Amelia Magica

DISCLAIMER (I probably should have mentioned this last time as well): I own nothing, not the characters, the history, the devices or even the series of events leading to this story (damn).

Shaking the dust off of Amy's bed before replacing the sheets, the Doctor made sure that the room looked presentable. With that done, he headed downstairs and carried Amy off the sofa and to her room.

She had slept the whole way there, and even though some colour had returned to her face, she still hadn't woken yet. Normally he would have slept her in the TARDIS, but seeing as that was going to be unavailable for another few hours, Amy's house had to do.

He had hidden the letter her parents had left her, hoping not to startle her if she woke up and he wasn't there. Initially, he had been worried by that she would be put off by the grief that still permeated the house, but his worries were unneeded. As soon as he had brought her in range of the house, the grief had seemed to flow through her and into the small metal cage on her hip.

Far from having any adverse effects, she actually seemed to be getting better because of it. She had stopped twitching and mumbling in her sleep and her hair looked cleaner. For the life of him, the Doctor couldn't figure out what had happened. He figured he could ask her when she woke.

Before he sat, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the ruined screwdriver. Its self-repair protocols were already diligently at work trying to fix the catastrophic damage he had done to it. It might work, he honestly had no idea, and it had never been so badly damaged before. He grunted and set it on the dusty coffee table before collapsing into an armchair. He realized as he drifted off that he still hadn't managed to totally sleep off his regeneration. 'Oh well, no time like the present' he thought, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

Much later, the Doctor awoke, feeling reinvigorated. He stretched out and reveled in the feeling of his new body. Both hearts beat their familiar beats and his TARDIS was done, he felt. Picking up his screwdriver –still trying futilely to fix itself- he ambled outside. He pulled out the key from where it always lived and slipped it into the lock. As the door creaked open he was prepared to step inside when he felt an explosion of pure panic from inside Amy's room.

Slamming the door shut, he dashed through the house and up the stairs. He could only feel two signals, both of them grief, from the room. One of them was fluid, changing while the other was inert. He would have insisted it was dead if he couldn't feel the power rolling off it. He opened the door.

His fears were pointless it seemed. Amy was sitting up in bed with her chin on her knees and her eyes closed. She was still in the clothes he had found her in and the cage that hung on her hip emanated a strange psychic miasma into the room before being drawn into Amy herself. She turned towards him as he shut the door. His words died on the end of his tongue as she looked him in the eye.

They were pure black. Not blackened from violence, just a simple murky black. They swallowed the light in the room viciously as if they were trying to grab onto something substantial. They weren't even the black that one would associate with ink, which has sheen to it, they were simply black. The complete absence of the visible colour spectrum. With a stifled gasp, the Doctor noticed they were the colour of grief in the psychic spectrum. What was worse was that he could not tell what she was feeling from her alien eyes.

Her face said betrayal.

She looked him over, as if trying to reassure herself of his presence before glancing out the window to check that, yes, the TARDIS was still there. She looked at him again. Unsurprisingly, her eyes were now unreadable. He tried to break the silence peacefully, "Hello, um, long time no see?"

This was said more as a question as he lost his trail at the frown that etched itself into her face. "That's it? 'Long time no see?' is the best you can do?" she asked incredulously, her voice rising "I waited for you, did all of it, just for you. And what happened? You. Abandoned. Me. You left when you could have helped and you didn't come back and YOU DIDN'T SAVE HER!" She was shouting by the end, fury ringing out of her voice.

"Hey now, what happened, tell me all about it" he offered consolingly, unsure how to respond to her outburst.

The lines on her face softened for a moment before hardening again. "You're psychic, right?"

The Doctor nodded, unsure where she was going with this.

"Good"

Before he could react, she was out of her bed and had slapped her hand against his forehead, staring into him out of her cold, dark eyes. The memories began to flow.

He had felt the grief in the house and had foolishly assumed that that was the worst of it. He was therefore unprepared for the body-crushing weariness that the memories contained. Coupled with the soul-crushing sadness, it was a wonder that Amy had not simply dropped dead or gone totally mad.

The only relief had come from the dark-haired girl that the Doctor gleaned was named Eleanor. She seemed to light up the memories and bring energy back. But it didn't last forever and the light disappeared, replaced only with pure darkness.

He saw Amy's shaking hand as she wrote a letter –to him, he realized- asking, begging him to help her save Eleanor. He doesn't arrive. The darkness returns and if anything it seems to have gotten deeper. Then there is a flash of colours and a pinwheel sensation the Doctor recognizes as the taste of madness and then he is returned to her room, gasping.

