Author's Note

This fic is based during Matt Smith's first series. I haven't exactly decided when. Please don't try to place it too precisely. Just go with the story I tell. :D Well, it is before Rory died and before he came on the TARDIS.

I hope you enjoy it.

I'm trying a twist on a common story line. :D

"We're in a broom cupboard!" Amy exclaimed as they stepped out of the TARDIS.

"A very spacious, very expensive looking broom cupboard," the Doctor corrected her, "I mean look at this!" He cried, holding up a shiny metal contraption with multicoloured buttons down one side and a wobbly bit on the end.

Amy looked at him, sceptically. "And that is?"

"I haven't the foggiest," the Doctor grinned, throwing it down and grabbing her hand before reaching for the door handle that would lead them out of the cupboard. "Come on; let's see where the old girl has landed us this time. She must have wanted us here for a reason because, as much as I tried, I certainly couldn't stop her. She has a mind of her own these days."

With an almighty shove of his shoulder that forced the stiff door open, the two of them tumbled out of the storeroom and into a brightly lit corridor. Both blinked in the sudden artificial light, looking curiously around. Suddenly, something caught the Doctor's attention because he hurried off to the right, dragging Amy with him whether she liked it or not. They stumbled into a small, neat waiting area and looked around. The place was modern, perhaps even futuristic, and designed in a stylish, relaxing way that involved wooden beams and rich leather sofas. A stack of glossy magazines sat on the table in the middle of the waiting area but before Amy could go and investigate, a young woman popped out from a door to their left.

"Ah!" Her eyes lit up when she saw them and Amy vaguely registered that her irises were purple. "Good afternoon. My name's Ester."

"Afternoon," the Doctor agreed, grinning.

"You must be the Harpers. Welcome to the Acorn Centre. You're a little late but that's fine."

Amy and the Doctor exchanged a look. Then he turned back to offer a disarming smile to the friendly woman. "Yes, we're the Harpers. That's us."

"Good. Excellent. Well then, if you'd like to come this way we can get started."

The Doctor clapped his hands together and rubbed them, excitedly. "Oh yes, get started, I like the sound of that."

They followed Ester through the door that she'd appeared from and down another bright corridor with a wonderfully soft, springy green carpet and swirling paintings on the walls. The palette they must have used was all warm, woody colours and Amy decided it felt a bit like an old country house, especially with the fragrant smell of wild flowers that reach her nostrils mixed with the freshness of the wooden arches that lined the passage. This was a very different place to anywhere she'd been with the Doctor before – probably because the Doctor liked looking for the dirt and the grime and the trouble – and she guessed that it may be a hotel or guest house or something along those lines. She wasn't sure what they were going to do when this lady found out they weren't the Harpers but, for now, they were happy to play along. As they always did.

"Through here please," the young woman said, directing them through a door into another side room. "Now, if you'll just wait a moment."

"We're not going anywhere," the Doctor said; his eyes bright with interest as Ester walked over to a cupboard and pulled something out.

"It's very quick. We have it down to ten seconds now and a hundred percent success rate." Ester walked back to them.

"Ooh, what exactly?"

"You don't even need to take your clothes off."

"Oh, really?" The Doctor smirked. Amy jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. This was no time to be making jokes. What was going on? Surely they should be stopping this charade now?

Suddenly, the girl lurched forward and jabbed something at the Doctor. He let out a yelped of surprise, stumbling backwards and wind-milling his arms. She retracted a millisecond later.

"Whoa! I think you nicked my-" The Doctor stopped, blushing when he saw Amy staring bemusedly at him. "So what was that for then?" he quickly asked.

Ester ignored him. "And now to your wife. Here we go."

And then she leant over and, before Amy could dart out of the way, stuck something in her lower abdomen. Amy let out a hiss of surprise and pain and then had a very peculiar sensation of something being emptied inside her. She glanced, fearfully, over the Doctor and saw that a look of horrified comprehension had suddenly dawned on his face.

"Oh….OH! No, that's wrong! You shouldn't be doing that!" he yelped, leaping into action and trying to grab what Amy now realised was a syringe from Ester. "Stop!"

"Sir, everything is fine."

"Doctor, what's she doing?" Amy asked, quivering. By this time Ester had removed the needle and carefully threw it in a bio-waste bin.

