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Chapter I

[Would you do it? What would any of you do? Would you sail to the ends of the earth and back to fetch back witty Jack, and his precious Pearl? -Tia Dalma, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest]

This TARDIS was different, and Amy Pond did not like it. Everything seemed cold and harsh, everything was metallic shades of grey and blue, the recognizable circular patterns that could only be Gallifreyan were everywhere. The TARDIS herself seemed warm and familiar, but the rest of the console room seemed unwelcoming. Gripping the cold metal of the railing surrounding the console, Amy looked to Clara, who looked like she knew exactly what she was doing. Why did the Doctor teach her how to fly the TARDIS?

Between Clara and River, the TARDIS was put in the Vortex for them to rest safely without interruption or danger. Amy and Rory exchanged wary glances, silently wondering what the hell was going on. Clara's explanation had left many more questions than answers.

"How did the Doctor send you?" asked Amy, folding her arms across her chest and putting all her weight on one leg. She knew she was coming across as somewhat bitchy, but she didn't care. Her best friend was dead and another woman was coming along now claiming to know him, claiming that he sent her to them. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm Clara Oswald," she repeated, nervously tucking some of her hair behind her ear, "and I was born to save the Doctor."

"Bit self-absorbed are you?" Amy accused, and Rory gripped her arm to calm her down. For once, it did not work (not that he had a great success rate anyway).

Clara frowned. "If you had let me finish, I would have said that he's in danger and I can't do this by myself. It's a really long story, but basically we were fighting the Great Intelligence and we went to Trenzalore-he said you would have heard of it-and I had to jump into his time stream in order to save because had already done it: circular paradox, he said. Anyway, he jumped in after me to save me, but I was lost, splintered between every moment that the Doctor has ever lived, ever will live. That's how I've already met all of you. You probably just don't remember me. I only ever got his attention twice.

"The Doctor saved me by stealing his own TARDIS from a certain point in time, but he had to hold everything together so I had to go alone, called it a Martha Mission or something like that. It was really hard to get out of his time stream, but the TARDIS managed. But now, I need your help. There are only two people that the Doctor needs to save his life and put everything in order."

"Which two is it?" asked Rory, looking around the rest of the console room between his wife and River.

"That's the hard part," Clara said uncomfortably. "They aren't here, not even in this universe. We have to break through the walls of the universe into another world and bring two people back."

River paled, rubbing her face with her hands. Amy noticed. "What's wrong, River?"

She gave a weak smile and shook it off. "Just something I never thought I'd have to do." And she left it at that, folding her arms so the others knew that she was done speaking.

Amy brooded at the kitchen table, the warmth from her cup of tea radiating towards her face. This room didn't seem different, so as of right now, it was her favorite in the entire ship. (Well, except her and Rory's room but she didn't think she could go in there yet. It wasn't real enough to her.)

The fake windows revealing Earth reflected autumn sunshine into the kitchen, making it feel almost like fall. Amy closed her eyes and tried to imagine the rustle of leaves. Whenever this was over, she would make the Doctor take her to that planet of leave piles again. Rory would love it and hate it at the same time.

God, the Doctor. He was dead. Something about a fixed point, Clara said-not that Amy wanted to think about her replacement at all-but if she had traveled with the future Doctor, then he couldn't really be dead, could he? It all made Amy's head hurt. She was used to the complexities of time travel, but this was something else.

He had died. She saw him get shot repeatedly by that astronaut's blaster, then die in the middle of his regeneration cycle. Her Raggedy Man was gone. He was in a faraway place that she couldn't save him from. Even Clara-born-to-save-the-Doctor-Oswald couldn't save him (which made Amy happy in a selfish way).

So who the hell were these two people they had to break down the walls of the universe for to bring back here so they could save the Doctor? Amy knew she wasn't the Doctor's first companion, much less female friend, but it still hurt to know that she wasn't the most important person to him. And what must River feel like, knowing that her own husband didn't choose her as the number one person to save him?

Amy couldn't even imagine Rory doing something similar. Then Amy realized: she had been a horrible person to Rory. Ever since she first ran away with the Doctor (since he crashed in her garden, really), Amy had been putting Rory, her own husband, behind the Doctor. She had been choosing, and choosing the wrong man. It wasn't fair to Rory. How had she not seen it before?

About to push her chair back away from the table so she could go find her husband, Amy felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She looked up to her right and saw River. Biting her lower lip, Amy slumped her shoulders and stared down into her mug, curling her fingers tighter around its warm ceramic.

River sat down opposite of Amy after pouring herself a cuppa. "How are you doing?"

Normally, Amy would have replied with something snarky, but Clara Oswald's appearance did not have her in a sassy mood. Were he here, the Doctor would probably be pleased with her silence for once. Instead of something that could potentially be seen as rude (especially if the TARDIS was particularly fond of Clara and allowed her to eavesdrop, something Amy was slightly suspicious of River and the Doctor doing sometimes), Amy said, "I just saw my best friend get murdered, burned his body, and then was told that he actually is alive, but trapped inside himself. Even for the Doctor, this is weird."

River shrugged in agreement. "Only in America."

Amy laughed and allowed a smile to settle on her face. "It's been one hell of a day." River nodded, and Amy drank some more of her tea. There was a question that had been on Amy's mind since the day she first met River Song, but there was never an appropriate time to ask it. No time like the present, she chastised herself. "River," Amy said aloud, "are you and the Doctor married? Like, actually, properly married?"

River was silent for a moment, but had a coy smile on her face as she looked up at Amy with one eyebrow raised. "Spoilers," she said, her tone sing-song-y.

