I'm in the denial stage of grief. This cannot be the end of Rory and Amy. I'm so miffed I'm going to write my first original Doctor Who story. This cannot be allowed to stand.

*sniff*

I don't have any rights to or power over Doctor Who. If I did, there's no way Amy & Rory would be leaving the TARDIS.

*sniff*

The Doctor watched the monitor as the TARDIS began to flash in and out of Amy's time stream. He watched Amy turn away from his magic box as Rory ran out of his slightly paler blue box, champagne and flutes in hand.

He smiled.

That's as it should be. This was a proper good-bye. Amy was perhaps not happy but satisfied and at least she wasn't alone. She had her Rory, her true hero. A man with only one heart and that heart unquestionably hers for all time. He even started to congratulate himself, to think "Well done."

Then, for a few fleeting seconds, he looked straight into Rory's eyes through the ether of the view screen and he realized he'd done it again. He'd left one of his companions, one of his friends without a good-bye. The screen went dark.

The message came two years later in the Doctor's time stream. Rory prefaced it in the way they had agreed upon, with the date.

"Hello, Doctor. It's December 12th, same year you left so it's been..oh I don't know three or four months you've been gone…or we've been gone. Can't really tell anymore. It's all so normal. I've got hired on. Wasn't that difficult. People can always use a nurse. Amy's working on getting a degree, history." He chuckled. "She's still…well, I think she still misses it all too much. Misses you."

The Doctor frowned slightly, concerned about how Amy's missing him might effect Rory.

"Mind, I'm not jealous. I know she loves you but it's in a different way. I know that now. How she loves you because…"

Rory cleared his throat.

"Well, because I love you that way too." Rory cleared his throat again. "You know, not in a... well, you go through things with someone and you just get to... love them. Not that way, just ... you know what I mean. Mind you sometimes I just wanted to wring your neck."

Rory chuckled and the Doctor found himself smiling.

"I'd find myself thinking about that time I cleaned your clock, just picturing it in my head over and over. You can be a right Pratt sometimes. But, you know, you're … you're the Doctor. The raggedy man with a magic blue box taking us with you on your adventures and no, they weren't always pleasant. They sometimes went wrong but I can't wish them away."

The Doctor frowned pensively.

"I know what it's like to die. I know what it's like to kill. I've seen millennia of human history stretched out in front of me and creeping by so slowly I thought I'd go mad. It didn't help, by the way, your saying I'd go mad."

Rory chuckled and the Doctor found himself chuckling along with the disembodied voice.

"Thing is, I know what it is to wish for death."

The Doctor stopped smiling.

"When you think about it, I'm older than you are now. I've got all those memories. I know what it's like to see the years stretch out in front of you and wish for anything, anything to distract you from the unbearableness of your own lonely existence. But, here's the thing, I didn't chose to be alone."

"Yes, but you were alone all that time because of me." The Doctor found himself saying over the voice that couldn't hear him.

"…don't have to be alone. I know you think you're bad for us, for your friends. Amy said when you left, she said you were saving us. Thing is, life is pain."

"Oh, Rory." The Doctor sighed.

"Don't get me wrong, it's joy and hope and love as well but … it's like they say you don't appreciate something … oh I'm getting it wrong. You can't love the sun so well as when it comes after a week of gloom and rain. There were places and things and experiences that were horrible but you, being with you wasn't horrible, else we wouldn't have done it."

The Doctor's hand reached toward the console to turn off the recording.

"And don't you dare switch me off."

His hand froze.

"You left without a good-bye, you owe it to me to hear me out, Raggedy Man."

The Doctor smiled.

"The first time Amy ran off with you, she didn't really know what she was getting into. When I ran off with you, I wasn't all that keen on it, I just wanted to be near Amy. But!"

The Doctor found himself holding his breath.

"When you came back. When Amy brought you back, we knew. Are you hearing me? We knew what was out there. We knew about the monsters and the impossible choices and all the madness. We, both of us, decided that we loved you and loved our life with you enough to face all that."

Box of candies.

"I'm not a child, Doctor."

The Doctor chilled and found himself glancing around. This thing with Rory seeming to hear him was getting eerie. Then again, he hadn't actually said that out loud had he? It was getting hard to tell. He'd been alone long enough he'd started talking to himself a bit.

"Technically, I'm older than you are. I haven't seen the beginnings and endings of time like you have but I've had a lot of time sitting alone thinking about life. Life exists for its own sake. The cop-out answer is there is no purpose to it. But a better answer is that life exists to generate sentience. So the question is not, what is the meaning of life. It's why are we aware?"

The Doctor smiled. Rory was giving him a lesson on the meaning of existence.

"Over all those generations I watched people ask that question. I watched humanity and civilization struggle to survive, why? I've seen humanity fail so often. Wars. Enslavement. Suffering on such massive scales. I saw my adopted people, the Romans, build incredible roads, roads I knew would last into my home millennia and then I saw them line those roads with crucified men as far as the eye could see. What is the purpose of such failure? Maybe it's to do so spectacularly!"

The Doctor discovered that he was truly listening to Rory now. He wasn't indulging him. He was actually hoping that Rory had an answer.

"You're not perfect. You fail like everyone else. And sometimes when you fail it is spectacular. But do you know what that tells me about you, Doctor? It tells me that you try. When others would run or quit or wash their hands clean, you try. What is the value and purpose of my life? What is the value and purpose of yours?"

"I don't know." The Doctor whispered.

"I know you feel lost, Doctor. But just ask yourself, 'What do I value most?' Consider that question and when you have an answer, you have the answer. Because … Because the purpose of our lives is to protect and empower and enjoy and, I don't know, cherish those things we value. Whether they're real, abstract …"

Rory chuckled.

"..or imaginary."

There was a long pause and the Doctor thought maybe Rory was done. That he'd missed the disconnection.

"Amy's listening. She walked in on me talking."

"Hello, Doctor." Amy's voice sounded stuffy, as though she'd been crying.

"I guess, I should stop going on and on and just make my point, eh?" Rory chuckled again.

"Point is. We miss you. Whether you like it or not, you are someone we cherish. You and River…"

Rory's voice seemed to pinch off as though someone had grabbed him by the throat.

"…the whole adventure. It's part of who we are and of what makes us, us. It's all part of our purpose. So, I know you think you're saving us but maybe we're meant to save you."

The Doctor sighed.

"Come back." Rory said and then the line disconnected.

The Doctor stood for a few moments.

"Well, leave a nurse alone for a few millennia and he becomes a philosopher." He said in an attempt at levity.

"Come back."

The Doctor started as Rory's voice echoed impossibly through the control chamber.

"Come back."

The Doctor examined the TARDIS recorder. It seemed to be short circuiting, playing the last bit of the message again and again. He cut off power to the device.

The TARDIS rumbled and shook violently, almost knocking him from his feet. The control monitor flashed on with a date and location. The date being the one Rory mentioned at the beginning of the message, the location Rory and Amy's home.

"Yes, yes, yes. I get it." He muttered and then yelled. "I'm not stupid you know!"

He smiled and whispered. "You, you sly, sexy thing." He worked the controls and reached for a lever that turned itself down before he could touch it.

"You want to go visit the Pretty One."