Welcome back for the seventh (I'm amazed we've come this far!) instalment of my Doctor Who series. If you are only just stumbling across this story now, I would recommend going back and reading the first six stories, starting from 'Finding The Last Time Lady'. Oh, and I would also like to thank, again, the guest who helped to suggest the title for this story :)

The Hatter is in her Eleventh body, with wavy shoulder length brown hair and pale skin. She's left handed and has an athlete build, standing around 5'11, making her the same height as Amy, but just a tiny bit shorter than the Doctor. She has hazel green, almond shape eyes and a long, slim nose that curves slightly upwards towards the tip, with a small, pointed chin. Her cheek bones are also softer then her previous regeneration. When she smiles, a dimple forms in her right cheek.

Now, the Hatter also has a rather…colourful sense of style, and she is most often seen wearing brightly coloured tights (pink, navy blue, orange, purple…) with bright yellow Orford shoes and a black sued A-line skirt with white buttons running up the front of it. She also wears a bright yellow belt and a bright pink long sleeved top, which she tucks into her skirt, along with a blacker leather jacket and a small silver star brooch pinned to her top. She always wears her wedding and engagement rings, along with her Gallifreyan signet necklace. And, possibly the most important piece of her entire outfit, her pink and black two tone fedora hat.

We also have another OC joining us for this story, though there will be times in which it would be quite unsuitable for her to be involved within a certain chapter or episode, due to her age, and that's the Doctor and the Hatter's baby, Astra Penelope, so there will be times in which she won't be present. Astra is currently a baby within the story and has greenish-blue eyes, which are slowly becoming greener as she gets older, like the Doctor's. She has pale skin and a light covering of brown hair, her features favouring the Hatter's with her a similar nose and chin, but she looks more like the Doctor around her eyes. She also quite likes bowties and hats, and will likely be seen wearing a hat of some sort.

So, I'm sure (If you haven't already just skipped ahead of all of this, my dear readers) that I've bored you all quite enough with these little reminders, so I won't keep babbling on. If you have any questions or certain requests, please feel free to send them to me, either on here or through my Tumblr. I very much hope you enjoy this seventh instalment :)

Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to Doctor Who, just my OC Time Lady, the Hatter.

Pond Life

…

April

Amy and Rory shook their heads fondly as they stood leaning against the counter in their kitchen, sipping a glass of wine ideally, listening to the latest message that the Doctor and the Hatter had left for them while they had been out. It was becoming a regular thing for the Time Lords to do, once a week they seemed to send them at least one message, half the time the messages not even making sense due to apparently being from a version of the Doctor and the Hatter from their future. Usually, they would end up getting a second message when that happened, usually from the Hatter, telling them to ignore the previous message and that, no, they hadn't just accidently blown up something as it seemed, ending with a cheerful goodbye and shout of 'Spoilers'. It had been a little concerning at first, now it was just amusing.

"Hello, Ponds!" the Doctor's bright, cheerful voice came over the phone speaker as the message began, "Checking in…"

"Again," the Hatter's voice came, sounding like her usual happy self, "Just wanted to make sure everything was okay with you two…" Amy frowned slightly, narrowing her eyes on the phone, "So…how are you?" she laughed slightly as a distant baby coo sounded, "Oh, and Astra says hello, too".

…

The Doctor and the Hatter were hurrying through the caves of a volcanic planet that they had landed on, Astra visiting the Time Lady's old companions, Alice and Max for a few hours while the Doctor and the Hatter finished dealing with matters on the planet. The planet was very hot, with puffs of steam shooting up from the rocky ground and cavernous tunnels that they were dashing through, the Doctor carrying a large silver surfboard beneath his arm as they went, throwing quick glances over their shoulders. They reached a metal door, which slide open to reveal a short stone bridge running high above a stream of laver.

"Oh…" the Hatter breathed a little weakly, looking down over the edge of the bridge to the very hot looking lava beneath them, more then used to ignoring the horrible smell of rotten eggs after having been running around the planet for the past several hours, "That…ah, looks very…hot and deadly".

The Doctor grabbed her hand, lightly tugging her away from the edge and quickly moving across the bridge, personally trying to avoid looking to closely at the lava, "Never mind that, dear," he told her quickly, his eyes focused on the second metal door just ahead of them through the steam, "Come on, the Sontarans are right behind us…"

"I told you to take that left turn! We could have lost them ages ago, but no, don't listen to me…"

"I always listen to you!"

