Amy's head was pounding. Her mind felt foggy, muddled, and she was trying to push through it, trying to clear a path for thoughts to enter. She knew that this Roman was sitting in front of her, a Roman named Rory, but that was about it. Rory tells her she's crying, and at first she doesn't believe him, but she holds a shaking hand to her face and he's right, she is.

His face softens and he asks what's wrong, and Amy, stricken, looks at him. "Nothing," she says. "It's like - it's like I'm happy." She let out a laugh, a nearly hysterical laugh through the tears and felt a vague pricking of clarity as the Roman smiled back at her, a hopeful sort of glint in his eyes. But horror pushed the laugh out of sight. "Why am I happy?"

She didn't quite know why she asked Rory, because why would he know? What was wrong with her? There's a small voice telling her that this was just more alien nonsense, but a gut instinct said it wasn't, said it was more.

"What's the matter?" Rory asked her, and she furrowed her brow, she thought she just answered that question, but his eyes shifted sideways, so when Amy followed his gaze, she saw her gloved hand on his cheek, half stroking it as if she'd known him all her life, as if she'd loved him.

"Nothing," she lied. "I don't know why I'm doing that." Rory didn't flinch, or move away, like any normal person would. Instead, he shifted closer and his face transformed into a pleading kind of smile.

"It's me, Amy. Please, it's me." He lifted his hand on hers, then, or on her glove, and started stroking it with his thumb, like a lover would. For a second she held her hand there, but once she remembered herself, she recoiled from the man, from the Roman sitting in front of her, pushing herself to her feet.

"But I don't know you," she said. Even as she said it, she felt like the words were wrong. But they were true. Amy knew they were true. "I've never seen you before in my life." Her eyes search his face in a twisted form of disbelief.

"You have! You know you have! It's me." His words were pleading now, and her mind was too, but she couldn't discern what it wanted from her.

"Why am I crying?" It was more of a demand then a question, because he had answers, she was sure of it. He could tell her, he could explain and this conflicted feeling she'd had for god knows how long might finally go away. He could help her.

"Because you remember me," was his answer. "I came back," Back from where? "You're crying because you remember me!" He kept smiling at her, but it wasn't exactly a happy smile. No, it was more of a cautiously hopeful smile, a smile of a man who'd waited to long for something and still might fall short again. And there it was again, that tugging, but it wasn't at the back of her mind. Now it was much closer to the front. She was almost there, so close, and then-

Rory fell, hands and knees to the ground. His head lifted with precision too accurate, with a threatening click like machinery. He started screaming then, and Amy's heart lurched forwards or backwards, but somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, for sure.

"No! No, please. No! I'm not going!" Going where? "I'm Rory!" Amy wanted to grab him, hold him close and let him know it would be alright. But Amy didn't know him. But she did, didn't she? She had seen that face before, she knew this now, or maybe she always knew it, but that didn't matter. He was practically convulsing on the ground in front of her, writhing in attempts to prevent whatever was coming.

For a moment, Rory wasn't fighting, not when he looked up at her and his voice shook, but he was still remarkably controlled for someone fighting as hard as he was. "Listen to me. You have to run. You have to get as far away from here as you can," but since when did Amy do as she was told? Besides, she was nearly there. "I'm a thing! I'll kill you! Just go!" But of course he wasn't a thing, he was living and breathing in front of her, crying on the ground. "Please, no, I don't want to go. I'm Rory!" And then - oh god. It was Rory, Rory. He came back, he did, and now he's in front of her, and he's still alive and speaking to her, but in pain. "I'm - I'm"

"Williams, Rory Williams from Leadworth." She took a step to him, unafraid to cross the distance between them anymore. She grabbed his shoulders, and he got to his feet, wobbly, shakily, like he could fall forward any second. "My boyfriend." God, did it feel good to say that again. Amy looked at him, properly, searching his face. The way the corners of his mouth twitched and how his eyebrows knit together in determination. She still had him memorized. His touch felt like returning to a book she once loved and had put down for a long time. "How could I ever forget you?"

"Amy, you've got to run. I can't hold on. I'm going." She wanted a reunion, a big kiss or something, but first she had to talk Rory down from the ledge. She spared a glance to the other Romans, with their hands like guns, marching somewhere, and that couldn't happen to Rory. He'd already left her once.

"You are Rory Williams," she said, with more conviction in her voice than she ever had before, "and you aren't going anywhere ever again." She tried to think of a way to ground him, in the way he'd always grounded her. "The ring! Remember the ring? You'd never let me wear it in case I lost it." She managed a wavering laugh, fighting to keep the tears separated from her voice.

"The Doctor gave it to me." She wanted to cry out, he sounded so scared, like a child who needed somebody to stroke his hair and tell him it was going to be fine.

"Show it to me. Show me the ring."

"Amy-" No, she's not leaving him.

"Come on, just show it to me." Rory takes out the ring and holds it in front of him. His breath, that came in sharp gasps seemed to level out at the sight of it, at the comfort it gave him. Amy dared a smile, dared a breath of relief, dared the hope that they were finally out of the fire and she pulled him in close.

"There it is. You remember. This is you, and you are staying." Amy heard the mechanical noise, like a steel door with a code unlocking, and she heard Rory whisper, "no," but she didn't have the time to pull away.

It was pain like she had never felt, a pain beyond words. She met Rory's eyes, but could barely see him. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but the pain had invaded her lungs, her diaphragm, her entire body. It was seeping out her eyes, her ears, her mouth. Her eyes slid shut and she felt herself slide backwards in his arms, but it was Rory's arms, and she thought it might be okay, that this might be okay, that it might be enough to be with him if only for a little bit of time. That that might be enough for her, after all.