Supernova-bright, Jenny/River Song, PG-13 (Authority)
Pairing: Jenny/ (young) River, (implied River/Doctor)
Challenge: 15 Authority
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including "Silence in the Library"
Note: I was trying for a drabble set where Jenny snogged any pretty lady in sight, much to the dismay of her Dad (but oh-so like him, no?) but somehow River came in and stole the show. Not sure if it works, so please be honest. :)
Supernova-bright
River Song took the rules as anyone else her age would: with a grain of salt. She did, however, have ambitions, and if she wanted to observe the archaeological dig at the Formerly Lost Moon of Poosh, she was going to have to be the sweetest little girl she could. Yes, sir. No, ma’am. You know I’m not allowed to go into the Overseer’s tent, Jenny.
The sirs and ma’ams had been quite pleased with her. They had let her do little favors around the dig site, taught her a few tricks of the trade, and let her look (but never touch) the artifacts they found. Jenny, though, was another story.
“So? People say you can’t do things all the time, but that doesn’t mean you really can’t do them,” she had said to any obstacle River pointed out to her.
That had been the extent of their interaction during the period of the dig. Names, formalities, and a few lunches had been all they shared. River had put her heart into making an impression on Professor Delta, the archaeologist she had been paired with. Jenny had been busy doing something else. She wasn’t of any concern to River. She’d observed Jenny long enough to realize that girl was a handful, a headache, a walking supernova-bright smile, trouble with a capital T, and someone who didn’t understand the meaning of “no.” She would only ask “why not?,” like a child.
Clinching a spot on this dig took a lot of pull at their age. Jenny should have been ecstatic about the opportunity to work the site with some of the most prominent archaeologists in the field. Unlike Jenny, River understood that her own future rested on making an impression. She worked so hard to get this opportunity to observe, and by the bloody Face of Boe, she was going to get high marks of acclaim! She didn’t care what Jenny did, honestly, so long as Jenny kept out of her way. She’d determined ages ago that the blonde girl was no threat to her at the excavation. Jenny didn’t seem to have any interest in the dig at all.
So far, in the middle of watching Professor Delta brush dust off a ceremonial wedding mask, River had caught a shock of blonde hair running past in a fit of laughter; during a break for water, she had caught Jenny watching her write in her journal when there was plenty of help she could have been giving the others; Jenny had waved from her spot across the excavation site and called out to her when River was cleaning Professor Delta's tools by the washbasin.
This was what River's day of rest was reduced to. Instead of writing in her journal about all the artifacts she'd seen and the techniques she'd learned about, she ended up writing about Jenny. Jenny! It wasn’t that River didn’t like her. She honestly didn’t know her enough to get an opinion, having simply appeared one day during the dig. She just didn’t like the way she acted like a child and was always smiling.
Smiling, smiling, smiling! River scribbled a frowning face in her journal, recalling yesterday's exchange.
Jenny had approached her outside of her tent, smiling as always and posing questions about the Overseer’s tent. River had tried politely to tell her that they weren’t allowed to, no she couldn’t do anything, no she didn’t have any connections, and no she wouldn’t sneak in there with Jenny. She had asked what Jenny had wanted so badly, but the girl wouldn’t say.
“Is that why you’ve been following me? You think I can get you into somewhere you shouldn’t be?,” she had asked, instead.
“Yes. I observed you and Professor Delta. You're a vital component to the team.”
River had laughed at that. She was nothing more than a servant at this stage. “I’m flattered you think so, but maybe you should get your eyes checked. I’m only sixteen.”
“Age doesn’t matter. You’d never guess how old I am.” Jenny had flashed another smile. “But I don’t want you to guess. I want you to help.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t had help yet. I’ve been traveling alone for the longest time, and think it’s time I took someone in. It’d be another adventure. Ooh! And the running! You’ll love the running.”
