Archive of Our Own

A/N: Early S5 when the Doctor was bouncy and Amy was bright-eyed and the world wasn't entirely made of pain.

This happened because I read the entire Eleven-Era Kink Meme in two days. My fanfic motto: EMBRACE ALL THE TROPES.

They've been held for almost four hours, and Amy's getting bored.

As prisons go, this one's not bad (and she would know, 'cause by now she's been in several). The Doctor told her he travels to every planet, every star; he didn't mention that he only rarely receives a warm welcome. If the native residents aren't annoyed with him for some past deed, they're usually annoyed with him by the time she and he are sprinting for the TARDIS -- and when they don't try to run soon enough (the Doctor's usually convinced that things are brilliant right up until he's arrested) they wind up stuck in a cell.

Which is what has happened. Again.

And -- and! -- the Artificial Satyrs of Beta Crucis Eight (complete with mechanical haunches) knew to confiscate the Doctor's screwdriver. Apparently this wasn't their first encounter with the Oncoming Storm. Still, it could be worse; at least this time they're not in chains.

"You just have a way about you," Amy says to the Doctor, watching as he noses along the floor to examine every molecule of each stone slab for weakness. He's been at that for three and three-quarters of the four hours; the first fifteen minutes he spent talking to himself in what she would not swear in a court of law was English. "How do you manage to completely charm everyone we meet?"

(Sarcasm: Amy can do it.)

The Doctor glances up just long enough to give her a scowl that she doesn't buy at all. "This one is on you, Pond. You told them their war was stupid."

"It is stupid! Besides, you said it first!"

"I'm allowed to say wars are stupid. You're not."

"Since when is that a rule?"

"It's always been a rule."

"Has not. You can't make up rules on the spot and act like they've always been there."

"If I make them up on the spot then they have always been there."

"Cheater."

"Time Lord."

Amy bangs the back of her head against the wall. The Doctor returns to examining the floor.

She's just watched him lick the seam of the corner foundation -- it's times like this she doesn't have to remind herself he's an alien, because who does that? -- when the whir of clockwork machinery echoes through the hall. A moment later a pointed green face appears in front of the barred window that stretches the width of the cell door, and there's a click of a key in the lock. The door swings wide.

"You've been released," says their jailer, "but the Collective has ordered that you must exit the Beta Crucis system before the sun sets."

The Doctor holds out his palm (in a significantly more imperious fashion than one would expect from a man who just spent four hours licking rocks) and receives his sonic screwdriver from the half-robot goat. Then he gets that thinking look, the one where Amy's never quite sure whether he's solving five hundred puzzles at once or none at all. (He doesn't seem to be capable of anything in-between.) "Why are-- wait, do I-- yes-- no-- yes... Wait. No." He pockets the screwdriver with a flourish and straightens his tie, tugging twice on the bow. "No, thank you, but we'll not be exiting, vacating, or in any other manner removing ourselves from the system until we've got your stupid war sorted."

"Though we'd rather not stay in prison, thanks," Amy adds, since it doesn't seem the Doctor is going to mention that part.

"You are being excused for your interference, Doctor. The Collective is lenient towards the offenses of juveniles." Tiny hairs bristle along the Artificial Satyr's long snout as he glances at Amy. "We are even allowing your mature female to go free as a courtesy."

The Doctor stills, his lips curving into an even smile. "My mature female," he says softly, and Amy shivers from the ice in it, "would be going free whether you allowed it or not."

"But let me assure you," the satyr continues as though he has not heard, "that we do not tolerate ignorant children to 'sort' that which they cannot understand."

"I understand more than the entire Collective combined, and unless you want to blow this entire planet down to its base atoms you have to listen to me."

Amy's stuck on the 'juvenile' part. "You do know that the Doctor's an adult too, right? Sure, he looks like he just got out of primary--"

"Oi!"

"--but he's actually..." She hesitates, then glances at him, eyebrows furrowed. "How old are you, anyway?"

