"Once upon a time—"
"No," said Lettie, shifting on her bed and hugging her pillow close while looking at her mother. "No, you can't tell that."
"Why not?" her mother asked softly.
"There's someone who should be here with you," said Lettie stubbornly. "You can't tell any sort of bedtime story without them."
"Who?" her mother asked.
"Exactly," Lettie replied.
"Lettie," said her mother with a small sigh, "there's no such thing as the Doctor."
"But—"
"Lettie," said her mother again, in a voice that meant that the conversation was over. "Shall we skip the story tonight?"
Lettie nodded.
"You're ridiculous," River laughed, adjusting her dress. "How do I look, really? And you can't use the word 'yowzah' or I'll shoot you."
"Rule Thirty-Six, no guns in the console room!" Lettie crowed.
"Yeah, River, listen to your daughter," said the Doctor triumphantly.
"So I'll shoot you in our bedroom."
"I bet you will."
"Rule Thirty-Seven," said Lettie in disgust, "no flirting in the console room."
"Yeah, Doctor, listen to your daughter," River echoed smugly.
Lettie was born in Leadworth ten years ago—no, no, that was wrong, wrong but right, although she could no longer remember why—and her mother's name was Didi—that was wrong too, Didi wasn't her mother, she couldn't be—and her father had left when she was too small to remember him—no, he hadn't, she could remember him clearly, clearly as if through fog, tall, dark hair, tweed jacket, warm hugs.
"I think I was meant for a different world," she announced one day to her mother, who was making brownies for the school picnic. There was an acrid smell of burnt brownies in the kitchen. Lettie wrinkled her nose. "You don't have to make them, you know, Mum."
"I know, but I feel I should at least make a valiant effort," said her mother with a wry laugh. "A teacher at your school said that he wanted to try my brownies."
"A teacher?" Lettie echoed.
"He was very sweet," said her mother with a silly little smile.
"Do you fancy him?" said Lettie sharply. "You can't."
"Why not?" Didi asked indignantly, turning away from the oven. Inside, Lettie noticed the brownies combust.
"I don't remember," she said by way of explanation. "I can't remember anything anymore." In the pocket of her jeans, there was a pocket watch. She pulled it out and tossed it up and down, as she tended to do whenever she was nervous.
"Here we are!" said the Doctor cheerfully. "The twenty-first planet of the Scarlet Galaxy. Famed for its library, its rich culture, and its—you're just going to go to the ice cream parlor and leave, aren't you?" he concluded disappointedly.
"Pretty much," said River and Lettie at the same time before bursting into giggles and high-fiving.
"You're absolutely ridiculous," the Doctor muttered.
"You can tell a lot about culture by how they make a banana split," Lettie pointed out.
"What's that about banana splits?" Amy asked, coming out of the TARDIS with Rory close behind. "What are you doing? I was sleeping!"
"Told you we should have taken off the brakes," River muttered to the Doctor.
"Gran, look!" said Lettie happily. "Ice cream!"
"The twenty-first planet of the Scarlet Galaxy summed up by a hungry nine-year-old," grumbled the Doctor. "I can almost hear its first great emperor crying."
"No, that's me laughing at you," River snorted.
Her mother brought the teacher home for dinner. He was nice, but Lettie knew that her mother wasn't in love with him, because her mother didn't seem very interested in what he had to say. She remembered that her mother had listened to her father…
Except she didn't. She didn't remember. Her father had left them when she was little, so she couldn't possibly remember her father laughing and smiling and twirling her around a brightly lit console room.
"Stop it!" Lettie protested breathlessly. "I'm dizzy!"
"We're going to a party on the Moon, Odelette Amelia Song, so you're going to have to be ready to dance," the Doctor informed her.
"Don't call me Odelette," Lettie chided, but she was giggling too hard to be taken seriously.
"Why not?" said the Doctor indignantly. "It's a brilliant name! I came up with it! Odelette—means 'little ode' in French, and an ode is a song, so it roughly translates to 'little song'."
"Which is why we call her Lettie," said River from where she was standing impatiently by the door, "because Little Song Amelia Song is more than a little bit redundant."
"So don't learn how to speak French and leave me alone," huffed the Doctor, making his wife and daughter laugh.
