Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Chapter Forty-nine

TRIGGER WARNING: ABLEISM

30th April 2011

Cherry sinks into her bed silently. She sits on the end of it after begging Amy and Rory to just leave her alone and pick up some food. She stares at the print on her wall of the painting Vincent Van Gogh dedicated to her and the Doctor, but she can't even see it through the blur of her tears. It's too much for her. She can't wrap her head around it and River, no Melody, said she couldn't stay to explain it any longer. You'll understand soon enough, she promised her mother as they parted, but Cherry can't wait. She wants to know what's happened to her daughter, and she wants to know now.

Time travel is too complicated. There are too many rules. Too many conditions. And now she has to wait just to find out what Madam Kovarian has done to her baby.

At least she's alive. Alive and locked away in a high security prison for murdering someone. And who knows what pain she suffered as a child.

Cherry finally moves to wipe away her tears, and then her hand falls down to her leg and touches the dried flesh soaked into the white fabric. Her heart starts to pound, and her vision goes red as she feels the remnants of her daughter's flesh avatar on her clothes. She screams, the sound echoing through the empty house and she hastily rips the clothes off of her body, throwing them across the room where they land in a heap on the floor.

Her hair falls over her shoulder, still tied up in the plait from Amy, and she can see the strands sticking together with the dried flesh that exploded over her. She pulls the hairband out, burying her hands in her mess of hair and she tugs at her scalp, pained sobs leaving her lips. She spots the scissors on top of her chest of drawers, covered in paint, and she snatches them up before she's even aware of what she's doing. She cuts through her hair, letting it fall in piles to the floor until she is finished and she throws the scissors across the room with so much force that when they hit her mirror, it smashes to pieces.

She stares down at the shattered glass littered across her bedroom floor, and then her eyes fall on the lamp on top of her chest of drawers. It has a red gingham lampshade on it, but the base is bright white and the white gaps in between the red are screaming at her. And then she notices all of her furniture is the same blinding white. The walls are covered in paintings and pictures, but still white underneath. Even her unfinished artwork, which she abandoned before their trip to America, is full of white space.

It's unbearable. She smashes anything white she can find to pieces, leaving the shards of glass and china, or splintered wood from her canvases scattered across the floor as she collapses to her knees, slicing them open on the sharp edges. She leans forward on her hands, chest heaving as her anger subsides and she's left with nothing but pain, and emptiness and sadness. She weeps as she looks around at her destroyed room. All of her things are ruined. She's ruined.

She can't stay here anymore. She needs to go now. She can't face Amy and Rory right now. She knows they will be horrified when they see what she has done to her bedroom, and she cannot bear to see that look in their eyes. Hastily, she climbs to her feet, and she grabs on the first pair of sweatpants and T-shirt she can find amongst the pile of clothes she created as she pulled apart her chest of drawers and she runs away, slamming her bedroom door shut. Her car keys are in the little blue dish near the door where they keep the keys for everything, and her little red mini is parked in the driveway. She dives into the car, turning the key in the ignition before she has even shut her door properly and she haphazardly pulls reverses out of the drive without checking for oncoming cars. Thankfully, the roads are empty this late at night in Leadworth and she presses her foot down on the pedal until she reaches the only bar in the little village.