All Amy and Kate this chapter, and intensely character-focussed. We'll start to see the less pleasant side of Amy here.
CHAPTER 33. His Wildest Dream Made Flesh: 1 April 2011
The girls quickly settled into a routine. Dawn, breakfast, sword-fighting, lunch, practising with guns and crossbows, dinner, learning the layout of the forest, sleep. After a few days she'd had to get Amy to pare the flow of time in the scenarios back to normal speed, because her mind simply couldn't take fifteen hour sessions at once, even if it was only three or four hours for her body.
"There are two of us who are still human here, remember?" She reminded the Time Lady grumpily after one particularly taxing session involving swords. She didn't ever throw in the towel and leave, though. That, she decided, would have been pitifully weak, and she was determined to match Amy toe to toe whenever she could.
Still, she enjoyed the sessions. Even though it was completely fake, she still loved that exhilarating adrenaline rush that she'd felt that evening in the forest, now replicated daily. A niggling voice in the back of her head told her the Doctor almost certainly wouldn't have approved, but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him, could it?
She mostly concentrated on sharpshooting. She'd done some clay pigeon shooting with her dad several times, so it wasn't entirely new. She had a very steady hand and, for a human, fine reflexes. She could even outdo Amy on the range – although she suspected Amy wasn't really trying. The Time Lady instead chose to expend her energy on swordplay. In between, both girls had decided to take up fencing as downtime. Kate couldn't possibly hope to match Amy's lightning reflexes or explosive strength, but Amy did at least try to make it fair for her. So that was fun. Beyond that, however, Katherine chose to hone her marksmanship, and Amy simply focused on her mastery of the sword.
And boy did she have that.
It was wondrous but also kind of scary to watch, really. Kate now knew her as a sharp-tongued and introverted but otherwise quite sweet and good-natured girl, but put a sword in her hand and she became the embodiment of a mythological warrior-heroine. The image of Amy moving like a heavenly wind, twirling so quickly her hair became a blurred beacon of flame, leaving waves of defeated virtual assailants in her wake with powerful slices so swift Kate hadn't even seen them...
Scary was definitely the word.
At times Kate wondered if Amy was putting too much of herself into her swordplay, into the parry, thrust and dodge. Parts of herself that other people hadn't seen before. Parts that other people wouldn't want to see. It became an especially pressing question when Amy started carrying a sword in real life. It was a beautiful weapon – curved, gleaming, intricate inscriptions on the hilt – but it was a sword, for goodness' sake. Amy started practising with it in real life too; that got very annoying after a while.
"You realise that if we get cut in the real world, we can't just cheat and insta-heal, yeah?" Kate reminded her after Amy had only narrowly missed slicing her in half by accident. Again.
Yeah, definitely a bit too much of her is going into that.
Amy was drinking too. A lot. With two advanced livers, it took a lot of alcohol to have any effect on her at all, and it was hard for Kate to tell the difference between normal and drunk Amy. But those wine bottles she'd found scattered near the bin hadn't emptied themselves, had they? She'd even found a number hidden in the shuttle, presumably so Amy still had a store if they needed to make a quick getaway. She wasn't sure if Iverson would have approved, and much less sure if he knew about it at all – Amy had been quite careful, and it was only by borrowing her sonic to look for the stuff she'd left aboard that Kate had found her secret stash. She decided not to tell Iverson, but it did worry her a little just how much Amy was drinking – though only after pinching a bottle of her own.
Nonetheless, she wondered what it said about her friend.
Such deep philosophical and psychological questions were currently beyond her reckoning, however. Maybe for when I can get some sleep.
That had been a problem ever since the "incident" last week when she'd had that bizarre vision. Not that she wasn't trying – but she would lie down, nod off within minutes... then one of those dreams would start, and soon she'd be awake and sweating, pulse racing and feeling totally unrested. After an hour or so, she'd fall asleep again and the process would repeat. They weren't even nightmares. Some of them were unpleasant, granted, but many weren't, and many were just... weird. Pointless, even. What they all had in common, however, and what she was starkly aware of, was that none of them were her dreams.
