FIC: "Building Things," Doctor Who, Amy/Rory, PG
TITLE: "Building Things"
AUTHOR: Cathryn (catslash)
WORD COUNT: Approx. 2100
SUMMARY: She said flat-out three days into their engagement that she wasn't changing her name.
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Rory Williams, Amy Pond, Mels; Amy/Rory
RATING: PG for a bit of language
THANKS: To my flist for their input and a bit of Britpicking.
DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. The author of this fic takes no credit and makes no money.
SPOILERS: All of series five and six to date as of this writing, especially 6x08, "Let's Kill Hitler," and 6x11, "The God Complex."
Rory had been friends with Amelia Pond for two weeks, and positive he wanted to be her friend forever for thirteen and a half days, when he made a near-fatal mistake.
Amelia wanted to play Raggedy Doctor, and she wanted a pretend shed for him to smash with his blue box. Rory said eagerly that he would build one, only to realize that he didn't know how. Amelia listened to him stutter awkwardly for a moment, then rolled her eyes and said,
"Never mind, I'll build it."
"You can't build it," Rory said, "you're a girl. Girls don't build things."
In his memory now, he sees it in slow motion: her eyes going wide, the enraged flush climbing up her cheeks, then the abrupt turn and how she'd stomped away from him without saying a word. He'd chased after her, not really understanding what he'd done wrong but apologizing frantically anyway. She ignored him that day, and then the next and the next and the next. Then she made friends with Mels and Rory was convinced he'd been replaced until Mels came up to him on the playground, grabbed his hand, marched him over to Amelia, and ordered,
"Say girls build things."
He looked earnestly at Amelia. "Girls build things. Better than boys!" he added, inspired.
("Don't overdo it," Mels muttered, which wouldn't make sense to Rory until much, much later.)
Amelia's eyes narrowed and she looked him over hard. Rory did his best to look like someone who believed girls built things, which he did now because he'd told Mum about the fight and Mum had set him straight, and anyway if anyone could do anything they wanted it was Amelia.
"Okay," she said finally, and Rory discovered boys could be happy enough to almost cry.
The entire incident had been a valuable lesson in being friends with Amelia, later Amy, Pond: Amy had no patience for the rigid ideals that had been instilled in Rory, and he could either get more flexible in a hurry or he could lose her.
So when she said flat-out, three days into their engagement, that she wasn't changing her name, he'd known better than to do anything other than nod and swallow his disappointment.
(She saw right through him, of course. The ensuing argument was shaping up to be epic when Mels strolled up, linked her arms in both of theirs, and cheerfully told them to stop being twats. Rory has wondered more than once just how big a role Mels played in getting them to their wedding day, and doesn't that question ever have a brand new meaning now.)
He never stopped hoping, though, that Amy would change her mind. That she'd find some way to make it acceptable in her head and realize that becoming Amy Williams didn't make her any less Amy. He knew the best way to make this happen was to leave it alone, so he did. He never brought it up. He never told her how deeply he believed a married couple should share a name. A ring can fall down the drain, vows can fade in the memory, but a name is there for life.
Unfortunately, his parents weren't aware of his strategy. They'd somehow made it through the entire course of Rory's relationship with Amy without realizing that the best way to manage her was to avoid trying to manage her at all. He came home from work one night only to be dragged right back out the door by a seething Amy, who had spent the last half hour being talked at by his mother. They bypassed the car, walking for almost ten minutes before Amy spoke.
"They've never liked me."
"What?" Rory asked, astonished, because surely she couldn't mean -
"Your parents. They've never liked me."
"No - Amy, that's not true! They love you. You've been part of the family for years."
"You don't have to like someone to love them."
It was a completely new idea for Rory, though he realized in the next second that it shouldn't have been. Amy had a knack for that, pointing out the kinds of truths everyone knows but no one thinks about. He was still turning it over in his head in a sort of sheepish amazement as she continued.
