EVERYTHING HAS ITS TIME
Chapter Eight Amy rolled her eyes while everyone else laughed at the Doctor. All the way to the roller coaster, the Doctor was being melodramatic, feigning tears and begging his companions to save him. "For the love of God, you really can act like a baby when you want to," Amy finally said. "Help me," the Doctor moaned. "The mean woman is making me get on the big scary thing. I don't wanna get on the big scary thing. Please stop her from making me get on the big scary thing." "For shame, Amy, you're traumatizing the poor man," Jack chided. "After all he's seen?" Amy said as they laughed. "It'll take a lot for me to be able to traumatize him." "You're right," the Doctor said. "Although, there have been many traumatizing things that happened to me in my lifetimes. Why, I remember one incident where I was nearly buried alive in jam." "Jam?" Amy said. "Yup, it was on the planet Jimmy Jammy Jam. Martha and I were captured by the Smuckers tribe and sealed up in a huge jam jar while strawberry jam was pumped in through the side." Everyone looked at Martha. They laughed when she shook her head at that. "Gee, Martha's saying that didn't happen," Amy said to the Doctor. "Course it happened," the Doctor said. "Don't you remember, Martha, we were going to be mummified in delicious strawberry jam while the members of the Smuckers tribe stood around and chanted, jammy jam jam, jammy jam jam, jam goes good with potatoes and ham." "Whatever you say, Doctor," Martha said while the others giggled. "Then there was the time I was almost skinned alive by King Fruit who owned a wonderful loom that would have made me into underwear. Skin underwear, can you imagine?" "I think the regeneration has finally caught up with him, it's deteriorating his brain," Jack said dryly. "Then there was the time Jack was enslaved and made to spread peanut butter on an elephant's private parts. Then he was forced to lick it off while women watched, course I wasn't there but that's what I heard." "Wait, how did you find out about that?" Jack said before he laughed along with the others. "Oi! Professor! Shouldn't you be teaching class somewhere?" The Doctor froze when he heard a teenager yell that at him. He turned to see a gangly man with long blonde hair and blue eyes grinning back at him while other teenagers, male and female surrounded him. They all walked away laughing when the Doctor gave them a dirty look and yelled out "PROFESSOR!" as they hurried away from them. "Then," the Doctor said, turning back and resuming his walk to the roller coaster, "there was the time I took a bunch of snot-nosed teenagers, put them in a blender and hit the puree button. Then I stood back and laughed maniacally as their bodies were reduced to a bloody, pulpy goo. Ah, here we are, the roller coaster. Now where is Pond?" "Here I am, are you ready to prove me wrong?" Amy said, stepping up beside him. "Oh, I suppose. But I really feel like putting you in a jam jar and perhaps pumping in some grape jam? Bit peckish for some grape jam at the moment. But anyway, is everyone here queuing up?" "Actually," Sarah Jane said, "I hate to be a wet blanket but I think I better sit this out just in case it makes me sick. I'll sit on that bench over there and wait for you," she added, pointing to a bench in front of a food cart. "I'll sit with her," Rory said. "Roller coasters don't interest me that much. I can keep an eye on her as well." "Yes, Rory's a nurse so you'll be in good hands. Actually, Martha's a doctor so you'd be in even better hands but I s'pose she's going with us." "Yup," Martha said, "but if you need any medical assistance, Rory and I are here for you," she said to Sarah Jane. "And me, I'm not a doctor per say, but I do have medical knowledge, just throwing that out there!' the Doctor said, raising his hand. "Well, are we all ready then?" Martha handed her plushies to Rory and everyone except Sarah Jane and Rory walked towards the queue. Rory and Sarah Jane headed for the bench. While they walked, Sarah Jane chuckled to herself. She smiled when Rory gave her a quizzical look. "Being entombed in a jam jar, this regeneration has quite an imagination," she said to him as they set the plushies down on the bench and sat down. "Course his fourth life also had some entertaining stories but those were true tales, at least I think they were." "I've heard a few of his stories but most of the time he's either ordering us about or telling jokes," Rory said. "He probably wouldn't do it now but when I first traveled with him, he used to tell me stories about Gallifrey or legends and ghost stories he heard as a boy. That was wonderful. Spent a