Everybody Lives aka The Story of River Song: Part Three

[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 Three

I did meet an older version of the Doctor after that at Stormcage. Almost like he was waiting for me. I wouldn’t put it past him. As my mother told me once, he’s very old and very kind.

I didn’t slap him, but I came close to it.

“I understand what you did for me now,” he said quietly.

The desire to slap him vanished.

“Well,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “who wouldn’t?”

“Lots of people. I would even go so far as to say gaggles.”

“That is daring of you,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” I said, putting my arm through his. “Now take me somewhere nice as a thank you present like a good boy.”

He clapped his hands together and tugged me into the Tardis. The doors closed on the usual warning bells that announced I was leaving my prison.

“I once took you on a picnic,” he said, racing around. “It was a good picnic, didn’t like the wine, but the ending was rather spoiled by my untimely death, wouldn’t you say? Yes, so, picnic it is. We are going to reclaim picnics in the name of…something grand anyway. Are you ready?”

“Always.”

He muttered some more, throwing switches, and then yelled at me to get something from the wardrobe to wear. I made my way there and felt the Tardis tell me what kind of clothes to get. It would be an interesting picnic if the fur coat was anything to go by.

After I was dressed I rejoined the Doctor, (still stubbornly in his bowtie), and we stepped outside.

“Asgard,” I said, clasping my hands together in sarcastic delight. “You romantic fool.”

“Oh yes, talk like that by all means,” he said, taking my hand. “I’m sure to take you on all sorts of adventures then.”

I noticed he had a picnic basket flung over one shoulder. I let him lead me to a lovely patch of snow and we set up our picnic. It was all my favorite foods and while prison fare had definitely improved quite a lot since my experiences in them as Mels, this fare was far more excellent than anything I got at Stormcage.

“Are you sure Canada is quite a good enough place for such a special trip?” I asked sarcastically.

“Baffin Island is one of the most gorgeous spots in the universe,” he said smugly. “Took Leela here once and her eyes positively boggled.”

“Likely with the cold,” I said. “I’ve seen that leather bikini in the wardrobe.”

The Doctor tripped putting up a parasol.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, taking pity on him, “you got it from the Idreni.”

“They’re craftsmen!” he snapped at me and I stifled a smile.

“Ooh, we are grouchy today being beholden to me, aren’t we?”

“What? Oh, yes, I mean, no. I mean, rude, aren’t you? I mean, presumptuous. Ow!” he said, holding his finger to his mouth.

“Let me see,” I said wearily.

He held it out to me hesitantly. It was only a little nick in the skin, but I kissed it better anyway.

“That doesn’t really work, you know,” he said smugly. “That’s human-y, silly stuff thinking it will be better - oh, oh, it doesn’t hurt anymore. How did you do that?”

“You should see all my brands of lipstick, Doctor,” I told him, laughing.

He finally started laughing with me and we sat down to eat.

“It’s a funny old world,” he said.

“World?” I queried.

“Universe,” he corrected himself with a grin. “Here’s you and I living our lives separately and together, backward and forward, knowing all, knowing nothing. I’ve known for ages what you’d done, but I couldn’t tell you until you’d lived through it. Rather puts the spontaneity out of life.”

“Somehow you manage, sweetie,” I said, enjoying the rare delicacies he’d brought from alien worlds.

“I’m being dramatic,” he said.

“I know.”

“Well, stop interrupting me. And being unimpressed.”

“Oh, Doctor, I’m way past unimpressed. We’re into not-even-fazed territory.”

He looked affronted, but I put my hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

“I’m not kissing you goodbye,” he told me grumpily.

“I’ll live,” I said. “Oh, my love, you know perfectly well you’re the reason for my very existence and I don’t just mean that literally.”

“Fine, maybe a small kiss.”

It might have been the most peaceful, (and cold), of my trips with him. The only alien we encountered was him and no one tried to kill us even once. I think he was rather disappointed.

