AN: I've been meaning to write a TARDIS POV for the bonus scene that happens after "Flesh and Stone" for a long time now, but I've only just gotten around to it. I don't own anything – it all belongs to the BBC. Takes place at the end of "Flesh and Stone" and during that bonus scene. This is another part of my TARDIS 100 series.


Another adventure was done - a study of almost controlled chaos. Amy and the Doctor stepped back in through my doors. An image of the Weeping Angels flitted through the Doctor's mind at my silent, psychic inquiry. He was also further intrigued by the mystery that was River Song. Beyond that was an intense feeling of relief – this had been a close one for Amy. While I saw pictures of the Angels in the Doctor's brain, Amy had actually had one trying to crawl out through her eyes. This had nearly killed her. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and she had time to think about it, she realised she was still a little shaken by it. However, she was determined to put her residual fear to good use.

Once, not long after their announced engagement, she and Rory were almost in a car crash. No one was hurt, but she'd never been more thankful for Rory's quick reaction time and their car's good brakes before. Afterwards, she struggled to come up with enough positive words to describe their "we-almost-died-but-didn't-so-hurrah-we're-still-alive" sex. This passed through her mind as she discarded the stiff yellow blanket she'd been given.

She also thought about the Doctor – her imaginary friend made flesh. When she hit puberty and her hormones changed and her thoughts turned to the chaos, curiosities and passion of sex, as human minds are often want to do, she had thought about her Raggedy Doctor and what he might be like in more... adult situations. Now that she could see him and admire the shape of his body under his clothes, her mind drifted to those curious thoughts once again.

"He seems human enough, sometimes... physically, anyways..." she thought. "I wonder if he looks human everywhere..."

She started to feel those glorious "hurrah-we're-still-alive" sexual feelings again. They burned hot in her mind along with her own curiosities about the Doctor and River. But before she tried anything on him, she felt it was fair to give him some more information about what he might be getting into. That wedding dress and ring in her old bedroom weighed heavily in her mind.

"I want to go home," she said, sitting on one of the chairs.

The Doctor's thoughts froze. Words like that often meant that their last adventure really was going to be their last adventure together. Leaving Amy – his little Amelia – would rip his hearts out, but he would never, ever hold a companion with him against their will. He didn't look at her, his eyes on a screen as I told him where we were going, his gaze only flickering down to look at my controls once. "Okay," he said quietly.

Amy noticed his slight change and smiled to herself, getting to her feet and coming to his side. "Not like that. I just... I just wanna show you something. You're running from River. I'm running too."


I landed in Amy Pond's bedroom, overly aware now of the crack in her wall. I was starting to dislike the faint energy that leaked from it, like a draft under a door. It seemed quite foreboding. I extended my exterior sensors to keep track of Amy and the Doctor in the room. They sat on Amy's bed, looking at her wedding dress as it hung on her wardrobe door.

"Well!" Little Amelia really had grown up.

"Yeah." Amy agreed.

"Blimey!"

"I know. This is the same night we left, yeah?"

The Doctor checked his watch. "We've been gone five minutes."

Amy reached over and plucked a dark red ring box from her bedside table. She opened it and showed the Doctor the diamond ring inside. "I'm getting married in the morning."

That shouldn't faze the Doctor too much, I thought. Companions have been married in the past. It's just that some of them decided to leave the Doctor to be with their partners, and Amy showed no sign of wanting to do that. That worried the Doctor a little, call him old-fashioned. "Why did you leave it here?"

"Why did I leave my engagement ring off when I ran away with a strange man the night before my wedding?"

"Yeah."

"You really are an alien, aren't you?" Amy purred.

In the Doctor's mind, Amy remained Amelia – brave and adorable, but still a child and therefore unable to think about intimate matters. The adult Amy was determined to change that, to add a little extra chaos to his already disorganized life. This was going to be an interesting tug-of-war.

"Who's the lucky fella?" The Doctor asked.

"You met him."

He thought back to the men in Amy's life. "Ah, the good-looking one, or the other one?" He remembered Rory's large nose.

Amy hit him playfully. "The other one."

"Well, he was good too."

"Thanks. So, do you comfort a lot of people on the night before their wedding?"

