Wandering Star, Part One
Pairing: Ten II & River Song
Rating: Adult
Summary: The Doctor's clone is abandoned in Pete's World after Rose returns to the TARDIS with her original Doctor. Ten II is heartbroken, but eventually finds hope thanks to the support of the Tylers, his new university post and an unexpected friend named River Song. What can they teach each other about love and loss?
Author's Note: I started writing this last month and couldn't stop: it's my latest obsession. My main goal was to test the pairing to see if I could make myself believe it. Of course, this story takes place after Forest of the Dead, (but before Matt Smith's era) at which point I found River's character to be the most compelling. Here is a reimagining of her as she could have developed, but also an in-depth portrait of Ten II. Who would he become without Rose? How would he deal with his newfound humanity? Let's find out.
The Doctor shifted in his chair as the Dean folded his hands delicately on the immaculate desk before him.
“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of that particular application of super-symmetry and mathematics,” the elderly man said politely.
The Doctor smiled briefly and controlled the urge to snort derisively, an urge only compounded by the influence of Donna’s irreverent personality. He’d have to get used to living amongst humans on the peer level. Persistent rudeness only served when one could be as nomadic as they were transient, since it typically resulted in getting chased off a majority of planets. Here on Pete’s World, he needed to be rooted in something. He needed to belong.
“I’ve invented it,” the Doctor explained, smiling automatically. “I call it non-commutative geometry, where quantum space is built into the notion of space-time. I’m interested in pursuing the structural integrity of theoretical mechanics as related to my thesis. If I’m right, I might just have invented time travel, but that remains to be seen.”
“Fascinating,” the Dean commented. “Yet you haven’t held a professorial post before? Nor published? I’m sorry, Dr. Noble, it’s just so unusual to run into someone of your capacity sans academic background.”
“Right,” the Doctor coughed, pulling a piece of paper out of his briefcase with a flourish. “You'll want to review my C.V. You’ll note I’ve been at the Torchwood Institute the last fifteen years. Although the nature of my projects there are largely classified, the director Pete Tyler can attest to my expertise.”
“And your desire to join the public realm?” the Dean prompted. “From whence did that manifest?”
The Doctor uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, navigating between the blatant truth and something far less painful.
“I’m suppose I’m weary of isolation,” he said, settling for something in between. “I’d like to pass on my work to the next generation. I have so much to give.”
“I believe you do, Dr. Noble,” the Dean agreed as he extended his hand. “Welcome to the University of London.”
--
The Doctor enjoyed lecturing to a willing audience, and his students always had the most insightful questions. He often stayed extended hours after class in order to discuss particular problematic issues with his brightest pupils. But eventually, he had to return home to his small, one-bedroom flat, and that time was the bleakest for him.
He drank his tea late in the evening after dinner, and usually found himself staring out the large oval window of his kitchen nook. His residence was on the outskirts of London, where the minimized light pollution allowed him to gaze at the stars, even if it was only on the most superficial level. He spent his evenings heaving heavy sighs as the bright twinkling super giants seemed to sigh back at him.
It was worse without her. The Doctor could hardly think her name, and never dared to speak it aloud, even when he was with her father. Pete had been so compassionate when the Doctor had turned up on his doorstep, abandoned and resourceless in an alternate universe. Jackie had been wonderful as well, trying everything she could think of to lift his spirits, but her eyes had overwhelmed him with their likeness to her lost daughter. Rose had left them for the “real” Doctor on the other side of a mended crack in the universe, and at first, it was too much to bear to catch those little glimpses of her in Jackie’s face. He avoided her for weeks before she tracked him down, and forced him to accept her friendship. Her persistence too was just like her daughter’s, and he found himself thankful for that.
The Doctor had gone to work for Torchwood, but only for a little while. He’d quickly grown intolerant of institutional procedures, which only served to stymie his creativity. Pete had tried his best to placate his most brilliant employee, but in the end, they both agreed that the Doctor worked best on his own.
