Yours For The Taking
Title: I’d Be Inclined To Be Yours For The Taking
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Amy Pond/River Song
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through The Big Bang
Summary: Growing up in a universe with no stars, Amelia Pond finds an unlikely friend. AU, assuming that this universe continued on even after the Doctor ‘reset’ it.
Notes: Written for Onomatopoetic. Title from Anna Nalick’s song Catalyst.
The first time she ever hears from River Song, she is six years old.
She’s just gotten back from her first visit with her first psychiatrist, who has tried his hardest to convince her that stars are just a product of her imagination. She’s torn - it’s hard not to believe the man who seems so sure of himself, but her dreams are so vivid, so real, that she knows she cannot be making it up.
Her aunt unlocks the door, and, as always, asks her to check the mailbox. Amelia - because she’s still going by the name, will be for more years to come - obeys, and when she pulls out the envelopes she finds on top of them a single slip of yellow paper. On it, written in messy script, is simply, I see them too. Don’t give up hope. - River.
Amelia chances a look at her aunt, and shoves the piece of paper deep into her pocket. She carries it with her, secretly, to all her following psychiatrist appointments. When they try - and fail - to convince her that stars cannot be real, she grips the paper in her pocket, and holds fast to her beliefs.
---
There is a man that she sees sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, who watches her.
He is tall, somewhat lanky, and his hair flies off in all directions. She doesn’t know what his face looks like, because whenever he sees that she’s noticed him, he vanishes, so she learns to pretend not to see him, and enjoys the feeling of his eyes on her.
She knows she should be scared, but she feels like he is not simply watching her, but watching over her, and when she sees him, she feels comforted. She makes the mistake of mentioning him to her aunt one day, and her aunt looks horrified and a little angry. For years afterwards, Amelia is never allowed to go anywhere alone.
She learns her lesson from that, and afterwards when she feels him watching her, she just smiles to herself and keeps her mouth shut.
---
A year after her first note from River, she gets a note through her front door telling her to go to the museum. When she does, she ends up on a confusing adventure, where, for most of the time, she doesn’t know what’s going on. She meets a woman who looks a little like herself, whose name is Amy - which Amelia thinks is a much nicer name than her own - and a man who calls himself the Doctor. The really exciting part, though, is that she gets to meet him, the man who’s been watching her and following her, and it turns out she was right all along; he is a good guy, genuinely looking out for her. She learns his name is Rory.
She thinks she hears someone mention the name River, and she pricks up her ears, but they’re being attacked by a robot that talks and moves by itself, so she decides her questions will have to wait. Only something strange happens while they’re standing by the stairs, and she can’t remember anything after that, but she wakes up the next morning in her own bed, having to face up to her furious aunt.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory are gone. Carefully, Amelia takes the notes they’d given her and puts them in a box in her cupboard. She marks it Evidence.
---
She waits, as always, for Rory to appear, but time passes and she doesn’t see him. She tries not waiting, too, but that doesn’t work either. It makes her feel unsettled, so she talks even more about the Doctor and the points of light in the sky.
When her aunt finally snaps and calls her crazy, she waits weeks for Rory to show up, hoping for that small bit of comfort.
He never does.
---
When she’s nine, and starting to lose hope, she gets another note from River. It’s stuck onto the back of a school project that gets returned, and she almost misses it, but when she throws it in the bin, she sees the yellow paper, and the familiar writing. It says simply, Don’t forget.
Amelia stares at it, feeling her heart race. With shaking fingers, she peels the note off the project and puts it in the box with the others.
---
After that, she starts to get more notes from River, with increasing frequency. At first they only say things like, You’re not alone, and, Don’t give up, but as the years pass and she turns into a teenager, they become more expansive; whole letters written on sticky yellow paper. River loses the formal tone, and talks to her like a friend.
It’s thrilling, because River always finds different, unexpected ways to get the notes to her. Sometimes they come in the mail box, like that first time, but sometimes they appear in her schoolbooks, or on top of her desk at home, or, on one memorable occasion, in her back pocket.
She looks forward to the notes, lives for them even, and in between she wonders endlessly who River is and what she is like, and whether they’ll ever meet.
It’s something of a hobby, and a little of an obsession.
---
When she’s ten, a new boy starts at school. At first, she doesn’t pay any attention to him, but he’s awkward and gangly and shy, and he’s quickly shunned by the other children in their class. Amelia, too, has always been a loner, because no one wants to be friends with a girl who believes in stars.
She seeks him out at lunchtime, and they sit silently next to one another while all the other children run and play around them. When the bell rings and they get up to go back to class, he says, “I’m Rory.”
Amelia freezes and stares at him. He looks almost like her Rory, only younger, of course, and with a different look in his eyes. If they were older, they could be the grown-ups at the museum.
“What’s your name?” he asks when she doesn’t answer.
She pauses, and makes up her mind.
“I’m Amy.”
---
The other kids laugh at them when they realize they’re friends. One boy jeeringly tells Rory all about Amelia’s - Amy’s - fascination with non-existent things. Amy freezes, sure this will be the end of their fledgling friendship, but Rory turns to her and shrugs.
“I’ll believe in stars if you want me to,” he says.
It’s heartrendingly obvious, this painfully shy boy’s eagerness to believe in anything if he’ll get to keep his new friend. Amy grins brilliantly at him.
“Okay,” she says.
---
Amy, says a note from River that she finds one day on the inside of a cupboard at home when she’s thirteen. You’ve got to stop talking about stars so much. They don’t understand. Try this, instead.
It’s attached to a flier, and when Amy peels off the note, she can see that it’s for a star convention.
