Archive of Our Own ^beta

"I have kind of a big ask."

The fact the speaker’s voice had yet to lose that rough edge from their earlier activities only added to the appeal of the words being half-mumbled into her shoulder.

"Yeah?" the Doctor muses, trailing her fingers over the naked skin of Mel's back quietly hating herself all over again for misplacing the fact her wife was such a cuddlier after being allowed much more control during their more intimate moments together.

At least River was. Now it seemed it was just who her Melody was as the dark-haired woman who would become her wild blonde-haired temptress in more ways than one pressed closer. Unsure of herself, while they both settled in for the night.

"Well, it's getting pretty close to the holidays, and my parents have invited me ‘round for Christmas dinner," Mels says.

The Doctor pauses at the words, more inclined in remembering with doubled heartbreaking clarity another time with another face, heck with a completely different gender when she'd spent the upcoming winter holiday in The Pond family company then dwelling too much on the fact it wasn’t going to be her Amy and Rory that Mels would be talking of.

There’s a place set for you.

We always do--- it's Christmas, you Moron.

It was too early in Mel's timeline for ‘Bowtie’ to cross her path just yet, let alone any of her other previous faces. So little chance of having a proper place at the Pond family table.

"and I need help picking out a gift for my mum." Mels says drawing the Doctor’s thoughts back from her quiet spiraling.

The confession threw the blonde-haired time woman for a long second. "Really?" it was said with a laugh that brought a grumpy huff from Mels.

"Well, Dad is easier-ish when it comes to gifts."

At this the Doctor nods in agreement. It was true with Rory the Roman. Amy was always the wilder card. Just like her daughter. Either incarnation.

“Actually, I’ve already got his squared away. It’s just Mummy.” Mels confesses, still whispering with that same unsure undertone in her voice.

At this, the Doctor chuckles a little under her breath. Her Melody Pond. Always more of a mother’s girl.

“Hey, we still have time, love,” The Doctor soothes, brushing her hand from Mel’s shoulders up into her hair. A movement River always melted for instantly, but it seemed Mels wasn’t as reassured even when she did seem to relax a little more against the Doctor’s side.

“I could always just bring you around with me.”

The Doctor freezes at the idea. Her mind worked overtime to attempt to narrow down just when in their tangled timeline she’d dropped into.

Given that the Doctor was free to read and re-read a few side notes in River’s diary added during the more reflective days on Darillium that at the time River had refused to show ‘Eyebrows’ with a teasing ‘I have to save something to remember me by Sweetie.’

A few of the non-life-threatening times he hadn’t shown up when River or Mels would have enjoyed his company if nothing else than for a quiet talk that the fresher-faced time woman had made it a mini obsession in a way to fix those mistakes.

For better or worse, she’d vowed to search those delicate pages for just the right moments.

“Wouldn’t that cause a bit of an uproar? Bringing home an older woman for Christmas dinner?”

At this, Mels laughs. A true, easy, happy kind of laughter that, even for River, was something of a true rarity. “You’d be surprised how accommodating old Mum and Dad can be about that.”

“Oh?” the Doctor questions genuinely intrigued at this offering to help narrow down a more tangible time frame.

“Well, to hear Dad tell it, he’s waited thousands and thousands of years for Mum to give him the time of day.”

So, after the Pandorica then. The Doctor concludes only to frown deeper as she attempts yet again to figure just how Mels would factor there with it being River who’d experienced that particular adventure.

Then the rustling of a side table drawer draws the time woman back to the diming bedroom. “Mummy also sent this along with the invitation. Said it was about time I started getting acquainted with using it whatever that meant,” Even with the dimming lights of the room the Doctor immediately knew what had just been retrieved.

That outline was unmistakably cradled as it was in Mels’s nimble hands. “Also made me promise I’d give it back when I see her next.”

A vortex manipulator.

River’s vortex manipulator.

“She called it a time bracelet. Said it was like Time boy’s blue box that’s bigger inside than outside.” Mels says in explanation. “Also said he wouldn’t be too pleased about my having it just yet.”

“She was right.” The Doctor answers, struggling to ‘play it cool’ as River had always teased. “from what you’ve told me about him, this ‘Time Boy’ only wants to protect those he cares about traveling as he does.” She goes on. “so wouldn’t he be right in worrying about the dangers of having this around?” she asks. “in the wrong hands, this could have far greater damage…..

