Nov. 5th, 2012 05:24 pm
City of Waiting Part II
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clocketpatchA bit more fic. I feel weird about posting fic set in New York after everything that's happened there in the past few weeks. I do hope that all of my Flisters in that area are okay. I spent most of October researching and writing this stuff and it was pretty traumatizing to see places I'd been looking at pictures of suddenly end up in the middle of a disaster zone. I can't imagine how much worse it must be for those people who actually live there.
Reunion by the Quay
New York City, 1961
New York was a city with history. It wasn't as old as London or even Leadworth with its castles and traces of ancient battles, but both Leadworth and London had a sense of space and spread outedness with their time. Things happened, one after another, and history was the natural progression.
In New York things happened, but everything happened all at once. All of the history was crammed into a tiny area in comparison, both temporarily and spatially. History needed a place to bury its dead.
Pushing herself up off the pavement, Amy stepped in front of one of the many suited, briefcase totting men commuting down the sidewalk. The man, keeping his eyes on the pavement, made to step around her. Amy blocked his path.
"Where's the nearest cemetery?"
"You crazy?" the man asked.
"The nearest graveyard?" Amy asked.
The man tried to push past Amy again. A few other passerby's spared them mildly interested glances before continuing on with their business.
"Damn tourists," the man muttered. "Most of the graveyards are in Queen's. Nearest place is the Marble Cemetery."
Amy tried to get further instructions, but the man, grumbling under his breath, was already on his way down the street. Amy stood in a sea of unfriendly faces, but she wasn't going to let that discourage her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled tourist guide that she'd bought while exploring the city with Rory and the Doctor. It had a fold-out map that curled over as she tried to read it. Amy braced it against a wall.
2012 felt like a lifetime ago, though objectively Amy didn't think it had been more than a handful of hours since their picnic in the park. Amy checked the nearest street signs and then ran her finger along the grid of her too-modern map. The names were the same and she soon located herself. Then she looked for graveyards. The map seemed spackled with the little cross symbols, mostly concentrated in Queen's as the man had said. It would take her days to visit all of them, longer on foot. The cemetery the man had mentioned had a notation next to it leading her further into the guidebook. It was a place of historic note, and not too far.
Amy started walking. She didn't bother with refolding the map into the book. While waiting at a crosswalk, Amy ripped it out, crumpled it into a manageable lump and then shoved both map and guidebook into her pocket. Then the light changed and she went forward.
*
The graveyard was shut. The metal gates locked tight. Amy stood against them and peeked into the tiny green oasis. Trees and grass seemed almost alien after all of the bricks and pavement and smog. It wasn't the right cemetery. She could see that at a glance. The place where Rory had been taken had been more open with the city stretched out on the horizon.
The weathered marble statues in the closed graveyard smiled at Amy through the fence. Of course she wouldn't find Rory in the first place she looked. It couldn't be that easy. But she wouldn't be defeated.
Consulting the map again, Amy decided that the cemetery she wanted had to be in Queen's, which meant that she had to cross the river. A glance at the sun told her that she wouldn't get there before dark.
There were other places she could look. She hadn't been sent to the graveyard; there was no reason to expect that was where Rory was. He could be back in Central Park. He could be at Winter Quay. He could be anywhere.
Amy shoved that last thought down and started walking, fast and determined. He wasn't anywhere; he was somewhere. He was in this city. All she had to do was keep checking the logical locations until she found him. The Quay was the closest of those locations. So that's where she went, following her tourist guide towards the south end of the island.
Amy didn't know what to expect when she arrived. An empty lot? The Winter Quay restored? A whole crowd of angels ready to jump her? The entire area was in decline: disused piers, boarded up hotels. Amy's mind kept playing tricks on her. She kept seeing movement in the shadows. Feeling imaginary stone eyes on the back of her head.
Worse, her thoughts kept wandering, and if she didn't keep a fierce hold of them they kept swinging back to the TARDIS. Like this were an ordinary adventure and soon enough she'd be laughing with Rory and the Doctor in the console room.
