A/N: Okay, I lied. (But I'm not as bad as River and The Doctor…yet. :P) This is actually going to be a three-parter. After I turned it into a two chapter story, I just felt like it had a better flow if I cut up the second chapter. So, good news, more ficage, bad news, no resolution…yet.

The Damage

Part Two

A week after Augustus's funeral, Tabetha found herself standing in front of her daughter's blue door. She'd never had a key to the house prior to their disappearance, but Brian had eventually given her one. At the time, she'd been a little jealous, because she didn't even know that Brian had one: why Brian and not her and Augustus? But, she decided, maybe that had been Rory's decision; he'd always been a little more personable than their daughter in so many ways.

The key twisted in the lock and the door opened. For some reason, she'd been expecting it to creek for all the years that it hadn't been opened. She'd also, for some reason, expected to have a wave of smell – that unique Amy and Rory's house smell – crash over her. Neither occurred. It tugged at her heart a bit; she hadn't dared step foot in the house since their disappearance. It had been too painful. Augustus had, but not her. She had, however, been unwilling to sell it, just in case they ever did come back, and Brian had been more than happy to continue watering the plants.

That memory made her suddenly aware of the sound in the house: a whirring, slurring sound, the sound of water through pipes. She looked up, then down, and finally turned in a half circle before she realized where the sound was coming from and where it was going to. She followed it, half glancing at the furniture and the pictures, all left in the places she remembered them the last time she had visited so many years ago, for Amy and Rory's ten year anniversary. She'd lost track of them for a while that day and she could've sworn that they'd changed clothes when she saw them again, but she never brought it up. If only she had interacted with them more.

A yelp sliced through her thoughts like a reaper's blade. Tabetha realized she was standing at the sliding glass door, staring into the garden. To her surprise, there was Brian. And River. The former was soaking wet, probably the reason for the yelp, seeing as how he was now chasing River around the yard with the hose. A smile almost came to her face, for in that fraction of a moment, she didn't see an old man and a middle aged woman: she just saw a grandfather and his granddaughter playing in the garden.

The moment ended shortly thereafter, when River came to an abrupt halt on the patio, having noticed Tabetha watching, and Brian barreled into her nearly knocking them both down. The hose freed from his hand and jerked towards the window, splaying water across the glass before falling to the ground and continuing to spew a puddle.

Tabetha stepped forward and carefully pulled back the sobbing glass door. She stepped over the hose in a Mary Poppins fashion and stood quietly before the two, surveying their deer-in-headlights expressions.

"Tabetha!" Brian said, daring to make the first utterance. "We didn't hear you come in." He was shivering, but trying not to show it.

"I didn't know you'd be here." She glanced at the trees, thick with foliage, then at the flowers – white, purple, and red rose bushes and a patch of sunflowers – bright as a brand new box of Crayola markers. "The plants look like they're doing well."

Brian nodded. "I water them every week."

What could she say to that? It was more than she did. "Oh." Tabetha was trying hard not to look at River, but the woman was right at the corner of her eye, and she couldn't help but see her. "And I suppose you help him?"

"Sometimes, yes," River admitted.

Brian scratched the back of his neck. "Th – there's a kettle on the stove. Would you like to come in and have a cuppa with us?"

"Not really."

"Oh."

Tabetha winced internally. She knew she was being mean, but that didn't necessarily mean she was being unfair. It was them, after all, who had waited until Augustus's wake to tell her what had really happened to her daughter and son-in-law. "I'll go find you some towels," she said, stepping back into the house. "I assume they're still in the linen closet in the hall?"

"He hasn't moved anything," River said, a bit defensively.

Tabetha ducked up the stairs without a word. She felt her eyes welling and swiftly used her sleeve to brush them dry. When she opened the linen closet she reached for the towels nearest to the edge. As she pulled them out she noticed something tucked deep into the back of the shelf. Wanting to extend her time upstairs, she set the towels onto the floor and reached for the object in the back. It turned out to be a rubbish bin bag: slippery and white, with a red drawstring. She unwound the string and pulled the bag open, revealing it to be full of more towels. But not bathroom towels, beach towels.

