In honor of the most wonderfully dysfunctional romance known to Doctor Who.

Spoilers for... the Eleventh Hour. So basically, no spoilers. (You know you just read spoilers in a singsong voice. :D)

1.

The best thing about sitting on that particular branch of that particular tree was that her Aunt Sharon couldn't see them from the back window. In the part of the yard that she could supervise, they had to be kids at play, but in that tree, well, they were pirates- they were jungle explorers- they hunted crocodiles, and occasionally the Loch Ness Monster.

But on hot, clear summer nights like this one, Amelia and her friend Rory were always astronomers.

They didn't have all the correct stargazing equipment, and sometimes had to substitute things like toilet paper tubes and magnifying glass lenses for telescopes. For the hundredth time that evening he heard Amelia bewail her lack of a "proper" telescope.

(He had amassed a vast fortune of twenty-eight pounds in his ten years of life, and he thought he would probably have enough for one by Christmas.)

"Once we have a proper telescope, we'll see it." She was prattling on, as usual, about her choice subject. It had been years, and she didn't mention him as often now as before, except when the moon was as bright as it was that night. "The Doctor's got a spaceship, and he might fly overhead sometimes. It's a police box, so we won't confuse it for an airplane or anything."

"How does he fly a police box? Do you suppose it's magic or just, like, outer space science?" Rory pondered aloud.

Amelia shrugged, but she didn't look at him like he was a total moron, so he ventured another question that was pressing on his mind. "Do you think… does he visit other kids, besides you? I mean… is he like Santa Claus?"

Amelia frowned. "How would he be like Santa?"

"Does he give you things if you're good or… does he fly 'round the whole world watching everybody?"

Amelia huffed an impatient sigh. "Well, yes, Rory, but… Santa Claus isn't real." She flinched, but he didn't seem surprised.

Rory breathed a sigh of relief. She already knew. He swallowed hard and voiced his theory delicately. "I know, but… he used to be. Maybe Doctor is like Santa… maybe he was a real person and then he…isn't now."

Her jaw dropped in horror, and even in the dark, he could see her cheeks brightening as furiously as her eyes. "He's not dead, Rory. He is not dead and he's real and I thought you believed in him!"

"I did! I did, but… I believed in Santa, too…" Rory said in his best please-listen-to-reason voice.

She promptly yanked out a handful of leaves and threw them at his face. Her voice was a piercing shriek. "Shut up! Shut up, Rory, I hate you!"

And then before he could blink, Amelia had slid off the branch and landed with a rough jolt. She darted across the lawn, flaming red face buried in her hands, flaming red hair streaming behind her.

Rory broke a twig off the tree and sat, listening to cicadas, fingering the rough bark and periodically snapping off tiny pieces. He wondered why there was a slicing pain in chest when he couldn't see the thing hurting him.

(Rory wouldn't learn the term heartache for years- but he would learn it from her. Of course he would.)

When the twig had been reduced to half its former splendor, he slid out of the tree and went after her. She wasn't under the slide, she wasn't in the bushes beside the fence, and she wasn't beneath the deck. He finally wandered around to the side of the house and found her huddled beside the air conditioning unit, which buzzed and rattled cheerfully with the cicadas. Her eyes were red, but she hurriedly wiped them and stared stubbornly at the grass as he sat down beside her. Rory snapped another piece off the twig and handed it to Amelia. She silently tore it to pieces.

"The moon's so big tonight," Rory said after a long interval, glancing up. "You don't even need a proper telescope."

"So big you could touch it," Amelia said, eyes hungrily examining the gleaming surface. The twig-snapping was the only thing that stopped her reaching for it. "I think he's real, Rory. I want him to be real. Because if it's real, then I can touch it." She swiped her streaming nose with a fist. "He could take me there."

And Rory said the one thing he knew would make her smile. "Amelia, we can go to the moon any old time."

He took her hand, and this time, they were astronauts.

It wasn't until the moon had risen high overhead and he knew he was in danger of being called home that Rory brought it up again.

"So… do you? Hate me, I mean." He hesitated. "Do you really hate me?"

She blinked at him as if the idea was totally foreign to her. "Of course not. That's not what I meant at all."

"What did you mean, then?"

(It had seemed pretty straightforward to him.)

"I just hate this whole stupid planet," Amelia admitted, lapsing back into the stormy silence she had shaken off during their make-believe. She turned and shook a fist at the moon sternly. "You're gonna be touched, moon! Don't say I did'na warn you!"

(If anyone could reach it, it was her.)

She smiled at Rory over her shoulder. "You can come, too."

(He learned that, sometimes, I hate you was Amy Pond for get me out of here.)