She is looking at him from the wardrobe, glaring. She brings an object out from behind her back. It's a jewellery box. She opens it and pulls out a cage similar to her own. They regard it silently as she holds the spiked thing between her thumb and forefinger. Despite the new object's inert nature, the Doctor can see the way the miasma around the two cages reacts, trying to connect to one another.

Her eyes flick to him again "Do you see what I did for you? Everything was for the love of you" There is so much bitterness in her words that it breaks his heart to hear it from one so young "But I don't want it anymore" She declares this hotly, dark vapor steaming out of her eyes, daring him to challenge her "I saw the ending too, you know. I know I was a Witch. I know that you saved me from that" she declares, her visage shifting to one of determination, "So fix her".

Taken aback by the demand, the Doctor could only reply dumbly "What?"

Amy's features twisted "You heard me" she snarled "You fixed me, FIX HER TOO!"

He looked at the cage, understanding now "You mean that she was a Witch too?" Amy nodded disdainfully. "I'm sorry, I can't"

Her face turned unreadable and it seemed to have dropped several degrees in the small room "That's just –fucking- it isn't it? You descend from the heavens on your high -fucking- horse and with your pretty goddamn toys and perform a 'miracle'" she snarked, pacing towards him, shoulders set "Then when someone asks you, very reasonably, to do it again, YOU SAY NO? BECAUSE IT JUST WOULDN'T BE ANY FUN IF EVERYONE GOT THEIR WISH!" she jammed her finger into his chest, surprising him with her brute strength. "WHY CAN'T WE HAVE A HAPPY –FUCKING- ENDING, EH? WHAT GIVES YOU THE FUCKING RIGHT TO DECIDE THE FATE OF US 'PUNY MORTALS'?"

She fell to her knees suddenly, clawing his coat, spent. "What did we do wrong, to deserve all this?" a heaving sob escaped her throat "Why? Wh… why did this happen?" Dark tears started flowing down her face and as the Doctor put his arms around her she buried her face in his coat, all anger gone for the moment, replaced by a terrible rending loneliness that ate away from the inside.

Nothing was said between them.

Nothing needed to be said to understand what was going through the mind of the other.

"Well, It's good to see you up and about again Amelia" Amy's head snapped around, locking onto Kyuubey on the windowsill, a growl building in her throat.

"Oh, good, you survived" said the Doctor, "I couldn't find you anywhere so I sort of assumed you'd scarpered"

"Indeed, I'm perfectly fine, and I must say, thank you for showing me that, I had no idea that it could be done. The data you've provided will be invaluable to us"

Throughout the exchange, Amy was backing away from the Doctor; cage in hand, a look of utmost betrayal dawning across her face. "Y- y- you're working for it?" she asked, eyes flicking between Kyuubey and the Doctor.

"Well yes, I wouldn't have known about what had happened to you otherwise" This was said hopefully. He clearly intended for this to calm her down.

It didn't.

Her face twisted into a snarl, her eyes steaming again "Oh I bet he did. Spin some great fantastical yarn about absolute bullshit. That's the way, isn't it you little freak? Tell him the truth. I want to see the look on his face when you tell him what really happens"

Kyuubey tipped his head to one side, imitating curiosity "What do you mean, Amelia? I never lied to him at all."

The Doctor didn't see her move; only a flash of shadow and Amy was holding Kyuubey by the throat. "I mean the truth. No more of your –fucking- half truths and clever wording. Tell him what really goes on" and she punctuated this by beating Kyuubey's head against the metal bed post.

The Doctor watched this silently as Amy sat back down on the bed, glowering at both of them, eyes at a low simmer. Kyuubey looked up at the Doctor, seemingly no worse for wear.

"I never did lie to you, but here is the full truth. My people long ago detected signs of entropy in the universe, more than predictions held at that time. We were thrown into a panic. Frantically, we searched for a solution, which we found on this planet. It seems that the emotional energy of certain individuals reacts in a way that completely disregards all theories held on entropy. By storing them in an external container, we can harvest the bleed off of energy."

"So, the last time I was here, that gem Amy had…" He didn't like where he thought this was going.

"Yes, that was her 'Soul Gem'. As well as acting as a container, it also serves as an indicator as to the energy reserves of an individual."

"So you just remove these girl's souls and start draining them? That's sick" condemned the Doctor.

"None of the girls are unwilling; all of them enter into a contract with us and receive whatever they desire; a 'wish' if you will. Using the soul gem, they are granted extranormal abilities in order to destroy the Witches, creatures born out of darkness which yield 'Grief Seeds' that can be used to purify soul gems and cleanse them of taint. We then dispose of the grief seeds by converting them to energy to aid in our cause.

