oOo Doctor, oOo
Is this how time normally passes? For humans? Really slowly, in the right order, yes… but with such joy? You never knew having a family was like this, or else you've forgotten. You certainly never knew parents could be this way.
And though you'd never trade the TARDIS for an apartment or your adrenaline-filled life for a mundane, domestic one, there is something about this - just taking it day by day with the Ponds. You have to admit it -
No, you really do have to admit it -
"Come on, Doctor, say it!"
"I am not going to say anything." You stuff a fish finger in your mouth, just to prove your point, letting the yellow custard drip off the sides.
"Say it…." Amy shakes your shoulders from behind, playfully drawing her words out. "Saaaay it…"
"Leave me alone," you mumble, around the fish, but you can't help smiling.
"I will. Just admit it. You like relaxing."
"No!" Swallow.
"Then you have to tell the truth about who won that game of Perudo."
"Rory really did cheat," you say, licking the custard off your fingers.
"If you're going to keep that lie up, you have to confess you like taking the slow road. It's one or the other."
"I don't have to confess anything."
-If you want to maintain that unbeatable Perudo record you've had for seven hundred years, you really do have to admit that relaxing isn't half bad.
Not when you're doing it to keep your family company.
And you almost forget…
.
A few lazy months later, you come into a cozy, messy living room somewhere deep in the TARDIS with news for the Ponds.
They're there, curled up on the couch together, watching television. Magazines from the thirty-first century and crosswords from the twentieth are strewn across the coffee table, which is adorned with coffee ring stains. Signs of life and comfortable existence.
You regret breaking it all up.
"He's due tomorrow," you say, taking a seat.
"So, let's go!" Amy sits up.
"What?"
"We're in a time machine," she points out.
"No," you say. "I told you, I'm not skipping a single day."
She leans back against Rory. "Why not, though?"
"Yeah," Rory says. "Why have we been delaying so long? It's not like you."
"I want to savour this time," you tell them. It's an easy question to cover with a lie that's half true. Defence tactics: now you need to change the subject of the conversation.
Unfortunately, the simple question has rather thrown you, and all you can think to say is what's on your hearts.
"I love spending time with you two. Been a bit family-starved for the last while."
"How long?" Rory asks.
"The last eleven hundred and four years," you say, shrugging.
"But that's exactly long you've lived," Amy says.
Shrug again.
"Didn't you have parents?"
"Oh, yeah. Not half as good as you two, though."
"You can say that with a clear conscience?" Amy laughs.
Naïve little Amy. Your conscience is never clear. And that realization - the realization of how innocent she is - is what stops you from telling them about - from even hinting further at - that ambitious, sadistic father and that often-preoccupied mother…
The memories, so dusty from disuse, physically hurt, almost as much as that man used to hurt you, with his hands and his words. You choke as you remember leaving that home - a harsh home, maybe, but the only one you had ever known - and going to a worse place, where they didn't hit you with their hands, but with iron rods, where you couldn't shield your mother from your father anymore, as they were both hundreds of miles away…
You stuff the thoughts away again, and know none of it has shown on your face. Nod, with a smile, to Amy's question.
And resolve to never, ever raise your child anywhere near Gallifreyan standards and traditions. If you get a chance to raise him.
.
It's a cold, crisp morning. Amy and Rory pull on coats and you all head in to the hospital.
They are beaming and excited. You are anxious, but their smiles rub off, a bit, and you're beginning to be optimistic, hopes rising as the elevator to the maternity ward does.
Of course, the calm you're settling yourself into jams when you actually arrive. All the worries lump together in your throat, blocking most of your ability to breathe, when you enter the shining white hospital room and see several nurses - one holding a tiny white-wrapped bundle - consulting together. Some looking anxious, others puzzled, a few grave. This might be bad. On the flip side, it might not even be related to you. But there's a sick feeling in your gut-
You draw nearer, and see that it is Theta the nurses are gathered round. Most of them glance at you and then retreat through an office door, leaving one - the one holding Theta - to speak to you.
"Is he all right?" You say, cutting straight to the chase.
"It's taking a while to run tests," she says. "So far, though, he seems … pretty stable."
You pull the soft white material the child is wrapped in back with one finger, so you can see his face. His eyes are open - they're green, like yours. As you stare down at them, they meet your own. It sends a tingle down your back. "Ohhh, look at him." River's hair - look how curly - only, my colour. Look at him. "Oh, he is beautiful," you say out loud, and run your fingers over his dark, fuzzy hair. "I wish River was here to see him."
Amy holds out her hands, and the nurse hands Theta over.
"He looks just like you!" Amy says, smiling at you.
"Lucky boy." Your grin feels numb - you can feel the muscles working but the happiness that usually powers your smile is being worn away by worry.
"I can't believe this," she says, and she's fighting tears, too. "This is crazy!"