"And anyway, they don't love me, they love the perfect Amy Williams they think I'm going to magically turn into in June. They're waiting for me to grow up." She turned away from him and shoved at a slender-trunked tree by the sidewalk, because that was the kind of thing Amy did instead of crying.
"Amy! Amy, hey." Rory snapped out of it and reached for her shoulders, turning her to face him. "I love you. I don't want you to grow up." She raised an eyebrow; he winced. "I mean! I mean. I don't want perfect Amy Williams and, and do you know what, I'd chuck her if she showed up. I want Amy Pond."
She studied him for a few seconds, then said that if they hurried they could get an ice cream before the film, and that was that. She'd never be Amy Williams.
They argued over who would pay for the ice cream ("I have a job now, Rory, you don't have to pay for everything"), and Amy made snide remarks at the cinema about how the Doctor would have sorted everything in five minutes as she always did at scifi films, and Rory somehow got away with hiding how much she'd hurt him. The subject of names never came up again before the wedding.
And after, of course, there was the Doctor, and then there were more immediately dangerous things to worry about.
***
"Melody Williams -"
"Is a geography teacher. Melody Pond is a superhero," and Rory didn't get to share a name with his daughter, either.
Though as it turns out, neither did Amy, not really, and the mean little part of Rory he's never managed to stamp out felt triumphant about that.
***
After the Doctor drops them off for good (more or less), Amy is quiet and moody. Rory expected it and does his best to read her moods, curling up with her when she wants him and going out in his gorgeous new car when she wants space. For the first three days, she doesn't say a word about the Doctor. It's the only time he's ever known her to go that long without talking about him, and he's just thinking of breaking the silence on the topic when she finally does it herself. They're on the couch with the telly on, neither of them exactly watching it, when Amy says,
"The Doctor called me Amy Williams."
He looks at her with that familiar sense of tired resignation - just because he's got used to something only being okay when the Doctor does it doesn't mean he likes it - but she's frowning. He laughs, relieved both that Amy has started talking about the Doctor again and that the Doctor finally seems to have done something wrong.
That turns out to have been a mistake. Her frown sharpens into a glare and she explodes.
"That's always bothered you, hasn't it? That was the first thing you said at Demons Run, was 'Mrs Williams.' You still think I should give up my name. You said you'd chuck perfect Amy Williams if she turned up, but you'd welcome her with open arms. D'you know how hard it is to be yourself when you know exactly who you are and everyone around you is waiting for you to get over it? The Doctor never asked me to be anyone but Amy Pond, except now it turns out he thinks Amy Williams is better too." Her voice breaks at the end; she cries more since Melody, but not willingly, scowling at the first sign of tears and daring anyone to say anything about it.
"No, no, Amy," Rory says the second she stops speaking, scrambling to catch up with everything she just said, "that's not it at all, that's never -" He hurt her and he never even knew it. The guilt is making it hard to talk.
"You were the only one in Leadworth who liked me as I was. Even Mels always seemed to be waiting for something to change." She pauses for a second, acknowledging without changing subject that Mels, at least, had had her reasons fair and square, then keeps going. "I thought you'd understand about my name. When I wanted to be Amy instead of Amelia you were the first one I told, and you never messed it up. Not once. Do you remember, you said right to my dad, 'Amy's name is whatever she says it is.' So I thought you'd understand."
He does remember that. It was the first time he had ever openly corrected an adult, but that's not why he remembers it. He remembers it because of the way Amy's face had lit up, one of the few times he'd seen her purely joyful, and because that was when he'd known - in a real, grownup kind of way - that there would never, ever be another girl.
Now for the first time, he sees it from Amy's perspective. How could he never have looked at it that way before? How could he remember it so vividly and not understand what it meant for her, too?
"I'm sorry, Amy." The words are inadequate. He pushes through his head for more. "Amy Pond is perfect. For me. It's not that, I swear it's not that -"
"Then what is it?" It was true during the girls-can't-build incident and it's true now: Amy's never had much use for apologies, not when there's something else behind them. Understanding, she told him once, is better than forgiveness. He thinks he's starting to get that now.
