Mother Goose and Ugly Chairs
The Doctor found Amy sitting cross legged in front of a fireplace inside the library. She was in her long sleeping gown and robe, surrounded by several piles of children's book. Her back was turned to him and she was so engrossed in her book she didn't notice him approaching her from behind. He would have already guessed that something was wrong since she was up in the middle of the night (well, relatively speaking), but her sniffles and the hand that kept wiping away the tears he couldn't yet see were conclusive evidence that all was not alright with Mrs. Pond.
"You know, that fireplace wasn't there a few hours ago." He sat down in one of the two ridiculously large recliners that also hadn't been there before. Along with the end table in between the chairs and the Persian rug that Amy was currently camped out on.
She sniffed again and still didn't turn towards him. "I figured, considering this is an exact replica of my grandfather's fireplace. Complete with the giant ugly chairs."
"Ugly? I rather like them," he said, rubbing his hands up the lengths of the chair's arm.
"You would," she joked but then she sniffed again.
"What's wrong Amy?" he finally got to the point.
"Why do you have these?" she skirted out his question, lifting up the book in her hands and twisting herself around to face him. Her eyes were red and puffy and large tears left shiny trails down her cheeks. She was holding up Where the Wild Things Are. "Why does the Doctor have children's books on his TARDIS?"
"Amy, why are you looking at children's books?" he turned the questioning back around on her. Two could play at that game. She was a novice at avoiding questions compared to him.
She turned back to her stack and picked up another one, this time it was Ten In the Bed. She ran her fingers longingly down the cover before opening to the first page. "These were all my favorites as a kid. I always thought . . ." she trailed off and turned the page.
The Doctor stood and sat down next to her, crossing his own legs. What a pair they made, he and his little Amelia, who seemed very much like a little girl again, both cross-legged and reading children's book in front of a fire. He smiled warmly at his best friend.
"You always thought what?" he asked gently, picking up a book for himself. It was Mother Goose and he turned to the first page to read the classic nursery rhyme.
"I always thought I'd get to read them to my own daughter."
"Ah," he said with understanding, "well, this one's rubbish. Doesn't even make any sense. I always preferred Charlotte's Web. Is that one around here?" He began leaning forward, scanning the stacks of books that lay before him.
"Doctor, Melody's all grown up," Amy said in a tiny voice. He turned back to her and sighed.
"Yes, she is. And she's completely safe. You see her all the time."
"Yeah, but that's not the point."
"I know. "
They spent the next few minutes in silence, pretending to be reading.
"Why your grandfather's fireplace and ugly chairs?" the Doctor asked. He had been watching her out of the corner of his eye and hadn't seen her turn the page once.
"I used to spend the weekends with him and every night he'd sit in one of those chairs with me on the floor and we'd read together. He died when I was eleven but I kept all the children's books he ever bought me. I promised him I'd read them to my own kids someday."
"Amy, if this is about River-" he began but Amy interrupted.
"I can't have kids." Amy closed her book and tossed it. She made no move to grab another one.
"That's why Rory and I split up," she continued, "I couldn't have kids anymore and I couldn't bear to tell him that."
Amy uncrossed her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. The Doctor could tell she had more to say so he remained silent.
"I got to see Melody grow up but I didn't get to be her mother. I was just her friend and now that's all I'll ever be. I'll never get to be a mother."
"Oh Amy." He brought his hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair. She collapsed against him and as she curled up against his chest he wrapped his arms around her. There was nothing else to be done; no running away, no calling out for Rory. Nothing else to do but hold her and just be there for her until she stopped crying.
Amy had given him everything in this life. She was more than just a companion; she had been a reason to live, which had been a very necessary driving force in his first few days in this regeneration. Then she had become his best friend and now she had even given him a family. Between her, Rory, and River, she had restored almost everything that he had ever lost since the Time War. So in this moment, if she needed to cry and be held, he would do just that. Especially because he was painfully aware of the fact that if she had never met him, she and Rory would be raising Melody like any normal family.
Eventually, her quiet sobs stopped and she became still against him. The Doctor thought she might be falling asleep, but then she slowly pulled away and wiped her face clean.
"I'm sorry," she muttered and began to stand.
"Amy wait." He stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. She turned to him expectantly. "You know, you never stop being a mother."
She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
He smiled sadly. "Our children may grow up and only the lucky parents get to be there for that. But once you hold them, once you take a look at the tiny little life you've made, then you can never stop being a parent. It's always a part of you, even when they leave you . . . even if they die. It changes you forever, makes you see everything differently."
Amy shook her head in confusion. "How can you know that?"
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, I have something to show you."
The Doctor led her into another room, just a few twists and turns away from the library doors. It was small, not very well lit, and looked strangely like a space age storage room. The room itself only contained a few rows of simplistic looking shelves that were filled with what appeared to be random trinkets, most of which Amy didn't recognize.
Then she spotted it, sitting at the end of one shelf; a little wooden rocker with stars that dangled from the top and intricate circular designs she instantly recognized as Gallifreyan.
She placed her hand on it, holding tightly to its edge. It had been the Doctor's cradle when he was baby and it was suppose to be Melody's.
