Okay. Without wanting to spoil, it's now imperative for me to say that there are trigger warnings for this next big part of the story (not this chapter in particular, but the next few). In particular: self-harm, suicide, depression (there are vague references to self-harm in this one). Please don't feel you have to read on if that is a concern for you.
If you have plot concerns stemming from that – I know what I'm doing, I think. I'm not doing this for kicks, believe me.
Now, we are, if you'll recall, back in the prologue scene. This chapter is a bit different, a bitshorter, sort of a reset button in a way. POV shifts will start in this chapter too. Thanks to Laura for beta-ing for me and for generally being awesome.
ACT TWO: Anger
Christmas Day, 2018.
Amelia has never understood time. Not really, anyway.
Oh sure, she has a vague grasp of how it affects her, mostly from personal experience with fractured timelines and interwoven pasts that she still can't quite untangle. But she doesn't understand how it works, its ebbs and flows, how it shapes and plays with her life and, most of all, how it always leads her to a moment like this.
A moment like here and now, with him, after four and half years of loneliness, after seven years of waiting for him – again. As she always does.
"How long?" the Doctor asks her, and she can hear a note of desperation in her voice – but it only hardens her resolve. Where was that concern when she actually needed it, years before?
"About four and a half years."
She can see the Doctor's face fall, his eyes widen as he realises just how much her life has changed, but she doesn't react. One of the things she's learnt – one of many things, so many – is that however fast you run, however thoroughly you try to evade time's grasp it always, always catches up to you, doesn't it?
No, she doesn't react. She can't. This is her life now, and if time has taught her anything, it's that she can't run from her past. She can't hide from her loneliness. It's who she is, and who she'll always be.
Before long, the night grows increasingly cold and silent, the gaps in their conversation stretching outwards before them, the emptiness between their words filled only by the sound of refilled wine glasses and the teasing crackle of the fire.
They sit on opposite sides of her table, facing each other without always making eye contact. He tries to tell her tall tales about the days and adventures he's had since they last saw each other, and she loves each and every one of them. She laughs at the right times, smiles when she's supposed to, drops little balls of wit in exactly the gaps he happens to leave in his stories – but she's always aware that they're his adventures, not theirs, and she certainly doesn't share any of her own.
He's trying to make her, though. Oh, she knows that he's trying. She's spent too long around him, she knows the games he plays and the devious little tricks he likes to spring beneath that silly face and goofy demeanour of his. Once upon the time they would have worked, and he'd have opened her up like a book, her deepest secrets and hidden fears written in clear black-and-white for him to peruse at his leisure.
But she's older and wiser now, and she manages to evade them right up until that moment where stops talking and starts asking. He asks about what she's been doing, about the seven years she'd spent in her supposedly happy and normal life, and…
Well, it's not like talking is her strong point.
It wasn't like this once, Amelia knows. Back when he was her magical, raggedy Doctor, and she was his mad, impossible Amy, barely a moment's silence had passed between them, only stopping to catch their breath. They played off each other, locked in what she'd foolishly hoped was an endless dance across time and space. The ginger and the alien.
Now, though, that feels a lifetime away.
She sighs. At a bare minimum, it's definitely uncomfortable, and this isn't supposed to be uncomfortable. She's supposed to have missed him – and that means catching up, not sitting there and scratching an itch on her wrist.
"So anyway," she begins, after they'd spent a long minute in total silence, "how long has it been for you, anyway? I mean, it's been seven for me, but I'm guessing it's been closer to seventy for you. Or seven hundred."
"Oi! I'm not that old," he says, pouting a little as he did so, his back straightening a little in mock indignation. "I'm twelve hundred and six, thank you very much. I've matured."
She giggles a little at that. Well, she has missed him after all.
