She jumped, startled. It was unbearable, the pain that tore through her heart.
The green lights jetted out of the gloved hand. Hit him. Once. He convulsed. Twice. He was pushed backwards by the force. Fell to his knees.
She was being restrained. By River Song and her husband. Rory.
Rory the Roman.
She had stopped screaming. Too upset to even cry as she watched, shocked. A golden glow was enveloping his body, pouring from his hands and face.
He spread his arms; the golden light, like the sun, erupted from him, his head thrown back.
She was awed, but only for a moment, as the Impossible Astronaut raised its arm once more, released the vibrant green shots, and the burning light dissipated, the Doctor collapsing to the ground.
No one restrained her any longer. They were all running. A desperate run.
She could hear River screaming, hear the pain in her friend's voice, but it didn't register.
She was screaming too, but she didn't notice. Everything was numb, slow, deafeningly quiet.
As if time itself had stopped.
She fell from running onto her knees beside him, her hands cupping his face, brushing his cheek, eyes searching desperately for some spark of life left in him.
She could see nothing.
Denial. It came first. She was begging him. "No! Please!"Now she was crying. Weeping.
She bypassed anger and went straight to bargaining. If he was just a clone, or…a duplicate! or…something…anything but dead. Anything at all.
He can't be dead. Just please…don't be dead. Doctor…please…
River was talking. Saying things that she wasn't comprehending.
Her best friend was dead on the ground before her. She leant over him, her hand upon his cheek, the other smoothing out his hair, desperately.
"Wake up! Come on wake up, you stupid bloody idiot!" She choked out between sobs. She clung to him, her head on his chest, sobbing into his shirt. Anger. Depression.
The stages of grief included one more step.
Amy Pond promised herself that she would never make it to acceptance.
She held to him, her slender fingers grasping the ever familiar tweed of his jacket.
The Doctor had always been the inconstant in her life, but he was always a possibility. There had never been any doubt in her mind that she would see him again. Always a matter of when, not if. But now…
Dead. Gone.
The tears stung her eyes, made them grow red, tear stains on her cheeks and she only could hug him tighter, trying her hardest not to let him go, as if she would lose him for eternity if she lightened her grasp.
She loved him.
Not in the way she loved Rory, but she loved him dearly all the same.
A man who in all her darkest hours was there for her, to hug her, and say "Gotcha!" with those ancient eyes and youthful smile, waggling his eyebrows in the process.
Her Raggedy Doctor.
She sobbed harder at the mention of having to physically let him go.
She feared that if she did, the reality of the momentous occurrence would bear down on her unfathomably.
Crush her spirit.
Kill her joy.
Her very reason to laugh.
He was her spirit.
He was her joy.
He was the reason she laughed.
Because the Doctor was the light in the darkness of space, the guiding star on their travels.
The Doctor was all that was good in the world.
And the Doctor was dead.
Gone.
For all of time and space.
She closed her eyes, and cried.