flowsoffire (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flowsoffire) wrote2013-03-22 09:43 pm
flowsoffire) wrote2013-03-22 09:43 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Afterthought (Doctor Who)
Title: Afterthought
Author: flowsoffire
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/characters: Rory Williams, Melody/Mels/River, references to Amy and Eleven
Genre: Family/Drama
Rating: K+
Word count: c. 1300
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: "In Rory's dreams, there is a little girl that dances right beyond his reach, lost and found. " Some Rory insight about his relationship with his daughter. Includes references to Amy and Eleven.
Author's note: Here is a bit of Rory goodness. It was mostly meant to be centred on his relationship with his daughter, but a bit of Amy and Eleven found their way in there too. Enjoy!
Inspiration for the title came from the song Astronaut by Amanda Palmer.
In Rory's dreams, there is a little girl that dances right beyond his reach, lost and found.
He imagines her face, a face he's never seen. (Amy has—but he won't resent that. There are too many things and people to resent, with more or less reason, and if he only starts he'll be taken under.) He sees flying curls, of course—even Mels had mad hair when she let it loose, and parts of his sleepless nights are spent wondering who she got it from. He also sees his eyes, and Amy's pretty features and irresistible energy. The girl laughs and twirls—she is free, but he can't reach her, she is beautiful and she doesn't hear when he tells her. Somehow, he should know that and still consider himself happy.
It burns.
He wants his baby; the warm, amazingly alive bundle in his arms, the tiny face, fragile as a doll's, those innocent eyes that once blinked up at him. He wants Melody—not Mels, and not River, but he cannot admit that. Nobody wants to hear it. He ought to stay quiet, not make it any worse for the others, he knows… He ought to deal with it and be content with what he has: the memory of holding her, his miracle, for mere fleeting minutes—but there's Amy's face when the truth was revealed, Amy's scream, and then River's eyes, bright and soft and more uncertain than he'd ever seen them—
He has a daughter that shoots Silence and makes the word Dad sound like a cheerful joke, a daughter whose secret wounds he won't ever get to kiss better. When he thinks like that, for hours on end, he relives every moment ever spent in her company—from her mock-surprise at seeing the plastic centurion again, to the careful way she spoke to Amy in Demon's Run, as though it were a moment she'd always been waiting for. He thinks of the way she's always looked at him, and wonders if she did try to let him in, without his noticing. He still remembers the exact sound of her faraway voice as she told him about the Doctor; he sees her in Victorian clothing on her birthday, rambling to him in fast, giddy tones, with an underlying vulnerability his own brokenness then failed to perceive. She is River, with a brave face and a lie always at the ready; he doesn't know if she has long become desensitized to all of those losses, the mess of her timeline with theirs, future and past entwined—or whether she only pretends, pretends, pretends until it takes her breath away, for the sake of everyone. Regardless, she couldn't have come much closer than she did—she must have known she's always scared the devil out of him.
It aches to think about her, like it aches to think about Mels, mad, weird, unpredictable Mels whom he always thought must have found him a bit pathetic, a bit of a tag-along. Mels who frightened him too, sometimes, made him wary at the very least. For years they shared exasperated fondness, and then she, too, disappeared. Mels gone, all that was left was memories again: countless, oblivious moments—having had her so close, and never knowing, it makes him want to break something.
It is like destiny is playing with him, like someone somewhere is having a good laugh giving him so many glimpses of her, yet never quite the real thing. Three faces for one daughter and none of those he gets to keep, hold close to his heart. Three names, and three selves—it feels like the reality of her is being stripped away, and the more he thinks of Melody Pond, the less she even exists. He gave a part of himself to create her, and she grew without looking back, never needing him at all. So brave, like Amy told her to be, and knowing her father wouldn't be coming for her.
It kills him every night, that he came for Melody and she still was lost, that she found home again and he was only a child, that she met him afterwards and pretended they were strangers. The woman he knows now he will never call Melody. Amy does sometimes, secretly, when it's just him and her. But some part of him won't acknowledge that this dashing, wonderful, utterly foreign person is all that's left to reach of his baby girl. It makes him feel guilty—until she calls him Dad in that too-light tone of hers, and pain grips him instead, makes all the rest an afterthought.
He is always too late and she's always gone too soon, and they never seem to get past this pained state of awkwardness, find some balance. She is the Doctor's more than she's ever been his, and that hurts quite a bit too. He doesn't allow himself to think about that too much, or bitterness would take over him all too quickly. He has too many things to blame on that old alien, being so important for the women of his life not least of all—and neither Amy, nor River would appreciate that resentment boiling over. There is also his being mad, dangerous, and so profoundly giving and wonderful that people can't help being fools and forgiving him each time. He is a stranger, stealing them away to different, dashing lives, and he endangers them. Because of him Rory has lost his daughter more times than he can count—loses her all over again everytime they meet. And yet he understands him, can now look at him with ancient, tired eyes, and recognize the old soul beneath the silly face, the weary, loving hearts, time-worn. This newfound lucidity, this closeness of kin doesn't allow for unfair animosity; he remembers River's words and voice and eyes, and cannot blame such a lonely man for wanting a love so wide and deep, taking what was so willingly offered. Still—he is third wheel again.
Long nights laced with those thoughts have become his companions. His sleep is too short though, when he actually does get any—he works harder at the hospital, and days are often broken with mad dashes in the TARDIS, adventures that are thrilling and exhausting, yet take no time from his reality and toss him, reeling, into hours after hours of two lives that clash together, leaving his head too full and heavy with exhaustion. Fights and running wrapped in ten-minute breaks, then off he goes again, saving and fixing with shaky hands. Still—at night he finds himself lying stiffly on his back, wide-open eyes glued to the ceiling. Amy shifts beside him, struggles in the grasp of some dream that takes her very far away.
They never actually talk about it—Melody, or Amy's dreams, and thoughts, or his own, or that subtle, terrifying manner she has of drifting away, moving from him inch after inch, instants of silence adding up like a countdown. Every moment when it's just the two of them feels more and more strained, until she just doesn't seem to ever see the two of them, Amy and Rory anymore: she sees failure and victim, reads his pain and twists it into wrong assumptions, shies away from acknowledging their issues. She wants to give him a baby—and if he wants it too, just not like this. He wants her, first and most of all, and doesn't quite know how to express that. The pressure mounts and desperation runs wild, until it explodes, blasts them apart. All the silent scars, all the suffering they've never shared have constructed walls of misunderstanding between them, and he is too small, too tired to take them down.
The Ponds, he thinks tiredly—the Ponds, perhaps, existed nowhere but in the Doctor's fairyland. He is Rory Williams, no daughter and soon no more wife; he's lived too long for his weary heart, and he can't even bring himself to regret any of it.
In the end, he is a thing again, an anachronism, killing what he loves.
Author: flowsoffire
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/characters: Rory Williams, Melody/Mels/River, references to Amy and Eleven
Genre: Family/Drama
Rating: K+
Word count: c. 1300
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: "In Rory's dreams, there is a little girl that dances right beyond his reach, lost and found. " Some Rory insight about his relationship with his daughter. Includes references to Amy and Eleven.
Author's note: Here is a bit of Rory goodness. It was mostly meant to be centred on his relationship with his daughter, but a bit of Amy and Eleven found their way in there too. Enjoy!
Inspiration for the title came from the song Astronaut by Amanda Palmer.
In Rory's dreams, there is a little girl that dances right beyond his reach, lost and found.
He imagines her face, a face he's never seen. (Amy has—but he won't resent that. There are too many things and people to resent, with more or less reason, and if he only starts he'll be taken under.) He sees flying curls, of course—even Mels had mad hair when she let it loose, and parts of his sleepless nights are spent wondering who she got it from. He also sees his eyes, and Amy's pretty features and irresistible energy. The girl laughs and twirls—she is free, but he can't reach her, she is beautiful and she doesn't hear when he tells her. Somehow, he should know that and still consider himself happy.
It burns.
He wants his baby; the warm, amazingly alive bundle in his arms, the tiny face, fragile as a doll's, those innocent eyes that once blinked up at him. He wants Melody—not Mels, and not River, but he cannot admit that. Nobody wants to hear it. He ought to stay quiet, not make it any worse for the others, he knows… He ought to deal with it and be content with what he has: the memory of holding her, his miracle, for mere fleeting minutes—but there's Amy's face when the truth was revealed, Amy's scream, and then River's eyes, bright and soft and more uncertain than he'd ever seen them—
He has a daughter that shoots Silence and makes the word Dad sound like a cheerful joke, a daughter whose secret wounds he won't ever get to kiss better. When he thinks like that, for hours on end, he relives every moment ever spent in her company—from her mock-surprise at seeing the plastic centurion again, to the careful way she spoke to Amy in Demon's Run, as though it were a moment she'd always been waiting for. He thinks of the way she's always looked at him, and wonders if she did try to let him in, without his noticing. He still remembers the exact sound of her faraway voice as she told him about the Doctor; he sees her in Victorian clothing on her birthday, rambling to him in fast, giddy tones, with an underlying vulnerability his own brokenness then failed to perceive. She is River, with a brave face and a lie always at the ready; he doesn't know if she has long become desensitized to all of those losses, the mess of her timeline with theirs, future and past entwined—or whether she only pretends, pretends, pretends until it takes her breath away, for the sake of everyone. Regardless, she couldn't have come much closer than she did—she must have known she's always scared the devil out of him.
It aches to think about her, like it aches to think about Mels, mad, weird, unpredictable Mels whom he always thought must have found him a bit pathetic, a bit of a tag-along. Mels who frightened him too, sometimes, made him wary at the very least. For years they shared exasperated fondness, and then she, too, disappeared. Mels gone, all that was left was memories again: countless, oblivious moments—having had her so close, and never knowing, it makes him want to break something.
It is like destiny is playing with him, like someone somewhere is having a good laugh giving him so many glimpses of her, yet never quite the real thing. Three faces for one daughter and none of those he gets to keep, hold close to his heart. Three names, and three selves—it feels like the reality of her is being stripped away, and the more he thinks of Melody Pond, the less she even exists. He gave a part of himself to create her, and she grew without looking back, never needing him at all. So brave, like Amy told her to be, and knowing her father wouldn't be coming for her.
It kills him every night, that he came for Melody and she still was lost, that she found home again and he was only a child, that she met him afterwards and pretended they were strangers. The woman he knows now he will never call Melody. Amy does sometimes, secretly, when it's just him and her. But some part of him won't acknowledge that this dashing, wonderful, utterly foreign person is all that's left to reach of his baby girl. It makes him feel guilty—until she calls him Dad in that too-light tone of hers, and pain grips him instead, makes all the rest an afterthought.
He is always too late and she's always gone too soon, and they never seem to get past this pained state of awkwardness, find some balance. She is the Doctor's more than she's ever been his, and that hurts quite a bit too. He doesn't allow himself to think about that too much, or bitterness would take over him all too quickly. He has too many things to blame on that old alien, being so important for the women of his life not least of all—and neither Amy, nor River would appreciate that resentment boiling over. There is also his being mad, dangerous, and so profoundly giving and wonderful that people can't help being fools and forgiving him each time. He is a stranger, stealing them away to different, dashing lives, and he endangers them. Because of him Rory has lost his daughter more times than he can count—loses her all over again everytime they meet. And yet he understands him, can now look at him with ancient, tired eyes, and recognize the old soul beneath the silly face, the weary, loving hearts, time-worn. This newfound lucidity, this closeness of kin doesn't allow for unfair animosity; he remembers River's words and voice and eyes, and cannot blame such a lonely man for wanting a love so wide and deep, taking what was so willingly offered. Still—he is third wheel again.
Long nights laced with those thoughts have become his companions. His sleep is too short though, when he actually does get any—he works harder at the hospital, and days are often broken with mad dashes in the TARDIS, adventures that are thrilling and exhausting, yet take no time from his reality and toss him, reeling, into hours after hours of two lives that clash together, leaving his head too full and heavy with exhaustion. Fights and running wrapped in ten-minute breaks, then off he goes again, saving and fixing with shaky hands. Still—at night he finds himself lying stiffly on his back, wide-open eyes glued to the ceiling. Amy shifts beside him, struggles in the grasp of some dream that takes her very far away.
They never actually talk about it—Melody, or Amy's dreams, and thoughts, or his own, or that subtle, terrifying manner she has of drifting away, moving from him inch after inch, instants of silence adding up like a countdown. Every moment when it's just the two of them feels more and more strained, until she just doesn't seem to ever see the two of them, Amy and Rory anymore: she sees failure and victim, reads his pain and twists it into wrong assumptions, shies away from acknowledging their issues. She wants to give him a baby—and if he wants it too, just not like this. He wants her, first and most of all, and doesn't quite know how to express that. The pressure mounts and desperation runs wild, until it explodes, blasts them apart. All the silent scars, all the suffering they've never shared have constructed walls of misunderstanding between them, and he is too small, too tired to take them down.
The Ponds, he thinks tiredly—the Ponds, perhaps, existed nowhere but in the Doctor's fairyland. He is Rory Williams, no daughter and soon no more wife; he's lived too long for his weary heart, and he can't even bring himself to regret any of it.
In the end, he is a thing again, an anachronism, killing what he loves.
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OH MY GOD. That hurts so good, though.
So, I kind of have 1) a thing about River + Rory stories (all . . . oh, three of them) and 2) a lot of built-up feelings about the Pond family, as we have discussed before! I also was surprised by how the surprise!divorce and infertility plot in Asylum of the Daleks, while not developed nearly enough, did seem to provide some sort of resolution I'd been waiting for through the whole half of season six? It's like I just needed somebody to point out that it was all wrong, and it was all expressed incredibly disfunctionally, but it was, at least there. And you just took all those scraps and built them together seamlessly and then went and wrenched my heart out of my chest while you were at it. Thank you.
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And can I just say how delighted I am that you liked the story? Really—I obviously look up to your writing quite a bit, so it really means a lot that you thought the story worked well with what was given to us in canon, and enjoyed the writing, and the emotion. Indeed, there was just so. Much. Angst. After s6, and it completely makes sense that it would all explode in the Ponds' faces after a while, but not like this—for a lot of deep dark tangled reasons that would have deserved a LOT more exploring than what was actually done… Still—it leaves so much room for FF writing ;)
Thanks again! *hearts*
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What is particularly interesting is Rory's guilt over wishing Melody was back. Because he knows it would mean River's end. Rory couldn't understand that about the older Amy in The Girl who waited. Amy being saved could not become the older Amy. But with River, Rory accepted the impossibilty of her return to them. Because he saw her as the Doctor's, not his.
Your ending is really beautiful; Rory understands there is no way for them to be together with the Doctor by their side. That's why Manhattan happened. Because Moffat wanted a happy ending and the Doctor, whom I see as a love and admiration vampire, cannot provide it.
Really lovely.
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Ohhh, your Girl Who Waited parallel is pretty fascinating. Indeed—in the older Amy, he only saw something that should never have happened, a "wrong" version of his wife—a version he needed to stop from happening, since he /should/ have found her earlier, and she said it herself! River existed independently of Melody, and it was already a headache and heartache to come to terms with the fact that they were one and the same—but he could /not/ have changed her history, because she wouldn't have let him… Like you said, she wasn't his to change.
"Love and admiration vampire"—oh my, that's so cruel and so utterly right. Cruel in a good way—lucid. Lucidity is often cruel… And really, the Doctor takes all the room. The Doctor isn't safe to be around. And the Doctor isn't the best person to have a healthy life and relationship around. Like you said, everything becomes about him. *tearing up and yet grinning* All the feels…
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Which is why the Ponds' relationship should have been explored! Even if fans are analysing every tiny family moment and claiming 'Of course Amy and Rory love their daughter' it is not that evident. Trouble is Moffat laid the foundations for some pretty difficult and complex interactions between the Ponds. And there wasn't time to explore it... Thank Heaven for fic writers! And I want someone to hug River now.
Sometimes I feel I should walk around with a sign on my forehead reading 'Beware of the cynic. The probability for me to say something upsetting is 0.9' As much as the Doctor wants to be a good man and to bring out the best in those he meets, he is a hazard; because he attracts people with such force and forgets that, when they enter his atmosphere, they ignite and eventualy crash. Fortunately, he realises it before they do and changes his orbit -sorry for the pseudo-scientific comparison. That is what the God Complex is about. In a way he thinks he deserves this much love and devotion, akin to that accorded to a God. Except he is not and Moffat has been trying hard for the past seasons to unstich the Lonely God trope.
Do you mind if I add you to my friends? I would really like to follow your writings and you seem to think a lot about meta, which is always exciting.
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I wanted more Ponds!family insight!time, too… Moffat just leaves the potential for HUGE stuff, and then like you said, there's no time to give it all the proper work =(
I volunteer for hugging River. *hugs*
LOL, it's okay, I kind of like cynic ;) And I love to see the dark/selfish/dangerous/alien/take-your-pick side of the Doctor explored. Everything you said was just so right. He just NEEDS his companions, and he becomes everything for them, but it's hardly ever healthy relationships… I'm reminded of the Martha quotes now… Get too close and people get burnt.
Oh, go ahead! I'd be delighted =) Um, I guess I /think/ about meta—I've seen a lot of fascinating theories/analysis posts and that's just beyond me, but I do like to dig into characters' minds a lot, and I always love to discuss DW, so… yeah, friend away ;)
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Uhm, I mean -- this is terrific! Rory is a thinker, and he's not happyhappy all the time, and yet it's never really brought up; this is such a good missing scene I can't even. Okay, missing scene isn't really the right word -- I love how you got all the Rory canon from all the lives in here and explored the Melody/Mels/River thing and the sudden divorce!
Those last two paragraphs are my favourites -- the Doctor's Ponds v. the gravestone's Williamses and so very Rory. <3
(I'm sorry if I'm making No Sense whatsoever.)
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Yayyyyyy, I'm so happy you liked this :D Thank you so much for the comment! Indeed, there's a lot to be done with Rory insight that just isn't shown on the show, and I really had fun playing with his mind…
You're Making Lots Of Sense =) Thanks again for the lovely comment, dear! *hugs*
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