“You sound like Dad.” Mels giggles, cutting off the time woman’s ramblings with a hard kiss to the Doctor’s shoulder, then another to her lips when the Doctor turns to glance down into her watchful eyes. “I know the risks and the rules. Mum was very hard set on those before letting me even touch this once.”

The Doctor swallows a rushed wave of jealousy at the purred undertone of her wife’s words or that could have been the way Mels fingers danced over the worn leather of the panel casing that would so often be wrapped against her wrist in the years to come.

Yet before that jealousy could go much further Mels was slipping the bracelet back into its drawer and dropping her arm back over the Doctor’s midsection. Hugging her closer like a favored teddy bear. “but now you understand why I need to find just the right gift for her with her putting so much trust in me?” Mels asks with a heavy sigh.

With a question like that, how could the Doctor not pull her nervous wife in for a grounding kiss?

“You’re right. That is a rather monumental task.” The Doctor agrees, now understanding a little more about why this pinpointed moment had been added to the list of River’s more instant ‘Wish he’d been there’ moments as after a few more not-so-innocent kisses, the two grudgingly untangled enough to pull clothes back on.

The following ‘gift hunt’ was far less of a pain than either woman had first thought, meaning that it was only a few hours later that the Doctor was tapping in the coordinates Mels rattled off, her grumpy wife glaring at her with a grumbled “Rigged that toss” as she double-checked the bag against her back, carrying her so carefully chosen gifts.

“Sshh, love.” the Doctor murmured with a laugh into her young wife’s hair as the familiar golden crackles of time energy twisted around them.

They touch back to more solid ground in a snow-slashed alleyway with their breath fogging between them as Mels gives a small intake of breath with a sigh. “Home sweet home” as she readjusted the pack against her back.

“Seems someone lost their shopping.” The Doctor commented, noticing the spilled-out grocery bags had been overturned a few steps away.

“Oh, that must have been Mummy.” Mels decides. “I thought this ally seemed familiar.” She adds almost to herself as she is already bending to gather up the fallen purchases. “Mom used to cut down here on her way home from time to time.” she explains, adding most of the collected bags to her own pack before straightening up once more and offering a hand to the dazed Doctor with a giggled “Shall we?” as she slid her mirrored sunglasses higher up her nose despite the darkening sky overhead.

“Lead the way.” the Doctor agrees, still puzzling over the intended timeline.

River had told her a few times about her time as a toddler on the New York streets after escaping from Madam Kovarian but she’d never hinted at crossing paths with Amy or Rory in those earlier days.

What she hadn’t been expecting was to be drawn towards a familiarly blue-splashed front door only a few short blocks from the snowy side street.

They couldn’t possibly……

“Happy Christmas Mom, sorry we’re late,” Mels calls out, swinging the door open without the use of a door key, almost as if she already knew the thing would be unlocked for her. The Doctor quickly pulled in behind her before the door was promptly kicked closed once again.

“Mels? Hang on we? Who’s we?”

The coughed, asking, the Doctor, felt both her hearts freeze in her chest as the following owner of said tone came down the stairs.

“I brought someone along for Christmas dinner. Hope that’s alright.” Mel's answers were suddenly nervous under a graying Amy Pond’s apprising gaze from her paused step down the stairs.

After she’d lost them to Manhattan then the Doctor realizes. But Rory was still worryingly absent from the shadowed step behind Amy’s.

Five slim years she remembered with stabbing clarity. Only five short years separated the devoted couple in their more permanent ending as she’d been forced to read it from the caved shared tombstone waiting in the chilly graveyard.

Even as she realizes this, the Doctor feels more than notices when Amelia Pond’s skeptical but curious eyes shift to the hiding blonde woman Mel keeps holding by her trembling hand.

“Mels.” Amy stammered out in honest shock as her glasses slid a little more down her nose as she shifted the sleeping baby more securely against her shoulder. The dozing little one fisted her chubby little hands tighter against the back of her mother’s shirt, adding a new layer of drool to the spreading little patch under her cheek.

“You did ask her along, right? Not threaten?” Amy aloud wonders about an obvious call out of the visitor’s palpable upset.

Even the Doctor chuckles at the asking. “No. She did ask me to come along.” The time woman clarifies.

