A/N: New fic! It's in seven parts, including the prologue and epilogue, but they're all in the on page. Please read, review, and enjoy!

Summary: The Doctor uses the chameleon arch to forget his painful memories, but he goes too far and loses himself completely. AU season six-ish where Amy and Rory kept traveling with the Doctor.

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they belong to Stephen Moffat and BBC. The plot is mine.

Warnings: Amnesia, nightmares, general mind stuff. Rated K+

Remember

Prologue: Running

There is always one thing the Doctor remembers: he remembers how to run. It doesn't matter how many bodies he's gone through; it doesn't matter what planet he's on; it doesn't matter why. Those are details, the sort of details that he's more than willing to forget. After all, they don't matter. Not so long as he can run.

He's always running in his dreams. Sometimes he runs toward beautiful mountains and sparkling cities, delighting in the thought of what's ahead, but mostly he's running away. Away from monsters that roar and rage at his heels, away from the screams of people he cannot save. And there are so very many screams.

He doesn't remember names, doesn't remember faces, but he can still remember the screams. Whole civilizations dying by his hand and he stands above it all, watching and knowing and caring, but caring doesn't help, and trying doesn't work and he just wantstoforgettheirscreams.

So he locks himself away, just for a little while, a few days of humanity. 'It'll help,' he thinks. 'I'll be able to see it again.' But he can't, and when he lets himself back in all he can hear are the screams. So he does it again. And then again. And then he looks at the watch in his hand and thinks, 'I'll never have to remember. I'll never have to hear them scream again.' And this time he doesn't come back. The watch lies in twisted scraps at his feet, and the last flicker of himself hears her scream, 'What have you done?'

And he is gone.

Part 1: Six Months After- What's Left of You

Amy watched from the doorway as the Doctor slept. No- not the Doctor. John Smith, the man who'd taken his place half a year earlier. He was the only one who slept in that room. The Doctor was long gone, broken into pieces and scattered to the wind. Amy still prayed that he'd come back someday, that he'd look at her and smile the way he used to, back when life was a wonderful adventure and all of time and space was theirs, but she knew that those days were over.

The Doctor had erased them, wiped them out as though they'd never been. Rory said that just because the Doctor didn't remember didn't mean it wasn't real. After all, they still remembered, and that counted for . . . something. Amy didn't know. The Doctor was the one who made things real. He had always been the most real thing in the world to her, especially when she was a child.

Back then, the Doctor was her world, didn't matter if he wasn't there. He said five minutes, so what? People can be late. People are late all the time. The night he fell out of the sky was the first night of her life, as far as Amy was concerned, and she had to hold onto that. The rest of the world could believe what it wanted, but they couldn't take him away from her. They couldn't make him anything less than real. When he came back, it was like being truly awake again, and for the first time in twelve long years, Amy wasn't just waiting, she was living.

There were worlds to be seen, and saved. There was Rory beside her, ready to fight for her, ready to wait 2000 years for her, ready to marry her. And there was the Doctor, there to make all the worlds of all the skies shine bright. There to make it real. Amy still couldn't believe he was gone. 'Ironic,' she thought. 'Nine psychologists tried to make him not-real and it didn't work, but they shouldn't have bothered. He did it himself.'

Amy bit her lip until she tasted blood, fighting back tears as she watched all that was left of her world turn restlessly in his sleep.

Part 2: Two Months Before – Watch You Fade Away

When the Doctor told Amy what he was going to do, she was shocked. And worried, but mostly shocked. A device that could turn Time Lords into humans? It seemed impossible, and if not impossible, a very odd thing to invent, but the Doctor said it had come in handy in the past, when he'd had to hide from danger.

He'd assured her there wasn't any immanent danger, though. He just wanted a little chameleon arch vacation, a break from his memories. She had been worried by that, because what did he want to forget? Things were good, weren't they? At least, they weren't bad enough to want to erase and re-write your entire brain.

But the Doctor hadn't been sleeping well. The Doctor had been having nightmares. 1100 years of memory would be too much for anyone after a while, so who was she to judge? He would be fine. She just had to remind him in three days to open the watch so he could be the Doctor again, instead of John Smith, friendly chap who was getting a free ride in the TARDIS and had a vaguely unsettling obsession with zebras. Something to do with the stripes. Amy didn't really care.

And the worst part was, it did all go smoothly. John Smith was an interesting enough companion, and wasn't it fascinating how the device had given him a whole life to remember. He was happy, and sweet, and it was a lovely vacation, and at the end of three days Amy got him to open the watch without any fuss and the Doctor was back, and seemed better after his rest. She thought that was the end of it.

