The expression on River's face is so much older than he wants it to be, half fond, half weary. "I'll have her write an afterword. For you." He doesn't turn his head as she walks past him, black dress giving a little imperceptible swish. He hears her stop at the top of the stairs. "Maybe you'll listen to her."

He wants to apologize, but there is no place for the apology to come from. Nevermind the hearts—if you were to rap on his ribcage, one, two, it would ring hollow.

And then a single word gets through to him. Afterword.

"The last page," he breathes, and then suddenly he's moving, pulling levers, turning switches, and something in his chest is burning again. He needs that piece of paper.

When the TARDIS stops, he wrenches open the door without a thought. For once, he follows his own advice. He's hurtling through the park, faster than he ever knew he could, faster than if any given malicious life-form of the universe were on his heels. He is alive with desperation. Run.

He reaches the rocks. The picnic basket is still open, something white and helpless and thin fluttering behind the woven frame, sitting at her feet.

His hearts seem to burst into flame, and for a moment he wants to collapse, but there is nothing that will break his fall. So he lurches forward and holds onto the only thing he can, the only thing he wants to.

"Amy," he gasps, breath harsh against the sweetness of her hair. He can't help but grip her tightly, because she's here, Amy, magnificent Pond, in all her solid, fiery-headed and fiery-minded glory, and he has no idea how it's possible.

"I don't understand," she says, in an empty voice.

But he is overflowing. Tears, relief, joy, dread, he doesn't even know. He takes a long, shaky breath and pulls away, trying to steady himself, because he knows that she is going to need him in the next few moments.

"Why aren't I gone?" Her face is still blotchy, the bottoms of her eyes rimmed with black, still as haunted as that moment when she faded into nothingness. He can't help but be glad that it wasn't the last. Her voice becomes insistent, hysterical. "Doctor. Why am I back here? Why aren't I with him?"

"The Angel," he says, knowing he has to do this quickly. Like ripping off a bandage. "It was a survivor, like I said, but taking Rory must have been the most it could do—it displaced you, yes, but in space, not in time. It was too weak to go very far."

She's quiet for a moment. She still hasn't started crying again. Not yet. She looks up at him. "We can't go get him. 'Cause of the paradox."

"No," he says, as gently as he knows how. She's quiet again. He waits.

And when she finally starts to scream, when she is the one to collapse, he makes sure that he is worth holding on to.

—

Amy expects the return to the house, their house. Amy expects the painful visit to Brian—doesn't want it, dreads it, but she wants this to be done right. She expects the nervous looks the Doctor sends her way when he thinks she's sorting through boxes and pulling photographs out of frames.

She even expects the sunlit afternoon that she gives him a kiss on the cheek and tells him to travel with Melody for a while, trying to ignore the ache in his ancient eyes.

What she doesn't expect is her own ache. It wakes her up in the middle of the night for weeks on end. At the beginning, she recognizes it; it's the kind face in her dreams, the hand groping in the dark for the empty side of the bed that tips her off.

She stays in the house as much as she can, going out where she knows she won't be seen. As far as everyone thinks, she's on holiday. She writes stories, considers sending them to a publishing house, but they always sound too much like the monsters and beauties she's seen in the stars. She grows things: tomatoes, peppers, of course sunflowers—bright things.

But after twenty-one months and twelve days, she wakes to a hammering pulse and the gardens of Appalapachia imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. And she finally knows what the ache means. So this time, it's the phone that she gropes for in the dark, and despite her bleary eyes, she dials the strange combination perfectly.

"Come back, Doctor," she says clearly into the mouthpiece. Her voice echoes in the room. "I'm ready. I'm not okay, but I'm ready."

He still hasn't got the hang of punctuality, because he arrives two weeks later, as she is in the midst of rearranging the boxes.

"Hello, Pond! Got your message—ah." He sees the boxes, and she sees his face fall, just the tiniest bit. "Need some help, I expect?"

His smile is a bit forced, she can tell, so she smiles back reassuringly. "Nope, think I've just about finished, actually."

"Finished?" His brow clears. "Oh, that's what you meant. Ready to move these, I suppose."

"No. Ready to go." He stares at her, still not understanding. She clears her throat. "I'm ready to go. With you."

His gaze jumps from her to the boxes to the pots above the stove. "But… I thought… you were finished with all that. I know you're worried about me being alone, but River's been good to me, I'm perfectly—"

"Doctor, I can't stay here," she interrupts, and her voice breaks right where she doesn't want it to. She breathes deeply, gesturing to the boxes. "What will I tell our friends? What will I tell everyone back in Leadworth? How can I stay here and love someone who died before I was born?"

He leans against the back of the couch. His expression is unfathomable, a single muscle jumping in his jaw. He's silent for a full minute, and when he speaks, his voice is low, gentle, like he's afraid the sound might break her.

"You have to be sure."

"I am."

"Very sure, Amy."

"I've had nearly two years, Doctor. I'm sure."

Finally he looks up at her, and the tears in his eyes scare her for just a second. He's going to say no. He's going to tell me I'm better off here.

He sighs and smiles. "Well, then." He steps across the living room, closing the literal and figurative distance between them, and holds out a hand. His eyes are twinkling now, but it's not the tears.

"Come along, Pond," he whispers.

She laughs, a short, broken sound like a record player skidding off the track, and his arms are suddenly around her. And in the shoulder of that stupid tweed jacket that she's staining, in the warmth of his alien skin, one long finger swiping across her cheek, she knows she won't come back to this house, because she's found at least some semblance of home again.