Although the Doctor had enjoyed his liberation from Torchwood, he quickly realized his days were growing monotonous. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life nursing the wound Rose Tyler and his double had left behind. He was badly bruised, but not broken. He wouldn’t give up on this gift of life fate had dealt him, regardless of the consequences it had rendered. This was the one adventure he’d never had, and he intended to make something of it.
--
Oddly enough, it was little Tony who had suggested the University. When dining over at the Tyler mansion, as the Doctor frequently came to do, the toddler had overheard a heated conversation between his mother and their eccentric friend.
“You can’t expect me to build a TARDIS out of thin air!” the Doctor balked with due irritation.
“Well why not?” Jackie retorted. “You’re the brilliant alien! I’m sure you could MacGyver something out of a piece of string and a banana, if you were motivated. I hate to see you like this. You’re so…bored! It’s not like you!”
“What’s like me?” the Doctor objected as he threw his hands up into the air. “I don’t even know! I’m part human female now, at least…cognitively! How the hell am I supposed to deal with that? And you want me to pull off things that I’m not even capable of anymore. It’s over Jackie, I’m not HIM anymore. I’m something else, something unknown. I have to find my own way.”
“You ARE the Doctor,” Jackie disagreed firmly. “And whatever you need to do, you’ll accomplish it. I know you will. You just need to learn some new things, is all.”
“You have to go to school!” Tony interrupted with a scream of glee.
The Doctor’s jaw dropped as a small plastic letter block hit him in the side of the face.
“The Doctor has to go to school!” Tony cried riotously. “So he won’t be a git anymore!”
“Tony!” Pete scolded. “We don’t call anyone a git! It’s not nice! And don’t throw things at people!”
“Where did he pick that up?” Jackie demanded. “Pete, did you teach him that word?”
Pete turned bright red, giving away the obvious fact that he had, but still tried to cover for it. “S’probably that awful Bobinogs show he’s always watching!” he protested.
Jackie shook her head in disgust. “Oh, I sincerely doubt that, Mr. Tyler! Honestly, what are you thinking!”
As the couple continued to squabble, it occurred to the Doctor that Tony was right. He needed to return to something that made him happy, and being in an environment where he had the ability to make a difference was certainly on that list.
“Oi! I should be a Professor!” the Doctor said suddenly, interrupting the Tylers before their fight could turn into a full-force battle.
“What’s that?” Jackie asked, turning her angry gaze toward the Doctor.
“Pete, could you write me a letter of recommendation?” the Doctor requested. “I think I’d like to teach at the University of London. At least I could give it a go.”
Jackie surprised him by nodding approvingly. “You’d be fantastic. I know you would,” she said supportively.
And he was. His students worshipped him, and so many of them bowled him over with their tenacious desire to learn and experience new things. Had he a TARDIS, he would have whisked them all off in a heartbeat. He’d never really considered having more than a few companions at one time, but a traveling classroom suddenly appealed to him. He daydreamed about taking his students to the formation of a black hole on a lark, or the beginning of the universe as he’d done with Donna.
So he reconnected with human nature, the one thing he could still believe in after all he’d been through. But every school day had to end, and he was always left wanting more to do. He could never be busy enough.
The Doctor sighed deeply as he set his tea mug in the sink and shuffled off to bed, still mystified by the all-too human need for sleep, but also thankful. It was eight hours that he didn’t have to think about all he’d lost, and all that he had yet to overcome.
--
Dr. Song picked up speed as she raced across the courtyard, hardly noticing the sea of bodies as she navigated between traveling students. She was going to be late for lecture again, and it wouldn’t look good if she continued to be tardy. Her professorial position was an addendum to her research funding, and she wouldn’t let anything compromise the dig, especially when it was about to yield the results of her decade-long study.
Unfortunately, Dr. Song’s huge stack of paperwork was not cooperating in the blustery London wind, and as it monopolized her attention, she tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell to the ground.
