A/N: I wanted to explore both the idea of Amy and Rory coping with being stuck in the past as well as their relationship with Anthony, and decided to combine both ideas into one fic. Two-chaptered story, this one focusing on Amy, the next on Rory.

I Woke Up in a Big City Apartment

It begins in, perhaps, the most cliché fashion possible, and for once, Amy doesn't fight the norm.

It is a dark and stormy night.

The thunder woke her and the slanting rain beating against windowpanes kept her awake and now she is sitting on her little boy's bed, arms wrapped around him.

The wind blows trash against the window and Anthony flinches closer to her.

She doesn't realize she's humming a tune that hasn't been written yet (on my knees and out of luck I look up) when

"What's that song?"

he asks and she can't answer because her throat is tight.

"Just something Mummy made up, love," she whispers.

She knows Anthony Williams is not going to have a normal life because he is, of course, a Pond, and knowing unwritten songs isn't even the half of it.

They have a little house, because Rory hadn't wanted a flat and really Amy hadn't either, and she is never so glad for a back yard as she is now, lying on her back in fragrant summer grass and staring up at stars.

Anthony is lying next to her, hands behind his head, ankles crossed, so obviously tring to mimic her own posture it's comical.

Anthony points at a star, flickering faintly red, and asks, "What's up there, Mummy?"

This is her chance, she thinks, to spot it all right here. They've come a long way since that dark and stormy night and she could answer "Not a thing, Anthony" or "What do you think is up there" or even "Go ask your father."

Instead she flops onto her side and says "Did I ever tell you about the Silurians?"

They're just bedtime stories after that, she tells herself. She never tries to insist that they're anything less than fake, but she refuses to deny their truth. So out come stories of pirates and star whales and how Venice once looked and Anthony soaks it all up and never once asks if the red-headed sprite and the brave smart idiot aren't just characters out of a fairytale.

Soon he is old enough to ask other questions.

"Why don't I have grandparents?" "Why can't I have a sibling, Mummy?" "What's the internet?" "Who is River?"

She and Rory look at each other over Anthony's head and know this is one thing they cannot lie to him about.

Amy sits with him out under the stars and tells him the story of a madman with a box, the woman who married him, and the boy and girl who had done nothing but wait for him most of their lives.

Anthony learns Roman history in school. Rory helps him study. Amy stands in the kitchen and makes dinner and listens to Rory grumble about most of the facts Anthony's been assigned to remember.

"That's not what it says in the book," Anthony insists and shakes his head.

"History," Rory says, "does not always happen like it says in the books."

Anthony starts listening a little less intently to the stories, finding it easier to believe words written in books than words spoken in moonlight.

They get a television.

Thank God, they get a television.

Rory catches her watching corny sci-fi with Anthony, trying not to laugh or cry at the ridiculous notions of aliens and space travel, and slides onto the couch beside her.

"We should write our own show," he says. "It'd be brilliant; people would love it."

She wants to sob into his shoulder but Anthony is giving them one of his odd looks again so she settles for hitting him with a pillow instead.

"Mum!" Anthony shouts in a tone entirely too loud for a twenty-three year old to use inside. "Someone at the door!"

She asks him who it is and he says "Dunno, he's looking for you" so she comes down the stairs and unlatches the screened door.

Canton Everett Delaware the Third gapes at her.

"You're older," he says, a little unnecessarily.

Amy checks the date and smirks. "Try the skyscrapers," she says, and shuts the door in his face.

"But Mum!" Anthony says in horror. "He was from the government!"

Amy ignores him and makes sure there are no black marks on her hands.

Anthony finds a painting that says "For Amy" and gives her a long, hard look.

"Have you ever lied to me, Mum?" he asks and tears prick the back of her eyes and she wants to say Yes but she really never has lied to him and she can't start now.

Anthony Williams never has a normal life, but it is more normal than Amy can remember hers ever being. He believes every word she tells him about almost-people and stone angels and archaeologists. But he's never seen another planet, never rewritten a fixed point, never seen a blue box.

Amy loves Anthony with all her heart, and sometimes she hopes he never does.