Two months passed, and Lettie waited. She didn't know what she was waiting for, but she waited. One night she fell asleep in their front yard, sitting on the grass on top of her carefully packed suitcase.
"You're going to come," she told the sky. "You're the Doctor, and you're going to take me away from here."
It wasn't that there was anything bad in her everyday life; in fact, she led a rather enjoyable one. But there was a noticeable absence of something that she couldn't quite place, something that she felt she should never have had to miss. There were things, things she knew but didn't make sense. Don't blink when you're passing a statue. Stay out of the shadows. Mark your skin if you see a white monster in a suit.
And of course she couldn't tell anyone. She'd told Mindy, and Mindy had called her a psycho, and for some reason the word had made her smile instead of cry. Psycho…short for psychopath.
Once upon a time there was a bespoke psychopath…
She remembered that there might have been a story, long ago, that began that way.
"A bespoke psychopath," said River, her voice soft and lilting, running her fingers through her daughter's crazy, curly space hair, "who was lost and lonely and afraid, but hid it behind a mask of hatred and violence. And one day, she met a lonely old man with the face of a boy, and she tried to kill him."
"Why?" asked Lettie in a tiny voice.
"Because that was the only way she knew," River said. "But as he died, he told her that he loved her. He told her that he loved who she was, who she used to be, and who she would become. And so she gave him the rest of her life with a kiss, meaning that her days were numbered, but they spent the rest of their lives learning to love each other. He had seen her future, you see."
"Mum?"
"Hmm?"
"I know you're talking about Berlin."
"You're too smart for your own good," said the Doctor with a laugh. He was sitting next to River on Lettie's bed, his arm around his wife and his free hand holding Lettie's. "I love you," he told her softly, and Lettie smiled, knowing how rarely he told anyone that. "Both of you," he added, and as he kissed River, Lettie saw her mother smile.
Lettie didn't look much like her mother. Her hair was a caramel brown, and her eyes were just a little bit too green. She was pretty, but not in the conventional way, and she wore lots of boots because her mother did too.
No, her mother didn't, her mother wore loafers.
A bespoke psychopath who wore boots, and sometimes high heels.
It wasn't right for her mother to wear loafers. Didi sometimes complained about the way they felt on her feet.
"I can't wear boots, though," she said one night as she and Lettie were watching television with their dinners. "I work at an office. I'll look ridiculous wearing boots, and I'm certainly not wearing high heels to work. Then I feel like all of my co-workers are staring at my legs."
"Didn't Dad say that your legs were magnificent?" Lettie asked softly.
Didi blinked. "I…suppose he did, yes. He must have. Before he left." The last three words seemed to be a reminder that even if he had said something like that, Lettie shouldn't know about it, because she was too small to remember.
Lettie sighed. "I remember him," she said softly. "A little."
"I don't," said Didi bitterly, spearing a piece of asparagus. "Or I try not to."
"What was he like?"
The bitter expression froze on Didi's face, and her eyes softened. "A good man," she said softly. "I remember that much."
"Merry Christmas!" shouted the Doctor, running into the Ponds' living room in a Santa hat and looking mightily pleased with himself. "River promised she wouldn't shoot this one," he added smugly.
"No guns in the living room anyway," said Amy firmly. "I just cleaned everything up. We're about to start watching a movie, d'you want to watch with us?"
"Sit by me, Dad!" Lettie added, scooting closer to River so that there was room for the Doctor on the end of the couch.
"Actually," said the Doctor, "I want to sit between my girls." He squeezed between River and Lettie, snuggling into the former.
"Oi!" said Lettie indignantly. "It's my turn to snuggle with Mum! She's, like, the best at snuggling in the cosmos!"
"She wasn't always," said River softly, with a little smile. "You've got your dad to thank for that."
The Doctor smiled back and kissed River's hair.
"If you're going to get all romantic," said Lettie, "I'm going to sit between you as a preventative mechanism. There isn't any way that Dad would kiss Mum in front of me."
"Very true," said the Doctor, "but I'm not so sure about your mum kissing me."
"I have very good boundaries," said River haughtily, sending the Pond family into hysterics for eight minutes.
