
She hears him shuffle his feet, she can imagine him trying to make up his mind if he should stay or go and just bother her at another time. Amy opens the door, a tiny, secret part of her wants the Doctor to stumble forward and kiss her. Why else would he show up at this time? It's hardly proper.
“The gem needs fire.”
Oh, of course. He doesn't make any move to pass the threshold of her room.
“Can this wait?”
“Amy...this is important, so, so very important.” It's important that you have your memories of Rory, important so that you can make the choice to stay or leave, important because he deserves to be grieved and he deserves to be remembered.
The Doctor stands back as Amy crouches near the fire. She holds the gem in her hands for a moment before tossing it into the orange flames. It sparks and hisses but, Amy can't tear her eyes away. The fire changes to a blood red-orange...then the gem starts to melt and turns to pink ash at the bottom of the flames. She sucks in a ragged breath, slightly surprised at the tears in her eyes and then;
Amy remembers Rory.
She doesn't even know when the Doctor came to her side. Amy reaches out for him and the Doctor collects her in his arms in a tight, warm hug. The fire is reduced to ash by the time Amy speaks.
“I want you to take me somewhere...”
“Anywhere, Amy.” He answers automatically.
They put the fire's ashes into a jar and it's a convoluted mess of black, pink, and red. Amy wraps her scarf around the jar to keep it safe. They go to Rio, at the top of a waterfall, where they can see all the wilderness beneath them. Amy feels like she's on top of the world.
Amy unwinds her scarf from around the jar as she stands at the very edge of the cliff. There is so much green and blue surrounding her, the roaring waterfall, the cries of birds overhead, and it's just so perfect. Rory would have liked it. The Doctor holds her scarf as she unscrews the cap on the jar and a little puff of ashes escape into the air.
“Rory...” her voice breaks “You were great, you really were. Noble, brave--sometimes, caring, hardworking...you were there when nobody else was. Don't worry about me, yeah? I'll be with the Doctor and we always manage to get in and out of trouble...” Amy blinks back her tears. She's never been great at this. Amy can't find anymore words to say because they're all stuck in her throat. She tosses the jar forward and its contents spill out into the air. They watch it; pink, black, and red twirl into the air, up to the sky and down into the waterfall.
“Bye, Rory.”
The Doctor takes her hand and stays right there until she voices that she's ready to go back to the TARDIS. It hurts...the loss of Rory, it hurts so fiercely, Amy wonders if she'll split in two. This pain is better, though. There are two people in the whole universe who remember a man named Rory Williams. A man who she loved and lost. The Doctor returns her engagement ring and it now has it's place on her nightstand.
Ointment - substance used on the skin to heal or soothe wounds.
Amy doesn't just remember the bad, the death of Rory. She remembers the good, the funny, and the awkward. The way he dropped the ring when he proposed. The way he always managed to burn the toast in the morning. How they used to play dress up as kids. How happy he was when he got the job at the Hospital, and how he had said “I'll be a proper doctor.”
She cries. Not in front of the Doctor, oh no. But when she is alone in her room in the TARDIS, Amy will stare at her engagement ring and furiously wipe away her tears. The TARDIS hums to her and makes sure to have her favorite snacks tucked away in the kitchen.
The Doctor takes her to magnificent places. It's only then, when she's seeing new planets and running for her life, does she feel alive. Amy laughs, puts on a smile, and enjoys their adventures completely. Honest, this is the life she had dreamed of since she was seven. It's just taking so damn long for the healing to start.
The Doctor watches her, carefully, and keeps taking her to places and times in history that she'll like. It's the only thing he can do. He found her once in the Library with her face in her hands and a book open on the floor.
Do you talk to girls when they're crying? He has absolutely no idea.
He's bouncing around the console and Amy comes skipping down the steps. “Where we off to now, Doctor?”
“Ohhh, you'll have to wait and see!”
Amy raises an eyebrow, “That means you have no idea...”
The Doctor looks at her, flabbergasted, “I know exactly where I am going, Pond!”
It's the first time in weeks that they exchanged playful banter. The Doctor can feel the Amy Pond he knew resurfacing from the grief. But, he won't push her or expect her to run from sadness like he does. He can be patient. Really, he can.
The white flowers sway in the breeze, the buildings are all pastel ruins, and the sun is high in the lavender sky. Amy is reminded of ancient Greece and she makes a mental note to ask the Doctor if they can go there.
They investigate the ruins because the Doctor is looking for a creature that's not supposed to be here. Amy runs her fingers along the marble-like surfaces and feels an overwhelming sense of peace coming over her. She can hear the sonic but isn't paying attention. Amy is walking forward, being called by some unknown force and she knows the rule; don't wander off! But where's the fun in staying put?
“We're going to have to hurry!” The Doctor says, somewhere behind her, “Darkness falls quickly on this planet!”
Amy feels the stone beneath her feet give way and she lets out an alarmed gasp as she suddenly tumbles with the pastel colored stones. Amy lands on a surprisingly soft surface, coughing, white dust surrounding her and her eyes blink rapidly trying to take in the site around her.
“Amy!” The Doctor calls from above and she looks up but can't see his face. How far did she fall?
“I'm alright!” Amy yells back, her voice echoing. She looks down at the marshmallow type floor and does a small jump, her feet instantly absorbing the shock. Well, alright. This isn't some kind of trap...otherwise I'd break all my bones from that fall.
The Doctor puts the sonic in his pocket giving a last look at the ruins before he takes the plunge. “Geronimo!”
Amy takes two steps before she hears the Doctor land behind her, sputtering and then exclaiming how brilliant the floor is. He bounces for a little bit, uses his sonic on it and examines the results. “Brilliant! Just...Oh how I love new planets.”
His eyes move to Amy and he sees her standing near a crystallized statue of a monk. There's an altar in the cave, a glowing white slab in the middle of all the statues. She turns to look at him, “They're people. Frozen...” Her eyes go back to the monks' face. He's a cherubic looking man with a pleasant smile on his face.
The Doctor holds his sonic to the monk and then glances at the device, “He's nearly as old as I am!”
Amy sees different faces all around the cave, men, women, elderly and young. No children. All of them held the same pleasant smile on their face.
The Doctor lets out a cry of joy when he sees what is sitting on the altar. It's the creature he was looking for. It looks like an albino porcupine and made a soft humming noise.
“Doctor, can we un-freeze them?”
“Oh, no. They'd be very upset if we did that.”
“Why?”
“It's tradition. Once every thousand years, thirty two people come to the ruins and allow themselves to be frozen like this. It's a religious thing. They think it gets them closer to their gods...” He shrugs, busy examining the creature on the altar with his sonic. It's sleeping. Harmless. The Doctor carefully picks it up and then gives a yelp of pain.
Amy spins around and catches sight of the porcupine alien thing scurry off. The Doctor his holding his arms around his stomach. His face is ghostly pale.
“Doctor?” She grabs him by the shoulders and gives him a firm shake to wake him up.
“I'll be fine...we gotta get that thing.”
“What is it?” Amy nearly hisses.
“It's a very dangerous creature, just c'mon, I'll explain later!” And that's when the running starts.
Mr. Albino Porcupine is an expert at hide and seek. The cave isn't large but it is littered with gifts, little statuettes, wilted flowers, jewelry and a dozen other things. Amy manages to catch the creature by throwing a blanket over it.
“Brilliant, Pond! How did you know they were blind?” The Doctor says as he crouches down and lulls the creature back into it's stasis with a low frequency on his sonic.
Amy smiles, “Oh...you know. Time traveler intuition.”
He grins at her.
