Hello Whovians! This is me getting my feet wet with Doctor Who fic writing. C: Hope it's not too bad, eh?
Set after "The Beast Below"; Night mares lead to misunderstandings, misunderstandings lead to broken hearts, a crying Time Lord and hugging. Eleven/Amy always!
Btw, this is part of a series of ficlet ideas I've had for the Doctor and Amy, so please do tell me if this is any good, yeah?
A Love Like Ours: PI: Stay
Walking out the door this morning,
Wondering what is that's going on with you
Something must have made you say that,
What did I do? To make you say that to me?
Something must have made you so mad,
What can I do to make you say,
"Come back to me."
-"Stay" Safetysuit.
Amelia Pond wandered the TARDIS in her nightie, unable to sleep, and a Time Lord made it his job to fix that.
After pulling a few levers and pushing several buttons for the heck of it, the Doctor left the console and went after her. Turning down a corridor and then making two lefts, he found her huddled in a corner, nodding off. He dropped to a crouch and was reaching towards her, when she suddenly lashed out, her eyes shut tight.
"NO! Raggedy Man…no, please don't leave. Not again….no," she sobbed, her eyes still closed. Pity tore at the Doctor's hearts as he realized she was having a nightmare. So he rose to his feet and gently scooped the half-conscious Scott in his arms.
"Hush, Pond; your Raggedy Man's not going anywhere," he whispered into her hair. He asked the TARDIS to bring them to his bedroom, and the Old Girl did. The Doctor carried Amelia in his arms to his room and sat down on the bed, leaning his back to the headboard. He couldn't help wondering what she'd think of it. She'd probably laugh at the dinosaur-themed bed set, maybe she'd think it was childish. His gaze flickered over sleeping Amelia once before he cast a glance at a piece of red cloth sticking out from under his pillow. He lifted the pillow, knowing he would find a vibrant red poncho sweatshirt underneath. He thought Amelia would give him a proper slap across the face if she saw he'd stolen her sweatshirt. He loved it because it was like her: fiery, vibrant, demanding to be noticed. And it smelled like her, too. He lifted the clothing to his nose and closed his eyes, inhaling the citrusy-jasmine scent that was Amelia Pond. His hearts beat just a little bit faster now. Smiling, he nestled the sweat shirt under his pillow again and gently shifted Amelia so he was practically cradling her in his lap, his right arm supporting her upper back and shoulders while her head lolled on his chest. She twisted sharply in his arms, moaning about a big blue box. The TARDIS hummed appreciatively, and the Doctor laid a kiss on the crown of her head. With his other arm, he lifts his hand and strokes her alabaster skin, gazing at her. Is this what it means to adore something? To feel like this one thing is more important, more precious to you than even your own life? the Doctor thought to himself, shielding his thoughts from Idris' inquisition. He wondered about 'love' and the way that human beings defined it. From what he had observed, 'love' was sacrifice. Love was a man giving himself to the woman he loved. The Doctor didn't quite understand love in that sense. He thought about the way his people defined it. All Time Lords were Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyans were Time Lords; the Doctor pondered this. He knew that most Time Lords and Time Ladies didn't marry because of the effects of regeneration; that is, if one of a pair regenerates into a new person with a new personality, the other may not be in love with this new personality and would thereby have no romantic inclination. So most Time Lords didn't see the point of marriage. But a rare few, the Doctor's mother and father among them, had love that ran deeper than the fires in the hearts of stars.
He knew that for Time Lords like him, time (the linear part, not the wibbely wobbely timey wimey) passed much slower, and it gave him a stricter appreciation for specific moments in Time. The fact that Time Lords outlive almost every single species in the universe also required that a mate for life should be chosen carefully because a.) you were bound to that person until true death took hold b.) it was recommended that Time Lords find love within their own species, for if someone like the Doctor loved a human being like Amy Pond, she would eventually die, leaving him heartbroken and at loss for a will to continue living. But he resolved to find a way to fix that, to slow down the flow of Time upon the beautiful red head just as his physiology slowed the flow of time upon himself.
He thought of Amy again, and he wondered about what Idris had said earlier. According to Idris, Amy was in love with him. But whether he loved her more than she loved him, he wondered. He watched her sleeping form, a tender look on his face that he realized he hadn't shown anyone in any of his past regenerations, not even Nine or Ten with Rose…
Amy gasped in fright at an unseen monster and grabbed fistfuls of his tweed coat, unmercifully squashing his bow tie (and nearly choking the Time Lord) when she shot a hand out to grab at something. His arms tightened around her and he rested his chin on her head. Then he started to softly say things to her in his own tongue, even though it would be lost on the Scott. Mad impossible Amelia Pond. It is my deepest wish to call you my mad impossible Amelia. You call me yours, because I am. I always have been. My love, my hearts have been yours since that day you bandaged my hurts. I hold you in my hearts, Amelia. Between every heartsbeat. In the deepest part of my soul, I'm holding you now. Je te tenis dans mon Coeur, rien peut t'bimer l. He withdrew from her mind and left her in her room, returning to his fiddling uselessly with the console, his hearts oddly heavy.
Amy woke in her bedroom several hours later. She had had another dream about her angel. She couldn't see his face. She never could. All she remembered was his arms around her, two heartbeats in her ear. He had been singing to her. She couldn't understand his words, but the language—long lost, long unspoken—played like music in her ears. Je te tenis dans mon Coeur, rien peut t'bimer l. That was French. Amy knew that much.
