Author's Note: How, if the universe was a far nicer place, the birth of Melody Pond might have went, so this is an AU thanks to Steven Moffat and his realism. I hope you like reading it as much as I did writing it.
He's in the console room when it happens; just minding his own business, getting on with life as if all was well and normal and Amy was not at all expecting a baby any day now. So he's swinging on his swing and pointing the sonic screwdriver at any old wire that looks like it needs a boost. For what reason, he's not exactly sure, something to do, he guesses. It's Amy who shouts first and it's very, very loud.
"Roooory!"
It echoes down the endless corridors of the TARDIS, and the Doctor can only imagine the time-travelling nurse stumbling through doors to get to his wife. Panicking, like he does every time she shouts for him. Which is a lot. Usually, that's all the Doctor will hear from them both, but not this time.
There's a second shout, just as loud, but from Rory this time. Which is odd and not what he was expecting at all.
"Doctor!"
And he's running again. He's missed that. Amy hasn't been in a fit condition to run for a good while now. So it's been a daily routine in the TARDIS, much like one that the humans would experience back on Earth. And it's been driving him crazy. But now, now he can move his limbs very quickly and they soon get used to the sensation of running again.
He squeaks to a stop outside the Ponds' room, almost banging into the door itself, which is, unusually, hanging open. There's Nurse Rory Pond, rubbing gentle and comforting circles into Amy's back. He's trying to be calm. She's on the bed, not in any way calm.
"Oh my god, it's coming!" she's saying.
"Actually, really coming this time?" the Doctor can't stop himself from asking.
Two heads shoot up to glare at him.
"What do you bloody well think?" Amy cries, before clutching her overgrown, planet-sized belly.
The Doctor looks to Rory for confirmation, since he's the expert with women here. Which isn't really saying much, if the Doctor's honest. Rory nods. The Doctor doesn't dare enter the room, since it is definitely coming now and Amy will be hurling abuse at any man within a mile's radius.
"We need to get her to a hospital," says Rory.
The Doctor sends him a mock salute. "I'm on it, Sir Nurse Rory Pond."
Rory rolls his eyes, not bothering to correct him on the many errors, since he's grown used to it by now anyway.
"Just go and stop blathering!" Amy orders, and the Doctor scarpers. Of course, he's scarpering to the console room. Making himself useful.
Why Amy wouldn't accept the invitation to spend her pregnancy on Earth with humans all around her, the Doctor will never know.
The TARIDS lands with little fuss in a reception with whitewashed walls, a sign of a sterilized area. People are milling around, patients, nurses and doctors just carrying on with their days. Only a few heads turn when three people walk out of a blue box.
Amy has one arm over Rory's shoulder while the Doctor leads them out. The nurses all wear large bonnets here, but one of them looks up. At Amy. She stops in her tracks, making Rory grind to a halt as well.
The Doctor's a few paces ahead of them before he notices. He couldn't not notice, what with Amy exclaiming, at the top of her lungs: "They're cats!"
The Doctor jumps at the volume of her voice, before whirling around on the spot to face her. "Oh, it's all right," he says brightly. "This is a different group of cats. These ones don't experiment on humans, I check—"
She panics just a little more then. Rory tries to whisper soothing words in her ear to no affect. "Not that I've got anything against cats, Doctor, but perhaps we should leave?" he asks as gently as he possibly can given the situation.
"But they're fantastic nurses," the Doctor protests, weakly, but he knows it's a losing battle.
"They're bloody cats!" Amy shouts again, and now every cat nun/nurse/doctor/random passer-by turns to face them. Some hiss, some give Amy a dirty look and some even go so far as to bear their claws.
"What was that you were saying about leaving, Rory?"
Perhaps it'll be a case of second time lucky, that Amy and Rory will both like this hospital. It's certainly got credentials; the best hospital in the universe is the company slogan. Would be smug except it's true. The Sisters of the Infinite Schism, oh, they're good.
The TARDIS lands in reception once again, and this time Rory has decided to lead the way, keeping an eye out for cats, of which the Doctor assures there are none.
He can't be too careful.
The Doctor is left to support Amy who is in terrible pain and experiencing contractions every fifteen minutes or so, but the minutes are slowly counting down and soon they'll just have to stop at a hospital, cats or no cats. Every few minutes she's swearing about something else. At one point it's how her trainers are squeaking on the floor, or how Rory had left her with a clueless fool or how it hurts and she just wants it to stop. But mostly she's complaining about the Doctor's bow tie. They always pick on the tie. Maybe because it's a defenseless piece of intricately woven fabric that can't talk back. The Doctor assures his bow tie that she's not cross with it, not at the moment, anyway.
Rory comes back from his cat search and proves the Doctor to be correct about the number of cats currently in the building. Everyone here at least looks human, and that's good enough for Amy and Rory, as single minded as they are in that respect.
