Everybody Lives aka The Story of River Song: Part Two

[jesterladyfic]

Everybody Lives aka The Story of River Song
By Jesterlady
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: River Song/Eleven, Amy/Rory
Word Count: 31,215
Summary: River Song's life.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I've used quite a bit of dialogue from the show and that's where the title is from.



Part Two

The Sisters of the Infinite Schism may be the best doctors in the universe, but they were rubbish at transportation. I was stuck somewhere in the fifty-second century in a galaxy I didn’t even know the name of. But I was, or was to be, River Song, and I had the Tardis in my head.

I had been a bit disappointed to wake up and find the Doctor and my parents gone. But I’d been left a gift. A blue, blank book and I immediately decided that it would never have anything written in it unless it had to do with the Doctor. Because I had to find him. We were to be married, after all.

With the Doctor as a time traveler he left big footprints across all times and civilizations. What better way to find him than track those instances? What better way to track them than through archeology? After all, love a tomb.

I went by the name River Song; I’d learned how dangerous it was to be Melody Pond. And there I had a brand new face to hide behind. Through a few instances of bribery/flattery/a wonderful memory involving recently acquired hallucinogenic lipstick, I found my way to the year 5123 and entered the Luna University.

It was exactly what I was born to do, (other than that homicide business, of course), and I’d almost never been happier. I studied so many things. They even had a Rudimentary Old High Gallifreyan course which I quickly discovered was absolute rubbish and I already knew the language instinctively. Bless my mother Tardis. I couldn’t wait to meet the Doctor again and tell him something in his own language and watch his eyes pop out.

In the meantime, I studied hard, didn’t kill anyone, and barely had any fun at all. It was all overshadowed by the knowledge that I was changing and the Doctor would be pleased. I did meet a very nice Auton bloke and we exchanged…pleasantries while he occasionally exchanged heads.

But I mostly studied and I learned so many things about the Doctor. That man who had been so many men. He’d strode across the universe, capturing hearts and minds and changing lives and I could very much see why some people would want him dead. He was too brave, too powerful, too brilliant, too high, too wonderful, too terrible to be allowed to live. I’d been taught that all my life. But I could see in between those things at that point. I’d met him for myself. I’d been given his trust and his mercy and I vowed never to let him regret it.

The day I graduated was one of the worst of my life. I’d done the whole celebratory thing and gone out with my mates and then I’d gone back to my study, Dr. River Song, to work some more. Lately I’d been reading all sorts of horrible things concerning the Doctor’s death and I needed to know why. I needed to know how. I needed to know that it wasn’t me. Because in reading about him, remembering my own encounter as well as all of the stories my parents told me, I had learned to love that man more than I’d ever dreamed possible. There was no one more wonderful in the whole of the universe and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for him.

And I’d only truly met him the once.

But then they came for me. The woman with the eye patch and the creatures of my past. I remembered all in a rush, everything that had ever happened and my mind was as much overwhelmed by the memories as the drugs they pumped into me.

"You never really escaped us, Melody Pond. We were always coming for you. I made you what you are. The woman who kills the Doctor."

I woke up in the suit. In the Apollo 11 spacesuit of my childhood. This time there was no autonomy. There was no ripping my way out. I was deep underwater and it seemed like I could almost hear a horrible lullaby from my research lilting endlessly in my head.

And there he was, my Doctor, who had died the last time we met, and now seemed likely to die this time as well. Both times by my hands. It broke my heart. I desperately begged him to run, to go, to flee, but he wouldn’t, that stubborn, impossible man.

“I can't stop it. The suit's in control.”

“You're not supposed to. This has to happen.”

“Run!”

“I did run. Running brought me here.”

“I tried to fight it, but I can't, it's too strong.”

“I know. It's okay. This is where I die. This is a fixed point, this must happen, this always happens. Don't worry...you won't even remember this. Look over there.”

I saw myself, I saw my parents, and I saw the intricacies of time.

“That's me. How can I be there?”

“That's you from the future. Serving time for a murder you probably can't remember. My murder.”

It seemed the cruelest thing that I would ever, ever know.

“Why would you do that? Make me watch?”

“So that you know this is inevitable. And you are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven.”

I couldn’t comprehend this man. I, who had studied and loved him from afar for so long, was utterly unable to understand how he could be so compassionate and so cruelly resolute at the same time.

“Please, my love. Please, please just run!”

“I can't.”

“Time can be rewritten.”

“Don't you dare.” He had the strangest look of satisfaction on his face. As if he was paying me back for something. It was the least of my concerns at the moment, but I never forgot it. “Goodbye, River.”

And I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It would kill me. So I did the only thing I could do and I stopped time.

I don’t think he was too happy with me.

Too bad for him.

The next thing I remember I was on a train, the world was entirely changed, and there was no more time. I had no idea where the Doctor was.

The Silence were everywhere and one day I found Madame Kovarian and we got…reacquainted.

She led me to Amy and Rory soon followed. A short chat with President Kennedy and Cleopatra and I had everything I needed. We captured the Silence and we remembered them. And one day a bug led us to the Holy Roman Emperor and his mad soothsayer.

My mother rescued him and he was so angry. He was so cross. Very unappreciative as well. I had to show him, I had to make him see. He was loved. He is loved. He is remembered. And he will never be forgotten. I would have left time the way it was and to hell with the universe, but he would never give up, I knew that. I knew eventually he’d find a way to touch me and it would all go back to the way it was. So first I had to make my point.

Not without a little harmless flirting, of course.

“There are so many theories about you and I, you know.”

“Idle gossip.”

“Archaeology.”

“Same thing.”

“Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you?”

“Oh! I don't want to marry you.”

“I don't want to murder you.”

Not most of the time anyway.

But I’d read enough of the past, (the future), to know that this should not be allowed to happen. But I was so very young then and I had only one option. Show him his worth.

Of course, those blasted Silence and Miss Baby Kidnapper had a few tricks up their own sleeves and we were a bit more rushed than I would have liked.

“What's this? Oh, it’s a timey-wimey distress beacon. Who built this?”

“I'm the child of the Tardis, I understand the physics.”

“Yes, but that's all you've got - a distress beacon!”

