Title: Nothing to Worry About
Author: chinesebakery
Characters: Eleven/Amy
Summary: Following the Star Whale debacle, Amy let her insecurities take over. But only for a little while.
Spoilers: 5x02
Length: ~1400 words
A/N: Thanks to be_cool_bec for the beta.

It was an amicable embrace. A friendly gesture, really. Nothing to worry about. Well, there was that slight case of tachycardia. But when you were trying to sort out the insanity that had become your life in the shower cabin of a time machine, a little tachycardia wasn't at all uncommon, she was fairly sure.

The doctor had a body. She had always known that of course. The Doctor had a tall, lanky body, she'd seen it all before. Not that she'd ever given it a second thought. Or admitted to it anyway. Rory wisely chose to pretend the same, and that was how they made everything work.

Rory. Rory was fine. Right where she'd left him, frozen in time and space. Probably. She was still unclear on how that worked exactly, of what was happening back home while she travelled impossible places with the man she'd dreamt of day and night since she was a little girl. Was Rory putting on his wedding suit while she shampooed the remnants of Star Whale vomit off her hair? Standing on her front porch, looking lost and betrayed? It seemed impossible that no time had passed for him, when she'd lived more adventures in a day than in the past fourteen years combined.

Oh, how she wished she could show them now, all those idiots who made fun of her back then. Loony Amy who never quite mastered pretend normalcy. The girl whose parents never showed at the end-of-the-year school play because she had none, and didn't take piano or ballet or tennis lessons because she had psychiatrist appointments to attend instead. She would too enjoy to splatter some Whale goo into the rapidly thinning hair of stern therapist number 3, whose mean smirks used to make her feel worse than all the finger pointing in the world.

"Who's laughing now?" she asked aloud as a few tears slide down her cheeks and disappear down the drain with soapy water and sticky filth. Silly tears that didn't mean a thing because she wasn't sad. Slightly disturbed, maybe. Because the Doctor had a temper and a body that she'd seen and felt and breathed in, and there was that pesky tachycardia again.

If he brought her back now, to her old home and her old life and her old love, would her heart break for good or merely slow down? The idea alone made her chest hurt the way it had as he stared at her with disappointment and hurt. And that felt irreversible enough.

So, the Doctor didn't forgive errors, didn't accept apologies and snapped from bouncy to petulant in the blink of an eye. It was the last thing she would have expected from the raggedy Doctor of her childhood fantasies. In her little girl dreams, he would come back and sweep her away so she would never feel misunderstood or inadequate again. His undiluted disapproval had made her feel flawed, mistake-bound and ignorant. She may have earned the right to stand beside him for now, but what would happen when she miscalculated again?

In that moment, she missed Rory so much she ached with it.

***

Her heart lifted as she took in the dressing room. It looked magical, although more than a little intimidating, which was saying something since dressing up in costumes had lost all appeal to her during her kissogram phase. With a closet like that, though, she would have made a fortune. Complicated underthings, shoes you wouldn't believe. Beautiful dresses straight out of a period drama, and some other outfits that may as well have come from another kind of movie altogether.

"How are we feeling today?" she asked her reflection as she pressed a bunch of clothes hangers against her neck. "Are we a Lizzy Bennet or a randy Cleopatra?" The lights flickered slightly and she laughed. It was good to know she'd gained someone's approval, at least.

She was still smiling to herself when the Doctor's head appeared horizontally in the crack of the door like something out of a cartoon.

"Is everything alright?"

"Oh, please don't bother knocking. I'm naked, by the way," she gritted, pulling her towel tighter around her. She caught his widened gaze zeroing on her thighs as she did and her annoyance mixed with secret delight.

The awkwardness of the silence that followed wasn't lost on either of them. He made a few random steps around the room and came back to face her when something caught his eye. His chin jerked toward her feet and he frowned.

"That doesn't seem like the most appropriate attire to meet with a prime minister."

"The bow-tie-wearing fashion expert has spoken," Amy said reverently as she kicked something sheer and fairly improper back into the closet.

The silence stretched when their eyes met, a matching guarded expression setting on both their faces. After a few moments, the corner of his mouth dropped a fraction and he straightened.

"Well, well, we'll play dress up another time," he said. "We don't want to keep Churchill waiting."

"Right, shoo," she gestured aimlessly, before giving the closet another thorough inspection.

She grabbed the shortest skirts she could find and set them in a pile; put aside a modest enough jumper and a pair of practical shoes, not without eyeing the stack of spiky wonders with a tinge of regret.

She took more time than was necessary to get dressed, gave a few extra combs through her hair and took another moment to tidy up her room. When there was nothing left she could do to delay, she sighed and headed back to the control room.

***

"You're still upset, I see."

His tone was light but his eyes didn't leave the console as she circled around him to lean against the railing, right behind his back, rolling her eyes as she did. So, he was going to make her talk about it. She'd been hoping the standard male avoidance response to personal conflict was universal in the truest sense of the word.

"Why would I be? We're saving the world, one Star Whale at a time. No creature was harmed during the making of this adventure. We did good today," she added like an afterthought, relieved to hear that she sounded more playful than defensive.

"You did good," he conceded.

Amy hummed absently in response and concentrated on the mollifying pulse of the TARDIS lights around her.

"Amy, I didn't mean-" The Doctor paused to take a defeated breath, then turned to face her. "Well, yes, I meant every word, of course, but they sounded much harsher to you than they did in my head."

"Who knows how anything ever sounds in your head? Your lips keep moving but I have yet to hear anything that makes sense."

"It's just that I'm not used to you yet-"

"I'll try to be a better pet in the future."

"-or to me for that matter. I'm adjusting, we both are. I'll keep the harshness in my head as long as you try not to make a muck of things. No more drastic action without asking me first."

"Sir, yes sir," Amy said with much mock eagerness.

"We have many more places to visit before I send you back."

"Send me back, will you? I'll be begging to go home by the end of the week, I'm sure."

"We're okay, though."

It was a statement rather than a question, and there was a flicker in his eyes, a disarming softness that was worth just about everything. Everything. Her irritation dissolved as her blood resumed its frantic coursing.

"Of course we're okay," she said, and shrugged as unaffectedly as she possibly could.

He didn't reply, only stared at her with the same maddening kindness until she finally chuckled.

"Oh, I see. You want another hug, don't you?" she teased. It was meant as a joke but her heart gave another enthusiastic thump at the suggestion. A flare of guilt followed, hitting her back like a boomerang. It was a complicated thing, keeping close quarters with her Doctor, flustering and exhilarating at the same time, a whole new range of hybrid emotions.

But he only shook his head and turned back to the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers in what seemed like a completely random fashion.

Behind his back, her grin mirrored his perfectly as the TARDIS wheezed and wheezed, the happiest sound she'd ever heard.