Hello, my lovely readers. This chapter comes to you, from me with loads of love. Thank you for all of your kind words and encouragement. They have pulled me out of the slump I found myself in.
Seriously, there aren't words for how utterly awesome you guys are. I love reading your reviews, they mean a great deal to me.
There will be a few more chapters to this one before we close it out and move to the next phase of their relationship.
Now, with all that out of the way, I give you the next chapter of 'The Gardener'
Amelia walked down the stairs the next morning, straightening the light jacket she had donned over her blouse. Early morning light came creeping in through the cracks in the curtains and the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans wafted up through the spacious mansion.
Amelia loved mornings best. They offered a seldom acquired solitude that she looked forward to. Coming to the landing, her steps slowed as she straightened the cuffs on her sleeves, pulling the corners taut.
She had started the morning out with a warm shower to ease her aching body and frayed mind. It felt good to shower somewhere she had not before. It was an intriguing feeling that she reflected on as she took a hand towel through her fiery locks.
A tooth brush had been provided, as well as other necessary toiletries and she had taken advantage of their presence. Minutes later; sparkling, pointy fangs glimmered in the quickly clearing mirror.
Was she really doing this? Was Amelia really considering moving in with the Doctor and his tiny, slightly dysfunctional circle of close friends?
Amelia wasn't one for rash decision making. So why did it feel so right to move in with Delbert?
Since when did she call him Delbert anyway?
A serious expression overtook her until then gentle features and she swiped a hand through her nearly dry auburn hair.
"Footsteps, I hear footsteps!" A crazed, slightly mechanical voice grated on her ears and she leveled them to her skull, looking around for the mechanical fiend that had interrupted her until then perfect morning.
"I wonder who that could be! It's not the 'doc, Jimmy isn't usually up this early, I would know about it..." The robot continued to prattle on as Amelia rounded the corner into the kitchen.
"Oh! Captain Amelia! I didn't know you were here!" B.E.N chattered happily as he took out a cup and saucer. "How do you like your coffee?"
Amelia peered at the unusual metal man and replied with a stern "Black, please." In what seemed like a second, a hot cup of coffee was pressed into her hands and she let the scent envelop her senses.
"The Doc used to grow his own coffee here. I think something might have happened to the greenhouse though." B.E.N looked out towards the sliding door just off the kitchen. It opened up into a dilapidated greenhouse that had certainly seen the end of it's golden age.
Aggressive vining plants had knocked out some of the window panes and grew unchecked over moss covered tables and dirty glass panes.
Amelia hummed, sipping her coffee. "Fascinating." Stepping towards the door, she edged it open and slipped into the humid greenhouse.
Bushes and shrubs had grown into tiny trees without a tender hand and a pair of shears to guide them, and Amelia could strike many parallels between her life and this sad looking greenhouse. Her feet found piles of soft dirt and moss scattered around the once cement floor and she was careful to avoid shards of broken clay pots.
The more she ventured into the aged lost venture, the more her eye found. Tender flowers had been left in the care of mother nature, and many of the passive ones were very near extinction. Purple blooms hung on threadbare green stalks, their sallow leaves yellow from the lack of rainwater on the mining planet.
"You've found Abby's greenhouse I see." Delbert's sudden intrusion made her nearly drop her coffee in surprise and she turned on her heel to face him.
Abby's greenhouse. It made sense. She died, and the greenhouse and it's care went with her.
"I had a full staff working on the lawn and the gardens. But the greenhouse was her idea. She spent ages out here misting the plants or harvesting from them." Delbert pointed to the corner of the area where a nearly tree like bush had dominated a good portion of the space. Red, shriveled berries clung to dying twigs, swaying in the light morning breeze.
"I suppose you can figure out the rest."
Amelia turned her green eyes towards the Doctor's gentle brown orbs and smiled, picking her way back through the upturned clay pots and mounds of dirt.
"There is plenty of work to be done out here." Amelia stood next to him, her eyes sweeping over the dying landscape of the Doppler mansion grounds. The night had shrouded fields of dying grass and barren trees and empty patches where flower beds once flourished. "That is, if you have no objection."
Delbert seemed to think about it for a minute before nodding in contemplation. Delbert wondered if he could handle it. Abagail had passed so long ago, he could no longer remember what her voice sounded like. And when he thought about love, it was no longer her face that loomed in his minds eye. Amelia's face appeared, radiant as the morning sun, and it made his heart swell.