“I've been sending out a message, a distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere, to the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. ‘The Doctor is dying, please, please help.’ ”

And the silly man still didn’t understand. He sees only the bad in himself.

“Those reports of the sun spots and the solar flares. They're wrong, there aren't any. It's not the sun, it's you; the sky is full of a million, million voices, saying ‘yes, of course, we'll help.’ You've touched so many lives, saved so many people. Did you think, when your time came, you'd really have to do more than just ask? You've decided that the universe is better off without you, but the universe doesn't agree.”

“River, no one can help me. A fixed point has been altered, time is disintegrating.”

“I can't let you die.”

“But I have to die-“

“Shut up! I can't let you die without knowing you are loved by so many, and so much. And by no one more than me.”

He almost shut up, almost. I could see I’d made my point on a universal scale. But he still didn’t understand what this was for me personally. How much he’d made me better.

“River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions on billions will suffer and die.”

“I'll suffer if I have to kill you.”

Was that selfish? Absolutely. Did I care? Not a jot.

“More than every living thing in the universe?”

“Yes.”

Maybe he understood then, but I could see it wouldn’t change anything. He would still die and I would still be left suffering. Though I wouldn’t remember it until later.

Instead he gave me a gift. Something he had in his power to give.

“Now, River, I'm about to whisper something in your ear, and you have to remember it very, very carefully and tell no one what I said.” He leaned forward, careful not to touch me. “Look in my eye.” And there he was, the old liar. “I just told you my name. Now there you go, River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me. And, wife, I have a request. This world is dying, and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way.”

“Then you may kiss the bride.”

“I'll make it a good one.”

“You better.”

I’d seen the Doctor had faith in me, faith I didn’t deserve. But I’d never known he could also love me, just a little bit. A little bit of the way that I loved him. But he’d taken his bow tie and he’d joined our hands, my parents gave their consent, and we were married.

Not that it’s such a great honor to be married to the Doctor, I’m afraid I can think of at least three others he’s married throughout the universe. Almost a hobby of his, the idiot.

But he married me to honor me and to reassure me and to tell me everything was going to be all right. That blessed, moronic man.

If first kisses can ever be outshone by second kisses, well, this was the one. A time-sped-up-world-changing-completely-altering-my-life kiss and we were bound for all of my life.

I ended up back in the lake, having shot him, was taken back by the Silence, and then I couldn’t remember any of it. Which he also knew would happen. (Definitely saved him the honeymoon expenses.) But though I was left for the authorities to find and put into Stormcage, I had a curious sense of peace. I knew that whatever it was I had done, he would be okay. He would know and he would absolve me. And, somehow, it had all worked out all right.

I just hoped they had visitor’s days or something and that he would somehow find me. Because twelve thousand consecutive life sentences seemed a bit of a drag, to be honest.

***

Stormcage was all right. The guards were pretty, young, and gullible and I did have an entire cellblock to myself. The only thing I had when I went into that cell was my blue book and a degree that no one would honor anymore. But it was enough.

That night he came for me.

He materialized right into my cell and I grabbed my book and entered the most wonderful place in the universe.

“Are we going out?”

“Your parents are asleep. How's Stormcage?”

"I'm on the first night of twelve thousand consecutive life sentences…kind of early to say. Where are we going?"

"Calderon Bita!"

And I stood there, amazed, while he waxed glorious about the planet and the wonders we would see there. This was what I'd been living my life for.

“Did you bring the diary?”

“Oh, it's a diary?”

“It is now because, River, from now on, there are rules!”

“Ooh, you’ve gone all strict, not that I mind.”

“River, you and I, it's all in the wrong order. We’re never going to meet in sequence. You put everything in the diary so we know where we are.”

“Put what in the diary? Sweetie, I’m in the highest security prison in all of the known universe.”

“River Song could walk in and out of that prison like the walls weren't there.”

“I’m River Song.”

“Then you’ll be fine.”

My only complaint of the night was the strange feeling that he was entertaining more guests than one. But, otherwise, it was perfection. After all, I got a glimpse of the back of a future him exiting the Tardis. Oh, I liked that. The mind raced with possibilities.

I loved Calderon Bita. It was the most amazing sight I’d ever seen. And I knew, oh, I just knew that the wonders the Doctor would show me would never, ever end. I didn’t end up wearing the dress, (yet), because it was rather cold on that tree. But it was beautiful.

It was not my fault that there was a tribe of aliens visiting who had certain prejudices against females in high heels. But I think the best moment of my life was when the Doctor grabbed my hand and we ran, laughing, all the way back to the Tardis.

He showed me the Tardis and I was able to surprise him with how well I already understood it all. But there were wonders there I hadn’t even dreamed of. He showed me my own room and it had all my favorite things. The Tardis hummed in satisfaction in my head and I felt so at home.

He wasn’t surprised at all when I spoke to him in Old High Gallifreyan, the annoying, annoying man. Still, it was all rather good.

“That’s the way to show a girl a good time, my love,” I told him and he frowned at me as he set the controls to take us back to Stormcage.

It was at that point that I realized I could fly the Tardis better than him, having a direct link to the source, you could say, plus, I paid attention when she said things. But she didn’t seem to mind and a man’s pride appears to be rather universal.

“That’s a little bit personal,” he said primly and I laughed.

“Would you have me any other way?”

“I never said I would have you,” he said triumphantly.

“Too telling, Doctor dear,” I said, tossing my hair into his face. “I’m more like you than you think.”

“What a horrible thought,” he muttered, flipping switches. “Now, River, back to your cell you go. Be good, play nice with the other children, and don’t forget to write if you need anything.”

“How?”

Then he showed me the psychic paper and gave me the number for the Tardis console.

“Don’t be upset if I don’t get in contact for awhile,” I teased him. “I’m afraid I’m very bad at follow up after a date.”

“You bad girl, you,” he told me, smiling.

“Ta, sweetie,” I said and kissed him while he squirmed a lot.

That’s my Doctor, the sexual understanding of a minnow.

To me that was our second kiss until much, much later when I forgave him for it not being as good as the first one.

And that’s the way it was. Sometimes he would just show up out of the blue, taking me to the Seas of the Seventh Star where the whales were ultraviolet. Or the time where the pygmies of a South African tribe tried to eat us alive in 1508. Or the one time he tried to sneak me out and actually got caught by the warden and spent three days locked up in the cell next to mine while the paperwork was sorted out.

