[ 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]

"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!"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor turns to her, suddenly irrationally angry. He grips the underside of her elbows.

"You want to know? Tell me, Amy, do you really want to know? You want to know how, when we were in the bowels of the earth, about to go to war with the Homo reptilia and how Rory --" he blinks, once, hard "-- how that damned crack in your bloody wall swallowed him up and ate up everything that was ever good about him, or ever mattered, or ever existed? Is that what you want to know, Amy? Tell me!"

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"I want you to tell me the truth!" She's almost clawing at him now, because he's the only thing she has that's real to hold onto. It's been that way for so many years, so long as she's been able to remember. The memory of one imaginary friend has been, somehow, the most real thing in her life.

Amy's hands grasp roughly at his shoulders and she's crying through her angry words.

"I have to know! I have to know because I -"

Amy throws herself roughly against his chest and clutches against him, sobbing into his shoulder.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor feels like he could collapse under the weight of his own entropy. One breath and fwppp! Falling in on himself like a dying star, pulling the TARDIS -- and Amy -- in around him, the death rattle of an old, tired creature.

His hand hovers in the air above her shoulder. He rocks, absorbing the hurricane of her anger and fear.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, "Amy, I'm so sorry."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

You bloody thick headed alien, just hold me. She wants to scream it at him, tell him that she needs to be held and comforted and all of those things in between, but she's too overcome with her own grief, something ripping at her from the inside out. There's so much loss and so much pain, and he's all that's stationary at the center of it.

Amy sobs, her head buried against his neck.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Slowly, he brings his arms up to wrap around her shoulders. The force of her crying rocks her (shakes him) and sinks down deep into his bones, like a sickness. He'd give anything for a passing supernova right about now. a collapsing star. Something that will give him a purpose to save her, rather than be the shore upon which she beats out her breast for grief.

He is not sure what he should be doing now. The TARDIS is groaning, ready to take off, and he's still got several levers to lever before they depart. But, based on the way Amy's wrapped herself around him, the Doctor thinks that she's not too interested in going anywhere at the moment. He can only stand there, his head bent toward the ground, feeling her hot breath spill into the collar of his shirt.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

It takes a few moments for her to find her balance again, for the world to cease its spinning and for Amy to be able to lift her head. When she does, her eyes are swollen and red and her face is on the splotchy side. It's not exactly an attractive getup for a human girl, and at another time she might have insisted no one look at her until she had time to make herself presentable.

But now she's looking at him and her face is a little more resolved than it has been before.

"We can't leave without helping them. This...thing, it's ruining their lives. We can't just leave because I've started to cry."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gets a look at her face and thinks, I've ruined her, while the contents of his stomach go cold. He brings a hand to cup her cheek, shaking his head. "No." His fingers fall away. "I'm taking you home." Things in the 14th century will work themselves out.

Won't they?

He doesn't know. The Doctor just doesn't know anymore.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy moves her hand to catch his as it drops and winds her fingers roughly through his. "No. I don't want to go home. I'm not going to just leave you -" her voice hitches somewhere in the middle, "and they need help. Right now I never want to see Leadworth again."

She means it. Amy doesn't want to go back to where home used to be. Not now.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"I've taken care of it," the Doctor says. He reaches out from underneath her hand and toggles a switch. The TARDIS gears grind to life with a sigh that, to the Doctor's ears, sounds more tired than usual. He skips a glance to Amy's profile. "We'll go somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away. Where there isn't any --"

he hesitates; drags a thumb across his brow and leaves a pink line in his wake

"-- where it will be better," he finishes. A smile that's for her benefit.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy meets his eyes and wonders if it's true. She wonders, for a wild moment, if he can do what he has promised. Can they go somewhere and have everything be all right?

Or as all right as it can be. Because Rory is dead.

"Where?" Her voice is fragile, so is her hand against his wrist.