"And you kept wandering around, Ponds," the Doctor would say. "All around the city, aimlessly, walking right past each other practically, when all you had to do was –"
Amy stopped her thoughts and her feet.
This was where the Quay had stood. Checking the street signs she was certain of it. The smell of car exhaust and sewage on the nearby river was the same, but the building was gone. In its place sat a row of disgruntled looking shops, bars and boarding houses. Dusk was closing in and a few of the shops were turning on their neons. Dull, flickering signs with letters missing.
A group of drunks shambled along the pavement hacking and puffing on their smokes, chatting in some continental language. One of the men gestured at Amy and they all laughed. Amy felt her hackles rising; she had been leered at by more than a few men while walking around the city and she was getting sick of it.
"Oi!"
She gave the men her patented Amy Pond Death Gaze. Men had laid down their weapons. Kings had turned around their armies. The Doctor had gone wibbly and stuttered a bit. The drunks leering at Amy on a grimy street in mid-twentieth century New York laughed.
They would've just walked by her, Amy thought, but now she'd called herself out and they were closing in. And they said getting older made you wiser?
A greasy-nailed hand reached out and stroked her cheek. Amy jerked her head back, only for the fingers to tangle in her hair. Several strands painfully pulled out. The man rubbed the hair against his face.
"Pretty," he said. "You are red like roses. And pale skin, like the belly of a bloated fish!"
"You're not exactly a poet are you?" Amy asked, searching for a way out. There were at least seven men in the group and now they were fanning out to surround her. At least half of them were nearly falling down drunk. None of them looked fit or quick, but they all had wide shoulders and big arms. If Amy went down she'd stay down. If one of them got a grip on her arm she wouldn't get free.
A hand landed on Amy's shoulder and she realized that she'd been so concerned with the danger in front she hadn't been watching her back. She whirled, ready to fight. Her opponent easily caught her fist and dodged the knee she'd aimed lower.
Amy looked up to find a familiar face.
"Hello Mother, I wondered when you'd arrive."
River released Amy's hand. Amy lowered it to her side, breathing hard. The orangey sunset light caught strange shadows on River's face. The guttering neon lights flashed weird colours over her skin. She was wearing different clothing from the last time Amy had seen her –
A brown leather jacket, khakis trousers, a loose purple blouse. A closed golden locket. In her left hand she held a small briefcase. Now that it wasn't holding back Amy's punch, River's right hand rested against her hip. There was a bulge there that might've been a well stuffed pocked, but wasn't.
"What are you doing here," Amy said, "And where is –"
"First, our uninvited guests," River interrupted. She motioned at the still advancing drunks. "Hello boys, fancy a kiss?"
"Don't you dare," said Amy, eyeing River's fresh coat of lipstick.
"Why not?"
"You're a married woman."
"Oh, that's no fun. I supposed I could just shoot them instead." River registered the look on Amy's face. "Or not, honestly. I expect it from hubby dearest but I didn't think you were that boringly moral."
"I wouldn't care if you did, but it probably counts as bad parenting, telling your daughter to shoot people."
"Spoil-sport."
River drew her blaster out of its hidden holster and fired twice at the ground in front of the men's feet, then once over their heads.
"Home time boys, or pub time, whichever you prefer, but if you insist on continuing to bother my mother I'll have to shoot you all whatever her objections. And I don't think that they're very strong objections."
"If they're stupid enough to try and reason with you they can't be helped," Amy said. She looked at the stunned group of men. They all seemed frozen to the spot staring at River and Amy.
"Well, run away will you?" Amy said. "We've got bigger things to deal with."
The men ran, or rather, stumbled away down a side street. Amy sighed and then looked back at her daughter. All of the exhaustion of the day and night and day (and how long had she been awake exactly? And in how many years?) it was all hitting her at once. She wanted a sit and some food and her husband.
"Where is he?" Amy asked.
"I don't know. Not here."
Amy knew a shifty look when she saw one.
"Tell me."
