Never a right time for us
Title: Never a right time for us.
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst
Spoilers: None.
Characters: Eleven/Amy, Amy/Rory
Word Count: 4,000
A/N: Written for who_contest prompt - miscalulations
Summary: Eleven and Amy are stuck in the TARDIS for a year after an incident with a super nova. Some things are never meant to be, even in a stolen year together.
.......................
Amy had been laughing, Rory smiling fondly at her. He shook his head trying to stabilise his thoughts, to put them in the right order. Tumbling uncontrolled, splintering time, a scream, Rory maybe? A flash of copper hair streaming, caught in the moment as time went wobbly, Amy falling, the motion stilling in his thoughts, or was that how it really happened?
The Doctor groaned, trying to open his eyes, but everything hurt. The images in his head jumbled further. Amy and Rory running down a path hand in hand, a burning spaceship, Roman soldiers. He tried to move a hand, but only managed to weakly wiggle his fingers, the motion numb and distant.
He fought down the urge to scream, to vent his frustration, unnerved by the feeling of his thoughts and memories of events being out of order. He forced himself to still, to find a measure of calm. A moment or several, he wasn't really sure, passed, and the memories started to settle into place.
They had been in London, 1572, and witnessed the appearance of the 'new star' in the Cassiopeia constellation. Amy had been fascinated, and wanted a closer look at the supernova. The Doctor had obliged, and set the TARDIS to drift so they could watch as matter streamed from the companion star into the white dwarf just at the point it reached critical mass and went nova. He had meant to set the coordinates for a safe distance, but something had gone wrong, very wrong.
The Doctor groaned again and forced his muscles to move, despite their agonising protests, as the memories crashed in. The TARDIS had been caught in the nova and space distortions had prevented the TARDIS from dematerialising.
He felt someone take hold of his hand.
"Amy!" he cried out, sitting up suddenly, and immediately wishing he hadn't as his sight blurred, several images of Amy shimmering, before settling on just one.
"Okay, when I said I wanted a closer look, this wasn't quite what I had in mind," she said as she helped him to his feet.
The Doctor's head started to clear, he realised it had only been a few seconds since the gravity wave had knocked him from his feet. Amy looked around for Rory, her hand dropping from his when she saw him.
"Rory!" she yelled rushing to her husband's side, wild eyes turning back to the Doctor in panic. "Doctor, what happened, what's wrong with him!"
"Oh," he whispered.
Rory was hazy, almost like a ghost, and completely unmoving. He scanned Rory, turning in a circle as he scanned the interior of the control room. "Amy, he is okay," he said quickly, soothingly, though his stomached churned at the readings.
"Okay? Doctor he's frozen, and sort of ghost-ish," she said, one hand half raised, uncertain, not game to touch him. She looked terrified, as if he would disappear at any moment.
He rushed over and grabbed Amy by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him, as he tried to explain, even as his thoughts rushed at a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to correct his mistake.
"Amy, you can't touch him. He is in a different time stream."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"The TARDIS was caught in the explosion, the gravity wave messed up the time rotor. Basically, we stalled," he said trying to put it in terms she would understand.
"Stalled, you stalled the TARDIS?"
"Yes, well kind of, not really.
"But we're in the middle of a super nova."
"Not quite. I put her into a time dilation field. It's protecting us for the explosion, and will give me time to reinitialise the TARDIS."
"But what's wrong with Rory."
"He's...kind of stuck, on the other side of the field."
"What? You stuck my husband in the middle of a super nova!"
"He's fine. The TARDIS shields will hold for at least an hour, and he won't be there that long. Time is passing much faster for us."
"How exactly does that help?"
"I just need to restart the old girl, bring us back into sync with Rory's time, and then we all get out of here. Simple really."
Or at least it would be, if the whole of the TARDIS has been taken out of sync the way it was supposed to be, but he kept that to himself. He remembered the TARDIS shifting violently just as he had initiated the dilation field. It must have shifted her position, causing a part of the ship to move out of the area of effect as it was forming. Really, not good. Nor was the pounding.
He smiled for Amy, and watched as she calmed, trusting him as she always did, causing a familiar aching guilt. If he hadn't miscalculated the coordinates in the first place, none of this would have happened.
Amy cast another look towards Rory. "So, what do we do now?"
"Right, well, we need to rewire a few things, and adjust the gravitic anomaliser to compensate for the gravity shift, fine tune the dematerialisation circuit and connect it to the dilation device so it will activate once the field is dropped..."
"So, I'll just watch then," Amy interrupted.
"Probably best."
"And you're sure he's ok? You're really, really sure?" She asked, eyes fixed on the ghostly image of Rory.
