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Danni sighed, utterly content with her life at that exact moment, as she laid her head on the Doctor's chest, her arms wrapped around his waist as they danced to the music floating through the TARDIS console room.
The power of love. A force from above. Cleaning my soul
The last few weeks had been pure magic. This Eleven was quite far along in his time line, and as such it was as if he couldn't get enough of her. Of holding her, kissing her, taking her to new and exciting places just to see her laugh or gasp in awe at the beauty of the universe. Then, that very morning, he'd just been content in lying in bed with her, whispering how much he loved her into her ear as he traced lazy patterns on her bare skin, both in English and Gallifreyan.
Flame on burn desire. Love with tongues of fire. Purge the soul. Make love your goal
Part of her wanted to learn Gallifreyan just so she could say it back to him, surprise him one day, just to see his face. But she just couldn't bring herself to take the one of the very few things he had from his planet, something that was only his. So, she just reiterated how she felt about him in her own native tongue, Northern English. It wasn't quite the same, but he reacted as if it was.
This time we go sublime. Lovers entwined divine divine. Love is danger, love is pleasure. Love is pure, the only treasure. I'm so in love with you. Make love your goal
He held her close, swaying to the slow piano playing behind the lyrics. The times between seeing her seemed to be getting larger, he was terrified that soon she'd stop appearing at all. If she was to completely disappear from his life and leave him truly on his own, he wouldn't know what to do. And the most heartswrenching this was that he would probably never know, that he'd spend the rest of his life waiting for her to reappear. Because she might reappear one day, perhaps hundreds of years later, only seconds having past for her and an eternity to him.
Her curse was never staying still, his was forever waiting.
Flame on burn desire. Love with tongues of fire. Purge the soul. Make love your goal
Make love your goal
The music ended but the pair stood in each other's arms, Danni listening to his hearts beating steadily underneath his shirt. He buried her face in her hair, pressing a kiss against her scalp before sighing, completely serene because she was here.
"If I lay here." She whispered suddenly, "If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?" He pulled back slightly, smiling fondly as her caught her eye.
"Yes?" He asked, amused by her singing softly to herself. She blushed that delightful pink he loved and shrugged slightly.
"That song reminds me of you." She told him quietly. He beamed and leant down, brushing his lips against hers gently. It wasn't a kiss full of passion, or promise. It was just one to say how happy he was to be with her and it made her smile match his own.
"I'll remember that." He promised. They hugged silently for a bit longer, wasting as much time as they could just being with each other, before Danni snuggled into his chest.
"When's the last time you saw the Ponds?" It was a question she'd wanted to ask for a while now. She knew he was trying to back away from them, save them from his life as it were, but she also knew that none of the trio actually wanted that. She wanted him to spend as much time as he could with his Ponds, because they wouldn't be there forever.
"A while ago." He brushed aside, letting her go and skipping to the console. She sighed, leave it to her to ruin his good mood, "Or not, I can't really remember these days. Let's go somewhere warm, like Ancient Greece. Do a bit of shopping, see the sights..." Danni shook her head, rubbing her eyes. Rambling was not a good sign, it was never good for the Doctor to start talking so quickly.
"Doctor..." She stated but he didn't turn around as he zoomed around the many controls.
"Or we could go to this little place just on the edge of the Longard Galaxy. Excellent art museums, I think I still own a place in the centre of the city..."
"Doctor..." She tried again, slightly more firmly.
"Oh, but there's so many other places to go as well." He rambled, "How do you choose when there's so much to see."
"Theta!" She cried and he paused at the sound of his own name, hand hovering over a lever that he was about to pull towards him. He turned to face her, seeing her staring pointedly at him, "Why won't you go see Amy?" She asked him and he shrugged, sagging slightly.
"She's busy. Her and the Roman, making a safe, happy life for themselves. How boring." He dismissed sadly, "We can go be exciting without them." She hopped up to the console, smiling gently as she took his hand, swinging it lightly.
"But it's much more tempting to go be boring with them, than exciting on your own, isn't it?" She replied knowingly.
"I'm not on my own." He corrected instantly, "I have you." She nodded.
