Uni was cancelled today for not-so-great reasons that I mentioned earlier in my #sonic boom chronicles tag, so I found a window of time to check out The Fantasticks for the first time, listening to the original cast album (I read the play that it was based on). And let's just say that "Try To Remember" hit a bit too close to home for me, because for me it evokes the 2024 war on my country (it started in mid-to-late September, and ended at the tail-end of November of that year).
Not sure if it might be a mix of all the tension in the air what with last night's bombing and the fears of a new escalation, Jerry Orbach's velvety voice, and the fact that I may be currently PMSing, but at any rate it made me weep more than once. I know it was often performed as a memorial of 9/11, but as @ariel-seagull-wings has said in the DMs, it should truly become an anthem for the SWANA region now.
The ballet dancers in the other room have live music today and, on the one hand, it's really funny how often the pianist kind of noodles around on the piano in between actually playing--random jazz piano for funsies. Wish I could do that.
But he's also playing "Try to Remember" for everyone to practice to and I'm over here across the hall trying not to cry.
AO3 Rating: Teen & Up (a complete collection of author's notes, inspiration credits, content warnings and tags can be found on AO3)
Summary: Amelia Pond finds an engagement ring in the pocket of the Eleventh Doctor's jacket. She can't quite figure out why, but there's something oddly familiar about it, mind racing with all manner of possibilities of what it could mean.
"So if it wasn't meant for me, who was it meant for?" Amy asked, lips forming a tight line.
She felt absolutely foolish, volleying back and forth between embarrassment and anger. Sure, she'd started it, but he was the one who'd come back for more. He was the one with an engagement ring in his coat pocket. He was the one keeping secrets. If it wasn't meant for her, then he shouldn't have kissed her, and if it was meant for her, then he shouldn't have stopped.
Amy tried to pull away, but the Doctor held her close. He slid the ring off her finger and held it in his hand before looking up at her, gaze piercing hers.
"You were so happy when you thought I…" he began, trailing off. A magnificent smile flashed briefly across his face, before his lips twisted into a grimace, and he shook his head.
"Your heart belongs to someone else, and even in nonexistence, I can't do that to him."
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"Back in time! I've done it again! Saved all humankind, and the like. Tell me, Amelia Pond, have I impressed you yet?"
The Doctor smiled enthusiastically as he hurried up the steps to the set of controls he'd been longing to feel under his hands for nearly three days. He removed his tweed jacket, casually threw it onto a chair, and attempted to adjust his suspenders. Despite Amy's cheeky remarks at his apparel, he thought he looked quite good. Sophisticated, definitely. Sexy? Well, it didn't matter.
Pulling a few knobs and setting the controls for a new destination, he turned to face Amy, who seemed permanently stuck in an expression that mingled with amusement and shock at his sudden return. Eyebrows raised, lips pursed on the verge of a sarcastic jab. Before she could speak, the Doctor interrupted.
"Ah," he said, holding up a finger when an obvious thought occurred to him.
"You need to go to the paper shop window and leave that note for me."
But Amy simply ignored him, a small half-smile resting on her lips.
"Right little matchmaker, aren't you?" Amy said, toying with a large lever to the Doctor's left. "Why don't you find me a fella, hmm?"
The Doctor paused, squeezed his eyes shut and began rubbing the back of his neck rather roughly in frustration. He turned away from Amy, choosing to dodge her question rather than answer it. How exactly do you inform someone that they've already got a "fella," but that he was absorbed into a crack in the skin of the universe and permanently removed from existence? The answer: you don't.
Sporting a grimace, he opened his eyes, searched his surroundings for a distraction, and moved half way across the console, pretending to consult a number of mismatched levers.
"Rectifier's playing up again," he mumbled, quickly descending the steps and rounding the corner of the TARDIS.
"Write that note, will you? And make sure it's in red ink," he called to Amy as he disappeared into a corridor.
"Have you got a pen?" She called back, rolling her eyes at his sudden departure.
"In my jacket. Maybe," he shouted, his voice barely audible.
Amy sighed, frustrated that he was leaving her without any explanation. Like that's anything unusual. Locating the Doctor's tweed jacket, Amy rummaged through its pockets for a red pen, just as he'd asked her to do. Instead, her hand closed around a small square-shaped box, covered in dark red velvet. She glanced around quickly, checking to make sure that the Doctor wasn't approaching, and slowly lifted its lid. Amy's cat-like, olive green eyes grew wide as she took in the sight of the solitaire, round-cut diamond ring, glittering beautifully in the lights overhead.
