Hello there. If you have ever played with the thought of the Tenth Doctor traveling with Amy Pond, I hope this will be to your liking.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Amy Pond, Rory Williams or Leadworth. A cottage in Leadworth would probably be lovely though.

1 – The Bride And The Groom

The TARDIS had never felt so empty before. The Doctor looked around, blinked, took a couple of mindless steps towards the console. Something wet trickled down his cheek and he quickly brushed the tear away with a sleeve. Tears, actually, since there were several. Funny, he didn't cry often, if ever at all.

No, there was nothing funny about this. What had he imagined? That after months of searching, wiring, boosting and patience to find the crack in space, reach through it and wait for her to find him, things would go back to normal? Things could never go back to normal now. Rose Tyler was trapped in a parallel universe with no means of escape. Not that she needed him anyways; despite what she said, he knew she had a shot at a normal life there. As normal as a human life would get.

But for the Doctor, there wasn't even a normal to go back to. Even before he went traveling with Rose for two years, things had not been normal. He had been on his own, alone against the universe after the war. And before the war… Well, there had never really been a normal state for him back then either. So the Doctor had nothing to rely on now when he found himself having said good bye to the light of his life. The simple human being who showed him that she was so much more, that he could feel and think so much more than he ever thought possible.

With a quiet sniff, he slowly walked around the TARDIS console. Better move away from the supernova. He had used all the energy he needed. All the energy he could. So where would he go now? He could go anywhere. With anybody.

At that thought, he nearly snickered at himself. No, not with anybody. With nobody. Rose was the last in a long line of travelers on the TARDIS who had ultimately had their fates ruined by the Doctor's doings. He had been wrong to pick up another companion after the Time War. As much as he wanted to hope that their time together had made a difference in the universe, as much as evidence of their adventures together practically told him so, the Doctor at this point wished that he had never gone back to ask her a second time if she wanted to come, those years ago. She would be better off if he had never dragged her away from her real life.

And so, the Doctor decided that lonely was his role in this world. The last of the Time Lords would observe and not intervene. There was no point anymore anyways. There was no point in anything. He closed his eyes.

The most surprising noises made him open them again. A quick gasp and a couple of footsteps. Raising a shocked eyebrow, the Doctor started moving around the console with anticipation. There was someone on the other side. Judging from the footsteps, this someone was also moving around the console at the same pace he was. But before he could think about changing his course, the other person did that exact thing.

Standing before him on the grating, with one shivering hand on the console, was a pale, tall, thin woman with round, green eyes. She was dressed all in white, a strapless dress that somehow managed to look like a summer's day and a cake at the same time. But what caught the Doctor's gaze more than anything was the wavy red hair flowing like a glowing mantle from her head, garnished with a pearly tiara and a pulled back veil. He thought he had never seen such ginger hair ever before in his lives. Just before he came back to his senses about this atrocity of a stranger appearing on the TARDIS out of nowhere, he couldn't help but feeling the ever so slight sting of jealousy.

Then, the woman broke the silence.

"What?" she spat out, the look on her face one of disgust – or disbelief, it was hard to place without knowing her.

"What?" the Doctor replied, more in disbelief than disgust since he didn't really know what there would be to feel disgusted about here.

"What did you do?" the woman practically screamed, emphasizing each word as she took several steps in his direction.

The Doctor winced and backed the same amount of steps.

"I didn't do anything!"

"Oh, come on, you always do something! Listen up, space elf, if this is your idea of a grand reunion, your head needs to be chopped off and screwed back on the right way!"

She had closed in even more by now, cornering the Doctor against the TARDIS' jumpseat. He only blinked and stuttered something unintelligible in reply. For the first time in ages, someone had managed to render him completely speechless. He had absolutely no clue about what was going on, and he was supposed to be one of the most intelligent lower-dimensional species in the universe.

The redhead finally took a deep breath and gave him some space. But her angry stare didn't leave him.

"Seriously though. You couldn't have just come to the reception, could you? That's not alien enough for you?"

"Reception of what?" the Doctor dared asking but literally jumped up to his feet as she slid down onto the jumpsuit, arms crossed.

She raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Of my wedding?"

"Oh…" the Doctor said, suddenly seeing the light. "You're in a wedding dress!"

The woman just glared at him with another look of disbelief. This one, however, wore blatantly clear specks of disgust.

"I don't believe you."

"What? I haven't even said anything you could not believe yet!"

"You didn't know it was my wedding today?" the woman asked in a calmer tone, but the Doctor sensed a storm brewing underneath the surface.

"How would I know that?" he questioned back, not able to help his frustrated tone.

"Because… I thought you cared? But maybe you… Maybe you actually forgot about me."

"Certainly seems so!"