She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and dressed before quietly asking the TARDIS to show her to the console room. Sexy obliged and hummed gently. Sure enough, the Doctor was there, slumped in his jump chair, sleeping. "Shh," she whispered to the TARDIS, "I'm gonna sneak up on 'im." Amy grinned and quietly tip-toed onto the grating. Every ginger step was soft as she neared the sleeping Time Lord. When she came close enough to touch him, she paused. Normally, she didn't think of guys as beautiful, and she hated calling them that, but that was the only word she could use to describe him. He looked so beautiful just sleeping there, his face unmarred by the wrinkle of furrowing brows, or lines of worry or twinges of pain. No, he was far off in some world of dreams; she could see his eyes flickering beneath closed lids. Then, quietly, she slipped into the small space behind the chair, swiveling the Doctor so he was facing her, then she jumped on his lap and threw her arms around his neck. The Doctor woke with a start, his body tensing automatically with surprise, and he instinctively lashed out at Amy, slapping at her arms. At first, she thought he was just playing, but when the slaps continued, when her arms started to sting, she huffed in displeasure and let go of him. It was when he pushed Amy (who he thought was the hissing Sycorax from his dream) off of him and onto the floor that she got upset. Especially since she'd hit her head on the way down.
The Doctor sat up straighter in the jump chair, looking down at the red head sprawling on the floor.
"Pond? Yes, good morning, Amelia, but why are you on the floor?" Amy was in a put off mood now. She thought the Doctor had done that on purpose.
"You pushed me, stupid," she snapped. The Doctor recoiled as if stung. When Idris had called him that, it hadn't hurt. There hadn't been an icy edge to her voice. With Amy Pond, well, that was different. Besides, she'd never called him stupid before, so he didn't see why she was doing it now.
"Hwhat? Amy, I didn't! I've no idea how you ended up on the floor, love," he answered back, his face a study in confusion. To the simmering façade that was Amy's hurt, he said, "Ohhhh. You think I pushed you away on purpose, yeah? Like, push pushed you away? I wouldn't do that, Amelia, not ever. Not even if you came at me with a dagger for each heart." He took a step towards her, but she slipped out of the space between the railing and his chair and backed away from him. He tried not to think too much about how that slight hurt.
"You did, Raggedy Man," she hissed, spitting out her name for him as if it were a curse. "You PUSHED me flat off you, like this." She glided past him and gave him a hard shove into the console.
"Ow?" It puzzled him why she was acting like this. Amy never got this cross over something, except maybe Rory. But, so the Doctor thought, he wasn't Rory. Not by a long shot.
"Oh shutap!" Amy growled. "You and your stupid bowties."
"Bowties are cool," the Doctor said quietly, though it lacked his usually glee behind it. "You never said they were stupid before..."
"You're an alien, for love of God! You're not human," she spat. "Aliens don't wear bowties or fezzes or whatever the hell you fancy." Amy paused, considering whether or not she should say what she was thinking. She decided to. "You know, I can't imagine a future with something like you, if you change you every time you get killed; you drive me mad enough as is." She wasn't looking at the Doctor, so she didn't see the effect her words had on him. She didn't see that her words had, in effect, driven daggers through his hearts. She didn't see those hearts breaking.
He wondered despairingly if what he felt for the feisty redhead was love or masochism. He wasn't sure if it was love, because if it was, wouldn't she love him back? And if she didn't, why would he still feel for her? He had spent a very long time observing her kind, and he had seen couples in love. He had seen one or two rejected, but then they moved on. He hadn't seen anyone doing what he was doing now. The TARDIS hummed, interrupting his thoughts. Love is sacrifice, my Doctor, she whispered to him. When you love someone, you open yourself to suffering, even if she breaks your hearts, and you love her still. His hearts sank further still. So this was love then, at least on his side. He highly doubted she'd ever reciprocate it.
"You're right," he mumbled. "You want to be with Rory, he's human." He quickly turned away from her so she wouldn't see the tears sliding down his cheek. Why does it hurt so much to love her? he wondered. "He'll love you LOTS more than I ever could, eh?" He gave a mirthless chuckle even as he felt his hearts tearing into pieces. "I'm just a worthless alien that wears stupid bowties and thinks they're cool," his voice broke on 'bowties', and even though he was faced away from her, setting the coordinates for Leadworth, she could see his shoulders jerking. "Besides, he won't change." My feelings won't change either, the Doctor thought sadly. Amy was sitting in his chair all this time, and when he looked up at the scanner to check something, she could see the outline of tears on his face. She felt the sharp pang of guilt gnawing at her heart at the sight of her raggedy Doctor so distressed. He just wants someone to hold him when he cries, to fix him when he breaks, and to catch him when he falls, Idris whispered to her. Amy got up and went up behind him to wrap her arms around him. She gently pulled his long fingers off of the zig-zag plotter, turned him around and plastered herself against him, holding him tight. Soon enough, she felt his head lowering to her chest, felt him bury his face against her heart. She felt his tears sliding down her neck, and her heart broke for the Doctor. It broke to see him like this, to know that she had done this to him, the man who was always so strong. His knees buckled, and she had seconds to recover before he practically collapsed against her. She sank to her knees, her arms still around the weeping Time Lord. She ran one hand up and down his back soothingly. "Please don't go."
Reviews are my delight! Fishfingers and custard all around! (Do fish have fingers? :p)
Xoxo The Girl With The Doctor's Bowtie