It’s on Saturday, and in London, which is a two hour train ride away. Amy buys the ticket out of her pocket money, and tells her aunt that she’ll be at Rory’s. She makes the journey alone.
The convention is bigger than she’d expected, with a surprising amount of people there. There will be speeches later, but for now everybody is milling around, talking. Amy tucks herself into a corner and watches them. She is probably the youngest there by at least a decade, and someone stops to ask if she’s lost. Amy shakes her head no, and then finds herself talking to a group of adults about the dreams she still has. Unlike everyone else she’s ever met, they listen gravely, and nod as if they understand, and talk about their own experiences. They use forbidden words like aliens and solar systems. Amy thinks she might be a little in love.
---
She keeps in contact with a few of them for years afterwards, exchanging emails every now and then. It’s good to have someone to talk to, because while Rory is tolerant of her beliefs, he doesn’t share them, and no matter how many notes she receives from River, she can never write back. She stops talking about stars in her everyday life, and her aunt seems cautiously relieved, determined avoiding any subject that might cause Amy to bring it all back up again. The others at school start to talk to her, and as Amy grows from plain child into good looking teenager, the boys seem to forget that they’d ever picked on her and called her crazy.
She dates a boy called Tom when she’s sixteen, and Rory looks heartbroken.
Give Rory a chance, River writes. He likes you.
Amy stuffs the note quickly into the box with the others, and doesn’t think about it again.
---
When she’s eighteen, and just finished high school, she finds a pamphlet sticking out of her sock drawer. It’s for a speech to be given by Richard Dawkins himself, presenting the evidence for the existence of stars. There’s a ticket paperclipped to the pamphlet, and when Amy turns it over, she find a sticky yellow note.
See you there, it says.
---
Before she goes to London for the speech, Amy spends hours finding an outfit, and fixing her hair, and making sure her make-up is perfect. She’s been waiting twelve years to meet River. Now that the moment is here, she’s finds herself almost too nervous to go.
She takes the train up to London and arrives early enough at the convention centre to get a seat in the back. The speech Richard Dawkins gives is interesting, but Amy spends most of the time staring at everybody else in attendance, wondering if any of them could be River.
When the speech is over, the others begin to mill out of the room. Amy stands, looking around, until the room is completely empty apart from herself. Disappointment washes over her.
She bends to pick up her bag, trying not to let herself cry, and when she stands, there’s a woman by the door. She’s looking at Amy with a little half smile, and Amy heart skips a beat, because this must be her.
She stands, frozen, watching as the woman makes her way over to Amy. She’s somewhere in her mid-thirties, with wild, curly hair and a knowing expression. She stops in front of Amy.
“Hello,” she says, her tone just short of drawling. “I’m River.”
Amy catches her breath. “Amy,” she returns shakily.
River’s smile widens. “I know.”
She sits fluidly into a chair, looking up at Amy, apparently totally at ease. Amy copies her rather less gracefully, nearly collapsing into the chair behind her and trying to remember how to breathe.
When she’s found her voice, she leans forward and demands, “Who are you?”
River chuckles. “River Song,” she says. “Archeologist, friend of the Doctor. Human.” She pauses a beat and then adds, “Apparently soon-to-be professor, although I don’t suppose that will ever happen in this universe.”
There’s a trace of bitterness in the last sentence, and Amy frowns. “In this universe?” she echoes. “As opposed to…?”
“Ah,” River grins, leaning back. “That’s a story for another day, Miss Amelia Pond.”
Before Amy has time to reply, she stands and says briskly, “Well, I must be off. Very nice to meet you, Amy.”
She’s walking away before Amy gathers the strength to call out, “Wait!”
River turns back, one eyebrow raised.
“How do you know who I am?” Amy asks.
A slow smile spreads across River’s face. “Oh, Amy,” she chuckles. “You’d be surprised at the things I know.”
She turns, walking away again, and calls back over her shoulder, “Not to worry, Amy. I’ll see you again soon.”
Amy watches, staring, as River disappears out the doors. When she’s gone, Amy sinks back against her chair, looking blankly at the wall ahead of her. River’s face is fixed in her mind.
---
Later, when she’s capable of coherent thought again, she worries that now that they’ve met, the notes from River will stop. But they keep on coming, just as they always have, finding their way into unexpected places. Amy reads each one as eagerly as the last, but there are no more invitations to meet River.
---
When she’s twenty years old, Rory tells her that he’s getting married.
It’s not surprising, because he’s been dating this girl Vanessa ever since Amy turned him down when they were sixteen, and it’s obvious to the world that he and Vanessa are smitten with each other. Privately, Amy thinks they’re a little young, but Rory has always wanted nothing more than to settle down with a family. So she squeals and congratulates them both and spends far too much money on an engagement present.
A year later, she goes to the wedding and watches as they get married and set off to honeymoon in Europe. She feels a little sad watching them go, and a little lonely. She’s studying medicine at university (her aunt had looked panicked when Amy had first said she’d like to be a doctor, until she realized that Amy meant a legitimate, medical doctor instead of an alien), and it’s hard to believe Rory is turning into an adult and leaving her behind.
She’s not surprised when the notes from River increase in frequency after the wedding. She’s long ago stopped questioning River’s constant knowledge of her feelings.
---
Rory is a little different when he comes back from his honeymoon with Vanessa. He’s more grown up and mature, and a little superior whenever Amy is around.
Amy goes to his and Vanessa’s new place one evening to eat pizza and watch TV. When she makes a passing comment about River, he and Vanessa exchange looks.
“What?” Amy demands, catching it. “What?”
Rory clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Amy,” he says gently. “You’ve got to stop this talk about stars, and about River. We’re too old now. You know she’s not real.”
For a moment, Amy is speechless. She stares at him, mouth agape. “Not real?” she squeaks. “What?”