They were Amy's. All of them, taken straight out of Amy's memories through the mindlink. Hell, she'd even seen herself in a few of them – never a comfortable experience, as she was reminded once again of the person she'd used to be.
To say this freaked her out was a colossal understatement.
She knew Amy wasn't fully aware of how much of her own mind was leaking through the mindlink, given the way she looked at her, companionable concern in her eyes as she asked if she needed any help.
"Nah, I'm fine," she lied, knowing that it would be deeply unfair to give Amy her burdens too.
She knew only one person could properly explain what had happened, what this meant for her. So she devoted herself whole-heartedly to training and learning, knowing it'd be the only way to find him.
But she wished she could get some sleep.
She races up the stairs so quickly she trips at the top. Tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks, half-blinding her as she staggers into the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
The psychiatrists and therapists had tried being nice. They'd tried being calm, and understanding. That hadn't worked, so this one had tried anger and aggression instead.
But he found that his patient had her own store of those things already, and she was not afraid to use it.
He'd yelled a storm, clutching his neck where a bright bite mark had begun to form and left without another word. A minute's stunned silence and Amelia had bolted, trying to bottle her fury before she turned on Aunt Sharon by accident.
Don't they understand?
She is not stupid.
She is not delusional.
And she is NOT mad.
She'd seen him. When she was seven. Had supper with him. Picked up the pieces of the plate he'd thrown out the door the morning after and cleaned up the mess he'd left. Did they think the bowl of custard had emptied itself?
But eight years later they still challenged her, questioned the integrity of her mind.
She can't stand it. She won't.
She slides down the back of the door, her harsh, uneven breaths the only noise in the room. She looks across and sees the little replica she's made, the wooden blue box. She sighs, leans her head back on the door and closes her eyes.
Why hasn't he come back?
Has the one exception to her lifelong rule been the exception that proved it? Has she made the one mistake that she'd promised herself as a child she would never, ever make?
What if... what if they're right about her after all?
Kate woke and tried to stand up so quickly she smashed her head on a cabinet beside her bed.
Stars swirling in her eyes and swearing so viciously that even the most hardened street urchin would blanch, she staggered out of her bedroom, clutching at the angry welt forming on the side of her head.
Smooth, Katherine Broad. Real smooth.
She limped haphazardly into the bathroom, turned the taps on full and splashed her face with the icy water. She looked at herself in the mirror – her pale, once-pretty face was drawn and haggard, her vibrant blonde tresses hanging sadly in random, frayed clumps and her hazel eyes dull. This is what a week without any sleep does to you, she realised.
She'd learned to accept the dreams that were coming her way. They still woke her up, of course, and left her covered in a sheen of cold sweat. But resourceful as she was, she'd learnt to use the dreams to discover more about her friend.
Not that there was much to discover from most of them – she'd already seen quite a lot of the less flattering sides of Amy's personality in Leadworth, as it had often been directed her way. But now she was starting to gather a picture of what it was like on the other side of the coin, waiting for the Doctor all those years.
It must have been – no, it was – horrible. With or without the people like me. Being promised all of time and space and then having it dangled out of your reach like that...
Worse still, she'd finally found out what had snapped Amy so profoundly that she had changed her name, the reason she'd been in a coma for two weeks.
He's not coming back. Well, whatever that place was, it had certainly been convincing. To spend two weeks in there...
She sighed. It wasn't a nice place, the psyche of Amy Pond; she'd rather be elsewhere right now. She washed her face again and left the bathroom. From experience, she knew that sleep wouldn't come for a few more hours. An idea suddenly struck her.
Maybe Amy's awake too, I'll go have a chat to her. Better than staring at the ceiling all night.
