A/N: I wrote this based on what was essentially me and Katie crying over the Ponds leaving and trying to figure out what made them leave and she convinced me to write this, so I did :-) Awesome friend, me. Anyway, hope you enjoy and please leave a review, feedback is everything a writer desires!

Lost in a Fantasy

Disclaimer: I own nothing, because if I did Karen and the Babes would never be split up. Nope, never. Never ever ever.

Plot: What if Amy and Rory left Team Tardis because Amy got pregnant again? They were torn about their decision, but ultimately it comes down to travelling in time and space or ensuring their second child had the life Melody or River never did.

Pairing: Amy/Rory

Rating: K+, just to be on the safe side.

"You know we can't stay here, right?" Rory says to her with a sigh, pushing a stray hair out of her face and gesturing to their surroundings.

"I know. I just…I wish things weren't so complicated. I wish we didn't have to go." Amy replies, looking down to her feet.

She thinks back to the moment this all started, the moment she realised this was happening to them all over again. And this time, they couldn't stay.

Crap, she thought. For the third time in four days, she was hunched over the porcelain bowl emptying the contents of her stomach. This surely wasn't just a coincidence, or a simple stomach bug. She'd been here before, in this exact position. She knew what was wrong with her already; she didn't need a test to prove it, but somehow the definitive result it would no doubt give gave her some sort of peace at mind, if you could call it that.

It was times like these Amy wished she was closer with people other than her husband, her daughter and her son-in-law. She didn't want any of them to know yet, she needed to know for herself first. But she didn't have a best friend to send to the store to buy a test, no best friend to rub her back supportively and tell her it'll all be okay and Rory will be happy no matter what the test says. She faces the facts that she doesn't have someone to do that for her, so she pulls herself up when the sick feeling subsides and makes sure she looks presentable, before she walks to the bathroom door and checks to ensure nobody's around as she leaves.

She doesn't quite know what to do with herself now, she kind of has her suspicions but she can't confirm anything until she's taken a test. And right now, in the middle of god-knows-where during god-knows-when, wasn't exactly a good time to ask the Doctor to make a pit stop at a pharmacy somewhere. No, she'd have to wait until they were back on Earth, back in Leadworth, when they weren't flying through time and space in a time machine. But she didn't have a clue when that would be. After all, he was the Doctor. One time he promised her five minutes, and he came back 12 years later. She couldn't wait 12 years, no; she had to do something soon.

But what could she do? She loved travelling through time and space, they'd know something was off if she suddenly asked to go home. She'd have to be more subtle than that. But how was she supposed to subtly hint she needed to go home? Maybe the TARDIS sensors would pick up on her need, since it supposedly flew them where they needed to go? Yes, of course that would work. Of course, relying on a sensor in a time machine to fly them back to Earth, back to Leadworth would totally work. But then again maybe if she kept a little faith that it could, then it would.

She walks around the TARDIS with its twists and turns wherever she went, following what she hoped was one path until she found the Doctor and Rory in the control room. She stands herself next to her husband, entwining their fingers as he strokes the back of her hand with his thumb.

"Amy. Hi." He smiles at her affectionately.

"Hi yourself," She laughs. "What have you two been up to?"

"Trying to decide where we should travel next. What do you think?" He asks her, turning his head to look at her.

"I don't mind, really. I'm sure wherever the two of you decide…or the TARDIS decides, will be great." She tries dropping hints to the TARDIS, yes, dropping hints to a machine, and just hopes that a) Rory doesn't pick up on what she means and b) the TARDIS does.

"How about that trip to Rio we never had?" He suggests, and she nods in response with a 'sounds good'.

"Rio it is!" The Doctor announces, twirling and turning, pushing and pulling all sorts of different controls on the panel.

Of course, they never make it to Rio. They never make it to Rio. But this time, Amy's grateful they don't make it to Rio and instead end up back in Leadworth, right outside their house with the TARDIS blue door. She breathes an inverted sigh of relief and places one hand on her stomach when she's sure the other two aren't looking before removing it momentarily.