Rory looks at Vanessa. Vanessa backs quickly out of the room.
“You mean,” Amy breathes, eyes still wide, “all these years - for all this time, you’ve thought I was making her up?”
“Come on, Amy,” Rory says gently. “You’ve always wanted to be different; special. First it was stars, then the Doctor, then River. Really, Amy, a person who’s been around your whole life, sending you letters, choosing you out of everybody in the world - you know that isn’t possible.”
“But,” Amy gasps, still stunned, “but you’ve seen them. I’ve shown you those letters! You know they exist!”
“I also know what your handwriting looks like,” Rory says. “And it looks remarkably like River’s. Honestly, Amy, a person who can sneak notes into your bedroom without you noticing? Who knows everything about you? You know she’s not real. It’s just you, Amy. It’s just you, making yourself out to be different, when really you’re just the same as the rest of us.”
He swallows, standing up. “You’ve got to stop it now, Amy. It was different when we were kids, but we’re grown up now. You’re too old to keep pretending.”
Amy stares for a few more second, and then stands. Without a word, she walks out of the apartment.
“Amy, hold on,” Rory calls after her, sounding exasperated. “Can’t you see I’m trying to help?”
Amy glances back at him, and slams his front door.
---
The tears come as soon as she leaves his apartment, and they keep on coming no matter how hard she tries to hold them back. It’s not just that he’s turned on her, it’s what he said, and the accompanying panic that goes with it, because without wanting to, she has to agree that everything he’s said is true. How could there be a person who knew Amy’s every move and every thought; who could somehow get into her house and into her bedroom without anybody noticing?
Maybe, all the things she’d heard growing up - “crazy, lunatic, freak,” said the kids at school; “psychologically disturbed,” said every psychiatrist she’d ever been to - had been true. Maybe she’s been wrong all along. Maybe there is no River. Maybe there’s only Amy.
When she gets back to the flat she’s been living in ever since she started her degree, she goes straight to the still kept box in the cupboard that she’d labeled as evidence so long ago. Inside it is every single note she’s ever gotten from River, plus the ones from the Doctor. She rips them out, disturbing their order, and holds some up, frantically examining the handwriting. It’s similar - not the same, but there are enough likenesses that it could potentially be her own. Reading them over, she catches several phrases that she herself uses every day. Had she learnt them from River, or did River use them because Amy did?
See you there, River had written three years ago on a note, and Amy had, she had seen River. But then, River hadn’t appeared until after everyone else was gone. She and River hadn’t shaken hands, or touched in any way, and even if she found everyone who’d been at that speech, nobody could say with any certainty whether they had or hadn’t seen River. As well as that, she hadn’t given real responses to questions Amy couldn’t answer herself. Amy had been to several psychiatrists as a child, and every one of them had tried to explain that Amy’s brain was giving her false information, trying to protect itself from realizing anything was wrong. Was that all River was? Just a trick, designed to keep herself happy?
Had River been a figment of her imagination all along?
She goes to bed around two in the morning with nothing resolved. Google searches of River’s name don’t turn up anything recent enough to be viable. But she’s upended her drawers, and she hasn’t found any blank sticky yellow paper either.
She goes to her classes the next day, and sits through them without listening to a word. She ignores the calls from Rory that she gets throughout the day. When she gets home that afternoon, there’s a note stuck to the underside of her favourite coffee mug.
Amy freezes for a second, and picks it up with caution, reading it through.
Amy, it says, stop this. You’re not crazy. I’m real enough.
Amy reads it over several times, and sits heavily into a kitchen chair. Rubbing a hand over her face, she carefully tracks her movements since she got home. She’d opened the door, put her things in her room and come into the kitchen for coffee in the hope of easing the headache that had been pounding at her all day. According to her watch, the whole thing had happened in under three minutes.
A sense of relief washes over her. She couldn’t have written the note. She hadn’t had any time. But still… she hadn’t had coffee this morning. The note could have been there since last night. And there were six hours of sleep where she couldn’t account for anything she’d done.
The relief lifts, dread taking its place. Real enough, River had said. Well, what did ‘real enough’ mean? Real to Amy, but not to anyone else?
Amy sinks further backwards into her chair. In a sudden fit of anger, she scrunches the note in her hand and hurls it at the wall.
“I hate you!” she shouts out loud. “I hate you!”
There’s a ringing silence after her outburst. Amy finds herself on her feet, breathing hard. Tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She turns to throw herself into her bedroom and sleep until this is all over, and then she freezes.
Someone is knocking at the door.
Amy stares at it suspiciously. It’s probably Rory. She turns away; she doesn’t want to talk to him.
“Amy,” calls a voice, and Amy’s eyes widen, her pulse speeding up. “It’s me. Let me in.”
Amy’s feet obey without conscious thought, and she pulls the door open. She’s half expecting to be met with an empty hallway, but River is standing there in front of her, looking concerned.
“Amy,” she starts, but Amy shakes her head and cuts her off.
“Are you real?” she asks hoarsely.
“Yes,” River nods. “Yes, I’m real.”
Amy cautiously reaches out a hand. “Can I touch you?”
River smiles a little. “Go ahead.”
Slowly, Amy reaches out and lays her hand flat on River’s shoulder. It’s solid, and warm, and real.
Relief crashes over her in a staggering wave. For a second she thinks she might crumple, but she laughs instead, and then she pulls River forward, and kisses her.
River gives a squeak of surprise, but she kisses back, letting Amy lead her inside. Amy shuts the door with a kick and leans River against the wall. She kisses her hard, hands roaming over her body, enjoying the solid weight of another person.
“You’re real,” she gasps when she finally pulls away. “I’m not crazy.”
