The Doctor, Amy and Rory were in the TARDIS discussing their next destination when the Doctor heard the word “Sarah...” He recognised the voice of his fourth incarnation. A chill passed over him and felt a knot in his stomach.
“Did you hear that?” asked the Doctor, the discussion regarding where they were going now forgotten.
“Hear what?” asked Amy.
“I didn’t hear anything,” interjected Rory looking around rather unhelpfully.
“No, you wouldn’t” replied the Doctor, pondering: his mind elsewhere and his heart heavy. “Right,” he continued, ”I’ll drop you off back home. Things to do. Important things... very important!”
Amy protested: “But what about...”
The Doctor cut her off, “No time for that now...” running around the console pulling levers and pushing buttons.
Not long later the doors opened. “Here we are. Out you to go and do ordinary human... things.” The Doctor ushered Rory and Amy out. He had landed in the lawn in their back garden.
Rory and Amy watched the TARDIS dematerialise on the lawn and Rory looked at the crushed square patch it had left behind in the long grass that needed mowing. “Look at the state of that.” He had hardly finished the words when the TARDIS re-materialised on a different part of the lawn. Rory looked up and sighed.
The Doctor emerged and said, “Flowers. I need some flowers. Wouldn’t be right without flowers.” He marched over to a flower bed and ripped some flowers out of the ground. “Sorry, but it is an emergency.” He kept repeating the word “Sorry” as he sidled back into the TARDIS rather sheepishly. Again the TARDIS dematerialised.
Rory complained, “He ruins my lawn and then he wrecks the flowerbed!”
“Oh be quiet,” responded Amy, “the lawn needs mowing anyway. I’ll put the kettle on; you cut the grass.”
Rory marched over to the shed to get the mower; he hadn’t expected to be dumped back home and was not in a gardening mood…
A month passed before Amy and Rory heard the familiar groan of the TARDIS materialising on Rory’s precious lawn, now neatly cut and all trace of the TARDIS’ previous visits erased. “Amy, he’s done it again! I do wish he wouldn’t land on the lawn,” muttered Rory through gritted teeth.
“Hello, I’m back,” said the Doctor making an entrance into the kitchen. “Thanks for the flowers by the way. Sorry about… but you know how it is…”
Amy and Rory both responded with dark stare and said nothing.
“So are you two ready for some more adventures?” asked the Doctor, not understanding his companions’ cold reaction to his return.
“Where have you been?” asked Amy making no effort to mask her annoyance with the Doctor.
“I... I had things to do,” replied the Doctor not wishing to discuss it with them. “Everything is done now.” He reached into his pocket and looked at the sonic lipstick he had in there.
“What’s that?” Asked Amy, still annoyed with the Doctor and rather frustrated with his unwillingness to discuss where he had been and what he had been up to for the last month.
“A sonic lipstick,” he replied, his mind drifting...
“A what?”
“A sonic lipstick. Like my sonic screwdriver but it looks like a lipstick.”
“You made a sonic lipstick for me?” Asked Amy, rather surprised: her annoyance now forgotten.
The Doctor’s attention returned fully to the kitchen and his two companions. “What? NO!” Anger flared up in him. “I didn’t make this for you, it was… Sarah Jane’s.” He put it back into his pocket signalling an end to the discussion. His mood softened. “My Sarah Jane’s...”
