Prologue

The console room was dark save for the light from a few of the pore-like holes in the domed ceiling and the ambient light that filtered out from beneath the glass floor. The instruments around the control panel in the center of the room emitted a constant hum. They drowned out the breathing of the figure that lounged on the curved staircase.

As the Doctor ghosted up the steps toward the control panel his white dinner jacket flapped at his sides. It wasn't one of his normal outfits, but tonight wasn't a normal night. His movements were slightly erratic under the haze of a very strong wine he'd brought back from Klom. A brass instrument that looked like a cross between a Tuba and a French horn was tucked under his right arm. The Doctor brought the Sonic Screwdriver around and dunked it into the end of the instrument. When he pressed the button a slight note sounded out through the seemingly empty room.

He slipped the Screwdriver back into his pocket as he reached the console. After pressing a switch and pulling a bobble headed lever, he stepped back to admire his work when a voice broke the silence. "Do you do this every night?"

Startled, the Doctor turned and slipped the euphonium behind his back. Amelia Pond was sitting on the steps in her dressing gown and slippers. Her legs pulled close together so that her elbow could rest atop them and her chin atop her hand. "Oh. Hello," he said shuffling to the side with his hands tucked up to the elbows behind his coat.

"You're trying to conceal a euphonium guiltily. Has that ever been attempted before?" Amy asked.

"What?" the Doctor, seeing that the gig was up, brought the euphonium around front and center. "Oh this. It's one of those euphoniums."

"Okay," Amy said letting the word linger. "So is this what you do at night when we're sleeping? Have extra adventures." There was a slight tiredness in her Scottish drawl. She wasn't up because she wasn't tired. No, there was something on her mind.

A few nights before she had answered a phone and accidentally caught him in a compromising position with a queen who had been turned into a fish and a warlord that had been turned into a fly. Eventually he would have to sort Amy Pond out. The success of his nighttime escapades depended on it.

The Doctor averted his eyes. "I don't sleep as much so sure I keep busy," he glanced up and caught her gaze, crossing his arms as he did.

"Doing what? Actually tell me for once," Amy paused. "You're my friend, my best friend, so tell me what it is you do."

With a slightly smug smile and an indignant tilt to his head the Doctor stared at her. "Okay. I just helped out a possessed orchestra on a moon based. Before that I prevented two supernovas, wrote a history of the universe, all in jokes, and did a bit of local work in Brixton. Lovely practice; very short staffed." The hum of the TARDIS engines and the instruments on the console filled in the silence that followed. Now was his chance.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Amy rose, smoothing the bottom of her night dress down as she did. "We're all such tiny parts of your life, aren't we?" She started down the steps toward him. "All the friends you make are just a flicker in the night. You must hardly notice us."

"Amy," he said as she came to lean on the console next to him. He turned to face her, his ancient eyes brimming with compassion. "You are enormous parts of my life. And you are all I ever remember."

"Speaking of which, my life doesn't make any sense."

"I know."

"That's what I've been trying to talk to you about."

"I know."

Amy straightened her back to bring her eyes level with his. "Like, when I first met you I didn't have parents; I never had parents. And then you did whatever it was you did and rebooted the universe and suddenly I had parents. I've always had parents." Her tone became more frantic. "And I remember both lives in my head, both of them in my head at the same time."

"And it's fine, isn't it?"

"And I shouldn't be," Amy said shaking her head slightly. "Why is it fine?"

The boom of the Doctor's voice surprised even him. "Rory was a Roman for two thousand years."

"He says he hardly remembers it," Amy said dismissively.

"Ah," the Doctor raised his index finger up and tapped the cadence of the next sentence out. "But sometimes you catch him just staring. The thing is Amy, everyone's memory is a mess; life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on or a party they never went to. Or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that."

"That's ridiculous," Amy said.

"Yeah," the Doctor smiled, "Now you're starting to get it." He clapped his hands as he crossed around in front of her to the other side of the console. "Put your hand here," he touched a small flat area of the dash.

"What is it?"

"The TARDIS telepathic circuits." He didn't want to tell her that this was the same area that they had interacted with before, back when spores made them believe they were living a life made of two dreams, back when she chose Rory.

"What do I do?" Amy placed her hand down on the spot as she had been instructed to do.

"Nothing. Just relax." He buzzed about the control panel flicking switches and touching levers. He came to a stop in front of a view screen. "Your saddest ever memory was at a fairground in 1994. Can you remember why?"

The time rotor began to pump up and down at the center of the TARDIS console and the rumbled as it started a journey through the vortex.

"No." She held her eyes closed in thought. "Hold on, did I drop an ice cream? That can't be my saddest memory."

"Remembering ice cream's always sad," the Doctor said in a profound, matter-of-a-fact tone.

The TARDIS shifted and a small jolt rocked the control room. "Did we just land?" asked Amy. The Doctor let out a strained laugh in reply. "Where are we?"

"What happened after you dropped the ice cream?" he asked.

"Nothing. I-I cried," she said. The Doctor nodded as if to say go on. "No, hang on there was a lady and she brought me another one."

"Oh, good for her. What did she look like?"

"She looked like she—she had a funny dress. A night dress. She had red hair. Doctor? I don't understand."

By the time the revelation had hit her, the Doctor was already by the door. She turned back to see him standing with his hand on the knob.

"Why are you doing this? What's the point?" she asked.

"The nice lady, what did she say to you?"

"Cheer up, have an ice cream," Amy's words were tinted with frustration.

"Amy, time and space is never ever going to make any kind of sense. A long time ago you got the best possible advice on how to deal with that. So, I suggest you go and give it," he pulled the double doors of the TARDIS open wide. There was a fairground in the distance. The sound of laughing children and jovial music filled the air.

Amelia walked towards him. "Okay, okay, so I ask a big important question about life and you're basically telling me to go and buy myself ice cream?"

The Doctor threw his arm around her. "No Amy, I'm telling you to go and buy us both ice creams. I love fairgrounds."

She glared over at him, fighting a smile. "I hate you."

"No you don't." He led her out of the TARDIS. "Do you get a bit scared on ghost trains? I get a bit scared. So is it okay if I hold your hand?"

The doors shut behind them and their voices died in the distance as they left the spacecraft that to any outside observer would have been nothing more than an average relic of a police phone box. This effect was enhanced by the phone that began to ring steadily inside. The ringing carried on unanswered for another few minutes and then stopped abruptly.