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“Do you ever wonder, Doctor, about things?”
“I wonder about loads of things, Pond. Anything in particular you wonder if I wonder about?” he asked, pausing in the act of working the console. He frowned slightly when he saw the look on her face. “Are you all right?”
“What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. Just...lost in my thoughts.” She smiled slightly. “How do you pick your companions?”
“Many different reasons, but mostly because they've caught my fancy in some way.”
“How many have there been?”
He opened his mouth to give a glib answer and then paused, thinking hard. “Quite a few. Some for long periods of time, some for much shorter. Some for only the span of one adventure.”
“And where do I rank?” She didn't say this in a challenging way, just a curious one.
“You're special,” he said. “Do you remember what I told you before I flew the Pandorica off into the exploding TARDIS?”
“Yes,” she said. “How could you resist me, or something along those lines.”
“But you're a special girl, Amelia,” he said seriously. “You had the universe pouring through your head, and you had so much power in your thoughts. You willed Rory's memory back into your mind, even after the crack had erased him.” He grinned slightly. “You never can forget anything, really. Frightfully good bit of advice on my part.”
She smiled. “Do you sometimes wonder what would have happened if I didn't remember you?”
He sobered up instantly. “No. I know what would have happened. I would have been an anomaly on the wrong side of the crack, and no one would remember me at all.”
“So many things are different now,” she said. “I rang my mother up a few days ago, and she asked how my honeymoon was and how soon Rory and I would be back. We've been gone for three months, and they think we've been gone a week. I'm not quite used to having to explain myself to others.”
He chuckled. “I don't even think having your mum and dad back are going to make you have an easier time explaining yourself to people. It's not in your nature.”
She made a face but then grinned at him “True. Very true.” She walked over to him and gave him a quick hug “Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?” he asked, surprised.
“For crash landing at my house all those years ago. It may have been a long wait, but it really has been worth it.”
“I'm glad,” he said. “Now! Where to next?”
“Someplace bright and sunny. Oh! Rory's never been to Space Florida.”
“You want to go again?” he asked.
“But of course! And Rory'll love it, just as much as he'll love seeing me in this luscious bikini I picked up at our last Earth stop.”
The Doctor shook his head. “You're incourageable,” he said with a smile.
“I know. And that's why you love me.” She kissed his cheek quickly and went back towards her and Rory's quarters.
Alone on his own again, his mood turned somber. Sometimes he did wonder, he thought to himself. He wondered if a decision could be changed, if an action could be done or undone, if he had really done what was best for all those companions of his...well, he sometimes wondered if he did what was best for anyone other than himself. And these thoughts, they weighed down on him. But he bore it with silence, and a clap of the hands, and a new round of “where do we go now?” and that, that was his life now. But yes, sometimes he wondered. He just never really liked what he wondered about.