"Rory, you need to go to the hospital. Not get on a plane."

Rory was sitting next to her at the gate as they waited to board their flight; he was doubled over with his head on his knees and his arms around his stomach.

"Please shut up." he forced out. "Gotta get through this."

She bit her lip and reached out, drawing little patterns on his shaking shoulders with her fingertip. "Is that good?"

"Don't stop."

She continued to draw, showing him her life story in little scribbled drawings. The first day at Bad Wolf. Her fifth birthday. Happy things, like the Eiffel Tower poster. And the blue phone box. And a roughly done face of a young man who was centuries old. She drew Rory's nose, and she drew a heart. Her own did a little flip, and she wiped the doodle out, even though it was only her fingertip and there was nothing to see.

Rory moaned. "It hurts!"

"There must be something I can get for you."

He put his arms on his knees and buried his face in them. "Please talk. I like your accent, it helps."

"Um, okay. What should I say?"
His hand was suddenly wrapped around hers, holding on.

"Rory."

"We...can't go to the hospital. We have to get you out of here."

"Then I'll go on alone! You're not well."

He sat up, his eyes watering. "You don't understand, Amy. I can't leave you now. I have to make sure you're alright."

His head went back down, and Amy sat in silence, stroking the back of his sweaty hand as his fingers cut of the circulation in hers.

"When I was a little girl, people would cry for me." she began. " My parents died, and everyone died. So people just cried for me. I was little and cute. And they were sad for me. And then there was nobody else who knew who I was. They were just gone. So I guess I cried for myself. Then even that stopped...I just lived my life." she winced at the memory. "I think I'm broken, Rory."

He just squeezed her hand harder, not saying a word.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Amy was never sure how it happened...she got herself and Rory onto the plane with no incident, and the next thing she knew he was sleeping restlessly beside her while she filled out customs forms. They had landed, she'd gotten him off the plane, even though she wasn't sure he was really awake. Customs was fine. Then they were out on the street in front of the airport.

Rory was borderline unconscious, sagged over on her so limply. His breath was hot and slow on her neck, and his eyelids shone from the sweat on them.

"This is ridiculous." she muttered. "We're taking you to a hospital, mister."

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

The doctors did a horrible kind of double take as Amy half carried and half dragged Rory into the emergency unit. The horrible, gut-twisting sensation in her core told her just how bad the situation was as a orchestra of stampeding feet and chattering questions and commands overwhelmed her.

In the midst of the confusion, she focused her eyes on Rory, pushing aside guilt for not getting help for him sooner, and willing him to get better. To be alright.

There was a voice in her head, screaming what she was so afraid was the truth.

He's going to die. It's your fault. And you're never going to get to...

No. She wasn't going to go down that road. She'd never been in love. This wasn't the right time.

Amy let her body melt into the chair in the waiting room that one of the nurses pushed her into.

Wait here, they said. You need to stay calm. We're going to do everything we can. Please, just wait here.

She'd spent the last few years of her life waiting at Bad Wolf. She was waiting for her raggedy man. She'd waited for Rory. She just hadn't known she was waiting, before. She knew that she couldn't wait anymore.

But here she was, in a room that smelled like antiseptic and sweaty impatience; nerves. That funny smell of scrubs, and maybe the smell of fresh paint; it was mixed with the smell of something else. Mildew, maybe. She couldn't ever be sure.

And there was the nurse again. She was very tall, and had broad shoulders. She looked tired.

"Why don't you try to sleep?" she propositioned to the lump of sweater in the chair. Amy realized that she was the lump, and that it is rude not to answer, even if you are a sweater that is bunched in a heap with bits of trouser showing.

"Thank you."

Was that the right thing to say? Thank you? Or was it yes ma'am, or bug off?

She nodded her head, just to doubly reassure the woman that she'd heard.

Sleep. It would never happen. Not while the unknown stretched for an overwhelming length beyond her grasp. Her thoughts waded through the thick fog, groping for something. Something that would fill her with reassurance and comfort. There was nothing but the florescent lights of the hospital.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

In sad movies, it sometimes ended like this.

Don't think like that. Sometimes this is the middle bit. In inspirational films, this is only the middle bit. It will be the happy inspirational film. This is the middle bit.

Or maybe it's not. Maybe this is the sad ending.

Maybe it's almost the ending. Maybe after this is the bit where the girl throws herself off the bridge because he's gone and she can't live without him.

Would I do that?
His hands are so cold. Is he still breathing? The machine says he is.

This has to be the middle bit. Please, God if you're out there, make this the middle bit.

Raggedy man?

Santa?

Someone. Anyone.

It's Amelia Pond.

It's Amy.

Help him.

I'll do anything.

Somebody!

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

"Amy."

"Amy."

Three more times, and then she realized that it was her name, and that she'd fallen asleep. There was something in her hand. Rory's.

She sat up quickly and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Hey, you're awake!"

His eyes looked back at her, and she wanted to look away. They were so empty and bloodshot and tired.

He smiled wearily, apparently having used up all his strength forcing her name out.

"Yeah, just rest." she said quickly. "We can talk later. I'm here."

It was that simple, that short, and his eyelids were curtain down on her time with him. Curtain up on all the fears that had flooded her head.

"Rory."

The word wasn't meant to wake him, and it didn't. She whispered it, but it came from somewhere deeper than her throat, something more solid than her tongue. The name slipped out like it had been there all along, waiting to be spoken. It fit in her mouth better than her own name, or the word "hello". It was her word.

It was her Rory.

She leaned down and let her forehead rest against his arm, weaving her fingers into his.

She closed her eyes and slowly started humming. It was tuneless, but she felt his hand relax as her voice filled the room. It wasn't a song. More like a message traveling through his sleeping mind to tell him that she was there.

Suddenly, without warning, it hit her that he knew, too. He'd known before she had. Her name was his word. Just like his was hers. They belonged.

Nothing had ever felt so right, or so like home. Not her Raggedy man, not her mum and dad, not her aunt, not her house. Rory was home.

Home was breathing slowly, laboriously. Home was slipping out of her grasp. Home was going to be gone soon.

The steady monitor's beeping tried to console the red haired sweater crouched over the home-man, but it could not.

If Rory had been awake, he would have held Amy after he realized that she was getting his arm wet. The salty hot liquid dripped on his pale skin, running down towards the sheets to escape the sadness. Don't cry, Amy. Don't cry.

He would have said that.