Chapter Text
Amy is waiting like she used to, blanket over her shoulders, in the garden.
It’s the 1950s now, the lines around her mother's eyes prominent. River’s hearts should not ache so fiercely as they do at the sight of her ageing. She knows that her mother is human, she will grow old and wither and die, has seen her graveyard in New York so very long ago. She has always known that she will outlive her – River herself is probably already far older than this version of Amy.
Still. It hurts. Watching it happen.
“I thought you’d find a way,” Amy says quietly. “To come back and find us, I mean.”
River shifts the bundle of blankets in her arms, holding the baby to her chest gently.
“Why haven’t you come before? Before now?” Amy almost sounds tired.
River takes a step back. Perhaps she should go.
“It was hard to judge when it would be safe, when time travel here wouldn’t threaten to rip the fabric of time apart.”
Amy nods, tracing her fingers around the rim of her wine glass. Her nails painted a perfect red before she lets her hand fall back to her lap, fisting in her knee-length skirt. The fashion almost suits her. Her hair pinned back, still magnificently red, a bold lipstick colouring her small smile. One thing that she has always been grateful for is that her mother and her father have been allowed to live; to be happy. From what she has read, from what The Doctor has told her himself, not all of his companions are so lucky. At least there's this.
“And – The Doctor? Does he know that he can come here?”
River steps up behind her mother, shifting the baby so that she can squeeze Amy’s shoulder with one hand. She relaxes beneath it, cheek pressing against the back of her daughter’s hand.
“Almost twenty years, River. How long has it been for you?”
River smiles, pressing her lips to her daughter’s hair.
“A great deal longer than that, mother.”
Finally, Amy turns.
She almost doesn’t look surprised to see her daughter standing behind her, holding a baby in her arms. Instead of saying anything, Amy stands, reaching to pull the blanket away from the baby’s face so that she can see her properly – smiles in delight when she finally does.
“Her name is Neve,” River tells her, gazing down at her daughter with a smile.
“And she’s… She’s yours?”
“Yes, she is,” River says, and Amy grabs her elbow, pulls her towards the chairs. They sit together and Neve fusses, refusing to settle until River has stroked a finger along her daughter’s cheek. “And you know who the father is, so don’t you dare ask.”
Amy sips her wine, humming. “Why bring her here, River? You haven’t visited before. So this isn’t just – surprise! You’re a grandmother. It never is that simple when it comes to you and The Doctor.”
River shifts Neve, offering her to her grandmother who accepts her happily. Presses one of her long fingers against her nose and watches her squirm, small fists reaching out and trying to catch that finger. Motherhood suits her. It's a shame that she never really had a chance before - River has never wanted this chance herself. Still, the absence of her daughter in her arms hurts, her skin cold without Neve's warmth.
"I can't keep her."
Amy's head snaps up, eyes wide. "You what?"
"She's human," River states, reaching out to let Neve curl her fist around her pinky finger. "Not human plus, like me. There's no Time Lord in her."
"But that's - " Amy frowns. "No, you must - "
"I double checked. I tripled checked. I wanted - " River pauses, pressing her lips together, letting her finger slip from Neve's grasp. "She's human. And even if she hadn't been, I guess, really, I still couldn't keep her. You know the name The Doctor has made for himself. You know what the universe would do if they ever found out he had a child - how many enemies he's made, oh, they would rip time apart and use her as leverage so that he'd never stop them. And he - he would be so dangerous because of her."
"River," Amy's voice is quiet, hoarse, tears springing to her eyes. "Please tell me he knows about her."
Neve gurgles, fists pushing into the air.
"He can never know," River says, pushing her tremblings hands into her pockets. "You have to keep her and he can never know. She would destroy him."
"I don't understand, River, you can't just leave her here," Amy shifts Neve, reaches out to grip River's arm. "He would want to know about her. He deserves to know."
"Mother... she's human. Why do you think he hasn't ever come back here? You're older now, too old to be whisked away on adventures; you and Rory's time in the TARDIS is over. He would never come back just to watch you age. That's not how he works. He's a stubborn old man who refuses to acknowledge what hurts him. This - his child - a human child - would tear him apart. No regenerations, one heart, human lifespan. Fragile."
