Fic: We're All A Little Mad Here (6/8)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Beta: themuslimbarbie
Part Five
A/N: For the purposes of timelines - Amy had her major break aged 19 (2004), she was hospitalised and only showed brief patches of improvement - but never waking up. She 'recovered' partially aged 21 (2007) - 'reboot' - mentioned by Doctor Corsair. This full recovery is occurring in autumn of 2009. All the events used to illustrate this fact really happened within the years of 2004-2010.
I'm so sorry this took so long, a combination of RL going berserk and writers block struck simultaneously. There is only a little bit of this left to write, but a breakthrough recently meant that this (and the next) chapter were written. Please enjoy this, and I hope you had a fantastic 50th!
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
- Leonardo da Vinci
She catches herself staring sometimes.
Staring at herself in the mirror, all grown up and trying to be normal.
It’s an uphill struggle every single day. Planning what she can do, remembering meals and medications. Catching herself before she says something wrong, or does anything un-natural. Constantly wondering if people are watching her, talking about that weird ginger girl in the corner of the cafe, or if that’s all in her head as well.
But, like with everything else in her life, she adapts. She learns to not look over her shoulder at every person that walks past. Learns to remember to eat so Aunt Sharon won't fuss over her (at least not any more than usual). Learns how to act like she’s not fragile and doubting everything her eyes are telling her.
It's harder than it sounds it and makes her tired. So very tired. But she can’t sleep. Sleep is a luxury that is just out of her reach, so she spends her nights lying in bed staring at the walls. But occasionally she drifts off into a light doze, if only for a few minutes.
And sometimes she finds herself drifting into dreams - just for a second, in that moment between breaths - before she hears the creaking of the floor outside her room and knows she’s being watched. In those instances, she mumbles something and rolls over, barely opening her eyes to see Sharon hovering in the doorway. She knows that if she asks, Sharon will say that she’s just checking, listening to her breathe, like some mother watching over her helpless newborn child. This time, Amy just shuts her eyes again, and waits for the sound of footsteps retreating down the hall.
The hall haunts her sometimes. She’ll walk up the stairs and find herself confused without knowing why. It isn’t until she counts the doors that she realises that she’s expecting there to be six doors, not the five that there are. Her unease causes her to count them again, and again, and again.
It’s not until the sound of the front door closing reaches her that she realises she’s spent the better part of the afternoon standing there in the hallway outside of her room, just trying to count the door in the corner of her eye that was never there.
Only then does she sigh, and go downstairs to smile and talk with Sharon over a dinner she’ll force herself to eat.
..........
On another afternoon alone in the house, she finds herself uncharacteristically hungry. Surprised, she goes looking in the kitchen to make herself a snack.
She finds custard in the cupboard and fish fingers in the freezer. Without a second thought, she prepares her meal. Waiting for them to cook is an exercise in patience that she really doesn’t have.
As soon as they’re cool enough to pick up, she dunks a fish finger in the bowl of custard and bites into it, expecting the nostalgic feeling that accompanies all of her memories of things that never were.
She gets a mouthful of disgust instead, one that has her running for the sink to spit.
Fighting tears, she throws the rest of her food away and brushes her teeth until her mouth is too numb to remember the heat of the fish fingers and the smoothness of the custard.
Would it be too much to ask, she thinks, to have some things be as I remember them? As I want them to be? That can't be too much, can it?
Her question goes unanswered.
She makes a cup of tea and eats biscuits while she waits for the kettle to boil.
..........
It was inevitable, she thinks, that some things occurred whilst she’d been...away. Time, of course, has continued to move forward (really slowly and in the right order).
Some of the things that she’d missed were simple: The sequel for her favourite film has been out for nearly a year, and her favourite band released two new albums. These were things she’d expected.
To see a news article outlining the relief efforts occurring in China after the earthquake that occurred a year ago was not one of them. She feels hollowed out as she reads the brief description of the quake that killed sixty-nine thousand people.
She spends the morning on the internet, tapping searches into Google and reading everything she can about every major event that has happened in the last five years she can find.
