kerjen

That was when he saw it. The banner hung just where Amy’s Petrichor advertisement had been.

Amazon. For the woman who shows no mercy. River looked out with a peek of a modern robe influenced by ancient Greece, clasped on one shoulder, and maybe a chest plate? She had grown her hair too, and he loved it when she wore it this long. Elegance with wildness, everything an Amazon should be. Her look smoldered and dared someone to take her on.

A crowd swarmed around a new counter that hadn’t been there when he had worked in the toy department. Smaller versions of River’s ad were strategically placed to draw the eye. Music sounded through speakers and rose in a swell that pulled even him away from looking at River. He understood why they added this counter for Amy’s perfumes.

Large TV screens dominated the walls forming the corner behind the display. Two women in silhouette walked towards the camera. No one could mistake the figure on the left as anyone but River, not with that hair, and he knew from experience the other woman was Amy. Their walks spoke of a woman’s commanding presence, all feminine with a sway in the hips and all strength with strides that owned the ground they walked on.

They moved in slow motion and though the Doctor appreciated the cuts to women of all walks of life who had an Amazon in their hearts, he honestly had eyes only for one woman in the video.

The Doctor could see how River moved like her mother because of that unmistakable, glorious Pond in them, yet River had her own inherent strut, too. That was how it should be. He still thought the crowd had to be blind not to see they were related, but he guessed he couldn’t blame normal, linear people for not thinking timey-wimey. He conveniently ignored the fact he hadn’t guessed they were mother and daughter either until River pointed out the obvious.

He imagined them filming this commercial with Amy turning to her daughter to override the director and saying, “Just walk, River. You don’t need to act,” and fitted her words to actions by doing the same thing. Like anyone had to tell River how to be herself, but he pictured that grin aimed at her mother for being so mum about it and for knowing her so well. Amy would have checked River’s outfit, tweaking here and there, and smoothing the suit across the shoulders and down the arms. She had picked up the maternal habit and River gloried in it. He just knew she had suggested Amy be in the video with her; being solo in the print ads was one thing, but she’d never miss the chance to walk by her mother’s side. Amy, of course, would jump at the idea and give a grinning, “Let’s do this!”

They came into the light with no smiles but matching looks that dared anyone to just try it. The Doctor mentally added points to Rory for being the one who had taken Amy’s dare -- with a little push from his best mate and as yet unknown daughter. The Doctor deducted two points for that necessary push. Fair was fair.

They moved in real time once they were no longer in silhouette. Amy was dressed in her black suit and River wore an identical jacket but with a skirt, and -- Oh Rassilon, their shoes! Although, truthfully, he only noticed River’s, but he was sure Amy’s were nice too. It was Rory’s job to notice hers.

As they reached the end of their walk, they turned to each other while still looking at the camera. The Amazon logo came up between them and repeated the tagline, For the woman who shows no mercy. Another line was added: You’re lucky if she chooses you.

The crowd ate it up. Hands reached for the bottles and women teased their men, “So what do you think? Are you man enough for me?”

Petrichor with its classic ad of Amy and the tagline For the girl who's tired of waiting stood on some shelves and so did its successor, Pandorica: For the woman worth waiting two thousand years for. Women taunted their wives and husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends: “You’d wait two thousand years for me.”

Some agreed wholeheartedly; others joked, “Maybe five hundred years, but I might get bored after that.”

Every age reached for the newest perfume. He heard women who were -- as River put it -- “all sort of mature” -- discussing how glad they were for a fragrance that included them. They were not “For the girl who” anything, no offense to Amy Pond, especially as she didn’t aim Amazon solely for the thirty and under crowd. It belonged to everyone, from Amy to River, especially River whose face claimed the product for her assumed age group.

Women picked up the bottles and he saw two expressions. Some smiled with the knowledge that they were the hell in high heels women who grabbed life under their own agency, and others, including the twenty year olds, wanted to be River.

He had seen a little girl ask for Amy’s autograph when he first saw Petrichor. He bet they would ask River too because Melody Pond was a superhero.

He heard a woman inquire, “The one who owns the company, that’s Amy Pond, right? Who’s the other woman?”

“Wait a moment.” The clerk reached for what must be marketing material. “It says here... ah, Melody Lake.”

The Doctor’s grin carried nearly ear to ear -- River being both up front about her real name that linked her to her mother, but also secreting it away for the only people she let use it: her parents and him.

People came up and asked what they had missed. The Doctor heard the clerks say the video repeated every fifteen minutes and he seriously considered staying around to see it again. Then he decided Nah, he would just have the Tardis download it.

Men bought the perfume too, for the women in their lives or maybe for themselves. The only people the Doctor saw refuse to buy it were fathers of young teens, because what dad wanted to think of his underage daughter as a woman who shows no mercy?

He got into the queue and bought a bottle of Amazon. The woman behind the counter shrieked when a couple pieces of his money ran like beetles across the glass before he hurriedly put them back in his pocket and switched them for pound notes. He hadn’t made that mistake since his seventh incarnation. Still, he still thought the clerk overreacted; Ace hadn’t gotten that worked up when it happened in front of her.

He got out of the crowd and fumbled in his pockets until he found a pen. He wrote “Don’t I know it” under the line, For the woman who shows no mercy. He circled where it said you’re lucky if she chooses you on the back of the box and added an arrow to where he wrote, “Me.”

He would put it on display in the Tardis so River would be sure to see it; the Old Girl would know to hide it from versions who hadn’t modeled for the advertisements yet. He pictured her reactions: a laugh where she threw her head back; a smirk at the Me and a teasing, “Are you so sure, Sweetie?”; a sultry look with a fingernail stroking the Don’t I know it and a throaty, “Want to show me how well you do?”

Any of those would be good. All of them-- he swallowed even as the ancient man inside him made a primal noise. He would make that utterly male growl out loud when she was there to hear it.

That reminded him: new bowtie. Something for River to undo after she put the perfume down and pressed close against him. No, after he moved to her and waited for the signal that his note “Me” was true.

He caught men and women glancing at River in her ads, imagining they could be the one to take on her dare. Not you, he bragged to himself. The atavistic feeling and the power of a Time Lord showed in his stance as he strode to the men’s department.