“No,” River agrees. “You’re not crazy.”
Amy nods a little shakily, and moves to the couch before she collapses. “Please,” she says somewhat desperately, looking up at River. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Alright,” River says quickly. She sits on the opposite side of the couch. “But there are some things you need to understand first.”
She tells Amy a story about another universe, a universe where stars are real and ordinary, and where another Amy and another Rory travel through space and time with the Doctor in a big blue box. But there are cracks in time, and a Pandorica, and an exploding TARDIS, and that’s when River’s voice takes on a different edge, her fingers twisting in her lap.
“What you call the sun,” she says, “isn’t a sun at all. It’s just the TARDIS in constant explosion, burning up.” She looks away from Amy when she adds, “I was on board when it happened.”
For a few seconds, Amy can’t form words. When she can, she asks, “How did you get out?”
River gives an odd little smile. “I didn’t.”
“Oh,” Amy says faintly. She swallows hard, and says carefully, “So, are you dead?”
“In a way,” River says almost casually, “yes, I suppose I am. I’m not a ghost,” she hurries to add. “But I’m not entirely alive, either.”
She pauses, looking away from Amy. “There are emergency safety procedures on the TARDIS,” she says. “If something like an explosion happens, it’s supposed to make a copy of whoever is on board, and send them a few days into the past to give them time to fix the mistake before it happens. Only, when the TARDIS exploded in 2010, it wiped out the universe and started a new one, and it didn’t know where to send me.”
“Where did you end up?” Amy asks.
“Oh, about a hundred years ago,” River says, a bitter smile on her lips.
“A hundred - a hundred years ago!” Amy gasps. “But-,” she studies River, noticing for the first time that she looks no different to when Amy first saw her three years ago. “But you look -,”
“Exactly the same now as I did then,” River finishes calmly. “Well - this copy is supposed to disappear once the crisis has been averted.” She meets Amy’s eyes. “I told you I was real - I’m not, exactly. I don’t age. I don’t change. I don’t need to eat or sleep, and if I try hard enough, I can move small distances just by thinking about it. I’m here to fix a mistake that can’t be fixed with 21st century Earth materials by anyone except the Doctor, and he appeared once, when you were seven years old, and hasn’t been seen again.” She half shrugs, jaw set. “I’ve been around for a hundred years, and I’ll be here until the TARDIS finishes burning.”
“How long will that be?” Amy asks quietly.
River shakes her head. “I don’t know. It could be a few thousand years.”
“A few thousand years,” Amy whispers. “But what can you do?”
River gives her a half smile. “Oh, Amy,” she says. “There are plenty of things to be done when one has all the time in the world.”
---
That evening, when Amy’s had time to get over the shock, she takes River over to Rory’s apartment. When he opens the door, Amy grins broadly at him and says, “Rory, I’d like you to meet River.”
The look on his face is priceless.
Later, when he can speak again, he says to River, “Amy’s not paying you for this, is she?”
River sends him a scathing look. Rory looks suitably quashed.
---
River stays with her for a few days after that. Neither of them says it out loud, but they both know that it’s because Amy’s worried that when River goes she will cease to be real again; that Amy will go back to wondering if she’s dreamed this whole thing up.
“Why don’t you stay,” she suggests after almost a full week has gone by. “You could live here, with me.”
River meets her eyes, but she doesn’t return Amy’s hopeful smile. “I can’t do that.”
“I know,” Amy sighs. “But I wish you could.”
---
It’s not that River completely disappears again, because she keeps turning up every now and then. By the time Amy’s finished her studies and become an intern at a nearby hospital, she’s used to River dropping by every few months or so.
River usually stays for a few days, or a week, and then one morning she’ll just be gone, with no warning and no explanation. When Amy tries to ask what River does, River only says, “I try to help,” and then she won’t say anything else.
Amy herself is working long hours at the hospital, and she has friends among the other interns, so the time between River’s visits passes quickly. Still, she’s always pleased when River appears at her door. She’s never quite sure what to expect, because sometimes River is completely normal, and sometimes she talks about things that Amy doesn’t understand, using words she’s never heard before.
“River,” Amy says one night when she’s twenty-five and they’re lying in Amy’s bed, carefully rolled away from each other, “tell me about the universe.”
She drifts off to sleep listening to River talk about planets she’s been to and adventures she’s had.
The next night, she asks again. River obliges, giving her more stories. Amy falls asleep as River describes the mountains of a planet she calls Diamond.
A few nights later, when River’s in the middle of telling Amy how she escaped from an executioner, Amy rolls over and kisses her. There’s a second where River does nothing, and panic washes over Amy, but then River kisses back, smiling against Amy’s mouth.
It’s a new part of their pattern, but it’s a good one.
---
River doesn’t stop leaving, but she comes back more often, and for longer. Amy doesn’t quite dare to label what they are, but a year later River joins Amy and her friends at a bar one night, and she refers to Amy as her girlfriend.
“Am I really?” Amy asks quietly when the others have gone to get drinks. “Am I really your girlfriend?”
River takes her hand. “Only if you want to be,” she says, but she laces their fingers together as she says it.
“Well,” Amy says. She looks down at their joined hands. “I suppose that would be alright.”
---
“You know it’s not going to be easy,” River warns later that night when they’re walking back to Amy’s flat. “You’re going to age and change and grow old. I’m not. We’ll have to be constantly on the move, creating new identities, making sure people don’t think there’s anything strange about us.”
Amy stops walking and turns to face River. “I don’t care,” she says fiercely. “I want you. And besides,” she adds, “you know I’ve never cared what people think of me.”
River chuckles. “Alright,” she says, and entwines their fingers. “Come on, then.”