Now she was back, she needed to find a moment to herself to buy and take the test. Taking it would be the easy part, Rory couldn't follow her into the bathroom, but going to the store and buying it was a whole different ball game. She just hoped whenever she managed to get it, the shopkeeper would keep it to himself. One word to somebody and word would travel all over the village before she'd gotten a chance to take the damn thing.

And once she'd taken it, when she knew for sure, what would happen then? Of course she'd have to tell Rory, and the Doctor, and Melody…or Mels…or River, or whatever she was calling herself nowadays, she'd have to tell their daughter, too. That's if she could get a hold of her. She came home when she could, but most of the time, as sad as it was to admit it, they never saw their daughter. Occasionally they caught up with her after one of her dates with the Doctor and they'd all sync their diaries to figure out where in time they were. But they'd kind of gotten used to it that way, as much as they didn't want to.

Her opportunity comes around dinner time. Rory and the Doctor (yes, he'd actually stayed in Leadworth) had finally left the house to grab them some dinner, since she suggested they get a takeout. She wasn't particularly bothered on what they decided to go for in the end, she'd leave them to their own devices, but she knew wherever they went she'd have about 20 minutes before they returned. It'd take her a maximum of five minutes to get there and another five to get back, so she had about ten minutes to get this test done and know for sure if she and Rory were expecting their second child.

So as soon as she heard them leave the house, she grabbed her keys and headed to the shop, picking the first one she saw and handing it over to the shopkeeper.

"I hope it all works out for you, Amy, dear." He says to her, and she sends him an appreciative smile and a nod.

"Thank you. But if you could, could you…not…mention this to anyone? Just…not yet, please. I haven't told Rory yet and I don't want to get his hopes up, especially not through town gossip, you know?" She explains the best she can as quickly as she can, knowing she's running out of time.

"Sure, I understand." He nods. "Good luck."

"Thanks." She says as she picks up the bag and walks rapidly back to her house.

She practically runs up the stairs, to the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom, where she near enough rips the packaging off the test and stares at it for a moment, before she takes it. She reads the instructions that she'd managed to salvage and puts the test on the side of the bathtub, before checking her watch and mentally noting what the time would be in three minutes, when she would check the test and get her result.

She waited for about a minute, and then the nerves became too much and she once again emptied the contents of her stomach into the porcelain bowl, just as she had done that morning. When she was sure she'd finished, she flushed it away and leant her head against the wall, letting the tears that had threatened to fall near enough all day finally flow freely down her face. She hugged her knees to her chest and sobbed for what seemed an eternity, before realising she couldn't be heard crying when Rory and the Doctor returned, so she took a deep breath, dried her eyes and pulled herself together. After she calmed herself, she checked her watch and noticed three minutes had been and gone. She walked over to the bathtub, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before picking up the test and observing the two pink lines staring back at her.

Melody Pond, or River Song, as she now called herself, always tried to make sure she visited her parents as often as she could. Most of the time, she didn't get to come home as often as she'd like, but she still made it home occasionally. She was given a key the first time she visited her parents' new home, and was told she was welcome to use it whenever she wanted.

Now, though, standing outside her parents' en-suite bathroom, overhearing her mother's private moment, she felt bad for intruding. She wasn't sure what was wrong with her mother, but it worried her to hear her throwing up and then cry like that. She'd only ever heard her cry like that once before, and that was when she, or the younger, first version of herself, was taken by Madam Kovarian and the baby she thought to be real turned out to be flesh.

Of course she didn't want to burst in on her emotional moment, she was sure whatever it was she would tell her in her own time when she'd got her head around whatever it was. Maybe it was something she wanted to tell her father first, or maybe even the Doctor. Whatever it was, she'd wait for her mother to tell her herself.

"Melody? Sorry, I mean River. What are you doing here?" She asked as she walks out of the bathroom and over to her daughter, wrapping her arms around her tightly.

"Just came for a visit. Are you alright? Where's dad?" she questioned curiously, wondering if her father was anything to do with what she'd heard.

"Yeah, um, I'm fine." She forced out, with a smile. "Rory is with the Doctor. They went to get dinner about 10 minutes ago." She says as she checks her watch.

