So this took a tad longer than usual. A mixture of irritating writer's block for what happens beyond this chapter and report-writing season is the cause of the delay.
CHAPTER 23. No Pillow Fighting In The TARDIS: 1 December 2010
This wasn't how Amy had quite expected it to go.
Sure, she felt infinitely, infinitely better than she had a few hours ago, but at the same time, she hadn't banked on this situation being so absurdly awkward as she lay in bed, acutely aware of the Doctor lying less than a foot from her, not wanting to get too close lest she scare him off, but still needing his companionship... yes. Companionship is a good word. Nice word. No hidden meanings there.
She closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly.
This is bloody ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Why was she getting so embarrassed over something so simple as this? She'd never been inhibited in that sort of way ever before. She'd seduced plenty of boys in her time on a whim, mostly for fun – hence her job – and had even had a few wild one-night stands as a result, mostly after a few drinks. She'd never been particularly ashamed of it (how could she when the result was so enjoyable?) or particularly cared what other people thought about it – hell, she didn't particularly care what most people thought about her full stop. And she hadn't even done that on this occasion! So that wasn't why she was turning beetroot-red every time the Doctor moved.
And it wasn't what she did a few hours back that particularly that made her like this, was it? I mean, I straight-out tried to get laid with him a few months back just because I sort of felt like it. Felt pretty stupid afterwards, but it seemed a good idea at the time. So that's not it.
So why the hell did she feel so nervous now that he was lying innocently next to her, doing nothing more than keeping her company as she'd asked? Why did her skin feel like it had turned to lava every time he turned over is his sleep, accidentally brushing his arm over hers?
She hadn't felt this awkward in years, not since she'd finally mustered up the courage to ask Rory out for the first time... oh.
As soon as her thoughts drifted towards her ex-fiancée, her thoughts about the awkwardness of the situation she was currently in vanished, doused as if a bucket of cold water had been poured on her.
I wonder what he'd say if he could see me now...
Her thoughts traced back to the red box lying on the bedside cabinet, the jewel-encrusted ring inside, the final note he'd left her. His message had been clear.
Move on.
Something crystallised within her at that instant, in that moment of clarity. The epiphany she'd been waiting the best part of a month for came at last.
That's enough, Amelia. Enough moping. Enough weeping. Enough feeling sorry for yourself. Rory doesn't want you to be alone. He wants you to have someone. And he knows that the someone is right there lying next to you. And Rory knows he'll never leave you. It's time to move on.
The last two words reverberated around her head, filling her psyche, a demand, a requirement, a statement of necessity. Her resolve hardened.
I am Amelia Pond.
As her determination bloomed like the first shoots of green in the forest after a bushfire, so too did the wounds within her, raw and burning, begin to fade. They'd never disappear, they couldn't disappear, but she could bear it.
I am Amelia Pond. I will get through this. I will move on.
She turned her head, taking in at the unruly mop of brown hair, the angular face and broad chin, half-lit in the dull light. She glanced at the deep blue bowtie fixed around his neck. Idiot, she thought with a smile, even when he's asleep he refuses to take the blasted thing off. She listened to the soft sound of his breathing – unlike Rory, the Doctor didn't snore, and the noise of air cycling through his lungs was only just loud enough to banish the oppressive silence that had accompanied her for weeks – but it was there, and it was never leaving her.
She studied the face more carefully in the half-darkness. Even now in his tranquillity, he could see the lines of age, war-weary, ravished by guilt and a hundred terrible, heart-wrenching decisions that he'd needed to make in his long, long life. The pain that so utterly, utterly dwarfed her own... she cast her mind back to that first adventure with him, so many months ago now. She was still human back then, but she didn't need to be like him to understand him...
"Amazing, don't you think? The Star Whale. All that pain, and misery, and... loneliness." She turned her head to look at him, still gazing out of the glass window into space, his face unreadable. "And it just made it kind."
He turned to look at her, shame written between his eyes. "But you couldn't have known how it would react," he pointed out.
"You couldn't," she agreed, "But I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?"
