Chapter 7

"Get ready - we're going on a mission!"

Amy blinked against the blinding light of the torch being pointed right into her eyes. "It's the middle of the night! And stop pointing that torch at my face, River!" she hissed, careful not to wake Rory who would have to be at the hospital in the morning, earlier than usual.

The light went out, and Amy could see that River was wearing all black - black trousers, a partly zipped up black leather jacket over a black shirt, and black boots. She had a black rucksack in her hand, pulling out a similar outfit for Amy.

When Amy sat up, she was greeted by a bundle of clothes which she angrily took, pulling herself out of the warm bed to quickly get dressed. She'd already decided that she'd come along, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Why did River have to barge into her life all the time, without Amy having control over it? Sure, she was relieved she still got to see River a lot despite being stuck, but why did River get to decide the when and where? And why did it have to be the middle of the night?

"Care to tell me what you're up to?" Amy whispered while tugging on the clothes.

"You'll find out soon enough. Now come here." River pushed some buttons on her vortex manipulator, then took Amy's hand to lay it on the device before pressing what Amy assumed was the 'go'-button.

Then all she saw was the crackling light of the flash that always accompanied travelling by vortex manipulator and forced her to close her eyes.

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When Amy opened her eyes again, it wasn't much brighter than it had been back at her flat.

"Getting us to the right time and place - check! Now we only have to find her…" River was quietly talking to herself, already on her way to take a look around the corner of the building they had landed behind. "Keep quiet, Amy. We don't know if they are still following her."

"River," Amy started, completely confused and frustrated by her daughter's behaviour, "could you please just tell me what's going on? Who's 'her'? And who's following her? And why did we have to dress up like this?" She pulled on her black jumper beneath her own black leather jacket she had left open. "And most importantly: Why did you have to wake me up for this in the middle of the night?"

River looked back at Amy. "I told you, we're on a mission. It just feels more like one if you're wearing all black and doing it in the middle of the night." She turned back to peek around the corner once more. "Ok, this street is clean. Come on." She blindly reached for her mother's hand, not daring to look away.

Amy stubbornly pulled her hand away. "No. Not until you tell me what we're doing here." She crossed her arms across her chest.

This elicited a sigh from River. She reluctantly turned away from the street corner, walking towards Amy, then put a hand on her shoulder. "We're in New York, a few blocks away from your flat. It's 1970, and somewhere around this area, nine-year-old me is going to regenerate in an hour or two. Now, I don't know exactly where that is," River continued, ignoring Amy's attempts to interrupt her, "it has been a long time to be fair, and I was a bit too ill to pay attention to where exactly I was… But let's just walk that way there. We still have time to look for her." By now she was pointing around the corner towards an even quieter and darker part of the city.

"We're going to rescue Melody? I mean, you? She's dying?!" Amy's motherly instincts returned in an instant and River could see that there was no stopping Amy from getting to her nine-year-old self.

"Yes. I had been left alone for a few months and hadn't been very healthy to begin with - combined with little food and basically living on the street during winter, well… it wasn't really surprising I died. But that was also the first time I realised I could fix it by regenerating."

"Yeah, yeah, now, come on! We've got to find her!" Now it was Amy pulling her daughter with her, not bothering to check before walking around the corner - then quickly backing away again, keeping her eyes on the creatures before her.

There were now two Silents in the otherwise deserted street. They hadn't noticed Amy and River yet, and were walking away from them, in that weird way they always moved.

"Ok, here's what we're going to do. We're going to follow them - they're almost definitely on their way to get little me back. They've probably been watching her this entire time, seeing how much she could handle before dying. I'm going to keep my eyes on the Silents," She pulled a gun out of the rucksack, "That way you're going to be free to search for little me. I can't touch her - that would be too big of a paradox, and trust me, you don't want to meet the Reapers - so that only leaves one option." She strapped the vortex manipulator from her wrist and wrapped it around Amy's arm. "Right after the regeneration is over, you'll have to run for her. She's going to be a toddler again, and the Silence will do everything to get her back," by now, River was pulling an overwhelmed Amy around the corner, keeping close to the walls, gun pointed towards the Silents, and keeping her voice down so that they could stay hidden, "You'll have to grab her, put her hand onto the vortex manipulator as I did back at your flat, and push that button there," without taking her eyes off the Silents, she pointed to the only round button on the device, "It's a reverse button of sorts, taking you back to the place from which it was activated last but a few minutes later, so you'll end up back at the flat. I'm going to be fighting off the Silence. I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this, but you're going to have to drop off little me at your flat and come straight back. Just push the reverse button again. I won't be able to escape otherwise. That enough information about the mission?"

Still a bit overwhelmed, it took Amy a few seconds to answer. "Yeah. Of course I'll come back."

"Now, it shouldn't be difficult to find Melody. We're going to follow them for as long as we need to, then I'll kill these two. There sure are more out there, but we have to be there faster than them."