"If you say so," she says, a thoughtful half-smile having made its way to her face. "So that means-"
"A hundred years? More or less, since-"
"The lake." She averts her eyes, as the memory finds its way inexorably to her mind's eye. Even now, she can still see the golden mist rising, she could still hear the crack of the gunshot, she could still feel the coarseness of the tweed against her cheek as she listened in vain for his heartbeats between her own wracking sobs-
But she doesn't let herself drift down that path again. Can't. That's what she's been told, right? You can't keep reliving the past, they'd said, without any real understanding of what the word past means to her. Regardless, they know best, so she pushes it out of her mind.
"Right. Yeah. So, a hundred years?" She takes another sip of wine, her fourth glass of the evening. "Picked up any more hot stuff on the way?"
He seems perturbed by that, oddly enough. Surely he knows what she means? "Pond-"
"Oh, come on," she says before he gets any further, adding a derisive snort for effect. "You can't have been stuck in that box of yours all by yourself, right? Come on, spill the beans. Was she hot?"
His faces twitches and his lips thin as he shifts a little in his chair. "Amelia, there hasn't been-"
"How many were there?" She presses on, ignoring his interjections completely. "Were they blondes? I bet most of them were, you love them-"
"Amy."
She stops talking at once.
"I haven't – I mean, I haven't like that," he says, his eyes not quite meeting hers. "Not like you – not since you and Rory."
She swallows. "No one?"
"No one."
She takes a moment to consider that, the idea of the mad, flighty alien traversing time and space on his own in that machine which is far, far too big on the inside. Maybe he was waiting – but for what? Certainly not her. The last seven years are proof enough of that, and she knows a thing or two about waiting. And since when were his friends irreplaceable?
Maybe he wants her to feel sorry for him. Maybe she should feel sorry for him, that he's spent tens if not hundreds of years all alone compared to her mere four and a half, but like hell she's about to do that. The idiot has a time machine, he could have come back to her any time he wanted.
She doesn't have such luxuries.
"Oh. Well, never mind that now," she continues casually, taking another sip of wine. Whatever she may think and whatever he might have done, he's still her best friend. She still misses him. "So what about today, then? How'd you end up here?"
"Not quite sure, to be honest," he says with a shrug, relaxing again after the little awkward moment before. "Though yesterday I rode a sled down the palace of the Ice Queen, created three new colours, rode a horse across Coventry – oh, and think I invented pasta last week." He lists them one after the other, ticking them off his fingers as if he'd prepared them in advance.
He probably had, now that she thinks about it. She can't help but smile, though – this is exactly what she misses. Although…
"Pasta? Really?"
He shrugs. "Apparently. Didn't mean to."
"Like the way we 'didn't mean to end up on that mud planet', yeah?"
"Hey, that was fun-" he begins to say, but she just snorts before he can finish the sentence.
"Ruined my best skirt, you did," she grumbles, but there's still a smile playing on her lips as the memory of that day, manic, mad and mud-stained, comes back to her.
"I got you a new one!" he exclaims, his jaw set out in a wonderfully offended manner. "Besides, you weren't complaining when you were made queen…"
He drifts into a half-ramble, reminiscing of days long gone, of memories she knows they both cherish beyond anything else, and…
Well, she's missed him.
Two hours after arriving, the Doctor is flicking through a stack of postcards and clippings from newspapers and magazines as Amelia makes them both tea.
"So, journalist, huh?"
Even from here, he can tell that she's smiling. "It was an accident, really. I had this blog about some of my adventures and – well, they came to me."
He frowns a little. "A blog?"
"Yeah, a blog. And don't laugh – it was my only source of income for a while."
"I wasn't laughing," he points out.
"Yeah, but you were thinking it." She looks back at him, her brow set in a level stare and the smile gone. "If you must know, I lost my job and had to make some money. Living isn't free, in case you'd forgotten."
"Of course it isn't," he says quietly, flicking through more of the postcards. They're dotted from all over Earth – America, Russia, Iceland, India… he'd been to most of them, but not all. It's a pleasant reminder of just how rich and glorious just one planet can be, let alone a whole universe full of them. "So the kissogram job…"
"Fell through," she answers, resuming her place next to him with two mugs of tea. "I'm not fussed, I don't exactly miss it."
