Mercy Amelia Song isn't your normal alien time traveller. Between meeting her own parents backwards and forwards and back around again, She has quite the life trying to keep it straight. While a Prophecy telling of her horrific future haunts the gir...
River nodded and Rory seemed to be distracting her well enough for Martha to finish up. As Dr Jones rolled the child on its side, she looked confused.
"What's this?" She held up what Amy could only guess was a sonic screwdriver.
"What's wrong?" River tore away from her father.
"Nothing. Nothing is wrong!" Martha said, trying to deescalate River's panic.
" It's a screwdriver, Melody. A Sonic Screwdriver," Amy picked it up. The child waved its arms.
"Well that certainly didn't come out of you," Rory observed.
"What?" Martha was taken aback, "I don't think It's his, either." She looked over Amy's shoulder as she wrapped the baby back into it's blanket, and turned around so River could see that she was coming back.
"It's hers ..." Amy turned it over. "It has a name... Mercy Song," She whispered the words softly. It flowed beautifully.
" Mercy. " River said, "We all need a bit of mercy," She alluded. River took her baby back, looking down. "I met her," She told Amy, "I know her." The new mother laughed. All those years, never once guessing who she was...
" Huh?" Amy was perplexed, "What do you mean?"
"She's the one who helped me get to you. My Mercy. Little Mercy all grown up," She was hardly speaking, quiet enough that Amy had to strain to hear her words, "She knew me all along..."
"You met her when she was all grown up?" Rory asked.
"Yes," River nodded, her hands touching her baby's face, counting her tiny fingers. "I knew her for years and never knew who she was," River smiled. "No wonder she was -will be?- such a good student." the woman's face drew near her daughter's, and in a softer, lighter voice, whispered, "You're gonna be an archaeologist someday, just like your Mum."
Amy looked at the screwdriver in her hands, turning it over between her fingers. "I believe this is her's," She said.
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River looked up at the Sonic. It was gold and coated in lavender marble siding with silver rings around it, a blue synthesized crystal in the top, and on the side in a fancy script, Mercy Song.
"It's in old high Gallifreyan," River noticed. "How did you know it?"
"It's english...?" Amy said.
The blonde's eyebrows furrowed and she took an angry breath, "That bastard!" River said, "He was here! That Damned Doctor was here!"
"What? No, we never saw him!"
"He must have frozen time or something. Stepped in for only a second. Still plenty of time for us to be exposed to the Telepathic Tardis Translation matrix so that you can read and understand, and now this appears!" She waved the sonic.
"Melody, this is a long stretch. Maybe I just wasn't concentrating well enough on the ride here." Amy said, trying to rationalize this.
"Well then where did the sonic come from? Dad made a point. It didn't come from me!" Melody was hugging her child as close as she could.
Martha suddenly interrupted. "While this is a very relevant, important conversation, I'm going to need to direct you through delivering the placenta, okay River?"
Melody nodded and Martha began her work, which took all of about five minutes of careful massaging and prodding of her undeflated middle. Pressure built up again, but this time, duller and less agonizing. Something inside told her when to push again, until a similar feeling of something passing through her ended with a plop, and a heat between her legs that was collected by Dr Jones and taken away.
Just as Martha sent the delivered organ to be incinerated, a guard came running in, panting. "Sorry. I tried, but he's not listening and we couldn't stop him!" The man collapsed from exhaustion, and suddenly a voice Amy hadn't heard in almost a year hit her like a ton of bricks.
"Honey, I'm home."
River fell back onto the bed from where she had been sitting up. "And what sort of time do you call this?"
The Doctor himself came in, leaning on the doorframe. "I'm not late, am I?"
Amy ran at him, her attempt at pushing him out futile. "You're not supposed to be here!"
The Doctor grinned. "It's okay, Amy. The Tardis is working this out. I told you time could be rewritten!"
"What did you do?" River worriedly begged for an answer.
"Well, before older Mercy took my memories, I had rerouted her neuro-relay to the Tardis Matrix instead. I, of course, didn't remember that until a few hundred years later on Trenzalore, when the Tardis was breaking down and the core finally released them. I got my memories back and saved the universe!" The Doctor spun around, and waltzed over to his wife.
"This isn't how the timeline goes." River reminded him, with a stone-faced warning.
"It can be now! River, It's okay! I can sustain it!" He exclaimed, "Mercy only told me so much... so not everything is set in stone."
"And what's that, exactly?" River said. The Doctor stumbled over his words, avoiding the question, which River then repeated.
He sighed, and sat down beside his wife, leaning over to look at the child. "She was happy. Though not safe. I can't help raise her..."
Amy racked her brain for a solution. "At what point do Timelords begin to make lasting memories as children?"
The Doctor Paused. "Five months. Five months and then they can recognize parents in memories."
"Then you have five months." Rory said. "Then you have to forget her again."
The Doctor's face fell. "But only her birth is a fixed point!"
"Only some time can be rewritten. Not a whole lifetime," River whispered.
The room was silent. The baby mewled and regained the company's attention. Martha spoke softly, "It's always the blondes for you, isn't it?" She smiled.
The Doctor smirked, "Only ever made one of them my wife."
"And only one was ever his daughter," Amy added, her thumb stroking the fine hair that adorned her granddaughter's head. River bit her lip. (Jenny didn't count, in her opinion)
The Doctor took a breath in contradiction, "Actually she had reddish hair, remember?" He tilted his head, suddenly realizing something important, "We made a ginger! We made a ginger, Riv!" The Doctor mumbled something about his daughter getting to be ginger before him.
Amy folded her arms in pride, "She definitely got that from me." River offered the father his baby. When the Doctor held his daughter for the first time, he cried. Not because he was proud. Not because she was perfect. He cried because he would only have the littlest amount of time with her. It was Day One of only five months. Day 1 of about 152 days. Hour 1 of 3648 hours...
