fic: if you find another
Title: if you find another
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Amy, Eleven, mentions of Rory
Word Count: 830
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own no Who, as usual.
Summary: Suppose it didn't mean anything.
A/N: Set between "Flesh and Stone/The Time of Angels" and "The Vampires of Venice." Written for goreplz, who prompted, "Amy/Eleven, I didn't want to know who he was, or what you did, or that it didn't mean anything" as part of the days that never came ficathon. Which was way back in October, but I am so good at procrastinating when revising or HTML are involved. Um, I think I took the title from "Boats & Birds," by Gregory & the Hawk.
After he grabs her hands and shoves her off his chest and into the TARDIS, the Doctor mumbles something about finding Rory. But they don’t go back for him, not right away. The chill of the forest in the lockbox has followed them inside, and they shiver at opposite arcs of the console. Amy’s eyes feel like they’re made of sand; the Doctor blinks long and slow about twice a minute, as though taking a series of infinitesimally short naps. Amy is determined she won’t be the first to crumble, but her head has become so heavy, and suddenly she finds it lying across her folded arms.
“Come now, Pond,” the Doctor is saying. He is much closer now, his hand next to her elbow. “What’s the point of this? Off to bed with you.”
Amy screws up her eyes and props her chin on the rail. “Don’t have to. You’re not.”
The Doctor laughs. “I’m not people, Amy. I don’t need as much sleep.”
“You don’t,” she agrees, but she fixes him with her best approximation of her usual cutting glare. “But you’re as like to drop off as I am, now. I think you’re scared.”
He cocks his head. “Why? Are you? The Angels are gone. You know that, don’t you?”
“‘Course I do.” Amy rolls her eyes. “Would be hard to forget.” She lets that hang for a moment. The Doctor narrows his own eyes to slits, making his face nearly unreadable.
“Sleep with me,” she adds, before she loses her nerve.
His expression changes immediately to a sad, wary sort of frown. Cheeks flushing, he looks away. “Amelia, I already said-”
Amy bites her lip shyly. “No, I know you did. I wasn’t-I really just mean sleep. Just company, you know?”
There is a pause as he considers this. Then he sighs, letting his head fall forward. His hair hangs down in his face, and she can’t see what he’s thinking. “Yes, well,” he murmurs. “All right.”
In the room the TARDIS has made for her, Amy pulls her nightie over her head and fumbles with the buttonholes. Her fingers have gone rigid with exhaustion, and the more she tries to hurry the clumsier she becomes. She gets a flash of Rory doing up her buttons and then kissing her, light and slow. Guilt prickles low in her chest. Crowding people into their beds is Rory’s part, too-he can always, always tell when she’s tired or upset. Or lying. Amy brushes the thought away.
There is a knock on the door, and Amy startles. “It’s open,” she calls, drawing her dressing gown across her shoulders.
The Doctor nudges the door open with his toe and shuffles inside, hands thrust into his pockets. He is still wearing the same trousers, but his shirt is untucked and the bowtie and braces are gone.
“Do you usually sleep in your clothes?” Amy blurts.
He looks confused, almost affronted. “I hardly see the point of clothes that are so uncomfortable one is always having to change them.”
“Suit yourself.” She flops onto one side of the bed, enjoying the way the mattress wobbles beneath her. When it stills, he hasn’t moved from the doorway.
“Going to stand there all night, are you?” she says, and he crosses to stand by the edge of the bed. She’s looking up at him sideways now, and she can’t tell if it’s doing funny things to the lines of his face, or if he really is that uncertain.
“Night’s relative. It’s always daytime somewhere,” he responds absently. Then he shakes his head and sits down next to Amy. “What if Rory were here,” he says, and it isn’t quite a question.
“If Rory were here, we wouldn’t be here-here at all,” she answers. “Because if Rory so much as heard the phrase maze of the dead, he’d fuss and sulk until we all promised to go back into the TARDIS and do something safe like sit around taking tea for the rest of the afternoon.”
He laughs. “He can’t be as bad as that. He got you to agree to marry him.”
Amy rolls over and begins untucking the covers. “And that, I think,” she says, trying to keep her voice light. “is entirely enough gossip for one slumber party. Go to sleep, Raggedy Man.”
The Doctor says nothing, but he creeps beneath his own side of the quilt. When they are both buried beneath the mountain of covers, Amy turns to lay her cheek against his shoulder. After a moment he shifts to accept her weight, twisting his arm from between them to drape loosely over her back. Amy can feel both his hearts beating through the bones of her face. She can feel, too, the way lying against him is pressing the top button of her nightie sharply into her chest. She thinks maybe these mean something, but before she can decide what, she falls into a heavy sleep.