"Are you sure you're okay? I mean, I don't mean to push you, but you seem pretty upset."

"It's um, supposed to be good news. But I don't think it is, at least not yet." She began tearing up again at the mere thought of sharing this with anyone.

"Are you –"

"Yes." She said simply, cutting her daughter off before she could even utter the word. She couldn't even hear it right now; she couldn't face the reality that this was happening to her all over again.

"Oh, mum." She sighed, understanding the pain she was feeling. She reached forward and wrapped her arms around her mother, hoping to comfort her somehow, but yet she still knew nothing could comfort her in that moment.

"I can't do it." Amy cried, returning her daughters gesture. "I can't go through it all again. I can't. I just can't."

"It's ok." She soothed, pulling away and taking her hand instead, pulling her to her bed where they sat on the edge and continued their conversation. "I know it's hard, but Kovarian is dead. You know that. The Silence don't want your baby, you've finally got the chance to be a normal family. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

The fiery haired girl wiped her eyes and sniffled a bit, trying to calm herself down before nodding in response to her daughter's question. It was what she'd always wanted, yes, but that was before she met the Doctor when she was 7, and 19, and 21. Before he whisked her off in his time machine, and they travelled the entire universe. Before Rory died, numerous times, and became a plastic Roman. Before she got pregnant for the first time and had her baby taken by Madam Kovarian and the Silence, before everything got so complicated.

"Rory's going to be thrilled." She sniffed. She loved her husband, she really did. He stood guard outside of the Pandorica she was trapped in for 2000 years, and rescued her younger self so she could get the days with him the older alternate universe version didn't get. That sort of love wasn't as simple as other loves, and it didn't just disappear. But she knew he would be ecstatic at the prospect of a new baby, he'd been subtly (or not so subtly) hinting at it for a while, but she'd avoid the subject every time.

As hard as she tried to pretend she was ok, she wasn't. The Doctor had promised he would find their daughter, and he promised she'd be safe, but so far it was just empty promises. She knew she should have more faith in him than she did, but until her daughter was returned to her, she'd never be completely trusting of the Doctor.

After all, it was rule number one: the Doctor lies.

Rory and the Doctor eventually returned home, and of course, Rory being Rory, noticed straight away something was off with his wife. He pulled her aside for a moment whilst River and the Doctor flirted, or sorted dinner while flirting, or whatever they were doing, so he could speak to her privately without an audience. He always worried about Amy, no matter what happened, but he especially worried when he knew something was off with her and he worried even more when he saw the tear stains on her cheeks.

"Amy, what's wrong?" He asks, taking her hands in his and staring into her eyes.

"Nothing." She replies, not being able to bring herself to tell him the real issue.

It was few weeks after that night at the house, and Amy and Rory were back on the TARDIS. She hadn't told anyone but River of her pregnancy, and wanted it to stay that way. Or at least, she wanted it to stay that way until she knew what to say. She wanted to tell Rory, she really did, but something held her back each time she tried. She thought maybe she was scared of what he'd say, but Rory was surely going to be over the moon. She couldn't deal with his happiness, not now, not yet. She figured maybe she'd go to someone who knew of her fears, and wouldn't be as happy as Rory. That's when she realised it was happening all over again. She felt this way the last time, and the only way it was fixed the last time was by telling the Doctor.

Yes, that's what she'd do. She'd go the Doctor, the mad man with a box, her best friend. Her only friend, really. Besides Rory and Mels (who turned out to be their daughter), she'd never really had any friends as a child. Everyone thought she was crazy because she had 'an imaginary friend'. But he wasn't imaginary and only Rory and Mels believed her, so the three of them stuck together. Then the Doctor just dropped out of the sky one night and her life had never been the same since.

She decided she wouldn't leave it until they were fighting some sort of alien creature this time, she'd tell him while they were on the TARDIS, safe. So one day, she approached him in the control room, Rory busy in the library. She knew this may be her only chance, or at least, the first one she'd get, so she didn't waste any time.

"Doctor." She said as she leaned against the railing.

"Pond." He nodded in reply, before going back to twisting and turning all sorts of things on the console.

