The thing about ultimatums is that they're short-sighted. When you make one, you live under the assumption that the other person will bend to your will. The second option isn't an option in your mind. It's a placeholder. There are no maybes. No 50/50 chances. No failures.
In actuality, you're lucky if everything works in your favour. Rory Williams now realised that he was not one of the lucky ones.
Amelia Pond was the only girl he ever loved. He was sure of that fact from the time they were children. Amy, however, didn't even see him that way until they were older. Her youth was spent in devotion to The Raggedy Doctor, her imaginary friend who, as it turned out, wasn't so imaginary.
In retrospect, he realised that he never should have asked Amy to choose. How was a lowly nurse ever going to compare with The Doctor? Could the promise of forever compete with all of time and space?
Rory thought so at first.
In the two years following that first adventure with the Doctor battling the Atraxi, they lived a happy life. He had asked her to marry him and she accepted. Everything was as he had always hoped it would be. But when The Doctor returned, their plans took a backseat to the madman in the blue box.
Rory understood the allure. Each time she would come home with stories. Stories of all the places she would go. All the things she would see. The people she would meet. He could still remember the way her eyes sparkled when she described it to him, right down to the minute details.
She convinced to come along once. He couldn't even remember where they went anymore. All he could remember was the look on Amy's face when she looked at The Doctor. Complete and unadulterated adoration. She had never looked at him that way. Not even once.
That was his first and only trip aboard the TARDIS. He couldn't bear to be the third wheel in his own relationship. He let her continue though. Amy had always been a free spirit and didn't want to be the one to clip her wings.
'She loves the Doctor, but she always comes home to me,' he reminded himself. 'She agreed to marry me.'
It became his personal mantra. In the days leading up to their wedding, he repeated it to himself more times than he cared to admit. But the more he said it, the harder he found it was to believe it.
The final straw came the night of his stag party.
"You're leaving with him tonight?" he asked.
"That's the plan," Amy mused as she stood in the garden waiting for the familiar blue box to make its appearance. She was set to go off with the Doctor on another adventure.
"Tonight?"
"The Doctor is taking me to Paris," she informed him as she searched the inky sky. "There's a Van Gogh exhibit on at the Musée d'Orsay.
"Less than 24 hours before our wedding and you're going on a museum date with the Doctor?"
Amy glanced back at him. "It's not a date."
Rory scoffed. "Isn't it?"
"No." Amy turned to face him. "It's an adventure."
"An adventure that can wait until after the wedding."
"He wants to take me tonight."
"Well tell him no."
She frowned. "Why would I do that? I want to go."
Rory exhaled sharply. "Heaven forbid you have a regular hen night like a normal bride." He threw his hands up in frustration. "No, you have to go traipsing around all of time and space with another man the night before your wedding."
Amy rolled her eyes. "For God sake's, Rory. It's just a wedding. The TARDIS is a time machine. I can make it back in time." She turned her back to him and resumed searching the night sky for the TARDIS. "Besides, it's not like they can start without me."
Rory could hear her words, but in all honesty, he had stopped listening when she said it was 'just a wedding.'
It was all a blur after that.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed between that point and the moment when the TARDIS appeared. He barely even remembered giving her the ultimatum.
He would have sworn it was all a dream. Or rather a nightmare.
The anger behind Amy's eyes. The heated row that ensued, while the Doctor bumbled alongside them, trying to interject but being shut down from both sides. Amy storming off towards the TARDIS. Rory hitting the pub with his mates and have far more to drink than he should have.
It would all look different in the morning. He'd wake up from his nightmare and all would be as it should be. But the pounding headache he woke up with was too painful to be imagined.
So their fight was real, but lots of couples fought the night before their wedding. All they had to do was sleep it off. Cooler heads with prevail. Surely Amy would see it from his prospective.
He repeated his mantra to himself.
He took a shower and repeated his mantra.
He had a breakfast of beans on toast and repeated his mantra.
He drove to the church and repeated his mantra.
He stood at the altar and repeated his mantra.
He endured the sympathetic stares from the wedding guests and repeated his mantra.
For two more months, he repeated his mantra.
Even as he packed up his flat on his last day in Leadworth, he repeated his mantra.
'That's the last time,' he chastised himself as he drove past the duck pond. 'I'm leaving it all behind.' No more thoughts of Amy Pond. No more thoughts of the Raggedy Doctor in the blue box. No more thoughts of his life in Leadworth.
Once he reached London, he would be a new man.