"Always." She promised, "But we both know that we're not as ideal as we'd like it to be." She took his other hand, "Please, let's go see the Ponds." He sighed in defeat, rolling his eyes slightly.
"Fine, if that's what you want." He replied, as if he was doing it all for her, "We can go to New York. Manhattan in the Autumn..."
"NO!" She interrupted in a slight panic, startling him with her urgency. She giggled nervously, "Not Manhattan. Somewhere better." He eyed her suspiciously, but he was also eager to see the Ponds so he didn't question her. He just flipped the switch and off they flew.
~0~0~0~
For most people, this time of morning would be considered incredibly too early, but not for Brian Williams, who normally would had been up at least an hour and had already bought his morning newspaper. He couldn't understand why people would waste away the morning hours sleeping away, when so much could be done after dawn. He loved pottering around his garden in the earlier hours, checking on his plants, seeing which ones had grown and encouraging the ones that hadn't to hang in there, because they'd get their moment to shine.
And so it was with much confusion that he had to continuously ring the doorbell of his son's house, because no one was answering. Eventually the window on the first floor opened and Rory and Amy looked out to see who was assaulting their house.
"Dad, it's half-past 6:00 in the morning." Rory groaned, still half asleep but Brian didn't care.
"What are you doing lying around?" He exclaimed, holding up a small black box, "Haven't you seen them?" He turned around, holding his arms out to illustrate the sight behind him. The street below was littered with the small, black cubes Rory's father was holding in his hand. The couple shared a look and headed downstairs, pulling on their dressing gowns and slippers as they joined Brian on the street.
"What are they?" Rory asked, confused by the sudden influx of small cubes that must have happened while they were asleep, because they hadn't been there when he'd headed to bed.
"Nobody knows. But they're everywhere." Brian explained.
"Well, where have they come from?" Amy asked, knowing no one could give her an answer, her eyes darting around until she saw something, or someone, sat on the top of the jungle gym in the park across from their house, in the middle of the green the streets were built around, "Wait." Rory frowned as she pulled her dressing gown tighter and headed towards the park, "Doctor?" And Rory saw him too, following Amy as the Doctor seemed to examine one of the cubes with a... monocle?
"Invasion of the very small cubes. That's new." The Time Lord declared as he turned around to see his two current companions, "Amy!" He jumped down, pulling the red head into a much needed hug.
"Doctor." She repeated, this time in an almost cheer as she hugged him back. Then, without warning, he hugged Rory, who was only taken by surprise because he was still half-asleep, "Are you on your own? Where's Danni?"
"Oh, over there" He grumbled, motioning to the other side of the park where the red-head was on the swings next to a little girl in her pyjamas, "She wanted to go on the swings." He turned back to face Amy, a serious look on his face, "Swings are boring." She held her hands up in surrender, it being too early to argue.
"Sure, why not?" The Doctor nodded, pleased someone else was on his side. Swings weren't boring, but she was swinging entirely too high and if Amy was on his side he might convince her to not go on swings again.
"Danni!" He called over and her attention was pulled to them, her beaming smile visible from where he was standing, "Look who I found!"
"What do you mean, 'look who you found'?" Amy protested, "You were on top of a climbing frame!" Danni quickly said good by to the little girl, Kaitlyn who had managed to sneak out while her mum was looking at the cubes, then dashed over to her friends, chucking her arms around Rory first.
"My Roman Rory!" She cried, pulling back and holding both his arms as she looked him over, "You look like I feel."
"Which is..." He asked, interrupting himself with a yawn and she nodded as if agreeing with it.
"That it is entirely too early to be dealing with these cubes." She explained, letting him go to give Amy a squeeze, "Where's Brian?"
"Brian?" The Doctor asked, confused as he gently pulled her off the over red head, holding her hand tightly and brushing his thumb over the back of it.
"Rory's dad?" She asked in reply, "I saw him when I was swinging. Let's go say hi!" The Doctor nodded, patting Amy on the arm.
"Lead the way, Amelia." He commanded. She shook her head with a roll of her eyes, the pair entirely too chipper for half six in the morning, but did as they asked, taking them to see Brian, who was stood exactly where they left him. Danni hugged him as well, and to his credit he was able to pat the girl a couple times on the back in reciprocation.