Sharon comes home for her lunch break and finds her hunched over the keyboard, frantically reading an article about the 7/7 terrorist attack in London.
Sharon pulls her away from the screen, comforts as best she can, but doesn’t mention that Amy’s face looks like it has been carved from stone.
Amy allows herself to be pulled and comforted, because she feels wrung out and tired, like she’s been crying non-stop for hours.
(She doesn’t notice that her cheeks are dry.)
..........
Sharon takes her shopping in London one weekend. They traverse the length and breadth of the city, buying clothes and shoes and knick-knacks to fill her room. The last stop of the day is at a phone shop.
Amy browses the selections, carefully enquiring to the capabilities of each model she likes. Every time the assistant lists the various technicalities of each phone, Amy gets more irritated. Sharon pulls her aside and asks what’s wrong, in the tone of every resigned parent. Amy just stutters, before talking in what sounds like a foreign language. Sharon looks bewildered. Amy grinds to halt, takes a deep breath to calm herself before clearly asking where the latest phones are. The shop assistant, upon hearing this, happily states that all the newest phones they stock are on display and have been discussed already.
Amy looks pained for a moment, before buying the newest phone they have.
When Sharon tries to get her to explain later, all Amy will say is that they seemed...old. Like walking into a music shop and seeing all they sell are vinyl and gramophones, not iPods and CDs. She doesn’t explain further.
She doesn’t have to.
..............
They’re still trying to learn how to act around each other, even after months of occupying the same house. Dinner-time conversations are still stilted and filled with awkward silences, instead of the free-flowing and delightful thing it should be.
Sharon is trying to start a discussion about announcement of the 2016 Olympics being held in Rio, when Amy’s voice cuts across her own.
“It seems silly to be excited about something so stupid, when so many are still suffering in Haiti, don't ya think?”
Sharon pauses, her confusion written in the lines around her eyes.
Amy raises an eyebrow. “You know, huge earthquake, killed thousands?”
Sharon furrows her brow.
“Never mind,” Amy mumbles, before asking what her aunt thinks the opening ceremony might be like.
...........
She has to keep going to therapy. She hates it, but she smiles her way through discussions of adapting, and cries through memories of travelling that never happened.
She wears the face that she needs to.
Inside she’s hollow.
Doctor Corsair takes Sharon aside after a session in late November, and tells her that they’re going to start her niece on a new drug regimen.
Amy watches their conversation from the corner of the waiting room, and wonders when she’ll get to feel normal, and if she’ll ever get to make her own decisions again.
........
The new medicines make her head all fuzzy in the mornings, and leave her floating underwater during the day.
She finds it even harder to eat, what’s put in front of her - the smell food leaves her queasy without even looking at it.
For a month, she copes. Just until Christmas, she thinks, Sharon will have the gift of looking at me sane this year. She makes it to the end of December; before she starts to catch herself feeling disgusted at the way she acts on the medicines that are supposed to give her a normal life.
One morning, as she blinks the haze from her eyes, she finds herself looking at the array of pills she has to take in the cabinet. The little white ones for the delusions, the round blue ones to help her with emotions, the yellow ones to combat the nausea, the pink ones to stimulate her appetite.
So many colours, she thinks, my life is controlled by these stupid little things.
Does it even matter if this is real? I’m not happy here, not really, not like I was when I was with him.
In her imagination (memory) she sees a little girl clinging to the railings of a spaceship, questioning her own reality. Hears the girl speaking clearly and calmly saying that she’s happy, and that that matters too much to worry about whether it’s real.
I think I’d like that. I think I’m going to go home.
She smiles, and flushes her tablets for the week down the sink.
..........
BREAKING NEWS: HAITI DEVASTATED BY MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE, FEAR THAT THOUSANDS MAY BE DEAD. WORST EARTHQUAKE THE REGION HAS SEEN IN TWO CENTURIES.
Sharon reads the banner on the news, and the reporter’s soothing voice does nothing to calm her bewilderment and shock.
She casts a glance up at Amy’s room, and wonders how her little girl knew what was coming.
