She doesn't believe it. She can't. She won't.
She doesn't believe that her magnificent John Smith was a fake genius. Because she was there, with him. Always. She knows how he looks (or should she say looked, now?) at people and how he reads them like a book, she knows him. She knows him better than anyone else, she knows him better than his brother, she knows him better than Idris, she knows him better than his mother.
(She can't let herself say knew, she can't use the past, she can't, can't, can't. He's not gone. He just isn't.)He is (was, her mind tells her, was, he's gone now, he's gone, gone, gone, he's not coming back, he's gone and everyone hates him, they hate him, she's the only one left that actually loves him.) the man who can cheer her up with his stupid comments, who she always has to make wear pants, who always plants a small kiss on her cheek when he has to go somewhere.
He's John Smith and she knows he wasn't lying. No. Her mind might try to refuse, her mind might try to say and convince her that he had planned everything, but no. Her heart tells something different, something else, instead of the logical option, she chooses the other one, the one that doesn't make sense. (She chuckles through tears as she remembers his words, You always choose the wrong choises, Pond. Try to see, observe differently. Use your mind. It makes her laugh.)
How can he be dead? How can he be gone, God, how could they take him from her? How? How couldn't she stop it? After all those years of trying to become a doctor, how couldn't she bring him back? Bring him back to her? She doesn't know. (But it still haunts her at night.)
She wakes up with happiness, those ten precious seconds without realization, those ten perfect seconds that she forgets what happened, that she forgets Harold Saxon, that she forgets that John is gone. Then realization hits her like a train, and she feels empty, hollow. That's how she spends her mornings, and afternoons, usually. She remembers the things they had done together, the cases they had solved. She remembers him checking her blog when he thought she wasn't looking, she remembers eating with him, she remembers cooking for him, she remembers making him eat.
It feels like someone's cutting her chest and eating her heart. That's exactly what is happening, I thinks, because it is. Without him, her heart is just another organ. Without him, her (our, she corrects) apartment is just.. empty.
Without him, it doesn't really make sense.
.
"John, give me that!" she screams, because well, his birthday is soon and she had been texting to her friend Rory about books and it's so obvious that she's trying to find something good (good enough for him) to buy, and she doesn't want him to ruin the bloody surprise now, does she?
"You're clearly hiding something, Amelia." she sighs at his words. Why the hell can't he call her Amy? It's what everyone calls her- even her aunt who's older than him and has problems about remembering her (it's useful sometimes) calls her Amy.
"First of all, it's not Amelia, it's Amy." she remarks, he shrugs. He's an ass, she knows it better than anyone else, but she can't stop admiring him. She lets another sigh escape her lips, shakes her head. "Secondly, that's my personal phone and you don't have anything to do with it, so pretty please with a bloody cherry on top,give. it. back."
"That didn't really sound like a plea, Pond." oh, she hates him. She bloody hates him. She hates his stupid remarks and she hates his face and she hates his amazingly huge brain and she hates his clothes (bowties are not cool, she remembers saying to him, maybe a million times?) and she simply hates him. Probably not.
"Will you please give me my phone back?" she says as she places her hands on her waist, a tired expression on her face. He tires her, he always does but she still lives with him. She truly is an idiot.
"If you tell me why you have been hiding it from me for the past two days," he says, and in a second, it's in his pocket. She never could take anything from his pocket now, could she? And he knows how to play. Well, if he wants to play, she will play with him.
"I've been texting to a very special friend." she says, arms crossed. She knows how to talk to him, oh she does, and it's enough now, she can't take this anymore. She's trying to do something nice, good for him and he's about to ruin it, for God's sake.
"Oh, you've got a boyfriend now?" he asks, she knows he's trying to figure out if she's lying or not, he's watching her, observing her, literally staring at her and she really knows John Smith better than anyone else, so she nods simply.
"And what's his name?" his eyebrows are raised, and oh god, is that a pinch of jealousy in his eyes? Is John bloody Smith jealous? Of her? And her imaginary (or Rory -no, she shakes her head, no.-) boyfriend? She tries not to chuckle, she does but there's an amused smile on her face, still.
