Well hello there lovlies! (...o.O?) I was so impressed with the response for the first chapter that I've been working dead hard to get this one done! So so so so so so grateful for the reviews! Keep them coming?
And, for the disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. That honour lies with the BBC.
Trying to find something, anything, to distract him from Amelia Pond, the Doctor wandered helplessly around the TARDIS corridors. It was wasted; anything he did reminded him of Amy. His chest felt heavy with the burden of his hearts. They were weighed down by the immense guilt that his actions had spurred. He continued pacing down the corridors, not bothering to look at which rooms he passed. If anything, he'd be grateful to get lost. The Doctor sighed. No matter how long he kept walking, the TARDIS would always get him back to where he needed to be. There was no escape and he'd never felt so... dead before.
Amy shivered, the cold wind biting at her cheeks. The energy she required to move still hadn't returned to her, and she remained heaped on the grass. Mindlessly, her fingers pulled at the green tufts. Her eyes settled on the empty space before her, the image of the TARDIS dematerialising playing over and over again in her head. She tried to look away, but the heart-breaking image followed her. Briefly she wondered if it were possible to die of a broken heart. Her life was nothing without the Doctor, and she knew that. Without him she was a frightened little girl who could never protect herself. In leaving her, he'd opened up a whole new realm of hell. Amy was almost angry, how could he put her through this again? Did he even know what he'd let her in to? Did he even care?
"Amy! What are you doing out there?" The familiar voice had Amy dragging her eyes away from her painfully empty garden. The figure stood, half leaning out of the door, half hiding behind it from the cold.
"D-D..." She tried to say his name, but it was stuck in her throat.
"It's okay Amy. I'm here, you're safe." Rory's arms wrapped around her shoulders. The feeling was alien; she didn't want to be in anyone's arms but his. And he was gone.
"N-" Her words, or what there was of them, were incoherent.
"Let's get you inside,"
She felt her anatomy being pulled away from the ground, but her frame was too weak for her to stand. She wobbled uncertainly as Rory heaved her limp arm over his shoulders.
"Walk for me Amy."
Amy took tentative steps forward.
"That's it." Rory said encouragingly.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor was still wandering aimlessly around the matrix of corridors. His mind was a mess. Different thoughts of 'Amy' and 'Leave' and 'Hate' and 'Guilt' circled him, making him feel trapped in his own mind. A sharp sting of chlorine through his nose brought him somewhat back to reality. He reached out with a pallid hand to push open the elusive door. The pungent scent of swimming pool water wasn't what got him first. He'd promised Amy this room when she was seven years old. Before he'd left her the first time. Tears surged forward, threatening to overpower him. Feeling helpless and lost, he gave in, letting his emotions engulf him. The light bounced off of the water, bathing him in double the light. He felt like the TARDIS was putting a spotlight on him, only illuminating his state when what he wanted most was to hide it. The Doctor didn't cry for just anyone.
Amy wasn't just anyone to him. She was his one.
Amy's eyes fluttered open as she felt a nudge on her shoulder. Her heart spiked, thinking the Doctor had returned for her. Her face dropped as Rory came into view. He sat next to her on a stool he'd taken from her kitchen, twisting his fingers together nervously. She refused the reality in front of her, trying to get herself back to sleep where she could dream that nothing had ever happened. Of course, now that she was awake she had to face it. There was no escape now.
"Are you feeling okay, Amy?" Rory asked, concerned for his wife's health, both mentally and physically. "You've been acting strange in your sleep. Is something wrong?"
The situation called for total honesty, but Amy couldn't bring herself to say it. She couldn't hurt him, no matter how much she was hurting herself. She smiled at her husband fakely. Her husband.
"Everything's fine." She croaked, feeling her heart split even more as the lie left her lips.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
The Doctor stared at his reflection in the pool water, shocked at himself. His eyes were sunken and bleak, missing the ordinary warmth. They screamed broken at him, so loud it was as if there really was a voice shouting at him. The pressure on his skull was increasing as his thoughts pushed out. He needed to expel them, talk to someone. He stood for a moment, ready to go and find Amy, before realising where she was. He'd pushed away the only person that he would ever be able to open up too. He'd pushed her away when they both needed each other the most. How could he tolerate this endless life knowing that as his last act, he'd broken three hearts beyond repair?
After meeting Amy, his exit wounds losing Rose left him had finally begun to heal. Now that he'd left her too they were begin ripped open again, deeper than before. They ate through him until he was a shell. In losing Amy he'd lost himself. The only way to get himself back was to go back and get her. He shook his head at how tempting the idea sounded.
"She belongs to Rory. Not you." He thought aloud. "Get that out of your thick head."
