A/N: This is based off of an official 11 era adventure called the Dead of Winter. Essentially, the Doctor gets shot in the head after having purposefully misplaced his identity in Rory's and then getting it back. Rory then sends him to an alien creature whose only purpose is to heal and make people whole again. Told from Rory's POV. Enjoy. This is dedicated to HiberianPrincess aka Merlinsfirstlove on tumblr, who is my tumblr wife and my motivation. Thanks :D

'I've lived so long. I've lost so much.'[…]'I'm the very worst thing you could possibly have scanned.' The Sea[…]in places[…looked like…] there were[…]struggling limbs and howling faces[…]and shiny silver towers[…].'I'm the Last of the Time Lords[…]Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area.'

I [Rory] answered him. 'It's been odd being you[…]how do you cope?'

'I just get as close as I can to a happy ending, then I shut the door behind me and move on.'

Doctor Who, the Dead of Winter by James Goss

Amy 's sleeping. I had waited till I was certain, because she was snoring. We've been married long enough that I know she's really sleeping when she begins to snore. Before that is fair game. It's only been a couple hours since we had left the beach and the Sea and Maria with her fake mother. Fake Maria.

The TARDIS seems much more homey after this trip. But there are still very foreign things floating in my head. They have festered in my heart during the short time I believed myself to be the Doctor. An ache resides there now, and I suspect that in the rush I had ended up with things in my head that he had never meant for me to know.

The depth of his pain, for example.

By now, I knew my way around the TARDIS fairly well, the halls warm and bright with a light that sort of throbbed like it was alive.

I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, but I knew he'd be there, and I knew that no matter where I walked, the TARDIS would get me there.

Somehow. I don't know how or why I knew. Maybe it was because I had pieces of the Doctor floating around in my brain now.

He was leaning at the console, palms gripping so tight that the flesh was a sickly yellow white, the blood flow stemmed. That's bad for him, says the nurse in me, but I know that he needs the support. A beautiful and caring creature nearly died because of him today. Because of me.

He didn't look up, and I was glad of it. I didn't know how I would have said anything if those sad old eyes were gazing into my soul, judging me for saving him. For doing what I knew he would also have done. Because it was the bits of him in my head that had told me to do it. To save him. To be heroic. The Doctor taught me how.

And he hates me for it.

Now I get it.

He hates himself too.

Decisions, decisions. Always have to make them. Who lives, who dies.

I'm not God.

I'll never be a God.

I don't want to do this.

I can't do this.

I closed my eyes and took a breath.

"You okay?"

He looked up at me, startled. He looked vulnerable. It reminded me of when I'd gone to him as he lay dead. Unmoving. His face had been so still. He hadn't even looked….Doctorish.

Just dead.

"I'm always okay, Rory,"

"Right. Yeah. The 'I'm okay because it's Amy and I have to be okay for Amy' okay, or how about a nice 'You don't have to play games with me because it's Rory and he knows you aren't perfect' I'm not okay? How about one of those?"

The Doctor lifted one hand off of the console, and rubbed along the side of his nose, then massaged his forehead.

"You forget," I said, "I've already seen in that great head of yours. I know now. I get it. And I can't ever know what it feels like, but I still have at least a-a…a semblance of understanding now,"

He faced deliberately away from me, holding tight to the TARDIS, and not moving or saying anything. We were both silent.

"You can tell me," I stated with a finality I hadn't anticipated. "I may not have lived those 2000 years in this reality, but I remember them sometimes. And if I didn't talk to Amy about them sometimes, I think I'd have gone mad a long time ago,"

He steeled his jaw, and a dark look crossed his face, the sort that I suppose gave him the name 'Oncoming Storm', something Amy once told me about.

"I'm it. I'm the last. The last of them all. They were going to destroy the universe. So I destroyed them. I committed genocide on two races, one of them my own. The 'greater good' and all that, I'm sure you've heard…"

"Yeah. I've heard," Another long silence. Even the TARDIS seems more quite than normal. Like she's mourning. "Look. I may not be a psychotherapist, and I may only be human, but if you say that we look Timelord, then we must be on our way to thinking like Timelords or something like that so just listen. It seems to me like you have survivor's guilt. Which - honestly? - is understandable. And I know that no one will ever 'get it', but you don't have to go it alone, you know that right?"

He looked up at me then, the question in his eyes. You of all people? It was saying to me. Why you?

"You're-you're in pain. Everyone needs someone to talk to. No one simply doesn't 'do' emotions,"

"Thank you Rory Williams," he murmured with a little laugh, the appreciation and warmth returning to his eyes, and a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "I'll keep it in mind,"

I turned and walked back the way I came, and the TARDIS felt a little brighter again. I felt surprisingly light. It had been a long time since I had done what I was meant to do in this world. Help someone. Perhaps the Doctor and I weren't so different after all.