Rory comes over, and you all spend a few minutes admiring the new addition to the family. Half of your brain seems to have jammed, and is admiring every detail of Theta's face with the repetition and determination of a tireless, glitching computer. But there's still the other half, which is buzzing in pain, screaming at you to stop torturing yourself, to go and find out how long this bliss, this child, will last.
It's when Theta starts gurgling in response to Amy's coos that something snaps inside you - you can't take this. And as your impatience reaches bursting point, you realize that the nurse who was holding Theta, before, is gone.
"I'll be back in a minute," you tell Amy and Rory, and they absentmindedly agree, still smiling down at Theta.
You enter the office, and, before any of the nurses can so much as protest against your unapproved presence, you've snatched a clipboard from one of them.
It only takes a few seconds to scan and process the news.
"Why didn't you tell me?" You say, throwing the death sentence down on a desk, leaning against the wall, and folding your arms.
A nurse starts talking about authorization, and your mind goes to your physic paper - but you're too angry to rely on credentials to prove what idiots they're being. Right now, your basic fighting instinct screams for you to batter them down with words and leave their ears and hearts bleeding. But hold yourself in check - there's no time, right now.
"So, tell me," you say. "What are you planning on doing?"
"What?"
"To save Theta. To save the baby. What are you going to do?"
"Sir," one starts, "There isn't-"
"Impossible isn't an option," you say, and she shuts her mouth.
Another, braver nurse takes up the cause. "We don't have the technology or the information to help your child," she says. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't need your sympathy," you say. "I need answers." You snap your fingers. "Come on! Give me everything, anything, something."
"We don't-"
"Don't what? You must have some kind of record in here." There are filing cabinets behind you - you pull out a few folders and start flipping through the contents. "Here, this is what I was after. Weight, height, the way his heart has been beating since he was born." You hold up the piece of fibre optic paper and touch the holographs supported by it, watching the computer as it replays the jagged, up-and-down lines that symbolize a heartbeat. "Now, that's the problem, isn't it? One heart where there should be two. And if we know the problem, there's hope for an answer. There's always hope, there's always a way out, there's always something."
Turn back to look at the nurses - something about their pasted-on patronizing looks fills your hearts with magma-hot anger. Their synthetic sympathetic expressions, so utterly useless.
"Come on!" Your voice is harsh and loud. You don't care. "Wake up! Think! I need you! Help me. Do what you're supposed to do! What about a heart transplant?"
"We can't. Under the circum-"
"I know," you snap. "His whole vascular system's wired the wrong way. But it's a starting point for a solution, isn't it?" You lean forward. "I thought you would be able to help. You said you might be able to do something. Get doing it, whatever you had in mind when you told me that!"
The door opens, and you whip round to see Amy and Rory standing there.
"We heard yelling," Rory says.
"Did you hear what was said?" A nurse says. Probably worried about the security of fill-in-the-blank, some pointless protocol-
"Of course they did," you growl. "Questions, Ponds?"
"Is - Theta going to be all right?" Amy says.
You start to answer, but when a nurse cuts in with a calm voice, you decide to swallow your words. You'll only hurt things if you keep talking. So you sit down, arms folded.
"When the baby was first brought in," the nurse says. "We found that he would have been stillborn, if we had let him develop without technology."
Amy covers her mouth with her fingers. "Why?"
Rory reacts differently. "But he did have technology to support him. So, what's the problem?"
"The problem is that the child was wired so extensively into a machine that his heart had virtually no need to pump on its own. And that's just it - on his own, the child is unable to survive for long. Theta needs two hearts - one isn't enough."
Ordinarily, the nurse's use of your son's name would warm you towards her. But it does little to melt your anger, now.
"As you probably know," she continues, "Theta's father had two hearts, his mother only one. This is a very rare case, but the children… well, we've never seen one survive."
"Why can't you fix that?" Rory says.
"It's not just something a machine can mend," she says. "It isn't possible to reset the way a whole body works. And even if it was - we don't have any information for Time Lord genetics. I think I speak for everyone when I say I've never even heard of a Time Lord. They seem to be drastically different from any other two-hearted species we deal with here. Theta would have to be in a stasis or a stimulated womb environment to survive for longer than a few days - neither will work if you want him to live and grow."
Nobody says anything. You keep your eyes on the baby in Amy's arms, but you can hear her and Rory sniffing back tears.
The clocks turn, and the nurses, one by one, are called away. As the last one leaves, she looks unsure of whether to tell your group to exit the office, as well.
Say something, I dare you, you think, but she seems, after a glance at your face, to decide she'd rather not risk being yelled at again.
You, Theta, and the Ponds are left alone in silence.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Rory says, after a few minutes.
"What, you wanted this hanging over you?" You look up. "Oh, you wanted this torturing you for four months and eating away at your mind and keeping you awake twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? I'm so sorry. I should have known."
"Doctor," Amy snaps. "That's not fair."
"Not fair, yeah. I got the memo on that one. I'll let you know when the universe decides to turn around and be fair."