Amy's whole life did not center around one man. She was not made up of Rory. She was made up of travel writing and adventure and Hogwarts at the age of seven and wanting to save the world.
But, something about seeing River had stirred up the ever perpetual question. 'What about Rory?'
She imagined him still sitting in the same place, imagining him frozen within time, perfectly frozen in place as he threw his head back and laughed, ecstatic, excited. Part of her thought that Anna and the Doctor hadn't been genuine in their offer so she'd accepted, but now she'd seen the danger and knew that the she didn't want the last time she'd seen Rory to be the last time.
"Does he even want to... travel with us?" the Doctor asked, as if this statement baffled him more than anything. Anna had a troubled look on her face, but something in Amy told her it wasn't about this. She also wasn't sure that she wanted to put her focus on that right now.
"He does, actually. He's standing in the console room with River."
She'd been surprised by Rory's voracity, his need. Because, as much as Amy wasn't made up of Rory, Rory was made up of Amy.
Wherever you go, I go.
Sure, fine, he was a boy who'd lost his mum when he was a teenager and a nurse and a son who begrudgingly loved his father, but Amy was his everything. If he lost her, she couldn't imagine a life of Rory's that didn't have her in it.
That wasn't something she simply thought. It was in everything that Rory was. His breaths. His eyes. His intensity. He loved her and he couldn't love anything else as much as that.
Okay, so yes, there'd been shock and outrage and surprise, but most of that had been due to the fact that. "You remember the part where they left you at Hogwarts when you were seven? Seven? How'd you even-"
But, he had never once doubted her.
It burned through her like a fire that she wanted him. She wanted him to be there, to see the things that she was seeing, to know that this life was so much more brilliant and amazing and more than just her.
He'd never see it but she'd try anyway, because she loved him and wanted to give him everything.
He'd said yes and she'd brought him to the Tardis because if they said no, then she would leave this all behind.
Rory might not have been her everything, but he was still hers, and she never wanted to live without him again.
The Doctor spluttered, actually spluttered, and got up. For a moment, a single moment, she thought it was because he didn't want Rory in the console room, seeing the secret world he shared with the people in his inner circle, and her heart skipped a beat and she thought, Oh. For a moment, her disappointed and seven year old self came out and thought, But what about saving the world?
It passed when the Doctor bustled past her.
"You left him alone with River?! You can't do that, she'll eat him alive!"
She just started laughing, whether out of relief or because seeing him flustered was hilarious, she wasn't sure she'd ever admit to.
It didn't matter. She looked content, back at Anna to see the look on her face.
"What's- that's okay, right? Rory traveling with us?"
"Absolutely," she agreed, and there was no hesitation, even a bit of relief on her, but over what, Amy'd never know. Amy, watching her walk away, couldn't get it out of her head that something was deeply wrong.
She couldn't put her finger on what, just knew that it was.
"Hey, wait for me!" she called after them, running to the console room.
Seeing Rory and the Doctor in the console room, Anna watching the scene, Amy realized, for the first time in a long time, she felt whole. She clung to the feeling closer to her chest and simply laughed at the look on the Doctor's face, affronted.
"Look, we did not- Amy, tell him!"
She just kept laughing.
#####
"What did you mean?"
They were standing in Venice, staring out at the ocean. Amy and Rory were having the time of their lives, though she could sense that nervousness coming from Rory about being in the past. She could also sense that there was no uncertainty inside of him. He was with Amy. That was enough.
"When you said that you weren't sure things could be that simple again. What did you-"
"We should-" he started, talking over her. He held his hand up and she bit her lip, no longer interested in the sights of the canals. "-talk about this later."
"You're sad."
Nothing had ever been truer. There was a bone deep sadness inside of him, and moments before she was about to tell him it wasn't just sadness, it was grief that he was feeling, he smiled.
"Forgot you can feel my emotions, even without the connection."
It shocked her, realizing that she still had what he didn't, even though it was her fault what had happened had happened in the first place.
"I can fix it," she offered, but he shook his head, surprising her. "No?"
