Settling into a new home after life in the TARDIS was, Amy imagined, fairly hard for anyone who had ever traveled in the little blue box. Already she missed the space that the TARDIS offered, the amenities that always seemed to be right there when needed, the reliable people constantly in and out.

But she and Rory needed space, especially as a couple soon-to-be-wed, and while Amy was quite fond of the influence and diversity the Doctor and other companions brought to Molly’s life, a TARDIS, with all its halls and swimming pools, was not going to be the best of places when Molly began crawling. A smaller space would be better for the small family, at least for a little while.

It didn’t mean Amy was finished with her box just yet, though. Topsy-turvy as it was, she still returned to see just what of their leftover belongings she could find to bring to the new house. Today was one such trip. It wasn’t hard to find a babysitter for Molly, and her day had opened up just enough to allow a quick trip up to the TARDIS to check on things. With a few bags in hand--just in case something good had turned up since her last visit--Amy headed through the halls of Stacy toward the Hangar.

Time for some shopping.


[[ OoC: Feel free to encounter her anywhere between the City and the TARDIS. Just specify the place and maybe the time (catching her headed there or on the way back). ]]

'Running away' is, in Howard's opinion, the most useful thing the human body can do. And unfortunately, he has plenty of reasons to think it will come in handy at some point, or at various points, in the future.

That's why he's set up a 400 yard circular track-slash-obstacle course in Hydroponics, as well as set up markers for hundred meter, two hundred meter, and mile routes. Every other morning, before Med Bay shifts, he's here, improving on speed and stamina. He knows full well that even if he gets into the best shape of his life, he can still be outrun (or outflown) by his super-powered, magical or metahuman peers, but it's better to have that added little bit of competence if and when he ends up sprinting away from danger.

He's feeling the results, too. There's no way to time if he's getting faster, but where he was once just skinny, he's becoming lean, and the mile run that used to exhaust him leaves him considerably less winded than it did a few months ago. And he's getting much more confident going through the tunnels and up the ladders of the obstacle course.

The only thing looking worse for the wear is his shoes. At some point he's going to have to relegate his velociraptor shoes to a beloved keepsake, because the seams are literally coming apart around his toes.

Howard double-knots his shoelaces and stretches a bit before running the obstacle course again.

Rory didn’t look back as they got on the ship, really, turning around might have caused him fall over. So it wasn’t as though he was being dramatic or anything, just completely exhausted and unwilling to expend the energy to look back when he already knew what he was going to see.

The way his backpack was riding kept rubbing against the raw burn that stretched across his back and the new boots had left him with nearly crippling blisters. Damned things.

He paused long enough to let the medic take Conner and whisk him off to the medbay, swaying slightly on his feet and waving off his coworkers. He wanted to make sure Sakura and the rest of the team managed to make it off the ship safely. He was exhausted, but stable. Blood and soot covered his face, cut on his forehead still oozing. Hadn’t done much more than nap over the past four days, which made it feel much longer than it had.

It hurt a bit to breathe, but he was stable. He’d manage to make it to medbay under his own power. There were a lot of people worse off and it was his job to make sure they all made it off. As much as he wanted to follow the medics with Conner back down. As much as he would give anything to just sleep at the moment.

Despite her originally jumping into the TARDIS without him so long ago (or really, just yesterday, depending on who you asked), Amy had grown accustomed to Rory’s being present on the ship. Now, without him and without the Doctor, things seemed...beyond lonely. River was the only saving grace in the awkward emptiness of the ship, but even she could quite replace what the other two seemed to have taken with them. Jamie was alright, too, but he spent a good portion of his time out of the TARDIS, off having adventures in Engineering, or whatever he did.

Molly took up a lot of concentration, at least. There was plenty to be done with the baby, and Amy hadn’t had the regular nine months that most mothers had to prepare for their babies. It was an adventure and a half, really, and did a lot to sop up the hours until Rory and the Doctor returned.

Quietly, Amy sat next to Molly’s makeshift crib, where the baby finally slept peacefully, and fiddled with the Omnicom in her hands. Rory wouldn’t be able to send her anything for a while, but she wanted to be at the ready in case anything happened on the mission. There was that Lex Luthor to watch out for, after all, and she was going to be ready to give him a piece of her mind when he got back to the ship. For now, it was just waiting and caring. That was alright with her.

