The cries woke her. The never ending cries had her pulling her hands over her ears in horror. Why? Why must they scream all night? It wasn't just screams of pain or fear. These screams were of a deep, indefinable anguish. The little red haired girl curled up in a ball on her side and whimpered softly. When would it end? When would her Aunt Sharon come collect her from this place? She'd been told she was staying at a hospital to get well, but she knew better. She knew this was no hospital. It was a place to put mentals. She had serious doubts that her aunt would even ever come back for her.
The child had been talking for two years now about the raggedy Doctor and prisoner zero. She'd lost all trust in others because he hadn't returned. No one believed her, but she didn't care. She made dolls. Raggedy Doctor dolls. She made her neighbor Rory dress up as him and pretend to fall out of a police box and fix a crack in her wall. She'd told her aunt that, that mess in the kitchen that night had been the Doctor's fault. Her aunt had spanked her good for telling such 'lies'. She was positive the child lied and was covering up her own messes. But Amelia had seen something else in the woman's eyes. She'd seen fear.
Never were questions asked about what happened to the crack in the wall that was no longer there or what had really happened to the shed. Never had her aunt questioned why the fish fingers were all eaten up when she knew very well little Amelia didn't care for them at all. And the child knew. Knew grown ups sometimes didn't question things when they feared the answers.
She insisted the Doctor had come for a visit in a magical box and fixed the crack in her wall. Her aunt would have none of it. She told the child to stop talking about such fancies and get her head out of the clouds. Amelia would not and could not. The Doctor was real and she knew it, even if no one else would. Aunt Sharon chose to ignore this for the longest time. Until Amelia's teacher contacted her.
Amelia, it seemed, had been doing poorly in school. Instead of finishing assignments, she'd daydream and make cutouts of her raggedy Doctor over and over again. She would go off in a corner at recess and make her little cut outs and would only interact with other kids if they played the Ragged Doctor game with her. The child was, in the teacher's opinion, in serious need of care. Psychiatric care.
And so the little girl was whisked off to her very first psychiatrist just under a year after the Doctor didn't keep his promise. That first psychiatrist had seemed like a nice guy, and little Amelia had no problems sharing her stories about the Doctor with him. He looked at her with curiosity and no criticism, no skepticism, so she'd trusted him. She talked about how the box had fallen on her shed and the Doctor had fallen out of the box. She told him about the crack in her wall and how Santa had sent the Doctor to her. She told him all about him fixing the crack in her wall and how silly he'd been and how much fun. And how he'd promised he would be right back.
After her tale, she'd expected questions about the Doctor or the giant eyeball or Prisoner Zero. But instead, the man had started questioning her much about her family. Her parents and her aunt and having to move to England from Scotland. She didn't like these questions. She did try to answer him honestly though. Until she tried to talk about the Doctor again. Because then the psychiatrist gently attempted to tell her he fully believed the Doctor was nothing more than a 'manifestation' of her own imagination reflecting her own feelings and fears of abandonment by her parents and even her aunt. That was a lot for an eight year old to take in, but the only part she was interested in was the one about him saying the Doctor was just in her mind.
"But he's real! He's really real, as you and me!" She insisted.
The psychiatrist shook his head and gently replied. "I know this hurts, Amelia, and it is okay to have imaginary friends, really it is, but you must know and understand the difference between what is real and what is not."
"The Doctor is real, I'm not lying." Amelia was getting angry.
"I know you're not lying, but he isn't real."
"Is too!"
"He isn't."
That was it. She jumped off her chair, crossed the room, and sank her teeth into the guy's arm. "He is too real!"
After that, she'd seen another psychiatrist, one who was far meaner than that last guy had been. The new guy not only told her the Doctor wasn't real, earning himself a bite on the knee, but he told her aunt she was delusional and should be committed.
She wasn't. Not yet. She was sent to psychiatrist number three. This one had taken four sessions. Four sessions to start having her own take on things. Her take was that this 'doctor' had been some intruder or neighbor who had possibly done bad things to little Amelia, causing a trauma. While the woman meant well, her line of questioning was confusing to the little girl. "Did this 'doctor' touch you?" And "Did he take off his clothing?" these sort of questions lead to the woman admitting that she didn't believe in time machine boxes or raggedy doctors closing cracks in walls in the middle of the night, and posed the question of whether or not the doctor was a man who'd hurt Amelia. When she started to turn things in the direction of saying the Doctor was not only not a doctor, but also a bad man, Amelia bit her wrist. Hard. That one needed stitches. Not only had she told her the Doctor wasn't real, but that he was a bad man!
That was when she was committed.
At merely nine years of age, she'd been taken to this hospital and placed in a ward for people who were truly mental. She shared a floor with a teenager who talked to herself and a younger girl who screamed non-stop. When she asked why the girl was crying all the time, they would only say she was in a lot of mental pain. Mental. That was what Amelia knew of this place. It was a sick place for people who were mental. So her psychiatrist and aunt had her committed here even though the psychiatrist also refused to be her psychiatrist anymore. She was sure her aunt went along with it because she didn't know what to do and would rather not have to deal with it.
