DW: I grew up pt4

Doctor Who Season 5
"I Grew Up"
Part 4: Friends

"Amy?" Mrs. Williams said, blinking into the night. Amy had been hammering on the door, it was after dark, and her hair and clothes were distinctly disheveled. "Dear, are you alright?"
    "Fine, sorry, but can I please talk to Rory?"
    "I'll go and call him, why don't you come in?"
    "Could he come out, actually?" Amy asked. She was obviously agitated and, Rory's mother drew some quick conclusions about the situation and agreed.
    "Amy!" Rory cried, tripping over the door mat and falling out onto the porch. Amy grabbed his arm to keep him from flying straight off into the rhododendrons. His mother made a face but sighed and closed the door as Rory straightened up to take in Amy's appearance. "What happened? Are you ok?"
    "Why is everyone asking me that?" Amy frowned, her hand still on Rory's arm. "Anyway, I want to talk to you."
    "Ok." Rory said, suddenly aware that Amy was touching him. He leapt back but managed not to fall down the steps as they started walking. After they got a few doors down and Amy hadn't said anything he prompted,
    "So..."
    "What do you think happened when I was seven?"
    "What...you mean with the Doctor?"
    "Yeah. It's all impossible, I know. I mean, I can see why Aunt Sharon sent me to those shrinks, she was wrong, but I get it. But I mean, what actually happened to me? Because it can't have been real, right? I know it can't. But I can remember it the same way you remember all the normal stuff. So, was it a dream or...I dunno, but Rory even it all came from my head, what actually happened?"
    "Um." Rory said, watching her. She was sort of scaring him. "Your hair..."
    "It's red. I know." She fumed spinning around to face him and stop him walking any further.
    "No...I mean, it's..." Rory stuttered. She was fierce, hazel eyes lit with something like hope and desperation and fury. He couldn't breath. It wasn't that he was overwhelmed by how attractive she was, though that sometimes happened, but he just overwhelmed by her. All of her, her insane little stories and her beautiful hair and the way she never backed down. She was a force of nature in Rory's world like the sun or a blizzard or an earthquake. She was as necessary as the ground under his feet but as fantastic as the stars.
    "But what happened, Rory?" She asked, pleading. "Did I imagine it or dream it? Why, if I am so gifted with my imagination was it the only time? Why has there never been anything else like that? If it was a dream, even, why have I never had another one like that? If it's all from my head why...why can't I get it back?"
    "I don't..." Rory said. "Amy, what's wrong?"
    "Just...tell me what you think happened. You met me not long after, what did you think then. I know you were a kid too, but did you think I made it all up?"
    Rory looked down. He'd never known, really. Even at seven he wouldn't have believed such a story, but the way she had talked about it, the way she fought to remember it and hold onto it, the way she fought to memorize every detail...it had been memorizing. He'd wanted to be part of that magic even if it was all a story. It wasn't that he'd believed or, or exactly not believed her. It just was the way things were, back then, Amy and the Doctor.
    "I wasn't sure." He finally said. "You didn't seem like someone who'd make it all up, but you were so...obsessed with it. And...it can't have been real. So, I just tried not to think about that much."
    "And now?" Amy said, standing there, all ruffled and alive with a current of some emotion Rory couldn't read.
    "Now..." Rory said. "Look. It was so important to you and you tried so hard and then everything they did to you...I hate it that you doubt yourself. But I can't believe it was real. But that's why I...that's what....it's just...oh bloody hell." He blushed, and cast his eyes around for something to look at that wasn't Amy. "I want you to believe it, just a little. I know it's mad and I never want you to have to go to the psychiatrists again, but, I can't believe it and if you really don't either...then it's like it's gone. It was never mine to begin with, I know, but I don't want you to lose it all together."
    But Amy was too caught in her own distress to appreciate what he said, or to guess at what he didn't say. She rubbed at her eyes in down right refusal to cry. Why couldn't he understand that she needed to know what the truth was? That she needed him to tell her? If he believed her than nothing else would matter, if Rory told her it was real, she could believe it. But if he said it wasn't then she would know, once and for all that it had never happened. If Rory would just tell her, then she would know.
    "Roger said that there's a lot we don't know about the universe. That even though we know everything we do about science, it's not everything, and that in the future they'll look back and find us as backward as we would find the people who though the earth was flat. Maybe in the future there'll be time machines. So maybe, it's possible, at least some of it."
    Rory stiffened. So it was Roger that had upset her.
    "Did he hurt you?" Rory demanded. Amy blinked.
    "What?"
    "You're all...messed up." Rory said.
    "Of course he didn't hurt me. We were snogging. Roger's leaving for university tomorrow. It was good-bye."
    "Oh." Rory said, nauseated by the notion of Amy snogging Roger, but relieved that he would be leaving.
    Amy sighed. Rory wasn't going to be of any use. She was stuck, alone, with something she couldn't resolve. She turned back to look at the sleepy street.
    "I think..." Rory tried. "I think maybe...we'll never know. Maybe you imagined it all or maybe...something weird happened. But there's no way to tell anymore."
    "Thanks, Rory." She said flatly.
    Rory didn't know what to do. He knew he'd failed somehow, that he'd done the wrong thing, but he wasn't sure what it was.
    "Are you sad...about Roger leaving?" he asked.
    "Not really."
    "Oh. I thought you liked him."
    "I do, sort of. But I knew he'd be leaving. We weren't...like that. We were sort of like friends but with snogging and...stuff."
    "Stuff?" Rory asked before he could stop himself. "No. I meant. No."
    "Now that he's going...do you think...maybe we can be more...like friends. Without snogging, obviously. But...we used to be good at being friends and now we're...not." Amy frowned at the pavement. And maybe, if they could work out how to be friends properly again, maybe then she would be able to figure out what to do. And she missed Rory. She hadn't really noticed, but she'd missed him since they'd gotten older and forgotten how to talk to each other.
    "Without the...right, no, obviously. Of course. I mean, yes." Rory said, really wishing he could speak in complete sentences. At least occasionally. He sighed and looked back around at her.
    "Amy..."
    "Mmm?"
    "I'll walk you home."
    She opened her mouth to tell him there was no need but shrugged and let him walk beside her in silence. It wasn't a comfortable silence, but it was a different sort to their walks home from school. It was a slight improvement. It was a start.