"I honestly don't know," said River with enough conviction for Amy to almost believe her. "I've been searching for you both for a while now. I knew I would find you eventually. Father, I don't know."
"What do you mean, 'you knew'?" Amy asked, "Did you know when you told me to touch the angel? Did you?"
Amy was breathing hard, exhaustion giving way to anger. She watched her daughter for any clue. River looked conflicted. Her lips pursed. Amy was certain she was going to get a glib "Spoilers" and Amy swore that she wouldn't be responsible for her actions when that happened. Instead River shook her head.
"Things are going to start happening soon," River said in a low voice. "I can't stay long in this time period. Even for the best of us, the Blimovitch effect can only be pushed so far before causality starts to peel back on itself. I –"
River stopped talking abruptly and held out the brief case towards Amy.
"This is for you. It's everything you need to make a new life for yourself in this time period."
Amy didn't make a move to take the case.
"Tell me where Rory is."
"I already told you, I don't know."
They stood facing each other in the fast fading light. Mother and daughter locked in a battle of wills.
"You know something."
"Take the suitcase, Amy."
"I'm not taking anything until you tell me where my husband is, when my husband is. Anything, River. He's your father. He's Rory. I don't care about spoilers or the fabric of time. I only want to know where he is. Because if he isn't here, then why am I here? Tell me that River, why am I here?"
River was silent.
"River, please."
"Take the suitcase, Mother. I don't have much longer."
"I won't. Not until you tell me. River, tell me I'm going to find him."
"You will find him," River said immediately. She lifted her right hand off her hip and clasped it around Amy's hand, closing Amy's fingers around the handle of the briefcase. "But it will be a long time. It was after –" she paused. "I can't tell you where to search Amy, but if you keep looking you will find him. I don't think there is any force in this universe capable of keeping you apart."
River took her hands away, leaving Amy holding the case. It was lighter than she'd expected and her fingers clenched around the handle. Another strong wave of never, never hit Amy. She tried hold onto her daughter with her eyes, to keep her from turning and walking off into some dark alleyway never to be seen again.
"River," Amy asked, not wanting to know the answer, "after you go, will I ever see you again?"
"Yes," River said without a hint of hesitation or 'spoilers', "and soon. We'll be seeing a lot of each other."
The reply was too fast, too sure. Amy swallowed her relief and pressed on.
"And you, will you ever see me again?"
This time River's eyes went dark.
"I don't know."
"I love you Melody," Amy said. Her throat was getting tight again. She'd spend too much time that day crying and trying not to cry.
"I love you too."
Amy reached out to hug her daughter. There was a blaze of white light and Amy's arms closed on air. It took her a moment to realize that River was gone. Vortex manipulator activated and gone. Somewhere in the far distance Amy heard sirens and another group of drunks singing off-key. If she listened hard enough she could hear boats sounding their horns on the river, waves slapping on the bank, and some pigeons cooing as they found their roosts for the night. Traffic motors, people shouting, and tinny radio broadcasts.
All of her tears were used up. Amy imagined sinking to the pavement and beating her fists against the cement. She imagined howling and screaming at this unforgiving city, but what would that accomplish?
The briefcase was reddish brown with big, padded clasps. Amy retreated into the doorway of a boarded up shop to crouch down and open it. Balancing the case across her knees, Amy examined its scanty contents.
There was a bit of money, a key, a copy of Melody Malone's book, a few scraps of paper, a pen, a letter –
Amy didn't have the best handwriting. Her nicer teachers had called it "a sign of creativity" the rest had called it what it was: messy, barely legible, lacking effort. River took after her mother. Combined with the poor light and the fact the Doctor still had her reading glasses, Amy had to struggle to read her daughter's letter:
To my dearest mother, Amelia,
You are in the past now. You will soon discover that you cannot leave this city. The angels set firm restrictions on the movement of their prey. They wish to destroy possibilities and minimize paradox, because broken dreams are their sustenance and paradox their poison.
I think that you will be a poor meal for them since your life is wrapped in paradox and you will reclaim your possibilities even in this strange time and place.
I have given you a copy of my book. The last page is torn out. The afterword is yours to write. Remember; never show him the damage.
The Doctor is rubbish for dealing with consequences and I'm not much better. There is a way for you to send messages to your family and friends in the future, but the slow path is a one-way connection. Post your letters to Katherine's father. I've included his addresses on the back of this sheet. He'll not be very old, and he won't have met the Doctor yet, but he is a good man and can be relied on to deliver a message and keep a secret, however strange.
I've also given you a key and some money. The money should be enough for you to establish yourself. The key belongs to The Rabbit Hole in St. Mark's Place. You might not find all of the answers you want there, but you will find the means to begin your search.
Thank you for being able to love even such a child as me, Mother. When you look at the sky, remember that there are stars beyond those city lights, and somewhere beyond those stars I'm reading your letters, digging up the past and learning all about you. We are the stories that we write for ourselves, and your story has only just begun,
River So
Mel
Your daughter,
Melody
Amy swiped viciously at her eyes and placed the letter carefully back into the briefcase. She picked up the novel and flipped through it. The last page was ripped out, just as River had written. The story ended with Amy saying her final farewell. She ran her fingers over the torn remains of the final page. There were a few fragmentary letters left behind. Amy studied them for what felt like ages. Only two words were clear:
long and,wait
Eventually, Amy put the book back in the case. She picked up the key – small and silver on a thin, black cord – and slipped it into her pocket. She counted the money and discovered that she had fifty dollars in various small bills. Not a vast fortune, but enough to get by on for a few days. She put the money in her pocket beside the key, closed the briefcase, and stepped up to the edge of the pavement to hail a cab.
Reunion by the Quay
New York City, 1961
New York was a city with history. It wasn't as old as London or even Leadworth with its castles and traces of ancient battles, but both Leadworth and London had a sense of space and spread outedness with their time. Things happened, one after another, and history was the natural progression.
In New York things happened, but everything happened all at once. All of the history was crammed into a tiny area in comparison, both temporarily and spatially. History needed a place to bury its dead.
Pushing herself up off the pavement, Amy stepped in front of one of the many suited, briefcase totting men commuting down the sidewalk. The man, keeping his eyes on the pavement, made to step around her. Amy blocked his path.
"Where's the nearest cemetery?"
"You crazy?" the man asked.
"The nearest graveyard?" Amy asked.
The man tried to push past Amy again. A few other passerby's spared them mildly interested glances before continuing on with their business.
"Damn tourists," the man muttered. "Most of the graveyards are in Queen's. Nearest place is the Marble Cemetery."
Amy tried to get further instructions, but the man, grumbling under his breath, was already on his way down the street. Amy stood in a sea of unfriendly faces, but she wasn't going to let that discourage her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled tourist guide that she'd bought while exploring the city with Rory and the Doctor. It had a fold-out map that curled over as she tried to read it. Amy braced it against a wall.
2012 felt like a lifetime ago, though objectively Amy didn't think it had been more than a handful of hours since their picnic in the park. Amy checked the nearest street signs and then ran her finger along the grid of her too-modern map. The names were the same and she soon located herself. Then she looked for graveyards. The map seemed spackled with the little cross symbols, mostly concentrated in Queen's as the man had said. It would take her days to visit all of them, longer on foot. The cemetery the man had mentioned had a notation next to it leading her further into the guidebook. It was a place of historic note, and not too far.
Amy started walking. She didn't bother with refolding the map into the book. While waiting at a crosswalk, Amy ripped it out, crumpled it into a manageable lump and then shoved both map and guidebook into her pocket. Then the light changed and she went forward.
*
The graveyard was shut. The metal gates locked tight. Amy stood against them and peeked into the tiny green oasis. Trees and grass seemed almost alien after all of the bricks and pavement and smog. It wasn't the right cemetery. She could see that at a glance. The place where Rory had been taken had been more open with the city stretched out on the horizon.
The weathered marble statues in the closed graveyard smiled at Amy through the fence. Of course she wouldn't find Rory in the first place she looked. It couldn't be that easy. But she wouldn't be defeated.
