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“You sure this is the place?” Ray asked again as they walked up to the house with the blue door.
“Yup. Gideon said so. This is it,” Sara responded.
“Still don’t know why she doesn’t wanna see Rip,” Jax grumbled.
“You remember what she said, Rip’s memories are scrambled. We’re probably dealing with another Phil of all things. It’s best we get in and get out, deal with it on the ship,” Sara said. She looked back at the silent one of the bunch, Mick, standing in the back. “You didn’t have to come.”
“We were out of beer on the ship,” he answered stoically.
Sara rolled her eyes and rang the doorbell and they waited. They heard a frustrated yell from inside and the door flew open, a redhead held a water gun to their faces.
“No more carolers!” she yelled at them. “I’ve had it!”
“Oh, we’re not carolers,” Ray said cheerfully. “Wait did we land on Christmas?”
“Ray, let’s not freak the lady out,” Sara said. She turned back to the redhead who was already giving them a suspicious look. “Hi, do you have…I don’t know a brother or something?”
“No.” She tried to close the door on them.
“No, wait!”
“Amy, who’s at the door?”
“No one, just stupid carolers!”
“Tell me you didn’t use the water pistol again? Amy, we talked about this!”
Sara’s eyes widened when she saw Rip Hunter appear behind the redhead. They were right!
“Sorry about that, she resorts to violence first. She’s Scottish,” he explained.
“My husband, the nice one,” Amy responded easily.
Sara’s eyes widened. “She’s your wife? Seriously?”
“Yes,” Rip said flatly, clearly not liking the tone. Amy looked more amused.
“No, I mean, cool, that’s cool. She’s-”
“Out of my league, I know.”
“Oh, stop being so insecure already!” Amy snapped at him. She rolled her eyes and gave him a kiss.
Jax whistled lowly. “Gideon is not gonna like this,” he muttered.
“Right, we need to talk to you,” Sara interrupted them.
“It’s Christmas. We’re busy,” Amy said. She tried to close the door again but Sara pushed it open and let them all in. “Hey!”
“Five minutes, that’s all.” That’s all they’d need to work the reverse memory flasher. It might have had some side effects but Gideon had assured them that it would mostly work.
“Okay, fine,” Rip agreed.
“Rory! They’re complete strangers, and it’s Christmas!” Amy argued.
“And the faster we listen to them the faster they’ll leave. Besides, we’ve got my sword and the Doctor here. And our daughter.”
Amy groaned loudly. “Five minutes!” She led them into the living room and they sat on the couch. “Get on with it! Starting with who you are and what you want? Are you life-sucking aliens again?”
“No!” Ray said, horrified. “Besides, not all aliens are bad. I had a really nice friend who was a dominator, just a baby one, very sweet.”
“Oh for goodness sake!” Sara cut him off. “I’m Sara, this is Ray, Jax, and Mick. Look, your husband isn’t your husband.”
“Please don’t tell me I’m plastic again,” Rip groaned.
“What? No. Look his name is Rip Hunter,” Sara said.
“My name is Rory Williams.”
“No, you’re Rip. You were a Time Master, a time traveller, you lost your family, recruited us. You had to sacrifice yourself when we broke time to save us from the time demon Mallus. But we ended up finding you again, except you were a baby. So we gave you up for adoption, named you Rory after Mick here, and jumped forward a good thirty years and here you are now, all grown up!”
“You were such a cute baby five minutes ago,” Jax said.
Rip shook his head. “No, no, I’m a nurse. I don’t even like time travelling. This is really more the Doctor’s MO.”
“Were you adopted?” Sara demanded.
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean-”
“Ray, give me the flasher, we’re bringing his memories back.”
“You’ll have to go through me.” Amy stood up, standing in front of her husband, glaring at the group. “Doctor! Doctor, River get in here!”
“Ray, we gotta do this now!” Sara grabbed the memory gun and pointed it at Rip.
“Sara put that down now!”
Sara nearly dropped the gun as she turned to the sound of the voice. “Mom?” Her mother, in her crazy wild curls that she hardly ever wore, was standing next to a man much younger than her in a bowtie.
“Rory, Rory, did she just call River ‘mom’?” Amy asked weakly.
“Yeah, I think she did, yeah. Does anyone else feel a headache coming on?” he asked.
“What kind of assassin can’t get the job done?” Mick grunted to Sara.
“Hold up, did you just say mom?” Jax asked.
“Why are you here?” Sara asked her mother, or perhaps the woman that looked like her mother.
“Sara, how are you here? You – you died at sea.” River stared at her.
“Oh, mom, no. I mean, I survived that. Then I did die, and then I came back to life. It’s a long story. And there’s a lot of stuff. What are you doing here?”
“Mmm, been there, done that. Very inconvenient.”
“River, please tell me that’s not your daughter,” Amy said, easing her way into the seat.
