River took the corner hard, the force of her own steps as they struck the hard floor running right back through her feet and the balk of her calves. Like they didn't have anywhere else to go. She was so angry with him.
And he was sure as hell going to hear about it. He was going to have to regenerate himself a new set of ears when she was through with him, River had that much to say. If that man thought he was going to shut up just because he told her too, well then he didn't know River----
That was the point, wasn't it? He didn't know her.
That would make this easier at least. He wouldn't see it coming.
A flash of white on the floor caught River's attention. She dropped to it, somehow completely unprpared for something she should have expected.
"Antita.."
She reached out to touch her mask.
They's gotten Anita. Antita who was different. Antita, who even though she shouldn't have had favorites, still was. The only other member of her team, besides herself, not named Dave. Her student for so long, and then her teaching assistant after. The expedition was supposed to be serving as her thesis.
Damn it, but she was supposed to be getting ready to go out on her own. Exploring history.
He turned around and saw her there, cradling the mask that only contained a skull. She couldn't even have Anita's ghosting words and while he only had a vague understanding off human grief he knew that would hurt.
"I'm sorry," he said, "She's been dead for a while now."
How long had it been, exactly? Definitely since before they found CAL, that was when he noticed the shadow was missing. Maybe the swarm got spooked on the gravity platform. That would make sense, also explain why they didn't notice it.
Of course, that sort of thing wasn't what you say to a grieving friend. He knew that much, at least.
He didn't know what Anita meant to River, but she was all that was left of the team, besides Lux. He should say something to River, maybe, since she had to see her---wait, why did she have to see her?
He spun around briefly. "I thought I told you to go!"
Oh no Doctor, River's gaze flickered up to his, challenging it. You don't get to be angrier with me than I am with you in this moment.
That wasn't how this was going to work.
"Lux can manage without me."
River pulled a few breaths, counting the in her head as each one exhaled. It wasn't courage she needed, or even time. She had enough of the first to pass muster, and understood as best as anyone the certain inevitability of the second. She's traveled with the Doctor after all.
No, what she needed was control. She accepted the truth of what was happening the moment the Doctor had announced his suicidal intentions. The entire time she'd walked with Lux? She knew what that meant she had to do. It wasn't something River merely excepted. Truly, she wanted to. For him, for the library and yes, for herself. She was a bit selfish that way. But she still needed those breaths. That time spent fighting it.
A few seconds that felt just a little bit less than inevitable.
"But you can't."
River closed the space between them in four hard strides even as her right hand fisted. She pulled back, and threw her entire body into the punch that connected soundly with the Doctor's jaw.
As if River couldn't make less sense, now she was going on about how he needed her. He didn't even know her, and this project, this set up he was absolutely confident would kill him, well, he didn't need her for that either. She was clever enough, surely she knew that.
He heard the scuffle of her feet as she neared him and he spun around, questions just on the edge of his lips.
What do you think you're doing?
What are you supposed to be helping me with?
Why haven't you gone? You don't want to see this!
All of them were knocked aside as he felt something rather hard hit the side of his jaw, then the world spun as his head hit the grating near the computers.
That wasn't ego talking. She knew from continued experimentation, in varied environments that covered larks, political debates and a pressing need to run for one's life? That it was quite effective.
By her accounting she had five minute, at least. And seven at best.
She stood there for a moment, just looking over him. The Doctor that was not quite hers. He was going to be, of course. Somewhere in the future of five to seven minutes from now, he was going to be. River just wasn't going to be around to see it. That was how this worked.
Moving over to the pack she'd abandoned before, River knelt down and began to sort through its contents. On the top were all the tools of her trade. The leather kit that held all her brushes. Her data recorder and the remains of her lunch. Next was her unsigned waiver. Like layers on a dig, the deeper she went the more was revealed. The physic she'd used countless times to contact the Doctor, some notes more appropriate than others.
He was always so worried about 'who would see'. River always harbored the suspicion he was talking about himself.
There was more. Bits of technology from so far ahead she shouldn't really have access to them. He used to leave them on her doorstep, like a cat with a canary. He rather looked like one too, as he did. Her diary and yes --
Her handcuffs.
River pulled them free, stood again, and crouched next to the Doctor's unconscious form. With firm, deliberate movements she closed one circle around a fixed point of the core, and then the other around his wrist. She didn't linger as she did so. There was too much to do.
