Chapter Text
December 21st 1969
The memory in her head was a blurry one, as if the very person who had already lived through the experience could hardly remember the traumatic event themselves. But then Lee had hardy any shared memories of her real mother’s childhood. Those were the years which River had buried away in the deep confines of her own memory. Her first incarnation and the rather terrible life she had lead, no one would want to remember that. But that was all coming to an end now the best days would be ahead of Melody Pond now, or at least she would remember it that way.
Lee stood in the alleyway shivering, gathering the extra blanket around her body as she waited. She knew that somewhere in the city Amy and Rory were thinking of her tonight as she stood in the shadows in Korea Town. In a strange way, this really was Lee's task. No one else could to take Melody to the correct time; they all knew the Doctor couldn’t come. As soon as Lee had stated that she was off, that this year it was too dangerous for her to continue on living life the way she had, she knew she would end up in this place.
A small ragged girl with torn clothes and dirty hair stumbled into the alleyway, and was approached by a homeless man. Lee simultaneously watched and remembered the event with tears swimming in her eyes. That was her mother, dying all alone in the very city which her parents now lived. Maybe it had always been her intention to come to New York and have the older Amy and Rory find her and raise her.
Melody Pond, a little girl who needed to be saved and never quite was.
The regeneration energy was already beginning to spread around her fingers as death attempted to take his grip on the little girl’s body. Lee watched with unwavering certainty as she spoke her final words, she tilted backwards as the regeneration process took hold. Lee knew what regeneration felt like even though she had never experienced it herself. She had the memories of both her biological parents’ regenerations rattling around in her head. It was painful, death was involved of course, but the moment the golden energy took hold, it was elation beyond imagination.
Lee watched as the light diminished, as the girl who had once been standing had been replaced by a screaming toddler in oversized clothes. The homeless man ran away at the sight, assuming it was just a delusion. She crept out of the shadows and approached the small child who was crying. Her whole body was shaking as she neared the child. Lee placed a hand out as a gesture of some sort of welcome. The little girl stopped, her big brown eyes looking at the woman who was approaching her with kindness. Lee knelt down and wrapped the girl in the blanket, clutching her tightly to her chest.
For years Melody would remember this, the kind red headed woman who saved her in New York. She would assume it was her mother, the same woman who had held her for a month in the very beginning, who would tell her that she would never be alone. And then one day, River Song would forget her rescue from New York. It had been such a traumatic day that it would take her years to realize she didn’t quite remember exactly that it had been her own daughter who had saved her. Amy hadn't lied all those years ago; she never really would be alone in the world. Melody Pond had a guardian angel she could never remember, working behind the shadows.
Lee was crying silently as she placed a small dress over the toddlers head. In that moment it was as if the tears were never going to stop, and why should they. Her life was less than perfect. She was standing in a dismal alley rescuing her own mother, a woman who would never remember her. The course either of their lives would take was not a fair one, but Lee knew in this moment she could do little to change it.
Lee stood up and placed Melody on her hip as she fiddled with her own vortex manipulator. With a flash and a squeeze they were in Gloucester 1991. It was early morning, the city just springing to life as the sun rose. It would do for now, Lee through as she carried the girl up the steps of the orphanage. She placed her on the steps and kissed the top of her head.
"It’s alright Melody," Lee whispered through her sobs as she reached up to ring the bell "You’re almost home now." Lee turned and ran down the stairs, barely able to see where she was going through the tears streaming down her face.
She stopped in the alleyway, it wasn’t fair. None of their lives were fair, and it was all written in stone. Lee balled her hands into tight fists and began to punch at the stone wall over and over again. Each contact making her fingers sting more feverishly until she felt the blood trickle down her hands. She turned her back against the wall, sinking down into a low crouch as she cried into her hands.
Riley had gotten the life with parents, the life Melody had never had. It was then when she realized why she had chosen to become River Song. Melody Pond had never existed, not really. She had been a hopeful wish that a young mother once had about her infant. But the real Melody Pond never got the happy childhood, never got to be a true Pond. Just as Riley had never gotten to be who she really was.
Riley Donna Song was a name hidden in the stars, a forgotten Time Lord stuck on earth. She wasn’t even Lily Williams anymore. That had been a clever lie to acclimate her to human life. So who was she, other than the facts? Other than the child of the Doctor and River Song, other the hidden hope for a dead race, or a woman who could never forget a single day. She had no real home.
She tapped her vortex manipulator to life, knowing that she could not stay here any longer. She randomly entered coordinates and activated the device. Alone on a foreign grass hill she looked down at the small Scottish city bellow her. The stars were quite possibly the only place she belonged in the entire universe. But she did not have the courage to seek out the one man who could take her there just yet. Nor was she ready to see what would happen in the distant future of the planet which she loved so dearly. She had chosen to be Lee, and that was all she seemed to know anymore.