A/N: Hello again! It's Aki, and I am vey pleased to present you with the results of my recent foray into the Doctor Who fandom. Hi, Doctor Who fandom! I hope you enjoy this piece. Um...I'm hoping it will morph into a collection of drabbles, but I've only written one of these so far. However, the plot bunnies are being fruitful and multiplying, so I'm pretty excited for that. Anyway, without further ado, I present you with...
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
Mad World
Amelia Pond has always been a little strange. Everyone says so, from her aunt to the girls at school, her primary school teachers. And who wouldn't think so, hearing her babble on and on about time machines and telephone boxes and fish fingers dipped in custard? So yeah, she's a little strange.
She used to not care about what they said, reveling in that special feeling, that feeling one gets when they've done something, met someone that no one else has met, and everyone's jealous. She'd walk across the schoolyard with her head held high, past those girls who whispered about her clumsy drawings of an outdated telephone box, past the teachers who smiled indulgently at her handmade puppets. Imaginary friends were alright then, just another phase in the process of growing up.
But then she turns twelve, and like all the other little girls, she was expected to grow up. Dolls, stuffed bears, imaginary friends weren't included in growing up. She wasn't just strange now, she was crazy, and was it just her, or did people inch away from her when she approached them? There are whispers now, rumors of a little girl who has an imaginary time-traveling, galaxy-hopping friend and a crack in her wall with a giant eye living inside of it. She's crazy, and she can hear the snickers and laughter behind her back.
But she doesn't care, she tells herself. One day, her raggedy man will come back and take her far, far away, to a place where imaginary friends are real and where people eat fish fingers dipped in custard. She doesn't care that her only friends consist of a gay midget and a constant troublemaker. She doesn't care that boys corner her during break and ask her whether he's come back yet. She doesn't care that her psychiatrist is talking about drugging her. Ahem, "considering medication as a solution". She doesn't care, she doesn't care, she doesn't care!
Which is why she's currently sobbing into her bedspread, puffy face burning against scratchy white fabric. She's not crazy, she's not, why won't they believe her? Her raggedy doctor is real, and he's going to come back and take her to the moon! Or the London Zoo. That'd be nice too.
But that's not the point, and that's not why she's crying; she's crying because her heart has just been broken by someone who's not even real and when he promised five minutes, she waited four years and he still hasn't come back. And every girl is allowed a good cry once in a while, right?
Her tears have started to dry on her cheeks, and it's like she's being locked up behind these salty bars, like Prisoner Zero once was in her house. They've been trying to shove her into a little box of normal ever since she woke up in her bedroom with her suitcase still outside in the garden and a pair of red wellies on the floor . And she thinks she might be giving in, finally.
She's not crying anymore, and Amelia Pond is sitting at the dinner table, a bowl of custard in front of her with a fish finger poised gingerly above the surface. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Another breath, and she lowers the fish finger down into the creamy mass. She swirls it around several times, and lifts it up, watching beads of custard collect at the tip before dripping back into the bowl. Into her mouth it goes, her teeth clicking together in the center...
Oh my God. It's sweet and savory and vaguely fishy all at the same time, melting breadcrumbs suspended in creamy syrup-
And absolutely disgusting. She throws back her chair and races for the sink, hands gripping the edge as she coughs up the remains of the fish finger. Her teeth reach back to scrape the custard off her tongue as she gropes for a cup. How could anyone eat that?!, she wonders. She rinses out her mouth quickly, and goes limp, gasping for breath. Before she can forget how to do so, she laughs, giggles turning into slightly hysterical laughter. She hates fish fingers and custard, hates this alien idea (Alien? Fancy that.) that is obviously from somewhere else. She quiets, and a thought pops into her head.
Maybe he hasn't forgotten you. Maybe, he just got lost in time. Or drowned in the swimming pool of his time machine.
It's a sobering thought, and she almost bursts tears again. Maybe, he's dead. Four years is a long time.
Later, she'll accept him back into her life, and start believing in him again. She's going to believe in him when he promises to rescue her, to rescue her. She's going to believe in him when he tells her to stop believing in him. She's going to believe in the feeling she gets every time she walks past those advertisements, hoping he'll see her face staring down at him and stop in for a cup of tea. But for now she'll push that belief back into a corner of her mind. She can't live like this anymore, believing only in him. When she gets old, she'll believe in him again. But for now...
"Today, class, we have a new student. Her name is Amelia Pond and-"
"Amy."
"Excuse me?"
"I'd prefer it if you called me Amy, please."
"Oh, of course."
"Amy?"
"Yeah?"
"If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"
"The London Zoo, I think."
"-gay!"
"..."
"Wha-
"Go after him, stupid."
"Amy?"
"Hm?"
"Um, I was wondering, you see, um, I...um, really like you, and I wa-emph!"
"..."
"..."
"Shut up, stupid-face."
...she'll work with what she's got.
A/N: So, did it meet your expectations? I know Amy's a bit cynical, but if I was in her position, I'd be a bit cynical too. The title is from the song by Gary Jules. Review and tell me what you think! :)