It had been a few hours since he had almost cautiously entered the room the young comatose woman had been in to find a quietly wiggling baby, tangled in medical cords that had formally been keeping her alive. She hadn't been crying, tiny hands waving quietly in front of her face, each gesture making her pause in confusion, as though her fingers were an alien thing not connected to her body.

He hadn't been sure if he should sigh in relief or feel more worried. She was moving under her own power, for the first time she was alive and not just existing. She was a baby, it had worked. But she wasn't crying. Which could mean any number of things, most of them not good and only a few of them tolerable. It could never be simple, could it?

She had been small in his arms when he picked her up, smaller than Conner had been a few hours ago, lighter than she should have been, he'd known that much.

It had taken hours to check for and repair any damage done to her. Tirelessly matching Mei-Xing's scans with the scans of the child until everything was as it should be. His head was throbbing; a low, constant ache that made him want to sleep for the next three days.

But she was cooing, soft and quiet in his arms, latching on hungrily to a bottle when it was offered and she seemed to have no problems eating. Everything matched. Just a normal, non-human baby. A beautiful baby girl. "Shhh...."

It had worked. Somehow, despite everything, it had worked.


ooc: Anything happening in this thread is assumed to happen after Amy's, no matter the order people tag in. The baby's name will end up being Molly.

Even with the small amount of time Amy had spent on Stacy so far, she'd still had plenty of time to observe the comings and goings of the crew. Seeing so many of them as children, especially when she knew a good portion of them as adults, was a little past the point of peculiar. Travels with the Doctor tended to lean toward the strange side of things, so she guessed she should probably be used to it by now.

The really odd part, though, was not the many children now running around the ship (screaming, almost all of them, wow), but the one small child who seemed to have adopted her fiance, and who wouldn't leave Rory's side for anything. It was alright with her. With the Doctor on his mission, having something to patter around the TARDIS that wasn't Jamie's little feet (yeah, still weird, that) was kind of nice, even if it wasn't necessarily normal. Getting him to go to bed was almost as bad as getting the Doctor to sleep, too, it seemed.

Amy held the door to their bedroom open, the bunkbeds obvious in the room behind her. "Come on, then, the room's all ready for you."

A good number of those affected by the clock had reached childhood, and required supervision. Several of the adults had offered to help, and no one was quite sure anymore who had first suggested it, but it was decided that one night, there should be a sleepover, something fun for the children. The idea had grown; Eva had offered Cassie's house, after getting permission from the other non-deaged resident, Aximili.

In the end, it turned out to be a packed house. There were about twenty children running around, and thankfully, there were five adults and two teenagers supervising. Luckily for Eva, she had made sure to childproof the house the best she could beforehand.

It was going to be needed.

[Planning post is here. HAVE AT. A description of Cassie's house is here, and if you have any questions about it, you can ask Lisa (Eva), Blue (Marco), Cait (Rachel) and Kaylin (Ax). Start up subthreads for stuff, and try not to wreck the place. :D; ]

It's a simple repair job. A couple of frayed wires, easily taken care of - even by the Jamie of a few months ago, when he was first learning to to fix this sort of thing. Today, however, he finds himself staring down at the colorful mess in front of him, unable to focus on the task at hand. He feels...odd. Fuzzy-headed, similar to the feeling of not getting enough sleep the night before. Trying to think was like trying to push through a mass of cobwebs spun from some giant spider beastie - his mind able to get free one moment, only to wind up stuck again the next.

With a sigh, he pushes himself out from under the console and sits up, rubbing at his eyes and giving up on the idea of doing the repair for the moment. Maybe a walk to clear his head would be a better idea. He'll not do the department any good while he's like this.

Blindly reaching for the console and pulling himself to his feet, he's unaware that there's been a subtle shift in the length of his hair and sideburns, both of which have just become a little bit shorter. He's caught in a memory - Turner, telling him to grab the radio they need to keep in touch with U.N.I.T. and get it out of here. As he takes a few steps towards the door, a burning sensation runs through his leg, and he lurches forward. Packer and his guards aren't actually here and shooting at him, but the result is much the same. As more of his time slips away, the faint scar on his calf turns back into the bullet wound that it had once been, causing him to inadvertently cry out in pain. Even so, he manages to stumble out of Engineering and into the halls of Stacy, not really thinking about much more then trying to get away before he's fired on again.

((OOC: Closed, but if someone really wants to visit Jamie in medbay after Rory examines him, please PM and I'll set something up.))

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]