He smiled, filled with the warm, welcoming light of gratitude, and pulled her into a tight hug as she did the same. She sighed almost imperceptibly as his presence filled her world. "Hey," she whispered.
"What?"
"Gotcha."
"Ha. Gotcha."
They rested their heads on the other's shoulders, ensconced deeply in the others' arms. The Last of the Time Lords and the Girl Who Waited. Together.
Complete.
Amy smiled ever so gently as she relived that unforgettable evening... that evening she'd waited her entire life for. She reached out a hand to brush a lock of chocolate-brown hair from out of his face. He muttered something in Gallifreyean at her touch before relaxing again.
As she always did before making a decision, she bit her bottom lip briefly, before sliding across. She rested her head in the crook of his neck, her long, fiery hair brushing against his cheek and tumbling over his shoulders. She placed one arm over his chest, eyes closing as the warmth of his body began to finally send her into the embrace of sleep. As the darkness took her, she knew she would never be alone ever again. She had the Doctor.
My Doctor.
It's the end times.
All her work, all her pains, all her labours have been reduced to ashes and dust in her hands. Fires flicker in the ruined masonry around her as the remains of the houses once filled with laughter and life burn to the ground.
The great irony is that she had just finished the last section of wall. Every stone had been placed, every flag raised, every cannon primed. The city, from without, was now truly unstoppable, invincible, terrifying.
But the true threat had always lay within.
No one lives here now. They all fled weeks ago, escaping from the white terror within. They're so desperate to leave that they simply stand and go, not bothering to pack, to collect prized possessions, to put out the fires in the fireplaces. So the city burns, but it's all academic – the whiteness overtakes them all anyway.
The Queen is the last one left.
She can't escape. No one can escape. Her walls are so thick, so impenetrable that not even she can find a way through. She runs to the gate, trying in vain to force the rigid iron bars open, but they don't budge. They'll never budge. Her handiwork is far too perfect.
She notices a sudden brightening of her vision.
She turns and finds a wall of pure, unblemished white light towering over her. Higher than the tallest mountain, wider than the widest ocean, unstoppable, inescapable. Creeping slowly yet inexorably towards her.
She closes her eyes, bowing her head in defeat as the whiteness consumes her at last.
The Doctor jerked awake with a gasp.
Well hello. What the devil was that? Burning cities, queens, flags, castles... and a wall of white. Oh. Oh, that makes sense. That was Amy's dream. But what was she dreaming about? It seems like a metaphor of some kind... the blue and red flags, the impenetrable walls, the growing whiteness from within... ah. It is a metaphor. That's rather unique.
He felt a shudder against his face, and tilted his head to see Amy pressed right up against him, her thick, flowing river of flaming hair burning his cheeks. Her arm was draped across him, and he felt another shudder run through it and into him. Incoherent, frantic mumblings spilled out from between her parted lips, and her eyelids twitched relentlessly, her forehead covered in a sheen of sweat.
Ever so slowly, he tried pushing her arm off him, but the gesture only resulted in a pitiful whimper from the Time Lady. Her fingers dug into his chest, and she unconsciously drew even tighter into his body. Whatever her dream had been, it had clearly taken a turn for the worst. He tried flitting into her mind again, to leave a message that would awake her, but it was closed, completely sealed off from him.
She must have pushed me out subconsciously in the last second, hence why I woke up. Whatever that white stuff really is, she doesn't want anyone to see it.
Another tremor ran though her and she cried out softly, a noise borne of sheer, utter terror. I have to get her out of this.
He used the arm that wasn't pinned to him by her body to grab her shoulder, shaking her lightly. "Pond. Amelia. Wake up. Come on, Amy."
Another light jiggle and her eyes flew open, rolling jerkily in their sockets as she adjusted to her sudden return to consciousness. After a few seconds, they finally settled, her head tilted upwards to lock their eyelines, the blue depths of his full of concern.
"Doctor!" Amy's voice was weak, cracking slightly, her breaths coming to her in shallow, ragged bursts. "I assume you have some brilliant idea you need to share with me?"