"It's - I always wanted us to have the same name," he says. Once he's found his words, it's not hard to tease the ideas out; they've been in his head for years. "It makes a family. It says, 'These people belong to each other.' And I know we do, and I know everything we've done and everything we've been through means so much more than putting in the paperwork to change your name, but - I dunno, I just can't let go of it."
She scoffs, which in Amy Speak means he is understood (if not quite forgiven) and says, "Well, if that's all, then why am I the one who has to change my name?"
"Because -" He stops short. Because that's how it's always been done has never been the right thing to tell Amy, and one thing he's learnt from the Doctor (or maybe from Amy) is that it's one of the worst possible reasons to do anything. All it is is an excuse not to think, and when you don't think you don't see the obvious.
So he thinks, and when he's done he's forced to admit, "I don't know."
The lingering traces of anger fade from her face, replaced by satisfaction. "Well, all right, then."
He reaches over to take her hand, threading his fingers through hers when she doesn't pull away.
"I don't think the Doctor meant it, either," he says. "About Amy Williams. I mean, to be fair, he was trying to break your faith in him in order to save your life at the time - no, no, wait," he protests, when she opens her mouth to tell him exactly what she thinks about being fair, "he called me Mr Pond at our wedding, remember? And I tried to tell him that wasn't how it worked, but he knew better."
He reaches up with his free hand to stroke her hair back behind her ear. She lets him, watching him intently. "And you know," he finishes, "I just realized he was right." The second he hears himself say it aloud, he knows it's true. How can it have taken him so long to see the solution when the Doctor giftwrapped it for him so long ago?
He watches understanding dawn over Amy. She lunges to hug him hard, one of those hugs that says everything she can't put words to. Then she leans back just enough to look at him and ask,
"You really would?"
"I'll get the paperwork started tomorrow," he promises. She smiles, the way she did all those years ago when he defended her right to be Amy, and cradles his face in her hands to kiss him tenderly.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For understanding."
"I love you, Amy Pond," he tells her.
"I love you, Rory Pond," she says, and kisses him again, and then they don't talk for a while after that.
AUTHOR: Cathryn (catslash)
WORD COUNT: Approx. 2100
SUMMARY: She said flat-out three days into their engagement that she wasn't changing her name.
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Rory Williams, Amy Pond, Mels; Amy/Rory
RATING: PG for a bit of language
THANKS: To my flist for their input and a bit of Britpicking.
DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. The author of this fic takes no credit and makes no money.
SPOILERS: All of series five and six to date as of this writing, especially 6x08, "Let's Kill Hitler," and 6x11, "The God Complex."
Rory had been friends with Amelia Pond for two weeks, and positive he wanted to be her friend forever for thirteen and a half days, when he made a near-fatal mistake.
Amelia wanted to play Raggedy Doctor, and she wanted a pretend shed for him to smash with his blue box. Rory said eagerly that he would build one, only to realize that he didn't know how. Amelia listened to him stutter awkwardly for a moment, then rolled her eyes and said,
"Never mind, I'll build it."
"You can't build it," Rory said, "you're a girl. Girls don't build things."
In his memory now, he sees it in slow motion: her eyes going wide, the enraged flush climbing up her cheeks, then the abrupt turn and how she'd stomped away from him without saying a word. He'd chased after her, not really understanding what he'd done wrong but apologizing frantically anyway. She ignored him that day, and then the next and the next and the next. Then she made friends with Mels and Rory was convinced he'd been replaced until Mels came up to him on the playground, grabbed his hand, marched him over to Amelia, and ordered,
"Say girls build things."
He looked earnestly at Amelia. "Girls build things. Better than boys!" he added, inspired.
("Don't overdo it," Mels muttered, which wouldn't make sense to Rory until much, much later.)
Amelia's eyes narrowed and she looked him over hard. Rory did his best to look like someone who believed girls built things, which he did now because he'd told Mum about the fight and Mum had set him straight, and anyway if anyone could do anything they wanted it was Amelia.
"Okay," she said finally, and Rory discovered boys could be happy enough to almost cry.
