Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Chapter Eighty

Cherry and the Doctor never really resolve their argument. The Doctor continues to deny that Cherry will ever die, and every time she brings it up or tries to address it, the Doctor distracts her with suspiciously convenient emergency landings, or a brand new adventure or... other more private activities. And Cherry isn't proud of the last one, but she is, before anything else, madly in love with him. And he is gorgeous. How could she say no?

That's not all they do, of course. When they aren't saving planets or exploring new worlds, Cherry returns to her art, painting hundreds of different paintings which the Doctor has stored in a room filled with all of her art and different mementos of their relationship. Cherry prefers that room to any other room in the Tardis. An entire section of the Tardis dedicated to her and the Doctor. She bakes again too, and the Doctor adores it, eating his entire body weight in cakes and biscuits every other week. There are days when they just stay in the Tardis, keeping on another company as Cherry reads romance novels or fantasy stories and the Doctor flicks through physics books and runs his hand up her legs as she lays them across his lap. She picks up the occasional history book, researching the history of earth, and other planets when she's feeling  curious. The Doctor even gave her permission to read through the History of the Time War, and her eyebrows raised when she found his proper name within it. She supposes that's why he's never let Amy or Rory look in it. Because only she knows his real name.

They go on trips with Amy and Rory too, and they normally get sidetracked by accident and end up spending weeks or months with the other couple. Cherry loves it when that happens. It's nice sharing so much time with their family. And Melody joins them on and off too, although they always have to drop her back off at Storm Cage eventually, with the promise that they will pick her up again soon.

And there's one other thing that the Doctor insists on them doing, so they can, in his words, be in a never ending state of 'honeymooning'. The suggestion surprised Cherry at first because she didn't think the Doctor would ever suggest something like it, but getting married on every planet they visit that has marriage laws is actually the best idea she thinks he has ever come up with. Every single time they get a new marriage certificate from another corner of the universe, he's absolutely giddy. It's worth filling out all the paperwork just for the look on his face as he frames the new certificate and places it in their steadily growing box of marriage certificates for safe keeping. So far, they have gotten married on about twelve planets and each one has been as exciting as the last. Cherry once believed that the Doctor would never marry her, and now they've gotten married thirteen times (technically fourteen if you count their Gallifreyan wedding in the aborted timeline which she does not). It's suggestions like that, and the glimmer in the Doctor's eyes after every wedding that really solidifies his love for her. She'd take marrying him over and over again to him admitting he loves her any day of the week.

"Where do you want to go today, ma Chérie?" the Doctor says, not even attempting a French accent as he grins up at her over the console. The newest pet name is one he picked up on their most recent visit to France because he thought it was terribly funny that ma Chérie, in his very English accent, just sounds like 'ma Cherry'.

She giggles, and leans her elbow on the console, resting her chin on her hand so she can look up at him with starry eyes. "Somewhere pretty. Ooo... somewhere with glowing flowers... or a food market with alien food."

"Charlotte, we've been through this. It's not alien food. You're the alien," the Doctor says, and she rolls her eyes.

"Well, it's alien to me!" she argues. "You know what I mean!"

"I know," the Doctor laughs, taking joy in teasing his wife. "How about the Rings of Akhaten? There's a bazaar there, and we could watch the-"

A notification goes off inside his pocket and he furrows his eyebrows, pulling out the psychic paper and flicking open the worn leather wallet it sits within. "Well, that's new."