3 Pond tales

Melody kept her eyes lowered as she hung her book bag and coat on the special hook with her name on it and shuffled towards the classroom, her braids forming a convenient curtain to hide her face behind, simply thinking: "What if they know?"
It was definitely not in her nature to be shy and in the several orphanages she had been dragged into she remembered coming in all guns blazing and making friends and enemies quickly, but things were different here, things mattered. She didn't know very much, not even her birthday or exactly what year it was, but she did know that her entire life so far, the travelling, the strange whispering silences, the glimpses of half-dreamed monsters, the uncertainty, all of it, had been leading up to this moment and that her future would depend entirely on its success.
A large blonde woman smiled down at her and ruffled her hair, which deeply annoyed her, before asking if she was Melody in that stupid way grown-ups do when they already know the answer.  A wave of irritation ran through Melody and she scowled at the woman before replying flatly:
"It's Mels."
She had never used the name before, but it made the woman look satisfyingly wrong-footed and, running it over in her mind, she liked it, it sounded cool, modern, and that was definitely what she needed right now, she even tolerated the woman pushing her bodily over to the front of the class past all the chatting children that Melody couldn't look at just yet.
When the class her finally quietened down, the blonde teacher, who had just introduced herself as Miss Webb, shoved Melody in front of herself and addressed the class in a loud, carrying voice:
"Good Morning boys and girls! Now today is especially special because we have a new little girl coming to join us, isn't that just super? So this is Mels, give everyone a wave dear, and I'm expecting you all to be very kind and welcoming towards her because…"
For the first time, Mels chanced a proper look at her classmates. Most were staring at the teacher in a dazed sort of a way, many half asleep and there was a group of girls with pigtails at the back chatting blissfully together, but one person caught her attention especially , because he was the only one actually looking back at her. His hair was light and shoulder length, like a girl's, and his face wore a completely open expression of hope and joy at her presence. It was almost funny, except for the fact that the rest of the class occasionally looked up from their sleeping, chatting or staring to smirk at him and then whisper to their friends spitefully. Mels frowned and was just at the point of saying something when someone else got in there first.
"What're you looking at!?"
The girl sitting next to the strange boy apparently awoke from the deepest of sleeps within a split second to glare at one of the girls with pigtails, who jumped a little before crossing her arms and calling back:
"Wasn't looking at anything! What were you looking at Amy?"
Amy? Thought Mels and turned to have a proper look at the girl but by now the one with pigtails had added:
"Just because you fancy him!" causing Amy to stand and emit a strange, Scottish sounding growl.
"Girls! girls! please!" squealed the teacher but already Amy had barrelled forwards and grabbed the girl's hair.
The ensuing scuffle resulted in several rare Pokémon cards being lost in bets, tears from the pigtailed girl and both participants getting a few long scratches from the other's fingernails. Eventually the teacher managed to get between them and the cheering from the rest of the class died to a silence. There was a pause, and then:
"Amelia Pond, that behaviour was disgusting! Look at what you've done to Tilly!"
The pigtailed girl whimpered convincingly, and then stuck her tongue out at Amy when Miss Webb had turned away.
"But Miss!"
"That's enough young lady, go to the Head teacher's office. NOW!"
Amy turned very red.
"FINE! You're a stupid teacher anyway!" She stalked from the room, slamming the classroom door behind her. There were a few nervous giggles quickly silenced by the teacher's thunderous face. The first boy put his hand up warily.
"Put your hand down Rory!"
"b-but miss…shouldn't someone take Amy's stuff to her? She left her pencil case…"
"Well she'll have to come back and get it later, won't she? and sit down Mels!"
Melody jumped and hurried to the nearest seat, which happened to be the one that her mother, she was sure she was her mother now, had occupied seconds before.
"Right class…"the teacher closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, looking much more composed. "today we'll be learning…"
"Did she say your name was Rory?" Mels whispered to the boy beside her, moving her mother's workbook, which bore handwriting very similar to her own, to the corner of the table to make room for her things.
"Yeah, "He whispered back, seeming a lot more deflated now his friend had left. "And you're Mels, and that, "He gestured to the door "that was Amy."  He smiled slightly as he formed her name and Mels had to fight to keep herself from laughing, this was just all too perfect.
"Are you going to marry her?" She asked before she could stop herself.
"Maybe" Replied the boy glumly "She said she might if the Doctor won't take her travelling and if she never gets to meet Jonny Depp"
Mels caught her breath at the mention of The Doctor, but didn't whisper back this time. She had a feeling that from now on everything was going to be much easier than she had expected.


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"You don't know about the Doctor because you're stupid!"
This remark had several consequences. First of all, of course, Mels was sent to the heads office and given a week's lunchtime detention, but then the teachers began to chat together about how seriously Amy must be affected by her imaginary friend if she was scaring her friends with him, and that she was getting to the stage where she couldn't tell the difference between truth and reality, and so it was decided that the two girls would no longer be able to sit together and that Amy should see the school counsellor. After a few weeks of this, Mels was still going on about the Doctor and appeared to be getting into yet more trouble without Amy by her side, and so the situation was re-evaluated so that the girls could both move back to their old seats, but Mels too should receive counselling. Both the girls found this hilarious.
"And how are yoooou feeeeling today little treeeeasure?"
Mels asked Amy with a concerned face that was disconcertingly similar to their councillors', as both girls ambled to the waiting room. Amy laughed, replying
"Well, I do keep hearing mysterious voices telling me that the school dinners are disgusting, but alright apart from that thanks miss"
"Aaaaaaah veeeery interesting, and do you think these voices are reeeal? What's reeeal-er?  School dinner voices or homework? Maaaybe you should count to ten and take deep breaths and then take your shoes off and pretend you're in an orchard at mooooonrise?"
The girls cracked up and were still getting their breath back when the real Miss Emily poked her head around her office door with an unconvincing smile.
"Hello there treasures!"
Both girls hastily turned their giggles into hacking coughs.
"…it's lovely you're both here, but can I see you first please Amy? I really think we were making a breakthrough last time!"
Amy shrugged and followed the woman.
"If you want, see you Mels!" She pulled a pained face and then closed the door behind her.
Mels fiddled with the keying on her bag for a few minutes, and was just at the point of leaving to get a drink from the fountain when an ear-splitting scream suddenly came from behind the door.
"Mum!" She gasped, unthinkingly, and rushed over the door, but it crashed open before she could reach it and Amy ran right past her and down the hall in the direction of the girl's toilets.
"That little-SHE BIT ME!" Shouted the counsellor but Mels was already racing after Amy and barely heard her.
In the bathroom the sound of muffled sobbing emanated from the one locked cubicle and Mels stayed quiet for a little while, not knowing quite what to do; Amy never cried. Finally, when she could only hear sniffing, Mels knocked on the cubicle door tentatively.
"Amy? Amy, it's me. what happened?"
No reply came, but the door clicked open and opened just a fraction so that Mels could squeeze inside. Amy was sitting on the toilet with the lid down and although her face appeared dry, it was red and creased and there were crumpled bits of tissue all over the grubby floor.
"What happened?" Mels asked again.
When Amy answered her voice seemed unnaturally high.
"She said the Doctor wasn't real. She said I made him up because I was scared and that there never was a crack in my wall."
Mels stayed silent, still not understanding, the woman had been suggesting this every time they went to see her.
"She said other stuff too." Conceded Amy "other reasons I made him up. About my Mum and Dad."
Mels got it now. She knew what it was like to have people missing, not in the way that people are normally lost, but in the way that old toys are: you assume that they are there until one day something makes you think about them properly, and you look around to find them lost to time. She also knew that talking about it would only stir up more confusing memories, so she just reached out to hold her mother's hand.
They sat there until the staff found them, doling out more punishments and tellings off, but afterwoulds their friendship shifted, and although they never would nor could tell each other everything, they knew there was no one else in the world who knew them better than the girl right beside them.


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Rory was sitting on the bench by the duck pond and seriously considering running away. He believed this completely reasonable, he'd survived his A levels and nurse training, he'd done a huge amount of stupid things with Amy and Mels and he'd stood on a rooftop with that giant eye…thing, but asking Amy Pond to marry you was something else altogether.
She had got a job as a waitress at one of the service stations that summer, and so he'd been driving her there every day before work, when she felt like showing up. But there she was now, apparently 3 quarters asleep and wearing a skirt that seemed quite likely to get her fired, but there. He felt another rush of terror, only now that he saw her there was some real excited giddiness there too. It was a lot less hard than he had thought to stick a teasing grin on his face and act as if everything was normal.
"You're early! The apocalypse must be nigh!" He called out as she got within hearing distance but she contented in glaring at him in an affectionate sort of a way until she reached him.
"Oh shut up, we can't all be early risers, ok?" The words were slightly spikey, nothing more could be expected of Amy at 5 oclock in the morning, but she punched him playfully on the arm to make up for it and he felt his spirits rise a little. He checked his watch.
"Not much point going right now, feel like a walk?"
She shot him a look that implied she would much rather die a slow and painful death so he tried again.
"Come on, I'll get you a coffee on the way."
She sighed "Fine, but it better be a pretty good walk."
Rory smiled to himself but didn't answer.
By the time they'd reached the outskirts of the village things were going much better. The sun had come up properly by now and they held hands as they walked, occasionally talking but more often just kicking through the dew filled grass and giving each other little smiles, as if agreeing that this was just one of those little perfect moments together.
"Do it now" thought Rory. "before you talk yourself out of it"
He took a deep breath, turned, and promptly tripped over an unseen clump of grass. Amy burst out laughing.
"Shut up" he said irritably and she managed to recover herself up enough to help him to his feet, before she started giggling again.
"It was just that look on your face!" she burst out "it's like you were someone off Looney Tunes who'd just got chucked off a cliff…oh you're soaked!" She fingered his jacket regretfully; the wet grass had left him dripping. "Lets…uh, come here." She grabbed one of his hands and dragged him over to a nearby bench, where she used her cardigan to dry his hair and attempted to brush the rest of the water droplets off him with her hands, batting away his protests.
"Your jacket's sopping…you should probably take it off for a bit" She said after a while, and he peeled it off and passed it over to her unthinkingly.
"Hope there's not anything in the pocke-WHAT"
He turned to see her holding a small red ring box looking completely terrified.
"WHAT? WHAT!"
"Amy-"
"NO you're- what are you-? Hey?"
It took a split second for Rory to decide what to do.
"Amelia Jessica Pond, I love you and would you marry me because if you don't let's be honest I'm going to look even more of an idiot right now."
Amy clapped her hand to her mouth looking ready to laugh or cry and he quickly added in a much softer voice:
"Look, I know things, things haven't been quite the same since the Doc-since he left you again. But you're my best friend, and I've loved you since we were nine and I promise I'll never leave you or let you down, never. And, and you can spend a ridiculous amount on the wedding and wear short skirts and laugh at my nose for the rest of your life if you like, but-"
"yes."
"What?"
She laughed incredulously and looked around at him with an air of total abandon.
"Yes! I said yes! Let's do it!" She flung both arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth, sending the ring box clattering to the ground unopened. They pulled apart after several long minutes, both looking emotional and flustered.
"So, right that's…er…settled then." Said Rory finally and Amy flopped back onto the bench in mock exhaustion.
"We're getting old, aren't  we?" Was all she said in reply and they spent the next few minutes giggling like schoolchildren.
Neither of them showed up at work that day.