CHAPTER 6
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K'anpo Rimpoche led Amy and Rory to a special Zero Room that he had created just for the kind of meditative practices that he was now going to attempt to teach them. Amy and Rory stood at the entrance to the room, which Time Lords usually used to fix regenerations that had gone wrong, as they waited for K'anpo to begin the whole process.
"In order to really use my techniques, a couple needs to be linked first, and you've told me that you're not. You need to do that first before we can do anything further. Before you do go through with this though, I have to ask both of you if you're sure about this before we continue," K'anpo said.
Amy and Rory both looked at each other and smiled as they said at the same time, "Yes."
K'anpo smiled back at them then as he said, "Good. I just wanted to give you one last chance. Okay. The two of you can go into the Zero Room now for privacy as you link. Once you're finished with the link, just let me know; and I'll take over from there."
Amy and Rory went into the Zero Room and locked the door behind them. Rory waited for Amy to tell him what to do next since he had no idea how the whole process worked.
"Put your hands on the sides of my head, and I'll do the same to you," Amy said.
The two of them placed their hands on each other's temples, and Rory could feel Amy beginning to enter his mind while at the same time he was beginning to enter hers. It was a very strange sensation. He had felt her presence there before but not like this.
Their minds quickly formed a solid connection with each other's, and Rory could soon hear Amy's thoughts just as he knew that she could hear his. He also began to be able to have access to all of her memories and knowledge whenever he wanted to and vice versa.
Rory was amazed now as his mind started to flood with Amy's memories. He saw memories of the two of them together and of their wedding. Then he saw her memories of him and Mels as they were growing up which then switched to memories of meeting the Doctor when she was a little girl.
After that, he began to see mental images of someone who he had never seen before, but who he instinctively knew must be Amy. So this was Cliodna he thought to himself.
He could see what she had looked like before he knew her now and thought to himself that Amy was always beautiful no matter what. This produced a laugh from her in his mind, and he knew that she was listening to his every thought now. It was wonderful and yet extremely unnerving all at the same time.
He then saw her change over and over again in his mind as he saw her go through more incarnations. He watched in fascination as he saw her change her appearance and persona over and over again. Sometimes she was a red head, sometimes a blonde, and sometimes a brunette.
He saw a few memories of each of these incarnations as they briefly appeared to him as well. One incarnation seemed very fond of a young brunette woman who seemed to feature in her memories quite a lot. He wondered briefly if she had been Cliodna's companion and made a mental note to ask Amy about her later.
He counted each incarnation as they went by, and he eventually realized that Amy was now on her eighth self. She had had seven other selves before the one that he knew now. He could see in her eyes each time though that she was still the same person. She was still his Amy no matter how much she changed.
When he reached Cliodna's first self, he was shocked to see the image of her in his mind start to come to life and talk to him. At the same time, memories of people who he knew must have been friends of hers began to play out in front of him. A young boy and girl were playing chess together, and the girl was soundly beating the boy. The girl seemed to enjoy humiliating the boy at the game, and Rory could see that the boy was becoming further and further frustrated the more that he lost to her.
"These are some really early memories. That red head over there, believe it or not, is Rose. Of course, she was Arkytior then. The boy is the Doctor. We're all in our first incarnations here," the First Cliodna said happily.
"Amy?" Rory asked uncertainly.
"Who else, Stupid Face? I'm appearing like this to get you used to the idea of me as Cliodna. You are going to have all of my other selves appearing in your mind from time to time complete with their own memories from now on after all," Cliodna said.
Rory was silent for a minute, and Cliodna's image morphed back into Amy's as she looked at him with concern. She wondered if this was all too much for him. She had to admit that even she sometimes couldn't get used to the idea of her other selves once again since she had thought of herself as just Amy for so long.
"Are you okay? It is kind of mind blowing to see all of those other versions of me, isn't it?" Amy asked.