He smiled gently at her, stroking her hair. "As a matter of fact I do, but more on that later. You were pretty obviously having a rather nasty nightmare just there."
She snorted, having recovered, but her eyes told the truth. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just dreaming that I would regenerate into a bow-tie wearing madman one day."
"Oi! They're cool."
She whacked him on the chest with the arm still lying over it. "Ow!"
"That's for being an idiot."
"You've gotta stop doing that, Pond. How would you like it if I did this?" He shot back, poking her in the midriff. Unexpectedly, she recoiled and giggled, hands reaching to her stomach to protect herself.
"Hey now. That tickles."
An evil grin spread across his face. "Does it now?"
She glared at him. "Don't you dare." But she was too late, of course, and seconds later she found herself spasming wildly as the Doctor tickled her senseless, her arms flying out in an attempt to retaliate. A mixture of breathless laughter and mixed-language Scottish-tinted cursing later, she finally found her lucid voice again.
"Stop. Stop! Or you'll kill me. Then I'll kill you."
"Very well," he replied in an overly respectful tone. An inexplicable urge took him and he suddenly found himself sliding his arms around her, pulling her back into his chest.
She gasped, surprised, but quickly relaxed into him, closing her eyes as his warmth seeped back through her body. This feels good... feels right.
"But seriously, Pond," he murmured into her hair, taking in its lavender-strawberry scent. "You had a nasty nightmare back there. You were sweating like an old man in a sauna – trust me, I know that from personal experience."
"I don't think I want to know."
"No, you don't."
She laughed – a genuine laugh, all sparkling sunlight. "Alright, I'll admit it. I had a nightmare – a – a pretty bad one, by my standards. But it's gone now, and you're here, so it'll be fine."
"Amy, it's not that simple." He hesitated. "I know it's not that simple."
She tensed, drawing away from him slightly. "You've been going inside my head again?"
He sighed. No point lying, she already knows. "Yes, but this time it wasn't deliberate. Your barriers have been failing a bit lately, and you've been broadcasting some of your thoughts inadvertently into my brain. A mind as powerful as yours doesn't like to be ignored, so it's not like I had much choice. That was how I knew what you were thinking earlier on, by the way, when... you know. When you kissed me," he told her, a bit more bluntly than he had originally planned.
She blushed, drawing her arms over her chest in a slightly defensive gesture. "Sorry about that... I don't know what I was thinking-"
"It's alright, I understand. You've been through hell these last few weeks."
"It's nothing. Seriously, it's nothing. Not compared to some of the stuff you've had to get through once upon a time."
"It's bad enough, Amy."
She flipped over so she was facing him, her nose almost touching his own. He could feel the warmth of her breath flow over his cheeks as she spoke, a light twinkling in her eyes in the half-darkness of the bedroom.
"Always looking out for me, eh?"
"Always."
She bit her bottom lip, then without any warning whatsoever she had moved forward, pushing her lips tenderly into his.
"Thanks," she whispered, breaking the kiss. Before he could react or even process what had just happened, she sat up, disentangling herself from his loose embrace and rotating herself to slide off the bed. "So... what was that brilliant idea you had again?"
The Doctor just stared at the redhead, flabbergasted. She frowned and shot him a quizzical glance, eyebrows raised. "What's up with you? It's not like that's the first time we've kissed. Come on, Doctor, time to rise and shine." For good measure, she picked up her pillow and whacked him lightly over the head.
For quite possibly the first time in decades, centuries, even, the Doctor found himself presented with a situation he had no clue how to deal with. His mind was racing, the cogs working furiously as he tried to deal with the implications of whatever the hell she just showed him.
Yes, he'd promised that she'd never be alone. And he'd absolutely meant it. But at the time, it had just seemed a gentle but otherwise redundant reminder of the promise Amy herself had given in front of the fireplace last month – she had been quite adamant that she would be spending the rest of her life with him on the TARDIS. Didn't that sort of automatically imply that she wouldn't be alone, that he would be there with her? After all, it was his TARDIS, and he wasn't going anywhere either.
