Since I like talking about my writing am a glutton for punishment am a sheep, I’m doing the DVD meme finally - you can
request a DVD commentary of your own, but in the meantime, I’m doing
wishingwillow’s request of Chapter 8 of Water Music. Or, as she put it, the one with the beach scene.
Chapter Eight
So, to set the scene: The Doctor and his companion, Alice, have just run into a very distraught 26-year-old River. She’s frantic, she’s pissed at the Doctor, and she’s being chased by her animatronic boyfriend. She asks the Doctor to take her home, which he does, and she races out into the rainstorm. Alice has realized that she was supposed to give River some seriously important information during this trip, but of course, what with River being upset, this was never told, so Alice is something of a wreck. And here we go...
It was two days before the Doctor finally slipped out of his Melancholy and became human again (relatively speaking). It had been among the longest two days of Alice’s admittedly short life to that point - the journey on the Judoon ship notwithstanding. What made it so incredibly long was that the Melancholy had been unlike anything Alice had ever witnessed - whereas usually the Doctor was fairly high-functioning, if needlessly sarcastic and cruel, during the two days he spent locked in his own misery, he’d needed prompting in order to do anything.
I’m not sure where I came up with the idea of the Melancholies. I started writing this story well before JE, but that last scene, where the Doctor is soaked to the skin and looking depressed? Melancholy if I ever saw it.
But this is also a very different Melancholy. His other Melancholies are prompted by a specific figure appearing out of his past. This one is prompted by River’s hasty and strange departure. It’s why Alice isn’t quite sure how to treat him on this go-round.
It was only because Alice led him to the control panel that the Doctor steered the TARDIS into the Vortex.
It was only because she winced and led him to the medical bay that he fixed her shoulder permanently.
It was only because Alice handed him a spoon that he stirred the macaroni cheese for dinner.
By the time Alice went to the garden, because the smell of the apple grass and the soft rustling of the leaves calmed her and let her think, he followed her almost by habit. He sat on the grass, cross-legged, and spent hours staring at the vines.
He never spoke a word.
Alice doesn’t know it, but the apple grass which calms her kind of sends him back to a more familiar state - the apple grass reminds him of Rose. So he’s pulled back to familiar territory, because at this point, River is not familiar, and the Melancholy she inspires is definitely not familiar.
Alice brought him tea and scones and tried to read her book, but instead found herself thinking about River’s diary.
She hadn’t dared open it; she had no idea exactly when River was. Already, Alice had broken one rule, the most important rule: Tell River about the Melancholies. (More important, tell River about the REASON for the Melancholies. I’m not sure if anyone’s figured it out yet.) One stupid thing, and she hadn’t done it. She’d lost her nerve, lost her train of thought, had been crumpled on the floor of the console room with her head in the clouds. River slipped through the TARDIS door into the maelstrom before Alice ever had a chance to tell her about the Doctor, about his Melancholies, about the ghost he saw out of the corner of his eye....and now the chance was gone. Even with the TARDIS, she couldn’t go back on a timeline. (Alice is very well taught.)
So the diary sat on her dresser, closed. Alice didn’t dare break another rule.
Alice is really upset. And it actually does reverberate later on, because I’ll tell you that when they next see River, five years have passed. Originally it was going to be much longer, until I realized how badly Alice was taking this accident. And I do like Alice, I didn’t want her to suffer too badly.
For two days, she fed the Doctor scones and tea and leftover macaroni cheese. She occasionally stood him up and walked him around the TARDIS, or left him alone in the console room where he could fiddle with the controls for a bit. On the morning of the second day, she shoved him into one of the lavatories with a towel and a clean suit and ordered him to shower.
She was halfway through The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (homework, after all) when the Doctor appeared in the garden again, wearing the new suit, his damp hair already beginning to fluff up from his head. She watched him through her eyelashes as he sat nearby, staring at the vines that weaved themselves up the walls, and much to her surprise, began to speak.
“I expect she stays mad at me for a while.”