They drop off the creature to its rightful planet and it sleeps under a large black and blue tree. “It was hibernating and I disrupted it...that's why it attacked.” He explains before shutting the door to the TARDIS. Amy's brow furrows as she looks at the Doctor. His face is still pale as ever, his eyes lacking the luster they usually held, and his boyish grins looks more forced than anything else. His hands tremble.
“C'mon.” She grabs him by the arm and drags him to the medical bay.
“It'll pass, Pond.” He tells her but she just shoves him into a chair. She rummages though the cupboards until she finds what she thinks might help. It's a small jar of a baby blue colored ointment. She reads the back, “Did it poison you?”
“In a way, yes. The defense mechanism of the creature is to leave it's attacker crippled. Think of a snake bite...” He waves his hand a little, “Not so effective on Time Lords.”
“So this stuff should help, yeah?” Amy holds up the jar and the Doctor just gives a weak nod.
It's not at all unpleasant to see the Doctor half-dressed. She sets his shirt and bowtie on the table next to them and scrutinizes the small puncture marks on his stomach. The skin is tinged pink, obviously irritated, but he isn't bleeding. The Doctor squirms when Amy places the first dollop of ointment onto his skin.
“Sorry, forgot to mention that it was kinda cold.”
He just gives her a small smirk and then looks away.
The Doctor doesn't say anything, doesn't demand that he can do it himself, or shove Amy's hands away. That darker side of him is smiling, enjoying the feel of her touch, embracing it and savoring it. The good side of the Doctor, the proper side, is wondering when she'll be done and calculating how long those frozen people had been in that cave and if it was the right thing to walk away. Maybe he should go back on the one-thousandth year and see if they've been released.
Amy is focusing. She is most defiantly not giving tiny smiles of delight when his stomach muscles contract or the way his breath hitches when her fingers barely touch his skin.
“All set.” The redness has faded and she can see the color coming back into the Doctor's face.
“Good work, Pond. Now I see why you were once a nurse.” He says as he straightens his collar and Amy lightly hits his shoulder.
“Oh! Shut up you!”
Portal - a magical or technological doorway that connects two distant locations
He didn't mean to land here. Oh well. All part of the adventure, right? Amy grabs the note from her nightstand, the one with the symbols and letters that made no sense that she just happened to find one day. She tucks it into the pocket of her jacket and joins the Doctor at the doors of the TARDIS.
“Ready, Pond?”
They just share an excited grin.
They are fighting over the sky. The planet they once visited before. The one with the changing lights in the sky, the sky so beautiful, so vibrant, and these two races are fighting over who should own it. The fight is between the centaur and the griffins.
The centaurs are violent, rash, argumentative creatures. At least on this planet, anyways. They demand Amy and the Doctor reveal their true identities as spies. The Doctor assures them, with charm and physic paper, that he and Amy are not spies. The centaurs fight with arrows and their accuracy is stunning. They are also building something, a weapon, “It'll win the war, Doctor. It will end the war and we shall own the sky.”
“But why? Why own the sky? Certainty it's big enough to share!” The Doctor's argument falls on deaf ears. Before Amy and the Doctor can find this weapon and destroy it...
The camp is ambushed by the opposing force and Amy and the Doctor are captured. Once again, the griffins assume Amy and the Doctor are allies of the centaurs. (Seriously, why doesn't anyone trust that they're just travelers? )
The griffins have feathers of gold and white. They are quiet, yet fearsome, their talons and beaks tearing apart a stone fortress in merely seconds. They don't say much but they at least tell Amy and the Doctor why there is a war of the sky.
“Our sky is our portal. We can travel using the sky to different planets using it. The centaurs are envious of our flight, they say we cannot have the sky for our own, and they wish to tear it down if they cannot own it.” The griffins' leader is at least seven feet tall perched on the ground. His feathers are deep blue and gold.
“They spoke of a weapon. Something that would win them the war.” The Doctor says, his voice grim and his face stony.
The griffin leader just nods slowly.
“It's designed to suck in the partials of the sky, a foolish attempt to bring the sky to them, they will only end up destroying us both. My kind...” The leader turns his head to see the small griffin babies prancing around, playing with each other like lion cubs. “We need the sky to live. When the sky eventually fades, we will have left this planet, in search of another with the proper climate and chemicals to allow us to continue living.”
“Destroying the sky, destroys you. This isn't just a territory war. It's personal.” The weight in the Doctor's voice made Amy wonder how many wars he's seen.
Amy's eyes haven't moved from the griffin cubs.
“You arrived before on this planet, Doctor. You had the codes, the proper equations to destroy the weapon, but you had to run. You had a different face.”
The Doctor's slapped his forehead, “Of course! I just...” don't remember where I put that piece of paper.
The leader lowered his head, his large eyes studying Amy and the Doctor, “If you cannot save us. Who will?”
That's when Amy pulls the paper from her pocket and a small grin plays on her lips, the paper is folded between her two fingers and she holds it in front of the Doctor's face.
“We have a weapon to stop, now don't we?”
His grin is contagious. He kisses her forehead, “Pond! You are marvelous!”
The griffin can sense the affection coming from the Doctor to his companion. Yet, he says nothing.
The centaurs are furious. They fire their arrows upon the Doctor and Amy as they run through the trees, hooves pounding the ground behind them. The Doctor walked into their fortress, with Amy and a griffin by his side, saying the centaurs must negotiate or what falls upon them will be their own doing. The centaurs were stubborn and while they argued with each other and the griffin who came along. Amy and the Doctor found the weapon and destroyed it. It looked like a medieval canon but with more wires and lights and “dangerous beeping noises” as the Doctor said.
“Do they ever stop fighting?” Amy asks when they've shut the TARDIS doors. He's leaning against the door beside her, breathing heavily, and his eyes are terribly sad.
“No.”
She's waiting for more to be explained.
“The sky burns out. The griffins use the sky as a portal, escape, possibly find a new world...”
“And the centaurs?”
His silence is all the answer she needs.
The Doctor walks away but Amy grabs his arm rather violent. “Go back.”
He stares at her, “Amy, I can't just go back...”
“Then go forward! Save them! We have to. Even if they were creating a weapon to destroy the very planet they lived on, they deserve a second chance, don't they? A chance to learn from their mistakes...”
The Doctor can't save everyone. But, he tries. They return to the planet on the eve of the sky's death. He tries to convince the centaurs that he's only trying to help, if they'll let them. He even goes so far to invite them onto the TARDIS. They are stubborn and hold their grudges. Their bows never stop being drawn and pointed at Amy and the Doctor. He tries to tell them that he can create a portal, one to use like the griffins do, but they say he's lying.
Amy looks up to see the griffins flying into the sky and disappearing into the colors.
She sees the colors start to fade and feels the Doctor's hand entwine his fingers with her own.
“Please, just listen to me! The sky is fading, that's why the griffins are retreating!”
“Nonsense! WE HAVE WON THE WAR!” The centaurs give a roar of approval and excitement.
The sky is black by the time Amy and the Doctor are pushed back into the TARDIS and banned from a planet that will soon crumble.
“I'll go and make you something to eat...” The Doctor says, clasping his hands together, “You must be starving after such a topsy-turvy trip!”
She knows he's trying to lighten the mood. It works, “You can cook?”
“Don't sound so surprised!”
The Doctor is already up the stairs and heading for the kitchen.
Quixotic - extravagantly and romantically chivalrous ; idealistic
She tells him how she liked to study Romans in school and so he takes her to see them, the Romans, in their prime. What they both weren't expecting was Amy to be flirted with by nearly every soldier. To be frank, it's grinding on the Doctor's nerves. Really, there is no need for any of that!
Amy is Amy. So Amy flirts back.