She scoffed loudly, "It's like when I told you not to let Astra play with your sonic screwdriver last week and she ended up setting fire to the console".

"That was…" he winced slightly, clearing his throat as he threw her a quick look over his shoulder, "She wanted to play with it, dear!"

"If she wanted to play with a Cyberman, would you let her?"

"That's…totally different!"

"Hardly".

The second door ahead of them suddenly slid open to reveal three heavily armed Sontarans with their helmets on, obscuring their faces, aiming their weapons on the Time Lords.

The Doctor sighed loudly in exasperation, "Really?" he quickly looked back towards the door they had entered through, only to find their path blocked by another three Sontarans, weapons trained of them, too.

The Hatter glanced at the Doctor, "I swear, Doctor, if I lose my hat in lava, I will kill you…" she warned him, reaching up to take her hat off, tucking it away inside her jacket pocket.

"Noted, dear," he flashed her a grin, which made her smile slightly, despite herself, unable to resist. He quickly turned and tossed the surfboard down onto the stream of lava below them, squeezing her hand tightly, "Ready?"

She threw the Sontorans a wary look, not really seeing much choice in the matter, even if she was secretly quite excited about the prospect of having to surf over lava, "Geronimo!" she cried, before she and the Doctor leaped right off the bridge…

….

"Not much to report," the Doctor said over the speaker, while Amy and Rory continued listening, "We surfed the fire falls of Florinall Nine…"

"I blame the Doctor completely for that," the Hatter added, her tone growing slightly sharper, "Still, I didn't lose my hat in any lava, so I've forgiven him".

Amy and Rory exchanged a brief, amused look.

"You enjoyed that adventure! We got to surf on lava!"

Astra gargled something.

"Maybe when you're older, my darling," the Hatter told her, though she didn't sound overly keen about the idea, "But you won't be surfing anything, lava or not, for a very, very long time. Right, Doctor?"

"Right, dear," the Doctor muttered, almost sounding a little afraid to disagree with her, "Anyway…" his tone brightened slightly, "We also met Meta Hari in a Paris hotel room…"

….

The Doctor was sitting on the floor in a lavishly decorated Paris hotel room by the open roaring fire, toasting a crumpet on the flames that he had stuck on a poker, waiting for the Hatter to return from the TARDIS to bring back the homemade jam for them to spread over the crumpets. Astra was lying on her playmat a few feet from the fire, sucking on the ear of her teddy, Cyril, while she kicked happily as she stared up at the bright yellow star and silver moon hanging just above her head. The room's door swung open.

"Ah, finally, dear," he remarked happily, expecting the Hatter as he heard the door close, "What did you do, decide to make the jam yourself…" he trailed off as he turned around, only to a find a woman standing before him that most certainly wasn't his wife, dressed in a big fur coat.

The woman smirked at him and suddenly dropped the coat, revealing herself to be completely naked.

His eyes widened in shock before he quickly tried covering his eyes, feeling the back of his neck warming as he awkwardly tried to move so that he was blocking the sight from Astra, who had recently learned how to start rolling over…

The hotel room door opened again, "I couldn't find the blackberry jam, sweetheart," the Hatter said as she stepped into the room, looking down at the small jars she was struggling to keep a hold on, each filled with a different flavour jam, "Though, I did find an extra strawberry…" she trailed off, looking up to see a completely naked woman standing before her husband and child, though Astra thankfully couldn't see a thing with the Doctor blocking her view.

"Um…" the Doctor coughed, peeking out through his fingers, careful to look around the woman, "We've got a visitor, dear".

"Yes…" the Hatter nodded slowly, blinking rapidly, quite stunned, "I can see that…lot's of that, in fact…" she cleared her throat and quickly directed her eyes up towards the ceiling, "I'm sorry, madam, but I think you might have the wrong room…"

….

"What an interesting woman," the Doctor remarked, and Rory and Amy exchanged slightly disbelieving looks. They seriously did get themselves into some of the strangest situations, even without trying.