"There we go, sir, all done. See, there was nothing to worry about at all. It's natural to get last minute nerves, I know, I've seen it enough times. This is a life changing decision after all."

The Doctor merely stood in the middle of the room; stunned and white as a sheet.

"Doctor?" Amy hissed again. "What's she done? What's wrong?"

"Now, assuming that you were in the right stage of your cycle," Ester continued, bustling around her cabinets, "You should be successful."

"Hang on" the flame-haired girl said as she lifted a finger, the pieces dropping into place, "My cycle?"

"Yes, your menstrual cycle. You did book the appointment for an appropriate date, didn't you? Mrs Harper? Mr Harper?"

It was Amy's turn to pale as she realised the implications of what had just occurred. A hand unconsciously went to her stomach. Just at that point the Doctor started moving again.

"No, no, she is not pregnant," he stated, fiercely, "You're already on your…you know…period. You said." Silently, Amy shook her head. The Doctor threw his head back and placed both of his hands around his neck, clasping them together. "Oh, Amy, that was my only possibility!" He tapped his feet rapidly on the floor before spinning to brandish a finger at Ester. "You can undo this, can't you?"

"Er…" The poor woman looked very perplexed. "The idea of the Acorn Clinic is to create life, not to take it away. We help people who want to conceive a child."

The Doctor threw his hands in the air, wildly. "We didn't want to conceive a child!"

"Then why are you here? You are the Harpers, aren't you?"

"No!" the Time Lord admitted; he was practically bellowing in Ester's face. A shocked expression crossed her pretty features as he abruptly backed away from her looking completely and utterly defeated. "We were just….playing along," he murmured, softly, running frenetic fingers through his hair. "Just pretending….no, no, no this can't be happening."

"So if you're not the Harpers then who are you?" Ester asked, hotly. "Because I think I'm going to have to call security."
"Its fine. We're going. Yes…going."

With a blank face, the Doctor strode over to Amy – who was still frozen on the spot - and grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the door. Together, the tumbled into the corridor and made their way back to the TARDIS. They both shared the same rather shell-shocked expression as they stumbled over the threshold of the time machine and into the main control room. For a few moments neither of them spoke; they merely stood in silence. Neither of them could quite believe what had happened in the ten minutes or so they'd been in that clinic. Stunned was an understatement.

Suddenly, Amy felt strong fingers encase her slender wrist once more and pull her – unnecessarily roughly, in her opinion – down the steps on one side of the control room.

"Where are we-?"

"The medical bay," was the Doctor's blunt answer.

"Right. Am I, you know, gonna be okay?"

She didn't receive a reply. Glancing at her companion, she registered the almost tangible determination emanating from his blue-green eyes and the firm set of his angular jaw. She wondered what was going on in his head but, honestly, she could not even begin to fathom because she had no idea how complex a Time Lord's brain was. Really, she wanted to ask him; she wanted him to talk. It was rather frightening when he was silent. Usually words just spewed from his mouth, even in the tensest situations and the most inappropriate times. They matched each other in that respect.

"Doctor, you're scaring me a bit," Amy finally admitted just as he wrenched open a door and manhandled her inside.

"You'll be fine," he replied in a way that really didn't convince her in the slightest. In fact, it just made her even more nervous, especially as there was a slightly manic glint in his eyes. "Now, if you'll just sit on here."

He placed her, firmly, on a rather futuristic looking hospital bed that was surrounded by an array of weird and wonderful machinery. She guessed it was another place that he liked to hoard things. There were colourful winding tubes and shiny monitors and odd little gadgets with aerials sticking off them. There was a large array of instruments lining the walls and Amy found herself frowning slightly as she tried to work out what they were for. An object that looked like a cross between a spanner and a toothbrush really took her interest.

So preoccupied was Amy with the medical bay's rich variety of tools that she didn't even notice what the Doctor was doing until he was coming towards her with a big needle.

"What are you doing?" she yelped, her eyes widening with fear as she scrambled up the bed away from him. "Doctor?"

He exhaled deeply. "Relax, Amy, it won't hurt a bit. Well maybe a bit but…"

"What will it do?"

"It will destroy the cells before they have time to replicate and form an embryo," he stated, calmly. "No harm done."

