I'll say more at the end, but for now: not mine, will never be, please review... and enjoy. And yes, before you ask, the first section is indeed a slight twist on the ending of The Doctor, The Witch and The Wardrobe. There's a lot of dialogue that is heavily inspired by Asylum Of The Daleks too.
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on In Quiet Desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say
Prologue
Amelia Pond is a woman of many hidden talents, and one of them is cooking.
It's no surprise to anyone who knows her, of course. After all, she'd spent year after year fending for herself, back in Leadworth, making her own meals whilst her Aunt went off and did whatever she did. Or she remembers doing that, anyway, despite the fact that she has parents now (as if they were something that one suddenly acquired) and she hadn't needed to make her own dinners as her kid in this world.
There's a minor contradiction, she thinks. Using memories of things that never happened.
Well, she remembers it, so it's real, it happened, and contradictions be damned. She's long stopped trying to make sense of her ridiculously jumbled upbringing, a tangle of timelines and impossibilities that she knows better than to try and unknot.
Anyway, that's all so long ago now that she really shouldn't be bothering about all that. Leadworth is little more than a distant memory now – parents or not – and she rather likes it that way.
The point is that she's a damn good cook, she tells herself as she opens the oven door to remove her Christmas roast – golden-brown glazed and roasted ham – from its depths. Almost instantly, the room fills itself with the rich, succulent aroma of the ham, and she takes a long, deep breath as she places it on the stovetop, savouring her own handiwork.
It's a fairly large slab of meat, certainly far too large for her to eat by herself – but that's the point, of course. Even now, after all these years, she can't help but keep that tiny beacon of hope alive, that minute flicker that told her that he'll come back. Just as he'd promised once upon a time.
I always come back.
So, like the last Christmas, and the Christmas before that, and the one before that, there are two seats at the table. One for her. One for her best friend.
Really, though, it's just a habit nowadays. A tradition, a rarity for her. She doesn't actually expect him to come back. He's supposed to be dead, after all, and dead people don't just drop in on old friends. Besides, he would've moved on. Like she'd always known he would, she'd flicker out of his life just like all the others flickered out of his life. He would have moved on from her, just like how she herself had moved on from everyone else.
Inertia. It's a word they both hate.
She's about to cut into the steaming ham (god, that smells good), get the water rolls and finish the potatoes when a sharp rapping on the door cuts through her little bubble.
Oh, for-
"Who's that?" she yells. "Carol singers?"
If it's another one of them – she has something on the kitchen cabinet just for this, fortunately.
"I have a water pistol!" she cries out, stomping irritably towards the door. If she's right, then whoever's on the other side of the door is about to have all hell – well, all water – break loose on them. "You wouldn't want to get wet on a night like this-"
She wrenches the door open... and the words die instantly in her throat.
She sees unruly chocolate-brown hair. A broad, angular chin. Tweed jacket. That blasted bow-tie.
For a brief moment, time freezes and Amelia Pond has no idea what to think. Should she be happy that he's finally come back? Should she be indifferent? Angry?
What the hell is she supposed to feel?
"I wasn't sure," the Doctor began, the tone of his voice emphasising just how unsure, "how long..."
Well, that answers that question. Her voice is as sharp as knives, as cold as ice.
"Seven years?"
She squirts him several times. He makes a feeble attempt to bat the water away. She doesn't smile – she's too angry with him to smile.
"Okay," he concedes. "Fair point."
She lowers the water pistol and looks him up and down. "So," she says in a slightly less cold, but still brittle tone. "You're not dead."
"And a happy new year!" he cries out in reply, opening his arms with that old goofy smile in an attempt to get one in return. Well, sorry, she's still furious with him.
"River told me."
That wipes the smile clean off his face. Good.
He sighs. "Of course she did."
She purses her lips, taps her foot on the ground once, twice. Still pissed off. "Well?" She asks, still rigidly keeping any warmth from her voice. "I'm not hugging first."
He turns up his nose, looking somewhere near the corner of the door. "Me neither," he mutters.