"A connection... It's something that's personal. It's something that's created, to build the gap, to-to have someone else lean on, to share the grief so that, at the end of it, you two can be truly there for each other, in a way no one else will ever be again. The connection, it being destroyed... We shouldn't put that back together because we haven't earned the right."
She frowned. Something was up with him, and it wasn't just his sadness.
"What's going on with you?" she asked him. "There's... something."
He cleared his throat though she felt him trying to throw up feeble walls. "You shouldn't look in on others emotions," he told her. "Not without their permission."
"You've never had a problem with it before," she told him, before she ran through a list of things he could be doing. What could he be doing, though, that he didn't want her to see, that he didn't want her to know about?
Of course, he had a right to his privacy, but he'd never asked for it before-
"Oh."
"Oh?" he asked, looking back at her, searching her face discreetly but frantically. In the background, she saw Amy and Rory taking a selfie in front of the canal, crouched down to get the water's full effect, but she ignored that.
"You're... trying to figure out how to turn my powers off. For good."
He sat back on his heels. "Figured that out, did you?"
She blinked at him, owlishly. "Like... But I... I would've written the universe back," she reminded him, weakly. "I did a bad thing, but that doesn't mean-"
"It's like the button," he said, quickly trying to reassure her, but she couldn't see that. "The button you gave me. I just want to have a failsafe, to be sure that, if I needed to, I could incapacitate you in a more permanent manner. But, also, Anna..." he sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Even if you did rewrite the universe back to the way it was meant to be in one version of reality, it doesn't mean you did in every one. It doesn't mean that you would have, here."
"No, but that- that was this version of reality, that was this version as it would've played out, I'm not- I don't- so-so- what? What does this-what does this mean? Are you-" she swallowed, the words almost choking her. "Are you going to leave me?"
"What?" he asked, as if he didn't understand. "No, Anna, of course I'm not. If- if you got to that point that I felt I needed to incapacitate you permanently, even then, I'd- I'd stay with you, get you back to where you were, but Anna," he started, taking her face in his hands. "I would never leave you. I promise, I swear. You're stuck with me," he told her.
Relief would've filled her if she weren't so distraught. As it was, it simply glided over the top.
She remembered the conversation she'd had with the future version of the Doctor, the one that had said she valued her powers more than she valued their love. Of course, the future Doctor had been lying, in order to create a paradox for the angels, in order to save someone (and apparently, that hadn't worked, but another solution had).
She would've done it, then. Turned her powers off for good if it meant that she wasn't a coward who did need power just to be okay.
It wasn't about that as she took a step back from him, shaking her head.
"I'm not turning my powers off," she told him. "Not for something I know, in my heart of hearts, that I wouldn't do, not in any sort of permanent capacity."
He quickly held up his hands. "I'm not asking you to-"
She looked at him weakly, amazed. "You're telling me you will?"
"No," he quickly corrected her. She felt as lost as she had that day on the streets of Pompeii, staring at the wife that had lied to her, nearly broken her in order to save someone else. "No, I'm saying that if something like this happens again, if-if I know that you're so far gone that-"
"I've already said that I won't be," she told him, her voice unnaturally low. "I've already said, I'd come back to my senses-"
"And I don't know why you don't understand that I cannot risk that!" he told her. He took a deep breath, shaking his head. "I love you, Anna. More than the stars themselves. But, for that to be true, it means that there have to be stars, and Anna... Anna, I will not choose my belief in you over the safety of the universe. Not when the universe itself is at stake. If it- Anna, if it were- if you'd killed someone-"
"I never would-"
"-or-or made a city block disappear, or rewrote even a smaller portion of history-"
"But I won't do that," she objected, fiercely. As he had the other time, he ignored her.
"-I could've made the exception. I could've given you the space to do what you're asking of me," he told her. "I could've let it continue until you came back to your senses, but Anna, it was the whole entire universe. I don't get how you can't see that that was too important to simply cross my fingers and hope that the wife that I love more than anything, the one that I trusted with everything, would come back to her senses at all, in order to fix the universe. I won't choose you over the rest of the universe, Anna, I won't. I'm sorry, but I won't."