"I suppose it is about time to get this mansion back into shape."
Amelia grinned "Splendid."
They walked back into the mansion in companionable silence and sat together in the sitting room.
Neither of them spoke for quite some time and the silence expanded to uncomfortable bounds.
Amelia was the one to break the silence with a clearing of her throat. "Doctor, are we really doing this?"
Doppler wrinkled his nose and looked in her direction. He didn't find the strong, intelligent ship captain sitting beside him. He found a woman, grasping a cup of nearly gone coffee and pondering her next move.
"I believe so. Unless you don't want to."
Amelia chuckled "You misunderstand me. Of course I want to." She set her cup down on the table and turned to him, a strange look on her face that Delbert had only seen a handful of times. "You make me feel different about myself, Doctor."
"Different?" Delbert had never been told this by anyone, but he knew deep in his heart the feeling she was talking about.
"Truly Doctor, I have never felt this way towards anyone."
This couldn't be happening. Delbert felt his mouth go dry and his hands felt clammy and heavy in his lap. He was suddenly hyper aware of everything around him.
With Abby, he had married his best friend. They knew the ins and outs of each other better than anyone else. With her, he had experienced companionship, and a deep friendship that had bound them together truly until death parted them.
But she never made him feel the way Amelia makes him feel.
Around Amelia, Delbert is lucky if he can remember his first name, or feel his feet under him. It's as if his whole world revolves around her now. He can't help it. He wonders how she does it, if she is even acutely aware of the effect she has on him.
Wait, she was talking wasn't she?
"Doctor, you're staring." Amelia's pointed words pulled him out of his mind and he shook his head, blinking a few times.
"I uh. I hadn't realized I was staring."
A gentle smile lit up Amelia's scarlet lips and her emerald eyes sparkled with mirth. "Noticing things isn't exactly your strong suit, is it?"
"I notice plenty of things." It was more of a question than a statement. Delbert adjusted his glasses for emphasis and Amelia chuckled in his direction, standing up.
"Of course, Doctor. I would never insinuate otherwise." Amelia stretched carefully, grimacing when a pang from her aching ribs made itself known.
Delbert reached a hand out but retracted it slowly when when she didn't waver on her feet. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," Amelia said through gritted teeth, smoothing her jacket down. "I had best be on my way home, Doctor." She turned her head towards the door. "I suppose I have a fair amount of packing ahead of me."
Delbert smiled and stood up. "I'll go hitch Delilah then."
Delbert was halfway to the door when a quiet, "Doctor" made him turn around.
"Yes dear?" Delbert couldn't recall a time when he had ever called her 'dear' but she hadn't clawed his eyes out, so he supposed she was okay with it.
"Thank you." A gracious smile parted her lips as she stood motionless on the deep purple rug in the middle of the sitting room.
She doesn't need to elaborate, he understands.
For now, the arrangement they have come to will suffice. Amelia would pack up her apartment, but retain her property there. It would be useful again someday, she thinks.
Amelia has next to no idea what she will do with Arrow's things. She supposes she will have it sent to his family a few systems over. It would not do to have his things sitting around in storage. She has no need of them, and the emotional attachment she has to him will fade eventually.
In the mean time, the bond she is developing with the good Doctor is growing past what she ever thought it would. They had gotten close in the past four months, but they had only just met. Before the voyage, she wouldn't have given the floppy eared astronomer a second thought.
But something had happened to change her view of him. The death of Chester Arrow had catalyzed her relationship with Delbert Doppler. When she looks back on it, no one's death had impacted her life in such a way.
Amelia Smollet is in no place to make assumptions, but in another universe where Chester Arrow's life had not been tragically cut short, would the journey have ended the same way?
Shaking her head to rid it of these odd thoughts, she steps out into the Montressor sunshine and turns her head into the breeze. It feels good, among other things. She owes it to herself to chase after the things that make her feel like this. Amelia Smollet owes it to herself to be happy, she owes it to him.
With that final thought, she steps into the carriage and sits beside the man that she has fallen irrevocably in love with.
"Something on your mind?" Delbert's sudden speech pulls her out from her own head.
"Not a thing, dear."
Sitting beside the Doctor stirs up an interesting feeling inside her. Something that she knows will be the catalyst in her own life.
Amelia acknowledges the feeling. And it is good.
