Time passes unusually slowly, the Doctor decided again. He waited and waited outside of Rory's house until he fell asleep on the ground from absolute boredom. When he awoke a few hours later, he walked back into Rory's house to find that the apple, fish fingers, and custard were still on the table. The Doctor sighed, figuring that Amy had presumably not seen them yet.
Where was she? She should be here, she should be wherever the Doctor was. Weirder yet, she should have been to Rory's house. After all, they were getting married.
Footsteps came toward the kitchen. Rory entered and stared, open-mouthed. The Doctor's face broke into a grin.
"Finally! So you can see me then?" the Doctor asked. Rory blinked several times and shook his head as if to clear it.
"Um, yeah," Rory replied. His eyes were still wide with surprise. "Wait, see you now?" Rory realized what the Doctor had said. The Doctor ignored his comment, focusing on things that were much more important. There was a lot to figure out, and catching Rory up on the previous happenings of the Doctor's very confusing day was not high on the list of priorities.
"Right then! So, who all saw my food?" the Doctor asked, not being able to help grinning. It was amazing, being seen, the Doctor realized. He made a mental note to never take being seen for granted ever again.
"Your food?" Rory scoffed, raising his eyebrows. The Doctor poked Rory in the forehead.
"Focus, Rory, this is important," the Doctor said more seriously. Rory shook his head again and thought for a moment.
"Well, my two best friends were over. They both saw it," Rory answered. The Doctor began pacing. So his two best friends. Amy was one, obviously, but who was the other?
"Who are your friends again?" the Doctor inquired. Rory was still, annoyingly, staring at him. "Oh, for god's sakes man, stop staring," the Doctor chided.
"Sorry, strange man walks into my house and puts food on my table, my food, mind, and starts asking about my friends. I'm starting to wonder why I haven't called the police yet," Rory retorted. The Doctor stopped in his tracks and then walked up, staring Rory right in the face, a little too closely perhaps.
"Strange, yes, but aren't you used to me by now?" the Doctor asked for reassurance. Rory stared at him like he was mad. Which he was, of course, but it was still a stare.
"By now? I've known you for five minutes," Rory said in confusion.
The Doctor froze. Five minutes. That meant… Rory didn't remember who he was. That meant the Rory did not remember traveling with the Doctor. There was no Prisoner Zero, no vampires in Venice, no two dream worlds, no Earth eating people, no Pandorica, at least not for Rory.
He needed to find Amy. If he could find Amy, then maybe she could remember him. She had a powerful enough memory, he was sure-
Wait. River had said her mother had a memory strong enough to bring the Doctor back. An almost audible click happened in the Doctor's massive brain.
"Oh," the Doctor gasped softly. Rory cocked on eyebrow, looking even more confused than a minute ago. "Oh. She's…" the Doctor whispered, staring straight through Rory for a moment, focusing on working out the details in his head. Then, the Doctor hit himself in the head.
"I should have realized! No wonder, she inherited her mother's flirting habits…" the Doctor spoke to himself as if Rory wasn't even there, realizing River's parentage. Rory cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Um, what?" Rory asked. The Doctor's eyes snapped back into focus on Rory's face. This was important. This was very, very important.
"Rory, I need you to tell me who your friends are. What are their names?" the Doctor commanded. Rory took a step back.
"Well, uh, there's Pond-" Rory started to say, but the Doctor cut him off.
"Pond? You call her by her last name?" the Doctor said. He didn't know why this was important, not yet, but for some reason he needed to know.
"Yeah?" Rory drew out the word almost more like a question than an answer.
"Why?" the Doctor pressed. He had to know. Pond could be either River or Amy. He had to know which of them remembered him.
Rory shrugged with a little exasperation. The door opened and someone walked in the door and into the kitchen where Rory and the Doctor were talking. It was a girl with brown hair- the girl the Doctor had seen earlier in the bathroom. When she saw the Doctor, her face split into a grin.