Part Seven
Beta: themuslimbarbie
Part Five
A/N: For the purposes of timelines - Amy had her major break aged 19 (2004), she was hospitalised and only showed brief patches of improvement - but never waking up. She 'recovered' partially aged 21 (2007) - 'reboot' - mentioned by Doctor Corsair. This full recovery is occurring in autumn of 2009. All the events used to illustrate this fact really happened within the years of 2004-2010.
I'm so sorry this took so long, a combination of RL going berserk and writers block struck simultaneously. There is only a little bit of this left to write, but a breakthrough recently meant that this (and the next) chapter were written. Please enjoy this, and I hope you had a fantastic 50th!
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
- Leonardo da Vinci
She catches herself staring sometimes.
Staring at herself in the mirror, all grown up and trying to be normal.
It’s an uphill struggle every single day. Planning what she can do, remembering meals and medications. Catching herself before she says something wrong, or does anything un-natural. Constantly wondering if people are watching her, talking about that weird ginger girl in the corner of the cafe, or if that’s all in her head as well.
But, like with everything else in her life, she adapts. She learns to not look over her shoulder at every person that walks past. Learns to remember to eat so Aunt Sharon won't fuss over her (at least not any more than usual). Learns how to act like she’s not fragile and doubting everything her eyes are telling her.
It's harder than it sounds it and makes her tired. So very tired. But she can’t sleep. Sleep is a luxury that is just out of her reach, so she spends her nights lying in bed staring at the walls. But occasionally she drifts off into a light doze, if only for a few minutes.
And sometimes she finds herself drifting into dreams - just for a second, in that moment between breaths - before she hears the creaking of the floor outside her room and knows she’s being watched. In those instances, she mumbles something and rolls over, barely opening her eyes to see Sharon hovering in the doorway. She knows that if she asks, Sharon will say that she’s just checking, listening to her breathe, like some mother watching over her helpless newborn child. This time, Amy just shuts her eyes again, and waits for the sound of footsteps retreating down the hall.
The hall haunts her sometimes. She’ll walk up the stairs and find herself confused without knowing why. It isn’t until she counts the doors that she realises that she’s expecting there to be six doors, not the five that there are. Her unease causes her to count them again, and again, and again.
It’s not until the sound of the front door closing reaches her that she realises she’s spent the better part of the afternoon standing there in the hallway outside of her room, just trying to count the door in the corner of her eye that was never there.
Only then does she sigh, and go downstairs to smile and talk with Sharon over a dinner she’ll force herself to eat.
..........
On another afternoon alone in the house, she finds herself uncharacteristically hungry. Surprised, she goes looking in the kitchen to make herself a snack.
She finds custard in the cupboard and fish fingers in the freezer. Without a second thought, she prepares her meal. Waiting for them to cook is an exercise in patience that she really doesn’t have.
As soon as they’re cool enough to pick up, she dunks a fish finger in the bowl of custard and bites into it, expecting the nostalgic feeling that accompanies all of her memories of things that never were.
She gets a mouthful of disgust instead, one that has her running for the sink to spit.
Fighting tears, she throws the rest of her food away and brushes her teeth until her mouth is too numb to remember the heat of the fish fingers and the smoothness of the custard.
Would it be too much to ask, she thinks, to have some things be as I remember them? As I want them to be? That can't be too much, can it?
Her question goes unanswered.
She makes a cup of tea and eats biscuits while she waits for the kettle to boil.
..........
It was inevitable, she thinks, that some things occurred whilst she’d been...away. Time, of course, has continued to move forward (really slowly and in the right order).
Some of the things that she’d missed were simple: The sequel for her favourite film has been out for nearly a year, and her favourite band released two new albums. These were things she’d expected.
To see a news article outlining the relief efforts occurring in China after the earthquake that occurred a year ago was not one of them. She feels hollowed out as she reads the brief description of the quake that killed sixty-nine thousand people.
She spends the morning on the internet, tapping searches into Google and reading everything she can about every major event that has happened in the last five years she can find.