"Doctor, I appreciate this, but this isn't really helping," she said, pulling her hand away. She was upset, angry, sad, and tired and the last thing she wanted to do was look at one more reminder that her baby had been taken away from her.
The Doctor walked around the other side of the shelf and peeked his head between two levels, right next to the cradle. He smiled his big, childish smile, the one that meant he was up to something.
"That's not what I wanted to show you."And he took off down the other row walking at a brisker pace now.
"Come along, Pond!" he shouted behind him.
Rolling her eyes, she rounded the corner and began following him down the new row. More random objects, something that looked suspiciously like a model of the Millennium Falcon, and then she bumped into the Doctor who had stopped unexpectedly right in the middle isle.
"Has anyone ever told you that you need break lights?"
But he ignored her taunt and tenderly grabbed his prize off the shelf. It was a little black disk, shaped similarly to a hockey puck with rounded sides, and more Gallifreyan circles all around the edges. He held it in his palm, almost reverently.
"Well, what is it?" she pressed.
"It's a photo album." He gave it the slightest of squeezes and the moving image of a young girl popped up, like a holographic picture. She appeared to be in her early teens, with short cropped black hair, and a top that came straight out of the sixties. The girl appeared to be looking right at whatever camera took the image of her and she had the most infectious and adorable smile.
"Hello," the Doctor said and the girl laughed, almost as if she were responding to him. Amy jumped at the sudden sound that was projected from the little disk.
"I could never forget that laugh." The Doctor turned to Amy. "Amy, this is my granddaughter, Susan."
Amy looked back between the Doctor and the image of Susan in shock. She knew the Doctor's age well enough, but she had never imagined him with a family before.
"Hello, Grandfather," the image said and Susan giggled again.
With another squeeze of his hand, the image was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. He set the disk back on the shelf and held out his hand for Amy to take. They walked that way, hand in hand, out of the room and through the halls as he led her back to her bedroom.
"You see Amy, nothing is ever forgotten. I told you that once before, a long time ago, but I mean it in a different way now. Now I've lived for a thousand years, and in that time I had it all. Girlfriends, wives, children, grandchildren, great grand children, adopted children . . . And then the Time War came and I lost them all. It took me a long while, but I started learning to cope with that. I met a girl, fell in love, made a whole circle of close friends, just to lose it all over again. And that's at the point in my life where you came in. You and Rory and River are what keep me going now, but one day you'll all be gone, just like the rest of them. But that's just the thing, they've never left me, not really. I'll never stop being Susan's grandfather, I'll never stop being River's husband, and I'll certainly never stop being your Raggedy Doctor."
He stopped then and turned to Amy. He tucked her hair behind her ears and cupped her face in his hands.
"And you, Amy, will never stop being River's mother and she will never stop being your daughter. And even though your time lines got horribly and unfairly messed with, the two of you will always see each other that way. And from now on, when you look at the universe spinning all around you, you'll see it through a mother's eyes."
He leaned forward then and Amy closed her eyes as he planted a kiss on her forehead.
"I don't know what to say," Amy said after he pulled away.
"Oh, give me your best Amelia Pond response," the Doctor said as he took her hand again.
"Okay . . ." She thought for a moment as they made their way up to her door. The Doctor stopped them just in front of it, still waiting on her answer.
"I think,"she finally said, "that I have a husband I've been recently reunited with behind this door and I've spent a whole four hours away from him tonight and that's far too long."
"I think that sounds like a wonderful response." He smiled and stepped back. "Goodnight Pond."
As he began walking away, a thought suddenly occurred to Amy.
"Aren't you and River ever going to have kids?"
The Doctor pivoted on his heel as he turned back to her and she couldn't quite read the expression on his face.
"I mean, it'd be weird, but if I can't raise my own children, it be nice to have grandchildren, I suppose. And she's all-" she waved her arms around trying to find the right words, "-part Time Lord and all. You two could, couldn't you."
The Doctor responded with his saddest smile. "Yes, we could."
Amy knew that face. "But you won't." It wasn't a question.
"River doesn't want to." He looked down for a moment, but just a moment. Then he seemed to lighten up a little, pulled his shoulders up straighter, and face her with a head that was held a little higher. Amy had learned early on that was his stance whenever he was hiding what he was really feeling and it was an impenetrable barrier.
"Which is all for the best, really," he explained. "I mean, we have a hard enough time meeting each other in the right order as it is."
"I still don't understand why she doesn't just stay with us?"
"Well, she has a life outside of the TARDIS. A career, friends, her own adventures." He was ever so slowly backing away, as if to say he really didn't want to talk about it anymore. But Amy, being Amy, wasn't going to drop the subject until she understood. Not after everything she and the Doctor had just shared.
"But what about-"
"She doesn't want to, Amy," he said with enough finality that she instantly forgot what she was going to say.
"Goodnight, Pond," he repeated and turned back around and headed off into the depths of the TARDIS.
And Amy finally understood.
That was just the tip of the iceberg she had just witnessed. The idea of staying on board, living a life as a real husband and wife, even having children, was something the Doctor had brought up several times with River and she had always turned him down.
As she curled up against a sleeping Rory, Amy's last thoughts were of her lonely daughter, and her even lonelier friend. And how, out of the four members of their little dysfunctional family, she was clearly the luckiest.