A/N: This was inspired by Marc Ellerby's comic story, "Pond Life," in the new Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor comic series. If you haven't read it, you might want to look it up, because this takes place literally right after the last frame and references a lot of Rory's dialogue, so, "Spoilers!"

Little Secrets

"'Be back by eleven'? Seriously?"

"What?" Amy scoffed. "You're the one who told her she couldn't go out 'dressed like that.'"

"Well!" Rory snapped. He splayed his fingers through his fluff of duckling-like hair. "She's our…daughter."

Amy grinned and opened their TARDIS colored front door so her husband could walk in with his hands over his eyes.

"I still can't believe I'm saying that about River Song."

"I know." Amy followed him into the kitchen and took a seat at the table while Rory busied himself with the traditional English coping mechanism of mugs, hot water, and herbs. "I was a bit jealous of her when we first met—"

"A bit?" Rory mused.

"A tad and shut up! It was only for about two seconds and then she started flying the TARDIS. Proper flying, not that rubbish The Doctor calls flying, and that's when I decided I wanted to know her. She was so…"

"Cool?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "I admired her. River Song was a superhero. It's funny now because she was the kind of person I imagined our daughter growing up to be. And then she was."

Rory set the Her and His mugs that Augustus had given them at their wedding reception onto the table with a clunk. A few drops splashed from his mug and he used the corner of his sleeve to dab them up. "It's hard for me." He kept his eyes to the grains of the tabletop. "It's hard to look at her and think of all the things a father should do and say that I'll never get to. You had hope after Berlin, you were sure that The Doctor was going to bring our baby back, but I…I was just waiting for confirmation. From the moment that River promised us Melody would be safe, I just knew."

Amy aimlessly drew her spoon through her tea.

"Even as kids you were more of a parent to her than I ever was."

"She called you to bail her out plenty of times," Amy countered.

"Yeah, but it was always the two of you with the little secrets and the in-jokes and the picking out dresses for the school dances."

"Is that why you started wanting to tag along on shopping trips?" Amy chuckled.

"You always left me out."

"That's not true."

"It was. Enough of the time, it was."

Amy lifted a spoonful of tea and gently blew across it, watching the ripples. "That's when I started thinking you were gay."

Rory snorted. "Nicely stereotyped."

Amy lifted the spoon to her mouth and swallowed its contents. She sucked on the empty metal awhile like a lollipop, contemplating how to change the subject. "Why were you so against her going with The Doctor?" she finally asked. "You love The Doctor."

Rory let his head roll back on his shoulders. "He took my wife away on the eve of our wedding and then pops up in my stag cake to tell me in front of all my mates that he snogged my fiancé. And now he wants to date my daughter?"

"That was ages ago! We've been over this enough, Rory. I can't believe you're still dredging that up. I was young and scared and stupid."

"I know." Rory sighed and stared into the void of his tea. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I wish I could make you understand it from my perspective, Amy, but—" He let the tip of his tongue fall back to the well behind his teeth as an idea struck him. Rory moved into the kitchen, rustled through the cabinets for a bowl and a pitcher, filled the latter with water, and returned to his seat.

Amy squinted at her husband while he poured the contents of his mug into the bowl.

"This is a strong brew, right?"

"That's the way we like it."

"The way you like it," Rory corrected. He lifted the pitcher and poured roughly a half a cup of water into the bowl, paling the color of the tea. "And this would taste less the way you like it and more the way I like it."

"O-K…"

Rory poured approximately another cup of water into the bowl. "And now it's probably too weak for either of our tastes."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

Rory lifted the bowl and poured the liquid into the pitcher. He gave it a couple wine tasting swishes and pushed it towards his wife. "Do you see it?"

"What?"

"The tea?"

Amy hesitated. "No. Not really. Maybe faintly, it's too diluted."

"Exactly." Rory crossed his hands as if in prayer. "Our past—your past—with The Doctor is diluted, but that doesn't mean it's not there; that doesn't mean I can't still taste a hint of it." He grabbed Amy's mug and poured it into the pitcher, darkening the water somewhat more. "And now our daughter's is tied up in him too."

"More than you think."

"What?"

"They're married."

Rory leaned forward as though his wife was a magnet. "And you just decided to leave that bit of information out? Just one more of your and Mels' little secrets?" He heard his voice rising with each word but he was too frustrated to stop.

"She didn't tell me!" Amy bit back. "Not exactly. But I'm sure of it. 'It's not that simple,' she said. But I think it is. The way they act around each other, I've known since the beginning. I'm just biding my time for proof. Really, it makes perfect sense if you think about it."

"I don't want to think about it," Rory snapped.

Amy pushed up from her seat. "What are you so afraid of?" she asked, not wanting nor expecting a response.

"After what happened with Melody, you have the audacity to ask me that?"

