Disclaimer: I do not own any recogniseable characters.

... and old friends

(Sequel S.7 ep. 10)

A series of unfortunate events leads Amelia to a Person she hadn't seen in thirty years.

-o0O0o-

AN: The following paragraph features the not too graphic description of a violent death. If you're uncomfortable with reading stuff like that, skip to the next paragraph sign. You'll still be able to follow the Story.

-o0O0o-

It had been such a wonderful evening, Tony mused absently while wearingly eying the gun pointed at Sally.
The bar in the 91th had been the perfect spot for their Date, the kitchen was excellent, the cocktails good and didn't go to fast into your head and luckily today even their favorite Singer had been there.
They had come here sooo often in the one and a half years of their relationship, and even if it was in one of the little bit shadier corners of the city, anything had ever happened to the young white couple. Until today.

Now they found themselves on this cold winter night in a side-alley with only some trash containers, the backdoor of the bar, the end of a fire escape and some dark figures pointing guns at them as company.
"Look," he tried to keep his voice steady over his loves silent sobs, "This clearly is a misunderstanding."

"Hardly," the gentlemen with the red had ribbon smiled. It sickened Tony, that even when those five men clearly were none, their behavior and clothing still involuntarily let him think of them as such. And that was truly frightening.
"You are Anthony Williams, aren't you."
It was more a statement than a question.

Before he even was able to open his mouth they were interrupted by the opening of the backdoor and the noises of laughter and brawling.
A woman stepped out, her face still hidden behind the door shooting something back to someone inside with a giggle. Still, Tony recognized that beautiful strange purple-red dress under that black coat immediately.
Miss Fortaellenmaèr, the lovely singer of their favorite band. She closed the door, turned and froze.
"Run. Jesus, please, run!"
She rose a thin eyebrow at his scream. "My name is Marion, not Jesus."

He couldn't even react to that strange answer in that faint french accent, because instead of turning and running like any sane being she stepped forward to them. "What are you doing!"
She didn't react and still came closer.
Red-head- ribbon sighted and turned his head slightly, so he could see her from the winkle of his eye. "Young lady, I hate to admit, but that boy here is right. Please, listen to him, I don't want to cause you harm."
She smiled a small charming smile. "Neither do I. So why not taking a step away from those two dearies and placing those nasty looking devices on the floor?"
What the hell was she doing! "Shit, Miss Fortaellamaèr, run!"
The man next to Tony showed a row of really bad teeth. "Ehm, no."

She hummed, then took another step forward with a sudden excitement in her eyes.
"You realize how cheesy all this is? You know, dark alley, suspicious gentlemen witch strange tastes for clothing"- she pointed at the one with the ridiculous green pinstripe suit, then at red-had ribbon-" bad teeth, a young damsel in distress, an idealistic but also young protector and lover. Exactly like in one of these old cheap crime novels. I always wanted to be a character in a novel. On the other hand, maybe I am?"
"Oh, so that's why you're still here. You're the hero." All of them laughed.

Miss Fortaelamaèr still smiled. It was strange how unmovable her polite charming smile was and still there were so many nuances to it… no. To her eyes. It was all in that strangely colored eyes
"I'm no hero. Still, this is your last chance to take a step aside and lay that… thing down."
"You know this..this is a gun. It can kill people. Make them dead." One of them slowly explained with a voice made for a four year old, not a woman at the beginning of her thirties.
"One more reason to put it down, do you not agree?" Her accent had somehow changed from french to an unfamiliar completely different pronunciation and speech pattern.
"Or what." Red-head ribbon laughed but there was an underlying of annoyance in that sentence. Not question but statement.
She didn't give an answer or moved, simply smiled at them.

"Well?" Now he was clearly annoyed as he pointed his weapon at her.
Sally chocked the singers name, but she didn't react.
Still stood there like a statue smiling at them.

It was even creepier than having a gun on their heads, Tony decided.
Even the gentlemen seemed to lean slightly away from this transfixing gaze without actually taking a step backwards. Even if they surely were tempted to do so. If the silent "What the hell", one of them murmured was any indication.
Then appeared a single little triangle between the fine brows, before she looked up.
She stared a few seconds up to apparently one of the windows and everyone followed her gaze but nothing was there. Until a loud crash and screaming voices broke the heavy silence and in the next second a cat jumped out of the window.
And suddenly hell broke loose.

