Series Title: And Make the World of Colours
Chapter Title: Silver: Questions
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G/PG
Characters/Pairing: River/Melody, Rory, Eleven
Summary: For a long time Melody doesn't ask questions. When she finally feels she can, they all come at once.
Notes: Spoilers for A Good Man Goes To War. Concrit, please. Thanks for the reviews! This particular fic sort of got away from me a bit.
Rory heard the questions long before they came. As soon as Vastra explained (and he thought there was almost definitely something wrong with the fact that it had been Vastra who explained, not the Doctor) he heard the questions coming. He knew that when they came, he wouldn't be able to answer. He knew that no one could answer those questions. No one except the Doctor.
But he didn't know if the Doctor would.
"I know, you know," he said, as he lay beneath the glass floor, connecting the wires the Doctor had told him too.
"Know what?" asked the Doctor. Ignorance suited him poorly.
Rory sighed. "Okay, here's the thing. Weird as I find the idea of you and my daugher, you're a Time Lord. And I hate to drive it home, but as far as we know, you're the last of the Time Lords. And my daughter, she's part Time Lord, yeah? So that makes it your job to teach her what that means, because there isn't anyone else who can. I can teach her what it means to be a Roman, and what it means to be from Leadworth. I can even teach her what it means to know you. Amy and I, we can teach her what it means to be a Pond. But we're going to need a bit of help to teach her how to be a River. Besides, you might be just about the only person in the universe I can trust to work as hard as me to protect her."
"I know," said the Doctor. "Connect the red wire to the cross hatch, 2/3 of the way down."
Rory did.
...
Melody didn't ask questions.
She had a million billion questions sitting in her head, but she didn't ask them, not ever.
She was a little afraid of the answers.
That wasn't why she didn't ask. Well, not entirely. To ask would mean admitting what she knew, and maybe telling them some things they didn't. And it wouldn't help, anyway. If they knew the answers, they wouldn't tell her, not without twisting the truth.
She knew that she was like the Doctor, and they hated the Doctor. If they didn't realize just how much she had in common with him, she didn't want them to.
So Melody didn't ask questions.
She didn't ask her parent's names, or where they were. She didn't ask where they were from, what time or place. She didn't ask why she was like the Doctor or what that meant. She didn't ask to know anything about the Doctor more than what they said. Melody didn't ask questions.
But oh, the questions she had.
...
It felt like years before he got his daughter back, though he didn't think it was. On the day they found Melody, Rory wept. He held her tight and cried into her hair, and promised her he'd always keep her safe. Amy gave him five whole minutes before insisting she be allowed to hold her daughter too, and then he held them both together. That night he carried his girl to bed in a bedroom on the TARDIS, and tucked her in and kissed her forehead and petted her beautiful hair.
"Goodnight, Melody," he whispered to the sleepy girl, who was clutching the scrap of fabric which had her name on it.
"Goodnight, Dad," she said. "Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Where are you from?"
"Leadworth," said Rory, sitting down on the bed beside Melody. "And then Rome. And then Leadworth again."
"And where is Mummy from?"
"Leadworth. Actually, no, Scotland. Then Leadworth. Then Leadworth again. Mostly Leadworth, actually."
Melody looked at him. "You're a centurion, right? Is that from when you were from Rome? And how come you said Leadworth twice in a row? Where in Scotland is Mummy from? And-"
Rory laughed, and held a finger to Melody's lips. "You should ask your mum about Scotland. And the rest is...a very long story. But yes, I am a centurion, or I was, or something, and that is from when I was from Rome. I was also made of plastic. The rest is going to have to wait until morning, though." He kissed her forehead again. "Sleep, Melody."
"I'm not tired. Please tell me now."
He shook his head, smiling. "Maybe you aren't tired, but I am. It has been a very long day. Tomorrow, I promise. Now go to sleep."
Melody pouted, and rolled over. "Yeah. Tomorrow."
Rory buried his head in his hands. He knew that pout. He knew that voice. That was Amy's pout, and Amy's voice when people used to promise to come back. "Hey," he said, reaching out to touch Melody lightly on the shoulder. He rolled her over gently so that he was looking her in the eye, and continued. "I promise, okay? Listen, I once waited 2000 years to keep your mother safe. Which is another story you will hear tomorrow. Because if I once waited 2000 years, alone, in the dark, to keep your mother safe, and if I haven't regretted that for one second since I did it, then I will definitely, definitely be there when you wake up. I promise." He brushed a blonde curl out of her eyes. "And I always keep my promises."
...
