Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Chapter Fourteen

⋆ Upper Leadworth ⋆

⋆ Tardis ⋆

Cherry Pond's knees wobble as she stands precariously on the top of a rickety old ladder. When Rory first presented her with the ladder he'd borrowed from one of his patients, she had flat-out refused to use it. Unfortunately, Amy has a very persuasive personality, and that is how she ended up on the death trap, with a paintbrush in her hand. She huffs out a breath, disturbing the strands of hair which have fallen out of her rather messy bun as she stares up at the half-painted mural on the ceiling. When Amy first announced her pregnancy to Cherry, aside from being overjoyed, painting the baby a mural in its bedroom had been her top priority. It's something they always spoke about doing for their children when they were younger, and now that Cherry is living with Amy and Rory in their beautiful cottage in Upper Leadworth, she is very eager to finish the painting. She's only living with them temporarily, to help with the baby once it's born, as Rory will be back to work two weeks after, and Amy will need all the help she can get. Although Cherry doesn't really know how much help she'll really be, but she'll try her best.

The painting on the ceiling is thankfully coming along nicely after the terribly slow start where Cherry could only manage to be on the ladder for about two minutes before chickening out and rushing back to solid ground. That was a very long week involving very little painting. Now, the mural very clearly resembles Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, which Cherry and Amy both insisted on, giving Rory absolutely no say, not that he had any objections to this. Cherry thinks it's the perfect way to make sure her niece or nephew grows up with an appropriate appreciation for the beauty that is post-impressionist art.

The blue sleeve of her sweatshirt falls up her arm as she reaches up and begins to paint one of the yellow swirls of starlight onto the ceiling, letting out a slight yelp as the ladder teeters underneath her, but she steadies it. She takes a deep breath, reminding herself that it's a very short ladder, and she's barely a few feet off the ground. She's been much higher before, floating in space, falling down feeding tubes and climbing into catacombs with him... with the Doctor. The man she hasn't seen for five years. The man, who she'd thought about every day since he dropped them off back at Leadworth and abandoned them. She lies awake at night wondering why he would do that to them. Did she do something wrong? Did Amy, or Rory? Did he grow tired of them? Did something happen to him? Has he just lost track of time...? She remembers he used to do that a lot.