Sharon comes home for her lunch break and finds her hunched over the keyboard, frantically reading an article about the 7/7 terrorist attack in London.
Sharon pulls her away from the screen, comforts as best she can, but doesn’t mention that Amy’s face looks like it has been carved from stone.
Amy allows herself to be pulled and comforted, because she feels wrung out and tired, like she’s been crying non-stop for hours.
(She doesn’t notice that her cheeks are dry.)
..........
Sharon takes her shopping in London one weekend. They traverse the length and breadth of the city, buying clothes and shoes and knick-knacks to fill her room. The last stop of the day is at a phone shop.
Amy browses the selections, carefully enquiring to the capabilities of each model she likes. Every time the assistant lists the various technicalities of each phone, Amy gets more irritated. Sharon pulls her aside and asks what’s wrong, in the tone of every resigned parent. Amy just stutters, before talking in what sounds like a foreign language. Sharon looks bewildered. Amy grinds to halt, takes a deep breath to calm herself before clearly asking where the latest phones are. The shop assistant, upon hearing this, happily states that all the newest phones they stock are on display and have been discussed already.
Amy looks pained for a moment, before buying the newest phone they have.
When Sharon tries to get her to explain later, all Amy will say is that they seemed...old. Like walking into a music shop and seeing all they sell are vinyl and gramophones, not iPods and CDs. She doesn’t explain further.
She doesn’t have to.
..............
They’re still trying to learn how to act around each other, even after months of occupying the same house. Dinner-time conversations are still stilted and filled with awkward silences, instead of the free-flowing and delightful thing it should be.
Sharon is trying to start a discussion about announcement of the 2016 Olympics being held in Rio, when Amy’s voice cuts across her own.
“It seems silly to be excited about something so stupid, when so many are still suffering in Haiti, don't ya think?”
Sharon pauses, her confusion written in the lines around her eyes.
Amy raises an eyebrow. “You know, huge earthquake, killed thousands?”
Sharon furrows her brow.
“Never mind,” Amy mumbles, before asking what her aunt thinks the opening ceremony might be like.
...........
She has to keep going to therapy. She hates it, but she smiles her way through discussions of adapting, and cries through memories of travelling that never happened.
She wears the face that she needs to.
Inside she’s hollow.
Doctor Corsair takes Sharon aside after a session in late November, and tells her that they’re going to start her niece on a new drug regimen.
Amy watches their conversation from the corner of the waiting room, and wonders when she’ll get to feel normal, and if she’ll ever get to make her own decisions again.
........
The new medicines make her head all fuzzy in the mornings, and leave her floating underwater during the day.
She finds it even harder to eat, what’s put in front of her - the smell food leaves her queasy without even looking at it.
For a month, she copes. Just until Christmas, she thinks, Sharon will have the gift of looking at me sane this year. She makes it to the end of December; before she starts to catch herself feeling disgusted at the way she acts on the medicines that are supposed to give her a normal life.
One morning, as she blinks the haze from her eyes, she finds herself looking at the array of pills she has to take in the cabinet. The little white ones for the delusions, the round blue ones to help her with emotions, the yellow ones to combat the nausea, the pink ones to stimulate her appetite.
So many colours, she thinks, my life is controlled by these stupid little things.
Does it even matter if this is real? I’m not happy here, not really, not like I was when I was with him.
In her imagination (memory) she sees a little girl clinging to the railings of a spaceship, questioning her own reality. Hears the girl speaking clearly and calmly saying that she’s happy, and that that matters too much to worry about whether it’s real.
I think I’d like that. I think I’m going to go home.
She smiles, and flushes her tablets for the week down the sink.
..........
BREAKING NEWS: HAITI DEVASTATED BY MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE, FEAR THAT THOUSANDS MAY BE DEAD. WORST EARTHQUAKE THE REGION HAS SEEN IN TWO CENTURIES.
Sharon reads the banner on the news, and the reporter’s soothing voice does nothing to calm her bewilderment and shock.
She casts a glance up at Amy’s room, and wonders how her little girl knew what was coming.
Part Seven