Amy woke up. Her first thought was still mostly coming from her dreams- something about a swimming pool. Then, she came more to her senses and froze in her bed. Today she would have to face Rory about her feelings for the Doctor and him. Today would most likely not be the most fun of days. Amy picked up some clothes that she'd brought into her room the day before and put them on- a long-sleeved shirt with a short skirt and leggings. After dressing, she exited her room and went to the TARDIS console room where she noted that the Doctor already was. Coming from behind her was Rory.
"Good morning, you two," the Doctor said with perhaps only slightly less cheer than a normal day.
"Morning," Rory greeted. He seemed to be awake, more so than Amy felt. Then again, her lack of much sleep was made up for by the amount of adrenaline she was feeling in anticipation of the conversation she knew she had to start with Rory quite soon.
"I'm sorry," Amy blurted out. She hadn't meant to say it, but she found herself speaking anyway. The comment was directed at Rory, but the smile was wiped away from the Doctor's face anyway. Rory just looked confused.
"What are you sorry for, Amy?" Rory asked. Amy bit her lip, finding the words she'd thought of slipping away from her. How could she possibly explain what was going on inside her head and inside her heart? This was Rory, the boy who'd been her friend for as long as the Doctor had. Rory, who had never called her crazy even though many others had. Rory, who had been her best friend throughout everything. He didn't deserve what she was going to do to him, how she knew it would break him.
"Rory… you know I love you right?" Amy said tentatively. She silently cursed herself for starting that way. It just wasn't right to do that to him. Rory looked even more confused, but before he could answer her question, Amy began talking again. "You remember when we were kids, and I told you how I waited all night for the Doctor? And then I waited twelve years, and then two more?" Amy asked. Rory nodded.
"The truth about waiting is… it makes what you get either that much more enjoyable or that much more disappointing. And…" Amy knew she could do a much better job of this. Maybe she should have just left him at stag night, never having to return, letting the night before her wedding last her entire life.
Rory didn't know what was happening. In the last few days he'd noticed that his fiancée had been sleeping less by the dark circles under her eyes. He'd also noticed that she seemed to be stressed about something, but she wouldn't tell him what. It appears that now she was starting to tell him, but he couldn't understand what waiting had to do with anything.
"I know you waited for a lot of years to get me to love you. But what I'm saying is… that might only make it even more disappointing," Amy said, forcing herself to look him in the eye. She couldn't be a coward, not now.
"What are you talking about, Amy? Of course I won't be disappointed too marry you," Rory reassured her in bewilderment. How could she possibly think that Rory would be disappointed in her? Amy felt tears welling up in her eyes, but she bit them back.
"If we were to get married, you would hand your whole heart over to me. But I would only ever be able to hand you half of mine," Amy continued. She knew Rory didn't quite understand yet by the expression on his face. She had to press through this, had to get him to understand exactly what was going on.
The Doctor watched this pan out, careful to keep quiet. He didn't want to interfere in this conversation. Even though he knew he was about to become a big part of it, he really wasn't supposed to be involved. This was one thing Amy had to do without him, no matter how much he wanted to spit it all out and just drop Rory off someplace where he wouldn't be a problem anymore. He couldn't do that.
"When I was seven years old, I gave that half of my heart to a man who appeared in my backyard," Amy said with a shuddering breath. There it was. Rory's eyes darkened as the truth became apparent to him. There was no misunderstanding what Amy had just said. She had just confessed that she couldn't marry Rory because she was in love with the Doctor. Rory took a step toward the Doctor in anger, but then took three more back.
"Why? How?" Rory spat out the questioning words. The woman he'd chased after almost his whole life thus far had basically taken their wedding and shoved it back at him in favor of another man, one who had never even been there for her.
"I'm sorry Rory. I really am s-" Amy apologized as tears finally flowed from her eyes. Rory clenched his fists in anger, pure anger.
"You're sorry? Oh, you're sorry? That makes it all better then! I guess we can just keep on going as if nothing's happened, as if the woman I thought was my fiancée didn't just admit she loves another man!" Rory fumed. At this point the Doctor stood up. Nothing more, he simply stood. He wanted to thrash Rory's head against the wall for yelling at Amy like that, even though some part of his brain knew that this was exactly for Rory should be expected to react.
"Take me home," Rory whispered, his voice cutting through the silence. No one moved; no one breathed. "I said, take me home!" he said it quite a bit louder this time. The Doctor moved to set the coordinates for the night before the wedding, but Rory spoke again.
"Take me back before night time. I want to cancel stag night. And everything else, of course," this time his voice was dangerously calm, like the quiet before a storm. The Doctor obliged, and the TARDIS flew its quietest flight in a long time. When it had landed, Rory walked briskly to the door.