Jenny didn’t look like a traveler. She didn’t look like anything, really. She was only a child, a child on a team of archaeologists, just like River. She must’ve been one of those dreamers or storytellers, with an imagination the size of her smile. River had told Jenny to forget about her stupid adventure that would get her kicked out of the dig and in trouble with the law.
Jenny had shrugged and left her alone. It was remarkably easy. Too easy.
River was in the middle of building on that thought in her journal when the bootsteps came up from behind her. She turned just in time to see the shock of hair disappear behind the tent. It clearly was Jenny, sneaking into the Overseer’s tent in the middle of the night. River called after her.
Either Jenny didn’t hear her, or she didn’t stop. It was probably the latter, knowing her. River grumbled to herself and went back to writing in her journal. She attempted to return to the account of the ceremonial staff she had began pages ago, but that turned into a rant about the next generation of archaeologists and how if they were anything like Jenny, the whole field was doomed. They would just run about looking for adventures and places they shouldn’t be, instead of preserving and learning from the past. They wouldn’t recognize any authority higher than themselves. The past would be meaningless. The past would crumble into dust. All that knowledge, wasted, because of a bunch of lazy, giddy, stupid -
“Archaeologists. They’re so funny, thinking they know everything that’s out there.”
River jumped a lightyear out of her seat, dropping her journal. When she managed to catch her breath and calm her heart rate, she screamed (quietly, since it was the middle of the night) at that infuriating girl. “What are you doing?”
“Reading over your shoulder.” Jenny tilted her head and gave another bright smile. “You called me over. I came. You were busy writing things down, so I kept myself entertained while I waited. Was I not supposed to read? Was it is a secret? I mean, yeah, big deal with these names in the Bone Diggers, but they’re only Bone Diggers. I’m a Time Lord. Well, sort of.”
“Bone Diggers?”
“Archaeologists,” Jenny explained.
“Time Lord?”
Jenny shrugged.
River shook her head furiously, and bent to pick up her journal. She’d heard stories, but that’s all they were. Stories. Heroes the Time Agents set themselves up to be (and promptly failed, if the stories about them she heard were true.) Time Lords. Boogeymen. No. “You’re barkin’.”
Jenny smiled wider. “Oh, I like dogs! Ever been to Barcelona? Not Sol Three, but the planet. I haven’t. I have this weird urge to go, though. I heard this funny joke in this satellite once. It’s something about noses, I think.”
“Jenny!” River hissed again. Did she have any filter between her brain and her mouth? “Forget that! What are you doing here?”
“Oh. I thought that was obvious. I was sneaking into the Overseer’s tent.”
River obviously knew that. “But why?”
“Well, when I asked you to go in with me and you said you weren’t allowed, I gathered that no one was allowed in, so I’d have to sneak through the back, then run like heck. I like running. Do you want to come with me?”
“We can jog in the morning. When there’s daylight. Where we’re allowed.”
“Rules schmools. I need to go in that tent.”
River turned over her shoulder, taking a long look at the pitched tent. Everything they’ve dug since setting up was stored in there. All the paperwork. All the recommendations. The Overseer himself. River had yet to even see him, or hear his voice. She glanced back at Jenny, who was still smiling. Gathering herself, River shook her head. “No. We should get some sleep.”
She began to walk back to her own tent, when Jenny stepped around her. “But you want to go.”
“Says who?” River pushed past her, ignoring the smile and the hair and the overall bounciness of her nature. She wouldn’t be won over! She was River Song, the youngest girl in her class, and the smartest, and this was her chance at making an impression on the best archaeologists in her sector of the galaxy. Observe. Learn. Impress. Three weeks at the site, with just one more to go, she wasn’t about to ruin it all because of one girl!
“All right.” Jenny’s smile and upbeat nature faded as she nodded. “Just wait here for a second, please?”
Another reason River didn’t like Jenny was because she had this infuriating ability to make you like her despite you not liking her. She agreed to wait, but she made of show of stamping her foot in annoyance.