There were other times when I needed to get out. Either because one of my old mates from school had fallen in with the Cult of the Third Shri’si and started to believe in the destruction of reality as the universe’s only cure for hedonism.

Or when I got an offer from an undercover agent to take his place in exposing a smuggling ring in the home world of the Atraxi in exchange for one life sentence knocked off. Aren’t they kind?

In some instances I was released legally, in others, well, I had a very good hallucinogenic lipstick supplier.

Other than occasionally pondering exactly what I had done to get put in there, I was rather happy at Stormcage.

After I had been in Stormcage about five years there was a time when I was running from the Sontarans. Honestly, they’re very cross and all I made was one little comment about a possible hen night. Since I was in the neighborhood I thought I’d stop back on Calderon Bita. And there it was…the bluest of blues.

“I knew you’d come back here, you nostalgic idiot. Hold me.”

My faint didn’t go quite as planned and there was obviously somebody else there. Just like that first night. Now it’s not like I didn’t know he travels with boys and girls and dogs and robots and everything in between, but…I’d just rather it was my parents, that’s all.

But after insulting my hair, all he did was send me back to Stormcage. Still, an adventure with the Doctor is an adventure with the Doctor whether it lasts for five minutes or five years. It got the Sontarans off my back anyway.

One day, the Doctor asked me to meet him at a bar in the Quibilu Nebula. I happily went, stowing away on a trader ship bound for that area.

“Hello, sweetie.”

“River Song, always late, hell on wheels,” he greeted me.

He looked a little sad.

“Are my parents with you?” I asked, looking around curiously.

I hadn’t seen them in awhile and was feeling a little nostalgic.

“No, but I can give you their address if you want to write. Or even drop in,” he said, studiously avoiding my eyes.

“Doctor, did they leave you?”

“Oh, River, other way around. It was time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know how much they meant to you.”

“Salt of the earth,” he agreed. “Not that I’ve ever understood that. What exactly does one want in salty earth and why is it considered a good thing? No crops, too much taste, and a general misconception that it’s snowed.”

I rolled my eyes and sat down next to him.

“Why am I here?”

“A bloke by the name of Jim the Fish is having a little trouble…” he said, pausing a second “…with his harem.”

I raised my eyebrow.

“Worthy fellow. What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Well, there’s a rather delicate balance on this planet,” he said. “The harem keep him happy, when he’s happy he works, when he works, the planet doesn’t get flooded.”

“You lost me way back,” I said, ordering a drink.

“No time for that,” he said, grabbing my hand and jerking me along.

We were involved in interplanetary politics for quite a while after that. Jim the Fish turned out to be a beaver type alien overlord keeping the world from total disaster by incessant dam building. He had a very sulky personality when he wasn’t being adored and girls from all over the planet were sent to cheer him up.

I disapproved.

While the Doctor worked on the weather control, I went undercover in the harem and soon turned the place upside down.

It was a bit hairy at first and Jim the Fish will never forget his first night with River Song. I wanted to beat his head in, but, after awhile, I rather loved Jim the Fish and after a little chat with me, some of his misogynistic views were altered slightly and life became a lot easier to bear for the women of his planet.

And when the Doctor discovered the cause of Jim the Fish’s perpetual unhappiness had more to do with a toothache than his libido, everyone won.

We left Jim the Fish building his dam and I went back to my cell, the Doctor a little bit more receptive to a goodbye kiss. He must have really been missing my parents.

There are too many stories to tell. Too many wonderful adventures through time and space, the lifeblood of the galaxies running through our veins and mishaps averted left and right.

We were on Easter Island once. The appearance of a blue box out of nowhere had caused the natives to view the Doctor as a god. We had the best feast I’ve ever had in my life. If you’ve ever seen the statues, remember my beloved’s forehead and chin and you’ll get the picture.

In the end he’d gotten a little too chatty and a faction had tried to roast him over the flames. We rescued him before he got too singed, but he’d been shot with a poisoned dart in the escape and I had a very real fear of losing him once we were back in the Tardis.

I already knew about regeneration, of course, having lived through it myself.

“Do you need to die?” I asked him, laying him on a bed in the med bay.

“What kind of a question is that?” he huffed out.

“Do you need to regenerate to fix this?” I snapped.

“Two day’s rest, tops. You worry too much.”

“You get shot too much,” I told him, listening to the Tardis and feeling her reassurance.

“You know it’s always going to be difficult for you and me,” he said, closing his eyes, seeming to fight against the pain.

“I know; I’ve a book to prove it.”

“Just remember I don’t always look the same.”

“I know that, you gave me pictures of all your faces.”

“But I didn’t know you as them,” he said. “It’s not likely you’ll see any of them.”

“How can you know that?”

“Spoilers,” he gasped out. “Just trust me. We’re backwards. You’re going to have to learn how to lie. How to pretend you don’t know things.”

“This doesn’t seem to be the right time for this lecture, sweetie,” I told him, getting out the instruments the Tardis was prompting me to.

“Nonsense, always have good timing,” he said, twisting around. “Just promise me you won’t give away the future if you can help it. If you can’t help it, you won’t, and there’s always something that can get slipped. I’m the Eleventh Doctor, remember that. If you see somebody you don’t recognize that’s an older me. If you see somebody who doesn’t recognize you, that’d be a younger me. But you won’t, because you didn’t. Maybe.”

“You’re not making any sense and you’re starting to turn purple,” I told him, storing all this information away in my memory.

“River,” he said breathily, taking my hand, “I can’t promise you it will be easy. You’re going to start meeting younger versions of me. You won’t have the freedom you do now. You’ll meet younger versions of your parents. You’ll know things no one else will. Foreknowledge is a bad thing. It’s a burden I trust you with.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised him, kissing his forehead, while he slipped into unconsciousness.

While he mended I took out my diary and studied all the pictures of him. He’d been so many different men. Old, young, all sizes and shapes. Getting gradually younger and younger it seemed, while, in reality, getting older and older. His last face: glasses and some really great hair, skinny, and those eyes…much more in pain than my Doctor’s. I wished I could know him, but I knew that I wouldn’t. He wouldn’t know me.

