Author's Note: Thanks to my two reviewers, MayFairy and iHadtoTry, cookies to both of you. And, what the hey, have some cream too ;)
Here's the next bit...
CHAPTER TWO
So many memories of my parents...as children, as teenagers, as the adults they eventually became. It's completely bizarre, right? I mean, how many other people get to grow up alongside their own parents? Such a mismatched pair on the surface. But, beneath the surface – soul-mates.
Amy, my feisty, temperamental mother, with her long red hair and slender, willowy body. So passionate, so impetuous, so ready to rush in where angels fear to tread.
And Rory, my patient, dependable father, with his honest eyes and open face. Full of hidden strength, always willing to defend those he loved with everything he had.
If she was the raging sea, he was the immovable rock, complementing each other in every way. Perfectly imperfect, as the saying goes.
You would be forgiven for wondering how I felt about the two of them, given the strange circumstances. Did I love them, the only ones who - all unknowing - had ever given me any care or affection? Or did I hate them, for losing me in the first place, for not trying harder to hold on to me when I was a baby, for subjecting me to a childhood full of suffering? Or perhaps, having been raised as a psychopath, did I simply feel nothing at all? It was an interesting question.
My entire being was one hundred percent focused on the successful completion of my mission, there was no room for anything else. I had no concept or understanding of love whatsoever back then. But for years, my life had revolved around them – just Amy and Rory - as necessary to me as breathing. So I like to believe that counted as caring for them. But as parents? As friends? Or as pawns to be used, nothing but integral stepping stones to my ultimate goal? To be honest, I just didn't know. Whenever I thought about it, about them, the lines seemed to blur, so most of the time I just concentrated on living my life in the moment.
Because he was always there, right from the very beginning, standing between us, yet so central to our relationship. Poor little Amelia Pond. So wrapped up in her wonderful Raggedy Doctor – and the only ones who would listen to her were me and Rory. All the child counsellors they took her to, all the psychiatrists, all the medication they shovelled down her throat, determined to get her to admit he wasn't real. So much cruel teasing from her classmates, so much isolation and loneliness. Oh, it was such an easy ticket to her affection back then – I didn't even have to try. All I had to do was to say I believed her and she was my best friend for life. She never realised how much essential information she was passing on to me, each little nugget of data another nail in his slowly-forming coffin...
Sitting cross-legged on Amelia's bed, watching the small red-headed girl pretending to fly the model TARDIS around the room, her eyes bright with excitement and imagination.
"Is he hot?" I asked slyly.
"No, he's funny," Amelia answered, always so serious about her Raggedy Doctor, completely missing the teasing innuendo in my voice.
Leaning forward, my eyes suddenly intent now, as I watched the tiny blue box twirl around and around and around. "But how can he travel in time?"
Amelia looking at me as though I was incredibly thick. "Because he's got a time machine, stupid!
The door swinging abruptly open, startling both of us. Rory standing there, his face forlorn and downcast. "I thought we were playing hide and seek!" he whined at Amelia. "I've been hiding for hours."
A guilty look passing across her face, not wanting to admit she'd been so caught up in our conversation about the Doctor that she'd totally forgotten about Rory.
"Well..." she said placatingly. "I just haven't found you yet."
"OK," Rory replied, his shoulders slumped as he headed back for the door, casting a long-suffering, sidelong look at me. "Hi, Mels."
"Hi, Rory," I returned, in exactly the same, flat tone.
Standing beside my desk in the classroom, my lower lip stuck out defiantly as the teacher questioned me.
"Mels! Did you not understand the question?" the woman pressed sharply. "I'm asking you why the Titanic sank!"
Rolling my eyes impatiently as I answered, "Because the DOCTOR didn't save it. But you don't know about the Doctor, because you're stupid."
Being sent to the Head Teacher's office yet again for another lecture on improving my attitude. Emerging with my ears still ringing, only to find Amelia waiting for me, her eyes glowing with incredulous gratitude that someone had actually stood up for her "imaginary" friend in front of a whole class full of people.