She accepts flowers from a nice Roman boy, accepts a drawing from one of the soldiers, another crafts a poem, some go even as far to ask if she's currently married and even the emperor invites them to dinner.
The Doctor can't regret the trip too much-since Amy is smiling and having a good time.
One of the senators makes a toast to their guests and that's when the Doctor sees River. He jumps from his chair, “Ah, right sorry.” High ranking officials stare at him, “Gotta run.”
Amy looks at him, curiously, but she's enjoying the wine and the company too much to jump to her feet as well. Romans. Actual Romans. It's hard to pass it up; hot Italian men in armor.
“River.”
“Doctor.”
They stare at each other, “Where's Amy?”
The Doctor grins, “Dining with Romans.”
River consults her notebook and takes a step back when he tries to peek. “Spoilers.” She gives him a smile, but does drop a small hint; “Amelia Pond is up there and she's surrounded by Romans. I think history can take it...”
The Doctor frowns at her enigmatic words.
“Go and get her.”
There's a clamor from inside the palace and there's no time for more of River's riddles. The two go down different paths, but the Doctor knows he'll see River again.
The Doctor returns to the dining hall to find that everyone is standing and there's a Roman on the floor, clutching his stomach, and Amelia Pond is standing there with a livid expression. The guards help him to his feet and drag the man away.
“This woman stopped an assassination!” The emperor boasts, raising his glass.
Amy looks at the Doctor, “I did?”
The Doctor's bewildered expression matches her own. Amy had only socked the guy in the gut after he put his hand where it was not allowed while helping her from her chair. Then there was a big commotion and the man helping Amy had dropped a dagger hidden beneath his robes. The Doctor wonders if this will end up in the history books.
They stroll through the gardens, arm in arm, with Amy giggling at his ridiculous stories. True stories. Stories of adventures he's already had.
“So, you were actually knighted and banned on the same evening?”
“Yup.”
“And you fought off them off with a water pistol?”
“Well, to be fair, it was only one...” He grins, “But yes, I did.”
Amy rests her head on his shoulder, grinning, and walking along the moonlit path. “Why did you jump like that at dinner?”
“I saw River.”
Something twists in Amy's gut. There was still a part of her that wondered if River was the Doctor's future wife. If she was, what did that mean for Amy? Was she just some distraction, some plaything until the Doctor's time-line sorted itself out? She wasn't the person the Doctor tells everything to. He trusts her, she knows that, she feels that, and he cares about her enough to want her to remember Rory and she can feel the chemistry between them. Come to think of it, he's been rather...different...since she remembered Rory. A little more restrained, putting more distance between them, keeping her away so that she can grieve and mourn...
He's treating her like glass.
Amy doesn't like it.
He stops walking, uneasy with Amy's silence, and curiously stares down at her. “What? What is it? Am I missing something? Why am I always missing something?! Wait, no I'm not...”
“Doctor...” The moonlight illuminates her face in a soft, ethereal glow.
“Yes?”
“Shut up.” She grabs the lapels of his tweed jacket and pulls his mouth to her own. By the way he kisses her back, Amy forgets about River and her possibility of being his wife. After all, that's the future and this is now-and it's the now that really matters anyways.
Requiem - a song/hymn preformed to remember the desceased
Amy returns to Leadworth for more clothes and a some stuff she wants to bring onto the TARDIS. He keeps the TARDIS in her backyard and waits for her. She returns with a suitcase in each hand, “I know the wardrobe has plenty of clothes...”
“It's fine, come along, we are wasting time!” He grins, but she notices something different about his eyes. She notices it from time to time when he's remembering someone or something. This time, the held humor and sadness, and Amy places her suitcases on the TARDIS floor.
“You ain't mating with me, sunshine!”
“What was her name?” He wants to praise her on her keen awareness of him but, at the same time; is it really a good thing that she knows him and can read him this well?
“Donna.” He flips a switch, not seeing the point in lying about it, “Donna Noble. She carried her whole wardrobe in the back of her car just in case she would run into me again.”
Amy smiles, joining him by the console, “And she did.”
“Yep.” The sadness has been chased away from his eyes, “Where are we off to now, Pond?”
He doesn't tell her about every companion. Not until they visit a planet where your thoughts manifest into actual beings. But, they are only shells, like ghosts. Amy thinks about cherry pie and then there it is, floating in front of her, but when she touches it-it disappears. They sit down on a bench, the sky cloudy and overcast above them, and the living creatures walking with their thoughts trailing behind them.
The Doctor just leans back and then people manifest before them, he tells her bits and pieces, things they saw, their names, and where they were now...
By the end of it, Amy's head felt dizzy from all the faces she had seen. He didn't dance over their fates, he was rather blunt about it actually, but he spoke fondly of them all. So many of them had simply grown-up, moved on, chose to leave...others were forced...others died. Amy turns, seeing his face and it's strange angles, his large chin, deep-set eyes, his floppy hair and his boyish smile. A young man's face with an old man's soul. A man bearing the weight of nine-hundred years worth of memories.
Music begins to play over their heads and the faces vanish. The Doctor explains that it's a physic field that creates the images, but they worry that their race will become to focused on their fantasies and not focus on the present. The music silences the thought patterns. It's a sad, deep, mournful song-Amy wants to cover her ears. Instead, she nudges the Doctor's shoulder with her own.
“Can you promise me something?
“Hm?” He's listening.
“When our time is up-oi don't make that face!”
He puts on a grin to replace the frown that pulled at his lips without him realizing it.
“I want you to go back to Leadworth, to my room.”
“Why?”
“Can you promise me that?”
“'Course Amy...'course.”
“Good.” Amy hops to her feet and takes the Doctor's hands with her own, tugging him up from the bench, and he stumbles into a hug. Amy buries her nose in the scratchy fabric of his jacket, breathing in his warm scent.
“Let's go.” He mummers breaking the tender embrace.
After all, they've got all of time and space to explore...
Need - something required ; to want strongly
It was entirely her fault, you know. Amy went into the library and to her luck, the swimming pool was open and ready for her. He had found some new and fascinating thing, he wasn't sure what it did yet, but it made 'bing' noises when he pointed it at stuff. It wasn't his timey-wimey detector. This was something new, something old, something he had forgotten about or misplaced. He ran into the library to show Amy and he dropped the device onto his foot. A short curse escapes his mouth.
Amy Pond was the most graceful creature he had ever seen. The Doctor chokes on his words as Amy resurfaces. “Amy!” He searches his brain to find something to say, something to tell her, “I found your favorite book!” She just blinks at him.
“You know...your...ah...just nevermind...” He lost his words when she pulled herself out of the water.
“Which one?” Amy asks, searching for the towel that she could have sworn she left by the beanbag chair.
“Pandora's box.” A smile spreads across her face. He knows it was her favorite fairy-tale from her childhood. Amy Pond is his favorite fairy-tale. Period. He goes down one of the aisle to find it for her, not expecting Amy to follow him, but she does. She catches his arm mid-stride and asks him one simple question, “You really don't know where it is, do you?”
She's right. She could see right through his quickly-created bluff. He does the first thing that comes to mind when he sees Amy looking at him like that.
The Doctor cups the side of her face as he kisses her. Amy wants this, wants him, all of it. She clings to his jacket and presses herself against him, urging him. Her back bumps into the shelf and a few books fall to the floor. They go unnoticed by the two time travelers. “Come with me.” He whispers as his lips part from hers. He takes her hand to lead the way and Amy doesn't regret a single step.
It's an observatory. Amy isn't even sure if there is glass above their heads. The carpet is plush beneath her feet and that's when Amy realizes; “I'm soaking wet!”
