A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful reviews! I feel much more encouraged now, thanks! As a reward, I'm posting this chapter early. Just remember to keep it up, guys! You're wonderful!

Oh, and just as a reminder...this Rory is NOT Rory Pond. Williams. Pond. Definitely Pond. But my point is, Clara's Rory is NOT the Nose at all. The Nose is currently living happily ever after with the Legs...whenever they are. :'( still miss the Ponds...maybe I'll go watch Dinosaurs on a Spaceship to cheer me up.

-REMEMBER ME-

CHAPTER SIX

Rory

I recover from my regeneration well. Rory adjusts to my new self and I adjust to my new self. And we run off and have adventures, me and Rory, and our relationship is stronger than ever.

But I can see it. It's creeping up on him, all this running we do. He's ageing, more noticeably every day, and eventually I'll have to face the fact that I will have to say goodbye.

I can't do it. I've been running so long with him I don't know how to stop. I've been with him so long I don't know how to say goodbye. I don't know if I can live without him. My Rory. Rory and Clara in the TARDIS.

He promised me his forever, and that's what he gave me. His forever.

But his forever couldn't be my forever.

I never left him. I took care of him, as he grew older and older. As people began to think he was my father, then my grandfather, then my great-grandfather. They never knew the truth, as he lay on his death bed, an old man, sick and weak. He had only hours to live, I knew. His life would soon be over, and I would be alone.

"I don't want to say goodbye," I tell him. I know I'm crying, and it hurts, to love someone so much. "I don't want you to just be a story in my head."

His wrinkled, wasted hand weakly grasps my own, and I can see, in his eyes. That kindness, that spark of curiosity. That love.

"We're all stories in the end, Clara." He tells me. It's something I've heard before. I can't remember where. "Promise me something."

"Anything," I say through my tears.

"Find him. Find your Doctor."

"I can't. Not without you."

"You don't need me, Clara. You're magnificent. You're wonderful, you impossible girl," he whispers endearingly, and smiles with wrinkled lips that I have kissed I know not how many times.

He slips off into sleep, and I fall asleep next to him, my head rested on the bed, my hand grasped tightly in his.

And when I wake up, he's gone.

I stay long enough for the funeral. I place the flowers on his grave, and I leave. I get in my TARDIS and I fly away. I can't look back. I can't allow myself to mourn, because it hurts too much. I have to keep running, just as the Doctor would do. But I don't know where to run to.

Nothing holds any interest for me. And then it hits me.

I want to go home.

I land on Gallifrey, and there it is. My house, looking just as it always has. That front yard with the red grass and the silver tree with my swing. I walk down the white garden path, breathing in the scent of the dazzling white flowers with the shining silver leaves that line my path home. And I go through the blue front door that always means coming home.

As soon as I walk in, I feel it. I feel the wonderful feeling of being home.

"Dad?" I call out.

And there he is, my dad. My wonderful, wonderful father. Looking a bit older, but just exactly the same. And before I know it, I'm in tears, and I throw myself in his arms, clinging to him like there's no tomorrow.

"Hey, hey, sweetheart, it's okay."

I just cry, and cry, and cry. He holds me tightly, knowing something terrible has happened. He doesn't know exactly what, but he knows I need him.

He takes care of me, and I finally let myself go. I let myself just not care, I am selfish. I let myself mourn. I let my dad take care of me, as only dads can. He never asks me what's wrong, or what's happened. I haven't seen him since before I regenerated, and he doesn't question that, either. He knows it's me, though. Time Lords always know.

He's just simply there for me, and I love him for that.

It's weeks before I can surface, before I can even breathe for my grief. In my nightshift, I walk around the garden, and watch the suns set and the mountains shine. I watch the sparkling Citadel of the Time Lords in its glass dome, so oddly familiar after all I have seen. It looks exactly the same, and yet looks so different to my travel-weary eyes.

How do you do it? How do you travel so much, see so much, love so much, and never come home? How do you run, and run, and run, and never stop?

As I watch the second sun set, I think of you. I think of my childhood, and I think of all the things I have seen and learned. I watch as the stars come out, and I identify the ones I have been to. I think of all the wonderful things I have seen on those stars. I try not to think how many of those I have seen with Rory.

I stay out all night, laying on the red grass, feeling the ground cooling beneath my fingertips, watching the stars. I drift in and out of consciousness, and I think of Rory, and I think of the stars, and I think of you.

I'm so much older now. I'm tired. I almost wish, sometimes, that I had died with Rory. I have seen so much, and yet there are so many things I have yet to see. I don't want to stop running, and yet all I want to do is stop.

I need you, chin boy. I need you so much. If only you could remember me.

Run you clever boy, and remember me.

A/N: REMEMBER TO LEAVE A REVIEW! :)