Amy hadn't eaten in days. Her cheeks were gaunt and her eyes were dim. Her hair fell lifelessly around her face, sticking to her wet cheeks where she hadn't stopped crying. She had thought it impossible that a human could cry so much in the space of two days. Two days knowing that the person you love left you, again.
She couldn't comprehend his actions. Had he been lying to her when he said he loved her? Her raggedy Doctor had manipulated her heart, leaving it for dead when he left. The awful thing was that Amy would let him do it all again if it meant she was with him. This state, this crying, broken, alone state, wasn't her. She wasn't her without him. She was convinced that they were made to be together. Love knows no age, or species. Or so Amy thought.
Her bedroom door creaked open and Rory poked his head through the gap. His stomach wrenched at the sight of her. She looked so ill. Rory wanted to help her, but she wouldn't tell him what was wrong. Amy's emotions remained locked up inside her, when what she really needed was to let them out. That was impossible in itself. She would never open up to anyone ever again after last time. Last time had cost her the one thing she was sure was right in her life.
She'd never been particularly lucky, being tormented all her life as she waited for her fantastic Doctor to return to her. People had laughed, and teased, and threatened. They wanted her gone, and when her Doctor returned, she would be. Only Rory had ever made her smile. She loved him, but as a brother or a best friend. Not as a husband, not as a boyfriend and never more as a faithful companion. He'd been there when no one else was, offering himself to her to make her feel loved. To make her know someone actually cared.
If the Doctor was ever going to get over Amy, he had to destroy the evidence that she was ever even there. He heaved himself out of the pool room, throwing a wistful look over his shoulder before heading to find Amy's bedroom. His hearts felt heavy as he wandered the corridors, silently praying that he'd never find the room. Unfortunately, he knew exactly where to go. The door was still ajar, and the Doctor could just make out the shadow of her bed. The TARDIS would've altered the room to any way Amy required it. Through that door was the place she'd always wanted to be. Even if she wasn't here physically, her deepest wishes were in that room.
He almost didn't want to see, it felt like a betrayal. But it was famed that the Doctor's curiosity would eventually get the better of him. After what felt like aeons hesitating a few steps back, he nudged the door with his foot, letting it swing open slowly. For all the Doctor knew, he could've been stepping into Amelia's bedroom back in Leadworth. Everything was identical, and for once in his expansive life, the Doctor was lost for words. The TARDIS had created every last detail perfectly. The Doctor smiled. A heart broken, melancholy smile. He spotted a red sphere on the desk and nearly choked on the sudden surge of emotion. The face he'd carved into an apple he'd taken from Amelia's kitchen smiled back at him, fresh as it was all those years ago.
"Oh Amy." The Doctor sighed, collapsing onto her bed, trying not to disturb the untidy mess Amy had left the covers in. Her scent still lingered on the fabric, swirling up his nose, rendering him helpless. Tears began to stain her pillow as the Doctor drifted into a painful, sadness-induced, dreamless sleep.
"I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time"
The subconscious mind was a wonderful thing.
By some miracle, both the Doctor and Amy had fallen prey to the torment of sleep, harmlessly dreaming of each other across the cosmos. Neither had what would be described as perfect sleep, it was more like experiencing hell with your eyes closed. Amy's faint cries in the dead of night were not enough to worry Rory; he'd grown accustomed to the sounds echoing around the too-large house. Normally, her wails would relate to some terrifying recount of the day her Doctor had forced her out of the TARDIS. However, tonight her dreams were much more high-spirited, and for once she didn't want to wake up.
The dream was extraordinarily simplistic, and contained nothing more than the Doctor and her curled up on her bed in the TARDIS. Amy was convinced she could feel the warmth of his breath against the back of her neck, the double throb of his hearts in his chest as they merely existed alongside each other.
The Doctor's dream was similar, far too similar to just be coincidence. There was an underlying psychic link that connected him and Amy. All it had taken was a week apart to establish a strong enough connection to keep them together, even when it seemed impossible. The Doctor, being the frivolous, wondrous man he was, was not designed for such trivial things as falling in love, yet here he was, dreaming of the woman who had coveted his two hearts.
He didn't want them to belong to anyone else but her.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Rory stared at Amy – or what was left of her. The girl he'd fallen for all those years ago wasn't who was sat in front of him now. His Amy would never consider herself to be associated with this new model. He knew he could never hate Amy, but he hate what she'd become. The Doctor had stolen away her very essence with no good intention of doing anything with it. Anger bubble deep in the pit of Rory's stomach. Why had she chosen to run off with him when she knew very well that it would only ever end badly? Was life with him really that bad?