He smiled again, glancing sideways at Rory in concern, "I'm really sure," he promised.
.......................
The Doctor mumbled to himself as he worked, running through calculations in his head. He tried to remain calm and chipper for Amy, but the work was a little more complicated then he let on. One wrong connection and the TARDIS would likely explode once the dilation field was dropped. He ran a hand along the old girl's beams. He could feel the stress she was under with the two different time streams running through her interior.
The pounding in his head had subsided to a manageable level. He ran through the calculations again, he had already made one mistake that had landed them here. He had no intention of making another one.
He watched as Amy paced above him. She had already asked several times why they could see Rory if he was in a different time stream. He had given up trying to explain, and simply said it was timey wimey. He could hear her talking to Rory, telling him the Doctor was going to fix it all. Not that Rory would be able to hear her.
Amy paced, disappeared for several hours, and came back at some stage with a sandwich.
"It's been hours," she asked. "He still hasn't moved."
He pulled off his goggles and looked up at Amy. She was sitting on the steps, chin resting on the rail, as she looked through the floor above to where Rory was.
"Time is passing about 500,000 times faster for us. A minute for Rory would be about a year for us. He probably won't even know any time at all has passed by the time I get everything fixed."
"And how long will that be?"
"Maybe a day."
He pushed a bundle of wiring back into place.
"There is just one small problem though," he said quietly. He had been so concerned with getting the calculations right it had only just occurred to him.
"Problem? You said it was simple."
"It is, sort of. It's just that I need to drop the dilation field, and the controls to do that, well they are kind of on the other side of the field," he said scratching his head awkwardly.
"Then how exactly are we meant to deactivate it?"
"Well, I could reroute it but, no, that's not going to work..."
He looked up through the glass floor, a smile spreading as the solution presented itself.
"Rory! Good old Rory."
"What? How?" She replied confused, looking back up at Rory again.
"We send him a message. I need some paper and a crayon."
He jumped out of the harness and raced past Amy. "Rory you're a genius! Well, actually I am, but sometimes I do need a hand."
He scribbled the note in large letters on a piece paper. Push the blue button, and stuck it to the console right in Rory's line of sight.
"How will he see it?"
"Time is passing faster here, so anything that's moving will be too fast for him to see. But the note isn't moving, none of the console is, so it should look like the note just appeared there. "
"Of course it will, and now?"
"Now, we just have to wait."
"How long?"
He ran through the calculations in his head. "Maybe a year."
"Great."
"Oh," the Doctor mumbled, his smile fading as the realisation sunk in. They would be stuck here for a year. Waiting really wasn't something he did well.
.......................
They played chess, cards, ring toss, read. Amy slept, the Doctor tinkered. It was all so mundane that at times he thought he might just go insane for something to do.
When it all got too much he would open the ceiling in the library and lay on the floor, watching the shifting patterns of the exploding star around them. Amy always seemed to find him when he was there, lying down next to him, arms not quite touching. They rarely spoke, just stared up at the destructive beauty overhead.
It had been three months since he finished preparations for when Rory dropped the time dilation field. He was sitting in the harness, rechecking everything yet again.
"Doctor," he heard Amy call from somewhere down the corridor.
He rubbed his eyes, exhausted from doing nothing, just sitting, waiting, and waiting some more.
Amy called out again when he didn't answer. She appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked up, smiling for what felt the first time in weeks.
"I found a new closet," she said, spinning cheekily in some 1960's hippie outfit she had found.
He tried to remember which companion it had belonged to, laughing as she put on a pair of purple glasses to complete the outfit, pouting exaggeratedly.
"Come on, there's more," she said, running back down the corridor.
He ran up the stairs after her.
The closet was in a room he didn't really remember being there. It was huge, full of all sorts of clothing the TARDIS had stored over the years. He sat on a dusty old bed as Amy rummaged through it. Tossing garments at him, finding three ties she thought were much cooler than his bow tie.
He threw them back at her. "Nothing beats a bow tie for coolness."
Amy frowned at him, sighing dramatically. "Anything's better than a fez, I guess. Oh," she cried as she spotted a whole section of miniskirts. "What do you think," she asked holding one up.
"It's short."
"That's the point."
She ducked behind a screen to change out of the ridiculous 60's dress. She tried on six different outfits, parading them for him, before settling on a denim skirt, pretty much the same as numerous other she owned herself. The Doctor smiled to himself, he wasn't the only one who was unfaltering in their clothing tastes it seemed. Not that there was anything wrong with her short skirts.
