Three months.

Three months of empty arms, echoing ears, heavy breasts. I can't stop dreaming of Madame Kovarian's eye patch staring at me through the wall—in the kitchen, the dining room, the bedroom- a moment before I splatter into a puddle of Flesh.

Rory, awakened by my screams, holds me close. "I'm here, it's alright," he says in a tone that reminds me of his years as the Last Centurion, two millennia watching over the Pandorica. He dragged it out of a burning warehouse, kept his head when House was toying with us, and blew up a Cyberfleet to rescue us. He'd do anything for me.

But he can't find Melody.

River Song. Melody Pond.

It didn't sink in right away. I just remember clinging to Lorna's prayer leaf, feeling the stiches as River took Rory and I home. Vortex manipulator is a rougher way to travel than the TARDIS; like a motorbike versus a jeep. The cold of a northern winter, the heat of African summer, a feeling like one too many times on the merry-go-round after the fifth funnel cake.

We stood in our living room—our clean, ordinary leaving room.

Someone shrieked. As my vision cleared, I saw Mum, a bundle of mail in her arms, staring at the three of us.

Rory still dressed as the Last Centurion.

River's grey dress sliding to the left from the vortex's force.

My white scrubs with remnants of Melody's Flesh caked on.

"Amy?"

"Well, I must be off." River released our arms and pressed her manipulator. "See you around."

"Amy?" Mum repeated.

"Rory," I moaned, stumbling into his arms. "Not now."

Rory managed to hold Mum off till the next day. We stayed up all night trying to work out what we could explain to them. We never had explained our disappearance after the wedding—they could come to their own conclusions about that.

"Fish fingers and custard."

"…a forest in a bottle in a spaceship in a maze…"

"You are late for my wedding!"

"….space, Canton Everett Deleware the III, 1969."

Without talking, we knew not to mention Melody. The real imaginary friend was a large enough obstacle, without spilling it all.

"The woman who appeared with us—she's our daughter. Your granddaughter. Yes, she's older than I am. And we think she might have killed my imaginary friend 200 years in the future. "

"He has some…errands to run, but he'll come back sometime soon."

That was how we decided to explain the timey-whimey tangle of River and Melody. Which is to say, we lied. But I had to hold onto every snatch of pride to refrain from collapsing into her arms and sobbing about my lost daughter.

Mels is Melody is River.

It's like a logical equation, where if A equals B and B equals C, A equals C. But that doesn't take into account the difference perceptions one might have of A, B, and C.

Mels is dying and glowing. Glowing like the Doctor did on Lake Silenco. Which means—

Sweet sonic screwdriver, my daughter is a Time Lord.

The Doctor didn't tell me.

I'll kill him. What else hasn't he told me?

Penny in the air…if you drop a penny from high enough, it gathers enough force to kill someone.

"Shut up, Dad, I'm concentrating on a dress size!"

River. This crazy, babbling woman who has the face of a friend and the words of a stranger is my daughter.

Lorna's prayer leaf crinkles in my pocket. I have traced the embroidery so many times in the past three months that I had to retrace some lines.

If you keep it, your child will always come back to you.

When people speak of being friends with your children, they never mean it literally. Mels and Rory and I—our family was together all those years, and only she knew.

The little matchmaker.

I named my daughter after my daughter. Rings within rings, infinity signs that never cross—science fiction is never as simple as the novels.

My daughter has poisoned the Doctor.

She tried to kill him five times in as many minutes. Gun, banana, knife, poison….

The last is succeeding.

"Shut up, I'm dying."

That's him, that's so him, the Time Lord who doesn't know what he's doing. His brilliant plan of not dying needs more work.

Melody has Time Lord DNA from being conceived in the Time Vortex.

The TARDIS is alive. Idris, the eleven-dimensional matrix, exists across all time and space simultaneously. Did she plan this? The moment she crashed into the backyard of a seven-year-old girl praying to Santa about the crack in her wall, did she see this blond, curly-haired archeologist and smile?

Time travel will be the death of us. I cannot see Rory and I growing old anymore. Even the surreal Leadsworth of the Dream Lord is too mundane now. Rory's ponytail—if that was our adventure, a ponytail and a planet belly-was it foreshadowing that we can't leave the TARDIS and pick up where we left off?

I don't care what she does/did/will do (we need a new tense for time travelers.) She's saved the universe, saved me, saved the Doctor. I can see past what she is because I already know what she will become. I've seen the outcome of this weaving in progress, how the knotted threads turn into a beautiful picture.

And she's my daughter. How dare these tiny people in their pixelating robot torture her? The Doctor has already forgiven her—why must they claim his right to vengeance.

Oh, Doctor, how many times must I watch you die?

Mixed signals, indeed. How does she become the River we know?

The River who jumped—jumps—will jump out of a passing spaceship just before it crashes to be caught by the TARDIS—which only knows where to materialize because of a message in a museum.

The River who killed a Dalek as the world crumbled in around her?

The River who might marry him someday?

When I stumbled through the forest, barely missing a stone hand as the teleport flashed, was there something I missed, telling me that River was more than a stranger?

Rory, is there such a thing as free will, or is this all fate?

Would either make it better?

I never want to play with dolls again. I used to dream of having a little girl and playing dolls with her—or did I? I can't remember playing dolls after the Doctor crashed into my backyard.

Mels and I always were playing raggedy Doctor, though. I had even made a model TARDIS from a fridge box; we used to pretend it was bigger on the inside, until we left it out in the rain and Mum threw it out. Sometimes we even had Rory dress up in Dad's shirt and bow tie.

I have two timelines in my head—one without Mum and Dad, one with them. Most of the time, they blend into one broth, with only the significant moments standing out. Rory's proposal, graduating high school…

Rory has three: cracked, mended, and Roman. The latter, the longest, stretching from early invasions to the days of King Arthur (was Arthur real? I should ask him?), William the Conqueror, Henry VIII, the American Revolution, World War 1…

If he ever tires of being a nurse, he could be a history professor.

Our daughter is imprisoned in a 52nd-century facility for killing a good man, who might be our best friend.

I don't have the courage to conceive again. Even if we walked back into Leadsworth this moment, even if we moved into the furthest wilderness, Time would find us and force us back into her whirling streams.

See /hwsyi4aScmA for a video take on this idea.