Only suddenly there wasn't.
Her fingers strayed up to trace the line of his jaw. There wasn't a bruise yet but River hoped there would be. Something left behind, she supposed. Feather light they traced up his cheek, his forehead and then to push a tray lock of hair -- no, not back. That would suggest it had a proper place to begin with.
Did that mean she just wanted to touch him then? Fine then, she could admit to that.
River had patient hands. Never a patient mind and certainly not a patient body. But her hands could sift through a site no longer than the length of her arm squared for days and never be done with it. She was watching worlds come to life in front of her. Layer by layer, hour by hour. And if she looked hard enough now, squinted her eyes and pressed close so they they were very nearly nose to nose? River rather thought she could see her own there, coming to life. Layer by layer, minute by minute.
She didn't have hours.
A part of her wanted to dump just a little more cosmic dust on the man. Dirty him up, get soot in places that were felt more than seen. Get those still-closed eyes just a few shades darker. Make him her Doctor again. She couldn't of course, but she wanted to.
Instead River just placed a kiss to his offended cheek, as her hand slipped carefully inside his suit. Fingers closed around his sonic screwdriver, then pulled it free. She couldn't risk his using it.
She measured her steps carefully, choosing a place she was certain he could not reach. There she placed her diary, her gun and both sonic screwdrivers in neat display. Not everything of hers by any means, and not everything of his. They were both too selfish to share that much. But everything that was theirs, the artifacts of a shared history in a museum that took only seconds to build.
River revisited a lifetime in those seconds.
Then it was time to show the Doctor she was just as clever as he was.
The vocal recording was enough to rouse him from his unconscious state. All he could could do was try to assess the damage. Arms, legs, neck, nose, he was fine. Next, assess what hurt.
a) Jaw. b) Shoulder. c) Head.
So, to further the assessment. Jaw hurt from punch River threw. Head hurt from hitting his head. Shoulder hurt from the way he was bent over---
Wait, River.
"No, no, no, no!"
His eyes snapped open and there she was, right in front of him. In the chair, doing exactly what he planned on doing. Only with fewer wires. How did she manage it with fewer wires? More importantly---
"What are you doing? That's my job!"
His job. His responsibility. The Doctor, or didn't she know? She kept saying she knew!
River checked her calibrations one last time as she moved to tighten the final connection. The Doctor had been busy while she was with Lux. He'd giver her an excellent start.
And now, of course, he was coming to.
She'd more than expected it, really. She'd actually been counting on it. They still had a few things between them, the Doctor and her. But that gave way to a rather old argument between them.
"And I'm not allowed to have a career I suppose?"
He had his life, and she had hers. They spent just as much time apart as they did together. He could laugh at her profession all he wanted, it was still hers. But River always knew there was some part of him that didn't understand her complete lack of desire to move all of herself into his marvelous ship. To see his frequently made point that she could be walking through history instead of working over it.
It wasn't the point of her argument anyway.
She wasn't his companion any more than he was hers. She didn't tuck her hand in his and run behind him, however small the distance, from adventure to adventure. She ran next to him.
The flippancy to her voice was unnerving. Frustrating. Nerve-wrackingly unnerving and frustrating, those were excellent words to describe River Song. What was she doing? Why was she doing this?
He moved to get to his feet, but a sharp pain in his left arm kept him in place. Well, that explained the shoulder, he was handcuffed to the side of one of the walls. He leaned himself back, putting his weight on the cuff but it didn't give.
"Why am I handcuffed?" he demanded. Was she keeping him away? She was going to kill herself this way? She couldn't just kill herself! He knew how to do this, it was his responsibility to do this!
The cuffs seemed to fit his wrist perfectly, too. No manipulations or bone-popping would get him out of it. How did she have handcuffs that fit him? More of that future she said they had that he just couldn't quite see? Well, no time like the present to ask.
"Why do you even have handcuffs?" No, not the most important question in the universe, but he was panicking and it seemed like a good time to ask.
River's smile turned wicked as eyebrows lifted over a gaze that glittered dangerously. Her hands continued to work, in absolutely no way a distraction.
Spoilers. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why did she keep insisting on tossing him little teasers but never tell him the actual---what did it matter why she had handcuffs? Right now those handcuffs were the reason that he couldn't get to her, to stop her.
And she was smirking!
"This is not a joke," he barked. "Stop this now this is gonna kill you!"
He knew how it worked, he knew how the machine would run through her spine, every blood vessel bursting, burning out her heart and leaving next to nothing behind. It's not a dignified way to die (as if there really is a way that isn't just death), and River doesn't deserve that. He can do it. He has to do it.
Why isn't she listening?
Right, Doctor. Think. What does River know about you?
Regeneration. She mentioned it, she knows you can do it. Okay, okay, use that. Focus on that. You can live. She has to see reason.
She was so angry suddenly. Angrier than before. Angry with him.
It wasn't that he's refused to listen, or that they'd yelled. There wasn't a day the didn't do one or the other, or both. It wasn't because of what she'd finally sorted out about them, and their past. It wasn't because River accepted she was about to die.
It was that she'd offered him opportunity to laugh. To banter back and forth and maybe, just maybe not think about what was happening if only for a few seconds. Why couldn't he do it? Be her Doctor for just a few seconds?
Damnable, frustrating impossible man!
Alright then.
Back to work.
"I'm timing it for then end of the countdown, there'll be a blip in the command from. That was it should improve our chances of a clean download."
What was this? Where did this self-sacrifice come from? Did she learn it from him, the future him? The him that knew her?
No, no, this wasn't right. This wasn't the way it would be, this wasn't the way he could let it be. No matter what future they had in store, he would never train a companion---or whatever she was to him---in how to die. That was his job! He'd lived long enough!
He was on his knees, hand against the rail.
Might as well start begging.
"River, please, no!"
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It couldn't be how it was supposed to be.
"Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together you knew I was coming here."
River's hands curled into fists, two of them this time. As if she was tempted to punch him all over again. Because he'd always known. And she understood why. That was the hardest part, why she wouldn't do it.
But it explained so much. The dark glances when he thought she wasn't looking. The insistence that they keep separate diaries. She'd never once looked in his, respecting the rules they'd both agreed on. What River hadn't counted on what was that she might already know what it said.
Spoilers.
"The last time I saw you?" River grasped at air, as if she might somehow pull out of it the definitive words to explain the differences between the man in front of her and the one she loved. "The real you. The future you, I mean. You turned up on my doorstep -- with a new haircut and a suit."
He'd looked so ridiculously uncomfortable.
River thought it was the suit. Or even the formality of their date. She'd been wrong though. He wasn't uncomfortable. He was just --
Well, he knew.
"You took me to Barrilium, to see the Singing Towers." And it was so beautiful. Even now, River couldn't think of it as anything but beautiful.
"Oh, what a night that was. The Towers sang."The Towers filling the air with the kind of music that brought to mind sirens and water nymphs, the skies behind them filled with a hundred different colors in accompaniment. With every rise and fall in the music, every crescendo? The sky followed.
"And you cried."
Her neck was wet with it, River remembered. Trailing down it and settling just underneath he collar. He wouldn't let her look at him, arms locked her shoulders as he held her tight. Hands caught on each of the other elbows, as if she had thoughts of getting away. But River didn't need to see. She just knew.
"You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the library. You even gave me your screwdriver. That should have been a clue."
He'd never given her one, no matter how much she teased. One time or other he's muttered something about it not being time yet. She'd accused him of being difficult.
The way she talked, there was no doubt in her mind. Her mouth moved and she spoke spoilers for the first time. Real, genuine, heartbreaking wish-I-hadn't-read-that-before-I-got-the-book spoilers. And she spoke them with clarity, confidence, and calmness.
He couldn't decide what seemed less logical to him, now. Falling in love with River, having the life she described to him...or letting her go so easily. Time could be re-written. It was a mantra in his head. It could be re-written, she didn't have to die.
She was on the verge of crying but, like Anita, she was brave. Too many brave people were dying around him. He gave her his screwdriver, she said. He strained to grab it. Or maybe the gun. Or maybe something to get himself free and save her. There was no time. She needed to stop being difficult and give him the time he needed!
Nothing he could do. Nothing he could do? Who did she think she was?
His mantra came out in an emotion-filled shout. It could be, he could save her. What would be the point of ever knowing her and loving her if she was just going to die? No! No, he wouldn't---couldn't allow it.