"Why would you need comforting?"

"I nearly died. I was alone, in the dark, and I nearly died, and it made me think..."

The Doctor didn't want her to finish that thought. "Well, yes, natural. I think sometimes... well, lots of times..."

"...about what I want." Amy finished. "About who I want. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah." I felt the seconds tick. In the faint tendrils of the Doctor's mind, I could tell he wasn't on even mental footing. "No," he corrected.

"About who... I want."

"Oh, right. Yeah... no, still not getting it."

Amy's patience ran thin. "Doctor, in a word, in one very simple word even you can understand..." And with that, she pounced, trying to kiss him. The Doctor honestly hadn't been expecting this and tried to back off and push her away at the same time.

This amused me. Companions have had crushes on the Doctor before. Sometimes, the Doctor felt strongly for them in return, in many complicated ways, but this was the first time for this regeneration. Never before had he known a companion as a child, then to have the adult version be so interested in him in that way.

"You're getting married in the morning!" The Doctor protested. I felt him move closer to me and Amy gave chase, pinning him against my doors.

"The morning's a long time away. What are we going to do about that?" She pawed at his suspender straps, slipping them off.

The Doctor's mind was scrambling. I hadn't seen him flustered like this in an awfully long time. A long list of excuses unfurled. "Amy, listen to me, I'm nine hundred and seven years old. Do you understand what that means?" He pushed away from her so that she no longer had him cornered.

"It's been a while?"

"Ye-no! No, no! I'm nine hundred and seven, and look at me. I don't get older. I just change." Realising she had him trapped against the bed now, he darted back to my side, figuring at least he could use me to escape his ravenous companion. I was still amused at the slight Freudian slip. Honestly, it had been a long time...

"You get older," the Doctor continued, "I don't, and this can't ever work."

"Oh, you are sweet, Doctor, but I really wasn't suggesting anything quite so... long term." Amy pinned him again and pressed her lips against his.

I had a front-row seat to every firework going off in their brains. Alarm bells went off in the Doctor's and he tried to push her away... but there was a moment, fleeting and invisible, but still there, where he thought "what if?" What if he did take Amy up on her offer of a one night stand, an encounter which could last as long as Amy wanted since, as she saw it, the night before her wedding could last forever. His hearts hammered in his chest at the thought, but then he saw an image of little Amelia sitting at a table eating ice cream out of the container with the ice cream scoop and decided then and there that no, this wasn't right. She had a finance waiting for her to grow old with and have children and everything normal that he couldn't have in his too-exciting, too-dangerous life. He pushed her back.

"But you're human! You're Amy! You're getting married in the morning!" Another memory flashed – a more recent one. Something about tomorrow's date. "In the morning..."

Amy temporarily stopped trying to pash him. "Doctor?"

"It's you. It's all about you – e-everything, it's about you." Puzzle pieces were clicking into place. Events were happening that were oddly connected to Amy, much like the Bad Wolf had once connected to Rose. That crack from her bedroom wall had appeared in the far future on a distant planet. How is that possible? Parents she didn't have – not dead, just didn't have them... a duck pond with no ducks... growing up in this big empty house with a crack in the universe above her bed every night...

It gnawed at the Doctor's gut.

"Hold that thought." Amy reclined back on her bed in a pose past boyfriends had found desirable, but now the Doctor wasn't focused on fighting back her advances any more. He was more worried about why these things were starting to get tied back to her.

"Amy Pond, mad, impossible Amy Pond. I don't know why, I've no idea, but quite possibly the single most important thing in the history of the universe is that I get you sorted out right now."

Amy's mind was still on her sexual track. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

The Doctor grabbed her up off the bed. "Come on!"

Dragging her back to my doors, the Doctor shoved her inside, fighting off still more amorous pawings. The clock on her bedside table just turned midnight, the twenty – sixth of June. That was the date from the signal he had read off of the crack in the universe.

Ah, that was why he was so worried. I understood it now. Something was going to happen on Amy and Rory's wedding day to cause the cracks. Keeping Amy safe might just prevent the end of the world.