Under a blank, starless sky, they walk home together.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Amy Pond/River Song
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through The Big Bang
Summary: Growing up in a universe with no stars, Amelia Pond finds an unlikely friend. AU, assuming that this universe continued on even after the Doctor ‘reset’ it.
Notes: Written for Onomatopoetic. Title from Anna Nalick’s song Catalyst.
The first time she ever hears from River Song, she is six years old.
She’s just gotten back from her first visit with her first psychiatrist, who has tried his hardest to convince her that stars are just a product of her imagination. She’s torn - it’s hard not to believe the man who seems so sure of himself, but her dreams are so vivid, so real, that she knows she cannot be making it up.
Her aunt unlocks the door, and, as always, asks her to check the mailbox. Amelia - because she’s still going by the name, will be for more years to come - obeys, and when she pulls out the envelopes she finds on top of them a single slip of yellow paper. On it, written in messy script, is simply, I see them too. Don’t give up hope. - River.
Amelia chances a look at her aunt, and shoves the piece of paper deep into her pocket. She carries it with her, secretly, to all her following psychiatrist appointments. When they try - and fail - to convince her that stars cannot be real, she grips the paper in her pocket, and holds fast to her beliefs.
---
There is a man that she sees sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, who watches her.
He is tall, somewhat lanky, and his hair flies off in all directions. She doesn’t know what his face looks like, because whenever he sees that she’s noticed him, he vanishes, so she learns to pretend not to see him, and enjoys the feeling of his eyes on her.
She knows she should be scared, but she feels like he is not simply watching her, but watching over her, and when she sees him, she feels comforted. She makes the mistake of mentioning him to her aunt one day, and her aunt looks horrified and a little angry. For years afterwards, Amelia is never allowed to go anywhere alone.
She learns her lesson from that, and afterwards when she feels him watching her, she just smiles to herself and keeps her mouth shut.
---
A year after her first note from River, she gets a note through her front door telling her to go to the museum. When she does, she ends up on a confusing adventure, where, for most of the time, she doesn’t know what’s going on. She meets a woman who looks a little like herself, whose name is Amy - which Amelia thinks is a much nicer name than her own - and a man who calls himself the Doctor. The really exciting part, though, is that she gets to meet him, the man who’s been watching her and following her, and it turns out she was right all along; he is a good guy, genuinely looking out for her. She learns his name is Rory.
She thinks she hears someone mention the name River, and she pricks up her ears, but they’re being attacked by a robot that talks and moves by itself, so she decides her questions will have to wait. Only something strange happens while they’re standing by the stairs, and she can’t remember anything after that, but she wakes up the next morning in her own bed, having to face up to her furious aunt.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory are gone. Carefully, Amelia takes the notes they’d given her and puts them in a box in her cupboard. She marks it Evidence.
---
She waits, as always, for Rory to appear, but time passes and she doesn’t see him. She tries not waiting, too, but that doesn’t work either. It makes her feel unsettled, so she talks even more about the Doctor and the points of light in the sky.
When her aunt finally snaps and calls her crazy, she waits weeks for Rory to show up, hoping for that small bit of comfort.
He never does.
---
When she’s nine, and starting to lose hope, she gets another note from River. It’s stuck onto the back of a school project that gets returned, and she almost misses it, but when she throws it in the bin, she sees the yellow paper, and the familiar writing. It says simply, Don’t forget.
Amelia stares at it, feeling her heart race. With shaking fingers, she peels the note off the project and puts it in the box with the others.
---
After that, she starts to get more notes from River, with increasing frequency. At first they only say things like, You’re not alone, and, Don’t give up, but as the years pass and she turns into a teenager, they become more expansive; whole letters written on sticky yellow paper. River loses the formal tone, and talks to her like a friend.
It’s thrilling, because River always finds different, unexpected ways to get the notes to her. Sometimes they come in the mail box, like that first time, but sometimes they appear in her schoolbooks, or on top of her desk at home, or, on one memorable occasion, in her back pocket.
She looks forward to the notes, lives for them even, and in between she wonders endlessly who River is and what she is like, and whether they’ll ever meet.
It’s something of a hobby, and a little of an obsession.
---
When she’s ten, a new boy starts at school. At first, she doesn’t pay any attention to him, but he’s awkward and gangly and shy, and he’s quickly shunned by the other children in their class. Amelia, too, has always been a loner, because no one wants to be friends with a girl who believes in stars.
She seeks him out at lunchtime, and they sit silently next to one another while all the other children run and play around them. When the bell rings and they get up to go back to class, he says, “I’m Rory.”
Amelia freezes and stares at him. He looks almost like her Rory, only younger, of course, and with a different look in his eyes. If they were older, they could be the grown-ups at the museum.
“What’s your name?” he asks when she doesn’t answer.
She pauses, and makes up her mind.
“I’m Amy.”
---
The other kids laugh at them when they realize they’re friends. One boy jeeringly tells Rory all about Amelia’s - Amy’s - fascination with non-existent things. Amy freezes, sure this will be the end of their fledgling friendship, but Rory turns to her and shrugs.
“I’ll believe in stars if you want me to,” he says.
It’s heartrendingly obvious, this painfully shy boy’s eagerness to believe in anything if he’ll get to keep his new friend. Amy grins brilliantly at him.
“Okay,” she says.
---
Amy, says a note from River that she finds one day on the inside of a cupboard at home when she’s thirteen. You’ve got to stop talking about stars so much. They don’t understand. Try this, instead.
It’s attached to a flier, and when Amy peels off the note, she can see that it’s for a star convention.
It’s on Saturday, and in London, which is a two hour train ride away. Amy buys the ticket out of her pocket money, and tells her aunt that she’ll be at Rory’s. She makes the journey alone.
