Doctor Who Fic: says the mirror man
says the mirror man amy pond/eleven
on rare occasion, there is an odd encounter. sometimes it’s too soon. the beast below. 1,517 words.
-
It happens again as she dresses. Her old clothes are a mess on the floor by the wardrobe, a heap of dirt and dust and all things that she can’t quite get over unless she says, “it’s over,” like she used to do when she was sixteen, angry, and nearly through with pushing therapists.
She stands and stares at herself in a mirror. There are rooms here, too many rooms. She picked the first one when he told her that she could have any, as if any was just a small, relative word. Her eyes are brighter though. Her cheeks are flushed and grinning and there’s this pulse that keeps twisting against her fingertips. She isn’t smiling though. She remembers Rory.
“You’ll have to tell him,” Amy says out loud, and then practices again, “you’ll have to go and tell him and that will be that. It’s not like you’re asking him to understand - well, you did, but … ”
The girl in the mirror shakes her head. Amy pulls a jumper over herself, and her eyes closing as her hair whips into her face. It doesn’t matter, she thinks. If it did, things would be different. She thinks about Churchill and history books; there’s this feeling that pits tightly into her stomach and she laughs then too.
“Damn,” she breathes.
When she grabs her jacket, she returns to the top of the stairs and finds the Doctor sitting over the first few. His legs are stretched out. His gaze is cast over everything - the controls, the chairs, the bits of mud and smoke that they dragged in from London. He doesn’t look at her though and she sits, close.
She’s careful as she brings her knees up, frowning. She shifts to get comfortable and cocks them to the side instead.
“You look remarkably presentable,” he tells her then, and the warmth, the playful warmth rolls back over his tongue in that way she’s always known it, remembered it, and keeps it about somewhere in her head. She looks at him and reaches forward, picking at the collar of his jacket.
“I’m deciding to take that as you being - well, you - and choosing to answer that with a, well, yes, I am feeling much better, thank you.”
Her fingers open long and sweep under the fabric to straighten it, catching his jaw as he turns to study her. She smiles and he smiles back, calm. She doesn’t ask when yet.
“Soon,” he says.
She nods. Her hand doesn’t move. She busies herself with his tie, pulling at the end lightly. He laughs and she laughs too, shyly and unaccustomed to doing things as pairs. Rory doesn’t wear a tie. She shouldn’t think that way.
But the Doctor catches her too; it’s a marvel, really, the idea of personal space and what goes between them. He mirrors her gestures though. His hand rises and falls. He picks first at the jumper she wears. His fingers opening long and sweeping over the column of her throat; they move carefully against her skin and she shifts closer without thinking.
His hand drops then. He picks hers off too, curling is fingers into her palm. “I want to talk about what you were going to tell me,” he tells her.
If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. She turns her gaze away and looks out into the control. She counts the mess of wires as best as she can. She picks a few odds and ends, questions that aren’t really questions but fill her head instead.
“I don’t.” She fidgets. She tugs her hand free. “And anyway, I suppose we already talked about it. In bits and pieces; there’s nothing really to add on to that.”
“Until you choose to tell me otherwise,” he says.
They’re quiet. She sighs, out loud. Her hands pile into her lap. She rubs her thumbs over her knuckles. She counts them once, twice, and then looks down as if to make sure they’re there too. These little games - nuisances, as her aunt used to call them - are old and friendly, too far from habits and too close to be anything else.
“Are you worried?”
She asks and doesn’t mean too. She’s blushing when she turns and takes a tiny peek at him, watching him carefully.
“Me?” his eyes widen and he clutches his hand to his chest, in an almost comical sort of way; Amy rolls her eyes and shakes her head, as the Doctor reaches over and simply pokes her arm. “Absolutely not, I’ll have you know. Just taking a few moments to myself before we go off and meet Churchill - he’s a good ol’ boy and I still can’t forget the bloody headache I had after we met the first time, or the second - I believe it was the second. The second was actual business.”
“Ah.”
He’s quiet then too. She’s briefly reminded of the corridor and standing there with him, explaining herself and only explaining herself in such a way that she could only translate it as whatever this is and that she’s starting to be shaped by this experience all over again.
“Are you worried?”
He looks at her, genuinely concerned.
“No,” she says quickly. “Not at all. It’s just that if you’re worried, I’m worried, and, well, you being worried is cause for too much worry.”
He looks at her in amusement. She smiles back. He reaches forward and pulls at a few strands of her hair. He wraps them around his fingers, pulling them as the locks begin to sew around his skin. When he tugs, she blushes. When he tugs again, he laughs and she stares at him quietly.
When Rory asked her, they were standing in the old garden; there were wild bits of rose thorns and old branches, half an arm of a tree folding into the grass as a reminder of the storm from the night before.
