Author's Note: Try reading Amy's conversation one-sided. I wrote it to sound really sketchy when you're only listening to one side (especially if you walk in after that first long paragraph).

From the moment she'd seen that suspicion and darkness in the Doctor's eyes, Amy had been trying to get away from him. She needed to call up River and figure out how to get out of there. Every second she spent around the younger Doctor was dangerous—not just for him, but for herself, as well. He might trust her with his very existence in the future, but in his past, he didn't trust her an inch.

Was this how River always felt?

Amy finally managed to slip out of the apartment around dinnertime, and the moment she was no longer in the Doctor's sight, she began to run. She ducked into a back alley, where she was hoping no one could see her, pulled out her mobile and called River.

"I've got to get out of here," said Amy.

"You only just arrived," said River. "Are they after you?"

"Not them," said Amy. She looked around, as if expecting the younger Doctor to show up at any minute. He was nowhere to be seen. "Someone else," she whispered.

"Someone else? Who else? Who in England in 1969 could possibly…?" River trailed off. "It's the Doctor, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," said Amy.

River said nothing for a moment. "Is he…?"

"Younger," Amy said. "And… different looking. Shorter hair, thinner face, brown eyes. River, it's a disaster. It's like, he's the same, but he's completely different. He likes baked beans, and yogurt, and bread and butter. And he doesn't think that bow-ties are cool! I asked him, and he looked at me like I was an idiot." She felt her breath coming short and fast. "I don't know what to do."

"You've got to leave right away," said River. "You're walking on an active mine-field right now, Amy. Anything you say could completely destroy his future. Even if you just mention that you know him, it could destabilize the timeline."

"But we've both seen what happens in that timeline," Amy protested. "River, I know this could screw everything up, but what if this one puts a stop to it?"

"It's still the Doctor," said River. "He's not going to go out of his way to mess up time. Not even to save a future incarnation."

"But the blue envelopes," said Amy. "River, he's got one, too! Number five! This has to be some elaborate plan. Maybe we can undo…"

"We can't," said River. "I told you, time doesn't work like that. If you try fiddling around with it too much, you'll wind up making it worse. Listen, just forget about all of this, and twist the dial on the right side of the manipulator until it says 075557329. That should get you to Calais."

Amy looked down at her wrist to start changing around the settings on her vortex manipulator, but stopped. She stared. The gizmo around her wrist looked completely dead—like a digital watch without a battery. She began turning the dial that River had indicated, but nothing happened.

"Something wrong?" asked a voice from the shadows.

Amy looked up, and gaped. The Doctor—the younger Doctor, the one who didn't trust her—was stepping into the light, his hands in his pockets, looking very nonchalant. He wasn't smiling this time, though. He was looking at her with mild disapproval.

Amy said nothing. She was hearing River through the phone, asking her if she was all right, if she was seeing the creatures, if she'd made the jump already.

Before she could do anything, the Doctor had snatched the phone from her hand and placed it by his ear. "Torchwood, I assume?"

He took the phone away from his ear, and looked at it. Apparently, the call had ended. Then he looked back at Amy. "I guess that answers my question," he said.

Amy was going through her phone call in her mind. How much had he heard? How much did he know? She really, really hoped he hadn't overheard anything that might jeopardize his future. But would that really be such a terrible thing? After all, she wanted to change his future. She just wanted to make sure she made it better, and not worse. Amy felt her head spinning. This was way too confusing. The best thing would be to get out of there, before she said something wrong. She was in a dangerous situation, and she didn't have as much experience as River at handling it.

"I'm… I'm not…" she protested. She swallowed. "I'm not trying to steal your Tardis or anything. I'm just here to help my friend."

"Your friend with the brown floppy hair and the suspenders who has a problem with death?" the Doctor asked.

"That's right," said Amy. She tried to remember what name he'd conjured up before. "Jack."

"Except it's not Jack," said the Doctor. He walked a little closer, and raised an eyebrow. "I worked that out fairly quickly. You don't know anything about Jack, after all. And you seem far too upset over the possibility of his death for it to be Jack."

Amy said nothing.

"Thing is, you may not know anything about Jack," said the Doctor. "But you do know an awful lot about me. Why would that be, 'Just Amy'?"

Amy could feel herself start to back away.

The Doctor looked down at her phone, turned it over, and slipped off the back. He slid a pair of glasses onto his nose, and started to examine her phone's inner workings. "Oh, now look at that. Cor, that is clever. Very clever. Whoever designed this is almost as brilliant as me."

Amy stopped herself from rolling her eyes. For someone who claimed to be such a genius, the Doctor could still be a complete idiot sometimes.

"Doctor, I need to go," said Amy. "I'm on a mission…"

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and gave the back of her phone a quick buzz. "Right," he said, tossing it back to her. "That should undo the damage. And as for going…" He looked deep into her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I can't let you go. I'll give you a lift home when Martha and I get the Tardis back, but until then, I'm afraid you're stranded."

"You don't understand," Amy tried.

The Doctor put his hands back in his pockets. "Well, then, 'Just Amy'," he said. "Explain it to me."

Amy opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. "I can't," she said. "I'm just… on a mission. For a friend."

"A friend who is currently in the United States, right at the focus of the space-time distortion," said the Doctor. "A friend who has obviously done something unbelievably thick which is destabilizing the entire space-time continuum. A friend who has a 'problem with death'—or maybe, he's just trying to prevent his own?" He came a little closer to Amy, a seriousness burned onto his facial features. "I didn't bring the Weeping Angels here, Amy. I didn't cause this temporal instability. But I have a feeling you know who did."

"What?" said Amy. "No! Listen, Doctor, I can't tell you what's going on, but you have to trust me."

"Trust you?" the Doctor said, a harsh bitterness leaking through his voice. "You want me to trust you? After you opened the void and nearly collapsed two universes, you want me to trust you? After you took away everything that ever mattered to me and then left the Earth ready and waiting for the Racnoss to feed? Oh, that's rich."

"No, I never… I didn't…" Amy stuttered. "Look, I'm not Torchwood or whatever you think I am. Please. You just have to… I mean, I'm really not good at this…"

The Doctor gave a small sigh, brushing a hand through his hair. Then he paused. He looked back at Amy, examining her carefully. Before she knew what was happening, the Doctor was beside her, her arm in his hand. His touch was gentle, cold—so familiar and yet so different from the man she knew. He was staring at her arm through his glasses, wrinkling his nose in thought.

Amy tugged her arm away from him. "Do you mind?" she asked.

His gaze shifted back to her eyes. "Amy," he said, very softly. "I think we should run."

"Why?"

"Because I just felt a temporal jump," said the Doctor, "and you have another mark on your arm."

Amy felt her eyes go wide. And she ran.