“Yes, you are.” He lets go of her hand and sits in the middle of the circular room. Amy joins him after a half-second internal debate. He points to various constellations, tells her where a handful of planets are, tells her where Earth is (very, very far) and while she listens; her hunger for him is subdued.
His hand rests on the small of her back and he walks his fingers up her spine. “If only I could show you them all, Amy...” He says, softly.
“Time machine.” She reminds him, tilting her head towards his. She knows that isn't what he meant. The Doctor holds her gaze and his nose brushes against hers. Their kiss is slow and soft, full of tenderness and unspoken words, full of planets not-yet-traveled and stars not-yet-seen.
Her hands curl around his braces and he leans into her, their kiss smoldering like the sun. He wouldn't tell her, but in kissing her, the Doctor can taste every year she's lived. It's a bit of a head rush, actually. She's unlike anything else, she tastes like adventure-don't ask him how it's possible, she's the one who tastes like it.
The Doctor breaks the kiss and his lips move to her throat. He places an open-mouthed kiss to her pulse point and Amy tugs his floppy, chestnut brown hair in response.
“Amy, are you sure about this?” He asks, leveling his eyes with hers. Amy can't believe he's asking a question like that at a time like this.
“Why are you asking?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow, and then an epiphany hits her;“Oh! Can Time Lords not do it? Is that why you said it's been awhile?”
He looks slightly offended for a second, “What? Time Lords are fully-that's not the point! I'm asking because I need to know, Amy. After everything you have been through...”
It's an explanation she should have expected (because it's so very Doctor).
“You know what it's like to lose someone, yeah?”
He just nods.
“And you know how it feels to move on?”
He nods again.
“I want this, Doctor...” Amy holds his face in her hands and kisses him, it's brief, because she wants to say one last thing; “I want you.” God, that sounded lame, didn't it? The Doctor doesn't seem to mind because he's kissing her with such enthusiasm it's making her head spin and yeah, it's a little sloppy but Amy doesn't care. She tunnels her fingers through his hair.
“Oh, Amy...” He sighs into her hair, his hands exploring her skin greedily. If he keeps doing that, Amy is going to have a difficult time getting his shirt off, her fingers are already shaking as it is! Her breath hitches as his fingers ghost over a sensitive spot before he takes off her bathing suit top. Amy manages to get his bow tie off, at least.
“Doctor,” Her voice is low, husky but there's humor there “I'm not sure how Time Lords shag, but humans usually have their clothes off.”
It's messy; between kisses and Amy distracting him, and she broke one of his braces. He tried to scold her about that but, he decided to save it for another time. She was so stunning, so wonderful...words failed him. Stunning, gorgeous, and/or beautiful couldn't even scratch the surface when it came to Amy Pond.
Amy feels like there is an electrical storm beneath her skin everywhere he touches her. There's fire too, like fire and lightening colliding. A maelstrom under her skin and swirling through her veins. He finds her scars, her freckles (and he kisses them), he finds her ticklish spots and the spots that make her arch and moan. He really likes to do this thing where his lips or hands just ghost over her skin. It's such a light touch, barely there, but it makes Amy squirm. The Doctor takes his time, enjoying the sight of her, drinking it all in, feeling her and tasting her.
Amy can't find any scars on his pale skin, she does find a ticklish spot, and she finds that he makes a soft purr when she nibbles on his earlobe. Her skin is flushed and her body is shivering with delight, anticipation, and Amy feels like she might just burst. She takes back whatever she said about Time Lords not being able to shag. Amy's body is trembling as he enters her and his name is a gasp on her lips. The Doctor lets out a muffled groan on the skin of her shoulder. Amy's fingers flex and tighten their grip, her nails digging into his back. Neither of them move. The Doctor is relishing the feeling of Amy around him and she's grasping onto reality-yes, this is really happening, this isn't a dream, it's too good to be a dream. He moves and her whole world just shatters into a million little star-shaped pieces. That building storm under her skin has been ignited and Amy urges him, encourages him, with sounds escaping from her throat. The Doctor keeps muttering her name in between kisses and his hypnotizing groans.
“Amy, look at me...” His voice is weak and breathless, like he just ran around through the interior of the TARDIS--twice and then some.
She just does it because he asked and partly because she does want to see him. Her hazel eyes meet his, and then, she's coming, clenching around him, her shattered world coming back together again as the storm quakes through her body. She faintly hears the Doctor cry out her name in his release.
They lay together in silence for some time until Amy registers the stars around them.
“Doctor...” Her mind is having trouble forming coherent thoughts, “The room's changed.”
“Ah...” He sweeps back her hair with his hand, admiring the fiery locks in the star light. “She's a bit of a romantic.”
Amy looks around; the walls were gone, windows remained and then she saw the curtains pulled back. This room had no walls. Only windows. Amy could see every star in the galaxy, winking at them, casting their tiny fires out into the darkness. She smiles, feeling the Doctor's lips brush against her temple as they laid curled against each other.
The Doctor tilts his head to meet her eyes and opens his mouth to say something. Something very important. Something he felt she should hear...but at the same time...he's afraid to say it. A coward to the last iota in his being. The Doctor shuts his mouth.
His ancient eyes look up at the stars; “There's a planet not too far from here. Two moons, carnivorous orchids though...so we may have to avoid the gardens. But they are so lovely in the spring time.”
Amy wonders what he was going to say and she's got a feeling that she knows...she knows he wasn't going to talk about some planet that they were going to visit.
She'll get it out of him eventually if she doesn't end up saying it first. But, maybe it's something that doesn't need to be said because; why say it? When it is already known.
All letters are PG - 13
except for "N" which has been moved to the very end of the fic & then placed under it's own separate LJ-CUT OH NEVER MIND STUPID LJ! I can't do two lj-cuts...blfffsjfsl....
Alright, fine. I made it so there is adult content. I'm miffed. I wanted to be clever.
Enjoy the fic. I love you.
click to read A-F
click to read G-L
- 11 -
Memory - the act or power of remembering.
The Doctor turns the gem over in his hand. He knows why Bridget gave this gem to Amy. It's special, different, and it's just what she needs. Amy Pond needs to remember.
She deserves to remember.
He's thought about what she might do once she remembers. She might leave and the darker parts of him cackle in amusement at the fact that he will break if she leaves. Yes, he'll do the right thing, give her a smile and a hug and tell her to take care. But, once she's gone, he'll feel her absence like a flame too close to his skin. He'll travel with others, but none, none will or can compare with Amelia Pond.
When he regenerated, he was so painfully alone, nobody in the TARDIS, just him and this new strange body. She was the very first person he met. A mystery with red hair and a Scottish accent in an English village. Without even knowing it, Amelia Pond had shaped him and continues to do so.
He can't bare to think of her as a solider like Martha and Rose. He could never wipe her memory like he had to with Donna. He can't lose her. He needs Amy Pond.
He wants her in the worst way, the most selfish way, he wants Amy Pond for his own and in his darkest dreams she is his. But, that's wrong, very wrong, and foolish to think like that. (Yet, he can't help it). This affection for her, this great big ball of stuff that he feels towards her, will be the death of him. The Doctor runs his fingers across the gem. It's rough but, it shimmers brightly in the firelight. It was birthed from the heart of the volcano and crafted from the high priestess's hands. He examines the gem at a different angle. The TARDIS shows him that Amy is in the kitchen making tea and he sighs, too much time alone makes him think too much. He pockets the gem, makes way for the kitchen and he can hear the kettle purring.
“Doctor~” Her voice is so airy and light, it makes him smile.“Would you like some tea?” She reaches up into the cupboard to find another teacup.
“Amy.” He takes her wrist and Amy's pulse does a little jump. “Do you remember why Bridget gave you this?” He asks as he places the gem into the palm of her hand.
