Saw DW&W last night, definitely a good episode. I'll not say any spoilers here, but trust me, worth watching.

No Doctor this chapter, focusing on Rory and Amy. I hope I have made their characters' reactions believable.

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Chapter 7

Amy shrank away, dropping the receiver. The Doctor advanced on her menacingly.

"No," she whispered, then realized what she said.

"Thank you for using the Matrix Prime Virtual Reality System. When you are ready to withdraw, please restate your request."

Then a busy tone. The Doctor grinned.

"Looks like it's just you and me now," he whispered, playing with her hair. She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

"Hey."

Hope rushed back as she recognized the voice. "Rory."

The Doctor turned around to face him. "Well, well, who do we have here?" he said condescendingly. "Competition? You wish."

Rory glared at him, the full fury of the Last Centurion barely in check. The auras of the two caused chairs to scrape and feet to scamper.

"Rory, be careful," Amy cautioned. "He's not our Doctor."

Keeping the pseudo-Time Lord in sight, Rory moved into a fighting stance, one from a memory of his Roman life. The Doctor moved into a different stance, one that Rory recognized from his experience as Venusian Akido, but it was a sloppy stance.

With a snarl, the Doctor leapt at Rory, aiming for his neck. Gracefully, Rory stepped aside, letting the Doctor slam into a nearby table. The Doctor stumbled, but did not let up.

"Amy, get out of here," said Rory.

"What? I'm not leaving you!"

"Amy, please!" He ducked another punch.

She scoffed. "I am not leaving you here with – with that!"

As Rory bobbed and weaved, Amy looked around, trying to find anything that might give Rory an advantage. She ducked into the kitchen. She grinned as her eyes alighted upon the perfect item.

Back in the dining area, the Doctor threw Rory over the countertop, smashing the tip jar and causing the register to fall to the ground.

"Rory, Rory, Rory, why can't you die and stay dead?" he growled.

Rory grimaced as he stumbled to his feet. "I suppose Death has a restraining order against me."

The Doctor barked out a laugh. "Then I suppose I'm going to have to break that restraining order and put you where you belong."

But the Doctor had barely gotten two feet when a pizza oven paddle was slammed into the back of his head. His eyes widened at the impact, then he slumped to the ground and didn't move. Stunned, Amy dropped the paddle, then ran to Rory.

"Rory, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"Shh, what for?"

She hiccupped. "This fantasy world. It knew I had wanted to travel with the Doctor since I was little, but it took that to mean I didn't want be with you."

He stroked her hair, trying to calm her down.

"Hey." He brushed a tear away. "Let's get out of here, ok?"

She nodded.

The phone rang again.

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Rory gasped as he collapsed to the floor. Amy's VR-Pod opened, and she tumbled out. For a moment, the two simply lay there on the backs, catching their breath.

Finally, they sat up and caught sight of each other.

"Rory?"

"Amy?"

Rory's hair, once sandy brown, was now a shiny, polished shade of silver. Crows' feet and facial wrinkles were present, as were a few spots on his hands. Amy's hair, once crimson red, was now snow white. She too, had wrinkles on her face, with smaller crows' feet near her eyes.

They touched each other's faces, marveling at the differences.

"The Doctor," said Rory suddenly.

They scrambled to their feet. Inside his tube, the Doctor lay calmly, still sleeping. His hair was still brown, but with grey and white threading through. He did have a few wrinkles now. Whereas before, he had looked at most 30, the Doctor now looked to be in his mid-40s. And if the ever increasing amount of hairs turning colors was a good indicator, he was probably getting closer to 50 with every breath.

"Where's Benedict?" said Amy suddenly.

"Dunno, he wasn't here the first time I came round."

The doors chose that moment to slide open. They whipped around to see Benedict standing in the doorway, mouth agape.

"Rory? Amy?" he asked.

"You forgot to mention this might be part of the problem," said Rory, indicating their aged bodies.

Benedict's eyes widened. He honestly looked like he hadn't expected whatever the virus was to affect them like this.

"Look, we need to get the Doctor out," said Amy. "Rory came into my fantasy by using the wires from his pod to connect to mine, but we can't use our pods again, the wires are burnt."

Indeed, the two VR-pods were still smoking a bit from the cross-wiring job Rory had done.

Benedict scrambled to Doctor's VR-pod. He input multiple commands. Each time, the pod's computer rejected him.

"I can't shut down his pod," Benedict whispered, shocked. "I've been locked out of the controls."

Rory glanced at the Doctor. He was still aging slowly.

"We need to get back in," he insisted.

"There's no telling how much more your bodies can stand," said Benedict. "An hour, two tops."

"The Doctor doesn't have time for us to wait about and find a solution," snapped Amy, Scottish brogue loud.

Rory's mind was working in overdrive. The memories of his time in the machine were slipping away faster than sand in an hourglass. He concentrated, grasping onto a few concepts left over. Quickly, he began gathering random computer bits of the ruined machines. Amy stared at him.

"Rory, what are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how to use some of the spare parts around here and turn them into a synchronized brain wave analyzer so we can find what frequency of subsonic activity is keeping the fantasy going in his head. Then we can use this and this, with a bit of that, to connect our brain waves to the Doctor's VR-pod. Shame he's got the sonic screwdriver in there with him, would have made assembly easier."

Rory looked up from his rapid delivery to find Amy and Benedict staring at him, the former in absolute confusion and shock, the latter in glee.

"Yes, yes, and don't forget you need to install an energy buffer in case of a critical overload," agreed Benedict. Rory noted that, and grabbed an extra bit from a parts bin.

"Rory, what exactly did you pick up in there?" asked Amy. "Cause I've only ever heard the Doctor talk like that and you sounded just like him."

Rory didn't answer, simply plugged the wires into the small computer he had made near scratch.

"Here, take this," interrupted Benedict. He held out a pair of watches. "They're set for 90 minutes, they'll let you know how much time has gone by in the real world compared to the virtual one. It'll tap into your brain waves and project onto your skin. It'll look like you're really wearing them."

"Thanks," said Amy, strapping hers to her wrist. Rory followed suit, then offered one of the temple leads to Amy.

"Are you sure this is gonna work?" she asked warily.

Rory sighed. "No. But it's the only chance we've got. And his too."

A white flash.

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You have no idea how close I was to having Rory shift into his centurion outfit for the fight scene. But I think this works out better.