[ 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

[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."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

His smile is sad. There are so many things that he wishes he could go back and change. Fix. He wants to make it so that he was only five minutes late instead of twelve years; he wants to bring back Rory, and see to it that Amy has a proper chance to love him; he wants to erase the Daleks, the Homo reptilia, the crack in her wall (most of all, the crack in her wall) and all of the terrible things that flash in her nightmares (which he can hear sometimes, though he tries not to listen too closely).

"Oh," he repeats, "attractive." A little kindling underneath that smile. "I like that."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"I do, too."

Time can't be re-written. She knows that now, being with him has taught her this. And she's never wanted to before now. But all she can do is keep on going forward with what she has now. She can't bring Rory back, and it's breaking her heart that she can't.

And she just doesn't want to lose the Doctor, too.

Amy lays her hand against his cheek once more.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The dress (covered with mud and bits of the good old English countryside) makes her green eyes that much greener. Her skin is very pale, but her crying has scrubbed her cheeks to a fair shade of pink. The Doctor reaches up to take her hand. "I'm sorry, Amy. I'm so sorry."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"I know." Amy folds her fingers through his, and it's an awkward angle but she doesn't care. It feels good, like that. His skin against hers, and the little tremor through his hand. "I know you are. But it isn't your fault, you shouldn't be sorry. You didn't kill Rory."

She doesn't blame him. Not for this.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"But I brought you both here," he says. "If I hadn't..."

If you hadn't, the voice chimes in, you would have done the exact same to someone else. That's your trouble, Doctor -- you don't know when to stop. Even when it hurts people.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy lifts her hands so she can lay her palms against either side of his face.

"You didn't kill Rory." There are still tears in her eyes, but she won't let him take the blame for this.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor, obviously, thinks otherwise. He might not have had his finger on the trigger, but his whole concept of adventuring and skipping about the universe like some sort of mad god often puts people into these positions. And the Doctor must, invariably, shoulder the consequences.

"Yes, but --" he begins to protest. Stalls. 'Threads a bit of her ginger hair between his fingers and says, in a lower voice. "I'm supposed to be comforting you, you know. Not the other way 'round."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Yes, well." Amy tilts her head and nudges forward a bit, laying her forehead against his. It's something he would do for her in a time like this and maybe it's meant to make him laugh, or to actually comfort a bit further. Either way, their eyes are very, very close.

"Who's to say I don't need comforted?"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor puts his hands on her shoulders. Good, strong Amy Pond, bearer of so many terrible, immemorable things. Slowly, he draws her in for a hug. I'll make this right, the gesture says. I promise.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy turns her face against his throat and shuts her eyes, holding on as best she can to the memories of good things - of good, brilliant things, of which Rory is part - and it helps. A little and for now, but it helps.

She tilts her head a bit, touching her lips to his pulse. Maybe it's unthinking, or maybe not.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor cradles the crown of her head in his palm, all of her bright hair spilling down over his arms and into his collar. She smells like the home fires of Kent; of the sea and the good whole earth, and everything that grounds the Doctor to the little blue-and-green planet.

He pulls back and places his lips to the center of her forehead. 'Rubs with his thumb a bit of the dirt that his mouth leaves behind.

"Come on," he says quietly, "I want to take you somewhere."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

He wants to make it right. Amy realizes this the same way she knows it will never be possible. No matter what happens Rory will always be dead and her heart will still hurt for his absence. But that doesn't mean he won't try and it doesn't mean she doesn't want to stay with him.

"Where?" Her voice is a whisper.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor holds a finger to his lips. "It's a secret."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy gives him a ghost of a smile. "And they'll be all right here? I keep thinking they need us.."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"They'll be fine," the Doctor says briskly, turning from her to take up his place at the console. "We just need to dispatch that --" he points to the baggie and sandwich "-- and history should go right on, you know, unfolding. Right as rain, the sun will come out tomorrow. All that..." he skirts a look toward her "...you know, stuff."

He eases the big gears of the TARDIS into obedience, punching a seemingly nonsense sequence of buttons. "Besides. I think we've interfered in quite enough history for today, don't you? It may be best to keep off the radar for a while."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Maybe they have. Maybe things have been disrupted and toyed with enough and it's best they move to another corner of the universe. Amy knows the Doctor wouldn't say it unless it were true, he wouldn't want to cause harm that way.

"Then I guess we have a sandwich to dispatch," she says with a little grin. "How should I dress for our new place? Warm weather, cool? Frigid?"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Whatever you like," the Doctor says, gladder than he can possibly articulate to see that grin make a return appearance (small as it is).

"This place, it's not exactly on the grid. I stumbled on it by accident when I tried making the jump from Alpha Centauri to Proxima Five without waiting half an hour after I'd eaten. Got a time cramp and --" he spreads his hands, helplessly.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"A time cramp?"

Amy regards him in disbelief. Of all the things he's told her, this doesn't seem possible at all.

"You're joking, aren't you?"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

He frowns and strokes a bit of the TARDIS.

"Never joke about the TARDIS," he says, a bit defensive. "She can hear you."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, she got the time cramp? How's that happen, a time cramp?"

Amy lays her hand against the console.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Symbiotic link," the Doctor explains. "She's connected to me, and I'm connected to her. I feel --" he looks up the long column of the central time rotators "-- everything that she feels. Every bump, scrape and jostle. And she knows exactly when I try to jump the time vortex without doing a bit of proper digesting first."

He places his hand over the main controls and feels the TARDIS send a pulse of heat into his palm. He smiles.

"We've been through quite a lot, this old machine and me. We were bound to rub off on one another."