Chapter 4

"River?!" Amy had a hard time believing what she was seeing - then again, River did what she wanted, and she really shouldn't be surprised by anything she did, she'd seen her doing more unbelievable things in the past. "How are you here? The Doctor said it was impossible to get back!"

"Not for me. I've got this, remember," River said, pointing at the vortex manipulator strapped around her wrist.

"Yeah, but don't all these paradoxes keep you from getting here?" Amy was confused. The Doctor had seemed pretty desperate about this subject, so why was River standing in front of her now without the universe imploding or something?

"Paradoxes? It's always been like this with us. We've always met in the wrong order, this is just one more of those times. No need to call it a paradox now." River laughed at her mother's obvious confusion.

"What? But you were there, this has already happened for you, right? I mean, how else would you now about me being here at all?"

But River just looked at her, smirked and said, "Spoilers."

Sometimes, her daughter was really frustrating the hell out of her.

"Ugh, ok. So, when are you then? What have you been up to?"

"Oh, saving little me and you from those things we can barely remember…" She taps a finger to her chin. "You know… there's this little girl in the 60's, all alone in New York City, not even far from this place… and she's about to regenerate for the very first time. Not a thing I like to remember…" Suddenly, she clapped her hands together and looked at Amy expectantly. "But back to you! I take it you've just arrived here? And you're looking for the right clothes? Let me help you. Oh, how I've missed our shopping trips!"

River really had a surprisingly good knowledge about fashion in whichever time period she landed, so it didn't take them long to find enough clothes suitable for the 40's.

After paying for everything, they stepped out of the shop and walked back in the direction of the small book store.

"I'm just gonna tell her you're a friend from England," Amy said quickly. She had told River about her and Rory's new friend and had decided she'd help the poor girl out of her boredom and visit - River sure made an interesting distraction. "I'm not sure if Rory has told her anything about you, though."

She completely missed the string of emotions that played on the other woman's face - there was excitement, interest, but also sadness.

Pushing the door open, Amy found a shop not too different from the publishing house right next to it: it had a dark but also comfortable air about it. It was stuffed to the ceiling with shelves of old books, none of them seeming to be the same. It looked more like the owner had showcased their whole collection here, even the floor was covered with stacks of books. There was even another room in the back, and it seemed to be equally full of books.

The commotion in the front room had lured Mary and an elderly woman from the back of the shop.

"Amy, how nice of you to come by! And I see you brought a friend," Mary called upon seeing them.

"Yeah, I just ran into her in one of the shops you've suggested. She's a good friend, and I only just found out she's here in New York. We met back in Scotland."

"I'm River Song," she introduced herself quickly and shook Mary's hand. She couldn't quite keep her excitement to herself, grinning widely at Mary, to which Amy shot her a questioning look.

"Nice to meet you, River Song," Mary laughed at the other woman's obvious excitement. "I'm Mary Young - but it seems to me that Amy has already told you at least something about me." She smiled. "Anyway, if you want to have a look, I'll stay here and help you if you find something that interests you." She quickly looked in the direction of where the old lady had been standing quietly, watching them.

Understanding that Mary probably wasn't allowed to have too long and private conversations while at work, Amy and River made their way to the back room of the shop and quietly looked through the shelves for a few minutes, until Amy suddenly called out, "Hey, River! Look at this!"

She had found a small, dark blue and very familiar but empty diary wretched between two big domes on history.

"Oh," was all River could reply as soon as Amy had pulled it out of the shelf and showed it to her.

"Hey, I remember getting one of these at my wedding and leaving it with you in that hospital somewhere in the future after Berlin," Amy spoke in hushed tones because she really didn't want Mary and that woman - Sally, she remembered - to think of her as crazy. "Could it be this one? Have you been at my wedding yet?"

"Nah, I'm not much for weddings, but you know that."

"Well, then this is how you get it. This is too much of a coincidence, finding this exact diary here, it must be the same. And you'll probably give it to me soon so I can give it to you!" Amy was already pushing the diary into the hands of a confused looking River, then pulled her back to the front of the shop to buy it.

River laid it down on the counter. Mary's eyes widened a bit at the sight of it, but she quickly composed herself and took the money River was offering her. "That all?" Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and it was a look Amy hadn't seen on the young woman yet in the short time she'd known her.

"Yes. Is it okay though? That we bought it? You seem kind of… sad about it." Amy needed to find out what that look meant. It was a book that looked exactly like the TARDIS after all, and these were really an awful lot of coincidences for one small diary.

"Yeah, sure! 'S just, when I started here I kind of hid it back there until I could afford it so no one could find it, but I must've forgotten about it. No worries, though. I'm sure I'll find another nice looking diary," Mary laughed, and it sounded a bit more real than that smile had been.

Amy turned around to exchange a skeptical look with River, but her daughter just smiled at Mary happily. A bit put out, Amy turned back to the young woman as well to say a quick goodbye.

"Hope to see you two again soon! Maybe you want to join Amy and me next time we go to lunch together?" Amy raised her eyebrows at Mary's assumption that they would go to lunch together again, but didn't say anything since she would use any opportunity to get more information on Mary. Something felt weird about her. Did she know the Doctor? Wouldn't she have said anything to Rory if that were the case? Surely Rory had told her about the Doctor? Even if it was just a normal friend in his stories?

"Oh, I don't know when I'll be in New York again, to be honest. But I'll be glad to join you whenever I'm in town." With that Amy and River left the shop.

