Dream a Little Dream of Me
Night breezes seem to whisper…
"Your wife?" Amy exclaimed in disbelief.
Rory was shocked speechless. The tiny bit of his brain that was still coherent, and surprisingly rational, told him that it wasn't such a shocking thing, considering. The man was several hundred years old and he'd been around, very much so, so the probability of having been married, even once, wasn't that preposterous.
However, when Rory finally recovered, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "I don't understand."
"Neither do I," the Doctor and the woman said, looked at each other and laughed.
"This is not dispelling the theory of you being me and me being you," she said.
"And we are all together," Rory said. The three of them looked at him.
He shrugged his shoulders, "Sorry."
"Your wife?" Amy said again. Rory looked at his wife, and he considered that it was just him projecting on her, but he detected a hint of jealousy. He didn't have the time to analyze this.
"You never told them," the Doctor's wife said. It was between a question and a statement.
The Doctor looked at her, then at Amy, back at her, back at Amy and then finally at Rory.
"It's complicated," he said, looking at Rory.
"I'm sorry," he said further.
The woman sighed, "It is complicated."
"You were married?" Amy asked and Rory didn't like hysterical note in her voice. He looked at the Doctor, who was looking at the woman.
There was sadness in him, the kind of sadness only a man who'd lost someone he loved could understand.
"Once upon a time," the woman said, smiling sadly. The Doctor returned the sad smile.
"You never go back, do you?" she asked him.
He shook his head, "Never. I can't.
"I'm so very sorry," she said.
"Me too."
Something occurred to Rory, something he knew he should have noticed at the very beginning, but because his mind was still processing everything that had happened in the last – he wasn't too sure about time anymore – whatever, he could not say what it was that niggled at the back of his brain. It was important, or at least significant enough for him to be concerned about it, but at the moment he could not say what it was.
So he said the things that did stick out, "So does this mean that she's supposed to be dead?"
He did not expect the back of Amy's hand to hit him so hard on the nose.
"Rory!" she said, glaring at him while he clutched his nose. The glare alone could make him nosebleed, but by some small miracle, she hit him just hard enough for it to hurt like the dickens but not to bleed.
"Well, technically, more or less, I am," the woman replied, looking more amused than offended.
"Which brings us back to the problem at hand," the Doctor said, completely ignoring Rory's pain.
"Ish beal ow ishnt shweal?" Rory asked, still clutching his nose. Amy reached for his hands and took them off his face, checked for bleeding and then declared that he was going to be fine.
"It hurts!" Rory complained to her.
She rolled her eyes at him, "Be a man!"
"I am a man," Rory whined, and he knew in that moment, for the rest of his Amy loving life, he'd be saying this over and over again. And one day, he'll say it with full conviction.
Amy, now satisfied that Rory was going to survive, turned back to the situation at hand.
"If you, technically, more or less are supposed to be dead, how are you here?"
The Doctor just shook his head in frustration, "We are talking in circles, aren't we?"
"Some geometrical shape, I guess," his supposed wife answered.
"Oh that is so you," the Doctor said, unable to suppress a fond smile.
She winked at him, "You know me."
"Unless I decide whether you are real or not, we're not going to be able to move on from this, much less do anything else, are we?"
"That is my conclusion," she replied.
"So are you real or are you not real?"
"What do you want me to be?"
The Doctor frowned, "That is not the point."
"I guess not, but what if it is?"
The Doctor scowled at her, "Stop confusing me woman!"
She scowled back at him, "I'm sorry. But I think I have quite a big stake in whether I'm real or not. And, sorry, if my preference that your preference is that I'm real upsets you. But my existence is in question here and I don't like it. I don't like it one bit."
The Doctor approached her, "Look, it's not like I don't want you to be real. In fact, I cannot possibly tell you how much I want you to be real. But it is just bloody complicated and I don't think my hearts can take it if…"
He couldn't finish the sentence. He stood so close to her that he could feel her breathe and in that moment, nothing had ever felt so real than that breath on his skin.
"Hearts?" Rory asked unnaturally loud, his brain having picked up that rather strange fact.
The Doctor and the woman looked at him. She smiled, "I'm assuming he hasn't told you about that either."
"I knew," Amy volunteered. Rory looked at her.
"You knew the Doctor has two hearts and you didn't think that would be an interesting, maybe important thing to tell me?"
Amy shrugged her shoulders, "So? Considering what we've seen, that didn't seem so unusual or interesting."
"But I'm a nurse," he said.
Amy just gave him the "So what?" look so he added, "And your husband."
"I thought you two were married," the woman commented, smiling delightedly.
