Rose couldn't sleep.

Thinking of the Doctor had turned out to be the worst possible plan for calming down. She couldn't organize any of her thoughts, couldn't plan a ruddy thing, not when he might be out there right now. First she was thinking of what it might be like if she did find him, and then she was just thinking of him. The Doctor. It was like being stuck on a hamster wheel, running through her time with him and the last time she'd seen his smile and trying to remember the exact way he used to say her name. Over and over and over and over in her mind. She wasted ages in that living room, in No.11, flopped back against a spare pillow, under a lumpy duvet that was much bigger than the couch. Just lingering.

It was pathetic, but she couldn't resist. Could have been the adrenaline left over from the Angels, or the chocolate Will had got out for her when her stomach had rumbled a bit too loud. If she were being generous with herself, she'd say either one. She'd say that was all, and she could shift and try to rest. But that wasn't all; neither of those were it. The Doctor was keeping her awake and she made the conscious decision to allow it.

Rose just didn't want focus on anything else. It had been too long since she'd really stopped and thought of him. The early months, yes, he was all she could think of after the Void. After Norway. But that was more like background noise—like everything she did and said would remind her she was missing something. He was in all the details of ordinary, irritating, everyday life on Pete's World.

This was worse than that. This was sillier. This was Rose letting her mind wander and remember and stretch out for the Doctor with no point to it. Jackie was right about this, too—that no amount of pining was going to bring him knocking.

Might not even be here, Rose had to keep reminding herself, staring at the ceiling with a chocolate wrapper twisted between her fingers. Might be a coincidence. Pete's World had aliens. This dimension had had Cybermen, hadn't it, and that had been in the works long before the Doctor had first arrived with Rose and Mickey in tow.

Just because a lot of statues moved in an old creepy house did not mean that the Doctor had found a way through worlds.

Two universes would collapse. They'd been through a lot of impossible things, the two of them, but this one felt really permanent. A whole year had gone by with no sign of him. The walls were very, very closed, and Rose had known that for months.

Hadn't it always been her, telling that lot at Torchwood that there would be no more threats from across the Void? That Canary Wharf was over? "Definitely over," she would say to Mickey. "Nothing left, all right? Just leave it." And here she was, giving herself the same crushing reprimands.

Gotta be a coincidence. Can't be him.

What if it is, though?

Is he back at that house now?

Don't be stupid. Can't be him.

On and on it went, for two and a half hours. Rose ate chocolate and switched off the telly and rolled onto her side, her back, her other side. And thought about the Doctor and told herself to hush. There would be no work done this way, and no sleep either. She had a job to do. An earth to defend. A Time Lord to make proud. More to be, more to do, at last, but she couldn't get started because her ankle hurt and she wanted the Time Lord here. With her. Like a petulant child. Wouldn't he want that, too? Did he ever think of her this way?

And off she went again.

Rose lurched up, determined to stop herself now. It was making her chest ache. If this was what she'd be like every time Torchwood met with an otherworldly threat, might as well hand in her resignation the moment the sun came up. Useless.

Luckily, help arrived in the form of a loud sound down the hall. Something breaking. A distraction.

Rose pushed herself off of the couch, duvet in a pile on the floor. It was coming from Will's room, and she knew it was Will's room because she could hear him muttering in there.

Well, she thought. Long as I'm up.

The flat was dark all around her; she nearly tripped on her way up to the main level. Rory and Amy had both gone to bed much earlier—in fact, Rose hadn't seen Amy again since the argument in the dining room. Rory had come out to help Will find the extra bedding for Rose, and then he'd disappeared. No.11 was even colder, even weirder, like this. The lack of photographs, the lack of a homey smell—it almost made it spookier than the house on Hettie Row. Rose had assured Will she wouldn't need any kind of light on, but she knew he'd left the loo one going for her just in case. And she thought she heard running water, too.

Perhaps that light wasn't for her benefit alone. She could see from the line of dim yellow coming out beneath his door that he'd needed a bit of extra help relaxing too. Anyone would, after the Angels.

She rapped a bit on the door first with two knuckles, just in case. Another crashing sound, smaller.

Will opened the door and it couldn't have been clearer that he'd never gone to bed. Bags were getting heavier by the second under both glazed green irises, and his coat was slipping off one shoulder, unnoticed. He still smelled like paper, but now there was tea or spice mixed in, and his cologne was wearing away. He was half bent over, like his head hurt to hold up. Brown fringe was in his eyes; he shoved it all to one side when he saw her and blinked to look more awake.

It didn't work.

"Sorry," he said. He was always saying that. "Dropped a helicopter. Did I wake you?"

"Nah, been up." Rose leaned slightly on the doorframe, hitching her own hoodie tighter round her tank top, suddenly cold without the duvet. "Can I come in?"

"Er, yes," Will sniffed, glancing behind him at the general room, as if warning it to behave. "Yeah."

The bedroom was smaller than she'd expected. It had one cot, pushed up into a corner, about as unmade as a bed could be without being on display in a mattress store. All the sheets and things were carelessly strewn around its legs, and Rose wondered briefly if Will had used his bed at all lately. A small dresser had been squeezed in near the footboard. There was a desk and a wheely chair too, both glossy and black, not unlike Sally's work station at Torchwood. But instead of a computer or stacks of games and magazines, it was piled high with bits of toys. Trains and tin dogs, just like he said, Rose realized. A little engine beside shiny plastic forelegs painted metallic red. A stuffed lion with an eye missing.