Amy wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. "You can't regenerate anymore, either - he still loves you."
"Maybe he does," River agrees quietly. "But this is different. The Doctor and I, we - well, one day I will meet a version of him who has never met me before, and one day, for him, I will grow younger and younger, until I am not in his life at all. And then he'll swagger off, back to his TARDIS, find someone new to run with, and there will be no goodbye - he escapes that, mother. He doesn't escape that with her."
A lock of Amy's hair falls loose from its pins, curling against her cheek and catching her tears. She gazes down on Neve.
"She looks just like you did, you know? When you were born - when you were Melody," Amy murmurs. "You'll come visit her, yeah?"
"Mother - "
"I won't take her. I won't take her unless you promise me you'll come back sometimes and see her. She deserves that, River. She didn't ask to be left on my doorstep like she wasn't wanted."
River feels her hearts pinch, almost stuttering in her chest. She looks down at her daughter in her mother's arms, her eyelids droopy now with sleep. She wants more time, but she can't. She can't. And Neve is not old enough - and maybe she never will be - to understand why her mother has been forced to make such a horrid decision, why she will have to go and run through the stars and distract herself on expeditions and attempt to forget that she ever gave birth to life. Neve - so beautiful, so fragile. River hesitates, wants to hold her one more time, rock her gently to sleep.
She does not reach for her daughter.
"Of course she was wanted," River says fiercely. "Don't you dare let her believe anything other than that, mother."
Amy narrows her eyes. "That is your job, River."
"Fine. Fine, I promise. I'll come back. Someday."
Amy smiles. "I can't wait to see Rory's face when he gets back. He'll probably faint."
River chuckles through her tears. "Oh, most definitely."
She stands, unable to look at her daughter for one more moment. Amy catches her hand as River begins to set co-ordinates in her Vortex Manipulator, forces her to turn back.
"How old is she?"
"Three weeks," River tells her hoarsely. "She's three weeks old."
And then she's gone.
-----
The first time she happens across The Doctor after giving Neve away, he is young.
He's all nerves and blushes around her. Attempts to flirt with her like children do in a schoolyard. Still, when he takes her hand and encourages her to run after they accidentally rescue a human girl in the middle of a Novakarian sacrifice, she almost wants to stop and ask him - Do you remember the night before I left after Manhattan? Do you remember how we were so desperate, we didn't even think to use protection? Well, sweetie, perhaps we should've...
But of course, this hasn't happened for him yet. Her mother and father are asleep on the TARDIS and he has no idea that they will ever leave him for 1930s New York. So she runs with him, saves the day, marvels at the things he is capable of - and at the end of it all, when there is finally peace and he's stood beside that beautiful blue box, he asks her to join him, and she leaves without a goodbye kiss.
-----
"River! Have you seen my Jammie Dodgers?"
"I haven't the faintest idea where they are, my love," River says, closing her bedside drawer with her elbow as he peers beneath the bed for the packet. Honestly, she questions his age sometimes, because he so often behavs as though he were really six years old. She'd bumped into him - her him, her husband - and had thought perhaps she'd finally be able to get some rest beside the man she loved. And yet, the minute she had climbed into bed, weary and tired from missing Neve and bruises after a close encounter with a Dalek, he'd whipped out a packet of the biscuits and got crumbs all over the bed. God, he could be so infuriating.
He pouts. "I had three left in the packet! Did you eat them?"
"Sweetie, in what world would I ever eat your Jammie Dodgers?"
"Well, there is in fact a planet where the locals suffer from an insatiable appetite. Of course, they all die very early compared to the typical human lifespan - diabetes and heart conditions, mainly - but if I took you for a day or two I can guarantee you you'd eat as many Jammie Dodgers as me. Well, provided that there are Jammie Dodgers there, if not then I bet you'd really warm to fish fingers and custard - "
River sighs, letting her head drop back down on her pillow and closing her eyes. "I am not going to a planet that will ruin my figure, Doctor. That is quite possibly the worst idea you've had yet."
"I thought the worst idea I'd ever had was when we both ended up in Numidia at the same time as Cleopatra."
"Not helping your case, sweetie."
