[ For timeforamy ; chivalric code ]

[mmkaternater]

There aren't a lot of perks in facing your imminent demise come sunrise, but the Doctor has managed to grab on to a few. Perk One: If they know that tonight could very well be your last night on earth, they're going to put you up in very posh lodgings. (Of course, in 14th century England, this roughly equates to a mite-free mattress and not having to share your chamber pot with three other people, but all's fair in love and Medieval diplomacy.) Perk Two: If you are allowed to choose the contents of your last meal and you ask for fish custard, the people who are guarding you are going to give you a very strange look but will not, for the most part, object to you saying that you want to pop down to the bin to make it yourself. Which is when you manage to lose them in the castle's maze of twisting, windy stone corridors.

Actually, this perk might be better than the one about the chamber pot.

Given the volume of the shouting coming from far distant hallways, the Doctor figures he has about fifteen minutes before his dine-and-dash tactic is discovered. 'Plenty of time to find Amy and see that this whole "upon the morning" business is sorted before anyone gets hurt. Specifically, the Doctor himself.

The hallways are like highways, clogged with people and very irritated guards, so the Doctor has taken the overpass. Actually, he's taken the ledge outside one of the castle windows, scooting along the narrow cropping of stone, fingers dug into the mortar. He pokes his head into a window, only to get a chorus of high-pitched screams in return --

"Sorry, ladies! I'll be on my way. Sorry for the intrusion. Lovely bathrobes, by the way!"

-- before he edges along the wall to the next set of windows.

On the massive, four-poster bed in one of the rooms, the Doctor sees a pair of black leggings and a leather jacket. Amy. He grips the window frame and leans in, tapping his knuckle against the leaded glass.

Comments

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"No, you weren't."

It's a bold statement, but Amy makes it and her eyes hold to his face. She's regarding him with her fierce, intense eyes, the ones that beg no argument.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looks up. He realizes that he looks ridiculous in the goggles, and peels them up his forehead. There are pink pressure welts all around his eyes. His smile folds a little bit.

"Of course I like you. I don't travel with people I don't like."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"There's a difference between liking and fancying," Amy says, noting the change in his face and making a memory of it. He's uncomfortable and she wishes he wasn't, but she wants to know the truth. It's an important answer to her.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"And there's a difference between protons and electrons," the Doctor says, somewhat churlishly. He feels his face start to collect colour again, as he realizes that this was probably not the answer Amy was looking for. He shoots her a short, apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Amy. I'm just not very good at..." he licks his lips "...you know, any of that."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"You're more than good enough at it." Her eyes move to his face and Amy suddenly realizes how close they are. Closer than they have been before, at that. "More than good enough for me." It's true, too. Amy isn't want for anything else, not that he can't give her.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The mold is probably percolating beside them. 'Getting into their bloodstreams and hopping around like fleas. The Doctor suddenly feels very warm. He is aware that something has changed in the last five seconds, and he's not quite sure how to respond to it.

"Amy," he begins very quietly, but can't for the life of him think of how to follow it up.

He blinks. Looks away.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Her palm is waiting, lifting to rest against his cheek. The pad of her thumb is tucking itself against the corner of his lips, and she doesn't quite care just what that'll mean. At least, not now. They are very close, and she likes that closeness.

"Don't start pulling away from me now," she says softly. "We've come too far for that."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Her fingers are cool. He feels her nails (what colour are they today? lime green? magenta? peridot?) tickle the duck fluff at the back of his neck and, for a moment, he wants nothing more than to fold himself away with her somewhere, where they are safe and quiet together.

She doesn't understand, he thinks, because she doesn't know.

Yes, chimes that sinister voice in the back of his head, she doesn't know because you haven't told her. You haven't told her because part of you wants her for yourself. You're afraid she'll leave if she knows what she's missing.

"Amy, there's something I have to tell you. Before, on the battlements, when I was trying to get you to remember..."

Don't do this.

"...something about your travels with me. A thing you had forgotten."

You can have her if you want her. Just don't tell her.

"Something missing."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

This doesn't make any sense. Amy wants to draw away and tell him he's being barmy, because that conversation seems so very far away now. Everything seems far away, from where they are in this place and what's spinning quietly around them. Amy shakes her head, just once, a gentle motion.