He cleared his throat, a little disturbed by the direction of his thoughts, dragging his eyes away from her shapely legs, which was a little hard, when she collapsed onto the bed next to him, said legs brushing his own.
He cleared his throat, messing with his bow tie. Amy laughed, smacking him on the shoulder.
"Come on, when did you get so serious? We're going to be stuck here for months after all."
He looked away, trying to hide the discomfort that thought brought. Amy didn't miss it though. She rarely did, especially not when he couldn't distract her with some wild adventure.
"Doctor?" She nudged his shoulder with his own. "Is everything okay?" She asked, looking concerned.
"Of course it is. Everything is set in place, once Rory is able to press the button..."
"That's not what I meant. You've been quiet, too quiet. You're never quiet unless something is wrong."
"Hey, I'm always okay," he answered smiling. Not exactly the truth, but then again, he always lied, didn't he.
He patted her leg, flashed another smile, before getting up and leaving. He needed to get away before the smile faltered.
The Doctor made his way through the TARDIS, thoughts turning dark. He never enjoyed staying in the one place for too long, too much time to think, too much opportunity for all his guilt and regrets to catch up to him.
He walked into the library, not really surprised that his feet had brought him here. He opened up the roof, the glow of the burning star lighting up the rows of books and shimmering off the swimming pool. The mass of the star expanding slowly as the months passed.
He pressed his hands to his temples. He'd had months to get used to the effects of the dilation field. The flow of time he could usually feel as easily as breathing was distorted by the effects of the field. After those first few moments of pain and disorientation, he had learned to cope with it. It left him feeling dizzy most of the time, and occasionally it was worse, sort of like trying to walk on the deck of a ship on the ocean, shifting beneath him unpredictably.
He closed his eyes, digging fingers into flesh, trying to relieve the pressure to no avail. He didn't hear Amy walk in, and jumped when she put a hand on his shoulder. She sat down next to him, pushing his fingers aside to run her own across his aching temple.
"What's wrong? And don't tell me it's nothing."
He smiled weakly, trying to summon up the will to keep lying, but he couldn't.
"Time's wrong."
"What do you mean," she asked as she slowly started to rub her fingers against his skin.
He closed his eyes, leaning into the touch, even as he meant to pull away.
"The dilation field, it's making time all wonky. It's giving me headaches."
"Just headaches?"
"Mostly," he replied, not having the energy to explain fully.
Not that she could understand anyway. Amy wasn't used to feeling all of time, to feel it ebb and flow around and through everything. It was like the beat of his own hearts. Always there. A constant, even as it was changing, full of possibilities taken and not taken.
He stilled her hands with his own. "It's nothing to worry about," he said as he pulled her hands away.
Amy studied him for a moment. "Then you won't mind if I stay with you here for awhile."
She pulled a cushion off one of the chairs and lay down on the floor. The Doctor settled next to her, sharing the cushion when she pushed it towards him. They both stared up at the show the dying star was putting on.
Amy's fingers brushed fleetingly against his own in the space between them, and for a moment, the headache subsided.
.......................
The months passed by, yet they somehow never ran out things to talk about, falling into a comforting routine. Amy explored the TARDIS, finding rooms she had never had the time to stumble across before. The Doctor would tell her stories about whatever objects she found. He cooked for her, and she discovered fish fingers and custard weren't the only thing he liked. She helped him as he tinkered with the ships systems, and he discovered she had a knack for getting wires in a tangle that almost matched his own.
Every few weeks they would both find their way to the library. Amy spent hours swimming beneath the glow of the explosion, floating on her back as she stared up at it. The Doctor would read, or pretend to, his eyes more often wandering to Amy.
This time he actually was reading, absorbed in one of the few Gallifreyan books that still existed. Amy climbed out of the pool and dried herself off, wrapping the towel around her and sitting next to him. She leaned in against him as she tried to read the book.
"What is it?" She asked after awhile.
"A nursery rhyme."
Amy watched as his fingers gently caressed the pages. He finished reading and closed the book, leaning back to stare up through the open ceiling, Amy leaning comfortably against him.
"What happens when the field drops?" Amy asked.
"We'll dematerialise instantly, I've set to coordinates for Earth," he answered.
She already knew, she asked the question at least once a month.
"And the two time streams will come back together?"
"Yes."
"The last time you bought me back to the right timeline, I didn't remember anything."
"I know," he said, glancing at her, remembering the painful choice on Apalapucia.
"What will happen this time?"
The Doctor didn't answer for a long time. Amy didn't rush him, seeming content with the silence. His fingers found hers, entwining their hands together. She leaned her head to rest on his shoulder, her warm breath caressing his neck. He kissed her forehead softly, and she reached up her other hand to toy with the lapel of his jacket.
