Rory drifted up from sleep, awakened by the low grinding whine coming from the next bedroom. Amy rolled over, curling against him. "He really needs to remember those brakes," she mumbled into his shoulder. Within a minute, her breathing had returned to the slow rhythms of sleep and he tried to follow after her. They'd said their goodbyes the night before; his early morning departure came as no surprise.

Finally, though, Rory gave up trying to sleep. He'd been working the early shifts all week and seven in the morning seemed quite late. His stomach growled. Slipping out of bed, he went in search of food.

River was sitting in the kitchen when he got there, a newspaper spread out on the table before her. Her hair was still a wild tangle about her face and she'd simply thrown a pink fuzzy robe on over her pajamas. He paused in the doorway, suddenly feeling like an intruder in his own home.

She must have heard him, though, because, looking up from her paper, she said, "Good morning, Dad."

"Hey," he replied. "Uhm, sorry to disturb you. I could...you know..." He jerked his thumb back the way he'd come.

She smiled. "It's your kitchen," she pointed out. Then, holding up the mug in her hand, she offered, "I made coffee. Pull up a chair?"

He nodded and poured himself a cup. Rejoining her at the table, he sat down and indicated the paper in front of her. "The Leadworth Chronicle?" he asked. "That's gotta seem like small stuff. By comparison."

River laughed and smoothed a hand over the paper in front of her. "You'd be surprised," she said after a minute. "Births. Deaths. Marriages..." She pointed to one of the articles. "Mr. Darrin's prize winning sheep... . A lot more interesting than you might think."

He started to laugh, but the sound died on his lips. There was something about the way she looked down at the paper. Like she wasn't quite seeing it at all. "You okay?" he asked instead.

She looked up at him and smiled. And while it was small, it was real. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "I am."

"When will you see him again?" he asked before he'd thought better of it.

She glanced out the window, almost as if she expected to see the blue box landing in the garden. "Soon," she answered after a minute. "He can never stay anywhere for long... might start too many rumors..." Then, she turned back to him, and her face was lit with a smile which left no doubt as to how she really felt. "But, you know him, Father...he always comes back."