"Ex Memoria"
34. One to One
Inside the TARDIS
Neither Amy nor Mike really remembered going back to the TARDIS. They had a vague recollection of being in those offices, passing their memories on to others, and then… But now they were sitting there, on the ground, the pulsing sounds of the console to soothe them, and their spouses at their sides.
"Rory?" Amy blinked, and he breathed, taking her hand in his own and kissing it.
"Are you alright?" he asked, feeling her forehead with his free hand. Amy leaned into the touch, nodding. "I was so worried, when we found you," he went on, and Amy gave him a look, letting him know with no words how glad she was to see him again and to know him.
"I think… my memories are coming back to me," she took a moment as though she could somehow feel the contents of her own brain.
"They are," Rory promised her. "The Doctor figured out a cure, he's got it spreading out now. I just passed it on to you."
"Well that was very kind of you," she smiled.
"Oh, well, you know me," he smiled back, and she kissed him.
"Yes, I do know you, Rory Williams." She had sacrificed so many memories up in the office, but not one of them had been the knowledge of how much she loved this man sitting by her side.
All the same, Mike had clung to the memory of Tina, and it might have saved him as much as Rory's memory had saved Amy. When he started being aware again, sitting on the TARDIS floor, suddenly he could see her, his wife sitting by his side, and though the memories he had gained were leaving him and being replaced for the ones that had always been his, he did remember one thing, and he looked into Tina's face, feeling the emotions rising from his heart into his throat again.
"We're having a baby?" he asked, and Tina was naturally surprised to know that he'd found out, but she didn't rest on it too long, instead smiling and nodding at him. He got his arms around her and held her near, kissing the top of her head when he felt her arms close around him, too.
"I wanted it to be a surprise," she lamented when they'd pulled back to see into the other's face.
"Well, it was," he pointed it, and she laughed.
"Yeah, must have been," she agreed. He would tell her the whole story, of how he'd gotten the memory from Amy while they were hiding.
"Welcome back you two!" the Doctor came around to crouch before them, reaching to tap Amy's shoulder and then Mike's, both times with a great smile on his face. "How are you feeling?"
"Headache, dizziness," Amy reported, and Mike was the same.
"Good, perfectly normal. Your memories are being sorted out, and in no time, all will be right as rain… I like that expression, don't you?" he asked the two couples before getting back on track. "So, as they may have told you already, everything is on its way to returning as it should be. The frame has been disabled, destroyed, really. The painting, as unremarkable as it's become, has been given a new frame, and both have been returned to their original post on the museum wall, thanks to Gillian. Wouldn't you know, when her boss realized a painting was missing and she came along as the hero of the piece, he agreed to rehire her, and she wouldn't agree to a thing unless Chris could come back as well, so there's another thing sorted!"
"What time is it now?" Mike blinked, wondering. The Doctor stood and went to open the door.
"Sunrise, a brand new day. All of you will need to get some rest now, especially you," he pointed to Tina with a knowing smile. Through the open door, they could see the TARDIS had been set down just in front of their home. All they had to do was get out, walk up the steps, and open the door.
"Then it's really over," Mike said then, and only he and Tina would know how much that sentence had a different meaning for them than it did for the Doctor and his companions. To those three, it meant that the Changs' adventure with them was done, and they would go home to their regular lives. To Mike and to Tina though, there was more to it. It wasn't just this adventure ending but a saga that had lasted, between this, and nine years ago at school, and ten years before that in Tina's yard, just nearly twenty years. After they left the ship, and the Doctor, and Amy and Rory, it would all be over. They'd been living so long with expectations of what would come next that to find themselves on this end, where they knew there would be no next step, felt so very strange.
"We couldn't have done it without you," the Doctor told them, the only reassurance he could give them, but well received and well appreciated.
Tina had insisted that they should all come inside and get something to eat, as all of their previous meals were far behind them. It felt like a much nicer way to part than to step off the ship and have the door closed in their face. But eventually the Doctor, Amy, and Rory did leave, walking out of the house and back into the TARDIS. Mike and Tina stayed at the door, needing to watch as the blue box disappeared from before their eyes for the last time.
When it was gone, they went back inside, knowing that just as this one long adventure was ending, another one was only beginning. They couldn't wait for the day when they would be able to tell their little son or daughter about wild rides in space with the alien with the bow tie.
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)