He'd lost everyone, more than once. But then he'd found Amy. She was exactly what he needed: some innocence in a time of self-hatred. She helped him remember himself, remember how much he could love, and how important the little things were. Her wonder at small moments contrasted with her no-nonsense attitude and, the brave face he put on stopped being a mask. How one little Scottish girl could soften such a hard, old heart, he still didn't know.

Of course he'd lost it straight away. Not Amy, but the innocence. He'd stupidly, stupidly, gone and missed it, and though he could still see it tugging at her sometimes, she'd learnt how to berate it, and now it hid.

He wanted it to come back, so he took her away. Showed her new things, hoping she would become a child again. And she nearly did. The very first time, with the Star Whale, there was so much humanity, so much of what he wanted to surround himself with.

But as they kept going, she got smart, and she'd learnt so much about the universe, and it became increasingly apparent that she wasn't a little girl any more, and that there were aspects of that that he couldn't help but notice that he responded to involuntarily, and no this was not good it wasn't supposed to be like that STOP IT BRAIN. He thought she might not have realised, because he often went off on thought tangents, about languages and science and trains and spoons and everything and nothing and HER MOSTLY HER but she must have sensed something. She'd cosied up a little too close to him sometimes, and he didn't even want to think about that night before her wedding, because it was so, so not what he needed, but what he desperately wanted. But with all the mysteries of the universe, he knew one thing, and he knew it well: Time Lords don't get what they want.

So he fetched Rory: he could distract her, so she wouldn't be a distraction herself. It worked, for a while. There was still something between Amy and the Doctor, but it was much easier to pass off as something less than love. After all Amy loved Rory. She did, she did, she did. At least, that's what they all told themselves.

But it was too much, and their relationship was straining with him around. So he let them both go back to their lives, to a little normality. He still saw them all the time. Their guess of ten years was pretty much accurate. He knew, because it was ten years for him. Almost exactly. He was splitting up the time between the visits, for them, but for him, he barely had a day without them. But he could never tell them. He couldn't let on that they were consuming his life, that she was still eating away at him, even absent.

And then there was a last time. There always was. The Angels, again. Weren't they always taking so much from him? Oh, he probably could have gotten her THEM back again, but really, he couldn't bring himself to. The Angels was the kindest way, wasn't it? Next time he lost them, it wouldn't be to another time, it would be from time itself. They'd be really, properly gone, and he wouldn't be able to kid himself that there'd be some spectacular event that brought them back.

The Doctor was a little better. Just slightly less broken. Healed by the Ponds. He looked around at his bare console room, so clean and sharp, and thought that they might have taught him how to be just that much happier. Given him just enough joy to cover their loss.

Because it wasn't really a loss, was it? You couldn't lose something you'd only made up.