Title: Sunday's Child (1/?)
Disclaimer: I own nothing (other than the time baby and any planets/aliens I have created myself.) Everything else belongs to the BBC and Steven Moffat. I'm just borrowing their toys.
Rating: T or PG (whichever you prefer to call it.)
Characters: The Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams and some others who belong to me.
Pairing: River x Eleven. (if you don't like that pairing then this story is really not for you.)
Timeline: Sometime after The Wedding of River Song. It's all a bit timey wimey though really.
Spoilers: Basically everything if you haven't seen series 5 and 6.
Summery: Sundays are boring. Nothing important ever happened on a Sunday. Oh how wrong the Doctor was about that.
Author Notes: This is the first thing i've written in almost 2 years, and only the second that i've written in the Whoniverse. I have to say a very very huge thank you to everyone on tumblr who offered their encouragement and constructive criticism with this, it was very much appreciated. This story will be told largely in flashbacks (because I like using flashbacks sometimes.)
Sunday. Of all the days in the wide expanse of time, it had just had to be a Sunday. Even now, a month later the Doctor was still a little put out by the choice of day. The worst part was that now he couldn't even say that all Sundays were boring. Saying that nothing ever happened on Sundays except for one particular Sunday when something rather monumental did in fact happen, was far too impractical and long winded for every day conversation. The Doctor leaned back against the TARDIS console and heaved a sigh. He supposed there was nothing to be done about it now. He would just have to resign himself to the plain fact that his daughter had picked the dullest day of the week to be born. His daughter. Two simple little words that had sounded so unfamiliar to him just weeks ago. But they weren't just words now, they were a living, breathing little bundle of trouble with green eyes and a stubborn streak that was already almost as pronounced as her that of her mother. Ancient eyes lifted to see the source of that stubborn streak, standing a few steps back from the open TARDIS doors, her back to him. Her mass of curls bounced occasionally while she gently rocked the little one in her arms, the Doctor watched, torn between being fascinated by the bouncing curls and wondering if maybe the baby was a little bit too close to the vast openness of space they were currently floating in. He didn't worry for one moment that River or the TARDIS herself would put the little one in any danger, but he was well aware of the reckless side his wife had inherited from her own mother. Amy had hit him once, when he'd pointed that out to her.
The sound of soft cooing told him their daughter was awake, and curious to know what her mother was looking at. The Doctor stayed quiet, River could speak baby just as well as he could so there was no need for him to act as interpreter; He knew how precious these moments with the baby were for River – not to mention how precious they were for him to watch – he'd already been known to go out of his way not to disturb them. "I'm looking at the stars, my little love. They're almost as pretty as you are." River's gentle murmur carried up to the Doctor's ears far easier than he would have thought possible. It had been the same that day, that seemed so long ago to him. The day River had informed him, much to his surprise, that the TARDIS would be needing a nursery.
Wednesday afternoons. They were almost as boring as Sundays. The Doctor could only recall a handful of interesting things that had happened on a Wednesday afternoon, and most of those only happened when Christmas fell on Wednesday. "I'm bored." He announced to the empty console room, the quiet hum of the TARDIS the only response. "You know, most of the time you are not very good company." The Doctor huffed and flipped a random switch on the console. The Time Lord didn't deal very well with being bored, or lonely for that matter, which was an odd occurrence when you'd had centuries of practice at it. He missed hearing a friendly voice, or a loud laugh. He missed Amy and Rory, undoubtedly his best friends. Of course they'd said he could drop in on them any time but after the last time he was a little unsure. Maybe he should have knocked. Definitely, he should have knocked. But in his defence they really should have put a balloon up, at the very least. With a small shudder and a shake of his head, the Doctor wished that Time Lord minds weren't so very good a creating such vivid mental pictures. Slowly, he began to move around the console with more purpose, flipping more switches and turning dials while an idea bubbled away in his not inconsiderably brilliant brain. Who the Doctor missed most of all was River, a fact that had become increasingly easier for him to admit in recent months. His River. She'd sacrificed so much for him, her childhood, her regenerations and her freedom. She would even come to give up her life for his sake. She infuriated him, made him laugh, made him cringe. She loved him. And every day he felt it, that funny little fluttering in his hearts when he thought of her, that told him maybe he loved her too. Maybe. But he certainly did miss her. How long had it been since he'd last landed the TARDIS outside her Stormcage cell? A few days, maybe a week at the most. His idea had stopped bubbling and was now gently simmering away in his mind, as he pulled one last lever and fired the TARDIS to life, heading for his best friends back garden.
