A/N: Takes place mid-ep, when the Doctor has taken off and left Amy and Vincent alone. So mild spoilers for that episode, at least.
Of Cloudless Climes (And Starry Skies)
When she turns back from the door, Vincent is watching her, gaze sharp as a knife.
"How long do you think he'll be gone?"
She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at the doorway, by which the Doctor has disappeared. "He says it'll take no time at all. Knowing him, I'll probably have to go look for him." She crosses the small room and seats herself across from Vincent, who leans forward, elbows on his knees, and continues staring. Amy crosses her legs and leans back, tossing her hair behind her shoulders, clearing her throat. "But not till it gets light out. May not make much actual difference with an invisible monster, but it feels different."
"The light," says Vincent. Amy nods, and lifts her hands towards the fire. Vincent shakes his head. "There's always light. It's best in the earliest morning, when things that were grey and unshaped turn round and rosed. When it makes you feel it." One hand hovers in the air, as though he can only fully describe what he means by motion. The action, not the word, is the truth. Amy half-smiles.
"It means everything to you, doesn't it? Painting?"
With an effort, he brings his hands back down, laces his fingers together. "I could tell you about it all night and you still wouldn't know. But you're very pretty in the firelight."
It's such an easy thing to say, even easier to hear, nothing base or worrisome or wrong about it, that she just smiles at him. If he were a modern bloke, now— of course, history has taught her differently, hasn't it? Modern blokes or ancient blokes, they were really all the same. But not Vincent. It sounded cliche, but if ever a man could be called different, it was him.
Well. And the Doctor. But even he has his moments.
"You both say such nice things about my paintings," Vincent goes on, and he looks suddenly suspicious. Amy shrugs one shoulder.
"Well," she declares, "I may not know much about art— but I know what I like."
He'll have to be content with that. What's she supposed to tell him— that she's from the distant future when he's celebrated as one of the finest artists ever to set brush to canvas? She'd like to. It's on the tip of her tongue, has been since she first saw him being thrown out of the pub, actually. But the Doctor, she knows, wouldn't like it.
He's moved on, anyhow.
"Where did you say you were from? In Holland?"
That's right, they did end up saying she was from Holland. Accents and all that. She still can't quite wrap her head around the fact that Vincent Van Gogh sounds like he's from Glasgow. But all of a sudden this is becoming a geography quiz, the sort she's ill-prepared for.
"I didn't."
"I know," says Vincent, "but I thought perhaps if I asked it that way you'd tell me."
She flicks her eyes downwards to the splintery floor, smiles. "Er— Amsterdam." That's in Holland, right? She should have paid more attention in schools. Her sense of direction bordered on the fantastic, but as far as what she would find when she went any particular way—
"You haven't heard of a town called Groot-Zundert, then?"
Is that even on Earth? It doesn't sound like it. Has she stumbled across evidence that Vincent Van Gogh is an alien? Oh, what wouldn't that clarify? She's being ridiculous. She needs to stop. She needs to concentrate. She leans forward, towards him.
"Is that where you're from?"
He nods a little, eyes distant now. The pallor of his face is leaping into oranges and yellows and reds with the play of the firelight, and she understands what he means. When things turn round and rosed. Yes.
"It's small there," he says, "but I— still can't reach."
The place he was a child. There's long pauses, gaps between his words, as he searches for the what. He tells her a little at a time, dribs and drabs and bits and pieces, and she paints the picture in her mind for him. Little houses. Dirt streets, before cobbles. But no matter how she tries, it still looks unreal, in a way. It's an impression, she thinks. That's all.
But his voice is real, and the memory is real for him. He closes his eyes, leans back in his chair. Looks desolate and left-behind.
Amy wishes she had a watch, so she could make a pretense of checking it. Not that it would be accurate, having time-traveled. But still.
"Maybe you should sleep," she suggests, and pushes up from her chair. She holds her hand out to him, and smiles down at him while he cracks his eyes open and stares at her fingers. "Come on. I'll walk you up."
He considers it for a moment, then takes her hand.
