inspired by 'Woke Up New' by the Mountain Goats.


Amy Pond wakes up from a rather restless night's sleep and stretches. She cracks her joints and then says, "Well that was a bad night's sleep."

The room doesn't answer, because the room is just a room. Instead it sits there silently and Amy is left to wonder why she is talking to herself.

She brushes her teeth and spits into the sink and when she's finished she half turns back to the bedroom and starts to say, "Why is it so cold in here?" When she realizes there's no one there.

"Oh god, I'm turning into the Doctor, mumbling to myself about nothing," she says, too engrossed in finding a sweater to notice that she's mumbling to herself about nothing.

She finds a coffee maker (they seem to pop up all over the place) and brews a cup for herself and then gets started on the tea. The Doctor finds her as she's stirring the sugar into her cup.

"Why did you make coffee and tea?"

She looks at him and then back down at the two cups in front of her, as if she hadn't noticed the two separate objects until he had pointed them out. She studies the mugs, puzzled, and then says, "The tea's for you, isn't it? You don't like coffee, you like tea."

The look on the Doctor's face is filled with so much sorrow and pain that her heart nearly skips a beat and she realizes that she's sad too. She wonders if this is like sympathy pains, because surely there's nothing for her to be sad about. She has the whole of space and time at her fingertips (well, okay, technically next to her, staring at the cup of tea, but the point is she can go anywhere with him) and the Doctor is with her. This is everything she ever wanted, everything she ever dreamed about- she had spent years being made fun of, countless therapists, and it was all true.

So why on earth was she sad?

"You know the saying old habits die hard?"

"I don't understand, Doctor."

He pats her face with his hand and then draws her in for a hug.

"Tell you what. How about we take a break? Go somewhere nice."

"Like where?"

He gives her another sad look and then says, "You like art, right?"

She nods, dumps the coffee, and sips the tea.