"The girl who waited," said the Doctor, as he bent over little Amelia's sleeping form to scoop her up in his arms. "Come here, you," he muttered affectionately.

Tucking her into bed as tenderly as he would his own daughter, he thought about what was in store for him and how he wanted to put it off for as long as possible. He wasn't ready to go, not yet. Plopping down heavily in a chair by Amelia's bed, he watched her chest rise and fall as she slept, unaware of her surroundings.

"Funny, I thought if you could hear me I could hang on somehow. Silly me … silly old Doctor," he said into the silence.

He bent forward slightly, the better for her to hear him. "When you wake up," he whispered, glad to have done at least one thing right by his Amelia, "You'll have a mum and dad. And you won't even remember me." He didn't want to think about how much that thought pained him, more than the Dalek's laser ever could. "Well, you'll remember me a little. I'll be a story in your head," he revealed. "That's okay. We're all stories in the end."

He stared ahead of him, unseeing, as he thought about how his own story was coming to a close. "Just make it a good one, eh?" he pleaded, leaning forward again. " 'Cause it was, you know – it was the best."

The Doctor was tiring, though. That Dalek had taken more out of him than he had realized. Closing his eyes, he kept speaking, hoping that some of what he said now would stick with Amy when she woke up: "A daft old man who stole a magic box, and ran away."

He was starting to feel his years now, more so than ever before. After allowing himself a moment's recollection, he turned back to Amy's bedside. "Did I ever tell you that I stole it? Well, I borrowed it, I was always gonna take it back. Oh, that box. Amy, you'll dream about that box. It'll never leave you – big and little, at the same time; brand new and ancient, and the bluest blue ever. And the times we had, eh?" he went on, seemingly unable to stop, no matter the stake he was driving into his own two hearts. "Woulda had; never had." His voice trailed off sadly. All hope was not lost, however. "In your dreams they'll still be there," he told her. Chuckling slightly in an effort to stave off the tears, he said, "The Doctor and Amy Pond, and the days that never came."

His attention was drawn to a flashing motion out of the corner of his eye – like lightening during a storm. It was coming from the crack in Amy's bedroom wall, and the Doctor knew then that his time had come. He had to say goodbye now.

"The cracks are closing," he announced, staring transfixed at the flickering light. "But they can't close properly till I'm on the other side. I don't belong here anymore." And he had never felt older at the realization. To leave his mad, impossible, magnificent Amelia Pond … how could he?

Sniffing slightly, he declared, "I think I'll skip the rest of the rewind. I hate repeats." And he came so close to breaking down, just laying his head down on Amy's bed and giving in to the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. But he was the Doctor – he had reserves of strength that others couldn't even begin to possibly imagine. So, he summoned up what energy remained, and stood.

He bent to press his lips to Amy's forehead – the last kiss he would ever give her. "Live well. Love Rory," he whispered. Taking one last look at his stalwart companion, drinking in the way her flaming red hair fanned out like liquid fire across her pillow, he gave her his finals words, "Bye-bye, Pond."

His hand skimmed over her hair, relishing in the way it felt like silk between his fingers, just as before the Pandorica had closed – and then he was gone, swallowed by the cracks in time, never born and never to be remembered.

And a little girl sat up in bed, feeling as though she'd just lost her best friend. When nothing seemed out of place in her room, though, she lay back down and drifted off to sleep, where a magic blue box and its mysterious occupant would haunt her dreams for years to come.

Amy was fourteen before she told anyone about the dreams. Finally, though, she decided to tell Rory about how she sometimes saw a blue box and a man in a bow-tie, visiting the stars as they traveled through all of time and space.

"What do they mean, Rory?" she asked petulantly, wanting an explanation for something that didn't seem possible to explain. After all, dreams were a manifestation of one's subconscious, right? So where did the madman and the box come from, when she'd never seen them before?

"I don't know," said Rory, shrugging helplessly.

But Amy hadn't shared everything with him. What she would never tell anyone was that sometimes she would appear in these dreams, as herself. She, Amy Pond, would travel with the bow-tie wearing idiot, seeing and doing both great and terrible things. She couldn't tell anyone, though. If she did, they'd lock her up in a loony-bin, for wasn't it impossible travel through time? Space, yes. But time? No way!

Amy did her best to push these dreams to the back of her mind and get on with her life. But she could never escape them entirely. There they'd be the instant she closed her eyes to sleep – there would be the Doctor and the TARDIS, although Amy didn't know that that's what they were called. Truth be told, she tried not to think about them if she could help it – the man scared her, just a bit. Yet there was something about him that seemed familiar. Amy could never quite put her finger on what it was about him, though. Was it the tweed jacket? The braces? Heavens, could it be the bow-tie? Then again, sometimes, the man wore a fez. Once, he even wore a Stetson. But Amy still couldn't place him.

"Who are you?" she would ask him in her dreams. But he never responded. All he would do was shoot her a reassuring grin, grab her hand and run. They did a lot of that in her dreams – running, that is. And they never seemed to stop.

Frankly, Amy was tired. She woke up from these dreams more exhausted than before, as though she'd been trying to remember a difficult math equation or scientific formula. But she never could. And she was sick of not being able to make sense of her own life, which sometimes felt as though there was something missing from it. Again, something Amy just couldn't quite place.

Over the years, though, Amy had gotten good at hiding her 'strangeness.' Or, if not hiding it completely, at least overcoming or compensating for other people's opinions of her. She even got herself a boyfriend, Rory Williams, the one who she'd first shared her dreams with and who she'd shared everything with since.

It had now been fourteen years since those dreams had first visited her, but she had finally (hopefully) moved on. She better have, at least, for when morning came, she and Rory were to be married.