The lesser used towels, hence the garbage bag. She knew, because she did the same thing with her own beach towels. It was fitting, because at that moment, she was unable to stem the sea of tears breaking in her eyes. Without hesitation, she shoved her fists into the bag and pulled out the top towel, burying her face into to catch the tears and muffle the sounds. When she did, the smell came: that Amy and Rory smell that had long disappeared from their house. It made her weep even harder.

A half an hour later, when she finally did come down, she found Brian at the table wrapped in a blanket and nursing a cup of something that smelled spicy and vaguely sweet but she couldn't place what the flavor was. Being a self defined tea nerd, she was a little surprised by that, but didn't allow it to show. Instead, she sat down across from him, and glanced at River rooting around in the kitchen from her peripheral view.

"She's like Amy, isn't she?"

Tabetha shifted her eyes. She realized she never brought the towel down that she had promised. "I forgot the –"

"Look at her," Brian insisted.

Tabetha turned her head a little. River was about four inches shorter than her daughter, her hair was all curls and blondeness, and frankly, she looked nothing like her daughter.

"She's got Rory's nose, poor thing."

Tabetha did a double take and bit her lower lip to stop an instinctive smile from creeping onto her face. Actually, Brian was right. Then, as she continued to look, something niggled at the back of her head: a photo with raging ginger curls, like River's, only Amy's. It had been on the cover of Elle magazine the year that Amy and Rory almost divorced. Then, as River returned from the kitchen, she was able to see her face in full and its moon shape reminded her of Amy's. So did those apple red nails. Even as a little girl Amy had had a nail varnish fetish and red had forever been her favorite.

As River set the kettle on the table Tabetha noticed a glint on her wrist. She grabbed for the River's hand, holding it against the kettle lid, and studied the dainty gold watch. "This watch…" she breathed.

River looked down. "It was –"

"My mother's," Tabetha finished. Her eyes sparkled.

"Yes," River agreed, painfully. "Mine too."

Tabetha released River's hand and pressed the back of her fingers to her eyes. She didn't want to break down again, not in front of them, and yet she didn't want to run away and hide either. She opted to grab for the kettle and a cup, pouring herself a raging cup and lifting it to her face so she could bury herself in the steam. From behind the cup, she heard River sit down in the seat between herself and Brian. After a while she dared to take a sip, hoping it wouldn't burn the tip of her tongue. To her surprise, the taste of the tea was foreign. "What is this?" she asked, moving the cup down so she could see over the rim.

"It's a fifty-first century blend," River replied. "Do you like it?"

Tabetha tasted it again. It was so strong, almost like cinnamon, but without the burning effect of cinnamon. "Fifty-first century?"

"The time travel bit," Brian said, "it takes a while to get used to. River brings a lot of tokens back for me when she visits."

Tabetha set the cup down and pushed it to the edge of the table. "About the time travel bit." Her voice was terse. "If you can do all this time traveling, why don't you do anything useful with it? Like preventing the World Wars or – or – or saving my daughter from nineteen-thirty-eight?!"

River closed her eyes. "I understand your –"

"No. No you don't!"

"She was your daughter, but she was my mother!" River shouted. And suddenly the teacup she was holding slipped between her fingers, shattering on the table.

Brian jumped, but Tabetha remained still as the tea ran over the edge like a liquid cherry wood waterfall. "You didn't answer my question."

"Tabetha –"

"No. No, Brian, I want to know: why can't she – or that Doctor with his magic blue box – bring Amy and Rory back?" She shoved her chair back and scowled. "And why didn't anyone tell me I had a granddaughter before now? Why?!"

"It was their choice. Amy's and Rory's. I didn't even know until after they were gone. They didn't tell anyone. I would guess because it was too complicated…and too painful."

"But why did you get to know and not me? Not Augustus?"

"Because it's one thing to know about The Doctor," River replied, visibly restraining herself. "It's another thing to travel with him; to be a piece of his world. Brian did and he spent all that time waiting for The Doctor to bring them back."