"I need to tell you something." She starts, moving toward him. "Something really important."

"Oh no, not me, no. Ro-"He began to call for her husband, since he was the one who dealt with Amy when she had something important to say, but he was cut off by Amy slapping him.

"No, shut up! I need to talk to you, not Rory. Listen to me, and don't call for Rory."

"Okay then, sorry. Go ahead."

"I'm, uh, well, the thing is…"

"Spit it out, Pond." He presses.

"I'm pregnant." She tells him, looking up at him awaiting his reaction.

"Sorry, what? Pregnant?" He looks confused for a moment, before he realises she's serious about this. "Oh. Right. Again?"

"Yes." She replies bluntly. "Rory doesn't know. I can't tell him, I just…I can't. He'll be too happy."

"And you're not happy? No, of course you're not happy. You're scared, that's it. You're terrified, aren't you? Oh Amelia, my poor Amelia." He sighs, as he notices the tears in her eyes and pulls her closer to him, doing his best to comfort her.

"I can't do it. I just…I can't. I can't go through it all again. I was alone the whole time the last time this happened, and then they took my baby from me. I never got her back, not even for the first year of her life. Now she's all grown up, and off gallivanting around space and time. I just…I can't go through that again." She cries, not meaning to tell him this much.

"Yes of course, Madam Kovarian and Melody, how could I forget? I didn't forget, just chose not to remember, anyway, that's beside the point. Amy, why are you telling me this? Again?" He asks, questioning her judgement of who to tell of her pregnancy first.

"Shut up, ok? I've tried to tell Rory, I really have. Something stops me; every time I try something either gets in the way or stops me. I don't know how it works, but I figured since that's what happened the last time, maybe I should go about it the same way by telling you first. Plus I don't know what to do, and I can't tell Rory that, not yet. How can I tell him I'm not sure I even want another child?" her voice breaks as she questions her best friend, and she tries to hold herself together but to no avail.

"Oh Amelia." He sighs, worrying for his best friend. "Listen to me, Amy, I know it's hard, but you've got to really think about this. I can help you, if that's what you want. But I can't do anything until you tell Rory. You at least owe him that."

It was a few weeks later that she finally managed to tell him of her pregnancy. She wished she could've told him earlier, but something stopped her every time. Now they were back on the TARDIS, and had been for at least a week, maybe two, who even knew anymore, she knew she couldn't keep it from him any longer. She worried for the safety of her unborn child, even if she couldn't bring herself to be happy about it just yet.

"Amy, what's wrong? You're worrying me. And don't tell me it's nothing, because you know that I know it's something. Especially if you're this upset about it." He rambles as he sits on the bed, knowing she was likely to try to throw him off whatever was wrong.

"Rory shut up a minute." She sighs as she sits down next to him, trying to find the right words to say. "I'm, uh, I'm pregnant." She eventually spits out, looking down at the floor.

"Sorry, what? Pregnant? But…how?" He questions, his head suddenly near explosion trying to figure out how they could be pregnant, again.

"Yes, Rory, pregnant. You know how it works, we've been there before. It was just before the Doctor came back, before you ask when. You know what I'm talking about."

"Wow, um…well…wow." Rory was literally left speechless by the revelation.

"Will you please just say something? Something I can understand, preferably. Please just, tell me how you feel about this." She begs, tears filling her eyes once more.

"How I feel? Amy, this…wow, this is amazing. We're pregnant." He smiles, moving closer to her and taking her hands in his. "Wait, why aren't you smiling? Aren't you happy?"

"No, Rory. I'm scared and terrified and I'm anything but happy. I can't do this." She cries, silently cursing the hormones making the tears she'd tried so hard to keep at bay fall down her cheeks. "I just…I can't do it, I can't. After the last time…I just, I can't."

It's at this point Rory sighs, feeling the pain of his wife, and engulfs her in a hug, pressing kisses to her head and stroking her hair gently in an attempt to calm her. It seems to work, because they lay like that for what seems an eternity, and her sobs eventually subside. She worms her way out of his embrace somewhat, simply so she can look up at her husband and try to read his thoughts through his facial expressions.

