Title: Meanings

Pairing: Rory/Amy

Word Count: 1276

Rating: T

Summary: Set during the gaps in the Eleventh Hour. The same words keep cropping up in Rory and Amy's conversations.

Beta: Big thanks to the awesome Spazzer Monkey for fixing up some of my mistakes and just generally being a great Beta.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it. Nothing gained and no harm intended.

"When are you coming back?"

The first time Amelia asks the words, Rory's eight and his parents are taking him to the seaside for a week. She winds her fingers around his hand as they walk to school and Rory should pull it away before any of the other boys see. He won't though because it's Amelia.

"We're only going for a week," he answers and she smiles.

"So you'll be back next Saturday?"

Rory nods as he feels her squeeze his fingers for a second. And then she's gone, begging to be chased as she runs ahead, her hair glinting gold in the summer sun and her laughter echoing back to him.

He's thirteen when his Gran gets sick. Not just sick with the sniffles, but sick-sick and it sucks that he's old enough to know the difference. To know with such seriousness that each word he says to her could be the last ones and can he live with that?

He goes with his Mum when she goes to stay with her. Everyone in Leadworth says things like 'You're a good boy, taking care of your gran' and 'Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be just fine.' Rory wishes he could tell them that they were wrong, but he can't.

Before he leaves, Amelia … no … Amy slips up behind him, lacing her fingers into his. Her head is leant awkwardly against his shoulder and he can feel the warm comfort she's trying to give him. She doesn't offer hollow words or empty promises, just sits there next to him.

"When are you coming back?" The words are soft, falling as if in slow motion in the still, silent world around them.

"I don't know." Rory whispers and the words crack through him, until he's sure that the only thing holding him together is Amy, because even though she's his best friend, she's a girl and he's not going to cry in front of her. Amy doesn't say anything, but she presses a kiss against his cheek before they part and he thinks he sees the sadness that's eating away at him echoed in her eyes.

There's a month of almost silent houses and Rory reads to his Gran more days than not. He feels like he's wasting this time that they have, that it's slipping from him as each day he watches as she sleeps longer, eats less, and it hurts.

The day it ends he's filled with pain and rage and that sense of uselessness is overwhelming. Everything's suddenly too much and he shuts himself away for hours in an empty room in his Gran's almost empty house.

He wants to cry. But he can't.

He wants to hit something. But he won't.

He wants his Gran. But she'll never be there again.

He wants his best friend. He wants Amy. But she's not there.

So Rory curls up in a ball and just sits there and pretends that his Gran's down stairs baking the chocolate chip cookies he always loved.

When he gets back to Leadworth a week later, the hollow feeling's still there but the rage has leaked out of him, even though he'd tried to cling to it, to blame someone.

Amy's surprised to see him. She opens the door before letting out a strangled yell and wrapping herself around him like the monkeys they'd learnt about in class. A moment ago he'd felt like nothing in the world would ever feel right again. But somehow, just maybe things will be okay now that he's back here with Amy.

"You're back." Amy says the words as if she really can't believe it. Rory gives her a tiny smile.

"Yeah. I'm back."

He's eighteen the next time he hears the words. An acceptance letter sits on his desk, and it looms over his life as he wonders just what he has to give up for his dreams. But today Amy's sprawled across his bed and that's enough to make him push all those thoughts out of his head as he bends down to kiss her.

Rory's always thought of Amy as a wild-girl who just stumbled into Leadworth by accident when she was seven. She's happiest when she's running and her mind skips from idea to idea. The only time she's completely still is when she's here with him and the warm feeling that settles in his chest when she blinks up at him, her body perfectly still for only a moment, is the best feeling in the world.

Later Amy will wriggle up close behind him and press warm kisses against his back as she murmurs out the words that neither of them want to acknowledge. "You're leaving."

"I'm going to miss you." He promises because he can't deny her words even though they sound like an accusation. Her face is hidden by her hair when he turns to face her and he brings their joined fingers up to kiss her knuckles. He wished that this thing between them wasn't so new, so undefined. "Wait for me?"

Amy's hair nods and Rory feels his grin threaten to take over his face.

"When are you coming back?"

"When I can. I've got to see what my timetables like. But I'll make it back for midterms at least."

He knows that whatever he's said is right because Amy's smile is delighted as she kisses him again before teasingly pulling away to get ready for work.

They help save the world with Amy's imaginary friend and there's something about his presence and the smile on Amy's face that burns like an ember in Rory's belly. But then he's gone and Rory thinks things will go back the way they were. Except they don't.

It's their first fight, yelled words in the kitchen of Amy's huge empty house. Rory's so angry and he wonders if all he'll ever be to Amy is the man who was there when the Doctor wasn't. He doesn't like feeling like he's in second place to a man that's never been there.

When he storms out the kitchen door, he hardly hears Amy's shouted words.

"When are you coming back?"

"I don't know." He yells back and he doesn't like how underneath the anger, there's a layer of guilt because he's made Amy cry. He shoves at the feelings and heads towards the pub.

An hour later and the anger's drowned somewhere in the third beer glass and now all he's left with is the guilt and Amy's last shouted words. Those words that are echoing through their relationship, always the same. 'When are you coming back?' and something in the way they turn themselves over in Rory's mind suggests that the sentence is too crowded and there's a word that shouldn't be there.

He's up and running, because he finally understands and he needs to tell her. When he crashes in through the doorway, he's startled to see first hand the evidence of the tears he's caused her. He wants to apologise, to fill the sudden silence with useless words that will fall over themselves and make no sense simply because he wants them to be right. So instead he ignores the fire still burning in her eyes and he kisses her.

And each time they draw apart, he mumbles his apologies against her skin and weaves a new promise through them. "Always, Amy. Always."

All of those other times when Amy had asked him, he'd never quite gotten the right answer. She'd hidden the real question, hiding behind the 'when's'.

"Are you coming back?"

"Always."