The convention is bigger than she’d expected, with a surprising amount of people there. There will be speeches later, but for now everybody is milling around, talking. Amy tucks herself into a corner and watches them. She is probably the youngest there by at least a decade, and someone stops to ask if she’s lost. Amy shakes her head no, and then finds herself talking to a group of adults about the dreams she still has. Unlike everyone else she’s ever met, they listen gravely, and nod as if they understand, and talk about their own experiences. They use forbidden words like aliens and solar systems. Amy thinks she might be a little in love.
---
She keeps in contact with a few of them for years afterwards, exchanging emails every now and then. It’s good to have someone to talk to, because while Rory is tolerant of her beliefs, he doesn’t share them, and no matter how many notes she receives from River, she can never write back. She stops talking about stars in her everyday life, and her aunt seems cautiously relieved, determined avoiding any subject that might cause Amy to bring it all back up again. The others at school start to talk to her, and as Amy grows from plain child into good looking teenager, the boys seem to forget that they’d ever picked on her and called her crazy.
She dates a boy called Tom when she’s sixteen, and Rory looks heartbroken.
Give Rory a chance, River writes. He likes you.
Amy stuffs the note quickly into the box with the others, and doesn’t think about it again.
---
When she’s eighteen, and just finished high school, she finds a pamphlet sticking out of her sock drawer. It’s for a speech to be given by Richard Dawkins himself, presenting the evidence for the existence of stars. There’s a ticket paperclipped to the pamphlet, and when Amy turns it over, she find a sticky yellow note.
See you there, it says.
---
Before she goes to London for the speech, Amy spends hours finding an outfit, and fixing her hair, and making sure her make-up is perfect. She’s been waiting twelve years to meet River. Now that the moment is here, she’s finds herself almost too nervous to go.
She takes the train up to London and arrives early enough at the convention centre to get a seat in the back. The speech Richard Dawkins gives is interesting, but Amy spends most of the time staring at everybody else in attendance, wondering if any of them could be River.
When the speech is over, the others begin to mill out of the room. Amy stands, looking around, until the room is completely empty apart from herself. Disappointment washes over her.
She bends to pick up her bag, trying not to let herself cry, and when she stands, there’s a woman by the door. She’s looking at Amy with a little half smile, and Amy heart skips a beat, because this must be her.
She stands, frozen, watching as the woman makes her way over to Amy. She’s somewhere in her mid-thirties, with wild, curly hair and a knowing expression. She stops in front of Amy.
“Hello,” she says, her tone just short of drawling. “I’m River.”
Amy catches her breath. “Amy,” she returns shakily.
River’s smile widens. “I know.”
She sits fluidly into a chair, looking up at Amy, apparently totally at ease. Amy copies her rather less gracefully, nearly collapsing into the chair behind her and trying to remember how to breathe.
When she’s found her voice, she leans forward and demands, “Who are you?”
River chuckles. “River Song,” she says. “Archeologist, friend of the Doctor. Human.” She pauses a beat and then adds, “Apparently soon-to-be professor, although I don’t suppose that will ever happen in this universe.”
There’s a trace of bitterness in the last sentence, and Amy frowns. “In this universe?” she echoes. “As opposed to…?”
“Ah,” River grins, leaning back. “That’s a story for another day, Miss Amelia Pond.”
Before Amy has time to reply, she stands and says briskly, “Well, I must be off. Very nice to meet you, Amy.”
She’s walking away before Amy gathers the strength to call out, “Wait!”
River turns back, one eyebrow raised.
“How do you know who I am?” Amy asks.
A slow smile spreads across River’s face. “Oh, Amy,” she chuckles. “You’d be surprised at the things I know.”
She turns, walking away again, and calls back over her shoulder, “Not to worry, Amy. I’ll see you again soon.”
Amy watches, staring, as River disappears out the doors. When she’s gone, Amy sinks back against her chair, looking blankly at the wall ahead of her. River’s face is fixed in her mind.
---
Later, when she’s capable of coherent thought again, she worries that now that they’ve met, the notes from River will stop. But they keep on coming, just as they always have, finding their way into unexpected places. Amy reads each one as eagerly as the last, but there are no more invitations to meet River.
---
When she’s twenty years old, Rory tells her that he’s getting married.
It’s not surprising, because he’s been dating this girl Vanessa ever since Amy turned him down when they were sixteen, and it’s obvious to the world that he and Vanessa are smitten with each other. Privately, Amy thinks they’re a little young, but Rory has always wanted nothing more than to settle down with a family. So she squeals and congratulates them both and spends far too much money on an engagement present.
A year later, she goes to the wedding and watches as they get married and set off to honeymoon in Europe. She feels a little sad watching them go, and a little lonely. She’s studying medicine at university (her aunt had looked panicked when Amy had first said she’d like to be a doctor, until she realized that Amy meant a legitimate, medical doctor instead of an alien), and it’s hard to believe Rory is turning into an adult and leaving her behind.
She’s not surprised when the notes from River increase in frequency after the wedding. She’s long ago stopped questioning River’s constant knowledge of her feelings.
---
Rory is a little different when he comes back from his honeymoon with Vanessa. He’s more grown up and mature, and a little superior whenever Amy is around.
Amy goes to his and Vanessa’s new place one evening to eat pizza and watch TV. When she makes a passing comment about River, he and Vanessa exchange looks.
“What?” Amy demands, catching it. “What?”
Rory clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Amy,” he says gently. “You’ve got to stop this talk about stars, and about River. We’re too old now. You know she’s not real.”
For a moment, Amy is speechless. She stares at him, mouth agape. “Not real?” she squeaks. “What?”