A single tear slid slowly down Amy's soft, pale cheek and splashed onto the box. She quickly wiped it away, and stared at her hands for a moment, bewildered. The ring was beautiful, that much was obvious, but Amy wasn't one to cry, and especially not over jewelry. Not even if it was meant for her. She stared back down at the silver engagement ring, eyes wide in confusion and astonishment. Without thinking, she lifted the ring from its bed and placed it around the ring finger of her left hand, admiring the way it sparkled in the lights overhead. The ring looked familiar, somehow. She must have dreamed about it…or maybe she'd seen it in a shop window.
She held the ring up closer to the light, examining it. The Doctor hadn't met anyone he'd fancied in the time he'd been traveling with Amy, as far as she knew. It was rather amusing, imagining the Doctor with a girlfriend. It didn't seem fitting. He was too awkward and gangly. She couldn't imagine her Doctor getting married, let alone being romantic or intimate with another woman, though she knew he probably must have been, at one point. Why then, would he have this stowed away in his coat pocket? The ring looked quite new, untouched. But then, if it was relatively new…
Amy gasped, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth as a sudden thought occurred to her. She racked her memory for an explanation, trying to force the thought from her mind, because it was simply impossible, a ridiculous notion. He'd stamped out all possibility of a relationship between the two of them quite early on. There wasn't a chance in the universe that he could have changed his mind. But the more she tried to dissuade herself, the more the Doctor's magnificent smile swam before her memories, when he'd told her that he had a surprise for her.
"No, no, too weird," she said out loud, shaking her head as she did so.
"Yes, I know I am. Can't we get past that?"
The Doctor appeared around the corner, hands behind his back and smile still in place. Amy jumped at the sound of his voice, and craftily stowed her left hand into the pocket of her jeans, snapping the box shut and throwing it over to where his coat lay on the chair. Luckily, he hadn't seen the action.
The Doctor strolled up the steps and onto the platform, closing the space between them in one swift movement. Without warning, he held out his arms and pulled her into a tight hug. Amy pressed her face into his chest and closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of mild bath soap and England's country air that still clung to his white button-up shirt. He was quite a bit taller, and like the clumsy giraffe he was, he stumbled a bit, and nearly knocked her over.
"I'm sorry, Pond, I'm just so happy that you're safe," he whispered.
"You'd have come for me eventually. You always come back," Amy responded, and memories of her first encounter with the Doctor cascaded her memories, back when she was the little Scottish girl in the dreadfully boring English village, when a little blue box fell out of the sky that night and crashed in her back yard, and out popped a madman who ate fish custard. He was a time traveler. He'd come to fix the crack in her wall, to put her life right again. He was amusing and wonderful and magical, and she wanted so badly to believe that he was real.
He'd promised that he'd be back in five minutes, so she'd packed her tiny suitcase and waited patiently for him in her backyard. Fourteen years and four psychiatrists later, he'd returned. She would never forgive him for making such a mistake, though the Doctor surprised her with amazing planets and time periods, and showed her all of the wonders of his little blue box, hoping that he could make up for it. She tried to remember the night he'd come back, the night she had run away with him. She felt like there was something missing to the memory, something so incredibly important that she was forgetting, but she couldn't place what it was. And then there was the ring. She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration.
"Doctor," she whispered suddenly, studying his kind expression, one thousand questions poised on the edge of her tongue. She wasn't sure how to ask, for fear of embarrassment that accompanied such an assumption. Instead, her eyes lingered on his for a moment, and she had to resist the urge to smooth back the strand of dark brown hair that was constantly falling into his eyes. Her hands twitched, but remained in her pockets.
"Pond," he said, posed almost as a question, his eyebrows quirked up in concern. She shook her head slightly, shaking off the questions, and closed her eyes, meaning to break away from his grasp. But he held her still, and leaned down until he was level with her eyes. His stare bore into hers as he examined her lightly freckled face, the rivulets of her brilliant red hair as they fell to her shoulders, her plush pink lips, parted slightly in confusion. He'd never been this close to her before.
She felt her breath catch as his lips twitched up into a half smile, clearly satisfied with what he saw. He reached up to tuck a loose spiral of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on the side of her face, stroking it gently with the tip of his thumb. Amy closed her eyes, and leaned in to the caress. Before she could stop herself, she had come closer to him and placed her arms around his neck, lacing her fingers into the strands of his hair.