"And we didn't?"

"You waited, yes, but it's different!"

"Rubbish! If he got an explanation," she said, extending an accusatory finger at Brian, "then we deserved one too! But no, Augustus and I spent years and god knows how many tears and sleepless nights waiting for the daughter that would never come! Augustus died waiting! You stole away from him any solace or closure he could have ever had! Both of you! And that damned Doctor. How dare he think he think himself deserving of such a title."

"How dare you," River spat. "You don't know him. You don't know the things he's done!"

"Like lose my daughter to nineteen-thirty-eight New York and never have the courage to tell me to my face? Like being the reason you grew up as my daughter's best friend instead of her daughter?"

"It doesn't matter what you or anyone else says: I was her daughter. I am her daughter. Amy knows that and I know that."

Brian rose and stepped between them, the edge of his blanket falling into the spilt tea. "Look at the pair of you!" he scolded. "Is this what either of you thinks Amy and Rory would want? You fighting like cats and dogs instead of coming together like a family – however unconventional – should?"

River closed her eyes and swallowed heavily. "He's right."

"He may be right, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. You can't smooth this over just by using Amy against me, Brian. I'm still without a daughter, you're still without a son, and the fact remains that you two were never planning on telling me the truth."

"The timelines in nineteen-thirty-eight are in scrambles because of the Angels battery farm and concentration of paradoxes that occurred when we were there trying to fix things. The TARDIS can't go back there because they are too fragile. Imagine it like a window shield: you may get away with so many pebbles or rocks hitting it, but eventually it will crack, maybe even spider web, and it wouldn't take much after that to completely break it in. That's what going back to nineteen-thirty-eight New York would do and there would be no way to repair it after that. It'd probably attract the attention of the Reapers and then all hope would be lost."

"The Reapers?"

"A very old alien race that is attracted to paradoxes, the bigger the better, and they 'sterilize' the paradoxes by devouring them. They would literally eat up New York and everyone in it until there was nothing left."

"So why not just go back to just before Rory saw his headstone and stop him?"

"It would be going back on our own timeline. It's – it's not impossible, but it's extremely dangerous."

"Then why not just go to nineteen-thirty-nine and pick them up?" Tabetha hollered in frustration. "Or have them go to New Jersey instead of New York and bring them right back here?!"

River looked to Brian and the latter sighed. He moved into the kitchen and opened a drawer. A few minutes later he returned and handed a manila folder to Tabetha.

"What is this?"

"Look for yourself."

She peeled back the cover and found photocopies and newspaper clippings; some clippings were yellowed with fraying edges, as you would expect them to be, but others looked like they'd been clipped just yesterday even though they had dates from decades ago stamped upon them, and in them, she saw Rory. And Amy. Her hands shuddered.

The earliest cutout was from 1939, an op-ed article on immigration. In it there were references about being forced to move from Scotland to Leadworth as a child and again before forced to move from London to New York as an adult, though details of how and why were left bare in the latter. In fact, there were several op-ed pieces spanning over a decade including ones on fertility issues, motherhood, and even an article as late as 1950 in praise of Jane Grant and the reconstitution of the Lucy Stone League, a feminist group dedicated to helping women keep their maiden names on official documentation even after marriage. Ironically, it was credited as being written by Amelia Williams.

"They went by Williams in the past," River said when Tabetha looked up. "It draws much less attention than Pond, if you think about it. Williams is the third most popular surname in the United States. If someone were doing historical or genealogical research, it would have been very curious to find another Amelia Pond married to another Rory Williams in the history books…especially one who looks exactly like a rather famous model, businesswoman, and travel journalist from twenty-twenty."

"And she did take Rory's name," Brian added a little defensively. "Legally."

"On paper you mean," Tabetha shot back. "She always went by Amelia Pond socially and professionally. She only took his name on paper because she knew Rory wanted that. I lost count of how many bowls of midnight chocolate chip pancake batter we made when we stayed up to talk about that in the months before the wedding. If Amy had had it her way, Rory would've changed his name to Pond like Augustus did."