Consulting the map again, Amy decided that the cemetery she wanted had to be in Queen's, which meant that she had to cross the river. A glance at the sun told her that she wouldn't get there before dark.
There were other places she could look. She hadn't been sent to the graveyard; there was no reason to expect that was where Rory was. He could be back in Central Park. He could be at Winter Quay. He could be anywhere.
Amy shoved that last thought down and started walking, fast and determined. He wasn't anywhere; he was somewhere. He was in this city. All she had to do was keep checking the logical locations until she found him. The Quay was the closest of those locations. So that's where she went, following her tourist guide towards the south end of the island.
Amy didn't know what to expect when she arrived. An empty lot? The Winter Quay restored? A whole crowd of angels ready to jump her? The entire area was in decline: disused piers, boarded up hotels. Amy's mind kept playing tricks on her. She kept seeing movement in the shadows. Feeling imaginary stone eyes on the back of her head.
Worse, her thoughts kept wandering, and if she didn't keep a fierce hold of them they kept swinging back to the TARDIS. Like this were an ordinary adventure and soon enough she'd be laughing with Rory and the Doctor in the console room.
"And you kept wandering around, Ponds," the Doctor would say. "All around the city, aimlessly, walking right past each other practically, when all you had to do was –"
Amy stopped her thoughts and her feet.
This was where the Quay had stood. Checking the street signs she was certain of it. The smell of car exhaust and sewage on the nearby river was the same, but the building was gone. In its place sat a row of disgruntled looking shops, bars and boarding houses. Dusk was closing in and a few of the shops were turning on their neons. Dull, flickering signs with letters missing.
A group of drunks shambled along the pavement hacking and puffing on their smokes, chatting in some continental language. One of the men gestured at Amy and they all laughed. Amy felt her hackles rising; she had been leered at by more than a few men while walking around the city and she was getting sick of it.
"Oi!"
She gave the men her patented Amy Pond Death Gaze. Men had laid down their weapons. Kings had turned around their armies. The Doctor had gone wibbly and stuttered a bit. The drunks leering at Amy on a grimy street in mid-twentieth century New York laughed.
They would've just walked by her, Amy thought, but now she'd called herself out and they were closing in. And they said getting older made you wiser?
A greasy-nailed hand reached out and stroked her cheek. Amy jerked her head back, only for the fingers to tangle in her hair. Several strands painfully pulled out. The man rubbed the hair against his face.
"Pretty," he said. "You are red like roses. And pale skin, like the belly of a bloated fish!"
"You're not exactly a poet are you?" Amy asked, searching for a way out. There were at least seven men in the group and now they were fanning out to surround her. At least half of them were nearly falling down drunk. None of them looked fit or quick, but they all had wide shoulders and big arms. If Amy went down she'd stay down. If one of them got a grip on her arm she wouldn't get free.
A hand landed on Amy's shoulder and she realized that she'd been so concerned with the danger in front she hadn't been watching her back. She whirled, ready to fight. Her opponent easily caught her fist and dodged the knee she'd aimed lower.
Amy looked up to find a familiar face.
"Hello Mother, I wondered when you'd arrive."
River released Amy's hand. Amy lowered it to her side, breathing hard. The orangey sunset light caught strange shadows on River's face. The guttering neon lights flashed weird colours over her skin. She was wearing different clothing from the last time Amy had seen her –
A brown leather jacket, khakis trousers, a loose purple blouse. A closed golden locket. In her left hand she held a small briefcase. Now that it wasn't holding back Amy's punch, River's right hand rested against her hip. There was a bulge there that might've been a well stuffed pocked, but wasn't.
"What are you doing here," Amy said, "And where is –"
"First, our uninvited guests," River interrupted. She motioned at the still advancing drunks. "Hello boys, fancy a kiss?"
"Don't you dare," said Amy, eyeing River's fresh coat of lipstick.
"Why not?"
"You're a married woman."
