I've just finished watching the Angels Take Manhattan.
There was a sort of stunned graveness in the air as I stared, stunned, at the TV screen as the next thing began to play. I wasn't really taking it in of course. There was a tightness in my chest that, even now as I type, pulls at me it seems to say "Remember me. Remember them. This is the last time you'll see them. The last time that Rory dies. The last time Amy acts stupidly stubborn for Rory's sake. It's the last time you'll ever see that unwavering devotion, the undying love they share. It's the last time for all those things. You can go back and see them of course," it says as it tugs at you, pulling your heart strings ever harder. "But it wont be the same will it? They'll just be frozen memories, repeating the same actions, the same thoughts. They won't change or grow or learn. They're stuck, forever and always and you'll never see them again."
All that it whispered to me as I watched the screen talk about a chef face off. The idea had interested me U.S. v.s. UK cook off! How intriguing. But as watched them shout at each other and be prejudiced (an act, I assure you, which is quite amusing normally), all I wanted them to do was shut up. I didn't want to see this preview. I didn't want to see 't they understand? Didn't they know? The Ponds are gone. The Ponds. Gone. Why are they still talking? Don't they understand? None of it matters. They're gone.
I wasn't ready yet to move on from my sadness, I didn't want to let go of my feelings, that last bit I had of the Ponds, so I moved to turn it off. But my sister wanted to see it. So I walked out of the room unable to stand their obnoxious meaningless prejudice. The first room I found with a door was the bathroom, so I walked in, and I shut the door.
I stared, uncomprehendingly, at the mirror thinking of the Ponds and all they've done (For they are a unit, they are a team. There is hardly one without the other). And as I did this I studied my reflection, looking for some mark that they had left on me. Something that had changed in my face now that they were gone. And then I smiled, because I felt rather silly looking for something different in me over the leaving (and technical deaths) of Rory and Amy Pond, fictional characters. But it was in that smile that I found my change.
It was a smile of pain, not of physical pain no. That smiles all rough around the edges and stings you when you see it. This smile, this smile was small, sad, almost wry. The kind of smile that grows through tragedy. It was a smile of loss. Because they weren't just gone from the show. I'd lost them. They were gone. They are gone. They're lost in the past (the past of the show, the past of New York), a place where not even the most dedicated fan can drag them back from.
Yet, beyond the loss and the pain. It was another kind of smile, and perhaps it was that smile all along and I never realized it till now. It was a smile of acceptance. Because even as it tore at me it was right. It was cruel, but it was right. They had to go and live, and the Doctor never would have let them. Because he was chasing them, harder and faster then he had ever chased a companion. That's not how it works is it? The Doctor doesn't chase the companions, they chase him. And he chases them so hard because he loves them so much. And part of the pain I feel is not for me alone, but for him. Because Amelia Pond was a fairytale, and he can't be the clever wizard for her anymore.
And it hurts to admit this, but I can't think of a better way for them to go. There are easier ways certainly. A drop off at the old flat would have been nice. But this was perfect in its pain, in its torment. Not because it hurt us, but because it didn't hurt them. Rory got to die one last time (as we knew he would) and Amy got to do one more stupidly stubborn thing out of love for Rory ( as we knew she would). And they're together. Together. I haven't referred to them as dead this entire time I've talked. We saw their tombstones, we know they die. But they're not dead, because they were together. They lived, and to me they do live because of that. Death wasn't dying to them, especially not to Rory. Death was being somewhere where the other couldn't reach them. So they didn't die, not really. It is in that way I'm happy and content with their leaving, thought it still stings a bit, and I know it'll scar.
What I'm left thinking about is the Doctor, because in the end Amy and Rory didn't suffer, he did. I can't help remembering what was said at Demons Run, when they said that the Doctor would: "Rise higher and fall farther then he ever has before." (or something of that variation) I never believed that when they said it. I thought it was stupid, the Doctor killed his entire race! He's done worse than lose a baby, no matter how close he is to the parents. But in those last minutes of "The Angels Take Manhattan" I believed it then, it was true there. Because you saw his face when he thought that the Ponds were safe, that they had lived through it all. He was ecstatic. He was that little kid Doctor that we loved and haven't seen in quite a long while. And then, and then they were gone. And his face. You could see it in his face the loss and the agony and the regret and the guilt. It was all there suspended on his face, the man who loses and loses again. Losing his love cause he gives it away. The companions never leave without taking a bit of him with them. But the Ponds? They took more than a bit.
Above all I want to thank Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, and Steven Moffat for bringing those characters to life and making them real for us in a way that is unimaginably beautiful and touching. For making me believe in steady loyalty of a centurion. For making me realize just how Scottish someone can be. And for reminding me to dream, because someday, just maybe,my raggedy man will come back for me too.
Goodbye Ponds, it's been fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.