Amy blinks, looking down at it, “She said it was to remember them and to give strength on a journey to come, why?”
“This gem is special, Amy. It's important...so important...” He encloses her fingers around it with his hand on top of her own, Amy looks up to meet his intense gaze and her throat goes dry. “It'll help you remember.”
“Remember what?”
The Doctor walks away and she can hear a cloister bell, typical-he's back to fixing his motor. Amy opens her hand to look at the roughly cut gem, “Remember what?” She repeats in a whisper.
Amy is sitting on the floor of his study with the gem in her hand and the Doctor is lying beside her (asleep). He said he wasn't tired, said he didn't need to sleep, but then he started reading some book and then bam! Out like a light. Amy looks at the gem with one eye closed and holds it up. She doesn't know what he wants her to remember so badly. She also doesn't know how this gem is going to help at all. Amy sneaks a glance at the Doctor, he looks so young...and his breath is hitting her knee.
She sets the gem down and situates herself next to him, their shoulder's touching and his face turned towards her cheek. Amy stares at the shadows the fire makes on the ceiling, listens to the sound of all the clocks, and closes her eyes. It's not that she's tired...she's just trying to remember.
When he first arrived, she was seven, and her aunt Sharon wasn't home. When he came back, she was home alone. It had always been just the two of them.
The Doctor and Amy Pond.
She feels his fingers lace with her own and Amy turns her head, but he's still sleeping-or just really good at pretending.
“I don't know what you want me to remember.”
His green eyes open and they look so ancient, it's amazing that Amy ever thought he looked young.
“That's okay.” He sits up and pulls her to her feet “You will.”
Amy holds the gem near her lamp and squints at it. Her hair is still damp from the shower she just took and she's in her nightie. There's no way they're going on any adventures right now. The Doctor would have to tell her something very clever and very impressive to get her to leave this room.
That's when there's a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Amy asks in a sing-song voice. She drops the gem onto her bed.
“What kind of question is that?!” The Doctor says from the other side of the door. Amy laughs, resting her palms on the wood.
“An honest one, what if I wasn't decent?”
The Doctor makes this noise between a yelp and a grunt. She faintly hears him clear his throat before speaking. “Are you decent, Pond?”
“I'm in my nightie, but you've seen that before.”
She hears him shuffle his feet, she can imagine him trying to make up his mind if he should stay or go and just bother her at another time. Amy opens the door, a tiny, secret part of her wants the Doctor to stumble forward and kiss her. Why else would he show up at this time? It's hardly proper.
“The gem needs fire.”
Oh, of course. He doesn't make any move to pass the threshold of her room.
“Can this wait?”
“Amy...this is important, so, so very important.” It's important that you have your memories of Rory, important so that you can make the choice to stay or leave, important because he deserves to be grieved and he deserves to be remembered.
The Doctor stands back as Amy crouches near the fire. She holds the gem in her hands for a moment before tossing it into the orange flames. It sparks and hisses but, Amy can't tear her eyes away. The fire changes to a blood red-orange...then the gem starts to melt and turns to pink ash at the bottom of the flames. She sucks in a ragged breath, slightly surprised at the tears in her eyes and then;
Amy remembers Rory.
She doesn't even know when the Doctor came to her side. Amy reaches out for him and the Doctor collects her in his arms in a tight, warm hug. The fire is reduced to ash by the time Amy speaks.
“I want you to take me somewhere...”
“Anywhere, Amy.” He answers automatically.
They put the fire's ashes into a jar and it's a convoluted mess of black, pink, and red. Amy wraps her scarf around the jar to keep it safe. They go to Rio, at the top of a waterfall, where they can see all the wilderness beneath them. Amy feels like she's on top of the world.
Amy unwinds her scarf from around the jar as she stands at the very edge of the cliff. There is so much green and blue surrounding her, the roaring waterfall, the cries of birds overhead, and it's just so perfect. Rory would have liked it. The Doctor holds her scarf as she unscrews the cap on the jar and a little puff of ashes escape into the air.
“Rory...” her voice breaks “You were great, you really were. Noble, brave--sometimes, caring, hardworking...you were there when nobody else was. Don't worry about me, yeah? I'll be with the Doctor and we always manage to get in and out of trouble...” Amy blinks back her tears. She's never been great at this. Amy can't find anymore words to say because they're all stuck in her throat. She tosses the jar forward and its contents spill out into the air. They watch it; pink, black, and red twirl into the air, up to the sky and down into the waterfall.
“Bye, Rory.”
The Doctor takes her hand and stays right there until she voices that she's ready to go back to the TARDIS. It hurts...the loss of Rory, it hurts so fiercely, Amy wonders if she'll split in two. This pain is better, though. There are two people in the whole universe who remember a man named Rory Williams. A man who she loved and lost. The Doctor returns her engagement ring and it now has it's place on her nightstand.
Ointment - substance used on the skin to heal or soothe wounds.
Amy doesn't just remember the bad, the death of Rory. She remembers the good, the funny, and the awkward. The way he dropped the ring when he proposed. The way he always managed to burn the toast in the morning. How they used to play dress up as kids. How happy he was when he got the job at the Hospital, and how he had said “I'll be a proper doctor.”
She cries. Not in front of the Doctor, oh no. But when she is alone in her room in the TARDIS, Amy will stare at her engagement ring and furiously wipe away her tears. The TARDIS hums to her and makes sure to have her favorite snacks tucked away in the kitchen.
The Doctor takes her to magnificent places. It's only then, when she's seeing new planets and running for her life, does she feel alive. Amy laughs, puts on a smile, and enjoys their adventures completely. Honest, this is the life she had dreamed of since she was seven. It's just taking so damn long for the healing to start.
The Doctor watches her, carefully, and keeps taking her to places and times in history that she'll like. It's the only thing he can do. He found her once in the Library with her face in her hands and a book open on the floor.
Do you talk to girls when they're crying? He has absolutely no idea.
He's bouncing around the console and Amy comes skipping down the steps. “Where we off to now, Doctor?”
“Ohhh, you'll have to wait and see!”
Amy raises an eyebrow, “That means you have no idea...”
The Doctor looks at her, flabbergasted, “I know exactly where I am going, Pond!”
It's the first time in weeks that they exchanged playful banter. The Doctor can feel the Amy Pond he knew resurfacing from the grief. But, he won't push her or expect her to run from sadness like he does. He can be patient. Really, he can.
The white flowers sway in the breeze, the buildings are all pastel ruins, and the sun is high in the lavender sky. Amy is reminded of ancient Greece and she makes a mental note to ask the Doctor if they can go there.
They investigate the ruins because the Doctor is looking for a creature that's not supposed to be here. Amy runs her fingers along the marble-like surfaces and feels an overwhelming sense of peace coming over her. She can hear the sonic but isn't paying attention. Amy is walking forward, being called by some unknown force and she knows the rule; don't wander off! But where's the fun in staying put?
“We're going to have to hurry!” The Doctor says, somewhere behind her, “Darkness falls quickly on this planet!”
Amy feels the stone beneath her feet give way and she lets out an alarmed gasp as she suddenly tumbles with the pastel colored stones. Amy lands on a surprisingly soft surface, coughing, white dust surrounding her and her eyes blink rapidly trying to take in the site around her.
“Amy!” The Doctor calls from above and she looks up but can't see his face. How far did she fall?
“I'm alright!” Amy yells back, her voice echoing. She looks down at the marshmallow type floor and does a small jump, her feet instantly absorbing the shock. Well, alright. This isn't some kind of trap...otherwise I'd break all my bones from that fall.
The Doctor puts the sonic in his pocket giving a last look at the ruins before he takes the plunge. “Geronimo!”