The Doctor healed and I went back to Stormcage, but I kept all his words, wrote them down as best I could, and prepared for a much harder future.

***

I got a summons one day. A summons to America. I hadn’t been there in awhile and I packed my bags with an excitement I hadn’t felt in ages.

The Doctor was there and so were my parents. I could tell they didn’t know who I was yet, but he did. We were from three different times and the Doctor seemed to have such a burden on him. Even worse than when he’d left my parents or when I’d first met him.

“I've been running...faster than I've ever run, and I've been running my whole life. Now it's time for me to stop. And tonight I'm going to need you all with me.”

“Okay, we're here, what's up?”

“A picnic! And then a trip. Somewhere different, somewhere brand new.”

“Where?”

“Space...1969.”

And I instantly shut down my emotions, holding them in, showing nothing. The Doctor gave me an ironic smile and there was a feeling of terror in my gut. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I didn’t think it could be good.

We went to the lake and, despite its beauty and warmth, I felt cold and fake, like I hadn’t felt for a long time.

Then it happened. A nightmare from my childhood rose from the lake and the Doctor went out to meet it. And he died.

He was killed in the middle of his regeneration cycle and I’d never hated anything in my life the way I hated that spaceman. I emptied every bullet I had into it, but it was already gone. And I was left to honor the Doctor’s wishes.

Poor Amy, she was so desperate, and I didn’t like the look in my father’s eyes, but they could know nothing of the torment raging inside of me. Because I couldn’t recall just yet, but it all seemed so familiar somehow. Like I’d lived it before.

We went back to the diner and there he was. That cold, heartless, miraculous man. I wanted to kiss him, but a slap was even better.

Oh, the feeling of loss when I realized this was the youngest Doctor I had ever met. He didn’t even know who I was. His words from before were coming true and I wasn’t ready.

I knew where we were going and Amy got us there. Not me. No, the Doctor didn’t trust me and his words felt like whip lashes when he said them. I held my ground because that’s what my Doctor would want, but it was painful. So very painful.

And we landed in 1969. I’d been on one side of the story already. I’d seen Canton and I’d watched my mother try to shoot me and I’d even seen me as I was now. If you want to get really confusing, I was actually there three times if you count my mother’s pregnancy.

But worse than all that were the memories that kept coming back to me. I knew that I was the person who had been in that spacesuit. I was in prison for murder. I couldn’t remember why. I had to have killed the Doctor.

Though that paled in comparison with the lack of shared experiences between us. I told my parents so.

“The Doctor’s death doesn’t frighten me, nor does my own. There’s a far worse day coming for me.”

Still, meeting Nixon was a tad exciting. But it was very hard to keep my secrets and I wanted to have a little time to process alone.

The Silence were there and more snippets of memory came back. I had killed the Doctor, I had married the Doctor. He was still alive.

Exploring down in those tunnels with my father gave me an opportunity I wished I’d had more of back in the days when I was Mels. There is nobody better suited for listening to you than Rory Williams and I’d had too many secrets back then and too many nefarious reasons for having them. I still had too many secrets, but my reasons were nobler and more pliable.

“What did you mean? What you said to Amy. There's a worse day coming for you.”

“When I first met the Doctor, a long, long time ago...he knew all about me. Think about that. Impressionable young girl, and, suddenly this man just drops out of the sky, he's clever and mad and wonderful and knows every last thing about her. Imagine what that does to a girl.”

“I don't really have to.”

No, no, he wouldn’t. My father had been at ground zero for a situation just like that.

“Trouble is, it's all back to front. My past is his future. We're travelling in opposite directions. Almost every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him. But I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away. And the day's coming, when I'll look into that man's eyes...my Doctor...and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me.”

I couldn’t bear to look at Rory after I said that. It had been the most revealing thing I’d told anybody in a long time.

I felt bad I couldn’t reveal important things to him. I couldn’t tell him I was his daughter, that his wife was pregnant, that she was actually hundreds of light years away.

There hadn’t been much time for revealing after that. We had to split up for reconnaissance reasons. I remembered more and more of my past those three months, the more Silence I saw. I would forget and remember and forget and remember. An endless cycle of memories. But some facts never left me. It was as if a Time Lock had been broken in my head. I had killed the Doctor, I had married the Doctor, the Doctor was still alive. I clung to those three things.

But then I had to start lying. Not tell the Doctor, this young Doctor, that I was the little girl; that I had been brought up to kill him. It had to happen all naturally so I only revealed information that could be extrapolated from the circumstances.

It was the second hardest thing I’ve ever had to do apart from killing him. But he was brilliant and we started a revolution and when he invited me to go with him I refused. I couldn’t. Not with the knowledge that I had about this Doctor. I’d wait for mine to come back.

It was still a shock when I realized that he hadn’t ever even kissed me before. It gave new meaning to the term one-sided relationship. I didn’t think that it would be the last kiss we would ever share together, but I finally realized that there would be a last. His words from before and my confidences to Rory echoed in my head and their full fulfillment suddenly sank in.

***

Now it gets a bit tricky here.

I was still at Stormcage, still going on adventures, still meeting a few younger Doctors, but he always knew who I was. And that was something I clung to.

I came back to my cell one day and I found a message waiting for me. It had the coordinates and date of my birth on it and a message.

This is the day the Doctor finds out who you are. Write it all down so you know what to tell Dad when he comes for you. You have to be there only at the end or you’ll cross your own time stream too much. We do have a habit of doing that, don’t we?

Sounded like a paradox in the making. Ooh, fascinating.

So I went. I went to Demon’s Run, back to the place of my birth, back to where it had all started. I had read about it, back at the university and I’d already lived it a bit, but I’d never known that I had been the climax. That could really go to a girl’s head.

I was nervous. It felt like this was some kind of audition. Some sort of play that I had to be perfect in. This was what the Doctor was trusting me with. Time itself.

I broke out and went to my stashed vortex manipulator that I kept for emergencies just like this. And the stories ran through my head.

Demons run when a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun when a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies.
Night will fall and the dark will rise when a good man goes to war.
Demons run but count the cost,
The battle's won but the child is lost.

I took in the situation. Oh, that horrible tableau laid out before me. My parents looking just as I remembered them looking back in those days of so long ago, that summer before I met the Doctor.

