"All of time and space. Every star that ever was – where do you want to start?"

There was a mad man standing in her garden. A very mad man, who didn't like apples, didn't like yoghurt and most certainly didn't like bacon or baked beans. There was a very mad man standing in her garden rambling on about time machines and swimming pools – Amelia thought it was fantastic.

"...Quick hop should do it."

The Doctor was rambling again, throwing ropes and plant pots and various other items into the smoking 'time machine'. Amelia looked on in amazement, taking in every crack on the dark blue machine, marvelling at the smoke that was billowing into the night sky. The Doctor ignored her as she gazed, continuing his mad dash to stabilise his machine's engines.

"...Five minutes into the future, yes," he directed to himself, securing the last piece of rope in his hand to the TARDIS's door handle and hopping onto what had once been the door step.

"Can I come?"

The Doctor turned, dropping the rope. Ah, he had forgotten all about Amelia Pond. Jumping down from the smoking beast, he landed on the floor with a soft thump.

"No. Not safe. Give me five minutes, just five minutes. " He bent down and smiled at the girl, "trust me, I'm the Doctor."

And she did trust him. For one small moment in Amelia Pond's life, she put all her trust and faith into the mysterious stranger who had come into her home and raided her fridge, messed up her kitchen and promised her the world. Nodding, she watched as he staggered back on top of the strange blue box.

"Five minutes," he repeated, launching himself foreword.

She watched as the box began to vanish before her very eyes, glowing and fading before there were only the fragments of her aunt's beloved garden shed left in the rectangular shaped hole in her garden. Grinning wildly, she ran back inside to her bedroom, tossed her small suitcase onto her bed and threw anything and everything she could think of into the wooden holding case. Some clothes, obviously, her teddy bear (she was sure he'd love to see the world as well), her toothbrush and various other bits and bobs – she was tempted to take an apple with her, just to torment the Doctor with, but she it was either the apple or her teddy, and she knew which one she'd rather have when she was travelling through time and space.

Slamming the suitcase shut, she pulled on a bobble hat and her brand new coat (her science teacher had told her space was cold, she wasn't taking any chances) and ran back downstairs, into the garden, right to the spot where her wonderful new friend had taken off not two minutes ago. Smushing the case into the grass, she sat down and waited...and waited...and waited.

-

It was nearing two am when Shirley Pond finally arrived home to see her niece sitting in the garden, swinging her legs back and forth on her suitcase. Cautiously stepping into the garden, wondering why there was wood and dirt everywhere, she inched closer to her niece.

"Amelia?" she questioned, "Amelia, what on earth are you doing out here?"

Amelia shrugged, "waiting."

"Waiting?" she replied, eyebrows raised, "waiting for what?"

"Not what," Amelia chastised, "who."

Pursing her lips and folding her arms, Shirley turned to face her again. "Waiting for who?!"

"The Doctor."

Amelia's answer was blunt and cryptic, but those two words sent a shivers down her spine. An unexplainable shiver (for it certainly wasn't cold outside) that made her close her gaping mouth and wrap her arms around herself a little tighter. Letting out a breath that she wasn't aware she'd been holding, she stretched out her hand to Amelia.

"Come on darling, let's go inside."

"No," Amelia murmured, kicking at the muddy floor, "he said he'd be five minutes, I have to wait for him. He was frightfully hungry before, god knows what he'll be like now!"

Sighing, she pulled Amelia up unwillingly and began to push her towards the back door, "You can wait for him inside darling."

"But if I'm inside," Amelia pointed out with childlike logic, "how will he know where I am. He might think I didn't wait for him!"

Grasping her niece's hand, Shirley smiled. "He'll know where you are, I promise."

With one last look at the garden, Amelia sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Fine."

That was the night that both Amelia Pond and her aunt's life changed forever, a broken promise that sent their lives spiralling out of control.

-

"I think, subconsciously, you wanted somebody there, somebody you could trust. This 'doctor' was your way of coping with the unfortunate circumstances that left you with your aunt, yes?"

