All The Strange, Strange Creatures

But of all the strange, strange creatures / In the air, at sea, on land / Oh my girl, my girl, my precious girl / I love you, you understand. -Murray Gold, 'Love Don't Roam' (sung by Neil Hannon)

On top of a hill, where cobalt blue grass met a cotton candy pink sky, three figures could be seen against the horizon, bolting toward a blue box. Behind them was the cause of their reckless sprint-a mob of lizard-like aliens tore after them, bearing torches and yelling for them to stop.

They reached the box and the leader of the three, a tall man in along brown coat and blue pinstriped suit, fumbled with the lock.

"Any day now, Doctor!" the woman cried breathlessly, resting a hand against the warm blue wood of the box and panting.

"Seriously, Doctor, now would be good," the second man said, watching the mob grow closer.

"Working on it!" the one known as the Doctor shot back, finally getting the key to turn. The blue doors flung open and the three scrambled inside, slamming them shut again just before the mob could reach them.

"Come out! Come out thisssss insssstant!" the leader of the mob called, pounding on the door with clawed hands.

But the crowd could only watch as the blue box made a whooshing, heaving sound, before the light on the top flared. A moment later, the box grew translucent, and, finally, disappeared. A very angry and confused mob was left in its wake.

Inside the box, the three exchanged glances and hysterical laughter, unfazed by the massive, cathedral-like room that was somehow jammed inside such a small exterior. The Doctor spun around the console in the center of the room, guiding the box away from danger and into a place known as the Time Vortex. The box was more than met the eye, of course-for what little its simple exterior might lead one to expect, it was, in fact, a time machine called the TARDIS, standing for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

Laughter continued to ring off the walls of the console room. "Mal, I can't believe you did that!" the man started, before breaking off and bending nearly double with mirth. "The look on his face."

The woman wiped at the tears that were streaming from her eyes, still in a fit of glee herself. "You're... the one that told him... that his son looked like a pineapple."

"Well he did! And you were thinking it, too, don't deny it!"

"But I wasn't the one who said it out loud, Matt."

"No, you're just the one who got us arrested for taking my hand in public."

"Would you have it any other way?" she asked, with a knowing raise of her brow.

He gave her a cross look that said he absolutely wouldn't. She laughed again, closed the distance between them, and pressed her lips to his.

The Doctor watched from the console, amused. Nearly eight months Matt and Mallory had traveled with him, now, and most of them had been spent with the two in complete and utter denial about everything between them that was stupidly obvious to just about everyone else. The Time Lord had been more than glad to see them finally start sorting everything out in the past few weeks.

Still. "Would you two mind taking your snog somewhere else?" he asked mildly.

The two parted, matching blushes coming to their faces. "Sorry," Mallory offered sheepishly.

The Doctor raised a brow, but couldn't quite hide the slight smile on his face. "Just remember whose ship you're on."

"Yeah, yeah," Matt returned teasingly, wrapping an arm around Mallory's shoulders and starting down the hallway toward the rest of the ship.

~~~

Later that evening-or at least, relative evening, considering they were on a ship cruising through the Time Vortex itself-the two humans were curled in the TARDIS media room, watching a film neither were paying much attention to. One might think it odd to go from fighting a revolution one moment to fighting over the popcorn the next, but after eight months they had grown used to the frequent discontinuity in their lives.

The heavy warmth of exhaustion was tugging on Matt by the time the movie ended, and it had already laid its claim on Mallory. There were benefits to living a life of running-you never had to worry about what you ate and you always slept well.

That is, unless a vision of the future you were desperate to prevent haunted your nightmares.

For three months, there had been three dreams ready and waiting around the corner of slumber. Two of them he'd only had a handful of times, but the crystal clarity of every sense put them in the same category as the first.

In one, Matt was holed up in an abandoned barn with his friend and coworker Jason Gray, in some post-apocalyptic version of Earth he didn't like to dwell on, while they decided where in the United States they planned on heading next.

In the second, he couldn't see a thing, but he had an impression it was in the same horrible world as the first. The fact that he argued with Mallory to leave him behind because they weren't both going to get of wherever they were alive seemed to cement that fact. The part where he called her his wife seemed to be the only bright spot in the entire thing.

And then there was the last dream, the one he was having now.

The man beside him had seemed familiar the first time Matt had seen this. Now, after three months of seeing him in his nightmares every night, he knew every line of his face, every stride of his gait, every enunciation of his words. Half a dozen guards walked beside them, armed and ready. Six silver spheres, about a foot in diameter, floated through the air in formation, so silent he hadn't even noticed them until a few times through the dream.

The man's voice was sing-song as he called out her name. "Mallory. Mallory Ever-ton!" He pitched his tone up even higher, spinning in a circle. "I can see you!" He continued down the street, arms outstretched as his voice dropped down again. "Out you come, little girl, come and meet your master."

Matt paused, dragging in a breath as the man spun around again. This never got any easier.

"Anybody? Nobody? No? Nothing?" The man fixed his gaze on the guards. "Positions!" he snapped, and they all readied their guns, covering the rows of townhouses that rose above their heads on both sides of the street. "I'll give the order unless you surrender. Ask yourself... what would the Doctor do?"

Silence dragged out. The man turned, fixing Matt with a glare.

"I've got your little lover boy, haven't you realized that yet? I can shoot him first, if you'd like."

There was a creak and a crack of light as one of the townhouse doors slowly opened, and Mallory emerged. No matter how beautiful he thought her to be, he couldn't deny the worn, haggard look that was etched into every line of her body.

"Oh, yes!" the man said, clapping and pasting a manic smile on his face. "Oh, very well done! Good girl! He trained you well." Suddenly, his bright manner turned deadly serious. "Bag."

"Let him go," Mallory said flatly.

"Give me the bag," the man shot back. She hesitated for a moment, then stepped toward him. "No, stay there. Just throw it."

Her lip curled as she shrugged off the backpack she kept on her shoulders, tossing it to the ground in front of her. The man raised a small, handheld silver device, aimed it at the bag, and shot a burst of orange light that left the backpack a smoking wreckage, whatever was inside it destroyed.

"Now let him go," she demanded again.

"I see there's one thing the Doctor didn't teach you," the man said instead. "What loving someone does... it makes you vulnerable. Vulnerable to people like me." He raised his weapon, pointing it at her. "And now, good companion, your work is done."

Just like always, Matt couldn't wake until he watched her fall to the ground.

"Matt?"

Sometime in the past few hours, they had shifted so he was laying on the couch and she was stretched on top of him, a fuzzy blanket draped over both of them. Mallory must have felt him wake, though, because she moved against him, nuzzling at his neck.

"You all right?" she asked, her tone drowsy.

He hummed quietly, blinking against the dim light. The TARDIS must have turned the lights down for them when they dropped off.

"Dreams again?"

He grimaced, glad she had her face tucked against him so she couldn't see the face he made. "Yeah. I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

She hesitated a moment and he could only hope she had dropped off again. "Kay," she finally answered, snuggling back against his chest.

Long after her breathing had taken on the evenness of sleep, he was still wide awake. It wouldn't be so bad, he thought, even a recurring nightmare as awful as that. But he had known, from the very first time he saw it, exactly what it was.

It was a vision of his future. One he only had three chances to prevent.

"There's three moments you can change. Three chances to save her. You can take the path you don't want to. You can make the choice you wish you could and think you can't. And if all else fails, you can trade her a year of your life."

Words spoken to him by a young psychic, just a few weeks ago.

He could only hope she was right, and that the future really could be changed. Because after all this, he was not going to lose the woman he'd spent so much time waiting for.