In the amount of not even four seconds all five of the shady men were dead or almost.
Tony's mother always wrote about wonders, coincidences who changed lives, strange patterns in society who lead to certain events, but he ever believed in them. It was fiction.
Magic wasn't real.
And still, a more unfortunate series of events, of coincidences could not happened as in those nearly four seconds, saving the life of his two female companions and his own.
And a lot of it had to do with the fact, that all of them had already released the safety catch.

The cat landed straight in red-head-ribbon's face, and after an screaming fight to shake her of his eyes were scratched out. In an attempt to help him the guy in the green pinstripe started shooting at the cat and the one with the bad teeth was caught in the crossfire, breaking down with a bullet in his knee. Simultaneously another one took a surprised step backwards, slipped on a frozen puddle right behind him and crashed his head on one of the trash containers. While falling down unconscious or maybe dead if the bad wound was any indication, his gun broke loose, too, and somehow in a cruel miracle, missed Sally's cheek by an fingertip and hit the one to Tony's left straight in the chest.
The trash container meanwhile slipped backwards and crashed with a loud noise against the wall, and somehow these slight vibrations were enough to loosen the badly secured ladder of the fire escape. It vertically crashed down with full force, and the guy in the green pinstripe-suit never knew what hit him as it first crushed his skull and then his whole body underneath it.

A few seconds, way longer than the whole incident lasted, there was nothing but the silent horror and the pain of Sally's nails cutting in his arms as the both of them tried to comprehend what the hell just happened. All while waiting for that death retiling that still sounded out under the ladder to finally die down. And finally the moment the merciful silence took the man or what was left of him, the silent scream frozen on Sally's lips died down into a heart-wrenching whimpering.

"That took longer than expected."
Both screamed, completely startled by the words, the singer completely forgotten.
While the two of them had covered down on the floor in those few seconds of chaos, she stood tall and completely unaffected at the same spot she had been before.
"What, dying after your head got crushed," Tony splat out. '
Strange, normally he wasn't the one for sarcasm. But then, his mother was. Sometimes his father, too. And he had never felt this helpless, either.

"No, Misses Thorn. She normally gets angry way faster whenever the bar is getting too loud."
She shrugged and stepped over the breathing but unconscious form of red- head-ribbon. She untied her scarf, while slowly coming over to them but before she could reach them, Sally screamed and recoiled.
"What the hell are you!"

Miss Fortaellamaèr stopped dead in her track, then bend down on one knee, to be on one eye line with the couple cowering on the floor.
Her movements were slow, careful as if not to startle an frightened animal.
It could be soothing, if it weren't for the blood on the floor for which she didn't seemed to care a bit, kneeling in it while the beautiful fabric of her dress slowly turned red as it absorbed the liquid.
But her voice, oh that voice…
"Everything is all right, you are save now, Sally, right? The Police will be here soon. I am not going to hurt you and neither will one of them."

"They are dead," her voice was shrill, and Tony tried to soothe her but she pushed him away. "They are dead because of, hell I don't even know what exactly just happened and you… you just… Anthony."
She started sobbing again and this time allowed him to hug her, stroking her hair and comforting her while he not once took his eyes from Miss Fortaellamaèr. She didn't point a gun at them, but her coldness , that warm smile despite being surrounded by dead or crippled bodies and still being able to hold this warm shimmer in those multicolored eyes…
She perhaps was even more dangerous than those five before her.

But there was this sad, distant sparkle when she spoke, actually spluttered next.
"I apologize. I, I did not…. I am sorry. Sometimes I, I forget. The war did.. I am sorry. I did not want to scare you, I…"
"It's ok." Whispered Tony, and he meant it.