"River is Melody! We can't change what happened to her in the past, but we can support her present! She's happy, don't you see? After the torture she went through, don't you think she deserves happiness?"

"They tortured you too." He wanted to add and me, but it felt too selfish in the face of the physical torture and isolation his wife and daughter had endured.

"And for most of it my mind got to be with you and The Doctor. I'm not excusing that, I'm just saying that what happened to me is—" She reached over the table and grabbed the cuff of her husband's plaid shirt and pointed to the small, still wet stain from where Rory had dabbed away the tea splatter. "—a drop in the bucket."

Rory curled his fingers around his wife's wrist and guided her about the table to face him. He leaned in, resting his forehead against hers. "You're right. She does deserve happiness."

Amy nodded.

Hours later Rory pulled one of his grandmother's crocheted blankets over his wife as she slumbered on their sofa. Somewhere he heard the clock chime and he quietly resigned himself to an overstuffed chair, his hands piled neatly in his lap. Soon he heard the breathy wheeze-groan that he and Amy were always dropping everything for, but this time, Amy remained sleeping and he wasn't about to wake her.

The TARDIS materialized in the corner of the living room and shadowy ringlets consumed the left white window panels. A muffle of noises came from the other side of the door and soon it opened and River tumbled out, giggling and swatting off a hand before the door closed behind her. She was no longer wearing the lowcut black evening gown she'd left in.

As the TARDIS dematerialized, River sobered at the sight of her father's somber presence on the chair. For a moment she looked sluggishly from Rory to Amy and Rory again, then her usual façade activated itself. "You didn't need to wait up," she teased.

"You're late."

The monotone caught River off guard. "I'm – what?"

"Eleven o' one," Rory said, tapping his digital watch. "Your mother said to be home by eleven."

River's brow drew up like an archer's bow ready to strike him. "You're a few hundred years too late to start setting curfews."

"Making up for lost time."

River gazed down at the open toes of her navy colored pumps. Rory's humorless tone actually managed to make her feel guilty. "And what does one minute get me?" She stole another look at her sleeping mother.

Rory licked his lips in consideration. "A question."

River returned her attention to him.

"And you can't answer 'spoilers.'"

The punishment made her mouth grow thick but she nodded in compliance and then she waited. It was as though she could hear the milliseconds moving by, like the silence that wasn't really a silence of being submerged in water.

"Are you happy?"

"I – I'm sorry?"

"Are – you – happy?"

River lifted her finger, motioning for her father to follow her into the kitchen. She slipped off her heels before turning on the light and her painted toenails curled on the cold tiles. Sure, there had been the occasional deep conversation between her and Rory growing up, but they were only as deep as could be when he didn't know the whole story. She'd opened up to him again in Florida, but she'd been a stranger to him, not even Mels. They'd talked since, of course, but this version of him was so young; still so angry about losing his baby girl.

"River?"

"I don't know if you can understand," she whispered. Even she was surprised by the vulnerability in her voice; it was never something she'd intended to convey. "To you, it must seem like madness if I had the chance to change my past and refused. Not that I do, mind you. I don't want to give you false hope, but theoretically, I wouldn't take it. Not now. If you asked a younger me, a me growing up in Leadworth and wanting so badly to be free and to tell you all my secrets, I would have accepted in a hyper second, but not today. I have purpose that I didn't have back then. I once asked you if he was worth it—"

"Berlin," Rory replied. It was still so fresh in his mind, like a newly butchered limb. Though he could tell by the calm way she spoke that much time had passed since Berlin for her.

"I've come to my own conclusions since then. And he is. More importantly, so am I. I am worth something; I am worth so much more than Kovarian intended me to be. I deserve to be alive. Maybe you think that's selfish, but if I could give you back Melody, it would be at my own expense. Twice over, actually: for Melody Pond to live it means the death of Mels Zucker and River Song."

Rory tinkered with the sleeve of his shirt, thumbing the faint tea stains. "I guess I'm not the only one who was in need of a lesson on perspective today."

River cocked her head.

"Never mind." Rory crawled his hands across the table to lay them atop River's. "And you're wrong. So was I. I'm sorry I've only recognized that now, I was too buried in my own pain to see it before. Melody Pond is alive. River is Melody. And Mels. And my daughter. You're my daughter. They always say that when you have children, it's not about you anymore. I only now understand what they meant."

River felt her eyes glisten but didn't try to hide it.

"I want you to be happy."

"I am."

"Then so am I." He squeezed her hands.

River released a caged breath. "And Mum?"

"She's very happy; very proud of you, always."

"No," River said, shaking her bushels of curls and laughing. "I mean, are you going to tell her? About me getting home late?"

Rory looked to the corner of his eyes as if considering the idea. "It was only a minute," he said finally, and grinned. "It'll be our little secret."