"I'm fine. It's just taking a while for me to process this. I keep getting bits of memory here and there from all of them. I also keep seeing images of this man all throughout your mind. It's your first husband, isn't it?" Rory asked with a trace of jealousy in his tone.
"Yes, but you have no cause to be jealous, Rory. He died a long time ago, and I'm with you now. I love you, Rory. I'll always love and remember him, but you're not in his shadow if that's what you're worried about. He would want me to move on and I have. I love you just as much as I loved him," Amy said.
"If you had to choose between him and me though, who would you pick?" Rory asked in a moment of jealousy and insecurity.
He instantly regretted saying it when he saw the look on Amy's face. She looked like he had just stuck a knife into her heart.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. That's not fair to you I know. I just felt like I was second best for a minute when I saw all of those images and memories of him in your head," Rory said as he embraced her while he apologized.
"I never meant to make you feel that way. I love you, Rory. You're not second best to anyone, and you never will be," Amy said in a soothing voice.
"Forget I said anything. For a second there, I was old Rory again. I was just being stupid," Rory said.
"You seem to do that a lot, Mr. Pond. It seems that I'm going to have to reassure you of your place in my life," Amy said as she began to kiss him.
While the two of them kissed inside of their minds, the link finally completed itself and became permanent at last. Now nothing and no one could ever tear them apart. They would always be a part of each other now and forever.
They reluctantly stopped kissing inside of their minds as they finally felt that the link was finished and returned to their individual bodies. They both found that they were kissing in the real world as well now. They broke apart and began to laugh at each other.
"It seems that we both had a one track mind for a while there," Amy said.
"I've heard of being lost in the moment when you're kissing, but this is ridiculous," Rory agreed.
"I'm just that good. That's what makes me worth waiting two thousand years for," Amy joked.
"I'll agree with that," Rory said with a big grin.
Amy walked over to the door of the Zero Room and told K'anpo that they were ready for his help now. K'anpo walked in and was pleased to see both of them so happy. That wasn't always the case after a link in his experience. Sometimes the link brought unpleasant questions up when each person got a good look at what was in the other's mind for the first time.
"Now I'm going to teach the two of you what to do to make sure that Rory can stay his own person and not be sucked into your mind and memories, Amy. Let's start with creating a place that Rory can go to where he can be safe in case he ever starts to be overwhelmed," K'anpo said.
"How do I do that?" Rory asked.
"I want you to create a place for yourself in your mind and hold onto a steady picture of it as you concentrate on it. It can be any place where you feel safe and at ease when you imagine yourself there. It could be a real or fictional. Any place will do," K'anpo said,
Rory started to imagine that he was in Amy's TARDIS with Amy and Anthony sitting with him. He then quickly amended that image to include Selene and Julia as well. They were a part of his family too now.
K'anpo then projected himself into Rory's mind where he could see what Rory was imagining. K'anpo was going to continue his training telepathically while Rory continued to build his secret safe place deep inside of his mind.
"Why am I not surprised?" Amy asked as Rory's image of her started speaking to him. Amy had taken over his mental construct of her.
"You must not do that, Cliodna. I know that you always want to be with him, but this is to be his place of refuge. He must be safe from any outside projections of your mind in here for this to work," K'anpo said.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I'll pop back out," Amy said as Rory's fake Amy went back to being lifeless and a product of his thoughts once again.
"I didn't mind her being here. It doesn't feel right shutting her out," Rory said.
"I know that, and that's a good thing. However, you will need to keep this place free of her in order to protect yourself in time. In a few months, her mind will so overwhelm yours that there will be no more you left if you don't create a place like this to protect yourself with," K'anpo said.
Rory nodded as he asked, "What do I do now then?"
"I want you to imagine this place is covered with an impenetrable force field. Nothing can get in or out of it except for you," K'anpo said.
"According to the Doctor, a TARDIS is almost indestructible and it does have a force field so it shouldn't be that hard to imagine," Rory said.