Miss Fortaellamaèr was French after all, or at least seemed to be. She was at the beginning of her thirties, somewhere between 29 and 33, which would have made her five to nine years older than him. She was born there, between blood and wounded or dead bodies, a child growing up in the horrors of the thing he only knew from the tales of his father, being born the year Hitler's dark campaign against the world ended. This was normal for her, stepping over dead bodies, hearing the grunting of the wounded, soothing the scared. She probably didn't knew anything else until the war was over.

"What?", whispered Sally too tired to be truly shocked by his reaction.
"When did you leave France," he asked too tired to explain, too.
"July 1943" Miss Fortaellamaèr whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Oh," said Sally softly. And this time she didn't recoiled as the other came closer and slowly draped her scarf over her shoulders.
"You're shaking, deary. It is all right, I did not want to scare you, and that fine young man of you surely would have protected you. Don't worry, the police will be here shortly and they will get medical attention , they will survive."
"But.. but how is something like that even possible!"
"She is right," Anthony murmured, "Something like this, it was an accident, yes but it's just not possible. This makes no sense!"
"People call it a butterfly- effect, if I remember correctly. It seems, you two had immense luck."
"Yeah." But somehow Anthony didn't, wasn't able to believe that. It just was a too big coincidence.
But on the other hand, this raised the scariest question: what else could have it been?

-o0O0o-

The room was full of smoke, voices and music. '
She maneuvered herself through the crowds of people before falling down on a seat at a little table in a corner. She let her eyes wander over the dancers, the tables and the bar, while opening her coat.
No wonder Anthony liked this bar. It was clean with comfortable furniture and people of all ages and nationalities milling in the crowds.

It had been ages since she had an evening on herself, or with her husband for the matter.
Literally.
First there was the war, and of course Rory had to fight in it.
And afterward they had a child to rise. So no, there weren't this much spare time for the two. And time went on, they didn't get younger.

She leaned back after a young waitress took their order and listened to the vaguely familiar singer in the purple and red dress.
It was strange, she never liked Jazz, until they fell back.
It was a bitter-sweet realization, she knew now another reason why the Doctor travelled in time so much. You only truly understood things by being there. This music had nothing to do with the Jazz from back then, from later. The old records with the crackling , shrill Music had nothing to do with the life, the reality and excellence of this handmade live-performance.
Still, she eyed the singer warily, after all, she had hurt her baby.

Yes, Miss Fortaelamaèr had saved Anthony by delaying those idiots who tried to adduce him and therefore this creepy incident was able to happen.
But in the aftermath he not only had lost his girlfriend because of it, but this experience also pushed him into an essential crisis about a higher existence which lead him into strange and unhealthy circles of occultists and other shady sects.
He couldn't believe that something simple as a cat jumping out of a window did lead to a chain of coincidences resulting in the direct deaths of three and the crippling of two people.
But as unlikely as it seemed, it wasn't impossible.

Amelia Williams, Amy Pond had seen things more unlikely, crazy and wonderful than such a strain of good or in the case of those Gangsters bad luck.

Bodies made of liquid flesh, developing their own consciousness and turning against their creators.
Reptilian humanoids , the second intelligent species of earth, ruling it long before humanity and currently sleeping deep down in the earth, waiting to conquer it once more.
An age-old creature carrying what was left of Britain's population on its back while traveling through space.
Creatures you'll forget whenever you turn your eyes off them.
Creatures turning to stone whenever you laid your eyes on them.
And a mad man in a blue box.

But she could not tell Anthony anything of it.
She tried, oh she tried, but he believed it all just her imagination. She had written half a dozen books about these things, after all.

She wasn't able to explain exactly why she wanted to see Marion Fortaelamaèr, but she needed to.
To thank her? To hurt her, too?
She didn't knew.
She also didn't knew why she was this obsessed with that woman, it had been ten months after all.
Maybe it was the challenge to actually meet her?
She never backed down a challenge. And it was a hell of a challenge.

Miss Fortaelamaèr didn't live in New York but actually came from New Orleans all the way here, and that in no actual pattern.
Nobody seemed to know why. She just turned up in the evening and sang with the band or sometimes called before she came so the owner was able to announce her. But she was so good, nobody complained about it, they just were happy she had chosen that little bar to perform without taking any fee for it. She certainly could.

