The Defender of Time

Four

On Alessia's second day in the TARDIS, she had her very first pancake.

She'd barely slept the night before. Her new bedroom was just too enticing. She had tried on every single item of new clothing in her closet by the time her little clock (it was rather curious. It displayed numbers for her, rather than the circular clock face she was used to, but she'd grown to like it quickly) had struck two in the morning. After a few hours of restless sleeping, she awoke early, perhaps by instinct, and dressed in an outfit she had picked out from the night before. She wore a thin, pink shirt, with darker pink horizontal stripes and little ruffles on the sleeves, a pair of denim overalls, which she spent most of the morning clasping and unclasping, a pair of tall, blue and white striped socks, and bright yellow rain boots. She used the rubber bands Amy had taught her how to put in her hair to make two little buns at the base of her head. In Alessia's opinion, she looked amazing.

She'd walked out of her room around nine to find a delicious smell wafting through the hallway. She followed it curiously, leading herself to a small kitchen. Curious appliances lined the walls, and Alessia watched with immediate intrigue as Amy used a pan to cook little pancakes.

"How's it work?" Alessia asked, kneeling on a barstool for an even view. "Is there fire in there?"

Amy shook her head. "It just gets really hot, so it can cook the batter."

Alessia gaped at it, fighting against her urges to poke at the stovetop. As Amy tilted the pancakes onto a tray, Alessia looked at them intently. Little perfect circles of batter, littered with bits of chocolate and berries; it was like a dream come true she didn't know she had.

Amy set two spots at the kitchen table, leading Alessia to sit in one of the chairs. In front of her, a blue china plate held three pancakes. Alessia picked up her form and tore a chunk off of one of the blueberry ones. It was perfect.

"It's funny," Amy said, watching Alessia eat quickly. "I escaped death to become a babysitter."

Alessia ignored the insinuation of being babysat, intrigued more by the beginning of Amy's statement. "How did you do that?" She asked, curiously.

Amy poked at her pancake, leaving even lines of tiny holes in the soft batter. "We went to New York, 1938, me and Rory and the Doctor. It's a really long story, killer statues, a creepy apartment building, the works. But you know what saved our lives?"

Alessia, wide eyed, shook her head.

Amy smirked. "You see, Rory and I, we've got this daughter. And there was this book, and we were reading it, but it was the story of what we were doing while we were doing it."

"Crazy," Alessia whispered.

Amy chuckled. "I know! So, in the book, the last chapter basically said I was gonna die. Scary, right?" Alessia nodded. "But River, my daughter, the book said she broke her wrist, and she broke the statue's wrist instead, and boom! Everything's different. Nobody's dead."

"So you were supposed to die, but you lived. Because River didn't break her wrist."

Amy stuck a bite of pancake into her mouth. "Mm-hmm!" She muttered through chewing. She swallowed. "It's funny how stuff works with Bow-tie."

Alessia was in proper awe. She figured, if Amy knew this much, she could ask her the question that had been eating at the back of her brain. "Is my mum still alive?"

Amy took a second to answer, but gave Alessia a small nod after a while. "If the Doctor says so, I'd believe him."

Alessia smiled. "Where is she?"