The Doctor beamed at her, "They do make a rather fabulously interesting couple. Could do with less bickering, but no one's perfect."
"You love bickering," the woman retorted.
"I do not. I like having discussions," the Doctor volleyed back.
"Discussions? It's not a discussion if you're trying to convince someone of your side of the argument while completely ignoring the validity of the other person's side of the argument," she shot back.
"I usually do have a valid point," he said.
"So do I," she said.
"I know you do. Which is very infuriating," he said.
"Infuriating?" she asked.
"Infuriating might be the wrong word. Frustrating," he said.
"Frustrating?" her tone was up an octave.
"Not frustrating. Damn, Earth language is rather limiting," he said and then proceeded in a language that both Rory and Amy could not compare to any language on they'd ever heard.
The woman responded just in kind and the quick exchange of, they assumed, words was rather compelling to watch. Something about the tone– well modulated to earth ears – made it sound like they were discussing weather. But it was unmistakable that a heated argument was going on.
"She's definitely winning," Amy whispered.
"You think so?" Rory whispered back. He wondered if he and Amy looked this elegant when they bickered and knew that they didn't. Not Amy. She was fireworks and passion and he wouldn't want her any other way.
"I love you, you know," he said, just because he thought she should be reminded of it. Again.
She looked at him, touched him lightly, almost apologetically on the nose, "I love you too, you daft man."
"That is it! I have decided that you must be real. Because I cannot possibly be this mad," the Doctor said in English.
"Are you calling me insane?" the woman testily answered.
The reverting back to English was a bit jarring for Rory and Amy, particularly because English sounded far harsher after that rather melodious language.
"I am not calling you insane, woman!" the Doctor said, "I have merely come to the conclusion that you must be the real you because my imagination could not possibly duplicate you this perfectly. This is you. You in all your glorious and maddening facets and twists and beautiful asides, you who I cannot recreate in the deepest, loneliest, starving recesses of my soul because it would only be a pale, undeserving, almost insulting copy of the vibrant, passionate, wonderfully fascinating you."
Silence fell as the Doctor and the woman looked at each other.
"I think that is the most beautiful thing you've ever said to me." She smiled.
"It is the truth," he replied.
For once Rory saw the Doctor not as this fantastical being, this sometimes irritating know-it-all, competition for Amy's affection, but a man who loved someone with all his being and had lost her. And for a tiny fraction of time, he felt that he and the Doctor were the same.
The woman frowned, "I'm very sure if I go over what you just said, I will come to the conclusion that you still consider me insane, but …"
The Doctor interrupted her, "This is you," and smiled at her with the kind of affection that spoke of years knowing each other.
She reciprocated the smile, "I think it is."
"So, she's real then?" Amy asked.
"Yes," the Doctor answered.
"Are you sure?" Rory asked. "She's not a dream or a plastic machine automajigger or some other weird alien thing?"
"Well, compared to you she is alien," the Doctor said.
"Pedant," the woman mumbled affectionately, which made Amy smile.
"I know, I know. I apologize, Rory," the Doctor said, walking over to him and giving an awkward matey pat.
"So she's real," Rory said.
The Doctor nodded, "As real as real can be. Or something like that."
"Are you sure?" the woman asked, narrowing her eyes.
He looked at her, "What? Are we starting this again? I made a choice and I'm sticking to it."
She still had her eyes narrowed, "I don't know. I know you. You are devious. And I don't think you're entirely convinced that this is not a dream. But choosing this as reality is more logical because if something happens in this quote unquote reality and it is in fact a dream, you lose nothing. Well, that's debatable but I don't want to go into that train of thought at the moment, because I have another one I need to finish but I'm not quite sure what it was…oh yes, now I do. And if this is in fact reality, as real as reality can be, then being extra cautious would be good, because actions do matter here."
"I'm confused again," Amy said.
"I'm still confused," Rory said.
The woman looked at them kindly, "To make it simple. He's decided to consider this situation real, but hasn't made his mind up yet. So, just think that I'm real."
"Okay, I can deal with that," Amy said.
Following his wife's acceptance of the situation, he noticed that she was still wearing the winter clothes. In fact, they were all still wearing their winter clothes.
He automatically unbuttoned the rather bulky coat he was wearing, surprised that he wasn't feeling hot in it. Amy noticed what he was doing and took her woolen cap as well as the mittens off.
And then that thought that had been niggling at the back of his mind the very first moment he saw the woman that had alerted him to something else odd going on, niggled itself free and announced itself in the loudest, how could he have not noticed this before, way possible.
Except for a translucent smock, the woman was wearing nothing at all.
tbc