The entire incident had been a valuable lesson in being friends with Amelia, later Amy, Pond: Amy had no patience for the rigid ideals that had been instilled in Rory, and he could either get more flexible in a hurry or he could lose her.
So when she said flat-out, three days into their engagement, that she wasn't changing her name, he'd known better than to do anything other than nod and swallow his disappointment.
(She saw right through him, of course. The ensuing argument was shaping up to be epic when Mels strolled up, linked her arms in both of theirs, and cheerfully told them to stop being twats. Rory has wondered more than once just how big a role Mels played in getting them to their wedding day, and doesn't that question ever have a brand new meaning now.)
He never stopped hoping, though, that Amy would change her mind. That she'd find some way to make it acceptable in her head and realize that becoming Amy Williams didn't make her any less Amy. He knew the best way to make this happen was to leave it alone, so he did. He never brought it up. He never told her how deeply he believed a married couple should share a name. A ring can fall down the drain, vows can fade in the memory, but a name is there for life.
Unfortunately, his parents weren't aware of his strategy. They'd somehow made it through the entire course of Rory's relationship with Amy without realizing that the best way to manage her was to avoid trying to manage her at all. He came home from work one night only to be dragged right back out the door by a seething Amy, who had spent the last half hour being talked at by his mother. They bypassed the car, walking for almost ten minutes before Amy spoke.
"They've never liked me."
"What?" Rory asked, astonished, because surely she couldn't mean -
"Your parents. They've never liked me."
"No - Amy, that's not true! They love you. You've been part of the family for years."
"You don't have to like someone to love them."
It was a completely new idea for Rory, though he realized in the next second that it shouldn't have been. Amy had a knack for that, pointing out the kinds of truths everyone knows but no one thinks about. He was still turning it over in his head in a sort of sheepish amazement as she continued.
"And anyway, they don't love me, they love the perfect Amy Williams they think I'm going to magically turn into in June. They're waiting for me to grow up." She turned away from him and shoved at a slender-trunked tree by the sidewalk, because that was the kind of thing Amy did instead of crying.
"Amy! Amy, hey." Rory snapped out of it and reached for her shoulders, turning her to face him. "I love you. I don't want you to grow up." She raised an eyebrow; he winced. "I mean! I mean. I don't want perfect Amy Williams and, and do you know what, I'd chuck her if she showed up. I want Amy Pond."
She studied him for a few seconds, then said that if they hurried they could get an ice cream before the film, and that was that. She'd never be Amy Williams.
They argued over who would pay for the ice cream ("I have a job now, Rory, you don't have to pay for everything"), and Amy made snide remarks at the cinema about how the Doctor would have sorted everything in five minutes as she always did at scifi films, and Rory somehow got away with hiding how much she'd hurt him. The subject of names never came up again before the wedding.
And after, of course, there was the Doctor, and then there were more immediately dangerous things to worry about.
***
"Melody Williams -"
"Is a geography teacher. Melody Pond is a superhero," and Rory didn't get to share a name with his daughter, either.
Though as it turns out, neither did Amy, not really, and the mean little part of Rory he's never managed to stamp out felt triumphant about that.
***
After the Doctor drops them off for good (more or less), Amy is quiet and moody. Rory expected it and does his best to read her moods, curling up with her when she wants him and going out in his gorgeous new car when she wants space. For the first three days, she doesn't say a word about the Doctor. It's the only time he's ever known her to go that long without talking about him, and he's just thinking of breaking the silence on the topic when she finally does it herself. They're on the couch with the telly on, neither of them exactly watching it, when Amy says,
"The Doctor called me Amy Williams."
He looks at her with that familiar sense of tired resignation - just because he's got used to something only being okay when the Doctor does it doesn't mean he likes it - but she's frowning. He laughs, relieved both that Amy has started talking about the Doctor again and that the Doctor finally seems to have done something wrong.
That turns out to have been a mistake. Her frown sharpens into a glare and she explodes.