"By Earth's count? Nine hundred and seven. Give or take -- society changes its mind every so often about the length of a year. By 3289 you'll be convinced there's five seasons. Well, there will be, in a way; told you to stop with those fossil fuels, but no one ever, ever listens."

"Nine hundred and seven." Amy whistles. "Hel-lo, grandpa."

"Thirty-five times over." A beat. "Sort of." Another beat. "Not human, you know." Beat. "Pretty unlikely to be your actual grandfather." Beat. "Would be a bit--"

"Creepy?"

"Yeah, that." The Doctor gets up close to the Artificial Satyr and peers into one orange eye, then the other, then back again. He has to stand on his tip toes to manage. This is not a short race of clockwork-goat-people. "You lot don't live very long," he says. "Forty, fifty years at most. I've got nearly a millennium on the most senior members of the Collective -- what makes you think you have the right to call me a child?"

The satyr shakes his head. His robot legs click.

"Well?" the Doctor says, impatient.

The satyr's headshake turns slightly pitying.

"And while we're at it, why is Amy mature? She's only seven years old--"

"Twenty-one."

"Same difference." The Doctor ignores Amy's scoff as he goes on (mostly to himself): "She's mature but I'm not, except I'm old even by Time Lord standards, so it isn't a matter of age, can't be behavior, she's vastly more childish than I am--"

"Standing right here, Raggedy Man!"

"Hush up, Pond, I'm thinking. If it's a matter of experience, there's no possible--"

''She has experienced adulthood," interrupts the satyr. Pointedly.

The Doctor breaks off and stops his pacing. He looks at Amy. He looks at the Artificial Satyr's bowed legs. He looks down at himself.

At Amy.

At the legs.

At himself.

"Oh," he abruptly cries, "oh, that is just not fair! It's only a new body!"

"Sorry," says the satyr.

"Just because I haven't -- haven't broken it in completely--"

"Doctor, what is he talking about?"

The satyr steps out of the doorway, his metal hooves tapping against the stone. "Your presence will not be accepted at the Collective's negotiations," he tells the Doctor, "and your immature words carry no weight. Return to where you came from before our patience runs dry."

The Doctor makes a face -- a series of faces, actually -- and points his index finger at the satyr's nose, mouthing speechless obscenities. Finally he growls: "Fine; go on and burn, all of you. Come along, Pond." And he turns away, stalking down the hallway and leaving Amy to scurry behind.


***


He doesn't speak until they get back to the TARDIS, at which point he throws his tweed jacket onto the bench seat and starts banging around at the console like he's doing something very important instead of just pulling levers at random. "So. Next stop. Let's try Finland. Have you ever heard the Kalevala? Lönnrot is -- well, he's unhinged, actually, and a terrible drinker, but the poem's sublime, almost three hundred verses devoted to beer alone, or there was until I..."

Amy leans back against the box doors and allows the Doctor to ramble; eventually even a Time Lord has to stop for breath, at which point she cuts in with: "Are you really going to let those robot-goats have their stupid war?"

"You heard them," the Doctor replies, disconnecting a set of wires that probably shouldn't be disconnected. "Not interested in what I have to say. Can't save everyone."

"Isn't that a bit weird? Usually you've actually talked before people tell us to shut it and go away."

"Don't care, doesn't matter, never mind. Let's try a random century instead. Where did that 'shuffle' button get to?"

"And what on earth makes them think you're a child?" She gives him a mock-sympathetic look. "Is it the baby face? It's the baby face, isn't it."

"I don't have a baby face!"

"You so do. And if it's not that, then what is it?"

The Doctor doesn't answer… but, to Amy's shock, his ears turn bright pink.

"Doctor?"

He turns to the view-scope and doesn't respond. Amy watches in amazement as the pink travels from his ears to his cheeks, until his whole face is flushed.

Everything clicks into place, because there's definitely one 'adult' thing that Amy's done lots of, something that a race of satyrs -- even artificial ones -- would place a high value on. Something that would make him blush.