"Tell me what you're thinking, please?" She begs, searching his face for any kind of clue.

"I want to help you and support you with this, but I don't know how. I don't want to force you into anything. Of course I want our baby, but I understand your fears. I just want you to know that I'll be here, 100%, whatever we decide to do. And we will decide: we're a team, you and me." He says, squeezing her hand and dropping a kiss to her head. "Now, tell me what you're thinking."

"I want to have this baby. I do, but I'm terrified. I mean, what if she ends up just like River? Kidnapped by Kovarian and the Silence and raised to be a weapon. What if we lose this baby, too?" Her eyes are shining with tears again at the mere possibility of losing their baby.

"We won't. The Doctor will make sure of it. Plus you killed Kovarian, remember? She's gone. All those people who fought with us at Demon's Run will fight again if it means we protect the child. Nobody will stand a chance if that's what it comes down to. But it won't. I promise you, Amy, nothing is going to happen to this baby. We'll give him or her life that Melody…River, sorry, never had. And we'll do it together." He reassures, stroking her arm.

"I love you." She says, and presses her lips gently to his. Because she does, she does love him, she loves him with everything she has. Rory the Roman, the last and the lone Centurion who guarded the Pandorica for 2000 years in fear something would happen to her. Rory who lays down his life for her time and time again and always seems to die, but never regrets saving her.

"I love you, too. You know I do." He smiles softly, returning her kiss. "Nothing will ever change that, you and me: always."

It takes them a good few days to decide what they wanted to do about Amy's pregnancy, and they knew they couldn't afford to put it off anymore. If the baby had any shot at a normal life, it couldn't be born on a TARDIS around all the spacey-wacey timey-wimey stuff. They did eventually work through Amy's fears, and though she knew they'd always be there, as long as she had Rory by her side, she wouldn't be as scared as she thought. They decided to keep the baby in the end; they didn't feel right about abortion or adoption. They wanted their child to have the greatest life, as any parent did. They'd get the chance to be the parents they never got to be the first time, and this child would get the chance to have that idyllic life growing up with two loving parents that River never had.

"You know we can't stay here, right?" Rory says to her with a sigh, pushing a stray hair out of her face and gesturing to their surroundings.

"I know. I just…I wish things weren't so complicated. I wish we didn't have to go." Amy replies, looking down to her feet.

They had yet to tell the Doctor they were leaving, they knew all three of them would be hurt by it and nobody wanted that, but the longer they left it, the further Amy's pregnancy developed and if they left it too long, she'd be giving birth on the TARDIS. But today they knew they had to go, and as much as they didn't want to, ultimately, it was down to travelling through space and time or ensuring their child the life it deserved so greatly.

And that wasn't a choice they could debate.

They wouldn't put their child at risk like that, not again. So that day, they told the Doctor they were leaving. He was in the control room as normal, playing with all sorts of bits and pieces on the console that probably had nothing to do with flying the ship and were just there for the fun of it.

"Ponds!" He cries happily, flicking another switch and moving around the console.

"Doctor, we, uh, we need to talk to you." Amy says, trying to take his attention from 'flying the TARDIS'.

"Talking? No, no talking, more flying! Where do you want to go next? Rio? For real this time? Or we could go on an adventure, go somewhere we've never been before! How about it?" He asks, knowing what is coming and trying to avoid it in any way possible.

"Doctor." Amy says sternly.

"I know." He sighs, because he does know. He knows what she's going to say but he has no desire to hear it. "I know."

"We can't stay. We'd love to, but we can't. I…we…we can't risk our baby's future like that. I can't do that again. I'm sorry. You're my best friend, and you have been since you dropped out of the sky when I was 7 years old. But I can't risk my child's life travelling through time and space with you. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Doctor." She tears up and her voice almost breaks as she apologises for leaving, and Rory's squeezing her hand in an instant as if it will be some sort of comfort to her.

"I know." He repeats, because he can't bring himself to say much else. His best friends were leaving him, and he'd be alone again. The loneliness of the TARDIS when there was nobody around was sometimes overwhelming, and he hated being alone more than anything. Fighting alien creatures and travelling time and space were always more fun with his friends by his side. "Back to Leadworth it is, then."

