Family Stories Through Time
[Shibuya Operation - Story Storm]
Chapter One: Faith
"Once upon a time, there was a lonely little girl with a fairy-tale name. She didn't have a mum, or a dad. She only had an aunt who was hardly ever around. One night she wished for a friend, and her wish was granted when a raggedy-looking Doctor crashed his blue box into her shed. He promised to show her the stars, but then he disappeared. She kept waiting for him, though, and her faith was rewarded when he came back for her years later."
Raina loved hearing her grandmother tell her stories. Every child loved hearing stories, but for Raina, it was even more fun because she knew they were all true. Of course, Raina was no normal child. She was the daughter of a Time Lord, the last of the Time Lords. She had all of time and space at her fingertips. But even though she could have plenty of her own adventures, she still loved hearing about those of her family. Especially considering that her parents were careful about keeping her away from danger. As much as danger followed the Doctor, he had managed so far to keep his daughter safe. It helped that the TARDIS, who usually would take the Doctor into risky situations if he was needed there, was far more careful when Raina was onboard.
"But weren't you lonely before he came back?" Raina asked one night when she was five years old. She was all warm and cozy in the bed she always slept in when she was staying with her grandparents. Amy was sitting on the side of the bed, telling her own story to Raina.
"I was at first, yeah, but I made two friends who stuck by me, even when everyone else thought I was mad," Amy told her with a fond smile on her face. "Rory and Mels were always there for me."
"Grandpa and Mum!" Raina said excitedly.
"Exactly. I waited 12 years for the Doctor, but your grandpa once waited nearly 2,000 years for me. And your Mum has always been saving all of us, even when we didn't know who she was," Amy said. She had that sad look on her face that she got sometimes when talking about River. Raina knew that her mum had been taken away as a baby but found the child version of her parents and ended up growing up alongside them. Years later Raina would come to understand just how horrible the whole thing had really been, and she would learn exactly why Melody Pond had been stolen. But, for now, the story was one that showed that no matter if she was Melody, Mels, or River, Raina's mother would always find her family.
Raina reached her hand out from under the TARDIS-blue comforter and squeezed her grandmother's hand. She might not know or understand all of the sad parts of her family's history yet, but she could tell when someone was hurting. Amy smiled at the gesture, and ran her other hand through Raina's brown curls.
"That's the thing about our family, Raina. I've learned that no matter how bad things get, or how scared or alone I might feel, they will always be there for me. And we will always be there for you."
As wonderful as Amy's stories were, sometimes they made Raina feel a little sad. She could picture a young red-haired girl, waiting night after night for her new friend to return. How lonely had she been? Of course, before long she made friends with Rory and Mels, but still. It couldn't have been easy, having everyone around you calling you mad and telling you that your friend wasn't real. Raina knew that if she were ever to tell anyone that her father was a time-traveling alien, they'd definitely think she was mad. Maybe that was why she fixated so much on her grandmother's childhood. Raina also felt lonely sometimes.
"Do you ever wish our family was normal?" Raina asked.
Amy looked thoughtful. "I never wanted normal when I was younger. I wanted adventure and excitement, and that was hard to come by in Leadworth. But after I started traveling with the Doctor, and I learned the cost of living that life, I did start to wish things could be different. I don't think I would change a thing, though, because if our family was normal, it wouldn't be us. My little Melody would have never become River Song, and then we wouldn't have you."
Even for a Time Lord child, trying to make sense of all of the events that led to her existence was hard for Raina. There were still so many things that she didn't really understand, and wouldn't until she was older. Her grandparents were younger than her parents, and her parents were never meeting in the right order. Raina herself would never get to have a "normal" life. Her father was incapable of staying in one place for too long, and her mother was in Stormcage a lot of the time. The only time Raina ever had a taste of normalcy was when she was with her grandparents. They taught her what it meant to be human, even though Raina never really could be (and neither was she completely Time Lord). Thinking about any of it too hard made her feel sad, so she usually tried not to.
Still, even though Amy's stories sometimes made Raina feel a little sad, they also gave her hope. Little Amelia Pond's Raggedy Doctor always came back for her. Amy Pond's husband, the Last Centurion, never wavered in his loyalty for her. And though Melody Pond had been taken from Amy, she had come back to her as Mels, her other childhood friend, and again as River Song, the clever woman who could always be counted on. Any bad situation that Amy ever got into always ended with one or more of them coming to help her. She had faith in her family, and that was renewed every time that they came through for her.
Raina Song learned a lot of things from Amy Pond, but maybe the most important thing she learned was to have faith in her family. Her family was weird and complicated, and their stories often had endings that were more bittersweet than happy. She would face danger and loss in her life, there was just no way around that, being the daughter of the last Time Lord. But perhaps the most important lesson Raina learned from her grandmother was this:
She learned that no matter how hard things got, her family would never, ever abandon her.
Author's Note: Hey look who's actually writing again? Thank you to everyone involved in [Shibuya Operation - Story Storm] for letting me be a part of this! I'll be writing a total of five chapters for this fanfic.
I came up with this OC a few years ago, but never got around to actually publishing anything. I do have some one-shots sitting around for this AU that I'll upload at some point though!
Thank you to Aviantei for inviting me to be a part of this challenge and always giving me encouragement!
Also, thank you to my friends Cat and Destiny for beta reading! And thanks again to Cat for helping me with the story title.
Next up will be Rory, as he teaches Raina about patience.