“That is not my daughter,” River answered robotically. “Father dear, I think you should pour mother another drink.”
“I think I need one as well,” Rip (Rory?) said uneasily.
River poured them both drinks as Sara stared at them gobsmacked. “What? You just called them-”
“Sara dear, meet your grandparents. My mother and father.”
“Grandparents?”
“This just got a whole lot weirder,” Jax whispered to Ray as they both took a seat.
“Sorry, is someone going to tell Doctor what is going on? Doctor is very confused, very out of the loop and I don’t like having secrets kept from me!” The man in the bowtie waved his arms frantically.
“Weren’t you dead for two years and hid it from my dear parents?” River asked him.
“When were you going to tell me you had a daughter?” the Doctor asked.
“I have two.”
“Laurel,” Sara said, a hint of sadness. Her mom couldn’t know what had happened. “I’m confused, who’s he?”
“That’s the Doctor. Amy’s imaginary alien friend who we travel through time and space with, also married to our daughter River here. So I guess that makes him your dad? Are you part alien?” Rory asked tiredly.
“No Dad, not to worry. It was with my second ex-husband, very human” River said easily.
“When do you even have time for all this? Aren’t you locked up in prison?” asked Amy.
“Oh mother, you know how boring solitary confinement in a super max security prison is. I had to get out, stretch my legs.”
“You were in prison?” Sara asked.
“Indefinitely really.”
“Ha,” Mick laughed, raising a glass to her. “Your mom’s cool.”
“Okay, so Pond family reunion. Why are we having a Pond family reunion?” the Doctor asked.
“I’m a grandmother,” Amy said, still shell-shocked.
“How do your parents look younger than you?” Sara asked. “I mean…my grandmother is…” Hot? Sara threw up in her mouth a bit. This was a lot to take in.
“Well, we grew up together, part time lord, regeneration, you know how it goes.”
Sara thought her mother was speaking gibberish.
“Hello, yes, Pond family reunion, why?” the Doctor asked again. “You there, speak!”
“Who, me?” Ray squeaked. “Right, well your friend Rory, uh, Sara’s grandfather, wow that’s weird, is actually our friend Rip, former Time Master. And this memory gun will prove it.”
“You keep that away from my husband!” Amy yelled at him, glaring at them all.
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the memory gun and then Rory. “Amy, you’re not going to like this but I believe we should let them follow through with their plan.”
“Doctor-”
“If Rory is Rory, then nothing will happen. I’ve reset it so the memories will overwrite only if they’re real. So, we have no chance of getting the Centurion either.”
“What happens if I’m not Rory?” he asked nervously.
The Doctor gave a grim smile. “Of course you’re Rory. I’ll take the memory gun now.”
Ray handed to him as Amy clutched Rory’s hand. The Doctor adjusted the settings and fine-tuned them before zapping the man.
“Doctor! Some warning!” Amy said.
“Amy, I find the best way to deal with these things is to just get it over with. Rip off the bandaid so to speak.”
Rip (Rory) toppled over and groaned, hands to his head. Amy and River both huddled over him.
“Rory?”
“Daddy?”
“Can you please not call him that?” Sara begged her mother. “Oh god, this means that Rip’s my – nope! No!”
“Rory, are you with us?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah, I – ow, no,” Rip groaned as he began to straighten himself. Something in his demeanor had clearly changed. He wasn’t just nurse Rory anymore.
“Rory?” Amy asked fearfully.
“Yes, but also…no. It’s all there, in my brain, just very muddled.” Rip winced. “Two lives fighting for dominance. Just a lot right now.”
“Rip?” Jax asked.
“Mr. Jackson, sorry, did you all just let me get adopted by complete strangers and name me after Mick?”
“We panicked, didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you’re not Rory?” Amy said sadly.
“I am, but I’m also not. It’s like the Centurion. A whole over life that got rewritten,” Rip said softly, holding onto her hand. He still felt the love for her. One that was combined with love for Miranda and one other.
“So…do I call you grandad now?” Sara asked cheekily.
Rip glanced at Sara, blanching at the thought. “No, nope, not doing it.” Rip drank his alcohol in one go and winced. He leaned over to River. “I’m gonna need more of this, and something much stronger. Be a good girl and get your father the hard stuff, the stuff you hide from us. Preferably some of that 1873 scotch you have.”
River grinned. “Right away, father.” She ran to the police phone box sitting in the room.
“You keep your liquor in a police phone box?” Jax asked.
“Actually, that’s a Tardis, commonly used by Time Lords, which is what the Doctor is. Are you going to finish that?” Rip asked Amy, pointing at her glass. When she shook her head he downed the drink.
“What’s a Time Lord?” Ray asked.
“Think Time Masters, seeing as they’re the ones that put the Time Masters in charge which really just explains a lot of the corruption, actually. Alien race that overlooks time.”