His is dry, and cracked, and patchy with paint laid down over the years and ineffectually scrubbed. It's clean enough, and trusting as a child's. This is impossible, she thinks— that he should trust a stranger, that he should trust her— but it must be because she believes him. Because they didn't tell him he was crazy because he saw things no one else could see.
In the end, he leads her, because she doesn't know where to go.
His bedroom is upstairs, and sparsely furnished, little more than a cot and the inevitable paintings on the walls. There's a chair, and this she pulls up to the bed as he settles himself on it. He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.
She puts a hand on his shoulder and he flinches, just a little.
"Can you sleep? You had an awful lot of coffee."
He blinks, slowly, still staring at the pale ceiling as though it's about to come crashing down on him if he doesn't keep it up with the strength of his gaze. Which is something he might very well believe. She knows the feeling, anyhow. Waiting for something to crush you— and where is that coming from, the unexpected surge of melancholy? Why does she feel like she's on the verge of some horrible truth?
She shakes her head, to shake it off if she can, and he directs his attention back to her abruptly.
"When we first met," he speaks as though this were a long time ago, "you shared your wine."
"I did," says Amy. "I couldn't have got through the whole bottle on my own."
"The generosity," says Vincent, "is here." And he touches her softly, just the tip of his finger, to the side of her mouth. "And when you look at things you think are wondrous— and you think most things are wondrous— the wonder is here—" His hand moves, and he touches lightly at the corner of her left eye, where smile lines are slowly being carved. "And when you are skeptical— and you were, just for a bit— it's here." He strokes along the curve of her jaw, at the back where it ends just under her ear. "And for him, for the Doctor, when you look at him it's here." Very lightly, very delicately, so she can hardly even feel it, he touches the hollow of her throat, where her pulse jumps. "The humor is here—" Both hands at her temples, rubbing a slow circle. "And the sadness, the loss, here." Just under her chin, tipping her head up, towards the window, so he can catch the light. He slides his hands around to frame her face, and his eyes are tender and sad, his voice hoarse and full of whispers.
"I couldn't paint it," he says, "not if I had a million years."
He's painting her with words, though, she can feel it, as keen and careful as the cracked skin of his hands. There's layers. The pale, to suggest the face, shadowed and unformed. Then, successive strokes to bring her into being, to lay her down on the surface of living canvas. He's finding everything, no matter how carefully hidden.
She bites her lip.
His eyes look enormous, and very very blue, and weak and sunken. He must be exhausted. She's exhausted just by being with him. She can't begin to fathom what it must be like to be behind those eyes, looking out.
So she takes his hands in hers, detaches them carefully, brings them down and hovers the joined fingers between them.
"You need to rest, Vincent."
"Will you stay?"
"I'll be right here."
He lies back again, flat on the bed, still holding on to her with one hand. "Promise me you'll never fail, Amy Pond."
"I'll try not to," she swears, as honorably as she can. His dry hand twists around hers, draws her in.
"Failure can be swallowed again and again and again, if need be," he says. "But it's not made more palatable by repetition. And it's a poor substitute for coffee." His eyes close, just briefly, and he opens them again. "And it follows you everywhere. Even in dreams."
That's when she decides what they need to do. It'll take a little convincing— well, a lot, really— but she's full of misplaced confidence that she can bring the Doctor round to her view in time. He deserves more, this poor fantastic man. He needs it. She knows the ending to his story, and she won't have it. She'll change it. She'll fix it.
She tightens her grasp on his hand.
She will.
"But last night," says Vincent, "I dreamed of a box. A little box, bright-painted, with a catch of solid gold. And I opened it— it was just a dream, you understand— and when I did, I became light. I possessed light. I was light. It was all in the box, all the good things, and the light to see them by. So I could hold them in my hands, and turn them over, and know all the lines and the angles and the colors. And they belonged to me. I think you're in the box, Amy."
She will.
She swallows, and holds on to him tightly.
"Waiting for you," she promises.
Time can be re-written. Re-painted, stark white over an already-colored canvas. The Doctor will help, she knows he will. New shapes, new colors. A whole new life.
She's thinking, something with flowers.