Really, anything else in the room seemed to be neglected. It was all about the workplace with its tools and ailing playthings. That spot, on the right-hand side, was the first thing she saw when she came in. It had the most lighting; that wall was the only one decorated, blueprints and sketches and the like taped and nailed up above the desk. She would have bet money the chair was still warm.

The helicopter was broken on the floor near the chair. It was orange, and Will scooped it up like a crying baby when she trailed in after him. She didn't shut the door, leaving it open a crack, maybe because some part of her still expected an Angel to show up in the wardrobe and she wanted a quick exit point. The helicopter's blades were unassembled on the carpet, and one of them looked bent oddly. It was probably remote-controlled, but Rose couldn't see anything like a remote on the desk.

Something made her twist, glancing around a bit more sharply. "Can you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Dunno, s'like…" Rose went still, listening. "Hissin' or something."

"Hissing?" Will paused, half stooping. "What, like a snake?"

"No…" It stopped. Whatever it was, it was gone. She could swear she'd really heard it, like someone whispering. Maybe Amy and Rory, but it had seemed much closer than that. "Never mind."

"Not very tidy in here," Will was muttering, almost nervously. "Do my best work in a mess, though, gotta say. Love a good project."

There was a beanbag near the desk chair. It looked new, pale blue and spotless. Rose sank into it and instantly felt warmer.

"Did you do those?" she asked, nodding to the drawings taped to the wall.

Will glanced at them as though just remembering they were there. He made a face. "Eh, I did actually, yes. Rubbish. Dreams, mostly. That's where I get the new toys from, dreams I have."

"D'you mean like the…statue ones?"

"No." Will's eyes flicked to her, head still pointed toward his sketches. "No, not the statue ones. That's why they don't go for them downstairs. In the shop. Monsters don't make the best toys, they said." He gave a little huff, reaching for a small screwdriver on the desk. "Getting that now, believe you me. Don't think I did before."

Rose looked back at the wall. The drawings were all done in crayon, she realized, except one or two in the same black pen, on post-it notes like they were done in a hurry.

And they were all strange.

There was one that looked like a cross between a big greenish-brown ant and a roach, standing like it was a biped, one like a fish thing in a dress—Rose tried not to look disgusted or laugh, thinking of a little girl playing with that sort of doll. She especially liked one that seemed to be a lion-man in a big hood, mostly because Will had gone to a lot of trouble coloring it in with different shades of yellow. Except for a crown or a jewel on its forehead, which was bright ruby red. A rhino in blue armor with a big sword would have been Mickey's top choice for an action figure back when they were children—she could almost see his Gran, Rita-Anne, cuffing his ear for choosing it, telling him it would give him nightmares. And then buying it for him anyway, because she would. The drawing nearest Rose was a half-finished wolf of some kind on a fresh yellow post-it, or maybe a fox, but it was all done in pink. Could have been a vibrant stuffed animal one day, except it wouldn't have sold because it was snarling so fiercely. Will seemed to have a thing for animal toys, or creatures in general. He was quite good.

She wondered why he wasn't bored, fixing up helicopters and tiny train cars when what he seemed most interested in wasn't allowed downstairs. Her gaze followed him as he lowered himself down, cross-legged, to sit on the carpet in front of her with his tools.

"Know what I think?" Rose said teasingly, shooting him a superior expression. "I think you're—sort of like my dad with his Vitex stuff and all, all those ideas he had. Only they won't give yours a go, so you're just sat up here, goin' off. Like a mad scientist, you know, a…totally weird…toymaker."

Will made a noise, head coming up. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?"

Then he blinked, vague. "I dunno. Just never liked the sound of it, I suppose. Creepy."

"That's not creepy?" Rose pointed to the fish in the dress.

Will's tired, tired eyes trailed the drawing. He grimaced at her. "Okay, it is a bit. Yes. It is a bit creepy, fine." They chuckled together and he added, raspy, "Shoot me, can't help what I dream, can I?"

They sat for a minute or so more, Will opening the helicopter's belly and Rose handing him a package of batteries from the floor when he asked. She went on watching him tinker, fitting on the propellor blades one at a time in the light of one lamp on the desk. Its yellow glow had been seeping under the door when she'd first knocked, and now it surrounded their corner of the bedroom. Wrapping them up, in a way. It was much easier in here to relax. She could park her eyes on Will's hands as he fastened plastic to plastic and twisted a small yellow screwdriver to close back up the toy's battery compartment. She didn't have to think of the Doctor or the Angels or Pete and Jackie back at the mansion. She didn't have to think of anything. She could see why he'd been doing this instead of lying down and trying to sleep.

Still. He was obviously knackered.

"Couldn't you sleep?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Couldn't you?" He didn't look up from his work.

"Yeah, but," Rose added, waiting for him to take a break, trying a blustery laugh, "least I never had spooky nightmares about statues eatin' me."

"They don't eat me," Will huffed, but his hands didn't stop. "Might do, only they never really catch up, do they, always just behind me. Like today." He sniffed. "D'you know, I still can't help feeling that maybe, maybe none of this is real."