He soaked up the intimate moment, gentle and quiet. The only time he had felt peaceful in the last eight months had been here in the library, when they would sit together for hours. Just the two of them stuck out of time from the rest of the universe. With their hands entangled, he forgot the wrongness of being out of the normal flow of time.
His fingers itched where they touched hers, wanting to find more of her warmth, her comfort. He almost let himself believe that this was all there was. That there wasn't an entire universe out there, turning impossibly slow, as their moments together flashed by.
Her fingers became more sure as she pressed her palm against his chest, feeling the double heart beat.
"I don't know if you will remember any of this," he finally answered, knowing he shouldn't have the moment she leaned forward, brushing lips tentatively over his own.
It wasn't right. It was so, so wrong. Yet he couldn't help moving his lips in response, relishing the slick warmth of her, even though it was only the barest touch.
He pulled back. "Amy, don't," he forced out hoarsely, the words feeling like they tore every fibre of his throat as they came out.
"Why?"
Because I won't ever want to stop, and I have to. "Rory," he whispered, not able to look her in the eye.
She dropped her hands into her lap, her soft, hurt gasp echoing loudly in the painful silence settling between them. She stood and left. He closed his eyes as his head slumped, hating himself for letting her go, and for not making her leave earlier.
He didn't leave the room for three days.
.......................
They spent the next three months avoiding each other as much as possible, speaking only when needed. It was the most agonising passage of time he thought he had ever lived through.
The Doctor fussed with the controls on the console. He spent as much time as possible in the control room, eyes wandering to the ghostly image of Rory, reminding himself that what had almost happened, never could.
As the months passed, Rory slowly moved towards the console. The Doctor took comfort that Rory had obviously seen the note, and was even now rushing towards the blue button, and their salvation. In the last few weeks he had watched as Rory slowly reached a hand out towards it. They would only have another day to wait, another day for him and Amy to avoid each other awkwardly.
He knew that whenever he wasn't at the console, Amy would be there. He had watched her sitting in the jump chair staring at her husband numerous times. Her face a mass of emotions he couldn't, or didn't want to decipher.
He leaned against the console heavily. Wishing that this last day would pass quicker, denying the part of him that wished it wouldn't. The part that wished he could go back to the library and find Amy waiting there for him.
The Doctor could hear her hesitant step in one of the corridors, no doubt unwilling to be in the same room as him. He closed his eyes and wished for the thousandth time that he could forget what almost happened and how much he had wanted it.
He looked up as Amy walked in, face stubbornly set in a bland expression.
"How much longer?" She asked.
"A day."
She nodded absently. There had always been a closeness between them that he cherished. He hated the distance that spread between them now. He had always known she didn't belong to him, and in a way that had made him happy. She was better off with Rory, with him she could find a happiness and surety the Doctor could never give her.
"I should check on a few things," he said, hastily making his exit.
The Doctor made his way through the TARDIS, wandering through corridors for hours, not heading anywhere in particular, yet slowly circling his way to the library. He hadn't been back there in three months.
He opened the ceiling one last time, staring up into the explosion that had changed dramatically since he last saw it, the destructive chaos a fitting reflection of his own existence.
He had thought he would be able to hide here, brooding in silence until the TARDIS dematerialised and everything was set back the way it was meant to be, but Amt found him several hours later.
She didn't say anything, just stood next to him and took his hand in her own. He lost track of how long they stood there together, her hand tightening on his as the tension between them dissipated.
"It's beautiful," she said.
He glanced at her, the nova reflected in her eyes. He almost thought it radiated out of her rather than being a simple reflection.
"It's almost time," he said quietly, as calculations ticked away somewhere in the back of his mind.
She moved to stand in front of him, and leaned in to kiss him. He stiffened, steeling himself to stop her, to stop himself, but she placed a hand on either side of his face and pulled him closer. The kiss was chaste and gentle. In another time, if circumstances had been different, it could have been so much more.
Their lips parted, breaths mingling together as they both looked into the others eyes.
They walked together back to the control room to wait for Rory, and everything to go back to how it should and always will be. Their hands remained clasped together until everything blurred and the two time streams came back into sync. Their fingers slipped apart with a jolt as the TARDIS dematerialised.
Amy laughed as she ran into Rory's arms, muffling his confused query with her lips. The Doctor smiled and turned away. Everything as it should be, with only his memory of a kiss that would never be anything more left as a lingering reminder of what he could never have.
The Doctor knew he would never ask if she remembered it too. He didn't want to know the answer.
Some things were better left lost to the flow of time.
.......................
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst
Spoilers: None.
Characters: Eleven/Amy, Amy/Rory
Word Count: 4,000
A/N: Written for who_contest prompt - miscalulations
Summary: Eleven and Amy are stuck in the TARDIS for a year after an incident with a super nova. Some things are never meant to be, even in a stolen year together.
.......................
Amy had been laughing, Rory smiling fondly at her. He shook his head trying to stabilise his thoughts, to put them in the right order. Tumbling uncontrolled, splintering time, a scream, Rory maybe? A flash of copper hair streaming, caught in the moment as time went wobbly, Amy falling, the motion stilling in his thoughts, or was that how it really happened?
The Doctor groaned, trying to open his eyes, but everything hurt. The images in his head jumbled further. Amy and Rory running down a path hand in hand, a burning spaceship, Roman soldiers. He tried to move a hand, but only managed to weakly wiggle his fingers, the motion numb and distant.
He fought down the urge to scream, to vent his frustration, unnerved by the feeling of his thoughts and memories of events being out of order. He forced himself to still, to find a measure of calm. A moment or several, he wasn't really sure, passed, and the memories started to settle into place.
They had been in London, 1572, and witnessed the appearance of the 'new star' in the Cassiopeia constellation. Amy had been fascinated, and wanted a closer look at the supernova. The Doctor had obliged, and set the TARDIS to drift so they could watch as matter streamed from the companion star into the white dwarf just at the point it reached critical mass and went nova. He had meant to set the coordinates for a safe distance, but something had gone wrong, very wrong.
The Doctor groaned again and forced his muscles to move, despite their agonising protests, as the memories crashed in. The TARDIS had been caught in the nova and space distortions had prevented the TARDIS from dematerialising.
He felt someone take hold of his hand.
"Amy!" he cried out, sitting up suddenly, and immediately wishing he hadn't as his sight blurred, several images of Amy shimmering, before settling on just one.
"Okay, when I said I wanted a closer look, this wasn't quite what I had in mind," she said as she helped him to his feet.
The Doctor's head started to clear, he realised it had only been a few seconds since the gravity wave had knocked him from his feet. Amy looked around for Rory, her hand dropping from his when she saw him.
"Rory!" she yelled rushing to her husband's side, wild eyes turning back to the Doctor in panic. "Doctor, what happened, what's wrong with him!"
"Oh," he whispered.
Rory was hazy, almost like a ghost, and completely unmoving. He scanned Rory, turning in a circle as he scanned the interior of the control room. "Amy, he is okay," he said quickly, soothingly, though his stomached churned at the readings.
"Okay? Doctor he's frozen, and sort of ghost-ish," she said, one hand half raised, uncertain, not game to touch him. She looked terrified, as if he would disappear at any moment.
He rushed over and grabbed Amy by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him, as he tried to explain, even as his thoughts rushed at a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to correct his mistake.
"Amy, you can't touch him. He is in a different time stream."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"The TARDIS was caught in the explosion, the gravity wave messed up the time rotor. Basically, we stalled," he said trying to put it in terms she would understand.
"Stalled, you stalled the TARDIS?"
"Yes, well kind of, not really.
"But we're in the middle of a super nova."
"Not quite. I put her into a time dilation field. It's protecting us for the explosion, and will give me time to reinitialise the TARDIS."
"But what's wrong with Rory."
"He's...kind of stuck, on the other side of the field."
"What? You stuck my husband in the middle of a super nova!"
"He's fine. The TARDIS shields will hold for at least an hour, and he won't be there that long. Time is passing much faster for us."
"How exactly does that help?"
"I just need to restart the old girl, bring us back into sync with Rory's time, and then we all get out of here. Simple really."
Or at least it would be, if the whole of the TARDIS has been taken out of sync the way it was supposed to be, but he kept that to himself. He remembered the TARDIS shifting violently just as he had initiated the dilation field. It must have shifted her position, causing a part of the ship to move out of the area of effect as it was forming. Really, not good. Nor was the pounding.
He smiled for Amy, and watched as she calmed, trusting him as she always did, causing a familiar aching guilt. If he hadn't miscalculated the coordinates in the first place, none of this would have happened.
Amy cast another look towards Rory. "So, what do we do now?"
"Right, well, we need to rewire a few things, and adjust the gravitic anomaliser to compensate for the gravity shift, fine tune the dematerialisation circuit and connect it to the dilation device so it will activate once the field is dropped..."
"So, I'll just watch then," Amy interrupted.
"Probably best."
"And you're sure he's ok? You're really, really sure?" She asked, eyes fixed on the ghostly image of Rory.
He smiled again, glancing sideways at Rory in concern, "I'm really sure," he promised.
.......................
The Doctor mumbled to himself as he worked, running through calculations in his head. He tried to remain calm and chipper for Amy, but the work was a little more complicated then he let on. One wrong connection and the TARDIS would likely explode once the dilation field was dropped. He ran a hand along the old girl's beams. He could feel the stress she was under with the two different time streams running through her interior.
The pounding in his head had subsided to a manageable level. He ran through the calculations again, he had already made one mistake that had landed them here. He had no intention of making another one.
He watched as Amy paced above him. She had already asked several times why they could see Rory if he was in a different time stream. He had given up trying to explain, and simply said it was timey wimey. He could hear her talking to Rory, telling him the Doctor was going to fix it all. Not that Rory would be able to hear her.
Amy paced, disappeared for several hours, and came back at some stage with a sandwich.
"It's been hours," she asked. "He still hasn't moved."
He pulled off his goggles and looked up at Amy. She was sitting on the steps, chin resting on the rail, as she looked through the floor above to where Rory was.
"Time is passing about 500,000 times faster for us. A minute for Rory would be about a year for us. He probably won't even know any time at all has passed by the time I get everything fixed."
"And how long will that be?"
"Maybe a day."
He pushed a bundle of wiring back into place.
"There is just one small problem though," he said quietly. He had been so concerned with getting the calculations right it had only just occurred to him.
"Problem? You said it was simple."
"It is, sort of. It's just that I need to drop the dilation field, and the controls to do that, well they are kind of on the other side of the field," he said scratching his head awkwardly.
"Then how exactly are we meant to deactivate it?"
"Well, I could reroute it but, no, that's not going to work..."
He looked up through the glass floor, a smile spreading as the solution presented itself.
"Rory! Good old Rory."
"What? How?" She replied confused, looking back up at Rory again.
"We send him a message. I need some paper and a crayon."
He jumped out of the harness and raced past Amy. "Rory you're a genius! Well, actually I am, but sometimes I do need a hand."
He scribbled the note in large letters on a piece paper. Push the blue button, and stuck it to the console right in Rory's line of sight.
"How will he see it?"
"Time is passing faster here, so anything that's moving will be too fast for him to see. But the note isn't moving, none of the console is, so it should look like the note just appeared there. "
"Of course it will, and now?"
"Now, we just have to wait."
"How long?"
He ran through the calculations in his head. "Maybe a year."
"Great."
"Oh," the Doctor mumbled, his smile fading as the realisation sunk in. They would be stuck here for a year. Waiting really wasn't something he did well.
.......................
They played chess, cards, ring toss, read. Amy slept, the Doctor tinkered. It was all so mundane that at times he thought he might just go insane for something to do.
When it all got too much he would open the ceiling in the library and lay on the floor, watching the shifting patterns of the exploding star around them. Amy always seemed to find him when he was there, lying down next to him, arms not quite touching. They rarely spoke, just stared up at the destructive beauty overhead.
It had been three months since he finished preparations for when Rory dropped the time dilation field. He was sitting in the harness, rechecking everything yet again.
"Doctor," he heard Amy call from somewhere down the corridor.
He rubbed his eyes, exhausted from doing nothing, just sitting, waiting, and waiting some more.
Amy called out again when he didn't answer. She appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked up, smiling for what felt the first time in weeks.
"I found a new closet," she said, spinning cheekily in some 1960's hippie outfit she had found.
He tried to remember which companion it had belonged to, laughing as she put on a pair of purple glasses to complete the outfit, pouting exaggeratedly.
"Come on, there's more," she said, running back down the corridor.
He ran up the stairs after her.
The closet was in a room he didn't really remember being there. It was huge, full of all sorts of clothing the TARDIS had stored over the years. He sat on a dusty old bed as Amy rummaged through it. Tossing garments at him, finding three ties she thought were much cooler than his bow tie.
He threw them back at her. "Nothing beats a bow tie for coolness."
Amy frowned at him, sighing dramatically. "Anything's better than a fez, I guess. Oh," she cried as she spotted a whole section of miniskirts. "What do you think," she asked holding one up.
"It's short."
"That's the point."
She ducked behind a screen to change out of the ridiculous 60's dress. She tried on six different outfits, parading them for him, before settling on a denim skirt, pretty much the same as numerous other she owned herself. The Doctor smiled to himself, he wasn't the only one who was unfaltering in their clothing tastes it seemed. Not that there was anything wrong with her short skirts.