Oh yeah, that voice was excellent. No typical jazz –voice, not raspy or deep, but still that warm comforting hum in it.
A hum, Amy somehow knew.
In fact, Miss Fortaelamaèr was more than a bit familiar, she knew her from somewhere.
Other than Anthony's description of her, that's it.
Maybe it was a not yet famous person she knew from then, it already happened before.
She closed her eyes and listened to the music, waiting, searching for a song that may give her a clue.
She waited long enough t hear that voice after all.

In the ten months the singer had been announced four times, one time Amy had an appointment with her publisher and twice the concert suddenly was canceled the evening she had been there. She also had been out randomly, taking an evening stroll to the 19th but she never hit a day the mysterious woman was there. She had been on the way to an appointment earlier this day when she had noticed the colorful script on the blackboard outside the door and had taken her chance.
And had been lucky.

And about three hours a few snacks, drinks ( non-alcoholic, she never drunk when without Rory) and one or two dances with a nice but boring lad later, the band changed.
Amy watched the doors to the backstage when suddenly the young waitress put another cocktail before her.
"I'm sorry, I didn't order that."
"Oh, it's a gift," she grinned, " from the lady. She obviously noticed your attention."
"Lady who?"
"Lady Marion," she made a short movement with her head to the stage entrance.
The singer in that strange red-purple shimmering dress, a coat slung over her left arm, a suitcase in her hand, talking to her laughing trumpeter.
"Enjoy," the waitress winked and left. Somehow Amy got the feeling she missed something.
Thoughtful she nipped at the blue-yellow liquid and to her surprise it not only tasted really good but apparently was without any alcohol in it. Somebody had taken track of her orders and she wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"Amelia Pond."
She froze.
Nobody knew her maiden-name, not here at last.

She turned her head to find the singer standing there, her full brown hair draped down over one shoulder, a beautiful smile on her long triangular face and a twinkle in her eyes. Those strange colored eyes, as if she couldn't decided which eye-color she wanted and simply took all four.
Happy, friendly and exited but not quite able to hide the deep in them.
Knowing and old.
So old.
Oh my…
And then Amy noticed the fine necklace with the golden pendant on it.

Of course.
Of course it was her.
She hadn't change a bit.
It was nothing but the unusual makeup and hairdo which prevented Amy from recognizing her.
She never had worn makeup before after all. Nor her hair open, if she could avoid it, but yes, there still was that side-bang framing the left side of her face.

The Human breathed out unbelievingly, not able to find words.
The Time Lord beamed and spread her arms as an invitation which Amy promptly took.
She didn't care about this completely untypical behavior but simply tried to comprehend the situation. '
She laughed and shook her head, tears in her eyes. "Tella!"

-o0O0o-

Tella in fact had changed, not only her appearance but her behavior, too.
It had been about thirty years since Amy saw her, even a bit more because she hadn't been there when the Angels took them from their Time, so she did notice the later before the former.
But the moment she realized that Tella didn't look like her beginning twenties but the beginning of her thirties, everything made a lot more sense.

She was more open, that polite mask on her face had cracks, in fact she while speaking to Amy, she didn't wear it at all.
She laughed openly or rose an confused eyebrow with her mouth slightly open and a shake of her head.
And she moved.
A tapping of her fingers against each other here, or playing with her earrings there, not that motionless statue she had been before.
She still sat upright, still stiff but it seemed more natural.
She was alive.

Not fully healed, but -for the first time since Amy met her- satisfied.
It took a long time for a Time Lord to age physically about ten years.
After all, the Doctor had one time taken a 200 Year long tour without them and they hadn't even noticed until he slipped about his age.
So Time is able to heal all wounds.

"But leaves scars. Why this particular thought?"
Amy flinched "Sorry, I didn't want to say that loud."
Tella ginned. "I noticed. Still, the question stands." She had beautiful teeth.
Amy pondered a second how to best formulate an answer, even lying but there was something so open and trusting in Tella's old eyes, something she had never seen there before. So she just said the truth in pure Tella-bluntness. "It healed you after all."
And Tella blushed.
The Lady Storyteller blushed and cleared her throat awkwardly.

