Work Text:
Everything looks the same as a few seconds ago. The rock gravestones didn't crushed, the cemetery grass didn't turn yellow, the Sun didn't go below the horizon.
They were here just twenty seconds ago. Twenty seconds is so little and very-very close. It seems to him that he is able to extend his hand through these twenty seconds to grab Amy and Rory and pull them out from this cemetery. And then he could run with them inside the TARDIS away from weeping angels. And go anywhere in all of the time and space.
Seconds run and run and probably already a whole minute passed. The past is becoming further further. Amy and Rory as if are drowning in the deep lake, falling deeper and deeper with every second. Bright red Pond’s hair not long ago was visible on the unmoved water surface, but now it can barely be seen through the muddy greenish water column. When the person drowns it takes time before it is too late to save him, but in this case it was too late from the very beginning. It was already too late when just a thousandth of a second passed after rocky hand touched her shoulder.
It seems to the Doctor that cold water covers him with his head. Everything inside him is crushing under power of raging waves. He can't inhale. He can't open his eyes. That's all impossible. The Doctor doesn't try to come out, letting water to fill his lungs. He falls on his knees, unbearable burning sensation in his chest. Hot tears cloud his eyes, rolling down his cheeks, falling on the grass. The Doctor is crying, not holdimg back the bitter sobs.
Some leave. Some he leaves behind. And really rarely some die. But not them. Just not them!
«Why are you needed then?» - Amelia asks him angrily, tears in her eyes.
Not this time. He can save everyone today. The bold and obstinate idea is growimg up, pulsating, in his mind. He can just break all of the rules again! And he doesn't care about the paradoxes!
The TARDIS stands near him like a lifeboat. The Doctor glances at it and jumps to his feet. He just needs to go four minutes back to the past, and Amy and Rory will be saved. The four minutes aren't too much for the whole universe, are they?
River, of course, understands what he is going to do. She always understands him without words. And looking in her eyes the Doctor understands that he will do nothing. There are so many fixed points at the time, and these points are wars, catastrophes and deaths. The Doctor curses all of the rules of time in the universe and feels his hearts bleeding.
Five minutes passed. Five minutes and one second. The time never stops. Flattened grass that ginger-hair girl and her husband were standing straightens towards the sun again. Air particles from their lungs are flying away for kilometers. It will be raining tomorrow and the rain will wash away any of the trails and smells. But all of that existed just five minutes and twenty nine seconds ago. Sounds of the outside world fade. The Doctor as if becomes blind. Something inside him doesn't let him breath in deeply. The Girl Who Waited and the Last Centurion are dissolving in the air like patches of early morning mist. The Doctor reaches his hand towards them, but it goes through the cold ghost and grabs the air.
But the reflection of red hair rises in the whitish haze like fire.
Then the Doctor runs as fast as he never run. He run because it's not over yet. Because there is always one more page – the last one.
This is the story of Amelia Pond, and that is how it ends.
The night is shining with stars, fillimg the small garden with light. The TARDIS lands near the ruined shed. The little girl is sleeping, laying on the ground with her head on the suitcase. She is just at the beginning of their great adventure while the Doctor is in the end of it. He carefully puts the girl to bed and goes away, closing the door behind himself.
He does not have enough strength to turn around.