Doctor Pond and Mr Smith

"Good morning Mr Smith. How are you feeling today?"

The man holds up his finger and wiggles an eyebrow. "Ah ah. Not Mr Smith. Far too formal...and boring. You make me sound like a school teacher. Why don't you use my actual name?"

I blink and try again. "Alright. John then." The man sighs deeply, a tuft of hair falling haphazardly over his eyes.

"I wish people round here would stop calling me that and use my real name. It's the one I chose after all." I narrow my eyes.

"John Smith is your real name." He gives a small smile.

"Right, you know, or at least think you know, my name. You're leaving me at a bit of a disadvantage. What should I call you, hmm?"

I straighten in my chair. "I'm Doctor Amy Pond and I'll be your therapist for the foreseeable future." Yes. That was good. My voice didn't shake at all.

John Smith tosses his hair back off his face, smiles, and reaches forward a hand across the bare table between us. "Nice to meet you Amelia Pond."

I do not take his hand. Physical contact with patients is strictly prohibited. "Amy, not Amelia."

He makes a face that a child might make when being told they have to eat all their vegetables before getting desert. "No, Amelia Pond is a better name. Very fairy tale, don't you think?"

"Exactly. That's why it's Amy." Unbelievable. We're spending the majority of our first session bickering about my name, of all things. Hardly what I'd imagined our first meeting to be like.

The man huffs. "Well if we can't settle on a first name, we'll just have to stick to your last." A large grin spreads across his face. "Pond. I'll call you Pond."

I watch her carefully. She tucks a loose strand of that brilliant red hair behind her ear. She's pretty and intelligent and young. Almost too young to have gained a professional job at this high end facility. At least, I hope it's high end. It'd be insulting to be in a second rate asylum - even if it is a construct designed by my enemies to keep me out of the action.

Amelia looks down to write something in her notebook. It's interesting that whoever, or whatever, runs this place has almost always sent consistently young female doctors to analyse my mental health. They obviously think it will make me more reciprocating to treatment and their ultimate goal: to make me believe I am not the Doctor. Then again, the few male doctors I've had – a young lad (Alex…Adric...Adam?) and an older fellow called Wilfred – didn't last very long. I wonder what drove them away...surely not my charming personality?

"I'm very happy, by the way."

Amelia looks up in surprise. I lean my head in slightly. "You asked before how I was. I never replied. Sorry. Bad manners."

She looks pleasantly surprised. Good.

"Oh. That's great. Why do you feel happy?"

I exhale slowly and wring my hands together. "Well today is a good day. For many reasons."

She raises an eyebrow.

I lift up chin. "For one thing, it's a Saturday. Saturdays are never boring. Well almost never – well, almost almost never. Also, for lunch, they were serving fish fingers - one of my absolute favourites. Would have been even better with custard on the side but you can't have everything."

Amelia sputtered a bit at my last comment. "Fish fingers and custard?"

I lean forwards, eyes wide in disbelief. "You've never had fish fingers and custard? Well Pond, you have been horribly deprived." I peer around to look at the tall burly man in the blue uniform standing just beside the door.

"Maybe he could get us some from the cafeteria."

Amelia doesn't look round. The man's hand twitches.

"Sorry. You know that another person must be present at all times during these sessions.

I puff out a breath, blowing my hair off my face. "I'm hardly in maximum security, Pond. I haven't tried to break out in…well a long time!"

Amelia smiles. "Not quite long enough. Besides, you're going to need to stay on better behaviour for longer than a month, John." Don't call me John. "You've only just been let out of solitary confinement."

I feel a sudden pang in my stomach and it reverberates throughout my whole body. My two heart beats speed up. Solitary confinement. It had been during those weeks, after Wilfred sent me down there that I had...I push past the memories and bring myself back to the present. Funny how easy it was to forget that.

"Well…despite no custard my day has still been pretty great. And you know what the icing on the cake is, Pond?" I grin. "Meeting you for the first time."

Amelia blinks at me;obviously hadn't been expecting that. I try to read her expression but emotions are flickering past far too quickly to catch them.

"I-I-"

"Excuse me, Doctor Pond." She is interrupted by the man in the blue uniform.

"You know it's very rude to cut someone off mid-sentence." They both stare at me. I crick my head to the left. "Very rude. I should know. Barely anyone lets me finish my-"

"Doctor Pond. The Professor wants to see you."

I roll my eyes and fix my gaze on Amelia. "See. No manners."

She smiles at the guard before looking back at me. My doctor looks annoyed, if the frown lines are anything to go by. Looks like she didn't want our first session ending this way, or so quickly. "I'm sorry John. We'll have to cut it short today. It's been a pleasure to finally meet you."

Finally? I watch as she collects her notes and stands.

"Run along Pond. Duty calls."

She gives me one last passing smile (which I return of course – bad manners not too) and leaves the room, whispering something to the man on her way out.

As soon as she's gone I exhale slowly and stand up slowly. I barely feel the man in the blue uniform – Jeff, I think his name is – bustling me down the corridors back to "my cell".

I find the bed, sit down and wait for the click of the lock to slide into place. I want to be sure I'm completely alone before seeing my Tardis again. Click.

It was so good luck that I fixed the chameleon circuit before the unfortunate crash landing. My beautiful Tardis was, if not working, safe from human hands. I duck behind what looks like the padded wall and my breath is taken away.

The coral has gone leaving an orange glow in the room. The console is littered haphazardly with new buttons and instruments that I cannot wait to try them all out. Shame it won't be able to take off but even so. The large glass centre-piece looks absolutely stunning. Imaging what it will look like when in flight...

I feel ecstatic. This reboot is amazing and cool and incredible and sexy. I run up the stairs laughing to myself, all worries of the asylum pushed from my mind. Oh Amelia is going to love it.

Wow, updating quickly. That's unlikely to last long. Well now the story's finally kicked off I'm excited to see what you guys think. Hope you enjoy and keep an eye out for number three. ~SACB