Right, this is the last chapter of this fanfiction. Sorry for the delay in posting, but I've had a load of other Doctor/Amy fanfictions on the go. This isn't the last you've heard of me - I'm working on a partner piece to this fanfiction, set in the two years between the Atraxi attack, and the Doctor turning up again at the end of 'The Eleventh Hour'. Thank you so much for all of your lovely reviews - you're incredible, the lot of you. This isn't the best chapter, but I think it expresses what I wanted to say. Enjoy. xxx
CHAPTER FIVE:
After I told the Doctor about the events surrounding 'the third psychiatrist' he tiptoed around me a little. He softened, was no longer quick to snap at me in times of crisis or confusion, and even invited me to see the TARDIS' library.
The library - which incidentally did have a swimming pool, filled with the coolest deep blue water - was a towering room filled with tall bookcases stretching up to a high glass ceiling.
"Every book ever printed, that ever will be printed, that I've enjoyed is here." The Doctor said to me gently. He nudged my arm slowly, his fingers barely touching mine. "You can come in here anytime you want to."
I smiled at him, and threaded my arm through his.
"Thank you." I whispered. It was perfect.
For the next four days the TARDIS was kept stationary. The Doctor claimed it was because he had to do some complicated type of maintenance on the TARDIS, but I knew the truth. He was giving me a holiday of sorts - he was waiting until I was ready to talk some more. He was patient, brought me hot chocolate in the library at night, never complaining or having a hint of disdain at me cluttering up his precious library at all hours.
I found myself flicking through books I had once only ever heard of from my school years. I went through volumes of poetry; Eliot, Keats, Wordsworth. I read countless plays of William Shakespeare, giggling my way through the comedies and sitting enthralled by the tragedies. I read girly novels, the books you read on the beach in the summer that always involve women and their foolish husbands and the handsome boy next door. I try to read Jane Austen, but get frustrated by the complicated language and get a headache. I smile all the way through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland remembering golden summer days of childhood when I too would rush about my garden imagining a dream world, longing for magic and time travelling blue boxes and fantastic men who could disappear with the blink of an eye. I flick through Harry Potter novels, and remembered how Rory had grasped each one so tightly, pouring over every word and name, and then something twists in my stomach; so I put those books back. Then I find a book called The Time Traveller's Wife, and it captures something so deep and sincere that I didn't know existed inside of me, that I proceed to sneak it out of the library and hide it in a drawer in the room the TARDIS let me call my own.
When I return to the library, I find the Doctor seated snugly in a battered armchair, his feet resting on a nearby table, completely engrossed in a copy of David Copperfield. I tiptoe in quietly, careful not to disturb him-
"Hello Amy!" He calls out, not even moving his gaze from the book in front of him.
"How did you know I was there?" I ask, almost irritated with him, but then he does this cute little smile and my stomach does this weird flip-flop thing that I don't even want to think about, and I can't be mad at him at all.
"I heard you coming." He says happily, laying the volume on the table. "This version of me seems to have pretty acute hearing- anyway! How are you?"
"I'm okay." I reply easily. The Doctor just stares at me, an eyebrow raised, daring me to lie to him.
"I guess… I'm just grateful we've had a break from things." I say quietly. I throw myself rather ungracefully into the armchair next to his, and hug my knees to my chest. "It's nice just to stop for once, you know?"
The Doctor nods, and smiles at me.
"I'm glad you're enjoying the library." He says, casting his eyes skyward to the ceiling "It's a very soothing place in here. Any worries you have seem to float away when you're reading a good book…"
He pauses, and smiles at me again.
"You ready to talk again?" He asks quietly. I sigh.
"Yeah." I whisper. "I was sixteen…"
We're on the bus home from school. I'm sat next to Rory, in the aisle seat, whilst Jeff is sat behind us. Jeff is eating one of those disgusting burgers out of yellow polystyrene tray - he bought it from that dodgy looking burger van that skulks outside the school gates at home time. I keep telling him that he'll probably get food poisoning and die and it serves him bloody right as well; he just grins back with a mouthful of the said burger, telling me it's all worth it as he is absolutely starving.