“Huh, new life and still not able to escape time travel,” Ray mused.
“Is grandma okay?” Sara asked.
“Don’t call me that!” Amy screeched. Rip rubbed her back. “My husband isn’t my husband anymore. My adult daughter had a baby that’s all grown up and once again we missed it. And the Tardis won’t stop humming – Doctor, what is that?”
The Doctor frowned. “Not sure, be right back.” He disappeared behind the doors and then there was yelling. The doors opened again and River popped out with a bottle of scotch, followed by a petite beautiful brunette. “Stop flirting with her!”
“She liked it,” she insisted. “We’re going to run away together, aren’t we?” She stroked the Tardis.
“You will not! Who are you? How did you get in there?”
“Gideon?” Rip stared at the woman who winked back at him.
“Hello Captain Hunter. Falling into old habits again I see?” Gideon eyed the glass of scotch River poured for him.
“I’ve had a hell of a day. Turns out I’m not a nurse, and I’m a Time Master who lost his wife and son, got married, lost another daughter, oh, and Ms. Lance is my granddaughter. You and I will have words about this. Don’t think I’m not onto you.” She would have known from the first DNA test. Gideon shrugged easily.
“Who is she?” the Doctor demanded of Rip. He scanned her with the sonic. “The sonic is picking up very unusual signals from her.”
“That would be Gideon. She’s – she was my AI – who is now human. We travelled together.”
“You travelled with that?” Amy raised an eyebrow.
“She didn’t look like that before. She wasn’t human,” Rip tried to reassure her. “How did you turn human?”
“Magic. I want a Tardis,” Gideon answered.
Rip took a long drink. He definitely needed more. “No. Stop trying to make the Waverider jealous.”
“Waverider?” Amy asked.
“My ship, my timeship.”
“My ship. You’ve been gone for like three years now. It’s under my primary custody.” Gideon sat down next to Amy and tilted her head. “Are you the new wife?”
“Yes.”
Gideon ran a finger through her red hair and smiled. Rip glared at her.
“I told you to stop flirting with my wives! Off limits!”
Gideon pouted. “You’re no fun. Can’t we share?”
“Well-”
“No!” Amy grabbed Rip’s hand. “He’s my husband.”
“I’ve known him for over fifteen years, we’re practically married too. Also, I took your bed. Needed a place for myself and Cookie.”
“Cookie? Gideon, tell me you didn’t get a cat!”
“I would never endanger Mr. Palmer’s allergies with that. I got a dragon.”
“Gideon, no.”
“My ship or I leave you for the Tardis! We have plans.”
“What plans? She’s my ship, I should know the plans,” the Doctor demanded.
Gideon smiled secretively.
“What happens now?” Amy asked quietly.
“We go home,” Gideon said simply.
“It’s not that easy,” Rip said. “I’ve got a life here. I was a nurse.”
“And I’m assuming you drank less too. Give me that.” Gideon picked up the glass and bottle out of his reach.
“No, it’s mine!”
“I’m doing this for your own good. It hurts me more than you.”
“Liar!” Rip yelled after her as she left the room.
“So, should we reconvene on the Waverider?” Sara asked.
“That might be best.”
“I’ll park the Tardis in your ship. Who wants a tour?” the Doctor asked.
“This I gotta see,” Jax said getting up. Ray nodded and followed while Mick rolled his eyes and begrudgingly got up. They followed the Doctor inside while Rip slowly counted down. At the count of one, he heard it. “It’s bigger on the inside!”
“There it is,” he murmured with amusement.
“Come on dear, we need to make sure he doesn’t land it on Mars. He does that often,” River told her daughter.
“Do I have to call him dad? I’m not calling him dad!”
“No dear, you don’t.”
The two of them disappeared and then it was just Amy and Rory – no, Rip.
“I know it’s a lot,” Rip said gently. “Believe me, my own head is spinning.”
“You’re not you. You were the one thing in my life that was constant.”
“And you were mine.” Rip looked from her to Gideon who had just entered. “And Gideon is the other.”
Amy stared at the other woman. “I’ve never had to share my husband before. I can’t promise I’ll be good at it.” She could see from the way Rip looked at her, this woman clearly meant something to him. That look used to be reserved only for Amy.
“That’s fine. I’ve had plenty of practice. You should have seen Miranda, his first wife.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Extremely.”
“Ginger?”
“Brunette, and not as tall, but smart as a whip, just like you. He has a type I think.” Gideon winked at her.
“Yeah, I bet he does.”
Rip turned red. “Must you two flirt in front of me?”
“We’re bonding,” Gideon said easily, taking both of them on her arms. “I missed you, Captain.”
“I missed you too, Gideon.”
Gideon smiled and turned to Amy. “Come on. You need to meet Cookie.”
“You’re not keeping the dragon.”
“My ship, my rules. I am most definitely keeping the dragon.”