He'd rather never know her love than earn it and just lose it.
He could always regenerate. Meet her again with a different smile and different sort of step. He never had the sort of face to put in a portrait on an armoire, anyway.
Please. He couldn't watch her die, not like this. Not inches away from stopping her, saving her.
And he was sure as hell going to hear about it. He was going to have to regenerate himself a new set of ears when she was through with him, River had that much to say. If that man thought he was going to shut up just because he told her too, well then he didn't know River----
That was the point, wasn't it? He didn't know her.
That would make this easier at least. He wouldn't see it coming.
A flash of white on the floor caught River's attention. She dropped to it, somehow completely unprpared for something she should have expected.
"Antita.."
She reached out to touch her mask.
They's gotten Anita. Antita who was different. Antita, who even though she shouldn't have had favorites, still was. The only other member of her team, besides herself, not named Dave. Her student for so long, and then her teaching assistant after. The expedition was supposed to be serving as her thesis.
Damn it, but she was supposed to be getting ready to go out on her own. Exploring history.
Not becoming part of it.
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He turned around and saw her there, cradling the mask that only contained a skull. She couldn't even have Anita's ghosting words and while he only had a vague understanding off human grief he knew that would hurt.
"I'm sorry," he said, "She's been dead for a while now."
How long had it been, exactly? Definitely since before they found CAL, that was when he noticed the shadow was missing. Maybe the swarm got spooked on the gravity platform. That would make sense, also explain why they didn't notice it.
Of course, that sort of thing wasn't what you say to a grieving friend. He knew that much, at least.
He didn't know what Anita meant to River, but she was all that was left of the team, besides Lux. He should say something to River, maybe, since she had to see her---wait, why did she have to see her?
He spun around briefly. "I thought I told you to go!"
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That wasn't how this was going to work.
"Lux can manage without me."
River pulled a few breaths, counting the in her head as each one exhaled. It wasn't courage she needed, or even time. She had enough of the first to pass muster, and understood as best as anyone the certain inevitability of the second. She's traveled with the Doctor after all.
No, what she needed was control. She accepted the truth of what was happening the moment the Doctor had announced his suicidal intentions. The entire time she'd walked with Lux? She knew what that meant she had to do. It wasn't something River merely excepted. Truly, she wanted to. For him, for the library and yes, for herself. She was a bit selfish that way. But she still needed those breaths. That time spent fighting it.
A few seconds that felt just a little bit less than inevitable.
"But you can't."
River closed the space between them in four hard strides even as her right hand fisted. She pulled back, and threw her entire body into the punch that connected soundly with the Doctor's jaw.
Eventually he'd sort out that he taught her that.
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What?
As if River couldn't make less sense, now she was going on about how he needed her. He didn't even know her, and this project, this set up he was absolutely confident would kill him, well, he didn't need her for that either. She was clever enough, surely she knew that.
He heard the scuffle of her feet as she neared him and he spun around, questions just on the edge of his lips.
What do you think you're doing?
What are you supposed to be helping me with?
Why haven't you gone? You don't want to see this!
All of them were knocked aside as he felt something rather hard hit the side of his jaw, then the world spun as his head hit the grating near the computers.
Everything went black.
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That wasn't ego talking. She knew from continued experimentation, in varied environments that covered larks, political debates and a pressing need to run for one's life? That it was quite effective.
By her accounting she had five minute, at least. And seven at best.
She stood there for a moment, just looking over him. The Doctor that was not quite hers. He was going to be, of course. Somewhere in the future of five to seven minutes from now, he was going to be. River just wasn't going to be around to see it. That was how this worked.
Moving over to the pack she'd abandoned before, River knelt down and began to sort through its contents. On the top were all the tools of her trade. The leather kit that held all her brushes. Her data recorder and the remains of her lunch. Next was her unsigned waiver. Like layers on a dig, the deeper she went the more was revealed. The physic she'd used countless times to contact the Doctor, some notes more appropriate than others.
He was always so worried about 'who would see'. River always harbored the suspicion he was talking about himself.
There was more. Bits of technology from so far ahead she shouldn't really have access to them. He used to leave them on her doorstep, like a cat with a canary. He rather looked like one too, as he did. Her diary and yes --
Her handcuffs.
