"So, Doctor, you've died before?"

"Hm?" He glanced up, squinting at Amy who was idly trailing her hands on the console across from him, "Oh, well, I don't know. Yes? No? It's a bit of a tricky question."

Amy leaned on the console, folding her arms, "No, but I mean- not the regeneration thing that you told us about."

He raised an eyebrow, manic movements stilling as he peered around the centerpiece, brow furrowed. He asked curiously, almost suspicious, "What's this about Pond?"

Amy shrugged, "Just curious. I mean, don't you want to know what's on the other side, Raggedy Man?"

The Doctor shrugged, "You should ask your husband. He's died." He held up two fingers, eyes wide, "Twice."

Rory sighed from where he'd just emerged from the top of the stairs, "I can hear you, you know!"

The Doctor jumped, spinning around and holding up a finger, "Ah, sorry Rory! But if it helps, it wasn't my fault."

Rory shook his head, taking the steps two at a time, beelining for Amy. He picked her up, twirling her around, before planting a kiss on her lips. The Doctor grimaced as their kiss deepened and, making a sound of disgust, he promptly returned to working on his TARDIS.

After a moment, Amy drew back from her husband with a happy hum, "And what was that for, Mr. Pond?"

He laughed, their noses brushing, hands on her hips, "Did it have to be for something, Mrs. Williams?"

Amy giggled.

"Oi!"

They looked up, Amy pouting at the Doctor before turning back around to her husband, "As I was asking, apparently the wrong person," she threw a playful glare at the Doctor who pulled a face before she focused again on her husband, "What was it like being dead, Rory?"

Rory frowned, "Uh, well hold on there, how would I know?"

Amy blinked, "Well, husband, you've died twice in case you forgot?"

Rory scratched the back of his head, "Did I?" Amelia nodded, raising an eyebrow. Such an event was a little too traumatic to forget. She waited before realization finally dawned, "Oh, right! Mrs. Poggit!" He wrinkled his nose, "That can't really be called dying, could it? I mean yeah I was kind of dead. In a dream. So no, I wouldn't know about that."

Amy's brows furrowed, "What about the Silurians?"

Rory frowned, "Well, yeah but then I went and woke up as a Roman. I didn't really get anything other than that." At Amy's put out look he continued, "But... didn't the Doctor technically die? He went through the crack."

The Doctor leaned around the console, chiming in helpfully, "Nope! Didn't die! I went through the crack. I didn't die, I never existed at all- it's completely different. I was in the Void."

Amy nodded, taking a step back, fingers still laced with Rory's, "Oh! The Void! Like the never-space? That's what River called it anyway." The Doctor nodded in confirmation and Amy frowned, "What is that, anyway? If never existing at all doesn't lead to an afterlife, where does it lead? How can there be a- a void? That doesn't track."

"Void between the worlds, Amelia Pond! The nothingness between other realities, dimensions, and parallel universes. It is quite literally nothing. No time, no space, no up or down. You exist outside of the universe." At their blank looks he waved a hand, "Think of it like a limbo." He moved on, flicking buttons and levers, absentmindedly talking, entering his usual educator role enthusiastically, "Well, kind of a limbo. Sort of. My people banished several horrors there, ones too destructive or dangerous to even be allowed to exist here." He laughed, "Fitting a fate as any I suppose. The idea of hell probably came from the void, you know! So, I guess it's not really a limbo...?"

He flipped a lever, waving a hand, "Don't worry though, Ponds, nothing could escape that place. Not unless we opened up the cracks again. Or split apart the dimensions, or..." he paused glancing up. Their faces were stricken and he opened and closed his mouth, "Er, actually yeah that's not as reassuring as it was meant to be. Don't worry, Ponds! No void business will happen while I'm around."

Amy's voice reached a new pitch, "Raggedy Man! The Void is hell?"

He paused, wincing, "Did I say that?"

Rory nodded, "Yeah, you kind of did."

