AN:I rewrote, sorry if some of you thought "OMGNEWCHAPTERWTF" or something. Just added plot and shit.
I stepped out of my TARDIS, coughing slightly from the smoke. I had woken up on the TARDIS floor, which is fairly unusual. Then again, the retrocallibrator had gone wibbly. I had no idea where I was—just that it was hot.
Very hot. And—I looked at my watch—just past noon on a Sunday. Leadworth. I peered through the haze of heat to see a swingset and a familiar redhead sitting on a swing. I had nothing better to do, so I thought I might as well visit you again.
You looked the same as ever, so it couldn't have been very long since my last visit. Hullo, Amy! I sat down next to you. You didn't respond, you just looked up at me with a sad smile. Something wrong? Amelia?
A cat brushed past, and you picked it up and put it in your lap. No… well, y'know, I really kind of hate summer, you murmured boldly while stroking the cat.
Really? You'd never said… I began—
The cat jumped out of your arms, and you ran after it-right into the path of a speeding truck. Amy! I shouted, but I couldn't stop the car, the cat, the haze of heat which looked at me like a little girl; like you, Amelia, and said This is real, and then there was nothing…
I stepped out of the TARDIS—the retrocallibrator had gone all wibbly and stranded me here, sometime past noon on a Sunday in Leadworth. I had an odd dream last night rather like this, but that's fine. I have lots of odd dreams. And you never know, reality can always bleed through into dreams a bit, especially in the TARDIS. Still, it was a bit odd that I had woken up on the control room floor with a clock ticking above me. I couldn't remember putting any clocks in, especially one with a picture of you chasing after a cat, but I'd been very absentminded lately, so you never know.
But that was funny, you were chasing a cat in my dream, too…
I walked around for a while, then caught sight of you on the swings. I walked over to you. Hi, Amy!
You smiled up at me and I sat down. You picked up a cat walking by and began stroking it. You know, I began, I had an odd dream last night, sort of like this, we were at the park and everyth— I was cut off as the cat jumped out of your arms, and then I knew this was real, my dream wasn't a dream, and oh God Amelia please no come back, and the car, and the blood, and our screams, and the heat haze that looked like you, the heat haze saying This is not a dream, and I blacked out again…
I have been through this many times. As the decades passed on, I learned that I could never save you, you would always die.
The second time, I grabbed your wrist just as you jumped up to run after the cat. Let's go get a custard, eh, Amelia?
We ran down the street, but an iron pole fell down and struck you through the chest.
The "next day," there was another clock, with a picture of you with the pole, the pole through your chest, next to the other two with their depictions of the previous days…
It made me sick to look at it.
One time, we got as far as the TARDIS, but I flipped the wrong lever and you burned up as easy as the newspaper when you shine sunlight through a magnifying glass onto it.
We went to the library once. There was a fire, but we got through the fire escape. I thought I had saved you, but no, you fell through the rusty old stairs and cracked your head open.
We went to your house once. You wanted to make me some lunch. I was hungry, so I accepted, but then you cut your finger off with a knife and died of blood loss, despite my efforts to keep you alive.
We just stayed on the swings one day, but you swung higher and higher and then tried to jump off. You failed.
I decided not to go one day. I woke up the "next day" to a new clock, one with a picture of you being stabbed by a mugger.
So today, it will be different.
I sit down on the swings, just like I have hundreds of times before. Like you have. But that's the nature of a time loop.
Oh, Amelia. I knew long ago, six years ago today, in fact. I know what you've done. I don't know how you did it. I'm not even sure why, although I suppose a certain daughter of yours could have told you that I was supposed to die here. I've never quite had the courage to do what I need to do, though… I never wanted to hurt you.
But we can't keep living like this.
You smile at me as I sit down. It's nice for you, isn't it. Seeing me every day. Reliving the same little moments. Never mind the fact that you die in a different, horrible way every time. Never mind the fact that I want to die every time I wake up. Never mind the fact that I sometimes vomit when I see the newest clock, or that I sometimes don't feel anything at all.
That's the saddest part. I'm used to it by now. I'm used to you dying.
Things like that… they should never happen.
Nobody should have to get used to death.
Especially not the death of their best friend.
Nice day, isn't it, Doctor?
It will be, Amelia. Someday, when you get over me.
As you run after the cat, perhaps thinking that I won't do anything to save you today (and oh how wrong you are), I run after you, push you aside, throw you onto the sidewalk.
I feel a sickening crunch as the car hits my body. The man tries to swerve, but he can't, and before I can regenerate, I slide down and the car—oh God, how can I do this to Amy, how can I let her watch me die like this—
I look up and see the not-Amelia, the haze of summer, a shocked look, no words.
Serves you right, I mouth, right before I black out.
In Leadworth, at the exact same time, and yet at a completely different time altogether, Amy wakes up. The clocks are gone. All the clocks with her deaths in them.
She knows that it is over. She knows that she shouldn't have tried to save him, that what she did was wrong.
She lets the tears flow down her cheeks, petting her cat, Snowflake. She muffled her sobs, trying not to wake Rory… nothing ever happened for him, after all. No time passed for him.
And yet, she wouldn't do anything differently if she could. Those years with her best friend before he finally died—those may have been both the very best and the absolute worst years of her life.
AN: Yup. I request reviews now. Reviews are cool.