Title: Every Starry Night Shines For You
Author: leonsalanna
Disclaimer: You brilliant, brilliant men of the BBC. Vincent and the Doctor was one of my favorite Season 5 episodes and I gladly cede all credit for its characters to you.
Ship: One-sided Amy/Vincent, Amy/Rory
Summary: Before he left this world, Vincent van Gogh left behind a gift for Amy Pond. Here is the story of the only three people in the universe to see his last masterpiece.
The morning after the happy couple said hello to the TARDIS and goodbye to Earth, Rory woke up and turned to his wife. 'I'm the luckiest guy in the universe,' he thought as he traced his fingers down Amy's side. With a somewhat tumultuous wedding day—and a rather wild wedding night—behind him, Rory felt he could pilot the TARDIS and save entire galaxies single-handedly. 'Mrs. Amy Williams.' After so long, she finally belonged to him. Then he thought about what the Doctor had said at their wedding. 'Or maybe I'm just Mr. Rory Pond.' Truth be told, Amy had always owned him. Right from the first time she knocked him down and made him play the Raggedy Doctor. He smoothed a hand down Amy's back and when she gave a small shudder, he pulled the blankets up higher over her. Rolling onto his back, he looked around the room. It was the room Amy had stayed in before and even still had some of her clothes strewn across it. He wondered if she packed her Raggedy Doctor dolls to put on the dresser. It looked almost empty without them.
Rory glanced up at the wall and noticed a painting that hadn't been there before. It almost looked like a van Gogh. But like none that he had ever seen in a museum or read about in a book, which was surprising. He slid out of bed, careful to not disturb his wife (!) and walked over to the wall. It looked like Starry Night, but wasn't quite it. After a few moments, Rory noticed the blue box on the hill. Then he noticed the red in the sky was hair, the same hair spilling across the back of the woman in the bed beside him. "Van Gogh?" he asked aloud.
With another look at Amy, Rory pulled on some clothes from his suitcase and wandered into the hall. "Ah, Rory!" The Doctor was walking down the hallway towards him. "I'm surprised you're up this early. Ready for your honeymoon? I know a great spot—"
"The library, Doctor. Where is it?"
"Ah. Um…I believe you'll find it down the hallway, left at the banana tree, and then it's the round door with the knob in the center. Everything alright?"
"Yeah, just wanted to look something up real quick." Rory then turned and continued down the hall to follow the Doctor's directions. He entered the room and was quietly overwhelmed. Shelves lined an aisle and the aisle…didn't seem to end. Feeling rather silly, Rory called out "I'm looking for books on van Gogh?" Nothing happened. Feeling even more foolish for talking out loud to an empty room, Rory ducked his head and went to look at what books were in the first shelf. Rory squinted at the titles and then stepped back. After blinking a few times, he stepped forward and took a book down. 19th Century Earth Artists.
He put that one back and took down one on van Gogh. He flipped through for a time, looking for the painting he saw on the wall, but his eyes caught instead on a painting of sunflowers in a jar. "For Amy. Vincent." Rory closed his eyes and didn't feel quite as invincible as he had when he awoke.
"Skip to the part about his suicide note." Rory spun around and found the Doctor sitting in a leather armchair in the corner. He certainly hadn't heard him come in.
"There was no suicide note; he never left one."
"Are you certain about that?"
Rory began flipping towards the end of the book and the Doctor continued talking. "You know, when we left him, Vincent offered to have dozens of children with Amy. She told him she wasn't the marrying type." Rory looked up sharply. "Read the note."
Rory looked down and found that the page he was on indeed had a suicide note for Vincent van Gogh. He read it and read it again and then looked up at the Doctor, confused. Without waiting for a question, the Doctor said, "We were walking down to a church Vincent was going to paint, with a Krafayis inside. He had had one of his fits of depression that morning and we could hardly get him up. Eventually, he shook it off and he was talking about them on the way there. About the madness and the sadness he feels every day. He told Amy he could see the sadness and loneliness in her too. She said she didn't know what he meant; she didn't feel either of those things. He then asked why she was crying. She couldn't tell him; she didn't even know she had been crying." Rory slowly closed the book and put it back on the shelf. "A mad painter fell in love with Amelia Pond and she couldn't return it because she loved someone else, someone she didn't even know had existed. Later that year, he killed himself and left behind one last painting, the existence of which no historian knows."
Rory said slowly, "I could tell he loved her, just from the painting. I've loved her for over 2000 years so I know the feeling. I might have wondered…since she didn't remember me then…"
"Her heart remembered you the whole time, even if her brain did not. So that must have been love indeed."
Rory leaned against the bookshelf and stared at the floor for a short time. Finally he looked back up at the Doctor. "Thank you for telling me this."
The Doctor brushed off the thanks and said instead, "Anyway, what are you doing here? This is your first day as Mr. Pond, shouldn't you be with the Missus? Oh go on, I'll even fix you two tea and breakfast."
Rory sniggered. "Now that is something I'd like to see."
"Oi!" The Doctor said, offended. "I've had to cook for myself once or twice over the 907 years I've been alive."
"Hah! I've got you beat now. 2021, I believe?" Rory stepped back into the hallway and went to find his and Amy's room as the Doctor spluttered behind him.
He opened the door and slid into the room, closing the door with a soft snick behind him. As he slid into bed beside Amy, she murmured sleepily and turned on her side, toward him. She slowly opened her eyes and smiled at her husband. "Hey, you. You're up early. And already dressed?"
Rory chuckled. "You should probably join me in having clothes on; the Doctor should be bringing breakfast soon and I'd rather he not have the opportunity to study the human anatomy."
Amy giggled and rolled on top of him, still under the blankets. "He's cooking? God help us, he'll burn down the TARDIS."
A voice called from somewhere outside the door, "I heard that! And I can cook, why does no one believe me?"
Amy called back, "And absolutely no fish or custard!" Still hearing the Doctor grumbling, the couple laughed. "I almost feel sorry for the times I made you eat that," she said to Rory. "Amazing how I could have spent all those years bossing you around and never realized how much I loved you."
Rory pressed his face to her neck, feeling the soft skin under his lips. 'Luckiest guy in the universe.'
Thanks for the love, everyone. This was just a little brainchild born out of watching the span of Season 5 in one week. I hope you enjoyed it, praise or criticism is welcomed.