objective correlative, n. The physical equivalent or manifestation of an immaterial thing or abstract idea; spec. (and usually, following T. S. Eliot) the technique in art of representing or evoking a particular emotion by means of symbols, which become associated with and indicative of that emotion.

"That was quick."

He looks up from the console and she's sitting in the jumpseat, arms across her chest, ginger, smirking. Knowing him too well.

He blinks several times, shakes his head, slaps his palms against his cheeks to restore the blood flow. Amy waits with little patience, a trainer tapping against the deck.

He begins: "You're not—"

"Real?" She never tries hide the delight she takes in mocking him, does she? "Oh, but Doctor, I'm as real as your thoughts and memories of me fed into the TARDIS's network and projected into autonomic representation." Something's off, thinks the Doctor. She pauses. "That doesn't really sound like me, does it?" Her expression angles into a more recognizable ferocity. "Of course I'm not bloody real, raggedy man. Does it look like the whole universe is collapsing in on itself? 'Cause that's what would be happening if I were real." Better.

It feels suffocating, almost, to keep his mouth closed long enough to listen to her. He speaks constantly of late: only the steady stream of words in his mouth can muffle the enormous grief in his thoughts, chugging along like trains on separate tracks. But he's taking her in, now, so he can't say a word, can't waste a precious syllable from her lips with his inadequate babble, what with her being so earnest and lovely and spun out of painted glass and him being the last true monster in the universe.

More ginger than he remembers, though it hasn't been that long.

"If you're going to keep staring, I might as well take something off," she jokes.

He turns back to the console, pokes a lever idly. "You're looking fleshy."

"Fleshy?" Her eyes flash and the Doctor finds himself flustered.

"Very, you know, real and you know, with skin and—and not imaginary, I'm saying. You don't look imaginary."

"But I am imaginary." She says this with aching plainness, getting to her feet. "I'm your imaginary friend. Looks like the shoe's on the other foot, buster." He glances over to see her grinning at him, and wishes desperately to touch her in the same instant he realizes he can't.

"What was quick?" he asks softly, guiding them—him—away from the subject.

"Oh." The memory opens her face too much, making her seem more innocent than he knows she is. It's his mistake. He's losing his grip on her. "The new girl."

"She's helping."

Amy nods unsympathetically, which he's aware is just his subconscious nodding unsympathetically. He wonders if Amy would be jealous; he tries to give her more of that, though he's not sure how much control he has over this delusion.

"I'm sure she helps you every night." Perfect. That's perfect. He shakes his head enough to maintain the pretense of a two-way conversation. Pathetic, naturally, to play-act Amy's desire for him even after everything (including their respective marriages to other people), but he needs it. The glimpse of childishness he allows himself after Clara goes to sleep has been getting him through.

"You'd like her," he assures Amelia. "You've got a lot in common. Similarities." That's who this person-thing on his console really is—his Amelia. Not the actual living, fiery, irreverent, frustrating infuriating irrepressibly magnificent Amy Pond of his adventures, but the one of his making, and it's hard to imitate a masterpiece. Even Vincent would've struggled.

She takes a step towards him, practically purring. "Is that why you picked her up? Because she's me?"

"No," he interjects. "No, no, I picked her up because she's, she's not—possible. She's impossible." The Doctor's hands are heavier, struck by lightening lethargy. "She doesn't make sense."

Amy—Amelia—laughs. It's almost cruel, but he realizes it's not her laughing—it's him, and he's laughing at himself. Perhaps his brain uses Amy as a medium of self-deprecation for the same reason the TARDIS brought him little Amelia Pond when he needed the last unbroken person in his life. She believes in him, he supposes, and so it sears him specially to see her cynicism aimed in his direction, crossbow-like.

"I hope you were nicer to her after she snogged you."

"If you know she snogged me, then you obviously know how I reacted." She nods, imitates his expression: her eyes wide, her mouth round, miming a gasp. Like some damsel out of a silent movie—a stupid face, but he knows it's accurate. He sniffs testily.

"Yes, well, fine—but how was I not nice to you!" He raps his knuckles against the console display, knocking on distraction's door. The screen remains blank: no one's home.

"Well, for one," Amy replies, dipping her head towards him, "you didn't snog back."

He would grab the hand with the wedding ring, if not for the reality of its non-reality—reaching for nothing, for air; instead he protests, "Married!"

"I wasn't then! And besides," she adds mischievously, "There are worse things."

"Like mother-in-laws."

She laughs at this, softer and more natural, more like her. "That did always complicate things, didn't it? Bloody Time Lords, all wooden spaceships and marrying my daughter." Amelia leans on the console beside him, and she does look so real, color in her cheeks. "Ruining chances." She sighs out that word, chances, like it means something.

It doesn't. "I never had a chance."

Her mouth twitches. She leans into his ear: "she isn't getting married, is she?"

The Doctor can only hum a wilting note at first. "Not—strictly speaking, no, I mean—I don't know." Exhale. "I don't believe so."