She was going into the tent, River knew. So why wasn’t River going to tell someone? Why wasn’t River shouting and screaming and jumping up and down, pointing a finger at Jenny yelling for Professor Delta? Why did she feel . . . excited?
River pursed her lips and shifted her weight, trying her best to ignore her own inner rebellious voice begging for an adventure.
Jenny bounded around the corner, whooping once and triumphantly so as she held up the ceremonial staff River had watched Professor Delta personally remove from the layers of dirt. Ancient, he said. Legendary, he said. And it was in the hands of a girl who was smiling.
"I did it!" Jenny waved it in her face. River cringed. Ancient and legendary and she was waving it around like a baton! "And he didn't even wake up. That so wasn't any fun so I made sure I yelled for him to get up before I left. I like chases. You?"
Before River could answer, Jenny grabbed her hand and started running.
In hindsight, River could have very well let go, stopped short, screamed. Well, she did scream, and she did demand to know what was going on, but she ran with her. She ran all the way across the dig site, past her tent, and past Professor Delta. She ran and ran, with Jenny’s hand in hers and she couldn’t, as hard as she tried, feel upset. She was . . . happy.
She was happy. An ancient artifact was just stolen from the Overseer's tent, in the hands of a child, and she, a child herself, was happy. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be the good one, the nice one, the one who cared about making it somewhere in the world. She wasn't supposed to be a . . . a . . . an accomplice! Oh, now she'd done it! This girl who came from nowhere had just ruined River's chance at a future, and River was bloody well smiling.
She cursed quietly to herself, but hoped Jenny could hear her anyway. She'd just worked her way up to a rather inventive one about a fiddle and certain part of the anatomy when Jenny stopped short in front of an abandoned spaceship and squealed in delight once more. Jenny hugged her, and River strangely found herself hugging back.
Jenny pulled away, smiling and not showing one ounce of being winded, when River herself was still struggling for breath. “Thanks for your help.”
“What did I do?”
“You ran with me. It was fun, running with someone. We should do it again. Come on.” She kicked the side of the old craft and a door opened. “We can go to Barcelona next.”
River Song was just granted the opportunity of a lifetime, accompanying Professor Delta and his team on a dig of the Formerly Lost Moon of Poosh. River Song was just offered the chance to go to Barcelona in a spaceship with a girl she didn’t even know and didn't even like. She thought of Professor Delta right away, and how mad the Overseer would be.
“Oh. You don’t want to go?” River realized she had never seen Jenny frown before. She also realized she didn't like it very much. She actually wanted that smile back. It was probably because, without the smile, she wasn't Jenny, and only Jenny could be holding the ceremonial staff of the ancient kingdom of Poosh's moon, smiling in front of a spaceship and making River like her and hate her all at the same time. But Jenny was only Jenny if Jenny was smiling.
Ryker told her once how he always got the girls to smile around him. That silly boy who could've been her little brother. Who knew he would've come to use some day? So River followed his advice and kissed her, that stupid, annoying know-it-all girl, with the supernova-bright smile and the swishing hair and the complete mystery around her person. She kissed her. But only a little. Just on the lips. For a quick second. She didn’t really like it. Not really.
She smiled at Jenny, after she’d done it, so she could remind her to smile. Just a little tug on her lips. She had to get back. She was going to be in so much trouble. Jenny still wasn’t smiling.
“Are you going to escape or what?”
Jenny blinked at her.
“Go on, Time Lord.” River smiled at her again. “Get out of here. You and your priceless artifact you nicked off of some Bone Diggers.”
“You kissed me.”
River frowned.
“You kissed me!” Jenny repeated.
River shrugged. "No big deal or anything."
“No! It was brilliant! I haven’t done that before, well, I have but that was with a boy. Can I have another before I go?”