"But you-"
"But nothing, Doctor. A lot's changed since we last met."
For a brief second he just gazes at her, and even from here he can tell that there's something off about her. She still looks magnificent, of course – how could she not? – but even from here he can tell that something is wrong, something is deeply, fundamentally amiss with Amelia Pond. Her face is so pale, her eyes slightly bloodshot, and she's been fiddling with her hands and arms all evening.
Even now, as she's sitting there, she's absent-mindedly rubbing and scratching at her forearm through her sweater, as if constantly bothered by some itch just below the skin. He's almost tempted to say something – but she catches him watching, gives him a brief, sharp glare and stops. It's almost as if she isn't aware of her behaviour until he makes her aware of it.
He tries to suppress a sigh, and fails completely. "Amy-"
"Could you please not call me that?" Her voice is light and cool, but clipped, and he can hear an ever-so-slight roughness around the edges. "I told you, I changed my name."
He's well aware of that, and it's been bothering him all night. "Why, though? I was just starting to like 'Amy'," he quips, hoping to draw a laugh out of her – which it does, albeit a little forced and – cold?
His Amy had been many, many things, but cold? No. Not his Amy. Never his Amy. Then again, she's not his Amy any more – she's not Amy full stop.
"I told you, it felt better."
"Beyond that."
"I had my reasons. Look," Amelia says, putting her mug down and swivelling a little in her chair to face him head on. "When Rory left, my life sort of sucked for a fair while after that, okay? I had to change a lot of things about myself to get back on track. They didn't always work, but I don't regret making those choices, ya know? 'Cos I'd be regretting being alive if I did."
He brushes some hair away from her face to reveal a brilliant light in her eyes, blazing and defiant. "Life isn't just about surviving, Amelia."
"Of course it is. You taught me that it is."
He flinches, the words echoing what Amy – another Amy, abandoned, embittered and filled with enough justified rage to fuel a star – said to him so many years ago. "Amelia, I'm sorry-"
"Sorry? For what?" She laughs again, and this time her laugh is so unashamedly bitter that he almost would have preferred it if she'd hit him. Once, sound of her laughter was enough to brighten the Doctor's entire world. A long time ago, he lived for that sound, for his Amelia's laughter.
But she's not his Amelia anymore and her laughs – well, they're not the same.
He's heard these laughs before, of course. These laughs are restrained, choked-back, tinged with that deep, acute sadness that had infected Amy just before they'd parted ways. Indeed, it had been a major part of why he'd dropped her off, as through her half-laughs and sad smiles which didn't reach her eyes, he'd heard her lonely and increasingly desperate plea.
Help me. Save me.
And he'd tried. He'd tried to give her what she deserved – not all of what she deserved, for he could never do that, but as much as he reasonably could. A normal life with Rory, a happy life, free from suffering and loneliness and all those other things that she knew far, far too well because of him – that was what she deserved. That was what he'd tried to give her.
But Rory's evidently gone, and her laughs, her smiles – if anything, they're worse. They're more forced, more jagged, bitter and infinitely colder.
There's something not right about her and he wants to fix it, needs to – but can't. It's not his place any more.
She must sense his discomfort, though, because her expression immediately softens, and she gently grasps his arm, squeezing it through the tweed jacket.
"Hey. I'm not…" She hesitates, as if retracting her words just as they reach the tip of her tongue. "It's not something you can just run in and press a few buttons and everything will be roses and sunshine. It's not like an alien invasion or something where you can just go in and fix it. It's life, and it's mine, and I can't run away from it now."
He searches her face keenly, with aged eyes that have lost none of their exceptional sharpness – but this time, he finds nothing. He can't see beyond her face, he can't see over the wall she's built or through the defences she's constructed around her. All he can see is – is Amelia, independent, free and without any trace of regret.
