A/N Fun fact yall, this is on Archive of our Own under the same title! There its up to 20 chapters, and my penname is RaggedyDoctor

Amelia fell asleep after the first hour of waiting in the garden. Suitcase in hand, she told herself she would just shut her eyes for a moment, convinced that the Doctor and Rose would come back for her any second.

They did not.

When Aunt Sharon returned the following day, she was displeased to find Amelia slumped on the lawn instead of tucked snugly into bed. She chastised Amelia for being irresponsible.

"I'm not irresponsible," Amelia retorted heatedly, her face growing red with rage. "Rose and the Doctor think I'm brave!"

Sharon was a rather sensible woman, and was not prone to flights of fancy like her niece, and so when Amelia continued to tell her tall tales about the Doctor and Rose, she dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

"The Doctor and Rose are your imaginary friends," Sharon insisted. "Many children your age have them, and there's no shame in admitting to it."

"They arenotimaginary!" Amelia stomped her foot, powerlessness giving way to rage. "They closed the crack in my wall with a sonic screwdriver when you were away!"

Sharon took a deep breath, trying her very hardest not to lose her mind at the child. After all, it was age appropriate for her to have fantasies, but this was reaching the extreme. "They arenotreal Amelia, I will hear no more talk of Doctors or Roses in this house!"

Amelia stormed off after that, and refused to speak to Sharon for a week.

This sort of behaviour went on for a month or so, and it wore on Sharon greatly. Amelia was obsessed with her imaginary characters, going so far as to pray to them instead of Santa, and if Sharon even tried to suggest that they might not be real, Amelia would shut her down without hesitation.

It was time to bring in some help.

Psychiatrist number one

Amelia stared at the woman sitting across from her. She looked like a poodle with her coily hair, and she was wearing the silliest frilliest orangest coat Amelia had ever seen. Amelia disliked her almost immediately. The woman's smile split open, revealing near a perfect set of teeth. "Hello dear, my name is Charlotte. What's your name sweetheart?"

Amelia narrowed her eyes, the condescending tone hitting her like concrete. "You already know my name," she muttered stubbornly. "Can we get on with this? I've got dolls to sew."

Charlotte scribbled a note on her notepad. "Would you like to tell me about your dolls?"

Amelia had never wanted anything less in her life. She crossed her arms over her chest, putting on her best murderous glare. She thought she was rather intimidating.

Charlotte obviously didn't get the memo because she just laughed. "You don't scare me girly. I've been working with troubled kids for longer than you've been alive."

Offence sprung up in Amelia's spine. Troubled? She was no troubled child!

"I'm not troubled!" She retorted. "I'm very smart!"

A placating smile. Another note. Amelia wanted to rip the notepad to shreds with her teeth. "I'm sure you are," Charlotte reassured, but Amelia couldfeelher insincerity. She finished her meaningless scribbles and looked back up to the furious girl.

"Why don't you tell me about your imaginary friends?"

Amelia jutted out her chin. "They're not imaginary. I saw real life."

Charlotte smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. It was a gentle but strained looking thing, like the look Aunt Sharon gave her when she was being a nuisance in front of guests. "Of course."

Enough was enough. Amelia bit her.

She was grounded for a whole month after the incident, which she thought was a somewhat unfair punishment. The woman had actively provoked her!

When Amelia went to school the next day, she sat squished in between Rory and Melody, her third and fourth best friends. Their teacher usually made sure to separate them, but thankfully he was too busy dealing with an argumentative girl at the other end of the classroom to pay any attention.

After school, the three children went back to Amelia's house to play together before dinner. Amelia knew Sharon wouldn't be home for a while, and so she decided it was the perfect time to tell them all about what had occurred with the Doctor and Rose.

When she had finished relaying everything that had occurred a month or so ago, she was met with wide eyes and slack jaws. "That really happened?" Melody asked, wonder in her voice. Amelia nodded emphatically.

Rory was a little more skeptical. "Are you sure you weren't just dreaming? Or they might be imaginary?" Amelia rounded on the boy, narrowing her eyes.

"I didn't dream it! You sound like my psychia-" Amelia hesitated, struggling to pronounce the word. "My psycha-"

"Psychiatrist?" Melody supplied. Amelia nodded.

"That. You sound like her. I bit her." The last sentence was accompanied by a feral little grin. Rory swallowed nervously.

"Please don't bite me."

"I shan't if you tell me you think they're real Lawrence," Amelia stuck her chin in the air, using his full name to irritate him.

