A/N- Real Life got a bit too real, recently, and I decided writing was less physically painful and more therapeutic than kicking doorframes was. This story was written SOLEY for the author's own need to process recent... events. This seems to be a long process, as feels keep coming up a the most random times, so there may be even more disjointed and awkard bits to this as necessary. I felt compelled to both paralell and distance the story from reality, so there are random bits mixed in from different cultures and backgrounds, and this is the least cohesive and coherent thing I have ever written, and was more a work of emotion than anything else.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT A SAFE AND HAPPY STORY. THE CHARACTER'S ARE OOC. THEY ARE NOT ALL GOOD PEOPLE. TWs AT BOTTOM.

Amy never really had any friends before. Well, she had friends, but none whom she was especially close to. None like Rory Williams.

Rory was a quiet boy, shy, but very kind. He always had a smile for anyone who needed it, and was always the first one to offer help, along with his dad, Brian.

In fact, it was because of Brian that she and Rory became such good friends. Everyone knew about Amy's parents, or, at least the grown-ups did. She knew what they whispered when her aunt came to pick her up instead of her mum or dad. What all the kids wouldn't dare ask because their parents had warned them about "sensitive subjects." But Brian was different. He treated Amy just like all the other kids. And he made sure his son did as well.

Amy liked spending time with the Williams best of all. With them, she didn't have to think about going back to her big empty house or why it was so empty. And Brian always came up with the best ideas for them. That was another thing about Brian- he was one of those cool dads who didn't think kids were too dumb to know things, and he let everyone call him Brian instead of "Mr. Williams."

She liked spending time with Rory- with his smiles just for her, his patience, and his acceptance. And she loved getting much- needed attention from his mum and dad, too.

River was the cool mum, the same way Brian was the cool dad. She wasn't around quite as much as Brian when he organised all the events for the kids, but when she did, she always had time special to listen to Amy, or a little smile for her, or a special hug on days when she saw that her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

Every year for weeks leading up to holidays, Brian and River always organised big special events for a lot of the kids to participate in. Instead of a big empty house, Amy was always welcomed over to a party, or a bonfire, or an overnight camping trip, right up to the grand children's parade Brian and River led throughout Leadworth every year on Epiphany.

And when Amy's life seemed too sad or too empty, her friend Rory would just grab her hand and guide her through the streets on that same path they walked every year with everyone else, and it always made her smile and laugh.

As the years went by and she and Rory grew closer and closer, she told him one day just how cool his dad was, and how much she wished she had a dad just like him. Her dear, quiet Rory got very a strange look in his eyes before he gave her a half-smile and said, "Oh, he's really my step-dad. My real dad is… more of a madman."

"Really?" Amy asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, he and my mum sort of split up when I was little."

"Sort of?"

"He's just not good at staying in one place for too long. He's a good sort, but not really the domestic sort. He and Mum get on great, and Dad, and when he comes round it's always really special, but he's… an adventurous sort."

Amy was intrigued, and tried to imagine Rory belonging in any other family than the one she'd always seen. The image was impossible, he and Brian even looked alike, and yet… there was that look.

"Can I meet him?" she asked finally.

"Next time he comes round," Rory promised with a fond smile.

Amy understood what Rory meant by madman when she met "the Doctor." Rory's father didn't even want to be called by a name, he preferred the title more. Amy asked what he was a doctor of, but not even Rory was able to answer that question.

And Mrs. Williams. She could definitely see a spark between River and the Doctor, and when she heard the two of them speaking, it wasn't hard to picture the two of them married.

The first time she met him, he came by for only about 3 hours. Then he said he'd be back in five minutes, he just wanted to explore something or other. Rory gave him a big hug and said he'd see him soon, which confused Amy since he said he was coming right back.

"He always says that," was all Rory said with a shrug, before Brian, ever the saviour, clapped a hand on his back and took both him and Amy out for ice cream before they went back home. She assumed the apprehension in his eyes was because he didn't really know when the Doctor was coming back again. Still, she reasoned, he was awfully lucky to have such a good step-dad as Brian, who never treated him any different than his own kid.

For years their relationship was like this: the Doctor would blow in like a whirlwind, just as swift and sweep them up in a fun adventure before he blew away again, and then Brian would be there for all the day-to-days, his smiles and kindness and stability offering hope to Amy that there were both fun people like the Doctor and kind and funny people like Brian.

One day, however, Rory suddenly became very, very quiet. When Amy asked him what was wrong, he just gave her a blank, spaced-out look and said, "nothing. Don't worry about it. 'm fine. Just… just parent stuff. Amy, I-"

She was about to demand an explanation when Brian came up, offering Amy a bright smile before saying he'd popped by to walk Rory home from school.

