[RIVER'S POV]
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River gasped, and with a final push, she knew she'd finished. Martha exclaimed, "It's a girl!" And quickly turned the child on it's side between her legs, cleaning it off, and wrapping it in a white towel as a weak shriek escaped from it's lungs.
"Atta girl!" Amy grinned, leaning closer.
River's pain dulled away as she glowed faintly, healing quickly. A squeaking baby was held out to her, and she took the babe with outstretched, desperate arms. Martha set her down on River's bare chest, letting the touch of her mother calm the child. "Hello, Little one," She breathed, "I've waited so long to meet you..." She reached her finger tips to brush over the baby's red, screaming face.
She stared. How could something so small and so weak be so precious? She was an archeologist, and spotting value was her second nature. But what she saw on that little face was a love that could outweigh all of time and space. The baby was perfect. Her child. Her baby girl. Her daughter! So small and so beautiful. River pressed a kiss to the baby's forehead.
"Can I look her over?" Martha stepped in, reaching out her hands.
River's eyes were torn from her baby to the woman, whom she frowned at. "She's breathing. Is that not enough?"
"I need to weigh and measure her. Check her lungs and hearts and all that," Martha said, "I'm no OB, but I think I can do what needs to be done."
River held her fingertips to her daughter's warm chest, "Feels like both hearts are beating to me. I think She's fine."
Amy put a hand on River's shoulder, "I'll stand right by her every step of the way. You stay here." River stared up at her, and after a moment, held the baby back for a single kiss. Martha narrated every little detail, and Amelia kept her promise, a hand out to the child at every step.
As Martha lifted the babe away, Amy cut the cord and clamped it with Rory's instruction.
The agonizing, terrifying seconds of her daughter's absence were crucifying for the new mother. River had been raised in an environment where anxiety had been a weakness and a character feature to be ashamed of. But after nine months of stressing about her child being taken from her the way she was taken from Amy and Rory, River was freaking out. Amy knew that River trusted Martha, but the only thing that kept the blonde grounded was her hand on her blaster and knowing that Amy's hands hovered over her baby. Amelia looked between the baby and her daughter, trying to signal Rory to keep Melody from having a panic attack.
River was so distraught that every movement in her vision was tricking her into seeing Silence. Amy knew what it was like, The swollen heads and abyssal eyes bearing into her from every corner, waiting for the perfect moment to take her child and beat her down again. Just knowing that the Silence knew of her pregnancy, in turn meaning that Kovarian knew there was a child left her more terrified. And River was never terrified.
Rory finally got the hint and suddenly invaded River's vision. "Melody, Melody!" He said, grabbing her face, forcing her to focus. River stared up at her father. Amy could see the terror in her eyes.
"Look, Melody, There's no one here but us. Torchwood is on lockdown like Amy asked. There are guards posted and orders to shoot on sight. Remember what the Doctor said? He made a barrier for the facility so that vortex manipulators can't get in or out. Kovarian isn't here. She can't get here. Look, I have a sword." Rory unsheathed the weapon, and held it out to his daughter.
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.
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...
He knew his time was already ticking.