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“What are you talking about? Back away from the Angel. Come back to the TARDIS. We'll figure something out,” says the Doctor, his voice breaking through Amy’s fugue of desperation. His limber fingers glance against the skin on her wrist, skimming on the verge of taking her hand in his. Even now, she thinks, even now he cannot bear to hold onto her. If the Doctor were to cling to Amy it would mean that he feared letting her go, and her Raggedy Man would never admit to such a human failing.
Amy’s throat closes up. A paradox that would rip New York apart. Rory, her husband, alone and wandering in the past. If she goes to him, if she goes to him now, she will never see the Doctor again. Isn’t this just another form of running? Only this time, it’s headlong towards a nice domestic future, a past in which she won’t be able to vote or wear what she pleases, a happy settled life she can’t bear to imagine. Tears well in her eyes, falling down her face hot and fast.
Rory, all alone then. Amy, all alone now.
“The Angel, would it send me back to the same time? To him?” she asks. The words come slowly to her, trickling through the sun and the clouds and into the graveyard. Amy is grateful in that moment to only see are the cold, unrelenting eyes of the Angel, so that she will not have to turn and see the Doctor as she leaves. She is not sure if she could leave while watching him.
Even while he stands behind her, she can hear the way he sucks in his breath. “I don't know. Nobody knows.”
The words funnel out of him, tinged in a fear he will not verbalize, and Amy knows he is lying. The Doctor is lying so she might stay with him. She feels her chest begin to cave in. She knows Rory will be honest with her; that she will be safe with him. Amy knows that could go back to New York now, that nothing will touch her if he's there. Amy Pond’s life could evaporate within instants of her moving forward, the space between the Doctor’s breaths enough time for her to live and die.
“Liar,” she whispers. “The same Angel takes you to the same time.” Amy’s eyes skim the stone Angel’s cruel gaze, that stock still and unrelenting hand stretched forward. “You know that. I could go to him, right? I could just turn my back now and head back to the thirties. Would it be right, do you think? Me and him?" For a moment, Amy isn't sure what she's asking.
“If you go, you create fixed time. I will never be able to see you again,” warns the Doctor, “and it won’t be because I don’t want to, or because I forgot. It won’t be because I made a mistake and catapulted into your future. It will be because I can’t, Amy. Please, just consider what you're doing."
“Another lie,” Amy says, a furious laugh taking form on her breath. “You would say anything to get me to stay with you. You could still get back to me, you know. You could take your goddamn TARDIS to 1900 and kick back around the United States until you got to me and Rory. You could go to the United Kingdom at the same time and hitch a boat ride over.”
The Doctor does not respond.
“Aren’t I right, Doctor? It’s only a fixed point if you want it to be. I waited for you. I waited for you for more than half my life, and you can’t spend a drop in yours waiting for me. Selfish, miserable old man.” Her words come in a steady stream, beckoned by the rotten acidity of all that waiting. All that time puttering about, waiting for the Doctor to come and save her from the mundanity of life only to find he was just like everyone else.
His words are not a denial. “We could go, you and me. We could go and get Rory if you wanted. It doesn't have to be like this; scorched earth and everything. You're right, Amy, you're so right. I could see you again. By the same token, you know we could find him again. You wouldn't have to leave your life behind: not your parents, not your job, not anything. Let me fix this. Come on, Pond, come with me. I won’t make you wait ever again, I promise. Let’s go, let’s leave, Amy… Amy, please.”
She stumbles back, and he catches her hand in his. If she didn't know better, she would say he's relieved. The Doctor closes his hand around hers, as tight as he can, almost as though he's fearful of letting go. In that moment, Amy thinks he might just be human in this physical plea, and for the first time she feels an unspoken understanding. (This is when her decision solidifies in her chest, when she knows she cannot leave the Doctor. Not when there's another way; not ever when it comes down to death. Amy and the Doctor will travel forever.)
“Back up to the TARDIS slowly,” he murmurs. “I’ll snap the doors open, we’ll go inside, and then I’ll snap them closed before the Angel can come. If you want to save Rory, we can save Rory. I’ll go wherever you want, Pond, whenever you want.”
“What do you mean, if I want to save Rory?” Amy demands. She doesn't let go of his hand, sucks in a gulp of cold air through her teeth. After everything they've been through, how can she believe he wouldn't want to save Rory? She remembers burning spaceships and the Doctor saving her from a misery she hasn't touched since, and she knows she cannot leave Rory behind properly. Not like this.
“You didn’t follow him,” says the Doctor. “You can blame me if you like, but I thought it might mean...” His hand, clasped in hers, trembles like a leaf in the wind. Like a man who didn’t know whether she’d follow him. His voice trails off, and he doesn't finish his thought. She wonders at the quiet audacity of it. “Do you want to go to him now?”
They move backwards together, eyes locked on the Angel (an unassuming statue in a graveyard now), their steps in a miserable synchrony. The sudden surge of her grief makes Amy crumple against him, her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. His arm comes around her, holding both of them up. Amy knows then with a miserable certainty that they may not be able to save him; that the Angels are far more powerful than either of them are accounting for. She thinks that she ran away the night before their wedding and she is running away now. Most of all, Amy wonders whether she can live with not following him now.
“Will he be okay?”
“I don’t know,” admits the Doctor. “I don’t know whether you can change that either.” He snaps his fingers, and the TARDIS doors whistle open behind them. She can hear the humming inventions, the pulsing machines, the riotous beat of the police box’s heart. Her eyes stay fixed on the Angel, its arm still outstretched, its power enough for one more person to leave.
“Last chance to go back,” he says, breaking her reverie if not her focus. “Last chance to marry Rory Williams and live out your days in wedded bliss before the Civil Rights Movement even comes to fruition, much less gets played out. All you have to do is blink—Amy, do you really want to come back? Are you sure? You'd be safe then, if nothing else.”
Amy snaps her fingers, and the TARDIS doors bang shut.
"It isn't," she says, "it isn't my last chance, because we're going to save Rory."
She turns to face the Doctor, taking in the worry lines on his face, eyes flushed red with tears, a wound on his lip that must be self-inflicted bleeding onto his chin. His characteristic bowtie hangs off his axis, the handle to his sonic screwdriver crushed in his grip. When he looks at her, his face shatters with a screaming grief. She wonders whether she could've left him, flawed as she is. She wonders whether she will ever be able to walk away.
“Oh, Amelia Pond,” he says, “I am so sorry.”
Amy can’t look at him a minute longer, just buries her face in her hands and sobs. The Doctor rushes to her, gripping her in a hug as the top of her head crashes into his chest. He presses a kiss to her forehead, buoying her against losing Rory. This is the second time she has lost her husband to the adventures she ran off with the night before their wedding, and a bone-deep exhaustion spreads across her body.
She will save him. She has to. She just doesn't know what comes next.