"No wonder you're in love." She adds about ten more o's to the word, loooooooooove.

"Shut up, it's not love, it's just a little—" He chokes on his words, horrified.

"Result," she cackles.

He turns on her.

"Were you really happy with Rory? Everything in the afterward, it was true?" This is a question his Amelia cannot answer, but it eats at him and he asks anyway, he has to. "I only inquire, because, you know. There were arguments. I worry." She remains blank-faced as he tries to decide what to make her say, which answer will satisfy him the most.

"You're hopeful."

"Yes," he says slowly.

"Hopeful that I'm happy or hopeful that I'm not?"

A twinkle in her eye. His knees buckle slightly, vision blurring.

"I want the best for you," the Doctor insists.

"Do you?"

"For you to be happy."

"Really?"

"And Rory too."

"Is that so?"

"Married, happy, together."

"Without you."

"Without—"

He's lost control of the delusion again. He looks up at her weakly. She's so—alive.

"You're a selfish old man, aren't you?" Her voice slides over him, a lush, quiet brogue. But Amy would never say that with her sweet spiked tongue; she loves him. Ardently.

Not that it kept her with him.

And what does it matter, he thinks viciously, if she's not with him? What does it matter that she loves him if she isn't here to wrap up in his arms like a gift, again and again everyday, like a Christmas present to himself each time he sees her?

"Bloody stupid metaphor," she observes. He'd forgotten that a creature of his mind could hear him thinking.

"Why do I even bother?" they say in tandem, then exchange woeful glances. He lets her continue the tirade, because he isn't done hearing her voice.

"Why do you bother? With companions. Though you might as well start calling them what they are, Doctor." His eyes flutter closed. "Pets. Every one of us, your pet. Even me, you terrible old fool, you made me your pet, and I wasn't meant to be anyone's pet, not yours or Rory's or the universe's. My story is mine." The Doctor moves for the first time in minutes, stalking over to the jumpseat and flopping down, Amelia's eyes on him. "That's what hurts the most, right? The fact that I changed my ending."

"I knew you would."

"Hoped I wouldn't."

"Perhaps." He pulls out the sonic and runs his thumb around a button, a nervous habit he's picked up.

She's nothing but a voice now. If he looks up, she'll be gone. "Years ago, I chose. And you knew I'd chosen, and you made me do it, that bloody Dream Lord, you big twat. You should have—"

"Seen it coming."

"Yeah, raggedy man. You should've seen it coming."

"Stop trying to sound like Amy," he croaks. "You think you can throw a 'raggedy man' on to the end of clause and have it—have it—" She's gone, now. Even the voice. His affectation swells up in the corners of his eyes. Tears? No, he shouldn't. Alone in the console room—bah.

"Doctor?"

This is not Amy's voice.

It is not even Amelia's voice, the pale imitation of reality.

"Clara," he realizes. He sounds gravelly and must clear his throat while clamoring up from the seat. "Has something woken you?"

She stands at the top of the stairs in a set of ill-fitting flannel pajamas, which is all the TARDIS seems willing to give her. Her hair is mussed, her eyes sleepy. "Did you have a visitor?" she asks.

From Clara, even a question as simple as that slices him oddly to the core. As if she knows—but she doesn't know. She doesn't know anything; she's new here. So why does he feel as if she's watched every episode of his life on the telly? The knife-like awareness that she carries with her—in past present and future incarnations—enthralls him, but it's terrifying, but maybe that's what makes it enthralling. He doesn't pretend to know these things.

"No, no. Why do you ask?"

"I heard a woman laughing." Her lips curve upwards slightly at this, as if the mere idea of another person being moved to laughter pleased her. He admires that, the curve of her lips; he wishes for another moment of easy joy, of little perfect wonders and revelry like hers, to add to his pile. He's had so many—but just one more, he's craving it now.

"Probably just the old girl playing games." He slaps the console affectionately and the lights glow brighter for an instant, possibly to scold him.

"Oh, okay." She hesitates. "I suppose I'll go back to bed, then." He nods, but she doesn't move. She says, after a struggle plays out briefly across her face, "When do you sleep?"

"Ah—Time Lords—we're intermittent sleepers, I'm afraid. I'm a great endorser of micronaps. Always catches them by surprise." He winks poorly and she chuckles.

"All right. Good night, Doctor." She turns on a petite heel, but his voice catches her.

"Clara?"

She has the largest eyes he's ever seen in a human, and they shine down expectantly at him. "Yes?"

"When you were a child," he begins, though he's seen flashes of her childhood, ever the voyeur, ever the observer (and never never never the participant, he must remember), "did you ever play make-believe?"

"Of course," she chimes. (She's still a child, isn't she? He must remember that as well.)

"And what did you play?"

"Well, we played…" Her brow contorts as she searches for the memory, and when realization washes over her face, he gets his little perfect wonder for the night. "We played doctor."