He was real. He was as real as the nose on my face, as real as the hand in front of me.

All my life I'd waited for him in eager anticipation, each and every night looking out of my bedroom window with my suitcase packed in the hope of seeing that blue box in my garden again, just like before. I dreamed of leaving the dreary little town of Leadworth to see where that blue box would take me, excitment filling my veins with each passing thought about it. Only every night brought even more disappointment than the last, the blue box nowhere in sight and his distinct lack of presence making me question my sanity even more.

I knew I was laughed at all my life, no one truly believing my story about the crack in my wall, the mysterious blue box and my hero that was the Doctor. Rory used to pretend he was the Doctor when we were little. He would run around in a shirt and tie, hiding in a cardboard box that I'd painted blue. Thing was I knew he didn't believe in it all, he did it merely to pacify me and to keep me happy. It did for a time, but Rory and his cardboard box just weren't my Doctor... and they never would be.

Aunt just passed it off as some nightmare I'd had one night, claiming it wasn't real in the slighest. Men and blue bozes don't just appear out of thin air after all. She said it was just a phase and that I'd grow out of it after a while.

I never did.

I knew he was real, I just knew. That bowl of custard and fish fingers was still there the next day… and the day after that… and the day after that, until aunt washed it up, shouting at me for mixing such ridiculous foods.

It was wasn't ridiculous, it was real. My Doctor was out there somewhere, and despite how long these 5 minutes of waiting lasted, I knew he would come back for me someday.

I grew up... and he never came back, the blue box I had been so fond of nowhere in sight. I moved on with my life, went to school, went to college, got a 'job' if you can call it that. It was the longest five minutes of my life… but he never came back. Thoughts about my adventures with the Doctor soon faded, almost to the poit where I gave up all hope of ever seeing him again.

Until that one fateful morning…

I hit him over the head with a bat, but he came back… I handcuffed him to a radiator, but he came back… He kept me waiting for 12 long years, but he came back.

My Doctor was here, just like he said, and I knew I should never have doubted him.

He was just as I remembered him, floppy brown hair, torn clothes, slightly confused by everything. His blue box stood perfectly in my garden and I knew that those trips to therapy over the years had not been in vain. He was not make-believe and he was not a figment of my childish imagination. My Doctor was real and he was standing before me, ready to save my life and the whole of Earth, all by himself…

"Amy?" he said to me, suddenly breaking me from my thoughts about the past. I stopped my daydream and quickly looked over at him. He was standing by the control panel of the TARDIS, totally in his element. You could clearly see that he was well suited to a life as a time lord.

"Doctor?" I said to him with a smile.

"Where do you fancy going? Your turn to choose."

"I don't mind," I said happily. "Lets just see where the road takes us."

"Exactly what I was thinking," he grinned, pulling a lever and causing the TARDIS to shake in movement. "Hold on!"

I did as I was told, sitting down and holding tight, laughing my head off, eager to see where I would go next.

I didn't care really, as long as I was with my Doctor. I had waited 14 long years for him to take me away… and he finally kept his promise to me.