"Oh, here it is again!" exclaims Amy, loudly of course, and she cries out in pain. She gathers a handful of tweed jacket in her hand and squeezes. The Doctor can't bring himself to tell her she's grabbed hold of his shoulder as well and that it hurts, because that is nothing compared to what Amy must be experiencing now. "Ow!"
Rory's by her side in an instant, trying to be comforting. "You'll be fine, Amy. Just relax and in a few hours it'll all be over," says Rory. He's being rather unsuccessful.
The Doctor opens his mouth to say something to will solve Amy's panic in less than a sentence but Amy notices him from the corner of her eye and sends him a sideways glare.
"Just shut up."
"But, Pond! I didn't say anything."
The commotion attracts the attention of one of the nurses, clad in a black gown. She has to pass quite a few patients – someone's throwing up into a potted plant in a corner, a small thing with two tentacles for legs seems to have a plaster cast one tentacle – to reach them but when she does, she points to a series of rooms just down the hall.
"Maternity ward's just down there if you'd like to pick a room."
The Doctor completely meant to land in the right place. It was not under any circumstances just a lucky mistake.
Rory nods and leads the way, the Doctor still supporting Amy. She's not screaming any more, so that's a plus.
Rory stops outside a room with a bright pink door, almost red in colour, with four white chairs attached to the wall sitting outside. The nurse arrives a few moments later and unlocks the door. She turns to them questioningly.
"I'm afraid only one of you will be able to be in here during the birth. Which one of you is the father?" she asks both Rory and the Doctor.
"That would be me, Rory Pon—Williams! Rory Williams," Rory replies with an outstretched hand to the nurse. She shakes it, a little bemused. He puts his arm around Amy then, taking her from the Doctor in a subtle way as if he has to prove the point even though it's all perfectly true. But that's ex-Romans for you. "This is my wife, Amy Williams." He nods to the Doctor, "And he's the Doctor."
The nurse understands and says to the Doctor. "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait outside, sir."
The Doctor smiles one of his smiles that puts everyone at ease. "Not a problem." He goes to one of the chairs and sits there; casually crosses his legs and places his hands on his lap. "Don't let me keep you. Good luck, Ponds."
Amy and Rory are led into the room.
The Doctor waits.
Doctors and nurses run in and out of that little room for some time. Thanks to the position of the chairs he has the pleasure of watching everyone coming and going. He can't see inside without rotating his head, so he doesn't try for fear of what he'll see when he does. He hears the screams too – the shouts and swears.
"What the hell have you done to me?" is the most common.
But then, suddenly, everything stops. There's silence in that little room. The shouting, the swearing and the chattering of the nurses. But it lasts only a second before a new noise, loud and piercing, begins.
The sound of a baby's cry.
It's a few minutes before Rory emerges from the room, carrying something wrapped snugly in a baby pink towel which is Little Pond. He's happier than the Doctor has ever seen him, even when he's now got a black eye that no doubt came from his darling wife.
Battle scarred as he is, Rory can't stop smiling and it's clear from his slightly watery eyes that he's been crying.
"I was going to be cool," he says.
"Happens to the best of us."
Rory's too happy to read into that, and it's just as well because it's a bit of a sore spot. Best not to bring it up.
The Doctor stands. He's handed the bundle by the doting father and a little face, all innocence and wonder, stares back. Little Pond has her mother's eyes. He bounces her up and down while Rory takes a well-deserved seat. The Doctor pulls funny faces and she giggles.
Two nurses emerge from the room. "She's tired," informs one, "but you can all see her now." They walk off and the Doctor, Rory and Little Pond go into the room to see Mummy Pond.
Amy's on the bed, sweaty, eyes bleary with tiredness but her face lights up when she sees them enter. The Doctor comes over first to hand Little Pond back to mum. Rory follows, hesitantly because he's still in the firing line of Amy's fist. She doesn't look annoyed now though, so he stands beside the Doctor, proudly looking on.
"What are you going to call her?" the Doctor asks.
She screws her face up in thought. "Rory, remember Mels?"
"The Mels who stole a bus and went for a joy ride?"
"Yeah. Let's call her Melody." She looks at Little Pond. "What do you think? Do you like Melody?"
The Doctor leans over so Little Pond can gurgle into his ear. He straightens again. "Yes, she likes it." Neither adult Pond questions his ability to speak baby. Used to the madness now. He reaches his hand out and Melody squeezes his finger. "Hello, Melody Pond."
"Melody Williams," Rory corrects in that resigned way he always does.
"No," Amy says. "Melody Williams is a geography teacher. Melody Pond is a super hero."
The Doctor stands back, admiring the little family. "Oh, would you look at the Ponds, all grown up," he says fondly.
He doesn't tell them that they can't stay with him any more, doesn't tell them just what Melody is, what the Doctor can sense she is.
Doesn't tell them that now they've grown up, they don't need Amy's imaginary friend any more.
In baby speak which no ordinary grown-up would understand, Melody gurgles something that catches the Doctor's attention.
He straightens his bow tie and says, "No, it's cool."
Ponds. They always pick on the bow tie.