She headed downstairs and found the Time Lady lying peacefully on the couch, wearing the golden headset. She looked asleep, but Kate knew she wasn't – her mind was simply elsewhere.
"Hey." There was no response. She hadn't expected one. She tapped her lightly on the shoulder, and got nothing in return.
What's she doing in there? There was no way she was training at this godawful hour, so why would she have immersed herself in a virtual reality?
She bit her lip, moving her gaze across to one of the headsets lying on a table.
Only one way to find out.
"Bawoo!"
"Ba-what?" But the Doctor's head had already disappeared above the console floor. Amy Pond rolled her eyes and raced upwards, taking the steps two at the time.
"Krylos!" He cried out, dancing around the console in dizzying circles.
"That where we're going today?" Amy asked, watching the Time Lord dance about, flicking levers this way and that.
"Largest collection of crystals in the known universe. Huge forest of perfect, gleaming purple amethyst crystals! Simply breathtaking – very rare that I bring anyone here." He gave her a dazzling smile and pulled the flight lever, landing the TARDIS with a lurch. "But for you, Amy Pond, I shall make an exception."
She laughed, filled with the joy of yet another scarcely believable destination waiting beyond the doors. "Well, then lead on, raggedy man." She took her best friend's hand and skipped out the doors with him, slamming them shut behind them.
Above, on the top of the staircase, another Amy sat. Silent tears had poured down her cheeks as she watched the scene unfold... but she was alone here, so there was nothing stopping her crying.
Or so she thought.
"So I thought I'd gone mad for a second, seeing two of you here."
She started, almost jumping off the stair, turning to find Katherine Broad seated right next to her.
"Kate! What the hell are you doing here? Why-?"
"Couldn't sleep, and I saw you using the headset alone. I don't want to be missing any parties, as I said. So what happened there," she nodded down at the now-abandoned console. "Was that a memory of some kind?"
"Yeah." Amy wiped her cheeks clean, but it was pointless – Kate would have seen her crying.
"Sad one, huh? Was this one of those I-miss-the-Doctor memories?"
"Sort of, but I've got plenty of those. This one's special."
"How so? Looked to me as if you were just going to some planet, nothing particularly special about that."
"It's my last memory as a human. The start of it is, anyway."
Neither Amy nor the Doctor had ever talked about the event which had changed the redhead so drastically, although the Doctor had certainly outlined the mechanics of the transformation to her as a cautionary tale. "Oh."
"Yeah." Amy closed her eyes, and at once the Time Rotor gyrated up and down at a fiendish pace, as if the world had suddenly been placed on fast forward. "Watch."
The world slowed to normal speed, and almost immediately the doors burst open. In strode a very harrowed-looking Doctor, cradling an unconscious Amy Pond in his arms. Blood surrounded a ripped hole in her skirt, and golden mist poured out of her half-open mouth.
"There's me as a Time Lady," the conscious, 'real' Amy commented as the Doctor sprinted downstairs towards the medical bay.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"How'd it happen? Was it just like a freak accident, or-"
"Has the Doctor talked to you about this?" Amy cut across her harshly.
"A bit. Said it was his fault, told me how not to repeat it."
"He's an idiot. He blames himself for everything. This was my stupid mistake. My fault. And now I'm wearing it for the rest of eternity – what a wonderful life, huh?"
Amy's sarcasm wasn't lost on Kate. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Maybe it is. Maybe I want a normal life again, be able to grow old, get a day job and die of old age. Like a normal person. Like you."
Kate stared at her. "You don't mean that. You can't. You've got the Doctor – and all of time and space as your feet. How many people would give their life to just experience one day of what you view as your daily life?"
Amy sighed. "You're right. You're absolutely right. I wouldn't trade this for the universe. And there are so many people out there who might need me one day, but... y'know. It's not all fun and games, being like this."
"I never said it was." Kate patted her consolingly on the knee. Amy didn't so much as twitch. "But at least the talking will help."