Amy takes two steps before she hears the Doctor land behind her, sputtering and then exclaiming how brilliant the floor is. He bounces for a little bit, uses his sonic on it and examines the results. “Brilliant! Just...Oh how I love new planets.”
His eyes move to Amy and he sees her standing near a crystallized statue of a monk. There's an altar in the cave, a glowing white slab in the middle of all the statues. She turns to look at him, “They're people. Frozen...” Her eyes go back to the monks' face. He's a cherubic looking man with a pleasant smile on his face.
The Doctor holds his sonic to the monk and then glances at the device, “He's nearly as old as I am!”
Amy sees different faces all around the cave, men, women, elderly and young. No children. All of them held the same pleasant smile on their face.
The Doctor lets out a cry of joy when he sees what is sitting on the altar. It's the creature he was looking for. It looks like an albino porcupine and made a soft humming noise.
“Doctor, can we un-freeze them?”
“Oh, no. They'd be very upset if we did that.”
“Why?”
“It's tradition. Once every thousand years, thirty two people come to the ruins and allow themselves to be frozen like this. It's a religious thing. They think it gets them closer to their gods...” He shrugs, busy examining the creature on the altar with his sonic. It's sleeping. Harmless. The Doctor carefully picks it up and then gives a yelp of pain.
Amy spins around and catches sight of the porcupine alien thing scurry off. The Doctor his holding his arms around his stomach. His face is ghostly pale.
“Doctor?” She grabs him by the shoulders and gives him a firm shake to wake him up.
“I'll be fine...we gotta get that thing.”
“What is it?” Amy nearly hisses.
“It's a very dangerous creature, just c'mon, I'll explain later!” And that's when the running starts.
Mr. Albino Porcupine is an expert at hide and seek. The cave isn't large but it is littered with gifts, little statuettes, wilted flowers, jewelry and a dozen other things. Amy manages to catch the creature by throwing a blanket over it.
“Brilliant, Pond! How did you know they were blind?” The Doctor says as he crouches down and lulls the creature back into it's stasis with a low frequency on his sonic.
Amy smiles, “Oh...you know. Time traveler intuition.”
He grins at her.
They drop off the creature to its rightful planet and it sleeps under a large black and blue tree. “It was hibernating and I disrupted it...that's why it attacked.” He explains before shutting the door to the TARDIS. Amy's brow furrows as she looks at the Doctor. His face is still pale as ever, his eyes lacking the luster they usually held, and his boyish grins looks more forced than anything else. His hands tremble.
“C'mon.” She grabs him by the arm and drags him to the medical bay.
“It'll pass, Pond.” He tells her but she just shoves him into a chair. She rummages though the cupboards until she finds what she thinks might help. It's a small jar of a baby blue colored ointment. She reads the back, “Did it poison you?”
“In a way, yes. The defense mechanism of the creature is to leave it's attacker crippled. Think of a snake bite...” He waves his hand a little, “Not so effective on Time Lords.”
“So this stuff should help, yeah?” Amy holds up the jar and the Doctor just gives a weak nod.
It's not at all unpleasant to see the Doctor half-dressed. She sets his shirt and bowtie on the table next to them and scrutinizes the small puncture marks on his stomach. The skin is tinged pink, obviously irritated, but he isn't bleeding. The Doctor squirms when Amy places the first dollop of ointment onto his skin.
“Sorry, forgot to mention that it was kinda cold.”
He just gives her a small smirk and then looks away.
The Doctor doesn't say anything, doesn't demand that he can do it himself, or shove Amy's hands away. That darker side of him is smiling, enjoying the feel of her touch, embracing it and savoring it. The good side of the Doctor, the proper side, is wondering when she'll be done and calculating how long those frozen people had been in that cave and if it was the right thing to walk away. Maybe he should go back on the one-thousandth year and see if they've been released.
Amy is focusing. She is most defiantly not giving tiny smiles of delight when his stomach muscles contract or the way his breath hitches when her fingers barely touch his skin.
“All set.” The redness has faded and she can see the color coming back into the Doctor's face.
“Good work, Pond. Now I see why you were once a nurse.” He says as he straightens his collar and Amy lightly hits his shoulder.
“Oh! Shut up you!”
Portal - a magical or technological doorway that connects two distant locations
He didn't mean to land here. Oh well. All part of the adventure, right? Amy grabs the note from her nightstand, the one with the symbols and letters that made no sense that she just happened to find one day. She tucks it into the pocket of her jacket and joins the Doctor at the doors of the TARDIS.
“Ready, Pond?”
They just share an excited grin.
They are fighting over the sky. The planet they once visited before. The one with the changing lights in the sky, the sky so beautiful, so vibrant, and these two races are fighting over who should own it. The fight is between the centaur and the griffins.
The centaurs are violent, rash, argumentative creatures. At least on this planet, anyways. They demand Amy and the Doctor reveal their true identities as spies. The Doctor assures them, with charm and physic paper, that he and Amy are not spies. The centaurs fight with arrows and their accuracy is stunning. They are also building something, a weapon, “It'll win the war, Doctor. It will end the war and we shall own the sky.”
“But why? Why own the sky? Certainty it's big enough to share!” The Doctor's argument falls on deaf ears. Before Amy and the Doctor can find this weapon and destroy it...
The camp is ambushed by the opposing force and Amy and the Doctor are captured. Once again, the griffins assume Amy and the Doctor are allies of the centaurs. (Seriously, why doesn't anyone trust that they're just travelers? )
The griffins have feathers of gold and white. They are quiet, yet fearsome, their talons and beaks tearing apart a stone fortress in merely seconds. They don't say much but they at least tell Amy and the Doctor why there is a war of the sky.
“Our sky is our portal. We can travel using the sky to different planets using it. The centaurs are envious of our flight, they say we cannot have the sky for our own, and they wish to tear it down if they cannot own it.” The griffins' leader is at least seven feet tall perched on the ground. His feathers are deep blue and gold.
“They spoke of a weapon. Something that would win them the war.” The Doctor says, his voice grim and his face stony.
The griffin leader just nods slowly.
“It's designed to suck in the partials of the sky, a foolish attempt to bring the sky to them, they will only end up destroying us both. My kind...” The leader turns his head to see the small griffin babies prancing around, playing with each other like lion cubs. “We need the sky to live. When the sky eventually fades, we will have left this planet, in search of another with the proper climate and chemicals to allow us to continue living.”
“Destroying the sky, destroys you. This isn't just a territory war. It's personal.” The weight in the Doctor's voice made Amy wonder how many wars he's seen.
Amy's eyes haven't moved from the griffin cubs.
“You arrived before on this planet, Doctor. You had the codes, the proper equations to destroy the weapon, but you had to run. You had a different face.”
The Doctor's slapped his forehead, “Of course! I just...” don't remember where I put that piece of paper.
The leader lowered his head, his large eyes studying Amy and the Doctor, “If you cannot save us. Who will?”
That's when Amy pulls the paper from her pocket and a small grin plays on her lips, the paper is folded between her two fingers and she holds it in front of the Doctor's face.
“We have a weapon to stop, now don't we?”
His grin is contagious. He kisses her forehead, “Pond! You are marvelous!”
The griffin can sense the affection coming from the Doctor to his companion. Yet, he says nothing.
The centaurs are furious. They fire their arrows upon the Doctor and Amy as they run through the trees, hooves pounding the ground behind them. The Doctor walked into their fortress, with Amy and a griffin by his side, saying the centaurs must negotiate or what falls upon them will be their own doing. The centaurs were stubborn and while they argued with each other and the griffin who came along. Amy and the Doctor found the weapon and destroyed it. It looked like a medieval canon but with more wires and lights and “dangerous beeping noises” as the Doctor said.