Amy never thought about the Doctor then, or rather, in that moment when he took her hand. It wasn’t quite sunset, but a colder fall day; they stood together, watching each other, and as he started to kneel in front of her with that small and awkward smile, she knew one more thing about herself.
Belief was a frightening thing. After, she started listening for that noise. It made sense again.
But he tugs at her hair again, and she’s pulled back. Amy’s nose wrinkles.
“What?” she mutters then, and grabs his wrist, prying his fingers away from her hair. His hand drops though and into her lap, his hand facing her with the palm staring up. She pauses and then takes his hand.
“What?” she asks again.
His mouth opens slowly. It closes. There is this look that she catches from him that seems familiar and unfamiliar; she hates that about him, she decides, that there are parts that she feels like she should recognize and others that she shouldn’t expect.
This is still her life, she wants to tell him, and knowing belief, real belief as he gave it to her, as she took it and ran and forced herself to grow up faster and sooner than she needed to. He leans into her though, and around them, his ship begins to quiet, the sputters and whirls and cracks and crashes slow to a murmur and she’s almost wistful, wanting to hear it all over again.
“Hold still,” he says, and quickly, as if to catch her. He nudges her first and she’s confused, watching him. “Just for a second, all right?”
“What?”
He says nothing more. It happens so slowly though, catching her as his hand presses into her cheek, and his fingers start to pull themselves into her hair. He tugs once and twice, and there’s something so utterly human about the gesture. It gets her to sigh too. Her lips part and he leans in, ever so carefully, and kisses her.
She feels a touch and then another touch; his lips shy to open against hers. Her hand comes to rest against his chest. Her fingers curl in the lapel of his jacket and her body feels slighted into a twist, heavy as she starts to taste him.
He sighs into her mouth and she swallows it, breaking away first. She doesn’t try and think. Her eyes are closed. She takes a deep breath. His fingers pull at her hair and drag through the strands, stumbling as they press into her shoulder.
They sit knee to knee. It’s not comfortable, but it’s honest and she thinks back to their moment in the corridor. She touches her lips and smiles, if only for herself. It’s her moment, she decides. But he clears his throat and her heart is racing, pulling at her as she tries and understands what has just happened. It’s never made sense and why, she thinks, should it even start.
He smiles at her though, pats her knee, and then stands. “You’ve been around me too long,” he decides, and hops down the stairs.
She watches him go. In a moment, she’ll learn how to laugh.
on rare occasion, there is an odd encounter. sometimes it’s too soon. the beast below. 1,517 words.
-
It happens again as she dresses. Her old clothes are a mess on the floor by the wardrobe, a heap of dirt and dust and all things that she can’t quite get over unless she says, “it’s over,” like she used to do when she was sixteen, angry, and nearly through with pushing therapists.
She stands and stares at herself in a mirror. There are rooms here, too many rooms. She picked the first one when he told her that she could have any, as if any was just a small, relative word. Her eyes are brighter though. Her cheeks are flushed and grinning and there’s this pulse that keeps twisting against her fingertips. She isn’t smiling though. She remembers Rory.
“You’ll have to tell him,” Amy says out loud, and then practices again, “you’ll have to go and tell him and that will be that. It’s not like you’re asking him to understand - well, you did, but … ”
The girl in the mirror shakes her head. Amy pulls a jumper over herself, and her eyes closing as her hair whips into her face. It doesn’t matter, she thinks. If it did, things would be different. She thinks about Churchill and history books; there’s this feeling that pits tightly into her stomach and she laughs then too.
“Damn,” she breathes.
When she grabs her jacket, she returns to the top of the stairs and finds the Doctor sitting over the first few. His legs are stretched out. His gaze is cast over everything - the controls, the chairs, the bits of mud and smoke that they dragged in from London. He doesn’t look at her though and she sits, close.
She’s careful as she brings her knees up, frowning. She shifts to get comfortable and cocks them to the side instead.
“You look remarkably presentable,” he tells her then, and the warmth, the playful warmth rolls back over his tongue in that way she’s always known it, remembered it, and keeps it about somewhere in her head. She looks at him and reaches forward, picking at the collar of his jacket.
“I’m deciding to take that as you being - well, you - and choosing to answer that with a, well, yes, I am feeling much better, thank you.”
Her fingers open long and sweep under the fabric to straighten it, catching his jaw as he turns to study her. She smiles and he smiles back, calm. She doesn’t ask when yet.
“Soon,” he says.
She nods. Her hand doesn’t move. She busies herself with his tie, pulling at the end lightly. He laughs and she laughs too, shyly and unaccustomed to doing things as pairs. Rory doesn’t wear a tie. She shouldn’t think that way.