Amy started to giggle.
Like a little schoolgirl, not like a woman in the beginning of her sixties.

Tella watched her fondly "I missed your laughter, Amy Pond. You are beautiful."
"I'm old," Amy corrected.
"You're breathing."

Her melancholy was different, too. The grief for her planet had tuned into a soft, warming glow of affection. That spark there was something different, new, Amy didn't understand but had seen before. Incredibly old, incredibly kind, bodily barely half her age.

"That's the weirdest compliment I got so far."
"But you still get some. Enjoying the nightlife, and all it entails?" she winked.
Of course she has seen her attempts at dancing.

"Swinging those hips, before artritis also takes my hips, yes. At least I know dances of this… place!" She corrected herself in time, and Tella chuckled.
"I'm sure, and Rory is certainly a better dance partner, too. I have yet to spot him."
"Night shift," Amy shrugged and, noticing the curiosity, added, "He's a Doctor at the Metropolitan. 36 Hour shifts and all that stuff."
"Thirty- How is that even possible, a turn of this planet only has 24! The time I worked as a physician-"
"You're a Doctor?"

"Yes, for humans. I needed a distraction while stuck."
"Stuck- ok, what's going on? What happened."
"I'm here at my own will. I promised," Tella reassured.
"Then the Doctor-"
"No. No, he's not here. Otherwise, helping Anthony would have been a lot more complicated."

Somehow, Amy wasn't surprised Tella knew about him. Right!

"Actually, that why I'm here. To speak to you about that."
"Me? Why so? It did not looked like you knew my real Identity until I came over. Or did you?"
"No, but.. It's because of Anthony."
Tella smiled, "A fine young man, if a bit slow. You raised him well, proving family is not all about blood once again."
But then she noticed her expression. "Everything all right? What happened?"
"You," Amy murmured before realizing her mistake.

Apparently this was a thing, Tella didn't come to terms with, yet.
The Time Lady blanched, her hands curled into fists, her pained gaze avoided Amy and fixed itself on her empty glass before her instead.
"I.. I just wanted to help. Those rude… Humans, they…"
"Tella, that came out wrong, I'm sorry. I'm grateful for your help."
"I killed those people."

"It was a butterfly- effect."
"I know. That's the problem."
"Tella you could have done anything about it. You just were there for the right moment."
"I am a.. My species does not wait for the right moment."
"I'm sure… "And then it occurred to Amy that those answers did not make sense at all.
"What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about, "asked Tella back, a strange expression on her face.
The she closed her eyes and sighted before mumbling something in gallifreyan. It was funny, none of the things she and the doctor told about the Timelords indicated they knew any swear words, but Tella sometimes clearly cursed. It would be interesting to know the meaning of those words a species able to control time and timelines would come up…..
Control of time and timelines.

How high was the potentiality of a chain of this many unfortunate events happening straight after each other?
The potential of a cat jumping into the face of a person? Low.
Two other persons getting randomly shot and hit? Very low, too.'
A person slipping, and hitting his head. Also low.
And this person causing a chain of events leading to another death. Extremely low.
All these events together.
Nearly Impossible.
Maybe one single Timeline.
Or even not a single one, but an artificial one, waved out of different possibilities, a carefully crafted story, webbed into the fabric of time by the Storyteller.
She was capable of all this after all. And she had already informed the police before the whole disaster had even started.

"You did this. You changed the timelines. Does the Doctor knows of this?"
"As I said, he's not here. If the Doctor knew of this, deary, I would spend my time chained to the zero room with the chip in my head activated again. I didn't changed the timeline, I simply urged it in another direction by actively participating in it. It's a difference. I swore to protect time and after the war I renewed that vow. "
Amy gulped as she remembered the picture of the insane Timelady with the blind eyes chained to the floor in one specific Hotel-room.

"But then why would he imprison you."
"Because he will realize my name, my old one. That's a rather unique ability of mine, you see. But lucky enough he is not here, nor will turn up in the next forty years. And I do not plan to use this monstrous abilities again. So It will be save to live here."
"Well, Anthony believed a higher existence somehow influenced what happened. At least he was right with that. The influence, at least."