"Doc-tor?" She trills his name, drawing it out. "You're not a virgin, are you?"

"Of course I'm not!" he snaps. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"I'm just saying--"

"Didn't you hear the part where I'm nine hundred and seven? Centuries spent running across the galaxy, making contact -- lots of contact! -- with nearly every civilization in every era -- twice! -- and you think I haven't done… you know… that?"

"But the goats don't think so."

The Doctor scowls at the TARDIS console, as though the machine is somehow at fault, until his shoulders slump in resignation. "Their sense for that sort of thing is almost perfect," he grumbles, "but only almost. All they can tell is that this body hasn't… but I've been busy from the moment I regenerated! What was I supposed to do, pop over to the red light district of the Starship UK while I was covered in whale sick? They're not picky there, of course, but that'd still be a bit much to ask -- not to mention the surcharges."

Amy bites her lip.

"And I can't just swan off somewhere to mature and come back -- if I miscalculate by even a little I could jump past the war entirely, and then it will be fixed! Set! Can't be undone!" His impotent fury (so to speak) makes it clear he is not nearly so comfortable with Beta Crucis Eight's fate as he claimed. (Not that Amy thought he was.) "An entire race of people is going to be wiped out of existence because their bloody built-in copulation detectors are malfunctioning!"

"It's a problem," Amy agrees. She manages -- with effort -- to keep a solemn expression as she leans off of the TARDIS doors and kicks away her trainers. "Only one thing for it, then."

"Which is...?"

Amy reaches for the hem of her shirt and strips with one swift movement; her hair swings along her back as she tosses the jumper aside. "We'll just have to have sex."

The Doctor stares.

"It's for the greater good," she explains soberly.

His lips move without words. Amy crosses her arms under her lace-clad breasts, raises an eyebrow, and waits.

Finally, the Doctor releases the view-scope from a white-knuckled grip with visible effort. "No," he says, quiet but firm. "Absolutely not."

She's not shaken; she would have been more surprised had he agreed immediately. "You'd rather all those people die in their stupid war?"

He winces, but says: "You don't understand. I'm not sure I can effectively list the number of ways in which this--" he gestures between them "--would be a terrible, terrible, extremely no good thing. It would take hours. Days, even."

"Ooh, promise?"

She's taking the mickey out of him, of course, because it's fun -- he's actually one of the best flirts she's ever met, but edge a toe over the line and he's as confused as a toddler tossed in the deep end of the pool -- but she means it. When in school, her friends developed crushes on professors or movie stars twice their age; Amy, on the other hand, remembered where every tear had been on her Raggedy Doctor's tattered clothes. As a teenager she spent long hours in the night imagining what it would be like to slip her fingers through and feel the warm skin underneath.

("Ever fancy someone you know you shouldn't?")

Then he came back, and instead of a half-imagined paragon who would fall from the heavens and grant all her wishes, he was a madman with a box and a bow tie and an utter inability to keep track of what year it is (a sort of terrifying quality in a time-traveler). She no longer dreams about shyly working her way down the buttons of his blue shirt; now, she dreams about pulling that ridiculous tie off with her teeth.

(It didn't hurt that she'd seen him naked. He'd disappeared for twelve years; no, she wasn't going to turn her back. He owed her.)

Amy starts to walk up the staircase. "Let's see," she says, chewing on the inside of her cheek to keep from howling with laughter. "Should we light candles and play some Barry White? A boy's first time ought to be special."

"Stop it, Amelia," he tries to order. It comes out plaintive.

She pauses next to the console to unzip her skirt. (Not that removing it will reveal much more. It's rather short.) "Just so you know, calling me Amelia isn't going to make me a little girl again."

The skirt drops to the floor. She kicks it aside.

"No, no it won't, will it," he mumbles, staring at the light scatter of freckles across her stomach. "But that's, er, not the point. It's light years away from the point, as a matter of fact. I don't do… this--"

"Sex, Doctor, you can say it."

"--with my companions," he finishes. "It's a rule."

