"So we just leave her there?" Rory asked in disbelief, pacing his and Amy's room in the Tardis. He turned on Amy, "She's Mels. She's our daughter! Our little girl!"

"I know, Rory." Amy was hunched up on the lower bunk of their bunkbeds, somehow, even with the Doctor's assurances, they'd still ended up with a room with bunkbeds.

"So this is fine with you," Rory protested. "Just because he said it." He waved an arm at the door, and by implication the Tardis beyond.

"NO!" Amy stood up, glaring. "But she's not a baby anymore." He saw the tears in her eyes and backed down. "She's Mels, and you know Mels can look after herself." She waved that away irritably.

"But it's not that. She's also River. And that's why I trust him." She turned to him. "You didn't see them, Rory. The first time he saw River, back at the Byzantium. Ooh," she grinned, tearily, but with a devilish gleam in her eye, "she drove him crazy. You could see him fighting it every inch of the way. She drove him completely up the wall, but he couldn't stay away from her."

"Yeah," Rory said, "Mels has that effect."

"No, you don't understand," she said. "He's in love with her. God, he's so in love with her."

"Yeah, I got that," Rory said. With a hint of fatherly disapproval.

"But did you?" Amy walked over and grabbed his forearms, making him look at her. "Did you really? Think about it," she shook his arms. "They meet out of order. All they have are those diaries of theirs. They can't tell each other things, can't share a past like we can."

She tilted her head, catching his eye, making him really look at her. "They're both alone, all they have is each other. And they'll have each other long after both of us are dead and buried."

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his chest. "I don't want to leave her there. She's our baby. She's Mels. And if anyone else had told us to, I'd have told him where to get off!" She looked up at him, tears rimming her eyes, glaring in anger and defiance.

"But he loves her. Maybe even more than we do." She looked back up at him and grinned. "And you saw them, 200 years from now, in that diner, playing footsie under the table like we wouldn't notice." She grinned, and hit him on the shoulder when his frown dissolved into a giggle.

She hugged him tight. She whispered in his ear. "He won't be able to keep away."

She looked up at him, her eyes misty. "He's loved her from the day she was born, and I think he'll love her until the day she dies. And that's the only reason I'm willing to take his word for it."