"Rory." she chokes out, and she's going to regret it, she knows it like she knows her name (Amy.) and the look on his face just makes her grin even more -like that's possible. His eyebrows are still raised and he snorts.
"The one with that huge nose? God, Amelia, you seriously have no taste in men." now it's her turn to raise eyebrows. With that, he just shrugs, grabs her phone and throws it at her.
When he turns away to the kitchen or the bathroom, he simply chuckles. "Oh and," he starts, "if you really want to buy me a book, I'd like to read To Kill a Mockingbird. Idris has been talking about it all week."
She sighs. She hates losing.
.
"How do you feel?" her psychiatrist asks, and she realizes that it's always the first thing she says when she ends up sitting on that annoying, black sofa, it's uncomfortable and she knows John wouldn't like it- no. John is gone.
She shakes herself mentally, and shrugs. "Fine as always, what were you expecting?" she wants to quit this, she wants to stop seeing psychiatrists, because she doesn't dream about John anymore, she doesn't call his name accidentally when she tries to find something, she doesn't imagine his face anymore. (At least that's what she says to Rory, to Idris, to her new friend River, to her aunt, to everyone else.)
"Look, Amy-" she's interrupted by a deep Scottish accent which sounds weaker than she intented it to be.
"Amelia."
"Okay, Amelia, you can't hide your feelings. You can't just ignore your love, your friendship, your- your everything. I know what you do to other psychiatrists who says this, but Amy- Amelia, John Smith was a liar and he's gone now. He lied to you."
She takes a deep breath, another one, another one until she's calm enough to speak. John Smith was not a liar,and whenever a psychiatrist tells this, she bites them. She simply bites them. People laugh at her and find her childish when she tells this, but she just bites them because John was definitely the most perfect human being she had met, and they have no right to call him a liar.
"I'm fine." she whispers, she just wants them to let her go, she just wants them to let her sleep and stay in the house, she just wants them to stop calling her, she just wants to stop seeing those annoying psychiatrists' face. She hates them. She really does.
"Amelia?" the psychiatrists' voice sounds like it's coming from another country -which country was shefrom, again?- and she feels like throwing up, and there are tears in her eyes and she can't seem to function, everything's spinning and then, it's all black.
It's all black.
Like a world without John Smith.
.
"Amelia," he whispers in her ear. She's been ill all week and she's coughing like mad, she really is, and she can't seem to see properly, and moving is not even an option. And guess who's there to take care of her? A complaining John, of course.
"Whawhahryohdohin-" she asks, well, mumbles because talking is too painful right now. John chuckles and runs a hand through her hair, and it's comforting and it feels real and it feels good, the only thing that actually felt good in the worst week ever.
"You need to sleep. You've been up all day and we both know what happens when you don't sleep." she tries to chuckle but the sound coming from her throat is scary as hell, so she stops. "I'll wake you up when the soup's done," he looks over the kitchen, "Well, I hope it will be quick, because this is my fifth try." she is about to chuckle but she stops herself, because, well.
He places a kiss on her forehead- he seems to do that a lot now. When she wakes up from a nightmare, or a dream, or when she just simply wakes up, there is a simple kiss on her forehead and it's sweeter than heaven (she likes Florence and the Machine now, okay?) and she just loves him for it.
She tries to nod, it's not a successful try but it's good enough for him, there's another -another, two in a bloody day!- kiss on her forehead and he's gone, he has left her but she knows that he will be back, he's always there for her, even when he's angry or frustrated or both, he knows he will always be back, always will be there for her.
She dreams about him.
And when she wakes up there's another kiss on her forehead.
.
"Amy? Amy-" the comforting voice of Rory fills the room and she opens her eyes, it's not really clear, but he's there, a worried expression on his face. He was always there for her too, she realizes, but she never actually saw him.
"Amelia." she corrects with a weak voice, she hates it when she is weak, she hates being weak around people, when she's on her own it's fine- it makes her remember that she's real, that she's alive, but now, she wants to be strong, happy.
That's when she realizes that she's laying on a hospital bed. And it's raining.
"What- what happened?" she asks, Rory takes her hand and plants a little kiss on it, he also looks very weak, too weak to be honest. He sighs, shakes his head. She can smell coffee, and his eyes look tired, so she keeps asking.