"Augustus changed his name?" Brian blinked.

"Changed his deed poll in Scotland when we got married." She smiled slyly at the memory.

River mirrored Tabetha's expression: "And that was never lost on her. She fought Dad to make sure I was a Pond. Not to hurt him, but because it was something that she felt as fiercely about as he did when he wanted her to be Mrs. Williams."

Tabetha surveyed the papers in her hands again and realized that one was titled: Pond River Publications Début! "What's this?"

"After becoming known for her op-ed pieces in various New York papers over the years, she became a feminist columnist and eventually opened her own publishing house: Pond River Publications. The first thing it ever published was a book called Melody Malone, written by me, with an 'Afterward' by Mum. The publishing house ended up wildly success, specializing in fantasy and science-fiction novels, though it wasn't exclusive to that. I even ended up writing a prequel for her later, called The Angel's Kiss." River rolled her eyes, smiling. "I wasn't in it the profit, mind you, I wrote it for a charity fundraiser to collect money for…" She moved to stand beside Tabetha, rifling through the papers in her shaky hands. She picked one out and pointed to a photograph of Amy and Rory standing in front of a restored children's home. "…Melody's Home. Formerly, Graystark Hall."

Brian narrowed his eyes. "Graystark Hall? But isn't that where you said –"

"The Silence held me in my first incarnation for several years under the brain scrambled Doctor Renfrew, yes. Mum and Dad completely gutted and restored the place in nineteen-seventy-three. The restoration was completed in seventy-five and officially opened on my birthday of the same year." She tapped the photograph of Amy and Rory, hand-over-hand, cutting the ribbon of Melody's Home for the opening ceremony.

Tabetha felt her nose tickle and begin to dribble so she lifted her sleeve to dab it. "You said you wrote those books for Amy. You must have been able to see her then? So why can't you bring her back?"

"I sent them to her, I never said I saw her," River corrected.

"How is that possible?"

River sat down across from her grandmother. "The Doctor isn't the only one with contacts all over time and space. Let's just say a certain Time Agent owed me a favor for arresting me for a crime I never actually committed…although, to be fair, he doesn't actually remember arresting me for it, but that's the Time Agency for you."

Tabetha returned a blank stare.

River sighed and tried again: "Look, the more details I give you, the more complicated and convoluted it becomes, but all you need to understand is that I know someone who gets around almost as much as myself and The Doctor – usually because he lives it – and he was able to deliver the manuscripts for me without damaging the timelines."

"I know you want them back, Tabetha, you know I do. But look at what they've done! Look at how instrumental they have been on history. You're holding Amy's accomplishments in yours hands! And Rory, oh, Rory!" Brian beamed. "Did you know that Rory saved hundreds of lives during World War Two? There's even a website dedicated to him online – top of my favorites list! – which was created by veterans who would have died were it not for him. And have you ever heard of the World Health Organization? WHO, for short. My boy was instrumental in its inception in nineteen-forty-eight! Even if it were possible to get them back, think about what we'd be taking away from the world."

"You can call me selfish all you want, but I'd rather have my daughter back."

"You're not the first Pond woman to say that, but it doesn't make it any less impossible. This was Amy's choice."

"You don't get to say something is a choice when you're choosing between the lesser of two evils."

"There's always going to be evil, somewhere, some when. Someone's hope is someone else's destruction. Every choice we make is a lesser evil."

"You just keep speaking in riddles."

"I'm sorry. I'm really very sorry. I'm just trying to clarify this for you. I don't know what else I can say. Time travel is not an easy science."

Tabetha gathered all of the clippings against her breast and turned gave Brian a side winding glance. "Can I keep these? For a while, I mean."

Brian nodded. "However long you need them. In fact," he raised his finger, "let me go get you a few more things. One moment."

Tabetha stared at the articles again. She couldn't seem to extract her eyes from the ones with the pictures. The one of Rory and Amy in front of Melody's Home sang to her in so many different ways. If only Augustus could see it too.