That was not to be dealt with now though. One thing should be handled at a time to stem the chaotic flow. Amy's mind was still on how she could get the Doctor to bed. She leaned against my controls, thoughts of positions and handcuffs wafting across her brain. The Doctor walked up to her. She smirked, but didn't move. He was forced to reach under her arm to release my parking brake which would allow me to de-materialise. The Doctor remained quiet, ignoring her as me moved around to other controls.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Oh, typical bloke, straight to fixing his motor."

"That's the thing, Amy, I am not a typical bloke."The Doctor snapped. He thought he had made that perfectly clear to her.

"Sorry, did I do something wrong? 'Cause I'm kind of getting mixed signals here." Amy turned to look at him, swiping my handbrake down again.

"Mixed signals? How?" The Doctor pushed the lever up again, glaring at Amy. Never once had he intended anything... romantic with her.

"Oh, come on. You turn up in the middle of the night, you get me out of bed in my nightie , which you then don't let me change out of for ages," Amy pressed into the Doctor's personal space once again, "and take me for a spin in your time machine. No, no, you're right. No mixed signals there. That is just a signal, like a great-big Bat Signal in the sky. Get your coat, love. The Doctor is in."

And all this time the Doctor thought that Amy had been trying to tell him that fairy tales don't come true. Well, that was quite the fantastical scenario she'd come up with. Still, I had to admit that not a word of it was untrue. The only thing was that the Doctor's intentions had never been quite like that. He just wanted a friend, someone to be there to share child-like wonder with so he wouldn't be alone. He considered himself to be too old now, too... wary to deal with the complexities of a romantic relationship. His life was crazy enough as it was.

Shame, because his body kept appearing to get younger and younger with each new regeneration.

The Doctor laughed, finally seeing things from her point of view. "Yeah. No! No, no, no! It's... not like that. That's not what I'm like."

"When what are you like?"

"I don't know. Gandalf. Like a space Gandalf." He liked the sound of that, picturing himself in a wizard had and robes. "Or the little green one in Star Wars." He mimed a Lightsaber.

Amy was starting to get the idea of how the Doctor wanted to see himself – not the Robin Hood hero who got the girl in the end, but the wise teacher who guided the heroes. That didn't make sense to her, based on his past actions. I understood that was how he wanted to be seen, but I was with Amy on this one – he did not always come off that way. He liked being the hero too much sometimes.

"You really are not. You are a bloke."

"I'm the Doctor."

"Every room you walk into, you laugh at all the men and show off to all the girls," Amy taunted.

"This is true," I spoke in the Doctor's mind.

"Don't you start too," he snapped back to me in his head. "Do not," he said to Amy out loud.

"What about Rory?"

The Doctor snorted in amusement. Honestly, he thought Amy was going to end up with the other one, but a male nurse with a big nose? Even the Doctor thought he was a better pick than...

Amy's jaw dropped. "You laughed!"

"No! That was an involuntary snort of fondness," The Doctor argued.

"You mean 'of amusement,'" I cut in again.

Amy scoffed. "You are a bloke and you don't know it, and here I am to help." She put her hands on his shoulders again, intending to re-launch her attempt at seduction, but the Doctor spun away.

"That is not why you are here."

Amy really couldn't see any other reason why a man would bring a young woman along on a journey. "Then why am I here?"

"Because... because I can't see it anymore." The Doctor was serious now. He and I had many talks about this back when he travelled alone. I've always been a firm believer that the Doctor needs someone with him to help keep him in control. Companions also give the Doctor a reason to travel and explore – to constantly see things anew with their eyes.

Amy went quiet as the Doctor looked into her eyes, quietly begging her to understand. "See what?" she demanded.

The Doctor flopped into a chair. He was right, though he looked young and acted it sometimes, he really wasn't. His soul ached like only a lonely old soul can. "I'm nine hundred and seven," he repeated. "After a while, you just can't see it."

"See what?"

The Doctor gestured with his hands. "Everything. I look at a star and it's just a big ball of burning gas, and I know how it began and I know how it ends and I was probably there both times. Now, after a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem. You make all of space and time your back yard and what do you have? A back yard." The Doctor stood, pointing at Amy. "But you, you can see it, and when you see it, I see it."