"I'm not missing anything," she says quietly, her lips drifting a half inch higher. Her mouth grazes his cheek, then hovers there like a whispered secret.

"Got all I want here. Nothing's missing."

Or is it? The thought comes from some weird place that she doesn't have a name for, but she doesn't want to think about it now. Instead, she'd be much happier to just..be here. With him.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Let it go, old man. Old, tired Time Lord. Don't you think it's about time that you started getting what you want? Social martyrdom is so dull.

The Doctor puts up his fingers and touches the underside of her jaw, gently turning her lips away from his cheek. He stands at the console, head bowed, raking his lips between his teeth. "Something is," he says, "only you don't remember what it is." He lowers his voice. "If only you could remember him."

Oh great. Now you've done it.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"What are you talking about?"

Amy doesn't like this train of thought. Doesn't like it at all, nor does she care for the strange imagery that's beginning to form behind the screen of her mind. A park bench with a slightly goofy smile, strange costumes on Halloween, a rather bumbling attitude but something endearing -

She shakes her head once, roughly.

"No. No, stop it."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Amy." He almost sounds apologetic; his face is pained, pulled in long directions as he sees the start of memory in her eyes, in her voice. "You have to remember. Otherwise it isn't worth anything. His life -- Amy --" he grips her by the elbows "-- think of him. Try."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Her gaze lifts to his face, but it's as if she isn't seeing anything anymore. No, she's seeing something far away that hurts to remember - oh, it hurts - and her eyes are watering up with tears unshed.

"What..what happened? To.."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Time can be rewritten. It can be unwritten.

Half-mad Doctor, thinking that he could can the laws of the universe when, in reality, the universe will take care of itself, thankyouverymuch. Rory was gone. Lost. A puff of existential dust. He never existed, and there was no one to remember him. Except for the Doctor. And the Doctor knows, knows, all the way down to the core of his two hearts, that if he can just make Amy remember, that everything will be okay. Somehow, her memory is the key to everything.

"You have to say it," he tells her, "you have to be the one who does it. I can't say it, I can't --"

He is interrupted by a loud banging at the doors of the TARDIS. "SIR DOCTOR! COME OUT! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"

The Doctor ignores it. 'Grips Amy's shoulders, his fingers digging in. Probably hurting a bit.

"Try, Amy."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

The sounds outside hurt her ears and Amy is clenching her eyes shut, trying to close the world out and away. She doesn't want to think about anything, but a thought is pushing itself to the forefront of her consciousness. It's a bright, hot light that burns to look at, but it's there and it won't go away.

Does she want it to?

"Doctor -"

Her voice is weak and she turns her tear-filled eyes to his face, either because he's hurting her or because something else is hurting more and she can't find a way to make it feel better.

" - but it hurts to think -"

- to think what? To think about -

" - Rory."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The exterior of the TARDIS shakes, as if it's being upended. The Doctor is thrown hard against the side of the console, spins like a mad top for a couple of seconds, then manages to pull himself upright. He curses -- loudly -- in Gallifreyan and splits off of the console floor, jerking open the TARDIS doors.

"DO. YOU. MIND?" he bellows, loudly enough to take even the sturdiest knight back on his heels.

He comes out of the TARDIS, sharp as a viper, and walks right into Sir Rorrick's chain-mail personal space. "Because I am the last person you want to mess with right now, I swear by all the stars in the sky and all of the burning, bursting suns that you can't see, that your poor, feeble minds can't comprehend yet. If you touch my machine again, I swear that I will leave you in so many pieces scattered across this universe and the next that it will take a deep space telescope to find you, you thick, stupid human."

Sir Rorrick is speechless. His men gape like a pair of fish on land. The Doctor realizes that they are looking behind him, to the open TARDIS doors -- and to where the console room yawns open. Oh. That.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

There is a sound of someone crying and it takes Amy a moment to realize she is the one making it.

No, not crying. Sobbing.

Amy is huddled on the floor of the TARDIS, her arms wound tightly around her legs. Her shoulders are shaking with rough, broken sobs and her tears have begun to mat tendrils of her hair against her cheeks in their wake.

Rory.