Lettie was in her garden when she thought that she heard a sound. A sort of noise that echoed in your ears, a sort of vworp vworp noise that you remembered perfectly but couldn't quite describe. She remembered the noise, remembered her father saying it was brilliant, that he loved it.
She waited for it to appear, realized that she didn't know what it was, and went back to watering her baby tomato plants.
"Am I ever going to have any siblings?" Lettie asked softly. "I get lonely sometimes."
The Doctor sighed. "Lettie, love, you were a miracle. One that River and I never anticipated happening. If we have another child, we risk unraveling our entire timelines. I've met future versions of River, and she has a picture of you that she always carries around, but never anyone else."
"But Mum's staying with us until I'm grown up, right?"
"Right. Mum's not leaving you for a very long time."
She had a nightmare one night.
"Did they see you?" the Doctor demanded, lifting her into his arms. "Lettie, this is important, did they see you?"
She nodded, her eyes wide and scared. "Is that—is that bad?"
"This is the Family of Blood," said the Doctor. "Or relatives of the Family of Blood, at least. But you're sure that they saw you?"
Lettie nodded again, scared not by what they'd just escaped, but the fear in the Doctor's eyes.
The Doctor swallowed. "Lettie, my darling," he said, "you are going to have to be very, very brave."
When she woke up, she couldn't understand why she'd been scared. It was such a strange and silly nightmare.
"Odelette Amelia Song," said the Doctor in wonder, holding his daughter ever so close. "You've got a telepathic connection with the TARDIS."
"Lovely," said Lettie happily. "I've always wondered what that singing in my head was; I thought I was going mad."
"Honey," said River, "you've got a psychopath and the last Time Lord for parents. I'm fairly sure that you're as mad as mad can be."
And then one more month passed, and Lettie felt suddenly sure that the Doctor was going to come. She didn't know why she was so happy, only that she was. She skipped to school, ignored her silly classmates, and smiled all the time, even at dinner, even when dinner was beans.
"Beans are evil," Lettie told her mother conversationally as she ate her dinner, "but I don't mind today. The Doctor's coming soon."
Didi raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
"He'll come tomorrow," Lettie continued. "I know he will."
"He's just a story," said Didi softly. "You need to let him go."
"You aren't my mum, then," said Lettie stubbornly. "My mum knows that the Doctor is real."
"Lettie," said Didi with a warning in her voice. "I can assure you that the Doctor isn't real."
"Why isn't he?" Lettie challenged, standing up so fast that she nearly knocked over her soup bowl.
"Because if he is, he would have come by now," said Didi in a small voice, tears glittering in her eyes. "Because he always catches me when I fall, and he always comes when I call. Always." She adjusted the pocket watch she wore on a chain around her neck. "He always comes," she said again. "That much I can't forget."
"But he's not real," Lettie persisted. "You always tell me that."
"If he isn't real," said Didi softly, "then who do I love so much?" She sighed in a defeated sort of way. "I was trying not to tell you. I thought I was going mad, and that you'd picked up on it."
"You love him?"
"I think so," Didi confessed. "If he's real. I don't remember much about him."
"What do you remember?" Lettie asked desperately, gripping the edge of the table. This time, she knew that she would get an honest answer.
Didi smiled, and a tear fell onto the table. "I remember that I called him 'sweetie.'"
"Didi," said the Doctor, running around the console to bring out the Chameleon arch. "It can be short for Melody."
"I hate the name," River told him, crossing her arms.
"You would."
"I'm scared," said Lettie shakily.
"Don't be," said the Doctor softly. "You won't remember me. Three months, and the Family will stop searching. That, or they'll die. Either way, I'll be there in three months."
"I love you."
The words didn't come from Lettie, but from River, who was staring straight at the Doctor with wet eyes and a sad smile. The Doctor moved forward and kissed his wife, a desperate, needy kiss that made Lettie utter a disgusted "Ew, show some decorum!" and turn away.
"How can we remember someone who doesn't exist?" Lettie asked softly.
"We must have loved him too much to really forget," Didi replied. "I know I loved him more than I can remember."
"But he doesn't exist," Lettie whispered. "You said. I didn't really think—I mean, I wished, but it was just that I wanted him to be true so much that I made myself believe."
"I don't know," said Didi with a sigh. "All that we can do is go on with our lives and wait."