Still a five-year-old kid, then, she thinks. And yes, I'm still pissed off. She glances away from him, suddenly finding the water pistol deeply fascinating. Anywhere but him, because she is still pissed off-
It doesn't work. She catches his eye, briefly, and he looks so ridiculous in his bow-tie, with that equally ridiculous grin, that she bursts into giggles, falling into his arms.
She's still angry with him, but as she feels him pull her body into him, clinging to her as if he never wants to let her go, she knows that she'll have time to be angry with him later.
It's Christmas, after all.
He's always liked her cooking.
Of course, the Doctor has always liked lots of things about Amy, but her cooking is right up there. He rarely has time for what humans call 'normal' food, but Amy seems to have this knack for getting things just right for his tastes. Or maybe he's just biased.
Either way, he's delighted to see her again, and equally delighted to be munching on her water rolls. She smiles, watching him wolf down his food with twinkling eyes.
"You're still disgusting, you know that?" she tells him with a giggle in her voice. He glares at her in mock outrage.
"You're one to talk." Well, not really – between her vibrant, tumbling ginger hair, full crimson lips and dazzling emerald eyes, she looks positively radiant. He can't remember the last time he saw her so happy.
She laughs at his little jibe, the sound washing over his ears like liquid honey on a warm summer's day. It's perfect, and for one moment, everything is right in his world. Which it should be, of course, because everything's right at Christmas.
"So what have you been up to?" she asks, taking a sip of her wine. "Oh, and how's Melody?"
"How d'you think?"
"I'm guessing amazing, as always. She's my daughter, after all."
He smiles fondly at her, because of course she's right. "That she is, and I'm really the same as ever. Yourself?"
"I write stuff," she replies between mouthfuls. "Mostly travel articles and as a part-time foreign correspondent. I dabble."
He raises an eyebrow. "Interesting mix."
"I know, right? I couldn't settle for ages, so I decided to send something about Hawaii to the Times. The real one, by the way," she adds for the benefit of his querying glance, "not the Space one or that bloody Medieval one you dragged us to. They must have liked it, 'cos they hired me the next day."
"And the foreign whatever-it-was?"
She gives him a nonchalant wave of her fingers. "I was doing a piece on Africa. I had to write something."
"Not sure I understand."
She shifts her gaze to him, and he's surprised to see just how deep the wells of her eyes are, just how much wisdom has been inculcated there. "Remember what you told me about children crying?"
It clicks immediately. His expression brightens, his smile bordering on dazzling. He's rarely been this proud of her. "Look at you, Amelia Pond. All... grown up."
She doesn't say anything in reply. She doesn't need to. They just gaze at each other, relishing the moment. They lose themselves in the other's eyes, seeing little but the adoration they have for each other reflected back at them.
It's as perfect a reunion as the Doctor could have possibly imagined. Except, of course, for one little thing.
"By the way, Amy-"
"Amelia." She's still smiling that warm, tender smile, and that light is still twinkling in her eyes, but the way she cut him off so firmly puts him immediately on guard.
"Oh?"
"Amelia now. I changed my name back."
Guardedness gives way to curiosity. "Really? Why?"
"Felt better. More me." She shrugs – but that just stokes the embers of suspicion which are threatening to build into a roaring flame. He knows his Amelia Pond and he knows that shrug. It's the shrug that tells him that nothing is wrong, which he knows means that everything is wrong.
But he doesn't have time to indulge his curiosity right now, because there's something rather more obvious about this whole scene that is amiss.
"Always preferred Amelia anyway. But where's Rory?"
He's probably being overprotective and a worry-wart – a common complaint of hers – but he has to ask. He's become so used to seeing Rory by her side that it simply doesn't seem right, the fact that she's alone like this. Like a puzzle missing its most vital piece, she needs him. Fine, there's probably a good reason – but then why is the table set only for two?
Then again, he's most likely being silly. Rory's probably busy with something – he was a nurse, after all. Nurses were busy people, and didn't necessarily get a break on Christmas day. He's sure there's some innocent, simple reason for Rory's absence. In fact, that was probably why Amy – no, Amelia – had set the table for two, having had no reason to expect his own return. He's probably stolen Rory's food, actually. He expects her to brush his query off with ease, calling him an idiot.
