A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
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Vows

She couldn't do it. She couldn't look at him anymore. Every time she looked at him, she saw his body. She saw him dead, time and time again – she saw all the ways he had left her. She remembered them all and she hated it.

Amy had lately taken to avoiding her husband. She went to bed early, clambered onto the top bunk, turned her face to the wall and was steadfastly asleep as she listened to him quietly get ready for bed himself. She rose early and explored the TARDIS on her own, letting her steps wander far into the interior of the wonderful ship. When she knew that she could no longer avoid the console room, and the Doctor, and Rory, she went with as much fake cheer as possible and looked either at the (suddenly fascinating) control panel, or the Doctor. When she had to look at Rory, she looked over his shoulder instead, and smiled brightly so he wouldn't notice.

But he did notice.

He always noticed.

And one night, before they'd even eaten supper, he announced that he was tired and going to bed. Amy stayed up late that night, squirreled away in the depths of the TARDIS, until she was certain that he had given up and gone to sleep. Because of course he had intended to wait and trap her – why else would he go to bed at four in the afternoon?

But he wasn't asleep. He was sitting on the top bunk, waiting for her.

"I – forgot something." Amy grinned at him and turned to leave. "Thought you were tired? Don't wait up for me, I won't be too – "

"Amy, why don't you ever look at me anymore?" Rory interrupted, his voice stopping her hand from turning the handle. "I can't figure it out. Did I make you mad? Do you not love me anymore? Are you ill or – " he paused as the thought occurred to him " – pregnant again?"

"No," Amy replied to the door. "No, nothing's wrong. Of course it's not. You're imagining things, stupid."

"Am I really?"

Amy closed her eyes because the quiet pain in his voice hurt her more than she could say. "No," she said, ignoring the quaver in her voice, hiding it inside her gentle Scottish brogue. "No, you're not."

She heard him slide down off the bed and come toward her. She knew exactly when he'd reach out to touch her, and she flinched away. Rory dropped his hand to his side and stepped back, giving her space.

"You know you can tell me. Please, Amy. I can't stand this any longer."

"You died."

The words came abruptly, surprising even Amy, but they had opened the floodgates. She trembled, still staring fixedly at the door as if longing to run away, and the words poured out.

"You died. You've died – so many times, Rory, and I – I hate it. You were killed by that lizard woman, and the crack erased you from everything, and those old people turned you into dust, and then they shot you in America, and then you drowned, and I remember all of them, Rory. Every single time I remember your dead body, or a handful of dust, or watching you get swallowed up by that light, and it kills me. I can't look at you. I'll only see you dead and I can't do that. I can't, not again!"

Rory chose that moment to pull her close to him, smoothly and gently, letting her face the door. But she could feel him – his arms around her torso, his chin on top of her head – and that alone was enough to make her sob. The tears she had been holding for so long started to fall.

"And after you fell in the crack, Rory, I didn't remember you, and it was horrible. All the time, it was like something was missing, something that I'd never had and would never be able to find! You didn't exist and I needed you so badly, I needed you, and I didn't even know…"

She turned and flung her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. He rocked gently back and forth, just listening. Just listening. But the words had stopped.

"Listen, Amy." His voice was soft and tender. "Hear my heart beating? I'm alive."

"Every time you die, a piece of me dies too," she confessed, trying to stem the tears. "I can't take any more, Rory. I can't."

"I'm alive," he repeated. "I'm sorry, Amy. I'm sorry, I really am."

"You were dead."

"But I love you. I'll always come back, because I love you."

"How do you know?" Amy wanted it to be true. She wanted never to have to feel that anguish again. "How can you possibly know?"

"Because death can't stop true love," Rory told her, certain like she had never heard him before. "It can only get in the way for a bit." He stroked her hair softly, then drew back just far enough to gently lift her chin. Amy met his eyes, but she could barely see him for the fresh tears that left black tracks of mascara down her cheek. Rory smiled. "Amy, don't you ever doubt that I love you. I will always love you. And so I'll never leave you, and nothing in the universe will be able to keep me away."

"Swear it," Amy pleaded. "Swear it, by something – something important. More important than fish fingers and custard."

Rory hugged her close again and whispered in her ear. "I already have, Amy."

"Again. Please."

So he did, repeating the words he'd already said. "I, Rory Williams, take thee, Amelia Pond, to be my friend, my lover, my wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, forever and ever amen."

"That's not a promise. That's your wedding vow."

"If a wedding vow isn't a promise, what is?"

Amy said nothing for a moment, listening to his heart beating, then said, "I always thought that was weird. They're supposed to end in 'death do we part'."

"But death can't part us. And if death can't, what else has a chance?"

And finally, finally, Amy chuckled into his shoulder. Finally, Rory relaxed, knowing that her fears had been soothed away. Finally, she would be able to look at him again.

"Do you remember the next part of that ceremony?"

"Um…" Rory glanced around, caught off guard by this question and hoping somehow that the TARDIS would supply him the answer.

"'You may kiss the bride.'"

"Oh yeah." Relieved to be let off the hook, he grinned at her. "And then we went to the reception and – "

"Rory." Amy looked him in the eye, one eyebrow raised imperiously. "You may kiss the bride."

"Oh."

Rory Pond obeyed.