The old blue box materialised safely in the Ponds garden and this time, thankfully, the Doctor wouldn't need to knock. Amy bounded out of the back door with Rory following, while the Doctor pulled open the door of the TARDIS and popped his head outside, an impish grin gracing his face. "Hello Ponds!" He called cheerfully. "Williamses." Rory corrected him quickly, earning him a slightly affronted look from his wife. "Uh, Pond-Williamses." Amy just as quickly corrected them both. "What are you doing here anyway?" Amy continued, her attention solely on the Doctor now. "What's wrong?" The Doctor laughed, that was so like Amy to assume there was something wrong. "I don't always have to visit just because the world is about to you know, Pond. And you did say that I could drop in any time." He beamed a bright grin at his friends as he stepped fully out of the TARDIS. "That was six months ago." Rory chimed in. "And you do have a habit of bringing trouble with you, Doctor." The Doctor's smile slipped slightly at Rory's assessment. Perhaps it was a little bit true that trouble did occasionally follow him, but it wasn't as though he asked it too. He quickly shrugged it off, finding his previous enthusiasm again. "Well this time I am absolutely trouble free, see?" He raised his arms and spun around, as if to show that there was in fact, literally no trouble of any sort surrounding him. Amy found this far funnier than Rory. "Why are you here then, Doctor?" The ginger haired Scot asked. The Doctor stopped spinning around and shrugged. "I just wondered if you two might be getting bored of being stuck on Earth by now. I thought we could go and find a nice, entertaining planet somewhere. We could even pick your troublesome daughter up on the way." The Doctor shrugged again and turned back towards the TARDIS while a quick, whispered conversation took place between Amy and Rory. "Come along Ponds!" The Doctor called over his shoulder as he pushed open the door to the old blue box.
That was all it took. 5 minutes later the Pond house was all locked up and Amy, Rory and the Doctor were back in the TARDIS. It almost felt like old times, the Mad Man With A Box and his two best friends. He quickly set the coordinates for the Stormcage Containment Facility while Rory and Amy got settled in again. "I always wondered how River managed to escape so much. I should have known it was down to you." Amy stated with gentle prod of the Doctor's arm. The Doctor shook his head, another grin breaking out on his face. "Oh Pond, I thought you knew your daughter better than that. She's more than capable of escaping on her own. I just give her a little help, sometimes." "How often is 'sometimes'?" Rory asked, his tone somewhere between fatherly concern and utter confusion. The Doctor's only answer was to roll his eyes as the TARDIS materialised at their destination. The moment she'd heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS River had applied the hallucinogenic lipstick and lured her guard close enough to the cell bars to plant her lips on his. She stepped back to watch his face for the tell-tale signs that it was working. The glazed over eyes and slightly bemused smile he was now wearing were all that River needed to see. "Now dear if you could be so kind as to open this door for me, you can go and have that lovely nap you've been so looking forward to, can't you?" River spoke softly, as though he was already asleep and she was trying not to wake him. The young guard nodded his head, his face still blank of expression and quickly unlocked River's cell. Grabbing the few things she needed - her TARDIS blue diary being one of them - River stepped calmly from her cell, giving the guard a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Thank you dear." The guard slid down the cell bars until he was on the floor and already snoring quietly before River had even reached the TARDIS.