A woman walked past the window, a blonde woman with curly hair and wearing a black suit. She met Amy's eyes, and the bride rose on instinct.

"Amy, you okay?" asked Rory in concern.

Looking down at him, she responded with, "Yeah, I'm fine." Taking her seat again, she couldn't help but think that she knew that woman from somewhere. But where?

Interrupting her internal musings, Rory shot her a worried look and said, "Uh, you're crying."

"And so I am," she said, raising a finger to find her cheeks damp with tears. "Why am I doing that?"

"Uh, because … you're … happy, probably," Rory replied, searching for words and hoping they were the right ones. "Happy Mrs. Rory; happy, happy, happy …"

"No," said Amy, shaking her head certainly. "I'm sad. I'm really, really sad."

"Great," Rory said, turning to face forward impassively.

"Why am I sad?" asked Amy, while Rory could only shake his head. "What's that?" She turned her attention to a blue book that she'd just noticed was at her table place.

"Oh, uh … someone left it for you. A-a woman," Rory answered, stuttering slightly.

Amy snatched it out of his hands. "What is it?" she asked urgently.

"A book," Rory replied.

"It's blank," Amy informed him.

"It's a present."

"But why?" Amy had to know, though she didn't understand what could be so important about a blank book that was … the bluest blue she'd ever seen.

"Well, you know the old saying? The old wedding … thing?"

Amy stared blankly ahead of her.

"Amy … hey," said Rory softly. He was really getting worried now.

At that moment, Amy's dad stood up, ready to give his speech as the father of the bride. But she wasn't listening. As she looked around her, little things seemed to suddenly stand out – things she had seen in her dreams, like that young man's bow-tie, and the old man's braces. Looking down at the book in her hands once more, she watched as a single tear fell. And with that tear, she remembered – she remembered everything.

"Shut up, Dad," she ordered, standing abruptly.

"Amelia?" he asked, clearly confused.

"I'm sorry, Dad. Just shut up, please. There's someone missing, someone important – someone so, so important."

"Amy, what's wrong?" Rory interjected.

"Sorry," Amy said, apologizing to the entire room and not just to her immediate family that now included Rory. "When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend." Around her, she could hear groans of annonyance, but she plowed on anyway, "The Raggedy Doctor … my Raggedy Doctor. But he wasn't imaginary – he was real."

Again ignoring the voices of those around her, Amy spoke directly to the Doctor, as though he were standing right in front of her. "I remember you," she said firmly. "I remember. I brought the others back – I can bring you home too. Raggedy Man, I remember you, and you are late for my wedding," she declared, pounding the table with her fist.

With her declaration, the glasses started to rattle and shake, as did the chandelier from where it hung on the ceiling.

"I found you," Amy continued. "I found you in words, like you knew I would. That's why you told me the story: the brand new, ancient blue box. Oh, clever … very clever."

Dimly, Amy heard Rory ask, "What is it?"

As the building shook around them, she leaned on the table and began to recite, "Something old, something new, something borrowed."

A sound filled the room, as though a dozen airplanes were flying overhead, and a police box began to materialize.

"Something blue," Amy finished, almost in a whisper as her hair whipped wildly about her face.

"It's the Doctor," said Rory, as though he couldn't believe his eyes. "How did we forget the Doctor?"

Paying Rory no mind, Amy calmly stood on her chair, then the table, using them both as a means to cross the distance between her and him, the man from her dreams – the madman with the blue box.

Pounding on the door, she said loudly, "Okay, Doctor. Did I surprise you this time?"

And there he was, dressed to the nines in a top hat and tails. "Uh, yeah – completely astonished, never expected that," he said, eyes roving appreciatively over her white-clad body. And to think, there had been a time when he thought he might never see his beloved Pond again.

He hasn't changed, Amy thought. All that time I forgot, and he never changed.

At the present, all Doctor and companion seemed capable of doing was staring at each other. And who could blame them? The Doctor had been erased from all of time. He and Amy were never supposed to meet again. But she brought him back. He smiled at her, words, for once, failing him. Amy stared right back, wide-eyed. However, this wasn't the time for sentimentality. Slipping into his character of the joker, he stepped out, tugging at the collar of his jacket.

"Lucky I happened to be wearing this old thing," he murmured, so quietly that only she could hear. "Hello, everyone," he said, taking note of Rory, who stood to greet him. "I'm Amy's imaginary friend." He spread his arms wide and turned in a circle, as he seemed so fond of doing. "But I came anyway." This, he directed at Amy's father as he bent over to shake his hand.

"You absolutely definitely may kiss the bride," said Amy, a come-hither look in her eyes as she approached him determinedly.

"Amelia," said the Doctor, holding up a finger to her lips – and, boy, did it feel good to say her name again, not to mention touch her. "From now on, I shall be leaving the kissing duties," here, he allowed his fingers to crisscross Rory's chest, who had finally made his way over to greet them, "to the brand new Mr. Pond." Shaking his hand enthusiastically, they both looked at Amy, until Rory turned to face him.

"No, I'm not Mr. Pond," he said. "That's not how it works."

"Yeah, it is," the Doctor replied instantly. They shared a long-suffering look, commiserating over their label as Amy's 'boys'.

"Yeah, it is," said Rory slowly.

"Right, then, everyone," said the Doctor, spinning in another circle. "I'll move my box – you're gonna need the space." And he dashed inside, only pausing in the doorway to say, "I only came for the dancing," before shutting the door behind him.

But that wasn't the last that Leadworth – or Amy or Rory, for that matter – would see him and his blue box. After all, he was the Doctor – and the Doctor always came back.