River didn’t see why not, not when Jenny was smiling again. It lasted longer than the last one, and River had to admit she like it a little better, too. Which wasn’t to say she liked Jenny! No. She was still furious with her. She still didn’t like her smile, or her hair, or the way she just stole that staff, or anything!
“What do you need with that, anyway?” River had the piece of mind to ask.
“It’s dangerous. In the wrong hands, Foop! implosion, a whole moon gone. I dropped it a while back in a moat, when this place was still swampy. I figured my best bet was to get it back when the land dried up. I waited too long.” Jenny kicked up some sand. “Found you, though! Bone Diggers. It was only a matter of time before someone found it. I thought it’d be you, though. You’re smarter than they are.”
“Do you mean that?”
Jenny smiled, but it wasn’t too bright this time. It was just right. “I do, River Song. That’s a very pretty name. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
“Yeah,” River smiled back. “I’d like that.”
“You sure you don’t want to come and see the stars?” Jenny smacked her lips. “And other things. There’s plenty out there.”
River heard someone shouting across the way. She turned her head and could make out Professor Delta’s robes fluttering in the breeze. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. She wouldn’t go. Not for a silly gut feeling, or a silly girl, or a silly adventure. She’d have plenty of time for those, yet. There’d always be a next time.
If only she had known. Time Lords, spaceships, and dogs with no noses. Most people only had the chance once, if at all. River had it twice. Years later when little River became Professor Song, she kissed a madman who called himself a Time Lord, and felt the same flutter in her stomach as she had years ago with a strange blonde girl with a supernova-bright smile. He smiled like her, River later realized. Maybe that's why she agreed for just one trip in his big, blue, outdated spaceship. Maybe that's why one trip turned to two, which turned into "Don't be a stranger."
Years later, River still wondered where Jenny was, as she often did in the Doctor’s company, but only because of the similarities between them. She still wasn't sure if she liked Jenny or not, and she never had the courage to ask about finding a way to track her down. She was just a child. They both were, and now they weren't. Instead, River asked about Barcelona, and laughed at the joke, secretly keeping an eye open for that hair and that smile.
Challenge: 15 Authority
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including "Silence in the Library"
Note: I was trying for a drabble set where Jenny snogged any pretty lady in sight, much to the dismay of her Dad (but oh-so like him, no?) but somehow River came in and stole the show. Not sure if it works, so please be honest. :)
Supernova-bright
River Song took the rules as anyone else her age would: with a grain of salt. She did, however, have ambitions, and if she wanted to observe the archaeological dig at the Formerly Lost Moon of Poosh, she was going to have to be the sweetest little girl she could. Yes, sir. No, ma’am. You know I’m not allowed to go into the Overseer’s tent, Jenny.
The sirs and ma’ams had been quite pleased with her. They had let her do little favors around the dig site, taught her a few tricks of the trade, and let her look (but never touch) the artifacts they found. Jenny, though, was another story.
“So? People say you can’t do things all the time, but that doesn’t mean you really can’t do them,” she had said to any obstacle River pointed out to her.
That had been the extent of their interaction during the period of the dig. Names, formalities, and a few lunches had been all they shared. River had put her heart into making an impression on Professor Delta, the archaeologist she had been paired with. Jenny had been busy doing something else. She wasn’t of any concern to River. She’d observed Jenny long enough to realize that girl was a handful, a headache, a walking supernova-bright smile, trouble with a capital T, and someone who didn’t understand the meaning of “no.” She would only ask “why not?,” like a child.
Clinching a spot on this dig took a lot of pull at their age. Jenny should have been ecstatic about the opportunity to work the site with some of the most prominent archaeologists in the field. Unlike Jenny, River understood that her own future rested on making an impression. She worked so hard to get this opportunity to observe, and by the bloody Face of Boe, she was going to get high marks of acclaim! She didn’t care what Jenny did, honestly, so long as Jenny kept out of her way. She’d determined ages ago that the blonde girl was no threat to her at the excavation. Jenny didn’t seem to have any interest in the dig at all.