But it wasn't, because two weeks later he asked her to do it again. Rory thought it was a bad idea. He thought the Doctor needed to deal with the underlying issue instead of just erasing his brain when he felt overwhelmed. The Doctor was not interested in Rory's opinion, and activated the watch while they were still arguing. Amy and Rory had had to look after poor John Smith purely by default.

Amy thought he seemed different this time. More two dimensional, like the device hadn't bothered to really fill in all the spaces in his life. John spent his three days wandering unhappily through the halls of the TARDIS and talking animatedly about zebras to anyone within earshot. Amy learned a lot about zebras, and decided that Rory was definitely right about this being a bad idea.

When the Doctor got back, Amy and Rory told him in no uncertain terms that they were definitely not doing this again. He didn't argue. Amy thought that things were going well, until she ran into John Smith in the corridor three weeks later. The Doctor had been erasing himself at night instead of sleeping, just in four or five hour increments. Amy was horrified, not as much at the fact that he was doing it as she was at the way the device had barely bothered to give John Smith a personality, let alone a history. While Amy and Rory argued, John leaned against the wall and repeated the same three zebra facts at the empty air.

When they managed to bring the Doctor back, Amy and Rory sat down to have a Serious Chat with him. Within moments it had devolved into a shouting match and the Doctor stormed off to his room. Rory managed to confiscate the arch, however, so they thought that things would be all right, at least until they could all have a calmer discussion.

And things were alright. The Doctor admitted to overusing the chameleon arch and thanked them for their help. They started traveling again, and the Doctor relaxed, and smiled more. It was an act. A few weeks later the Doctor got to the arch while they weren't paying attention. Amy walked into the room just as the last of the process was finished. Just in time to see the Doctor look at the watch with his very essence trapped within it with an unreadable expression, before he shattered it.

Amy yelled in horror as the watch burst, its precious contents spilling at random into the air. All she could think was, 'A shattered watch can't be opened.' She met the blank eyes of John Smith and knew the Doctor was gone. She screamed for Rory, her throat raw with desperation as tears ran down her cheeks.

Part 3: One Week After- Bring Back My Love

Telling River was the hardest. After all, she was his wife. No matter how Amy and Rory felt about what the Doctor had done, they knew it had to be worse for River. But she had to know, because they couldn't bring the Doctor back, and they didn't know what else to do.

John Smith was no kind of company at all at this point, because breaking the device seemed to have broken even the rudimentary efforts that it had made to give him a life. He knew his name, but that was all. They tried, at first, to tell him things. To help him understand what had happened and who he was, but the memories didn't last. John Smith was not a person by even your broadest definition. He was just a construct, a placeholder who should never have been permanent. They could take care of him, but they doubted he'd ever be anything again.

When River arrived, Amy and Rory and John were waiting. They had tried to fix John up so that he didn't look quite so lost, but neither of them could figure out the bowtie. The sight of him without it made Amy want to cry, but she resisted. For her daughter's sake.

River tried to talk to him, tried to remind him, tried to make him be her Doctor again, but there was nothing left for her to remind. He couldn't retain any information but his own name for longer than fifteen minutes. Not even River's love could change that, and she knew it.

As the days past with no change, River grew increasingly desperate. Finally, it was too much for her. When he forgot her name for the 18th time, she snapped, shoving him across the room. Her cries could be heard throughout the TARDIS as she called him every name in the book, asking why he'd left her, begging him to come back because whatever you wanted to forget, this can't be better, just come back, be the Doctor again.

And John Smith just stared at her, because he didn't understand and never would. He couldn't even be himself. They all knew he would never be the Doctor. River stayed two weeks and then left, unable to bear it and longer. She asked them not to call until the Doctor came back or died. Amy watched her leave and wondered if they'd ever meet again.

When Amy walked back over to John Smith, he flinched, but she just took his hand and told him, "The Doctor was the bravest man I've ever known. And this is the most selfish thing he's ever done." John watched her blankly. She turned away.

Part 4: One Year After- Holding on to Empty Space

The TARDIS lights were getting dimmer. Amy had known that this would happen. The ship was running out of power, and they had no way to recharge. Before too long, they'd have to leave, but Amy didn't know where they could go. They had no money, no house, no jobs; they weren't even entirely sure where the TARDIS was parked. Finding someplace else to go would be difficult enough, but with John, it was impossible.

He didn't understand the things they told him, didn't understand the world within the TARDIS, let alone outside it. Amy didn't want to have to help him through the wide world, she wanted to stay here, where it was safe and warm and having no memories didn't seem to hinder him much. She just wanted to stay.

Rory found her watching a dimming light in the hall, staring at it as though mesmerized. "You all right?" he inquired blearily, blinking around uncertainly. Amy spared him a glance, and then turned back to the light. Rory was drunk. She didn't suppose she could blame him, with all the stress of the past year, but it was barely 10 A.M., and she couldn't help but sigh disapprovingly and look pointedly at the clock.