The obstacle groaned in pain, causing River to jerk up and orient herself to the situation.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going!” she demanded angrily as she snatched at her fleeing papers.
“Where I’m going?” a lean stranger protested. “You walked into me, thankyouverymuch!”
The Doctor sat up and rubbed testily at his aching shin as the wind tousled through his fine brown hair. River glanced over at him and rolled her eyes at his ministrations before jumping to her feet.
“Aren’t you even going to help me?” she spat. “My student’s tests are going to be halfway to Dublin!”
The Doctor grimaced as he looked into her face for the first time, and then froze.
“Well?” River insisted, but he was shaking his head in disbelief as he stood to her level.
“It’s you,” he breathed in amazement. “From the Library…”
“I’m there all the time,” River said obviously. “What of it?”
“Oh,” the Doctor replied uneasily. “Right. We…haven’t met yet.”
“Well I’m Dr. River Song,” she reported. “The professor who's going to lose her job thanks to you sir!”
“Doctor,” the Doctor corrected.
“Doctor?” River echoed irritatedly.
He tripped over the usual response. Somehow he knew ‘just the Doctor’ wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
“James Noble,” he said, feeling inauthentic. “Physics.”
“Oh, that’s ironic,” River posited as she resumed chasing her papers. “I’d think you’d have more familiarity with the law of gravity.”
The Doctor snorted as he leaned over to pick one of her papers out of a thankfully dry fountain base.
“Gravity only explains the pull of like masses to a central agent, in our case, the ground. It neglects the attraction of our unanticipated interaction, operated upon by a force.”
River turned her attention to the Doctor as if seeing him for the first time. Unconsciously, she pushed her wavy blonde curls out of her eyes and appraised the gawky but undeniably handsome man standing before her.
“The force of attraction,” River commented, allowing her eyes to scan the Doctor’s pursing lips.
“Uh,” the Doctor said intelligently.
River began to back away, recalling her awaiting class and invariably dependent bid for tenure.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it over coffee?” she suggested. “Seven o’clock tonight at Maison Bertaux. Don’t be late. Time’s never relative for a woman.”
The Doctor straightened his tie as she turned to run off, still trying to think of a reason to turn down the invitation when she disappeared. He couldn’t think of any.
--
Hours later, the Doctor was tucked into a cozy corner of the French patisserie, sipping on a steaming latte. Every time the door chimed, he looked up eagerly, only to be disappointed when Dr. Song did not appear. It wasn’t until he was readying to leave that she showed up.
“Hello,” River said brightly as she appeared before his table.
The Doctor was going to say something rude when Dr. Song stripped off her black overcoat, revealing a short silver sequin dress. When she turned to hang her coat, he saw it was backless, and dipped precariously low. River seemed to sense him staring, and turned her head slowly over her shoulder, shooting him a coy but suggestive look.
“Oh, this old thing?” she winked.
The Doctor dropped his coffee spoon with an embarrassing clatter, and was further mortified when River bent to retrieve it, revealing her lacy black bra over a flash of skin down to her navel.
“I…thought you said time wasn’t relative,” he tried to recover.
“For a woman,” River corrected cheekily as she settled herself across the table.
A waitress appeared and River subsequently impressed the Doctor by ordering in flawless French.
“The Gateau Saint-Honore here is to die for,” she added as she returned her attention to him. “But what were we going to discuss? Oh yes! Your inevitable attraction to me. Do go on, Doctor.”
The Doctor blinked before laughing nervously, feeling more than a little betrayed by his human hormones, which seemed to delight in her flirty behavior.
“I meant to suggest that this afternoon wasn’t the first time we’d met,” he said carefully, leaning in on his elbows.
“So we’ve crossed paths before?” River asked before letting her voice drop seductively. “I think I’d remember you, Doctor.”
He smiled with dizzy pleasure before shrugging it off. “Welll,” he croaked in his idiosyncratic manner. “I think it would have been rather difficult for you to remember, seeing as how it happened in your future.”
