Work Text:
As Rory heard the familiar buzz of the vortex manipulator a small smile formed on his face as he went back to attending his gardening. He bent down further into the garden bed pulling at the weeds which were attempting to get into the rose bushes. It could only be one unexpected person who was vising unannounced and not using the front door.
"Well River, I see you have taken the time to visit your old Dad on Father’s Day." He muttered as he tugged hardily on a dandelion. There was a small squeaking cough in reply which caused Rory to turn around abruptly.
Lee was standing in the back garden, shuffling her feet back in forth. Her hair a dark shade of black cut short to the base of her neck, hidden by a lop-sided Fedora. She looked slightly older in the period outfit but none the less wise, like a little girl wrongly playing dress up past the correct age.
"Hi." She whispered timidly
"Lily...Lee" Rory said, standing up as quickly as he could wiping the dirt away, blinking to make sure that she was really standing in front of him. "It’s been months." He wanted to walk over and embrace her tightly but she looked as if she was re-evaluating her choice to come here in the first place. He stayed still, waiting for her to make the first move.
"Sorry" Lee whispered, taking a step back.
"Don't run off." Rory pleaded, and she flashed an exhausted smile. "It's… Why did you come back?"
"It's Father's Day." Lee replied with a shrug of her shoulders as if it was the most obvious reason.
"I'm not your father."
Lee looked up at him, the wide brim of her hat shielding her darkly lined eyes. "Shut up, of course you are." She teased. "Mind if we go get some coffee or something."
They walked to the little dinner, the one which she had loved as a child. They sat by the window watching as the citizens of New York bounded down the busy streets not paying attention to the world around them. The notion of walking fast with her head down had nearly been programed into her as a child, but Lee saw everything. How could she resist letting all the sights of New York pass her by. She held a white porcelain mug in her hand, swirling it absentmindedly so that half-drunk coffee sloshed about. Rory was almost too afraid to ask what she had been up to. She looked much older than he remembered, but Rory foolish remembered that she was now a time traveler, a great deal of time could have passed since she had last seen him. Or maybe like River she could control her own outward appearance.
"You didn’t have to come and see and me Lee." Rory muttered once more as he took a sip of the bitter drink. "It's not like I am your real-"
"You keep on saying that, but I don’t think you understand what I am trying to say." She paused and brushed away a piece of hair. She looked out of the window to the park across the street. "You choose to raise me, to treat me as if I was your own child. It’s more than that even. You wanted and waited for Anthony. I just showed up one day. I know that in a way we were both replacements for River but that I was an obligation. You didn’t have to do half of the things you did when I was growing up but you did. You choose to be my dad."
She looked at him, her pale eyes swimming with tears. He always saw so many faces in her. She laughed like Amy, she had the profile and the spunk of River, she was just as quietly determined as he was. But her eyes, they were eyes which had seen things no one could ever imagine. They were the eyes that remembered being born in the TARDIS, which watched as she had been torn from her mother’s eyes, they were the eyes which had seen more than ever needed to be. Those eyes were looking at Rory, swimming with tears.
"You were never a replacement for River." Rory whispered, as if the very idea seemed to hurt him greatly. He took her young hand in his old one. "And you were never an obligation Lily. You saved us as much as we saved you. The knowledge that my daughter, River-” His voice was broken by a sob “Will never be able to remember her own child." He paused; he had waited two thousand years for the woman he loved. Yet the fear and knowledge of losing a child, of his own child loosing theirs. It was something which Lily could not yet come to apprehend "We had to Lily, we had to. You don’t understand yet, but we had to raise you and love you. For your sake, for River's, for the Doctors. He wanted you to have a normal family, and you did. You have been and will always be my youngest daughter." He took the back of her hand and kissed it and squeezed it tight.
She turned away looking back out at the street. She wanted to speak, but there really were no words which could convey her expression of gratitude.
"Lily your father, your real father. I don’t want you to be mad at him because he choose not to raise you on your own. And I want you to find him one day." Rory added
"I know Dad." She laughed, wiping away her tears "One day I will meet him properly, and he will make up for missing the first twenty some years of my life, but even after all that you're always going to be my Dad. You taught me how to wrap a wound, how to use a sword. You we there every time I fell down or hurt myself. Most of my friends had fathers who worked so much they never even saw them. When I was little I thought you didn’t even have a job you were around so much." She paused and turned to look back at him smiling. "I'm always going to see you as my Dad. I think I needed the time to figure that out for myself. I’m going to come back. Visit you and Mom when I can. But I will always come and visit you on Father’s Day."