And the Doctor. At his lowest point.

“Well, then, soldier, how goes the day?”

“Where the hell have you been? Every time you've asked, I have been there. Where the hell were you today?”

It’s hard to be blamed for something that’s not your fault.

“I couldn't have prevented this.”

“You could've tried!”

“And so, my love, could you.”

“You think I wanted this?” He gestured wildly. He was so young. “I didn't do this. This...this wasn't me!”

“This was exactly you. All this, all of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you'd become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name? Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word ‘Doctor’ means mighty warrior. How far you've come. And now they've taken a child...the child of your
best friends...and they're going to turn her into a weapon, just to bring you down. And all this, my love...in fear of you."

All the words flowed out of me. As if they were meant to be, as if the Tardis was feeding them to me, as if I’d always known them. Secret words he’d whispered to me during the time we’d spent together, my own resentment and guilt over my past, fears and whispers from races all over the universe, written down and spread as legend. I’m an archeologist, if you recall? I know it all. The Doctor: the man the universe held in awe and never ceased to tell stories about. Even after Gallifrey was lost and the Timelords themselves were only a memory he lived on.

I knew him, but he didn’t know me.

“Who are you?”

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have a script for this. The history books don’t say what happened at the end of Demon’s Run. Only that the Doctor vanished. But I found my own way to tell him via the loving work of a girl just dead.

And it was a relief to have him know again. To have him know I was Melody, if not the whole truth. Oh, the look on his face…

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“But...but that means...”

“I'm afraid it does.”

It was like it always is with him. Awkward and wonderful and like a dance only we two would ever know.

“How do I look?”

“Amazing.”

“I'd better be.”

“Yes, you'd better be.”

So many little girls and little boys and worlds and races and friends and me counted on it.

The Doctor left and he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know who I'd been once I'd climbed out of that suit or that I would kill him. But it was enough.

That did leave me with my mother pointing a gun at me again. Honestly, I was starting to get a complex. Rory tried to stop her, of course.

“It's okay, Rory, she's fine, she's good. It's the Tardis translation matrix; it takes a while to kick in with the written word. You have to concentrate.”

She waited a beat.

“I still can't read it.”

Rory took away the gun.

“It's because it's Gallifreyan and doesn't translate. But this will.” I gave her the prayer leaf. “It's your daughter's name in the language of the forest.”

“I know my daughter's name.”

“Except they don't have a word for pond because the only water in the forest is the river.” Rory looked at me sharply at that, I didn’t know why, but my father is very clever. “The Doctor will find your daughter and he will care for her whatever it takes and I know that. It's me. I'm Melody. I'm your daughter.”

The writing had changed for them; they could see the River Song, (more accurately Song River, but it sounds better the other way).

The looks on their faces were less wonderful. I don’t think it was a comfort to them to know that the mad, mysterious River Song was somehow their daughter. But I took them home via the vortex manipulator and though it was rather a bumpy and interesting ride, I couldn’t tell them anything more than that. Which was so very hard.

“Don’t go,” Amy begged me once they were back in Leadworth and I knew that my younger self was going to crash in on them at any moment.

“I can’t stay,” I said gently. “But…Mother, I promise, it will be okay. You’ll see me again very soon.”

I made to leave and Rory stopped me, looking into my eyes for a long moment and I saw again the broken soldier of my past. He seemed to find what he was looking for though because then he stepped aside and I went back to Stormcage.

I needed to grieve a little myself. Living through events multiple times is rather traumatic.

I learned to get over it. I learned to move on. I saw the Doctor again, my Doctor, the one who knew me, and once he found out where I was in time, he comforted me. And he made sure he was always with me on my birthday.

There was a time when I was in a bar on Mitas 5. I was having a little celebratory time with me, myself, and I. And a few blokes from the Siroe Sector. It was my birthday, after all.

I was just starting to feel pleasantly sauced when the Doctor showed up. At first I thought it was the influence of the drinks, (never trust a Twyss bartender), but there were distinctly two Doctors in front of me.

“Ah, River Song,” they said in tandem, “many happy returns.”

“You two will be the death of me,” I said and fell off my stool, though they both seemed rather stricken to the bone at the suggestion.

When I woke up I was on the Tardis and there were party streamers and the smell of cake.

Both Doctors were leaning over me with a stethoscope each.

“Are we breaking the space time continuum today or are you both feeling frisky?” I asked, sitting up.

“Don’t be silly,” Doctor One said.

“We’re here to celebrate,” Doctor Two said.

“Absolutely, a grand party,” Doctor One agreed.

“Had so much fun the first time, I popped round again,” Doctor Two said.

“Any chance I get a really good birthday present?” I asked, stretching back and putting my hands behind my head.

“You bet.”

“None better.”

“We’re very good,” they said together. “Ta da!”

They spread their arms out and made a sort of bridge of their hands and ushered my parents through it.

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” I said, but I sprang up and hugged them anyway.

“Don’t even ask how they’re doing this,” Amy said as she hugged me. “They’re impossible.”

“Worse than gangers,” Rory agreed, giving me a much more tentative hug.

“Where are we going?” I asked, clapping my hands together.

“Somewhere better than ever before,” the Doctors said smugly.

Though the mudslide and consequent universe saving got a bit old, it was the best birthday I’d ever had.

The Doctor did like to give good birthday parties.

In fact, it was my birthday when Stevie Wonder sang in 1814 at the last great frost fair. The Doctor was a terrible ice skater and he fell quite a lot. I laughed even more than usual that trip and I felt very young. Like a little girl on holiday.

Which is perhaps why it was so hard when I got back and my father was waiting for me. My father who didn’t know me.

“Dr. Song? It's Rory. Sorry, have we met yet? Time streams, I'm not quite sure where we are...”

And I very much wanted him to really know me. I wanted a hug from my father on my birthday. I wanted him to give me a pony.

“Yes. Yes, we've met. Hello, Rory.”

“What's wrong?”

Sees too clearly, my dad does.

“It's my birthday.”

Despite the fact that Rory had technically been at every birthday of my childhood, (not to mention the mudslide birthday), blowing up balloons and making the cakes and cycling for miles to get me presents, I still just…wanted him to know me now.

But he was a young Rory and he had come on something very important. I could tell.

“He needs you!”