"That's not fair," Rory whined. "Neither of you have long names I can pick on."

Amelia considered this. It was true, she had the upper hand in this argument, going by her her entire first name, but what if she didn't?

"I could shorten my name to Amy? Then you could call me Amelia when you're cranky?" Amelia offered, and Rory tried it.

"Amy… Amy Pond. Alright!" He turned to Melody. "And what'll we call you? O… dy?" He looked embarrassed. "Lod?"

"No you goose," Amy smacked his arm gently. "It's obvious. Mels is the only option."

Melody, or, rather Mels, thought her new name to be a good fit, and so their nicknames stuck.

Psychiatrist number two

Amelia sat in a new chair, across from a new psychiatrist with the exact same furious look on her face.

He was an older man, with half moon spectacles perched precariously on his nose, a rumpled suit jacket layered over a badly ironed collar shirt and some worn out slacks.

"Now Miss Amelia," he began, but she cut him off.

"Amy. I'm Amy." He pursed his wrinkled lips and wrote something down on his notepad. Seriously, what was it with psychiatrists and notepads?

"Your file says Amelia, that is what I will be calling you in today's session." His firm voice brokered no argument, and it was at that moment Amy decided that he was irredeemable.

"So, tell me Miss Amelia, when did your delusions begin?"

Amy suspected he wasn't very used to interacting with children. He looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. She grit her teeth, stubbornly refusing to respond. He made a note. Amy glowered at him over her crossed arms. He leaned back, and looked at her.

"Who is the Doctor to you?"

She remained silent, pretending to take interest in the room around her. The curtains were an ugly shade of brown, and the paintings on the wall were extremely dull unlike the last place which had been plastered with cartoon kittens and silly drawings. Amy had a hunch that Aunt Sharon had accidentally taken her to an adult psychiatrist.

"When did Rose come into the delusions?" The psychiatrist pressed. Amy humoured him.

"She came with the Doctor. In the blue box."

Scribble scribble.

"Can you tell me about the blue box?"

Amy clamped her mouth shut. The psychiatrist sighed. "Would you please tell me about the crack in your wall?"

She remained silent. He sighed, putting the notepad to the side. "If you don't answer me, you'll have to come back next week." He seemed desperate to end their encounter as soon as possible, much like herself.

An idea entered Amy's head, one she knew would get her in extreme trouble, but it was just too delicious to pass up.

"Do you know why I stopped seeing my old psychiatrist?" She asked, almost conversationally. The psychiatrist perked up, encouraged by the first real interest she had seemingly shown.

"No, I must confess, it's not on your file. Would you like to tell me why?" His pen was poised above the paper, ready to scrawl across the pages.

Aunt Sharon always said that hands on learning and experience was more effective than simply being told, and so Amy took that advice to heart.

Amy bit him.

Grounded again. Amelia flopped onto her bed, miserably. It was a Sunday, and so she didn't even have the slight reprieve of school to ease her boredom. Amy pulled her raggedy dolls to her chest, cuddling the Doctor and Rose close. Oh how badly she wanted them to come and get her, to be her new parents. She was certain Rose wouldn't make her go to a psychiatrist.

Rain poured outside, and she could hear distant thunder rumble. It was going to be a dark and stormy night, the best kind for stories to begin.

A dullthunkdrew her attention, and Amy's eyes snapped to focus on her window frame. No oneseemedto be there, but she'd better make sure. "Hello?" she asked tentatively. "Doctor, is that you?"

She stood, still clutching her handmade dolls to her chest, and approached the window frame with caution. She shrieked, nearly falling backwards as a drenched Mels appeared, grinning at her through the glass.

Amy discarded her dolls onto her bed, and yanked up the window, helping her friend in. "Mels, you goose!" She chastised, crossing her arms crankily. "You'll catch your death of a cold!"

Mels snickered. "You sound like your aunt." Amy took great offence to that comparison, but her biting retort was lost when Mels started up a hacking cough. She pulled a blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her shivering friend.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you!" Mels teeth chattered as she spoke. "Rory's Mum told my foster Mum that your Aunt said you couldn't come play today because you bit another psychiatrist."

Amy hated how gossipy Sharon could be. "Hmph."

"Well I think biting him was perfectly sensible," Mels reassured Amy, taking her hand, her head resting on Amy's shoulder. "He might've tried to make you forget the Doctor."

"I could never forget the Doctor!" Amy declared, horrified at the notion. "Or Rose! Aunt Sharon can't make me forget them."