Rose nodded. Leaning forward with her arms crossed over her knees. "S'okay," she said, quieter. "Thought like that too, my first time. S'like I said, I just…sort of got used to it. All the—weird stuff. Only I had help, um, before…there was…"

She sucked in, clicking her tongue. Glancing at the floor.

"Anyway. Not anymore."

Not yet. Not unless he's out there now. No, she was doing it again.

Will was watching her, like he wanted her to keep going. Doing that with his eyes where he seemed to search inside her. He couldn't see this part. No way. It was only hers; she was hoarding it. Keeping the Doctor, the Tardis, the best of it, all to herself. But she got the feeling she could talk about anything just then, and Will would happily listen the whole night long. That wasn't being fair. Especially not when he kept going soft in the face at her. She didn't deserve it. She was selfish and lonely and she'd almost got him killed today. And he was inviting her into his room where it was warm so she could mock his drawings and stave off thoughts of another life. Sitting there with his kind irises and cute smile.

Rose cleared her throat, leaning even further in, squinting. "You all right, though? I mean, really all right, cos… it's okay if…"

"Yeah. Yeah, erm…"

Will stilled, screwdriver in one hand and helicopter nestled in his lap. He set the tool down and rested his weight on one hand, palm flat on the carpet. Fingers twitching. There was something about the way he looked at her then, something familiar. He kept doing that. Like when he'd been stern in 310 Hettie Row, ordering her not to split up. Now it was different, because it was just his face, but it was slow and thin and it made his eyes rounder and his mouth loose. Made her sad, somehow.

"The truth is, it's not just the statues, or the…dreaming." Will glanced at the wall of drawings, at the helicopter, at his left knee. "It's life."

Rose felt her eyes squinting harder. "What?"

"Life, my life. Sometimes it feels sort of…not quite…real. Even before today." Will scratched a bit at the back of his head, looking at her through hooded lids, wary. "I know it probably sounds daft, bit mad, but it's like I was telling Amy the other night, it's like, like…" He tried gesturing a lot with his hands and seemed to come up short, clapping them together frustratedly. "I don't fit."

"Yeah." Rose felt her heart twist a little in sympathy. "Know what you mean."

"Do you?" Will sat up straighter.

"Been that way for a while." Rose sucked in. "Just been…carryin' on anyway, I s'pose. Nothing else to do."

"Yeah, but when you carry on, you get a bit of fun out of it." He scooted closer when she laughed, like he was trying to remind them both to keep it down for the sake of his flatmates. Smiling wanly. Leaving the helicopter to one side. "Eh? Scary Angel ladies, big haunted houses. Broken beeper."

"Bananas," Rose chimed in, trying to hold in the giggles.

"Bananas!" Will agreed, and he was much lighter now, chortling with her. Then the light drifted off, almost as quickly as it had come. He got quiet again. "Not like me, not round here. I don't even seem to fit in with the ordinary."

Rose's smile faded, and she looked between his eyes. Wishing she had something to say, something else that was funny. Anything to keep that sad look off his face. Will was too sweet to feel the way she'd felt, ever since she'd been separated from the Doctor. Like nothing was right and it couldn't be changed, and she was the only one not coping. The only one who knew. Only not anymore, because Will had a similar sensation. It might be for different reasons, but it was humbling—even a little annoying—to learn this emptiness wasn't special. Wasn't just for her. People in Pete's World got it too; there was something like this ache even without the Doctor, even without being cut off from home.

And seeing it in Will gave her a comfort she wasn't expecting. A sense of kinship. They were already friends now, but this felt more. Just a little deeper. Maybe the Angels had done it. Or every meeting since the crosswalk. Something sparked between them as they sat there, her on that beanbag and him on the carpet, one lamp and a broken helicopter at two in the morning.

He seemed to be getting that, too, because Will suddenly added, brightly, softly, "Except for you."

"Me?"

"Yes, not with you, it's different with you." He spoke quickly, and then slowed down, so that she nearly got whiplash. Intense the whole way through. "Ever since I met you, actually, it's…odd."

Rose shook her head, not because she disagreed (she didn't), but because she didn't understand him. "Different how?"

"Well, that's the question, eh. Haven't worked it out yet. Can't quite put my finger on it." Will copied her, bringing up his legs as he sat and wrapping his arms around them. "Just is."

"Cos I'm weird," she quipped, voice low, referencing Henrik's and the Void detector. Had that really only been last week?

"Very weird," Will whispered, beaming. At some point it had started feeling like a proper sleepover, like mum and dad would catch them talking, catch them awake too late at night, any moment now. So they had to be extra quiet. It added to the calm. It added to the warmth.

"You too," Rose pointed out, smiling back at him. It was getting harder and harder not to let her tongue slip out as usual with this bloke. And it had been ages since she'd felt it pressing against her teeth so easily. It felt so good to smile like that, she remembered, to have a reason. Like running. "S'no wonder we only fit with just you and me."

"But you've got your mum, haven't you?" Will argued.

"You've got that lot across the hall."

"But those're just my mates, always had them. Not like you. Family and all." Will mimed drinking a cup of something and then pointed at her encouragingly. "Jackie and tea, plus a cool secrety job. With Sally, Sally the backup." He sniffed, frowning. "And there's Mickey."

