Blame
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
It's not his fault, they say.
I know they're right.
Of course, it doesn't matter, course it doesn't.
The Doctor stood against an entire army and gathered up one of his own to find me when they took me. I watched and I was amazed and proud and not even the slightest bit surprised because that's what the Doctor does. It's who he is. He made me wait awhile first, three of the longest weeks I've ever endured, but he came for me in the end. He had Rory with him to keep him on track, after all, and he's always been more reliable.
I told that girl that the Doctor wasn't famous and that he wasn't a warrior but she didn't believe me about the second and the fact that all across the galaxy people were amassing to destroy him kind of spoke for itself.
It's difficult to think of the Doctor as being anyone famous when for twelve long years anyone I tried to talk to about him didn't believe me and thought I was crazy, even when they pretended not to like Rory and put up with my childish games of make-believe far longer than I had any reason to expect. How could he be famous when there was no evidence of his existence and no way to make anyone else believe? How could he be famous when eventually I didn't even believe though I'd seen him with my own eyes and cooked for him and found him the pickiest eater I've ever encountered?
But what had we done together? We'd saved the world in twenty minutes. Well…mostly the Doctor with his alien knowledge and pure bravado and Rory with his stupid camera phone and even Jeff with his finely-honed BS abilities but I helped when I dreamt Prisoner Zero back to its original form and without me the Doctor wouldn't have seen the crack. The Doctor called the giant eyeball thing – the Atraxi, I think – back just to threaten it about if it threatened Earth again.
He actually called back one of the creatures who couldn't find a missing prisoner in twelve years and so were just going to destroy the entire planet because they couldn't be bothered to search and decided to threaten it. Rory couldn't believe that anyone would be so stupid and, like it or not, I kind of had to agree with him. All the Doctor had managed to do was show the Atraxi where Prisoner Zero was (which, while impressive, hardly made him a threat to anyone who wasn't a wanted man) and he was going to provoke people who would destroy a planet on a whim? I didn't expect it to work but somehow it did. He had sent an army running with just the mention of his name.
Maybe that should have been my first clue. Yeah, the Doctor was spouting off something about the shadow proclamation or whatever but he seemed to really scare the Atraxi and something tells me that if Rory or I had said those exact words, we'd probably be lucky to just be laughed at. Somehow, it just didn't sink in, however. I just couldn't find a man who had hated a food so much he had literally thrown it out of my house and warned it to never come back, who had been the first person to ever take me seriously, who had been my imaginary friend when he was gone for twelve years, who had saved the planet, who I had managed to knock out and lock up, whose tie I could trap in a car door, and who honestly thought that bow ties were cool at all intimidating. It was just…as ridiculous and absurd as he was.
Then he left for two more years, made only slightly less annoying by the fact that once again it seemed to be a complete an utter accident, and invited me to run away with him and finally get a chance to get out of Leadworth and do something exciting. Aunt Sharon might not have approved of my being a Kissogram but it wasn't as if there was ever anything else exciting going on. And, as much as I hate to admit it now, my wedding was in the morning and I wasn't as sure about it as I knew I should have been. I was still sort of waiting for the Doctor and didn't want to marry anybody because I was settling.
The very first place that we went together was the ship that would one day hold all of England's population while our own planet was inhabitable. I was glad that losing Earth, even temporarily, didn't mean the end of the species but I still don't quite get why every other nation in the world, including Scotland, could make a space-worthy vessel and good old England had to rely on slave labor.
I found out what happened because children were crying and so therefore it was my job to find out. I learned the truth about the whale and was faced with a choice. I chose to forget and, unknowingly, saved my own life. The whale might have drawn the line at eating children but it still had to eat something and apparently had no qualms destroying the few people who had wanted to save it. I suppose to be fair, it may not have been privy to that lit bit of information.
For all that the Doctor judged me for my decision and even threatened to send me straight back home, the crack in my wall be damned, what else should I have done? Died needlessly and knowing that my single vote wouldn't change anything? Maybe in my message explaining to myself I could have revealed the whale's fate but I knew if I did that then I wouldn't be able to hide it from the Doctor. If I knew then he would know and if he knew then he'd be faced with an impossible choice: the death of every single human aboard that ship or the continued brutal torture of an intelligent creature.
The worst part is that if I had to choose a greater evil, I would actually have to go with allowing those people to die, even though every single one of them who was old enough was complicit in that torture. Maybe it's just a numbers thing, maybe it's because I'm human myself, but allowing all of those people to die sounded worse than the already horrific enslavement and torturing of one space whale to me.
