AN: The lyrics are from a song called Burn the Night Away by a band called There For Tomorrow.

They lay under the stars together, Amy's hands were beside her and his were on his chest.

"I don't ever want to go home, Doctor" she said quietly. He didn't reply, but his hand snaked down and took her smaller one tightly in his.

If the whole world told me I should disappear,
could I fall right next to you?

When the Doctor closed the door of the TARDIS behind him and leaned back against the door with his arms behind his back, his eyes found hers and he smiled.

"We just met Henry VIII!" she laughed incredulously, her eyes wide with excitement, her face flush with blotches of red. "And he wanted to behead us!"

"He wanted to marry you, Amy, and you refused. What did you expect?"

"I might have said yes if he'd asked me to dinner first!"

His smile grew and he laughed, approaching her. The back of his hand brushed gently down the side of her face, the heat burning his fingers. Her eyes followed his hand as it dropped from her face and then looked up into his eyes. He stared back at her, watching as her lips parted slightly and she drew in a slow raggedy breath –

And he cleared his throat and stepped backwards, turning swiftly on the spot and began pressing buttons on the control panel. She didn't move.

"So" he said, his voice light with only a hint of force behind it, "where to next?"

The mountains of Milanio were fun. The locals liked to pretend they were from Earth and dressed as Italians during the festival he told her they celebrated every year. He wasn't quite sure why they had the festival in the first place, but he wore a stupid hat and even though Amy had dragged her feet when he said there was a museum he wanted to visit, she hadn't minded when they got stuck in a cleaners cupboard in which their faces were only centimetres apart when he insisted the owners of the museum were hiding artefacts in there behind the bleach.

It was worth it when he stepped back in to a bucket of water and cursed in Gallifreyan because he never told her anything about where he was from and she was desperate to know, but she knew it needed time. She wondered how bad the stuff was that happened but then she thought, if he was the only one left, maybe it was too bad for her to ever sleep soundly again. She'd found that travelling with the Doctor was two things; beautiful and enough to throw you over the edge of the cliff with no way back.

But she understood why there had been others who'd done it too.

He was always falling beside you.

She really hates it when he shouts at her but it's better than being on the receiving end of this, she thought to herself. He didn't just look angry; he looked dangerous. His eyes were dark and his hands were curled into tight balls as he defended her. The Wolfmen had her chained to a stone tablet in the centre of the room, the moonlight shining down upon her through the bars in the roof of the underground prison. One stood guard beside her while another two cowered beneath the Doctor's rage. They backed away from him, whimpering, as he lifted his screwdriver and aimed it at the metal bars above her. The door that blocked out the light slid across them and the Wolves howled as they morphed back into humans. She remembered what he had told her about the Wolfmen when they had stumbled across them on a visit to the Earth's twin planet, Trynisia; changing was the most painful experience they could ever go through. It took hours to recover from the pain. And as he darted around them to her and un-cuffed her from the table, she saw a sweet softness in his eyes that made her stomach turn in on itself and she stumbled into his arms, depending on him to help her out. She was so weak. He kissed her head gently and pulled her to the TARDIS. He promised her they would never return.

The whole world told me I should disappear,
cause I'm falling in love with you.

He was perfectly aware of the fact it couldn't work, but he lied to himself a little longer as they journeyed around time and space. All that timey-wimey spacyiness seemed to fall into the background around her though and he could forget for a while; or at least, the Time Lord version of forget, always at the back of his mind, just smothered by the other, easier to deal with thoughts that catapulted around there.

He knew she enjoyed the day she got to save him for once, but he didn't mind much either, as she patted at his face with a damp cloth, clucking softly at the crusted blood and dirt. He wasn't sure if it was a tear that splattered onto his face or a drop from the cloth but he didn't open his eyes and he tried not to understand what that maybe tear might have meant because she couldn't stay and he didn't want to tell her he was in love with her because that might make her cry even more. Because when he told her she had to go, he was going to make her cry.

Because that was the kind of man he was.

"Are you sure about this, Doctor?"

"Me? No, I'm never sure" he said and it was probably the most honest thing he had ever said to her. He fought through every with situation with his genius but even he couldn't be sure it would always go the way he planned. Every second of his life was like Amy and the Starwhale. It was a chance and no matter how much faith he had in it, a chance could always go either way.

The TARDIS landed outside her aunt's house and he was right on time for once; it hadn't even been five minutes since they'd left earth but it had been forever to them. Time was suspended in the TARDIS. It was just them, caught in their own little universe. He smiled to himself as he remembered the time she'd found the swimming pool, taking a dip as she was searching for some more jammy dodgers for him and the look on her face as she dragged him in with her. He wasn't wearing his tweed jacket and she'd dragged him closer to her by his braces and used him to push herself over him towards the steps that led out of the pool. His hand had shot out and grabbed her ankle as she'd escaped and dragged her back to him. She'd been laughing the whole time, choking on mouthfuls of water. He'd wrapped her arms tight around her waist and pressed his forehead against hers "where do you think you're going?"

"I'm getting out of this pool; you can find your jammy dodgers on your own!"

"It's okay, I don't want them anymore"

"Why not? It better be a good bloody reason, I fell in a pool for this"

"I'm quite content with what I've got now" he'd smiled down at her.

And she'd blushed and bit her bottom lip and he'd fought the urge to kiss her right there and then.

And as he turned away from the consol and back to Amelia Pond and saw her face waiting expectantly to find out what they were going to do next, he felt his hearts simultaneously break in his chest. His eyes were cold.

"Amy, you have to leave."

He'd closed the door on her, the tears streaming down her face and left before he could go back to her.

But then before he could stop himself he was going back, he was tearing through time and space and he threw the door open before the TARDIS had even stopped and –

There was a little ginger girl playing on the swing.

"Who are you?"

She was so much like Amy that the Doctor stuttered and couldn't find the words to say anything. The little girl turned to look back at the house and yelled "Grandma Amy!" and the door opened and suddenly it had been fifty years and there she was, bold as brass, the fire still in her eyes.

They lay under the stars together, Amy's hands were beside her and his were on his chest.

"I don't ever want to go home, Doctor" she said quietly. He didn't reply, but his hand snaked down and took her smaller one tightly in his.