The lone Weeping Angel stood pointing to the gravestone, taunting everyone with Rory's name and demise. The day Danni had hoped would never come, the day she had known she could never change. Amy was being brave, like she had to be, as she stared down the stone angel who had took her husband. All she had to do was blink and she would be with him. Danni had promised and she knew the fellow red-head would never have lied to her.
"It'll be fine. I know it will. I'll - I'll be with him, like I should be. Me and Rory, together," She reasoned to herself, trying to convince the Doctor with her own words.
This was it. She had always known she was going to make a choice, and with her friends sobbing behind her, she held her hand out towards them. "Melody," she called and River darted forward, taking her mother's outstretched hand.
"Stop it! Just - just stop it!" the Doctor begged them all but no one was listening. Tears streamed down his face and Danni could see his heartbreak, even as he refused to look at her. This was the start of a dark time for the pair of them, and the start of a life she had never even considered possible. But, at that moment, all she could think of was how he was going to hate her forever. The Doctor was never going to forgive her.
"You look after him," Amy told her daughter as she cried. "And you be a good girl and you look after him." River nodded, unable to speak as she kissed Amy's palm. She backed away slowly, towards her own daughter. Amy was making her choice, it wouldn't be the last time she saw her, but Danni needed her.
"Danni?" Amy called back and a broken sob broke from her best friend. She'd never been as grateful to the two time travellers as she should have been. She only hoped that they both knew what they meant to her, but she didn't have time to tell them. She needed to get back to Rory. "Thank you. For everything."
"I love you, Amy," Danni sobbed, feeling like she was on her own. "Live well and love Rory."
~0~0~0~
Danni stared at her old best friend, at the woman who had broken her heart and the heart of her husband. Amy had been touched by an angel, and even though Danni had never really believed the Doctor's reasoning for never being able to go back to see them, she had accepted it as the reality. She was never going to see them again because that part of their life was over.
But now she was staring at Amelia Williams, who was looking at her both confused and suspicious. She was obviously older than the last time Danni had seen her, although suddenly that felt like yesterday. A face she thought she'd never recognise because it had been so long was vivid and bright in her head, and Amy was probably five to seven years older than she had known her. Her hair was still red, but streaked with grey and she now had a permanent pair of glasses sat her nose instead of just the reading ones the Doctor had stolen.
She suited the dress she was wearing – who knew Amy could pull of the 1950's look? Must run in the family, because River always looked good in period pieces as well.
She was meeting her grandmother, wasn't she?
"Yes," Amy replied slowly to the question of her name. "Can I help?"
She didn't sound like she was happy that the strange woman at her front door knew her name, but Danni couldn't focus on that. Her grandmother. Amy was her grandmother. Rory was her grandfather. She was a Pond, a Williams, and suddenly it was hitting her right in the face and she didn't know what to do.
With her eyes wide, she stared at Amy and did the firs thing she thought of.
"River!" she cried out with a shaky, terrified voice. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. Amy, her grandmother, had last seen her as a red-headed, only human, not-related person. Now she was… well she was a lot of things, and she didn't even know where to begin to tell her, and that was if she believed her. Oh, she was having flashbacks of how terrified she had been to tell Martha about her new life, and this was so much worse. She didn't want to be rejected by Amy.
Amy obviously hadn't been expecting the exclamation and so just stared back, stunned. River, who had been watching from the side-lines to see Danni's reaction, hadn't been disappointed by the floundering of her daughter. Why have one if they didn't amuse you from time to time?
She sauntered up to the door, giving Amy something else to be surprised about, and clapped her hands on Danni's shoulders. "Mother," she greeted. "Meet your granddaughter."
She pushed past Amy and entered the house. "I'll be in the living room when you two are done."
Amy barely noticed her daughter, and Danni wasn't paying much attention anyway after River had just decided to blurt it out. They just stared at each other as Danni tried to work out where to begin telling Amy who she was, and how it had all come to…
"Danni?" the Scottish woman asked and Danni felt all the tension release from her body. Amy knew who she was, and the fact that she hadn't become angry just resolved every worry she had.
"Hi Amy," she replied softly and the next thing Danni knew was that they were hugging. Amy held her close, wrapping her up in an embrace Danni never thought she'd feel again.
When Amy pulled back, she gave Danni a smile. "You took your time," she scolded lightly. "Melody told us about you when she first came back to see us. I was expecting you a lot sooner than this."
Danni looked slightly sheepish. "Yeah, well, I never thought this was an option," she admitted. "So, it never really occurred to me."
"Well, come in," Amy told her. "Melody wasn't very forthcoming with information about you after…" She paused, and Danni watched the pain of her decision flicker on her face. She knew that Amy had told the Doctor that she had been very happy, and she knew that hadn't been a lie. However, she knew that choosing between the Doctor and a life after him was always going to be a horrible thing to do. Amy was always going to miss her old life, and her old best friend, even as she grew to love her new life.
"Well, she doesn't like talking about the Doctor," Danni pointed out. "I still don't understand why she hates him so much."
"It's because of you," Amy replied, like she should have known better. "He's keeping you from her. She's your mother. She's never going to like anyone who takes their baby off them. I can tell you that."
The bitterness in her tone was tangible, and Danni felt that spark of guilt that she always felt when she thought about how she'd failed Melody Pond. Melody Pond, her mother.
Oh, it was all very confusing. Maybe this was why she never came back to see Amy. She was one of her best friends, who she met when Amy was a child, and then turned out to be her grandmother, who she helped convince to let the Weeping Angels touch her based on a TV show she had been living in.
No one really needed that in their life, did they? Sometimes Danni really wished she had a much simpler life. Then she'd realise just how boring that would have been.
"I wouldn't say that he took me off her," Danni replied as they sat down in the living room. "She gave me up."
The living room was actually not as bad as Danni was expecting for the decade that they were in. She had never been much of a fan of the colours and the patterns of the 1950's décor. Amy had put her own, modern, touch on things. Danni couldn't wait to see what she'd do in the 60's.
"I would," River said as she came into the living room from the kitchen. She walked over to Amy's dark pink armchair and flopped into it, chucking her legs over the armrest. That must have been where Danni had got that habit from.
"When are we?" Danni asked as she looked around the room. "River never said."
"1956," Amy replied. "May 17th. I thought Time Lords could tell what time they were in?"
"If they're taught," Danni replied. "The Doctor never showed me how to tell. I think it's something you need to learn as a kid, though, so maybe he just didn't see the point."
Amy shrugged. "Not like he was any good at it, anyway," she said. "He was always late for everything."
Danni shot her a sardonic smirk. "Oh, you have no idea," she murmured and they fell into a silent for a moment.
Then Amy turned to her, eyes bright. "Tell me everything," she stated. "What did you do next?"
River rolled her eyes. "Oh, mother, I told you that already," she drawled. "Half of it is dreadfully boring."
"The Doctor half?" Danni challenged and River shrugged her shoulders, confirming her guess. "Where do you want me to start?"
Amy looked thoughtful for a moment. "From when the Weeping Angel touched me," she decided. "Melody, go make us all a cup of tea."
River looked positively affronted. "I'm not your servant!" she protested. "Make your own cup of tea."
Amy shot her a look Danni was glad she wasn't on the receiving end of. "Now, Melody."
River sighed angrily, getting off her chair. "Alright, I'm doing it," she grumbled as she left the room, and suddenly Danni could see her as a teenager being bossed around by her mother. They both probably enjoyed the ghost of the relationship they should have had.
Amy's attention turned back to the blonde. "Alright, tell me," she commanded and Danni shrugged.
"Well, the Doctor wasn't happy with me," she started. "I'm sure you could have guessed that. He was so angry, and I never wanted – I never wanted that anger directed at me, but I hurt him. I'd traded you in, he thought I was trying to get you out of the way. He wanted to hurt me back, to scare me like he thought you had been scared."
She shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like to think about that moment when the Doctor had really hated her. It didn't last long, and he'd spent a lifetime trying to make it up to her, but she didn't like it. "He held me out of the TARDIS, which she did not like at all. She tipped back to try and get us both in, but he let go and I floated out into space, past the shield and into deep space."
She took another look around the room, taking in all the little ornaments and photographs that made the house the home of the Williams', and not just another home. Some colour pictures were hanging from the walls, but mainly they were black and white. It was nice to see that they really had settled in. All those moments in their lives that she and the Doctor had missed. Well, it wasn't like she'd always been there when they'd been together. Her own vortex manipulator had seen to that. Still, it was a whole set of memories that Danni and the Doctor were strictly not a part of, and it was very bittersweet to see.
"I don't remember much of what happened next," she replied honestly. "The Doctor says it's from the trauma of what happened. He offered to open up the memories, but I didn't…" she trailed off for a moment and Amy considered telling her that she didn't need to talk about it. "I was shot into the Time War, where I met the Master again. At some point I was shot by Rassilon, and managed to make it back into the TARDIS, but he'd basically blown a hole in my stomach. I died, and I regenerated."
"We moved onto a cloud for a little while, because I was too scared to go outside, and then the Doctor was too scared to let me outside. I snuck out, and that's when I met Clara for the first time," she smiled softly, at the memory of the doomed Clara and at just how far their friendship had come. "My first companion all of my own. Of course, then she died too, and the mystery of Clara started."
"I thought Clara was your new companion?" Amy asked. "Melody said that she fancies you."
Danni rolled her eyes. "That's what the Doctor says," she corrected. "Clara jumped into the Doctor's timeline to save him and me from dying forever. I was erased from time for a moment, again it's not something I remember. Then we found out that the Doctor hadn't killed all of the Time Lords after all."
That surprised Amy. "Really?"
"He saved Gallifrey into a moment frozen in time, putting it into another universe. It was how I was able to be shot into it, because it wasn't destroyed it was just hidden away."
"That's good news though, right?" Amy asked. "He didn't kill all those people. That weight he carried must have been lifted almost instantly.
"It was," Danni replied, and despite how conflicted she'd felt at the time, she knew it was only good for him. His home was still there, he wasn't the last full Time Lord, he wasn't the killer he'd hated in himself. "It was such great news, now it feels a bit old."
Amy watched her old friend looked down at her hands, her mood changing in an instant. "And then there was a war," she explained softly. "We lived on planet for five hundred years together. The Doctor had to defend it against destruction because of the cracks in the universe, and we lived and grew up and old together."
As she told little stories about their time on Trenzalore, about all the good things and all the bad things that happened. River joined them shortly into it, two cups of tea for her mother and daughter, and a cup of coffee for herself that seemed to be heavily pointed at the fact that she'd been ordered to make it in the first place. Her feelings on Danni's stories were rather mixed. On one hand, she always loved to hear more about Danni. It reminded of her childhood, when she would play with Amy and Rory.
On the other, though, it was just times that they'd spent apart. River had a life outside Danni and the man she travelled with, outside of her parents. She just didn't like Danni having a life away from her.
"Wait, so he just dropped you off?" Amy asked, incredulous. "Since when did he want to spend a minute away from you?"
Danni shrugged. She still didn't know the answer to that question, not really. "We didn't think he was going to regenerate. He was on his last body, and he was so old. He was going to die, and we said our goodbyes. Then the Time Lords helped by giving him a new cycle of regenerations."
"Melody mentioned something about that," Amy commented. "Apparently he went old."
"He's always been old," Danni replied a bit shortly. "He's always been older than me, than all of us. There's nothing wrong with his new body."
"Eyebrows," River called over from her chair.
Danni shot her a look. "There's nothing wrong with his body," she reiterated. "It's the man inside that's a bit… off."
"Off?" Amy asked and Danni shrugged, taking a sip of her tea.
"That's a bit unfair on him, really. I shouldn't have said it like that," she replied. "He's still the Doctor. He makes me laugh, he's super smart. He gets that look on his face when he's figured something out and it still makes me shiver. But then, he'll insult me, and make me feel stupid and small, and the Doctor never used to do that. My husband…"
Amy shifted closer to her on the sofa. "The Doctor loves you," she promised her granddaughter. "He always did, you couldn't get away from it. When you would jump away, you could see his hearts breaking."
She took a moment to gather her thoughts together. "The Doctor used to make me feel better about myself," she explained. "When we were together I never felt like I couldn't do anything. I felt brighter, now I feel like I make everything worse. He seems to go out of his way to make me know I'm not as good as him."
"That's because he's not as good as you," River replied and both Amy and Danni shot her a look to tell her that her comment was very much not appreciated. "What? Tell me I'm wrong. Even if you believe that whole 'I'm a good guy' thing he's trying to pull off, you are fundamentally better than he is. That's why he fell in love with you."
Danni rolled her eyes, turning to Amy, looking for back up on the fact that none of that was true. Amy, however, looked back as if River had a point. Danni sat a little straighter, feeling rathe defensive. "The Doctor is a good man," she reminded them both firmly. "Even if his actions don't always lead to the best outcome, his intentions are good, and sometimes that's all that matter."
She shot her grandmother a bit of a glare. "And you should know that, Amy."
"Most of the time I think he was just showing off to you," Amy replied. "Even when you weren't there, he'd always look to see you when he did something clever."
Danni wasn't sure how much she liked them analysing him like he was something to be studied. But then, at the same time, wasn't that what she was doing? Looking for reason behind his every action rather than just enjoying them for what they were; wonderful little moments with her husband.
Huh. That was definitely something she needed to think about at a later date.
Luckily she was saved from such deep thoughts by the sound of the door opening. "Honey, I'm home!"
Danni's eyes lit up and she turned to Amy, looking at her hopefully and expectantly. With a roll of her eyes, she nodded and Danni jumped up off the sofa and rushed into the hallway. Rory Williams obviously had no idea that she was coming, because he paused in the middle of shrugging his thin jacket off, staring at her in complete surprise.
She grinned at him. "Grandad!"
~0~0~0~
Rory was surprised to see Danni. He had been expecting to come home one day and find her chatting to his wife, the Doctor lounging on his chair like they'd never left. Amy had always been adamant they wouldn't see the Doctor because she'd hurt him too much, but Rory had secretly believed that wouldn't matter. When Danni had found out that she had family in this universe, then she'd be at their house and she'd bring the Doctor with her.
Of course, actually finding her in his home after work was much different to expecting it. Not that he wasn't happy, he just didn't know what to do when she'd run out to him. When she'd hugged him, he'd hugged her back after his senses had come back.
Rory'd had a long shift as a doctor – Danni had been very upset to know she couldn't keep her 'murse' nickname for him anymore – and his plan had been to sleep the rest of the afternoon away. However, his granddaughter was more important, and he just wanted to spend time with her. He had really missed her, not just because she was family, but because she had been his friend. Amy told her how it was Danni that had convinced her to come back in time with him, and he couldn't thank her enough for it.
But she'd not wanted to talk about it. They'd talked about it enough about their shared past when he was at work, now it was time to hear about what she had missed while she had been travelling.
She'd sat in between her grandparents, unable to keep the grin off her face. Rory had to admit that, after once again getting over the idea that he had a granddaughter who was infinitely older than he would ever be, he enjoyed having her there too. They told her about how they'd wandered for a couple of days, sleeping in Central Park despite the memories it had held. Then, out of the blue, Melody had appeared and taken them to their first home. Even as he avoided them, the Doctor hadn't been able to leave them to life with absolutely nothing.
Danni had suspected this. She'd confronted him on numerous occasions after she had regenerated, but the Doctor had assured her that they were okay. He may not have done the legwork himself, but a few words in a few ears had been all that had been needed, and they'd been giving a third floor apartment with barely any furniture, but they'd been set up with social security numbers and birth certificates to help them with the rest.
Amy took a glance to their living room clock as River was telling Danni about their first Christmas in their new life. "When's Tony supposed to be back?" she asked her husband.
"About five, I think," he replied. "He was stopping at Stan's after school, but I told him not to hang around for too long."
Danni looked between the two. "Tony?" she asked. "Who's Tony?"
Both Amy and Rory turned to River, looking rather annoyed with their daughter. "Did you not tell her about your brother?" Amy demanded and Danni's eyes almost popped straight out of her head.
River let her head roll back. "She was going to find out eventually," she explained. "I wasn't keeping it secret or anything."
And that wasn't strictly a lie, either. She just knew that if she'd brought up the 11-year-old, much like any other child, Danni would have been demanding to be brought to see him. It was pure luck that he'd been out at his friends because she'd not really thought about him being here at all. She loved her little brother, no matter how much she acted like she couldn't care about him either way. That was just how she treated everyone.
"Wait, can we backtrack to the part where you have another kid?" Danni interrupted, turning to Amy. "I thought you…"
"Oh, he's not… I mean, he knows he's not ours biologically," Amy explained. "I didn't want him finding out when he was older, but it's hard to hide it when his sister looks as old as his parents and only appears in a flash of light he has seen on more than one occasion."
"It seemed better to be honest with him up front," Rory continued. "He knows that his parents chose him because they loved him more than any other."
"I wish I had known sooner!" Danni moaned. "I didn't bring any presents with me! I could have brought…" she frowned. "What do you get a boy in the 1950's? I always like my PlayStation, the original one, is there something like that here?"
Amy didn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. She and Danni had been born roughly the same time, and so she should know that computer gaming definitely wasn't a thing in the 1950s. However, it did prove that the Doctor's terrible judgement on some technology's place in time came from living for as long as he did, because Danni had obviously forgotten that over the years as well.
"We barely have television," Rory broke to her. "I think Crash Bandicoot might cause a national incident."
"Good point," Danni agreed before breaking out into a smile. "I can't believe you have another kid," she smacked Rory on the arm, bouncing happily as she obviously realised something. "I have an uncle, don't I? Can you believe that?! An uncle!"
"Trust me, we've heard enough about it over the last few years," Amy replied. "I think we told him too much about you. We had to get him to stop telling his friends about you, they were starting to make fun of him."
Danni frowned. "Oh?"
"Well, it's not hard for people to believe he has a niece," Rory replied. "Me and Amy aren't as young as we used to be. If we had Melody young, and she had you young, then he could have a baby niece."
"Unfortunately he kept telling everyone that you were hundreds of years old," Amy added. "They all thought he was making you up, that you were some imaginary friend. We had to tell him it was just a family secret, otherwise we were worried. People aren't as forgiving around here, you hear some terrible stories about kids being locked up. You'd think it was the 1800s or something."
Danni nodded, trying to cut her off before she went into detail. She knew some of the horrible things that went on in human history, she didn't need it recounting because she couldn't do much about it. "Well, I am a fantastic secret," she declared. She glanced up at the clock to see that she had another hour to wait to meet the newest Pond.
"Oh, look, she's pouting," River teased lightly. "You'll never get used to living in the right order, will you?"
Danni pulled her tongue out at her. "I've been doing well the last few months!" she protested. "No one likes to wait."
"I don't know," Rory said. "Sometimes the long way around is the best way to go."
Danni snorted. "You'd never think you lived in a time machine," she commented bluntly. "The best part is never having to wait. I only have it once a week and it's torture waiting."
"I thought you were doing well?" River retorted.
"Wait, why do you only go travelling once a week?" Amy asked before pointing at her. "And don't say it's a sex thing. I had enough of that when we were travelling together, and it's doubly weird now we're related."
Danni wished it was a sex thing, because then she could have teased Amy mercilessly about it like she used to. However, the reminder of why she was with the Ponds in the first place made her heart sink and her happiness was sapped away.
Rory frowned, sitting up a little straighter. "What's wrong?" he asked, concerned.
Danni shrugged, curling up into herself. "I- Well, I don't live with the Doctor anymore," she admitted quietly. "I left him because he did something, and I only see him once a week to see if we can save our marriage."
It was obvious she didn't want to talk about it to them. Whether it was because it hurt her too much to talk about it, or because she didn't want them to think bad about her husband, neither Rory or Amy were sure. She'd always been defensive of him so it made sense that she'd want them to remember the Doctor as the man they had known, even if he'd been flawed then.
"Well, he's an idiot," Amy declared at the hurt her friend and granddaughter was feeling. Rory nodded in agreement. "And as an idiot, he's not invited for dinner," she stood up from her seat. "I'll cook something nice. It's not often the entire family is round, I'll do something special."
As she walked out of the room, Rory nudged Danni to get her attention. "Don't have anything with fish in," he warned her lowly. "Me and Tony were ill for days last time she tried to cook it."
"I heard that!" Amy called and Rory winced, knowing he was going to hear more about it for the rest of the evening. Danni giggled.
"Everyone has to learn how to cook eventually," she replied to be kind to Amy. "Even I did."
Both River and Rory looked dubious at this and she narrowed her eyes, slightly affronted by their lack of faith. "It's true!" she protested. "I lived on a planet without the TARDIS for five hundred years! It's not like I could have done anything else!"
Rory was surprised at this knowledge, but River wasn't. "I should have known that he wouldn't have helped you cook."
"He tried," Danni replied. "I had to keep sending him out of the room. He's such a backseat cook, it was easier for me just to do it myself." She stood up. "Speaking of, I should go see if Amy wants any help."
Rory grabbed her arm. "No, sorry, I think I missed something," he said. "Why did you not have the TARDIS?"
"Oh, I can't be bothered going over it again," she groaned like it was some giant chore. She headed the same way Amy had gone, hoping to find the kitchen easily. "River, tell him about Trenzalore."
"Trenzalore?" Rory asked after her, but she didn't stop. He turned to his daughter. "Isn't that something to do with the Doctor's death?"
"Oh, father dear," River drawled. "You always were the last to know anything, weren't you?"
"Not by choice!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "I can't help it if no one tells me anything."
~0~0~0~
Watching Amy being domestic was as strange now as it had been when Danni had stopped with them back when she'd been jumping. Somehow it seemed to fit her, like it was what she did every day. Which, Danni supposed, she did now. Yet at the same time Amy seemed so out of place in a house, with a kitchen, and a family. Danni hated that. It was the lasting effect of travelling with the Doctor – and herself, really; there was always the imprint of something more.
They had a lovely house, though. Out of the window that sat over the sink was a rather large back garden, with a tree in the corner but nothing more than grass covering the floor. A fence surrounded it with a gate out the back. It reminded Danni of Britain, which was probably what drew the couple to the house in the first place.
"Please, sit down," Amy groaned as Danni lifted the lid on her potatoes yet again.
"I was just checking!" Danni retorted, but did as she asked, heading to the sink to look out of the window again. "I still think you should have added a little…"
Amy pointed a wooden spoon at her like it was a carving knife. "My potatoes," she warned. "Remember? I'm cooking, not you."
Danni held her hands up. "I'm just trying to help," she replied as the back gate slammed open.
Amy rolled her eyes. "I've told him about that!" she snapped, like she'd warned the young boy who came running through a thousand times. The young boy in question quickly dashed across the grass. He had messy brown hair, bright eyes behind glasses, with his checkered shirt tucked into his black trousers. For some reason Danni had been expecting a uniform on him, but yet his bag bounced at his side to show he'd been at school.
The back door slammed open much the same way the gate had and he was panting as he stepped inside. Amy pointed the spoon at him. "What have I told you about slamming doors?" she scolded.
"Sorry mom," he replied in the distinctly American accent that was mixed in within his parents. He moved to step inside the kitchen and Amy jabbed the spoon threateningly. He froze, then started to take his shoes off. "Sorry mom."
Amy lowered her spoon. "You're earlier than I expected," she said. "Did you have a good day at school?"
He shrugged. "It was school," was his answer. "Stan and Charles got into another fight again."
"You weren't in it, were you?" Amy asked and he shook his head.
"Of course not. I've got better things to do with my time than fight Charles," he retorted. "Stan wants me to go camping next weekend."
"We'll have to see," Amy replied. "Are his parents going?"
"His mom definitely is," Antony said. "Stan says his dad is as well, but he always says that."
Danni smiled as she watched the two talk with such ease. It was lovely to see Amy and Rory get the family they always wanted, and the boy seemed as happy as any ten or eleven-year-old. His eyes darted around, looking for the source of the food he could smell, but instead his eyes fell upon the blonde in the window he'd failed to notice. Immediately he went quiet, a little shy, but Danni shot him a shy smile of her own.
"Tony, this is…" Amy started, but he stepped forward towards her.
"Danni?" he asked and she nodded, taking a step towards him. It was a strange experience, but Danni had the almost overbearing need for him to like her. She always did around children, but this seemed stronger. Probably because he was a family member that she'd only just found out about.
"That's me," she replied softly. "You're Antony, right?"
He nodded. "I'm your uncle," he said. "Everyone calls me Tony. Maybe you should call me Uncle Tony, it's not polite to call your uncles by their first name."
Amy snorted in laughter and Danni's eyebrows shot up surprise at his bluntness. "You're not wrong," she agreed. "But what about calling your elders by their first name? I'm almost six hundred years older than you, after all."
"Really?" he asked, suddenly looking like all his dreams had come true. "Mels wasn't lying? You're really that old?"
"I'm not sure how much I like being called 'that old'," Danni commented. "But, yes, I've lived quite a long life so far."
"Is it true you live in a time machine?" he asked. "And that you saved Mels from Hitler?"
Danni looked over at Amy, who seemed as confused by this news as she was. She did save her from Hitler, technically, but she'd then shot her in revenge for stealing her husband, which didn't really happen. She had a feeling the River hadn't told him about that bit, though.
"How about we go into the front room with your dad and sister, and you can ask me as many questions as you like?" Danni suggested and he nodded eagerly. Once again Amy brandished the spoon.
"Homework?" she asked him and he groaned.
"Mom, I can do it tomorrow!" he protested and she shook her head.
"Not a chance," she retorted. "Get to it, mister."
"How about you do your homework while asking me questions?" Danni suggested and he looked at his mother hopefully. She sighed, nodded and he rushed into the living room with his bag in tow.
Danni smirked as she turned back to Amy. "As if you ever did your homework," she teased the ginger.
"I did it when it was important," she retorted, lifting one of the lids on her pots. "It was just very rarely important, that's all. I had games to play. Time travelling aliens to find. He doesn't have that, so he can do his homework when he gets it."
Danni giggled, then walked over. She wrapped an arm around the taller woman's waist and placed a kiss on her cheek. "I really missed you, little Amelia," she told her honestly.
Amy hugged her back. She had missed both of her friends so much. The rest of her life, even her parents, had been the easiest part of the choice to make. To not see the Doctor and Danni again had been the hardest thing to come to terms with. Melody had offered them a little glimmer of hope but she knew how their lives went, she'd lived it herself. It was fast paced, and something wonderful and terrifying was always happening. Visiting old friends wasn't at the top of their to-do list, even with Danni nudging the Doctor along.
Part of her really wished that it had been the Doctor who had brought her to visit. She missed her raggedy man, and it was rather sad that he'd finally regenerated. She was also curious to see his new body, to see if he really was as bad as Danni and Melody made him out to be. Danni was defensive on one hand, then hurt when talking about him. She really felt he needed a smack around the head to get him back into gear. He was her raggedy man, but she was her granddaughter.
Amy paused as she checked the oven. That made her a grandmother. A grandmother and she wasn't even fifty yet.
She slammed the door to the oven shut. Nope. She was not a grandma!
~0~0~0~
"And when we returned the pioneer back to the 1970s, the Doctor realised that there was a reason the creature had been trying to get back home with us. That there were two creatures, trying to get to each other across the barrier like the time traveller had been trying to do." Danni told the eager child as they sat in the living room. "This time we got to travel into the pocket universe within the TARDIS, but it didn't make the trip any smoother."
"Did you leave them in the pocket universe?" Tony asked her. She shook her head.
"No, it was dying, remember?" she reminded gently. "We took them to a lovely planet where they could live out the rest of their lives together."
"Alright, that was one more," Rory commented and Tony groaned in annoyance. "Go on, go have a wash."
Tony turned to Danni, looking for help but she shook her head. "Don't look at me, they're the grownups," she commented. He sighed and stood up from the floor.
"Did all this really happen?" he asked her. "It all seems like a story."
"Life is just a story," she replied. "It's not my job to make you believe it. I know it happened."
He seemed to love her answer, and Danni saw him storing it away in his head. "Will you be here in the morning?" he asked. "Mels doesn't stay for the night, but will you?"
"Yes," Amy answered for her. "She's going to be in the spare room, so you have to be quiet."
They all bid the young boy goodnight and he dashed off to get ready for bed. Danni turned to Amy. "I can't stay, I have a date tomorrow."
"I'll take you back the same day I picked you up," River replied. "You really think mother is going to let you go with only a quick visit?"
"Will you stop saying it like that?" Amy snapped. "'Mother'. You make me sound like some wicked old stepmother in a fairy-tale. I'm quite an excellent mom."
"She only does it because you let it annoy her," Rory pointed out.
"That's because it's annoying!"
Danni smiled softly as she watched them bicker. They may have looked older, but they definitely were still the same Amy and Rory. They took the situation given to them – be it the lack of fertility or being trapped in the past – and they made it their own. They weren't sad, they weren't regretful. Their life was full of love and laughter and everyday-ness. She really could learn a thing or two with her grandparents. Well, anyone could, really.
She leant on Rory's arm, who stopped mid-bicker to look down at her in surprise. He then wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, almost protective in a way that didn't show their true ages. Like he was just another grandfather, and she was just another granddaughter, and it was there she drifted off to sleep.