A/N: I own nothing, and the title is taken from Florence and the Machine's song. This was meant to be a one-shot after that moment in 5x05, only it turned a tad more bitter than I intended. Which is fine, I like angst as much as the net guy, but the ending bugs me. Majorly. Still, hope you like. Oh, and if you look closely, there are slight Doctor/Rose wisps involved. Anyway, read, review and enjoy.


"Amy, don't."

"Don't what?" That mischievous smile of hers was going to get her into trouble one day, the Doctor was sure of it.

"This is a bad idea. No, trying to befriend Hitler was a bad idea; this, this is insanity personified. This is-"

"You're doing it again." The smile curves into a smirk and her eyes tell him she's mocking him completely, but her lips give nothing away.

"Doing what?" Those endless eyes of his were going to get him into trouble one day.

"Talking for England." She leaves him sitting on the bench and wanders around because she's that type of a girl: restless, with bountiful stores of unwavering, vibrant energy.

"But I'm not from England." He really doesn't understand Amy sometimes. But then, he thinks, he doesn't really understand women. Or humans. So understanding Amy, who is a combination of them both, is bordering on impossible.

"Cute." She sits back down beside him, trying to look what he's looking at. But the truth is, he's just looking anywhere she isn't, because anywhere she is, is torture for his head and torture on his heart.

"We should get go-"

"Why is this such a bad idea?" She interrupts him all the time, yet he never gets annoyed. Why? Because her life is too short.

"Amy." He sighs her name and it's almost enough of an answer, except this is Amy Pond. Amy Pond who had no qualms getting into a wooden box with a man she barely knew, so she's not about to take her name as an answer. So she waits patiently, because although he's an alien by origin, he's human by nature and talking takes time. "Do you know what it's like to lose someone you love, Amy?"

She nods, slowly, strands of untamed rouge framing her face. She watches his face intently whilst he keeps his looking onward, towards the horizon and past it. The never-ending skyline and the oncoming storm. A match made in heaven that could rip apart hell.

"Now imagine that twenty times over. You're human, Amy. You won't live forever. You'll die, eventually, whilst I'm left behind."

"How will I die?"

"Amy, I'm a Time Lord, not a fortune teller." He doesn't understand her question, valid as it is.

"Why can't we just keep travelling, and arriving back to the same night we left?" Her eyes look so much younger than his as he dares to see her face.

"It doesn't work like that, Amy."

"Well it should." She pouts like a five year old, arms crossed tightly over her chest and he swears he can see tears forming in her eyes. He hates tears; tears remind him of Rose and if he couldn't cheat death, he'd be dead from the pain. And he can't do that again, not with Amy. A single tear escapes her eyes and he doesn't know what to do because even when she has an Angel in her mind and she's got less than second to live, Amy Pond doesn't cry. So he relies on an instinct that he thinks is down to Rose, and gently swipes the tear away with his thumb. Her skin flushes under his touch and he can feel his downfall arise as her eyes lock onto his and tell him she's never letting go.

"Why did you even let me come with you?" He doesn't understand why she's angry. He didn't force her to come.

"Because I'm selfish." It's the truth and it hurts to admit it. "Because I've got no one else left. I can touch every star in the universe but I'll still have no one to come home to. And then I met people, people who would give up their worlds for a taste of mine. And someone I know – someone I knew -" he corrects himself, because she's not here anymore. "She told me I need someone, because otherwise, where do you stop Amy? How do you stop?"

"Who was she?"

"Donna. Red head, called me Spaceman. You'd like her." A small laugh escapes as he remembers, and that's why he does this. A 907 year old brain can hold a lot of memories.

"And I like you." Her voice wavers and her lip trembles and she hates that she's lost her resilient self-control. "Can't you give me that?"

"I've tried, Amy. I've been here before with Ro-" he stops short, because her name burns his tongue. Martha, his healer; Donna, his friend; Jack, his captain and then Rose, who was something else altogether.

"Ro?"

"Rose," he breathes, eyes fluttering shut. "I gave her myself and I can't do that for anyone else, Amy. I can't go back there, I can't. I literally can't. She's shut off, in a parallel universe. Not even the crack in your wall could take me to her."

"This isn't fair." She's sounding tired but she keeps up her façade because this is Amy Pond; she's moved on from fairytales and she's ready to face reality. "You make life with you sound wonderful."

"And it is! Oh Amy, it is. It just can't last forever. But nothing can last forever, whether you're Earth-born or not. But I can take you home if you want. Because it's not fair, and I know that now."

He waits as she thinks, one heart wanting her to stay, the other wanting her to go. Either way, one heart would get broken and it wasn't limited just to one of his.

"Take me home." She needs to be sure. And she is, once they arrive back, that she has to leave. She has to see that there's more to life than Leadworth because otherwise, what's the point?

One day, she'll get her kiss. One day, she'll get her Lord. One day, she'll get him. But for now, she'll wait, running headlong into the wind because any other which way is boring and so not the Doctor.