"Oh, that's no fun. I supposed I could just shoot them instead." River registered the look on Amy's face. "Or not, honestly. I expect it from hubby dearest but I didn't think you were that boringly moral."
"I wouldn't care if you did, but it probably counts as bad parenting, telling your daughter to shoot people."
"Spoil-sport."
River drew her blaster out of its hidden holster and fired twice at the ground in front of the men's feet, then once over their heads.
"Home time boys, or pub time, whichever you prefer, but if you insist on continuing to bother my mother I'll have to shoot you all whatever her objections. And I don't think that they're very strong objections."
"If they're stupid enough to try and reason with you they can't be helped," Amy said. She looked at the stunned group of men. They all seemed frozen to the spot staring at River and Amy.
"Well, run away will you?" Amy said. "We've got bigger things to deal with."
The men ran, or rather, stumbled away down a side street. Amy sighed and then looked back at her daughter. All of the exhaustion of the day and night and day (and how long had she been awake exactly? And in how many years?) it was all hitting her at once. She wanted a sit and some food and her husband.
"Where is he?" Amy asked.
"I don't know. Not here."
Amy knew a shifty look when she saw one.
"Tell me."
"I honestly don't know," said River with enough conviction for Amy to almost believe her. "I've been searching for you both for a while now. I knew I would find you eventually. Father, I don't know."
"What do you mean, 'you knew'?" Amy asked, "Did you know when you told me to touch the angel? Did you?"
Amy was breathing hard, exhaustion giving way to anger. She watched her daughter for any clue. River looked conflicted. Her lips pursed. Amy was certain she was going to get a glib "Spoilers" and Amy swore that she wouldn't be responsible for her actions when that happened. Instead River shook her head.
"Things are going to start happening soon," River said in a low voice. "I can't stay long in this time period. Even for the best of us, the Blimovitch effect can only be pushed so far before causality starts to peel back on itself. I –"
River stopped talking abruptly and held out the brief case towards Amy.
"This is for you. It's everything you need to make a new life for yourself in this time period."
Amy didn't make a move to take the case.
"Tell me where Rory is."
"I already told you, I don't know."
They stood facing each other in the fast fading light. Mother and daughter locked in a battle of wills.
"You know something."
"Take the suitcase, Amy."
"I'm not taking anything until you tell me where my husband is, when my husband is. Anything, River. He's your father. He's Rory. I don't care about spoilers or the fabric of time. I only want to know where he is. Because if he isn't here, then why am I here? Tell me that River, why am I here?"
River was silent.
"River, please."
"Take the suitcase, Mother. I don't have much longer."
"I won't. Not until you tell me. River, tell me I'm going to find him."
"You will find him," River said immediately. She lifted her right hand off her hip and clasped it around Amy's hand, closing Amy's fingers around the handle of the briefcase. "But it will be a long time. It was after –" she paused. "I can't tell you where to search Amy, but if you keep looking you will find him. I don't think there is any force in this universe capable of keeping you apart."
River took her hands away, leaving Amy holding the case. It was lighter than she'd expected and her fingers clenched around the handle. Another strong wave of never, never hit Amy. She tried hold onto her daughter with her eyes, to keep her from turning and walking off into some dark alleyway never to be seen again.
"River," Amy asked, not wanting to know the answer, "after you go, will I ever see you again?"
"Yes," River said without a hint of hesitation or 'spoilers', "and soon. We'll be seeing a lot of each other."
The reply was too fast, too sure. Amy swallowed her relief and pressed on.
"And you, will you ever see me again?"
This time River's eyes went dark.
"I don't know."
"I love you Melody," Amy said. Her throat was getting tight again. She'd spend too much time that day crying and trying not to cry.
"I love you too."
Amy reached out to hug her daughter. There was a blaze of white light and Amy's arms closed on air. It took her a moment to realize that River was gone. Vortex manipulator activated and gone. Somewhere in the far distance Amy heard sirens and another group of drunks singing off-key. If she listened hard enough she could hear boats sounding their horns on the river, waves slapping on the bank, and some pigeons cooing as they found their roosts for the night. Traffic motors, people shouting, and tinny radio broadcasts.
All of her tears were used up. Amy imagined sinking to the pavement and beating her fists against the cement. She imagined howling and screaming at this unforgiving city, but what would that accomplish?
The briefcase was reddish brown with big, padded clasps. Amy retreated into the doorway of a boarded up shop to crouch down and open it. Balancing the case across her knees, Amy examined its scanty contents.
There was a bit of money, a key, a copy of Melody Malone's book, a few scraps of paper, a pen, a letter –
Amy didn't have the best handwriting. Her nicer teachers had called it "a sign of creativity" the rest had called it what it was: messy, barely legible, lacking effort. River took after her mother. Combined with the poor light and the fact the Doctor still had her reading glasses, Amy had to struggle to read her daughter's letter:
To my dearest mother, Amelia,
You are in the past now. You will soon discover that you cannot leave this city. The angels set firm restrictions on the movement of their prey. They wish to destroy possibilities and minimize paradox, because broken dreams are their sustenance and paradox their poison.
I think that you will be a poor meal for them since your life is wrapped in paradox and you will reclaim your possibilities even in this strange time and place.
I have given you a copy of my book. The last page is torn out. The afterword is yours to write. Remember; never show him the damage.
The Doctor is rubbish for dealing with consequences and I'm not much better. There is a way for you to send messages to your family and friends in the future, but the slow path is a one-way connection. Post your letters to Katherine's father. I've included his addresses on the back of this sheet. He'll not be very old, and he won't have met the Doctor yet, but he is a good man and can be relied on to deliver a message and keep a secret, however strange.
I've also given you a key and some money. The money should be enough for you to establish yourself. The key belongs to The Rabbit Hole in St. Mark's Place. You might not find all of the answers you want there, but you will find the means to begin your search.
Thank you for being able to love even such a child as me, Mother. When you look at the sky, remember that there are stars beyond those city lights, and somewhere beyond those stars I'm reading your letters, digging up the past and learning all about you. We are the stories that we write for ourselves, and your story has only just begun,
Your daughter,
Melody
Amy swiped viciously at her eyes and placed the letter carefully back into the briefcase. She picked up the novel and flipped through it. The last page was ripped out, just as River had written. The story ended with Amy saying her final farewell. She ran her fingers over the torn remains of the final page. There were a few fragmentary letters left behind. Amy studied them for what felt like ages. Only two words were clear:
long and,wait
Eventually, Amy put the book back in the case. She picked up the key – small and silver on a thin, black cord – and slipped it into her pocket. She counted the money and discovered that she had fifty dollars in various small bills. Not a vast fortune, but enough to get by on for a few days. She put the money in her pocket beside the key, closed the briefcase, and stepped up to the edge of the pavement to hail a cab.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
I'm afraid I've gone all Beta on your chapter:
but both Leadworth and London had a sense of space and spread outedness with their time.
Not that either one's a real word, but spread-outness works better than spread outedness.
All of the history was crammed into a tiny area in comparison, both temporarily and spatially.
Think you mean "temporally"?
Pushing herself up off the pavement, Amy stepped in front of one of the many suited, briefcase totting men commuting down the sidewalk.
toting, not totting (totting's something you do to figures - ie add them up, toting's something you do with bags and cases)
A few other passerby's spared them mildly interested glances before continuing on with their business.
passersby
Even for the best of us, the Blimovitch effect can only be pushed so far before causality starts to peel back on itself.
That should be BliNovitch
She tried hold onto her daughter with her eyes,
to after tried
She put the money in her pocket beside the key, closed the briefcase, and stepped up to the edge of the pavement to hail a cab.
You referred to it as a sidewalk earlier - you ought to be consistent in calling it one or the other, and though Amy IS in America, I tihnk pavement would be more in character.
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Poor Amy indeed. She's got a bit of a wait in store for her, but if there is one thing that Ponds are good at, it's waiting.
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Yes - the Girl Who Waited and the Lone Centurion - definitely got waiting down to a fine are, both of them!