Coming For To Carry Me Home

Ten

Disclaimer: Just borrowing, will do returning.

Author's Note: Many thanks to everyone who has commented on this &/or favourite it. It means a lot to lil ol' me. Keep looking out for updates & any ideas feel free to send my way. Enjoy…

"Amelia, we don't need candles. I keep telling you, this isn't a séance!" Mels rolled her eyes at her friend who sighed and began putting away the candles that she had been carefully placing in a circle.

"Fine, fine. Well if it's not a séance and we don't need candles then what do we need to talk to it?" Amelia huffed in reply as she folded her arms across her chest and looked up at her only friend sitting on her bed.

They were dressed in their pyjamas, sitting in Amelia's cold bedroom in her empty house attempting to have a sleep-over but these were no ordinary ten-year-olds and there would be no gossiping about class mates or doing each other's hair here. Instead they were venturing into the supernatural, pushing the bounds of reality and generally trying to work out what had happened in their short lives to make them so different to everyone else.

"Him." Mels corrected quickly. "Not an it, he's a him."

"How'd you know though, if you've never met him?" Amelia asked curiously.

"Well it's urm…" Mels bit down on her lip, thinking. How did she know? "I just know. He sounds like a him. And he wouldn't be a girl. Girls are stupid." She shuddered.

"Hey, I'm a girl." Amelia protested.

"You don't count as a girl." Mels waved her hand dismissively. "You're not like all of them." She whispered the last word, as if talking about something too disgusting to name.

"No, I suppose not." Amelia thought of the other girls at school with their nail varnish and their giggling. She wasn't like that. "But it could be… I mean have you thought it could be…" She swallowed, not too sure how to broach the subject. "It could be your mum."

"No." Mels said quickly. She'd told Amelia, finally, after a lot of pestering and a rushed conversation that covered being alone and receiving notes from the great unknown, that she didn't have any parents. Not any more. Amelia had understood. Of course she had. But the other bit, the complicated bit that involved currently being sat in the same room as her mother, she would never be able to tell her. She didn't even understand it herself. "It's not her. Couldn't be."

"Okay." Amelia agreed quickly. She didn't want to push it, especially when she'd only just begun to find out things about her best friend. "So if we're saying no to candles, how do we talk to him?"

"Well he's always just kind of shown up before, when I've needed him. With notes or with things I need so maybe if we just… ask?" Mels ventured hesitantly.

"Right. Okay. Should we, like, close our eyes or something?"

"Yeah that could work." Mels nodded. "And maybe sit in front of each other? I dunno, they do that kind of stuff in films."

"Okay." Amelia laughed as she clambered up onto the bed and sat cross-legged in front of her friend. "So I guess you should do the talking, since you're the one who knows him?"

"Yeah I suppose." Mels swallowed hard. "Right. Close your eyes then. Urm here goes… I was just wondering if you could give me a sign, talk to us and show me and my friend Amelia that you're… urm… there." She finished lamely.

"Are you done?" Amelia whispered.

"Yeah. Do you think I should say more?"

"No, no that's fine. Shall I open my eyes now?"

"Yeah, go on then." Mels whispered back as the two girls opened their eyes. Cautiously they both looked around the room for some sign, some message meant just for them. The saw nothing.

"He's real, I swear!" Mels shouted as she jumped up off the bed, her fists clenched and her jaw tight. "I'm not lying he's real. I've had messages from him don't you dare call me a liar!" She breathed hard.

"I believe you." Amelia replied calmly, trying to sooth her in the way one would a wild animal.

"You… You do?" Mels repeated in shock.

"Yeah, of course. No one believed me about the Doctor but I know he's real."

"Tell me about him again." Mels pleaded as she sat back down beside her friend. Her trusting friend, her friend who understood.

"He's called the Doctor, just the Doctor and he has a blue box which can travel through time and he came to my house and we ate fish fingers and custard and he said he'd be back…" She trailed off.

"But he's not been?" Mels asked quietly.

"Not yet." Amelia held her head up. "But he will do, one day. I know it."

"Do you think he could be the same as my friend, the one who looks after me?" Mels asked excitedly, hoping to have something that bonded them together.

"I dunno… Maybe." Amelia looked uncertain. "I'm sure we'll find out. When he comes back."

"Do you think he'd…" Mels began before quickly stopping herself.

"Think he'd what?" Amelia asked.

"Do you think he'd like me?" Mels asked quietly.

"Of course! You're my friend, aren't you? We could all go travelling together, run away from this place." Amelia grinned.

"I think, sometimes, that he's the only kind of man I could ever marry." Mels admitted with uncharacteristic shyness.

"Marry? You don't even know him!" Amelia laughed. "And who says he wouldn't want to marry me?"

"You'll marry a normal boy. A nice one who's kind and safe. Who loves you. I could never be like that." Mels shrugged.

"You could have that, too. If you want that." Amelia said kindly.

"Yeah, I suppose." Mels shrugged. "Well thanks, for tonight and that. For trying, and for believing me."

"I thought you were staying over?" Amelia looked confused.

"I better get back, check no one's broken into the flat." Mels smiled as she pulled her coat over her pyjamas, grabbed her shoes and her bag quickly before Amelia could stop her. She knew she should stay but there was a panic rising inside her that could only be quelled by being in her own home, safe from the world. She needed to be somewhere where she knew she wasn't crazy- that she hadn't invented one of the only friends she'd ever had.

When she finally got back inside her flat and closed the door behind her she stood against it for a long time, in the darkness, with her eyes closed. She didn't do opening up, or conversations about boys. She felt a burning mixture of sickness and shame running through her at the thought of all those things she'd said, wishes she'd admitted to, feelings she'd had. And she swore that that would be the last of it. Then she turned on the light. On her bed, next to her blue teddy bear, sat a blue box. A blue box like the one Amelia had made but different somehow, newer looking and shiny. She knew it was for her. That it was something she would never tell Amelia about because Amelia wouldn't want to know- she thought that the Raggedy Doctor was just for her but Mels new better.

As she lay down on her bed she clutched her new present to her chest. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to imagine. That one day in the future he would come back, her oldest friend and Amelia's imaginary friend, and he'd take them away. They'd have adventures together, be the best of friends. Maybe he'd even be able to fix it so they'd be properly like mother and daughter, with his time machine and all. They'd run away from this place, from their empty houses and lonely lives and they'd fly into the sky. Maybe they'd even get married. Maybe he was so magic he could fix her so she could be loved by someone, and could love them too. Maybe. She knew it was a lot to ask but it was a dream. A dream she was going to cling to with everything she had.

Reviews are fabulous.

[Author's Note 2: I feel the need to explain here that I don't believe Mel's conditioning to be the 'weapon' to kill the Doctor kicks in till much later, if you look at the flashbacks in LKH she always seems pro-Doctor and the idea that she used to want to marry him when she was little implies to me that, until she met him, she had no idea what she was programmed to do. Otherwise surely she would have just left Amy & Rory & hunted him down? Anyway, this is why I think it is okay for her to know (or at least suspect) that the Doctor is her mystery friend- as long as she doesn't come into direct contact with him. Hope that makes sense!]