Amy
It's not enough. She's in a dollhouse, fighting evil things, trying to help some terrified kid, and it's not enough.
Someone else's terrified kid, she thinks to herself.
It's always this way, isn't it, with him? Someone else's kid, someone else's husband, someone else's home?
There are life-sized dolls, scary creepy dolls from a kid's nightmare, and they are trying to kill her and Rory.
It should be enough. Enough to distract her, to jar her mind away, to make it seem worth while. It should be enough—the rush of adrenaline, the terror, the urgency.
Be brave for me, Amy, she said.
That day, a million years ago, a million centuries ago, eternity times two—that's what she said.
Traveling by vortex manipulator wasn't nearly as tidy and tranquil as the TARDIS. Wouldn't have been any better had her life not been thrown into turmoil. Wouldn't have been more tranquil, really, if her mind hadn't been shattered by the bitch that TIME could be.
River Song was good, but she wasn't good enough to make a vortex manipulator relaxing.
You must let things happen as they happen. I know it's hard. Believe me, I know it's hard. Knowing you this all this time, knowing who you were, what was before you…it's killed me. I wanted…
She wanted to tell them. Amy's mind had recoiled, flash-backward, through her entire life it seemed, the minute River made her revelation. It's me. I'm Melody.
River Song, hurtling through space, formal dress and fuck-me pumps, only to smash the Doctor to the floor of the TARDIS.
River Song, hand on her shoulders, reassuring, worried for her. So gentle. So kind. Weeping Angels be damned, River was not going to be defeated.
River bloody Song, falling falling from that building in New York—dear god, what was she made of?
River Song, a blur of deadly force, Silence falling around her as she spun in a dance more ritual than rigor, Boudica cutting down the Romans outside Londinium, sword bloodied and hair flying and rage mixed with pain mixed with glorious exhilaration.
This was her baby. This was her little Melody, this Song of destruction and war.
The dolls were surrounding her. Amy wondered for a moment of what sort of dolls Melody had played with, what toys that monster let her have. God only knew. And she wasn't answering.
Rory
Amy was gone. Amy was gone, turned into one of those doll things, and he was left alone to fight. Rory wanted to hate her, on some level, for dragging him into this life.
But he knew there was no comfort in blame. He'd had millennia to learn that lesson, to truly comprehend that blame killed the host, not the object of blame. She hadn't done this to him; neither had the Doctor.
But it didn't help on days like this. Amy was his wife. She was the only woman he'd ever loved, ever thought of loving, in his whole life. She'd been the boss of him since Day One, and he never thought for a moment there could be anything she did or said that would change that.
The dolls were following him. Chasing him, trying to bring him into their creepy fold, and Rory had no intention of letting that happen.
You're the bravest man I've ever known. River's words came back to him, unbidden. Be strong for her, Rory. She'll need you. You must live your life. You must go on, let this happen, continue as if it had never happened.
Rory leaned against the dollhouse wall, his breath coming in short gasps. He kept them light and silent, not wanting to tip off his pursuers. If he closed his eyes, he could see her there. River Song. She was a force to be reckoned with, dangerous and proud and full of life and fun.
She'd never have run from these things, Rory thought with a silent chuckle made more out of morbid energy than humor. She'd have kissed them with her hallucinogenic lipstick and had a tea party with them, or she'd have blasted them into a stupor, never neglecting the fact that these were transformed humans, her aim delicate as a surgeon's scalpel and just as clean.
I know it's hard, Rory. Believe me, I know it's hard. I can't tell you why—too many spoilers—but understand it kills me to keep these things from you two. I love you, both of you, and I promise you things will turn out fine.
Her words rang hollow in his memory. Right, she's from the future, but how can she be sure? Time can be rewritten, and there is nothing he can do about it. Every breath, every word, everything action could be the one that unravels it all. A sneeze that destroys his daughter; a smile at the wrong time in the wrong place that kills his wife…
Keep going. Keep doing what you do, dear Rory. It's what you have to do, and I promise, He will make it work.
River said "He" like Amy always had, capitalized like a proper name or a god or royalty. Like He never made mistakes, like He had all the answers.
Rory didn't know any of the answers. His wife was a murderous living doll, his daughter was older than them both—and a convicted criminal capable of destroying entire rooms of armed aliens, and time no longer was a stable thing he could understand or control.
He wasn't at the top of Rory's list right now, at least not the good one.
The footsteps were gone. They'd lost his trail, heading down the hall in the opposite direction. Just enough time to escape.
Too bad there's no where to escape to at the moment.
The Doctor
Mystery to be solved. Keep working, get the thing done, save the day save the boy save the universe.
Hey-ho, the life of a Doctor.
This time a little boy, George or Bill or Kal-El, it didn't matter. After the short side of a millennium, the names were beginning to run together. The fury of activity blurred into an odd stillness, when looked at from the vantage point of nine hundred years, and like the paintings of old Georges Seurat, each individual pinpoint of color blended and transposed until he could see the whole painting.
And oh, what an ugly thing it was, this painting fused by the optic nerve upon a distant observation of the points of color his life comprised. A Bloody Sunday on the Isle of La Grande Jatte. War and mayhem and little boys afraid of the dark. This is why he went adventuring? This is why he left the dull tedium of Gallifrey for worlds and times unknown?
All this, my love, in fear of you.
He'd heard some strong words, terrible words to be true, from companions in the past. Oh, so many they mashed together in his head like Stravinsky or Bjork or the Oak Ridge Boys played backwards. From Don't forget me to How could you to Do I know you, they pulsed counterpoint to each other, rattling through his skull with the various flotsam and jetsam that filled the empty space between his ears.
All this, my love, in fear of you.
Time was a vicious overlord. Time was a cruel bastard, and time was knotted up so bloody well now that any effort he made to unravel the mess only made things worse.
They never even mentioned Melody. Rory and Amy, grieving parents, confused, brave.
They never mentioned her.
He didn't understand, couldn't help worrying. Before Hitler, before Mels had done that voodoo that you do so well, before…well, everything…nothing had…
He didn't understand.
Get them home, River.
That must have been a hell of a conversation.
They knew now, that River was their child. Knew now that Mels was River was Melody was their daughter.
And they kept so bloody quiet all the time about it.
Why?
What had she said to them?
"I hate spoilers," he whispered to the ghost of River Song Yet to Come, then turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand.
Murderous dollies and a scared alien boy with serious abandonment issues.
River Song
Okay, right. Back to the Stormcage with me. Back to the grind. Or more accurately, the lack of grind. Lack of bump, lack of grind, lack of fun, lack of stimulation, lack of pretty clothes and gorgeous shoes and boys who look a little scared of me for all the right reasons.
Boredom, I have in excess. A queen's ransom in boredom, all for little Melody River PondSong.
Bloody time. Gets me every time.
So tell, Little Blue Book that knows my every thought and wish and deepest sexual fantasies, why does it never get easier?
Hullo, guess what folks? I'm your little stolen baby, trained up from the start to kill the man I love! Sure, I know I'm older than you, and you've seen me drop a baker's dozen of aliens in a sexy little 30-second dance of death. I realize you've wondered about my relationship with Himself.
Now you're wondering more.
Like, how did our perfect little bundle of joy turn into that—woman?
How did she learn all those things she does?
How did she know, how did she survive, and what does this mean to us?
If we save Melody, do we lose River?
If we save River, do we lose Melody?
Little Blue Book, you are my closest friend and dearest confidante. I tell you right now, I'd rather face getting stuck in a lift with fifteen Slitheen coming back from a chili cookoff than see the look on their faces again.
Who are you?
Amy…my mother…that gun trained on me.
Oh, lord, how she held that thing! It would have been rude to laugh, not to mention completely inappropriate. But remind me, Book, never to let her take point with a gun. The only danger I was in from her was that I might trip trying to keep her from blowing herself up.
No laughs, Little Book, not really. My heart broke for her. I couldn't be there, I couldn't stop it from happening. She hated me. River Song, the one who jumps out of spaceships and skyscrapers, the one who makes time her bitch and does it with flair.
Where were you? The Doctor said it, but it was written all over Amy's face. Why? Why couldn't you pull a miracle out of your bag for me, River Song? You and the Doctor, you save strangers all the time. So why not me? Why couldn't you save my family?
And Rory. Rory, my lovely, darling father. You weren't built for this, were you? You are a simple man, with a simple love, and nothing at all about your family is simple, is it? Your wife who wasn't your wife, your baby who isn't a baby, hell—I'm not even human, not completely anyway.
And Doctor. I could cry for you, you dear arrogant innocent monster. There is so much more waiting for you, so many pains and so many betrayals and each and everyvone of them will come as a complete shock. A complete surprise.
I dropped them off in Leadworth after he left.
We spoke very little. There was little left to say; at least, nothing that could be said in the short space of time we had.
I kissed them, both my mum and dad, gently on the lips before leaving them.
"Let it go for now," I whispered. Another kiss to Mum, "Be brave. You must let things happen as they happen. I know it's hard. Believe me, I know it's hard."
To Dad, "Be strong for her, Rory. She'll need you."
Hallucinogenic lipstick, after the Little Blue Book, you are my second best friend. You've given my parents their life back. Too bad you don't work on me.
Before I pressed the controls on my vortex manipulator, I looked them straight on—eye to eye, River Song at full height and power. "Don't dwell on it, you two. You've got a lot of adventure ahead of you—great times and terrible times and some of the weirdest things you'll ever encounter. Let me go, just for a little while. Be young. Be brave." A lovely little post-hypnotic suggestion. Courtesy of Melody River PondSong.
I blew them a kiss, just before vanishing, and said, "You'll see me again, soon enough. I love you."
And I know it's happened. I know they're out there, now then when where, being amazing and terrified, and I am the furthest thing from their minds.
And that's how it should be.
So why does it hurt so much?
The End