Five

                                    

                                          
For the next two weeks, nothing too exciting happened to Alessia.
                          
She quickly fell into a routine not unlike the Oswald Routine she had kept in London. She named this one the Alessia Routine, since it was only her now. No use in using Oswald when she was just Alessia. 
                          
The Routine consisted of waking early, similar to its predecessor, getting dressed, eating breakfast, doing whatever she wanted, eating lunch, doing whatever she wanted, eating dinner, sitting down with Amy and Rory for some nightly quiet time, and then bed. As well as developing a routine, she'd spent the two weeks of nothing learning new things. The television, she learned, was like a little window for watching stories through. Amy had shown her plenty of stories, called movies and television shows, and Alessia had developed an obsession. Every night during quiet time, Alessia would change into a nightgown and position herself right between Amy and Rory, where she would stay for an hour or so, watching whatever television show was on that night. She loved it.
                          
Toward her twelfth or thirteenth day, Alessia realized that she'd missed her birthday. Or, at least, what would have been her birthday if she wasn't holed up in a time machine. There was a little calendar, one with a picture of a cat to label each month, and she was catching up on crossing out the days when she crossed the 26th of January right out. Gone in a flash. She was an eight-year-old now.
                          
The Doctor had been nonexistent. He had left after steering them to somewhere he didn't tell them. ("1207," Amy has said after their rocky landing. There was no trace of the Doctor anywhere. "He's locked us inside in the year 1207. I could kill him sometimes.") Alessia had no problem with her daily life with the Ponds. It was nice to have two parents who didn't have to hide her away. She liked being able to jump into Amy's arms and clamber onto Rory's shoulders, and soon had crossed out Volume Twelve's second rule. 
                          
Alessia had learned future phrasing from Amy, and was already speaking it naturally. Rory said she sounded like a natural. Alessia Oswald was very happy. 
                          
Amelia Pond was not.
                          
"Look," said Rory, unconvincingly trying to calm Amy down. "I'm sure he's got his reasoning. He's always got his reasoning."
                          
Amy dialled her cell phone furiously for the umpteenth time, holding it up to her ear. "Doesn't make his reasoning smart!" She lashed back. "I want to know why he's--" she stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. "Doctor! Finally!"
                          
Alessia let her feet swing precariously from the railing she sat atop, watching her boots steadily sway back and forth. She watched Amy scream into the phone in front of her as Rory rushed forward to hear the most he could through the muffed receiver. 
                          
"I think he's stupid," August said matter-of-factly, nodding toward the phone. "He just left us six hundred years before you were even born and locked us inside his weird space box thing."
                          
Alessia nodded. "I agree."
                          
"I found his big secret library last night," continued August. "We could go in there and wreck all his books. There's plenty of ink wells in there too, we could stain all the pages." 
                          
"I guess."
                          
 August looked Alessia up and down curiously. "Why aren't you angry?" He asked. "You're usually angry."
                          
"Because," Alessia began, leaning as far back as she could. "Angry is tiring. I'm sick of angry."
                          
August shrugged. "Fair enough."
                          
"Alessia!" Rory called, taking a break from watching Amy's phone call to check on her. "Did you eat breakfast this morning?" The monotonous question gave the impression he was only looking for a reason to stop paying attention to Amy.