His lips parted slightly in confusion, but before he had the chance to speak, Amy had pressed her plush pink lips to his, kissing him softly. His hands had gone slack around her shoulders. He seemed frozen to the spot, and his lips didn't move under hers, even as she tried to keep it going. Frustrated, she pulled away and took several paces backward, leaving him stranded mid-pucker. Amy had to suppress giggles at the sight.
She stared at him for a moment, a small smile playing on her lips, and then, upon realizing what she'd done, quickly looked down, hands behind her back, fiddling with the ring. The little stones cut into the side of her pinky as she slid it upright and into place. She glanced back up at him, and found that he looked just as dumbstruck as he had a moment before. His eyebrows had raised so high that they almost disappeared behind his wavy bangs.
Before she could fabricate an excuse, he traveled back to where she stood, and pulled her body close to his, wrapping his arms around her waist and the small of her back, and pressed his lips to hers. She responded immediately, wrapping her arms around his back, trailing her hands into his hair, and pulling his face impossibly closer to hers.
Amy couldn't keep from smiling underneath the kiss, and tried not to focus on the millions of questions racing through her mind, sending her mixed signals and warnings, telling her that this magnificent kiss could destroy everything. But she couldn't let go, she refused to let it end. The Doctor sighed in rhythm with her, pushing her up against the console with the entirety of his body, and kissing softly up the side of her neck before resuming the conquest of her lips. He moved slowly, passionately, and Amy didn't even try to take control. It was everything she'd wanted since she was a little girl. Maybe this was what she had been missing.
And maybe the ring had been meant for her after all. It all seemed a bit rushed. None of it made sense. They'd only been traveling together for a couple of months…maybe. It was difficult for her to keep track of how long they'd been together, given their constant travel to mismatched time periods and planets. But she'd known him all of her life. This was the man she thought about before she went to sleep every night. She'd written stories and made paper dolls and drawings in his likeness, waiting for the day he would return. She'd nearly given up on him, until his little blue box fell out of the sky and out he popped, thinking he'd only been gone for five minutes. She was constantly fighting to believe that all of this, all of their adventures, wasn't the dream.
He was closer than he'd ever been, and even though this is what she thought she'd wanted, her heart screamed in refusal. She didn't think she could handle any more pain, betrayal or rejection from her Raggedy Doctor. She was gutted when he'd left, broken. All of her life, nothing made sense, until the night he'd come back for her. It didn't matter how long he'd kept her waiting, he would always be her oddball hero, though she refused to acknowledge her obvious feelings for him. She simply never expected the Doctor to feel something in return, let alone act on it.
The Doctor and Amelia Pond. Maybe it wasn't such a mad concept, after all. Just as Amy was beginning to accept it, the moment she'd started building their life around this assumption, around this kiss, he stopped. As though he had slowly come to his senses and realized what he'd been doing, he pulled away from her and held her out at arm's length. Amy didn't even bother to hide her displeasure.
"No, wait. Pond, we shouldn't be doing this. This is wrong," he whispered, biting his lip and appearing thoroughly disappointed in himself. Amy felt utterly confused. Not that the Doctor ever made sense. His eyes traced her face, lingering for a moment on her lips, down the length of her body, eyeing up her subtle curves before shaking his head and shrugging off what he was thinking.
"What was all that about?" Amy demanded, placing her little hands on her hips.
"I don't know. I was being stupid," he said distractedly, running his hands through his disheveled hair. He glanced up momentarily at her, and watched as she slid her left hand through the length of her hair, noticing the way the lights danced along her fingers. She caught his gaze, and quickly stowed her hands behind her back again, eyes growing wide.
"Amy, where did you get that?"
"Where did I get what?" Amy asked quickly, color flooding her cheeks.
"Amy, I've seen it already, there's no point in being evasive," he sighed, frustrated, and walked closer to her, taking her left hand from behind her back and holding it in his own. The diamond gleamed in the overhead lights, casting tiny fractals of light onto their faces. He stroked her hand softly, and looked up into her eyes.
"So if it wasn't meant for me, who was it meant for?" Amy asked, lips forming a tight line.
