Red Lights - ON HIATUS

No Need to Say Goodbye, You'll Come Back

To Sarah, giving me my first prompt: Something about shaving their heads

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Amy, this is very very very important."

The Doctor's words were rushed, grabbing Amy by the shoulders, his wild eyes meeting her confused ones.

"Did they see you?" He asked sharply, shaking her slightly before he let go of her shoulders, going back to his mad dash around the console, throwing things left and right in a hazardous fashion.

"I-... Maybe? I... I don't know." Amy crossed her arms over her chest, ducking before a sharp piece of metal could hit her in the head.

"You don't know?" He asked loudly, looking up from where he was, trying to find something underneath the complex of wires. "Did they or didn't they? Very important!"

"Maybe!" She shrugged, walking over to him slowly. "I was a bit busy running for my life!"

"Well, if they didn't see you, then you won't have to keep doing that for the rest of your life!" He shot back, sitting up and smashing his head into the console.

"And what if they did see me? What then?"

He staggered out, clutching his head in his hands. "Well... Pond... We're going on a little trip... For a while... Few months..." He said, pulling something out of his pocket, tracing his fingers along the circlular engravings on the fob watch.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amelia Pond could honestly say, without a doubt, she hated this 'little trip.'

The beginning of it was awful, having to stand there and watch as the Doctor turned himself into a human, removing one heart and less of his brain capacity, standing there and watching him scream in pain.

He gave her a list of things to do, things to watch out for when it came to him being a human.

1. Do not let me eat apples! For goodness sake, Amelia, if I eat an apple while I'm human, I'll poison all the food in the TARDIS.

2. Don't let me do anything stupid.

3. Like eat an apple.

2. (revisited) Seriously. Don't let me do anything stupid like walk in front of a car or do something you think I'm incapable of doing.

4. It's a complicated year we'll be hiding in, so we have to be something! A man and a woman are not just flat mates at this time in your history. I don't care what we are, dating, married, engaged, whatever. We'll figure it out. Just say it to me when I first wake up so that I know.

5. Don't let me hurt you.

6. In anyway, shape, or form.

7. Don't let me eat apples.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

London in 1941 was certainly among the places Amy hoped she would never have to visit again, let alone spend months there until an odd race of aliens got off their backs. Amy had practically become a babysitter to the Doct- John. His name was John Pond. He was born in Northampton, studied English in Oxford and was a professor for three years before the war, before he "married" Amy.

Among all the things, it was weird to see that the Doctor was sleeping, like a normal human, eating, having to run from their one-bedroom flat to a shelter in the garden. She managed to keep him from doing too many stupid things, making sure he had all fingers and toes when he ducked into the bomb shelter, keeping him safe when they would be in town and the sirens rang.

(One thing she couldn't change was the apple tree in their back garden.)

But for the first month, she kept "John" from doing anything stupid or hurtful.

Until he came back from doing the shopping and he told her he'd joined the army.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Doctor, the pacifist, joined the bloody London Blitz, the second world war. He joined it. Of course, he kept in touch with Amy as much as he could, trying to write letters at least twice a week, explaining how he'd be home soon, his regiment didn't do much fighting at all.

It was a month since she last heard from him, two days since she heard from the War Office.

Sir or Madam,

I regret to inform you that a report has been received from the War Office to the effect that (No.) 11231963, (Rank.) Private, (Name.) Pond, John, was posted 'missing' on the 28th November.

He'd done something stupid on his own. He'd done something ridiculous and dangerous and deadly, he was god knows where, and he was bloody missing in action.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She got a letter from him two weeks later. It started out in his handwriting, but his words were too much of a messy scrawl to math the words of an English dictionary. Someone else took over the letter during the first paragraph, rewriting it in a much more legible penmanship.

My Amelia,

I've recently returned to my regiment after two weeks captive in Germany. They have confined me to a hospital bed until I can walk from one wall of this room to the other, without falling.

I hope that means I could come home by Thursday.

They said my condition was horrid and I'm not fit for the war due to my injuries. A good friend of mine took to finishing this letter for me, after complaining that it would just be an inky mess with how my hand was shaking.

The nurses and the doctors say Thursday is as good a time as any to go home. They've already scheduled which train I need to take home.

I'll be seeing you soon.

John Pond. (With help of Capt. J. Harkness)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, Amy was mixed among spouses waiting for their husbands, mothers sending their children off to the countryside, and a few soldiers leaving for another part of the country.

Part of the crowd had cleared as the trained pulled out of the station, and she stood behind a bit, letting mothers leave, some with their husbands, most without. The Doctor was among this crowd, he'd spent four months in a war, he was held captive, he was injured. Her Doctor.

Her Doctor - who called himself John with her surname - stumbled down a set of stairs, towards the fiery hair he knew belonged to his Amy. He walked with a heavy limp, one arm wrapped up and slung against his chest. His face was bruised and dirty, cut up a bit on his cheek and by his ears. And... His hair was gone. His hair had been chopped short, close to his head. His fringe was nonexistent, no hair hanging over his eyes, it was all just a fuzz, no more than a centimeter on his head.

"Amy!" He called out, stumbling forwards a little faster when she came into view. The fact that he'd been shot three times in the leg didn't stop him from running to her. He tried not to grimace when she hugged him very tightly, hurting the ribs that had been broken among his other injuries.

The moment he was back in their tiny flat, she handed him back the silver pocket watch, more than ready to leave this time period and never come back.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was appalled to find himself nearly bald.

Even worse was the taste of apples in his mouth.

She didn't care what he yelled. (I told you not to let me do anything stupid!)

He'd come back.