"That's always bothered you, hasn't it? That was the first thing you said at Demons Run, was 'Mrs Williams.' You still think I should give up my name. You said you'd chuck perfect Amy Williams if she turned up, but you'd welcome her with open arms. D'you know how hard it is to be yourself when you know exactly who you are and everyone around you is waiting for you to get over it? The Doctor never asked me to be anyone but Amy Pond, except now it turns out he thinks Amy Williams is better too." Her voice breaks at the end; she cries more since Melody, but not willingly, scowling at the first sign of tears and daring anyone to say anything about it.
"No, no, Amy," Rory says the second she stops speaking, scrambling to catch up with everything she just said, "that's not it at all, that's never -" He hurt her and he never even knew it. The guilt is making it hard to talk.
"You were the only one in Leadworth who liked me as I was. Even Mels always seemed to be waiting for something to change." She pauses for a second, acknowledging without changing subject that Mels, at least, had had her reasons fair and square, then keeps going. "I thought you'd understand about my name. When I wanted to be Amy instead of Amelia you were the first one I told, and you never messed it up. Not once. Do you remember, you said right to my dad, 'Amy's name is whatever she says it is.' So I thought you'd understand."
He does remember that. It was the first time he had ever openly corrected an adult, but that's not why he remembers it. He remembers it because of the way Amy's face had lit up, one of the few times he'd seen her purely joyful, and because that was when he'd known - in a real, grownup kind of way - that there would never, ever be another girl.
Now for the first time, he sees it from Amy's perspective. How could he never have looked at it that way before? How could he remember it so vividly and not understand what it meant for her, too?
"I'm sorry, Amy." The words are inadequate. He pushes through his head for more. "Amy Pond is perfect. For me. It's not that, I swear it's not that -"
"Then what is it?" It was true during the girls-can't-build incident and it's true now: Amy's never had much use for apologies, not when there's something else behind them. Understanding, she told him once, is better than forgiveness. He thinks he's starting to get that now.
"It's - I always wanted us to have the same name," he says. Once he's found his words, it's not hard to tease the ideas out; they've been in his head for years. "It makes a family. It says, 'These people belong to each other.' And I know we do, and I know everything we've done and everything we've been through means so much more than putting in the paperwork to change your name, but - I dunno, I just can't let go of it."
She scoffs, which in Amy Speak means he is understood (if not quite forgiven) and says, "Well, if that's all, then why am I the one who has to change my name?"
"Because -" He stops short. Because that's how it's always been done has never been the right thing to tell Amy, and one thing he's learnt from the Doctor (or maybe from Amy) is that it's one of the worst possible reasons to do anything. All it is is an excuse not to think, and when you don't think you don't see the obvious.
So he thinks, and when he's done he's forced to admit, "I don't know."
The lingering traces of anger fade from her face, replaced by satisfaction. "Well, all right, then."
He reaches over to take her hand, threading his fingers through hers when she doesn't pull away.
"I don't think the Doctor meant it, either," he says. "About Amy Williams. I mean, to be fair, he was trying to break your faith in him in order to save your life at the time - no, no, wait," he protests, when she opens her mouth to tell him exactly what she thinks about being fair, "he called me Mr Pond at our wedding, remember? And I tried to tell him that wasn't how it worked, but he knew better."
He reaches up with his free hand to stroke her hair back behind her ear. She lets him, watching him intently. "And you know," he finishes, "I just realized he was right." The second he hears himself say it aloud, he knows it's true. How can it have taken him so long to see the solution when the Doctor giftwrapped it for him so long ago?
He watches understanding dawn over Amy. She lunges to hug him hard, one of those hugs that says everything she can't put words to. Then she leans back just enough to look at him and ask,
"You really would?"
"I'll get the paperwork started tomorrow," he promises. She smiles, the way she did all those years ago when he defended her right to be Amy, and cradles his face in her hands to kiss him tenderly.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For understanding."
"I love you, Amy Pond," he tells her.
"I love you, Rory Pond," she says, and kisses him again, and then they don't talk for a while after that.