- forty-fourth year waiting -

[nurse-boy.livejournal.com]

[dictated]

Me and Amy didn't really do much of anything for Thanksgiving because that's more of an American thing and besides, Amy... [sigh] Anyway, I've always done most of my, well, thanks-giving at Christmas. I think... right, well, if I'm honest with myself, I probably forget most of the time--but I do have a lot to be thankful for. I've got Amy and we're married and we're happy... with that, anyway... and I'm--

[long silence]

--I'm human again.

I'm really thankful for that.

Really, really thankful.

I'm thankful for the friends I had who aren't here anymore. I'm glad I knew them. Abel, because he was... well, he showed me how to get my humanity back when I thought I'd lost it. I still have the rosary he gave me. And Claire, she--she understood me in ways I don't think anyone else here has. I miss them a lot. I hope they're okay, back home, that they're happy and safe as they can be.

Still thankful for Amy, for what we--what we have together here. It's different from how we are back home. It's not bad there, not exactly, not really worse or better than what we have here, just.. different. I think we're closer, here. She's opened up a lot back home but I'm not sure if the cost is worth it. Then again... not sure it is here either. I just don't think I can ever tell her how much it means to me, that she can actually say out loud that she loves me. I don't know how to tell her. Suppose it might not need saying anyway. She probably already knows. Amy knows me way too well. Sometimes that's a bad thing but in this case... it's really good.

I'm even thankful for River. Is that--bad of me, that I say 'I'm even thankful'? The whole thing, it's so messed up, so wrong and--and--it hurts--awful--but... she's my daughter. She's Melody. I think a lot of me is still in denial over it all, but really, deep down, I know it's true. River is our daughter and we'll never get Melody back. We'll never see our baby again. But... still. There's River. Older and wise and scary and cryptic and brilliant. I think--if I thought about it--she's exactly how I would have wanted a daughter to grow up to be like. Except maybe without the guns and the brainwashing and the whole marrying-the-Doctor thing. But she's my daughter, my--little girl--I just... I wish I knew what to do with her. How to be, around her. It must be hard as hell, knowing so much about us and not ever being able to tell. I wish I knew what her childhood was like. If she knew me and Amy loved her.

... I wish a lot of things.

I sound rubbish.

And Amy... she's not taking all of this well at all. I worry about her. I don't know what to do, I can't fix this or make it better or tell her how to understand and accept everything. I feel like she's pulling away from all of us. And I can't--I can't lose her, not after everything we've been through together. Not now, not when I need her to help me get through it too. [another sigh] I just--I don't know what to do. No one wrote a manual for this kind of thing.

... Ugh, I really do sound rubbish. Shut up, Rory.

[and the journal closes]