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Rory walked in the quiet park with slow steps, keeping his eyes on the bench that faced the children's slide.
The park was lit only by dim streetlights and the only sounds to be heard were the birds hiding among the leaves of the trees, singing their songs after the usual heavy rain of Leadworth.
It was a moonless night, the kind Rory hated the most.
He liked the moon shining above them; lightening the dark, gloomy world out there even without streetlights.
The streetlights weren't trustable.
They were this great thing, which worked better than moon or stars did. Moon and stars were a given, they were always there. Streetlights were not. And people actually missed them, looked for them when they were not there. People needed them. They didn't need the natural light sources or moons that mirrored the light.
But they never stopped being there, waiting to be noticed.
He wondered if Amy loved the moonlight. If Amy noticed how pretty the moonlight could be.
He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts as he sat down on the bench without saying a word to the young and tall -taller than him and Amy, so it had to mean something- girl already sitting there.
"What is it? You are taking night walks now? Isn't it scary for you or something?" The girl spoke without looking at him. Her voice made it clear that she was trying to sound cool or strong or whatever but Rory could only notice how shaky it sounded.
Nothing like the Mels he knew.
She was always the sarcastic one. And the coolest one.
While Amy was the fun one. And she was so cool too, Rory had to admit. But Mels was the one who broke rules, did whatever it was they were not supposed to do and never regretted any of them.
So seeing her crying two blocks from his house was not a good sign, at all.
"You..." He started to talk but realized very quick that his voice was louder than he meant it to be and stopped immediately, with a blushing on his face that wasn't visible in the dark. "You wanna tell me what is it about?" He went on, quieter and shyer this time.
She turned to face him this time. "Amy and I had a stupid fight, that's all." She shrugged as one of her hands played with the zipper of one of her leather boots that was resting on her other knee.
He seemed to think about what he wanted to say for a while.
While he was close to Amy and Mels, he didn’t have a lot of friends. To be honest, he had no other friends.
He wasn’t cool. He wasn’t fun.
He was just... Rory.
But he had Amy and Mels and he liked to think that was enough.
Though it was a fact that whenever something bad happened to one of them, they were the ones who would support the one other. So Rory didn't have lots of experience comforting someone, especially a girl.
Especially Mels.
Since she was a really weird -in a cool way- person.
But the world was even weirder; making a shy, timid boy like Rory trying to soothe a confident, strong girl like Mels. Or think about trying to soothe her. Since he hadn’t done anything other than asking what was wrong.
"I don’t think this is your first fight or anything though." He finally talked, his voice still too quiet she almost couldn't hear him.
She gave his timidness a small smile that made him feel like he was actually doing something right. "No, it's not. But we usually fight about stuff! Like other things. Never about our personalities!" She answered, her voice rising with every word just like her anger did.
Rory looked at her questioningly. "Your personalities?"
He really wanted to understand what was the deal. But even on normal days, he struggled trying to understand Amy and Mels.
And trying to understand Mel's ranting turned out to be way harder.
"Amy thinks I'm spoiled -mind I remind you that I'm the one who lives with foster parents- and dramatic. And she thinks I'm jealous of her for her little cutesy story with the Doctor and that's why I'm so obsessed with him. All because I'm jealous of her." She laughed sarcastically as she shook her head, frustrated. "I've been her best friend for years. For years! And those are the words she thinks I deserve."
Well, if Rory had to choose someone spoiled, he would choose Amy. That was a fact.
But he knew this fight was not about it so he kept that to himself.
"And you answered her by saying?" He asked, more confident now as he could guess her reaction to Amy's words.
"That she couldn't stand it when someone didn't worship her. That if she could actually be silent for a second and stopped trying to manipulate people, people might have actually liked her. But that she was a whiny little girl who thought the whole world revolved around her." She took a deep breathe. "And don't defend her to me just because you have a stupid crush on her, okay? And don't even try to tell me you don't because no one is buying it."
Yeah, no.
Rory had seen most of their fights, if not all of them, during all those years he knew them. But this was nothing like them.
This wasn’t like their fight about the handmade paper Tardis they both wanted to have when they were 9 years old.
This wasn’t like their fight about the blonde guy from their class they both had a crush on when they were 13.
This was them trying to tear each other apart with their words and Rory couldn’t understand why. And he also couldn't understand how she was so sure he had a crush on Amy while Amy herself showed no indication that she knew.
"My mom has baked cookies. You wanna come?" He asked after a few silent minutes as he standed up and reached his hand to her.
He could see that this problem could be fixed by Amy and Mels only.
And he knew himself. He knew that no matter how much tried, he couldn't make her feel better than the cookies could.
"The chocolate chip ones?" Mels asked with an excited tone though her voice was still shaky with all the crying she had done.
Rory nodded and waited for Mels to take his hand. Mels, though, standed up herself and started to walk past him without looking back.
Rory shook his head with a small smile on his face, lowering his hand and he ran to catch up with her.
"You'll see Rory. I'm going to have my own Doctor one day. I'm even going to learn how to drive a Tardis. And Amy is gonna be so shocked and amazed and envious and..."
Mels’s voice echoed in the neighborhood as she kept talking while Rory only responded with the occasional approving sounds whenever she asked him something.
And Mels didn't need him to say anything. His presence was more than enough.