He cleared his throat, a little disturbed by the direction of his thoughts, dragging his eyes away from her shapely legs, which was a little hard, when she collapsed onto the bed next to him, said legs brushing his own.
He cleared his throat, messing with his bow tie. Amy laughed, smacking him on the shoulder.
"Come on, when did you get so serious? We're going to be stuck here for months after all."
He looked away, trying to hide the discomfort that thought brought. Amy didn't miss it though. She rarely did, especially not when he couldn't distract her with some wild adventure.
"Doctor?" She nudged his shoulder with his own. "Is everything okay?" She asked, looking concerned.
"Of course it is. Everything is set in place, once Rory is able to press the button..."
"That's not what I meant. You've been quiet, too quiet. You're never quiet unless something is wrong."
"Hey, I'm always okay," he answered smiling. Not exactly the truth, but then again, he always lied, didn't he.
He patted her leg, flashed another smile, before getting up and leaving. He needed to get away before the smile faltered.
The Doctor made his way through the TARDIS, thoughts turning dark. He never enjoyed staying in the one place for too long, too much time to think, too much opportunity for all his guilt and regrets to catch up to him.
He walked into the library, not really surprised that his feet had brought him here. He opened up the roof, the glow of the burning star lighting up the rows of books and shimmering off the swimming pool. The mass of the star expanding slowly as the months passed.
He pressed his hands to his temples. He'd had months to get used to the effects of the dilation field. The flow of time he could usually feel as easily as breathing was distorted by the effects of the field. After those first few moments of pain and disorientation, he had learned to cope with it. It left him feeling dizzy most of the time, and occasionally it was worse, sort of like trying to walk on the deck of a ship on the ocean, shifting beneath him unpredictably.
He closed his eyes, digging fingers into flesh, trying to relieve the pressure to no avail. He didn't hear Amy walk in, and jumped when she put a hand on his shoulder. She sat down next to him, pushing his fingers aside to run her own across his aching temple.
"What's wrong? And don't tell me it's nothing."
He smiled weakly, trying to summon up the will to keep lying, but he couldn't.
"Time's wrong."
"What do you mean," she asked as she slowly started to rub her fingers against his skin.
He closed his eyes, leaning into the touch, even as he meant to pull away.
"The dilation field, it's making time all wonky. It's giving me headaches."
"Just headaches?"
"Mostly," he replied, not having the energy to explain fully.
Not that she could understand anyway. Amy wasn't used to feeling all of time, to feel it ebb and flow around and through everything. It was like the beat of his own hearts. Always there. A constant, even as it was changing, full of possibilities taken and not taken.
He stilled her hands with his own. "It's nothing to worry about," he said as he pulled her hands away.
Amy studied him for a moment. "Then you won't mind if I stay with you here for awhile."
She pulled a cushion off one of the chairs and lay down on the floor. The Doctor settled next to her, sharing the cushion when she pushed it towards him. They both stared up at the show the dying star was putting on.
Amy's fingers brushed fleetingly against his own in the space between them, and for a moment, the headache subsided.
.......................
The months passed by, yet they somehow never ran out things to talk about, falling into a comforting routine. Amy explored the TARDIS, finding rooms she had never had the time to stumble across before. The Doctor would tell her stories about whatever objects she found. He cooked for her, and she discovered fish fingers and custard weren't the only thing he liked. She helped him as he tinkered with the ships systems, and he discovered she had a knack for getting wires in a tangle that almost matched his own.
Every few weeks they would both find their way to the library. Amy spent hours swimming beneath the glow of the explosion, floating on her back as she stared up at it. The Doctor would read, or pretend to, his eyes more often wandering to Amy.
This time he actually was reading, absorbed in one of the few Gallifreyan books that still existed. Amy climbed out of the pool and dried herself off, wrapping the towel around her and sitting next to him. She leaned in against him as she tried to read the book.
"What is it?" She asked after awhile.
"A nursery rhyme."
Amy watched as his fingers gently caressed the pages. He finished reading and closed the book, leaning back to stare up through the open ceiling, Amy leaning comfortably against him.
"What happens when the field drops?" Amy asked.
"We'll dematerialise instantly, I've set to coordinates for Earth," he answered.
She already knew, she asked the question at least once a month.
"And the two time streams will come back together?"
"Yes."
"The last time you bought me back to the right timeline, I didn't remember anything."
"I know," he said, glancing at her, remembering the painful choice on Apalapucia.
"What will happen this time?"
The Doctor didn't answer for a long time. Amy didn't rush him, seeming content with the silence. His fingers found hers, entwining their hands together. She leaned her head to rest on his shoulder, her warm breath caressing his neck. He kissed her forehead softly, and she reached up her other hand to toy with the lapel of his jacket.
