A/N: This had been a long time in the making. I started this epilogue back in 2014, and I'm sorry its taken this long for me to finish it. Thank you, all of you who have been waiting so patiently for this, I hope that you enjoy, and get some closure. As always, DW is not mine. Unbeta'd, any mistakes are my own.

I'd suggest listening to the instrumental 'You're So Very Far Away' by Clem Leek when reading.

Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering one feels when something or someone the individual loves is taken away. - Wikipedia: Grief

Sharon walks through her too big house, and listens to the sound of her sigh as it echoes down the upstairs corridors.

She paces the hallway where Amy played pirates as a child, and stormed through as a moody teenager. Where her niece stood, for a whole afternoon, and counted doors. Did she think that I didn't know? That I didn't see how much she was hurting, how hard she was trying to be 'normal' just for me? Did she forget that I loved her - just as she was? Or did I forget to tell her?

She wanders around her lonely house, circling towards the inevitable door that she does not want to open.

She places her hand flat on the wood of the door, feels the grain of it under her palm, and breathes.

Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow turns into 'after the weekend' which turns into 'next week' which turns into the week after that. Little excuses and reasons build up, until in the blink of an eye, two months have gone by.

She stands outside the door she can no longer avoid opening.

Like a plaster, rip it off, all in one. Might hurt less.

Maybe.

She places her palm on the door handle, it feels warm in her hand. She breathes deeply once more, closes her eyes and pushes the door open.

Purple. Purple surrounds her, a comfortable blanket of colour covering her eyes and wrapping her in its embraces as she stumbles across the threshold of her nieces room. Her eyes are burning, vision blurring and tears gather and begin to fall. Amelia, oh my Amelia how did it come to this, where did I go wrong? Was it my fault or where you doomed by genetics? How am I supposed to go on?

She sits down on the bed and sobs.

After the tears have dried and she feels hollow for having cried them, Sharon stands and begins to really look at everything scattered around Amy's room.

The various knick-knacks will be carefully wrapped, some destined for storage, some transported to Amy's new room and placed carefully where she might see them if she were to open her eyes and look. Some things will be thrown away, their use outlived, or the sight of them far too painful for Sharon to bear seeing in her home any longer than she has to.

The bed will be stripped, the walls painted, and the room transformed into a guest bedroom, or maybe an office. It's not like Amelia will ever be coming back to use it anyway.

Sharon seems to shrink into herself with that thought, pain forming sharp in her chest as she thinks of her baby girl looking so fragile tucked into the hospital bed for the rest of her life. With a gasp and a dry swallow she resolves to make a list of all that needs doing.

It's even harder than she ever thought something could be. Boxes lie scattered around her, half-empty and so full of memories she can't bear to look at them. Some will be taken to the charity shop, clothes and small knick-knacks to be resold and perhaps given a new set of memories (a happier set she hopes). Some will be stored carefully in the loft, to be taken out more frequently than Sharon would like to admit, their contents clasped gently on the difficult nights when her guilt feels like a monster in her chest, slowly eating her alive.

(She cries on those nights. Tears falling fat and free down her cheeks until the teddy bear she'd bought Amy for a birthday so many years ago has to be hung out to dry the next morning.)

Amy. My Amy. My darling girl. Amelia.

The room is nearly emptied when she finds the little blue book, tucked between a book about constellations and one on roman history. It's slim, the cover once a rich royal blue, now faded by time and sunlight, the edges worn and curled at the corners. Sharon opens it tentatively feeling like she's found a treasure greater than gold. The title page declares "FOR MY EYES ONLY - THIS MEANS YOU" in blocky script, stars doodled in the faint margin and a small moon hung in the top corner of the page.

Breathe, she thinks.

She runs her fingers over the letters, trying to work out how old Amy must have been when she wrote them, all determined and far too wild to take her time. She smiles, and turns the pages slowly, skimming through each one and marvelling at her little girl.

Her eyes flick past the word Doctor, and she pauses before returning to the top of the page and beginning to read.

'Dear Diary,

Today was the best day ever.

Today I made a friend. He is called the Doctor and he is an alien from space. He is strange. He crashed his spaceship into my garden and then came inside and ate fish fingers dunked in CUSTARD! How strange is that. I like my friend. I hope he comes back to visit soon. He is probably very busy like Auntie Sharon.

I love living with Auntie Sharon. She is kind and feeds me biscuits and doesn't shout when I dunk them in tea for too long. She just giggles and brings me a spoon. I miss my mum and dad. I miss them but I know that they are happy in heaven now with angels and Gran and Gramps.

I wish I can stay with Auntie Sharon forever and ever. She is the best.

Bye diary, I have to go to sleep now. I will write tomorrow.

Amelia xx'

Oh Amy. She thinks, her face crumpling into itself like paper into a ball. Oh my sweet child I wish you could have stayed with me too. Sharon feels her legs start to shake, and she sits on the floor before she collapses. You are happy where you are now aren't you my darling? With your Doctor?

Sharon clings to that thought, that Amy is happy where she is; and even if her happiness is a bit unconventional, its probably a truer feeling than anything she could had found in all her life with her Auntie.

Through her tears, Sharon smiles at the thought of her Amy, forever playing in the stars in her own fantastic world.

She looks up at the night sky, feeling surrounded by the comforting scent of dusty books and her precious Amelia and breathes deeply.

She carries on.