"Have you seen the cubes?" Brian asked the pair excitedly and Danni nodded, linking her arm through his despite the Doctor's pout.
"We've just landed, but they seem to be everywhere." She said, "The Doctor is going to take a look at a couple in the TARDIS, why don't you fill us in on the what you know?"
"Well," Brian started at the pair began down the street towards the TARDIS, "I woke up at half five, like normal, and found one on my bedside table. I ignored it, but when I went to tend to my garden, they were all over my flowers. I spent the first ten minutes clearing the soil, then headed here."
"Was your garden all right?" Danni gasped, feigning just the right amount of horror necessary for Brian to believe she was as worried about the garden as he was. The trio watched them go, the Doctor watching his Danni-Girl fondly as Rory turned to his wife.
"He really took a shine to her on that Silurian ship." He declared and Amy nodded.
"Yeah, that's why she visits him all the time." Rory frowned.
"Wait, what?" He asked.
"Yeah, she loves to visit your dad." The Doctor explained, clapping a hand on Rory's shoulder.
"He emails her daily updates." Amy added, "His own little diary, he called it. She's the one who showed him how to use the internet."
"My dad can use the internet?" Rory exclaimed, "How come you know this and I don't?"
"Because he tells me." Amy replied as if it was obvious. The Doctor took another glance at Danni and decided she'd wandered off far enough.
"Right, you two go get dressed, and we'll meet you in your hallway." He commanded before dashing off, catching up to the pair quickly and wrapping his arm around Danni's waist pulling her up against him with a thud. She looked up, but didn't break her conversation with Brian, which was him telling her how his Peonies seemed to have bloomed slightly early that year. She had no idea what Peonies were, but she nodded in interest as he tried to think up a reason for it.
~0~0~0~
Danni used to button on the monitor to flick through the many news channels the Earth had to offer, as the Doctor gathered everything he could to help identify what the cubes could possibly be. It seemed like they were on every continent, in every country and every town, city and village across the world. He paced around the console, examining a cube with a magnifying glass as she paused on a channel with Brian Cox on in.
"Well, they're certainly not random space debris. They're too perfectly formed for that." He was saying to the group of journalists, in that calming voice that made him such a joy to watch, "Are they extraterrestrial in origin? Well, you'll have to ask a better man than me." He joked and the crowd laughed.
"Oh, I love Brian Cox." Amy stated, joining Danni as she watched the screen. Danni looked up a her, smiling happily.
"Me too." She agreed, "He's so lovely in real life as well. The Doctor took us to see one of his lectures. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but," She placed both hands over her heart, as if she was trying to still it's beating, "Oh, he was such a gentleman." The Doctor, who had made one lap around the console and was heading for his second, didn't even look up as he reached up and turned the monitor off. Danni and Amy shot each other knowing looks before giggling at his behaviour. It had been such a bad idea to take her to see that stupid Professor. She'd sat watching him, entirely enraptured by what he was saying and had rushed to the front when the talk had been over. Even though what he'd been describing was old-fashioned and behind the times compared to the rest of the universe, he'd had to practically drag her away. She had just shrugged and told him that she liked smart men, but Cox couldn't even work out what these cubes were.
The Doctor would. He'd show Danni who the 'better man' was.
"All absolutely identical." He told them all, coming to a stop on his second time around, "Not a single molecule's difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities."
"What if they're bombs?" Brian declared suddenly, causing the group to look at it him in bewilderment, "Billions of tiny bombs. Or transport capsules, maybe, with a minirobot inside. Or deadly hard drives." He listed off, the Doctor tapping his cube as the suggestions kept coming, "Or alien eggs. Or messages needing decoding. Or they're all parts of a bigger whole. Jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together."
"Very thorough, Brian. Very, very thorough." The Doctor replied, because you couldn't say the man hadn't considered pretty much all the possibilities, "Well done. Stay here. Watch these." He placed his cube on top of the one Brain was still holding, "Yell if anything happens. Danni-Girl, with me." He walked away from Brian and to the coat rack where a large amount of cabling was hanging. Danni jogged over and took some from him as Rory patted his dad's arm and went to grab a box of other bits the Doctor had deemed necessary.