My crime was that I believed that the people who had engineered this hadn't done so as anything but a last resort. If the whale was not being tortured then it would leave and allow everyone to die. How was I to know that they were so stupid and shortsighted and cruel as to take a good creature that came to save children and immediately force its compliance without even trying to get its voluntary aid? How could anyone have possibly realized this? Even the Doctor didn't realize this and he's the one that has to have been doing this for centuries the way he talks sometimes.
He resented me and was planning on abandoning me – again! – for taking away his choice by not telling him about the whale but when he knew…there was a darkness there. He was going to make the same decision that I was only worse. He had also chosen the humans but in order to spare it however many years of nonstop suffering, he intended to permanently kill its brain. Would that have been kinder? Maybe. Who knew how long it would have lived after gaining its freedom? Who knew if the government, in their infinite wisdom, wouldn't have just killed the whale once they had no further use for it to make sure it couldn't enact any rather deserved vengeance on them?
The Doctor couldn't see any other option. He said that nobody human had a right to talk to him today when he was making the hard choices that they – we – jumped to forget and that he couldn't be the Doctor anymore and he just couldn't see it. He was the one with the experience, he was the one who pulled better solutions out of nowhere every other time he turns around and he couldn't see it.
I could, though. It was incredibly risky and it could have gotten us all killed but I thought that I had seen enough to know that it wouldn't. Any creature that continued to refuse to eat children, a fact those in the know were well aware of but couldn't or wouldn't figure out, could possibly hate humanity enough to doom those same children it painstakingly saved. If we let it go, it had to know that the children would die without it. I thought it would stay and voluntarily save them. I took the risk and I was right and it never even occurred to the Doctor. It was such a very Doctor-ish thing to do and took him completely by surprise. Should I have known then?
And then we get to Winston Churchill and the Daleks. I couldn't remember the Daleks stealing the Earth at the time but I do now so I suppose it must have gotten erased by the cracks. I cringe now thinking about how I just wouldn't believe the Doctor, who would know better than anyone, that the Ironsides were really the Daleks and out to destroy all life ever. They definitely had more potential for destruction than even Nazis Churchill was fighting. Though the thought of the Daleks offering to serve tea still makes me smile a little, the sight of the Doctor attacking the Dalek and ranting and raving about what it was and what he was. He was right but it still scared me a little. And then he almost let the Earth die to wipe out the Daleks forever. He didn't but it was clear that it wasn't an easy decision for him. And then he couldn't appeal to Bracewell's humanity and yet I pretty easily managed it. Was that just because I'm human, too, or a sign of the Doctor's growing disconnect?
That was when I first saw my daughter. River Song. Melody Pond. I hadn't even made my decision to marry Rory yet and he was soon to be killed and then never exist at all and yet I guess it was inevitable because my grown-up baby summoned us to her side and dragged us into an adventure with the Weeping Angels.
It's so strange to think of her as my little girl because she was the one taking care of me during that trip. My first impression of her was that she was all kinds of amazing and that I wanted to be more like her. I wonder if she ever thought that about me or ever even got a chance to. She had to know who I was by then because she said something about trying to earn a pardon instead of just escaping all the time (which can't help with the whole pardon thing). She called me Amy. I can understand that calling me mom would have been a bit of a giveaway and definitely spooked me but it's a little odd all the same. Were we ever mom and dad to her? I hope so but I'm so afraid that we aren't, not until she's much older at least.
Another thing I quickly deduced about my incredible daughter was the fact that she was probably married to the Doctor. The Doctor, who I once attempted to seduce on the night before my wedding, was in a relationship with my baby girl. I'm…not actually sure how I feel about that. It's probably for the best that I'll have a while to sort that out before seeing him again. I had better see him again.
River was always so protective of me. She answered all of my questions (except about the future because, well, spoilers), she comforted me, she saved me from the radiation, and when the Doctor's best plan was for me to pretend I could see and hope the Weeping Angels didn't notice, she managed to fix up the teleporter and get me to safety just in the nick of time. My baby was saving and protecting me and so far I certainly haven't managed to return the favor.
River killed a man. A good man, she said, the best she's ever known. Who is that man? The Doctor? Her father? Someone that, as selfish as it is, I hope isn't either one of them? Why would she do that? Why is she in prison? How long has she been there? How long will she stay? I barely know the first thing about my own daughter. Then again, my own daughter is less than a month old so there really isn't all that much too know. Time travel makes everything so complicated. River said that the Doctor will take care of her and yet he somehow still allows this to happen.