I had a suspicion, (the Roman gear a dead giveaway really), and I looked in my book.

“Demon’s Run.”

“How...how did you know?”

“I'm from his future. I always know.”

I had to keep this light. I had to hide my emotions. But my dad was having none of that. This was too raw for him.

“They've taken Amy. And our baby.”

I’m the baby! I wanted to scream it out and change my own timeline. But I couldn’t. That might mean risking the Doctor and I would never, ever do that.

“The Doctor's getting some people together, we're going after her, but he needs you too.”

“I can't. Not yet, anyway.”

“I'm sorry?”

And there was my threatening legend of a father. The Last Centurion. Protector and Guardian, Patient and Formidable. Warrior through time.

My dad could beat up your dad. Of course he'd probably try to nurse him back to health afterwards.

“This is the Battle of Demon’s Run. The Doctor's darkest hour. He'll rise higher than ever before and then fall so much further. And...I can't be with him till the very end.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is it. This is the day he finds out who I am.”

Rory didn’t give up. He tried again, but I’d shaken him a bit and he was in too much of a hurry to try convincing me when he was anxious to get to Amy and his daughter.

I slowly changed back into more fifty-second century clothing and began to cry.

“Tears, River?”

I looked up and there was the Doctor. He was still wearing that ridiculous beaver hat that I’d told him he was never allowed to wear ever again despite how ‘cool’ it apparently was.

“What, you still here?” I asked, trying to sound light, but the effect was rather ruined by my tear-streaked face. “My, my, you’ll give a girl an ego as big as yours.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could have given you to them. They would be the best parents.”

“They already were,” I reminded him.

“Do you want to go on another trip?” he asked. “I’ve got the perfect place. You’ll never want to leave.”

“Just sit with me for awhile,” I told him. “Just rest in one place. Don’t save, don’t run, just be.”

He nodded, not looking very comfortable, but he sat down.

“Tell me about my parents,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder.

“Only if you do the same for me,” he said. “Tit for tat." He made a face. "Um, horrible expression, never mind, but tell me some stories too and you’ve got a deal.”

We sat there for a few hours, reminiscing. My life has always been about the Doctor, but my parents were heavily entwined in our story and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After he left, giving me a hug rather than a kiss, I set my vortex manipulator and went back and gave myself my message. Paradox circle closed. How about that?

***

A few years passed after that and I saw my parents occasionally, in the company of the Doctor and without. I saw the Doctor less and less, but he always knew me.

Until one day when my cellblock received a phone call. Winston Churchill trying to reach the Doctor. The Tardis rerouted it to me, which I think is rather a compliment. In fact the entire line of messages that I was to pass on was rather clever.

I did have to dupe a rather innocent new guard, but I’ve always loved a good snog.

I made my way to the Royal Gallery on the Starship UK and found what Winston had left for me. It was horrible. I knew right away that this was more important than so many of the other things the Doctor had warned me about. He’d mentioned something once about the Tardis exploding, it had something to do with why my father had become a Roman and was at the beginning of the Silence’s war against the Doctor. It was all a bit confusing.

So I tried calling him immediately after a little tet-a-tete with Liz X. The infuriating man couldn’t or wouldn’t answer his phone and I had no indication that the psychic paper would work and so I was left with no other alternatives but to leave a message somewhere very old indeed. I had no doubt the Doctor would go there one of these days.

So that meant I needed transportation. I knew right who to go to. Even though he had technically died already for me. Yes, time’s a bit weird, have I mentioned that enough yet?

Poor Dorium, it did seem a bit cruel to threaten him with a Callisto Pulse when I already knew the manner of his death. But I paid him well enough for it and I knew he’d helped my Doctor with information more than once.

I delivered my little message and made it back to 102 AD in plenty of time to welcome the Doctor. And get a little pampering in along the way. As much as those guards at Stormcage are ever so helpful they don’t really give massages to convicted criminals. But Cleopatra certainly gets them.

Oh, and my Doctor was so very young now. He didn’t even know to figure out where we were. It hurt more each time something like that happened. But I played those things very close to the chest and I’d finally gotten used to the idea of us traveling apart from each other. Intellectually at least.

Amy was with him this time, but my father was nowhere to be seen. I was a bit puzzled by that, they’d told me so little about that year or so they’d traveled with him, but this was Rome and my father was a Roman once… I hadn’t seen him around the camp but Rome was a vast empire.

Amy had obviously met me before but she didn’t have a clue as to who I was. She was spoilering me now, but her vague mentions gave me hope that we would see this through, whatever the Pandorica was. Because, though time can be rewritten, it also likes to give itself helpful hints. Trust me on that.

We found our way to the Underhenge and explored in a very archeological fashion. I just love digs. But this one was a little more fraught with danger than usual which meant my love was absolutely fascinated and it was like pulling teeth to get him to pay attention to the fact that every enemy he’d ever made was coming right to where he was.

He sent me for reinforcements. I was the fastest on a horse and the one with the lipstick. Unfortunately the General had returned while we were away and he was just a little bit cross at the little fibs being perpetuated on his troops. Poor darling.

The entire time I was talking to him I kept getting a niggling feeling in the back of my mind. I still hate it when that happens. It meant that something important was right in front of me and I was missing it. Something the Tardis was trying to remind me of. I almost felt like I recognized him from somewhere. I couldn’t immediately think of where and I had more important things to worry about. We were all barbarians compared to the mighty forces assembling overhead.

And that’s when Rory showed up. Imagine my surprise to meet my father as a Roman, only to see that he had never met me before. It all had to be playing into some part of the Rory that I knew’s past, only I had no idea what it was. It was a bit like being back at the beginning, not knowing things. It was slightly refreshing if also vastly irritating.

Still, I sent Rory on to the Doctor with the volunteers he’d rounded up and I went for the Tardis so the Doctor could do his precious analyzing. I already knew what I needed to know. I knew the Doctor should run.

Not that the Tardis was doing very well. She knew who I was all right, but she was agitated, anxious, not acting at all like she normally does. She wouldn’t fly normally. I almost began to understand all of the Doctor’s frustration about her always doing what she wanted instead of what he did.

