“God, that is so annoying,” Amy gasped out as she flopped back against the pillows. Her hair fell in her face, and she went to push it away, only to find her arms weren’t quite up to such an arduous task. So instead, she let them lie at her sides, hands spread wide on the sheets.

The Doctor, barely breathing any harder than usual, looked over at her, eyebrows raised. “What, the orgasm you just had? It was annoying?”

“No, you idiot,” she said without any real heat as she kicked the sheets away from her body. Outside, one of the blizzards the planet of Nix XV was famous for raged, but inside the room, Amy was almost uncomfortably hot. Whether that was from the fire flickering cheerfully in the fireplace or the sex, she wasn’t sure.

“Ah, I see” the Doctor said, drumming his fingers against his bare chest. “So perhaps it was the one before that that you found so bothersome.”

Rolling over to face him, Amy did her best to scowl. It was hard though when he was grinning at her, slightly sweaty and more than a little smug.

Even harder when every nerve in her body was still pleasantly buzzing from those two, very-much-not-annoying orgasms.

So despite her best intentions, her scowl became a smile, and then, when he reached out and linked their fingers, raising her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles, the smile became a chuckle.

“It was neither of them, thank you very much,” Amy said, tapping the end of his nose with her finger. “It was just… you know what? Forget it.” She slid closer to him on the bed, her feet finding his. “Let’s talk about something else. I’m sure you have a very impressive lecture about why it snows on Nix XV all the time.”

“I do actually,” he said happily. “For example, Pond, did you know that ‘nix’ is the Latin word for snow, which means that at some point, humans must’ve come to this planet and named-,” he stopped and frowned, looking back at her. “Is that what you find so ‘annoying?’ The snow? Because honestly, the whole reason I brought you here was so that you could see the snow. It’s not just regular snow, frozen water and all of that. Well, some of its molecular make-up is frozen water, but a good deal of it is frozen star dust. Granted, I had hoped we’d actually get to explore some of it rather than be stuck in a bedroom. ‘Flash frozen.’ Ridiculous. With the proper gear, we’d be just fine out there,” he said, nodding toward the window. Amy glanced over her shoulder at the glass, which was more or less a solid block of white.

“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You would find slogging through a blizzard more fun than shagging.”

“Not more fun, just a…different sort of fun. But I must admit,” the Doctor added, skimming one hand over the curve of Amy’s hip. “This has been a particularly pleasant evening.”

“Mmm,” Amy agreed, her eyes closing as the Doctor began tracing some kind of pattern on her skin.

“Which is why I’m at a loss for what could possibly be annoying you.”

Her eyes snapped open, and this time, the scowl wasn’t nearly as hard to maintain. “I said forget it. It’s…it’s nothing.”

“Is not nothing,” he said mildly, studying her face. “Or you’d tell me what it is.”

“It’s stupid,” Amy replied, and to her horror, she felt a blush creep up her neck.

The Doctor leaned in closer, his eyes searching hers. “Are you…Amelia Pond, are you shy?”

“No!” she said, swatting at him, but by now her face was flaming.

“You are!” he said on a little laugh. “Mad, impossible Amy Pond is shy. Bashful, even! Although God knows, I’m not sure how you could be after that thing we did where-,” he made a series of elaborate gestures with his hands, and even though she had no idea what acts he was trying to refer to, Amy rolled onto her back, pulling a pillow over her face.

“It’s annoying that you’re good at everything!” she shouted, her words muffled.

There was a pause, and then the corner of the pillow lifted, the Doctor peering in curiously at her. “I’m sorry?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused.

Taking a deep breath, Amy lifted the pillow off her face and shoved it under her head. “Look, I get that you’re 900 years old and the cleverest man-alien, whatever- in the entire universe.”

The Doctor smirked at that, his hands automatically going to straighten his bowtie before apparently remembering he was naked. “Well. Yes.”

“And I have no problem with you being the best at advanced forms of physics no one on Earth has ever heard of. Or taking all of two seconds to figure out how to keep a galaxy from imploding. I don’t even mind that you make a better cup of tea than I do.”

“I keep telling you, Pond, you don’t let it steep long enough-,”

“But,” she said, holding up her hand to forestall that lecture again, “I thought when it came to sex, I might actually have the upper hand. I mean, for God’s sake, you wear tweed. But no, you’re brilliant at that, too.”

The Doctor just stared at her, brow furrowed. “So… you’re upset because I’m… not rubbish at sex. That is rather stupid.”

“I just mean,” Amy said, tucking the sheet under her arms, “that every time we do this, I end up…,” she gestured to her body, her hair, her still-pink face. “Undone, to get all Barbara Cartland about it. And you? You’ve barely broken a sweat, and I think that’s only because this room’s so bloody hot.”