“Pardon?” River asked in amusement.
At that moment, the waitress returned and placed a beautiful slice of cake on the table, but River made no move toward it.
“You might find this difficult to understand,” the Doctor carried on, “but I’m hoping that, knowing what I do know about you, you won’t have much difficulty at all. You see, I met you in an alternate universe, or rather, it was an alternate you in an alternate universe, where your future interrupted my past, so that I didn’t know you yet, but you knew all about me…in my future. Now it seems, our positions are reversed. It’s really quite interesting. Are you going to eat that?”
The Doctor stared lasciviously at River’s dessert, and with a perplexed expression, she pushed it toward him.
“All yours," she offered.
“What?” the Doctor objected. “Are you mad?”
He shoveled a bite of the pastry into his mouth and rolled it over his tongue in ecstasy.
“I should ask you the same question,” River said with concern in her voice, “but I’ve a feeling you’ll tell me something even more ludicrous.”
“I will,” the Doctor promised. “Want to hear it?”
“I kind of do,” River admitted, worrying a little about her own motives. “You’re either a genius or completely unhinged. I’d like to find out which.”
“Spoiler,” the Doctor warned, “it’s both.”
“Why don’t you begin by telling me how you came to our lovely dimension?” River posited more lightly. “Pleasure cruise? Work vacation?”
“Got axed by the original version of myself, who ran off with my…friend, after we saved the parallel universe, actually,” the Doctor responded between bites.
“You’re a clone as well?” River asked with amused interest. “What’s that like?”
The Doctor seemed to consider the question carefully. He realized in that moment how liberating it was to talk about these things with someone other than Rose’s parents, even if Dr. Song probably assumed he was a nutter. Her questions made him start to really think about what had happened to him.
“I feel like a sham, honestly,” he responded bluntly. “Even though I know I’m myself, I want to overcompensate all the time. I’ve got to live up to my own example, even to myself. It’s psychologically exhausting.”
River listened to him speak and briefly forgot that she didn’t buy any of this. Dr. Noble was on a lark or off his meds, obviously, but his sincerity persistently tricked her into forgetting these details. When he spoke about his feelings, she couldn’t doubt that they were true on some level.
“It sounds very lonely to know there’s another version of you out there,” River said sadly. “We’re always told that we’re unique in every possible way, that we’re special and individual and irreplaceable. That’s not the case, apparently. What was she like, the other me?”
The Doctor’s eyes widened as he stared into River’s. “She was brave…and brilliant,” he said reverently. “She made me wish I had known her better.”
“Is that why you’re here now?” River asked. “To know me better?”
“I never thought I’d get the chance,” the Doctor realized aloud. “Maybe that’s part of it. I was talking earlier about the force of attraction, how two objects come into contact and interact unexpectedly. For our case, the coincidence should never have duplicated, especially in an alternate universe. I can’t account for it.”
River smiled as she stood to gather her coat, surprising the Doctor as she made to leave.
“Archaeology,” she said simply.
The Doctor stared at her cluelessly until she continued.
“Because you never asked,” River explained. “I’m a Professor of Archaeology. Ancient Near Eastern civilizations, specializing in cross-cultural exchange. You said you wanted to know me better, but you forgot to ask me anything about myself.”
“I have a tendency to do that,” the Doctor admitted with a blush.
River smirked as she tied her coat.
“And I have a tendency to be lenient,” River replied. “I’m a sucker for a sob story. The old ‘clone gets abandoned in an alternate universe’ breaks my heart every time. I only wish I had more time to hear the rest of it. I’m on location in Tabriz tomorrow, for a dig.”
“Maybe when you get back?” the Doctor suggested, hoping he didn’t sound overly eager.
River didn’t answer, but smiled knowingly as she stepped back from the table and wiggled her fingers in farewell.
“Til next time,” she said lightly.
The Doctor nodded mutely and watched her leave, wondering if she had any intention to see him again.
