It was simply routine. That's what he told himself every day, ever since she was admitted here. That's what it had to be; she one of the few he had to look after daily. It was maternal, just that.
Rory Williams had this internal debate every day at the hours of 6 AM, 12 PM, and 6 PM, before his shift ended and he could go home. Every time he stood outside those doors to the padded cell that led to her and told himself that when he saw her it wasn't love that he felt but concern.
And then the bloody door would open and the pep talk he gave himself before hand was for naught. Her red hair was tangled and sticking up at end in a hectic disarray that was both mad and yet alluring. Her skin was pale and her eyes crazed. Right now they were also glazed over and vacant, which meant she was having an "episode"; she'd dive inside her mind and spend hours, if not days there, playing out God knows what. Her arms where confined to a straight jacket, standard protocol for the unpredictable ones like her.
Like Amelia Pond.
She'd been in and out of psychiatric care since she was a child, from what Rory had seen in her records. She was very delicate, that much he knew just by watching her. Her first witnessed breakdown had been when she was seven. She'd claimed to have seen a man, a strange "raggedy man" who had said he was a doctor. She'd called to him and spoke as if her were there, nearly burning the house down at three in the morning. She'd been attempting to cook fish fingers in the oven. Her aunt, who she'd been living with at the time, had tried to shake her out of the trance before she finally called for help. By the time help came, Amy was staring up into the sky in nothing but a nightgown and red jumper, repeating the words "He'll fix the crack, my Raggedy Doctor will help," with a bit of custard that hadn't been wiped away from the corner of her mouth. The police (the ones that had bothered to show) had found later that there was no crack in the girl's wall; there was only a long line drawn with marker. It resembled a crack, but, the report had said, it was only evidence of a previous and unnoticed mental fit.
She'd been admitted to several homes and institutions since, all trying to help, all attempts in vain. She was simply unstable, and so when she turned eighteen, she was sent to this place. Rory had been assigned to her a little over a year ago, his first one when he had been hired on as a nurse. The first time he'd seen her, her eyes were wide and frightened and she stared just over his shoulder as if something was hanging down right behind him. After a few minutes of watching her, fearing that she was actually afraid of him mixed with first-day nerves, he finally knelt down and shook her shoulder.
He repeated her name several times before she came back to reality, and she met his bright blue eyes with her hazel ones.
And something inside him came alive.
Perhaps he needed mental help as well, or perhaps he had just been over analyzing it, but her eyes had held so much…truth? It was like they held onto secrets of the universe, of his universe.
It sounded bloody insane. He knew that.
But from then on, he felt as if he should always be there for her. That he should protect her. During her more frightening days, her violent fits, her nightmares when she slept (and they were always nightmares), he had been there when they called him in, no matter what time. He would always be there for her. He'd stay awake for two thousand years, no food, water, anything, if only to make sure she was able to sleep soundly an sanely, if only for a few hours.
That's why he had been there tonight. One of the nurses, a friend of his, had called him in saying that Miss Pond wasn't stable tonight and that no one was brave enough (or cared enough, Rory knew but didn't say and neither did his friend) to give her the stronger knock out injection.
Rory stooped down to look into Amy's blank eyes and let out a soft sigh.
The door was closed, so he was free to talk to her. "Another adventure, eh?" he asked rhetorically.
She never did answer him, and he never expected it. He continued.
"That's alright. I'll wait here for it to be over. You know, a friend of mine called me in tonight. He said you where having a rather bad episode." He sat down across from her then; setting down the tray he had with him, on it a small cup of water and a needle.
Amy closed her far-away eyes and moaned. It didn't sound sad or tired or haunting. She sounded like she had meant to scream. Rory jumped up, ready to shake her out of the trance before it got to horrible.
It escalated too fast for him to nip it in the bud. She started screaming. It was fear, true, raw fear, and Rory felt it in his gut.
She screamed out the name Doctor, as she always did when she was scared and wobbled onto unsteady feet. She looked like she was about to run.
Rory grabbed her shoulders before she could take a step and tried to force her to sit still. She struggled and screamed, her eyes wet with tears and her voice crying against an enemy that he could not fight. She twisted and squirmed away from him and fought his every attempt to settle her.