"Talking." Amy echoed the word after a long silence, as if sounding it out. "I've been doing a fair bit of that lately, haven't I?"'
"Not like there's been a lot else to do," Kate pointed out.
"Fair point. It's not my style, though."
"I know it's not. Girl like you wouldn't have as many secrets as you do otherwise."
Amy's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied evenly, her tone chilled.
"Sure you don't. So I guess that means you've told him all about the diary." Kate was now seriously pushing her luck, but recklessness had always been a driving quality in her.
"He knows about the diary, he bought it for me," Amy replied off-handedly.
"I meant the black diary. The one you kept at school."
Amy froze. "How the hell do you know about that?!"
"Does it matter?"
"Do not play games with me, Katherine Broad. Have you read that diary?"
Kate swallowed, recognising that Amy was a bee's sting away from flying off the handle. "No."
"Then how the bloody hell do you know what that diary is for? Tell me!"
"Alright. You want the truth?"
"The whole truth and nothingbut the truth."
"OK. The truth is that a few days ago, while you were asleep, I had a look at that black thing you made. And then suddenly... I had this weird vision, if that's the right word. Of you, in Leadworth, while growing up." She could see Amy's knuckles going white as her fists tightened on thin air, but there was no point in stopping now. "And – well, in that, I saw you. It was almost like a dream. And since then I've had heaps of dreams, all involving you in some way, from life in Leadworth."
"Whose dreams?" Amy's voice had thinned to a dangerously even whisper.
"Well - your dreams. Almost as if... almost as if I was-"
"-inside my head?" Amy's voice rose slightly with every syllable, her control wavering.
"Well – well yes."
"Have you seen the white place? Have you found out what happened to me when I was fifteen?" Amy was standing in front of her now, eyes lethally bright, incandescent with scarcely controlled rage.
Kate's stomach fell out from beneath her. Uh oh. "Amelia..."
"HAVE YOU?!"
She nodded.
Kate had no idea how to describe the sound that Amy made next. It was a mix between an anguished cry, a furious scream and a guttural roar of rage. Not that she had any time to describe, because she'd suddenly found herself pinned to the wall with such violence that her vision swam, a hot liquid trickling through her blonde tresses.
When the mist in her eyes cleared, she found Amy's face mere inches from hers, the Time Lady's hot breath on her face, eyes burning so brightly Kate feared they were about to burn a hole in her skull. A cold, sharp object bit against her exposed neck – out of nowhere, Amy had conjured a curved sword and was pressing it firm against her jugular. Any harder and her skin would pierce, and she'd bleed out on the floor of the TARDIS.
"Now you listen to me now, Broad, and you listen good." Amy breathed, her voice ragged, every word laced with anger beyond reckoning. "That thing you touched is an external memory storage. My external memory storage. Part of me lives in that thing. Touch it again and I swear to you, the next time you feel this sword against your throat, it'll be the real one. Got it?"
Kate couldn't nod her head quickly enough. "G-got it."
"Then get the hell out of here. Run."
She didn't need telling twice.
With a thought, she had left the virtual world, left Amy, and was back in the comforting night, Amy still lying peacefully next to her with the golden headset on. She tore off her own, tossing it away from her as quick as she could, stumbling back towards her room. Though the path was clear and simple, she couldn't see it, barging into doorways and walls at random.
All she could see was the dreadful rage on Amelia Pond's face as the Time Lady told her to run.
The console room of the TARDIS was silent once more, save for the whirring of the Time Rotor and the heavy, laboured breathing of the Time Lady.
The sword lay embedded in the wall where she'd hurled it in her anger. Fury like raw lava coursed through her veins, uncontrollable and dangerous... so dangerous. It was a damn good thing she was in a virtual world, because frankly she wasn't responsible for her actions right now. She wasn't entirely sure what had made her go off like so, but all she knew was that she was best left alone right now.
Alone.
Alone.