Quite frankly, so was I a little bit. But the scenery was amazing.

We parted ways with a medium-sized kiss, (flattery will get you anywhere), and I didn’t see him again for a long time.

I spent the years in between doing good deeds shaving off my life sentences. It was never quite enough for a pardon, but I was down to only nine thousand consecutive life sentences. In the meantime I did quite a lot of updating in my diaries. Oh yes, I have three actually. One that has all my encounters with the Doctor chronologically for me, one chronologically for him, and one with them pieced together. Time and space event organization, thy name is River Song.

I was on a mission once. At the Bone Meadows. It was right up my alley, moldy tombs and dead things to uncover. My team and I were in one of the tombs when my current watchdog tripped a trap and got a two ton boulder on his head for his trouble. I grabbed as many of the others as I could and we ran. We were almost at the outside and into the fresh air when I ran headlong into someone running back the other way.

Guess who?

“You’re running the wrong way, dear,” I informed him calmly and tugged him along with us while he protested the whole time.

“I was investigating,” he said loudly as soon as we were a safe distance away from the now collapsed tomb.

“You were investigating,” I said. “You would be a regenerating pancake if it weren’t for me.”

“You’ve got a bit too much of an opinion of yourself,” he said, sulking.

“No striking resemblance to your own character, I’m sure.”

“Have you ever met Jane Austen?” he asked.

“Take me and find out,” I said.

“Maybe when I’m older,” he said.

“You don’t know me yet?” I asked.

“I do, Melody Pond,” he said. “But only just.”

“Fancy,” I said. “Duck.”

Arrows shot over our head and we all started running. I hissed instructions for us all to meet back at the ship and pelted into the forest, running with the Doctor.

“Been awhile,” I said, panting slightly.

“Not for me,” he said, grinning.

“Lucky you, darling,” I said and peered around a tree.

“What’s all the shoot-y business about?” he asked. “You been disturbing things again?”

“I’ll have you know I’m on a sanctioned visit. But some of the local tribes are arguing over who gets what we dig up. Maybe they’ve decided to just come and get it themselves.”

“Right, well, then we should go and have a little chat with them.”

Several hours later, I looked from my locked hands to where the Doctor was hanging upside down from a tree.

“I don’t think insulting his family was a good plan for your little chat, my love.”

“You’re always nitpicking. Worse than a stereotype dressed up in a June Cleaver apron.”

That made me wonder.

“Silencio,” I said.

He looked at me and winced.

“What about it?”

“Have you been? It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s on my to-do list,” he said. “Hang on, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Spoilers,” I told him. “Just try and remember all the players in Berlin when I became me.”

There was a crash and he fell on his head. He stood up, blood streaming down his face and got me loose from everything but the handcuffs.

“One day I’m gonna chuck your little book into Silencio,” he grumbled.

“No, you won’t,” I said cheerfully, “that would rather waste however you got a hold of it, wouldn’t it? Now, hasten, my love, we’ve got a ship to catch and I’ve got a life sentence to get rid of.”

In the end I was given an honorary title and the freedom to dig anywhere in the Bone Meadows that I wanted. The Doctor was banned from ever returning to the system. The remaining members of my team and I took him back to the Tardis and I helped him stitch up his head after the handcuffs had finally been gotten off.

He wore the bandage around his head rather sideways, covering one eye.

“That’s pretty cool,” he crowed upon inspection in the mirror.

“Take another look,” I said and then stuck a sleeping draught in his neck.

He didn’t look very well, my Doctor, and I gathered he was running from Silencio at this point, without my parents, and desperately afraid. I ran my fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead and his lips.

“You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met,” I told him. “But you already knew that. Now prove it to me once again. Come find me at Silencio.”

I kissed him again and left.

***

There came a day when I was summoned to a parole hearing. I was intrigued. I’d never heard it called that before. Every time before when I’d been given a task in order to get leniency it had all been done in secret, away from official records. But this time there was a soldier sitting on the other side of the glass.

