Of marriage and a renewal of vows

[hullo_sweetie]

Who: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams (Pond), and possibly the Eleventh Doctor at some point
What: River Song reveals the nature of her relationship with the Doctor
When: 1/10/2012
Where: The TARDIS
Rating: PG?

River happened to be waiting for them, just inside the door and to the right of the hat stand. She could tell this was going to be a tense and possibly awkward encounter with her parents, one of which was a future parent to her. She wanted to be sensitive to their feelings and who better to explain this whole wibbly wobbly relationship to them then their own daughter?

Comments

[hullo_sweetie]

"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....?"

[nurse_boy]

((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.

[too_fairytale]

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."

[hulloeverything]

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."

[hullo_sweetie]

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.

[nurse_boy]

"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.

[too_fairytale]

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."

[hulloeverything]

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."

[hullo_sweetie]

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?"

[nurse_boy]

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."

[too_fairytale]

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.

[hulloeverything]

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?"

[hullo_sweetie]

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?"

[nurse_boy]

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'.'

[too_fairytale]

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.

[hulloeverything]

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."

[hullo_sweetie]

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."

[nurse_boy]

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."

[too_fairytale]

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

[hulloeverything]

"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.