“Good. More help is needed in the kitchen then. The Roman just had to step out for a quick house call.” Amy soothes noticing at least Mel’s nerves over her father’s absence. “Seems Mrs. What’s her name upstairs may have slipped over her cat again.” Her mother says rubbing a hand against the toddler’s back when the baby in her arms shifted uneasily against her shoulder. Fussy from a dream, the Doctor guesses.

“Sshh, it’s alright now,” Amy coos, offering soft kisses against the baby girl’s head. “You’re safe now, Melody. Mommy’s here.” She promises.

Even Mels visibly relaxes under the softly whispered soothing. Or that might have been the chance to snuggle in against Amy’s baby-free side as her mother’s free arm slipped around her old friend’s middle in something of a greeting hug as soon as Amy had reached the last stair.

“I’ve missed you, Mum.” Mels confesses.

“Miss you too, Mels.” Amy answers, holding her a little closer.

This had the Doctor pausing in thought. She’d never honestly considered just how deep of a coaction Amy or Rory would have to the more ‘younger’ version of their daughter. How River then Mels had so cleverly integrated herself into her parents’ lives even as children to steal as much time with them as she possibly could.

She’d catch flashes of Mels in River, or at least Amy would tell ‘bowtie’ she would, but for the Doctor, her wife would always switch from the fussy baby who’d stolen his own baby cradle at Demon’s Run to the wild-haired smug Professor Song sacrificing herself to save a literal library of people.

It was unfair, she'd decided once as she'd watched River resting snuggled up against her during one of the many hours they'd spent under the humming shadow of the singing towers. It was unfair to Melody that River knew every face the Doctor ever had, but it seemed the Doctor hadn't thought to try the same courtesy with the three variations of her dear Melody. 

"So who's this then?" 

The question jolts the pondering time woman out of her thoughts.

“I’m---” the Doctor attempts to introduce, but she stumbles as Amy’s gaze fixes solidly onto her.

“Well, Mummy, dear, this is Janie Smith. My girlfriend.” Mels finishes for her, even going so far as to loop her Amy free arm around the Doctor’s shoulders to scoot the dazed time woman closer for a soft brushing of a kiss against the end of the Doctor’s nose.

“Amy, Amy love. She came.” Rory’s rough, coughing voice follows as the front door quickly opens again and then closes again. “Can you believe it she really ca—"

“Dad.”

“Mels?”

The Doctor pouts more than a little at the sudden loss of Mels snuggled against her side as her younger wife goes charging gleefully towards her newly arrived father as Rory stands wide-eyed and mid-stomp shaking off the packed snow caking his boots before taking them off by the locked front door.

Not that the sulking time woman has long to do so as the newcomer with Rory was quick to fill the vacated space.

“Hello again. Sweetie.” River purrs against her ear, making the Doctor’s knees weaken as she was again pulled in for another kiss with her wife. This time, a much more proper lip placement given kiss. One shaping to be a mirrored one to the kiss ‘bowtie’ had with her during their hastily combat-driven wedding.

You don’t expect a monolith to love you back.

Twenty-four long stolen years were not nearly enough to prove how wrong her wife had been in saying that as the Doctor’s hands grip tighter around the fistful of the back of River’s snow-chilled coat, crushing her closer.

The last time she’d seen her dear wife in such silken silver with her own eyes was that world-stopping morning they’d woken together for the last time on Darillium.

“Hey.” Mels was quick to growl, bringing an early ending to the deepening kiss.

Trust her wild-haired wife to be so smooth as River pulls back first. The elegantly silvery white of her dress whispers against the wooden floor as she points to the innocently placed plastic plant tacked over their heads. “It’s traditional. Someone stands under the mistletoe, and they get a kiss.” She informs with that cool undertone of the professor lecturing a class.

The answer did little to cool any of Mel's palpable annoyance.

“See?” River hums the picture of innocence. Or at least as innocent as River Song was able to be.

Had the Doctor’s mind been clearer, she might have giggled at Mel's spluttering when River leaned in to give a softer pecked kiss to Amy’s then baby Melody’s cheeks.

“She’s taken.” Mels snaps, eyeing a blushing Doctor shrinking back over River’s shoulder.

“Oh, don’t I know it.” River chuckles, sending the Doctor a teasing wink, but raises her hands in an open show of surrender as she steps away from her bashful wife.

“Girls.” Amy sighed, but the Doctor heard the layered amusement and honest joy of the attempted scolding as the Pond mother looked between the two different incarnations of the baby girl, who was drooling so sweetly against her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Mels and River say in unison.

