Notes: So, obvious bumph about this and that, how I own nothing and borrowed this snippet and that bit and the title from the episode itself, mostly all I have to say is...um. Vincent and the Doctor is and always will be one of my favourite episodes, because it just has so much heart. And this, I suppose, is just little bit of mine in return.
The Wonders of the Universe
For the first days after his return, the first days of waking up in his own bed after the overwhelming glimpse they give him of the future, waking up surrounded by Amy's sunflowers, so beautiful and complex and alive, he is truly happy.
He walks out with his paints and his easel, ready for the world and the beautiful terror of living, dreaming of the most wondrous man ever to walk the earth and the girl with hair like fire, brighter than sunflowers.
And oh, does he paint.
Because it stings, terribly, when the Doctor refuses his painting. Yes, it is nothing new, not when so many people reject them even as gifts, but the Doctor and Amy seemed so much more than everyone else. They were kind, made him believe his works weren't as worthless as everyone seemed to think they were, as even he had begun to think they were, but why would they accept? However kind they were, his paintings are nothing.
What they offer him instead is so much better than that, though, than merely taking something as a token of his gratitude. They offer him the future, proof that there is a future and that he has a future. They offer him the love of millions and the promise that one day everyone in the world will know his name.
They offer him hope, worth, a reason to get up in the morning, and it is good.
This is what it means to be alive, and what does it matter that no one appreciates his works now? He doesn't do it for the acclaim, doesn't require recognition or praise. They're nice, certainly, but the canvas and the oils and the colours are all he needs. No one sees the world like he does, the Doctor told him, but they can, they will. He can show them.
And so he paints and he paints, for Amy, girl of fire and beauty and a grief so terrible it is beyond comprehension, hers and everyone else's. He paints and he paints, for the Doctor, the only physician ever to do anything to fix the problems in his mind, even if half of what he did was tell him there was no problem at all. He paints for the man with the tie like the Doctor's, the man who called him great, and for all the people in that room of his paintings, the people who make him believe he matters.
He wakes up surrounded by yellow, sunlight and sunflowers and the glory of being young and human and the only person in all of the universe, a universe so much bigger than he ever had reason to believe, who sees things the way he does. He wakes surrounded by yellow, freedom and beauty and truth, his truth, shaking off the shackles of his sorrow and his fear and the darkness that leaves him empty and yet heavier than anything that has ever been. He wakes surrounded by yellow, joy and life and love, and he paints.
He paints, and the world is beautiful. He paints, and life is good.
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Oh, but even sunflowers die.