Sleep begins to tug at the back of her mind when he falls silent. She feels him shift in the bed beside her, and she almost thinks that he's about to get up, too full of energy to continue laying beside her for one more moment. Instead, his fingers drift against the curve of her waist lightly, his lips brushing against her forehead.
"Are you okay, River?"
It's quite possibly the first time he's ever asked her that.
She opens her eyes to find him studying her tenderly. She always misses him like this, when he looks at her as though she's worth more than anything else in the universe. Too often, he makes her feel the opposite.
"I'm fine, sweetie."
His thin eyebrows tug together. "You just - you seem sad. Is it because I said you could only stay until I go and pick Clara up? Because you know I was joking, time travel allows - "
"Doctor," she rests her hand against his cheek. She does not think about the fact that Neve has the same colour eyes as this incarnation of him. "I'm fine. I'm just tired."
"Well then, dear," he says, leaning down to kiss her. "Sleep."
-----
It is when she is alone that she finally decides to go back and see Neve.
Although it has been two, long torturous months for her, she knows that she could go back to the day after she dropped Neve off and take her back, change her mind. She really, really could - even though it wouldn't be for the best.
She doesn't.
She appears on Amy's doorstep for - what is for her parents and Neve - a month after she had first dropped her daughter off. Her father is the one that answers the door, all bumbling and awkward when he greets her with Neve in his arms. Doesn't know how to co-ordinate his daughter and his granddaughter, and River understands. After all, Rory had never known how to parent her. Amy had adjusted, adopted some sort of role as her mother, but Rory had always looked at her as though she were just a stranger, as though he was waiting for his real daughter to appear. He had been far more paternal to her when she had been Mels.
Still, she understands. Rory Williams is over two thousand years old. It shouldn't have been an unusual wish for him to have a daughter he could raise linearly, who would not look older than him, who did not have two hearts and killed people without blinking.
"We were, uh - just about to feed her," Rory says, cradling the back of Neve's head. Downy blonde hair dusts covers her now. "Come in."
Her father leads her through to the living room, where Amy is knitting a blanket. He settles beside her, picking up a bottle of milk from where he'd left it on the table and begins feeding Neve. Amy watches her with a smile.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to keep away," her mother says.
River sits opposite them nervously, eyes transfixed on her daughter. "I see you're fully embracing the role of grandmother."
"Oi! Knitting isn't a grandmother thing," Amy says, laughing. "It's cool. Anyway, I'm making Neve a blanket."
"It's her fourth attempt," Rory tells River.
"Third!" Amy interjects. "Besides, it was you who ruined the second one, you stood on it with your muddy boots."
"Who leaves a half-finished blanket on the floor?"
"I do! Neve was crying, I told you."
Rory laughs as Amy scowls at him, Neve happily continuing to drink in his arms. It's almost - it's what they should've had, with her. They look like the perfect happy family. All of this that her daughter has River did not.
She folds her hands in her lap as her jaw clenches. She is okay. She can do this. It's what Neve deserves.
"Would you like to feed her?" Rory asks when River has been quiet for too long, eyes piercing hers. He has always been the understanding one, almost a little too understanding.
Neve has finished half the bottle when River looks back down at her in Rory's arms. Her little girl is oblivious; loves her grandparents for keeping her warm and fed and happy. And oh, how she has grown. Already looks like she'll be a gangly thing like The Doctor.
"No," River decides. "I think I'm - I think I'm fine just watching."
Amy opens her mouth to protest but Rory nudges her, shaking his head.
Later, when she leaves, she almost kisses her daughter's forehead.
-----
The next time she visits, Neve is able to sit on her own
"She's been doing that since she was - I don't know, three and a bit months old," Amy tells her, waving a hand. "Rory says that's a little early, but I'm not surprised. After all, she's your daughter. It makes sense that she's clever."
"How old is she now?" River asks, staring at her daughter who is attempting to stack toy bricks. She manages two before her lack of co-ordination knocks the top one off.
"Four months," Amy replies. "It's a good thing she's cute, too - there's a young girl, Poppy, who works as a receptionist at Rory's hospital. She's totally taken with her, always making her clothes and offering to look after her when I visit Rory during his lunch hours."
River's eyes dart away from her daughter to her mother. "How long has she been working there?"
"Don't worry. Rory and I were suspicious at first, too, but she'd been working there for at least three months before you gave us Neve," Amy tells her, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "But if you're that worried, you could come meet her. Rory finishes in about an hour, I was going to swing by the hospital with Neve and take him out to dinner. Join us."
River swallows. How would they introduce her? A friend of the family? No, she isn't ready for their reality - strolling around with Neve and telling others that she's their daughter, while their real daughter and mother of the child walks behind them looking older than the pair of them and cruelly distant from Neve. She can deal with visits, with seeing that her parents are happy and that Neve is happy too. But she cannot deal with their real, everyday lives - she cannot deal with having a daughter who will never know her as her mother. Never understand why she couldn't roam through the stars like the two generations of Pond before her.
"No, I - I have a job to get to," River shakes her head. "I should go."
"Wait, I got you something!"
Amy rushes off into the kitchen, leaving her alone with Neve. Her daughter is chewing on her own fist, staring at her curiously. Oh, how she's already beginning to grow. Developing a nose just like hers, her curly hair growing thicker, limbs long and thin like her father. River finds herself drifting off of the sofa to kneel in front of her, stroking her index finger against Neve's chin.
"Hello, Neve," she whispers. The baby lets her fist fall from her mouth to smile gummily at her.
"I'd given up on making her a blanket - not my fault, the stupid needles wouldn't work right - so I've been thinking about what I could get her so I got you two matching lockets, hers has a picture of you in it and yours - oh."
Amy stops in the doorway, staring at the two of them. River stands hastily, taking the locket Amy is holding out to her as her mouth hangs open slightly. Inside is a picture of Neve, probably recent, black and white and a little faded. Probably the best they could do with the technology of this era. She clasps it around her neck quickly and begins inputting co-ordinates into her Vortex Manipulator.
"River... Stay. For a little while."
"I can't," River says, clearing her throat and desperately looking at anything other than Neve.
"I know what you're going through," Amy tells her. "You were taken from me as a child and I never got you back, not really. You grew up all by yourself. And that's fine - but still, I take what I can get. I don't want you to go through that too, living for the rare moments you see your child."
"Mother - "
"For me then. Melody, stay for me."
"Maybe another time," River says, watching Amy's face fall. She looks away until the Vortex Manipulator transports her to her makeshift home on Luna.
-----
The Doctor laughs as they collapse back inside the TARDIS, the heavy sounds of Sontaran gunfire still continuing outside.
"I didn't even pick the restaurant and we still managed to get involved in the middle of a civil war," he says, almost giddy with excitement as he taps her on the nose before bounding over to the console. "You can't blame me for that anymore! I told you we were just cursed."
"Well dear, it normally helps if you land in the correct century - which we would've done if you had let me drive," she replies dryly, rolling her eyes as she reaches the console and turns the stabilisers on.
"Oi! Rude!"
He kisses her cheek as he breezes past her, letting her drive this time. She lets them drift among the stars two galaxies and a century away from where they had just been.
When she turns to him, she finds him rooting through her knapsack, tossing various items over his shoulder.
"Sweetie, has anybody ever told you that your rudeness isn't the slightest bit endearing?"
"You have, several times, if I recall correctly. Unless you haven't yet - in which case, spoilers," he mumbles. "I'm looking for my fish fingers. I know you took them when I wasn't looking - just because they were cooked in a radioactive microwave by a Slitheen does not mean that they've been spoiled."
"Honestly, you are impossible," she remarks, moving past him and headed towards the kitchen.
She pauses when he calls her name, rolling her eyes to turn back to him with a quip on the tip of her tongue until she spots him staring at her curiously with the small blanket she'd bought for Neve two days ago in his hands. For once, she's speechless.
"Why do you have a blanket?" He asks, as if it's the most ludicrous thing in the world. He presses it against his nose, sniffing carefully. "It smells like Earth. Thirtieth century?"
River stalks over to him, ripping the blanket from his hands and cradling it against her chest. It's so soft - one of the first things she had noticed about it. She hadn't even meant to buy one at all, really, she had only been looking through the market for a set of earrings for her mother's birthday. But after she had remembered Amy's failed attempts at knitting Neve a blanket, she had been drawn towards the stall, and the moment she had picked up the soft yellow fabric she had known there was no way she was going to leave without buying it.
"River?"
The locket beneath her clothing burns against her chest. She grabs the knapsack from him, carefully folding Neve's blanket before setting it back in there closing it, not bothering to look for the other items he'd tossed away. No doubt the TARDIS will make them show up in her room next time that she's here.
"Why are you - I only picked you up three hours ago!" The Doctor protests as she lifts her knapsack onto her shoulder, pulling her vortex manipulator from her pocket and strapping it onto her wrist. "At least let me drop you home."
Tears sting her eyes as she activates the manipulator. "I'd rather not end up getting home a hundred years late, Doctor."
-----
She goes straight to Neve and her parents.
Amy answers the door with the sound of swing music coming from down the hall, make up perfect and a party dress on, her jaw dropping. "River! We didn't realise you were coming, we're hosting a party for my birthday - "
"I should go - "
"No! Don't you dare!" Amy reaches out and grabs her wrist, pulling her inside the house. "You're crying, probably because of The Doctor, and it's my birthday. You're staying, Melody Pond, whether you like it or not."
"Your guests - "
"Can handle to be without me for a little while," Amy finishes, smiling gently. "C'mon, I'll grab you some tissue and we can go sit in Neve's room. Nobody will bother us there."
Her mother drags her upstairs and to the bathroom, spending ten minutes fixing River's make up even as she insists she should just wipe all of it off. Despite her protests, River finds the moment nice. Soft. There's the muted sound of the music from downstairs. Amy's skirt brushes against River's knees as Amy reapplies River's mascara with a smile. Her earlier anxieties begin to ease, her chest relaxing and hearts no longer pounding. When Amy finishes, spinning on the spot so that her skirt flares out and laugihng, River finds herself smiling easily and pulling the blanket she'd bought for Neve from her knapsack.
She hasn't seen Neve's nursery before. Has carefully avoided it. But she has to admit, as her mother opens the door ahead of her and leads her in, it doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would.
The walls are a soft shade of cream, TARDIS blue bunting pinned up along the wall Neve's crib is pressed against. In the opposite corner is a white rocking chair with yellow stars painted on it, probably her mother's handiwork. The curtains are pulled closed so that a small nightlight that projects small stars onto the ceiling is the only source of light.
River stops when she reaches the side of Neve's crib, finding her daughter already sitting and watching her there.
Her parents had given her the stars.
"This is lovely," Amy says softly, trailing her hands across the blanket River is holding. "Way better than what I was attempting."
River laughs. "I meant to get you a birthday present. I - I found this instead and completely forgot. I'm sorry - "
"Nah uh," Amy waves a finger at her. "No apologising. You being here is enough. For Neve, too."
Without warning, Amy reaches into the crib, lifting Neve and offering her to River. They stay standing like that for a minute, Amy watching her daughter carefully, until Neve begins to squirm uncomfortably and her face pinches up to cry. River's arms come up to hold her daughter automatically, cradling her to her chest and hushing her as she rocks.
God, she's so much heavier than she used to be. Yet, still, this warmth is so familiar. To those nights so long ago back when it was just the two of them on Luna, before she had been ready to let her go. When she had spent hours watching Neve sleep knowing that she would never be able to raise her the way she deserved, give her the life that she should have. Now, River studies her daughter intently - so much time has passed. She keeps missing it. The every day. All of this time, so much time - she will have so much more time in this universe than her daughter ever will - and she is wasting it by staying away.
"How's this, hm?" River hums, settling in the rocking chair and letting Neve grab her blanket. "See? There's nothing to cry about."
She feels her mother's hand on her shoulder. "She's missed you."
River blinks away her tears. "How old is she?"
"Eight months. How... How long has it been for you?"
River smiles wryly. "Ten months."
Amy leans down and kisses her forehead, making her hold her breath. "Come downstairs later, if you want. Rory would love to see you."
"Yes... Maybe."
Amy presses a last kiss to Neve's cheek as she finally settles in her mother's arms, before leaving the room, closing the door behind her. Leaving the two of them alone.
Neve has pulled the edge of the blanket into her mouth, chewing on it to soothe her teething pains. River smiles down at this small human she has created. What does it matter that she knows she will outlive her? What does it matter that, if anyone were to discover Neve, she would be placed in danger immediately? Here, now, they are safe, below the stars her parents have given them.
-----
The next time she bumps into The Doctor is two weeks after. He's been looking for her.
He turns up at five in the morning in her garden. She recognises the noise of the TARDIS, followed by his sigh as he accidentally steps in her flowerbed. River groans, rolling over as she hears him pick the lock - can the man really not just remember to bring the key she gave him? - of her front door and not-so-quietly tip toe to her bedroom.
He pokes his head around the door, wincing when he sees her awake. "I woke you up, didn't I?"
"Don't you always?" She responds before snuggling further into the bed. "If you're here to take me on an adventure, you'll have to wait. I've only had five hours sleep over the past seventy-two hours, which would even be pushing it if I were you."
"I'm not - you go ahead, sleep away," he says, clumsily waving his hands around before he starts taking his shoes off. "I could do with some sleep too, or a Jammie Dodger, I haven't decided yet."
River snorts. "Late night adventures with Clara?"
He sheds his jacket, bowtie and braces and slips into bed beside her. She wraps her arms around him instantly, tucking herself into his side.
"I've been trying to find you, actually. You're bloody hard to find, you know that?"
She chuckles. "Psychopath, sweetie. One of the first things I had to learn was how to hide if I didn't want to be found."
The Doctor rolls his eyes, pulling her in tighter to his side. "Well, that's not so useful when your husband is trying to find you. I mean - I don't know that this is the you I saw before - have we - I mean, do you own a blanket?"
River closes her eyes, breathing him in deeply.
"You came looking for me?"
"Right away."
She smiles against his shirt.
"I overreacted. I shouldn't have left, sweetie, I'm sorry."
"No, no, I - " The Doctor pauses. "I understand that there are... things we don't tell each other. You have a life when you are away from me, just as much as I have one when I am away from you. Time travel, it's..."
He doesn't finish, and she doesn't dignify him with an answer to his unspoken question. He cannot know about Neve. He just - can't. And it's unfair, and it's horrible, keeping this secret from him, but they have always dealt in tricks and secrets and spoilers. This just the way things are between them. The way things always will be until they pass by each other, until their time ends.
"I'm tired, Doctor," she tells him wearily. "If you're looking for answers - "
"No. I told you. I was looking for you. Let's... let's sleep."
So they do.
-----
When she wakes in the morning, the space beside her is empty. River groans, rubbing a hand across her eyes before sitting, finding him staring at her from where he is standing at the end of the bed. His hair is sticking on end but he's perfectly dressed again. There is nothing warm about the way he's looking at her.
"She has your nose."
She raises her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"The baby in your locket. She has your nose."
River feels her face flushing. That's a first. Usually, it's the other way round.
She reaches for her locket, clasps it in her sweaty palms. He smiles, almost bitter.
"A relative of yours?"
"Doctor - "
"She's the one you bought the blanket for," he deduces. "She's why you reacted the way you did."
Her hearts pounding, River closes her eyes, whispering, "Yes."
For a long time, The Doctor says nothing. When she finally plucks up the courage to open her eyes again his eyes are fixed on the locket she's clasping, tucking his hands into his pockets.
"She's yours."
River feels tears she can't stop beginning to form in her eyes. "Yes."
If she had thought she had seen him at his worst, at his lowest point, those times pale in comparison to now. For such a young face, he is capable of such anger, such raw pain. He opens his mouth as if to speak, hands rising from his pockets until he closes his mouth, his hands forming fists in the air. He shakes his head, looking away from her and at her collection of photographs on her dresser. Some of her parents, some of herself and The Doctor, but none of Neve.
"She's human," she hears herself saying. "She's yours. And mine. And she's human."
He does not turn back to her. "Where is she?"
"She's with my parents. 1950s New York. Last time I saw her she was eight months old. She's happy with them, they can take care of her."
The Doctor turns to her with such - such anguish in his eyes. She lifts from the bed, reaching for him but he shrugs her away, storming out of the house, to her garden, back to the TARDIS.
She sits on the edge of the bed when she hears the engines start up, and does not look outside to watch him disappear.