Rose's eyebrows came down. "Mickey?"

"Your, erm," Will sniffed again. Decidedly looking at a tear in his trousers at the knee, rubbing at it. "Boyfriend, yeah?"

Then Rose snorted, probably too loud. "Mickey's not my boyfriend."

Will's eyebrows went right up to his hairline. He fixed his gaze on that same trouser tear and seemed to be trying very hard to control his mouth. "No?"

Rose watched the twinkle come into his gaze, watched his eyes slowly come back up to look at her without moving his head, and felt her arms loosen over her knees. "Nah, he…well—once, but…l-long time ago, um. No, we're just friends."

When she spoke, it was much more softly than before, and it was because she didn't know what to do with that twinkle. It matched his smile, which was now coming back with a vengeance. Rose had always been a bit of a mug for a nice smile. She wasn't sure where to look. When had he got this close to her? The toes of his trainers were about an inch from her own feet. Had he even noticed? If she hadn't, experience with him told her it wasn't likely.

"Good," Will said. Quiet. Firm.

"Good?" Rose mimicked, and when he looked at her it was, thankfully, blessedly, suddenly very difficult not to laugh. Some of the stupid natural fluttering that had been starting in her temples and chest at his smile calmed.

He was obviously trying to hold back a laugh, too, and his ears had gone red. He ducked his head. "Didn't mean to say that."

"No, think you did, though."

"All right—"

"A bit."

"Shut up."

They were still quiet, quieter and quieter, even, and still close. Puffs of laughter in place of the real thing. And then Will glanced at her again, and she found she couldn't laugh anymore.

"D'you know what, I did mean it," he mumbled, looking between her eyes, blinking. Once. Twice.

Rose blinked, too, feeling the fluttering coming back.

"About you being different," he explained, but that didn't stop the fluttering. "And fitting. About you being weird."

"Can't put your finger on it," Rose added, because she wasn't really thinking, because if she got them both to laugh again it might stop him getting closer and her being unable to look anywhere else. Or move at all, or breathe much. Because it felt good and it was late and he kept smiling at her in that shy, kind way, blimey, she really was just Jackie Tyler at heart—

"Yeah, well." He was close enough now that their knees nearly touched. Eyes going back and forth between hers, checking, twinkling. "Worth looking into, I think."

"Yeah?"

Then she felt her tongue poke out between her teeth, the big grin. She couldn't help it. She wasn't even sure when it started, but she knew it was happening when Will zeroed in on it. His smile grew.

Somewhere in the exhausted, lonely mud that used to be her brain, Rose had the conscious thought that two in the morning might be evil. Or magic. Because now, without warning, she was caught up in the warmth and the adrenaline and the trauma or kinship or the stupid ruddy whatever that was surely keeping her rooted to the beanbag as he dipped toward her, and he was definitely going to kiss her—

"Like I say. Love a good project, me."

—and Rose didn't really cotton on to the fact that she was going to just go on sitting there and let him, or think about why.

Until the door behind her opened with a smack and the moment snapped in half.

Rose's head whipped around at the same time that Will's shot up, and she flew off the beanbag, absolutely expecting a stone Angel to appear in the doorway. It was the first place her mind went. The fluttering and mud drained away with every rapid breath she took.

It wasn't an Angel. It was Amy.

Amy, in sweats and a men's World's Okayest Nurse tee shirt under a red bathrobe that was fast coming undone. Her eyes like chips of scary butterscotch fudge. On fire. She looked between the two of them exactly the way Jackie used to look between Rose and Jimmy Stone when they came back to the Estate in the wee small hours of the morning. Knowing and furious. Stuck-up.

"Y'left the tap on again," Amy growled, flaming butterscotch fudge directed at Will.

Rose bit down hard on her lip, tried to do her best impression of a Nestene dummy, and stuck her eyes on the nearest baseboard.

"Give us a mo'?" Amy asked, and Rose knew she was asking her because her voice got a tiny bit nicer. But not by much.

"Yep."

Straight away, Rose dove for the exit, and the last thing she saw when she glanced back, before the door shut, was Will. Will, and an utter lack of twinkling.

Amy leaned back against the door, one hand still holding the doorknob tight. Because she really, really wanted to break it. She wanted it to crumple in her hand like an empty tin can. That doorknob was the only reason she wasn't flying at the Doctor right now, and he didn't even seem to appreciate that. She had no idea what to say. Where to start. How to approach this.

What did you say when you found your Time Lord-turned-gowk sat up in the middle of the night with a strange human girl, clearly about to become more than friends, possibly ruin her life, and after going with her to a nest full of the very thing they were running from? The very reason they were doing all of this in the first place?

How did you even begin when he would have absolutely no grip on the gravity behind his every action? Or, worse, when you were completely exhausted and frazzled and he'd left the tap running again?

She went with something simple. Because she had to make him understand. If not for the blonde's sake, then for their own safety's. Hers and Rory's. Hers and Rory's and the Tardis's and his, whether or not human-him deserved it at the moment. Careless prat as usual.

"So. Shouldn't you be in bed?" she asked, voice tight as a clothesline.

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same question." His tone was very, very low.

"No but really." Do what Rory said. Do what Rory said. What did Rory say? Something about counting. Or breathing. Gone now. "What are you thinkin'? Are you? Even thinkin'?"

"Amy." It came out on an exhale. His eyes were on the ground; he didn't even have the decency to look at her.

"Y'don't even know this girl."

"Amy—"

"What, she takes you to the murder house and suddenly it's all out in the open, bats her eyes and off you go, have you even seen yourself—"

But then she stopped, because he stopped her.

He lifted his knees, once, brought them down hard, and rocketed up to speak over her, to her complete surprise. The Doctor did that. Mainly with River. But he didn't do it with her unless properly provoked—and Will didn't do it with anyone; Will didn't look like that or sound like that.

Tonight he did. He got right in front of her, glaring, those green eyes she used to know so well now like two pools of ice. "All right, out with it, come on, why're you doing this? Why are you so cross with me, why? Why are you so angry? Over this?"

Amy didn't cower. He was only human. "Cos it's wrong!"

"What is?"

"Ohh, I dunno, how about goin' to that old house at all, for starters," she snapped. "How d'you think we'd've felt, me and Rory, yeah? If you'd popped out and got yourself murdered? You never even said! You're not a detective, y'sell toys in a shop—"

"I told you, I went to help a friend."

Amy's fingers spread wide in a mocking little gesture, both hands. "Ooh, find me that sort of friend, know 'em for five minutes and you're already snoggin' on the beanbag, is that it?"

"No!" Will turned around, rubbing his face for a second with both hands. Like he'd picked it up from Rory. Then he turned back to her almost instantly, jerking his hands back down to point at her. "No, no—"

"Oh, then what was that, really?" Amy raised her voice, just a little, just enough. Not enough to wake her husband or alert Rose. But sneering and condescending as her aunt at a party.

"I don't know!" Will snapped, and then his tone lowered, subsided. "I don't know, she's…" He shut his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then said in a tired, frustrated sort of way to the floor, "I can't help it."

Amy waited a beat, then let a scoff out, half-heartedly. She started feeling like she was listening to someone who had been speaking French slip into English. Started listening harder, focusing further. She didn't like it. Because she wanted to go on being angry, but the Doctor—Will—there was something in the way he said it that made her more worried than she had been yet.

"What d'you mean you can't help it?"

"Rose, it's like—" Will opened his eyes, wound his hands around in a gesture he never finished. It was getting harder to hear him. "There is something about her. Pulling me in, like we're being drawn together—"

"Yes, otherwise known as hormones." Amy leaned her head exasperatedly back against the door, half muttering. Folding her arms against this entire conversation. Hormones. Maybe that was something the Doctor hadn't even had before, and hadn't she proven it once upon a time? Once upon an embarrassing time.

And now he was clearly up to his silly little human ears in them and thought it was kismet or something.

"No, but it's different," Will insisted, eyebrows as far up as they could go. Staring at her reproachfully, earnestly, and goodness, he looked like a big kid. In a thick woolly hoodie thing who refused to ever, ever go to sleep or take a hint. More maddening now than he ever was as a Time Lord. "I can't explain it, but it is."

"What, like you couldn't explain about the statues?"

"It happened."

Amy felt her breath catch. "Just leave it alone, why don't you!"

"Why should I?" Will dropped his hands, glancing round as if wanting support from the bits and bobs strewn everywhere. "Eh? Why? Rose needed help and I wanted to help her. And I could. So I did. If people really are disappearing, Amy, if people really are in trouble, and we know, shouldn't we do something?"

It took her approximately three seconds of staring at him then, three whole seconds, to convince her brain that no matter how it sounded, he was not the Doctor right now. He was just Wilfred. And she said, "No."

Will's eyebrows drew together, his whole face wrinkling into an expression of pause. "Okay, not what I thought you were gonna say."

"I mean," Amy rolled her eyes. "It's not our job, it's—it's not even her job; she said she's not police. Look," and Amy dropped her voice lower, trying to put just an ounce of urgency into it, just a drop, enough to get him to really pay attention, forcing out a lie and a warning and praying he'd get it, "I-I don't know what it is you really saw in that house, okay, but I can tell you this. Puttin' yourself at risk puts us at risk, yeah? All three of us. Thought about that, have you?"

Will stared back at her, visibly breathing harder. Slowing down.

"No. You didn't. So stop jumpin' into things y'don't understand. Throwin' yourself and everyone else in danger for a girl," Amy finished, eyebrows up, eyes wide. Slowing down too, enunciating. Big kids needed clear words.

Then Will made a little noise Amy had never heard the Doctor make before. Like a cross between a sniff and a scoff. It was ugly.

"Why do you always have to be so controlling?" he growled, and he spoke even slower than she had.

Amy blinked. Then a blue stab of anger went through her and she forgot to breathe or count or whatever Rory had said. "Uh, excuse me—"

But he wasn't finished. "You are not my mother, have you got that?"

Her mouth fell open. Blue anger ricocheting off indignation somewhere in her chest. "Look, I'm sorry I interrupted your snogging session, but—"

"Oh, no," he huffed, shaking his head, twitch of a sardonic smile. "No, don't start in with that again, try something else, go on. Because d'you know what I think? I think this isn't about Rose. It's not even about me, is it, this is about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Cos everything round here runs on your clock, doesn't it?" He raised his eyebrows. "Mrs. Williams?"