“Do I get to keep him if I’m good?” I asked, sitting down.

“River Song, my name is Father Octavian, Bishop, second class. I have a proposition for you.”

I leaned forward.

“And we’ve only just met. Do tell.”

After grimacing rather meanly he did. And that’s how I learned about the existence of the Weeping Angels.

I agreed to their terms. How could I not? A full pardon? That’s exactly the kind of thing I like to hear. Besides, it gave me an excuse to look up the Doctor.

Octavian stuck rather close; I think he was a little bit nervous, poor thing, having to deal with the notorious River Song.

“I know everything,” he warned me, growling again. I thought men of faith were supposed to be at peace, but he was very jumpy. I guess he did have a huge job in front of him. “All your records from the Teselecta itself. There’s nothing you’ve done that I don’t know about.”

“Now that I cannot believe,” I said, laughing as I dug through the musty old books looking for a certain volume. “Even I don’t know everything I’ll ever do.”

“You just keep to your part of the bargain!”

I saluted him mockingly and kept on.

We tracked the Angel to the Byzantium. I got to wear high heels and dance with some lovely men before I broke into the vault and left my message for the Doctor. Two birds. One stone. No waiting.

“Like I said on the dance floor, you might want to find something to hang on to!”

Flying through space is rather exhilarating. Landing on top of the Doctor: even better.

“Doctor?”

Amy was there then.

“River?” the Doctor asked from beneath me looking like he would far rather be facing an army of Daleks.

Very young then.

“Follow that ship.”

He reluctantly obeyed but it soon became apparent to me that he was going to get us all killed if he kept on flying like that. I honestly don’t know how the Tardis puts up with it.

“Doctor, how come she can fly the Tardis?”

Mother didn’t know me very well either, did she?

“You call that flying the Tardis? Ha!”

He was grumpy that day apparently. No change there then. Well, I just had to take charge.

“Okay. I've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination, and parked us right alongside.”

Then the male pride bit took over and he just had to prove he knew better than me.

“We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System. Oxygen-rich atmosphere, toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day, and...chances of rain later.”

“He thinks he's so hot when he does that,” I told Amy, exasperated.

And he really was, sadly.

“How come you can fly the Tardis?”

Amy could stick to a point like no one else I knew.

“Oh, I had lessons from the very best. It's a shame you were busy that day,” I called to the pouting Doctor. And dying was very busy certainly. “Right then, why did they land here?”

“They didn't land.”

“Sorry?”

“You should've checked the Home Box - it crashed.”

“What caused it to crash? Not me.”

We went on like that for several moments, arguing, evading. The usual pleasantries until Amy interrupted us.

“Aren't you going to introduce us?”

Very early days then. Oh, so very early.

“Amy Pond, Professor River Song.”

“Ahhh, I'm going to be a Professor some day, am I? How exciting!” I laughed even while I was puzzled at how he obviously knew and didn’t know me. That man is impossible. “Spoilers!”

“Yeah, but who is she and how did she do that? She just left you a note in a museum!”

I could see they didn’t know each other so well either.

“Two things always guaranteed to show up in a museum: the Home Box of category-four starliner and, sooner or later, him,” I told her. “It's how he keeps score.”

“I'm nobody's taxi service!” the Doctor shouted at us. “I'm not gonna be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a space ship.”

“And you are so wrong.” I waited a tick, just long enough for the wrong impression to get taken. “There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die.” The Doctor stopped solid as I’d known he would. “Now he's listening.” Time to bring in the troops. “You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal.” I turned to the Doctor. “Doctor, can you sonic me? I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon.”

A curtsy and some more minutes of grousing while I got things set up. But I figured I had better truly find my bearings.

“We have a minute. Shall we?” I opened my diary. “Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?”

He didn’t answer my question, just looked horrified at the blue book that he would one day give me. I felt a straight bolt of fear in my chest. This had to be the youngest Doctor I’d ever met. Certainly the youngest Amy. And that meant my time was probably close.

