Checkmate (Doctor Who fanfiction)

The Boxes Make Him Angry

"And then we discovered it wasn't the Robot King after all, it was the real one. Fortunately, I was able to re-attach the head," The Doctor rambled to Rory, using lots of hand motions as he strolled towards the Tardis console where I was leaning.

"Do you believe any of this stuff?" Rory asked.

At the exact same time, Amy and I responded with, "I was there."

And never again will I trust robots. I had to marry the real king and then he literally got me halfway to bed before The Doctor stepped in. It was mortifying. I'm not sure which one had more bruises by the time I was done with them; the king, or The Doctor. "Done," as in, by the time Rory and Amy got in and dragged me away kicking and screaming.

"Oh, it's the warning lights!" The Doctor said, tapping a blinking red light.

"You should get rid of those," I decided, looking at him oddly. "They never stop."

"Oh," he scoffed in agreement, "bring me the hammer."

I ran my fingers along the console affectionately, and she purred at me.

Amy and Rory went away to have a quiet little conversation, and I kept petting the Tardis gently. The Doctor looked at me like he was incredibly happy that I got along so well with his time machine.

Knock knock knock on the door from outside.

What?

Everyone snapped to attention.

"What was that?" Amy asked.

"The door. It knocked."

Well the door didn't knock. That would be creepy. How does a site knock? Something outside the door knocked. I hope.

"Right, okay, we are in deep space?" I said jogging down the stairs and turing around, jabbing a thumb at the door.

"Very, very deep," he agreed. "And somebody's knocking."

The Doctor took the liberty of opening the doors, and I slipped under his arm to stand in front of him. There, just h hovering there, was a little glowing box of milky white.

"Oh, come here. Come here, you scrumptious little beauty."

To be honest, the way he said that was kind of uncomfortable.

The little box took this as an invitation, and whizzed in past us. It circled the console, bounced hard off The Doctor's chest, throwing him to the ground with the force.

"A box?" Rory asked. At his words, the box leapt from The Doctor's hands, and smacked into my head, as if trying to get my attention.

I caught it in my hand, but it hit me so hard I stumbled back in surprise. I shouldn't have been standing so close to the edge of the Tardis. I tripped over the toe of my shoe, and adrenaline rushed through me as I fell backwards towards the endless void of space.

I was at a diagonal line, about to plunge out into deep space, and as if on instinct, The Doctor whirled around and grabbed my wrist so hard pain shot through my arm like he just grabbed me with a hot iron clamp. But I didn't die, so I guess I owed him one.

The look of ferocity in his eyes kind of caught me off guard, until I realized I was still gripping his little white box. So was he quick to protect me, or his box? I don't suppose it mattered now. Panting, I extended his box, and he took it from me with a delicacy that wasn't like him.

"Doctor, what is it?" Amy asked.

"I've got mail," he said, and I don't think I'd ever seen his eyes so light and happy. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in psychic containers and send them through time and space. Anyway, there's a living Time Lord still out there, and it's one of the good ones!"