Title: Two Streams
Authors: wingedflight and struthious (or, on LJ: wingedflight21 and accidentalsquid).
Rating: K+
Word Count: 2.1K
Summary: There is a crack in Amelia Pond's universe and time can't be rewritten.
A/N: Plays with ideas from seasons five and six of Doctor Who.
—X—
She remembers the first night she met the Doctor. It had been loud and exciting and disappointing, and she'd repeated the story to anyone who would listen for the rest of her life. The Doctor was the time-travelling raggedy man who would show up with adventures in tow to save her from an otherwise dull existence. She remembers meeting him.
Amy does not remember the first time she met Rory. Rory is a constant in her life. From the moment her aunt moved her to the sleepy town of Leadworth, Rory has been her sidekick, her confidant, her one true friend while others passed like changing seasons.
He has always been there for her. He always will be.
—X—
He's lying there on the hot, rock floor and Amy feels as though her heart is going to tear from her chest. He's still breathing, trying to sit up, grab her hand, gasp out one final word. Amy entwines her fingers with his and squeezes tight. She has to hold on to him, can't let him slip away.
There are hands on her shoulders pulling her back, pulling her away. Amy tries to resist. She can't leave Rory, can't leave him here in this hole in the centre of the earth. She screams as her hand is pulled from his, and then someone is lifting her up and back.
She can't leave Rory behind, not again, not this time. Her screams mix with sobs as she fights to stay at his side. And then the hum of the TARDIS surrounds her and she's falling to the floor and the Doctor shuts the door and she can't - she can't just leave him -!
The Doctor is holding her in a tight embrace, muttering useless platitudes that are supposed to make everything better but only make the pain worse. She can't bear it. Can't bear to think that Rory might be gone. Can't bear to think -
—X—
Someone she loved very much has died. Someone has died. Who died? No one died, don't be ridiculous, it's always just been Amy Pond in the TARDIS.
Amy Pond in the TARDIS. She can't understand why she feels so alone.
—X—
She made dolls when she was a child, but her favourites were always the Raggedy Doctor and the blue box that held a swimming pool. One summer, Rory was in bed with the chicken pox for two weeks; in her boredom, Amy fashioned a small girl with a scrap of red fabric for hair and a name that that sounded like a fairytale, as well as a small boy with a plastic face and paper clothing modelled off the book of Roman myths on her bedside table.
Rory had laughed when he saw the paper outfit. "I'm no - what is this, anyways, Amy? A gladiator? I'm no gladiator. I want to be a doctor, or a nurse."
"Of course not! You're a Centurion. And a time traveller. And awfully brave. Centurions protect people, Rory. I read it in there," she said, shrugging towards the tome on her bedside. "You do want to be brave, don't you, Rory?"
The colour rises in his cheeks to match the last fading chicken pox and his eyes crinkle a bit at the corners with the oncoming awkward laugh. Amy Pond feels as though Rory William's face becomes him.
—X—
She'd forgotten she was claustrophobic.
Flying through space and time, everything is so wide and open. Even the tiny little blue box is enormous on the inside. Amy revels in the expansiveness of the universe.
The Pandorica is not expansive. The Pandorica is tiny and cramped. Amy can feel its white walls pressing in on her. She closes her eyes. She counts to ten. She counts to twenty. Her skin won't stop crawling.
She copes with the claustrophobia by reminding herself that Rory is just outside. Rory the Centurion, protecting her on the other side of the wall. Of course he stands guard. Of course he waits. He would never leave her alone, even if she were trapped for a thousand years.
—X—
Amy sees herself in the Pandorica, a young girl with inquisitive eyes and clever fingers and bright red hair. The girl demands to know what has happened, clamours relentlessly for Amy's attention, but the walls are white and the Pandorica is cramped; the best the woman can do is mutter, "It got complicated, kid."
Amelia Pond wonders if she is going mad. She sees stars in the sky but knows that cannot be right - she aches, confined to the space of the Pandorica, and feels in her heart that the stars must have all burnt out.
She wishes she could ask Rory about the moon. He would not lie to her. The ache sharpens around her gut, and Amy is made of plastic and stardust with just a touch of fairytale.
Too much fairytale.
—X—
And then she gives birth and she can't. Amy Pond just can't. Somebody else - something else - has taken over her body for nine months, and now there is a child in her arms, and she just can't.
She leaves her daughter on the doorstep of her other best friend's apartment. Of course Mels will adopt the infant with open arms - she'll recognize that shock of hair anywhere. Amy feels safe in the belief that her child will grow to be a mirror image of her namesake.
It is exactly what she would want for a child - to be unbreakable. It never seemed to matter what happened to Mels. She was the one who would always bounce back with a grin, shaking out her hair and jacket, letting the hurt evaporate.
Amy was always jealous of that, though she privately thought Melody and the Doctor would get along quite well.
And just like that, the problem melts away, slipping from her mind, gone. She was right, Rory did wait, standing guard those thousands of years she was trapped in the Pandorica – the Pandorica with all its white space and harsh lines, the Pandorica with the taste of ozone and hospital sheets. Rory is sympathetic and horrified on her behalf, but he is still her Rory and he protects her. On some level Amy supposes she misses her daughter but that is not how it is meant to be.
