The doctor was gone for over a day.

Amy paced around the TARDIS console, carefully avoiding the spot from which the doctor had last disappeared. She veered away from Rory when he tried to comfort her. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," she muttered. "Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!"

He'd said he could survive three jumps. This was his third. And when was it going to end? What if he's been pushed forward a month? Or a year? They'd starve to death waiting for him...

Not that this thought really mattered. She could give a rat's ass about herself right now.

She just wanted the doctor, her doctor, back safe.

She fingered the scrap of paper in her pocket where she'd written down the questions that they had for the doctor.

If he were conscious when he returned. If he ever returned.

How do we stop this? How do we fly the TARDIS out of here?

What do we do if you jump forward in time again, and never come back? How long should we wait?

She hoped they wouldn't have time to ask the second question, because every time she thought about it, she wanted to cry.

Rory saw the tears in her eyes and reached out again. Abruptly she stopped and surrendered. She let him hold her, her tears puddling on his shoulder.

But within five minutes she was pacing again.

Hour after hour after hour.

Until:

FLASH.

Amy saw it from out of the corner of her eye - she'd finally allowed herself to rest, her head cradled in Rory's lap. With a convulsive leap she flew up and across the TARDIS to where the doctor appeared. Rory followed behind, second banana as always.

The doctor appeared leaning on the TARDIS console, in mid-sentence, just as he'd left. But no words came out. Instead, he gasped - choked - and staggered. Blood flew into the air as he coughed.

The apple fell to the floor from a flailing hand and smashed like a glass toy into crystal shards of ice. Amy's feet crunched on them as she ran.

Despite Rory's protests - "Don't touch him!" - she caught the doctor as he fell. His head hit her collarbone hard. It left red stains on her shirt.

With shaking arms, she lowered him down and laid him gently on his side. He was trembling, staring at nothing. Blood was sprayed around his ears and nose. He made an awful wheezing sound as he breathed. Amy took a trembling hand in hers while Rory tried to figure out what was bleeding.

"Doctor?" she asked. "Doctor, can you hear me? Doctor!" She put her face in front of his, tried to meet his eyes. "Doctor!"

Slowly he focused on her, and then she felt him attempt to pull his hand away from hers. "G...get away, g-go..." he wheezed at her. His voice was weak, raspy and awful to hear. Something gurgled in his throat.

He glared at her from that pale, bloodied face. "Let... g-go!"

Amy felt herself become very calm and focused. She glared right back at him, and held his hand tight. "I'm not letting go until you help us, Doctor. We need to save you and we don't know how. So tell me RIGHT NOW, and I promise I'll let go. How do we fly the TARDIS out of this mess?"

The doctor's face was strained and sick. "No...time..." He kept trying to pull his hand away, but she held fast.

"Stop saying that and just tell me! NOW!"

His eyes rolled back in his head and closed. For a moment Amy thought he was unconscious. Then he spoke, so quietly that Amy had to bend close to hear.

"Damn you...P...Pond." She almost laughed.

"Three...steps.

"Silver...knob...up.

"Wooden...lever...down." He raised a trembling hand and vaguely pointed. Amy could see where he'd been standing, saw what she hoped were the right ones.

"Chrome lever ...right." He stopped, and a faint smile appeared. "But...you know...that...part." His eyes closed.

"OK, ok, is that it? What do we do if it doesn't work?" She shoved her face even closer to his, but he didn't answer. His hand went limp in hers.

"Doctor!" she shouted. "Doctor! It didn't work before! What do we do if it doesn't work again? Doctor! Dammit!" She shook him, praying he would open his eyes. "Doctor!"

But he was beyond reach.

And then Rory, who had showed admirable restraint, lost patience and yanked the woman he loved away from danger. "Dammit, Amy, he said not to touch him. Enough. What if he goes again and takes you with him? We know what to do, let's do it! Come on!"

Amy wanted to protest but knew he was right. "OK. OK. I've done the chrome lever part, I'll do that again. You take the wood and silver."

"Well, which ones are they?" demanded Rory. "I see...like...four different silver knobs here."

"Well, I don't know!" hollered Amy back at him. "Let's try them all!"

"OK, ok, let's be calm about this. This one, well...is a door knob, and that's a toilet plunger...that can't be right.

"I bet it's this one. Let's try this one."

"Right!" yelled Amy. "Just say when!"

"On my mark...ready...set...

"Oh no, wait."

Amy felt frustration threaten to rip out of her and do serious harm to someone. Any minute now, the doctor could disappear, and he'd be dead when he returned. "What is it? What?"

"Well," said Rory, "I...I can't reach both levers at once. I don't know how we'll set them all at once. His arms - "he glanced at the prone, bloodied man on the floor - "they're much longer than mine."

"Well, figure it out!" Amy was shrieking now. "Just figure it out! Use your foot or something!"

"Right, right. OK. With my foot. Ready? One - two - three!"

They both pushed with all their might. Nothing happened.

"DAMMIT!" hissed Amy. "How do we even know if it worked?"

"Nope, nope," said Rory thoughtfully. "I don't think that was it. Maybe it IS the toilet plunger. 'Course, that one's even further from the other lever...but maybe if I stand on the console..."

They tried again and again, Rory contorting himself into crazy positions to try and hit both parts at once, and still: nothing happened. Over and over. Amy was scared to look down at the doctor, terrified that at any point she would see the flash and he would be gone. And this time - trip four - she just didn't want to think about what a mess he'd be. If he ever showed up again.

"Hurry, Rory!" she pleaded. "He can't do another one!"

"I know, I know...Here, let's do this. I'll try your lever, and you try mine. I think it might be these two, but I wonder if it will respond better to you."

Amy didn't care what they did as long as it worked. She ran around to where Rory was standing. The doctor lay unconscious just inches from her feet. She wanted to weep. She felt a deep desire to go to him, to hold him, to try to heal his broken body.

Instead she swallowed, carefully looked anywhere else, and focused on her question: "Which ones are you using?"

He showed her and she climbed up on the console, foot on the silver knob, hand stretched as far as it can reach to touch the wooden lever. "Are you sure it's these two?"

He grinned. "Nope. But we'll keep trying till we hit it, I promise, OK?"

"OK." She took a deep breath. "One...two..three!"

And finally, something happened! The TARDIS gave a wild lurch. Amy wasn't braced and she flew off the console and landed hard next to the doctor's outstretched hand. She smacked her head on the floor. "Ow! Crap."

She moaned and slowly sat up, holding her head. "Ow...ow..." Rory came over and inspected the back of her head.

"Oh, yeah, you've already got a goose-egg. That's going to hurt."

She glared at him. "It already does. Did that do it? Do you think that did it?"

Rory looked up at the Doctor's screens as if they made any sense to him. They didn't.

"Well, we did something. But I don't know if it was right. Think we should keep trying?"

"Let's ask him. Maybe he'll know." She turned to the doctor, carefully not touching him, one hand still on her throbbing head. "Doctor? Wake up! Doctor! Did we do it?"

"Amy, be careful." warned Rory from behind her.

"Don't - "

But she did.

She reached out to the doctor's arm to try and shake him awake - and -

something -

flashed -

- she felt a little dizzy -

- a deep, awful cold -

...and then Rory was staring her in the face.

Hadn't he been behind her?

And when did he grow a beard?

And then she couldn't see anything anymore. It was like her body exploded. She felt blood pouring out of her nose and her ears and a thousand points of needles inside of each joint. Her head was splitting open and she couldn't tell which way was up...

She collapsed into Rory's arms, and felt nothing after that.