The Girl Who Watched
Part One
by Kiley S. Snape
"Raggedy Man," I murmured tremulously, and spun around to look at my best friend, "Good bye."
The Angel's touch was warm despite my thought of it being cold like stone. In fact, it felt almost like the Doctor's. I fell beyond space and time, and felt like I was an old piece of linen being torn apart in all different directions.
"Oi! Watch where you're going!"
I was not in Manhattan anymore that was for certain. I spun aimlessly about, looking at all the flashing billboards that blared their messages and advertisements all around me. I even saw a few photographs of myself. "London, my time," I concluded tremulously.
"Come in," a baritone voice snapped, impatiently waving me into the building.
He knows me- so that could only mean… a broad, watery grin broke out on my face as I hurried inside. My Raggedy Man had already found me.
"Oh hello, dear," an elderly woman greeted me warmly, "A case for the boys?"
I shot her a perplexed frown before I followed the Doctor up the narrow flight of stairs. "Are we here to see a friend? Can they help us get Rory?" I asked breathlessly.
The Doctor ignored me, not even so much as a backwards glance to assure me that he knew I was there. "John!" he called out, dropping unceremoniously into a chair.
"You're back already?" a shorter man said as he walked into the room from the kitchen, "I thought you were going to be a whi- I- I know you!" He pointed a finger at me with wide eyes.
"Well, I don't know you," I grumbled, and turned my attention back to the Doctor. My Raggedy Man had his eyes closed and his fingers steepled beneath his nose.
"You're Amy Pond!" the other man continued, "Amy Pond, the model, is in our flat!"
"John, we're out of biscuits," the Doctor announced suddenly, bright eyes open.
"What?"
"The biscuits, John," the Doctor snapped, and stared intently at my person with those emotionless aquamarine eyes. He waited until John had left before he honed in one me like a trained bloodhound. What had happened to my best friend to result in such vacant, lifeless eyes?
"Where did you come from?" the Doctor demanded from behind his fingers, "You don't belong here- more importantly, you don't want to belong here. Pupil dilated, escalated heartbeat…you're frightened and overwhelmed. Everyone else is dull enough to fall for the smokescreen you call your identity, but I will not allow it. Mycroft or Moriarty?"
"Doctor," I began tremulously, scared that this regeneration of my best friend had become so akin to the unfeeling Cybermen and Daleks, "It's me-"
"-I assure you, I am not a doctor," the man remarked coldly, "Who do you work for?"
"No one!" I answered in earnest, "I want to go back- take me back. I want to be with Rory…I don't care if I can't have you- I want my Rory!"
"Have you gone mad? Stark staving?"
"Sherlock!" John exclaimed as he came back with a bag from the shop around the corner, "Are you here with a case for Sherlock? I am sorry if he was rude- he gets cross with details."
"Why…Why does he keep calling you 'Sherlock'?" I quipped.
"Because that would be my name," the ice man, Sherlock, simpered.
"Right," I scoffed, "And he is Dr. John Watson."
"Well- yes," John said with a scowling frown, "Sherlock, did you drug her? What did I tell you about doin-"
"-Bloody hell! You two can't exist! Yer fictional characters from a book!"
"I'm phoning Lestrade," John announced.
"Too late," Sherlock Holmes dismissed, "Mycroft has already arrived."
I dropped into the chair behind me, faintly wincing as my tailbone caught a support bar, and held my hair away from my face with a clammy hand. Melody was wrong- the Angel did not take me to the man who waited two thousand years to love me, but to a man who possessed the Doctor's worst traits…and instead of having two hearts, like my beloved time lord, Sherlock Holmes had none.
"How could Mycroft already know?" John Watson demanded.
"Because of his surveillance," Sherlock explained impatiently.
"Sherlock," the elderly woman announced, "Your brother is here-"
"-Obviously, Mrs. Hudson, given the fact that you have been drawn away from your afternoon show."
"And good morning to you, Sherlock."
"Save the pleasantries," Sherlock growled, and rose suddenly from the sofa. He reached out to take hold of the nearby violin and then plucked away at the strings.
"Still putting up with him then, John?" Mycroft Holmes continued, as if the younger Holmes had not said anything. I ceased my nervous fidgeting when the elder's eyes fell upon me; his right brow twitched in the slightest of quirks to express his intrigue before his expression fell back to disdained aloofness. "Amelia Pond…it seems my brother has attracted the attention of not just one, but two beautiful women," he noted smoothly.
"Whut?" I blurted thickly.