So far, in the middle of watching Professor Delta brush dust off a ceremonial wedding mask, River had caught a shock of blonde hair running past in a fit of laughter; during a break for water, she had caught Jenny watching her write in her journal when there was plenty of help she could have been giving the others; Jenny had waved from her spot across the excavation site and called out to her when River was cleaning Professor Delta's tools by the washbasin.
This was what River's day of rest was reduced to. Instead of writing in her journal about all the artifacts she'd seen and the techniques she'd learned about, she ended up writing about Jenny. Jenny! It wasn’t that River didn’t like her. She honestly didn’t know her enough to get an opinion, having simply appeared one day during the dig. She just didn’t like the way she acted like a child and was always smiling.
Smiling, smiling, smiling! River scribbled a frowning face in her journal, recalling yesterday's exchange.
Jenny had approached her outside of her tent, smiling as always and posing questions about the Overseer’s tent. River had tried politely to tell her that they weren’t allowed to, no she couldn’t do anything, no she didn’t have any connections, and no she wouldn’t sneak in there with Jenny. She had asked what Jenny had wanted so badly, but the girl wouldn’t say.
“Is that why you’ve been following me? You think I can get you into somewhere you shouldn’t be?,” she had asked, instead.
“Yes. I observed you and Professor Delta. You're a vital component to the team.”
River had laughed at that. She was nothing more than a servant at this stage. “I’m flattered you think so, but maybe you should get your eyes checked. I’m only sixteen.”
“Age doesn’t matter. You’d never guess how old I am.” Jenny had flashed another smile. “But I don’t want you to guess. I want you to help.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t had help yet. I’ve been traveling alone for the longest time, and think it’s time I took someone in. It’d be another adventure. Ooh! And the running! You’ll love the running.”
Jenny didn’t look like a traveler. She didn’t look like anything, really. She was only a child, a child on a team of archaeologists, just like River. She must’ve been one of those dreamers or storytellers, with an imagination the size of her smile. River had told Jenny to forget about her stupid adventure that would get her kicked out of the dig and in trouble with the law.
Jenny had shrugged and left her alone. It was remarkably easy. Too easy.
River was in the middle of building on that thought in her journal when the bootsteps came up from behind her. She turned just in time to see the shock of hair disappear behind the tent. It clearly was Jenny, sneaking into the Overseer’s tent in the middle of the night. River called after her.
Either Jenny didn’t hear her, or she didn’t stop. It was probably the latter, knowing her. River grumbled to herself and went back to writing in her journal. She attempted to return to the account of the ceremonial staff she had began pages ago, but that turned into a rant about the next generation of archaeologists and how if they were anything like Jenny, the whole field was doomed. They would just run about looking for adventures and places they shouldn’t be, instead of preserving and learning from the past. They wouldn’t recognize any authority higher than themselves. The past would be meaningless. The past would crumble into dust. All that knowledge, wasted, because of a bunch of lazy, giddy, stupid -
“Archaeologists. They’re so funny, thinking they know everything that’s out there.”
River jumped a lightyear out of her seat, dropping her journal. When she managed to catch her breath and calm her heart rate, she screamed (quietly, since it was the middle of the night) at that infuriating girl. “What are you doing?”
“Reading over your shoulder.” Jenny tilted her head and gave another bright smile. “You called me over. I came. You were busy writing things down, so I kept myself entertained while I waited. Was I not supposed to read? Was it is a secret? I mean, yeah, big deal with these names in the Bone Diggers, but they’re only Bone Diggers. I’m a Time Lord. Well, sort of.”
“Bone Diggers?”
“Archaeologists,” Jenny explained.
“Time Lord?”
Jenny shrugged.
River shook her head furiously, and bent to pick up her journal. She’d heard stories, but that’s all they were. Stories. Heroes the Time Agents set themselves up to be (and promptly failed, if the stories about them she heard were true.) Time Lords. Boogeymen. No. “You’re barkin’.”
