The Girl Who Waited ( TV story ) Synopsis . The Eleventh Doctor , Rory Williams and Amy Pond land on Apalapucia in the middle of a plague . Amy is left behind , and the Doctor and Rory must save her . . . but time for Amy is running at a different speed . Plot . The Eleventh Doctor brings Amy and Rory to the resort planet of Apalapucia , one of the top holiday destinations in the universe . Though he promises views of " sunsets , spires , and soaring silver colonnades " , they step out of the TARDIS to a clinically white room possessing only an exit door with two buttons , labelled " Green Anchor " and " Red Waterfall " . While Amy steps back into the TARDIS to retrieve her mobile phone , the Doctor and Rory use the door — pressing the " Green Anchor " button — and enter another room , which holds a table on which rests a large magnifying glass . When Amy steps back into the corridor , she also uses the door — pressing the " Red Waterfall " button — and finds herself in a similar - looking room , though Rory and the Doctor are not present . The Doctor activates the time glass and sees Amy . A Handbot enters the room , though , and welcomes the Doctor and Rory to the Two Streams Facility , a " kindness facility " for victims of Chen - 7 , the so - called " one - day plague " which affects two - hearted races — including native Apalapucian s and Time Lord s . As the Doctor and Rory are held at bay by the robot , Amy appears to fast - forward within the glass ; when the Doctor finally stabilizes it , she angrily informs him that it has been a week since they last spoke . From this , the Doctor is able to deduce that Amy has wound up in a faster time stream which they cannot access ; their only means of communicating with her is through the glass . The Handbot informs them that the other time streams are synced for visits , so those not affected by the Chen - 7 virus are able to watch the entire lives of their quarantined loved ones , as opposed to being limited to the viewing of one day on a deathbed . This is meant as a kindness for the patient and loved ones , as the virus that kills in a day instead takes several years to kill . When Rory exits the Green Anchor room and steps into the Red Waterfall room to find Amy , she is not there . The Doctor removes the magnifying glass from the table , but accidentally activates an alarm in the process . He orders Amy to go into the facility and seek a hiding place where she might wait for him to find her . Before he leaves , he warns her to not let the Handbots administer any medicine to her , because she possesses only one heart , and is immune to Chen - 7 . The Handbots ' " kindness " is medicine meant for a different species and will kill her . Before departing , Amy asks Rory to save her . The Doctor and Rory return to the TARDIS , where the Doctor uses the magnifying glass to lock onto Amy ' s time stream . Because the Doctor is at risk of becoming infected with Chen - 7 , he cannot go into the facility ; therefore , he sends Rory in his place , though they are in constant communication through a pair of glasses wired with a camera . The Doctor insists that it is very difficult to break through a time wall , but sends the TARDIS off on course regardless . Meanwhile , Amy has arrived in the Two Streams lobby , where she is met by a holographic receptionist informing her of all the " entertainment zones " within the facility that she now has access to as a resident . She is also introduced to the Interface , who claims to be Amy ' s guide within the facility . As Amy strolls along a promenade looking for somewhere to hide and wait for the Doctor , she is met by a series of Handbots , all of whom attempt to inject her with " kindness " . She seeks shelter from the pursuing Handbots within a vent system in a maintenance room . The smoke from the vent prevents the Handbots from detecting her , and she manages to escape . She arrives in another white room with a console in the centre and empty doorways surrounding it . This is the gate , and the console buttons control various doorways which lead to the entertainment zones . Amy chooses a majestic garden , which the Interface informs her is the perfect replica of Shill Governor ' s mansion on Shallana . Amy asks the Interface about the vent system she hid in earlier . The vent channels the exhaust fumes from the temporal engines , which hold the multiple time streams in place . Amy deduce s from this that the engines interfere with the Handbots ' sensors , and wonders where the temporal engines are located . The Interface points her in the right direction , and , as Amy prepares to leave in search of them , two Handbots materialise around her . Utilising the sleep sensors on their hands , she presses them together , deactivating both and escaping once more . Arriving at the temporal engines room , Amy scrawls a message for the Doctor and Rory on the door : " Doctor , I ' m waiting . " Meanwhile , Rory and the Doctor have landed in Amy ' s time stream , and Rory is exploring the art gallery when he is confronted by a warrior wearing makeshift armour — made from a dismantled Handbot — and bearing a katana . The warrior lunges at him with the sword raised . With Rory cornered , it whispers that it waited for him . As it steps away , it removes the helmet shielding its face to reveal that it is , in fact , Amy — though she is much older than before . The Doctor , who is able to see Amy through Rory ' s glasses , realises that he landed the TARDIS much later in Amy ' s time stream than he had initially anticipated . Amy takes out a Handbot that has snuck up behind Rory , rewiring its black box with her " sonic probe " — which she has constructed during her time in the facility — to shield her presence from the other Handbots . Rory questions why Amy is still in the facility when she is clearly much older , and she