Mels hummed in agreement, and Amy realised she was beginning to fall asleep. Amy knew she should have made her wake up and go home in case Sharon caught them, but instead she just wrapped the blanket more securely around the sleepy girl.

When Sharon did eventually come up to Amy's room, Amy shushed her, pointing to the girl sleeping on her. Sharon didn't punish her. Amy wondered if Aunt Sharon knew what it was like to have no one like Mels.

After a late dinner, Mels was driven home and Amy went to sleep dreaming of their little trio being swept up by Rose and the Doctor and carried away in their TARDIS.

Amy ran late to school the next day, and when she finally got to her classroom, Mels was in a stink. Rory was seated across the room from them and he waved miserably at Amy as she took her chair next to Mels. "What's wrong?" Amy enquired, concerned.

Mels pouted, her bottom lip sticking out like a sofa. "Mr Redecker took my necklace."

Amy's blood boiled. The necklace was the only thing Mels had from her birth Mum, and even Mr Redecker knew how precious it was to the girl. Mels really should be more careful with her things though. She held the record for most confiscated property at their school, and Amy knew their teacher was probably justified in taking it off of her.

Regardless, the necklace meant the world to Mels, and Amy would find a way to get it back. She patted the other girls back gently as her mind began to tick. How would she go about this…

"-my Dad, theprincipleeats lunch at twelve thirty everyday, and tomorrow he said I can skip class and eat with him-"

Amy turned around in her chair to look at Selena Vance, her brain ticking over the information she had just been handed. "Does he stay at school for lunch?" She interjected, innocently batting her eyelashes. Selena shook her head, her blonde ringlet curls bouncing.

"He goes down to the cafe. And I get to go with him tomorrow!" Amy tuned the girls' asinine chatter out. Her plan started to form, and just as recess was beginning, Amy knew exactly what she had to do.

When they were released from their classroom, Amy beckoned Rory and Mels over to the playground and relayed her idea to them.

"Amyyyyy," Rory whined, disliking her idea. "Can't it be something else?"

Amy glared at him. "Do you have a better idea?" Rory shook his head sorrowfully. His Mam was going to kill him.

After recess, the little trio entered the classroom, two out of the three wearing deceptively serene smiles on their faces. Rory just looked ill.

Maths class began, and Amy watched the clock closely, Selenas words blazed into her brain.

Twelve thirty, Amy thought, her eyes flicking up to the clock again for the third time that we can begin.

Finally, twelve thirty rolled around, and Amy waggled her eyebrows at Rory from across the room, their chosen signal. He only sighed visibly.

Mr Redecker enjoyed teaching his year twos greatly, and despite some early troubles with some of the more, ahem,spiritedchildren, he was confident in his ability to wrangle them now.

He kept his eyes peeled for trouble in the classroom as his students worked quietly on their maths sums, nothing too difficult, just basic addition, and found his gaze drifting back to Melody Zucker.

She was a strange little thing, but he supposed that must come from her upbringing. She was a foster kid, and he worried about what impact that was having on her. She was skittish, but not in the way that seemed like she was beaten. Her body language suggested that she was ready to dodge a bullet at any moment.

Even though he empathised with her, he would not tolerate her continuous disrespect of his classroom rules, and so when she had smacked poor Rory in the face with her necklace that morning, he had confiscated it with her myriad other contraband items.

Movement in the corner of the classroom caught his eye, and he looked up to see little Amelia Pond stand up and walk towards the arts and crafts bins. He cleared his throat. "Amelia, what are you doing? We're supposed to keep butts on seats, remember?"

Amelia didn't appear to hear him, or, more likely, was ignoring him completely. Mr Redecker called out again. "Amelia."

She picked up a big pot of glue in one hand and took up a jar of rainbow glitter in the other. Too late, Mr Redecker realised what she was about to do.

"Amelia, put the jar down—"

She promptly dumped the contents of both containers all over Rory's head.

Mr Redecker exhaled tiredly, rubbing his temple. "Why would you do that?"

He should have gone into arts.

As Amy had hoped, she and Rory were both taken to the principal's office. She winked at Mels as she was pulled along by their teacher. Rory trailed behind them crying and she wasn't totally sure if they were fake tears or real ones. Either way they looked convincing.

When they got to the principal's office, it was empty, exactly how Amy had planned it. This gave Mels time to go through the lost property cupboard in their classroom uninterrupted, and hopefully get out with her necklace.

Mr Redecker looked into the principal's office, a frown on his face. "Hmm it appears Mr Finch is away for lunch." Rory sniffled quietly behind him. Mr Redecker turned to face them. "Alright, back to class. Amy, you will be losing your lunchtime to do detention with him instead."