Jenny smiled wider. “Oh, I like dogs! Ever been to Barcelona? Not Sol Three, but the planet. I haven’t. I have this weird urge to go, though. I heard this funny joke in this satellite once. It’s something about noses, I think.”
“Jenny!” River hissed again. Did she have any filter between her brain and her mouth? “Forget that! What are you doing here?”
“Oh. I thought that was obvious. I was sneaking into the Overseer’s tent.”
River obviously knew that. “But why?”
“Well, when I asked you to go in with me and you said you weren’t allowed, I gathered that no one was allowed in, so I’d have to sneak through the back, then run like heck. I like running. Do you want to come with me?”
“We can jog in the morning. When there’s daylight. Where we’re allowed.”
“Rules schmools. I need to go in that tent.”
River turned over her shoulder, taking a long look at the pitched tent. Everything they’ve dug since setting up was stored in there. All the paperwork. All the recommendations. The Overseer himself. River had yet to even see him, or hear his voice. She glanced back at Jenny, who was still smiling. Gathering herself, River shook her head. “No. We should get some sleep.”
She began to walk back to her own tent, when Jenny stepped around her. “But you want to go.”
“Says who?” River pushed past her, ignoring the smile and the hair and the overall bounciness of her nature. She wouldn’t be won over! She was River Song, the youngest girl in her class, and the smartest, and this was her chance at making an impression on the best archaeologists in her sector of the galaxy. Observe. Learn. Impress. Three weeks at the site, with just one more to go, she wasn’t about to ruin it all because of one girl!
“All right.” Jenny’s smile and upbeat nature faded as she nodded. “Just wait here for a second, please?”
Another reason River didn’t like Jenny was because she had this infuriating ability to make you like her despite you not liking her. She agreed to wait, but she made of show of stamping her foot in annoyance.
She was going into the tent, River knew. So why wasn’t River going to tell someone? Why wasn’t River shouting and screaming and jumping up and down, pointing a finger at Jenny yelling for Professor Delta? Why did she feel . . . excited?
River pursed her lips and shifted her weight, trying her best to ignore her own inner rebellious voice begging for an adventure.
Jenny bounded around the corner, whooping once and triumphantly so as she held up the ceremonial staff River had watched Professor Delta personally remove from the layers of dirt. Ancient, he said. Legendary, he said. And it was in the hands of a girl who was smiling.
"I did it!" Jenny waved it in her face. River cringed. Ancient and legendary and she was waving it around like a baton! "And he didn't even wake up. That so wasn't any fun so I made sure I yelled for him to get up before I left. I like chases. You?"
Before River could answer, Jenny grabbed her hand and started running.
In hindsight, River could have very well let go, stopped short, screamed. Well, she did scream, and she did demand to know what was going on, but she ran with her. She ran all the way across the dig site, past her tent, and past Professor Delta. She ran and ran, with Jenny’s hand in hers and she couldn’t, as hard as she tried, feel upset. She was . . . happy.
She was happy. An ancient artifact was just stolen from the Overseer's tent, in the hands of a child, and she, a child herself, was happy. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be the good one, the nice one, the one who cared about making it somewhere in the world. She wasn't supposed to be a . . . a . . . an accomplice! Oh, now she'd done it! This girl who came from nowhere had just ruined River's chance at a future, and River was bloody well smiling.
She cursed quietly to herself, but hoped Jenny could hear her anyway. She'd just worked her way up to a rather inventive one about a fiddle and certain part of the anatomy when Jenny stopped short in front of an abandoned spaceship and squealed in delight once more. Jenny hugged her, and River strangely found herself hugging back.
Jenny pulled away, smiling and not showing one ounce of being winded, when River herself was still struggling for breath. “Thanks for your help.”
“What did I do?”