My satisfied smile as she fell into step alongside me, following me up the corridor, her trust in me now assured, cementing the necessary alliance between us.
Amelia walking beside me through the playground, ignoring the sniggers and taunts of the other kids, safe in the knowledge they wouldn't dare to victimise her while she was with me.
"Why are you always in trouble?" she asked, her tone half critical, half admiring. "You're the most trouble in the whole school, except for boys."
"And you," I grinned.
"I count as a boy," she said wryly.
Rory wandering past, a blindfold tightly wrapped around his head, still playing a game Amelia had abandoned half an hour ago to talk to me.
"Am I getting warm?" he queried plaintively.
"Yes, Rory," she sighed.
Years later, as teenagers, back in the classroom. Me, standing again, facing a male teacher this time.
"Mels?" the man prompted.
Twiddling with one of my long dark plaits, my eyes on the ceiling, as I answered him in a bored monotone. "A significant factor in Hitler's rise to power was that the Doctor didn't stop him."
Another visit to the Head Teacher's office, another lecture and then finding Amelia patiently waiting for me outside in the corridor, just as she always was.
"I can't keep doing this!" she warned.
But I could see her eyes were still as full of secret gratitude as they had been that very first day.
An even older me, being ushered out of a police cell this time. And there she was, faithful Amy, hovering outside the door, always waiting. Always so very good at waiting.
"Mels!" she exclaimed furiously.
Rory outside in the car, the two of them driving me home to Amy's house, itching to give me a lecture on my bad behaviour.
"It was late, I took a bus," I told them, flopping down on Amy's bed, tossing the model TARDIS back and forth between my hands.
"No, you STOLE a bus," Rory corrected, glaring at me from where he was seated on a nearby chair, his arms folded disapprovingly.
Amy, much too agitated to sit, pacing up and down. "Who steals a BUS?" she demanded shrilly.
"I returned it," I replied, completely unrepentant, still relishing the fun I'd had – as much fun as you could find in sleepy little Leadworth on a Sunday evening in June. That beautiful bright red bus, almost seeming to call my name...some vehicles just BEGGED to be stolen. I looked down with scorn at the tiny blue TARDIS in my hands. Red was always my favourite colour, the colour of risk and danger. SO much more exciting than blue.
"You drove it through the botanical garden," Rory reminded me.
"Shortcut!" I laughed.
Amy stalking towards me, her arms folded, just like the mother she never had a chance to be, about to tear a strip off her disobedient child. The laughter dying in my throat, the irony of it suddenly inexplicably painful.
"Why can't you just act like a person? Hmmm? A normal LEGAL person?"
Finding the anger, deep inside me, using it to fight the pain. Anger at Amy. Anger at Rory. Anger at HIM.
"I don't know!" I said bitterly. "Maybe I need a DOCTOR!"
"Stop it!" Amy snapped, her own temper flaring as she snatched the model TARDIS out of my hands and turned her back on me.
When had she stopped believing? I wondered. When had she finally decided that he was a childhood fantasy, no more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny? Was it when she had begun calling herself Amy rather than Amelia? Symbolically leaving the child behind, concentrating on growing up and fitting in, embracing her adulthood? It reminded me poignantly of that kid's song, "Puff the Magic Dragon", where the little boy grew up and didn't come to play with his imaginary dragon any more. So sad, that song - "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant rings give way to other toys..." Little Amelia Pond's dragon was real enough, but he wasn't going to live forever. Not if I could help it...
Rory, feeling the tension, the brewing argument, knowing how much Amy hated to remember her childhood obsession. Packing his books into his bag, standing to leave, making his excuses. "Er...I'd better go, I'm on earlies tomorrow."
Watching him walk to the door. My sweet, patient, loyal father. Loving her so much, for so long and so faithfully. And her never even having a clue. Even now, even when she said she no longer believed in him, her Raggedy Doctor was still the only man in the Universe to her, the only one that counted.