It pained him. She could feel how much it pained him to say those words. For a moment, a single moment, he wished he weren't the Doctor. He wished he could be some bloke married to his wife, who could simply have that blind faith and choose her over anything.
But, that wasn't the promise. He couldn't break that promise, not when it was the entire universe at stake.
Anna felt numbed. She raised her eyebrows before she nodded. "Okay," she said, quietly.
"Okay?"
She nodded. "I'm... I'm heading out. I'll-"
"What?"
She held up her hand. "I need some time. I need some space. This is just... all of it, it's been too much." she nodded, searching him. "I'll see you soon."
What neither of them knew was that it was much sooner than either of them realized.
Anna had teleported out thousands of times before. Perhaps it was simply because she didn't have a destination in mind, thereby existing more firmly in the space between space, but her foot caught on something and she... tripped.
It was the best and only way to describe what had happened, her falling head over heels through the space between space.
She hit her head on something solid and, unprepared for it and unable to protect herself, she blacked out.
"Ow."
"Yes, I'd imagine you're in quite a bit of pain, what with having fallen through the vortex into my Tardis with no warning."
She frowned, opening her eyes, though her head pounded even more firmly at the action. "Doctor?"
"Ah, I see we'll meet sometime in the future! As you've said, I'm the Doctor. Who might you be?"
She raised her eyebrows before she groaned again, closing her eyes. "Ow," she repeated, before she opened her eyes again.
"Yes, maybe move a bit more slowly than that, there is no rush. Can you tell me your name, where you've come from?"
"Future you," she got out. "Tried to teleport away, my foot got..." she frowned, looking around. "Caught on something." The light blinded her and pain spiked through her. "Ow," she repeated, for good measure.
"And your name, which you've declined to tell me?"
"Anna," she told him. "Anna Monroe."
There was silence wherever it was that they were. She healed herself before she managed to sit up.
"Oh, Anna!" she frowned, looking over at him. "No, no, go slowly, I'm so sorry, I didn't recognize you! Why didn't I recognize you?" he shook his head, looking a bit flustered. "No matter, probably something to do with you, traveling through the vortex unguarded as you do."
She frowned. "I'm... sorry?" she looked down at her wrist, half-expecting a bracelet to appear, some part of her already expecting him to tell her that she was a person what traveled his timeline out of order. She was woozy and it had been a long day.
He rolled his eyes. "The Space Between Space as you so fondly like to call it," he told her. "Even though I've said multiple times that that isn't correct," he shrugged. "But what are you going to do about it, eh? Especially when a being of power-"
"All powerful being," she corrected him.
He stopped at that, searching her. He frowned. "Since when did you elevate your status from being of power to all powerful being?"
"Since when have you known me this far back?" she frowned, looking around. "I say this far back-"
He raised his eyebrows, searching her. "You said you've just..." He leaned back so far it was just shy of taking a step back. "You haven't met this me yet, have you?"
"Yet?"
"Which likely means that you haven't..." he ran a hand down his face. "You haven't met any of the younger versions of myself yet, have you?"
It came to her suddenly, an understanding which she couldn't name. "I tripped over a paradox," she said, quietly, and she searched him, making a noise in her throat.
"I think we've to talk," he told her.
How does one trip over a paradox? One trips over a paradox like this:
Time, despite what people think, is a physical thing. Time makes up everything. Therefore, if enough of it is thrown out of place, then, technically speaking, you could have something like somebody who's unprotected trip over said paradox... especially when it's only formed because they didn't do what they were supposed to. Namely, meeting their husband when he was younger than he currently was.
He'd just regenerated (or a better way to put that would be had his regeneration thrust upon him).
He hardly took in any of his surroundings, simply terrified that he'd lost his Tardis key, though he couldn't voice this to the humans that surrounded him, simply demanding his shoe, over and over again.
And there she was. His discombobulated senses didn't really see a human, they just saw a being of incredible power.
"Hello, I'm Anna," she introduced herself. "I'm a being of power."
He didn't know what she wanted, or really what she was even doing in here, but some part of him was absolutely certain that she was about to take the Tardis, his last link to home since he'd been exiled, and he couldn't have that.
"Shoe," he said, holding it up before he clutched it tightly to his chest.
The old, 'harmless idiot' routine got them every time. Especially the beings of power, the ones who underestimated those who were 'lesser' than them. They already expected the lower beings to be idiots. So, he played into the stereotype.
She didn't smirk. In fact, her look softened, sitting down next to him in a chair he was sure hadn't been there moments before.
"You doing okay?" she asked him. "I know it can be rough, this regeneration stuff."
"Shoe," he repeated, finally coming back to himself in the face of this threat, managing to catalogue some of her physical aspects (which was impressive, considering he shouldn't have been able to catalogue any of them. She was light and color and power, and right now, that should've been all that he could see).
She held up her hands, this time her face softening towards amusement. "Okay, okay. Sorry. Wouldn't have visited, but, well, I had to. You'll be seeing me again soon," she told him. "When you're less concerned about your Tardis key."
He held it more firmly to his chest out of reaction before he really wished he hadn't.
"It's all right," she said, before she nodded, standing. She pressed a hand awkwardly to the top of his head. "I'll see you soon," she told him, smiling reassuringly.
Strangely enough, he was reassured.
True to her word, he saw her again, though this time, it was onboard his Tardis when Jo Grant was already asleep. "Quite a feat, that," he said, discreetly activating protocols... or trying. The Tardis was refusing to. Blasted machine, he thought, before he turned to the new person on his Tardis.
"Quite a being of power I am."
"Yes, you said that before, when you visited me, in the hospital, when I was at my most vulnerable."
She shrugged, leaning against the console like it belonged to her. "Wanted to show that you can trust me."
"Prey tell why that is, my dear."
She shrugged. "I'm a being of power, and I'm bored," she lied. It read all over her, on every square inch of her. It was completely obvious to him, he just wasn't sure why. She looked up at him and smiled. "You save people. I'd like to help."
"I've been exiled from my home. Care to help with that?"
She snorted. "Do you even want that, man who stole a Tardis and ran away? Time lord who stole a Tardis and ran away," she corrected herself.
"I am both," he told her.
He was utterly surprised when her eyes raked up and down his body. "And don't I know it," she said, appreciatively.
"My dear, I'm old enough to be one of your ancestors," he told her.
"Well, considering I'm 3000 years old, I'd say that would be quite the feat," she corrected him.
"You're not, though," he told her.
"Nah," she agreed. "2500, and looking good on it, wouldn't you agree?"
He searched her. "Then tell me, dear," he said, ignoring her misguided advances. "What is it that you've done when you've been bored in the past?"
She shrugged. "Bit of this and that," she told him. "Went to different universes, saved a bunch of people. This just happened to be next on my list. That is, if you'll have me." She raised her eyebrows.
"You're a being of power," he pointed out. "Seems a bit out of character to be asking instead of simply telling me you're now an occupant."
She laughed a little at that. "I mean, I could do," she agreed. "Thought it'd be a little counterintuitive if I want us to be a team."
"My dear, what exactly are you asking of me?"
"If I can come aboard," she told him. "Help the helpless, save the day, beat the... 'bad guys', whatever that actually means."
"You could accomplish that here without use of myself or the Tardis," he told her. "If you truly are a being of power, that is."
"I could," she agreed. "So could you, except replace 'you or the Tardis' with 'your companions'."
He searched her. "You're lonely," he guessed.
He could see it. The truth in her eyes, how it ran through for a single moment. Instead of answering, she searched him. "What do you say?" she asked. "I could be a real asset. Well, an asset what can change the universe based on a number of variables, including and up to making sure that the universe as it's known is still intact."
"You're a being of power." He turned away from her. "What do you care of the universe still being intact?"
"You're a man with a time machine that could make it so that every 'bad' thing in the universe never happened," she pointed out. "What do you care of the universe still being intact?" she affected his accent.
"I'm a time lord," he said. "It's my duty to ensure the structural integrity of the Web of Time."
"Yes, well," she said, looking down at the console. "Some of us can take on that duty without being asked."
He searched her. "Fine," he said, after a moment. "You can tag along, if you'd like. There are some conditions, however."
She raised her eyebrows, almost unable to contain the smile of excitement. "I accept," she said.
"My dear, I haven't even laid out the conditions."
"I trust you," she said.
Maybe she was manipulating him, or maybe she truly meant it. Either way, he couldn't help that he felt touched that she trusted him not to simply ask for unreasonable requests in the face of his conditions.
"I'd still like to say them aloud, if that's quite all right with you."
"If it would make you happy," she said, sounding somewhat put upon, though she was merely teasing. He raised his eyebrows, searching her.
"As you've said, no changing the universe at large. You do as I tell you, and if I say that someone cannot be saved, then they cannot be saved." He raised his eyebrows, standing somewhat over her to make his point. "Clear?"
"Crystal. And, minus the 'you do as I tell you', same for you," she told him.
He searched her. "Okay," he said. "Glad we have an agreement."
"Shall we shake on it?"
He smiled, amused, before he did just that. "Welcome aboard, Anna Monroe."
"Thank you, Doctor."
In that one handshake, he felt everything. The history they would share together, the laughter they would have, the times that they would be absolutely perfect.
He smiled.
He wasn't wrong. For the next four hundred of her years, they shared adventures together, sporadic though they were at times when she went off to do what she liked to call 'being of power' business. He didn't mind that so much at first; let her do what she wanted to do. But, time passed, he lost companions, people and places started to fade... But there she was. Anna. Beautiful, perfect, always there and somehow always doing the right thing.
It wasn't until his eighth body, after he recovered his memories and she was at the forefront of his mind, that he finally admitted what the truth had been all along: she was his Anna, and he wanted that to be true, forever.
For the first time, he felt what it was like to be with her in that sense, and it was everything he could've wanted and more. It was perfect.
It was a few hundred years after that, after they'd picked up a few companions along the way, that she went away to do 'being of power' business for the first time in what had been a few hundred years.
"Hurry back," he told her, and he kissed her quickly.
He would remember this kiss and wish that he'd actually embraced her, showed her what she meant to him. He would remember this kiss and think this, but only in the few short minutes that Anna explained he'd have to forget her for a while.
"For how long?" he asked, but some sinking in his hearts had already told him the answer.
She shrugged. "A few hundred years," she told him. "But I'll still be there," she told him. "With you, every step of the way, to help you, and..." she searched him. "To be there for you."
"Do I love you?"
It was a look into the future of epic proportions, and both of them knew that he couldn't have it. Yet, it was what he needed, to make sure that Anna, his bright and beautiful and brilliant Anna, would be loved the way that she deserved. Maybe he was selfish, but he wasn't sure he cared about that in that moment.
She hesitated for only a moment, and he mistook it for something that it wasn't, hesitating about giving him a glimpse in the future when she shouldn't, though he wouldn't know that until he was remembering in a few hundred years time.
"Yes," she told him. "In every sense of the word, you love me."
He nodded, smiling. "Okay," he said. "Let's get this show on the road, as the humans say."
And, they did.
Back in Venice, Anna did not appear before him. She did not appear before they took off from Venice, nor did she appear when they got back to the Tardis.
"Where's Anna?" Rory asked, the one who had accused them of leaving her at Hogwarts for a week (which, yes, okay, technically they had done that, but that hadn't been on purpose. He never would've done that on purpose, and neither would've Anna. At least Rory seemed to be more understanding of that. Now, he was even asking after Anna, which even Amy hadn't done, though he was sure she was about to).
"No idea," he said, pushing buttons and such on the console. "I'm sure she'll turn up, she always does. Meantime, either of you have a request?"
"I've always wanted to visit Ancient Rome," Amy said. "It was my favorite subject in school."
He raised his eyebrows before he nodded, smiling. He needed a distraction. Ancient Rome was a distraction as good as any. "Ancient Rome it is," he agreed.
He pulled the lever.