"Yes, she was, rather," the Hatter agreed thoughtfully, "We had tea, after she put her coat back on, of course. Oh, and apologised for her mistake and complimented me on my taste in hats, given that her father had made hats. She even offered to teach me a few dance moves, but the Doctor blushed so badly, I was a little concerned he might faint".

He cleared his throat loudly, while Amy smirked slightly at the mental image, "I laid down some backing vocals…" he said a little quickly, obviously trying to move on from the subject.

….

The Hatter smiled fondly, shaking her head in amusement as she sat on a sofa in the middle of the recording studio in Hollywood, watching through the glass as the Doctor, very enthusiastically, tried rapping along with the steady beat of a song in one of the recording booths, wearing an American baseball cap backwards on his head, because he thought that it made him look, 'Cool'. The Hatter hadn't had the heart to tell him how wrong he was about that.

Astra thought it was great, however, sitting on the Time Lady's lap as she allowed the Hatter to lightly bounce her in beat with the music, her eyes fixed on her father with a wide, toothless grin on her chubby face, her teddy disregarded on the floor, for once.

"You are so your father's daughter," she muttered, leaning down to place a kiss on top of Astra's head, her hair finally starting to get thicker.

….

"We should be with you any day now," the Doctor continued brightly, "Literally any day".

"Sadly, the Helmic Regulator's been playing up," the Hatter added, sighing warily, "We've been trying to fix it, the temporal steering's all off…"

"Oh, dear…" he suddenly cut in, just as the Time Lady groaned loudly, "We appear to have collided with ancient Greece..." there was a sudden noise of something exploding, followed by him yelling in alarm.

"Got to go, Amy and Rory!" the Time Lady shouted over all the background noise, which made it sound as if they were crashing, Astra's cries sounding, "Bye! I'm so sorry, my darling, everything's going to be just fine…!"

The message cut off, leaving Rory and Amy staring at the phone, shaking their heads, not worried in the slightest. How many times had something like this happened? Four…five? No, six, it had to be the sixth time.

Amy looked across the counter to her husband, lifting her wine class up as he did the same, "The Doctor and the Hatter," she toasted, drinking to them.

May

It was the middle of the night and Amy and Rory were fast asleep, tucked up in bed, when the sound of the TARDIS engines wheezed throughout the house. The couple shifted slightly in their sleep, but didn't wake as the noise of thundering footsteps came from outside the bedroom door, moving rapidly up the stairs, before the bedroom door was suddenly thrown open by the Doctor, waking the couple with a startled gasp, just as the Hatter appeared right behind the Doctor.

"Argh!" the Doctor yelped, quickly covering his eyes, "Stop everything!"

The Hatter rolled her eyes, lightly nudging his side, "They were only sleeping, sweetheart," she told him, grabbing his arm and gently lowering it from his eyes, casting the humans still in bed a slightly sheepish smile, "Ah…sorry about waking you, but it's very important…"

"What's going on?" Rory gasped, his eyes wide with panic, though he still looked half-asleep.

"Doctor!" Amy huffed, squinting slightly and grabbing the blanket, trying to cover herself, "Hatter! Bedroom!"

"We have a rule about the bedroom!"

Amy paused, frowning slightly as she seemed to see clearly enough, "And where's Astra?"

"Oh, Sarah Jane's looking after her," the Hatter shook her head, waving a dismissive hand, "It's far too dangerous for her to be with us right now…"

"Which reminds me…" the Doctor cut in, looking very seriously at Rory and Amy, ignoring their annoyance, "No one on this planet is safe right now. We have to solve this before it's too late. Get your clothes on!" the Hatter frowned slightly, eyeing the blank expressions on Amy and Rory's faces as he continued, "If we move fast, we at least stand a chance…"

"Um, sweetheart?" the Time Lady touched his arm, smiling faintly as he stopped, glancing back to her, "I don't think they have a clue what you're talking about," she looked back to the humans, raising an eyebrow, "Right?"

"Right," Amy and Rory said in unison, Rory yawning as Amy shook her head.

"Oh, I hate it when this happens…" she sighed tiredly, looking back to the Doctor, who was pouting, "We seriously need to fix that Helmic regulator. It's all your fault it's broken in the first place," she looked back to the humans, "He let Astra play the sonic screwdriver, the real one, which then led to a small fire and minor but very disruptive damage to the Helmic Regulator".