"Certainly does."

The Doctor shook his head and sighed, but then noticed that her anger suddenly seemed to have gone. Her green eyes were staring into the distance somewhere, and they looked… sad? Oh, did he really have to deal with this now? Moments after saying good bye to Rose… He swallowed hard. He had said to himself that he wouldn't intervene anymore. And just then, something intervenes with him. It just wasn't fair, this universe should be grateful enough for all he had done already.

But he couldn't ignore a sad person. Especially not when she was sitting in his ship without an invitation.

"How did you get on board?" he asked, genuinely wondering. He started to race around the console, pulling levers and checking signals. "I don't understand, and I understand everything! This can't happen, there's no way a human being can lock onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside… Uh, you are human, by the way?"

He realized that he had only assumed since he had just spoken to Rose, but couldn't really be sure. What with the TARDIS being all over time and space and there being plenty of humanoid creatures sharing resemblance with the human species.

The woman nodded but remained silent. The Doctor nodded back and dug up an instrument from a toolbelt that was hanging from the console.

"It must be… Some sort of subatomic connection, something in the temporal field…" he started to ramble as he zoomed in on the human and began to examine her. "Maybe something macrobinding your DNA to the interior-"

"Doctor?" the woman said softly and moved away his hand which had been holding an instrument close to her right eye. "I was walking up the aisle. I was getting married."

"Yeah, but… Hang on." He dropped his jaw when he realized what she had just called him.

"I thought I was meant to. And meant to forget about you. And then the TARDIS sucks me in-"

"You know who I am?" he interrupted her and grabbed both her arms.

She jerked free of his grasp. "What are you playing at… Oh."

She had spotted something. Quickly walking past him, she grabbed something that was hanging from the railing. Strangely enough, it took the Doctor several seconds to register what the redhead was holding up. A blue shirt.

"Who's this?" she asked him in a peculiar tone.

He only replied with a grim look. It was Rose's blue shirt. The very same one she had worn when they had first visited New Earth. He hadn't even noticed that it was tossed over the railing. So absorbed had he been with the work of trying to contact her over these past months, that he hadn't even bothered to clean up the mess she had left here and there around the TARDIS. Naturally, the TARDIS would clean it up by herself eventually. She usually did… But she had not touched this shirt, for some reason.

"Where is she?"

"She's gone," he said simply.

"Gone? Already?" came the redhead's strange reply. "For how long did you travel with her?"

The Doctor swallowed. The thoughts he had had before this unnatural encounter boiled up within him again.

"Years," he snapped, stepping up and snatching the shirt from the woman's hands. "Where on Earth were you from?"

"So you met someone… And she left you."

The Doctor didn't look up. "Where's your home? Your wedding?"

When she didn't respond for a long time, he finally glanced up, only to see her anger returned, her mouth a thin line.

"Leadworth, England. Since you forgot."

When the TARDIS landed in the lush garden of a big house in Leadworth, England, the ginger bride hardly even waited for the police box to finish materializing before she marched out into the afternoon sunlight. The Doctor gingerly followed her and watched her come to an abrupt stop halfway up to the house. Cheerful voices and music could be heard, probably coming from the back garden or a room on the other side of the house with doors or windows open.

"They are having my reception without me," she said, voice vibrating with anger brewing anew.

"Can't blame them," the Doctor said, leaning against the TARDIS with arms crossed. "When humans aren't busy complaining about their own lives, they snatch up every chance to forget about it for a while."

That wasn't really how he did regard humans though. Humans were wonderfully compassionate and passionate most of the time, qualities he deeply admired. But at this current time, he really preferred to not tempt himself to stick around. The woman turned to look darkly at him.

"Are you seriously not even coming to the reception?"

"Why? How can you be angry about that?" the Doctor asked and threw his arms out. Before she could retort, he continued: "Believe me, I shouldn't be anywhere near human festivities. Or humans at all. Or Earth, even!"

"So why the hell are you here?"

The woman yelled even louder than before at him, and her whole being seemed to be shaking by now. The Doctor really couldn't understand her. Apparently they had met before and she was really angry for him not remembering it. He had searched his memories thoroughly, but even though he was such a highly intelligent and perceptive creature, he assumed that even he could not remember ever single person he had ever met. He had just been alive for too long.

"You came into my TARDIS. I had to get you home! I couldn't just have let you tag along, now, could I?"

That seemed to be too much for the woman. She opened and closed her mouth several times but didn't seem to figure out what to say. So she just sort of gasped before she tore her eyes away from him and finally stormed up to the house, slamming the front door shut behind her. Leaving the Doctor standing dumbstruck in the garden with a growing sense of irritation.