“Something burning.” The Doctor mumbles, not so sure she will be able to survive the two of them as Mels continues to glare towards River, who was smugly smirking as she nudged playfully against Amy’s side after whispering something into her mother’s ear, triggering a giggle from the greying Amy Pond.

“My turkey.” Rory yelps leaning heavily against his cane as he hobbles towards the kitchen. “Erm—Jane, is it?” he asks, glancing towards a still-hovering Mels, earning a small nod from his daughter in confirmation. “Right. Mind giving me a hand?” the rushing Roman asks, pausing to catch the Doctor’s eye.

The Doctor nodded in grateful agreement, stumbling more than she should be as she followed Rory into the tree-lit glowing den and safely away from the gathering in the hallway.

What she hadn’t been expecting was how strong Rory’s grip would be when the aging Roman pulled the still dazed time woman in for a rib-cracking hug once it was clear it would only be the two of them moving towards the kitchen. Proving the Doctor’s unspoken observation that her wife was a complete Mother’s girl as she listened to Mels and River fussing over a giggling Amy yet to properly move away from the apartment’s staircase to the second floor.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, you wonderful, wonderful, raggedy old man.” Rory tearfully whispers against the Doctor’s shoulder as Rory’s cane clattered useless to the carpeted floor the longer the two embrace.

“Rory.” The Doctor stammers even as her arms warp in steadying return of the given embrace.

“All Amy’s ever wanted was a Christmas with our daughter.” Rory argues, pulling back to meet the Doctor’s widened eyes. “and you. You wonderful time metaling fool, you’ve finally found a way to give her the Christmas I’ve never been able to.” The elderly man coughed, sliding his trembling hand into the Doctor’s short, chopped hair. “Thank you. Doctor.”

“This--- this wasn’t me, Rory.” The Doctor confesses in a choked whisper. “I’m just—along for the ride.” She follows with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Then its some kind of Christmas magic then.” Rory concludes with another happy smile as he claps a weakened hand against the Doctor’s shoulder. “but whatever it is. It’s good to have you here.” He tells her.

It should worry her. That glaring what’s going on question spiraling around just how it was possible she and the other variations of her wife and their daughter were able to be together without some kind of time-folding destruction looming.

But the Doctor couldn’t find the energy to care as she listened to the happy sounds of her Amelia Pond laughing so warmly as Mels and River battled over who was setting the table the best whilst Amy and little Melody supervised.

“Mr. Pond, you better not be blackening my Christmas turkey,” Amy suddenly warned as the gagging smell of overcooked meat drifted from the kitchen along with a few rolling whisps of blackened smoke.

“No, no, of course, I haven’t,” Rory screamed in worry, scrambling for his cane and casting a pitiful, panicked glance towards the Doctor and then the smokey kitchen.

“Don’t worry; I’ve added a turkey setting.” The Doctor soothes, waving her silvery sonic in clarity as she offers the rushing Roman a steady arm after bending to collect his cane for him.

“Seriously?” Rory gaped

“Oh, ages ago.” The Doctor nods, leaning her head against Rory’s shoulder. “So many times, Clara begged and begged just to zap the turkey and make it all nice and cooked up properly, so I figured I might as well just add a new setting for it.”

“Cooking by Sonic Screwdriver, yeah, it's not a way to have Christmas with the parents in any timestream.” River chuckles, rounding the corner to block the Doctor and Rory’s way towards the kitchen “Or have you forgotten that evening on Darill--”

“We could just have these.” Mels offers, holding up two snow-washed packages she’d salvaged from the left shopping bags.

The Doctor was already feeling new tears stinging her eyes when she noticed just what those two packages were leaving Rory and River, left in tackling the still-smoking kitchen and handling disposing of the doom-fated attempt at Christmas turkey.

A squished box of frozen fish fingers paired with a stepped-on package of cold clustered sat waiting in Mels's outheld hands.

"Why is it so surprising we keep choosing to wait up for you, Raggady man?" Amy was quick to question, noticing the wetness in the Doctor's eyes as her amused seeming companion gave a little swayed movement in her stance as she joined them once more when baby Melody became fussy again in her attempted nap against her mother's shoulder. "It's Christmas, you goof." 

"Come along then, Pond." The Doctor sniffed, not caring if they saw the free flow of tears sliding down her cheeks as she might have if she'd still been 'Bowtie' as the three in the tree light bathed den turned instead towards the kitchen.