“You ran with me. It was fun, running with someone. We should do it again. Come on.” She kicked the side of the old craft and a door opened. “We can go to Barcelona next.”
River Song was just granted the opportunity of a lifetime, accompanying Professor Delta and his team on a dig of the Formerly Lost Moon of Poosh. River Song was just offered the chance to go to Barcelona in a spaceship with a girl she didn’t even know and didn't even like. She thought of Professor Delta right away, and how mad the Overseer would be.
“Oh. You don’t want to go?” River realized she had never seen Jenny frown before. She also realized she didn't like it very much. She actually wanted that smile back. It was probably because, without the smile, she wasn't Jenny, and only Jenny could be holding the ceremonial staff of the ancient kingdom of Poosh's moon, smiling in front of a spaceship and making River like her and hate her all at the same time. But Jenny was only Jenny if Jenny was smiling.
Ryker told her once how he always got the girls to smile around him. That silly boy who could've been her little brother. Who knew he would've come to use some day? So River followed his advice and kissed her, that stupid, annoying know-it-all girl, with the supernova-bright smile and the swishing hair and the complete mystery around her person. She kissed her. But only a little. Just on the lips. For a quick second. She didn’t really like it. Not really.
She smiled at Jenny, after she’d done it, so she could remind her to smile. Just a little tug on her lips. She had to get back. She was going to be in so much trouble. Jenny still wasn’t smiling.
“Are you going to escape or what?”
Jenny blinked at her.
“Go on, Time Lord.” River smiled at her again. “Get out of here. You and your priceless artifact you nicked off of some Bone Diggers.”
“You kissed me.”
River frowned.
“You kissed me!” Jenny repeated.
River shrugged. "No big deal or anything."
“No! It was brilliant! I haven’t done that before, well, I have but that was with a boy. Can I have another before I go?”
River didn’t see why not, not when Jenny was smiling again. It lasted longer than the last one, and River had to admit she like it a little better, too. Which wasn’t to say she liked Jenny! No. She was still furious with her. She still didn’t like her smile, or her hair, or the way she just stole that staff, or anything!
“What do you need with that, anyway?” River had the piece of mind to ask.
“It’s dangerous. In the wrong hands, Foop! implosion, a whole moon gone. I dropped it a while back in a moat, when this place was still swampy. I figured my best bet was to get it back when the land dried up. I waited too long.” Jenny kicked up some sand. “Found you, though! Bone Diggers. It was only a matter of time before someone found it. I thought it’d be you, though. You’re smarter than they are.”
“Do you mean that?”
Jenny smiled, but it wasn’t too bright this time. It was just right. “I do, River Song. That’s a very pretty name. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
“Yeah,” River smiled back. “I’d like that.”
“You sure you don’t want to come and see the stars?” Jenny smacked her lips. “And other things. There’s plenty out there.”
River heard someone shouting across the way. She turned her head and could make out Professor Delta’s robes fluttering in the breeze. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. She wouldn’t go. Not for a silly gut feeling, or a silly girl, or a silly adventure. She’d have plenty of time for those, yet. There’d always be a next time.
If only she had known. Time Lords, spaceships, and dogs with no noses. Most people only had the chance once, if at all. River had it twice. Years later when little River became Professor Song, she kissed a madman who called himself a Time Lord, and felt the same flutter in her stomach as she had years ago with a strange blonde girl with a supernova-bright smile. He smiled like her, River later realized. Maybe that's why she agreed for just one trip in his big, blue, outdated spaceship. Maybe that's why one trip turned to two, which turned into "Don't be a stranger."
Years later, River still wondered where Jenny was, as she often did in the Doctor’s company, but only because of the similarities between them. She still wasn't sure if she liked Jenny or not, and she never had the courage to ask about finding a way to track her down. She was just a child. They both were, and now they weren't. Instead, River asked about Barcelona, and laughed at the joke, secretly keeping an eye open for that hair and that smile.