"Did you decide that just now?"

"It's always been a rule." At her look, he adds, "Really. It has."

"Uh-huh. How many times have you broken it?"

"Never." He hesitates. "Uh, sort of never. Mostly never. Never-ish." He catches her expression and backs away until he bumps into the bench seat, nearly tripping over his own feet. "But it wasn't my fault! I didn't have the chin last time -- everyone wanted to -- and before that -- okay, that wasn't -- but I was traumatized! You can't follow rules when you're traumatized!"

"You don't seem much like the rule-following type now, either," Amy says, peeling off her leggings, much more deliberately than she needs to, rolling them down her thighs inch by inch. She was a kiss-o-gram; she knows all about the effects of anticipation. "Mister 'We Are Observers Only'."

"That's different," he whines. "I break that rule to save people."

"This would be saving people too, yeah? It's all so you can go negotiate the end to a stupid war as a licensed grown-up. You make lots of sacrifices to rescue worlds. I bet a quick shag will be a lot more fun than falling into a whale."

"I didn't say it would be a sacrifice. Or that it would be quick."

Silence.

The Doctor very obviously realizes what he's said just a moment too late to take it back. "Oh, hell," he sighs.

"Only one way to find out," Amy says.

And she steps forward (one two three four five steps) to kiss him.

He doesn't resist nearly as much as she expected. She's still doing most of the work, mind, but she feels his hands ghost over her bare sides, a millimeter from her skin, not quite making contact. They almost touch her hips, almost touch her ribs, almost touch her arms, which have come up more or less of their own volition to wrap around his neck.

Just when she moves to pull at his tie -- he is not wearing that thing while they do this -- he grabs her shoulders and pushes her back. His fingers dig in tight as he looks down at her bra (which her breasts are going to heave out of if she breathes any harder) and her knickers, which aren't much more than a scrap of red fabric.

"Blimey," he says to himself.

Gotcha. "Don't worry, Doctor," she says, nice and soothing. "I promise to be gentle."

"You'll be... Pond, you are the most..." The Doctor looks at some fixed point just past her, though how he can see anything out from under that fringe, Amy has no idea. "It's to save an entire planet," he murmurs helplessly. "Can't let a whole planet die, can I?"

"No. That would be wrong."

"It would be. Very wrong." His hands go to her back, clever fingers quickly unsnapping the hooks of her bra. "The wrong-est."

"That's not a word."

"It is if I make it one."

"Cheater."

"Time Lord."

This time his lips go to hers, and she whimpers under the assault of tongue and teeth. It's far more eager than elegant,and she'd think so even if she hadn't done this for a living and a laugh. But enthusiasm counts for a lot; Amy shivers as he moves to sweep his tongue along the pulse her throat -- quite possibly checking her age in the process.

"Got to say," she remarks idly, continuing to work on the tie (no easy task considering how he can't be still), "you really don't act like someone who's supposedly been doing this for centuries."

"New body," he explains into her collarbone. "Don't know all the little details yet. Used to like apples, after all, but now they're rubbish. Makes it all rather confusing."

The tie is loose, but Amy pauses before she pulls it off. "So… you're saying you used to like apples… but now you might like fish fingers and custard?"

"Exactly."

This is alarming news. "What is the sex equivalent of fish custard?"

"Who knows? I 'spose I'll figure it out eventually. Some things are clear already. I definitely appreciate legs, for example."

"That's convenient."

"Well, it is your fault."

"What? How it is my fault?"

"You hit me with a cricket bat and handcuffed me to a radiator! It was a very impressionable time for me. Woke up and--" he gestures at her legs, sweeping from ankle to thigh, which is a very long way "--there they were. Right in front of my nose. In seamed stockings, no less. Seamed stockings, Pond."

"Oh, for God's sake. If you've been looking for that long, why haven't you done anything about it?" She spreads her arms wide, her bra falling free to dangle from her wrist. (The Doctor groans.) "Been right here the whole time! Just down the hall! Purple door, third right, except when your spaceship decides it should be the third left!"

