Prologue
My earliest memory happened a few days after my second birthday. I was dying and there was nothing my Granddad could do to save me. He tried, he really did. Still, he and Grandmum watched me die. I remember their tears, and then they started to sob, although trying to hold back the sounds as though it would be more peaceful for my parting.
Suddenly a strange sensation tingled into my heart, changing its rhythm as it tickled throughout my body. Setting off sparks as it went, things began changing in me. It was like gears turning and clicking into place, whirling faster and faster around me as I shrunk into my very core. My heartbeat was becoming painful and felt as though it were moving about my body and warring with itself.
"Two hearts!" I hear faintly through the murky depths of unconsciousness and grinding gears of change. My Granddad had called it out in surprise, but as he started pressing on my chest, first one side and then the other, it began to make sense. My two hearts were out of sync with each other, it wasn't a war after all.
At 2 years old, I certainly didn't understand regeneration, but I did sense I was dying yet again. At least this time, Granddad could help save me. He continued his maddening pace until my heartbeats stabilized together. As he sat back up, he started to explain to Grandmum, "Amy, she's a Time Lord."
"What? Are you mad? River said she wasn't the Doctor's child."
"But she just regenerated...and she now has two hearts, although I'm not sure how that just happened now instead of at birth."
"Why? Why would she regenerate? And why would she gain a heart?"
"Amy, she suffocated on her crib bedding...there was nothing I could do to save her, but then she regenerated. As for the heart, I'm not sure if she would have survived pregnancy if she had two and River only having one. I only worry if they'll be ok during her next regeneration cycle."
"Rory! How could you talk about her dying again?!"
"I didn't mean right now. Amy, she's ok," he soothed her. "I'm just trying to prepare for her safety."
I think I must have spent the rest if the night wrapped in their arms, swaying gently in the back porch swing. It wasn't until I turned 6 years old that I realized what that regeneration did to me-overnight, I looked, and acted, a whole year older. But in those four years between, I heard fairy tale stories every night about this mad man in a blue box who saved the world time and time again, and I would dream of the Doctor who could also save me...if only I knew what it was I needed saving from.