In the corner of a room, a redhead sat shivering. She was clad in her own clothes, something rare for someone in her condition, but Amy Pond wasn't a normal patient. She would scream and kick and lash out whenever she was removed from what she deemed something normal. Often, she would sit in a corner, muttering about a man called the Doctor and a bigger-on-the-inside blue box, and angels and demons, and a little girl.
Amy Pond decided as soon as she arrived at the institute that she would escape. She stole a weapon (a fork, hardly a weapon, but in the hands of someone desperate…), and whispered to the window, "Doctor, I'm coming back home."
And somewhere, miles away, an angel said to his friends, "I wish the circumstances were different." He was silent for a beat, gathering his thoughts, shaking his head. "Much of the time…" he paused yet again, his voice and face distressed, words unable to form. "I'd rather be here."
"Cas, we know you got a steaming pile on your plate. There's no need for apologies," Dean replied. He knew how much Cas cared for Amy, and Dean knew that Cas wanted to keep her safe and watch after her. "We're your friends. And so is she."
Amy Pond ran. She ran into the TARDIS (a shed, really. a shed.) and she played make-believe. "Doctor, I'm home!" she cried, twirling around, thinking that the TARDIS was rumbling and wheezing as it took off, and she laughed. It was only as she exited that two scenarios hit her at once, and suddenly, the hand in hers faded away first and the real world hit her. She could remember, in a spot like this, meeting Cas. He'd been wounded—a fight with an angel. And she'd taken him back to her hotel and cared for him until he was healthy. In return, he'd taken her in, too, and introduced her to his "family" as he'd called it. She knew what he was, and she knew there was no relation, but if he called them family, they were good enough for her…
That thought faded, and a grin crossed her face as she remembered (or so she thought) meeting the Doctor. "Hello. I'm the Doctor," he'd said, grinning. "I'm an alien with two hearts and twenty-seven brains, and I'm going to save the world in twenty minutes with no sonic and no TARDIS."
"Castiel," Cas had said after she'd introduced herself. "I'm an angel of the world."
To both, she'd replied, "I don't believe you."
She'd fallen—she and Rory both. They tumbled, together, off of the side of the building. High above, the Doctor's scream rang out. "AMY!"
"You're scared. Don't be scared. I won't let you get hurt," Cas had promised, holding onto her as she dangled from the side of a building.
"Geronimo," she'd whispered to both.
Running again, she was terrified. Was this real? What was real? Was it the Doctor or Cas? Her mind decided before her as she skidded to a halt, spots flying across her vision as the little dancing girl appeared. Her mind told her it was real, and Amy didn't fight. Instead, she took off running again, with the Doctor, towards the Daleks.
"Who killed all of the Daleks?" asked Rory, peering around.
Crowley, having the Winchester brothers pinned, let them go with a snap at the aliens' name, eyes widening. He knew what came with the Dalek threat. The Oncoming Storm. Ignoring the question, Crowley began, "If I can… help out, in any other—"
"Answer him!" Dean ordered, his growling voice loud and forceful.
"Who d'you think?" asked the Doctor, a half-smirk slipping across his face. Of course he knew. He always knew.
"It was River," Crowley said, and Amy could see it, River with her gun, a smirk on her face. My daughter, Amy thought.
The young woman's brain was often a gray area, where everything was real.
Images of white robots and threats of death danced in Amy's head, right along with the little dancer girl, and she smashed her weapon against the thing, rushing out of the way of the needle destined to kill her, hitting again and again. And then she ran, trusting the little dancer girl to tell her where she was safe.
In the real world, Dean hit the floor with a groan, panic stabbing through his stomach as he saw the wild, untamed fear in Amy's eyes. Sam found him there, where Amy had painted the words Doctor, I'm waiting, on the door in bright red lipstick.
"We almost got ourselves killed!" Sam exclaimed angrily over the top of the Impala, not understanding how his brother could be so stupid to risk himself time and time again. "I mean, how many times do we risk our asses for this? Enough's enough!"
"Sam—"
"I don't think I want her back."
Dean felt betrayed. He thought he could trust Sam and Cas both to always be in his corner. He was shocked into silence by his brother's statement for a moment. "You don't even know what you're saying."
Turning, Sam replied plainly, "No, I'm saying something you don't like."
"On the outside, it said police box," Amy began, preparing to fire off a bunch of questions to the Doctor, her voice high-pitched from fear and excitement, speaking far too quickly. "Why have you labeled a time machine 'police box'? Why not 'time machine'? Is that too obvious? What is a police box? Do policemen come in boxes? How many did you get? Are you a policeman?"
"You're wrong," Dean told his brother. They needed Amy—they needed her safe and well. "You don't know how wrong you are."
"I'm not sure 'bout that," Sam said as he walked away.
"You've just witnessed your own future!" the Doctor exclaimed as they ran. "We're not safe, now."
In the real world, Amy was running. From what? A confrontation with Crowley. In the real world, Dean sighed at the mess that the female hunter had left. "She's smart, I'll give her that. That's gonna kill her, too."
"Why doesn't the air get out?" Amy asked, her tone pitching up again. "It is made of wood! Oh, you've got a wooden time machine. D'you feel stupid?"
The Doctor had increased the oxygen bubble around the TARDIS, and he pushed her out into space, grinning at her delighted expression as her ginger hair floated above her head and she laughed. "I'm in space!"
They were torturing a demon to try and find her, and they didn't get anything. So Cas twisted his hand and the demon's vessel burst into flames. With a shriek, the demon forced its way out and flew into the night. The ashen remains of the vessel dropped to the ground with a soft puffing noise.
Amy Pond had seen living wooden dolls, doors you could press a button and see a whole new world, frightened children that were actually aliens, and an aborted timeline where she grew old waiting for the Doctor, and she was chased by white robots trying to kill her. She killed them first.
They had Crowley in a demon's track. And that didn't end up too well. He flung his knife upwards and broke the trap, and then pinned both of them against the wall. When Cas brought forth Crowley's bones, he let the Winchesters go.
The little dancer stayed with her at Demon's Run, where Amy had her baby, named Melody, and she knew that the tiny dancer was watching over the Doctor and Rory. She didn't know how she knew. She just knew.
When the angels fell, Amy snapped back to the world. Her eyes horrified, she stared at the skies, all thoughts of the Doctor flying away with the angels' wings.
During her lucidity, she was taken by demons—Crowley's agents. And they helped her.
"Listen, Sam," Cas began. "We'll find another way."
"You really wanna help? Prison full of monsters—can't just leave 'em, can't let 'em go."
"I understand," Cas replied, and he was gone.
Dean pressed his face into his hands, sending a silent prayer to Cas, newly an angel again, to grab Amy before he did anything to burn down Crowley's prison."
Instead of Cas coming for her, Amy saw River, and she saw the Silence falling.
As they left, she saw the little dancer for the last time.
Holding the struggling redhead tightly with one arm, Cas brought up one hand and, with a single touch, cured her.
In a flash of blinding white light, it lifted. "Cas," she breathed, slumping against the angel.
Later that night, while Amy slept in the Bunker, Cas said to Dean, a faint smile playing around his lips, "Good things do happen."