Back to Leadworth it is.

The entire journey is spent in deafening silence, nobody speaking a word. Nobody can speak a word, because nobody knows what to say. And when the TARDIS engines phase to alert its inhabitants of its arrival in its destination, the talking and the emotions come into play.

It's an emotional goodbye, of course it is, how do you say goodbye to your very best friend? If you knew you would never see them again, what would you say to them? There are tears and there is hugging, lots of it, but at the end of it all, The Doctor says 'Goodbye, Ponds' and gets back into his TARDIS before he flies away to undoubtedly cause trouble somewhere.

He promises to visit in a few months, when Amy's further along and he promises he'll return for the birth of their child, and says he wouldn't miss it for the end of the world. They stand in the street for a moment after he leaves before they enter through their TARDIS blue front door and live their lives as normally and as humanly as possible.

8 months later

The Doctor makes good on his promise to visit when Amy is further along, though little did he know that when he made his trip, Amy would go into labour.

It happens when Rory is at work one day, after Amy insisted he go in rather than blag a sick day and spend it looking after her. She'd been suffering with a backache the last few days, and Rory would always do his best to rub it for her and try to make her feel as comfortable as possible. The bump was becoming heavier and made it harder to walk around, so she tried to avoid too much time on her feet.

The backache that before had been minimal continually increased in strength and soon became almost unbearable, but she didn't mention anything to the Doctor who was staying with them for a few days on his visit. She started cleaning, too. She claimed it was for the benefit of the baby, and didn't want her child coming home to a dirty house.

What she assumed to be Braxton Hicks contractions, the fake rehearsal type ones turned out to be the real thing, and she was experiencing them all through the day, but it wasn't until mid-afternoon that they became painful. She tried to ignore them as best she could; she tried to convince herself she was not yet in labour, but when her water broke that became impossible. She alerted the Doctor of her situation and him being his normal awkward self, called for her husband, who was still at the hospital on his shift. Amy tried to remember what Rory had told her, there was no point going to the hospital until her contractions were closer together and more regular, but when her water broke, she disregarded what he'd said and headed straight for the hospital.

When she arrived, she demanded somebody find him and bring him to her, because she wasn't having this child without him, and the staff at the hospital did so with no questions asked. They all knew Amy and they all knew if she was at the hospital asking for Rory, it was an emergency. He was panting and red-faced when he arrived at the room she'd been checked into in the meantime, having gotten the message his wife was asking for him in the maternity ward.

They worked through her labour together, Amy screaming out in pain and almost breaking Rory's hand, Rory still in his nurses uniform and letting Amy almost break his hand, and it wasn't until she started pushing that her fears set in place. Whilst the midwife was telling her to push, she was having awful flashbacks to her time on Demon's Run, where she'd given birth the last time with Madam Kovarian hauntingly telling her to push. The tears rolled down her face in fear and she looked to Rory for comfort. He didn't know what to tell her, other than this time it was completely different and she was safe, and he was right by her side and was never going to leave her.

Finally, around 21 hours after labour started, the Ponds second child was born. A girl, once again. She was cleaned up and then given straight to her parents, who couldn't be happier with her.

"Hi, baby. I'm your mummy, and that's your daddy. And we're going to love you so much, you're going to be so happy, I promise you." Amy coos to her daughter, tears filling her eyes. "She's all ours." She smiles, forgetting any worry she once had.

"What's her name? We never really talked about it." Rory asks, knowing his wife will want to name her, just as she did with Melody.

"Melody," She smiles, never taking her eyes off the baby in her arms. "Melody Jessica Pond."

"Melody? Are you sure?" he questions.

"Yeah." She waits until they are left alone in her room before she elaborates. "Nobody knew our first Melody, just us and the Doctor, and she goes by River now anyway. I want our daughter to have the life she deserves, and I can't think of a better name for her. And I want her to have a meaningful middle name, so I gave her mine."

"Melody Jessica Pond." He nods, staring at his daughter. "It's perfect."

"Just like her."

Thoughts?