Reluctantly, Amy nibbled at the toast Rory had prepared for her. Her senses were going crazy, but her appetite was not. She had no desire to eat; there was nothing to eat for. Amy had no motivation to live anymore. Yes, the Doctor had returned for her before, but she couldn't take any more of this loneliness. It was slowly tearing her apart.
Discarding her surprisingly empty plate on the kitchen table, Amy retreated to the apparent safety of her bedroom. Careful not to disturb anything, she hadn't touched anything. Her hands swung limply at her sides, her fingers twitching to go through the boxes upon boxes of her childhood memories. Correction: childhood memory. All those boxes would ever contain was her raggedy Doctor. Amy was particularly good at blocking out painful memories such as her non-existent childhood, but not even she was strong enough to obstruct the certain onslaught of emotion.
The TARDIS whirred in soft contention as the Doctor tapped in a random location code. He needed to get away, anywhere in the universe was better than this great empty box without Amy.
"Come on old girl," He whispered to the glowing console. "Where should we go?" He dragged a laborious finger across the console, letting his wonder box take him anywhere in the universe. Instead of the normal excitement flooding his too-heavy heart, he seemed sadder than ever. His mind conjured up fantastic memories of his ginger companion's smile, spreading across her face as the anticipation took hold. He thought his memories would make him feel more composed.
In reality, he'd never felt so devastatingly alone.
The Doctor allowed his eyes to roam around the control room so he couldn't see where the TARDIS was taking him. There was a certain thrill to the entire business of it, it wasn't a feeling you could quite forget, but it had definitely dimmed compared to the past. He hoped that she hadn't taken him anywhere near Earth, he doubted he could handle merely being on the same planet as Amy.
The metallic thud his shoes made as he dragged his sorry self to the door echoed around the too-large, too-lonely room. Still, he had no clue where the TARDIS had deposited him. Secretly, he was hoping for the Rhaeadron, he still had unfinished business to attend to. But, that could wait until he'd seen what waited for him outside those doors. The TARDIS buzzed with an odd thrill that seemed to seep from the central column. His old girl was clearly happy about something, and that meant a whole world of dread for the Doctor. When your time machine started getting excited, you knew something serious was happening outside its doors.
Apprehensively, the Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS door. He sniffed the air suspiciously, recognising the atmosphere as that of Earth's. If the TARDIS could, she'd be chuckling to herself now, pleased that her plan was coming together. Even without a living, physical form, she could sense the depression weighing down on her Timelord. He was ruined without his Amy Pond, and his fabulous machine would do anything to put a smile on his old, weary face.
"Oh you-" The Doctor sighed, beginning to retreat back to the console. The TARDIS was having none of it, locking her controls so he'd be forced to step outside.
"Please. I'm not ready." He whimpered, getting the sense of just what part of Earth lay outside the TARDIS doors.
He knew he'd recognised the atmosphere. Not because it belong to Earth. No.
It belonged to Leadworth, England.
Amelia Pond's back garden, to be more precise.
Amy was oblivious to the guest in her garden as she sat cross legged on her floor, staring at the thread-bare carpet. A candle burned dimly in front of her, providing the only light in the room. She had her back to the closed door, so if Rory walked in he wouldn't be able to see what she was doing. Slowly, she counted the scars on her left arm. Nineteen of them. Each one was a painful reminder of the days she'd been left behind. Amy's twisted logic stated that if she could reroute the pain from her heart to her arm, it may become bearable. And thus, at midnight every night for the past nineteen days, Amy had bought the blade to her wrist.
She eyed the clock on her desk, watching the seconds tick away. 11:59. Breathing deeply, Amy began to prepare herself. The razor blade she'd borrowed from her bathroom cabinet sat in front of her crossed legs, illuminated by the candlelight. She had not got round to cleaning off the blood from last night's wound, as it clung to the blade. She grimaced, knowing it would make it more painful.
Anything to get rid of this heartache, for however brief a time.
The Doctor edged along the hallway towards Amy's creaking staircase, his hearts going at triple the rate they should. Just above his head slept the amazing, beautiful Amelia Pond. He could barely wait to be reunited with her after what felt like so long apart. Even if no words were spoken, he felt like his hearts would explode at the sight of her.
Amy sighed, ten seconds to go. Lifting the blade in her numb fingers, she placed it on her forearm. Six, five, four, three, two… Painstakingly slowly, she began to apply pressure.
"Amy?"
And that, my beauties, is what my mind has been screaming for ever since Monday!
Honestly hope you guys enjoyed it, I always feel like the second chapter never lives up to the first! If you liked it, or there's anything you didn't like, tell me in a review? Virtual hugs from Gillan if you do!
Maddie,