Thirteen year old Amy Pond sighed, no, he wasn't right at all. This was the fourth psychologist her aunt had pawned her off on, the fourth man who had been given the unfortunate task of trying to crack the unbreakable shell that was Amelia 'couldn't give a damn' Pond. Shuffling his notes in an important manner, the man pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose and she couldn't help but notice his terrible fashion taste. Big, clunky black boots stained with mud and caked with gravel and brown pants hitched up to his waist – nerdy and old fashioned. How was she supposed to share her most deepest and most complicated thoughts with someone who dressed like that? He had a bowtie for goodness sake! Nobody, nobody looked good in a bowtie.

"...and because of this," she snapped back to attention, "you felt that you needed someone to look after you – a 'doctor'' if you will – and this, is what led you to create the imaginary figure that you came to call the doctor."

He leant back in a smug fashion, throwing the notes down and crossing his arms, "Am I right?"

"...No?" Amy replied, rolling her eyes.

"No?!" he leapt back up, slamming his hands on the table, sending Amy careening backwards into her sleek, black chair. "What do you mean no?!"

"I mean no," she repeated, "no as in 'no you are not right.'"

Fuming, the man pushed the tips of her fingers together tightly.

"Listen to me Ameli-"

"Amy," she cut in, "it's Amy. Nobody calls me Amelia."

He breathed outwards heavily, "listen to me Amy, I'm the trained psychologist here, me – not you. I think I know what I'm talking about more than a thirteen year old girl."

"With the greatest respect," she challenged, "you've just told me what I've already been told by countless other people. I was upset so I made him up. Which, I will tell you right now, isn't the case. I don't know how to describe it, but he was there. In a big blue box. He came into my house and ate all of my food – made me cook it as well – told me to wait five minutes, took off in the box and then never. Came. Back. I don't know how many times I can stress that to you people! The first guy understood, Chadwick, he got it!"

He rolled his eyes, "ah Chadwick. Yes, of course he will have gotten it. The mad's as mad as some of his clients."

She pursed her lips, choosing to ignore the mad comment, "No, he wasn't mad. He was wonderful and I don't know why my aunt made me lea-."

"The man was letting you continue your belief in this 'Doctor'! I personally do not blame your aunt for removing you from his ca-"

"He said there were others!"

The psychologist had risen from his chair now, as had Amy. The two of them were stood tall, each defending their own personal beliefs.

"He said there were others," she repeated, "other people who described just what I described! A man, a wonderfully mad man, arriving in his blue box – his time machine – and taking off just the same. There were others! He even told me their names!"

They began circling each other, moving around the room one step at a time, locked in a frustrating battle.

"Amy, I think it's time you stopped th-"

"Sarah Jane Smith! Elton!"

"-Childish nonsense and just simply admitted that what you saw was-"

"Ace! Mickey Jones! Oh and let's not forget Jackie Ty-"

"JUST YOUR IMAGINATION!"

They stopped, smoke rising from their nostrils. Amy folded her arms roughly and the man sighed and pinched his nose.

"Amelia, what you saw all those years ago in your garden was just your imagination; it's time to let it go."

Amy narrowed her eyes, oh no. This wouldn't do at all.

A blood curdling scream echoed down the corridors of the hospital and the nurse at the reception desk let out a sigh. Picking up the phone, she dialled the now memorable phone number for Amy Pond's aunt, to let her know that once again they would need another psychologist and that she would be receiving yet another complaint from an extremely annoyed man who had faced the wrath of Amy Pond's well practised adult teeth. Finger paused on the final digit, she watched as the psychologist came storming out of his office, blood dripping down his arm, swearing blue murder. Sighing once again, she pushed the button and waited for somebody to pick up.

"Hello, Mrs Pond? Yes, she did it again. How long will it take you to get here? Right, okay, I'll tell her. See you in a few minutes Mrs Pond."