Her breathing slowed, the fire in her blood freezing, leaving her cold... and empty.
She'd done it again. For the second time in her life, a friend – not jut someone she was friendly with, but a genuine friend, someone who knew her as she really was, who respected her and was honest with her – had come up to her offering only aid, and in return, what had she done?
I put a goddamn sword to her throat, that's what.
She closed her eyes, still seeing the fear in Kate's eyes, feeling her anger spike again. Just like last time, she wasn't angry at anyone else. Just like last time, her contempt was reserved for herself, and herself alone.
Once again, she was reminded of who she truly hated most of all.
But through it all, she was Amelia Pond. No one beat her, no one broke her. Not again. She would not let this rarest of opportunities pass. It might already be too late, but she had to at least try. She deserves that at least.
She opened her mouth, her words an inaudible whisper.
"I want to leave."
Kate lay in her bed, shivering. It wasn't cold in the slightest but still she was wrapped up deep in layer upon layer of sheet and blanket, screwing her eyes up, hoping that with lack of sight would come lack of memory.
It didn't.
She still saw the light, terrible and fierce, that had shone from Amy's eyes. Still heard the deadly hiss of her voice. Still felt the cold metal against her bare skin. She'd had absolutely no hesitation in running away when Amy had told her to.
She'd seen this anger before, of course. Amy had put her in hospital once. But that was a freak accident in many ways, an unlucky blow to her temple. She hadn't ever seen this. The lethal intent. Amy had been just a twitch of her fingers away from slitting her throat, even if it wasn't actually real. She wondered which was truly the greater danger to her – the mysterious Windcatcher chasing the Time Lady or his target.
Fear and exhaustion finally got the better of her and she sunk into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep. She was so far under that she didn't notice a soft knocking on the door about ten minutes later.
"Katherine?" Amy's voice was gentle, warm, a world away from the withering rage of mere minutes earlier. "You in there?"
No response – Kate was very much asleep, but Amy didn't notice.
"Not talking, huh?" A slow, melancholy chuckle. "Fair enough. I'm coming in, OK? Just to talk."
A click of the door and the slender form of Amy crept into the darkened room, learning on the door-frame. She looked for all the world like a sad, sorry young twenty-two year old girl. Not a ruthless and powerful time-traveller.
"So..." Her mind was still far too clouded for her to realise that Kate was fast asleep, far too worn out by the day to listen to her.
"The silent treatment, huh? I can't blame you. I don't really know what... OK. OK." Amy paused for a moment, collecting herself. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper, bereft of the fire that usually filled her Scottish lilt. "I know you won't believe me when I say this. Not after what I just said, after... after what I did. And you shouldn't. I know you shouldn't. You should hate me now, want to get as far away from me as you possibly can. I won't stop you... but I just want you to wait a minute and listen and I'm gabbbling again, aren't I?"
Yes, a voice in her head told her. Yes, you are.
"I'll get to the point. Everything you said to me, everything you did as a kid – I want you to forget it, alright? Because... because you're forgiven. Completely forgiven. And I know I don't have any right to ask you anything any more, but – but I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." She stopped, leaving nothing but silence. Waiting for an answer that never came.
"Alright. I'll leave you alone now. It's the least I can do... I'll be outside if you need me, OK?" She pushed herself off the door frame and left the room, closing the door with a click. She rested her head on the closed door, tears squeezing between closed eyelids as she felt silence fill her once more.
Alone.
I think I am actually insane, because while I was waiting for a few proofreads to come back, I had (what I think was) a brilliant idea for a plot arc set way in the future. Like, decades beyond this current plot. But what started out as a post-sequel idea very quickly became a full-blown plot and hey presto, before I knew it I had 5+ chapters of material written down and a whole lot more mapped out in my head (I write fast when I want to). It'd be a shame to let it go to waste, but if I keep up my current uploading pace it'd probably take me a good year or two to get round to it. Thoughts, anyone?
Please review.