Alice looked up from her book, her heart pounding. “She forgives you eventually, though.”
He glanced at her. “You read ahead?”
“No, of course not. But we saw her when she’s 42, and she didn’t seem too upset.”
True. Alice is immensely practical. Probably why the Doctor likes her.
“What did she say to you? When I was fetching your water.”
Alice bit her lip. “Not much. She was surprised to see you again. She had a boyfriend named Aubrey - think he was the one chasing her.”
“Why surprised?”
Alice sighed; she’d been hoping he would be more upset about the boyfriend. “Even if I knew, it’s not like I could tell you.”
I think Alice hopes that the Doctor and River will fall for each other. That is, she doesn’t know it will, but she hopes. You know how Donna was a Doctor/Rose shipper? Well, Alice is Doctor/River all the way. Remember, she didn’t know Rose, has only heard stories about Rose. (Remember, she knows Jack Harkness, no way is Jack not telling Alice about Rose.) Alice is seriously instrumental in the Doctor’s and River’s relationship. She’s very much the cornerstone, but neither of them quite realize it at this stage. Well, the Doctor doesn’t. River, at age 42, knows it all too well.
He sighed, and fell back on the grass. “She’ll be home now.”
Alice closed her book and rested it on her lap. “Yes.”
“Swimming in the sea, I expect. Good swimmer, is River.”
And here it begins...
Alice stared at him. Her heart, already pounding, began to spin. “Huh?”
The Doctor sounded almost annoyed. “Alice, how hard did you knock your head anyway? You were there same as I was - River’s house is near the ocean.”
“Yeah, in the 51st century, when we saw her last time,” said Alice, growing more alarmed. “But River isn’t from the 51st century, Doctor - she’s a 25th century girl, like me.”
Whoops.
The Doctor sat back up and stared at Alice. “What?”
“Don’t you remember? She was at St Oscar’s with my brother!”
St. Oscar’s is actually canon. I may write original characters from time to time, but at heart, I am a slave to canon. St. Oscar’s was the university where Bernice Summerfield taught - I knew that using it would be problematic with my timeline, since the only time we see River in canon is in the 51st century, so I had to make some kind of reasoning for why she attends school in the 25th century, but then pops up in the 51st.
The Doctor’s eyes widened, and he scrambled to his feet, taking off for the console room. “Oh no.”
The book fell to the grass as Alice leapt to her feet and chased after him. “Doctor! Doctor! What home did you take her to?!?”
jlrpuck, who betas this along with
runriggers, made the comment of “Oh, Ten”, at this line. I always had this picture of her shaking her head sadly, tsking.
“This is not good!” he yelled back, which wasn’t a response at all, and by the time Alice caught up to him, he was staring in shock at the console monitor. “Oh, this really isn’t good.”
“What’s it say?” yelled Alice. The Doctor couldn’t speak, so she turned the monitor to face her, but the only thing showing was in Gallifreyan. Alice did the only thing possible: she kicked the Doctor. Hard.
I love Alice.
It worked. He swallowed. “Last destination: 51st century. Previous destination: 25th century.”
Programmed by River, incidentally, when they met her at 42. She programmed the coordinates for her home herself - thus ensuring that when the 26-year-old version asked the Doctor to take her home, this is where she’d end up. Great lovely paradox. Mwahahahaha.
Alice sat down hard on the jump seat, her head spinning. “And she was mad at you before.”
“OH!” yelled the Doctor, reeling back from the control panel. He began to pace around the time rotor, tapping his head. “This is...this is...no. No no no no no. She was in the 51st century when I first met her.”
“In The Library?” clarified Alice.
“Yes. That was the 51st century. And then I saw her again on Nebulon, when she was twelve-"
“Twenty-fifth,” said Alice, her voice taut.
“And at St Oscars when she was fifteen....”
“Definitely 25th,” repeated Alice; now her voice was nearly a warning.
“And then at her house-"
“In the 51st century!” Alice rubbed at her temples; not only did her head spin, it pounded.