Then something else occurred to her about the hints Tella had dropped over the whole conversation. "Are you.. are you running away from him."
Tella laughed. " No, no I do not. I'm simply stranded on this planet since about eighty, nintey years? Something like that. I still do not have my own TARDIS. Or any other traveling device than those provided by this time-place. At least until March 1978, there are some Syeilt'uritack coming down here and I intend to leave with them. If they take me, otherwise i have to improvise, taking an example of your dear daugter."
"You live on earth since about hundred years? How the hell did that happen!"

"It's a rather long story. Everything started with the Doctor choosing to behave like a timetodd again, as always…."
And then she started to tell from a sulking man in a blue box on a cloud, from worried friends and living snowmen.
How she settled in Manchester as a physician, before working fifty years as a housekeeper for an blind woman, her travelling the world as she always had to change locations after a short time because of her permanent youth and her current pet project of a school for poor or underprivileged children in New Orleans.
"But why are you here, in Manhattan. I mean, New Orleans is the City of Jazz but…. Oh. Oh, Tella!"

"A promise given is always to be kept."
"You are crazy."
"That's my last regeneration, this one is quite sane, I assure you. Also only un till the 1930, if I remember correctly. New Orleans as the City of Jazz I mean. "

Amy laughed and shook her head, before she leant back and closed her eyes. "We will never see him again, will we."
"You chose to never see him again," Tella silently corrected.
"Yes," Amy sighted, "Yes I know. But that doesn't make it easier. Will you give him our regards when you see him again."
"Of course."

She ignored the strange glitter in Tella's Eyes and sighed. "So.. what now?"
"I have to catch my train. Or I search for a phone to call Madison to inform her I need a few days longer and stay with you and your spouse. You said I did something to him. If you wish I'll fully take responsibility for my sins and set the wrongs I did to him right."
Amy couldn't believe what she was hearing and started laughing.
"You let that sound like you.. I don't know froze him in a time-loop or something like that. You just urged his imagination in the wrong way…. And caused his girlfriend to leave him. Still the second sounds tempting. At least my son would never dare to treat me as a lunatic again."

"How disrespectful. I just wanted to apologize for scaring Sally away, she seemed to be a decent girl. But apparently she had her reasons if he dares to treat his mother like that."
"It's ok. He's a very rational person, or at least was. He always called my stories fantasies and I can't blame him."
"But you tried to tell him the truth. About the Doctor. And me. "
"Yeah, but he rather believes in some spiritual mumbo-jumbo, than life from another planet."
"Hmm. It seems you are in need for a private teacher who tells him a few stories."

She almost pitied her son, as she saw that malicious little smile on Tella's face. Almost.


AN: I humbly apologize for any mistakes, I've never been to Manhattan.

Here is the second part of the two shot. Amy and Tella talk very much, but they haven't seen each other in centuries. For one of them literally. And Tella clearly sees the Ponds/Williams as her friends now, obviously. And we get another glimpse why the Timelords feared Tella so much. I explain this in a later story more detailed. Obviously It wasn't WWII which caused Tella to accustom herself to such bloodshred.
Anthony was adopted in 1946 as a baby so this roughly plays somewhere at the end of the sixties. In my headcannon Rory and Amy arrive around '39-40 and have to find each other first.

While This Fic was under reconstruction, New chapershad been added before this one. So, back then this was always the one you get linked to whenever you klick the link in the e-mail or the Button next to the Title. To find the new content you needed to look in the descripion, I always left a note there. Thanks to BloodyGrimm and Chimmicherry for pointing this out to me.

Thank you Zoey, I'll try to write as fast as my RL allows me. And be assured, there is way more ;-)
As always read and review.

Greetings

alkatie

PS: I knew for sure it was Missy in the vault, the second the doctor asked her to eat Mexican with him. Nobody else would be this delighted about a Story featuring a house eating teenagers. But the Doctor suddenly being blind was a shock. It did made the meeting between Tella and Twelve more dramatic but funny though.

24052017
Edid 06042021