“Do they ever stop fighting?” Amy asks when they've shut the TARDIS doors. He's leaning against the door beside her, breathing heavily, and his eyes are terribly sad.
“No.”
She's waiting for more to be explained.
“The sky burns out. The griffins use the sky as a portal, escape, possibly find a new world...”
“And the centaurs?”
His silence is all the answer she needs.
The Doctor walks away but Amy grabs his arm rather violent. “Go back.”
He stares at her, “Amy, I can't just go back...”
“Then go forward! Save them! We have to. Even if they were creating a weapon to destroy the very planet they lived on, they deserve a second chance, don't they? A chance to learn from their mistakes...”
The Doctor can't save everyone. But, he tries. They return to the planet on the eve of the sky's death. He tries to convince the centaurs that he's only trying to help, if they'll let them. He even goes so far to invite them onto the TARDIS. They are stubborn and hold their grudges. Their bows never stop being drawn and pointed at Amy and the Doctor. He tries to tell them that he can create a portal, one to use like the griffins do, but they say he's lying.
Amy looks up to see the griffins flying into the sky and disappearing into the colors.
She sees the colors start to fade and feels the Doctor's hand entwine his fingers with her own.
“Please, just listen to me! The sky is fading, that's why the griffins are retreating!”
“Nonsense! WE HAVE WON THE WAR!” The centaurs give a roar of approval and excitement.
The sky is black by the time Amy and the Doctor are pushed back into the TARDIS and banned from a planet that will soon crumble.
“I'll go and make you something to eat...” The Doctor says, clasping his hands together, “You must be starving after such a topsy-turvy trip!”
She knows he's trying to lighten the mood. It works, “You can cook?”
“Don't sound so surprised!”
The Doctor is already up the stairs and heading for the kitchen.
Quixotic - extravagantly and romantically chivalrous ; idealistic
She tells him how she liked to study Romans in school and so he takes her to see them, the Romans, in their prime. What they both weren't expecting was Amy to be flirted with by nearly every soldier. To be frank, it's grinding on the Doctor's nerves. Really, there is no need for any of that!
Amy is Amy. So Amy flirts back.
She accepts flowers from a nice Roman boy, accepts a drawing from one of the soldiers, another crafts a poem, some go even as far to ask if she's currently married and even the emperor invites them to dinner.
The Doctor can't regret the trip too much-since Amy is smiling and having a good time.
One of the senators makes a toast to their guests and that's when the Doctor sees River. He jumps from his chair, “Ah, right sorry.” High ranking officials stare at him, “Gotta run.”
Amy looks at him, curiously, but she's enjoying the wine and the company too much to jump to her feet as well. Romans. Actual Romans. It's hard to pass it up; hot Italian men in armor.
“River.”
“Doctor.”
They stare at each other, “Where's Amy?”
The Doctor grins, “Dining with Romans.”
River consults her notebook and takes a step back when he tries to peek. “Spoilers.” She gives him a smile, but does drop a small hint; “Amelia Pond is up there and she's surrounded by Romans. I think history can take it...”
The Doctor frowns at her enigmatic words.
“Go and get her.”
There's a clamor from inside the palace and there's no time for more of River's riddles. The two go down different paths, but the Doctor knows he'll see River again.
The Doctor returns to the dining hall to find that everyone is standing and there's a Roman on the floor, clutching his stomach, and Amelia Pond is standing there with a livid expression. The guards help him to his feet and drag the man away.
“This woman stopped an assassination!” The emperor boasts, raising his glass.
Amy looks at the Doctor, “I did?”
The Doctor's bewildered expression matches her own. Amy had only socked the guy in the gut after he put his hand where it was not allowed while helping her from her chair. Then there was a big commotion and the man helping Amy had dropped a dagger hidden beneath his robes. The Doctor wonders if this will end up in the history books.
They stroll through the gardens, arm in arm, with Amy giggling at his ridiculous stories. True stories. Stories of adventures he's already had.
“So, you were actually knighted and banned on the same evening?”
“Yup.”
“And you fought off them off with a water pistol?”
“Well, to be fair, it was only one...” He grins, “But yes, I did.”
Amy rests her head on his shoulder, grinning, and walking along the moonlit path. “Why did you jump like that at dinner?”
“I saw River.”
Something twists in Amy's gut. There was still a part of her that wondered if River was the Doctor's future wife. If she was, what did that mean for Amy? Was she just some distraction, some plaything until the Doctor's time-line sorted itself out? She wasn't the person the Doctor tells everything to. He trusts her, she knows that, she feels that, and he cares about her enough to want her to remember Rory and she can feel the chemistry between them. Come to think of it, he's been rather...different...since she remembered Rory. A little more restrained, putting more distance between them, keeping her away so that she can grieve and mourn...
He's treating her like glass.
Amy doesn't like it.
He stops walking, uneasy with Amy's silence, and curiously stares down at her. “What? What is it? Am I missing something? Why am I always missing something?! Wait, no I'm not...”
“Doctor...” The moonlight illuminates her face in a soft, ethereal glow.
“Yes?”
“Shut up.” She grabs the lapels of his tweed jacket and pulls his mouth to her own. By the way he kisses her back, Amy forgets about River and her possibility of being his wife. After all, that's the future and this is now-and it's the now that really matters anyways.
Requiem - a song/hymn preformed to remember the desceased
Amy returns to Leadworth for more clothes and a some stuff she wants to bring onto the TARDIS. He keeps the TARDIS in her backyard and waits for her. She returns with a suitcase in each hand, “I know the wardrobe has plenty of clothes...”
“It's fine, come along, we are wasting time!” He grins, but she notices something different about his eyes. She notices it from time to time when he's remembering someone or something. This time, the held humor and sadness, and Amy places her suitcases on the TARDIS floor.
“You ain't mating with me, sunshine!”
“What was her name?” He wants to praise her on her keen awareness of him but, at the same time; is it really a good thing that she knows him and can read him this well?
“Donna.” He flips a switch, not seeing the point in lying about it, “Donna Noble. She carried her whole wardrobe in the back of her car just in case she would run into me again.”
Amy smiles, joining him by the console, “And she did.”
“Yep.” The sadness has been chased away from his eyes, “Where are we off to now, Pond?”
He doesn't tell her about every companion. Not until they visit a planet where your thoughts manifest into actual beings. But, they are only shells, like ghosts. Amy thinks about cherry pie and then there it is, floating in front of her, but when she touches it-it disappears. They sit down on a bench, the sky cloudy and overcast above them, and the living creatures walking with their thoughts trailing behind them.
The Doctor just leans back and then people manifest before them, he tells her bits and pieces, things they saw, their names, and where they were now...
By the end of it, Amy's head felt dizzy from all the faces she had seen. He didn't dance over their fates, he was rather blunt about it actually, but he spoke fondly of them all. So many of them had simply grown-up, moved on, chose to leave...others were forced...others died. Amy turns, seeing his face and it's strange angles, his large chin, deep-set eyes, his floppy hair and his boyish smile. A young man's face with an old man's soul. A man bearing the weight of nine-hundred years worth of memories.
Music begins to play over their heads and the faces vanish. The Doctor explains that it's a physic field that creates the images, but they worry that their race will become to focused on their fantasies and not focus on the present. The music silences the thought patterns. It's a sad, deep, mournful song-Amy wants to cover her ears. Instead, she nudges the Doctor's shoulder with her own.
“Can you promise me something?
“Hm?” He's listening.
“When our time is up-oi don't make that face!”
He puts on a grin to replace the frown that pulled at his lips without him realizing it.
“I want you to go back to Leadworth, to my room.”
“Why?”