"However, once a soul gem's energy has been drained beyond a certain point, it begins a self-perpetuating deconstruction reaction, causing it to transform into a grief seed, and the girl into a Witch. The moment this transformation occurs, the greatest bounty of energy is released. This we drain. The beauty of this cycle is its cyclic nature. Any contractor ultimately becomes a Witch, which requires more contracts be formed to dispose of it. It truly is a flawless cycle." He sounded somewhat pleased, if he could ever be expected to sound like anything.

The Doctor was at a complete loss for words at the horror Kyuubey had just described. "That's… barbaric. Don't you feel any remorse at all? Guilt? Sympathy?"

"No. Amongst my people, the sensations you refer to as 'emotions' are considered to be a mental disorder of the worst variety. In any case, you cannot deny the positive effect our intervention has had on human culture. By our calculations, without us, the humans would still be living in caves."

A thought appeared to pass through Amy's head. "I've got to go get something" she announced, and leapt out the window.

Kyuubey and the Doctor looked at each other "Well, now that she's gone, I can proceed with my duty" and he hopped onto the bed where Amy had left the grief seed. Things happened very fast.

Amy climbed back through the window, holding something under her arm.

Kyuubey flicked the seed into the air with his tail, a compartment on his back opening under the red spot.

Amy shouted "NO!" and launched herself at him, dropping the book under her arm.

The seed dropped into the hole and the cover snapped shut.

Amy barreled into Kyuubey and flung him into the wall before starting to beat him into the ground with her fists. The Doctor watched, speechless, as she pummeled Kyuubey into an indistinct white pulp reminiscent of mashed potatoes.

Eventually, she collapsed and the Doctor went to her as she wrapped her arms around him and sobbed out 'Elly' over and over again. The Doctor just knelt down and pulled her into a hug. Distantly, he noticed a cat brushing against his leg.

There was a small sound, like a clasp being fixed before Amy went still. Looking at the Doctor with horror on her face, she shakily clutched at her hip.

It was bare.

She drooped as the darkness evaporated out of her eyes, revealing her normal eyes. While pain was there the most prevalent emotion in her eyes was simply relief.

A light thud was the sound of Amy's body hitting the floor.

The Doctor could only stare as Kyuubey began consuming what was left of his previous incarnation.

He fumbled through his pocket and stared at the screwdriver. Miraculously, the resonance function was operational again. He pointed it at Kyuubey and blasted him. No physical damage was done, but the link to the host was cut and it went limp.

Picking up Amy's still form and laying her out on the bed, the Doctor left the room, grabbing Kyuubey's body by the scruff of the neck.

He stalked out the front door, reaching for his phone. He placed a call to the police announcing he thought he'd seen a missing girl in the house. They should find her before too long. The TARDIS opened the door with no prompting.

After reading the diary Amy had retrieved and analyzing Kyuubey's body, the Doctor managed to trace the psychic link to the planet of origin. It was obvious once he had found it given the immense energy it was radiating into space.

It was a beautiful world. He didn't care.

The people had no understanding of what they had done wrong. He did.

Fully aware that he would regret it later, the Doctor opened the TARDIS' war room. He knew he had instructed that it be erased, but she was too stuck in her ways to do that. For a moment, he was thankful to the TARDIS' stubborn habits.

He walked over to a monstrous weapon he had only ever used once and powered it up. Sensing his intentions coordinates and data points began to line up on the screen. Just as it was compiling a firing solution a mind brushed against his from the doomed planet below; "We detect a weapons grade energy build up from your vessel. Please state your intention"

He ignored the inflectionless voice and watched as the Relative-Time-Limits set themselves to 1 and infinity, dooming the planet at all points of its existence. He could not undo the damage that had been done, but he could act preventatively, saving the girls from their doom. Saving the universe from a life bought over fields of corpses.

"We have detected your targeting devices. Cease and desist or we will fire without further warning"

The Doctor set his features and, heedless of the warning, pressed the big red button.

It might have been better if there had been an explosion, or a laser, or even just a feeling of a launch. There was nothing save the hum of the weapon as it discharged its sinful payload.

Looking to the view screen, the Doctor felt a grim sense of satisfaction as the world below vanished from sight and was sealed into the time lock, never to be seen again.

Silently in the empty void, the TARDIS warped away, running from the site of the atrocity and the monstrous acts that led to it.

AN/ There we go, done and dusted. What did you think? Tell me, I have to know.

Edit, 6/18/13: In regards to the many comments regarding the final scene, I will attempt to explain. Time War. He had to have fought in it somehow. I'm aware that's a weak reason, but it's what I had at the time.