"Doctor, is this an alien invasion? Because that's what it feels like." Amy asked, also grabbing some of the equipment, which to her just looked like a bunch of keyboards.
"There couldn't be life forms in every cube, could there?" Rory added and the Doctor paused, shooting Danni a concerned look that stayed on his face as he turned back to face the Williams'.
"I don't know." He admitted darkly, "And I really don't like not knowing." He turned and headed out of the TARDIS and into Amy's hallway, where he'd managed to park only 25 minutes late. A new record for him.
"I love not knowing." Danni countered as they headed to the kitchen, "Try living a good portion of your life knowing how it's going to end. Not knowing is a novelty."
"I'm not quite as happy about it." The Doctor told her, "Right, I need to use your kitchen as a lab…" He placed the wire down and picked up a large metal pot, "Fill this, my love." He asked Danni, passing it to her. She took it with a nod.
"Of course, sweetie." And she headed to the tap, turning it on as the Doctor began searching through the cupboards. Amy watched them with a smile. She always felt this deep sense of affection when watching the pair move together, like it was a sign that everything was how it should be in the universe.
"I'm going to cook up some cubes, see what happens." The Doctor continued as she and Rory placed their boxes down on the counter tops.
"Right. I'm due at work." Rory declared and the Doctor stopped, turning around and looking slightly offended.
"What? You've got a job?" He exclaimed and Rory looked at him in disbelief.
"Yeah, of course I've got a job. What do you think we do when we're not with you?" He asked and the Doctor turned back to what he was doing.
"I imagine mostly kissing." He replied lightly, placing a kiss on the side of Danni's head as a thanks when she placed the pot in front of him. Rory shrugged, because there was a lot of that and Amy shot him a look in warning.
"I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick." She explained.
"My shift starts in an hour. You don't know where my scrubs are?" Rory asked his wife who rolled her eyes.
"In the lounge, where you left them." She told him in an almost scolding tone, as if it was a question he asked regularly. The Doctor's brows furrowed and Amy was surprised by the discomfort in his gaze. It was disheartening to see how naturally domesticity came to his companion. He had secretly hoped that Amy would have struggled, but it seemed like his grasp on both her and Rory was slowly slipping.
Danni snuck under his arms as he shook salt and pepper into the pot, stepping between him and the counter top.
"I think one of my bras is still in our lounge." She whispered, trying to cheer him up. It caused his lips to turn up into a smile and he placed a kiss in her hair.
"I think you might be right." He replied kindly. He wouldn't let the same thing happen to Danni. When she would find out what point in his time line he was, she'd slowly try and work out what adventures she still had to experience and what they'd already done together. He'd become quite good at keeping it secret, but he also knew that she didn't have that much left to do. Soon she'd be up to date with him, soon she'd jump and they'd done everything together. Hopefully then she'd stop and he'd find a way to keep her with him forever.
~0~0~0~
"Ehh, the Ponds." The Doctor mused out loud, putting the glass lid on top of a part he'd just made,
"With their house and their jobs and their everyday lives." He looked up as he soniced a wire together, "The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth."
"We think it's been 10 years." Amy offered with a fond smile, "Not for you or Earth, but for us. 10 years older, 10 years of you. On and off." The Doctor stopped and looked at his Amelia Pond in awe. He was so lucky, so blessed that she and Rory had decided to dedicate such a large portion of their lives to him. He may not ask just anyone to join him on the TARDIS, but it was a privilege to travel with each and every one of them.
"Look at you now. All grown up." He whispered and Amy blushed slightly, embarrassed by the fondness in his eyes, like a favourite uncle looking on upon his niece. To draw attention away from it, she looked over at Danni, who was sat on the floor in the corner, trying desperately to fit two things together that she was sure the Doctor had given her to keep her out of the way.
"How long has it been for you?" Amy asked her and she paused, looking up with a thoughtful frown. Well, it had been a couple of years before the Valiant. Then a year on the Valiant. Maybe another year since then. It was hard to keep track, she wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been with Eleven just on this trip. When was her last birthday, anyway?