Part Two
Rating: Adult
Summary: The Doctor's clone is abandoned in Pete's World after Rose returns to the TARDIS with her original Doctor. Ten II is heartbroken, but eventually finds hope thanks to the support of the Tylers, his new university post and an unexpected friend named River Song. What can they teach each other about love and loss?
Author's Note: I started writing this last month and couldn't stop: it's my latest obsession. My main goal was to test the pairing to see if I could make myself believe it. Of course, this story takes place after Forest of the Dead, (but before Matt Smith's era) at which point I found River's character to be the most compelling. Here is a reimagining of her as she could have developed, but also an in-depth portrait of Ten II. Who would he become without Rose? How would he deal with his newfound humanity? Let's find out.
The Doctor shifted in his chair as the Dean folded his hands delicately on the immaculate desk before him.
“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of that particular application of super-symmetry and mathematics,” the elderly man said politely.
The Doctor smiled briefly and controlled the urge to snort derisively, an urge only compounded by the influence of Donna’s irreverent personality. He’d have to get used to living amongst humans on the peer level. Persistent rudeness only served when one could be as nomadic as they were transient, since it typically resulted in getting chased off a majority of planets. Here on Pete’s World, he needed to be rooted in something. He needed to belong.
“I’ve invented it,” the Doctor explained, smiling automatically. “I call it non-commutative geometry, where quantum space is built into the notion of space-time. I’m interested in pursuing the structural integrity of theoretical mechanics as related to my thesis. If I’m right, I might just have invented time travel, but that remains to be seen.”
“Fascinating,” the Dean commented. “Yet you haven’t held a professorial post before? Nor published? I’m sorry, Dr. Noble, it’s just so unusual to run into someone of your capacity sans academic background.”
“Right,” the Doctor coughed, pulling a piece of paper out of his briefcase with a flourish. “You'll want to review my C.V. You’ll note I’ve been at the Torchwood Institute the last fifteen years. Although the nature of my projects there are largely classified, the director Pete Tyler can attest to my expertise.”
“And your desire to join the public realm?” the Dean prompted. “From whence did that manifest?”
The Doctor uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, navigating between the blatant truth and something far less painful.
“I’m suppose I’m weary of isolation,” he said, settling for something in between. “I’d like to pass on my work to the next generation. I have so much to give.”
“I believe you do, Dr. Noble,” the Dean agreed as he extended his hand. “Welcome to the University of London.”
--
The Doctor enjoyed lecturing to a willing audience, and his students always had the most insightful questions. He often stayed extended hours after class in order to discuss particular problematic issues with his brightest pupils. But eventually, he had to return home to his small, one-bedroom flat, and that time was the bleakest for him.
He drank his tea late in the evening after dinner, and usually found himself staring out the large oval window of his kitchen nook. His residence was on the outskirts of London, where the minimized light pollution allowed him to gaze at the stars, even if it was only on the most superficial level. He spent his evenings heaving heavy sighs as the bright twinkling super giants seemed to sigh back at him.
It was worse without her. The Doctor could hardly think her name, and never dared to speak it aloud, even when he was with her father. Pete had been so compassionate when the Doctor had turned up on his doorstep, abandoned and resourceless in an alternate universe. Jackie had been wonderful as well, trying everything she could think of to lift his spirits, but her eyes had overwhelmed him with their likeness to her lost daughter. Rose had left them for the “real” Doctor on the other side of a mended crack in the universe, and at first, it was too much to bear to catch those little glimpses of her in Jackie’s face. He avoided her for weeks before she tracked him down, and forced him to accept her friendship. Her persistence too was just like her daughter’s, and he found himself thankful for that.
The Doctor had gone to work for Torchwood, but only for a little while. He’d quickly grown intolerant of institutional procedures, which only served to stymie his creativity. Pete had tried his best to placate his most brilliant employee, but in the end, they both agreed that the Doctor worked best on his own.