She felt absolutely foolish, volleying back and forth between embarrassment and anger. Sure, she'd started it, but he was the one who'd come back for more. He was the one with an engagement ring in his coat pocket. He was the one keeping secrets. If it wasn't meant for her, then he shouldn't have kissed her, and if it was meant for her, then he shouldn't have stopped.
Amy tried to pull away, but the Doctor held her close. He slid the ring off her finger and held it in his hand before looking up at her, gaze piercing hers.
"You know, you shouldn't rummage in other people's pockets," he said.
"You asked me to find you a pen. And you're evading my question. How very typical of you," she scowled. He sighed exasperatedly.
"Yes, it was for you," he nearly whispered.
Amy's eyes widened as she turned to stare at the ring held out in his palm. She looked up at him, all of her anger and confusion washing away at the comfort of his smile, and of his response. A dazzling grin broke out onto her face and she felt her cheeks blush feverishly.
"I—" she started, unable to keep quiet. The questions were simmering, and she was dying to get back to that kiss.
"It's your ring, Amy, but I wasn't meant to give it to you," he finished.
Her smile flickered and faded, replaced with a terrible grimace and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"What do you mean? That makes no sense." She crossed her arms, anger and confusion welling up again at his cryptic evasiveness. He moved closer to her, his pained expression hovering just inches above hers.
"Amy, do you ever wonder why your life doesn't make any sense?" he asked quietly.
She thought for a moment, replaying crucial moments in her life like a projection screen. Her first day of primary. Her sixteenth birthday. Her first kiss. Her first job. Prom. Graduation. She remembered fleeting images, could match them to significant events, but yes, there was always the odd feeling that something was missing. Something so incredibly important that she must be deluded for not seeing it right away. But she could think of nothing. Her mind went blank.
"Amelia, try to remember. I know you can. If something can be remembered, it can come back."
She shook her head slowly, and raised her eyes to meet his gaze. She silently pleaded with him to tell her what he was hiding, just this once. She so desperately wanted to know what he meant. It was painfully frustrating. His expression softened, and he reached down to stroke the side of her face again, running his fingers through her hair, and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers.
"Amelia, my Amelia Pond," he whispered sadly, kissing the top of her forehead.
"You were so happy when you thought I…" he began, trailing off. A magnificent smile flashed briefly across his face, before his lips twisted into a grimace, and he shook his head.
"Your heart belongs to someone else, and even in nonexistence, I can't do that to him."
"To who, Doctor?" Amy asked, feeling overwhelmed and worried, but he simply shook his head slowly, and refused to give her the name.
"Just…try to remember, Pond." He forced a smile, placing the ring in the middle of her palm. She eyed the ring quizzically, and then looked back up at him. Amy raised her lips to his once more, but he pulled away, allowing her lips to land on his cheek instead. She traced the curve of his jaw down to his neck, kissing softly along his warm skin, until her eyes settled at the monstrosity that lay at the base of his throat, and she pulled away.
"Still set on the bowtie, I see." She smirked and rolled her eyes, needing something to distract her from what had just happened between them. She refused to let their relationship, whatever it was, become damaged, and Amy was clever at slipping back into normalcy.
"Bowties are cool," he said, relatively flustered, and adjusted the little red bow. He cleared his throat and turned away from her, gliding his hands over the controls.
"So…Venice in the 1580's…touring Andromeda…Space Florida…take your pick," he said, pacing the circular floor of the TARDIS, pulling and pushing random knobs and buttons as he spoke. She stopped examining the ring for a moment, and looked up at him.
"Space Florida sounds interesting." She smiled slightly, as he walked away and began plugging in the coordinates. Amy glanced down at the ring in her palm, twirling it in between her fingers, watching as the pretty diamond glittered in the light. She attempted to decipher what he could possibly have meant. What did she need to remember? And who had meant to give her the ring?
After several long moments, and no closer than she had been before to any sort of conclusion, she simply decided that the Doctor was mad as a hatter, lacking the ability to come anywhere close to normal. She stowed the ring back in its box, and placed it carefully into the pocket of her shirt for later contemplation. She walked across the length of the vast ship, to stand beside the pilot. Despite her confusion, and his inability to make any sense of her questions and musings, she would always be certain of one thing: that her heart, or at the very least, part of it, belonged to the madman in the box.
Comment: Autumnal nostalgia. Autumn (and winter) is usually a time for reflection - and time distorts so many things to the good. Human imagination transforms those shorter and darker days into a rich tapestry of (bitter)sweet memory….just follow, follow.
