Amy was surprised that it took a week for things to come to a head. Neither she nor Rory were known for being able to hold their temper. Maybe it was because this time they were walking on egg shells around each other. Both were grief-stricken, needing the comfort of the other, so they did their best to tamp down their anger, until today that is.
The day had started out with their new normal. Rory had gotten up early and ordered room service. They were still staying in the hotel. Neither one of them had contacted any other member of the family, at least to Amy's knowledge. Even though she'd had some contact with family, it had been weeks since she'd spoken to Mum or Dad. She still wasn't ready to be around everyone all at once. Rory had assured her that he understood and didn't push her to do anything that she didn't want to.
After breakfast, they went for a walk in a nearby park. Amy wasn't saying much, just enjoying the gentle breeze, the comforting presence of her husband, and the sound of his voice. For what must have been the third time in the past two days, he was outlining a highly technical and slightly dangerous plan to save Melody from her death. Even though she couldn't understand the details, Amy comprehended the gist of what he was planning. She had enough faith in him that she knew he would be able to pull it off even if she didn't have any foreknowledge.
"So if, no, when we pull this off," he said excitedly, "our daughter should be fine and hopefully my TARDIS will survive. She'll most likely be damaged, but she shouldn't be beyond repair. I've even found a lovely place for her to recuperate."
Amy gripped his hand tightly and nodded in agreement. She didn't like the thought of the TARDIS being hurt, but Rory wouldn't be reckless with her. He loved the ship; she was just as much a part of the family as everyone else.
"Now we just need to get Mum, Dad and Jenny on board with the plan, save our daughter, and put this entire mess behind us. This nightmare can finally be over." He turned towards her and leaned in to kiss her. Stunned, Amy pulled away.
"Put it behind us?" How dare he? Anger and frustration flared inside of her. "I'll never be able to put this behind me."
"I didn't mean it like that," he tried to explain.
"I was kidnapped, my body held in a pod while my consciousness was in some flesh thing." A tear trickled down her face. She wiped it away irritably. She didn't want to cry right now. Right now she wanted to be angry. "They violated me and took my baby. I was pregnant and didn't even know it until I went into labour."
"Amy, I…"
She cut him off. After keeping these feelings inside so long, she felt that they needed to get out. "What they did to me, to our daughter won't be fixed because you change the outcome at the Library!" Shaking her head, she backed away. "Rory, they stole her and forced her to do things." She shuddered. "They forced her to kill Dad. And then they forced her to try and kill Mum. After which, she regenerated, AGAIN."
He slowly stepped towards her. "Amy, Dad isn't going to die at Lake Silencio, and Mum is fine. Melody helped to save her."
"It doesn't matter," she screamed, not caring that they were in a public place. "Just because the outcome isn't what we originally thought, that doesn't make it better. You didn't see her face, our little girl's face. I did, in that orphanage in Florida. She was so scared. She thought that she had killed him, thought that she was capable of that. And then she died. I know that it was regeneration! That doesn't make it better! If she wasn't part Time Lord, she would have been dead because of what they did to her."
Tugging at his hair, Rory growled. "You think I don't know that!" His hands clenched. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he spoke as calmly as he could manage. "I may not have been there and I may not have seen her in that orphanage, but I was right there beside you when she died. I was scared, too. The whole time you were missing I was scared."
"I know you were," she spat, not quite ready to calm down.
Neither was he. He walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders. "I would give anything to be able to have taken yours or Melody's place. I let you down, both of you. It should have been me." With a sigh, he let go of her and began to pace. "What each of us went through, it's not the same thing. Both of them were horrific, something that no one should have to go through."
Amy nodded. Their daughter had been taken from them, yet their experiences weren't even remotely the same thing. She had been kidnapped, and that was horrible. The whole time that she was imprisoned, she had known that she was alright, and she'd thought the same of Melody. But Rory hadn't.
Amy had never lost faith that the family would find her. For all Rory knew his wife was dead. And she had never really stopped to think about that, about how he had felt; she'd really only been concerned about herself.