I didn’t know if she was feeling nostalgic or what, but she took me back to my childhood. Back to Amy’s big, empty house that had always given me the shudders no matter how much time I spent there. I didn’t know what year it was, but it was night and I figured I’d better see what she wanted me to see and get back to the Doctor. Someone had been there. Something I didn’t recognize and I figured this had to be after we’d all left because that definitely hadn’t happened during our childhood.

I went through the familiar rooms, but was drawn to Amy’s, to where I’d spent half of one of my childhoods anyway.

That’s where it hit me anew how little I had known the Doctor back then. Back when I thought he had to die for the good of the universe. For the good of my best friend who couldn’t get over one little encounter with him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so blindly in love with him that I can’t see his faults and that entire house was one of them. He’d hurt my mother so very deeply and, by extension, me and Rory, and all the rest of our lives had been bound up in his decisions.

“Oh, Doctor, why do I let you out?”

But then all of that wasn’t important because I remembered where I’d seen the General before. I remembered why Rory as a Roman had always seemed so fitting back when I’d first heard about it as Mels. I remembered countless hours of playtime and fun, all in this room. And I knew that they were all in danger. So much danger.

I rushed back to the Tardis taking the books and pictures with me and I called the Doctor. My mind was racing even as I did it because I couldn’t let on all that I knew. For the Doctor, Amy and Rory, none of this had happened yet and it hadn’t happened yet for me either so I didn’t understand the why, but the effects of this event had happened for me. It was all a little bit confusing and I tried to sound urgent without giving too much away. Even being ignorant if you like, trying to get him to guess.

“They're not real, they can't be. They're all right here in the story book, those actual Romans, the ones I sent you, the ones you're with right now. They're all in a book in Amy's house, a children's picture book. Doctor, how is this possible?”

“Something's using her memories, Amy's memories.”

“But how?”

“You said something had been there.”

“Yes, there's burn marks on the grass outside, landing patterns.”

Think, my brilliant Doctor, think! Figure it out.

“If they've been to her house, they could have used her psychic residue. Structures can hold memories, that's why houses have ghosts. They could've taken a snapshot of Amy's memories. But why?”

“Doctor, who are those Romans?”

And why is my dad one of them?

“Projections. Or duplicates.”

“But they were helping us. My lipstick even worked.”

And Rory was Rory. He’d known all about the Doctor.

“They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated.”

And that’s when the fear hit me. So very hard. I suddenly understood comments and looks my father had made that I never understood, penances for an unknown guilt, and reassurances my mother had given.

To top it all off my parent’s wedding day was apparently the worst day of all time and I couldn’t fly the Tardis out of there. The one day I think he could have flown her better than me and he wasn’t there. Typical Doctor.

I couldn’t get out. The Tardis was frozen and fracturing like I’d never seen before and I can’t describe what happened next. My mother Tardis was in so much pain and I could hear her screaming inside every inch of me. The downfall of having a direct link into the only source of huon energy in the universe.

And she still protected me. In the midst of her pain and crisis, she cut me off from the explosion and put me into a time loop.

Which got very monotonous after awhile, let me tell you.

Then he saved me.

“Hi, honey, I’m home.”

“And what sort of time do you call this?”

Oh, I wouldn’t give up times like that for anything.

We landed back on Earth and it was rather thrilling to see him using my vortex manipulator. A bit like watching an established coffee hater chugging an espresso.

“Amy! And the plastic centurion?”

(Father, Father, Father, I know you. The best dad in the universe.)

“It's okay, he's on our side.”

(Oh, is he ever. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Amy.)

“Really? I dated a Nestene duplicate once... swappable head…it did keep things fresh. Right then, I have questions. But number one is this...what in the name of sanity have you got on your head?”

Priorities. Whether he knew it or not he was my husband and I have standards.

“It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool.”

That’s what he thinks. Thank goodness my mother has some sense. Of course, after we exterminated the fez, we had to run to keep from being exterminated ourselves.

I’d never seen a Dalek before. Heard all about them naturally, read about every documented encounter they’d ever had with the Doctor, but I’d never met one.

Not that I’d been particularly anxious to, but considering how much I ran with the Doctor, it had to happen eventually.

Then the Doctor started blathering on about it getting in somewhere else.

“Now, that means we've got exactly…four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that's when it's due to kill me.”

Excuse me? Does he have to die every time I meet him?

“Kill you? What do you mean, kill you?”

“Oh, shut up, never mind. How can that Dalek even exist?”

He went on like that. Talking about everything and nothing, working it all out. And with absolutely no help from me. This one was all him.

Of course he was being ridiculous and none of us understood him properly, going on about the Pandorica’s restoration field.

“The box contains a memory of the universe, and the light transmits the memory. And that's how we're going to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Relight the fire. Reboot the universe. Come on!”

I have to admit I absolutely love when he goes manic like that.

“Doctor, you're being completely ridiculous. The Pandorica partially restored one Dalek. If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how will it reboot the whole of reality?

“What if we give it a moment of infinite power? Transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?”

“Well, that would be lovely, dear, but we can't, because it's completely impossible.”

“Ah, no, you see, it's not.”

And I wanted to hear what amazing, crazy idea he had now. But his death projection timing was getting rather good and then he disappeared on me.

Just wait till I got my hands on a version of him that knew me.

Rory was busy shooting at the Dalek and Amy was busy doing that quiet, death-like trance thing she did every time the Doctor died. But she knew enough to tell me where he went.

“Show me!”

“River, he died.”

“Systems restoring! You will be exterminated!”

“We've got to move. That thing's coming back to life.”

“You go to the Doctor. I'll be right with you.”

I didn’t know what the Doctor was planning, but I did know the look in his eyes when he thought he wasn’t coming back. And nobody shoots my husband and gets away with it.

“You will be exterminated!”

“Not yet, your systems are still restoring. Which means your shield density is compromised. One Alpha Mezon burst through your eyestalk would kill you stone dead.”

I do enjoy being smug when I’m going to kill something.

“Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's.”

“I'm River Song.” I aimed the gun. “Check your records again.”

There was a single space of time while the Dalek realized it was a very good thing the Daleks had never met River Song before.

“Mercy!”

“Say it again.”

“Mercy!”

“One more time.”

“Mercy!”

The Doctor has taught me a bit about mercy, but I’ve never been very good at putting it into practice.

