What is a Time Head Anyway?
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
"You really worried me, you know," Rory said seriously, sitting down on the ladder of the bunk bed in the room he shared with Amy.
Amy was lounging on the lower bunk. "Because of the whole kidnapped thing?"
"You were gone for five days," Rory pointed out. "I think I'd be rather remiss not to be concerned."
"It seemed much shorter for me," Amy replied. "I could have sworn that I had just woken up for the first time maybe two minutes before you lot came for me."
Rory flushed. "I am sorry about that. The Doctor was the only one who knew how to find you and he insisted that we had to wait until his plan was ready."
"Well, nothing happened," Amy said, determined to be positive. "I think. And if it did, I don't remember it so it probably doesn't matter."
"Well I remember," Rory said seriously. "And I remember hearing all those times you woke up alone and terrified and calling for the Doctor to come and save you."
"He is the one with the TARDIS and the ability to tracks Silence," Amy pointed out. "I'm just glad you were there or I'd probably still be waiting. He doesn't have the best track record as far as punctuality goes."
"And yet you trusted him to get you back in time for our wedding," Rory couldn't help reminding her.
Amy rolled her eyes. "The Doctor literally restarted the entire universe to get me back on time. And hey, it's not like I'm the only one who has to worry."
"You were kidnapped when we went to Venice as well. Name one time that I've ever been kidnapped," Rory challenged.
"I wasn't kidnapped, I was under cover," Amy insisted.
"It went horribly wrong," Rory said flatly.
Amy shrugged. "Comes with the territory."
"I'm still waiting," Rory informed her.
"So maybe you've never gotten kidnapped," Amy conceded. "You won't stop dying, though, and I think that's a little worse!"
"I do not keep dying," Rory argued.
Amy nodded earnestly. "Oh, yes you do. It's like that little orange kid from South Park. What was his name?"
"Kenny," Rory answered reluctantly. "And I'm nothing like him."
"You've died, what, three times already?" Amy asked rhetorically. "Once when we were being chased by those evil, possessed old people, once when we were dealing with the Silurians, and once when Canton shot you."
"First of all, that first one was a dream!" Rory protested. "You and the Doctor also died and then we all died again when the Doctor flew the TARDIS into that cold sun which I'm not even sure really exists. Plus Canton shot you, as well, and it wasn't even real."
"And that negates your deaths how?" Amy asked innocently.
"You can't complain I keep dying when you've died most of those times as well and they weren't even real deaths," Rory insisted.
"What about with the Silurians?" Amy demanded. "You were dead for a long time, then, and you were so dead that you never even existed."
"I was trying to save the Doctor!" Rory exclaimed. "He was the only one who could fly the TARDIS and we were running out of time but he kept fishing around in that crack. If I hadn't saved him, we all would have died."
"You could have just pushed him out of the way without getting shot as well," Amy pointed out.
"Next time I'll make sure that my heroic sacrifice lives up to your standards," Rory deadpanned. He decided not to mention that Amy had been shot and killed once as well, even if the Pandorica made sure she was only 'mostly dead'.
"Shut up, you know what I mean," Amy said, sitting up and whacking him lightly on the arm.
"That wasn't what I meant anyway," Rory informed her.
"Then what did you mean?" Amy asked blankly.
"First of all, let me repeat that next time you think you're pregnant I'd like to know, particularly before you start telling other people," Rory requested.
"I said I would," Amy said, crossing her arms.
"Finding out that you thought you were pregnant…it scared me," Rory admitted.
"You don't want kids right now?" Amy inquired curiously.
"Well…we're still newlyweds so it would be nice to have a little time to ourselves," Rory admitted. "But if anything happens, we'll still have nine months before a baby comes along."
"Somehow I don't think that being pregnant would give me as much time for myself as it would you," Amy said dryly.
Rory nodded, conceding the point. "It's just…our lives with the Doctor are a great deal of fun. Maybe I wouldn't have ever set foot on the TARDIS if it hadn't been for you but I've grown to appreciate it and we do manage to help a lot of people."
"You are such a nurse," Amy teased.
Rory grinned. "Why thank you. Still, our lives are also really, really dangerous and it's no place for a child. It's no place for a pregnant woman, either."
"Pregnant women never get to do anything," Amy groused.
"Well if you're choosing to carry a baby to term then I think you have a responsibility to make sure you don't do anything to knowingly hurt the baby," Rory reasoned. "And in what universe is traveling with the Doctor less dangerous than riding most amusement park rides or exposing yourself to second-hand smoke?"
"Being pregnant really would bring our adventuring days to an end," Amy agreed, sighing. "After all, even once we had the kid we couldn't just walk away indefinitely to keep traveling, especially with the Doctor's track record!"
"I just hope that if you did get pregnant we'd be able to figure it out before accidentally exposing the baby to something that could hurt it," Rory told her anxiously.
"We'll just have to make sure that I don't get pregnant while traveling with the Doctor then," Amy decided. "I'm a bit uncomfortable with the thought of conceiving on the TARDIS anyway."