"Good. The more that you can root things in reality and in what you accept as firm and concrete, the more realistic that it will become for you and the harder that it will be for it to be destroyed. I want you to keep concentrating on this TARDIS while I talk to Amy a minute," K'anpo said as he withdrew from Rory's mind.
"What do you want me to do?" Amy asked.
"I want you to try to break into his safe place," K'anpo said.
"What? Doesn't that defeat the point?" Amy asked.
"No. I want you to come up with anything that you can think of to break into his safe place with, and I want him to come up with a way around it. The two of you can make it into a nice competitive game if that helps. Once you've played this game long enough, Rory's mind should be able to protect itself against anything that your subconscious comes up with to get to it with. It's better that he learns how to protect himself against you now than later. Go ahead and start trying to break into his new mental construct," K'anpo said.
K'anpo quickly explained to Rory what Amy was about to do, and then he watched while the two of them began to interact with each other. He could tell that they were both having fun as Amy came up with one way after another to break through Rory's defenses, and Rory would then come up with a way to block her when she would try the same old tactics again the next time. He could see Rory trying to anticipate her now as he came up with ways to protect himself against her that she didn't even think about until after she had failed. Then she would smile at him and laugh as she mouthed words of encouragement to him to continue the good work.
Making it into a spirit of friendly competition while they both worked towards the same goal helped to eliminate any feelings of resentment or guilt for both sides K'anpo had discovered after perfecting his techniques. He continued to supervise them as they played this mental game until Amy found to her surprise and delight that she could no longer break into Rory's safe place no matter how hard she tried. It seemed to be working at last.
"That's all of the lessons for today then. Come back tomorrow, and we'll do this again plus I'll teach you some more things that I have learned to help humans keep their sense of self. The more that you practice, the stronger Rory's mind will get," K'anpo instructed.
"Thank you. I don't know how I can ever repay you," Amy said.
K'anpo hesitated and Amy knew that there was something that he wanted to ask her. She led him outside of the Zero Room where Rory couldn't hear them so that he could have some privacy.
"What is it? Ask me anything, and if I can help, I'll do it," Amy offered.
"I may need some advice of my own. I'm an expert when it comes to the mind and the spirit, but when it comes to the hearts I'm an amateur even after two thousand years," K'anpo admitted.
"Are you talking about Melanie?" Amy asked with a knowing smile.
"Arkytior told you about her then?" K'anpo asked surprised.
"Yeah, of course. Rose tells me about everything. It's still so strange to me even now. I remember us being as close as sisters back on Gallifrey, but I barely know Rose as Amy. It just seems so strange to suddenly trust her with everything and yet it feels natural all at the same time," Amy admitted.
"You're going to continue to feel that way from now on because you see yourself as a human being now. Your human self has become too much a part of you for you to ever let it go. The same thing has happened to Arkytior. I've seen plenty of cases of this kind of identity crisis with other Time Lords who have used the Chameleon Arch. It's become a common thing in Time Lord society since the Time War," K'anpo said.
"I don't want to let Amy go. She's who I am now. I like Amy. To be honest, I prefer Amy to who I wound up being at the end of my old life," Amy said.
"I never said that you should let her go. I was simply explaining why you continued to think of yourself as Amy instead of Cliodna now. It's a natural thing after having lived as another species for so long especially when you were as miserable as you were as Cliodna in the first place," K'anpo said.
"I guess you're right. Well, now that you've helped me with my personal problems once again today I think that it's way past time that I started to help you with yours. What do you want me to do to help you with Melanie?" Amy asked with a mischievous grin.
"Could you give me advice on how to ask her on a date? You've been both a human and a Time Lord so maybe you could help me better than almost anyone else since you have such a unique perspective," K'anpo said.
"What about Rose? Why couldn't she help you?" Amy asked curiously.
"She was a little too aggressive for me. She just kept trying to push us together relentlessly. I know that she meant well, but I just need time in order to do things my own way. I can't just rush into things. What if I do something wrong and I wind up losing her?" K'anpo said worried.
