Estuary (Night)

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Title: Estuary
Author: sarah531
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Mentions of domestic abuse
Characters: Melody, Amy, Rory, Tabitha, Augustus, Jack, a couple of OCs
A/N: Last minute title change- the original was The Family Gathering. I can’t decide which one I like the best. Also Livejournal wouldn’t let me post the whole thing, which is what I wanted, so here it is in parts.
Summary: Melody Pond grows up alongside her parents.

Night

Leadworth, winter, 2006

On Christmas Eve, Rory dreamt about his father punching his mother in the face. It was a recurring nightmare and he suspected it would never leave him, even though he was now nineteen and a grown man. Sort of. Grown enough. It had happened one winter, when the world was cold and he was huddled under covers, five years old, the thwack and the yell. She’d behaved like a slag, his father had said. She’d behaved like a slag and she’d deserved what she’d got…

It had never happened again, but once had been bad enough.

“Rory,” said a voice. “Rory.”

Rory put the pieces together and realised it was Mels. He tried to remember where he was. He suspected he was at Amy’s house, sleeping on the floor, the floor of the living room, the girls were upstairs, it was Christmas…his mother was far away and his father wasn’t there…

“Hey, Mels.”

“Turn on the television,” Mels said, and Rory felt his heart sink. Amy and her parents weren’t there- Amy hadn’t come to wake him- all the Christmas presents still sat under the tree-

“Mels, what happened? Where’s Amy?”

Mels turned the television on for him. Kneeling on the ground, looking up at the screen, Rory saw it. Up in the London sky was a spaceship, and down on the ground below were people. And up on every roof, on every high place, there were people there too.

“Why is everyone up there, Mels? Mels?”

Mels pointed out of the window, in a move Rory found reminiscent of the Ghost Of Christmas Future, pointing to Scrooge’s grave. He looked, and he could see the church, and people were standing on the roof-

The newsreader on the TV was talking, but Rory talked over her. “Mels! Where’s Amy? Where’s her parents? What’s going on?”

“Well,” Mels said, “aliens have taken a third of the world hostage. Based on blood type. And Amy…she’s on the roof of the church. With her parents. Being controlled. I reckon if they don’t get what they want, this lot, they’ll kill her and everyone.” Her expression was frighteningly blank. And Rory looked at her, really looked.

“Mels. It’s gonna be okay. Amy’s gonna be okay.”

“Guess who isn’t around?” She gave a little laugh. “The Doctor? My God, you’re right!”

Rory grabbed her hand. “Mels, you gotta show me where Amy is, okay? We can save her.” And Mels wrapped both sets of her fingers around his, like a little girl, and led him outside, through the garden, past the long-since-fixed shed, to the church-

It was crowded. Rory thought he saw Anna at the front of the church, but he couldn’t be sure. Mels lead him to a door, up some stairs, to the roof. And there, amongst many others, inbetween her parents, was Amy-

Rory ran to her. She didn’t react to him, just stared forward vacantly.

“Amy? Amy? Are you in there, Amy?”

“She’s not in there,” came the voice of Rory’s dad, and he turned around to face his father. “None of them are in there. So you didn’t deign to spend Christmas with us, young man, but here we are anyway.”

Rory ignored him, and held on to Amy. “We need to do something in case they fall. Mels, you grab Tabitha. Dad, you grab Augustus…”

“The television said to leave them alone.”

Anna came up on the roof, followed by Julia. Both were in their nightclothes- Julia in purple pyjamas, Anna in a long white nightie.

“Julia,” Mels called, “get over here and grab Augustus for me, Mr Useless here isn’t going to.” Rory’s father shot her a poisonous look, and went over to talk to his wife. Rory continued to hold Amy, feeling her breathe, hoping she wouldn’t mind this closeness when she awoke…

“Hey,” Julia said. “TV’s on downstairs. Harriet Jones was bein’ all weird. She was asking for a doctor.”

“What?”

“All capital letters, a Doctor. Like your Doctor.”

“Amy’s Doctor.”

“No,” Mels said, holding her grandfather’s hand, “he’s all of ours.”

Somewhere a phone rang. Rory’s dad answered it. “Your mother,” he shouted across the roof at Rory. “She wants to talk to you!”

Rory turned to Mels. “Mels, can you hold Amy? Look after her? I know you can.”

“Course,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her in a one-sided hug. Rory went and took the phone. Julia went towards Anna, who had started to cry…

Mels was holding her mother.

“Hey,” she said. No-one else was in earshot; no-one around could hear. “Mum.”

Amy did nothing, just stared ahead. The cold breeze was blowing her hair.

“Mum. Yeah, you’re my mum. But I’ll never get to call you that, maybe not ever, I dunno. I want to. You would have been a great mum. We’d have had a laugh together, every day.”

“Anna,” Rory’s dad was saying, far off in the distance, “really, pull yourself together – think of the children-”

“There’s a lot of bad people in the world,” Mels whispered. “I know that, and you’re sure as heck gonna know that, one day. You and Dad. You got denied everything. But I wanna make it okay.” A police siren wailed in the distance. “The Doctor did this to you, you know, he’s the reason you’re standing here about to jump. And he’s not gonna catch you, cos where is he? Not here, not in Leadworth, stupid little Leadworth. He’s like a bloody god, and he went and made you a walking Bible. Amelia Pond, the girl with all the stories. Lots of good ones. But so many bad ones.”

Rory finished his conversation, gloomily returned the phone to his dad and walked towards them.

“Mum,” Mels whispered in her ear. “I do love you, you know. I love both of you. Mum and Dad and Melody, a family, all together, it’s gonna be okay.” She broke away. Rory came up to her and took her hand.

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah. She hasn’t moved. What’d your mum want?”

“Just to check on me.”

Mels moved as Rory checked Amy’s pulse. There was no reason to, not really, but he was a nurse. “She’s fine in every way. It’s just her mind…” He trailed off and looked over at the rest of his family. His father had gone downstairs, and only Anna and Julia remained.

“Remember I said once how weirded out I was that someone like your dad managed to raise someone like you?” Mels said thoughtfully. “Well, I still mean it. You and Julia both. How you came from those two, how you managed to be good people…”

“Anna’s alright,” Rory said glumly. “Most of the time. She should really just leave him.”

They watched as Julia stormed away from her mother in disgust, and as Anna followed her, shouting about something Rory couldn’t hear. He turned back to Amy.

“I love Amy. So much. Think she knows?”

“I think she does.”

Time ticked slowly down and then there was a shout from the other side of the rooftop. Rory and Melody turned- everyone on the edge of the roof stepped forward-

“No!” screamed Rory, and his daughter screamed it too. He grabbed Amy, held her tight, tried to pull her away- and then there was a flicker of light, and she toppled backwards onto him. Mels gave a screech, dived down next to them-

“What the hell is going on?” roared Amy. She craned her head to see her parents. “I was in bed, it was Christmas, what the bloody heck happened?” Her dad, in a daze, pulled her up.

“It was aliens,” Mels said loudly, as she gave Rory a hand to pull himself up with. “They hypnotised a third of the world. They were gonna kill you!”

Amy stared around in bewilderment. Rory gave her an embarassed little wave.

“You all stepped towards the edge,” Mels explained. “Then you just stopped. You would’ve gone off, you would’ve jumped…”

Amy brushed her hair from her face, and clung to her father’s hand. “You two…” A smile slowly broke over her face. “You were trying to save me, right? C’mere!” She pulled Rory and Mels into a hug. Both of them clung on for dear life, and Rory closed his eyes, lost in the moment, until his father’s voice shattered it.

“Seems to be over! Anna’s finished her hysterics, and Julia’s somewhere around…how’s about coming back with us, young man, your family? You’ve been keeping your distance, as of late.” Julia appeared on the roof, smoking a cigarette. “We think you’ve kept your distance long enough.” He suddenly whipped around, face red and mouth spitting. “Put your bloody cigarette OUT, Julia!” And, as Julia jumped, he turned back. “Rory, come with us and have a proper family Christmas.”

The universe waited, but it didn’t have to wait very long. “Alright,” Rory said, and put his arms around Amy and Mels. “I’ll go and do that. Me and my family. You coming, Julia, Anna?” They walked across the roof, past the spluttering man, and downstairs. Julia smirked, threw her cigarette at her stepfather’s feet, and followed them.

Anna did not.

Tabitha and Augustus eyed the other adults. “Not to worry,” Augustus said perkily, “we’ve got a whopping great Christmas dinner planned for all four of them, everyone gets looked after at our house.”

“I don’t know which of those girls is the worst influence,” Mr Williams spat, “the street child or your child.”

“Well,” Tabitha cut in icily, “perhaps we could all sit down with your first wife, and have a look through the divorce file, and those photos she had me take of her face, and then talk about bad influences, Robert.” She marched past him, Augustus following with his head held high. As the family gathered in the graveyard, ash began to fall from the clouds.

*

In the Pond family household, Julia made up a bed in the spare room. Tabitha helped her, and she was just getting her a pair of Amy’s old pyajamas when Augustus came in.

“Look at this,” he said, his voice almost cracking, “it’s adorable.”

Tabitha and Julia followed him through to Amy’s room. Amy and Rory lay on the bed, fast asleep, and Mels was huddled up between them like a little girl. Like parents and a daughter, just after Christmas day…

“You know what’s odd,” Tabitha said, breaking the silence but speaking in a whisper, “when we first met Mels, she asked if Amy and Rory could be her mum and dad. And look at them now. I’ve never seen friends be closer.”

Julia was less impressed. “Are we quite sure none of them have been having sex?”

“No!” Tabitha said, outraged.

“I always thought Amy held a candle for young Rory,” Augustus said, as they made their way downstairs. “Shame, he turned out to be gay and all…”

Julia laughed. “He’s not gay!”

“What?”

“He’s not gay! He fancies your daughter like mad!”

“He’s not gay?” Augustus was agast. “But he’s a nurse.”

*

The night drew on, and Melody Pond woke up. With her parents still sound asleep, she tiptoed downstairs. There was a familiar name blaring out from the TV: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor…

She crouched on the stairs and watched from there. Her grandparents and her aunt were all slumped on the sofa, finishing the last of the mince pies, and on screen the news was repeating Harriet Jones’ curious appeal…

“If you can hear me, Doctor, if anyone knows where he is…”

And Tabitha stirred and sat up. “Gus,” she said. She poked her husband. He stirred too. “Julia awake?”

Augustus glanced over at her. “Nope.”

“This Doctor thing. The Prime Minister was talking about him. Like he was a…person.”

Augustus nodded nervously. “Internet says she was asking for a real doctor. You know. A physician.”

“It’s a codename,” Tabitha said intently. “It’s gotta be. Our daughter met someone real that night, didn’t she? Someone in deep with the government. Someone very dangerous.”

“Not necessarily…” Augustus glanced at the stairs, and Mels thought he would see her, but it was dark and he didn’t. “It could’ve been…just her imagination getting away…Tabs, what should we do?”

“Don’t tell her about it,” Tabitha said firmly. “Don’t mention what the PM said, not ever, it’ll drive her nuts. She’ll probably never know, she never reads the papers, doesn’t watch the news…just don’t tell her, alright, Gus?”

“Alright.”

Mels looked around the room. On the television Harriet Jones was declaring her innocence, and outside ash was piling up on the windowsill. The world thought it was snow, but she knew it was ash, and she wondered who else knew…

“I’ll find you,” she whispered. “You’ll have gone now, you’ll always do that. But I’ll find you eventually. And then there’ll be snow.”

She crept back upstairs, and fell asleep between her parents.