What he doesn't expect is for her smile to freeze in place, for her shoulders to involuntarily tighten and her pupils to dilate.
"Oh – yeah. Him."
He almost drops his fork, catching himself just in time. He's stunned less by what she said than by how she said it, like she was brushing off a proverbial fly.
"Sorry, what?" He manages to keep his voice light, but he can't avoid the horrible knot forming in his stomach.
"We, um, you know. Split up. Rory and I," she tells him, the words falling from her mouth in a rush, as if saying it quickly will make it mean less. "Oh, don't look at me like that," she groans, catching his expression. "It happened ages ago. God. You look like a sick cat."
He ignores the last jibe, recognising it for what it is – an attempt to distract him. He's done it himself often enough to recognise it. "You're joking. Please tell me you're joking."
She sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, holding up her hands. "Look. See anything different?"
He can – she's not wearing a ring. And based on the fact that there's no visible mark on the skin of her right ring finger, she hasn't been wearing one for a long time. How had he not noticed that? It should have been one of the first things he saw when she'd opened the door, holding that water pistol right to his face.
Because, old man, you saw what you wanted to see. Not what was actually there.
That doesn't mean he believes it, though.
"You – you split up? Actually, properly, split up with Rory?"
She groans. "Oh, come on. Are we going to do the whole relationship counselling thing now? It's Christmas."
"Amelia, please."
She sighs, gives him that shrug again. "It was ages ago, as I said. Wasn't fun, but what can you do?"
"What can I do?" Oh, he's getting desperate now – he's actually pleading.
Technically, she's still smiling, but the warmth is gone from it. Her lips curve upwards in a mirthless, melancholic expression, the shadow of smiles long wasted and a happiness long curbed.
"Nothing. There's nothing you can do. It's not one of those things you can just fix like you fix your bow-tie," she murmurs, running one of her long, slender fingers along the tip of the garment.
He grabs her hand, rubbing it frantically, desperately. "Amelia, if there's anything I can help you with-"
"Raggedy man," she cuts him off, "the time for that was long ago."
The words cut through him like a knife. He flinches, letting go of her hand. Her expression has hardened, covered in layer upon layer of impenetrable defence that he's sure wasn't there when he'd last left her.
What have I done to you, Amelia Pond?
He swallows, his throat dry.
"How long?"
Her voice is cool and her eyes are clear as she speaks. No sign of tears, no flicker of remorse. "About four and a half years."
Author's note starts... now.
Okay. I realise that trying to start another story right now may not be wise (I need to update all my stories), but this has been an idea hovering around the back of my head ever since S6 ended, and especially since Asylum of the Daleks aired. After talking to Bright Ophelia a bit, I decided to actually write something (frankly, she deserves as much of the credit for this idea), and then one night an entire plot walked into my head almost fully-formed, including an ending. This story is the result. It will end up a complete 11/Amy AU, and it will have romantic overtones (hence the category), but it will be slow-moving, Earth-bound, quite melancholic, often quite sad and not at all like the show. Despite that, there is only one actual deliberate change to the canon events. Everything that follows, and everything else that is different, is a result of that one change: namely, that the Doctor returns to Amy just over seven years after dropping the Ponds off at their house. Not two as per last year's Christmas special.
The title of the story comes from that Pink Floyd lyric (which I've quoted), and the story itself will be structured around Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's famous five stages of grieving (but only loosely, mind). You will need to have watched up to and including Asylum for this story – but the specific events of Asylum have not occurred. So for a good while it will be canon 11/Amy, 11/River and Amy/Rory then slowly change, as the characters react to the situation presented here. I'm not going to go overboard on the flat-out romance and I'm going to be as respectful as I can to all the canon pairings, rest assured. Particularly Amy/Rory, which will have the first section of the story devoted to what exactly happened to them (though frankly you can guess most of it). That will be told entirely through Amy's eyes. After that, it will move back to Amy and the Doctor, proceeding from this mess you see above and be told from both their viewpoints.
This story is un-beta'd, by the way, so if anyone is willing to throw their hat in the ring I'd be grateful. Finally, please review. Feedback is the greatest gift you can give. The more I get, the sooner I'll get this updated. I do have a full chapter of this already written as of right now.