5AN- This is a story I started on November 23rd, Doctor Who's 48th. I had been hoping to finish it then, but I didn't have time. It's completed now, though! :-)
Just a cute little one-shot between the Doctor and Amy! I enjoyed writing this one! Im gonna try to write some sort of one-shot every week, if I can. Let's see if I can. Just to let you know, these will be in no particular order, and I will eventually get some 10 and possibly some 9 action in there. Expect angst. Or at least hurt/comfort. Yeeeeah...
Bedtime Stories
The Doctor paced up and down the endless hallways of his TARDIS. It had been a long day, and a very tired Amy had just earlier commuted to bed, insisting that she needed to get some sleep. Now, without her light-hearted voice cheering up the place, the only sound stirring in the massive complex was the quiet hum of the time rotor, echoing like a slight whisper through the corridors.
Thinking to himself, the Time Lord reflected on the happenings of the past few hours, recounting to himself the return of the Silurians, the loss of Rory, and Amy's forgetting of him. Watching all memory of her Rory fading from her very eyes was heartbreaking for the Doctor to witness, almost as heartbreaking as him having to wipe all remembrance of himself from Donna Noble, the most important woman in the universe. But that incident was years ago, and though it still sometimes lingered in his head, coming to surface at the most inopportune moments, he had, for the most part, chosen to regard it as simply a "bad day". Much like he did the Time War.
The lonely man continued aimlessly through the TARDIS, not having any real destination, but eventually stopping at Amy's bedroom door. It was slightly ajar, he noticed; and though the Doctor usually wouldn't dare peek into a friend's room like that, as an invasion of privacy, there was a small source of light coming from inside, and he could clearly see Amy lying flopped on top of the covers of her bed, as if she had collapsed there exhaustedly, falling fast asleep the minute her head hit the soft comforter. He felt a twang of pity in his hearts for her, as her current position didn't look very comfortable at any stretch of the imagination. After a few minuscule seconds of deliberation, the Doctor silently entered her room.
On the TARDIS, the bedroom of a companion was designed to circulate around their current feelings, wishes, and dreams. It could change at any moment, and the more the TARDIS knows about you, the more it becomes personalized. With this, the Doctor, though he had never stepped foot into Amy's special room before, could nonetheless tell what dreams were mulling around in her head at that particular moment. Her room was almost completely dark, a searing panorama of space, galaxies, nebulas, and planets from afar slowly orbiting the walls around the small bed. The actual bed laid in a corner, just a twin-sized, with a tall back to it, the whole structure that deep, perfect shade of black. Comets flew by every once and a while on the ceiling, and light from a million stars gave off a dim glow in the room, the light the Doctor had seen from outside. Besides the bed, the room was empty. There was no other pieces of furniture in here, which kind of surprised him a bit.
The Doctor continued, to bend down, gently moving Amy so that she was completely in her bed, and then tucked her in, pulling the covers to her chin. During that whole time, Amy never so much as stirred. He took a seat on the edge of her bed, moving a stray stand of ginger hair out of her face.
"Amelia Pond..." the Doctor uttered quietly, giving a hint of a smile down at his friend. "You waited for me your whole childhood, yet you've never, in those 14 long years, given up on me... You've never given up on me, even today. I'll tell you one thing, I don't deserve the kind of trust, you know? Rule one: the Doctor lies. That's always been the case... Even from the very beginning..." The Doctor sighed, old memories suddenly pounding against his head, wanting to come out, wanting to be lived, wanting to be breathed. He hadn't really wanted to go into talking about back then, but he kinda needed to. His mind was troubled, and he needed someone to talk to. Not necessarily one to listen, just someone to talk to. That's sometimes all one really needs. So the Doctor got into a comfortable position on the edge of the bed, and began to tell the sleeping Amy a story. From the very beginning...
"Once, a very long while ago, there was a boy, who lived on a distant planet. Gallifrey, its name was. I think I've mentioned it before..." The Doctor paused, sadness welling up inside him at the mention of his homeworld. Nevertheless, he continued.
"But this young boy was different from all the others. This boy dreamed, Amy. He dreamed of seeing the stars, up close and personal. This dream stayed with him his whole life on Gallifrey... He never forgot." The Doctor sat on the edge of her bed, wringing his hands, memories of an innocent childhood sweeping through his mind like a wildfire. Were had it all gone wrong, he thought. Where had it all gone awry?
"This boy ended up marrying, having a family. Children, and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. During this time, though... the leadership, on Gallifrey... it began to be corrupt. So the boy planned an escape, stealing an obsolete type 40 TARDIS, and running away, with one of his granddaughters. He was... admittedly a grumpety old thing," the Doctor admited sheepishly. "Wanted to feel important. He was SO young, yet so old. They ended up exiling on Earth, and Susan, she had been called, well, she went to school there for a few months, returning home each night to that TARDIS, which had landed in a small junkyard. 76 Totter's Lane... That's where it all began..."
That was also where the TARDIS first took form as a police public call box, its chameleon circuit malfunctioning soon afterwards, the Doctor though quietly to himself. All those years, he had tried to fix it, and he actually did once, but it almost immediately faulted back to police box. He never really tried to fix it again. The Time Lord had, over all those years, grown to love the TARDIS as it was. He closed his eyes, both telling his story to the silent Amy and living it, in his memories.
"That's where he started to run," he continued, telling Amy the story, "and boy, I can you... he never stopped. He's still running, even to this day, after hundreds of years, and no matter what happens, he will continue, and I know this. Because that boy is me. That was my story, my life."
The Doctor took a melancholy breath, leaning against the bedpost. There was a distant look in his eyes. "But that boy is alone now... Gallifrey is gone, and with it, his people. Everyone." He closed his eyes, trying not to think about it... Trying not to think about the Last Great Time War, the war that shattered it all. The Moment. It might just be a bad day to him now, but that doesn't mean he doesn't still remember. Then he snapped back to attention, opening his eyes again, telling his story to the sleeping Amy lying silently under the covers.
"Things happen, though, and you have to learn to move on. Even losing friends comes as a shock, but eventually, you'll get over it. For a while there, I remember refusing to travel with anyone at all, afraid of losing someone else. But it got boring after a while, and... I started talking to myself. Then I found you... The Girl Who Waited. And you waited, and waited, and you waited for fourteen whole years, and now you're here! My Amelia Pond... here at last!"
The Doctor smiled down at the sleeping form below him. "I never have told you how much I love you being here, every day. Because you are magnificent, and don't you ever let anyone else tell you different, you hear? You saved the Starwhale, you stopped the bomb the Daleks made, you walked through a field of Angels with your eyes shut, the whole way! So remember this, Amy, and thank you for everything. I don't feel alone anymore, thanks to you."
He raised himself from his sitting position on the bed, and slowly creeped towards the door, being careful not to make a sound. He silently stepped through the doorway, turning around to look at her one last time before he left. "Goodnight, Amelia..." he whispered, "Sleep well!" He then slowly and quietly shut the door.
And in the black bed that she lay content in, a small smile crossed Amy's face, as she opened her eyes and looked up at the stars.
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x~Savannah x (peace, love, and DW)