Although the Doctor had enjoyed his liberation from Torchwood, he quickly realized his days were growing monotonous. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life nursing the wound Rose Tyler and his double had left behind. He was badly bruised, but not broken. He wouldn’t give up on this gift of life fate had dealt him, regardless of the consequences it had rendered. This was the one adventure he’d never had, and he intended to make something of it.
--
Oddly enough, it was little Tony who had suggested the University. When dining over at the Tyler mansion, as the Doctor frequently came to do, the toddler had overheard a heated conversation between his mother and their eccentric friend.
“You can’t expect me to build a TARDIS out of thin air!” the Doctor balked with due irritation.
“Well why not?” Jackie retorted. “You’re the brilliant alien! I’m sure you could MacGyver something out of a piece of string and a banana, if you were motivated. I hate to see you like this. You’re so…bored! It’s not like you!”
“What’s like me?” the Doctor objected as he threw his hands up into the air. “I don’t even know! I’m part human female now, at least…cognitively! How the hell am I supposed to deal with that? And you want me to pull off things that I’m not even capable of anymore. It’s over Jackie, I’m not HIM anymore. I’m something else, something unknown. I have to find my own way.”
“You ARE the Doctor,” Jackie disagreed firmly. “And whatever you need to do, you’ll accomplish it. I know you will. You just need to learn some new things, is all.”
“You have to go to school!” Tony interrupted with a scream of glee.
The Doctor’s jaw dropped as a small plastic letter block hit him in the side of the face.
“The Doctor has to go to school!” Tony cried riotously. “So he won’t be a git anymore!”
“Tony!” Pete scolded. “We don’t call anyone a git! It’s not nice! And don’t throw things at people!”
“Where did he pick that up?” Jackie demanded. “Pete, did you teach him that word?”
Pete turned bright red, giving away the obvious fact that he had, but still tried to cover for it. “S’probably that awful Bobinogs show he’s always watching!” he protested.
Jackie shook her head in disgust. “Oh, I sincerely doubt that, Mr. Tyler! Honestly, what are you thinking!”
As the couple continued to squabble, it occurred to the Doctor that Tony was right. He needed to return to something that made him happy, and being in an environment where he had the ability to make a difference was certainly on that list.
“Oi! I should be a Professor!” the Doctor said suddenly, interrupting the Tylers before their fight could turn into a full-force battle.
“What’s that?” Jackie asked, turning her angry gaze toward the Doctor.
“Pete, could you write me a letter of recommendation?” the Doctor requested. “I think I’d like to teach at the University of London. At least I could give it a go.”
Jackie surprised him by nodding approvingly. “You’d be fantastic. I know you would,” she said supportively.
And he was. His students worshipped him, and so many of them bowled him over with their tenacious desire to learn and experience new things. Had he a TARDIS, he would have whisked them all off in a heartbeat. He’d never really considered having more than a few companions at one time, but a traveling classroom suddenly appealed to him. He daydreamed about taking his students to the formation of a black hole on a lark, or the beginning of the universe as he’d done with Donna.
So he reconnected with human nature, the one thing he could still believe in after all he’d been through. But every school day had to end, and he was always left wanting more to do. He could never be busy enough.
The Doctor sighed deeply as he set his tea mug in the sink and shuffled off to bed, still mystified by the all-too human need for sleep, but also thankful. It was eight hours that he didn’t have to think about all he’d lost, and all that he had yet to overcome.
--
Dr. Song picked up speed as she raced across the courtyard, hardly noticing the sea of bodies as she navigated between traveling students. She was going to be late for lecture again, and it wouldn’t look good if she continued to be tardy. Her professorial position was an addendum to her research funding, and she wouldn’t let anything compromise the dig, especially when it was about to yield the results of her decade-long study.
Unfortunately, Dr. Song’s huge stack of paperwork was not cooperating in the blustery London wind, and as it monopolized her attention, she tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell to the ground.