The Doctor nodded, closing her eyes tightly as he did so, having heard her say the same thing at least eight times. Perhaps it had been a bit unwise to let Astra play with the sonic screwdriver, but she had giggled and smiled so adorably that he just couldn't help himself. He wouldn't be making that mistake again…not with the Hatter around, anyway.

"Yes, I know, I know," he said, opening his eyes and looking back to Amy and Rory, "The point is that we're too early. Wrong point. As you were!" he grabbed the Hatter's hand and moved to leave the bedroom.

"So sorry about waking you again!" the Hatter added over her shoulder, flashing them a quick smile.

"Hang on, you two!" Amy called after them, frowning, "You can't just go like that. What's happening? Don't we need to know?"

The Doctor and the Hatter appeared back in the doorway, the Doctor moving to perch himself on the end of the bed, while the Time Lady leaned against the doorframe.

"Oh, we've just got your timeline a little wrong," the Hatter smiled at them, shrugging slightly, "Wouldn't be the first time we've done that, nothing to be concerned about".

"Forget we were ever here," the Doctor told them, sighing slightly, "We'll be back soon enough, I would have thought. Everything's fine…" he assured them, pausing, "…pretty much"

The Time Lady gave him a quick look, moving out of the doorway to grab his arm and lightly tug him up, "Everything's just great," she said with a pointed look in his direction, "The future is…well…" she bit her lip, thinking about everything they had done, the Daleks and the dinosaurs on a spaceship, all of those funny little, dangerous cubes that had littered the Earth, Astra's teething…She fixed a smile onto her face, giving Amy and Rory a quick thumbs-up, "…safe," she finished brightly.

"Really, really, safe," the Doctor nodded, slowly backing back towards the door with the Hatter, his mind racing with the memories of the last few months, his expression anything but comforting as Amy and Rory stared at them, not believing them for a second, "Sleep well," he whispered, slowly closing the door behind himself and the Hatter.

Amy and Rory fell back onto their pillows, staring up at the ceiling as the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing sounded downstairs, neither of them feeling very much like sleeping after that less then reassuring little visit from the Time Lords.

"I really hate it when they do that," Rory sighed, his arms folded on his chest.

"River's right," Amy muttered, shaking her head, "They really are hard work".

June

Rory left the bedroom as the bright morning sun shone through the window, yawning as he wrapped his dressing gown tighter around his waist as he walked down the hallway in his slippers, heading for the bathroom. He reached the door and pulled it open, stepping inside…only to give a loud yelp of surprise.

"Whoa!" he practically ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, his eyes wide with shock. He slowly reached up with his hands to rub his face, trying to figure out if this was just a very vivid dream…or nightmare, before lowering his hands and giving himself a little shake. Slowly, he turned back towards the bathroom door and hesitantly pulled the door open, peering inside, hoping for it to be gone…oh, how he was wrong. He popped back out into the hallway, only to find Amy walking towards him in her pink dressing gown, and quickly tried to block her way to the door.

"Out of the way, Mister Pond," Amy told him as she reached him, but Rory quickly closed his mouth and shook his head. She frowned, confused, "What?" he only shook his head harder, "Why not?"

He hesitated, tilting his head, considering it, before deciding that trying to ignore it wasn't going to help get rid of it. He moved back slightly and grabbed the door handle, pulling it open as he looked back to watch Amy as she moved into the bathroom, only to stumble backwards slightly at the sight of an Ood sitting on the toilet, just…sitting there, casually.

The Ood looked calmly up to them, "May I be of assistance?" it asked, its orb lighting up as it spoke.

"Ood on the loo," Rory commented quietly.

"Yeah…" Amy nodded slowly, trying to give the Ood an awkward smile.

July

"Ood!" the Doctor called over the answering machine, while Amy and Rory sat at the kitchen dining table, eating breakfast. It had taken them a whole month to finally get a reply back from the Time Lords about the Ood they had found in their bathroom and over the past month they had just tried to get used to having an Ood around, making sure that all the front curtains were closed and that the Ood was out of sight, "Yes, I was wondering where he'd got to," he continued thoughtfully, "I thought he'd just gone for a walk in the TARDIS".