They walked like this for a few more minutes, pressed up against the walls of the buildings, River leading the way, keeping her eyes and the gun pointed at the Silents before them.

Then the two Silents suddenly turned around, their alien screams echoing through the night, and their long pointy fingers slowly coming up to point at River and Amy.

"They must have sensed us!" River shot twice and that was all it took for the two creatures to hit the ground with a soft thud. Thankfully, her gun was from far enough in the future to be of the silent kind, so it wouldn't alarm anyone, neither the people living there nor any other Silents that would surely be somewhere around here.

"At least we've come this far without having to search every corner. Come on, I'm gonna keep looking for the Silence and you'll have to find Melody."

Amy warily looked into every street they passed. Before now, she had been too afraid to forget about the creatures as soon as she looked away to look anywhere but them. But now the urge to rescue her little daughter from those very creatures was getting stronger than the fear (probably had to do with the fact that she had partly forgotten about the fear and the creatures) and she kept her eyes moving from dark corner to dark corner.

Suddenly she could hear footsteps running towards them. River raised her gun again, and they pressed further into the shadows.

"Burning… she was… burning! Oh God…" There was a tremor in the desperate voice coming from the same direction as the footsteps.

"Oh God, that's her!" Amy took off, ignoring River's yells of protest.

Not letting Amy out of sight, River was soon close behind her mother, gun raised and checking their surroundings for any sign of the Silence.

They soon could see the golden glow of regeneration energy, and Amy turned around the corner of the street where it came from.

There she was, her little girl, in a (at least for Amy) familiar situation. She was reminded of Berlin and how her childhood friend suddenly became her daughter right in front of her eyes.

It had changed her life - just like this would.

She was getting her baby back!

She felt tears coming to her eyes, but blinked them back - she had to get ready to run.

And sure enough, a few seconds later the golden glow subsided and left a bundle of clothes on the ground.

"Amy! Now! They're coming!," she heard River call out to her.

She took a few slow steps towards the now moving bundle before she broke out into a run, picking the baby up in her arms. She put Melody's small hand on the vortex manipulator and held it there with her own, pressing her thumb to the button River had shown her.

Then they disappeared to the sound of infuriated screams of the Silence and the beginnings of River's shooting.

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She reappeared in her flat, the baby in her arms crying. She saw Rory rushing to her side.

She was shocked. This was too surreal. But she had to get back and rescue her daughter a second time for the night, so there was no time to be shocked.

"Here, take her, I'll be right back," Amy pushed the bundle into Rory's arms without much of an explanation - the sooner she got back to River, the better.

So, ignoring Rory's pleas for her to explain, she pushed the same button again and with a crack, Rory and their baby disappeared from her view.

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The first thing she noticed when she arrived in 1970 was that there was no shooting anymore. River was still on alert, holding the gun and pointing it in whichever direction she was looking. Relief flooded through Amy when she saw that River was ok, and she ran towards her.

River abruptly turned around, pointing her gun at Amy, then lowering it when she saw it was her mother.

Amy pulled her into a hug, but River didn't let it linger too long.

"I'm not sure how many of them are still out there, we should get back." River was already pulling the vortex manipulator from Amy's wrist. She put it back on her own arm, and Amy put her hand on the device, now familiar with travelling this way.

A few seconds later they were back at the flat, finding Rory sitting on the bed with a now sleeping Melody in his arms.

He looked up at the sound of their arrival. "Is this…?" He seemed confused but at the same time amazed by what had happened.

"Yes. That's me. Little me." River smiled at her father. "I should be going. Wouldn't want the Reapers to come around here and devour the whole universe. See you!"

Then she was gone, leaving her very confused parents behind.

"That's the second time she said that," Amy finally said.

"What's just happened?"

Amy sighed. She turned out the light, then went back to the bed to settle next to Rory. She pulled Melody out of her husband's arms, and laid her down between them. Then she watched her daughter as she took her thumb into her mouth and smiled in her sleep.

"Why don't you lie back down? It's a very long story."

A half hour later, Amy had finished her story. They were both lying on their sides, watching their daughter sleep peacefully between them.

After a while Rory broke the silence with a whisper. "Do you think this is why she refused to take us back to the Doctor? Because for her this had already happened and she knew we had to raise her here?"

Amy thought back to her first conversation about this with River. "Of course… She didn't want the Doctor for her own. She wanted us! As her parents. Growing up with us in the right way, having a normal childhood… Oh, I feel so bad for calling her selfish now. I mean, it's still selfish, but at least I understand why she did it."

They soon went back to just watching their daughter sleep.

And for the first time, Amy was actually happy to be stuck here.

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A/N: Surprise! I'm back with another chapter already! But this one was surprisingly easy to write. This story is far from over though, I've got a few more surprises left for you ;) I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Feel free to tell me what you think about it, whether you liked it or not.

As always, all mistakes are mine!

Disclaimer: No, nothing has changed in the last few days, I still don't own Doctor Who.