"Anyway, why would I take the advice of someone having to see a psychiatrist once a week?" Jeff says teasingly, winking at me for good measure. I smirk back and roll my eyes - it has become a running joke between us now. Anytime I get angry with him (which is always, as Jeff is constantly a pain in the backside) he always pipes up with a horrified look on his face that 'mad Amy' is about to attack him.
"How's it going with this new doctor, then?" Rory asks quietly from his seat beside me. He's being particularly sheepish and meek around me, ever since the incident beneath the oak tree in my back garden. He won't talk about it and neither will I, we skate around it tentatively hoping that perhaps one day it'll just vanish from our memories and can start over again.
"He's not too bad…" I say shrugging "He was alright at first, most of the time he tries to get me to talk about Mum and Dad. I think he's expecting me to cry. It's as if he's waiting for it."
"Well, that's how they get paid, isn't it?" Jeff adds excitedly from behind me "The more they make you cry the more money they get - except they call it 'emotional purging' or some rubbish like that."
"Psychiatrists can actually really help people, you know."
I turn to my right, and see that it is the boy sat opposite me who has spoken. It is Danny O'Connor. Everyone says Danny is a total weirdo, what with his tangled black hair always falling into his crystal blue eyes and his soft leather jacket, and the fact that he hardly ever speaks to anyone. If ever someone tries to involve him in a conversation he just sits and stares at them, blinking in reply; Jeff once laughing suggested that perhaps he was relaying a message in Morse code whilst blinking, which earned a few giggles.
But no one really picks on Danny really as if weirdness is catching; and Rory's told me about the bruises all over Danny's shoulders that they've seen in the boys changing rooms when getting ready for P.E. Danny keeps himself invisible.
Which is why I am absolutely stunned that he is bothering to talk to me on the number 41 bus heading into Leadworth.
"What would you know about it?" I ask him with interest. His eyes dart around a little, as if he knows he's said too much. Then he blinks.
"I see a psychiatrist every Wednesday." Danny replies quietly "Dr. Wilson. I've been seeing him for about four months now."
"Why?" Jeff asks loudly.
"Jeff! That's none of your business." I snap and turn back to Danny, whose suddenly become withdrawn and silent.
"It's okay." He whispers. "I just… need help sometimes."
I look at him and he stares back at me, and in that moment we understand each other perfectly.
"Yeah." I say "Me too."
Me and Danny soon build up a sort of easy friendship. Every day about 6 o'clock in the evening I wander round the village with him whilst he takes his dog, Rugby, for a walk. We soon end up chatting about everything. About football, and doctors, and people who promise you they'll really stay this time but then they never do. It's on one of these occasions that he tells me why he has to see the psychiatrist."My step dad…" He says tightening his grip on Rugby's lead, his knuckles white. "He was horrible. He used to hit my Mum, really bad and um… it wasn't her fault, she tried really hard to protect me…"
I just stare at him, waiting for him to continue.
"He started hitting me too." Danny says hurriedly, all in a rush as if the words had been dying to escape, but had trapped within him for years. "One time he threw me down the stairs. I hit my head and I had to have eight stitches. It was after that when Mum said no more."
"What happened?" I ask, my eyes intently examining his face.
"We ran." Danny says, a slight smile coming to his lips "We just ran, in the middle of the night. We went all over the place to get away from him, 'cause we knew he'd find us. We changed our names."
"Your not called Danny?" I ask in surprise. Danny smiles and shakes his head.
"No." He says. "It's safer this way. This way he never finds us. He never hurts us again."
We are never a romance - me and Danny. He kissed me goodnight once, and we spent about ten minutes before holding hands before deciding it was way too weird and, hello, awkward. But when Danny has told me everything about himself, I return the favour.
I tell him all about the raggedy Doctor, about my imaginary friend in his time travelling blue box. About fish custard and baked beans and bread and butter - and how I was beginning to believe I must have dreamt the entire thing.
