Title: and by a part of all thy glory live
Author: bendingwind
Notes: [Doctor Who | K+/PG | 463 words]
Characters: River, Rory
Summary: River tells her father everything.
"Do you know who I am yet?" she asks, stepping out of the shadows. Rory jumps, startled, and drops his watering tin.
"I, er, I was just… tidying up a bit…"
She moves further into the light, revealing tired bags beneath her eyes and salt-stained cheeks. His heart sinks for the daughter he so rarely meets.
"Oh, beautiful, what's wrong?" he asks, opening his arms. She rushes forward into his embrace.
"I was afraid I might have come too early," she mumbles into his shoulder, "I missed you, Dad."
"It's okay," he says as he strokes her back, grateful that his bewildered stare is hidden behind her curls. He waits for her to speak—she tells him everything, when she's ready.
After a moment, she pulls away. He leads her to the lawn chairs and they sit, facing each other across a dainty lawn table.
"I broke my promise," she all but whispers. "I said I wouldn't leave Stormcage unless he called for me but… I wanted to talk to you." He notices that her hand is shaking on the table, and lays his own across it.
"I'm sure he would understand," he says, hoping she can't sense his lie. Their stories are always touching in the wrong order, their conversations always brushing against secrets she cannot tell him yet.
"He died today," she explains, a curious mixture of awe and heartbreak twining through her tone. "Not forever, he has a new body, but he's not… he's not my Doctor anymore."
"But he's still the Doctor," Rory points out, and he worries immediately that it's too logical a thing to say.
She lets out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, and he instinctually leans closer, ready to hold her if she begins to cry again.
"He is, but he isn't quite. His voice… it isn't the same, and he doesn't laugh the same way when I do something dangerous and his—" she stops as if she barely caught herself. Rory's ears flush red just considering what she might have been about to say.
"He's the same man," Rory says, this time with more conviction. The Doctor is the same man in the same way his little girl is the same, no matter how many bodies she dons. He squeezes her fingers and leans closer. "He's the same man in the way you are the same woman, no matter how many faces you wear."
Her eyes flutter closed. "I know, Dad, I know, but… he doesn't laugh in the same way."
Rory lifts his other hand and carefully takes her chin in his hand. He waits for her to open her eyes, and when she does, he says: "Neither do you. Everyone grows up someday, River." And he smiles.