"So… so you'll be okay? I mean, you'll be fine by yourself, here?" Part of him wants her to say no, to run away with him once more – but the rest of him is sickened at having such a thought.
Her reply is so quick, so decisive that it banishes any argument from his mind. "Of course I'll be fine, moron, I'm always fine. I do have actual friends, Doctor. They help me out from time to time."
He has no idea if she meant it, but the words unexpectedly sting – after all, every time one of her other friends had to help her out of a tight spot was a time where he wasn't there, the likely cause of her problems. After all, whatever ills had befallen her over the last few years are probably the direct result of a bet he had made with the universe: that the Ponds' marriage would prove to be unbreakable. He'd gambled, but she had been the one who'd lost.
On the other hand, he's probably overreacting. She'd just told him that she was fine, that nothing was wrong with her, and who is he to second-guess her? She's never let him run her life before; he very much doubts that she's going to let him start now.
She's right, after all – the bad things are as much a part of life as the good, and it's not his place to try and erase them.
He smiles at her, a gentle smile coloured by understanding and compassion, and decides to change the subject. "So tell me about this newspaper thing. And be detailed, because I don't know a thing about newspapers."
She laughs at that – and this time her laugh is genuine, if disbelieving and slightly derisive. "Seriously? I've seen you reading the paper."
He shrugs. "They're entertaining and occasionally useful, but why would I read about something in a newspaper when I could go see it?"
She snorts. "I guess so. Well, I'd been trying to get that job for over a year, you know. I'd been freelancing for magazines before ages, and the pay wasn't exactly brilliant…"
He sits back as she talks, smiling gently as he loses himself in words – just as she had done so often, once upon a time.
"I won't be a stranger this time, I promise."
"Promise?"
"Cross my hearts," he replies – and he does actually draw crosses over both his hearts with a thumb. She giggles a little into her palm upon seeing it.
They'd stayed up talking long into the night, catching up and sharing stories – happy ones, mostly. The warmth and the wine had seen to that. There had been only so many stories they could share, though, before it started to get repetitive, and before long they began to stray on territory which mutual assent had declared as out of bounds.
Eventually, after yet another increasingly awkward silence, they had both decided that it was time. So a few minutes after that, here they are in the entrance hall, saying their goodbyes.
"So I'll definitely see you around?"
"Definitely, and I mean it, Pond," he says, smiling at her. He smiles fondly, lovingly, trying to banish any trace of regret and pity that might contaminate his expression. This time she returns the smile in full, together with an embrace so tight that for a brief, magic moment he simply forgets, and loses himself in her, nuzzling her hair and taking in its fragrance.
Eventually, after a minute – or maybe an hour, or even a day – they break apart, still smiling at each other. He's tempted to kiss her on the forehead, but he knows that it's not right, that it would belong to another time. A time that's gone. Instead he goes to hold her hands, and say his last farewell – and in the process, his fingers brush over the inside of her left wrist.
Suddenly, without warning, she jerks.
Her arms fly back so quickly that he barely registers it before they're drawn tight into her, her eyes wild with a nameless fear. His hands are still exactly where they were, and for a moment they stay like that – frozen, staring at each other in shock and disbelief.
And then he stumbles back – spluttering apologies, trying to correct his mistake, trying to find a way to fix her-
"No, no, it's okay," she says quickly, relaxing and shaking the tension out of her arms. "Don't worry about it."
He's not convinced. "Amelia, if there's something wrong, you can-"
"Doctor, seriously." She laughs, a little shakily, but a laugh all the same. "I'm fine."
"Pond, please-"
"Fine, Doctor," she repeats firmly. "Seriously."
He looks at her briefly, with more than a hint of desperation – but she's closed herself off, her expression composed and unreadable, and her posture hard and uncompromising. He sighs.
"If you're sure-"
"I'm sure."