"He was just too incredible to be real." I smile, remembering time travelling blue boxes and the crack in my bedroom wall, and fish custard and how he'd held my hand and made me believe in everything he said. "I mean, no one can be that amazing. It's not possible."
"He sounds like a great imaginary friend." Danny says shyly, his eyes watching me coyly from under his fringe. "I mean if you're going to have an imaginary friend, why not one with a time machine?"
"Exactly." I sigh "I wish he was real… I still believe he's real, a little bit at least; but not as much as I used to."
"Why is that, do you think?" Danny asks, slowing to a halt as Rugby the dog happily inspected a brick wall as if it was the most fascinating thing on earth.
"He said he'd come back." I murmur "He said he'd be five minutes. It's been about nine years now… and in all that time he never came back for me."
"You never know." Danny says smiling "Perhaps he'll come back for you one day and whisk you off without a moments notice."
I grin in reply.
"I hope so."
Psychiatrist number 4 is called Dr. Bobb - when Aunt Sharon first told me his name, both me and Rory descended into a fit of giggles, most ridiculous for a pair of sixteen year olds. Dr. Bobb didn't turn out to be nearly as funny as his name. He was strict and boring, with one of those voices that you can't help but drift off to as he drones on and on about some unimportant thing. He had decided, after about three weeks of sessions, that the 'root cause' of all my problems was that I somehow still believed in my imaginary friend. He was determined, to get me to say that the Doctor wasn't real; I was beginning to have my doubts, but I wasn't going to tell Dr. Bobb that - the Doctor was my fantasy, my secret. Even if he wasn't real, I didn't want him to be taken away.
Dr. Bobb has no posters on his wall; no vivid colours of the Solar System, no bland watercolour of the HMS Victory. Absolutely nothing. The walls are stark, white; nothing to stare at when I'm pretending to listen to him.
"So, Amelia-" He still insists on calling me that, no matter how many times I've told him to call me Amy. It reminds me of the Doctor, and how he'd said it all those years ago, like a name in a book, a story, a fairytale - that was just what he was.
Dr. Bobb's glasses slip down his nose and he pushes them back hurriedly - he does that a lot, I once counted how many times his glasses slipped down his nose in a minute: seven times.
"I really think you need to stop getting yourself caught up in these childish fantasies." Dr. Bobb is saying haplessly "I know you've had a lot of trauma in your past, but it is time to let go of all those little stories and childish games. He was never real Amelia."
"I know." I say, a little sadly, staring down at my trainers "I know. He can't be real."
"You don't seem to mean those words, Amelia." Dr. Bobb says sternly "And if this… man, was real. Well, he wasn't a very nice man."
That gets my attention. "What?"
"Well, a grown man wandering into the house to spend time with a seven year old girl. You must understand, Amelia… if this Doctor was real, he is not worth remembering."
"You just told me he wasn't real, and now you're telling me he was some kind of-!" I am so angry, I can hardly speak. "You know the first psychiatrist I came to see told me he wasn't real."
"Yes." Dr. Bobb says, allowing himself a little titter of amusement "And I do believe you bit him."
"Yes. I did." I say smiling meekly.
I dash forward before he realises anyway and grab his wrist. I bite him hard, so hard he yowls with pain and stares at me like a wounded animal.
"There. That hurt didn't it." I say, my voice wobbling with false calmness "That felt real didn't it. Well so did the Doctor, and even if he was a dream, even if he was a fantasy he'll always be real to me!"
I storm out of the office, leaving the door swinging on its hinges. I don't go back.
The Doctor decides we deserve a treat. We travel to August 15th 1965, Queens, New York City - why, the Doctor won't say. When we arrive at the Shea Stadium and we are crammed together in the crowd, screaming ourselves raw to be heard over the din, I spend one of the best afternoons of my life cheering and dancing with the rest of them, watching the Beatles play. They're too far away to be seen properly and you can hardly hear them over all the screaming, but it's enough somehow. We walk back to the TARDIS hand in hand afterwards, and the Doctor suggests Las Vegas next time, wondering if Elvis would be willing to meet us…