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"It would be... it would be... complicated." He closes his eyes, then presses his forehead to hers, cradling the back of her neck in his palm. "Bad complicated," he whispers -- mostly to himself. "Bad, bad, bad."

Uh-oh. He's gone serious on her again. "I like bad," she says lightly, and runs her hands up the planes of his chest -- his shirt is so soft -- until her fingers slide under his braces. She flattens her palms and can feel his hearts jackhammering. "Bad is fun. And I've been standing here almost naked for over five minutes while you still look like a eighty-year-old professor who escaped from university. Can we do something about that?"

He squirms she pulls his braces down and goes to work on the buttons of his shirt, and makes a muffled noise against her mouth when she scrapes a nail down his sternum. "Hormones are atrocious things," he mutters, lips not leaving hers. "I hate this regeneration."

"I rather fancy it." It occurs to her that she'd best find out something awfully important, so she leaves off his shirt buttons to reach lower, letting her bra fall away entirely as she does. The Doctor makes another noise -- until his eyes drift closed when she touches him.

Oh, good. Everything down there feels human. (Or, rather, feels Time Lord, which feels human. They came first.)

"You know… there are… more comfortable… places… to do this..." His words hitch with each stroke of her hand. "Purple door… third right… or left…"

"Nope," she says. "Here is good." If they pause to get to bed he'll have time to start thinking again, and if he does he will almost certainly come up with some terribly clever way to save the Artificial Satyrs of Beta Crucis Eight that doesn't involve Amy shagging him to within an inch of his life. She is not going to take that chance.

She squeezes him gently through his pants to make the point. He immediately says: "Yes. Here. You're right. Here is excellent. Don't know why I thought otherwise. I like here."

Amy is beginning to get the feeling that she will not, in fact, succeed in getting the Doctor naked. She settles for at least opening his shirt the rest of the way, and scrapes her teeth along his jaw as she does, nipping at the skin just below his ear. This makes him jump and say something that is apparently too filthy for even the TARDIS to translate. (Amy wonders briefly what the TARDIS's opinion is of all this, but then decides she'd best not think about it. She's already gotten little hints of jealousy from the time machine, usually in the form of fluctuating shower temperatures on days Amy particularly teases the Doctor; it will probably only get worse from now on.)

All consideration of other matters is gone as the Doctor grabs her hips, spins her around, and pushes her into the railing. His mouth meets the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder, oh, that's good, and when he reaches into her knickers and dips those long fingers where she's long been wet and ready for him, oh, that's better. It makes her own fingers tremble in the process of unbuttoning his trousers.

"Okay," she says, letting her head fall back to give him better access, which he takes immediate advantage of, "I believe you. You're not a virgin."

"Quite right I'm not." He does something with his hand that's got to be illegal, and she bites back a moan that would only raise his enormous ego to entirely new heights. "Not to worry, Pond, just because I don't know this body doesn't mean I don't know yours. Human females are all the same, after all." He blinks. "Wait. That didn't come out quite exactly right. All I meant is that the fundamental biological building blocks are--"

"I know what you meant." His hand has slowed and she wants to shake him. "Are you going to talk through this whole thing?"

He slows down even more as he considers the question. "Yes," he says finally. "Yes, I think I probably am."

At least he's still the Doctor. "Fine. Talk. As long as you get on with it. Orgasms to have, robot-goats to save. Now focus."

"I am focusing." He sounds offended, and now his hand has stopped moving entirely. "I can focus on multiple things at once. I can do this and correct the mistakes in Einstein's Theory of Relativity -- brilliant man, but there's only so much you can conceptualize without a degree in fourth-dimensional astrophysics -- and calculate pi to the end -- there's an end, did I tell you that? -- and consider the political ramifications of-- ah!"

She's pulled his pants halfway down his thighs and grabbed hold of his backside with both hands. It's that, or kill him.

