A/N: I warn you: the first half of this story runs like a disturbed Doctor Who episode and the second half runs like a romance novel. Not my typical fare for this oneshot collection, but I was in a mood. I apologize, and I don't know for which half. Please enjoy. Thank you for your reading, and reviewers thank you for your support. Also, as another warning: this probably deserves a T rating. It mentions an awful lot of kissing.

Chapter 15

Excuses

Amy doesn't like to make excuses. Amy doesn't like to hear excuses.

Amy has just stolen a Roxxene's third eye. The Doctor is roaring to her in fits of excitement and scathing babbling: "Amelia, I told you to go back to the TARDIS and- it can be removed? Of course it can be removed, stupid, stupid, stupid, it's got a neutrino field a mile wide so it can communicate with the mainframe, removal is probably its main point- imagine the possibilities, Amelia- it's not a problem and- NO AMY that is a problem don't carry it over there- humans! Oh, yes, take the the six dimensional complex field manipulator and lob it straight into a gravity well, it's like nobody understands Solomon's Theory of Permanence anymore-"

"Stop yer yappin!" She hollers between gasping breaths, "Some of us need to use our lungs for oxygen! You've got three minutes till that thing comes followin' me, so I suggest that you-"

The floor promptly disappears, and they are hurled into a place Amy labels I-Don't-Know-What's-Happening-And-It-Smells.

"What'd you do?" She questions the Doctor, flabbergasted, and he rolls his eyes.

"Don't look at me, Pond, that was ALL you. All you, and the six dimensional complex field manipulator."

"But it's an eyeball," she protests confusedly, and tries to hand it to him, but he throws his hands up like she's offered him a hot coal or an angry Quaffelump.

"No no no no no, Time Lords and multi-dimensional affectors do not mix well. Actually, they mix extraordinarily well and that's the problem-anyway! Focus, Pond, focus. Just because it blinks like an eyeball and looks at you like an eyeball and is... sticky like an eyeball doesn't mean it actually functions as an eyeball-"

"Well I can't be- just holdin' it in my palm if it's that important, right?" The Time Lord and his companion stare at each other for a few moments. Amelia lifts an eyebrow impatiently and gestures with her occupied hand.

"I don't see a problem," he interjects into the silence curtly, with a shrug, "You've held onto things that unpredictable before with fairly positive results. Now, let's take a look at you, you beauty..." The Doctor is talking to one heaving wall of wherever they've ended up. "I've got it. We're inside its tail! Roxxenes have hollow tails, you see, makes for-" Briefly, Amelia tunes him out and wonders how such a large creature can have such a small eye. The Doctor is running his hands up and down the walls, blissfully ignorant of how slime covered they are.

And then, around one pink bend appears two lights. It's men- well, Amelia thinks they're human men- and at the sight of the Doctor and Amelia they look positively stricken.

"Oh," they say, "You've got eaten up too."

"We're in the stomach," Amy concludes with a grin, and the Doctor coughs.

"I'm the Doctor," he introduces, "And this is my companion, Amy."

"Doctor who?" One of the men questions, and Amy doesn't even bother to answer, just as she knows he won't. He winks at her, and she takes one slick hand in her own.

"Doctor," she complains, trying to avoid the urge to wipe her hand off on her skirt, and he cheerfully plows on with her, clutched tight, now followed by the two men.

"You've got to have a name," one of them is insisting. The other is too busy shielding his torch from the dripping of the ceiling. "Rob, Alexander, Joe?"

"Joe? Nah," the Doctor replies with a grin, and Amy laughs.

"He's a bit too eccentric to have a name like everyone else."

Eventually, the Time Lord and his companion take pity on the men- they're hungry, and apparently have been swallowed for six hours now.

"Don't worry," the Doctor explains, "We weren't swallowed. This eyeball brought us here, you see it- yes, Amy's got it, wave with it Amy- and I'm certain it won't stay here for long. When it leaves we'll all go with it, and you two can get back to whatever it is you do outside of stomachs."

"Really, don't worry," Amy soothes, "He's the Doctor. He's been through this sort of thing before, and we're going to be fine."

Four hours and a couple of inches of acid later, they are not fine.

"Amy," the Doctor starts conversationally, as they skirt a pool of green liquid ten feet wide on the floor, "Why did you steal the Roxxene's eye?"

Amy wants to say, 'Is that really important now, Doctor?' But she has found that with the Doctor, everything is important, whether orange is a villain's favorite color or whether it rained last Tuesday.

"I don't know. It was just looking at me, shiny and small and everything, and I just wanted to- take it. The creature was so big and it was chasing you, so I thought it might help."

"New theory," the Doctor says excitedly, "The eye serves as a luring mechanism for prey!"

"So we're in the Roxxene's stomach because the eye wanted us here," Amy realizes, putting it together in a way the Doctor as of yet hasn't.

"Oh, the Roxxene has a mouth of its own to swallow prey with," the Doctor smacks one hand to his forehead, "Of course, of course, the babies don't develop mouths till puberty. We're not in a Roxxene's stomach- we're in its baby's stomach. Goodness, of all the things to evolve a space-time manipulator for, feeding your kids is not high up on the list! Admirable. And it must have another one in the mother's stomach so the baby can share that food too, very interesting..."