"Amy!" Rory cried over her screaming, desperate to reach her. "Amelia Pond, please! Hear me, just this once!"
For a second, he thought she had. She had paused in her screams and blinked, as if she were trying to dispel a fog from her eyes. Maybe she was.
Before Rory could say another word, the madwoman dissolved into sobs. She collapsed against Rory who eased her to the ground. He numbly wiped away the tears from her face and cooed small phrases to her softly (Shh, Miss Pond. You're going to be fine, Shh, shh, it'll be okay. The danger is gone, it's gone) and pulled back her messy hair from her tear-stained face.
And as quickly as it had started , it had stopped. She looked up at him with her hazel eyes that devoured him and then turned blank and unresponsive.
Rory's body ached. He hated this part of his job as much as he loved the madwoman who was his job. He hated watching her fall apart, hated not being able to do much more good that sedate her and tell her she'd be fine when he knew and she (probably) knew and everyone else knew that she would never be. He hated this part of his job because he knew it never really helped her. If you put a man in a confined space and tell him he's mad, and allow him to fester in this box, eventually, he will believe that he is mad in this space, and that with this space as his, he will always be a madman with this box.
That's what this had done to poor Amy. They had told her she was mad and stuck her too far away from help. They told her she was mad and put her in a box. Mad had become part of her, and she it.
And it had hurt Rory more than anything every could.
He quietly injected the sedative into Amy's neck, and stood, holding his tray. He looked tired, he knew. He felt tired too. He didn't wait to see her eyes close. He didn't want to see her fall again into a drug-induced slumber.
He exited the cell, locked the door, set the tray on the floor, and leaned his back against her door. He buried his face in his hands, and he let out a sort-of-sigh-sort-of-moan.
He didn't know how long he stood there like that, hurting over the woman in the padded cell behind him. But a hand fell upon his shoulder sometime later and he jumped.
It was the nurse who had told him to come in. He had a strong chin, smallish brown eyes, a strange nose and floppy hair. His mouth that usually wore an easy smile was now pulled into a concerned frown.
"You alright, mate?" he asked.
Rory just shrugged. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten in the evening. The nurse across from him seemed to catch this as well and led him toward the cafeteria. "It's still open about now, and you look like you could use a nice, calming cuppa tea, yeah?"
Rory looked back behind him and gave a small sigh. "I hope she'll be okay…"
They two men had entered the line and were waiting for the older male behind the counter to fetch more styrofoam cups (the coffee and tea station were out) when Rory's companion asked, "So, was it bad?"
"No more than it usually is," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes in a wasted effort to wipe away the influx of emotion he'd felt and seen that night.
"Maybe you need a holiday, or something. You look tired."
The man returned with the cups and they got there tea before sitting down in the nearly vacant area of the building.
After a few moments of comfortable, tea-sipping silence, Rory dropped his head in his hands, his drink having gone untouched. "I'm completely mad for her…" he mumbled miserably.
The nurse chuckled, finding his word punny. Rory's head snapped up and the silenced the other with a look that could scare Pandora's Box. "I'm serious. I'm falling in love with a madwoman."
The other took a long gulp of tea before speaking. "Maybe you should talk to the psychiatrist here. It could just be that you—"
Rory stopped him with a serious look. "You don't understand. I'm falling in love with her, but I don't seem to care. It feel's like I've died and loved her nine times over. Like I've seen her so many places and times, throughout history. I don't…I don't know." His voice broke and he slowly looked the other in the eye. "What would you do, Matt?"
The other shrugged and got up. "I dunno about you Rory" he said with a half smile. "But if it were me, I'd probably…" he trailed off and shrugged again.
The nurse stood and turned to go, but Rory stopped him. "Matt, seriously, what would you do?" His voice was tense.
Slowly, Matt turned, smiling mysteriously. "If I were you, Rory, and something seemed so enticing and so amazing and beautiful and as lovely, if something was as precious to me as she seems to be to you, I'd take it," He murmured, his voice quick and smart-sounding. "I'd fly it far, far away, out of the galaxy it came from, until it was just me and them. I'd be selfish; I would take this amazingly precious and broken thing away from wherever others think it belonged because I am fascinated by it.
"I'd take it," he said again with a wink.
"And I'd Run."