The nurse leant forward on the hospital desk as the infamous Amy Pond walked towards her, kicking at the floor with her dusty converse.

"Your aunt will be five minutes Amy," she informed the girl.

"Pfft," Amy scoffed, "I doubt that."

-

"I failed, I completely and utterly failed."

"Aww c'mon Rory, it's not that bad."

The sun was setting on the quaint village of Leadworth and Amy Pond was sat on a park bench with her boyfriend Rory, who had a thick envelope clutched in his left hand. Eight years had passed since she had bitten her fourth and last psychologist. After a hefty bill had come through the door claiming compensation for an infected bite mark, Shirley had decided that maybe it was best to leave out psychologists and just let Amy's fascination with the Doctor fade over time. It had of course. School had beckoned and college had reared its ugly head and Amy Pond had been forced to push aside all thoughts of her knight in shining armour and for the most part, it had been going great. She stuffed all of the drawings and pictures she'd painstakingly spent hours colouring in into the suitcase she had once planned to travel with and put all of the cardboard and plastic toys she'd crafted over the years into a plastic carrier bag and banished them to the attic, out of sight and out of mind. She'd started dating Rory when she was seventeen, a year after she'd dropped out of college to pursue a job she never thought she'd do. Rory, of course, knew about her job and while he wasn't pleased about it, he respected her decision and left her to it. He, however, had his own plans about the future.

He'd gone to college and university and trained to be a doctor, used all the money he'd been saving since he was seven and bought himself thick, heavy doctory like books. After all the hard work and effort he'd put in over the years he got a job at the local hospital – as a nurse.

"No Amy, no. I failed, just admit it. I'm a bloody nurse," he held his head in his hands, "a bloody nurse!"

Amy giggled, "Ok, so you're not a doctor, what does it matter?"

"I'm a nurse," he looked at her like she was simple, "a nurse. It's a girl's job."

"I think you'll look cute as a nurse," she teased him, running her fingers through his hair seductively, "very cute."

He smiled, taking her hand out from his hair and holding it tightly.

"But I won't be a doctor."

"And?"

"You've always wanted a doctor."

Silence reigned over the couple, the sun silently fading away in front of them beneath a haze of purple clouds, Amy tucked a loose curl behind her hair and put her head on Rory's chest, listening to his heartbeat thud slowly.

"You know what," she whispered in his ear, "I don't think I need a doctor anymore."

-

Twenty minutes. It had been twenty minutes since she'd met the Doctor for the second time. In those twenty minutes, her whole world had been turned upside down. The Doctor had a knack for that she reckoned – coming into people's lives for such a short amount of time and completely screwing them over. Twenty minutes and she'd witnessed things she thought she'd never see in her lifetime. Aliens. Real, living, breathing aliens. Giant spaceships with eyeballs where the engines should have been. Twenty minutes and her whole life (which she'd spent so long turning the right side up) was tipped sideways again. She was almost glad her aunt had moved in with her new boyfriend and didn't have to put up with again – although she wished she had been here, just so she could have proved her wrong. The Doctor did exist.

Aaaand he was running away. He was running away again, back to his blue box and stepping inside, fading away like he'd done before. Rory ran up behind her, watching in disbelief as the man he'd always thought to be just a paper scribble dematerialised into nothingness.

Five minutes, she thought, she'd give him five minutes.

-

He had some nerve. He swung by in the middle of the night, two years late she might add, and expected her to just jump at the chance to go travelling with him. Sure, she was going to – seeing the inside of his mysterious box had confirmed that – but he could have at least asked her first. She wasn't even dressed for god's sake!

"So? Where do you want to start?"

He walked over to her. The man she'd waited fourteen long years for. The man who'd promised her the world in just five short minutes and had left her in the dirt. The man she'd spent so long crying over. The only man that actually managed to look good in a bow tie.

Her Doctor.

"Give me five minutes to get changed first?"

He smiled, "five minutes."

Fin.