In order to save us, the Doctor had to make sure that the Weeping Angels were not only killed but completely failed to ever exist. I wonder what's happened to them now that the universe has been rebooted. There wasn't much choice to close the crack and there was no other way to stop the Angels from murdering us all so it had to be done. Just the same, the way he taunted 'Angel Bob'…his bravado did make it easier for me to deal with the fear of having an Angel literally in my head but that was yet more of the same sort of attitude that seems to have terrified half of the galaxy. So what if the Angels were bad guys? If a single Dalek had wiped out all of the Cybermen then we'd still be scared of that Dalek and rightly so.
It was back to Leadworth to pick up Rory and then off to Venice, next. I don't remember much darkness about that little episode but I wasn't with the Doctor for most of the time. What I do remember is Rory, oh so very sensible Rory, pointing out something that I had always known deep down but refused to admit to myself. Traveling with the Doctor was dangerous and if we continued to do it then we could end up paying the price. I elected to continue traveling and Rory stayed to be with me. If the Doctor's to be believed, it may have saved our relationship but he certainly paid for it.
It's amazing how such tiny little seeds can cause such horror. I'm not a perfect person and neither is Rory. We both have plenty of darkness in ourselves even if it's not more than I think you'd find in your average person. That darkness didn't even register in the dream world we had found ourselves trapped in, the nightmare world. That thing that the Doctor insisted was just a manifestation of his own subconscious was sadistic and cruel. It was the first time I'd seen Rory die but sadly not the last. Not anywhere near the last, as it happens. Despite how many times it's happened, it never gets easier and it was then that I first realized how much my fiancé meant to me. I really had been taking him for granted but I never would again. The Doctor quickly brushed off my questions about the darkness in him and that should have sent warning bells going off in my head but…all he tried to do was help people! Sure he went overboard sometimes and he wasn't perfect either so he made mistakes but he was still the same old goofy him and so I didn't take this warning as seriously as I probably should have.
Then came the Silurians and Rory's death. He expected us to be the best humanity had to offer and we failed. Ambrose, mostly, was the one who failed but she failed badly enough that it ruined everything and then Rory jumped between a blaster fire and the Doctor and he was dead. It shouldn't have even come to that but the Doctor just would not leave. He just had to stick his hand in the crack and fish around while risking his very existence when we only had so long before everything collapsed. He did that and Rory wouldn't let someone else die if he could help it so he was dead and I was dragged away from his body and we didn't even take the body with us so he had never even existed at all. And then…the Doctor just carried on the way he always had. He was a bit nicer to me because I hadn't married him so I wasn't a widow and I couldn't even remember and Rory had died to save him so he probably felt guilty. But still, he acted as if nothing had happened and I don't know anybody else who could have done that. Maybe River and that's upsetting for a completely different reason.
We travelled around for a while, just me and the Doctor, and I kept crying at the oddest of times and I often wasn't even aware of it until others pointed it out. When I did become aware, I had no idea why and usually felt my own emotions as if they were a stranger's. When I finally saw my daughter again, Rory came back but I didn't recognize him. I wonder if River did. She referred to him as 'the plastic centurion' or something like that but since he wasn't supposed to have existed and they weren't supposed to have met, I can see her lying about that.
At Stonehenge was probably the biggest missed sign I received and the fact that I'd been dead at the time really only partially excuses it because I heard all about it after the fact. The Daleks never ally with anyone. Ever. If left to their own devices, they'll just start killing each other. They somehow managed to put their genocidal compulsions aside to team up with practically every other species the Doctor has ever fought…for the good of the universe. Yes, they were convinced that it was within the Doctor's character to blow up the entire universe and they, the bad guys, had to save it from him. The Pandorica, the perfect prison, spoke of a terrible enemy that could not be reasoned with and who just fell out of the sky one day to destroy everything. I suppose that's how one of the people we visit might see the Doctor if he has to stop them.
There it was, the first sign of an alliance to stop the Doctor. I ignored it because we really did have bigger problems and because they were just bad guys but now I see that that was a mistake.
Because now it's not just the Doctor's enemies that are banding together to take him down but humanity as well. Humans, the one race that the Doctor always chooses to protect. If they are frightened by him, what hope is there for anyone else?
The Doctor isn't quite sure when I was taken and neither am I. Sometime before America, he thinks. That was when Rory and I were at our home alone. We weren't even traveling with the Doctor and we still weren't safe. I don't think that I'll ever feel safe again. When was it? Why did know one notice? Why didn't even I notice? How long had the Doctor known? Since I told him I was pregnant and the months passed without me showing any signs of it? Why hadn't he told me? Sure, he said something stupid about not knowing if they could listen in through me but that doesn't make what he did okay.