"I'm gonna say five." Danni replied slowly, unsure but liking the sound of the number, "Yeah, that sounds about right. Five straight years of being in another universe." She laughed slightly, "God, I'm almost 27." Amy shot her a glare.
"31. Shush you." She teased as the front door was bashed down, a group of people dressed in SWAT gear, all carrying guns barged in.
"Block the rear entrances."
"Clear!"
"Cut - power line." Orders were shouted through the soldier's radios. The Doctor shot around the table, in front of Amy as he reached out for Danni, who scrambled up just in time to be held at gunpoint with the pair.
"Trap One. Kitchen secured." The man at the front declared into his radio. The three turned around to see more armed soldier's at the patio doors to the back garden.
"Trap three. Back garden secured." The leader of that group replied. Rory was marched in, hands up and half-dressed in his work scrubs.
"There are soldiers all over my house and I'm in my pants." He motioned down to his bare legs and Danni giggled, amused and he silently mocked her amusement.
"My whole life, I've dreamed of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else." Amy muttered, sounding genuinely disappointed. Rory looked confused, then realised what she had said and shot her an incredulous look. A blonde woman entered through the front door, hands in her pockets as she stepped around the soldiers.
"All these muscles, and they still don't know how to knock." She declared, stepping into the kitchen, "Sorry about the raucous entrance. Spike in artron energy reading at this address." She explained, "In the light of the last 24 hours, we had to check it out and, uh, the dogs do love a runout." She smiled at the group, "Hello. Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT. And, with dress sense like that..." She whipped out a scanner, holding it to the Doctor's chest. Danni leant around it to see the a scan showing the Doctor's dual hearts, "You must be the Doctor." She looked down with a smile at Danni, causing her to back up slightly, "Which would make you Danielle." Danni held her hand up slightly.
"Just Danni." She replied nervously, "Thanks."
"Of course. I'll make a note of that in your file." She told her before turning back to the Doctor, "I hoped it'd be you."
"Tell me," The Doctor started, clapping his hands together, "since when did science run the military, Kate?"
"Since me." The woman replied, "UNIT's been adapting. Well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming, which made it sound like more fun than it actually was." She rambled slightly, after all it wasn't everyday that you got to meet the Doctor. She'd heard so many stories about him, seeing him in the flesh was absolutely wonderful.
"What do we know about these cubes?" The Doctor asked her, getting right down to business. Kate walked around the table, causing the four to turn so they could see her as she explained the very little UNIT knew about the cubes. Danni didn't pay much attention, knowing that the Doctor would probably prove them wrong anyway as she stared in thought at Kate. Now, she vaguely remembered this episode, having not been able to re-watch the last season of the Ponds through sheer heartbreak, so the boxes meant the Doctor would be sticking around for a bit. A normal, everyday, human life for a while would be a nice break. But this woman, Kate Stewart, was important. So who was she?She didn't look familiar, so it wasn't someone she'd met before. But she was someone the Doctor had met before? No, she knew someone who knew the Doctor. Someone from Old Who, back before she met him. That guy in the uniform.
Kate Stewart.
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.
Oh my Lord, she was the Brigadier's daughter!
She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand and drawing their attention to her. She grimaced behind her hand, she hadn't meant to have had such a expressive reaction to the realisation.
"Sorry, I'm fine." She apologised, waving at Kate, "Continue, sweetie." Kate stared at her for a moment, smirking when she realised the younger woman had worked it out, and continued.
"I've recommended we treat this as a hostile incursion. Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility, but that would take massive international agreement and cooperation." Kate told the Doctor, who rubbed Danni's arm as he looked thoughtful. She remembered something, but it was probably best not to say it in front of UNIT, but he wanted her to know he knew.
"We need evidence." He summarized and Kate nodded, "The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So what does that tell us?" He asked the room.
"Maybe they wanted to be seen, noticed." Amy suggested.
"Well, more than that. They want to be observed." The Doctor corrected, "So we observe them. Stay with them, round the clock. Watch the cubes." He picked up one of the cubes, tossing it in one hand and catching it, "Day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team cube, in it together." He kissed the cube, then Danni's head, before nudging her face up with his to place a kiss on her lips.