Suddenly wanting to jab at her, shake her out of her complacency, make her realise what was right under her nose.
"It's all right for you," I said to her. "You've got Mr Perfect keeping you right."
"He's not even real," she shot back, once again misunderstanding completely. "Just a stupid dream I had when I was a kid."
"I wasn't talking about him." Shooting a significant stare at Rory's back as he opened the door, a look that even she couldn't miss.
"What, Rory?" she snorted, never even noticing the way he froze in the doorway, like a deer in headlights, as though he was holding his breath. "How have I GOT Rory?"
"Yeah," he said nervously, turning around to face us. "Yeah, how...how's she got me?"
"He's not mine," Amy continued.
"No..." Rory agreed, looking at the floor. "No...I'm not hers."
"Oh, come on! Seriously, it's got to be you two!" Blank looks from both of them. Impatience stirring in my veins. Was this how it had to be? Me, match-making my own incredibly slow parents? The Universe certainly had a twisted sense of humour. "Oh, cut to the song, it's getting boring!"
Amy's condescending smile. "Nice thought, OK? But completely impossible."
Rory, trying to hide the hurt look on his face. "Yeah. Impossible."
"I mean, I'd love to, he's gorgeous," Amy qualified quickly, patting him reassuringly on the back. "He's my favourite guy. But he's...you know."
"A friend," Rory inserted in a dull voice.
"Gay," Amy said simultaneously.
Lounging back on the bed with a smile, watching the scene unfold. Amy's sweet, understanding look. Rory's stunned double-take, just as good as a play and twice as amusing.
"I'm not gay!" he protested.
"Yes, you are," she answered firmly.
"No. No, I'm not."
"Course you are! Don't be stupid! In all the time I've known you, when have you ever shown the slightest interest in a girl?"
"Penny in the air," I whispered, a bubble of laughter working its way up from my chest. Oh, come ON, Mother! Nobody could be this blind!
But apparently Amy could. "I've known you for, what? Ten years? I've seen you practically every day. Name one girl you've paid the SLIGHTEST bit of attention to?"
Rory looking at her helplessly, his heart in his eyes, unable to answer. A swirl of movement as he whirled around and ran from the room. The laughter finally bursting out of my mouth as her eyes meet mine, shocked to the very core.
"Oh my God!" she cried, running through the door. "Rory!"
"And the penny drops!" I smirked, hearing her chasing down the hall after him, knowing everything was coming together just as it should. All roads leading to Rome. All events linking together, one by one, in an unbreakable chain, until the day when my purpose would be achieved.
Jumping to my feet, tossing the model TARDIS carelessly back on to the bed, imagining a tiny Doctor tumbling helplessly around inside it.
"Catch you later!" I mocked. "Time Boy!"
"Oh, Mels, where have you been? You missed everything! I was never crazy after all! He's real! He's really, really real!"
Amy, almost dancing around the room in excitement, bubbling over with joy, the model TARDIS hugged tightly to her chest.
"He came back for me. And I'll see him again, I just know it!"
Keeping my face smooth with an effort, not letting her see the emotions churning inside me. It had been hard, so very hard, to keep myself hidden while he was in Leadworth, sorting out Prisoner Zero. So hard it almost hurt. I ached to complete my mission. But the time was not right. He was not the only one to understand the causal nexus. Amy had to travel with him in his TARDIS, or I would never be born. And so I allowed events to take their course, knowing my time would come.
"Mels, I just wish you could have met him!" Amy cried wistfully.
"Oh, I will, Amy," I responded with a tight smile. "Believe me, one day I will."
Holding the gun steady, I watched them troop one by one into the TARDIS, just as three police cars screamed to a halt nearby, sirens wailing madly and lights flashing.
Laughing with elation, I blew the police a cheeky kiss, before disappearing into the time machine myself.
Because this was my day. This was the day I had been training for all my life. This was the day I saved the Universe and earned my freedom.
This was the day I would kill the Doctor.