"Amelia."
She doesn't just hear his voice in her ears, she hears it in her mind- AmyAmeliaAmyAmelia reverberating and multiplying like church bells. It's like having her headphones turned up too loudly, a sound that's not only painfully intense, but also inescapable. Curled up on the console room's floor, she claps her hands to her ears and rolls away, yowling like an injured cat.
A wave of feeling slams into her. Love. Concern. I'm not the last.
Only it's too much for her. Her newly-restored mind is so raw and sensitive. Get out, she thinks, putting the weight of a thrown brick into her words, pushing with her thoughts-
Light flares behind her eyelids, and she passes out.
Amichorestriameraliana of Gallifrey dreams. It is strange to be sleeping. It is strange to be awake.
It is strange to exist.
Amy wakes to the feeling of cool sheets against her skin. The weight in her head is still there, but not as oppressive.
When she opens her eyes, the Doctor is leaning over her. "How are you feeling?" He bends to kiss her forehead, but stops himself abruptly and straightens back up.
"Odd. What happened?"
He studies her face. "Who are you, Amelia Jessica Pond?"
There's so much subtext there, so much concern and longing, and Amy almost passes out again. She stabs her fingernails into consciousness and clings on tight.
A jumble of thoughts spills towards her. The pocketwatch and Time Lady and I think we may have been betrothed.
Her second heart, still sore, hiccups, following closely behind the first. "Explain that last one," she murmurs, quirking an eyebrow.
"The famous Amichorestria," he says, observing her with a fond grin.
The name brings dreamlike pictures to her mind's eye, as if she's watching herself. Bright red hair against an orange sky. Dancing under silver trees (and getting yelled at for it, but not caring.)She'd left as soon as she was old enough- not to see the universe, just to leave.
That had only been the start of her adventures.
Amichorestriameraliana. It meant "the flare of light against the horizon at sunset."
"My TARDIS is gone," Amy observes. Sadness slams into her. Without warning, she starts crying: huge, gulping sobs.
A voice that's not a voice whispers under her skin, ethereal yet sardonic: And what am I, chopped space sardines?
"Oh." She hiccups, putting her head in her hands. It's not her sweet, sweet girl, the quirkily crooked-chimney garden shed decorated in flamboyant pastels, but it's enough. "Yeah. That's better."
The Doctor, unused to telepathy, echoes a stray sentence before he can stop himself: I'm glad she loves you.
While the Doctor is still concerned, she sits up and ambushes him with a nose-poke. "Now. What did you mean, betrothed?"
He flails a bit. This regeneration is so much more emotional, every thought flickering over his features, but he's always been awkward. "Our families- and, you know, old custom- merely ceremonial, but-" Okay. And she's in his mental landscape, filtering through his memories, eyeing his thoughts. She knows him better than anyone ever will. All the mindless cruelties, the fatal flaws, the people he's gotten killed- and then she withdraws, her phantom touch like a caress.
"Okay," Amy says quietly, a smile flickering over her expression. "I could get used to this."