He growled at the oddity of the whole situation but went back inside his ship. But as he rounded the console board, starting to pull the levers and press the buttons required for taking off… His mind caught up with his emotions. The mystery still remained – how ever had that bride appeared inside his TARDIS? She certainly didn't seem to know. She was just an ordinary human. Or perhaps not as ordinary as he had assumed? Maybe he actually had met her before, during some strange event where she had seen him and been affected by something that could cause her to…

No, nothing he could think of could possibly make it possible to just 'beam up' to the TARDIS like that. Not for a human, at least. And absolutely not from Earth when he was orbiting a supernova in outer space. It just didn't make any sense, and it was driving him mad. Even more than she was.

Sighing, he patted the TARDIS.

"Alright. I will investigate this mystery, this one more mystery on Earth. But after that, I'm done. Done with humans, done with getting to know people." He flung out his arms in an open gesture, looking up at the time rotor. "After this, I will be a space hermit!"

A few minutes later, appropriately dressed in a tux, the future space hermit rang the bell on the front door of the Leadworth house. It was only a moment before someone opened. The Doctor came face to face with a tall, thin, young man, not too unlike himself actually. Except that this man's hair was rather blonde instead of brown, his eyes were blue instead of brown and he was wearing a gray tailcoat instead of a black tuxedo. Also, his nose was rather big.

"Hello!" the Doctor said cheerfully.

The man just stared blankly at him for several seconds.

"I'm a friend of the bride," the Doctor elaborated carefully.

"I know," the man said. "You're the Doctor."

"Oh, she mentioned me! Great!"

The man kept staring at him and swallowed a few times before he spoke again. "Did you kidnap her?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Earlier, in the church. She just disappeared, in golden sparkles. I mean, I know she's seen a few things in her life, but that was just a bit too weird. Spooked me out."

"Oh. No, no, that wasn't me. Well, she did end up on my ship. But it wasn't my doing, I swear!" The Doctor suddenly realized something and leaned his head to the side with a curious look. "You're the groom, aren't you?"

"Yes," the man said with a sort of nervous laughter. "Who would have thought that, eh? That I would be the man she settled for. After… You know. Everything she did and dreamed and…"

"Well, congratulations to you!" the Doctor beamed, seemingly surprising the fellow in the doorway. "What's your name again?"

"Rory," the man replied with a raised eyebrow. "Rory Williams? Do I really look that much different?"

At that, the Doctor grimaced. "I'm afraid I'm very bad with faces today. And names. Sorry 'bout that. Now, uh, I would like to see your wife again actually. It's kind of important."

He walked past Rory Williams into the hallway of the house.

"She's not here," Rory said behind him though, making him stop and spin back around.

"What do you mean she's not here? It's her reception and I just dropped her off!"

"Yeah, she… She came in and was upset." Rory sighed, scratching his head. "With you. And us. And then she took my car and went."

"Went where?" the Doctor asked.

"To where she always goes when she's upset."

"And where's that?"

Rory looked strangely at him, as if with sympathy. "You would have known if you hadn't left her."

This just kept getting more and more annoying for the Doctor, because as he was conversing, his mind was still working in the background, digging through nearly lost memories for any trace of the faces he had been presented with in the last hour. Yet, to no avail.

"Just tell me where?" he grunted impatiently.

"The hospital," Rory shrugged.

"Right! Come on, then!"

Surprising the groom again, he suddenly grabbed the man's hand and pulled him out into the garden. The front door was left wide open.

"But she took my car!"

"Nevermind that, I don't have a driver's license anyways," the Doctor laughed as they ran around a hedge and came to stop in front of the blue police phone box.

"Oh my god," Rory breathed, still holding the Doctor's hand without thinking about it. "It's the TARDIS!"

"She mentioned that too?" the Doctor said, almost impressed with his apparent fame.

"Mentioned?" Rory exclaimed, but didn't continue, nor take his eyes off the blueness.

"Good, then! I don't really have a driver's license for this either, but don't worry about that," the Doctor mumbled as he finally released the man's hand and rushed inside.

Rory looked like the Time Lord letting go of him felt like losing a life line. "Can I really come inside?" he asked.

"Not if you don't move your feet," the Doctor sighed, peeking out through the door with irritation. "You're the one who knows where this hospital is. I need you, because I need to get to your wife. Capice?"

"She's not…" Rory began, but then took a deep breath and stepped up to the doors.

As he looked inside, he really dropped his jaw. The Doctor saw his reaction and couldn't help but smiling smugly. Admittedly, this was one thing he was going to miss with humans. They were always so incredibly impressed with his ship.

Rory Williams finally took his very first steps inside the TARDIS and tried his best not to fall over from whatever emotions were stirring inside of him.

"She's not my wife yet," was all he managed to whisper.