Rory looks at Vanessa. Vanessa backs quickly out of the room.
“You mean,” Amy breathes, eyes still wide, “all these years - for all this time, you’ve thought I was making her up?”
“Come on, Amy,” Rory says gently. “You’ve always wanted to be different; special. First it was stars, then the Doctor, then River. Really, Amy, a person who’s been around your whole life, sending you letters, choosing you out of everybody in the world - you know that isn’t possible.”
“But,” Amy gasps, still stunned, “but you’ve seen them. I’ve shown you those letters! You know they exist!”
“I also know what your handwriting looks like,” Rory says. “And it looks remarkably like River’s. Honestly, Amy, a person who can sneak notes into your bedroom without you noticing? Who knows everything about you? You know she’s not real. It’s just you, Amy. It’s just you, making yourself out to be different, when really you’re just the same as the rest of us.”
He swallows, standing up. “You’ve got to stop it now, Amy. It was different when we were kids, but we’re grown up now. You’re too old to keep pretending.”
Amy stares for a few more second, and then stands. Without a word, she walks out of the apartment.
“Amy, hold on,” Rory calls after her, sounding exasperated. “Can’t you see I’m trying to help?”
Amy glances back at him, and slams his front door.
---
The tears come as soon as she leaves his apartment, and they keep on coming no matter how hard she tries to hold them back. It’s not just that he’s turned on her, it’s what he said, and the accompanying panic that goes with it, because without wanting to, she has to agree that everything he’s said is true. How could there be a person who knew Amy’s every move and every thought; who could somehow get into her house and into her bedroom without anybody noticing?
Maybe, all the things she’d heard growing up - “crazy, lunatic, freak,” said the kids at school; “psychologically disturbed,” said every psychiatrist she’d ever been to - had been true. Maybe she’s been wrong all along. Maybe there is no River. Maybe there’s only Amy.
When she gets back to the flat she’s been living in ever since she started her degree, she goes straight to the still kept box in the cupboard that she’d labeled as evidence so long ago. Inside it is every single note she’s ever gotten from River, plus the ones from the Doctor. She rips them out, disturbing their order, and holds some up, frantically examining the handwriting. It’s similar - not the same, but there are enough likenesses that it could potentially be her own. Reading them over, she catches several phrases that she herself uses every day. Had she learnt them from River, or did River use them because Amy did?
See you there, River had written three years ago on a note, and Amy had, she had seen River. But then, River hadn’t appeared until after everyone else was gone. She and River hadn’t shaken hands, or touched in any way, and even if she found everyone who’d been at that speech, nobody could say with any certainty whether they had or hadn’t seen River. As well as that, she hadn’t given real responses to questions Amy couldn’t answer herself. Amy had been to several psychiatrists as a child, and every one of them had tried to explain that Amy’s brain was giving her false information, trying to protect itself from realizing anything was wrong. Was that all River was? Just a trick, designed to keep herself happy?
Had River been a figment of her imagination all along?
She goes to bed around two in the morning with nothing resolved. Google searches of River’s name don’t turn up anything recent enough to be viable. But she’s upended her drawers, and she hasn’t found any blank sticky yellow paper either.
She goes to her classes the next day, and sits through them without listening to a word. She ignores the calls from Rory that she gets throughout the day. When she gets home that afternoon, there’s a note stuck to the underside of her favourite coffee mug.
Amy freezes for a second, and picks it up with caution, reading it through.
Amy, it says, stop this. You’re not crazy. I’m real enough.
Amy reads it over several times, and sits heavily into a kitchen chair. Rubbing a hand over her face, she carefully tracks her movements since she got home. She’d opened the door, put her things in her room and come into the kitchen for coffee in the hope of easing the headache that had been pounding at her all day. According to her watch, the whole thing had happened in under three minutes.
A sense of relief washes over her. She couldn’t have written the note. She hadn’t had any time. But still… she hadn’t had coffee this morning. The note could have been there since last night. And there were six hours of sleep where she couldn’t account for anything she’d done.
The relief lifts, dread taking its place. Real enough, River had said. Well, what did ‘real enough’ mean? Real to Amy, but not to anyone else?
Amy sinks further backwards into her chair. In a sudden fit of anger, she scrunches the note in her hand and hurls it at the wall.
“I hate you!” she shouts out loud. “I hate you!”
There’s a ringing silence after her outburst. Amy finds herself on her feet, breathing hard. Tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She turns to throw herself into her bedroom and sleep until this is all over, and then she freezes.
Someone is knocking at the door.
Amy stares at it suspiciously. It’s probably Rory. She turns away; she doesn’t want to talk to him.
“Amy,” calls a voice, and Amy’s eyes widen, her pulse speeding up. “It’s me. Let me in.”
Amy’s feet obey without conscious thought, and she pulls the door open. She’s half expecting to be met with an empty hallway, but River is standing there in front of her, looking concerned.
“Amy,” she starts, but Amy shakes her head and cuts her off.
“Are you real?” she asks hoarsely.
“Yes,” River nods. “Yes, I’m real.”
Amy cautiously reaches out a hand. “Can I touch you?”
River smiles a little. “Go ahead.”
Slowly, Amy reaches out and lays her hand flat on River’s shoulder. It’s solid, and warm, and real.
Relief crashes over her in a staggering wave. For a second she thinks she might crumple, but she laughs instead, and then she pulls River forward, and kisses her.
River gives a squeak of surprise, but she kisses back, letting Amy lead her inside. Amy shuts the door with a kick and leans River against the wall. She kisses her hard, hands roaming over her body, enjoying the solid weight of another person.
“You’re real,” she gasps when she finally pulls away. “I’m not crazy.”