Because even if she hadn't sworn to be with him for eternity on that night, he had seen her loneliness. The emptiness. The oblivion eating away at her from inside. And he knew that that, like every other injustice he'd inflicted on his Amelia Pond, was his fault. OK, so she had grown up without parents, and that was difficult for her. Even so, she had managed to cope, finding the comfort in the form of Rory, and if it hadn't been for his own vanity, whisking her away from Leadworth to romp around the universe with him, she'd still be human, she'd still have Rory. She'd live a happy, normal life and that would have been that. But no. She was now a Time Lord, like him, and so completely, totally alone. There was no one for her except him. He was the last thing she had now, and he swore on his life that he would be worth it. It was the least he owed her.
Not just because she was the new, sudden hope for his species, the revoking of the extinction status he'd imposed on his own race. Not just because he could bear to see this opportunity slip. No. It was because it was her. He didn't know how. He didn't know why.
But somewhere along the line, she had become his whole world as well.
Right. Stop. Enough of that, he'd told himself firmly. You've tried the whole romantic dilly-dally thing before, several times, and how did that work out? Have you forgotten what happened to your family – most likely by your own hand? Or Rose, pray tell? If you really care for her that much, are you really willing to see that happen? Hew knew what happened to those who travel with you for too long. What always happens.
And that, he had thought, was that. Yes, he was in love with her. No, he wasn't going to lift a finger to act on it. He'd destroy her if he did. Some part of his brain, the parts which had once housed that dark, insidious voice, reminded him that she wasn't human, she didn't need that sort of protection... but even so. Being fully-fledged Time Lords hadn't saved his family, had it? Nor had it saved his cloned daughter, shot fatally mere minutes after being "born". So that, he told himself, was the end of it.
But now he'd felt her lips press against his... and his mind went blank.
It had only been an instant, the briefest, merest flicker, but he had seen – or had he been given? - a glimpse of how much she wanted him. How much she needed him. How much she wanted him to be what Rory had been to her. How much she needed him to be what her parents never had been. How much he was everything to her.
It was ironic... in his own efforts to avoid his own selfishness, to protect her from his vanity, he'd made the most selfish, vain decision of all.
She needs you to be more than just an imaginary friend, the voice told him, filling his suddenly-silent mind. No longer dark, no longer insidious. Who are YOU to deny her?
Desperate, disjointed rationalisations tumbled through him as those colder, saner parts of him clung onto the old, hard edifice of solitude. You're over forty times her age. Well, that didn't stop him last time, did it? Not to mention that he didn't look older than twenty-six. This isn't right – this isn't fair to Rory. Except Rory had already told him that he could have her, on the condition he didn't hurt her. If he rejected her, wouldn't that be the most crushing blow of all? If you stay with her, you'll kill her. But she wouldn't ever leave. And they both knew it.
"What's up with you?" He heard a sharp Scottish-accented voice say, cutting through the raging battle within. "It's not like that's the first time we've kissed. Come on, Doctor, time to rise and shine." He felt soft fabric thump into his face and he snapped back to reality.
"Oi! No pillow-fighting in the TARDIS."
She grinned. "My room, my rules. Hurry up, then. I had been led to believe you had somewhere amazing, brilliant even, planned for us later on."
"Got it in one, Pond. I think you'll particularly like this one – Alaphi, two billion years into the future. The most beautiful city in the universe – well, at least, within the closest three hundred million light years, which is good enough. I give you towers of shimmering crystal, gleaming in a multicoloured sun, forests of real gold and silver, waterfalls of the clearest, crystalline blue imaginable."
"Ooh-er. That does sound rather good. I'll go and make breakfast." She slid off the bed and stood but before she could take a single step, she felt something soft collide with the back of her head. What the-? She turned to see the Doctor having silently moved right behind her, pillow in hand, a mischievous, daring glint in his sky-blue eyes. Her own eyes narrowed.