"Pi is wonderful," she says, "but I'd really like your full attention right now, Raggedy Man."

"I'll try my best," he tells her.

She shimmies out of her knickers before he decides to start in on fiftieth century algorithms -- the movement brings his reassuringly normal-looking erection close to her face, and she gives the tip a quick kiss that makes him yelp -- then straightens up, fully naked. It suddenly occurs to her that while in Leadworth she might be a show-stopper, the blokes at the pub haven't see all the unfathomable beauties of time and space. This thought makes confidence falter for an instant, but she's quick enough to keep the uncertainty tucked deep inside; instead, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and meets the Doctor's eyes in challenge.

"Turn around," he says quietly.

Amy does. She curls her hands tight on the railing, studying the white doors and reading POLICE BOX backwards, though her eyes train lower when his hand spans along her spine, between her shoulder blades, and presses her downward until her lips are almost touching the cool metal bar. She moves her feet apart in anticipation as his fingers dance lightly over the skin of her back.

The Girl Who Waited waits.

She waits entirely too long.

And.

Nothing.

Happens.

After what feels like two hours but had better not be longer than thirty seconds or she really is going to murder him in his sleep (if he ever sleeps), Amy clears her throat. "Doctor?"

"Oh! Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Counting freckles."

Amy thuds her forehead lightly against the metal bar as he continues, "I decided to categorize them lengthwise by spinal column divides. There's three hundred and forty-seven along the cervical trapezoid, eight hundred and two in the thoracic, six hundred even in the lumbar -- but I haven't determined yet if it would be better to list the ones that touch as single entities, or divide more along radial--"

She stomps on his foot. Hard.

"Ow!"

"What did I tell you about focusing, Doctor?"

"I'm focused!"

"Focused on sex?"

"Yes! Your freckles are sexy!"

Amy blinks, and looks back over her shoulder to see the Doctor regarding her with a wide-eyed, earnest, somewhat injured expression. "They are?"

He responds by leaning down to drag his tongue along her shoulderblade, tasting at least forty-two of the three hundred and forty-seven freckles that dot the cervical trapezoid division. "Very sexy," he murmurs. "You've got a few here that look like this one cluster in the Nyek Nebula. Worshipped by five different civilizations, five million millennia and five trillion light years apart." His lips continue to brush her constellation as he presses closer and positions himself. "They throw the most magnificent celebrations. When we're done saving this stupid planet from this stupid war I'll take you to see."

"See which one?"

He slides deep inside and she gasps. "All of them, Amy."

His mouth never leaves her back, and even though his movements are measured and steady, she doesn't dare let go of the railing for a half-conscious fear of floating away. But his hands aren't still; they flutter over her sides, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Particularly her thighs. He is a leg man. Or a leg Time Lord.

And he never. Shuts. Up. He just keeps having a one-sided conversation with her, directly against her skin, telling her about more stars in the nebula that have religions devoted to them, some of which involve these fluffy trees protected by the Lorax -- yes, Dr. Seuss was an alien, can't believe you lot never picked up on that -- and, oh, this one little freckle grouping here on her hip looks sort of like the micro-galaxy with two black holes in the -- no, wait, that's a tattoo of a butterfly, what are you doing with a tattoo Amy Pond, does your aunt know about this?

A million words, and every one of them breathless and ragged.

It turns her on so much that she's pretty sure she won't ever hear him lecture again without having to change her knickers afterwards.

"I was lying before," he says suddenly, beginning to speed up. "I don't need to try to give you my full attention. You always have it. Always."

"Really?" Amy pushes back against him, encouraging more forceful movements that are going to drive her insane (but it'll be worth it, it's all worth it). "Seems to me like you were talking about pi and other rubbish."

"What I'm saying and what I'm thinking are usually different things."

"That I knew."

"Which is the way it should be." No more brushes; his left hand closes over her shoulder, and his right dives between her legs to tease at the place where every nerve ending in her body comes together. "Oh, Pond--" his lips touch her ear, his hearts pounding against her back in time with his thrusts "--if you knew what was in my head, you would leap screaming into the Void."