Amy glanced at Rory to see him busy looking over towards the phone, reaching out with her fork to steal one of his sausages off his plate while he was distracted, quickly taking a bite of it, just as he looked back and frowned slightly, glancing down at his plate.

"He must have had enough of Astra constantly trying to grab at his tentacles," the Hatter commented, sounding distracted, as if she was working on something else while speaking, "Not that I blame him for wondering off, it doesn't matter how many times you tell a six month old baby to be gentle, they'll still yank very hard and rather painfully".

"Yes, she's taken to pulling on my bowtie, recently," the Doctor agreed, "She almost strangled me the other day…but never mind that!" he suddenly brightened, just as Rory looked back across to Amy, narrowing his eyes suspiciously as she simply shrugged innocently, "The Ood must have wondered off when we popped in the other night. If it was the other night…"

"Or was it last week?" the Time Lady said, a frown in her voice, just as she sighed loudly, "Yes, my darling, I know you find my necklace to be very pretty and enjoy sticking it in your mouth, but mummy and daddy are a little busy right now. Yes, that's a good girl, play with your star chart…."

"You know," the Doctor began as Rory pulled a face at Amy, not buying her innocent act for a second, "We resecured that Ood from the middle of the Androvax conflict. We were taking him back to the Ood Sphere. Anyway, he's not being a nuisance, is he?"

Amy and Rory looked at each other, thinking about the past month. They wouldn't exactly call it a nuisance…no, in fact, the Ood had proven to be most useful, making them both a packed lunch for when they went to work, like they were school kids, doing the laundry, making the bed, pretty much every single household task. It had been nice at first…but now they just felt awkward about the whole thing. It felt like they had a slave doing everything for them, considering that the Ood didn't seem to want for anything in return.

Rory pushed back his chair and moved to pick up the phone receiver, not wanting the Ood to overhear, "He, um, seems to think he's our butler," he told them uncomfortably.

"Yes, he would," the Hatter said with a small sigh on the other end of the phone, "He's been conditioned to serve, Rory, and as uncomfortable as I'm sure it probably is for you and Amy, just let him do it".

"We'll come and pick him up tonight," the Doctor added, before sounding as if he was frowning, "Whenever tonight is…" suddenly, an alarm began going off in the background, making Rory wince slightly, "Oh, no!" he exclaimed, "Got to go!"

"It's okay, Astra," the Hatter said loudly over the alarm as Astra's cry sounded, groaning, "I'm sorry, Rory, but we seriously do have to cut this conversation short. Somehow the Doctor fiddled with something he shouldn't and now there's a power drain on the TARDIS that could very well cause the TARDIS to explode unless we do something!" she paused, adding, "Not to sound dramatic or anything, but that would be very, very bad".

"I didn't do anything, Hatter!" the Doctor's voice came, sounding as if he had moved away from the speaker now, "Oh, why's it doing that? No, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that!"

Rory lowered the receiver from his ear, staring down at it in mild alarm as the call ended with the alarm blaring and Astra crying in distress, the Doctor still shouting and the Hatter muttering a quick, 'Bye,' before hanging up. He shook his head and put the receiver back on the cradle, before moving back to sit at the table, just as the Ood appeared with two tea cups and wearing an apron around its waist.

"Your infusions," the Ood told them as it sat their teacups down beside their plates, which they picked up. It straightened, holding the communication orb in its hand, "How else may I be of service?"

"I feel so guilty," Rory leaned across to the table to Amy.

"Just eat your breakfast," Amy said quietly.

They both took a sip from their cups and looked back up to the Ood, giving it an awkward smile.

August

The TARDIS was parked outside Amy and Rory's house on a drizzly day, the Doctor standing on top of a wooden ladder as he changed the light bulb on top of the time machine with one hand, while the other hand held a red phone against his ear, which was connected from within the time machines closed doors. The Hatter was standing on the footpath at the foot of the ladder, six and a half old Astra held on her hip with a little yellow raincoat and hat on, watching the Doctor above them, Astra with interest and the Hatter in concern that he might end up toppling off the ladder at any moment.

"Hello, Ponds!" the Doctor called cheerfully over the phone, fiddling with the bulb, "Us again…well, me, but the Hatter is here, so…"

"Hello, Amy and Rory!" the Hatter said loudly as the Doctor paused to hold the receiver down towards her so that she had a chance to greet them. Astra gargled something, too, "Oh, and Astra says that she misses you…well, actually, she didn't refer to you by name, she called you Fire Hair and Squishy Face, but it still counts, right?"