"Rory said he'd be back at seven, I don't know, do you want to head back to the flat or should we find some pace to sit and talk a bit more?" After thinking she'd lost River forever, Amy couldn't bare thinking she would want to leave so soon. But Amy had been right in the shop - River did what she wanted, and this time, it wasn't any different.

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't. I've got this wedding to attend, and a few other things to do before," She winked.

A few seconds passed without them saying anything. But eventually Amy asked the question that had been bugging her the whole day: "So, when are you going to take us back then?"

"I'm not," River answered, ending a long combination of buttons on her vortex manipulator, and not even Amy's exasperated "Oh, no! Don't you dare-!" stopped her from disappearing with a smirk and "bye-bye".

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

When Rory came home that evening, he found Amy sprawled on the small bed looking at the ceiling.

"Guess who I ran in today," Amy said. Her voice was raspy, and when she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Uh, I don't know," he said urgently, "What happened? Have you been crying?" He sounded concerned and moved quickly towards her, kneeling before the bed.

"She said she wouldn't take us back!" Amy sat up. "She's able to come back but she won't take us back!"

"Who-"

"God, Rory, pay attention! River! She was there, in the shop where I bought all those clothes-" she pointed to the now overflowing chest, "-and then later she said she wouldn't take us back! Can you believe that? How can she be so… so… infuriating?"

"Calm down, Amy!" Rory had long since learned not to let Amy's insults get to him when she was this upset. "How did she even get here? I thought the Doctor said-"

"That it was impossible to come back here, I know! But she didn't know about the paradoxes yet and I think her vortex manipulator can somehow take her here without causing a paradox…"

Rory held up a hand. "Wait, what? What do you mean, 'she didn't know about the paradoxes'?"

"Well, apparently us being sent back hasn't happened for her yet."

"But- How- this doesn't make any sense! How does she know we're here then?" Rory's face was scrunched up in confusion.

"I know, right?!" Amy let herself fall back on the bed. "All she did was say 'Spoilers' - ugh, how I hate that word - and just smirked." She covered her face with her arms, then let them fall back down next to her and looked over at Rory. "Can you believe her? How can she be so selfish? What, is she happy to have the Doctor to herself now? We're her parents!"

Rory was quiet for some time. It was a lot to take in.

"Oh, and we bought her stupid TARDIS diary, found it at Mary's book shop." She sat up again. "You know what, she reacted kind of weirdly when we took it to the counter to buy it. Mary, I mean. She was all… sad-looking. But when I asked - I think she made up some story to cover something up… But wouldn't she have said something if she knew about the Doctor? I mean, you must have mentioned him at some point, right?" When she glanced at Rory then, she found him still as confused as he had been when they'd talked about River.

"I… I'm not sure. I don't think I ever mentioned his name. Don't ask me why, but I never really talked about him. All we did was talk about how we hoped to finally see our loved ones again. And I couldn't very well tell her about travelling with the Doctor, now, could I?"

"Not even an, 'Oh, I've had this friend, the Doctor, we were really close' or something?"

"No, I…" Rory sighed. "I don't know, Amy. How could she know the Doctor anyway? He can't come here, remember?"

"Yeah, but… he can't come here. She was in England before," Amy was in full-on investigating mode now. "Maybe that's why she wants to get back! Maybe she knows something about him being there at some point… Even if she doesn't…" She sat up even straighter. "Oh my God, Rory! He can't come here! That's it! We just have to leave this place and then the Doctor will be free to pick us up!"

"Okay… So you think we should just try and find him somewhere else?"

"No need to try and find him - we'll just send River to tell him where and when we'll be. If she's reasonable enough to agree to that next time we see her. Maybe she knows this is how it's supposed to happen!"

Rory laughed at how sure Amy seemed to be about the whole thing. "Well, we could keep saving money and go to England with Mary as planned. Maybe she really does know something."

Amy bit her lip. "Do you think we should ask her? She told me her story, even why she had to come here-" Rory made a surprised face at that, "yeah, I'll tell you all about that later - maybe she really only wants to get back to her lover? Wouldn't be good if we told her all about aliens if she really tells the truth and doesn't know a thing."

"Yeah, you're right." Rory thought for a while. "Now we need one more ticket to travel to England…"

"Oh, Mary and I were at a publishing house and I got a job - I'm just a secretary at the moment, but I can start tomorrow and I'll be able to hand in my work and my boss will look at it and decide if I'll be able to work as an author again! So you won't be alone in getting the money for the tickets together."

"That's great! I'll just take a quick shower and then you can tell me all about Mary's story and your new job."

He was already halfway through the bathroom door when he heard Amy calling, "You know, I might've mentioned we were getting married soon…"

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

A/N: Hello my dear readers! Here I am again! haha - it's a bit later than I'd thought, but I still didn't let you wait as long as you had to wait for the second chapter… I don't know when I will be able to update again as I have an exam on Tuesday, but I'll try and write as fast as I can!

I hope you like this chapter! Many things are starting to happen (are they?), many things are revealed (or not?), and I really can't wait to see what you think of this development! As always, please review so I know what to do better! All mistakes are mine!

And a big thank you to that lovely Guest reader, I loved your review and thanks for saying that! So sad I can't reply to guest's reviews personally :(

Disclaimer: I only own most of what I make BBC's characters do and say, everything else belongs to them.