The obstacle groaned in pain, causing River to jerk up and orient herself to the situation.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going!” she demanded angrily as she snatched at her fleeing papers.
“Where I’m going?” a lean stranger protested. “You walked into me, thankyouverymuch!”
The Doctor sat up and rubbed testily at his aching shin as the wind tousled through his fine brown hair. River glanced over at him and rolled her eyes at his ministrations before jumping to her feet.
“Aren’t you even going to help me?” she spat. “My student’s tests are going to be halfway to Dublin!”
The Doctor grimaced as he looked into her face for the first time, and then froze.
“Well?” River insisted, but he was shaking his head in disbelief as he stood to her level.
“It’s you,” he breathed in amazement. “From the Library…”
“I’m there all the time,” River said obviously. “What of it?”
“Oh,” the Doctor replied uneasily. “Right. We…haven’t met yet.”
“Well I’m Dr. River Song,” she reported. “The professor who's going to lose her job thanks to you sir!”
“Doctor,” the Doctor corrected.
“Doctor?” River echoed irritatedly.
He tripped over the usual response. Somehow he knew ‘just the Doctor’ wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
“James Noble,” he said, feeling inauthentic. “Physics.”
“Oh, that’s ironic,” River posited as she resumed chasing her papers. “I’d think you’d have more familiarity with the law of gravity.”
The Doctor snorted as he leaned over to pick one of her papers out of a thankfully dry fountain base.
“Gravity only explains the pull of like masses to a central agent, in our case, the ground. It neglects the attraction of our unanticipated interaction, operated upon by a force.”
River turned her attention to the Doctor as if seeing him for the first time. Unconsciously, she pushed her wavy blonde curls out of her eyes and appraised the gawky but undeniably handsome man standing before her.
“The force of attraction,” River commented, allowing her eyes to scan the Doctor’s pursing lips.
“Uh,” the Doctor said intelligently.
River began to back away, recalling her awaiting class and invariably dependent bid for tenure.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it over coffee?” she suggested. “Seven o’clock tonight at Maison Bertaux. Don’t be late. Time’s never relative for a woman.”
The Doctor straightened his tie as she turned to run off, still trying to think of a reason to turn down the invitation when she disappeared. He couldn’t think of any.
--
Hours later, the Doctor was tucked into a cozy corner of the French patisserie, sipping on a steaming latte. Every time the door chimed, he looked up eagerly, only to be disappointed when Dr. Song did not appear. It wasn’t until he was readying to leave that she showed up.
“Hello,” River said brightly as she appeared before his table.
The Doctor was going to say something rude when Dr. Song stripped off her black overcoat, revealing a short silver sequin dress. When she turned to hang her coat, he saw it was backless, and dipped precariously low. River seemed to sense him staring, and turned her head slowly over her shoulder, shooting him a coy but suggestive look.
“Oh, this old thing?” she winked.
The Doctor dropped his coffee spoon with an embarrassing clatter, and was further mortified when River bent to retrieve it, revealing her lacy black bra over a flash of skin down to her navel.
“I…thought you said time wasn’t relative,” he tried to recover.
“For a woman,” River corrected cheekily as she settled herself across the table.
A waitress appeared and River subsequently impressed the Doctor by ordering in flawless French.
“The Gateau Saint-Honore here is to die for,” she added as she returned her attention to him. “But what were we going to discuss? Oh yes! Your inevitable attraction to me. Do go on, Doctor.”
The Doctor blinked before laughing nervously, feeling more than a little betrayed by his human hormones, which seemed to delight in her flirty behavior.
“I meant to suggest that this afternoon wasn’t the first time we’d met,” he said carefully, leaning in on his elbows.
“So we’ve crossed paths before?” River asked before letting her voice drop seductively. “I think I’d remember you, Doctor.”
He smiled with dizzy pleasure before shrugging it off. “Welll,” he croaked in his idiosyncratic manner. “I think it would have been rather difficult for you to remember, seeing as how it happened in your future.”
