Title: Holding on

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: Eleven/Amy

Rating: K

Resume: "I'm running to you, Amelia, before you fade from me".

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, but nothing's mine. The TARDIS key is at the BBC and in one of Steven Moffat's pocket.

Seared onto his hearts.

For an ancient, highly evolved, superinteligent alien brain that are those from a Time Lord, designed to comprehend the all immensity of time and space, he doesn't think it through enough, really. Because it's dangerous. Changing his mind is an option he wants to toss aside.

He at least has to try.

There is just one chance. A small, tiny, minuscule, remote one. And he's taking it.

He gets on his feet on an impulse, and without even realizing it, reaches to the console. Suddenly, like if a trance had took over him, The Doctor starts spinning and twirling, twisting and pushing levers and buttons. He moves frenetically around the TARDIS console in a fevered dance, proper of a madlike man he is. Because when we're holding onto something precious we run, and we don't stop.

He pats the old girl in one of the console's panels, as if he was asking for permission or forgiveness from his ship for he is about to do. It's not going to be pretty and she might not like it. She hums back softly in an affirmative response. Sssssh, my dear boy, she seems to be saying. It's ok.

It has to work. Wasn't he the one who said the universe was big; vast, complicated, and ridiculous and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things happen, and we call them miracles? Isn't he and always will be the optimist, hoper of far-flung hopes and dreamer of improbable dreams? And after a hundred years of saving the universe, after everything he's done and lost, can't he be selfish, for once? Does not the universe owe him to be happy, for once?

Just this once. Just for the sake of it.

The others. They are not her.

River doesn't even have to look at the screen where he is adding the coordinates to know exactly what he is going to try next.

-Don't –she says, holding tight onto the rail.

He just ignores her. They were-are her parents, and he has apologized, but there's still a tiny part of him that's still angry with her. (She made her go. She wanted her to go. She told her to). But he also wants to explain to her. If someone understands, it's her.

The reality fabric is thin and even just inserting the coordinates and the date on the panel makes the TARDIS unstable, shaking violently.

-Stop –tries River again, looking at him desperately.

He pulls down one of the levers on the console, causing the rotors inside the glass tube to gain an incredible speed. The TARDIS is spinning on the vortex at her full capacity, and there is no way he's leaving the brakes on this time.

–Stop! You can't –she tries once more. –The paradox will be too much for the TARDIS. The impact could tear time and space apart, and you know it!

The Universe doesn't want him to get his Amy. But he doesn't agree with the universe.

Another shake makes them unsteady on their feet.

I'm running to you, Amelia.

-River, dear –he says; -Time has never been the boss of me.

He pulls the last lever down, which makes an electrical wire explode in a million sparks.

Geronimo.

River was right. It didn't work.

He couldn't even make it near the thirties, and didn't even get near New Jersey. The paradox around New York was too strong; the TARDIS was repelled, and for some reason, they ended up in the middle of a meteor shower at Beta Sphinx III. They barely manage to get out of it, and when they do, he drops River off at the Stormcage without a word goodbye.

Badly damaged by the impact, the TARDIS repairs herself, establishing them in Victorian times.

The Universe doesn't want him to get his Amy, and The Doctor doesn't agree; but the universe doesn't care.