“So what’s a 25th century girl doing in the 51st century?” the Doctor demanded, stopping right in front of Alice.
Because YOU TOOK HER THERE, you idiot! *huggles Doctor*
Alice didn’t even blink. “This is so many levels of Not Good and you are in so much trouble that I can’t even begin to comprehend how hard Jack is going to laugh. Well, laugh or completely pound you into next Thursday.”
I’m going with laugh, myself.
“We should go back,” said the Doctor.
“You think?”
The Doctor reached over and spun the temporal sphere. Alice watched the time rotor as it began to chug. Every downward pulse coincided with the way her stomach was tightening into a smaller and smaller knot. Any minute now, and she’d either be sick all over the jump seat, or she’d burst into tears. One stupid thing, that was it, and she couldn’t even tell River that much. Maybe she’d have a chance to say something when they found her again. Maybe it wasn’t all lost...
And it’s all coming back to Alice now - another chance to right her wrong, to fix her mistake, to tell River about the Melancholies...poor Alice. It’s a huge thing, too, because the Melancholies are really kind of scary a concept, especially for River. And by this point, River’s got a ton of history with the Doctor, although Alice of course doesn’t know that.
Alice glanced at the console monitor, and frowned. She couldn’t read Gallifreyan, true, but she knew one thing:
“Doctor? We’re going backwards.”
“She’s supposed to be in the 51st century.”
Alice stared at him. “What are you going on about now?”
“I met her first in the 51st century,” repeated the Doctor. “She’s supposed to be there. Maybe this is when I take her there. The TARDIS even calculated her age based on when we saw her there last - we didn’t even create a paradox, Alice. We saw her when she was 42, and she’s 26 now - we dropped her off exactly 16 years before when we last saw her.”
Clever Doctor, figuring this out. Cleverer TARDIS, dropping River in the right time.
Alice stared at him. “So we were meant to leave her there?”
“Yes!” he shouted.
“In the middle of a thunderstorm, with no warning, and after yelling each other’s heads off?” Alice shouted back.
“Why not?”
The Doctor is much more prosaic about his relationship with River. He knows how it ends, after all. Alice does too, to an extent - she doesn’t know about her knowing his name, or what that means, but she knows how River at 42 feels about him, and she saw how giddy he was when he met her at 12. She’s got an inkling of how deep their relationship went, but to her, it’s a very tenuous thing. To him, it’s a given, and one he’s only just begun to accept.
Alice might have throttled him; luckily, she remembered just in time that she couldn’t land the TARDIS single-handedly. “Remind me never to rely on your sense of timing. And we’re still going backwards.”
“First things first,” replied the Doctor. Alice grabbed the nearest lever, and held on tight.
*
Three hours and 25 centuries later, they landed exactly where they’d left River last. The rain had stopped, which was a very good sign, but now allowed them to see their surroundings, which were far different than the Doctor remembered from their first visit, when River had been well-established in the 51st century. Or, more specifically, the area where he’d locked in her house’s coordinates was different. There were no houses, for one thing - just miles and miles of land sparsely scattered with trees, and a few dirt roads where one day there would be pavement.
“We have to find her,” said Alice.
He didn’t look at his companion; instead, he reached into his coat pocket, and touched the item he’d placed there only an hour before. “I know.”
jlrpuck called me a tease for not saying what’s in his pocket. And I am. Mwahahaha.
“We can’t just leave her here.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I know you say she belongs here now - or maybe she does in another ten years - but she doesn’t know that. You have to talk to her.”
“Alice, you can stop stating the obvious now.”
There was a pause; when he glanced at Alice, he was surprised to see her almost in tears. “I have to talk to her.”
Really, Alice is just killing time here. Trying to get up the courage to go and find River, because once she does, she knows she has to tell her, and tell her quick. Poor Alice. *huggles Alice*
The Doctor kept his focus on her, wondering what she meant. “Oh?”
“I was supposed to talk to her,” repeated Alice, touching the pocket where he knew she kept her letter. “I was supposed to do it this last time. But she didn’t give me a chance.”