"No harm done?" Amy found her voice rising in pitch as she rolled off the bed and onto the floor. "What the hell, Doctor? You can't be serious?" She looked into his eyes; he looked pretty serious. "No. No way. You're not killing the baby! You're not killing my baby." She paused, glaring at him because she had never believed him capable of this. "Our baby."

He froze, mid-step, his jaw falling open just a little bit. The needle still sat in his outstretched hand and Amy eyed it warily, determined that it would come nowhere near her or her baby. She couldn't believe he was considering killing this child. The Doctor never killed so what the hell was all this about? Questioning eyes sought his and, suddenly, she felt her heart go out to him as she saw the mask slip to reveal the pain and fear and anger swimming there. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed heavily and turned away from her. Now, he just looked ashamed.

"It's a collection of cells," he whispered with his back to her, "Not even that. Just two. Two tiny gametes."

"It's still a life. It still has potential," Amy replied, vehemently.

The Doctor didn't reply for a moment and she observed the stiffness with which he was holding himself. "Amy, you don't want this baby. It was a misunderstanding. An accident and it can be rectified."

"You're wrong, Doctor. I do want this baby and most babies are accidents so that's not even a valid argument. Besides, who are you to tell me what I want?" She finished with quite an edge to her tone, hands crossed protectively over her abdomen.

"It's half of me and it really shouldn't be. It should be half of Rory. No child should be brought into the world in such a way. Such an artificial, unwanted, unplanned way." The Doctor spun to face her now, his expression solemn. He took a step towards her but stopped when he saw her instinctively pull away. He sighed. "Amy Pond, can you honestly tell me that when you woke up this morning you were ready to be pregnant? And not only that but without any choice in the matter? With an alien nearly nine hundred years your senior?"

"An alien, nearly nine hundred years my senior, who has lost his whole race and is all alone in the world?" Amy corrected, calmly, "No, perhaps I wasn't ready but then no one ever is. I guess this isn't the most conventional method of having a child but I'm not about to deprive you of all people of having someone to love again."

The Doctor looked shocked. And Amy wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. His mouth hung slightly open as if he had been about to say something when the words just stuck in his throat. She didn't think she'd ever seen the Doctor truly speechless. And she had caused it. Crap.

"Doctor?" she whispered, softly.

He didn't reply and instead took a couple of shaky steps back before dropping down onto a hard, metal chair. The feet of the chair scraped noisily on the smooth floor as his weight pushed into it. The needle clattered to the ground. He placed his padded elbows on his bony knees and buried his face in his hands, the soft tendrils of his hair seeping between his fingers. Amy watched him carefully, her heart thudding loudly in her chest as she thought about what she was asking of him and herself.

It was insane; she knew it. But there was something inside her that was desperate for this to happen: to give the Doctor a child. He may not realise he needed it but she knew that he did. He needed something to tether him to this world, to give him something to live for. Perhaps then, he would not be so reckless when faced with dangerous situations. She couldn't cope with the lack of value he placed on his own life. It terrified her.

This was what he needed, she was certain of that.

"Doctor?" she spoke again, this time more firmly.

Gingerly, she walked over to him, stopping briefly to pick up the syringe and dispose of it in a nearby bin. The Doctor didn't even look up as she did this. Breathing in deeply, she crouched down beside him and placed a small hand on his upper arm, feeling the slight swell of his bicep beneath. The material was rough beneath the sensitive pads of her fingers, even more so as she stroked it comfortingly.

"Doctor, this is good. This is fine."

Doctor twitched, almost involuntarily, and then hissed, vehemently, into his hands, "No. Amy. This is in no way good!"

Abruptly, he lifted his head and caught her brown eyes in his; they were so intensely anguished that she unconsciously stepped back with a sharp intake of breath.

"But…"

"Look, I can't force you to…" He gulped, awkwardly, unable to finish his statement. "But I can't watch whilst you ruin your life. Can't you see, Amy, that this is completely wrong?"

"Ruin my life?" Amy retorted angrily, her eyes flashing. "How is having a child ruining my life?"

The Doctor stared at her, his expression grave. "Having my child will ruin your life."

"You're wrong!"

And with that Amy fled the medical bay. The Doctor let her go.