Estuary (Sunset)

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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.

Sunset

Leadworth, spring, 2006

Twelve children- toddlers, pre-teens, teenagers- were gathered around the television in the children’s home. One of the youngest was crying, and Amy was trying to comfort him by bouncing him in her arms. Behind her were Mels and Rory, and behind them was a grey, mouthless, sunken-eyed alien.

“It took out Big Ben,” Rory said, almost in awe. “S’like it was aiming for it.”

Amy nodded distractedly. “We-” she began, and then stopped. The child in her arms squirmed away.

“We should call the Doctor,” Rory said.

Amy looked at him. “Rory-” she said, and then stopped and stood up. She went through to the kitchen, and the other two followed. Then she put her head down on the table and cried.

Rory reached out for her, and so did Mels. Amy shook their hands away and said, “This is wrong! Everyone’s panicking and…he’s not here! He’s not here to save me!”

“To save us,” Rory said.

“To save…” Amy got up just as suddenly as she had sat down, and stared at the children in the living room. Mrs Angelo was outside, talking to the village’s only policeman. And then-

“Oh my God!”

“What?” Rory asked anxiously. As he stepped into the room he broke her line of sight. “Amy?”

“Nothing,” Amy said. And the alien, the one in the corner, was gone and forgotten. “Just…this! All of this! We can’t do anything about it! We’re powerless and he’s not and he’s not here!”

Mrs Angelo came back in. The younger children looked up at her expectantly.

“We’re turning this off now,” she said firmly, and she did. Mels rolled her eyes.

“Why can’t we watch it?” she demanded. “I pay towards the TV license.”

“No you don’t, Mels, you borrow money off Rory and he pays it,” Mrs Angelo said crossly, as Rory examined the ground. “Anyway, this will all be revealed to be a hoax soon enough, and if it’s not-” She faltered just for a second. “If it’s not, it’s under control, I’m sure. Okay? Mels, why don’t you take everyone into the garden and play football?”

“Not a chance.”

“Fine,” Mrs Angelo said, and she marched outside. Gradually, the other children in the room followed her. Only Mels, Rory and Amy were left in the room. Rory’s phone rang.

“Hi,” he said. “Hey, Julia…oh, okay…are you going? I don’t really…I wanna stay with Amy and Mels…well, Mary Angelo said it was probably a hoax…oh, all right.” He put the phone down. “Anna and Dad went to the church,” he said. “They want me and Julia to come. To…oh, I don’t know, pray or something!” He threw his hands up in despair. “What should I do?”

“You should go,” Mels said. She reached over to the television remote and hit the ‘on’ and then the ‘record’ button. On screen, in London, panicked people lined up in the streets. “It’s not like there’s anything you could do here. That’s London and this is Leadworth. We’re stuck.”

Rory looked stricken. “I’m not leaving you and Amy.”

“We’ll come,” Amy said suddenly. She stood up and retrieved her coat from the back of the sofa. “We’ll come, Rory. Let’s go.”

*

Inside the cold, dark church, Rory’s parents were waiting. Anna gave Amy a curt nod and knelt to the ground, next to Rory’s dad, while the younger generation stood around.

“I’m gonna get us drinks,” Julia said. “Come on, Mels, help me get into the communion wine.”

“With pleasure,” Mels said, and the two girls left. Amy and Rory sat in a pew and watched as Anna whispered at the ground.

“…who art in Heaven, please keep my daughter and stepson and husband safe. I am your humble servant. Please watch over my children, even though they may have strayed from Your path– ”

“Imagine that,” Amy said quietly, “thinking there’s something out there that’ll save you only if you believe in it enough. What sort of god would behave that way?”

Rory said nothing.

Anna and Rory’s father weren’t the only people around: others were sitting quietly in the back of the church. The vicar was fiddling with some wires, trying to get a ancient old TV working. And somewhere far off, Julia and Mels were laughing…

Anna rose her head. Her eyes were filled with tears. “These strange visitors, if they were indeed created by Your hand, please guide them also to Your light…” Her voice echoed around the church. It seemed hopelessly over-the-top, almost laughable…

“Do you remember that letter Mels showed us, all that time ago?” Amy asked Rory. “The one signed ‘A’?”

“Yeah?”

Amy looked at Anna and Rory followed her line of sight. “No!”

“It’d just be ironic, right? She’s the only person we know whose name begins with A. And I always think Mels knows more about her parents than she lets on.”

“But they’ve never even talked!”

“That we know of.”

Rory thought about it. “She told me her parents were white.”

“Exactly! Hey, you guys could be half-siblings, or step-siblings or whatever. Imagine that.”

“Mels is already like my sister,” Rory said slowly. “No way, Amy, it’s way too coincidental.”

Amy shrugged. The TV at the back of the church finally flickered into life. People at the back seats moved forwards and crowded around the small screen, and even Rory’s parents stood.

The vicar flicked through the channels. Andrew Marr was outside 10 Downing Street and nothing much was going on. Stephen Fry was having a heated discussion with some journalist or other-

“This is boring,” said Mels, who had returned with Julia. “I was promised aliens.”

“Be quiet,” said Rory’s dad.

Mels retreated to the back of the church, flicking a finger up at him as she went. Julia, Amy and Rory followed. They sat together near the door, and listened to the tinny sound of grown-ups at the end of cameras, talking about the future.

“I’m going outside for a smoke,” Julia said, and she left. The remaining three huddled close together.

“I like Julia,” Mels said. “You should have a baby, Rory. Then she could be someone’s cool aunt.”

“She’d have to stop smoking first,” Rory said. “If I have a baby no-one’s allowed to smoke around it.”

“But the fact is,” Stephen Fry said, “that even in these past hours, all of Britain- all of the world- we have embraced the idea of alien life-”

“Why isn’t the Doctor here?” Amy said.

“Maybe he is,” Mels said. “Maybe he just didn’t come see you. Because it would be dangerous or whatever.”

“Maybe.”

“He could be saving the world right now,” Rory said hopefully.

They watched the adults in front of the television, knelt in silent prayer.

“I should call my mum,” Rory said.

“Why hasn’t she called you?” Mels asked.

Rory shrugged. He took his phone and went outside, and the girls were left alone.

“What d’ya make of Anna?” Amy asked Mels, as the woman in question lit candles.

“She’s mental.”

“Fair enough.” Amy said. Night fell.

*

Amy, Mels and Rory all slept in the church- they all dreamed seperate dreams, but in each of them a grey creature appeared, hissing like the Earth’s first snake, the one that’d taken down Eden, the very reason all churches stood. The worst is yet to come, it said. None of them remembered it when they awoke.

“I’m never sleeping in a church again. It’s cold and my back hurts.” Amy said. “What happened?”

They had slept in sleeping bags in the church hall: Rory exited the room first. He was gone five minutes and then returned. “10 Downing Street blew up,” he said. He was quite pale. “And the Prime Minister’s dead. No-one knows what happened.”

Mels and Amy were silent.

“And no sign of the Doctor?” Amy finally asked.

“No. It’s all chaos. Dad and Anna are going home. Julia’s at her boyfriend’s. We should go.”

They went- they left the sleeping bags in a pile in the corner of the hall, left through the old wooden door, and walked through the graveyard. They went by the river, towards Amy’s house. And then they got there, and Tabitha made pancakes.

“Thanks for telling me you were sleeping at the church,” she said sarcastically to her daughter.

“Sorry.”

Augustus was browsing the web from his laptop. “Hoax,” he said thoughtfully. “They’re all saying it’s a hoax. Terrorism.”

“A hoax and terrorism?”

“Yep.”

“Guess we’ll need a new Prime Minister,” said Tabitha.

“Let’s get the Doctor in,” Mels said. “I bet he could do the job.”

Tabitha smiled tightly. “Mels, won’t Mrs Angelo wonder where you are?”

“They’ve got, like, ten other kids to keep tabs on.”

“You should probably pop your head in now and again, though.”

Mels shrugged, picked up her remaining breakfast, and left with a wave. Amy’s cat hopped onto the table and tried to snuggle up to her.

“I should go too,” Rory said. “Band practise.”

“Who’s in your band?” Tabitha asked.

“Just…ur, just me at the moment,” Rory said sheepishly, as Amy laughed. “There’s not many other people who play round here.”

“Remember that summer?” Amy asked her mum. “When Rory got a stupid haircut and faked like he was in a band?”

“How could I forget.”

“He learned to play the guitar then. Like, for real. He’s quite good actually.” Rory blushed. “He even writes his own songs.”

“Very good,” Tabitha said. “We should get you on X Factor.”

“He’s better than that,” Amy said, and she leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. Rory blushed again, bright crimson. Amy smiled and turned away. In the corner, something grey briefly flickered into being, then was gone-

*

When the living room in the children’s home was empty, Mels went downstairs, sat in front of the television, and turned on her recording. The faces of anxious people flickered across the screen- men, women, children- a man in a leather jacket.

Mels paused the tape.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I know most of your faces. I knew you’d be in London somewhere. So you fixed it all, huh?”

The man on the TV screen flickered and broke. Mels leaned forward. “Doctor. Knew it. Hello, sweetie.”