bitterly replies that it ' s because they didn ' t save her as they ' d promised . She has been living in the facility for thirty - six years , and during that time , she has come to hate the Doctor more than she ' s ever hated anyone in her life . Amy leaves the room , closely followed by Rory , who suggests that they could return the TARDIS to the right time stream and stop Amy ' s wait from happening ; however , the Doctor admits that this is Amy ' s time stream , so they can ' t leave . They return to the temporal engines room to find a Handbot that Amy has literally disarmed and named Rory ; it is her sole companion , though she refers to it as a pet . She continues to berate the Doctor , claiming that all she had for thirty - six years was cold hard reality , and her life is hell . The Doctor asks to speak to the Interface , insisting that he will put everything right . Since the Interface cannot be activated inside the engine room , Amy takes Rory to the garden . The Interface shows the Doctor where the regulator valve is held , and the Doctor asks Rory to speak to Amy so they can run over " technical specifications " . With the information he gets from her , the Doctor realises that he can set the time streams right by using the temporal engines to fold the two points of Amy ' s timeline together . However , Amy angrily rejects this plan to save her past self . They return to the temporal engines room , with the Doctor pleading for Amy to agree to the plan . She continues to resist , knowing that helping her past self will mean the past thirty - six years of her life never happened and she would cease to exist . Instead , she asks for the Doctor and Rory to take her with them , leaving the younger Amy behind to live out the next thirty - six years in solitude . Rory , who is angry at the Doctor for causing so much trouble , angrily throws the glasses to the ground ; the feedback on them allows the Doctor to hear the present Amy crying in her own point on the timeline within the engine room . Rory uses the time glass to view the younger Amy , and forces the older Amy to confront her own past . As the older Amy and her past self communicate , the older Amy bitterly begins to remember the real reason she was never rescued : it wasn ' t because Rory and the Doctor left her behind , but because her future self refused to help them when it mattered . The two Amys begin to discuss Rory and how he ' s always been in love with her — going so far as to pretend to be in a rock band when they were in school — and how she needs to be saved for Rory . After this conversation , the older Amy informs Rory that she is going to " pull time apart " for him , but that she will only help if the Doctor agrees to let her travel in the TARDIS alongside her past self . The Doctor reluctantly admits that the TARDIS could sustain the paradox . Through a hijacking of the regulator valves and by insisting that both Amys concentrate on a powerful memory — which turns out to be their first kiss with Rory while dancing the Macarena — the Doctor is able to pull the younger Amy into her future self ' s point in the time stream . They set off through the facility for the room where the Doctor waits in the TARDIS ; however , because of the massive paradox , the TARDIS is malfunctioning . As a result , the group only has eight minutes to get back to it . The older Amy bothers the younger Amy by flirting with Rory . Once the group reaches the art gallery , they find themselves surrounded by Handbots , which the older Amy agrees to fight off while Rory and her past self run ahead to the TARDIS . However , the younger Amy is put to sleep by one of the Handbots , and although Rory quickly deactivates it by smashing a painting over its head , she remains unconscious , and he must carry her to the TARDIS . Inside , the Doctor insists that she ' s just been given a sedative and that she will be fine . Rushing back to the doors , the Doctor spots the older Amy , who begins running towards him . As he shouts that he ' s sorry , he closes the door , trapping her outside . Rory protests , but the Doctor explains that he lied earlier . There can never be two Amys in the TARDIS , so Rory must choose which Amy he wants to bring along . Through the door , the older Amy tells Rory that , if he loves her , he shouldn ' t let her in . Seeing Rory carry the younger Amy to the TARDIS made her realise just how much he truly loves her , and that she ' d forgotten how much she loved " being Amy Pond in the TARDIS with Rory Williams . " Rory re - locks the door , apologising to her . He is clearly devastated . The older Amy turns away from the TARDIS to see that she has been surrounded by an army of Handbots , all of whom tell her not to be alarmed because " this is a kindness . " She calls for the Interface resignedly , and asks to see Earth . When the hologram appears , she asks the Interface if she ever told her about a boy she met there , " who pretended to be in a band . " The Handbots step through the hologram , dissolving it , and put Amy to sleep by touching her neck . As they prepare to inject her , the screen whites out , as the older Amy is erased from existence . Rory and the Doctor sit in the TARDIS , waiting for Amy to wake up . Rory questions whether or not the Doctor always knew that saving both Amys wasn ' t possible , but he dodges answering , insisting that he promised to save her and he did . Rory accepts this . When Amy awakes , she asks after her older self . The Doctor can offer only a grave look , before leaving . Home video releases . This episode , along with the rest of the second half of series 6 , was released on DVD and Blu Ray on the 10 October 2011 . The episode was later released in the complete series 6 , which included the first and second half of the series , was released on DVD and Blu Ray on the 21 November 2011 .