paradisalogs | Of marriage and a renewal of vows

Amy did indeed have Rory in tow, looking a bit suspicious about this meeting and not really bothering to hide it. When they come inside the TARDIS and see River waiting for them, she asks, "Does the Doctor still want male bonding time?"

"Well he's not here just yet. Why don't you two make do with me?" River suggests with a sly smile as she gestures for them to follow her through the winding, twisting halls of the TARDIS. Deeper and deeper until they reach a door, which she slides open to reveal her bedroom. On a counter already are three glasses. All three heavily spiked with whiskey. "Have a drink, please." They should really start worrying right about now.

"Amy," River ventures, reaching out to the mama Pond, "Do you remember what you said to me the first time we met? After I gave you that booster to stabilize your metabolism." That River was the Doctor's wife. She figured this would be the best way to go about this whole....encounter.

((ooc: Sorry for the lateness, I only just now got accepted into the comm!))

When Amy mentions male bonding time, Rory gives her an alarmed look. What? She certainly hadn't mentioned anything about that when she'd said River and the Doctor wanted to speak to them. What would the Doctor possibly want with him alone?

His expression stays wide-eyed as they move through the TARDIS, but when River ushers them into what is obviously her room, he instantly turns wary and suspicious just like Amy. He shakes his head at the offer of a drink.

"Uh, no thanks, I'm--I'm fine."

And then when River turns to Amy, he gives her a curious look. Amy hasn't told him much at all about her adventures before he joined up with them, but he does at least know that she'd already met River.

Their daughter.

Amy, on the other hand, does take the drink, because she is worried, and alarmed, and highly suspicious. But she holds the glass instead of immediately taking a sip thinking about the first time she'd met River. She's tried to forget most of that experience, but... it had been fun, and interesting, before the Weeping Angel in the video recording implanted itself in her mind and all the statues started waking up.

"I asked you if you were the Doctor's wife," she says after a moment. "I'd asked him before, but he wouldn't answer me. Too busy being Mister Grumpy Face."

River merely shrugs when Rory refuses the drink. She takes up her own glass and has a sip, tipping said glass towards Amy. Ponds drink alike, it seems. "And I told you that you were good. If I had said you were right, how would you have felt?" Getting right into the subject at hand it seems.

Meanwhile, she settles onto the edge of her bed and watches her parents. Equally worried about how they just might react. She's flirted with the Doctor in just about every encounter with him.

"Rory didn't bring his sword, did he?"

Rory looks between Amy and River sort of like he's lost, then turns to River and holds up both his (empty) hands.

"No sword," he says, but the gears in his head are clearly turning. He narrows his eyes at her. "What... are you trying to say, River?"

Amy's eyes flick towards Rory, then back to River, before she takes a large gulp of her drink. It burns a searing path straight down to her stomach.

"Yes, River," she adds, over-enunciating each word. "What are you trying to say?"

Having been listening in the hallway like the creeper he is, Eleven moves to lean in the doorway, behind Amy and Rory. He wants to be there, but he doesn't want to intrude on River finally being able to tell her parents the full truth. He nods encouragingly at her and smiles as he watches his friends... no... his family talk.

River takes a pointed sip of her drink and averts her eyes for a few moments. It figures Amy and Rory would want her to stop beating around the bush. There had been enough secrets and spoilers in this family to last an entire lifetime.

She was nervous. River Song, a woman who jumped off of buildings and out of spaceships, was nervous. It was almost laughable, until one considers just who her parents are.

When she glances at the door, she notes the Doctor's presence and decides to get up. Walking over to the door, she ushers him inside with hardly a sound. Just a look. Then, infront of Rory and Amy's very eyes, she entwines her fingers with his, holding his hand and standing a little straighter. They could do this together.

"Pond intuition is rarely wrong. I'm the Doctor's wife." She lets those words hang heavily in the air for now. "I have been for a very long time now."

Rory just blinks at her. At them both. For a very long moment suspended in agonizing silence, he just blinks at them, almost normally, scarily calmly. Then he blinks rapidly a few times as if coming out of a daze, and swallows thickly.