River pulled them free, stood again, and crouched next to the Doctor's unconscious form. With firm, deliberate movements she closed one circle around a fixed point of the core, and then the other around his wrist. She didn't linger as she did so. There was too much to do.
Only suddenly there wasn't.
Her fingers strayed up to trace the line of his jaw. There wasn't a bruise yet but River hoped there would be. Something left behind, she supposed. Feather light they traced up his cheek, his forehead and then to push a tray lock of hair -- no, not back. That would suggest it had a proper place to begin with.
Did that mean she just wanted to touch him then? Fine then, she could admit to that.
River had patient hands. Never a patient mind and certainly not a patient body. But her hands could sift through a site no longer than the length of her arm squared for days and never be done with it. She was watching worlds come to life in front of her. Layer by layer, hour by hour. And if she looked hard enough now, squinted her eyes and pressed close so they they were very nearly nose to nose? River rather thought she could see her own there, coming to life. Layer by layer, minute by minute.
She didn't have hours.
A part of her wanted to dump just a little more cosmic dust on the man. Dirty him up, get soot in places that were felt more than seen. Get those still-closed eyes just a few shades darker. Make him her Doctor again. She couldn't of course, but she wanted to.
Instead River just placed a kiss to his offended cheek, as her hand slipped carefully inside his suit. Fingers closed around his sonic screwdriver, then pulled it free. She couldn't risk his using it.
She measured her steps carefully, choosing a place she was certain he could not reach. There she placed her diary, her gun and both sonic screwdrivers in neat display. Not everything of hers by any means, and not everything of his. They were both too selfish to share that much. But everything that was theirs, the artifacts of a shared history in a museum that took only seconds to build.
River revisited a lifetime in those seconds.
Then it was time to show the Doctor she was just as clever as he was.
Reply
The vocal recording was enough to rouse him from his unconscious state. All he could could do was try to assess the damage. Arms, legs, neck, nose, he was fine. Next, assess what hurt.
a) Jaw.
b) Shoulder.
c) Head.
So, to further the assessment. Jaw hurt from punch River threw. Head hurt from hitting his head. Shoulder hurt from the way he was bent over---
Wait, River.
"No, no, no, no!"
His eyes snapped open and there she was, right in front of him. In the chair, doing exactly what he planned on doing. Only with fewer wires. How did she manage it with fewer wires? More importantly---
"What are you doing? That's my job!"
His job. His responsibility. The Doctor, or didn't she know? She kept saying she knew!
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And now, of course, he was coming to.
She'd more than expected it, really. She'd actually been counting on it. They still had a few things between them, the Doctor and her. But that gave way to a rather old argument between them.
"And I'm not allowed to have a career I suppose?"
He had his life, and she had hers. They spent just as much time apart as they did together. He could laugh at her profession all he wanted, it was still hers. But River always knew there was some part of him that didn't understand her complete lack of desire to move all of herself into his marvelous ship. To see his frequently made point that she could be walking through history instead of working over it.
It wasn't the point of her argument anyway.
She wasn't his companion any more than he was hers. She didn't tuck her hand in his and run behind him, however small the distance, from adventure to adventure. She ran next to him.
And sometimes?
She took the lead.
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He moved to get to his feet, but a sharp pain in his left arm kept him in place. Well, that explained the shoulder, he was handcuffed to the side of one of the walls. He leaned himself back, putting his weight on the cuff but it didn't give.
"Why am I handcuffed?" he demanded. Was she keeping him away? She was going to kill herself this way? She couldn't just kill herself! He knew how to do this, it was his responsibility to do this!
The cuffs seemed to fit his wrist perfectly, too. No manipulations or bone-popping would get him out of it. How did she have handcuffs that fit him? More of that future she said they had that he just couldn't quite see? Well, no time like the present to ask.
"Why do you even have handcuffs?" No, not the most important question in the universe, but he was panicking and it seemed like a good time to ask.
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"Spoilers."
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And she was smirking!
"This is not a joke," he barked. "Stop this now this is gonna kill you!"
He knew how it worked, he knew how the machine would run through her spine, every blood vessel bursting, burning out her heart and leaving next to nothing behind. It's not a dignified way to die (as if there really is a way that isn't just death), and River doesn't deserve that. He can do it. He has to do it.
Why isn't she listening?
Right, Doctor. Think. What does River know about you?