Amy glared at him, starting to feel a bit lost now. No less enraged. Bit confused.

"Everything I do, everywhere I go, everyone I'm with, blimey, you've always gotta have your say. And Rory, too, never does anything without your okay, yes dear, no dear, straightaway, dear." A salute should've looked very silly coming from the Doctor, even a sarcastic one, but Amy couldn't find anything funny at the moment.

She felt her nostrils flare, once, twice. There were so many things bubbling on the surface of her tongue, most of them curses, she didn't know where to begin, which one to break in with first. But now that he'd really got going, Wilfred was hard to stop.

"Can't even get a decent monster hunt underway without your wittering, and d'you know why? Because you just have to be in charge." Will's eyes scrunched up with a sneer that didn't seem right on that face. "Center of attention, that's you. Commander-in-chief of stupid old No.11!"

"Stop it."

"Might as well take heed, can't get anything right on me own, can I?" Will spread his arms. "D'you know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're scared."

"Scared?"

"Scared, scared of losing your grip. Amy, Amy, always trying to make things go your way, it's like you think I'd be lost without you, you and Rory, you pair, always after me."

A choke of a laugh. "But you would."

"Oh, is that it, eh? Good!" Will clapped his hands together so hard she jumped. "Good, let's have it out, then, shall we?"

"Yeah." Amy felt her eyebrows threatening to consume her vision. She straightened; jaw tight. The anger was now climbing up into her throat. "Let's."

She had no idea if they'd woken Rory yet. It was supposed to be his day off, poor man. They weren't exactly shouting, but in a big poncy flat like this early in the morning, talking at a normal volume was enough. And she could honestly say she did not care one bit if that Rose girl could hear them.

"You," Amy hummed, a pot simmering, boiling, about to overflow, "are a hopeless human being. Totally useless. You leave the tap runnin', y'never answer your mobile, you obviously never ever sleep no matter what Rory's told you, you take up with strange girls who take you to dangerous places, and now just because your friends want you safe, wanna keep you so you don't go gettin' attached to the wrong people, you're throwin' a tantrum—"

"The wrong people?"

"—like a nine-year-old. S'a wonder y'don't fall on your back and start kickin' the air."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"I think I'm right. I think you're always in charge, and I think it's because you think I can't cope, cos you want me to be a nine-year-old, cos you're afraid of me getting on with my life."

"What life?" Amy huffed, but he went on like she hadn't spoken.

"You act like you think I'd leave and never come back."

Oh. Then she wanted to slap him. Was going to slap him, but she couldn't move. And there was this annoying feeling, like a stinging in her eyes, hot and painful. She tried to think of Rory, tried to think of the Weeping Angels and the danger and the reason she was actually standing here, getting in the way of him and his little human girlfriend. His need to ruin everything.

"And then who'd you whinge at?" Will finished, triumphantly, quietly. Smirking at her with no mirth at all.

"I am trying to help you!" Amy growled, voice thick, coming away from the door, but he didn't back down so she couldn't go very far.

"I didn't ask for your help."

"Oho, yes you bloody did—"

"When?"

Amy's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Will snapped his fingers at her, accusingly. "There, see? Okay—okay—that, you're doing it again!"

"Doing what?"

"Clamming up. Shutting down. Like an oyster." Will's eyes narrowed. "You do that all the time, always. Every day. Like you're keeping something from me. The way you look at me, sometimes, ohhh, you really don't think I can cope! It is as if you think I'm really very stupid, aw he wouldn't understand, don't bother."

"You are stupid!"

"Am I?"

"You? You are the biggest stupid idiot I've ever met," Amy snapped, but it was weak, because the stinging and heat got so bad she realized she was actually almost crying in front of the man that was no longer the Doctor, and she wasn't having that. She swallowed; mouth tight. "You have no idea. Will."

"Well, let's test that theory. I am asking you now, please, seriously. Stop helping me. Stop nagging." Will saw her eyes, got softer, but then he blinked. Bent a little. And he doubled down, and he sounded so much like the Doctor when he was angry that Amy's poor silly heart couldn't tell the difference. "Not enough room under this roof for three grown-ups if one of us is going to keep playing Mum. And I am sorry, but if you're doing the all-quiet thing now because you're waiting for me to fall in line as usual—"

He reached around her, opened the door with a wrench, and gave her a very light push out into the hall.

"—you, Amy, are gonna be waiting for me a very long time."

And he shut the door in her face.

Rose heard the door open and twisted in her dining room chair to see Amy stagger out of Will's room into the hallway. She heard a murmured word, Will's voice, sounded like time, and then the door shut. Amy was standing there in the dark corridor, mouth agape. When she turned, maybe to go back to bed, she saw Rose and stopped. Rose could see in the dim light she'd turned on in the kitchen—because she definitely was not sleeping tonight—that Amy's face was red as her bathrobe.

Rose looked away immediately, thumb drawing patterns in her chair's high back. Amy had been crying. Or close to it. Or close to shouting again. Rose wasn't sure if that was why she herself avoided eye contact; it might also have been the embarrassment. The sheer discomfiture of having been found like that, with Will that close and all the clocks reading out that ungodly hour.

Amy didn't go to bed. She glanced once at the floor, in Rose's peripherals, and then came walking steadily down the hall and into the main living area. Stopped a short way from the dining room table.

They didn't say anything for a few minutes, just there together. Awake and neither of them happy. Rose tried for a moment to see it from Amy's point of view—a weird stranger shows up at your door with your flatmate, bleeding, having gotten him into God-knew-what-trouble, you get wheedled into allowing said stranger to spend the whole night, and said stranger doesn't spend the night, she's awake in the middle of the night possibly trying to kiss your very gangly, bumbling, infectious flatmate. After nearly getting him killed. After meeting him only a week or so ago.

She tried to understand it, and she did, but she was tired, so she didn't try very hard. And she didn't linger on it.

Tired and confused and overall angry. Angry with Amy for being so pushy and tetchy. Angry with herself for sitting there like a lump, leading Will on. Angry with herself for getting any sort of butterflies about it, for being like her mother, still able to cling to the nearest bloke with a sweet disposition and kind eyes after having her heart broken. Angry with her body for not just shutting down and sleeping earlier, trapped on that couch. Angry with her brain for the hope and the endless theorizing that the Doctor might still be out there.

The Doctor might still be out there, and where am I? What am I doing?

Rose didn't know what that had been, there for a moment on the beanbag. It had felt so cozy in there, and Will was so nice, and they really did get on extraordinarily well. It was too easy to feel close to him, why? It had been like she couldn't move away.

She was ridiculous. She was just Jackie Tyler with shorter hair and more mascara.

"Plannin' on sittin' there all night?" Amy asked suddenly, sounding congested. Thumbing under one of her eyes.

Rose looked up. When she replied, she sounded like she had a mouth full of cotton. "I can go home if you want."

Even her mum's warbling didn't sound so bad now. She was that miserable, stuck here in her own head.

Amy made a little noise in her throat and went to the refrigerator. To Rose's surprise, she retrieved a tub of Häagen-Dazs, a spoon, a scoop, and plopped down in the chair at the head of the table. Without any sort of formal invitation, she opened the tub and began eating with the scoop, leaving the extra spoon beside the tub.

That spoon was either a trap or an olive branch.

And Rose was looking at the ginger in confusion, in exhaustion, in a way she knew was rude.

Amy caught her eye and let out a very loud snort. "Are you one of those girls that don't eat?"

"No." It sounded indignant, Rose's eyes screwing up, a short exhale, but she was more surprised than anything. Which one of them was in magazines? She wanted Will to have been lying about that. But anyone could see he wasn't.

Rose picked up the spoon, mouth twitching, and carved out a bit of ice cream. She wasn't hungry anymore—really, if anything she felt rather sick—but she knew it was more about the gesture than anything else. She didn't want to be the witch that wouldn't take the olive branch, sat there sulking. She wasn't in school anymore.

It was vanilla. It was boring and Rose was pleased, because she thought if she ate anything more exciting, she might just throw up. It was that sort of a day. Night. Morning.

She watched Amy take another scoopful and then stare at the scoop until the ice cream fell off it, back into the tub. Rose asked, before she could think not to, "You all right?"

Amy looked at the scoop a second longer and then blinked, hard. "Nope."

"I really don't have to stay, I'm…" Rose started to lift a hand, maybe toward the door, toward her bag, but lost energy for it. "Sorry," she finished.

"Not your fault." Amy sniffed. Her voice was smooth, cool. Fine. "It isn't, none of it. And I know that. I know it isn't. It's his." Then she sniffed again, wetter, and glanced at the ceiling. "And I'm sorry, cos it's just…easier takin' it out on you."

"Don't have to live with me," Rose offered, trying a partial smile.

Amy's eyes flicked to her face and she didn't smile back, but she clearly wanted to. "Aw, I shouldn't blame you, though. Not when he's just down the hall, all primed and pratty." She heaved out a breath and levelled her scoop at the other girl, and now her tone was friendlier. "So y'like him, yeah?"

Rose's mouth froze. "What?"

"Th—Will." Amy squinted. "You like him. And he can tell. And that's why he followed you."

Rose didn't know if she liked the way the corners of Amy's mouth kept turning up just slightly, as if she had to consciously force them down. A teasing almost-smirk.

"I dunno why he followed me," she finally said, sighing. Tracing an R in the ice cream tub with her spoon. "Seriously. I didn't mean to get him involved, s'just—"

"Ohh, come on now, with the big mouth and the big eyelashes?" Amy pouted at her. "What else were y'doin'?"

Rose's big mouth fell open a tiny bit in outrage. "My job," she said. "I was doin' my job, thanks."

"What, at the crosswalk and downstairs?"

"How d'you know about that?"

"Avoidin' the question, are we?"

"He just turned up!"

"Gave him your phone number."

Rose sat back, palms up, hackles rising. "Is this you not blamin' me, cos I've had enough—"

"Nope." Amy raised the scoop hand in defeat. "Sorry. Forget it."

The scoop was like a white flag. Rose felt the hackles relax, felt her defenses drop, up too late to really raise them properly.

And then Amy said, in a much more serious tone, "Look, it's really not your fault, but. You two, y'just. Can't."

"I'm not," Rose began, shaking her head, but Amy's expression stopped her. It seemed older than her, older than Rose, too.

