#anthony closed thread

"I don't know what you can do about it," Bill gulped, his eyes beginning to feel dry as he stared down the statue, "But a Weeping Angel is standing right in front of my house..."

“Don’t move-- don’t blink.” Anthony felt numb, hearing Bill over the phone, linked into his vortex manipulator. He didn’t use it too much anymore, getting a bit older, a bit settled in. There would be a time, and it was obviously nearing, as his parents had told him, that settling down and creating a life for himself exactly where he was would be all the adventure he needed...

But the Doctor and the friends Anthony had made along the way clearly weren’t quite done with him yet. And neither, for that matter, were the Weeping Angels done with his family. His parents had always been wary of cemeteries and churches. He never even stepped foot in one until he was a teenager and stayed the night at a friend’s home for the weekend, unaware and unable to come up with a good excuse as to avoid Catholic Mass Sunday morning without being rude or heretical. He’d never seen his Mom’s eyes that wide when he’d told them that afternoon. Never seen his Dad with such a dark, still look. He’d almost felt like he’d done something awful. And then they’d told him the truth with some sense of relief, since he was here and alive.

“Oh, kid, c’mon. Everybody’s somebody.” Anthony frowned, dismissing Bill’s ‘nobody’ notion. He reached in his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He took another sip of diner coffee and fished a cigarette out with the same hand holding the pack. “Don’t tell my dad. He’d fry.” Anthony left them on the table then looked Bill up and down. “You mind if I smoke?”

He didn’t know the kid, but... well, he was skinny and small and kids like that usually had asthma or something. He wasn’t interested in being total jerk off to the kid who had wandered up to him all wide eyed and shit. Maybe Bill had seen him in some place. Maybe he was a fan of his Mom’s but too shy to say so. There had only been one stalkery incident that Anthony knew of, some poor young woman who was clearly mentally unbalanced that thought Amy was writing secret messages or something. This kid seemed... maybe not normal. But... harmless.

Anthony Williams had gone from struggling author and playwright to wildly successful in the early 1990s with his hit romantic musical “The Lovers That Waited”. A tragic, comedic, impossible heartfelt tale of two kids who fall in love and by some wild circumstance the husband is sent back two thousand years into the past with his wife trapped in a box. They must wait until the box opens, two un-aging souls, desperately in love, unable to answer one another and yet so perfectly in tune they can somehow still know what the other is thinking. Anthony never had another play quiet as inspirational or as massively popular as that one, but it didn’t much matter to Anthony. His dad had been able to hear some of it before he passed. His mother lived just long enough to see him win a Tony for best musical. He wrote music, lyrics and novels and poetry. He was successful enough to live comfortably in the apartment in the city he had grown up in. 

It was the year 2022 and Anthony Williams was 76 years old. He often wondered, once the new year came along, walking down the street, waiting in line at the deli, boarding the subway, if he’d spot a familiar face. One that he couldn’t imagine would recognize him. Either from timelines not yet meeting up or the fact that he was now an old man.

He never expected Bill Davies to ring his doorbell. The surprise was evident on his weathered face before he reached up and took Bill’s face in his hands, like a grandfather might, not seeing his grand kid in so many years. He was about Bill’s height now, maybe an inch shorter, having lost a few thanks to old age.

“Well... would you look at that. Hey, Bill.” Anthony pulled the kid in for a hug, tight and suddenly felt emotional. “How are ya, kid? It’s good to see you.”

“I just...” Anthony took a deep breath, giving a small shrug. He knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to his mother for long. They’d raised him better. He didn’t like keeping secrets from them. He had so many to keep as it was from partners (try explaining time travelling parents), from employers (he could walk away from bigots who guessed he was whatever casual ethnic slur they threw, but it usually took a few weeks to figure out they were homophobic, too). But this one felt bigger. He hadn’t told them he was doing this. He hadn’t told them because it felt like a betrayal of some kind. Especially since it would be just like his parents to try and protect him from the awful truth. But it was unlikely they even knew.

He was just a baby up for adoption that they agreed to take. Anthony had never asked about his birth parents and his real parents never offered much information. There were so many kids orphaned by dead fathers and overwhelmed mothers, irresponsible sailors and girls too young to be mothers. It hadn’t really mattered all that much before.

“Peter’s sister works at the health department...” Anthony mentioned the man he was dating at the moment. Coming out to his parents hadn’t been very hard, they’d always been very clear about his freedom of expression and with whom he might end up loving. “She’s a receptionist in the adoption registry office...” Anthony cleared his throat, shaking his head. 

“My mother gave me up. I couldn’t... find out anything else, really. Just... you know, she didn’t die. She... she gave me up and didn’t want to be contacted. She didn’t leave any information. And there’s nothing about my father, either.”

He didn’t want her to get the wrong impression about his question. Fate and odds and the universe and coincidence were on his mind. Dad was a man of science but seemed to be a believer in magic and extraordinary things, all with good reason. Love, especially. That he and ‘mum’ were always with Anthony even when they weren’t, physically. Mom had a mysticism all her own. The clever glint in her eye, the way she looked at the stars at night. Like she knew things other parents could never even imagine. 

He hadn’t been talking about Mom and Dad and their impossible love story.

“So, I’ve just been thinking about... I don’t know,” Anthony smiled for a second, brief and fighting against the building tightness in his throat. “Everything that had to happen. Your Scottish parents moving to Ledworth. Meeting Dad at school, meeting the Doctor. Mels dropping the hint that Dad even liked you and leaving with the Doctor again... All the times Dad could have died and not come back... The odds of taking that last trip to New York... The odds of you getting sent back in time to 1938 and not 1838 instead or...” Anthony shook his head.

“Am I in danger?”

“No... no, not for long.” They were both hurt pretty badly. Thera more so than Anthony. He helped her to her feet, getting her to lean on him as he led her towards the blue box he could see from here. The Doctor was here. Things would be fine. But he had to get her inside before she bled out. It was hidden well enough for the Sontaran invasion to ignore it, but Anthony had heard it, though where they’d been not able to see it. The Doctor was probably gone, doing whatever he needed to help. But the TARDIS would open for him. It had to. His parents had told him about her, how special she was. How it was a blue box, a magical box, but it was more than that. She was alive. In her own way.

Anthony took a deep breath, as they got to it, looking up the height of the door. He tried to open it, but it was locked. Of course. He pressed his hand to the St. John’s sign, he worked his jaw for a moment, obviously trying to figure out what to say.

“I’m the son of Rory and Amy Williams... and I need your help.”

His hand moved down to the door handle again. Before he could touch it, the door opened. Anthony smiled, relieved and pushed it open to the warm golden glow, limping himself and helping Thera inside.