Ah, that letter. The mysterious letter written by Alice for Alice, which Alice gives to River at age 20 to keep in the diary, which Alice then picks up in The Library and collects, which starts them on this whole long strange trip....the letter which tells Alice to tell River about the melancholies on this very trip. Which Alice hasn’t done yet. And Alice is, remember, not one to cross timelines. She knows the rules, very well. She knows what’s at stake. Poor Alice. *huggles Alice*
“Alice, how long does it take to give someone a letter? You were alone with her in the console room for five minutes-"
The Doctor doesn’t have a CLUE about the letter.
“It’s gonna take longer than five minutes!” snapped Alice, and she rubbed her arms, frantic and anxious. “I think I see a village over there, yeah? She would have gone for civilization, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied, turning away from Alice to scan what horizon he could see through the trees.
“Well, that’s where I’m going to look,” said Alice firmly. “You coming?”
“No.”
She shrugged. “I’ll be back in three hours.”
He waited until Alice’s footsteps had died away before turning into the deeper part of the forest, and making his careful way through the trees, following the scent and sound of the sea.
It had never really occurred to him that Alice would have her own job, other than keeping track of him. He hadn’t thought of her as part of the entire River Song...thing, really. But with every visit, Alice became more and more entrenched in the story, more and more important to whatever relationship he and River were forging...had forged...would someday create. It wasn’t the two of them. It was three.
The Doctor’s beginning to figure it out. Alice is important. Actually, it was about here that I began to figure it out - Alice is really important. The story of how River and the Doctor began is really Alice’s story. It’s like “Love and Monsters”, or “Blink”, or “Random Shoes” - those stories don’t really belong to the Doctor or Rose or Martha or the Torchwood team. They belong to Elton, and Sally Sparrow, and Eugene Jones, so that’s who’s telling them. Alice is telling this story. Most of the time, anyway.
I know the fact that I’m writing an original character in a fanfic turns a lot of people off the story entirely. But the ones who have stuck around have said how much they like Alice, which is awfully nice to hear.
No wonder River in the library hadn’t wanted to tell him anything. If he’d known he would travel with a girl named Alice, he’d have known that someday he wouldn’t travel with Donna or with - well, he knew he wouldn’t always travel with them. (Two points if you can figure out who else he was going to name.) He knew that, he always knew that, but to know something in theory and know it in fact were two entirely different things.
River would have gone into the village at first, perhaps. But he didn’t think she’d be waiting there.
He’s right, actually. River did go to the village first. And she wasn’t waiting there, either.
When he finally reached the beach, the lone figure sitting on the sand, watching the waves come in, proved him right. The closer he got to her, the more certain he became: she was River. She was wearing something new, a deep blue wrap of sorts, her hair still pulled into a messy braid - perhaps he’d gotten the time right after all. He didn’t really think so, but it was nice to hope.
He sat on the sand next to her. She didn’t make any indication that she noticed him, simply wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest, chin resting on her forearms. He waited.
“Wrong home, by the way.”
I love that River just goes right into it. No greetings, no apologies, just right into what he most wanted to know. Even at 26, she knows him very well.
The tone in her voice startled him, just a little: she didn’t sound angry, or amused. She simply sounded like River, quiet and observant.
“Oh.”
“It’s all right. Not like I much liked the 25th century, anyway.”
“It was your home.”
“No, it isn’t. Wasn’t. Hasn’t been for six years, really.” River sighed, and stretched out her legs. “That would have been your fault, you know. Or maybe you don’t.”
She’s right, it was sort of his fault - her world changed when she was twenty. Which is incidentally when Alice gave/gives her the letter for her diary. The two are tangentially connected.
What makes this whole conversation on the beach interesting, though, is that it’s very much back-and-forth. River says to the Doctor at one point that they’re forever playing catch-up with each other, that they both feel as though the other is ahead in this relationship. It’s true. This conversation is not the halfway point for either of them, but it’s very even-handed, who knows more at any given time. At this point, River’s very much in charge.