"Okay. Then – well, then I guess I'll see you around, Pond." He smiles as gamely as he can despite the storm raging within, giving her a little salute as he opens the door to the midnight air. He takes a breath and steps out, away from the warmth, away from her, and back into the cold of solitude.
She gives him one last smile, says a little "Goodbye, raggedy man", and shuts the door. She doesn't slam it, she doesn't do it with undue force – but even so, there's a firmness, a finality to the sound of wood hitting wood, of the latch closing and the lock turning that sinks deep to his core, cuts right to the bone.
He rests his forehead against the wood, his eyes squeezed shut and his breaths unsteady. For a moment, he just stays like that, his mind filled with the image of her jerking her hands away from him, and the shock, the terror that had briefly filled him – but he stops himself.
He shakes his head and opens his eyes, turning away from the TARDIS-blue door, the little house – turns away from her.
Whatever he might think – whatever might have happened, she's not his anymore. Really, she never was, and to be frank he causes more damage than he solves. It's best for the both of them that she gets on with her own life, and it's time he moved on.
He knows all about moving on.
The TARDIS is on the other side of the street, sitting inconspicuously on the sidewalk. He takes a moment to rest his fingers against the still-warm wood when he reaches it, smiling at the age-old machine. At least there'll be one companion that he won't ever leave behind. He's already planning his next journey as he pushes on the door, mulling over the green fields of Arcadia or the Live Chess Olympiad in the 40th century – except the door doesn't move.
He frowns. Pushes again.
The door stays firmly shut.
"Oh, come on, old girl," he mutters. He even clicks his fingers, but to no avail.
He steps back for a moment, utterly perturbed at why his time machine has suddenly decided to lock him out. He tries the key – but that doesn't work either.
He's stumped. This is – well, he won't say this is a first, but it's certainly seriously unusual. Why the devil has his TARDIS – his TARDIS – locked him out like so? What's he done wrong?
He tries shoving the door one more time, even leaning on it bodily, but he might as well head-butt it for all the good it does – and that isn't exactly a good idea either, as he finds out to his painful cost a moment later.
It's bizarre. Truly bizarre. Even when his TARDIS is truly, properly peeved at him, she never locks him out like this. Not unless something seriously wrong has happened, or she has a damn good reason to keep him from going, like…
Like…
Oh.
He's rarely run so fast before – even though the house is a mere thirty feet away.
For the longest moment, Amelia simply stands there in the entrance hall, shivering.
Not because she's cold – the heating's turned right up, she's wearing her warmest woollen sweater and she's Scottish. No, she's shivering because of something rather more important than a little chill.
She hadn't expected him to do that – she hadn't expected to react like that. She's has reacted like that in months. She rubs her wrists and forearms, her hands shaking a little – they're not sensitive to the touch, not anymore, so why had she reacted like that?
Alright, so she'd been scratching a little more than usual at her forearms, but that had been because she was itchy. That was all. Nothing sinister about it, and she certainly hadn't appreciated the close attention he had given her behaviour all night, thank-you-very-much.
Anyway. It's gone, he's gone, and she is moving on with her life. That was what tonight had been about, right? Moving on. Putting aside the last seven years, the last four, and pressing on with the life she'd managed to rebuild over time.
In a twisted way, she's almost thankful he's gone. Not because she hates him, or because she doesn't cherish the memories she has of him, with him – she does, and will do so forever – but because it's proof, it's the ultimate validation that she's won her battle with the last four and a half years.
It hadn't been easy. On multiple occasions, she'd believed that she'd killed her demons at last and had fought her way to the sunlight. On multiple occasions, she'd been proven wrong – and each time had been worse and worse, as her fears that she would never escape her own piece of hell had multiplied and multiplied. But she had, of course.
Every single time, she'd escaped. And she'd done so alone. No Rory. No Doctor. Just her, and her close circle of human friends and family.
Besides, he's the Doctor. He'll come back to her one day, he couldn't keep himself away from her even if he wanted to.
He always comes back.
