Chapter 8: Love Lives

When Amy arrives at Leadworth's small hospital she pulls a sobbing River into her arms.

"We were just walking down the sidewalk and he stopped to put his mobile in his pocket, and someone ran their car onto the sidewalk."

"River this has happened before, and you need to trust me."

"I would remember if this had happened before!'

"No, you wouldn't. You are about ready to tell me the car that hit him was blue and you didn't see the driver. You'll tell me the doctors want to take Rory off life support and I must not let that happen." Amy reaches forward and tried to touch River's hand, but River shies away. "When we walk in that room his doctors will say his condition is hopeless, and that he'll never recover from the coma. They'll say he is completely brain dead. They'll ask if I want to talk to a chaplain, and then they'll offer to bring us tea."

River catches her breath. "Mum, you're in shock. Now come with me and see dad and talk to his doctors."

River sits in stunned silence as the doctors repeat word for word what Amy predicted they would say. When they finish Amy asks for some time alone with her husband and River. As the door shuts behind them she says, "Last time this happened you looked at me with your gorgeous eyes red and swollen and begged me not to let him go. You said I just had to tell him to come back. You insisted he'd listen to me. You were right, but I told them to take him off life support anyway."

River blinks back tears. "Assuming I believe you, how could you do that, especially to him? He loved you. Waited for you, and he waited far longer than you ever waited for the Doctor. He died for you more than once. How could you let him die? Unless . . . Did you want him dead? With him dead you could finally make a play for your precious Doctor." River's voice was a sneer, dripping contempt.

"No, River." Amy's voice is gentle. "Let me finish. You screamed and ranted. I had to threaten to have security throw you from the room before you would be quiet. You waited with me until he drew his last breath, and then you turned and stared at me. You had a look of rage in your eyes that I hope to never see again. You said, 'he is dead and you are dead to me. I will never return here; I will never speak to you again after this day.' And then you walked away. What I couldn't tell you was why I let the hospital take Rory off life support. It was because he was already dead. He died of leukemia when he was twelve years old and I was nine, and staring at him laying in that hospital bed I remembered."

"That's impossible. Worse it's ridiculous. He is my father. He couldn't have died at the age of twelve." River started to turn away.

"No, your father didn't die at the age of twelve, but your father is not Rory Williams."

River whips around. "Don't you ever speak to me again." Each word cracks like a whip. "You lie. I'm part Time Lord because I was conceived on the Tardis." A look of horror crosses her face. "Are you saying the Doctor is my father? Because that is SICK."

"No, the Doctor isn't your father. River,"

"You SLUT!" River screams, "for the last time SHUT UP."

And with a faint popping noise River activates her Vortex Manipulator and is gone.

Tick-tock goes the clock

And what now shall we play?

Tick-tock goes the clock

Now summer's gone away

Amy leans forward and kisses Rory gently. She remembers the duck pond she pushed him in the first day they met. They'd had an argument that started when she said Leadworth was so rubbish it didn't even have ducks in its duck pond and ended with her pushing him face first into the small pond in the village square. Even then he'd been in awe of her. He was nine, short for his age, and scrawny. She was six, homesick, and stubborn. They were an unlikely pair, but it worked. It had always worked.

She made up their games and stories. Before the Doctor came she'd been enthralled with princesses and dragons. She was the Dragon Princess and Rory was the knight who had to return all the stupid princesses back to their kingdoms. She was the only princess smart enough to become a dragon. Rory liked being a knight and protested when she told him they were done with knights, dragons, and princesses because she had met the Doctor and everything else was now boring.

Rory had never been popular and hanging out with the bad tempered new kid wasn't going to make him more popular, but Rory Williams did not choose friends based on what he could get out of it. The teasing she'd gotten at school over her obsession with her imaginary friend was nothing compared to the bullying that happened to him. He was three years older and a boy; his classmates were vicious. He never told Amy why they teased him, but he didn't have to. She gave one of them a bloody nose when she caught them tormenting Rory, her Rory, at the park. They stopped meeting at the park after that. It was safer to play in Aunt Sharon's garden.

And then came the leukemia, she remembered her aunt saying "acute lymphoblastic leukemia" like it was a bad taste that had to be spit out. She went to the hospital every day after school. They wouldn't let her in the same room with him. She had to sit on the other side of the window into his room and talk through the intercom system. She told him about the adventures they would have with the Doctor. He didn't have the energy to talk much. He faded away in front of her like the Tardis did, but instead of a few seconds it took six months. She was holding his hand when he took his last breath. It was against hospital policy to have nine-year-old non-family member present, but nothing was going to stop Amelia Pond from granting her friend's last wish. At the age of twelve Rory Williams died for the first time.

Amy wiped tears from her eyes and went to tell Rory's doctors to take him off life support. Once again she would hold his hand.