“I-!” He couldn’t speak; the words died in his throat, and it was enormously frustrating. Something about River drove him to speechlessness - he wished he knew why.
Wish I did too. I don’t tend to post WIPs. I like to have all my ducks in a row, know my mysteries before I begin. When I started writing this, knowing it was going to be a WIP, I was seriously worried about it. I started leaving myself outs. I think this is probably one of them.
“You left me here five days ago, you know. The ground’s barely dried out.”
“You said six years-"
She smiled, and looked away. “I wasn’t talking about you bringing me here, Doctor.”
Nor is she talking about the letter - although, as I said, that has a lot to do with it.
He swallowed. “I’ll take you back.”
River laughed. “Home, or as a companion?”
A clue.
He began to sputter. “I - ah - I-"
“Oh, stop that, you look like a demented camel,” River interrupted him. (No idea where I got that demented camel line...) “No thanks, either way. I like it here. Even made some friends, found a place to stay, and I’ve got a job now. Something to do. All my schooling, still valid, even 25 centuries in the future. Good thing I decided on archaeology anyway, isn’t it? Now I’m really an expert.”
She’s an archaeologist...in the 51st century...expert on the 25th and previous....two guesses who she’s working for. *grin*
“You were always clever,” said the Doctor, and blinked. “Well, you’ll always be clever. I’m sure I’ll tell you that.”
“Among other things,” agreed River. She stood, shoving her hands in her pockets. “I suppose I should thank you for checking up on me.”
Oh, and here’s the fun. There were two versions of this farewell on the beach, because I wrote one late at night, and then the next day on the train, forgot I’d written it and wrote another. And loved them both, and spent a horrible week trying to blend them.
It was too final; she made every indication of being ready to leave, for the formal conversation to be finished. He didn’t want her to go. “Why’d you say you were sorry?”
River shook her head. “Can’t tell you.”
“Did I-" He swallowed. “Was it me chasing you?”
River’s eyes widened; she took a step back, which didn’t help his confidence at all. “No, it’s - it wasn’t ever you, Doctor. I mean, it was, but not - it wasn’t your fault. None of it. I was just - young. And stupid. And I’m sorry.”
jlrpuck thinks this spluttering of River’s is about Alice. It isn’t. I’m actually not sure why River is sorry, what prompted her intense sorrow and guilt over the Doctor. I know it happened four years previous to this - when she was 22 - but I’m not sure what the event actually was.
“What wasn’t my fault?” he insisted, and was halfway to his feet when River stepped further away, shaking her head. He froze, crouched on the ground, watching her. So calm before, she was growing more distressed by the moment, and he slowly eased back down to the sand, waiting.
“Spoilers,” she finally whispered with far more effort than it should have taken. She turned quickly, but not before he could see her blinking back tears.
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, ”spoilers” does not mean what the Doctor thinks it means. Most of the time, anyway - here, it’s doing double-duty.
Also, the power is about to shift...the Doctor is about to be in charge.
“River, wait!” he shouted, and this time managed to reach his feet. She waited with her back to him, and he walked around to face her, reaching into his coat pocket. He managed to pull the diary loose just as he came to a stop in front of her. “Here.”
The mysterious item in his pocket - this is why he went back in time, because River didn’t have her diary when he’d dropped her off here, and she absolutely had to have it. I thought about letting her carry it, but it was actually more important for her to have left it behind. A sort of symbol that she’d really given up on him. And he goes to get it for her, a symbol that he’s not given up on her.
Incidentally, a majority of the next exchange was what I wrote on the train.
River’s eyes widened. “My diary?” She took it from him, resting her hand over the still-new cover, brilliantly blue, with sharp corners and crisp white pages within. (The diary is only seven or eight years old at this point - well-used, but well-kept.) The way her small hands lovingly held the diary made him swallow. “I didn’t think I’d see it again.”
“You didn’t have it with you,” he said, feeling as though he fumbled every word. “I couldn’t let you - anyway. We never did diaries.”
“No,” said River softly, “we never did.”
