HARMONY (a Doctor Who Novella)

Chapter 4

"What did you mean?" Amy asked after they'd lugged the now unconscious Doctor up the stairs to deposit rather unceremoniously across the jump seats. "What did you mean, you're the Doctor?"

"I am the Doctor," he said simply.

"You're the Doctor?"

"That's me. Hello!"

"But you can't be," she said, tucking the blue blanket around their softly snoring patient. "I mean there can't be two of you. Can there? That would mean he's crossing his own time line again, yeah?"

"Again?" That was worrisome to say the least.

"It's becoming something of an addiction." Rory told him, examining both a blackened eye and a swollen nose in a mirror on the main console. "He promised he was going to give it up after the trouble it got the universe into last time."

"Oh, I'm reckless and I have a bad haircut? Another. Bad. Haircut. Uhm. But in this case no. He isn't interacting with his own past because I'm not his past. Well, not exactly. Well, not anymore. Come to think of it, never. Long story. Had to have been there," he said, gravitating back toward the navigational displays to examine the new controls more closely. The Tardis had never looked so magnificent. He couldn't wait to get his hands on her. She was positively sexy.

Amy stepped in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest. He blinked. Spirited, this one. And not the least bit afraid of him. At least not yet. He liked that.

"Explain."

"Let him explain." He jerked a thumb toward the Time Lord draped across the battered seats. "I mean, when he wakes up. Later. Let him explain later."

Amy and Rory both laughed at his words and he looked back and forth between them.

"Oh? Oh. No, I suppose he won't, well he? I wouldn't if I were him. Well, what then? You expect me to explain?"

"You seem to be the man with all the answers, Doctor," Amy replied, leaning just a bit too close to be polite.

"All right then," he told her, leaning back against the console, "but you might want to call for a pizza because I may be awhile. And I'm starved. Anyone else fancy a deep dish coriander chili chicken? No? Could I at least have a cuppa? Whatever that is on the hob, it smells gorgeous."

"Doctor," Amy prompted.

"Right. Sorry. Where to start? With the Daleks shooting me--him--during their invasion I suppose."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Again with the Daleks."

"What? They're right nasty little blighters. You'd think Earth was a prime bit of intergalactic real estate the number of times they've been there. Or will be there. Don't tell me you didn't notice them. Crafty little pepper pots. No? Not ringing any bells? No? Medusa Cascade? Earth whizzing through space? Planets in the sky? What part of the twentieth century are you from? Are you from the twentieth century? Twenty first? Twenty..."

Amy cleared her throat noisily.

"Ehm. Right. Sure. My --his-- residual regenerative energy had been diverted into this," he wiggled the fingers of his right hand, "ever-so-handy biological receptacle. Captain Jack's Doctor Detector. Grisly, huh? But, it's a good thing he found it, eh? Even with that slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle which, I suppose, I ought to be grateful for because if it hadn't been weak it might never have been cut off and in that case I wouldn't be standing here telling you my tale, now would I? Mind you, I also wouldn't have a year of my life that was erased from the time line but I still remember. Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up to dog kibble every morning? Oh, and Rory? Ice," he said, tapping his own nose in demonstration. "I'd hurry if I were you.