Once Upon A Time
Chapter Four: One True Love.
Disclaimer: I am merely borrowing these characters and promise to put them back where I found them.
Author's Note: Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed or favourited this story, I'm so glad that you're all enjoying it! I will be updating as often as I can but have limited internet at the moment, which is proving problematic but stick with me and we'll get there. Anyway, enough waffling- here's the next part…
"So, urm, what happens now?" Amy asked awkwardly as she tried to break the oppressive silence that filled the room
"Amy, have you never read fairy tales?" Rory scoffed as he rolled her eyes at the lack of knowledge on the subject.
"Well no, Rory." Amy huffed. "I had slightly more important things to do with my childhood than sit around listening to silly stories about princesses. But clearly you are some kind of expert on it so, please, do tell us."
"Well what happens is that the Prince arrives to rescue the Princess and then the spell can only be broken by him kissing her-"
"So she just needs a snog and she'll be all fixed?" Amy queried with a smirk.
"Not exactly." Rory sighed. "It can't just be a kiss from anyone it has to be from her one true love- only that will allow her to wake up. That's right, isn't it?" He looked anxiously across to the two soldiers who stood beside them in the doorway. They nodded in unison and Rory smiled.
"And you know this because…?" Amy laughed as she raised an eyebrow.
"Well I urm… I mean… My Nan used to read them to me… When I was little." Rory stuttered quickly.
"Of course she did. Your Nan. Right." She grinned at him. "And you wonder why I thought you were gay for all those years!"
"Hey now, that's really-"
"If you two have quite finished with the domestic!" The Doctor snapped as he stood up quickly from where he had been crouched at River's side, making the couple jump as they remembered where they were and found their smiles slipping quickly from their faces. "Are you telling me I just have to kiss River and she'll be fine? All fixed and not scarily non-movey and no-breathy like she is now?"
"A kiss from her one true love is the only thing that will revive Snow White." The first soldier announced.
"From her… Right… Well that's…" The Doctor gulped as he scratched his face involuntarily, revealing his nerves. "That's good but what if, just theoretically speaking, what if I'm not her one true love?"
"Doctor." Amy growled darkly. "This is my daughter we're talking about. My daughter you married and who is currently serving a lot of life sentences for your murder, which she didn't commit. You are not telling me you don't love her."
"No, no, no!" The Doctor stammered quickly as he shook his head vigorously. "I don't mean it like that! I mean I do love her, your daughter, I do. Very good with the loving and I would not, definitely not, have got married to her if there was no love. Because that would be wrong and immoral and then there is the fact that you are very Scottish and he is very Roman and-"
"So if you love her so much, what exactly is the problem?" Amy folded her arms and looked very unimpressed.
"Well it's just… It's complicated." The Doctor sighed as he looked away. All this talk about feelings made him most uncomfortable.
"Try us." Rory interrupted stonily and the Doctor gulped. There was no way out of this, no joke he could make to lighten the mood, no way he could distract them, not even an alien attack that could possibly happen. No he was just going to have to stand there and have this conversation with his parents-in-law while his wife lay on the bed somewhere between life and death. All in all this was not one of his best days.
"I'm not like you. You always forget that. Very alien, very old- that's me. Mad man with a box. I've lived a long time, loved a lot of people, even married a few of them… So to be able to stand here and say that we're 'true loves' seems like lying because it's never that simple. Not with me and not with her. Half he life she loves me and half her life she plans to kill me and we're always out of order, lives running back to front. It's just not that simple. No matter how much we're trying to pretend at the moment me and River Song are most definitely not a fairytale." The Doctor shuddered, drawing in a deep breath as he finished- his eyes flitting from Amy to Rory and back to try to judge their reaction.
"But you love her." Amy smiled softly.
"I love a lot of people." The Doctor replied sadly.
"But you love her like a wife. You love her like I love Rory." Amy pressed him.
"Well yes." He mumbled awkwardly.
"And tell me, right now, is there any one else you could imagine being with?" Amy spoke quietly as the Doctor gazed down at the woman who lay motionless on the bed.
"No." He whispered quietly as he felt tears well up in his eyes.
"Then, for goodness sake, kiss her!" Amy grinned as she squeezed Rory's arm.
"Are you sure? I mean you don't think I should just-"
"Kiss her." Amy repeated firmly.
"Fine, fine." The Doctor mumbled sulkily as he turned his attention back to River. "Well, here goes nothing."
He took a deep breath as he lent down, his lips creeping slowly closer towards hers. Although they'd kissed numerous times before it had always been her who initiated it and him following her lead. She'd always been the strong one, the confident one, even when she'd only just met him. And now suddenly he had to be the one to take control and at a time when it had never been more important. He thought of how she must have felt when she brought him back, when she sacrificed her regenerations to save him even though she hardly knew him, and the memory steadied his shaking hands. He kissed her softly, his lips brushing gently against her unresponsive ones as he willed her to wake up, to wind her arms around him and pull him closer and kiss him until he had to break away for breath. But instead he felt nothing: no movement, no warmth returning to her body, no gasp of life… Nothing.
"It didn't work." He gasped as he pulled back, his voice heavy with emotion.
"What happened?" Rory snapped as he looked at the soldiers intensely.
"Nothing." The second soldier replied simply.
"Well, yes, I can see that." Rory sighed. "But why has nothing happened?"
"We now have to wait to see if the prince is in fact Snow White's true love." The soldier shrugged.
"But how? This never happened in the books!" Rory grumbled, angry that his knowledge of fairytales was being undermined in such a way.
"She must go on a quest." The first solider cut across.
"And how exactly is she supposed to manage that as she's stuck in a bed unable to move or speak?" Amy snapped.
"The quest will be in her mind." He informed her, as if this was the most obvious answer in the world.
"I hate quests." The Doctor said sadly as he sat down heavily on the bed beside River. "Quests are rubbish."
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