Work Text:
Still uncertain, Kaylee allows Neal to lead her outside, her hand still clasped in his. Amy slings an arm around her shoulders, and Kaylee fights not to go all stiff, thinking of how the Captain would chastise her for allowing two pretty strangers to drag her off to who knows where.
They lead her through winding streets to the edge of town and down a side road she would have walked right past without even noticing if not for Neal’s insistent tug on her hand. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and she knows she should stop, turn around, go back and never look behind her. But Neal smiles at her and nods down the road.
“She’s just there.”
Kaylee looks beyond him, but there is only an empty street, some trash blowing in the wind until it catches in the lone tree bursting out of the pavement. Just beyond that is a blue box big enough to fit only one person with the words POLICE BOX emblazoned across the top.
“Where?”
Amy pulls away and jogs down to the box, slipping a key from her pocket and stroking the blue box like it’s a living, purring thing in need of affection. “Here,” Amy says. She slides the key into the lock and opens the door and then waits.
“Go on,” she says to Kaylee.
“You ain’t gonna kidnap me or kill me or anything if I go in there, right?” Kaylee asks with a nervous chuckle.
Amy laughs. “Us? Oh, sweetheart. He’s an art thief, and I’m a kiss-o-gram. We’d be terrible at that sort of thing. Fancy a snog and a nice portrait of the Queen, and we’ve got you covered.”
And for a moment, Kaylee just looks back and forth between them because Neal doesn’t remind her of the Captain or any of the crooks she’s met, and Amy doesn’t quite have the poise of a companion, but then Neal pulls his hand free and places it on her back. He leans down and speaks right into her ear, his breath making her shiver. “Just look. You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. But you’ll want to.”
She nods and takes a few steps closer to Amy who is hanging on the open door, a knowing smirk on her face. Kaylee takes a deep breath and turns and looks and...
“Shun-sheng duh gao-wahn. It’s--”
“Yeah.” Neal grins.
“But it’s--”
“Yup!” Amy grabs Kaylee’s hand and pulls her inside the rest of the way, and Kaylee is too stunned to put up a fight.
“This is...impossible.”
“You get used to that. The impossible. Happens all the time around here.”
Amy’s voice actually echoes a bit inside this cavernous room tucked inside a tiny blue box that Amy says can travel through time and space in a wink, and Kaylee can only stare, spinning in circles trying to take it all in: the golden walls, the staircases leading to who knows where, the way the room seems to glow--warm and alive and thrumming.
There’s a man wearing a tweed jacket standing at the center console, dragging a display screen down to eye level and glancing at it before whirling around to the other side of the console and tapping away at a typewriter.
“Back already?” he calls over his shoulder without looking when Neal shuts the door behind them, a gentle click echoing in the room.
“Yes. And we have a guest,” Amy tells him.
“Another one?” the man mutters to Amy out of the side of his mouth. Kaylee ducks her head, but not before she sees Amy elbow him hard in the side.
“Kaylee, this is the Doctor,” Neal says with a smirk and a nod towards the other man. “The complete lack of manners is something else you get used to.”
“Oi.” The man shoots a frown in Neal’s direction.
“Kaylee likes ships,” Amy says, ignoring them both. “We thought maybe you’d want to show off a bit.”
The Doctor bristles, plucking at his jacket. “I don’t show off.”
“You make Neal look positively modest in comparison,” Amy chastises him.
“Hey,” Neal says.
“She really is incredible,” Kaylee offers, brushing her fingers lightly over the console, careful not to press or bump anything though her fingers twitch with the restraint.
The Doctor’s face lights up a bit at that, and he looks around for himself, eyes sparkling. “She is, isn’t she?”
Amy slips between them, leans back against the console, and tugs on his sleeve. “What do you think? One ride. Just a quick one.”
He snaps his attention to her. “What? No. Out of the question,” he says, turning to pull a bright blue lever.
“Oh, pleeeease?”
“That’s what you said about him,” the Doctor says gesturing at Neal, “and now look where we are.”
“Oh, don’t be silly," Amy says with a dismissive wave. "You love Neal. One trip.”
“No.”
“We can go to New York! Neal’s New York! I’ve never been! And Kaylee’s never seen Earth before. Not real Earth.”
Kaylee stops. It finally hits her. “You’re from Earth That Was? You’re from...”
“2010,” Neal says with a nod.
“My god, you’re right,” the Doctor says quietly. He crosses the floor to her, crouching down a bit so he can peer into her eyes. “You don’t know what it used to be like, do you? Only from books, and books never get it right, do they? They leave out all the best bits like sunsets against skyscrapers and the crunch of leaves under your feet and buying sausages from carts on the street. I love buying sausages from carts.”
It’s a little unsettling, having him this close. He looks so young at first glance, but looking into his eyes, she can see years and wars and a dozen lifetimes all crowded in too close, sharing too much space for one mind to handle. She can’t look away. The Doctor doesn’t seem to mind. He just looks back like he can see all her years, too, few and small though they might be. But the Doctor smiles, cups her cheek with his hand for just one brief second, and then spins around back to the console.
“We should go and buy some sausages from carts,” Amy says with wide eyes and a solemn nod. “You can’t deny her that. We can just pop right over and pop back. With sausages.”
“It’s an awfully long way to go for sausages,” the Doctor tells Amy as he fiddles with a knob on the console while reaching for a lever.
“Riiiiight. That would be absurd. And not at all like that time we went to 3000 BC to have tea with that Chinese emperor.”
“‘That Chinese emperor’? Shennong is the Father of Chinese medicine. Show a little respect.”
“He was boring,” Amy says. “But New York--”
“Yes, yes, all right!” the Doctor says. “One trip. That’s it.” He holds one finger up very close to Amy’s face to emphasize the point, but she’s too busy raising her hands over her head and doing a little dance in victory. He turns and punches something in on the typewriter, and Amy dances over to Neal and starts jabbing a playful finger in his chest, telling him how he’s going to have to show her absolutely everything and--
“Wait!” Kaylee says, and everything stops. Three heads turn and look at her almost as if they forgot she was in the room. “I can’t--...What about my friends? I should...”
“Time machine,” the Doctor says, going back to spinning a giant wheel on the console round and round. “We can be gone for years and come back five minutes from now.”
There’s something terrifying and freeing at the thought, but she thinks of Inara and Simon and Wash, and can’t help feeling like she’ll be leaving them all behind.
“Oh, come on,” Amy says. “New York! Time travel! Sausages! It beats drinking alone in some filthy bar.”
When she looks over, Neal is nodding at her from where he leans back against the railing, hands in his pockets. “One trip. It’ll change your life, I promise.”
Kaylee wants to know who he thinks he is, thinking that her life needs changing. Kaylee wants to say she’s perfectly happy and that she loves her home and that she wouldn’t change life on Serenity for anything. That she has everything she’s ever wanted and more. Kaylee wants to say a lot of things, but instead she says, “Yes. Okay. Yes.”