"So I heard," Rory said, not bothering to try to hide his eavesdropping. "What is a 'time head', anyway?"
Amy shrugged. "I don't know."
"It sounds like you were worried our baby would be born with a clock for a face," Rory elaborated.
"Can you imagine?" Amy asked, half-horrified. "I'm not even sure what I think could happen and maybe nothing would but…why risk it, you know? Besides, I know we have to leave one day but I'd rather it be on our own terms, you know?"
Rory nodded. "Absolutely. Though as far as being forced to leave goes, a pregnancy isn't bad on the trauma scale."
Amy shot him a strange look. "What do you think could happen?"
"I don't know, dying," Rory said lamely.
"That's not so much 'being forced to leave the Doctor's side' as it is 'being forced to stop living'," Amy pointed out. "The Doctor would never just abandon us so it would take something really contrived to force us to leave against our will."
"It could happen," Rory insisted.
"If you say so…" Amy said skeptically.
"So what were you going to name it?" Rory asked suddenly.
"Name what?" Amy asked, confused. "The baby? There wasn't any baby, Rory."
"I know but you knew there was one – or thought there was, at any rate – for far longer than I had," Rory pointed out. "You must have thought of something to call it."
"To be honest, I didn't," Amy admitted. "I was too busy worrying about the Time Head – you know what, I can't even take that seriously anymore. Thank you for that."
"At least we're taking precautions," Rory replied unrepentantly. "I wonder if that's why we have bunk beds, as a precaution."
Amy snorted. "Please, like we can't work around that. Besides, the Doctor's too oblivious for that kind of thing."
"I wouldn't be too sure," Rory cautioned. "I think we should talk about names, though. Because I'm telling you right now that I refuse to name any child of mine after the Doctor."
"Can we at least tell him that we're naming it after him at some point and see how he reacts?" Amy asked hopefully.
Rory nodded. "I suggest we keep up the pretense for as long as we can. We know what the last name is going to be no matter what certain other people might think."
"We most certainly do," Amy agreed easily. "For a boy, we could name him Kenny after his father."
"It figures you'd go for the Scottish name," Rory said tolerantly. "How about Michael?"
Amy yawned dramatically. "How dull."
"So you want to give our child a weird name? That's just asking for him to get beaten up," Rory pointed out.
"I don't want to give our child a weird name," Amy insisted. "Just an exciting one. Like…Arthur. Or Duncan."
"Duncan's a bit too Highlander for me but I do like Arthur," Rory declared. "I wouldn't have thought a name like 'Arthur' would be exciting enough for you, though."
"Are you kidding?" Amy asked, laughing. "The sword in the stone, the round table, Camelot…Arthur is a wonderful adventure name."
"So Arthur for a boy," Rory sad approvingly. "What about for a girl?"
"Personally, I really like the name 'River Song'," Amy decided. "And it reminds me of the most incredible woman that I know. Song's her last name, though, and having 'River Song' be our child's first name might make her sound too much like a hippie. River's nice, though."
Rory didn't quite see the appeal in naming their daughter after a body of water but actually telling Amy this would probably just lead to an argument. "You know that at some point she's probably going to get called River Pond, right? River Pond, Amy. Would you really do that to a child?"
Amy sighed, looking vaguely heartbroken. "I guess not. Let's hear your ideas then."
"I like the name Karen," Rory told her.
"I had a baby-sitter named Karen once," Amy said darkly. "She's the reason Aunt Sharon took me to that psychiatrist."
"Well…what about Lesley?" Rory offered. "That's nice and Scottish."
"Yeah but that could be a boy's name, too, and I don't want their being any unnecessary confusion as to the gender of my child," Amy countered.
"Do you have any ideas then?" Rory asked, guessing that that was what she was trying to convey.
Amy nodded, satisfied. "As a matter of fact, I do. What do you think of the name Melody?"
Rory blinked. "Is Melody even a name?"
"Of course it's a name!" Amy exclaimed.
"I think I might have heard of it in a Disney movie but they try to pass off names like 'Ariel' and 'Simba' as real names, too," Rory replied.
"I hate to break it to you but Ariel is actually also a real name," Amy told him. "Simba not so much. Melody is Ariel and Eric's daughter in the Little Mermaid 2."
"You're choosing the name for our daughter out of straight-to-VHS Disney sequel?" Rory couldn't believe it.
"I am not," Amy denied. "You're the one who has only heard of it in that movie."
"I'm just surprised you like that name," Rory admitted.
Amy frowned. "And why is that? Melody is an awesome name."
"Well," Rory said delicately, wondering how to put this. "It just sounds 'a bit fairytale.'"
Amy, who still refused to answer to Amelia with anybody but the Doctor, smiled as she understood Rory's confusion. "Well, I've been thinking about that. Really, there are worse things for a name to be."
And there it was. Rory knew that the last traces of Amy's faith had been broken when the Doctor hadn't returned as he'd promised but once he had and once they'd all gone traipsing across the universe together…It was sweet that she wanted to pass that along and all of a sudden, he wanted to, too.
"Melody it is, then," he said happily.
Melody Williams, their future miracle.
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