“No,” River agrees. “You’re not crazy.”
Amy nods a little shakily, and moves to the couch before she collapses. “Please,” she says somewhat desperately, looking up at River. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Alright,” River says quickly. She sits on the opposite side of the couch. “But there are some things you need to understand first.”
She tells Amy a story about another universe, a universe where stars are real and ordinary, and where another Amy and another Rory travel through space and time with the Doctor in a big blue box. But there are cracks in time, and a Pandorica, and an exploding TARDIS, and that’s when River’s voice takes on a different edge, her fingers twisting in her lap.
“What you call the sun,” she says, “isn’t a sun at all. It’s just the TARDIS in constant explosion, burning up.” She looks away from Amy when she adds, “I was on board when it happened.”
For a few seconds, Amy can’t form words. When she can, she asks, “How did you get out?”
River gives an odd little smile. “I didn’t.”
“Oh,” Amy says faintly. She swallows hard, and says carefully, “So, are you dead?”
“In a way,” River says almost casually, “yes, I suppose I am. I’m not a ghost,” she hurries to add. “But I’m not entirely alive, either.”
She pauses, looking away from Amy. “There are emergency safety procedures on the TARDIS,” she says. “If something like an explosion happens, it’s supposed to make a copy of whoever is on board, and send them a few days into the past to give them time to fix the mistake before it happens. Only, when the TARDIS exploded in 2010, it wiped out the universe and started a new one, and it didn’t know where to send me.”
“Where did you end up?” Amy asks.
“Oh, about a hundred years ago,” River says, a bitter smile on her lips.
“A hundred - a hundred years ago!” Amy gasps. “But-,” she studies River, noticing for the first time that she looks no different to when Amy first saw her three years ago. “But you look -,”
“Exactly the same now as I did then,” River finishes calmly. “Well - this copy is supposed to disappear once the crisis has been averted.” She meets Amy’s eyes. “I told you I was real - I’m not, exactly. I don’t age. I don’t change. I don’t need to eat or sleep, and if I try hard enough, I can move small distances just by thinking about it. I’m here to fix a mistake that can’t be fixed with 21st century Earth materials by anyone except the Doctor, and he appeared once, when you were seven years old, and hasn’t been seen again.” She half shrugs, jaw set. “I’ve been around for a hundred years, and I’ll be here until the TARDIS finishes burning.”
“How long will that be?” Amy asks quietly.
River shakes her head. “I don’t know. It could be a few thousand years.”
“A few thousand years,” Amy whispers. “But what can you do?”
River gives her a half smile. “Oh, Amy,” she says. “There are plenty of things to be done when one has all the time in the world.”
---
That evening, when Amy’s had time to get over the shock, she takes River over to Rory’s apartment. When he opens the door, Amy grins broadly at him and says, “Rory, I’d like you to meet River.”
The look on his face is priceless.
Later, when he can speak again, he says to River, “Amy’s not paying you for this, is she?”
River sends him a scathing look. Rory looks suitably quashed.
---
River stays with her for a few days after that. Neither of them says it out loud, but they both know that it’s because Amy’s worried that when River goes she will cease to be real again; that Amy will go back to wondering if she’s dreamed this whole thing up.
“Why don’t you stay,” she suggests after almost a full week has gone by. “You could live here, with me.”
River meets her eyes, but she doesn’t return Amy’s hopeful smile. “I can’t do that.”
“I know,” Amy sighs. “But I wish you could.”
---
It’s not that River completely disappears again, because she keeps turning up every now and then. By the time Amy’s finished her studies and become an intern at a nearby hospital, she’s used to River dropping by every few months or so.
River usually stays for a few days, or a week, and then one morning she’ll just be gone, with no warning and no explanation. When Amy tries to ask what River does, River only says, “I try to help,” and then she won’t say anything else.
Amy herself is working long hours at the hospital, and she has friends among the other interns, so the time between River’s visits passes quickly. Still, she’s always pleased when River appears at her door. She’s never quite sure what to expect, because sometimes River is completely normal, and sometimes she talks about things that Amy doesn’t understand, using words she’s never heard before.
“River,” Amy says one night when she’s twenty-five and they’re lying in Amy’s bed, carefully rolled away from each other, “tell me about the universe.”
She drifts off to sleep listening to River talk about planets she’s been to and adventures she’s had.
The next night, she asks again. River obliges, giving her more stories. Amy falls asleep as River describes the mountains of a planet she calls Diamond.
A few nights later, when River’s in the middle of telling Amy how she escaped from an executioner, Amy rolls over and kisses her. There’s a second where River does nothing, and panic washes over Amy, but then River kisses back, smiling against Amy’s mouth.
It’s a new part of their pattern, but it’s a good one.
---
River doesn’t stop leaving, but she comes back more often, and for longer. Amy doesn’t quite dare to label what they are, but a year later River joins Amy and her friends at a bar one night, and she refers to Amy as her girlfriend.
“Am I really?” Amy asks quietly when the others have gone to get drinks. “Am I really your girlfriend?”
River takes her hand. “Only if you want to be,” she says, but she laces their fingers together as she says it.
“Well,” Amy says. She looks down at their joined hands. “I suppose that would be alright.”
---
“You know it’s not going to be easy,” River warns later that night when they’re walking back to Amy’s flat. “You’re going to age and change and grow old. I’m not. We’ll have to be constantly on the move, creating new identities, making sure people don’t think there’s anything strange about us.”
Amy stops walking and turns to face River. “I don’t care,” she says fiercely. “I want you. And besides,” she adds, “you know I’ve never cared what people think of me.”
River chuckles. “Alright,” she says, and entwines their fingers. “Come on, then.”
Under a blank, starless sky, they walk home together.