He has it in his hands now. He wasn't too late. He doesn't want to think about what would have happened if he had been. But for now, the Doctor just doesn't think as he feels the wrinkled paper of the last page of that godforsaken book and begins to read the words before him, pulling out those reading glasses that are still in his pocket. Her glasses.

"Hello, old friend. And here we are, you and me."

Oh, him and Amy. The way it should be right now. The Time Lord continues reading, adjusting himself on the park bench, trying with all his might not to start crying.

"And above all else, know that we will love you always."

He loved her too. And Rory. Those magnificent, glorious Ponds. All gone now. So far away from him. For no reason at all. The man thought trying to save the universe would give him rewards. That maybe, for a time, it could repay him for his generous favours to its safety.

But the universe doesn't care, does it?

"And you might be alone, which you never should be. Don't be alone, Doctor."

How can he go on though? How can he forget all the lives he has ruined? He can't put anyone through that anymore. The Doctor has to save the universe, but this time, not from the Daleks, or the Cybermen.

But from himself.

"There's a little girl waiting in a garden…"

Yes, there is. The Doctor's Amelia Pond. The innocent child, waiting forever for her Raggedy Man to come home for her. Those days are long gone though. And he messed it all up.

"This is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends."

The Time Lord has always said he doesn't like endings. He knows, throughout all his years travelling throughout the universe, that there is always a finish to everything. Everything has its time, and everything ends. But the memories stay, the good pile and the bad pile. They never leave. And that's what he meant so long ago, when he was a psychiatrist stuck in 1999 with a young Scottish girl.

"No one ever truly leaves."

But they have. His Ponds have. He can never bring them back. And it was all his fault. He wasn't the Doctor he should have been. He didn't earn that title.

Because he can't bear to mess everything up again. The universe has decided it doesn't care, hasn't it?

And frankly, the man doesn't either. Not anymore. And never again.