But the Doctor catches her too; it’s a marvel, really, the idea of personal space and what goes between them. He mirrors her gestures though. His hand rises and falls. He picks first at the jumper she wears. His fingers opening long and sweeping over the column of her throat; they move carefully against her skin and she shifts closer without thinking.
His hand drops then. He picks hers off too, curling is fingers into her palm. “I want to talk about what you were going to tell me,” he tells her.
If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. She turns her gaze away and looks out into the control. She counts the mess of wires as best as she can. She picks a few odds and ends, questions that aren’t really questions but fill her head instead.
“I don’t.” She fidgets. She tugs her hand free. “And anyway, I suppose we already talked about it. In bits and pieces; there’s nothing really to add on to that.”
“Until you choose to tell me otherwise,” he says.
They’re quiet. She sighs, out loud. Her hands pile into her lap. She rubs her thumbs over her knuckles. She counts them once, twice, and then looks down as if to make sure they’re there too. These little games - nuisances, as her aunt used to call them - are old and friendly, too far from habits and too close to be anything else.
“Are you worried?”
She asks and doesn’t mean too. She’s blushing when she turns and takes a tiny peek at him, watching him carefully.
“Me?” his eyes widen and he clutches his hand to his chest, in an almost comical sort of way; Amy rolls her eyes and shakes her head, as the Doctor reaches over and simply pokes her arm. “Absolutely not, I’ll have you know. Just taking a few moments to myself before we go off and meet Churchill - he’s a good ol’ boy and I still can’t forget the bloody headache I had after we met the first time, or the second - I believe it was the second. The second was actual business.”
“Ah.”
He’s quiet then too. She’s briefly reminded of the corridor and standing there with him, explaining herself and only explaining herself in such a way that she could only translate it as whatever this is and that she’s starting to be shaped by this experience all over again.
“Are you worried?”
He looks at her, genuinely concerned.
“No,” she says quickly. “Not at all. It’s just that if you’re worried, I’m worried, and, well, you being worried is cause for too much worry.”
He looks at her in amusement. She smiles back. He reaches forward and pulls at a few strands of her hair. He wraps them around his fingers, pulling them as the locks begin to sew around his skin. When he tugs, she blushes. When he tugs again, he laughs and she stares at him quietly.
When Rory asked her, they were standing in the old garden; there were wild bits of rose thorns and old branches, half an arm of a tree folding into the grass as a reminder of the storm from the night before.
Amy never thought about the Doctor then, or rather, in that moment when he took her hand. It wasn’t quite sunset, but a colder fall day; they stood together, watching each other, and as he started to kneel in front of her with that small and awkward smile, she knew one more thing about herself.
Belief was a frightening thing. After, she started listening for that noise. It made sense again.
But he tugs at her hair again, and she’s pulled back. Amy’s nose wrinkles.
“What?” she mutters then, and grabs his wrist, prying his fingers away from her hair. His hand drops though and into her lap, his hand facing her with the palm staring up. She pauses and then takes his hand.
“What?” she asks again.
His mouth opens slowly. It closes. There is this look that she catches from him that seems familiar and unfamiliar; she hates that about him, she decides, that there are parts that she feels like she should recognize and others that she shouldn’t expect.
This is still her life, she wants to tell him, and knowing belief, real belief as he gave it to her, as she took it and ran and forced herself to grow up faster and sooner than she needed to. He leans into her though, and around them, his ship begins to quiet, the sputters and whirls and cracks and crashes slow to a murmur and she’s almost wistful, wanting to hear it all over again.
“Hold still,” he says, and quickly, as if to catch her. He nudges her first and she’s confused, watching him. “Just for a second, all right?”
“What?”
He says nothing more. It happens so slowly though, catching her as his hand presses into her cheek, and his fingers start to pull themselves into her hair. He tugs once and twice, and there’s something so utterly human about the gesture. It gets her to sigh too. Her lips part and he leans in, ever so carefully, and kisses her.
She feels a touch and then another touch; his lips shy to open against hers. Her hand comes to rest against his chest. Her fingers curl in the lapel of his jacket and her body feels slighted into a twist, heavy as she starts to taste him.
He sighs into her mouth and she swallows it, breaking away first. She doesn’t try and think. Her eyes are closed. She takes a deep breath. His fingers pull at her hair and drag through the strands, stumbling as they press into her shoulder.
They sit knee to knee. It’s not comfortable, but it’s honest and she thinks back to their moment in the corridor. She touches her lips and smiles, if only for herself. It’s her moment, she decides. But he clears his throat and her heart is racing, pulling at her as she tries and understands what has just happened. It’s never made sense and why, she thinks, should it even start.
He smiles at her though, pats her knee, and then stands. “You’ve been around me too long,” he decides, and hops down the stairs.
She watches him go. In a moment, she’ll learn how to laugh.