"You're here. You're really here! When I saw the fish fingers and custard, and then the apple… My mum used to carve apples like that. She told me her mum did the same for her," the girl said.
So this girl, this girl was, who, Pond? This was who Rory mentioned? She remembered him, so she had to be. But was she River or Amy? Either one could be true. This Pond said her mum's mum carved the apples- that could be either Amy's mum or River's grandmother. This was really quite confusing, and he had to figure it out right away.
But, no, it couldn't be Amy. And it couldn't be River. It didn't look like either of them! No, no wait, it could be River. River… was Amy and Rory's child which meant… oh, his poor TARDIS. She could have been conceived on the TARDIS mid-flight, which meant she could have Time Lord qualities in her DNA.
So then it was River. Or, maybe, Amy's appearance had been altered due to the new reality. Come to think of it, the Doctor realized that a number of things could have happened. This was a new reality and he didn't know the rules yet.
"Oh, hey, Pond," Rory greeted her. She glanced at Rory and then turned back to the Doctor, walking closer to him.
"What's your name?" the Doctor asked her. Pond (he decided to just think of her as Pond until he found out who she was) smiled at him.
"You didn't ever tell me yours. Why should I tell you mine?" Pond challenged him. The Doctor silently cursed the fact that no one accepted the Doctor as his proper name. It was really quite a nice name to be called, he thought.
"I met you when you were young, right?" the Doctor asked. If she wouldn't respond to the direct question, he would have to find enough clues to work it out.
"Of course. Very young," Pond answered. Sadly, that wasn't enough information. He'd met Amy as a seven year old girl, but he had no idea if he'd met River as a young girl too because they always met in the wrong order.
She was being quite challenging, but then again, both of the Pond girls he knew were rather impossible. Both. That word still shocked him, that River was Amy's daughter. But there was no time to focus on that. He had to focus on finding out which of these impossible women was standing right in front of him.
"Look, Pond, I don't know how much you know about me, but you need to trust me," the Doctor said, grabbing her hand. She looked down at her hand, grasped in his, and then back up at his desperate face. Then, she smiled.
"I didn't quite remember you being so hot the last time we met. Well, I guess I was only a little girl," Pond said with her smile turned to a smirk. The Doctor groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping the brunette's hand. Girls could be so infuriating.
So then, she was definitely one of the two. She was avoiding his questions and flirting in one move. It really must be an inherited trait. Anyway, his day was really quite full of unusual. Total so far he had: disappearing from time, coming back, his TARDIS landing in the ladies', not being sensed by anyone, running into River, her stealing his TARDIS key, realizing River was Amy and Rory's daughter, being seen again, running into a mysterious Pond woman, and learning River was quite possibly part Time Lord.
It was a long day.
"Uh, okay, what's going on? Pond, is this… the Doctor? The other Time Lord you said you'd met?" Rory asked. He'd finally had a chance to gather his thoughts and form a question. This was a very confusing day for him, the Doctor imagined, but it was not nearly as much so as the Doctor's. Rory had just asked using an important word- other.
"Other Time Lord?" the Doctor repeated. Rory nodded. Pond held up her hands.
"Part Time Lord here," she said, motioning to herself. Okay. So she must be River, then. Unless she was lying about being a Time Lord. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and used to process what sorts of life forms were in the area, searching for Time Lords.
It read confirmed. So that meant that this Pond was- wait. The sonic picked up another alien reading. Time Lord, again. And again. And again…
"What?" the Doctor exclaimed. His day, he learned, was about to get even more complicated.
A/N: Remember, the Doctor didn't know about who River was since this is set near the end of the Big Bang. Also, he doesn't know he meets River as a baby or a young girl in the space suit, but he realizes that he very well might meet her as a little girl because of the two never meeting in the right order.
The Doctor's confused. I don't blame him, he's having a hard day.
Anyway, review to let me know what you think whether you liked it or not!