Amy Pond in the TARDIS with Rory Williams. The universe is right once more.
—X—
The Doctor only intervenes when there are children crying. Amy Pond never sees her daughter again - proof that young Melody Pond lives a beautiful life.
—X—
The Doctor gives her a home in the TARDIS, a home with a bold blue door and a kitchen all for herself and Rory to share. She reads in between adventures, spotting the Doctor in far-off historical events while Rory sits in front of the telly.
"Do you have to watch the same thing all the time?" she asks.
"If you're tired of it, find a new programme yourself," he teases her back.
She rolls her eyes but in the end, it's always her that flips the channel. Rory gets the jokes she doesn't, but that's all right. She likes to hear him laugh.
—X—
There is fire on the horizon when Amy raises her glass to the Doctor's toast. The wine shimmers in the light of the setting sun, casting a red gleam on the curve of her hand. Amy stares down at the drink, mesmerized by its vivid colour.
When she takes a sip, she almost spits it out. After so long in the Pandorica, Amy is no longer accustomed to the bitter taste of alcohol. She makes herself swallow, casts flames down her throat.
The Doctor is less inhibited. He spits his mouthful to the ground behind him and makes a face at her.
They are all alone, the two of them - Amy and the Doctor and a bottle of wine - alone. Her chest compresses. She stares up at the sun, moves her gaze to the cliff. There is a figure in the distance, watching them.
When she blinks, the cliff is empty and Rory is asking her what is wrong.
—X—
Sometimes silence falls in Amy's head. It happens when she is alone, when Rory is gone and the Doctor is out and she is standing in the middle of the TARDIS with the pull of the universe in her ears.
Amy Pond in the TARDIS. Everything feels wrong.
When the silence hits, she will close her eyes and breathe slowly, carefully, barefoot in her nightgown with galaxies swirling behind her eyelids and an echo inside her head. The Doctor always notices when he returns, calling it her "serious face." Sometimes, when he fails to make her smile, he will glance over her shoulder and call awkwardly for Rory. The Doctor is a good friend.
Usually her husband returns quickly after that, poking his head out from behind the door, tousle-headed from sleep and massaging a kink out of his neck. The bunk beds they share are too short for his lanky frame. "Amy? Are you alright?"
And the TARDIS exhales around her and she is alright.
—X—
The Doctor takes her to a ship in the eye of a storm and Amy hears the song of the deceased. The winds howl but the waves are still and she looks for Rory but cannot find him.
Most of the sailors are dead. The Captain's son is dying of typhoid.
Amy catches her reflection in the glass of a mirror and sees another world in there, inverted and wrong and captivating all at once. She finds herself trapped in the image, calling for help in a silent voice. The Doctor takes her hand, pulls her away.
"You have to save me," Rory tells her, his voice beating a rhythm in her head, "I trust you."
She's the one that has to do it because she's the only one that can. The Doctor might give up. Amy never will.
—X—
Two Streams is a hospital for people with multiple hearts. Amy feels that way sometimes, as if there is a balloon tied to one wrist and an anchor to the other, both ribbons stretching away from her body, out into space. Sometimes she feels as if they will tear her in two.
The Doctor reassures her that the medicine is a kindness but Amy knows kindness can kill. She arms herself with layered clothing and hides her face behind a mask. Two Streams is not a place for laughter and the stars haven't followed her here, either. Rory is gone and the Doctor has left her behind.
Everything is too quiet for Amy to sleep safely. It isn't long before she is fighting for her life.
—X—
She played Doctor as a child and even though all the evidence said he was just an imaginary friend, Amy never gave up. And so they can't tell her Rory is imaginary, either. Because he can't be. They're married, after all. It was the happiest day of her life.
—X—
The Doctor finds her in Two Streams and she nearly faints. He carries Amy back to her bed and she prepares to escape.
She regains consciousness in the TARDIS and looks into Rory's eyes. He asks her how she's feeling and all she remembers is leaving behind the days. She pretends.
She'd forgotten how much she loved being that girl: Amy Pond in the TARDIS with Rory Williams.
—X—
She kneels on the floor and stares up at the moon behind her window. Today is a lonely day when all she can do is hang on. Rory is standing guard outside the door. He's a Centurion again for her. Sometimes he's just Rory and sometimes he's Rory the nurse but when she needs him to protect her, he's Rory the Roman.
She always needs him to protect her.
The Doctor's sitting on the floor beside her. He takes her hand and draws her close.
"It's changing me," she whispers, "It's changing my thoughts."
She's clinging to him just as she's clinging to Rory and it hurts. The two hearts of Two Streams are tearing her apart and she can't bear it for much longer. She's a child again, wishing for the Doctor to invite her on another adventure. She's a torn and broken woman, longing for the day her husband no longer needs to stand guard outside the room.
"Amy Williams," the Doctor says, and he taps her lightly on the chin, "It's time to stop waiting."
—X—
The past, the present, the future are killing each other all at once and this time there is no miracle ending.
There is fire on the horizon, and Amelia Pond cries. She can no longer feel Rory's hand on her shoulder.
—X—
End.
-x-
A/N: And just in case you didn't see what we were doing - this entire fic is written as though Amy hallucinates Rory after his death. Drop us a line to let us know if it worked and what you think! Cheers!