It's loud in Manhattan, but Amelia Williams has grown accustomed to it. There is always something to do – unlike Leadworth, unlike her life before – with dances and parties and music on verandas. Rory is a well to do Doctor now; ahead of his time, his peers say. They're both ahead of their time. It's been hard, in some ways, adjusted to life in the nineteen-forties. Headstrong, independent women like Amy are few and far between. The first couple of years were met with many cultural gaffes – everyone in New York attributed it to her being Scottish. Scottish women must be very different, very progressive. That's what all the people said, and they forgave her eccentricities, especially after she wrote her first book.

Amy wrote a best selling detective novel – the novel the Doctor would some day read – three years into their time in New York. She wrote many other novels (Silver Skies and Red Grasses, Summer Falls, The Lord of Time, just to name a few). Always there was a girl; a spirited, lonely girl, who meets a magical man that just seems to appear from nowhere. Always there is a friend, a steadfast boy that follows her into the adventures she and her mysterious stranger get into it. Sometimes the girl falls for the stranger, sometimes for the boy, but always they end up Happily Ever After.

Not in real life. Amy loves Rory. She adores him, even. But her heart, her heart is torn, even now. It's lonely and lost and still waiting for that faint sound of the TARDIS in her garden. Except she doesn't have a garden in New York. She has a window box with some herbs growing in it. But that isn't a garden, not one fit for the TARDIS to fly into.

Amy is lonely. Rory works long hours at the hospital, and Amy writes just to have something to do. She misses her Raggedy Man. She remembers the adventures, the laughter, the giggling, the tickling, the stolen kiss, the playful banter, the friendship, the happy times, the sad ones, his pleas, the tears in his voice. She wishes she could hug him one more time and tell him she loved him. Really, really loved him.

Amy swallows. She sighs and rises from her writing chair, stretching her back. The radio is on, talking about Hitler and the tides of war. She wonders if she, Rory, and the Doctor have met Hitler yet. If Melody has tried to kill him. Amy sighs, makes a quick whiskey and coke (she drinks more in New York, finds she likes the taste more as she grows older), and wishes to have one last adventure. She knows it won't happen. Fixed points. Loneliness. Amy is alone and sad and wishes more than anything to see her Raggedy Man today.

Today is Amy's birthday, you see. Her birthday, and Rory is working, but that's okay. It's just another day. Another day of writing and drinking and wishing for things that cannot ever be. Amy drinks, eats a slice of lemon cake, and nibbles at an apple from the fruit basket her neighbor gave her for her birthday.

She makes a face on the apple with her teeth. She looks at the crooked smiley face and just wants to cry. When the doorbell rings, she assumes it's another neighbor with a gift for her – the neighbors in her building are all very lovely, very nice, very dull people. She carries the apple with her, the face out towards the door.

The man that is standing there is one she has never seen before. He's tall, and older; in his fifties perhaps; with a thin face and very deep eyes. He is wearing a scarf, with a thick woolen jacket. It's spring and a little chilly, but it doesn't call for all of that. She looks into his face, and watches as he searches hers. There is a desperation, an almost disbelieving excitement there. He is looking and watching and they just stand there a moment, neither really knowing what to say.

He moves a hand, taking the apple from hers. He looks down at it with fondness, and almost familiar twitch at the side of his lips. Then he is looking at her again. There is such hope, such adoration in his eyes. It reminds her...it reminds her...

She is breathless. She searches. She stares, she feels the tears in her eyes. She can't speak, but only moves to raise her hand to touch his weathered face. She trembles just a little at the emotion in his eyes, then her hand goes over her mouth. The tears start spilling and suddenly this tall, thin, older man that she has never seen but has known all of her life is holding her. Amy sobs and hugs him and drags him into her little apartment. They hug and cry together and neither can talk. The apple rolls from his fingers and hits the floor, forgotten.

"Hello, Raggedy Man," she says at last.

"Happy Birthday, Amelia Pond," he says in a wonderful, very Scottish voice. "My girl with the fairytale name."

Amy laughs and laughs and kisses his cheeks. He holds her, holds her and doesn't let go. It doesn't matter how he's there – paradoxes and fixed points just don't matter to her. She holds him and for the first time in five years, Amy Pond feels alive.

Happy Birthday.