Her beautiful Rory, the only man she would have chosen to go through this pain for (because the only way Rory would have even existed was if Amy had chosen to give up Melody), and she hadn't even really given much thought to how he was feeling. She was such a prat. They had both been through hell and back in the last two years.
Dear god, had it really been two years? For her it had been pretty close to that, even if she couldn't remember it all. A year of pregnancy, weeks being held by Madam Kovarian and her cronies, and months spent away from Rory trying to process her feelings. She hadn't even thought about how long it had been for him. Or for Mum and Dad and the rest of the family. How long had it been for them?
"We are so messed up," Amy said after a moment's silence.
He chuckled, dryly. "Yeah, we are. The question is where do we go from here? I mean we'll never get to go back to how we were before. But I'd like to get to a new normal."
Moving over to him, Amy wrapped her arms around his neck. "No idea how to get there but I'd like that too." Chastely, she pressed her lips to his for a moment before burying her face in his neck. She could hear his twin hearts beating in his chest. "I don't know how, but I know that you and I can figure this out."
"With or without my mum playing psychiatrist?" he asked cheekily.
"Probably best without this time," she replied, pulling out of the embrace and taking him by the hand. "Come on. Let's get lunch and talk through your plan again. There has to be a way to ensure that the TARDIS survives as well."
~oOo~
Water dripped from the ceiling in measured beats. There was a chill in the air, and the Doctor adjusted his new aubergine jacket on Rose's shoulders. As far as jail cells went, this was one of the worst that they had been thrown into. Dank, dark, the walls were dirt and looked like they were probably going to cave in at any time. And don't even get him started on that smell. It was more than pungent enough to offend his superior senses.
Still, there was still one upshot to this adventure. Earlier when he and Rose were helping to organize the rebellion, there had been a small group of children huddled in a corner. They couldn't have been more than toddlers. Rose had immediately taken a shine to them and vice versa. After finding the lot of them a safe haven from the upcoming civil war, Rose had played games with them, read them stories. It was the first time he had really seen her smile in weeks.
He was worried about her. Worried that she was going to become like him, hard. In his long life, he had so many people who had touched his life. Each one had left an imprint on him, in both big and small ways. And almost all of them had left him. Some because it was time, some because they had to and some because they had paid the ultimate price.
Between companions, his family, and his people, he had lost so much, so many people that he cared for. Every single loss stung. He and Rose both would still lose more. Yes, Rory and Jenny would hopefully live for centuries, but everyone else…. He pulled her more closely to him, turning to kiss her forehead. For every loss they would face, he would be here for her. Well, not here, here. He really didn't want to end up back in this place again. But by her side, that is where he would gladly stay.
"I love you," she murmured beside him.
"And I you," he assured her. An explosion rocked the building. The Doctor grinned and pulled Rose to her feet. "I think that's our cue."
At that moment the door to the cell flung open. One of the lieutenants of the rebel forces stood in the doorway. "You two coming?"
"Absolutely," Rose replied, helping the Doctor back into his jacket. "It's time to overthrow a dictator."
~oOo~
Trisha finished a few more lines of coding before saving her work to the flash drive and removing it from her laptop. The device was small and lightweight, yet it felt heavy in her hand because of what it symbolized. Closing the lid to her computer and shoving the drive into her pocket, she stared around at the kitchen. She and Tony had lived here for years. She loved this house. Not as much as the place in Leadworth, but this was still home. For now.
"Penny for them," Tony asked from the doorway.
Shaking her head slightly, Trisha looked up at her husband. "Just thinking about everything that's happened in the last few months. How it could have easily been EJ or Jamie that…" She couldn't even finish the thought.
"But it wasn't." Tony crossed the room and pulled her up and into a hug. "They're both upstairs, safe as houses."
"For how long?" Trisha asked, burying her head in his chest. "How long before someone comes after them because of the family? And I don't just mean Mum and Dad or even Rory. I work for UNIT and so does my mother. Our enemies may not be as powerful, but they are still very real and dangerous."