"We exist outside of time," Rory said firmly. "Doesn't matter what the clock says, there's no law against being drunk at 10 A.M. if 10 A.M. doesn't exist." He flopped down on the floor and stared at the light that Amy had been eyeing. "Is something wrong with the light?" he asked finally.

She shrugged, turning away. "I'm just afraid we'll lose power," she muttered. "I don't want the hassle of having to go out there." She looked fearfully toward to door, adding quietly, "I worry about John out there, too. I don't know how he'd adjust."

Rory laughed. "John's perfectly competent to walk down a street, and you're lying to yourself," he informed her.

"I'm not the one drunk at 10 A.M.!" Amy shouted back, bristling. "How can you say that I'm lying to myself?!"

Rory shook his head. "I'm drunk because I'm not lying to myself," he said quietly. "You don't want to go out there because then he won't be real enough. Because if you can't have the Doctor in the TARDIS, then you'll have the next best thing, which happens to be John Smith in the TARDIS, and you don't want to lose that. Neither do I, Amy, honestly I don't but . . . it may be necessary."

"Because the lights are going out," a quiet voice broke in. Amy and Rory looked up in astonishment at John Smith, who was standing a few feet away, watching them. He looked more alert than he had in a very long time, maybe since the first time they'd met, and this was the first thing he'd said that made sense in months.

"John . . .?" Amy asked uncertainly, hope and fear in her voice.

"Yes," he replied absently. "I'm John." He stared at her. "I think a piece of him just went back in my head," he said softly, and Amy felt her heart stutter in her chest, a tiny jolt of almost-real.

Part 5: Two Years After- I'm Coming Home

The Doctor was putting himself back together again. It seemed impossible, astonishing, like it must have been a dream, but every morning when Amy woke up, he remembered a little more. He was a little more alive, a little more real, a little more the Doctor and a little less John Smith. The days felt like gifts, then, not endless heaps of worry and misery.

Two months after he began to remember, he figured out how to fly the TARDIS and managed to let them make a limping shuddering journey to Cardiff so that the power could recharge. It felt like the best day of Amy's life, when the TARDIS flew again. The best day came again when he figured out the sonic screwdriver, but the greatest day of all was when he said, for the first time in two long years, "Hello, I'm the Doctor," and smiled at her.

Everything Amy had lost was coming back to her. Rory stopped drinking so much, and he acted like he cared again. She had her Doctor and her Rory back, but there was one more thing she needed before her world could be whole and real and she could feel fully alive. She needed her daughter.

So, on the day when the Doctor's last lost memories of his lovely wife slotted back into place, two years to the day from when he'd broken the arch, Amy made a call. River answered on the first ring, and asked quietly, "Is he dead?" Amy closed her eyes. This conversation was going to be nearly as hard as their last.

"No," Amy said softly. "River, he's the Doctor again. It's all been coming back to him for the longest time and now . . ." She took a deep breath. "He remembers you. Will you come?" River did not respond, and Amy heard the quiet click of the phone hanging up. Her heart dropped, but then she heard a familiar sound behind her and turned to see River's vortex manipulator deposit her from the air. "River!" she called out with delight rushing toward her daughter.

Then she heard another voice, one that stopped her in her tracks. "River?" It was the Doctor. Amy turned and saw the Doctor standing before them, tying his bowtie. He settled it into place and walked slowly to River, who was staring at him, shaking slightly. He bowed his head. "River, I'm so sorry," he whispered. "Can you forgive me?"

River made a noise partway between a sob and a laugh and grabbed the Doctor, pulling him to her and kissing him desperately. Then she pulled away and slapped him hard. "Don't you ever leave me again," she choked out.

"Never," he promised. "I'll never leave again. Never, River. I love you."

Epilogue: Standing Still

Things are different now. River refused to leave the TARDIS, so they all travel together. He thinks it's wonderful, having them with him. His family. All the people he loves together in one place, with him always. What more could anyone ask for, after all?

The screams are not so loud anymore. He thinks they were driven into silence by the loss of his mind, those two years of nothingness. He tries not to remember that time, now. It's over and done with, and it wasn't even him. Why should he remember wandering the halls of the TARDIS like a ghost when there are new memories to be made? He tells himself that it isn't the same. He isn't trying to escape his mind, it's just a time he's rather not dwell on. But he knows the others worry.

The Doctor has spent a long time running, years and years and years of trying to escape his past. But he just keeps creating more past everywhere he goes, more that he needs to forget. He thinks it's time to stop, though. No one can run forever, after all, and now, with his family around him, he thinks it's time to try standing still.