lot of hours listening to him tell me things like that." "Sounds great," Rory said. "Did you ever see Gallifrey for yourself?" "No," Sarah Jane said softly as she looked at her hands. "He was summoned back to Gallifrey by the Time Lords and when I traveled with him, humans weren't allowed to go there so he took me back home." "He couldn't have just dropped you off somewhere? When Amy and I married, he let us spend our honeymoon on this planet and then we took a space shuttle cruise which nearly crashed if not for him…but anyway, he just dumped you back on Earth?" "Well, to be honest, I probably could have convinced him to take me somewhere and leave me until he was finished but I did want to go home. I missed it after traveling with the Doctor for years. I've talked to a few of the Doctor's companions in the past and asked them why they left and most of them just got tired of the constant stress and strain of traveling and wanted to resume their lives. It's a wonderful experience but most of us don't have the Doctor's endurance to keep on fighting. Even he changed into his second body after the first one became run down and gave out. Someday, you and Amy will probably make the same decision." "I might but I don't know about Amy. I think she likes traveling with the Doctor too much," Rory said. "To be honest, I thinks she likes the Doctor, full stop." "Do you think he and she…" Sarah Jane said, trailing off when Rory shrugged. "Dunno. Amy says no but she's been infatuated with him ever since he landed in her garden when she was seven. It was the night he regenerated and she said he was a bit out of sorts, acted strangely, was trying out different foods to find the one he liked the best. Turns out it was fish fingers and custard…together." Rory nodded when Sarah Jane made a face at that. "He left her for fourteen years and in that time, we grew up together. She made me pretend to be the Doctor when we were small and that's partly the reason why I became a nurse. I was trying to become a doctor so she'd think of me as her Doctor but I only made it as far as nurse, at least for now. She married me but sometimes I feel like she married him along with me. S'pose I'm being jealous and paranoid but after spending several years being her pretend Doctor, I can't help thinking that her obsession might have gone a bit too far." Sarah Jane nodded sympathetically. "If it makes you feel better, Rory, I did the same thing Amy did. I met the Doctor during his third life and after awhile I also feel head over heels in love with him. He never showed anything other than platonic love to me but sometimes I imagined that it was something more. And maybe it was, after all, the Doctor is a master at hiding his feelings from others. But I spent my years pining for him after he left me and hoping he would come back for me. I never went so far as to make others pretend to be him but I never married and I never had any relationships that lasted very long because I could never find anyone who could measure up to him. He's a very remarkable man but he's also an honorable man and I seriously doubt that he'll come between you and Amy. Wrecking your marriage is the last thing he'd want to do. Besides, I think his hearts still belong to Rose." "Rose?" Rory said with a frown. "You mean River?" "No, he spoke to me about River but there's another woman named Rose." Rory listened in silent fascination while she told him what the Doctor had told her about Rose. She then made him swear not to tell the Doctor what she'd said and Rory emphatically swore he wouldn't. After telling him about Rose, Rory went and got some hot tea from a nearby cart and they were drinking it and chatting when the others walked up. The Doctor raised his arms triumphantly. "I did it, I rode the roller coaster! Did you see me?" he asked them. "No, sorry, Rory and I were chatting while you did that," Sarah Jane said apologetically. The Doctor threw up his hands in mock exasperation. "Here I was on the roller coaster being incredibly brave and dashing and no one saw it, what's the point of having you all!" "I saw it," Jack said, raising his hand. "Whoopie, Harkness saw it, that makes me feel so much better. At least he paid attention," the Doctor said while they laughed. "Ah well, at least you got to chat with Rory and get to know him better. Come on, you two, the night's still young." Sarah Jane and Rory stood up. Martha grabbed her plushies while Sarah Jane grabbed her horse and unicorn. She came up beside the Doctor and he gave her an affectionate smile before everyone headed off to see what else there was to do.
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