I'll Send You a Postcard

A dull thud echoed through the TARDIS, like some small object bouncing against her hull.
"Doctor, what was that?"
But he was already pressing buttons and spinning dials. "No signs on the scanner of anything large or dangerous or of note." He grinned like an excited five year old. "Let's have a look. Extending oxygen field to five feet around."
"Doctor!"
The redhead tried to stop him, but the gangly man already had two hands on the doors and he threw them open in excitement.
He sobered up.

*

"Amy, what's he doing now? I thought we were running an experiment."
"We were. But something hit the TARDIS and now he's gone all grumpy."
"I am not grumpy."
"You are too!"
"Then someone grab my bloody ankle! Rory! I pick you."
Somewhat confused, Rory crossed from the door he had just exited to the Doctor. "Excuse me?"
"See that bottle?"
"Yeah-"
"I have to get it. Hold my ankle." Performing an ungraceful attempt at flexibility, he placed his left ankle -"Left leg's a tad longer"- in Rory's still-confused hand, winked, and reached out towards the small bottle floating in space.

*

As Rory pulled the Doctor back in, the Ponds now could make out "Doctor" scrawled on the outside of the bottle in black pen.
"It's a postcard. In a bottle. In space."
"Of course it is," the Doctor snapped, focused solely on the small bottle and the paper curled inside. He sighed. "Her handwriting was always nice."
"What?"
The Doctor ignored the continued questions about the bottle, tuning them out until he could no longer hear them.
Instead, he heard a scream not since matched in intensity and pitch, a naturally happy voice growing sad; he could even hear her hair, the bouncing mass of ginger waves. Perhaps, then, that was when he first wanted to be ginger.
And a grand smile that echoed still. Maybe that's what he needs. That smile.
"You didn't really want to leave, did you?"
I'll send you a postcard.
I don't have an address.
Oh, I'll put it in a bottle and throw it into space. It'll reach you. That smile again. In time.
"Doctor, who is it from?"
He let himself hear them again, his loyal friends.
"Doctor-"
"It doesn't matter who it's from, Amy. A far better question is 'Who's it for?'"
"Alright. I'll play. Who's it for?"
He tossed the bottle lightly in his hand once, twice, "It's for a different me, another me, in a different time. And he'll get it. In time."
With that, he hurled the bottle back into space and slammed the TARDIS doors shut.