The Doctor leaned back against the headboard and laced his fingers over his stomach. “I see,” he said, crossing his ankles under the sheets. It was a pose she’d seen him do hundreds of times, but something about seeing him doing it now, and here was both vaguely irritating and a bit of a turn-on. Which, Amy thought, described most of her reactions to the Doctor.

“You think you’re more affected than I am during our…encounters.”

Amy snorted. “’Encounters.’ God, you can be such a prig. Especially for a man who-,” she went to make the same gestures he’d done earlier, and he slapped her hands down with a muttered, “Alright, alright,” causing her to burst into giggles.

When she’d settled down (and he’d stopped looking offended), Amy sighed, and said, “I told you it was stupid. Of course I don’t want you to be rubbish at sex.” Then she narrowed her eyes and added, “After all, we do it so rarely, you might as well make it count.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Quality over quantity, I always say.”

“It’s just an ego thing, s’pose. I’ll get over it. Now.” She rolled back onto her side, inching one long leg closer to him. “That blizzard isn’t showing any signs of stopping, so why don’t you come over here and-,”

“The Horsehead Nebula.”

Amy’s leg froze, and she tried not to roll her eyes. “Okay, we’ve been over this. Random science-y words may do it for you, but they’re not appropriate dirty talk for me.”

“No, I wasn’t trying to be sexy. Although…could you say it?”

This time, Amy did roll her eyes, but she still smiled and put on her sultriest voice to purr, “The Horsehead Nebula.”

The Doctor grinned back, and his gaze darkened slightly as he slid down further in the bed, reaching out for her. He had just tangled one hand in her hair and was lowering his mouth to hers when he suddenly seemed to remember that he’d been in the middle of something. “Wait, no,” he said, screwing up his face. “I had a point about the Horsehead Nebula.”

“Mmm,” Amy hummed against his neck before pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his pulse point. “Was it that it’s a dark nebula?” She moved up to nip at his earlobe then whispered, “Or that it’s part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex?”

Moaning, the Doctor tightened his fingers against her skull for a split-second before gently but firmly pushing her away. “No. No, no, no, no. I mean, later, yes, definitely. Do you…,” he swallowed. “Do you know more things about the Horsehead Nebula?”

Amy quirked an eyebrow. “I memorized the Wikipedia entry.”

He swallowed again, this time more of a gulp, really. “Oh. Well.” The he shook his head. “Right. We’ll-we’ll get to that. Anyway, my point, Pond, is do you remember when I landed the TARDIS in the Horsehead Nebula?”

Frowning, Amy said, “Yeah. It took us forever to get back out.”

“Right. Well, that was an accident.”

“But you said that you meant-,”

“I always say that. And,” he added quickly, pointing a finger at her, “it is always true. Except that one time. That time, you had changed your shampoo.”

Confused, Amy stared at him. “My shampoo?”

“Yes. You usually smell like grapefruit, but that day, you smelled like strawberries.”

Amy had a vague memory of new shampoo suddenly appearing in her bathroom on the TARDIS. It had been pink, and she thought it may have been strawberry-scented, but she couldn’t remember.

“All day long,” the Doctor said, waving his hand, “there you were, waltzing about the console smelling of strawberries, and-and all I could think about was you and eating strawberries, and I don’t know, fields and flowers and nonsense like that. And so I accidentally landed the TARDIS in the Horsehead Nebula instead of on Io like I’d intended.”

Something inside Amy went very still, and she struggled to keep her face neutral as she replied, “Okay.”

But the Doctor wasn’t looking at her now. “And then there was the day you wore the skirt with the little flower embroidered on your hip, and I spent the entire afternoon thinking about that ridiculous little flower, what kind of flower was it, a violet? A pansy? I was fixated on it, which meant I was thinking about your hip, which led to all sorts of unsavory thoughts. And I won’t even mention the day you wore the fez.”

His eyes met hers then, and he blew out a long breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and steady. “And then, of course, there’s the fact that we’re here. Doing…,” He gestured to the bed. “This. Do you know how long it’s been since I broke that particular rule of mine? Do you have any idea just how many of my rules I’ve broken for you?”

Amy could only shake her head.

The Doctor gave a rueful smile and reached out to smooth her unruly hair. “So no, maybe I’m not as out of breath or sweaty or flushed as you are when we make love. But trust me, Amy Pond. I am very much undone by you.”

It took her a moment before she felt like she could speak, but finally, Amy fixed him with a level gaze and said, “Fair enough. But could you at least try to fake some of the breathlessness next time? Maybe swoon a bit?”

A slow grin spread across the Doctor’s face. “That depends. Are there any other Wikipedia entries you’ve committed to memory?”

Sliding into his arms, Amy brushed her lips against his and whispered, “Loads.”

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