Work Text:
Thud. Thud.
“Why did you push the popcorn button?” The Doctor skidded around the console, staying upright by some mixture of flapping arms and divine intervention. “You weren’t supposed to push the popcorn button!”
“Forget about your stupid popcorn button, my husband is concussed!”
“Because you pushed the popcorn button!”
Thud. Thud.
Rory raised his hand politely. “Um, just to clarify …”
“She pushed the popcorn button!” the Doctor told him.
Thud. Thud. “Come on out, you alien cowards!” Thud.
“And it wasn’t actually snowing out there? I’m a bit disoriented here, and I didn’t see much before someone hit me on the head with a shovel.”
“The popcorn setting,” the Doctor said, “has some minor calibration issues, which wouldn’t even be an issue outside of,” he checked a readout, “Iowa, and definitely wouldn’t be an issue if people didn’t press it!” He pulled the dematerialization lever with the air of an argument won. The thudding faded.
“Calibration issue,” Amy repeated.
“A minor calibration issue. Probably a fault of the model. Every time I take it apart, I find extra bits.”
“This,” Amy shook the bag, “is not a minor calibration issue!”
Rory focused on the bag, with some difficulty.
Pristine, perfectly unpopped popcorn kernels, golden-brown. He reached out, curious. The bag was completely cool to the touch.
“It’s—“ The Doctor appeared to examine and discard several different inadequate adjectives. “Technical.”
“Technical.”
“Very, very technical. Difficult to explain.”
Amy folded her arms. “Try.”
Actually being able to see the icicles dripping off that word balloon, Rory diagnosed, was probably not a good sign, since people didn’t have word-balloons outside of that HeroWorld simulation which had nearly killed him several times and proved conclusively that a Doctor with the power of flight was more frightening than a supervillain. “Um, about my head …”