"We're in the stomach because the eye wanted us here," Amy repeats gravely, "DOCTOR."

"New theory," the Doctor says, going pale, "We need to get out of here on our own before digestion begins."

"Doctor Joe-Nah," one of the men starts fearfully, "Are we getting out?"

"Trust me," the Time Lord replies, clapping a hand on the man's shoulder.

"He's the Doctor," Amy finishes. The Doctor lies. Amelia Pond lies sometimes too.

But not this time. Fifteen minutes later the four of them are twenty feet in the air- the baby Roxxene has a blowhole, apparently.

Soggy and laughing, they stumble back into their TARDIS- and then clothes are off and being wrung out, and Amy discovers a room that serves as a great blow-dryer ("This is the reserve engine collaborator room, Amy, why are you- don't hang your skirt up there Pond- Pond don't touch that- Amy I need that-" And finally, most indignantly, "Amelia! I can take those off myself, thank you, I am a thousand years old!").

When the two are dry and being swallowed up by two plush couches instead of an alien, Amelia watches her Doctor with soft eyes and wonders if he has run out of suspenders. His white shirt looks crisp and nearly professional without them and his beloved tweed.

"It would have taken years to evolve a mechanism like that- assuming that they're not intelligent enough to build such a thing! Whoo, am I ever glad I have a mouth, Amelia, I quite like them and how very three dimensional they tend to-"

"I have a mouth," Amelia interrupts innocently. Her Doctor shuts up immediately. "I think I'll put a kettle on."

Five minutes later they are steeping tea and the Doctor is stirring his quite often, because without his bow tie there's nothing to fiddle with nervously.

"So," Amelia says, "I think I was promised something this morning."

"Was it a planet? I have tried not to promise you planets, Pond, that hasn't ended well in experience."

"It wasn't a planet," she replies patiently. "I do believe I was promised a kiss this morning."

"I've been busy," he exhales. "Very, very busy. Trying not to be digested."

"Interesting." Amy hates excuses- and the Doctor knows Amy very well. "I was also promised a kiss yesterday afternoon."

"Also busy, very busy. If it's not being digested it's firing explosives and redirecting morning traffic! You know how it is."

"Interesting," Amy hums. Sips her tea. "Don't drink that. You'll burn yourself."

"You're drinking," he says, almost accusatory, but he sets down his cup.

"I run hotter than you do."

Physiologically, Time Lords do have a lower body temperature. The Doctor scoots over on his couch, and Amy hauls herself from her cushions and settles in under his open, waiting arm. He smells differently without the tweed- clean and unidentifiable, but definitely like home.

"If I remember right, I've kissed you quite a few times."

"You have," the Doctor agrees simply.

"And not once, between being chased by homicidal alien dolphins and journeying back to my modern day to babysit 'Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All' have you ever, ever kissed me."

"Busy." He doesn't meet her eyes. Briefly, she wishes he were wearing his ridiculous suspenders so she could snap one.

"I could have died today," his arm tightens on her shoulder, "I could have been transported by the eye without you. Ended up in a baby's stomach all by my lonesome."

"You would have been brilliant," the Doctor rushes out, "You could have-"

"Shut yer mouth, Doctor. I would have been brilliant. Brilliant isn't always enough. I could have died, which I didn't even think about till I was laying on that couch, and all I knew was 'he's never even kissed me,and I'll never know what that's like.' I just stole a Roxxene's eye. I am a time traveler. I am a KISSOGRAM. And I don't even know what if feels like to be kissed by the man I love, who claims he loves me?"

"It's hard to explain. To... understand."

"I am going to bite you."

"Which is quite possible because you have a mouth, Amy, see how you should appreciate them?"

"I appreciate them more than you," she huffs. "And really? We're going through this again? Sure, I don't understand you- you know a billion languages and were born a thousand years before me, or maybe even after. You've got a pet stegosaurus- yes, I know about him- in your laundry room. You have founded cultures I've never even heard of. On Tuesday mornings at breakfast you like to talk in iambic pentameter. So yes, Doctor, I doubt I'll ever understand you completely, or why you refuse to cross the lip boundary- but I love you. And you love me. We are responsible and stable and- stop laughing you stupid alien- committed. So. No time to be scared. Kiss me or walk away."

"Okay," he replies, breathless and unsure and almost rebellious, like he's about to break a promise to himself. "Okay."

It would be nearly impossible to escape those couch cushions anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, a goat from the mountain of Rittat calls.

"Phone," Amy says hazily. "That's definitely a phone."

"Your neck tastes like oranges," the Doctor enthuses in reply. "Did you know that?"

"I can't lick my neck, Doctor."

"Well, you really should try."

She laughs. "I think I have a more realistic idea."

Two seconds. "Wha- Amy. Not ready-Amy, I was doing that to you-" a sucking in of breath "-Amelia no biting-"

"Retribution," she says smugly. "Now get the phone."

He does, quickly, after a lanky stumble in the wrong direction. He picks up the ringing device and puts it to one red ear.

"Busy."

Amelia likes this excuse.

A/N: Yep. I will likely return to more serious oneshots after this- if this wasn't what you were expecting then I apologize for that too.