The Doctor laughed, shaking his head fondly as he pressed the receiver back up to his ear, "Sorry about the gaps in communications," he said into the phone, "We dropped your Ood back home. Reconnected it to the hive," he finished putting the new bulb in and carefully began to climb back down the ladder, hopping back down on the footpath beside the Hatter, "Helmic Regulator's still not working".

"Yes, but we did manage to fix it before it broke again," the Time Lady cut in, shaking her head as she leaned closer to the Doctor to speak into the phone, "We went to the Battle of Hastings and an arrow somehow managed to hit the console…don't ask. Oh, and we also rode a horse through eleventh century Conventry. That was…interesting".

"Also, I think I might have accidently invented pasta…" he muttered with a small smile in the Hatter's direction, who shook her head at him.

She left him and Astra in a tiny hut with a nice Chinse man for ten minutes, only to come back and find that he had managed to make noodles. His excuse was that Astra was hungry and that he wanted her to try something new, since they had began considering starting Astra on some mushy, soft foods, but pasta really wouldn't have been the Hatter's first choice, especially not when pasta wasn't meant to be invented for another fifty years.

"You two are okay, aren't you?" she asked over the phone, frowning slightly as her previous lightness faded, throwing a quick look back over towards Amy and Rory's house. They had tried the door when they had arrived, but nothing, "We tried ringing your doorbell, but you don't seem to be home…"

"Which is fine," the Doctor said a little too quickly, looking at the Hatter as he spoke, "Everything's alright, isn't it, with you two?" he shook his head at himself, "Of course it is. Ponds, always fine. Just…worrying unnecessarily," he cleared his throat, fixing a bright smile onto his face, "Anyway, just call us if you need us. Okay?"

The Hatter took the phone from him, forcing herself to sound happy, "See you guys later!" she said before ending the call, handing it back to the Doctor with a small frown crossing her face.

The Doctor took the receiver back and eyed it for a moment, before sighing heavily and reaching into his pocket, pulling his sonic screwdriver back out, flashing it at the phone, deleting the message as Astra squealed in delight at the sight of the sonic screwdriver. He smiled at his daughter softly, before looking back to the Hatter, his expression growing grim.

"We're too early, aren't we?" he said tiredly, having a feeling he knew just why he couldn't get hold of Amy and Rory right now. If he was right…well, they really weren't doing okay, not at all.

"I think so," she nodded, meeting his eyes again, "I just wish Amy had listened to me, so much could have been different…" she sighed sadly, thinking back to that promise Amy had forced her to make back at Christmas all those months ago, the promise that she had even had to keep from the Doctor. She shook her head and turned back to the TARDIS, pushing it open and disappearing inside the console room with Astra.

The Doctor swallowed, his eyes lingering on Amy and Rory's house before he grabbed the ladder and followed behind her. Things would be okay in the end, but there was still a long road ahead of Amy and Rory before they would reach that point.

…

Amy returned home, trying hard to resist the lump in her throat as she walked into her kitchen, looking around briefly. The house felt so empty now, so painfully empty without Rory, but she knew it had been for the best…it had to be. She dropped her handbag and keys on the kitchen table and moved across to check the phone, feeling her heart sinking when she realised that she didn't have any new messages.

"We need you, Raggedy Man, Shabby Hatter," she breathed, looking up towards the ceiling, "I need you".

So quickly, it's important for you to note that all the events involving the Doctor and the Hatter are taking place in the future of the story, so when the next chapter kicks off, Astra will still only be about three, four months old and not six and a half months, but for Rory and Amy it will run normally, since we were following their timeline through this chapter and not the Doctor and the Hatter's. I hope that makes sense, think of it as a little glimpse into future Doctor and Hatter, and Astra.

So, the Hatter was forced to make a promise to Amy about something that she didn't agree with. I will say that I plan to do a one-shot about what it is…when I get the chance to do that, of course. I'm trying to finish off writing something that I was requested to do by a guest review, which is about what would have happened if Nine, Eleven, or Twelve had found the Hatter instead of Ten.

I hope you guys liked the first chapter, tell me what you thought. Please review :)