She turns to go upstairs, take her pills and maybe try to get some sleep – but she's stopped halfway up by a loud thud and sharp, unmistakable tapping noise on the door behind her.
She freezes, the breath momentarily knocked out of her. For a moment, she's tempted to just ignore it and pretend she isn't there, but there's another triple-knock a moment later.
"Pond? Are you there?" the Doctor says, his voice muffled through the wood. She closes her eyes, and begins counting to ten. Or a hundred. However long it takes.
"A-me-li-a," he croons, emphasising every syllable in a ridiculous, sing-song way – so much so that she has to physically stop herself from bursting into laughter. "Could you open up? I want to ask you something."
She sighs. Well, it can't hurt, can it? It's just a question, and she can always refuse to answer if she doesn't like it. She retreats back down the stairs to the door, straightens herself up with her chin raised and her back upright, before turning the handle.
He doesn't even wait for the door to swing open before asking, "Can I stay with you?"
Oh. That isn't what she had expected.
"Um – what?"
"Can I stay here, with you? Just for a bit." The words spill out of his mouth in a rush, his eyes are darting around, looking anywhere but her face, and he's fiddling endlessly with his hands. He looks for all the world like a nervous teenager asking his childhood crush out for a first date. "Please?"
She blinks once, twice, struggling to formulate a coherent response. Well, whatever might happen, he's certainly managed to catch her off-balance. "But – why?"
"TARDIS has locked me out," he replies, staring at somewhere between her stomach and his own feet. "I've tried to get in, but nothing doing. She doesn't want me to leave."
She raises an eyebrow. "You're locked out of the TARDIS?"
He glances up at her. "Something like that."
"Have you tried the key?" she asks with a wry smile. Wouldn't be the first time.
"Amelia. Of course I have."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
She bites her lip, her usual decisiveness having totally abandoned her. Part of her wants to hug him and show him the spare bedroom, part of her wants to slam the door in his face, and the rest of her has no clue at all.
"Why d'you want to stay here, anyway?" she asks, deliberately equivocating while the warring parts of her mind attempt to sort out their differences. "I mean – why stay with me?"
"Why not?"
For a moment, she's taken aback – the simplicity, the honesty of the question strips away her ability to respond. But she quickly collects herself, and gets back onto the front foot. "Doctor-"
"I miss you," he says, cutting across her with a shrug. "Is that enough?"
She opens her mouth – but no words come out. He's looking right at her now, his expression soft and open and… maybe he's right. Maybe that is enough. She looks him in the eye, searching for any hint of a lie or a misconception, but there's nothing there but honesty.
For once.
"And you won't get bored?" she asks. It's a valid question – she's seen him whining like a little boy after five minutes of no activity. How will he do in the real world for even a few days without some alien invasion to distract him?
"No, no," he replies hurriedly. "I'll find something to do – I mean, it's London. I'll get a job. Maybe two. I'll learn to fly or something – I'll be fine."
She's less than convinced. "Really?"
"Really." Well, he certainly sounds like he means it, and she guesses that she should take him at his word.
She purses her lips. "No showers longer than five minutes," she says at last.
"Won't take longer than four," he says in reply.
"You're cleaning the bathroom and all the downstairs rooms."
"Naturally."
"And doing the laundry."
"Of course."
"And the dishes."
"They'll be the cleanest dishes you've ever seen."
She tries to suppress a smile – and fails miserably. Evidently he takes this as a sign, because his face immediately brightens and a broad, goofy grin finds its way to his lips. "So, can I stay? I promise I'll be good."
She looks at him, takes in his expression, all eager and ready to please, and she laughs, truly and from the heart.
"Fine," she says once the laugh dies down, relenting at last. "But only for a bit."
He hugs her so hard that she almost falls over.
Some of you might be are wondering about the whole anger thing. It's coming (though this story only loosely follows that structure, remember). Also to emphasise that the four year gap is decidedly non-trivial; important things have happened to Amy that I will reveal in due course.