"Goodbye Rory… I'm sorry," Amy said, still crying heavily. Rory didn't even glance at her, but he whirled around to face the Doctor one last time.
"And you. You stole my fiancée away from me. Don't screw it up or I swear, I will hunt you down and show you how angry I really feel," Rory hissed through a clenched jaw. The Doctor nodded slowly, not thinking that it was the best time to speak. With a slam of the blue door, Rory was gone.
*DW*DW*DW*DW*
After Rory left and the TARDIS followed suit, Amy broke down sobbing. This wasn't exactly the Doctor's area of expertise, but he held her as she cried, gently stroking her hair. He hated to see her so sad, but he couldn't think of any way to fix it for her. There was nothing he could say or do to make Amy's life perfect. So instead, he stayed quiet except for the occasional whisper of "I love you" which he couldn't help saying now that he was finally free to.
Amy didn't want to be crying like this. Rory was gone, but that had been what she'd wanted, right? On the other hand, she really had loved Rory, just not as much as the Doctor. The Doctor was her first love, and they say you never stop loving your first love. She couldn't have bared to marry him when she still loved another man- it wouldn't have been fair. All the same, her emotions poured out of her in the form of tears as she wept over the loss of the man who had been her best friend for so many years. Finally, the sobs that wracked Amy's body started to subside and become uneven intakes of breath coupled with dried tearstains on her face.
"Amelia Pond, the girl who waited," the Doctor whispered in her ear and then kissed her on the forehead. Amy looked up at him, her eyes red from all the crying, but to him she still looked beautiful. Amy sat up a little straighter to kiss the Doctor properly.
"You don't have to kiss my forehead anymore, Doctor," Amy said with a watery sort of smile.
"But I like your forehead!" he said in fake disappointment. Amy managed a laugh.
"You know, I think I'm going to go back to sleep for a little while," Amy said. She was wiped out emotionally from all that had happened. Telling Rory about those emotions had taken a lot out of her, and the crying afterward only exhausted her more.
"Okay, sleep well," the Doctor said, kissing her forehead once more. Amy smiled at him before heading back to her room and getting back into bed. It didn't matter that it was already sort of late morning because time didn't much matter in a time machine. He gave a sigh, leaning against the console. The TARDIS made a whirring noise in response.
"Yeah, I know, I shouldn't be so happy," the Doctor said to his blue box. It had always been him and his box- the madman with a box. No matter who was with him, he'd always had his time machine, even when there was no one there at all. He remembered that time, only a couple years ago, when he'd tried to adventure completely on his own. How wrong he'd been, thinking that he was better off by himself. He needed people, and now specifically, he found himself needing Amy.
After a few minutes, the Doctor decided to walk by Amy's room. The door was closed, and he couldn't hear any noise from within. She was sleeping, as she should be. He smiled, thinking of how peaceful she must look, especially compared to how stressed she'd been over the past few days in particular. He needed to take her somewhere nice, to relax, he decided then.
With the next two hours, the Doctor racked his brain, thinking of where he could take Amy that would be both fun and relaxing. He contemplated going to the 39th century, when humans from Earth inhabited Mars. The Earth had been blown up and a part of it had broken off and gone on to get captured in Mars' orbit, becoming a moon. That moon was then made into a giant museum for anything and everything Earth and human related. But no, that probably wouldn't be Amy's idea of relaxing, as interesting as it would be. Amy would want something a little different, perhaps something closer to the time she came from.
He also spent some time reading a fairy tale, one of the cliché ones where the prince rescues the princess. He wondered if that was how Amy saw him as a child. He was a noble prince that came to save his beautiful princess so they could live happily ever after, grow old together, and die together. But the Doctor's heart gave a twang of pain when he thought about that. He could not be her perfect prince because he could not grow old with her, he could not die with her. He would not get older, he would only change. And then, would she even still want to be with him if he changed entirely?
He'd pushed so hard for Amy to stay with Rory, who could give her everything she wanted, or everything he thought she wanted. But Rory couldn't give Amy what she wanted more than anything- the Doctor. Amy wanted adventures with the madman in a time machine that had spit multiple foods across her kitchen table the first night she'd met him when she was seven years old. She didn't want the boy who had waited by her and cared for her throughout what seemed like a hopeless obsession and fantasy.
Not to mention, the Doctor knew that he wasn't used to anything anywhere near romance- look at how terrible he'd been with Rose! He was 907 years old, and he'd still only purposefully (without practical purposes) kissed as many girls as he could count on his fingers alone. Most of the time he'd kissed people to save lives or been kissed without his permission. And he was rubbish when it came to saying anything that bordered on romantic. He could get so flustered. How could he now deal with a fiery Scottish girl that demanded a lot of attention and clearly was attracted to him? He wasn't used to it.
"Well then, I'll have to try all the harder," the Doctor whispered to the fairy tale.