Amy's heart sank. "Or we could wait for him to get back?" She wheedled, trying to appear extremely calm, and not the picture of panic she actually was. Mr Redecker unfortunately didn't take the bait, and walked them back to class.

As the group trudged down the deserted hallways, Amy hoped with all her heart that Mels would be out of the cupboard by the time they got back.

When they reentered the classroom, Amy's eyes darted to the back of the room where the lost property cupboard was. The door was closed, but Mel's silhouette could be seen clearly behind the window. Amy prayed to the Doctor and Rose, begging them to help Mels get away safely somehow.

Mr Redecker hadn't noticed her yet, and was instead checking to see if the rest of the class was ok after his absence. He made Amy sit at the back of the classroom away from everyone else as punishment, and she fixed her eyes on the cupboard.

Mels silhouette disappeared, and Amy's heart fell. Where had she gone?

Amy strained to see the girl for five or so minutes, but she really had disappeared.

Wait, no. Outside the window, near the cupboard, on top of the roof, a small dark haired speck of a girl appeared, hopping from roof to roof, a glimmer of gold clutched in her fist. Amy grinned, realising that Mels must have climbed out through the maintenance duct. Rory saw Amy staring and followed her gaze. His face grew slightly less miserable as he realised that his sacrifice was well worthwhile. Mels had her necklace back.

Amy was banned from Rory's house for the next month thanks to the incident. His mother did not appreciate the way that the glitter from Rory's hair seemed to inhabit every crack in their house for the next year or so.

"I'm going to marry the raggedy man!" Mels proclaimed.

"No you can't," Amy said prissily, fixing the doll's bowtie. "He's going to be married to Rose." Mels scowled, displeased.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Amy had invited her third and fourth best friends (after Rose and the Doctor of course) to come over to her house. Mels had readily agreed, but Rory had football practice, which he hated with a burning passion, so it was just the two of them, sitting on Amy's patchwork yellow bedspread, playing with her dolls.

"Rose and the raggedy man will be my parents, you'll see. They'll come back for me!" Amy continued, folding the pleats of Roses dress so they looked just right. Mels frowned.

"What about us? Will you leave us behind?"

Amy hadn't thought properly about that. In her dreams, Rory and Mels were always by her side as they sped through the cosmos exploring. Would the Doctor and Rose be ok with bringing them? "You can come with us," she stated, but she felt unsure. What if they said no?

"The Doctor isn't a forgiving man," Mels said, and Amy's brows furrowed at the strange turn in conversation.

"Have you met him?" She demanded. Mels backpedalled.

"No! No? Just from- what you've said, he doesn't sound like he accepts the word sorry." Amy cocked her head, confusion running through her veins. She was about to ask another question when a sharp call from below of 'Dinners up!' broke her concentration.

She took Mels hand and pulled her off of the bed. "We better hurry up, Aunt Sharon gets mean when she's hungry."

As if to illustrate the fact, a clang came from the kitchen, followed by a string of child safe swearing. Mels and Amy giggled together, and ran to the bathroom to wash up, hand in hand, forgetting their previous conversation.

Psychiatrist number three

Amy sat in her new psychiatrist's office, boredom plastered across her face. There was nothing to look at in the grey room where Aunt Sharon had left her, nothing at all, and she was contemplating just walking out whenfinallythe woman she assumed was her psychiatrist appeared.

She didn't look much older than Amy's teacher Mr Redecker, but she seemed much less confident in herself. She took a seat opposite Amy and her leg bounced anxiously. Amy held her little feral smile back.

Oh this was going to be easy.

Amy crossed her legs on the seat. "You took long enough. I've been in here forages."

The woman had the decency to look apologetic. "Ah. Right. Yes. Sorry about that Miss Pond. My last appointment ran late."

Amy shrugged. "Alright."

The woman pulled out her notepad. "Do you want some paper to draw with this session?"

Amy accepted the offer, and with the coloured pencils she was offered, she began to sketch out a drawing of Rose. The psychiatrist looked over her shoulder, and made a note.

"What's your name?" Amy asked casually, drawing a wisp of hair.

"My name is Lucy." Lucy leaned closer to the paper. "And who are you drawing today?"

"Rose." Amy didn't bother to look up at her.

"Ah yes, the Doctor's wife." Amy's eyes snapped up to meet Lucy's.

"How do you know that? I never told you," she accused, and Lucy pulled out another sheet of paper.