And the way he broke the connection…frankly, it seemed like I was lucky he was even bothering to explain to me that I wasn't real before dissolving me. He made Rory step back and he didn't even assure me that I would wake up in my body and wasn't just a separate ganger like the others we had just met were. I thought I might die and he couldn't take the time to promise that I wasn't.
When I did wake up trapped I realized what had happened soon enough but would it really have killed him to even try to reassure me? I hadn't even known I was pregnant or where I was or who had me and then suddenly there I was giving birth. Not fun. Less fun was when they took my baby away. It's a little surprising that they actually let me name her. Perhaps that's so when she's turned into a weapon the Doctor will never be able to forget exactly who she is.
Except…she doesn't go by Melody Pond. She goes by River Song. Why is that? Was she raised by those forest people or something? Was she trying to hide her identity from us? It's not a good feeling when your child completely rejects the name you chose for her after you were already robbed of raising.
I pointed a gun at her, you know. I pointed a gun at my own child and she didn't even flinch. Maybe she knew that I wasn't actually going to shoot. It might not even be the first time, depending on whether that little girl I saw, with the picture of me next to a baby, was my Melody or not. I tried to kill her. I didn't mean to and yet it's only luck that that bullet missed. I might have murdered my own daughter before I even knew that I was pregnant. Me.
I'm not sure why, when the Doctor has a time machine, I had to wait three weeks before he came for me. Sure he had things to do and an army to gather but again time machine. I was starting to worry that by the time he actually did get around to showing up it would be too late and it seems I was right. I was right about the time head, too, and am really starting to hate being right. Why can't I ever be right about something good? Like the Doctor coming in time. But he might have never been able to arrive in time. Maybe if the Doctor came within minutes of Melody being born then they'd still manage to spirit her away somehow.
It's not the Doctor's fault what happened.
The Doctor searched the entire universe and all throughout the time stream looking for me and I don't even know how he and Rory managed to pull that off. He raised an army despite his hatred of fighting (how can anyone have mistaken him for a warrior? I still don't understand) and when it came down to it allowed everyone to retreat instead of killing them. Maybe if he had killed that woman then I'd still have my baby. I don't know.
My daughter literally melted in my arms after I'd spent the most time I'd ever gotten to spend with her while all around me allies were dying to protect something that was already lost. This was the very last thing that the Doctor ever would have wanted and yet…the army was raised against him. I don't understand why when I think of him as my friend the Doctor but when I just think of his achievements and the way he's sent people running with a name-drop…these things do have consequences. Once you're scary enough then people eventually fight down their fear and team up to try and take you down.
The Doctor may always mean well and he may do more good than harm from what I've seen in my travels but River understands what happened better than I do and she called him out on why this happened. My grown up baby girl who is old enough to be my mother told the Doctor exactly how his actions led to her kidnapping. How she will become a weapon. When will I see her again? After we defeat the Silence in 1969? She must be, what, eight then? Will I miss out on the first eight years of her life? Will I even get to raise her then?
The Doctor just up and left us, leaving our grown-up daughter to explain and to take us home. He said he's going to find Melody but he won't let us come with him. He abandoned us again and I don't know where he's going or what he's planning or even if he's going to come back.
This isn't the Doctor's fault but it is the result of his actions and all I can think about is how much everyone was afraid of him and hated him and is doing this to me and Rory and Melody because of that.
The Doctor didn't want any of this and he may move heaven and Earth to bring baby Melody – or not so baby Melody – home but I think I finally understand what Rory meant. The Doctor is dangerous and if you stand too close then you will get burned.
We've both been burned before, time and time and time again. We always thought it was worth it, though, even when Rory died for real and never even existed and it was only a miracle that I could bring him back. It was always worth it until one day, today, that it's not anymore.
Today our baby daughter will never have the option to be normal. I wanted her to be a superhero instead of a geography teacher and normality was never the life I would have chosen but Melody can't even choose now. She will always be 'human plus' because of the Doctor. River told us that the body of a Time Lord is a miracle and there are empires that would tear apart the Earth for even a single cell. What about an almost-Time Lord? What about my baby? Will she ever be safe? She seems happy now but I can't even imagine what her life must have been like growing up and I should have been there for it!
Today our baby daughter was stolen right out from under our noses in the cruelest way imaginable, when we already thought we had her saved. She was stolen because the Doctor was getting just too scary for other people to deal with. If he had just been more careful, if he had stopped trading on his fearsome reputation, if he had just left us the hell alone in the first place then none of this would have ever happened.
The Doctor is the best friend I've ever had and he still means the world to me. But…I don't know if I'm going to be able to get past this.
I finally understand just what's at stake and it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth any of it.
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