"Right," he says, voice slightly strangled, and turns to the counter to grab his so-far-untouched drink.

For that long suspended moment that is not, in actuality, all that long, Amy experiences a burst of supreme satisfaction--Ha! I was right! She IS your wife, you stupid scaredy cat alien!--with an almost 'neener neener' level of smugness to it. Then the rest of her thought processes catch up and she remembers that River is her daughter. (Will be her daughter.) Her daughter is married to the Doctor. Which makes the Doctor--

Rory grabs for his drink, and Amy suddenly develops a bad taste in her mouth.

"Well, why didn't you say so then?" she blurts. "I wouldn't have tried to shag him!"

"Yes, well, time lines and all that." He shrugs, "Can't risk messing up my own time line more than I do already on my own."

Eleven smiles at River, giving her hand a squeeze. It was simultaneously comforting and unnerving to show any sort of affection towards her in front of Amy and Rory. But he'd had enough of secrets. Well... except for the Big One that was never going to pass his lips around any of his family. His family. He has a family, now. A proper family. He hasn't had one of these in centuries. With that thought he turns to Rory with a smile, letting go of River's hand to walk closer to him.

"When we got married it was, to say the least, in a bit of a rush. Universe collapsing around our ears and all that." He waves it off like it wasn't a big deal. "We'd like to do it properly. Well, River'd like to do it, properly. I'd be just as content just throwing a party but, well." He shrugs and chuckles. He's never tried this male bonding over complaining about their women thing. He wasn't entirely sure if he was doing it right... or if River was just going to shoot him... but it was worth a shot, right? "In any case. I thought it only proper to ask your permission first. Father of the bride and all that. So. Rory, my boy, may I marry River? ... again?" He smiled expectantly at him.

River can't help a small chuckle as Rory goes for his drink. It's quite a shock, she understands that much, but was it really so unexpected? So many of her secrets had been unearth these past few months, what's one more?

"Amy, Amy....I couldn't tell you. You were so young back then, I couldn't risk altering anything." When the Doctor lets go of her hand, she crowds closer to Amy. "Besides," She gives her future mother a wry grin, "We've all been there."

Taking a sip of her drink, she turns to watch the Doctor's somewhat awkward attempt to gain Rory's permission. She hoped he wouldn't deny him. Having a family meant a lot to the Doctor, she could tell. Rory had probably seen the best and worst of River when she was around the Doctor. She could remember telling him how much it hurt her that their time lines were so opposite. But this was her Doctor at long last. They had a chance to live out their lives in linear fashion here....

At Amy's exclamation of I wouldn't have tried to shag him! Rory promptly spits out the mouthful of wine he just swallowed, coughing and hacking and pounding himself on the chest. Once he's more to rights he puts the wine glass back down on the counter and glares at Amy in annoyance. As if he needed reminding of that little bit of history!

Meanwhile the Doctor is saying something about time streams and then he's crowding in on him with this weird smile on his face. Rory is instantly a smidge wary.

Universe collapsing around us and all that. Yeah, because that's not a big deal at all, not the way he's acting like it is. Never mind the fact that Rory's already been there and done that. It's not a memory he particularly likes to recall.

And then he's really--surprised.

"I--you--um--you're asking me? For permission. To m-marry River." In a lot of ways it's all still too surreal for him. He glances over at Amy and River. "I mean, she's an... she'll do what she wants no matter what I say. And uh, so would you."

"Been where?" Amy mutters at River, watching their boys like An Incident may be on the verge of occurring. "Trying to shag the Doctor?"

Eleven's smile dimmed slightly, "Rory, whether we would or not is beside the point. I said I'd do things properly this time and part of that is getting the blessing of the bride's father. I do want you." He paused, smiling at Amy, "both of you," looking back at Rory, "to be a part of this."

He was still smiling, but his eyes held a touch of sadness as he thought about the family he'd had so many centuries ago. He hadn't had an actual proper family since then. Amy and Rory may never completely understand just how much they mean to him, no matter how hard he tries to show them in his own - sometimes awkward - way.

"Something like that, Amy." River tends to stick with her mother on this matter, refilling Amy's glass for her out of politeness. Whether Amy took a well deserved gulp or two was her own matter. "He can be so old fashioned." She muses with a sly grin aimed towards the Doctor.

"It's hardly worth mentioning these Days, mum. Although the Doctor has a point. I'd rather you both were involved in the ceremony. One big happy family....?"

Edited 2012-01-20 13:33 (UTC)

((sorry for the late reply--I'm still getting used to DW notifs and stuff D:))

Rory shuffles a little uncertainly on his feet, looking from the Doctor to River and Amy then back to the Doctor again. He's mostly accepted that River is Melody, his baby daughter, but he's still working on believing it in his heart and logically in his mind. He's taken some steps toward trying to cultivate an actual relationship with River, just the two of them, but it's still awkward.

In the end it's River and the memory of how she had reacted to him at Stormcage--like she'd seen a ghost, and like he was someone she actually cared about, and how she'd babbled on excitedly for a moment about her date with the Doctor--like a child would to a parent--that makes up his mind for him. He gives her a very small smile before turning back to the Doctor.

"Alright," he says. "I'll--I'll do it. I'd be honored to."

And he really is.

Amy does take another big gulp from her glass, almost automatically, after River refills it. Unlike Rory, she's about as far away from sanguine over the fact that River is their daughter as one can mentally get. The emotional link isn't there for her; she hasn't yet lived through her sudden pregnancy and River's--Melody's--birth. Logically, she knows that everything she's been told makes sense, and that River and the Doctor might lie about a lot of things, but they would never lie about something as personal as this. She just... has an incredibly difficult time thinking of River as anything other than what she was before: a friend. An older friend. An older, intriguing, mysterious friend who was probably the Doctor's wife. And it turns out she was right about that--she just never imagined that River would also be her own daughter.

And she knows, on a level, that her difficulty accepting all this has hurt River. She can't help that. But she can help whether or not she keeps working towards acceptance. So she smiles at River, a lot awkwardly and uncertainly but with genuine affection, and says, "I would be, too."

Eleven's face broke out in a HUGE grin and he wrapped his arms around Rory's shoulders, giving him a big kiss on the cheek. "Heeeeeey!! That's brilliant! Not that I ever doubted for an instant, mind you... though you did have me worried for a moment, there. Well. Maybe not a moment. Half a moment? A nanomoment?"

He whirled around, grinning at his family. He could hardly believe it, himself. His family. Looking back and forth between Amy and Rory a thought occurred to him, "should I call you mum and dad? ... No... probably not. That would be too weird."

River lets out a breath she wasn't even aware she had been holding. It seemed that consent was being given all around. She was glad though, that Amy was making an effort to step into a role that had been practically forced upon her well before her time. "One big happy family." She says with a wide smile as she wanders over to the Doctor's side, splaying a hand over his shoulder because he looked so excited. "You're a Pond." She says with a sly smile. "Isn't that how it works, Rory?" After all, the Doctor had insisted on still calling Amy by her last name even after she'd married.

"Er--"

Rory is very obviously about as uncomfortable and awkward as one can get being bear-hugged by the Doctor, and especially being kissed--

"Uh, haha Doctor, that's not--"

He sort of looks like a trapped animal. A very comically-trapped animal because he's trying to grin except it looks like a grimace, and lean away from the Doctor but he can't. Standard classic Rory. And at the Doctor's suggestion that he call him 'dad' his eyes go wide as saucers.

"Ah, no, that's alright, you don't have to," he says at the same time the Doctor's speaking, and finally wriggles his way out of his grasp. River can call him dad and he's getting closer to okay with it, but the Doctor? That would just be weird.

"No, it's not," he tells River, his eyes flicking toward Amy.

Personally, Amy would be all kinds of okay with the Doctor calling Rory 'dad' just to watch him go fifteen shades of weirded-out, but--yeah, that would also mean he'd have to call her 'mum', and she is not having that. Instead, she just beams cheerfully at Rory and says, "Yes, it is."

Eleven barely registered Amy and Rory's agreement in the weirdness of him calling them mum and dad. Having let go of Rory, he was now busy staring at River. A Pond? But that's not... he wasn't... he couldn't be... He was...

"Um... River. I don't think. I'm just the Doctor. I don't even have a last name. Could you imagine me swooping around the universe saving the day as 'Doctor Pond'? 'Don't worry! Doctor Pond will save us!' That sounds more like a country doctor making house calls than a Time Lord."

River laughs at the Doctor's reaction and shakes her head, "It was only a joke, Doctor. For the most part anyway." She reaches to squeeze his shoulder, her hand holding a calming grip there for a few moments too long. "Doctor Song is my name, besides." Looking over at her parents, she smiles "We're thinking of renewing our vows in the spring. Maybe early April?"

Rory has gone back to standing next to Amy, arms folded across his chest, wine glass back in hand, and muttering something about 'nothing wrong with country doctors' when River catches his attention. Oh!--they're being spoken to again.

"Er--are you asking our opinion?" He shrugs. "It's, um, your wedding--er, vows--whenever's best for you is fine with me."

For the most part is right, though Amy doesn't voice her opinion that if you marry into her family, that automatically makes you a Pond whether you like it or not. She's still a little preoccupied by the fact that the Doctor is her son-in-law. And that is just weird.

"You're going to wait that long?" she asks River.

Eleven grinned, wrapping an arm around River's waist as he shot her a look. 'For the most part.' Right. And he'd eat his bow tie. He knew she was trying to get a rise out of him. It seemed to be her favorite past time, after all.

He looked at Amy and Rory, "Well, she's got to have a chance to plan out her perfect day, right?"

River leans in against his side when his arm slips around her waist, like it was the most natural thing in the whole wide world, and for her it probably was. "He's right you know. Everything was so hurried last time, I want to plan this one out. Cause as big of a spectacle as I can. besides that, I've waited long enough for this moment, what's a few more months?"

Rory is sort of... staring at the Doctor's arm around River's waist. It's hard enough getting to grips with River being Melody, but add in the Doctor actually being--affectionate--into the equation and his brain is in danger of overload.

But then again...

He opens his mouth to protest River's declaration--'a few more months' is a very long time, anything could happen, why postpone happiness?--but he stops. After all, he waited nearly two thousand years for his own moment, and an entire lifetime before that. Months are a pittance to the Roman locked inside his head.

So instead he takes another sip of his wine and says, "You realize we, uh, don't remember 'last time'.'

The sight is just as brain-breaking to Amy; it prompts her to take another drink. She may have to wish up some Drambuie after this.

"Were we even there?" Amy adds on to Rory's comment.

Eleven looked between his companions. He hated knowing more about their own futures than they did, but that wouldn't keep him from making sure they were as involved as possible in the present.

"That's one of the other reasons I wanted to do this again. So both of you could be there. Properly." He let go of River and stepped to Amy, gently grasping her shoulders, "You were. The two of you officiated it, you could say."

When the Doctor moved towards Amy, River naturally gravitated closer to Rory. Like any daughter, she certainly wanted her parents involved in this, no matter how awkward it might be for them. "Like he said, you were both there. You both gave over permission."

Rory looks between River and the Doctor, an expression of slight confusion on his face. "Officiated?" he asks weakly. "How does that work? Neither of us are--ordained, or anything."

Amy just keeps looking at the Doctor. "How do you mean, properly? Like not being the officiants?"

"It's called a hand fasting. It's not a wedding as you'd think of it but the meaning is still there. You officiated it as the parents of the bride." He smiled, looking back and forth between all of them.

"And, well, I mean properly as in not in a rush while time itself is unwinding around us." Rubbing the back of his head, he smiled a little sheepishly at Amy. He'd tell them the whole story if they asked, but he wasn't about to ruin a happy moment with how River nearly destroyed all of time itself to try to save his life.

Of marriage and a renewal of vows

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject