The gallery's curator had come to coax the last remaining spectators from the museum so the night crew could take over. It wasn't too long before cleaning and recovery began, all from the hundreds of people who had come in and out over the course of the day. It was time to sweep up remnants of dirt and leaves from the cold winter outside, scattered leaflets that had slipped from grasping hands, and close the doors until the next morning. In two weeks the exhibits would change, and Monet would take Van Gogh's place as a featured exhibit for a short while. Maybe after Money would come Da Vinci, and then another famous painter and another, until children were dazzled by the arrays of colour and adults could begin to understand things which had been so important in their history classes of youth. Art was a form of history, after all, something meant for interpretation and appreciation, to find a place in the hearts of those who understood it.

Amy had lingered at the sunflowers for as long as she had been able, but it was the Doctor who had told her when it was time to go with the pressure of a gentle hand to her elbow. That hand had stayed in its place while leading her back down the staircase and past the posed statue, out into the winter's biting cold. It hadn't felt as cold before, but now the chill seemed to reach past layers of sweater and coat alike, to clutch a hard grasp around her heart.

The Doctor hadn't spoken to her since they had stood in front of the sunflowers together. He'd been quietly present, not a step behind or in front of her while they walked, but instead right alongside her. But Amy hadn't spoken, either. She'd remained quiet, stepping up and into the TARDIS again, and around the console to the staircases behind. It had been her intention to change into something else - her nightgown or a pair of lavish pajamas furnished by the great wardrobe the time machine boasted - and go to sleep until the aching in her chest went away.

But after a few moments had passed, long enough for her to strip away jacket, scarf and boots alike, Amy knew she wouldn't be able to sleep.

A few moments later, Amy left her bedroom (the room she so rarely used now, only for changing and tucking the pieces of clothing she didn't want to again lose in the wardrobe) for the corridors of the TARDIS. She didn't know where the Doctor would be, but that wasn't enough to deter her from looking for him. There was a heaviness in her heart, redness rimming the edges of her eyes, and she didn't want to be alone.

Amy's stocking feet padded quietly against the flooring, leaving one hallway behind for the next. The console room was the first place she would look, because unless he was with her, that tended to be where he could be found.

If she thought back on it, Amy had never seen the Doctor cry.

There had been moments of strain, sure, and plenty of times the toll of over nine hundred years of life showed to weigh on what appeared to be an otherwise young face. His life hadn't been without incident, but this was something else entirely. A sort of shattering that came across and threatened to break him apart. Amy had watched the beautiful golden light fill the console room, returning back to where it had been (where it had always belonged), and she'd watched the Doctor's face change along with it.

The TARDIS had been his constant companion for longer than anyone else had. She was the one to stay when human life came to a close, and the next girl came along. It was a bittersweet thought, though maybe more bitter than anything else, because there was no fighting it. Nothing could be done to stop the ticking of time, no matter how much someone might wish it.

She loves you.

But so do I. So do I.

The Doctor had busied himself with the re-wiring of the console again and Amy had given him the time to do so. Part of her - the greater part, if she were being honest - wanted to stay with him. Reach a hand to find his, turn her cheek against his shoulder, and be there. There, the way he had been for her when she'd learned of Rory, when memories had rushed back to her with a painful quickness and she had done nothing but cry. He had taken her to swim across a great, beautiful sea in space, done everything he was able to take away the ache in her heart.

And it had helped. It hadn't changed the past, but it had helped.

Now, she wished she could offer him the same means of comfort.

Her bare feet were quiet on the metal catwalk and then the stairs that descended downwards, her painted toes curling for holds at the edges. There were loud sounds coming from the console, and she could only guess as to what that meant. What he was doing, or trying to do. Trying to bring her back? Well, wouldn't put it past him. She's traveled with him for hundreds of years and loved him all the while, why wouldn't a man want to bring that back?

Amelia Jessica Pond, are you jealous?

"You're still awake?" It was a bit of a ridiculous question, but he hadn't come up to bed yet. Hadn't come to his room (which she knew the location of well, by now) or come to hers (those times were less frequent but still in existence), and by now her concern overwhelmed any kind of exhaustion she felt.

There were relationships and then there were relationships. The first sort could develop over a slow, blooming period, giving time for two people to become comfortable with one another before taking things to the proverbial 'next level.' Amy had seen that happen before, watched things transition between two people who had believed they were a completely impossible match to one another, into an inseparable pair with marriage at the forefront of their line of vision. And then there was the stark opposite sort of relationship, where everything happened too quickly to register whether it was a good or bad idea, and by the time either party knew which way was upright they were both in too deep to get out. Relationships of that kind, they were dangerous and unpredictable - and exhilarating, out of control, so much beyond words. The very sort of relationship that Amy was currently wrapped up in with her imaginary friend-turned time traveling companion.

Far beyond the realm of all things expected, and so impossibly wonderful that words didn't describe it.

But even with impossibly wonderful things came impossibly unexpected bumps in the road. Amy had been subjected to the lurching and reeling of the TARDIS, coming to understand that when the Doctor piloted the machine into a whirlwind of motion, there was something unexpected waiting on the other side of the flight path. Double that when he was exceptionally frenzied about the piloting.