I prodded a memory in Amy's mind, of when she saw my interior for the first time. The Doctor invited her to make a comment, any comment, saying that he'd heard them all. She realised that to him, walking into my magnificent space must seem so... common place. That's why he delighted in others seeing it for the first time. "The same must go for seeing new planets and things," she thought.

But still, she was disappointed. "And that's the only reason you took me with you?"

"There are worse reasons."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "I was certainly hoping so." Then another thought occurred to her. "Does that mean I'm not the first, then? There have been others travelling with you."

"Uh-oh... here we go..." The Doctor thought. He remembered Rose meeting Sarah Jane for the first time, and how shocked his blonde companion had been that he'd ever travelled with anyone other than her. I had been amused then too. "Oh, please don't let her be that jealous..."

The Doctor smiled, awkward, trying to play it off like it was no big deal. "Yeah, sure. Loads of them, but just friends, you know, chums, pals, mates, buddies. Not mates." An image of an angry and misunderstanding Donna Noble flashed loudly in his memories. He didn't want to encourage Amy to have the same misunderstanding... again. "Forget mates."

"And out of all those friends, how many would you say, just out of curiosity, were girls?"

The Doctor didn't like where this was going. It was tainting his Gandalfian self-image. "Oh... some of them I suppose. Must have been." He avoided looking at her now. I laughed in the Doctor's mind as he tried to distract himself with my dials and switches.

"Come now, you know just how many."

"Shush..."

"Some?" Amy pressed.

"It's hard to tell. It's a grey area."

"That's an outright lie, my Doctor."

"Under half? Over half?"

"Probably... slightly..."

"Tell the truth..."

"... a little bit over?"

"Hmm... young?" Amy inquired.

"Everyone's young compared to me." That he answered without hesitation, because when it came to those he travelled with, it was true.

Amy chuckled to herself sarcastically. "Hot?"

"No! No, no, no, no," the Doctor denied. "None of them, not at all, probably not." I pushed a few select images in his mind. Images that, at the time, had made his hearts flutter in an unmistakable way that he fought to suppress. The Doctor twitched and fidgeted, scratching his face, feeling his innocent 'teacher to the heroes' wall crumbling. "Maybe one or two," he admitted. "I didn't really notice."

Amy seemed to realise that I was on her side of this argument, or at least I could be used to support her hypothesis. "Well, this big, old machine must have some kind of visual records."

"Oh, do I ever, Doctor..."

"Oh God, I mean no! And anyway, they're voice-locked."

Amy thought it was adorable that he assumed he'd won. "Oh, voice-locked. So, I would just have to say... 'Show me all visual records of previous TARDIS inhabitants.'"

"No, no, no, no, I mean voice-locked. I would have to say, 'Show me all visual records of previous TARDIS inhabitants.'"

He fell right into her trap. "Oh, thank you."

I was happy to obediently obey my Doctor, projecting the images onto a screen on my wall.

"No! No, no, no! No!" Defeated, he went to watch as the faces rapidly flashed by.

Rose, Sarah Jane, Grace, Romana, Martha, Rose again, Donna, Jo, Nyssa, Teagan, Peri, Romana again... it seemed never-ending.

"Oh, Gandalf," Amy laughed.

The Doctor glared up at my Time Rotor, addressing me out loud and sarcastically. "Thanks. Thanks dear. Miss out the metal dog, why don't you?"

"Sorry, my Doctor..." I giggled.

"Is that a leather bikini?" Amy asked. Ah, we'd gotten to the photos of Leela.

The Doctor had had enough. "Right! That's it. Rory. We're going to find Rory and we're going to find him now."

"But I haven't gotten to the images of Captain Jack yet," I pouted.

"I thought you didn't like him anymore?"

"He was still an attractive companion..."

"No, never mind, we have bigger things to worry about!"

He really wanted to get Amy's attention off of him and back onto her fiancé. If that meant bringing him along on our travels, then so be it. He had to keep Amy with us until he figured out what was going to happen on her wedding day that would cause the end of the universe, and that meant keeping her husband safe too.

Amy was still more interested in the faces of companions past. "He's at a stag night."

"Well, then, let's make it a great one."

With that, I took off into the chaos of the Time Vortex, making Amy clutch onto the railing for dear life.