Title: Conversations
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters:Amy & Canton, Amy/Rory/Eleven/River discussed
Warnings: lonely/sad tone
Spoilers: 6x02
Summary: Amy and Canton talk about marriage. Just a quick little Amy character study written right after 6x02. Doesn't actually fit into the episode's timeline, I realized later.
"Look- Canton-" Amy says, while they're in the bathroom of this shoddy motel that is not very luxurious compared to the TARDIS' 100-foot bath, trying to scrub tally marks off their faces, "what you said about getting married-"
In the dirty mirror, she saw the way he reacted to that, the way his face changed, just for a second before he wiped away soap suds with a towel and wiped away his own expression along with it. "Forget it," he says, voice quiet in a way that makes Amy think of childhood and doctors and medications and playground taunts. She'd traded fear for anger and she thought he might have too, that it was the source of the secret violence in his sudden movements, the tension behind his abrasive exterior.
Though it's been weeks since he's been abrasive with her and Rory and River. Maybe it's simply the magnitude of the threat they face, the exhaustion that comes from constantly looking over your shoulder, from not trusting your own memory. When they were together, now, which was seldom enough, they'd never go to sleep all at once; someone would always be awake, on guard. They never slept with the lights off, in these cheap hotel rooms, the sounds of cars screaming by on the freeway outside the window, the distant glow of neon lights turning black into velvet gray, the smell of the desert or the heat of the swamp floating in through the screen.
"I thought I should tell you," she says. "We're from the future. Rory and I, we're from about forty years ahead. River, she's from... she's a lot farther on."
He blinks. "Oh." She can see him trying to process this new information, the slightly ironic look he gets, but at least that strange tension seems to have slipped underneath.
"So I thought I maybe should tell you that where- I mean, when I come from, there are some parts of the world you can go to, you know, marry anyone you like. I mean. There are new laws and things. And the Doctor's taken us a few years in the future- our future I mean- and most everywhere's like that." She swallows. She can hear her own stupid words echoing back in her head. She sounds really, really Scottish.
He stares at her. "Really?" he says finally, and then looks rueful, like he knew it was a stupid thing to say but he just had to say it anyway.
She nods.
He stares at her a moment longer, then gently puts down the dirty towel and walks back into the hotel room. A moment later she hears the outer door click closed. There was still a few faint black marks around the edges of his features, but she didn't tell him, because she figures he does need some space right now.
An hour later he corners her walking back from buying food with his ever-decreasing supply of American money. The evening is dark and the city unfriendly, and she feels a little more comfortable when he corners her like a small terrier, which is a ridiculous feeling for Amelia Pond, Space Adventurer. He doesn't offer to take her bags. She can see by looking at him that what she told him's been clicking over in his tightly-wound mind, and she steels herself for more questions. "You only tell me you're from the future now? I don't know anything about all of you. Are you married?"
Her head is blank. She breathes, in and out, trying to figure out what she's going to say, trying to summon up words from the jumbled up feelings in her head and her mouth. It's never been one of her strong suits.
"Yeah," she says, and she finds herself smiling. "Yeah, I am."
His mouth twists. "The Doctor, or the other guy?"
She wonders how much he's guessed at, watching them. She grips the grocery bags tighter. "Both," she says. The word shoots out a little harsher than she expected, so she tries to talk a little more to soften it. She hates feeling this young and naked. "We couldn't get it done in me and Rory's time, we had to go to River's. Which was still a pain because of course we didn't have any kind of documentation. Fortunately turns out New New Las Vegas is pretty lax about that stuff. River took some pictures. They're back at the TARDIS of course. She's married to the Doctor too but not yet."
She dares to look at Canton. He looks a bit dazed. "Ah," he says.
Her stride does not falter. It's getting a bit chilly here in Illinois. She'll suggest they go back South next, but of course it depends on whether they have any new leads. She thinks of the Doctor, locked up in a maximum security joint somewhere, wonders if he's hot or cold, if he's this tired and worried and confused. She knows when she walks into the hotel room she'll find Rory and River sitting next to each other on one of the beds, not touching, not saying anything,but somehow wordlessly supporting each other. She knows that Rory will hurry to get up and go to her, to make stupid jokes, to kiss her and pretend he's not worried either. River will work a miracle and turn bland 1970s American convenience-store groceries into some astonishing fifty-first century meal. Maybe at some point during the night she'll kiss Amy too, if she senses how scared Amy is. How absolutely terrified. They'll try to draw Canton from his shell and maybe succeed a little. They'll try not to think about what mad plan they're going to try next.
Amy thinks of her house in London, her and Rory's, and of their room in the TARDIS, the bed wide enough for three, the oddity of a windowless space. She thinks of the hotel room, crowded with strange people, in a decade not even her own. In this strange, wild, confused moment, she can't think where among those options she'd rather be.