Everything is coming back to her in great, pressing waves, bursts of colour filling her memory to make images she doesn't want to see and yet can't imagine living without ever again. Rory and his stunned expression when she tells him he's being an idiot, Rory chasing after her when he's said something to make her angry. Rory with ice cream on his nose after he's stolen a bite of her cone, Rory on one knee asking her to marry him even though there's grass sticking to his jeans and a little smear of dirt on his nose.

What happened?

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Sir Rorrick looks if he is not sure what he should be focusing on -- the Doctor, the strange box, or the sound of sobbing coming from inside of it. He starts forward, but the Doctor blocks his progress with an elbow across the chest. "Don't you dare," he growls, pushing the taller man backward. "You let this go, all of it, or I will really get angry."

Rorrick looks over the Doctor's shoulder. "But we are oath-bound to do battle. I cannot --"

"-- then let them say I'm a coward," the Doctor interrupts. "You can tell them, all of them, that I ran when you came to get me. There. Your honour is intact."

"But the Lady Amelia," the knight protests, "is she all right? I hear crying --"

The Doctor takes a step forward. "You go one way. I go the other. Say yes, knight."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Her hands are pressing to her face as if that will somehow allow the returning images to go away, someplace to where she doesn't have to see them anymore. The gesture is futile and Amy hates it, hates herself for being so broken that she's crying and hates most of all that she had ever forgotten what had broken her in the first place.

Rory. She's loved him for years, while he's been a constant presence in her life. When there was no Doctor by her side, when five minutes became twelve years and then more still, it was Rory who brought her flowers. Who made a place for himself alongside her as best he could, even though he accepted something impossible. Accepted the Doctor - he had, really - as something imaginary and yet wholly perfect that could never be replicated.

But she had still loved him, and they were still engaged to be married.

"No.."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

For a full minute, there is stalemate. Neither the Doctor nor the knights move. Far off in the distance, the Doctor sees pinpoints of light. Torches. The rest of the Earl's court has heard what is going on and is coming to watch, carrying lit torches. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Finally, one of Sir Rorrick's men reaches out and touches his arm. "My lord."

Rorrick shakes him away, angry. He takes a step toward the Doctor, raising up to his full height, but the Doctor does not move. The knight stops in front of him and lowers his voice, so that only he and the Time Lord can hear what he's saying. "You do not deserve her." The Doctor flinches, but says nothing. The knight mounts his horse and together, he and his retinue ride toward the phalanx of approaching torches.

The Doctor presses his fingers to the corners of his eyes. 'Turns. Steps back into the TARDIS and shuts the doors.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

She is waiting for him when he comes back inside.

Amy has pulled herself up to her feet and is regarding him with red, watery eyes. The sorrow of her realization has come to register on her face, and where there was previous youthful delight there is now hard, raw tragedy. Her chest is aching with the pain in her heart, and the memories she had forgotten but now never will.

Her chest is aching in the center and dimly, Amy wonders if her heart is broken. If this is what it feels like. Hearts can break for many reasons, and this would be as good of a one as any to feel that desolation, that impossible loss.

"Rory. Rory's dead."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor sags in place. "Yes," he says thinly, turning his face away from her impossible eyes. Drowning, overwhelming guilt pours through his limbs. He feels like he may be sick. Slowly, he ascends the stairs to the console. His head is down, like a whipped dog's. "I'm getting us out of here," he says quietly. 'Starts turning on the primary time gears.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"No."

Amy's voice is quiet and thick with tears but it's there. She swipes a hand across her eyes and then drops her palm to cover his knuckles. She wants answers, she wants to know why.

"Tell me what happened."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Lights on the console demand his attention. The Doctor punches a button with his thumb and feels the TARDIS's auxiliary controls come online with a low rumble. Her hand feels alien on the back of his. "It's too much," he says, "you won't understand."

And I don't want to be the one to tell you.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Don't you dare!"

Her voice is a cry that echoes around the control room, and little droplets of salt tinted water splatter against the console. Tears. Amy is crying, and while that isn't a shock it isn't something she often chooses to do. Her hand tightens against his while her other comes up to grasp at his shoulder, as if willing him to look at her.

"Don't you dare play the you're just some stupid human card at me now! This was my life, part of my life, and I've got a right to know what happened! Tell me!"