Regeneration. She mentioned it, she knows you can do it. Okay, okay, use that. Focus on that. You can live. She has to see reason.
"I'd have a chance, you don't have any!"
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She was so angry suddenly. Angrier than before. Angry with him.
It wasn't that he's refused to listen, or that they'd yelled. There wasn't a day the didn't do one or the other, or both. It wasn't because of what she'd finally sorted out about them, and their past. It wasn't because River accepted she was about to die.
It was that she'd offered him opportunity to laugh. To banter back and forth and maybe, just maybe not think about what was happening if only for a few seconds. Why couldn't he do it? Be her Doctor for just a few seconds?
Damnable, frustrating impossible man!
Alright then.
Back to work.
"I'm timing it for then end of the countdown, there'll be a blip in the command from. That was it should improve our chances of a clean download."
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No, no, this wasn't right. This wasn't the way it would be, this wasn't the way he could let it be. No matter what future they had in store, he would never train a companion---or whatever she was to him---in how to die. That was his job! He'd lived long enough!
He was on his knees, hand against the rail.
Might as well start begging.
"River, please, no!"
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It couldn't be how it was supposed to be.
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River's hands curled into fists, two of them this time. As if she was tempted to punch him all over again. Because he'd always known. And she understood why. That was the hardest part, why she wouldn't do it.
But it explained so much. The dark glances when he thought she wasn't looking. The insistence that they keep separate diaries. She'd never once looked in his, respecting the rules they'd both agreed on. What River hadn't counted on what was that she might already know what it said.
Spoilers.
"The last time I saw you?" River grasped at air, as if she might somehow pull out of it the definitive words to explain the differences between the man in front of her and the one she loved. "The real you. The future you, I mean. You turned up on my doorstep -- with a new haircut and a suit."
He'd looked so ridiculously uncomfortable.
River thought it was the suit. Or even the formality of their date. She'd been wrong though. He wasn't uncomfortable. He was just --
Well, he knew.
"You took me to Barrilium, to see the Singing Towers." And it was so beautiful. Even now, River couldn't think of it as anything but beautiful.
"Oh, what a night that was. The Towers sang."The Towers filling the air with the kind of music that brought to mind sirens and water nymphs, the skies behind them filled with a hundred different colors in accompaniment. With every rise and fall in the music, every crescendo? The sky followed.
"And you cried."
Her neck was wet with it, River remembered. Trailing down it and settling just underneath he collar. He wouldn't let her look at him, arms locked her shoulders as he held her tight. Hands caught on each of the other elbows, as if she had thoughts of getting away. But River didn't need to see. She just knew.
"You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the library. You even gave me your screwdriver. That should have been a clue."
He'd never given her one, no matter how much she teased. One time or other he's muttered something about it not being time yet. She'd accused him of being difficult.
"...there's nothing you can do."
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No, it just wouldn't happen. Couldn't happen.
The way she talked, there was no doubt in her mind. Her mouth moved and she spoke spoilers for the first time. Real, genuine, heartbreaking wish-I-hadn't-read-that-before-I-got-the-book spoilers. And she spoke them with clarity, confidence, and calmness.
He couldn't decide what seemed less logical to him, now. Falling in love with River, having the life she described to him...or letting her go so easily. Time could be re-written. It was a mantra in his head. It could be re-written, she didn't have to die.
She was on the verge of crying but, like Anita, she was brave. Too many brave people were dying around him. He gave her his screwdriver, she said. He strained to grab it. Or maybe the gun. Or maybe something to get himself free and save her. There was no time. She needed to stop being difficult and give him the time he needed!
Nothing he could do. Nothing he could do? Who did she think she was?
"You can let me do this!"
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That was it, really. The heart of her decision.
Who River was. And who the Doctor would be.
She wondered if there was enough time left to make him understand. He didn't have to. It wouldn't change anything.
But it'd be something.
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His mantra came out in an emotion-filled shout. It could be, he could save her. What would be the point of ever knowing her and loving her if she was just going to die? No! No, he wouldn't---couldn't allow it.
He'd rather never know her love than earn it and just lose it.
He could always regenerate. Meet her again with a different smile and different sort of step. He never had the sort of face to put in a portrait on an armoire, anyway.
Please. He couldn't watch her die, not like this. Not inches away from stopping her, saving her.
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