Amy began to laugh as she said, "She's been with you for this long, and you're worried about losing her now because of one mistake? I think that if the two of you have lived together on this ship for as long as you have without either of you wanting to leave then you have nothing to worry about in that department, K'anpo. I can see that this is going to be challenging. You remind me so much of Rory when it comes to the matter of love. He didn't tell me how he felt about me until Melody forced him to. I'm sure if Melody had left it up to him that I still wouldn't know even now. You seem to have the same problem."
"I admit it. I'm so terrified of losing Mel that I can't do anything to move forward with our relationship," K'anpo said.
"Well, it's up to Doctor Amy to help fix what ails you then, K'anpo. Tell you what. You fix my problem, and I'll fix yours. I'll have you married to her with a TARDIS full of kids in no time," Amy offered.
"I'd settle for just going out on a date with her for now. You're kind of getting ahead of yourself a little bit there. You're trying to marry us off before I even know how she feels about me yet," K'anpo said.
"She's been living with you for years, K'anpo. What do you think?" Amy asked as she rolled her eyes at him.
"I'm not sure," K'anpo said nervously.
"You're worse than the Doctor," Amy said with a groan.
"It looks like you're going to have quite a challenge ahead. If this works though, maybe you can get your own talk show where you help people with relationship advice. You could call it Ask Dr. Amy or maybe just Amy. 'On an all new Amy, Amy has to council a two thousand year old Time Lord on basic relationship skills. Can Dr. Amy do the impossible? Find out on this week's Amy!'" Selene said as she walked up to them with a huge smile on her face.
"Can I ever have any secrets from you, Selene?" Amy asked in irritation.
"Nope. I'm your little sister. It's my job to pry into each and every corner of your life and put my nose where it doesn't belong. How else can I annoy you?" Selene said with a chuckle.
"You won't tell anyone else, will you?" K'anpo asked as he turned white with fear.
"Of course not. I just love torturing Amy. Your secret's safe with me. If you ask me though, you should just suck it up and ask her out on a date already. You've certainly had more than enough time to have done it by now. Just do it already!" Selene said impatiently.
"Do what?" Melanie Bush, K'anpo's companion and the object of the previous discussion, asked as she walked into the room.
"Nothing. It's nothing. We were j-j-just talking about Amy and Rory's treatment that's all," K'anpo said as he stuttered in nervousness around her.
"You'll help them. I know you will. I have faith in you," Mel said as she smiled warmly at him.
The two of them then left the room as K'anpo quickly changed the subject to what their friend, Glitz, was up to lately. Amy and Selene looked at each other with looks of disbelief on their faces before they erupted into laughter.
"It's just like watching Arkytior and Theta all over again!" Both sisters said to each other at once.
Neither of them were prepared for what happened next as Rory walked out of the Zero Room and said, "Cliodna, what are you two laughing about?"
"Since when do you call me Cliodna?" Amy asked surprised.
"I've always called you that. That is your name after all," Rory said.
"You've never called me that," Amy said as she grew concerned.
"Of course I have. You are Cliodna. What else would I call you? It's your name just as much as Oisin is mine," Rory said with a straight face.
"Rory, is this a joke?" Amy asked in fear.
"Rory? Who is Rory?" Rory asked in confusion.
"K'anpo!" Amy said in terror as she raced off in the direction that he had gone with Mel.
The real Oisin meanwhile could hear Amy screaming from inside of her TARDIS, and he emerged from it to find her in tears discussing the situation with K'anpo, who she had finally caught up with. Oisin was as shocked as a Cyberman with no emotions could be when he overheard what had happened.
He wondered if he would now have to reveal his true identity in order to help Cliodna and what her response would be if he did. He hoped that it wouldn't have to come to that for all of their sakes.
Next: What has happened to Rory? Will Oisin have to tell everyone his secret in order to help Rory regain his true self?