“Pardon?” River asked in amusement.
At that moment, the waitress returned and placed a beautiful slice of cake on the table, but River made no move toward it.
“You might find this difficult to understand,” the Doctor carried on, “but I’m hoping that, knowing what I do know about you, you won’t have much difficulty at all. You see, I met you in an alternate universe, or rather, it was an alternate you in an alternate universe, where your future interrupted my past, so that I didn’t know you yet, but you knew all about me…in my future. Now it seems, our positions are reversed. It’s really quite interesting. Are you going to eat that?”
The Doctor stared lasciviously at River’s dessert, and with a perplexed expression, she pushed it toward him.
“All yours," she offered.
“What?” the Doctor objected. “Are you mad?”
He shoveled a bite of the pastry into his mouth and rolled it over his tongue in ecstasy.
“I should ask you the same question,” River said with concern in her voice, “but I’ve a feeling you’ll tell me something even more ludicrous.”
“I will,” the Doctor promised. “Want to hear it?”
“I kind of do,” River admitted, worrying a little about her own motives. “You’re either a genius or completely unhinged. I’d like to find out which.”
“Spoiler,” the Doctor warned, “it’s both.”
“Why don’t you begin by telling me how you came to our lovely dimension?” River posited more lightly. “Pleasure cruise? Work vacation?”
“Got axed by the original version of myself, who ran off with my…friend, after we saved the parallel universe, actually,” the Doctor responded between bites.
“You’re a clone as well?” River asked with amused interest. “What’s that like?”
The Doctor seemed to consider the question carefully. He realized in that moment how liberating it was to talk about these things with someone other than Rose’s parents, even if Dr. Song probably assumed he was a nutter. Her questions made him start to really think about what had happened to him.
“I feel like a sham, honestly,” he responded bluntly. “Even though I know I’m myself, I want to overcompensate all the time. I’ve got to live up to my own example, even to myself. It’s psychologically exhausting.”
River listened to him speak and briefly forgot that she didn’t buy any of this. Dr. Noble was on a lark or off his meds, obviously, but his sincerity persistently tricked her into forgetting these details. When he spoke about his feelings, she couldn’t doubt that they were true on some level.
“It sounds very lonely to know there’s another version of you out there,” River said sadly. “We’re always told that we’re unique in every possible way, that we’re special and individual and irreplaceable. That’s not the case, apparently. What was she like, the other me?”
The Doctor’s eyes widened as he stared into River’s. “She was brave…and brilliant,” he said reverently. “She made me wish I had known her better.”
“Is that why you’re here now?” River asked. “To know me better?”
“I never thought I’d get the chance,” the Doctor realized aloud. “Maybe that’s part of it. I was talking earlier about the force of attraction, how two objects come into contact and interact unexpectedly. For our case, the coincidence should never have duplicated, especially in an alternate universe. I can’t account for it.”
River smiled as she stood to gather her coat, surprising the Doctor as she made to leave.
“Archaeology,” she said simply.
The Doctor stared at her cluelessly until she continued.
“Because you never asked,” River explained. “I’m a Professor of Archaeology. Ancient Near Eastern civilizations, specializing in cross-cultural exchange. You said you wanted to know me better, but you forgot to ask me anything about myself.”
“I have a tendency to do that,” the Doctor admitted with a blush.
River smirked as she tied her coat.
“And I have a tendency to be lenient,” River replied. “I’m a sucker for a sob story. The old ‘clone gets abandoned in an alternate universe’ breaks my heart every time. I only wish I had more time to hear the rest of it. I’m on location in Tabriz tomorrow, for a dig.”
“Maybe when you get back?” the Doctor suggested, hoping he didn’t sound overly eager.
River didn’t answer, but smiled knowingly as she stepped back from the table and wiggled her fingers in farewell.
“Til next time,” she said lightly.
The Doctor nodded mutely and watched her leave, wondering if she had any intention to see him again.
Part Two