"Hope everything's all right with you, lovely Amy," he said with a kind smile. She laughed and gave him a wave.

"Everything's great at the moment, Brian," she said, her smile fond and bright.

"Glad to hear it," he responded, for the moment letting her feel just as important as she always imagined her parents might. "Don't go getting in too much trouble now." He added with a wink.

"Not too much," she agreed.

"Come on, my boy," he said to Rory, slinging his arm around him as they went home. She was too happy in the moment to see Rory's wince.

He seemed even more distant on the phone when they spoke later, begging off after only a few minutes and mumbling something about the Doctor...

A few days later as she was walking about, she spotted Rory driving off with the Doctor in his beat up old car, which he called his "TARDIS," the two of them probably off on some silly adventure.

Only, a few hours later, she saw the Doctor's TARDIS zooming across town, faster than she'd ever seen even the Doctor drive. And he was now alone in the car.

She headed toward Rory's house, determined to ask the Doctor about his son. However, the expression he had on his face terrified her into silence and distance; it looked as though he was ready to take on armies and they would surely run at the mere mention of this man who usually was more childlike than his child.

She was just about to call out to him anyway, when she saw his car come to an abrupt stop in front of the Williams' house. Brian had come out to meet him, a question in his eyes that was apparently answered by the fury of the man who'd come to his home. Amy watched as the Doctor, without any explanation and with all the fury of the dangerous and wild, unpredictable man Rory claimed he was, grabbed Brian by the collar and used the force of his rage to slam the gentle man through the still-open door of the house before she did the only thing she could think of. She ran and got River.

River sent her home and told her she would handle everything, then called the police and sent Amy home on strict instruction.

She normally didn't do anything on strict instruction, but she figured Rory would always come for her no matter where he was, so he would know to find her at home if that's where she needed to be. So she went home and waited for news.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, a very long week later, she got a call. Not from Rory, who she'd been expecting, but from River, asking her to meet. She wasn't even through speaking when Amy dropped the phone and ran to the familiar house.

"Where's Rory?" she asked unceremoniously, looking around when she spotted River.

"Amy," River said delicately, a heartbroken look in her eyes-

"Where is he?" she gritted out, wondering what had happened to her friend.

"Amy, sit down," River coaxed.

"Tell me where he went," she demanded again.

"He's staying with his father," River hedged, willing the volatile girl to calm herself down.

"The Doctor? But Brian would never allow-"

"Brian has been arrested, Amy. He's not allowed near Rory, or me, even if he manages to get out."

"Arrested? Why? How- what for?" she demanded, arms crossed as she demanded answers.

"Amy." River said again, pleadingly, her eyes so sad Amy finally sat down. River sat beside her and took her hand, though whether River was holding her hand or she was holding River's, she wasn't sure. "Last week, when Rory went with the Doctor, he admitted to him that Brian had been… abusing him. For quite a while now."

"What?" Amy asked, astonished. "He's wrong, he wouldn- Rory's never been abused! I've never seen him with any- he never had any bruises on him or anything! And Brian, he'd never hit Rory. Never," she added with conviction.

River's eyes filled with tears, but her voice was steady as she squeezed Amy's hand, shaking her head as though in denial, though her eyes were fierce and protective.

"NO, Amy," she declared in a stuttering breath, "he didn't hit him. That's not- that wasn't the kind of abuse I was talking about."

"Then what-" Amy began, with a confused shake of her head, before the implications set in and her eyes grew wide. "NO," she whispered, or shouted, she couldn't tell- everything she'd ever known suddenly a cruel lie crashing before her. "No," she repeated again. "The Doctor lies, Rory told me, he said-"

"This wasn't a lie, Amy," River offered in a compassionate voice, "Brian confessed, along with different times and places. It's true, Amy."

Amy just kept shaking her head, whispering "no, No, NO" until she could unhear what she had just heard. But it couldn't be unheard, and it couldn't be undone.

"I'm afraid so, Amy," River repeated, gathering the breaking girl in her arms.

"But that means- poor Rory!-"

"Yes, my girl, it does."

And Amy sobbed, long and hard, and River rubbed her back, both of them broken, at least knowing that the Doctor, for all his faults, had saved his son from what no one else saw: a timid, beautiful, kind-hearted boy was being broken, and no one had seen past the mask. And even though his tormentor was gone and out of his life, they couldn't undo what had been done, and they couldn't change or rewrite the past.

So they wept.

TW for implied sexual abuse of a child. TW for abandonment.