"Oh- what is the phrase," Mycroft murmured, "Ah yes…spoilers."
"You stay away from her," I spat from behind clenched teeth.
"Good day, Mrs. Hudson," Mycroft announced to the lady who lingered in the doorway.
"Do play nice, boys," the woman fretted as she made her way downstairs.
Mycroft waited until she had descended, and then honed in on me with a chilling gaze. "What being brought you here?" he demanded.
"You know, then?" I remarked.
"The occasional file graced my desk," he dismissed in casual airs, earning a scoff from Sherlock.
"It was an Angel," I explained, hopeful that this Holmes had the means to send me to Rory…or the Doctor, so that the time lord could take me to the former.
Sherlock scoffed once more, John looked skeptical, but I knew Mycroft understood. His lips pursed briefly, and he regarded me with a newfound intrigue. "My my, what trouble you have caused for yourself, Amelia Pond," he tutted, "You certainly know how to rile the wrong sort."
"It's Amy," I corrected tersely, "Not Amelia. I want to go back."
"You can't. We do not possess the technology."
"I'm stuck here?" I whispered hoarsely, the breath in my chest suddenly stolen away. I cast my frantic eye to the far wall- a yellow smiley face spray-painted and marred by bullet holes entered my line of vision. What was this place?
"Unless he personally comes to fetch you, yes. Perhaps next time you will rethink playing with fate when it concerns a Weeping Angel," Mycroft explained as he made for the door, "Take care of this one, brother mine, you may find her…entertaining- more so than your dear doctor."
Hot tears blurred my vision as I gazed down at the floor beneath my feet. A tell-tale flicker of gold on my hand mocked me out of the corner of my eye; my shoulders trembled from the exertion of keeping my sobs silent.
"What was that about?" John inquired faintly.
"Something new," Sherlock purred in strange delight, and he rounded on me.
"Jesus, Sherlock!" John exclaimed as he inserted himself between us, "She isn't something to occupy yourself with when you don't have a case- she is crying, leave her be!" He dug through his coat pocket, his hand resurfaced with a handkerchief, and held it out for me to take.
I dabbed my puffy eyes and flashed him a small, grateful grin. "Thank you," I muttered, and took a tremulous breath. I did not know where to look in this place, and now I understood why the Doctor always paced and darted about like a madman when his mind was overrun with thought. All blurry thought left at the mention of my best friend, and I looked up beneath my smoky lashes.
Sherlock Holmes was staring at me. Cold, calculating eyes pierced mine, and I found myself unable to tear my own away. Yes, the consulting detective before me bore a strange similarity to the Doctor- but the shortcoming was…I can't find the word to aptly describe it.
"I'm not scared of you," I mumbled.
"And why would you be?" Sherlock mused, barely tilting his head to one side.
"You use that head of yours to frighten people," I explained, "But you will never make me afraid of you."
"No, I imagine losing your husband and possibly your daughter will do that just fine."
"Sherlock! What-" John sputtered.
"-No, he is right," I said, "That is one of the few things on this earth that will scare me." The two men regarded each other, and I took in the relationship between the doctor and the consulting detective. It was most peculiar, perhaps that was how Rory- at first- perceived the Doctor and me.
"Do not think of them, the energy wasted over sentiment will yield no result," Sherlock noted, seemingly omnipotent. He idly leaned back, still regarding me to see if he failed to unearth any detail in his initial deductions.
"So, Amy…where are you from?" John asked gently.
"I was born in Scotland, obviously, but moved to Leadsworth to live with my aunt after the disappearance of my parents," I explained, "They got sucked into the crack in my wall, but the Doctor brought them back."
"Nonsense," Sherlock scoffed.
"Many before you had said the same, Sherlock Holmes, but I know the truth. And you will never convince me that all my life has been a hallucination…none of it is a lie," I growled. I looked out the winder, the winter-grey sky blanketed London in a half-hearted attempt to appear laden with the promise of a white Christmas. But nothing compared to the white Christmas that the Doctor has taken me and Rory to.
It was on a planet, whose name I had long forgotten, and the entire place glistened endlessly with what I had first thought to be snow. 'It's stardust, Pond,' the Doctor explained, 'Usually the dust does dark and gets all boring- but this planet!' At that, he clapped his hands together and beamed at me. 'When the bits of dust lands on this planet, it bonds with the surface…and rejuvenates to a smaller version of its former state! Happy Christmas, Pond!'
"Happy Christmas, Raggedy Man," I murmured, uncaring that the two men before me stared.