"Him and us, we're not—permanent."

Rose paused with the spoon in her mouth. Her knackered mind tried to catch up, because Amy was watching her with some strange sort of urgency. Not permanent, what did that mean? The way Will talked, he seemed to think he'd never be parted from his flatmates. Like he needed them somehow, and they clearly cared a great deal about him. More than fellow lodgers, best mates. The way Amy worried, the way Rory hit him with the first aid. Will was wrong about them. It was family. How could they not be permanent? What reason might they have for kicking him out of that dynamic? For splitting up?

"What, are you…" Rose plucked the spoon out of her mouth, looking Amy up and down. "Pregnant or something?"

"What?" Amy made a face, leaning back.

"Is that—"

"No—"

"Okay."

"No, I meant for you," Amy said, rolling her eyes so hard they might roll right out of her face. "We're not permanent for you, you numpty. Sorry. It's just, we can't—stay here. Got…" She resituated herself on her chair, shutting her eyes for a moment. "Plans, y'know. Stuff."

"Right," Rose said, slowly, because she thought she might be understanding after all. Amy wasn't being rude. She was trying to be kind.

It only confirmed that theory when Amy continued, "I'm just saying. You seem…nice—"

"Thanks." She tried not to sound sarcastic.

"But he's not thinkin'. He can't get…attached to you, no offense. And he won't listen to me, God knows." Amy plunked the scoop down hard into the tub. "Never does, but—he can't get attached, and neither can you. To any of us."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Fine."

"No matter how absolutely charming I am," Amy added suddenly, and she glanced back at Rose with a kind of playful glint in her eyes.

"Oh yeah, think I'll be missin' you the most," Rose replied in mock solemnity, and then she felt truly sad when it petered into a laugh and Amy chortled with her.

Because they could be friends. Or could have been. Just like she could have had Will. But it wasn't going to happen after all, not if whatever Amy was trying to communicate was going to come true. They were just passing through, the Williamses and their clumsy flatmate.

Rose felt the laugh lose its air as she said, "No worries. I'm used to people leavin'." She let her tongue play with the top row of teeth, fixing her gaze on the H in Häagen. "Disappearing."

When she glanced up, instead of being met with another eyeroll, or even confusion, the ginger was watching her with a strange look.

"Me too," said Amy softly.

Before Rose could say anything else, there was the creak of a door down the hall. They both turned to look, but it was just Rory, disheveled and trying to fasten a buckle around his trousers. This was made more difficult for him because he was only holding one end. At least he hadn't emerged only in his pants. And his bedhead was, under no uncertain terms, fabulous.

"What're we doing." Rory was halfway through a yawn, and one of his eyes was still shut. "What's happened."

"Nothing, go back to bed." Amy shot Rose a tiny smirk, which was quickly returned.

But Rory didn't go back to bed. He opened the other eye and stilled, pointing to the tub. "Is that ice cream?"

Amy rolled her eyes, much more gently this time, and held out the scoop to her husband. She even wiggled it enticingly. Rose bit down on her spoon to keep from laughing as Rory's eyes lit up.

Rory took the scoop and pulled a chair in close to Amy, between the two of them. "Do you people never sleep?"

"We were just…talkin'," Rose explained, still abusing the spoon.

"About Willie." Amy bounced her eyebrows. Rose wanted to choke on the spoon and then die.

"You mean about how he likes you?" Rory guessed, with a little snort. He got some ice cream inside him, and then he seemed to wake up a little and stuttered out, glancing sharply at Amy and then Rose, "Er—uh, uh sorry, I meant—he hasn't…said anything, uh—"

"We've already done that, catch up." Amy ruffled his bedhead and stole the scoop back from him.

"Oh." Rory visibly re-gathered his confidence, swiping a bit of the ice cream off the tub's rim with a finger. "Good, because he definitely, definitely does. It's weird."

"And annoying," Amy added.

"Yes, and annoying," Rory agreed, with a little puff.

Rose, trying hard to look mature while also trying not to look at Amy and not to be anything but her usual pallor, pulled the spoon down and cleared her throat. "Well, s'okay anyway, he's…he's great, um, but…"

"Not for you," Amy surmised, too brightly.

Rose attempted to match her tone. "Right. Yes. Yeah, not for me."

"Because we're…moving," Amy went on, elbowing Rory. She was looking at her husband and at Rose like they were all trying to sell one another something. It was disarming. But Rose found herself taking on the same sort of cadence.

"Moving," Rory agreed again, mouth full of ice cream. "Mmm."

"But he's nice, though," Rose blustered. "I-I did like him, s'just…"

She glanced down the hall, then, wondering if Will was still awake. Still tinkering. Wondering where they were all going and why they couldn't stay, these people she was already getting attached to. And why sitting in Will's room and watching his hands work for children and his smile work for her had been so normal so quickly. Why she'd been about to let him kiss her, why that felt normal too. Why she'd have to say goodbye again, to someone else, why it never seemed to make any sense when she did. Never seemed fair. Pete, the Doctor, now Will and Amy and Rory…

"Don't worry," Amy said, and she gave Rose a proper smile now. It was better than any magazine, because it looked real. And because it said she knew how Rose was feeling. "Gets easier."