Short chapter tonight, because the next two are much longer. Hopefully I'll have the next one up sometime this week.
Thanks for reading!
The second year Amy's mother refuses to be put off by any pleading or excuses, so the Pond family Christmas is a massive affair, with Amy's parents and Aunt Sharon, Aunt Sharon's boyfriend, his two little boys (Patrick, 6, and Donald, 8), Rory's parents, his half-sister Lauren, and her husband and daughter Amanda.
The Doctor is wearing some kind of bright green overcoat and River is young, younger than Amy or Rory has ever seen her; she looks to be about Amy's age, with her hair pulled back and her fingertips stained dark blue with ink. "Sorry, I've just come from school," she says when Amy drags her into the kitchen and demands to know what's going on. "I'm in the middle of my archaeology dissertation on the crystal embalming matrices of the Atraxi, and they're big on fieldwork there. I feel like I haven't slept in weeks." Her smile is hesitant, even shy, so different from the River Amy knows – until she realizes with a shock that this isn't River, this is Melody, just a kid taking a break from the 51st-century university that the Doctor enrolled her in to come home for the holidays.
"Oh – good," Amy manages to say, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. She can't think of anything else to say, so she holds out her arms to hug this smart, strong, brilliant girl, the daughter whose childhood she might never see, who she knows will grow up to be a legend among the stars and demons of the universe. In the kitchen of the big blue house in Leadworth, while her whole big stupid family are arguing about film stars in the next room, Amy holds her daughter and can't think of a single place in the universe more wonderful than this.
"We're so proud of you, your dad and I," she says, letting Melody go.
"Uh, that's a bit of an understatment, actually," Rory says from the kitchen door. He's wearing a huge, lumpy knitted sweater decorated with stars that are more enthusiastic than recognizable, and Melody and Amy both burst out laughing at the sight of him.
"Yeah, laugh if you like, but the Doctor's got one for you too," he says to Amy, lifting one arm to show the sweater sleeve trailing past his fingertips. "You might want to go find him, actually - last I heard he was asking for you. I'll give Mel the grand tour, shall I?"
"Yeah, of course," Amy says lightly, and heads back out into the living room. She tries her absolute best not to hear Rory beginning to ask Melody whether she's had any boyfriends at school, but doesn't quite manage it.
It turns out that the Doctor had been looking for her, but that was ages ago; since then he'd had a glass and a half of eggnog, taught the kids how to do a dance he claimed to be from the third ring of Saturn in the 23rd century, had yet another glass of eggnog, spent forty-five minutes reassuring Amy's mother that 2012 was nothing to worry about, the Mayan calendars were usually spot-on but he'd gone back to take a look at this one and there was a decimal out of place, should have read snake-egg-circley thing-jaguar when in fact it read ghost-pyramid-snake-egg-skull, so the world wasn't going to end if he had something to say about it, and he usually did, trust him, 2013 is going to be a smashing year, and by the time Amy finds him he's snoring on the sofa with his green coat draped over his head.
She sighs and leans over him to pull the coat down so the collar wraps snugly around his shoulders. He looks so young and foolish, sleeping there in the middle of a Williams-Pond Christmas board game tournament with none of his ancient Time Lord gravitas about him. Without thinking, she kisses him on the forehead, on the spot where he's pressed his head against hers so many times as a reassurance in the midst of grave danger.
"Thanks for bringing her here," she whispers.
"Ghnnjzzb," the Doctor murmurs, and cuddles deeper into his coat.