Really, Amy hadn't expected any different sort of answer, but it still hurt to think that River would never be completely honest. But she knew that River loved the Doctor; it was plain on her face, easily read in her eyes. Suddenly, Amy felt very guilty for the way she had acted on that beach in Utah. "River," she said, feeling her eyes prick with tears once more, "he was your husband. I'm sorry, I didn't think..."

Amy trailed off, but it didn't matter. River simply said, "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters!" Amy said loudly. A little softer, she added, "I can't imagine what I would do if that happened to Rory, if he was taken from me."

"What matters is this: the Doctor mustn't travel alone," River said, her eyes sad. "One day, you will leave him, Rory will leave him, and I won't be there. It's important that he not travel alone. He's an old man, a sad man, with only this box for company. It's enough to drive anyone mad, let alone him."

"The last of his kind," Amy mused, thinking back on the time he took her to Starship UK and they saved the last Star Whale. To River, she asked, "Why do you lie to him? All the time, all you do is lie?"

She sighed. "When one's in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve year old, one does one's best to hide the damage." She could see that Amy didn't quite understand, so she went on, "Never let him see the damage. And never, ever let him see you age. He doesn't like endings."

Amy looked down at her fingers, noting the chipped paint on her nails. She would have to go and redo them later. Maybe blue. "That hardly seems fair."

River shrugged, or so Amy assumed, since she didn't look up to see. "It's the relationship that he wants, so it's the relationship I'll give him. Because in the grand scheme of things, Amy, his life is so much bigger, so much more important than mine. I would do anything for him, and if that means keeping the truth from him, that's what I'll do."

What if that's how her relationship with Rory was? Amy could not even imagine how difficult such a life would be. Thank God he was a normal human man with normal human sensibilities. Having trust in his feelings must have been so difficult for River. Talking about this was going to make her sick.

"What did Clara say earlier that made you so upset?" asked Amy. "Was it having to find someone else to help the Doctor?"

River sighed, staring down at the table. Eventually, she looked up at Amy, the sadness plain in her eyes. "Do you know that feeling you get when you realize that as much as you love someone, they'll never love you as much as you love them because you aren't the first they've loved?"

Amy briefly thought of her harsh treatment of Rory for all those years, and felt a wave of humiliation wash over her. It should have been so obvious that he wasn't gay. And Amy had always put the Doctor before Rory, and he was her husband. It was her job to love him and only him. Slowly, Amy nodded, thinking that maybe Rory would know better than she.

"When you love someone so much that it feels so wonderful any time you see them, and they love you, too, but there was someone else first. For the Doctor, there have been dozens. Not necessarily lovers or wives, but close friends and people he could trust. I've met a few of them over the years. It's hard not to when you're in love with a man over a millennia old. Back before the Doctor stole the TARDIS and ran away from his home planet, he was married. I don't know her name, nor do I want to, but she was his wife. His official wife through the customs of his planet. Now, I'm not saying that she was 'the one' for him, but they had children. That much I know for certain. He doesn't tell me much, but I managed to get that out of him some time ago.

"It's what he doesn't tell you that should worry you. There are people he loved so very much, women he loved. Romana, Sarah Jane, Donna...but there's one more who meant more than the rest."

Amy took advantage of River's sentimental pause and asked, "What was her name?"

River shook her head. "It's not my place. She saved the Doctor-no, not like Clara Oswald-saved him from himself. He lost her, several times. Every time she found her way back, but he sent her away, finally for good. He will always love her more than anyone else in the entire universe. I don't know what happened, and I doubt I ever will, but I never had a chance to compete against her."

"Well, how do you know he still loves her?" asked Amy, folding her arms on the table, half-drunk tea long forgotten.

River smiled sadly. "It's in what he won't say. The Doctor talks all the time, but he never really says anything. You know that, don't you? He can talk for hours, but he won't tell you anything that's on his mind. For most people, that's clever. For him, it's a gift and a blessing. If we knew half the things that were going on in his mind, I truly think we would die.

"I know that he loved her more than anyone else," continued River, "because of what he won't say. It's a look he gets when he passes a certain door or we land on a certain planet or he comes across something in a book that makes him smile and turn like he expects her to be there. He's a brilliant man; he plays it off like he meant to tell you all along, but there is a flicker of sadness in his eyes and that tells more than anything he could ever say."

Thinking about it, all of River's words made sense to Amy. That had happened several times over the fifteen-nearly-sixteen years she'd known the Doctor. Less often now than at the very beginning, but still there sometimes. The way he would say a word, or a look he would give her, like he thought she should be several inches shorter.

River watched Amy think, and deflated as she smiled. "And it's alright," River said. "It's alright that he loved her, because it's my turn now. I love him so much that it hurts, but there's nothing I can do to rid him of her memory. Even the TARDIS was fond of her, won't let her go. I can hear it sometimes. Her song will change every so often, whenever he's thinking about her."

"And you think that's who the Doctor trusts the most," Amy supplied.

"Oh, Amy," River said, her tone almost condescending, like she were speaking to her child. "I know she's who the Doctor trusts the most."

Amy studied her friend carefully. "Are you okay with that? Sacrificing your marriage to save the Doctor? To give him back the one thing he loved the most?"

River nodded. "I have to be. I love him so, so much. I just want him to be happy, even if that means being with her. To save him, I could do anything."

Amy pondered River's words momentarily, allowing enough time to pass for the kitchen door to swing open. Rory walked into the kitchen, capturing the attention of both women. "If it's alright with you two," he said, "I think Clara wants to get to work."

River stood faster than Amy could, but it was Amy who spoke first, only after a careful glance at River Song. "Let's go find the Doctor's friends."