“Can you promise me that?”
“'Course Amy...'course.”
“Good.” Amy hops to her feet and takes the Doctor's hands with her own, tugging him up from the bench, and he stumbles into a hug. Amy buries her nose in the scratchy fabric of his jacket, breathing in his warm scent.
“Let's go.” He mummers breaking the tender embrace.
After all, they've got all of time and space to explore...
Need - something required ; to want strongly
It was entirely her fault, you know. Amy went into the library and to her luck, the swimming pool was open and ready for her. He had found some new and fascinating thing, he wasn't sure what it did yet, but it made 'bing' noises when he pointed it at stuff. It wasn't his timey-wimey detector. This was something new, something old, something he had forgotten about or misplaced. He ran into the library to show Amy and he dropped the device onto his foot. A short curse escapes his mouth.
Amy Pond was the most graceful creature he had ever seen. The Doctor chokes on his words as Amy resurfaces. “Amy!” He searches his brain to find something to say, something to tell her, “I found your favorite book!” She just blinks at him.
“You know...your...ah...just nevermind...” He lost his words when she pulled herself out of the water.
“Which one?” Amy asks, searching for the towel that she could have sworn she left by the beanbag chair.
“Pandora's box.” A smile spreads across her face. He knows it was her favorite fairy-tale from her childhood. Amy Pond is his favorite fairy-tale. Period. He goes down one of the aisle to find it for her, not expecting Amy to follow him, but she does. She catches his arm mid-stride and asks him one simple question, “You really don't know where it is, do you?”
She's right. She could see right through his quickly-created bluff. He does the first thing that comes to mind when he sees Amy looking at him like that.
The Doctor cups the side of her face as he kisses her. Amy wants this, wants him, all of it. She clings to his jacket and presses herself against him, urging him. Her back bumps into the shelf and a few books fall to the floor. They go unnoticed by the two time travelers. “Come with me.” He whispers as his lips part from hers. He takes her hand to lead the way and Amy doesn't regret a single step.
It's an observatory. Amy isn't even sure if there is glass above their heads. The carpet is plush beneath her feet and that's when Amy realizes; “I'm soaking wet!”
“Yes, you are.” He lets go of her hand and sits in the middle of the circular room. Amy joins him after a half-second internal debate. He points to various constellations, tells her where a handful of planets are, tells her where Earth is (very, very far) and while she listens; her hunger for him is subdued.
His hand rests on the small of her back and he walks his fingers up her spine. “If only I could show you them all, Amy...” He says, softly.
“Time machine.” She reminds him, tilting her head towards his. She knows that isn't what he meant. The Doctor holds her gaze and his nose brushes against hers. Their kiss is slow and soft, full of tenderness and unspoken words, full of planets not-yet-traveled and stars not-yet-seen.
Her hands curl around his braces and he leans into her, their kiss smoldering like the sun. He wouldn't tell her, but in kissing her, the Doctor can taste every year she's lived. It's a bit of a head rush, actually. She's unlike anything else, she tastes like adventure-don't ask him how it's possible, she's the one who tastes like it.
The Doctor breaks the kiss and his lips move to her throat. He places an open-mouthed kiss to her pulse point and Amy tugs his floppy, chestnut brown hair in response.
“Amy, are you sure about this?” He asks, leveling his eyes with hers. Amy can't believe he's asking a question like that at a time like this.
“Why are you asking?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow, and then an epiphany hits her;“Oh! Can Time Lords not do it? Is that why you said it's been awhile?”
He looks slightly offended for a second, “What? Time Lords are fully-that's not the point! I'm asking because I need to know, Amy. After everything you have been through...”
It's an explanation she should have expected (because it's so very Doctor).
“You know what it's like to lose someone, yeah?”
He just nods.
“And you know how it feels to move on?”
He nods again.
“I want this, Doctor...” Amy holds his face in her hands and kisses him, it's brief, because she wants to say one last thing; “I want you.” God, that sounded lame, didn't it? The Doctor doesn't seem to mind because he's kissing her with such enthusiasm it's making her head spin and yeah, it's a little sloppy but Amy doesn't care. She tunnels her fingers through his hair.
“Oh, Amy...” He sighs into her hair, his hands exploring her skin greedily. If he keeps doing that, Amy is going to have a difficult time getting his shirt off, her fingers are already shaking as it is! Her breath hitches as his fingers ghost over a sensitive spot before he takes off her bathing suit top. Amy manages to get his bow tie off, at least.
“Doctor,” Her voice is low, husky but there's humor there “I'm not sure how Time Lords shag, but humans usually have their clothes off.”
It's messy; between kisses and Amy distracting him, and she broke one of his braces. He tried to scold her about that but, he decided to save it for another time. She was so stunning, so wonderful...words failed him. Stunning, gorgeous, and/or beautiful couldn't even scratch the surface when it came to Amy Pond.
Amy feels like there is an electrical storm beneath her skin everywhere he touches her. There's fire too, like fire and lightening colliding. A maelstrom under her skin and swirling through her veins. He finds her scars, her freckles (and he kisses them), he finds her ticklish spots and the spots that make her arch and moan. He really likes to do this thing where his lips or hands just ghost over her skin. It's such a light touch, barely there, but it makes Amy squirm. The Doctor takes his time, enjoying the sight of her, drinking it all in, feeling her and tasting her.
Amy can't find any scars on his pale skin, she does find a ticklish spot, and she finds that he makes a soft purr when she nibbles on his earlobe. Her skin is flushed and her body is shivering with delight, anticipation, and Amy feels like she might just burst. She takes back whatever she said about Time Lords not being able to shag. Amy's body is trembling as he enters her and his name is a gasp on her lips. The Doctor lets out a muffled groan on the skin of her shoulder. Amy's fingers flex and tighten their grip, her nails digging into his back. Neither of them move. The Doctor is relishing the feeling of Amy around him and she's grasping onto reality-yes, this is really happening, this isn't a dream, it's too good to be a dream. He moves and her whole world just shatters into a million little star-shaped pieces. That building storm under her skin has been ignited and Amy urges him, encourages him, with sounds escaping from her throat. The Doctor keeps muttering her name in between kisses and his hypnotizing groans.
“Amy, look at me...” His voice is weak and breathless, like he just ran around through the interior of the TARDIS--twice and then some.
She just does it because he asked and partly because she does want to see him. Her hazel eyes meet his, and then, she's coming, clenching around him, her shattered world coming back together again as the storm quakes through her body. She faintly hears the Doctor cry out her name in his release.
They lay together in silence for some time until Amy registers the stars around them.
“Doctor...” Her mind is having trouble forming coherent thoughts, “The room's changed.”
“Ah...” He sweeps back her hair with his hand, admiring the fiery locks in the star light. “She's a bit of a romantic.”
Amy looks around; the walls were gone, windows remained and then she saw the curtains pulled back. This room had no walls. Only windows. Amy could see every star in the galaxy, winking at them, casting their tiny fires out into the darkness. She smiles, feeling the Doctor's lips brush against her temple as they laid curled against each other.
The Doctor tilts his head to meet her eyes and opens his mouth to say something. Something very important. Something he felt she should hear...but at the same time...he's afraid to say it. A coward to the last iota in his being. The Doctor shuts his mouth.
His ancient eyes look up at the stars; “There's a planet not too far from here. Two moons, carnivorous orchids though...so we may have to avoid the gardens. But they are so lovely in the spring time.”
Amy wonders what he was going to say and she's got a feeling that she knows...she knows he wasn't going to talk about some planet that they were going to visit.
She'll get it out of him eventually if she doesn't end up saying it first. But, maybe it's something that doesn't need to be said because; why say it? When it is already known.