River Song stepped inside the TARDIS, the only place in the known universe that she truly considered home. "And what sort of time do you call this?" She asked of her husband, with a quirk of her brow and the flirtatious smile she used only for him. "A few days, you said the last time you dropped me off." The Doctor looked puzzled, surely it hadn't been more than a week since he'd last seen her? "Well, a week is only a few days, River." He answered, failing to see what could possibly have annoyed her this time. Here he was, trying to do something nice by breaking her out of prison again, after all. "A week? Try a month, Sweetie and you might be close." River had trouble controlling her own expression as she watched the Doctor's face change when he realised his mistake. For a Time Lord, he really wasn't very good when it came to dates. "Ah...oops?" A sheepishly apologetic smiled graced his young/old face, a smile that he knew River would never be able to stay mad at. "What in the world am I going to do with you, Doctor?" River returned his smile with a half disbelieving, half indulgent one of her own before looking to her parents. Amy and Rory had watched the Doctor and River's exchange in silence, both torn between feeling mildly disturbed and proud of their daughter. "Hello Mum, Dad." River moved to stand with her parents. It hadn't been so long since she'd seen them of course, having used her vortex manipulator to pop in just the other day. Even so, to have all of her family together was something that was still something she wasn't all that used to, but it was very welcome nonetheless. The Doctor busied himself with the switches and dials on the console while River was hugged and fussed over by her parents. The Pond family. They were a sight to behold, the Doctor thought; Parents who looked younger than their daughter, and yet Rory was older than all of them, even the Doctor himself. Once the coordinates were set and they were on their way – to a destination which he still hadn't disclosed – the Doctor found himself staring at River. He found himself do that a lot these days. He supposed it was down to her hair; there was just so much of it and the light shone through her curls in such odd ways that he often could stop himself from watching her. It was a silly thing to be doing really, there were much more productive things for his mind to busy itself with but that hair was just so distracting. River, who was still chattering away with her parents, turned her head just a fraction to wink at him. There was not very subtle stuttering of his hearts and the Doctor felt a sudden blush creep over his face. He needlessly straightened his bow tie and equally needlessly walked around the console until he could no longer see his wife.
It was Rory – good old dependable Rory, the Doctor thought – who finally distracted the Time Lord and his wife from their somewhat awkward flirting. Well, it was awkward for the Doctor at least. "Where are we going anyway? Not some planet that's about to go to war with someone else, is it?" Rory, always the pessimist, still wasn't convinced that the Doctor could ever do anything that was entirely trouble free. "We're going to Klaanddfloss 3. Every hundred years they have a huge planet wide celebration that's almost exactly like Christmas. The only real difference is that they're celebrating the defeat of a ancient, and very very large creature named Klug." "Klug?" A sceptical Amy asked. "Yes Pond, Klug. About four hundred and sixty seven thousand years ago, Klug terrorised the people of Klaanddfloss 3. He used to breathe in the faces of Klaandflossian children, all the stories say that his breath smelled like week old bins. And if his breath didn't make you run screaming his face certainly would. You know when you leave a bag of lettuce in the fridge, then forget about it until you go to clean the fridge out and find a bag of brown sludgy stuff? Imagine that, but as a face." There was a collective "Blergh" from the Pond family. "Anyway, one day a very brave Klaandflossian climbed to the top of their highest tower just in time for Klug to pass by on one of his daily walks through their largest town. This brave Klaandflossian, Blort The Brave, I think they called him; shone a mirror in Klug's face. Klug had never seen his own reflection before and the sight of it was so terrifying that he died of fright. It really is a lovely celebration, it even snows!" The Doctor's face lit up like small child being given a new toy. When the TARDIS materialised on the small planet of Klaandfloss 3, the Doctor led the way outside, caring not one bit for the fact that he was immediately up to his ankles in snow. The Ponds, on the other hand were being much more cautious. "It looks lovely Sweetie, but don't you think coats would be a good idea? We aren't all as immune to the cold as you apparently are." "Coats? Ha!" The Doctor rolled his eyes with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Well, you all know where the wardrobe is by now. I'm sure you'll find something in there that will do." Sometimes he forgot just how unspectacular human physiology was compared to his. And even more often, it slipped his mind entirely that River was still somewhat human too. River and her parents left the Doctor to grumble to himself about the general fragility of the human race while they went in search of coats. The TARDIS wardrobe was more of a room than an actual wardrobe. Actually, it was more like a small house than a room. Rack after rack of every type of clothing a person could possibly need. There were already a considerable number of racks taken up entirely by River's clothes. Rory and Amy picked out two sturdy looking winter coats, while River found one of her own favourite coats. It was far lighter than either her parents had picked, with a marvellous fake fur edged collar that River adored. She slipped her TARDIS blue diary into one of the pockets while Amy and Rory laughed at themselves in one of the large mirrors. "We should hurry up before the Doctor gets bored and wanders off on his own, again." Rory started to led the way out of the wardrobe room but River didn't follow. "I can't find my diary. You two go ahead, I'll catch you up in a minute." "We'll help you look.." Amy offered but River quickly waved her mother off with a smile. "No, it's fine. It'll be here somewhere, should be too hard to find. Go and make sure the Doctor doesn't get himself into any trouble." River waited until her parents footsteps stopped echoing through the TARDIS corridors before she crept as quietly as she could manage back to the console room. Thanking whatever lucky stars she had that they'd closed the door behind them, River set to getting the scanner working. It wasn't long before she was greeted by the confirmation of what she's already been sure of. "Well, this is going to be a very interesting day." River said with a smile. She turned off the scanner and slipped her diary out of her pocket, before heading out after her parents and husband.
"Well it's about time." The Doctor sighed over-dramatically as River joined them outside in the snow. "Sorry, Sweetie but I just couldn't leave this behind." She held up her diary by way of an explanation before sliding it once again into the pocket of her coat. River linked her arm with the Doctor's and he wasn't quite sure what to do about that, but he was trying his best to get used to her doing things like that. Amy and Rory were walking ahead, laughing while they kicked snow at each other. Everywhere they looked seemed to be decorated by brightly coloured lanterns and streamers, the air was filled with the all the sounds of celebration you'd expect to here, including loud booms and pops of multi coloured fireworks. It didn't take long for the spirit of celebration to turn the Doctor into an odd combination of a giraffe and an overly excitable puppy. "Dancing!" The Doctor exclaimed suddenly, making River jump. He pointed in the direction they'd been heading. The road in front of them was full of people dancing. "I love dancing. Dancing is cool. That's the only reason I go to weddings, you know." Oh, we know, Sweetie." The Doctor took River by the hand and led her just inside the large group of revellers. He hadn't even had to think about, it had just been automatic for him, that he take her hand. And River certainly wasn't about to complain, she was happily watching the sheer joy on his face as he spun her around. Amy and Rory, on the other hand, hadn't moved. With a light punch to Rory's arm – that hurt a lot more than Rory would ever admit – Amy held her hand out in front of him. "Uh, Rory!" "Uh...yeah...dancing." Rory was a terrible dancer, he couldn't seem to make his feet move the way his brain was telling them to. But He took Amy's hand anyway and followed the Doctor and River.
The day progressed with lots of toes being stepped on and songs they didn't know being sung out of tune. They ate food they'd never heard of, some of which they all agreed should never be tried again. Most of all they laughed, a lot. River was still dancing as the Doctor and the Pond family made their way back to the TARDIS. "I can't feel my toes any more" Rory began "but you were right Doctor, you can stay out of trouble for one day." "You know, Rory Pond, I should be offended that you would ever doubt it. But as it's been such a nice day, lets say no more about it and leave it at that." The Doctor smiled a bright, beaming grin at the last centurion. "It's about time I took you lot home, isn't it?" He set the TARDIS on course for the Pond's back garden once more and was soon receiving hugs goodbye. "And don't leave it so long between visits next time, either of you." Amy scolded both the Doctor and River before one last hug goodbye for her daughter. Rory and Amy exited the TARDIS hand in hand, closing the door behind them. With the in-laws safely dropped off home, all that was left for the Doctor to do was get River back to Stromcage. It was never easy for him to leave her there, now that he knew the reason for her imprisonment – and if he was being truthful with himself, it hadn't always been easy to leave her there before that. But it had to be done. He set the all too familiar coordinates and they were soon on their way. Just as she always seemed to have that knack of doing, River picked up on the small hint of unease the Doctor felt. "It's fine Sweetie, really. As I've told you a thousand times and will continue to tell you, every second I spend there is worth it to keep you safe." The Doctor heaved a heavy sigh, his high spirits from earlier in the day were long gone now. "It just feels...wrong! Leaving you there when you've done nothing to deserve being caged up like an animal." He'd begun pacing around the console, which River recognised as being the beginnings of his 'guilt' mode. "Sweetie, hush. I'm no more a caged animal than you are. And this wont be forever. Even the greatest war criminal in history will have her chance to earn a pardon." River deliberately stepped into his path, forcing him to stop and look at her, not that doing that made him feel any better. "Now, no more talking about cages. I want to talk about good things." She reached out to straighten his bow tie before fluidly sliding her arms around his neck. The Doctor's shoulders momentarily stiffened, he still hadn't gotten used to her doing that so freely. "What good things?" He asked dubiously. Whenever River mentioned 'good things' it usually resulted in a conversation that made him blush like a school girl. "I don't know..." River cast her eyes around the TARDIS. "Have you ever thought of redecorating?" "Redecorating the TARDIS? I suppose, that's sort of up to the TARDIS herself, eh old girl?" The Doctor reached out to pat the console affectionately. "Well how about adding extra rooms...like a nursery, maybe." River's gaze was locked onto his face while she waited for him to realise what she'd said. "Extra rooms? But what would we need..." It took a minute, but finally the penny dropped, sort of. "River...by 'nursery' do you mean somewhere to grow plants?" He asked, his voice an octave higher than was normal. "I certainly hope that's not what I mean, Sweetie. I'd much rather that our child had fingers and toes than petals and leaves." River answered in the most serious tone she could muster. The Doctor was at a loss for words, which didn't happen to him very often. Well, it never happened to him, really. "...Our..child? But but but...you're...?" His eyes swept over her, focusing on her stomach. River wondered if he was even breathing. "But but but...how?" That was when River could keep up the serious pretence no longer and let out a quiet chuckle. "How? Doctor, do I really have to explain the mechanics to you? You certainly didn't seem to need much teaching that night. Well, except for – " "I meant when!" The Doctor rather quickly interrupted her. "When did this...happen?" "That night we crashed the Moxx of Balhoon's party, remember?" River bit her lip for a moment, hoping she hadn't just given away the spoiler of all spoilers. "Oh..." Realisation began to dawn on the Doctor's face. "Oh! That night? When we...?" "Yes, Sweetie, that night." The smile on her face could have put the brightest of suns to shame. "Oh...a...a...baby..." The Doctor had turned an odd colour, somewhere between chalk white and sickly green. "Maybe you should sit down, Sweetie?" River guided him over to the chair that was always by the console and pushed on his shoulders until he sat. She knelt in front of him and waited for his face to return to it's normal pallor. Entirely out of nowhere he leapt to his feet, almost knocking River off of hers in the process and stood at arms length, holding her by her shoulders. "Are you sure?" "The TARDIS confirmed it earlier." "You're pregnant? You're...We're going to have a baby?" River could here so much more in the Doctor's voice than just his words. There was fear, doubt, anxiety, but also a quiet awe. Not one of those was something she wasn't feeling herself. "Yes, my love." She took his right hand from where it still rested on her shoulder and stepped closer to him, placing his hand on her stomach. "We are."
(AN: I hope enjoyed this first part as much as I did writing it. Constructive reviews and feedback are always much appreciated.)