"I thought you said no pillow fighting in the TARDIS?" she inquired sharply, but her lip was curling and her hand reached for her own pillow.
"Your room," he replied, pulling his arm back to ready another swing. "Your rules."
"I still don't get how you can stand that stuff," Amy remarked, arms folded, looking across the breakfast table disdainfully as the Doctor scraped the bowl of custard clean with the last of the fish fingers.
"Stuff and nonsense, Pond. Try some one day and you might change your tune," he replied with what he assumed was an air of dignity.
"No thanks. So, we going straight away, yeah?"
"Right after this." He hesitated. "Listen, Amy, about last night..."
Unexpectedly, she burst out laughing. "Really, Doctor. I kissed you, big deal. It's not like we had any naughty business or anything like that."
He blinked. "Naughty business?"
She sighed. "Never mind, moron."
"Oi! That's not very nice."
"Never said it was." Her lip curled into a small smirk. "So what were you going to say, then?"
"Right. About last night... well... um..."
"OK, Doctor, I'm pretty sure we both know what you're going to say," she interjected sharply. "Let me make a guess – you're unsure if this thing we've started will work." He didn't need to be a bona fide genius to know what thing she was referring to.
He sighed. "Well... are you?"
"No." She replied matter-of-factly, her expression not changing one whit. "I've got no idea how this is gonna play out. But that's not how I roll, Doctor. I do things because they seem like good ideas at the time, and right now, this strikes me as a good idea. I'm spending the rest of forever with you anyway, why not give it a shot sooner rather than later?"
"I can't say I'm so convinced."
"I know. And I know why you're not sure. It's a big part of why I like you so much."
He smiled gently at her. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Deadly. You should know that, you've been inside my head often enough," she told him as she stood to place her bowl in the auto-dishwasher, which whirred into life at her touch. Her voice was gentle, feather-light, but he could hear the undercurrent of suspicion beneath. He sighed. I have to get to the bottom of this. As soon as possible.
"Amy, what's all this white business? Why are you so afraid of it?"
She froze. "You've seen that?" She whispered, her tone cold and foreboding as glaciers, the previously-hidden suspicion and fear now dripping from every syllable.
"Only a bit."
"But you've seen it? How much else have you seen? Tell me, Doctor. Right now." It was if a switch had been thrown inside, her usual light, playful personality replaced by its darker, angrier, mistrustful dual. Her voice became jagged and diamond-edged as she switched to the Doctor's native tongue.
No lies. "I only saw the first few dreams last evening. Right up until the burning city, which I assume is an abstraction of your conscious self."
"What – did – you – see? Did you see any of the... the white expanse? Any at all?" She moved towards him, her eyes flashing ominously, her hands balled into fists and her knuckles white.
"No," he replied without thinking, instantly regretting the lie. "Well, yes, actually. But only a little. Only the growing wall of white in the city."
"And after? Did you see... the white place? Did you see the eyes? And the chant?"
What? What's this about eyes and chants? What the hell is she talking about? "No. No, Amelia, I did not. Your mind closed off the connection at the end of the city dream."
Her eyes darted rapidly from side to side, searching, probing him for any hint of a lie, any flicker of a misdirection. There was none. Her shoulders relaxed and her fingers unwound again, the dangerous flame disappearing from her vivid green eyes. "Sorry. Just had to check. I really don't like when you go inside my head, if you hadn't noticed," she reminded him.
"Duly noted. Was an accident, as I told you." Even though I really, really have to get to the bottom of it soon, before all her barriers disintegrate, before the instabilities shatter her self-control and she becomes an uncontrollable killing machine. And it's already begun...
"Yeah, I know. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get changed." And just like that, she was back to her normal self. She spun on her heel and moved towards the doorway.
"Changed?" The Doctor asked her, his eyebrows raised. She was already wearing her usual combination of plain, plaid shirt and short denim skirt – why was she getting changed?
She turned and looked at him in a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "It's our first date, numpty. I need to be wearing something nice."
Hope this made up for the delay, I know more than a few of you have been waiting a while for the event of this chapter to happen.