"Was your name always Rory Pond? What about Mum? 'Cause I know people's names change sometimes when they get married, but the Doctor only told me those ones- well, except 'Roranicus Pondicus', but you said that wasn't your name really. Where does that name come from? It sounds kind of Roman. You said you were from Rome, were you still called Rory when you were from Rome? Did you know the fabric scrap you gave me says 'River Song' on it? I thought you said it had my name, my name isn't River Song, its Melody Pond, which I guess is a little bit like River Song, but not really. Why does it say River Song on it?"
Rory waited patiently for his daughter to stop gabbling. He'd spent the last three hours telling her all about Leadworth and Rome and the Second Big Bang (at least as much as he could given that she was a part of it- he'd spent more than an hour the previous night outside Melody's room, going over that with the Doctor) and quite honestly he was grateful for the break.
"My name used to be Rory Williams," he said, when she finally finished. "It was still Rory when I was a Roman, but your mum thought that was weird and called me Roranicus. That's why the Doctor calls me Roranicus Pondicus sometimes. It isn't a proper Roman name though. Your mum used to be called Amelia, but she likes to be called Amy now, most of the time at least. As for the fabric scrap, that has your name on it, but its written in the language of this girl we met when you were born. She had been looking for the Doctor for a really long time, ever since she met him when she was little, and she came from a forest. And the only water in the forest is the river, apparently, so she used the word for river instead of the one for pond."
River looked at him, considering. "Oh. Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I be called River?"
"River Pond?" asked Rory, wrinkling his nose.
"River Song. Because its my name, but its also not my name. And I like my name, but...its like, every time I hear it, I can hear the people who captured me saying it. And when they said it, it was the only thing I had to remember you and mum by. But now it isn't, and...so, just, could I be called River, please? Because its my name, but it isn't. And Song is a stupid first name. So River."
Rory smiled, and pulled Melody (or River, actually) onto his lap. "I think," he said, pulling her hair away from her neck, "that that is a very good idea. And River is a wonderful name." He kissed her hair. "You should ask your mum what she thinks, though."
"Mum shot at me," said Melody (River), settling back against her father. "Is she angry?"
"She shot at you?"
"Yeah, at the orphanage. I was in the spaceman suit and she shot at me."
Rory frowned. "She isn't angry, Melody. River. Not at you. She was just scared. She didn't know it was you, she thought it was somebody else. And she didn't know who you were. She'd never shoot at you if she knew who you were. Not on purpose, not if she could help it. I promise."
River smiled and snuggled closer. "Okay."
...
"Dad, what's a Time Lord?"
The question came alone, not one in a stampede like all the others. When he heard it, Rory swallowed, and smiled, and lifted River up in his arms. "Come on," he said. He carried her into the console room.
"Doctor, do you remember what we talked about?" he said into the Doctor's ear, as he set River down gently on the ground. She hung on his arm. "Well it's time now. She wants to know what a Time Lord is."
The Doctor nodded, and leaned against the console as Rory knelt in front of River.
"I'm going to go and make some dinner, alright River? The Doctor can answer your questions about Time Lords and stuff." She nodded, and let go of his arm.
"Okay, River. You going by River now?" She nodded. "Good name. Bit like Pond, but completely different. Very pretty. Come on, get comfortable," said the Doctor, lifting her up onto the jumpseat. "This is going to be a very long story. And I bet you have a lot of questions, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Alright." The Doctor sat down next to her. "Once upon a time, a long long time ago, there was a world which isn't there anymore. The trees on that world had silver leaves, which sparkle and shone like a forest fire at sunrise, and the grass was a deep blood red. There were schisms there, and from the schisms there grew plants like the one this ship is grown of. The sky is burnt orange, and sometimes at the second sunset the second moon looks purple." The Doctor didn't seem to notice that he had switched to present tense, though River did. "That world is called Gallifrey. There are shining citadels with great white buildings inside domes, and beautiful old houses, some domeless, some domed, in the hills outside the cities. There are great quarries of rock, and there is a pit of diamonds. Long, long ago, before the men on Gallifrey were Time Lords, a man was born called Rassilon. He had a friend who was called Omega, and they were scientists..."
The Doctor was right. It was a very long story. It lasted until dinner, and continued afterwards, late into the night. River sat, so entranced by images of silver leaves and purple moons which danced inside her head that she did not ask another question until late the next day, when the Docor's story was finally finished.
And even then, when the Doctor had said all he had to say, she found she had no questions. Not yet. Her mind was full of colours and memories of things she hadn't lived, and she could feel her eyes getting heavy.
Her father picked her up off the jumpseat and carried her to bed, and lay her down, and tucked her in, and kissed her on the forehead.
That night River dreamed she was a pond. The pond became a river, and the river ran through the forest, its too-blue water covered in red, red petals.
The leaves in the forest were silver.