"When was the last time you slept?" he looks at her and sighs, shakes his head. For a second, he looks even more tired than she is. She chuckles slightly, it's kind of alive, but not really. He looks up at her, smiles slightly.
"It's- It's been a week, Amelia." he says, her eyes widen. A week? She's been asleep for a week? Well that explains why my ass hurts, she sighs, Rory closes his eyes and plants another kiss on her hand.
"You called his name- everyday, everynight- you kept saying and saying and saying and I was so worried because Amy- he's- you-" he shakes his head, and is that a teardrop she feels on her hand?
If she were the old Amy, she'd calm him down, make a couple of jokes and eat some pudding. But she is not, she's Amelia now- again. She nods slightly, squeezes his hand on hers, and looks out. It's raining. She used to like rain, she used to love it to be honest, but it always reminds her that day.
She can't breathe now.
.
"I'm sorry," she hears him mumble through the phone and she's speechless, this is not real, this is not happening, no, no, no, this is just not right, it's not John who's about to jump off a cliff- a building, a hospital- it's not him, he's standing next to her, an annoying smile on his face, n0 -no- no.
She sees him fall.
She knows the most stupid thing ever- the moment when you're about to die your memories flash infront of your eyes and it's kind of like that. Lots of red hair and annoying smirks and witty comments and oh, lots of arguments come infront of her eyes, she sees a pair of green eyes and lots of bowties, she hears his laugh and her screams, and she can't breathe because it's too much.
John Smith is falling down and down and down and there's nothing she can do. She can't save him.
She runs to him, runs to him, and there's blood everywhere and people are running to her but all she can see is his face covered in blood and oh god his bowtie- his bowtie is red and she can remember that it was light blue when they left the apartment -God- what is wrong with her-
"John," she hears herself sob, she's a doctor- she's his doctor- she can fix him, she can make him come back, oh god, John is gone- John is gone, John is gone.
John is gone.
.
She grabs the cup and sighs, sits down on the couch and closes her eyes. It's raining. She's smoking. It's raining. She's shooting the walls. It's just like him- no. She won't say his name. She won't think about him. She won't. She won't. She just- won't.
Or can't, maybe?
God, she hates herself.
It's been a year now. A whole year. She had been visiting his grave, cleaning the dirt, leaving flowers and reading him books, telling him about her days, what she did, who tried to flirt with her and that she hasn't opened her phone in two months, that she sometimes talks to him even if she knows that he's gone, and waits for him to response.
He doesn't.
She smokes a lot more now, she has thought about self harm but it's too childish, "You'd say that it's too childish." she remembers saying to his grave and chuckling at herself, then leaving.
She talks to herself a lot these days.
She tries to forget about the rain, she tries to concentrate on the warm of her cup, and takes a deep breath. Deep breaths make her calmer, somehow. She sighs. She hasn't even talked to anyone else but herself in a month. Or two. Maybe three, she can't seem to remember.
There's a knock on the door, and she opens her eyes.
"I'm-" she coughs, "I'm coming."
She walks over the door and takes a deep breath before opening it, deep breaths calm her, right?
Right?
"John." is a whisper. He's there. Oh god, he's there.
She feels dizzy.
"No- no-" he chuckles, steps in, holds her. He feels real. Is she dead? Heaven looks familiar.
"You're- you're-"
"Yes, I'm supposed to be dead, but I'm not." he explains quickly, he talks to her like she's a bloody kid- but she's not, right? Right?
"John- John-," she repeats, his name sounds like a lullaby on her lips, a lullaby that her mother used to sing when she was little, because it's perfect and it makes her calm, calm is good, calm is what she needs right now.
"Oh god-" she chuckles, it's a weak chuckle, then she slaps him.
"John Smith, how dare you act like you're dead for a whole year?! I spent 2 months in a bloody hospital because of you and you were always there- I talked to you on your grave, oh my god, you were there, weren't you? Listening- you- you jerk- I hate you, oh my god- how could you-"
John plants a kiss on her forehead.
No- not forehead.
After all that talking, she feels his lips on hers.
She's calmer now.