“So,” he said, trying to reclaim some of the cheerfulness, “when are you?”
He’s trying to get back to normalcy, for them. For what he knows as normalcy, anyway. He so wants this to be better.
She didn’t open the diary; instead, she kept stroking the cover. “51st century now. You?”
“Same. Just saw you here. You were happy. You’ll be happy. And don’t go telling me spoilers,” he warned her. “I don’t think it’s wrong to know you’ll be happy.”
Her hands rested on the cover. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“What?”
I love this next speech of River’s.
“You and me. I’m always having those ‘A-ha!’ moments, little things making sense all of a sudden. You said to me, so early on, you wouldn’t bring me here. I begged, I was awful. I’d ask why not, you’d say I would see it soon enough and be sick of it, and then - spoilers. You’d laugh. I always thought you were laughing at me, a little. You knew you’d bring me here, though. I think I knew it too. Didn’t think it would happen quite this way, by accident, but-" She shrugged, and smiled. “Funny, us, aren’t we?”
River’s “early on” isn’t quite the same as his. She does beg him to take her to the 51st century, and he refuses, because he knows she’s already there. Sort of.
He settled his hands in his coat pocket. “I feel like I’m knowing you backwards.”
Which is appropriate, sometimes I feel like I’m writing this fic backwards. Actually, for the next adventure, I really am writing it backwards, because I keep getting hung up on how to get them from Step 2 to Step 4.
Power shift, incidentally - River’s turn.
“I feel the same way. The very first time I saw you, you were so, so old. But I was so, so young - you said you’d never seen me so young.”
The words jarred him - not because he didn’t remember them, but because he did, in a very different meeting. “I said-"
*snickers* Oh, the tangled webs we weave...this is absolutely a nod to The Library, just as the Doctor remembers. And it’s also exactly what happens the first time River meets the Doctor. Which is a reflection of the last time she meets the Doctor. And now the Doctor knows it.
But River didn’t seem to notice his confusion. “Spoilers.” She clutched the diary to her chest then, and took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for what came next. “I should go.”
She turned again to begin walking up the beach. He felt lost, watching her walk away from him. She wasn’t supposed to walk away yet. She wasn’t supposed to be clutching her diary as if it was the last link to anything she had ever loved. Nothing about the moment was right - even knowing that bringing her to the 51st century had been the right, if accidental, thing to do - none of it sat well. He wasn’t done yet. He couldn’t let her go away just yet-
“Alice has something to give you!”
Not quite true, but he doesn’t know what Alice’s job is. And he’s desperate to keep River a little longer. Also, trying to take control of the conversation.
River stopped, and looked over her shoulder. “I’ll look for her.”
She’s lying. Also, trying to keep the conversation in her court.
She began walking again. He took a step forward.
“Do you hate me?”
River stopped in her tracks once more, but didn’t turn around. “I don’t know.”
She’s telling the truth, mostly. She hates him, a little, but she loves him already too. She’s not sure which feeling is stronger.
“Why did you run from me?”
“I didn’t-"
They’re both fighting for power here...
“Why are we always hiding behind spoilers every time we meet, River?” he shouted, and she spun around so hard she nearly lost her balance on the sand.
“Because that’s what you’ve always done to me!” she shouted back. The tears fell hard down her cheeks, and she brushed them away on the back of her hand, sniffling.
And that ends the train exchange - I had River walk back up the beach, and he sat there until Alice joined him. But then I got home, and found the whole thing about swimming on the computer, and threw a FIT. So I reworked it.
He couldn’t speak; for a moment, he wondered which of the two of them ran in the other direction first. “I-"
River grabs the power back:
River hiccupped, and caught her breath. “Was I happy to see you?”
Proof that River is stronger, that she’s able to keep going, and even better, ask the right question. But she always was, I think, even in regards to her death. And she knows it, and so does he, and in a way, so does Alice.
“I - what?”
“In the 51st century. When you saw me last. You said I was happy. Was it because I saw you?”
