Hey there, first time writing in this fandom! Which is kind of weird, since it's been my favorite show for quite a while, but whatever. This is based on that NPR prompt - write a 600 word story beginning with "some people swore the house was haunted" and ending with "nothing was the same again after that."

Geronimo!

Some people swore that the house was haunted, the Pond one, in Leadworth, with the invisible attic. Some people swore that there had once been ducks in the pond by the green. Some people swore that strangers couldn't be trusted. And some people swore that the Doctor was real, but nobody in these parts.

Amy Pond didn't swear anything, not anymore.

She had been seven when she'd seen the Raggedy Doctor, as she'd come to call him. He had fallen onto her lawn in that smoking blue box, had said ridiculous things, had somehow made little Amelia Pond believe them. She could've sworn he would fix that terrible, terrifying crack in her wall. He promised.

But then the man, that wildly strange man with the singed tie, had told her that he'd be back in five minutes - something about stabilizing his something or other.

Eight years and three therapists later, she stopped swearing that he was real.

She stopped making Rory Williams down the way dress up as him. She stopped sleeping in the room with the crack. And she stopped really believing in things, because the Raggedy Doctor still hadn't come back.

As more time passed, she became less and less firm. She had shitty job after shitty job, before somehow ending up as a kissogram - her friends swore she was attractive enough for it. She let sweet Rory Williams take her out on a date, and then another, and then he swore he loved her. She wasn't happy, but she was alive.

She didn't think that the Doctor was a dream, but she could no longer swear by it, because childish fantasies rarely turn out to be realities, and Amy knew that. But she still hoped.

Her aunt (what aunt?) no longer lived with her in the supposedly haunted house; the house belonged to Amy now.

Her life didn't have all that much meaning, but she was satisfied, and everyone around swore that she was one of the luckiest people in that little town.

Sometimes, brave little (but older now) Amelia Pond would sit in the room with the crack in the wall, and listen to the voices. She wasn't sure if hearing voices coming from a wall meant she was insane, but she did it to remind herself that there was a chance, a tiny chance, that the Raggedy Doctor might possibly be something more than a figment of her imagination. But she did this less often now, because every moment that went by reduced the chances of him coming back someday.

She went on living.

She finally convinced herself that this doctor wasn't real (though she wouldn't swear by that; she still wasn't the swearing type), and she moved on.

But suddenly, one day, twelve years after the burning blue box fell from the sky, it happened again - the Doctor came back.

Nothing was ever the same again after that.

fin.

Comments?