"We'll do what we have to do to protect them," he assured her. "I won't let anything happen to them."
Trisha pulled back and turned from him. "After everything that the Silence has done and you think that you can protect our children just that easily? After they took Amy and held her for more than a year? After their counterparts in another Universe murdered your parents?" Shaking her head, her hand subconsciously reached for the device in her trouser pocket. "As long as people think that they can get to the Doctor or anyone else through our children, we will never be able to protect them fully."
For a long moment he studied her thoughtfully. "What exactly did you have in mind?"
Keeping her face schooled, she shrugged. "Nothing." The less he knew the better. What she was planning could be seen as treason.
"Riiiight," he drawled out, rolling his eyes for good measure. "Patricia Tyler, I know you well enough and have known you long enough to know when you are up to something. So let's just skip the whole you being noble and not wanting to tell me 'for my own good' and me being persistent and just tell me."
"It's not a game," she insisted.
"Of course it's not. And whatever it is, I'm in. I'm all in, just let me know what you're planning."
Eventually, he would know. This would be life changing and he had the right to know, to have a choice in it really. Though she'd hoped that it would be able to wait until after it was done. Apparently, he wasn't going to let that happen. "Alright, I am planning something, something that if I'm caught could mean imprisonment in a UNIT facility for the rest of my life."
Tony's brow furrowed, but he didn't say anything. With a sigh she continued, "If people know of the existence of the Doctor or Mum, then not just the children's lives but everyone who they care about are in danger. But what if no one knew of their existence?" Pausing, she licked her lips. "What if I introduced a virus, a worm, into UNIT's mainframe and onto the internet that would delete any and all references to the Tyler family, the Doctor, or any of his companions?"
"What about Kate's storeroom?" Tony asked, knowing that Kate Stewart, head of UNIT, had prepared for just such a cyber-attack. "She has all sorts of hard copies of paperwork, pictures, artifacts. Even if your virus erases every computer file ever, it still won't rub out all of that."
This was part of the plan that was potentially the most dangerous. Wiping out computer files was not only easy but not likely to hurt anyone physically. "I'm planning on blowing it up."
"Really?" Tony asked incredulously. "And here I thought that you weren't keen on blowing holes in your career."
Despite herself, she grinned. Bad puns were something he had learned from the man who raised him. She had never admitted it to the man himself, but she loved those puns. "If I do this then my career won't matter," she explained. "With Jack's help, I planted something in Kate's vault a few years back. It looks like a relic of the Time Lords, but it's not. It's an explosive device that will destroy everything inside those two meter thick concrete walls."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "You've been planning this for a while. Why?"
Sighing, Trisha leaned against the counter. "It was Jack's idea originally. Just a safety precaution. UNIT has always been on the Doctor's side and I trust Kate, but after what Torchwood did, what Torchwood was…" She remember how upset she was after she had met Jackie, for the first and last time, a few days before the Dalek and Cybermen attack.
Torchwood I had been dangerous, deadly. Jack had done his best in his initial days at Torchwood III to eliminate all mentions of Rose Tyler from the charter and early documents. It had probably saved Mum's life, not to mention prevent a giant paradox.
"I grew up surrounded by UNIT. I know what they are capable of and what they could be capable of. After Dad died and Jamie was born, I dunno, I just started getting this ominous feeling." Trisha shrugged. It was hard to explain why she felt the need to create a backup plan. And she felt guilty for never telling her husband about it. Closing her eyes, she waited for his reaction.
"I get it," he said, softly. Opening her eyes, she saw that he had moved to stand directly in front of her. "I get it. Almost my entire life, everyone around me has sacrificed to keep me safe, to keep the family safe. If you feel this strongly, then I'll help you do whatever it takes to make you feel that you and our children are secure. Nothing is more important to me than the three of you. Nothing." Gently, he placed a kiss on her forehead. "Now tell me your plan."
Slowly Trisha looked up and met his eyes. She could see the sincerity and love shining from them. Never should she have doubted him. With a small, resigned sigh, she began to explain what she had in mind.