"Your gran waited," said the Doctor to Lettie, after he'd pulled away from River. She was still cuddled in his arms, tears trickling down her cheeks, looking so un-Riverlike that it scared Lettie a bit. "All night, and fourteen years after that. You'll only have to wait three months. Three months, and you won't even remember me. It'll be fine, Lettie, I promise."
"I don't believe you," said Lettie stubbornly.
"I swear on your life," he said. "Yours and your mother's."
"Why not swear on your own damn life?" Lettie demanded, trying as hard as she could not to cry.
"Because," said the Doctor, holding River closer with one arm and pulling Lettie into the hug with the other, "there is nothing else in the entire universe that I can possibly value more than the lives of my wife and daughter."
They waited. They waited two more weeks. Didi tried to make brownies again. Lettie tended to her baby tomatoes. They were closer than they'd been before, now that a little bit more of the Doctor had been realized, but Lettie and Didi didn't love each other as much as Lettie-the-Time-Child and River-the-psychopath.
Nothing happened. Lettie began to lose hope at the beginning of the second week. Didi fidgeted with her pocket watch constantly and smiled a lot more, as if she had a feeling that the Doctor was coming.
And then, in the middle of the second week, the doorbell rang.
Lettie and Didi looked at each other. Lettie pulled out her pocket watch and tossed it up and down while Didi answered the door. She waited approximately five and a half seconds before Didi's scream echoed through the hallway, and then she ran.
The Doctor was standing in the doorway.
"Doctor!" Lettie gasped. "You're real!"
"How do you know who I am?" the Doctor asked.
"I don't," said Didi shakily. "But for some inexplicable reason, I remember loving you."
"You must love me quite a lot, then," said the Doctor in a small voice. "I never knew—I mean, I never expected—"
Mid-toss, Lettie very accidentally opened her pocket watch.
"Will it hurt?" Lettie asked the Doctor in a small voice.
"Yes," said the Doctor. "You know I won't lie to you."
She did know, and even though she was scared, she was grateful to hear the truth.
And suddenly, she remembered.
Her mother was staring at the golden light that had been emanating from the watch. Her father was staring at her. Lettie threw herself into his arms with a muffled sob, wrapping her arms around his neck. He lifted her up easily.
"I love you," Lettie sobbed into his shoulder. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I never stopped missing you."
"Open the watch," she heard her father say to her mother, and two seconds later, River Song was sobbing as well and hugging the Doctor too.
"Didi," said the Doctor with distaste.
They were all cuddled on the sofa of the house that Lettie-and-Didi had lived in. It was strange, as if looking at someone else's house. The sofa didn't seem as comfortable, the house's smell was off, and her mother was here with her for the first time in three months.
"It's a horrid name," said River with a little laugh. "And it isn't even particularly clever."
"I thought it was!"
"You also think that fezzes are cool," Lettie pointed out, her arms wrapped around her mother's midriff. "Do we have a blanket, Mum? I'm sort of cold."
"There's one about two inches away from where I can reach it if I don't get up," said the Doctor sleepily, "but I've missed you two too much to get up and leave you even for a second."
"Didn't you just travel in time to us?" River asked.
"The Family of Blood was following my TARDIS," the Doctor explained. "I had to spend three months leading them on a wild goose chase. I took the slow path too this time."
"I love you," Lettie said in a small voice. "Both of you. And I missed you the most, Mum."
"Why me?" River asked with surprise and a guilty look at the Doctor.
But the Doctor understood, and answered, "Because you were right there in front of her, but you weren't the mother she knew." He sighed. "You'll have to meet a mother who doesn't know you yet someday, Lettie, you know that."
"I know," said Lettie. "But I'll still love her anyway."
"Did you know that I met a young woman named Lettie a few times?" said River softly. "Crazy space hair the color of caramel, extremely beautiful, even had her own hallucinogenic lipstick. You're going to grow up and be just fine, Odelette Amelia Song."
"I kind of figured," said Lettie, closing her eyes, back in the world she was meant to be in. She felt both of her parents kiss the top of her head at the same time and knock heads, and as River blamed the Doctor and the Doctor spouted excuses, she couldn't help but giggle.
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-The Eclectic Bookworm