She'll be screaming pretty soon anyway, she can feel it. "Less thinking, Doctor," she gasps, though she's thinking, thinking of ways to get him to stop thinking. And as she does, she realizes what his sex version of fish custard will be.

Amy turns her face to the side, nips the hand resting on her shoulder, and nudges her forehead against it, deliberately tossing her ginger locks over his pale fingers.

The Doctor shudders. He twists a handful of hair around his palm.

And he pulls.

He's still talking -- of course he's still talking -- but now it's nonsense words, mostly her name in all of its incarnations, and also what sounds like a few deities, plus a lot of "more" and "yes" and "harder". (Or maybe that's her. It's difficult to tell.) Not that they could go much harder, because Amy might shake apart if he did, and the way he's yanked her hair to curve her back into an arch so that he can rub his face against her neck and drive in fast and and and--

Yeah. She screams.

He's not much quieter. But then, 'quiet' isn't really the Doctor's thing.

By the time he pulls free, Amy's seriously considering a boneless slide to the floor and staying there to nap for at least six hours. Walking to the purple door on the third right (or left) would take entirely too much effort. "Okay, so, you like legs, and you like talking, and you like hair," she says, slumping forward to rest her forehead on the rail again.

"That last bit is your fault too," he points out. "Swinging it out from under a policewoman's cap like that -- and after the stockings! You could have given me a full-fledged fetish."

"You're sure I didn't?"

"Of course I'm sure." Beat. "Well, maybe." Beat. "Hard to say. Never had a fetish before. How do you tell?"

She turns to face him, leaning her weight back on her elbows, which shows her breasts off to their best advantage; she stretches out her legs and crosses her ankles, then flashes him a sultry smile to accompany the view. "Not to worry; I'll help you figure it out."

The look he gives her as he buttons himself back up is, for once, one she doesn't entirely understand. It's strangely still for him, and strangely tired, and… just strange.

"Amy…" he starts. But he doesn't finish.

He sounds so grave that she takes pity on him. "Relax, Doctor," she giggles, punching him in the shoulder as though they've been running about on an adventure instead of de-virginizing a Time Lord. "The universe hasn't ended because we shagged. And if we do it again, it won't interfere with your space-gypsy lifestyle. Promise. I'm not the needy type."

Oh so quietly, focused on nothing, he sighs: "I am."

This is such an unexpected statement that Amy is quite certain she's heard it wrong. So she passes by it. "All right--" she reaches for his tweed jacket and slings it over her shoulders, where it falls just far enough to cover everything that theoretically needs covering "--the important thing is, now you look like a bloke who even robot-goats will have to listen to."

He glances back at her, and grins, his old self again in an instant. "Do I?"

"Oh, yes." She gives him an exaggerated once-over. "Job well done on my part."

"It certainly was that." The Doctor raises his wrist to examine his broken watch (she doesn't know why he wears it, and suspects he doesn't either) and declares: "All right, time to save a stupid planet from a stupid war. Come along, Pond."

Amy shakes her head. Antiquated rules about maturity aside, Beta Crucis Eight's problems are actually a bit simple and boring by their standards. "No, thanks; I think I'll take a shower, find some fresh clothes, and enjoy not being in prison for once." As he jumps down the stairs and runs to the door, she calls: "Try not to get killed, all right? Wouldn't want to have to initiate another Doctor in the same afternoon."

This makes him freeze mid-step -- and before she knows it he's back at her side, kissing her for all they're both worth. Which is quite a lot. When he pulls back she's a bit dazed.

Then he plucks his tweed right from her shoulders, leaving her stark naked. "Back in a 'mo," he says, right before planting one more quick kiss on her forehead. He's out the box doors before she has time to react.

"He really is mad," Amy says to no one in particular (though the TARDIS lights raise and lower ever so slightly).

And when she finally does get into the shower, the bloody spaceship only gives her ice cold water.




***



A/N: