The Last Centurion (And Other Ways to Win Father of the Year) [River/Eleven, Rory]
Title: The Last Centurion (And Other Ways to Win Father of the Year)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: River/Eleven, Rory
Summary: from a prompt at spoiler_song by neyllya. She's always been his daughter. Today, he proves it. Because even the strongest of people fall sometimes.
It happens too quickly.
One moment, she’s rolling her eyes at him and running her fingers along his waist, lingering a little too long (and this is supposed to be a family gathering, River, he’s reminded her one too many times) and the next she’s flying across the room and landing with a nauseating thud against the wall.
It was a family gathering. River had casually mentioned that her father had a week off of work in 2011 and the Doctor wasn’t a slow one. He knows for an absolute fact that Rory is mourning the loss of a daughter he’d never had. Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? The Ponds had had plans for a child they’d never seen grow up. And River’s here but she wasn’t the child they’d planned for. She was the adult they’d grown to love.
And the Doctor knows what it is like to lose a child.
So he obliges.
Amy insists on staying on earth, winking at River and kissing the Doctor’s cheek. He’s got half a mind to think the Pond woman planned this together, with how quickly Amy decides this trip is just for Rory and her daughter. He takes them to the fourth moon of an abandoned planet, but when has anything ever gone as planned? When he takes people to an abandoned planet, it’s never that way, and why does he never realize that? He should realize that.
But he doesn’t, not this time. Always one more mistake to make and he makes it.
She’s before him and he’s behind her, watching father and daughter walking side by side, interjecting ever so often because he can’t seem to help it.
“I did enjoy that day,” She’s telling him. “One of my favorites, if you must know. The look on your face, Dad. And when you ran.”
“She thought I was gay. My future wife. Your mother. Thought I was gay.”
“In her defense, you didn’t exactly give her much to go against.”
“Not helping.” Rory tosses a hand into the air, clearly exasperated.
“Well, I knew.”
“Oh, that so doesn’t count. You already knew I was your Dad.”
He hears her laugh. That’s a particular sound he’s always loved.
“Yes. I did.”
“This isn’t exactly the most normal father-daughter conversation, is it?” Rory asks, and the Doctor can’t help but chuckle. Rory Williams - or is it Pond?- shoots a glance over his shoulder. And really, that’s not a glance. That’s a glare. That is a downright glare.
‘Sorry’, he mouths.
“Normal is boring,” River replies. “I’ve never done normal well.”
And then it’s her that tosses her head back over her shoulder, with an entirely different type of look in her eyes. It’s taunting and playful and all he can think is your father is standing right there.
“No, I don’t think you have.” Rory answers, and that’s when the Doctor can’t help but insert himself into the conversation.
“You’ve got a two thousand year old Roman for a father and Amelia Pond for a mother. Really, I think you’re doing as well as can possibly be expected on the normal part.”
“Coming from the man who took his wife and his father in law to a moon thousands of years in the future and trailed behind them like a lost puppy.”
“I am not a lost puppy.”
“Oh, but you are!” River exclaims, stopping her walking and turning to gaze with wide, amused, taunting eyes. “Look at you, you’re practically shuffling!”
The Doctor crosses his arms over his chest. “You were having…” The Doctor waves a hand in the air. “Family moments! I didn’t want to interrupt!”
“And you’re doing a very clever job of that, sweetie.”
He pouts and she grins, walking up to him very, very slowly, stopping inches from him, fingers lingering on his waist. Rory is going to kill him. That’s right, Rory’s going to run him through with his sword, and that will be the end of him. No, that’ll be the beginning, but he’ll die and it’ll be his maniacal wife’s fault.
“You are very, very adorable when you pout.”
He squeaks. A manly squeak, he’d like to think. “I’m not adorable. Stop calling me adorable. And your father is standing right- River!” She’s hooked a finger into his belt loop and pulled him closer.
They should have been paying attention. He knows this. It’s instinct. They should have been paying very close, very careful attention, but he checked the environment. There aren’t any people here.
(Later on, it will bring him back. A million, million life forms and silence in the library. He’ll think of how he knows the environment can be deceiving and yet he brought them out anyway and why? Why is he always doing this, to the very people that he loves?)
One second, she is there, grinning flirtatiously, and the next - she’s gone.
It’s so quick that it happens in slow motion. She’s there and then he can see her flying, through the air, every movement and landing with a sickening thud.
The Doctor spins, already on his defenses. He’s on alert, no longer the playful child but rather the warrior.
But he’s not the only warrior here.
Rory Williams carries nothing with him. He doesn’t have a sword or a shield or a helmet.
It doesn’t matter.
When the Doctor sees him start to run, he is without a doubt the Last Centurion.
“Go to my daughter!”
The shout is tossed over Rory’s shoulder as he runs in the direction of the thing lurking in the supposedly abandoned shadows. It only takes a singular glance for the Doctor to know exactly what it is. The thing of legends, the basis for the myth of a hellhound - playing in the abandoned land of this world.
And Rory’s going after it.
He’s going after it like he knows what it is, and the Doctor can’t help but wonder as he drops to River’s side - that maybe, in those two thousand years of his, he has known it before.
She’s hurt. There’s blood on her face and it’s hers. Her mouth is a twisted line of pain. His hearts speed up, thundering a tattoo against his ribcage. This is her. This is River, and River doesn’t get hurt. No, not in his eyes. River is invincible, River is the one he doesn’t have to worry about because she can handle it.
“Can you talk?” His voice is nervous. “River. Please.”
“Doctor.”
“That’s me. The Doctor. Only one with that name. I’m right here.” With one hand, he probes the expanse of her hairline - that’s where the blood’s coming from, where it’s spilling too quickly. Head wounds bleed, don’t they? They bleed a lot. He heard that somewhere, can’t remember where. Head wounds bleed.
“Doctor.”
“Thought we’d cleared that up, hey?” He teases, hands moving too fast, expression at odds with the good nature of his voice. “I’m the Doctor. You’re River.”
“Stop.”
“I’m just checking you over, River, I’ve got to-“
“My father.”
His hearts hammer to a stop. Noises come back into his world, noises other than River Song. There’s sounds, but there aren’t the ones he’d expected.
One hand resting on the side of River’s face, he turns and sees what is undoubtedly the Last Centurion, looming over the body of a silent hellhound. A dead one.
But he’s still beating it.
His stomach turns.
“Stop him, sweetie. Please.”
It takes him longer than he’d like. Arms wrapped around the man covered in a hellhound’s blood, trying to pull him off of the body, hearing him yell like a man possessed.
And maybe he is.
It’s only when they both tumble to the ground, and the Doctor’s repeating River’s alive that he stops, sagging, and the Doctor doesn’t wait. He’s back to River’s side in an instant, hands fluttering over her. She’s too quiet, the line of her mouth is too tight.
“River.” The Doctor’s voice trembles, but he forces past it, for her. Everything for her, he’d give her anything for her and this - this isn’t what he wanted for her, ever. He rubs his thumb across her temple in slow, soothing circles, brushing aside the mass of her hair. “Don’t close your eyes, no, that’s bad. Closing your eyes is a no good, very bad thing, River. I’m sure of it.”
She makes a tiny, moan-like noise. “You ramble when you’re nervous.” Her voice is rasp, hollow and heavy with pain and the pull of sleep.
“Ah, River. You make me nervous.” He leans down and presses his mouth to hers, briefly, more to let her know he’s there than anything else. “Right now, for a very good example, you’re making me very, very nervous, and - no, no, no.” He slaps her cheek gently. “Open your eyes.”
“I’m tired, and my shoulder hurts. At least give me the dignity of closing my eyes.” She murmurs, but he doesn’t care that she sounds level-headed. He’s seen too many people die to be particularly level-headed himself.
“No.”
She growls, a deep sound, low in her throat. “You don’t give in, do you?”
“That’s me, Mr. No Giving In. Actually, no. Rubbish title, forget I said that.” He strokes his thumbs across her cheekbone as he talks, leaning over her ever so slightly. “River, River.” Her name is a broken lullaby. “Why do you insist on being so amazing?”
“She’s a Pond.” Rory’s voice comes from behind him, and then he’s there, crouching next to him.
“Of course.” The Doctor answers. “Explains everything.”
“I don’t know how time lords heal,” He says, squeezing the fingers of her good hand. “But you’re staying with us. Doctor’s got a time machine, he can bring you back to any time he wants. But you’re staying with me and your mother until you’re healed.”
“Dad?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t try to argue, okay? Your Mum’s going to be cross enough that you’re hurt. If
I don’t bring you back for a good month at least, she’ll kill me. Do you think I’d really let my daughter go run off back to prison? Isn’t it your birthday soon? Your Mum will love that.”
“Dad, shut up.”
There are tears collecting in Rory’s eyes.
“Dad, come on. I wasn’t going to argue.”
“You weren’t?”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“For what?”
He seems genuinely surprised. He can see it in her eyes, that question - she’s hurt and she’s thanking me, why? - but she just rolls her eyes, fondly.
“You killed for me today.” She says, and she’s thinking of two thousand years. It’s happened for them, of course, but that day hasn’t come for her. But Rory the Roman, her father - the man that waited two thousand years for the woman he loved, loves, will love, always will love - she knows the details of that, the details that don’t concern her. She’s known them since she was a child, since she read from books and legends, and looked on tiny, eight year old Rory and knew what he’d be. Tiny, silly, Rory Williams, the boy she and her mother made fun of.
The boy that would wait two thousand years for her mother.
And she knows, now, without a doubt. She didn’t before today, not really. She felt it, of course. Her father loved her. He knew she was his daughter.
But he killed for her today.
And it reminds her of two thousand years he killed for her mother. Two thousand years he protected her.
He protected her today.
And she knows, deep down, it means that he loves her. That he accepts her, as River or Melody or Mels, as the little girl that he lost, even though she knows no amount of trying is going to allow her to fill that void.
It chokes her a little bit, the certainty of all of that. The meaning of it. The knowing.
“Just…” She breathes out, slowly, blinking hard. River’s voice shakes. “Thank you, Dad.”
He smiles, and it’s a little bit watery. “You do know you’re my daughter, right? No matter what. Even though you let Mum think I was gay.”
She grins, hearts swelling, and he presses a kiss to her forehead.
“Your shoulder’s wrong. All wonky.” The Doctor’s voice breaks her back out of it.
“It’s called dislocated.” Rory’s hand is on her hair.
“Don’t particularly care what it’s called, it hurts.”
Her eyes betray just how much.
“We’ll get you back to the TARDIS, River.” That’s the Doctor’s voice again. River wants nothing more than to close her eyes, but she’s humoring him now, keeping them open for his sake. The TARDIS, though - that sounds like a lovely idea, a fantastic place to sleep for a longer time than necessary for a time lord. The warm, comforting embrace of the TARDIS. Yes, she’d like that very much.
“And then back to the Ponds.” The Doctor continues. “And maybe your mother won’t kill me.”
She does enjoy the days when he knows Amelia Pond is her mother.
It makes him so much more fun.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: River/Eleven, Rory
Summary: from a prompt at spoiler_song by neyllya. She's always been his daughter. Today, he proves it. Because even the strongest of people fall sometimes.
It happens too quickly.
One moment, she’s rolling her eyes at him and running her fingers along his waist, lingering a little too long (and this is supposed to be a family gathering, River, he’s reminded her one too many times) and the next she’s flying across the room and landing with a nauseating thud against the wall.
It was a family gathering. River had casually mentioned that her father had a week off of work in 2011 and the Doctor wasn’t a slow one. He knows for an absolute fact that Rory is mourning the loss of a daughter he’d never had. Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? The Ponds had had plans for a child they’d never seen grow up. And River’s here but she wasn’t the child they’d planned for. She was the adult they’d grown to love.
And the Doctor knows what it is like to lose a child.
So he obliges.
Amy insists on staying on earth, winking at River and kissing the Doctor’s cheek. He’s got half a mind to think the Pond woman planned this together, with how quickly Amy decides this trip is just for Rory and her daughter. He takes them to the fourth moon of an abandoned planet, but when has anything ever gone as planned? When he takes people to an abandoned planet, it’s never that way, and why does he never realize that? He should realize that.
But he doesn’t, not this time. Always one more mistake to make and he makes it.
She’s before him and he’s behind her, watching father and daughter walking side by side, interjecting ever so often because he can’t seem to help it.
“I did enjoy that day,” She’s telling him. “One of my favorites, if you must know. The look on your face, Dad. And when you ran.”
“She thought I was gay. My future wife. Your mother. Thought I was gay.”
“In her defense, you didn’t exactly give her much to go against.”
“Not helping.” Rory tosses a hand into the air, clearly exasperated.
“Well, I knew.”
“Oh, that so doesn’t count. You already knew I was your Dad.”
He hears her laugh. That’s a particular sound he’s always loved.
“Yes. I did.”
“This isn’t exactly the most normal father-daughter conversation, is it?” Rory asks, and the Doctor can’t help but chuckle. Rory Williams - or is it Pond?- shoots a glance over his shoulder. And really, that’s not a glance. That’s a glare. That is a downright glare.
‘Sorry’, he mouths.
“Normal is boring,” River replies. “I’ve never done normal well.”
And then it’s her that tosses her head back over her shoulder, with an entirely different type of look in her eyes. It’s taunting and playful and all he can think is your father is standing right there.
“No, I don’t think you have.” Rory answers, and that’s when the Doctor can’t help but insert himself into the conversation.
“You’ve got a two thousand year old Roman for a father and Amelia Pond for a mother. Really, I think you’re doing as well as can possibly be expected on the normal part.”
“Coming from the man who took his wife and his father in law to a moon thousands of years in the future and trailed behind them like a lost puppy.”
“I am not a lost puppy.”
“Oh, but you are!” River exclaims, stopping her walking and turning to gaze with wide, amused, taunting eyes. “Look at you, you’re practically shuffling!”
The Doctor crosses his arms over his chest. “You were having…” The Doctor waves a hand in the air. “Family moments! I didn’t want to interrupt!”
“And you’re doing a very clever job of that, sweetie.”
He pouts and she grins, walking up to him very, very slowly, stopping inches from him, fingers lingering on his waist. Rory is going to kill him. That’s right, Rory’s going to run him through with his sword, and that will be the end of him. No, that’ll be the beginning, but he’ll die and it’ll be his maniacal wife’s fault.
“You are very, very adorable when you pout.”
He squeaks. A manly squeak, he’d like to think. “I’m not adorable. Stop calling me adorable. And your father is standing right- River!” She’s hooked a finger into his belt loop and pulled him closer.
They should have been paying attention. He knows this. It’s instinct. They should have been paying very close, very careful attention, but he checked the environment. There aren’t any people here.
(Later on, it will bring him back. A million, million life forms and silence in the library. He’ll think of how he knows the environment can be deceiving and yet he brought them out anyway and why? Why is he always doing this, to the very people that he loves?)
One second, she is there, grinning flirtatiously, and the next - she’s gone.
It’s so quick that it happens in slow motion. She’s there and then he can see her flying, through the air, every movement and landing with a sickening thud.
The Doctor spins, already on his defenses. He’s on alert, no longer the playful child but rather the warrior.
But he’s not the only warrior here.
Rory Williams carries nothing with him. He doesn’t have a sword or a shield or a helmet.
It doesn’t matter.
When the Doctor sees him start to run, he is without a doubt the Last Centurion.
“Go to my daughter!”
The shout is tossed over Rory’s shoulder as he runs in the direction of the thing lurking in the supposedly abandoned shadows. It only takes a singular glance for the Doctor to know exactly what it is. The thing of legends, the basis for the myth of a hellhound - playing in the abandoned land of this world.
And Rory’s going after it.
He’s going after it like he knows what it is, and the Doctor can’t help but wonder as he drops to River’s side - that maybe, in those two thousand years of his, he has known it before.
She’s hurt. There’s blood on her face and it’s hers. Her mouth is a twisted line of pain. His hearts speed up, thundering a tattoo against his ribcage. This is her. This is River, and River doesn’t get hurt. No, not in his eyes. River is invincible, River is the one he doesn’t have to worry about because she can handle it.
“Can you talk?” His voice is nervous. “River. Please.”
“Doctor.”
“That’s me. The Doctor. Only one with that name. I’m right here.” With one hand, he probes the expanse of her hairline - that’s where the blood’s coming from, where it’s spilling too quickly. Head wounds bleed, don’t they? They bleed a lot. He heard that somewhere, can’t remember where. Head wounds bleed.
“Doctor.”
“Thought we’d cleared that up, hey?” He teases, hands moving too fast, expression at odds with the good nature of his voice. “I’m the Doctor. You’re River.”
“Stop.”
“I’m just checking you over, River, I’ve got to-“
“My father.”
His hearts hammer to a stop. Noises come back into his world, noises other than River Song. There’s sounds, but there aren’t the ones he’d expected.
One hand resting on the side of River’s face, he turns and sees what is undoubtedly the Last Centurion, looming over the body of a silent hellhound. A dead one.
But he’s still beating it.
His stomach turns.
“Stop him, sweetie. Please.”
It takes him longer than he’d like. Arms wrapped around the man covered in a hellhound’s blood, trying to pull him off of the body, hearing him yell like a man possessed.
And maybe he is.
It’s only when they both tumble to the ground, and the Doctor’s repeating River’s alive that he stops, sagging, and the Doctor doesn’t wait. He’s back to River’s side in an instant, hands fluttering over her. She’s too quiet, the line of her mouth is too tight.
“River.” The Doctor’s voice trembles, but he forces past it, for her. Everything for her, he’d give her anything for her and this - this isn’t what he wanted for her, ever. He rubs his thumb across her temple in slow, soothing circles, brushing aside the mass of her hair. “Don’t close your eyes, no, that’s bad. Closing your eyes is a no good, very bad thing, River. I’m sure of it.”
She makes a tiny, moan-like noise. “You ramble when you’re nervous.” Her voice is rasp, hollow and heavy with pain and the pull of sleep.
“Ah, River. You make me nervous.” He leans down and presses his mouth to hers, briefly, more to let her know he’s there than anything else. “Right now, for a very good example, you’re making me very, very nervous, and - no, no, no.” He slaps her cheek gently. “Open your eyes.”
“I’m tired, and my shoulder hurts. At least give me the dignity of closing my eyes.” She murmurs, but he doesn’t care that she sounds level-headed. He’s seen too many people die to be particularly level-headed himself.
“No.”
She growls, a deep sound, low in her throat. “You don’t give in, do you?”
“That’s me, Mr. No Giving In. Actually, no. Rubbish title, forget I said that.” He strokes his thumbs across her cheekbone as he talks, leaning over her ever so slightly. “River, River.” Her name is a broken lullaby. “Why do you insist on being so amazing?”
“She’s a Pond.” Rory’s voice comes from behind him, and then he’s there, crouching next to him.
“Of course.” The Doctor answers. “Explains everything.”
“I don’t know how time lords heal,” He says, squeezing the fingers of her good hand. “But you’re staying with us. Doctor’s got a time machine, he can bring you back to any time he wants. But you’re staying with me and your mother until you’re healed.”
“Dad?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t try to argue, okay? Your Mum’s going to be cross enough that you’re hurt. If
I don’t bring you back for a good month at least, she’ll kill me. Do you think I’d really let my daughter go run off back to prison? Isn’t it your birthday soon? Your Mum will love that.”
“Dad, shut up.”
There are tears collecting in Rory’s eyes.
“Dad, come on. I wasn’t going to argue.”
“You weren’t?”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“For what?”
He seems genuinely surprised. He can see it in her eyes, that question - she’s hurt and she’s thanking me, why? - but she just rolls her eyes, fondly.
“You killed for me today.” She says, and she’s thinking of two thousand years. It’s happened for them, of course, but that day hasn’t come for her. But Rory the Roman, her father - the man that waited two thousand years for the woman he loved, loves, will love, always will love - she knows the details of that, the details that don’t concern her. She’s known them since she was a child, since she read from books and legends, and looked on tiny, eight year old Rory and knew what he’d be. Tiny, silly, Rory Williams, the boy she and her mother made fun of.
The boy that would wait two thousand years for her mother.
And she knows, now, without a doubt. She didn’t before today, not really. She felt it, of course. Her father loved her. He knew she was his daughter.
But he killed for her today.
And it reminds her of two thousand years he killed for her mother. Two thousand years he protected her.
He protected her today.
And she knows, deep down, it means that he loves her. That he accepts her, as River or Melody or Mels, as the little girl that he lost, even though she knows no amount of trying is going to allow her to fill that void.
It chokes her a little bit, the certainty of all of that. The meaning of it. The knowing.
“Just…” She breathes out, slowly, blinking hard. River’s voice shakes. “Thank you, Dad.”
He smiles, and it’s a little bit watery. “You do know you’re my daughter, right? No matter what. Even though you let Mum think I was gay.”
She grins, hearts swelling, and he presses a kiss to her forehead.
“Your shoulder’s wrong. All wonky.” The Doctor’s voice breaks her back out of it.
“It’s called dislocated.” Rory’s hand is on her hair.
“Don’t particularly care what it’s called, it hurts.”
Her eyes betray just how much.
“We’ll get you back to the TARDIS, River.” That’s the Doctor’s voice again. River wants nothing more than to close her eyes, but she’s humoring him now, keeping them open for his sake. The TARDIS, though - that sounds like a lovely idea, a fantastic place to sleep for a longer time than necessary for a time lord. The warm, comforting embrace of the TARDIS. Yes, she’d like that very much.
“And then back to the Ponds.” The Doctor continues. “And maybe your mother won’t kill me.”
She does enjoy the days when he knows Amelia Pond is her mother.
It makes him so much more fun.