starjargon

A/N- This chapter mentions a phone call made in the Prequel for "Let's Kill Hitler." Please let me know what you think.
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The Doctor gleefully urged his ship on, stopping outside of a Stormcage cell whose inhabitant he once destroyed with a kiss.

When he arrived, however, the cell was unoccupied. He was in too good a mood to be deterred, travelling through the vortex stop after stop searching until he finally truly allowed his ship to lead him to the one person he wanted- no needed to see more than anything.

River was sitting outside when the Doctor finally found her. He ran up the steps and embraced her before her usual greeting met her lips. She laughed as he lifted her and twirled her once, his joy palpable and contagious.

She looked up at him when he once more settled her on her feet, searching his eyes as though the reason for his mood would be reflected in them. She was.

"Well, my love. Where have you been that's got you in such a happy mood?" Rory made his way cautiously out of a door on their left, not sure if he was altering some timeline by being seen with his daughter on her dig.

"Demon's Run," exclaimed the Doctor, out of breath with excitement. "Melody Pond! River Song. Child of Time itself! You- you're Gallifreyan!"

"Ah. Well, I was also shown the Untempered Schism as a child, Love. I'm as close to Time Lord as anyone can get now."

He kissed her at that statement, making her laugh once more.

"Come with me." He grabbed her hand.

"Where?" His glee really was infectious.

"Anywhere! Everywhere! You name it and we'll go. Say the word River Song, and I might even let you fly my TARDIS!"

"You are in a good mood!"

He couldn't stop touching her- fiddling with her hair, holding her hand, grasping her arm, he relished the feel of another of his kind in such close proximity. He finally noticed Rory.

"Rory the Roman! Do you know who this is?!" HHHHhsldkfja;sdlkjfal;sdkjfe obviously didn't notice the age on his friend's face.

"Yeah, Doctor, I do. My daughter and I are kind of on a dig now- Demon's Run was quite a while ago for me."

"Your daughter, isn't she brilliant?" He grabbed and kissed the top of her head now.

"And you're brilliant!" He reciprocated on the stunned Mr. Pond.

"Come on, Dad. It seems there's no hampering his mood right now, and if we don't go willingly, he's liable to drag us into the TARDIS."

Rory insisted on staying on board when the Doctor dragged River out onto Calderon Beta, saying she had more experience dealing with timelines and spoilers and he didn't want to get involved in this. When she realized where they were, she smiled a very nostalgic smile and led him to a tiny shop where she ordered "the usual" for both of them.

"So, I take it we've been here before?" questioned the Doctor, still bouncing in his seat.

"More than a few times, my love."

They ate chips and talked until the Doctor lost track of time, savoring the company he had craved for so long as he finally let River in, no longer afraid of losing her prematurely. Though, the longer he stayed in her presence, the more he was convinced that several millennia with this impossible woman would still not suffice. They finished their meal and he bounded back to the TARDIS, gleefully pulling on levers and turning knobs, Rory returning to the console room before the Doctor realized something.

"Amy! River- I forgot- I have to find you. I mean, you're right here, obviously. But I have to find baby you- Melody! Oh, yes, just a quick trip to return you to Amy and Rory, then we can go wherever you want." He was downright giddy, missing the look that passed between River and her father. He took off his jacket, placing it on the rails as he twirled around the console, sending them into the vortex and clapping his hands as his face lit up.

"So, do you know where they took you? Wait! That was you, at the orphanage- but that doesn't make sense! Unless…" He finally turned to face her, seeing the joy evaporate from her face, suspicion making his skin prickle.

"River- why were you at the orphanage?" She looked away.

"I didn't find you, did I?" The horror ripped at his hearts. He looked at Rory for confirmation, just barely registering the fact the man was too young to have a grown daughter.

"Tell me where they took you, River. Please," he implored her.

Rory watched the exchange silently- finally getting the chance to learn the answers he had long ago stopped bothering to ask.

"No," his daughter responded softly but firmly.

"I need to find you. I need to take you back home," he begged her.

"No," she repeated, her voice gaining strength.

"Why?!" The Doctor was beginning to get frustrated now, quickly escalating to upset.

"Because it'll change everything, Sweetie. And I can't let that happen."

"River! Just tell me where you were before Florida, and I can change whatever it is they did to you. You'll never have to be that little girl in the space suit. Please, River. Let me give Amy her baby back."

"NO!" shouted River, heart breaking for all old the losses yet to come for those she loved.

"I PROMISED!" He was breaking now, too.

"If you find baby Melody, you'll rewrite time as I know it!"

"And if I don't, Amy and Rory will never see their child again!"

She stayed silent at that, but had the decency to look away, both from her father's heartbreak and from her (future) husband's accusation.

"Yes they will. It won't be the same, but they'll have something." It was almost a whisper.

"What does that mean?" He was growing tired of more secrets between them.

"You'll find out soon enough." She looked up at him again, her gaze not receding this time.

"So what do I tell Amy?" His voice shook just imagining his little Pond's face as he broke her heart once more.

"I don't know."

"That base- what they were planning- they did it, didn't they?" He was afraid he already knew the answer to that question.

She gave a slight nod.

"They hurt you, River!" He was growing angry- and when he was angry he ran the risk of becoming irrational. She had to talk him back from taking action.

"I know."

"So why won't you help yourself?!"

"I like who I am, Doctor! You don't have the right to change who I've become just so you can avoid a painful conversation! I like what my life is." She was painfully aware she was indirectly addressing her dad as well, "No matter what happened when I was younger. River Song would never exist without the kidnapping of Melody Pond."

"Yes, you could! Time could be rewritten."

"Don't you even think about it!" she pleaded, horrified at the thought.

They stared at one another for a long moment, willing the other to break, both stubborn in their own righteous anger.

"I don't need your permission or your help to look for her." The Doctor began a terrifying disassociation between the baby he'd just failed and the woman in front of him.

"You'll never find her on your own," she said stubbornly with her arms folded across her chest. She had long ago left that identity behind.

"Then help me!" He pointed back toward the doors, reaching for an Amy he was trying to save. "I can't fail her again, River. I can't ruin her adulthood like I ruined her childhood!" He felt the tears sting his eyes thinking of his friend's loss.

"And I can't let you ruin mine." She was just as selfish as he was, and she knew her parents would survive a life without her. But her life without him? She didn't think she'd ever be strong enough to face that.

"Please, River," he begged quietly. He didn't know what else to say to change her mind. "You have no idea what it's like to lose a child. I can't let her go through that."

She looked up into his eyes, tears forming in her own as she remembered a visit to her parents one time when they were living in New York.

"Spoilers," she could barely even whisper the word.

He pulled her close to him, each holding onto the other like letting go would be giving up. Finally, she made the mistake of looking at her broken- hearted father's face as he relived what she knew to be one of his worst memories, and she made a decision.

She pulled away from the Doctor's embrace just enough to reach into his jacket and to

pull the psychic paper out of his pocket. She closed her eyes and concentrated, closing the wallet and sticking it in his hand, placing her other hand on top of his where it rested on her face.

"If you take back Melody Pond, River Song will never exist. If you love me or care at all for who I am right here, right now- you won't look for her." Then she released her hold on him and stepped away, retreating into the TARDIS.

Rory remained with the stunned Doctor, who fingered the wallet still by his side.

"River or Amy- I have to break one of their hearts." He looked up at the strong man who waited silently in the edge of shadows.

"How do I choose which one is more important to me? How do I simply give one up?" he asked, hoping for any sort of answer despite seeing the determined silence of the patient Centurion.

He sat down on the steps, fiddling with the closed wallet in both hands, head bowed as he debated. Rory sat down next to him, offering his quiet support to the friend he now realized hadn't really failed him post- Demon's Run. They sat there a long while, the Doctor trying to concentrate on his little Amelia, thoughts overshadowed by River Song and all she had done and will do.

"Choose Amy- lose River. Choose River- break Amy. Either way, I'll destroy one of them," he continued, lost in his own thoughts.

He remembered Amy's horrified face when she realized the truth of her ganger existence, overshadowed by a grief- stricken River in the Library when she saw no recognition in his eyes. He remembered a little girl laughing as he discovered the taste of foods in his new mouth, then thought of River's eyes as they lit up with her laughter after the Byzantium. Amy's tears when she was losing Rory, River's tears after their first kiss. Amy's flirtatious innuendo so misguidedly directed at him, River's flirtatious banter into which he'd finally eased himself. Amy Pond as she clumsily swung at a few pirates, River Song as she single- handedly took down a roomful of Silence. Amy waiting for him for 14 years. River confidently jumping out of a spaceship believing he'd get a message 12,000 years later. Amy as she saved a Starwhale. River as she saved 4,024 people. It seemed whatever he thought of Amy doing, River had done it so much bigger. Better, in his opinion. Then he realized. Realized why nothing Amy did would ever compare to River for him. And it had nothing to do with scale.

"Rory," he began, "I think, well, can't be sure. These things are rather tricky. And the consequences- well, who can ever guess those? Though I suppose if one knew the future, one wouldn't really have to guess. But that's all irrelevant and cheating and tricky and-"

"Doctor- you're in love with my daughter." Rory was always straight to the point.

"Well, in love might be…" He sighed as he bowed his head before whispering sadly, "I'm going to break your and Amelia's hearts." He broke at long last, looking for answers on his best friend's face.

Just then the phone rang. He stood up to answer it. Then he heard Amy's voice. And her heartsbreaking message. He shook his head and silently begged her to forgive him someday.

"I'm sorry, Rory," he said quietly, laying the still- closed wallet on the floor.

Rory looked at the man before him, remembering a similar choice he'd once had to make, and couldn't find it in his heart to blame him. It seemed that all of them were put in this position at one point or another- Amy chose him over the Doctor, River chose the Doctor over her training, and now he watched as the Doctor chose River over his companions. Given their relationship, he was glad to see just how much his son- in- law loved his daughter, even if they weren't married from the Doctor's point of view yet.

"Promise me one thing," he demanded, looking into the Time Lord's old, sad eyes. "Promise me you'll always love her as much as she loves you."

"Would that make it better?"

"It will make it easier to accept."

"I swear it, Rory. Until the day I die my final death."

A long look passed between them- each accepting the heartache of the other, the Doctor for what Rory had lost, Rory for what the Doctor had given up.

"Well then, Doctor. I believe you promised River and I an adventure- anywhere we want."

"Yes. Yes of course."

River came back into the room as the console began moving, where she looked in fear and askance at her father and the Doctor, wondering if they were about to rewrite her life. The Doctor looked up with sad eyes, and Rory went over to his daughter, enveloping her in a hug. Then he grabbed her hand and led her to the console, where he placed it in the Doctors, relinquishing care of his child to someone he knew would spend lifetimes trying to be worthy of her.

As they flew away from the baby he still missed, he realized they'd just reached another milestone, again out of order. He had met his daughter, grown up with her, met her husband, met an older version of her, held her as a newborn, accepted the older her as his child, watched her die and be reborn, watched her get married, and now he gave her away. He thought of Melody, the one the Doctor had left not so long ago, and wondered what life would be like had the Doctor opened the wallet. But then he looked at the couple before him, for once both silent as they stared at their clasped hands before reaching forward to aim toward the stars, and he thought of his own wife, wondering if there was any force in the universe that could make him give her up. No, he reflected. It was always meant to be. The same way the Doctor insisted fixed points couldn't be rewritten, fixed relationships couldn't be either. If he believed in anything, he believed in these two truths- Rory Williams belonged with Amelia Pond, and River Song belonged with the Doctor.

No matter the sacrifice. No matter the workings of the universe. No matter the pain or heartache or sorrow. He realized, looking at the couple in front of him, and now seeing the part he played in keeping the Doctor from finding his baby, that he wouldn't have let the Time Lord look for her. He knew who River was. He loved who she had become just as much as if he'd helped her become that. And he knew how deep her love for the Doctor ran. No, if the Doctor had even attempted to open that wallet, he would have reached over to close it back again, giving his daughter her life back. After all, he was still her father. And fathers know what's best for their children.

But, he reflected as he reached down and picked it up himself, that didn't mean he had to let his baby grow up alone. After all, he'd once promised he would always look for her. And he had a friend who owed him a favor from long, long ago.