I just never learn, do I?
Uh. So. This is what happens when you stumble upon the Series 5 ficathon like, three hours before it closes.
The prompt was Eleven/Amy/(Rory)
the backs of my eyes hum with things i've never done.
sheets are swaying from an old clothesline,
like a row of captured ghosts, over old dead grass.
And, well, I mean, look at the lyrics. They're stunning. And so ...unbelievably appropriate for what has happened in this season (pre-finale, of course) that it took my breath away. I actually had to start writing. I never do that.
...problem, of course, being that I massively suck at writing. I'm not very good at it. I know this. Trying to convey what I want to convey (what I see in my head - I'm in fact, much better at pictures, directing the visuals with minimal dialologue and (usually) emotive music/emotion) is nearly so frustrating that it becomes impossible. I get angry at myself, my visual dies as I get bogged down with word choices and nuances and well, usually I only manage like, 500 words, which is barely anything and it never has plot.
Right. So, now, it was like, five minutes to when this had to be posted, so I posted it. Fail, right there. This needed editing like Ten needed his sonic screwdriver. I mean, I think I got the point across, but I'm not even sure what I'm doing here.
Okay, so yeah. Spoilers, therein, for Series 5 (or 31) of Doctor Who. Spoilers for specifically 5x09: Cold Blood. I need help with this one. (Dear gods, I can't believe I posted this in a comment, argh!)
Title: please let me know what piece I've lost (you were never supposed to leave)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Eleven/Amy/(Rory)
Wordcount: what it always is, that is to say, short
Spoilers: Yes
Problems: Many. The title is mishmashed from the prompted song. Try to see if you can pinpoint where I changed narrative tactics. And where I switched descriptive styles. It happened more than once. You'll get nothing from it but a headache. (At least I didn't switch tenses, though I tried. Many times.)
It is everything she had imagined and more. Her life, her whole life, waiting for more, needing for more, wrapped up in him. But there are things she doesn’t understand. In the TARDIS, beyond all the science and physics and impossible gadgets and miracles that she knows she’ll never comprehend, there are things she doesn’t understand.
(she was always alone, alone, alone, waiting, no one but her - and the Doctor, he would come, he would come, he was real, real, real - but she was strong, she was strong, why would no one believe her?)
She never thought a space-time-bigger-on-the-inside ship would feel so much like home. She loves it here. She twirls, catching herself on the railing as the Doctor fiddles - he's always fiddling - with the switches beneath the time rotor. He isn't looking at her (he won't meet her eyes these days, all days, always, after) but she doesn't mind. She's grinning. She's flying through space as far away from Leadworth.
She frowns briefly. She doesn't like to think of Leadworth, though she cannot remember why. Before the Doctor, there was only the cold strangeness of the house, her distant aunt, her parents in faded photographs and bits of jewelry and in the bone-deep ache of missing something too large to comprehend. After the Doctor, there was his smile and his promise, shining through tests and medication and horrible, biting laughter and and and -
(she doesn't remember being sad but she can remember nothing but sadness confusion anger alone -
only, only, only she remembers smiling and dancing in the meadow and she had laughed and ran and shouted to the stars, because it was okay, the Doctor was real because he, he believed her - )
She starts a little, looking around, her chest tight, but only the Doctor fills her view. He's wandering off and... is he sniffing the air? Still, better than licking. She rolls her shoulders easily and falls in step with him, twisting his bowtie to what she feels is a jaunty angle. She laughs and he starts to run and the sun and mountains and alien flowers surround them until she can remember nothing (she has never known anything) else.
(she doesn’t know why she can’t sleep, why she wakes up with a name trapped in her throat, she turns and turns about but there is never anyone there, why does she feel like there should be someone there, what is she missing, she’s missing, missing - )
It’s not like she’s innocent. She had a couple of flings in the city - okay, a few drunken kisses and perhaps a few other, naughtier things - but she’s known the Doctor her whole life, and when the girls had giggled after school about boys and kissing and married she had always held her head high. She had all of time and space, which was much better than Davie Wilkins who sweated too much and had clammy hands.
But later at night, she would dream and dream and the Doctor would take her hand in his, and his hand wouldn’t be pudgy or clammy. He was perfect and elegant and he would kiss her and touch her hair and tell her he loved, loves, always will -
I will always love you, Amy Pond
(the Doctor only calls her Amelia, how - )
She is determined to show the Doctor that she is not made of glass, nor some old-fashioned definition of woman, thank you very much, and it’s too fantastical to be a cliché when he kisses her back with his hands framing her face in the highest tower of a forgotten king, in the far past of a distant planet. His fingers are elegant and their tips weave in through her hair. She’s been wanting this her whole life. (she feels overwhelmed) Emptiness creeps up her chest and she breaks the kiss, stumbling, looking for purchase. (why is she falling?) The Doctor starts to ask if she’s alright and she looks at his suspenders and bowtie and ridiculous hair and pushes the Doctor down on the bed. She kisses his question out of his mouth. She kisses the emptiness down until she can feel nothing but her Doctor around her.
There are things in the TARDIS that she doesn’t understand. (she thinks they are pieces of memory, not the junk that the Doctor keeps within arms’ reach, just in case he says, you never know he admonishes with a wink, but these, these are like parts of a whole that once was, that she can never fully see and they flutter and sway in the air as the Doctor passes, clinging to him like dust, like ghosts and she’s afraid to move, afraid of what is remembered in this strange place - it’s another dimension - but the Doctor’s never told her that, how does she know - )
He is the only home she has ever known, the only safety, then why
(it’s always been full to too many spaces, rooms unnumbered and wrong, there is something wrong, why is she afraid, why, why - )
He moves so nimbly as to never disturb the dust of his life, settled around him, left and abandoned for all eternity. (she wants to ask how, how do you bear this but she doesn’t want to know, the parts of her that he will keep, that will remain to echo in dust and memory and memorial, so she follows him, her Doctor, and treads only where he leads.)
They rise and fall together in almost silence; this is when her Doctor is the most quiet, when he moves against the parts of her that only he has known, and still, he pauses before touching her as if waiting for permission and she feels the cold of missing shelter even through his embrace. When the moment comes she feels the ghost of fingertips guiding her to breathe. She closes her eyes as her Doctor keeps her refuge with gentle touches.
After, in the morning he asks softly, “Where would you like to go?”
(the backs of her eyes burn and hum and weep with images unseen - )
She blinks.
“Away,” she replies. She turns her face to the curve of his neck and the Doctor brushes away her tears
.
-----
So, LJ appparently is HTML tag FAIL tonight and ate like, half my follow-up. Okay, try this again. I think the italics are the memories or thoughts connected with Rory, and the brackets are the thoughts that Amy doesn't realize are there, like her crying without knowing why. She can't give them voice, but they are still there.
However, the narrative voice is not consistent and I'm not sure what to do with some of the sections. I don't think I really convey anything that I want to. The lyrics are so perfect but... I mean, how to describe that in prose? I wish someone had taken this and really gone with it. A real, proper, lyrical author who could have done something with the beauty and sorrow and loss that is in the song. But there was only me, and there is only this.
So, err...help?
God, I wish I could stop writing like this. *sigh*
AND! I completely forgot Amy' job. Oh, the fail just keeps coming.