He waved his hands, "No, what I said was that the idea of hell could've come from it. It's only like hell- no wait, that's just as bad."

Rory's lips thinned, "Yeah, it is."

Amy glared at the Doctor, hands on her hips, "You never said anything about the cracks leading to hell! You just said that it would be like you'd never existed. You lied, Raggedy Man."

Rory took her hand with a grimace and said quietly, "Rule Number One, Amy..."

The Doctor winced as Amy's face crumpled, "Well I didn't lie, per say, I just didn't mention it. It was one tiny little detail. Besides it's over now, it's gone. What's the point in hashing it out, anyway?"

Amy shook her head, "How long were you there? How long until I remembered?"

The Doctor started around the console, pulling her into a hug, "Oh, Pond. It wasn't so bad. Not long." He rubbed her back, trying to be reassuring, "There's no time in the never-space, so it felt like everything and nothing at once."

Rory winced as Amy snapped wetly, "That doesn't make it better, Raggedy Man, that makes it worse."

The Doctor winced, "I'm sorry, Amelia. But it's over now." He drew back, peering into her eyes, completely earnest, "And I'm fine now. You remembered. You saved me."

Rory spoke up then, "You're right, but Doctor, you can't keep this stuff from us. That's... that's horrible, honestly. You're our friend."

The Doctor smiled, something sad there, "Rory, you and I both know that Amelia never would've let me go if I had. Or if I did, she would've had to make that terrible choice- me or the universe." His eyes were dark, "No one should have to make a choice like that, Rory. No one."

Amelia shook her head adamantly, "You don't get to make that decision."

He tapped her nose, an attempt at being lighthearted, "Already did."

Amy's eyes narrowed as he whirled back around to face the console, but Rory squeezed her hand, shaking his head. Rory got the feeling that the Time Lord had had many personal experiences with a choice like that... and putting pressure on that weak point wasn't the wisest idea. It wasn't what their friend needed right now. Amelia's lips thinned, "Doctor..."

He looked up, giving her a small sad smile, brows raised as if he were the picture of innocence. Amy sighed, holding out her hands, "Don't do it again."

He took them, grinning widely, something more serious coloring his speech, "I'll try not too, Amelia. For you."

Amy pulled him into another hug, "You better not be lying, Raggedy Man."

"Me? Never!"

She snorted, burying her head in his tweed jacket and hoping that this time he was speaking the truth.

It's a pleasant lie. Sometime he dreams of it still- that endless hell where he sat out the entirety of eternity in no time at all. A nothing so deep and profound he was hardly conscious, where no air filled his lungs but he lived anyways, neither in darkness nor in light, trapped forever. He had watched time run out, slip from his fingers like water in a sieve, moment by moment, left to himself and his thoughts until the end. Except there was no end in a place where time could not touch, in a place outside of everything that had ever been and everything that ever would be. It was a form of existence worse than death, he had wished in fact, that he had died. To die would be a better fate than that half-life, but he'd felt the Void was no less than he'd deserved. However, he'd gotten out, mad impossible Amelia Pond had gotten him out and, despite that vindictive part of himself, he was so grateful. Even if he still felt altered.

Even now, he still felt as if the void stuff still clung to his bones. He knew River had been able to sense it at the wedding, that radiation that tainted him, a remnant of his time there. She hadn't said anything. Her brows had softened and he knew she had seen straight through him, but she hadn't reached out. Something told him he was still too young. That frightened him, to think that one day he would trust her so. Not as much as it used too, somehow. And maybe that was what frightened him most of all.

He drew back from Amy pressing a kiss to her forehead, "It was no trouble, Amelia, trust me. No trouble at all."

That was a lie. But, he found, seeing Amy and Rory well and happy made it worth it, worth every terrible nightmare and bitter memory of the never-space, worth the fact that such a terrible non-place was ground into skin and twisted permanently around his hearts.

"Now," he turned, to the console, his old hearts nearly bursting with affection as he grinned at them, at his Ponds, well worth everything that he had to give and more, "Where to next?"