"Are we going to talk about this?" Rory asked quietly once the TARDIS has completely disappeared and they were back in their house.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Amy challenged.

"Of course I do. I want to know why you thought the fact that you couldn't have kids meant that you had to give me up."

Amy rolled her eyes and turned her back on Rory, walking quickly to the living room. He followed her closely, not ready to drop it.

"Why? Because you are the type of man to be a father. You deserve to have a gaggle of little kids following you around calling you 'Daddy.' When I found out that I couldn't give you that... I felt pretty stupid."

He tenderly touched her arm. "You aren't stupid, Amy. And I don't need a gaggle of little kids. We've got River, remember? She's about the equivalent of twenty kids on sugar highs." This made Amy smile. "We do have kids. We have River, and we have the Doctor. I don't care if it's not 'conventional' or whatever. We've got our mad daughter and her crazy eleven-hundred-year-old-Time-Lord husband to keep us busy. Tell me they don't keep us busy."

"It's not the same, Rory... You held her once when she was a baby. Those awful people took her from me every single day for hours on end, and then tricked us when we thought we had her back. We don't ever get to see our baby again, because we can't." She harshly wiped away a tear. "I thought I was holding our baby, our Melody, and then she melted, Rory. You didn't see it. It was the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. All I had left was an empty blanket."

"We've got her back, though. We raised her in a roundabout way. Don't you see how lucky we are to literally be our daughter's best friends? She's responsible for herself happening. If it hadn't been for Mels, you would have gone right on believing I was gay. Where would the Doctor be without River? Up a space creek without a paddle, as I understand it. Even if we missed her first words, her first steps, we get the incredible chance to be equals with her. Don't tell me you don't love River."

"I do love River, Rory. I love her more than anything in the universe, no offense. But I still hate the fact that we jumped from a baby being stolen, to me almost killing her in Florida, to living down the road from her for most of our lives, to her being the Doctor's wife! I remember the first time I met her as River. I think that once she realized I didn't have a clue who she was, that meant she could start flirting with the Doctor to the point of genuinely irritating him. I guessed it then that she was his wife. But I didn't even know that she was my daughter and best friend in the world! But it was so clear to me that she knew me already, she felt so strangely familiar. She looked into my eyes after I had nearly been killed by a Weeping Angel and told me I was brilliant, and it cheered me up in an instant. I couldn't explain it." She sighed and hugged Rory tightly.

"O-oh... okay." He wrapped his arms around her. "We do have a family, Amy. I don't ever want you to think that you haven't given me the greatest family in the universe."

A/N: obviously, directly after Asylum of the Daleks... The Pond Fight bugged me so much because they TOTALLY disregarded River! And I'd like to think she does in fact drop in on her parents every once in a while. Visits with her family, you know?