"Doctor?" Amy's voice breaks off as her hip slams into the console, her fingers banding around the railing for support. "Doctor! Any time now, you can tell me where we're going. Really! Would be great!"

Never mind she's presently wearing nothing but his shirt and some scarlet varnish on her nails. He hadn't jumped from the bed and left for the console - no, they'd gone past that - but she hadn't yet cared to get dressed. A bruise would blossom against her upper thigh and hip later, and it made her wish she'd taken that time.

"Doctor!" Her voice moved with the whirl of the TARDIS. "Where are we going?"

[OOC: Follows this. ]

There hadn't been as many tears as she had expected.

It wasn't that the loss wasn't devastating, but rather that she had cried herself out. Most of Amy's tears had come to soak the shoulder of the Doctor's tweed jacket a bit earlier, and now it might as well be as if there were no more to cry at all. Rory had been forgotten for a time in her memory (how could she have forgotten Rory?) but now he was everywhere and anywhere that she looked, that she turned her head and glanced or dared to allow her mind to wander. Little thoughts wandered down dark paths of her mind so they could blossom into brightly coloured memories, images that etched themselves on the screen of her eyelids. And no matter how she tried to shake her head, to try and convince herself not to think about them, she couldn't stop herself.

Where Rory had been gone, he was now everywhere.

Amy had to stand for long, silent moments in the great wardrobe of the TARDIS, collecting herself and remembering to breathe properly. It hurt, but she had never been one to let her emotions get the absolute best of her. There was strength behind her eyes, there had to be, and she was drawing upon every bit she could right now.

Because Rory was dead, and there was nothing she could do to bring him back.

He's gone, and he's not coming back.

He's not coming back.

Some time later, Amy climbs the stairs towards the console. She's shrugged on a leather jacket with boots and a skirt, a bright enough shaded tank beneath. It's the best she can do for now.

[OOC: Follows this.]

What does one wear to the fourteenth century?

While the TARDIS whirs and beeps and sings beneath the Doctor's direction, it is Amy who makes a quick and hasty run back to the vast expanse which is the wardrobe. She can't very well go out there in the same dress she raced about Air-Paris in, not because she is a girl in need of a new outfit for every occasion, but due to a rather faint scent of smoke which has clung to her dress. Apparently, great dragons do and will breathe fire when they are provoked, and she has seen this to witness it first hand. They are also temperamental creatures, and will breathe such fire quite possibly just to show that they can.

But Amy remembers the feel of the great, scaly head beneath her palm and wonders if maybe, just maybe, dragons breathe fire because they feel threatened and not out of the wish to do harm.

After a bit of searching Amy settles on something rather simple but comfortable - and practical for running - and while kneeling to pull boots on over her tights, her mind wanders to the upper level of the TARDIS and the man operating its controls.

What was it that was so important to tell her? There had been a weight behind his eyes as he had spoken, and Amy had opted to silence him with a kiss instead. But what did he want to tell her that was so dire, that would reduce his carefree expression to one with pain behind his eyes, and leave her with a tight feeling of ache in her chest?

Put it out of your mind, Amy. You're going to the fourteenth century, where castles are built to tower over villages and people get around by riding horseback. Don't think about anything else right now.

Amy runs back up the staircase while tugging a jacket over her shoulders, puffing a strand of hair out of her face. The Doctor is there, she can see the back of his head, and she clutches to the railing near the console.

"So exactly where in the fourteenth century are we off to?"

The TARDIS wasn't only bigger on the inside, it was a vast labyrinth of tunnels and rooms, little nooks and crannies and everything else in between, all into one magical, impossible machine. Had Amelia (little Amelia of the round face and sturdy jaw) been afforded the opportunity to venture beyond the two blue doors, she might well have gotten lost - and happily so - in the unnatural playground, the laughter of her imaginary friend chasing behind her as they engaged in a game of hide and seek. It would have been a beautiful fantasy, something meant to be written in calligraphy on parchment and bound with leather, kept on a child's bookshelf along with volumes by the brothers Grimm and Hans Christien Andersen.

But fairy tales did not always last forever, though their memories might be able to linger as such a fashion. And where Amelia had been, Amy was now - with longer hair and less innocence in her eyes - and Amy's idea of a fantasy or something meant to be told across the stars was far, far different from what little Amelia's had been.

Take, for instance, the presence of a shower on her imaginary friend's magical spaceship. Little Amelia might have considered turning on the spray and standing beneath it for a hour's time, twirling one way and then the other with eyes closed and imagination reaching to far, impossible places.

But Amy Pond - Amy of the ginger hair and temperament to match - was thinking about different things in regards to the shower and its presently running water. Because running water meant the shower was occupied, and there were only two passengers on the TARDIS. One option was herself, and the other -

Shifting on the balls of her feet Amy moved, cat-quiet, towards the slightly ajar door. Mist was coiling gently into the empty space, creating a dewy sort of cloud. He was there - she could hear him - hear the padding sounds of his feet here and there with when he shifted position, the murmured tone of his voice.

Amy had a second's time to think, to reconsider, and to dismiss that reconsideration into a cavern of nothingness. Her arms crossed as she stripped the sweatshirt from her upper half, toeing out of her sneakers to leave them behind. Her bare feet were silent against the flooring as she crossed towards the misty cloud, and the slightly open door.