[ 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.

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[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.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Anywhere, he thinks. Anywhere is better than here.

"Where do you want to go?"

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere with -"

Somewhere with you.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Somewhere beautiful, in this universe, does nothing to narrow it down. The Doctor's mind is a lexicon of places and times, all arranged according to how absolutely stunning he thinks it might be to potential assistants. (The Doctor does, after all, like to show off.)

"I know just the place."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Let's go."

Amy wants to go far away, to someplace beautiful. She wants to be away with the Doctor - with her imaginary friend - and just...

...just what? Forget about Rory? No, that isn't what she wants at all. Amy will never forget Rory again. But hurting like this is harder than breathing.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gives her a brief nod, then slides his spider fingers out from underneath her own. The console is piping hot and alive. The TARDIS wants to get out of here as much as Amy does, it seems, and then the Doctor remembers that the time machine is part of him as well.

That's right, says the twisted voice, time to do what you do best, Time Lord: run.

He pushes those thoughts deep, deep down and assembles himself at the foot of the console, pumping the air brake with his foot to disengage it, thumping coordinates into the autotype machine. He's taking them someplace far. Beyond the places where, he hopes, memory can catch them.

A brief, uncomfortable look toward her face.

"You should lie down a bit. I'll wake you when we arrive." His smile flickers. "I promise."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy shakes her head, though she twitches a bit of a smile at the corner of her lips. He's trying to make her feel better, and she knows it. But she's afraid that if she does lay down, he'll take the TARDIS somewhere - maybe even back to her home town - and leave her there. Disappear into the night with nothing but stardust in his wake and just be...gone. Despite what's happened, Amy can't lose him, too.

"I'm okay."

She's not, and she knows that he knows she isn't. But she's not going to shut her eyes until she's certain he won't leave her.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Amy." He gives her one of those 'worse-than-everybody's-aunt' looks, but there's not much strength behind it. Truth be told, the Doctor's tired, too. Time Lords are designed to go on little sleep and little food, but there's a breaking point to every Time Lord, and the Doctor is fairly certain he's reached his.

His mouth flattens. A smile that doesn't have a light. He reaches over and pulls a bit of straw from her hair. "No," he says, "I don't think you are. Look at you: you've got straw in your hair."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I do." She touches her fingers to her hair, too, then brings her eyes to his. There's fatigue in her face, she can't hide it and she can't pretend it isn't there. She's human, and the best she can do is keep her eyes forward now. Because as much as she's missing him, wanting him to be alive, Rory is dead. And she can't bring him back.

"And you've got dirt on your face." Amy brings her hand to his cheek, nudging the smudge away.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor turns up his chin. "Do you think it makes me look manly? 'Bit of dirt."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, very." Amy nudges her eyebrows a bit higher. "It's attractive."