"It's in your file love." She scanned it with her eyes and read aloud. "Amelia Jessica Pond, seven years old, extreme hallucinations." Amy wanted to object to the last bit, but Lucy went on. "She mentions the Doctor and his wife Rose consistently, and is adamant that a blue time travelling box crashed into her front yard."

Amy scowled. "It's true. I saw it."

Lucy paid no attention to her comment. "Doctor Jenkins, your last psych, suggested we trial you on some medication, to see if your hallucinations ease up. Does that sound ok?"

It did not sound ok.

Amy bit her.

After that, Aunt Sharon made Amy take the tablets every morning. She said it was to help her 'see reality', but Amy thought that was dumb. The Doctor and Rose were very very real, and she would not be convinced otherwise.

So, with each tablet Sharon gave, Amy would pretend to swallow it, and keep it in her cheek until she got outside. Then she would spit it out into the garden in a different spot each day to keep Sharon from being too suspicious.

She was getting rather good at keeping Sharon out of the loop.

Amy walked to school, and met up with her friends. They were sat separately, but at recess they gathered together to play some games. The bell rang, and they made their way back into the classroom, but Rory lagged behind. Amy waved at Mels to hurry on ahead and fell back to walk with him.

"Are you ok?" She whispered. Rory wasn't quite pouting, but he certainly wasn't smiling either.

"There's still chunks of glue through my hair." He moaned miserably, tugging his hands at the ends of his unflattering bowl cut. "Mam couldn't get it out."

Guilt coursed through Amy's veins as she recalled the incident from a week ago.

"I'm sorry for tipping glitter on your head."

Rory hadn't expected Amy to apologise. It wasn't that she was an unkind girl, but she rarely acknowledged her mistakes, and it was even rarer to receive an apology from her.

He looked down at the ground. "'S fine." he mumbled, but Amy smacked his shoulder.

"Course it's not. I should have… thought about you." She looked mildly embarrassed.

Rory shrugged. "Maybe."

Amy stuck out her hand to him, almost shyly. "Friends?"

Rory took it without hesitation. "Best friends."

All was right in Rory's world.

Psychiatrist number four

Amy liked the look of this psychiatrist better than the last three, although her box dye blonde hair didn't look quite as good on her as it did on Rose.

"Right Miss Amelia Pond, you're quite the case," she said as Amy walked into the room. "And a bit of a biter if I've heard correctly?"

"It's Amy," she corrected. "And I only bite people who deserve it." The psychiatrist made a note of it. Hmph.

"Fair enough. Right then Amy, you can call me Lily. What's your favourite colour?"

Amy was a little taken aback at the question. She had walked in expecting a barrage of questions about the Doctor and instead she was asked her favourite colour? Hmm.

"Yellow." she said decisively. "Sunflower yellow. Not neon."

Lily made a note of it. Grr. "Good pick. My favourite is pink personally, but yellow has its merits."

Pink. Like Roses jacket. Amy relaxed a little. "Rose wore a pink jacket the night she and the Doctor visited me." Amy disclosed. Lily put her notepad down so she could look at Amy properly.

"Did she now?" Lily's pretty green eyes sparkled. "She sounds like a woman with good taste."

Maybe this psychiatrist wouldn't need to be bitten.

All too soon, the session was over, and Amy was being led out the door. She turned back around to face Lily, voicing a question she was almost too afraid to ask.

"Do you truly believe me?" Amy said, her voice wavering. "About… about Rose and the Doctor?"

Lily looked away, and Amy could feel the energy in the room shift. A rock settled in her stomach. A sigh came, and then Lily spoke quietly.

"I wish so much they were real for your sake."

Amy's hope shattered in that instant. She had thought maybe she had finally found an adult to trust, maybe she could confide in Lily- well, no matter. If she were to be like the others, she would receive the very same treatment.

Amy bit her.

Sharon was at her wits end. Amelia had been through four psychiatrists in quick succession and instead of improving her behaviour, it only seemed to make the girl more wild. Sharon wished so dearly that Amelia's actual Mother, Tabitha Pond, were here to raise her daughter instead of her.

Tabitha had been equally untamed at Amelia's age, passing her bright red hair and fiery temper onto the little lass, and Sharon was just as unequipped to deal with Amy as their late mother had been with Tabitha.

She really hated leaving Amy home alone at night, but bills had to be paid, and her job as a nurse often required late night shifts, so the sacrifice was made.

Sharon prayed to whatever God may be listening that Amelia wouldn't end up sleeping on the front lawn again.