And it’s funny - this question, it basically gives the power to the Doctor again, on a silver platter. River asks because she’s not sure - she wants to believe she will forgive herself for whatever horrible thing happened four years before. And if she’s happy to see him, then it means she must have gotten over whatever is plaguing her now. She’s not happy to see the Doctor here - he reminds her of that horrible event. But she loves him, and she wants desperately to be happy with his presence. So she’s essentially asking for hope.
The confusion and the doubt melted away; he tossed any notion about spoilers and timelines aside, and smiled, remembering. “We went swimming in the ocean.” She’d kissed him, under the water. He almost regretted it - not because he hadn’t wanted to kiss her, which he didn’t, not quite - but because now that he’d done it, they would never have a proper first kiss, for both of them.
This idea, which came on so strongly, surprised him so much that he was temporarily stunned, and didn’t hear River’s next words.
It’s true, too, and I’m almost as sorry as he is. They never do have a proper first kiss - the Doctor will have always been kissed by River first, and when it comes time for River’s first kiss by the Doctor, he’ll have done it already.
“Doctor,” River said, obviously repeating herself. “I can’t swim.”
He stared at her. “A girl named River who can’t swim?”
Irony of ironies.
“You never had time to teach me,” she snapped, and clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes widening. He began to laugh.
“Spoilers, Miss Song?”
“Forget it!”
“Nope,” he said, and shrugged off his coat. “Well, then. Swimming lessons commence now. I have two hours before I’m meeting Alice back at the TARDIS, and you have quite a while to practice after I teach you the basics.”
So very Doctor. Life sucks, you hate me, I just realized I’d like to kiss you, Alice is freaking out in the village, and quite possibly we’re creating a paradox. Let’s swim, shall we?
“Wait - you’re going to teach me to swim?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Is something wrong with now?” he asked, loosening his tie.
I can’t decide what makes River back away. It’s either the fact that the Doctor is essentially undressing himself on the beach (and she’s in love with him), or it’s the fact that they’ve had this incredibly serious conversation and he’s now tossing it aside in order to teach her how to swim. I think it’s probably both. Poor River. *huggles River*
“I-" River swallowed. “Only...” He watched her, slowing his movements, as she kept swallowing, backing away. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t - not from - no. You don’t know, you don’t know any of it.”
“River?”
She’s let him control the conversation for a while - she was happy to do it, really, but she can’t keep it up any longer, so she grabs it back.
“You don’t get it!” she shouted suddenly. “I can believe I’m happy in another couple of years, Doctor, and I can believe I know how to swim, and maybe I can even believe you teach me - but it can’t be now. You don’t get to kick me out of the TARDIS, and save my life, and drop me on a new world where I’m out of time, and then teach me how to swim like there’s nothing wrong! I know it’s all very well for you, but I can’t do that!”
Because of course, this Doctor doesn’t quite realize that River is in love with him. He doesn’t know the full extent of their history.
His hands drop to his sides. “River-"
“Just - just leave me alone for a while, okay, Doctor? Just go away and don’t come back for a while, because I don’t want to see you. I still don’t want to see you. You hurt too much.”
She ran up the beach to the trees, never once turning to look back at him. He wasn’t sure if the sounds she made were sobs or gasps for air.
Poor River.
*
Alice found him four hours later, just as it was beginning to rain. Her eyes ran red and her cheeks were flushed; he couldn’t tell if the damp cheeks were her tears or the rain.
Poor Alice, too. I don’t think River realizes how much it will pain Alice to dodge her, but really - it’s much better that River not hear about the Melancholies now. Much, much better.
“I couldn’t find her,” shouted Alice over the thunder, and together they sat and watched the ocean churn.
And so ends chapter eight. Chapter Nine is being a pain in the rear. I have hopes of some time in the next two weeks before Nano where I can sit and bang it out, because it’s 90% planned. Just one tiny twist I have to set in place, and then it’ll be ready for betaing. I hope so, I think it’ll be quite a lot of fun, which is good, because all three of my protagonists need a good, enjoyable romp together.