I joined my parents downstairs where the Doctor had vanished from where they’d left him.

“But he was dead.”

You’ll learn as I did, Mother.

“Who told you that?”

“He did.”

“Rule one. The Doctor lies.”

“Where's the Dalek?”

“It died.”

The Doctor was in the Pandorica. Doing what, I had no idea.

“Doctor, can you hear me? What were you doing?”

Behind me my parents asked questions and I could feel time compressing.

“What’s happening?”

“History is being erased. Time is running out. Doctor, what were you doing? Tell us! Doctor?”

Then I understood. Oh, I understood. It was the most brilliant, clever idea. And it would be the end of everything.

“Oh!”

“What?”

“The Tardis is still burning. It's exploding at every point in history. If you threw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire...”

“Then what?”

“Then let there be light. The light from the Pandorica would explode everywhere at once, just like he said.”

“That would work? That would bring everything back?”

“A restoration field, powered by an exploding Tardis, happening at every moment in history.”

My love had set everything up. But there were a few minor adjustments I could make, so I did. So I wouldn’t think about the end.

Even he didn’t know what would happen. He thought he was saving all of us and sacrificing himself. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know he was the reason for my existence. Him and the Tardis. If they never existed then I would never exist either. Every page of my blue book would go completely blank. The book itself would disappear.

And he didn’t even know what he was missing.

“Amy, I need Amy,” he said wearily.

I swallowed my hurt and went to get my mother.

“Amy...he wants to talk to you.”

“So, what happens here? Big Bang Two? What happens to us?”

“We all wake up where we ought to be. None of this ever happens and we don't remember it.”

A little lie with the ‘we’ bit, but they didn’t need to know that.

“River...tell me he comes back too.”

“The Doctor will be at the heart of the explosion.”

“So?”

So my heart is going to crack into a million pieces, Mother, and then I’m going to die.

“So all the cracks in time will close, but he'll be on the wrong side. Trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of him will be purged from the universe. He will never have been born. Now, please, he wants to talk to you before he goes.”

“Not to you?”

“He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will.”

And I hoped he would be proud of my bravery. Everything I was doing I was doing for him. Because that’s how he would do it. I’d grown up and learned quite a bit since Silencio and that aborted timeline that never existed.

We said our goodbyes and the Doctor flew into the skies, like he always does. But this time there would be no coming back. If he had any clever plans he wasn’t letting me in on them.

But there I was at the end of it all, and my parents were there. If I couldn’t have him, at least I could have them. Perhaps they might have thought it was weird that this almost stranger was clutching their hands, keeping them from holding each other. But I needed my parents.

It was a curious feeling, being erased. A little bit like living your life backwards, but my life had never been linear and something about my connection to the Tardis did something to keep me from going out of existence altogether. It caused some sort of link between me and my parents and Leadworth. The universe was trying to put things back where they were supposed to go but my events weren’t in place for that to happen. But the first part was. A wedding, a very central point in time. I could see that now, having understood about the cracks. And so I was sent there to June 26th, 2010 and it turned out I attended their wedding after all. Mels wasn’t there now for two reasons, I never used to go to weddings and I had technically never existed.

I was almost a phantom. I had the solidity left to carry my blank, blue diary, (a miracle it even existed,) but that was about it. But I did have a purpose, because in viewing my own situation, I now understood. That link keeping me from fading was in my mother’s head.

Amy, the girl who waited, who had grown up with the time crack pouring into her dreams every night until the night the Doctor came. It was her memory that had brought those Romans to life, had brought Rory back from non-existence. And, somehow, someway, she remembered me and if she could do that…well, she could do a lot of things. Things involving my wayward husband and a big, blue box.

Blue rather like my diary cover and I thought I understood the Doctor’s plan, what he must have said to Amy before he flew the Pandorica into the Tardis. And I’m nothing if not a good wife. So I left Amy my diary, hoping that would trigger her memory. As I walked past the window, barely holding onto existence, I knew that I had succeeded.

I waited outside for the Doctor to come out. I knew he would. In the meantime I had some sorting out to do. My memories had all changed now. I supposed everything that had been swallowed by the cracks in time was now restored. Which meant I had new grandparents.

Those funny little people inside with my parents were my grandparents and I’d known them all my life. I could remember Augustus, (I immediately decided to call him Grandpa Gus), giving me piggy back rides and Gramma Tabby stuffing me with food when she thought I was too skinny. All those hours playing in Amy’s bedroom had suddenly become infused with warmth and food and security.

Not that I didn’t remember it the way it had been before. That’s the problem with being the child of the Tardis and at the epicenter of a big bang, you remembered things. It wouldn’t be that hard for me, after all, my life had been full of contradictions and changes and memory erasure and regaining. It’s a wonder I don’t have brain damage. But I’m used to it and I’ve got a lot of natural understanding of how those things work. What worried me more was how Amy and Rory would handle it.

In the meantime, I waited for the Doctor. Like I always do. I sat down by the Tardis, patting her side. I owed quite a lot to her.

“Thank you,” I breathed into the night air.

Eventually he came out and headed straight for the Tardis.

“Did you dance? Well, you always dance at weddings, don't you?” I asked, recalling a rather celebratory one we’d been roped into attending on a ship going past Orion’s belt involving a sacrificial chicken, the sonic screwdriver, and a rather horrified Rabbi.

“You tell me.”

“Spoilers.”

I did delight in taunting him with that word as he had once taunted me.

He handed me my diary back.

“The writing's all back, but I didn't peek.”

“Thank you.”

He handed me the vortex manipulator back. Ah, my way home.

“Are you married, River?”

“Are you asking?”

I took my time with looking up, enjoying this.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

And then he caught on. He always does eventually.

“No, hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me, o-o-or asking if you were married?”

“Yes.”

“No, but was that ‘yes,’ or ‘yes?’ ”

“Yes.”

It was a different sort of fun that I didn’t often get to have with him. It was almost, dare I say it, tender.

“River...who are you?”

Not that he would let it stay that way. He has such an insatiable curiosity.

“You're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes.”

Because then the burden of foreknowledge would fall on him in his timestream. And I liked being able to carry it for him.

But there was nothing more to be said, no kiss to be had from so young a Doctor, no shared history. So I simply left and went back to Stormcage to wait for our next encounter.