He soaked up the intimate moment, gentle and quiet. The only time he had felt peaceful in the last eight months had been here in the library, when they would sit together for hours. Just the two of them stuck out of time from the rest of the universe. With their hands entangled, he forgot the wrongness of being out of the normal flow of time.
His fingers itched where they touched hers, wanting to find more of her warmth, her comfort. He almost let himself believe that this was all there was. That there wasn't an entire universe out there, turning impossibly slow, as their moments together flashed by.
Her fingers became more sure as she pressed her palm against his chest, feeling the double heart beat.
"I don't know if you will remember any of this," he finally answered, knowing he shouldn't have the moment she leaned forward, brushing lips tentatively over his own.
It wasn't right. It was so, so wrong. Yet he couldn't help moving his lips in response, relishing the slick warmth of her, even though it was only the barest touch.
He pulled back. "Amy, don't," he forced out hoarsely, the words feeling like they tore every fibre of his throat as they came out.
"Why?"
Because I won't ever want to stop, and I have to. "Rory," he whispered, not able to look her in the eye.
She dropped her hands into her lap, her soft, hurt gasp echoing loudly in the painful silence settling between them. She stood and left. He closed his eyes as his head slumped, hating himself for letting her go, and for not making her leave earlier.
He didn't leave the room for three days.
.......................
They spent the next three months avoiding each other as much as possible, speaking only when needed. It was the most agonising passage of time he thought he had ever lived through.
The Doctor fussed with the controls on the console. He spent as much time as possible in the control room, eyes wandering to the ghostly image of Rory, reminding himself that what had almost happened, never could.
As the months passed, Rory slowly moved towards the console. The Doctor took comfort that Rory had obviously seen the note, and was even now rushing towards the blue button, and their salvation. In the last few weeks he had watched as Rory slowly reached a hand out towards it. They would only have another day to wait, another day for him and Amy to avoid each other awkwardly.
He knew that whenever he wasn't at the console, Amy would be there. He had watched her sitting in the jump chair staring at her husband numerous times. Her face a mass of emotions he couldn't, or didn't want to decipher.
He leaned against the console heavily. Wishing that this last day would pass quicker, denying the part of him that wished it wouldn't. The part that wished he could go back to the library and find Amy waiting there for him.
The Doctor could hear her hesitant step in one of the corridors, no doubt unwilling to be in the same room as him. He closed his eyes and wished for the thousandth time that he could forget what almost happened and how much he had wanted it.
He looked up as Amy walked in, face stubbornly set in a bland expression.
"How much longer?" She asked.
"A day."
She nodded absently. There had always been a closeness between them that he cherished. He hated the distance that spread between them now. He had always known she didn't belong to him, and in a way that had made him happy. She was better off with Rory, with him she could find a happiness and surety the Doctor could never give her.
"I should check on a few things," he said, hastily making his exit.
The Doctor made his way through the TARDIS, wandering through corridors for hours, not heading anywhere in particular, yet slowly circling his way to the library. He hadn't been back there in three months.
He opened the ceiling one last time, staring up into the explosion that had changed dramatically since he last saw it, the destructive chaos a fitting reflection of his own existence.
He had thought he would be able to hide here, brooding in silence until the TARDIS dematerialised and everything was set back the way it was meant to be, but Amt found him several hours later.
She didn't say anything, just stood next to him and took his hand in her own. He lost track of how long they stood there together, her hand tightening on his as the tension between them dissipated.
"It's beautiful," she said.
He glanced at her, the nova reflected in her eyes. He almost thought it radiated out of her rather than being a simple reflection.
"It's almost time," he said quietly, as calculations ticked away somewhere in the back of his mind.
She moved to stand in front of him, and leaned in to kiss him. He stiffened, steeling himself to stop her, to stop himself, but she placed a hand on either side of his face and pulled him closer. The kiss was chaste and gentle. In another time, if circumstances had been different, it could have been so much more.
Their lips parted, breaths mingling together as they both looked into the others eyes.
They walked together back to the control room to wait for Rory, and everything to go back to how it should and always will be. Their hands remained clasped together until everything blurred and the two time streams came back into sync. Their fingers slipped apart with a jolt as the TARDIS dematerialised.
Amy laughed as she ran into Rory's arms, muffling his confused query with her lips. The Doctor smiled and turned away. Everything as it should be, with only his memory of a kiss that would never be anything more left as a lingering reminder of what he could never have.
The Doctor knew he would never ask if she remembered it too. He didn't want to know the answer.
Some things were better left lost to the flow of time.
.......................