That third psychiatrist was the sick one, in Amelia's opinion. And this place made her cry. She wanted to go home. More than that, she wanted the Doctor. He would make this all okay again. He would save her. He would tell them he was real and not a bad man. He would tell them to let her out of here. He would tell them the prisoner zero was real. He would smile at her in that reassuring way that made her heart melt and he would take her away. He would take care of her. Her aunt was useless and didn't want her anyway. So she could go live in the Doctor's box and travel through time with him.
The little girl spend two months in hospital. After two years of telling anyone and everyone about her raggedy Doctor, this is what it all came down to. In the two months since she entered the hospital, she gained her fourth psychiatrist. A nice, kindly old man, who listened sympathetically to the frightened and traumatized little girl. They'd placed her on some heavy medication. She wasn't sure what it was, but it made her want to sleep a lot and feel drowsy and relaxed.
In those two months she learned one very important thing. Not to talk about the Doctor. When asked if she still believed in him, she couldn't bring herself to say no. Instead, she said,"I'm too big to believe in imaginary friends." As she knew they would assume she thought of him as an imaginary friend and would leave her be. She was right. After a few days of her telling them what they wanted to hear, her aunt came to take her home.
She was still forced to take two different kinds of medication, as well as see her new psychiatrist on a weekly basis. The man was nice, but before he could ever tell her the Doctor wasn't real, she would change the subject and tell him what he wanted to hear. She would talk about school and tele, and music, and kids at school.
At first she would just tell stories about other kids at school, but over time she began to make her own friends. Though most of the kids would have nothing to do with the 'mental girl', she did have Jeff and Rory at least. She slowly began to fall into some semi-normal activities. She kept her raggedy Doctor dolls hidden in her room and only played with them when she was alone and on her own time. Sometimes, she thought someone was watching her, and imagined it was the Doctor.
After about a year, she was taken off the medication and seeing the psychiatrist only ever three months. She, as far as everyone was concerned, would always be strange, but was 'cured' since she didn't talk about the Doctor anymore. She'd learned not to is all.
A part of her always believed in him, but she pushed him aside in her mind. She got on with her life, but she still came home at the end of the day and went up to her room to hug her newest raggedy Doctor doll. She knew he was real. He'd just forgotten about her. Clearly. He'd said he wasn't people, but he was every bit people. And it hurt.
At the age of twelve, something changed for Amy. She knew better in her own mind to not fully believe in the Doctor. She didn't dare let him go, but she didn't dare allow herself to truly think of him as real. Everyone around her had convinced her she must have been confused. And she would continue to feel that way. But on a crisp Autumn morning as she walked to school, a strange distant sound set off an alarm bell for her. She ran up one street and down another in time to see an all too familiar blue police box fading away. "Doctor!" She cried, all the twelve year old's doubts melting away as she flung herself at the box, only to find herself on the cold, hard ground. The box was gone. The Doctor was gone. But he was real!
The following day, when she went to see her psychiatrist. She walked into the office, right up to him, took his hand, and sank her teeth into his finger. He yelped and jumped up. "That, is for saying he's not real! Everyone always said it, but I saw his time travel machine! I did!" She stomped out and never went back. She told her aunt if she didn't make her go see any more psychiatrists, she wouldn't talk about the Doctor anymore. And she didn't.
But as more months past, she started to have doubts again. Had it all been in her mind? Maybe people were right. Maybe she truly was insane.
Once she entered her teen years, she was still obsessing over her Doctor, but she was very adept at hiding it. People knew she was odd and kept to herself a lot. She was a tough child who wouldn't let anyone get close. Only Rory seemed able to break through her rough exterior because he had patience and didn't mind her odd ways. He was gentle and kind and nurturing in nature so he didn't mind that she was rough and could be mean.
Jeff had been her first boyfriend though. He'd been attracted to her and he was fun. She hadn't minded him as a distraction, but it wasn't about feelings. Only kisses and movies and laughs. Rory was something more. By the time he'd convinced her to go out with him, she was positive she would have to keep him at a distance. Letting people get close to you only got you hurt.
The Doctor had been the last person Amelia Pond ever trusted. That was something else. Her name. Amelia. The Doctor said Amelia Pond sounded like a fairy tale. Life was no fairy tale. Believing in such things only got people in trouble and unneeded pain. Her anger and bitterness towards his love of her name caused her to refuse to be called Amelia anymore. By the age of fifteen, everyone knew to only call her Amy. Only a few of the older residents of her town dared call her Amelia, and even they would catch themselves and call her Amy.
And so, her eighteenth birthday passed, then her nineteenth. She didn't live a life her aunt cared for, but she didn't care. Her now boyfriend, Rory, accepted her. Her job paid decent enough. Well, not exactly, but it gave her more time to party. She had finally gotten enough of a handle on things to convince herself fully that her childhood delusions could not have possibly been real. Or was that the voices of all the psychiatrists, her teachers, friends, aunt...
It was little surprise that when she was staring down at the unconscious man in her home, she had a hard time believe in her very own eyes. The man she was about to handcuff and demand an explanation from. Handcuff because she feared he would disappear. Because she wanted proof she wasn't insane. Not to convince others. She'd long ago given up on caring what others thought. She could only think one thing.
"Not real. You're not real!" Now, all she needed was to convince him of that fact! As long as she didn't let herself get caught up in thinking of him as anything other than a stranger, an intruder, everything would be okay.