A/N This was actually written for a prompt over on LJ. I had a random spurt of creativity. :) A really good song to listen to before/while/after reading this is Raggedy Doctor by Mary Courage (on SoundCloud). It was part of the reason I decided to write this. Very inspiring. You should go listen to her stuff, and then go listen to Paola Bennett, and then listen to President Romana. If you're as much of a Whovian as me, that is. If you're not, it probably won't make any sense. But yeah, those lovely ladies are who I listen to in my spare time. And Chameleon Circuit. Trock. Gotta love it. :)

Give me five minutes, he said. I'll be right back.

But it's been years and no sign of him, years of psychiatrists saying he's not real, years of paper mache blue boxes and Raggedy Doctor dolls, years of making Rory play Raggedy Doctor with her (and he was so patient and never seemed to tire of it), years and years and years of hope (but that might be an exaggeration).

The truth is, she gave up hope a long time ago - except she still sometimes thinks, in that time before you go to sleep and forget how the real world is, that maybe when she wakes up, he'll be waiting for her in the back garden, her Raggedy Doctor, complete with his blue box and ripped-up clothes that gave him his name. But then she wakes up and returns to real life and remembers that he left her, just like everybody else, and he will never come back. She feels abandoned, and she wonders why. Why didn't he keep his promise? Why didn't he leave a note or something to let her know that he will be back someday, just not now?

She thinks about it all the time, even now, years later, and realizes that when he met her, she was just a child, only seven years old. He must have thought that she was too young to understand, or maybe that she was too young to go with him. She doesn't really know why, but she does know that it must be because she was too young. But she's grown up since then, dammit, doesn't he know that? Doesn't he know she can understand, that she's nearly an adult anyway and can make her own life choices and so can go with him now? Why doesn't he know?

The only explanation she can think of is that he still thinks she is too young, still just a child. But she isn't (anymore), she is so much more than just a child. She can think of no way to tell him this, so she just sits there and waits and grows up even more, even though she feels too old already. But it's the only way she can think of to let the Raggedy Doctor know if he comes back, when he comes back, that she is ready. She is more than ready to let him whisk her away is his blue box, but she has to let him know that she can handle it first.

She doesn't want him to think of her as a child, after all.