Octavian arrived and we didn’t have any more time for pleasantries.

“You promised me an army, Doctor Song.”

“No, I promised you the equivalent of an army. This is the Doctor.”

His eyes widened and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head.

But he simply introduced himself and explained matters a bit.

“Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?”

“Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?”

With that he was hooked and we set up our base of operations just inside the temple. I took the time to get changed and got everything set up to show the Doctor.

I forget in the times that I’m not with him what he’s like. I mean, I know what he’s like, I can’t ever forget it, but that’s nothing compared to actually being with him and watching his brilliant mind at work. It’s the most exhilarating feeling and no mere memory could ever hope to compete with that.

I felt that anew while I watched him work out the mystery of our lone Lonely Assassin explaining to Amy who didn’t know anything about them.

But we had to explain things to him too. It was fascinating feeding him a bit of information and watching it churn around inside until something idiotic came out, masking some master plan.

I gave him the book I’d found.

“I found this. Definitive work on the Angels. Well, the only one. Written by a madman, it's barely readable, but I've marked a few passages.”

Sometimes he seems very human due to long exposure, but then he would do something like reading a book in seconds and it reminded you he’s so much more than that.

“Not bad, bit slow in the middle, didn't you hate his girlfriend? No, hang on, wait, wait!” Especially when he sniffs and licks things. “This book is wrong! What's wrong with this book, it's wrong.”

“Oh, it's so strange when you go all baby-face. How early is this for you?”

“Very early,” he said in a non-committal tone.

“So you don't know who I am yet?”

Knew that from the beach, but I’m here to play the game after all.

Then Amy got into a spot of trouble with an angel and managed to save herself. That’s my mother, ladies and gentlemen.

“I froze it! There was a sort of blip on the tape and I froze it on the blip. It wasn't the image of an angel any more. That was good, yeah? It was, wasn't it? That was pretty good.”

“That was amazing!”

Strange how I felt like the mother.

“River, hug Amy.”

“Why?”

“Cause I'm busy.”

“I'm fine,” Amy insisted.

“You're brilliant!” I told her, grasping her by the shoulders.

And so we prepared to go into the maze. My element, you might say. It really was a fascinating place and I wish I’d had more time there. We headed for the wreck of the Byzantium after setting up a base.

Octavian stuck rather close.

“He doesn't know yet, does he? Who and what you are.”

“It's too early in his timestream,” I said stiffly.

“Well, make sure he doesn't work it out, or he's not gonna help us.”

How well he doesn’t know my Doctor.

“I won't let you down. Believe you me, I have no intention of going back to prison.”

Or staying there anyway.

I had to hurry to catch up with my mother and the Doctor. Amy was standing still rubbing her eye and I paused, suddenly concerned.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. So, what's a maze of the dead?”

“Oh, it's not as bad as it sounds. It's just a labyrinth with dead people buried in the walls. Okay, that was fairly bad. Right give me your arm. This won't hurt a bit.”

I cheerfully injected her.

“Ow!”

“There, you see. I lied. It's a viro-stabiliser. Stabilises your metabolism against radiation, drive burn, anything. You're going to need it when we get
up to that ship.”

That was to make up for the time she'd tricked me into getting an inoculation against influenza when I was a child.

“So what's he like? In the future, I mean. Cause you know him in the future, don't you?”

Her voice was full of girlish glee, dishing with a friend. Rather like our childhood sometimes. And that’s where she was at, it seemed. Flown off on the night before her wedding.

I suddenly missed my father.

“The Doctor? Well, the Doctor's the Doctor.”

“Oh, well, that's very helpful. Mind if I write that down?”

It was hard knowing everything but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be fun as well.

“Yes, we are,” I said, looking at the Doctor and smirking.

“Sorry, what?” he said in his I’m-very-busy-and-important voice.

“Talking about you.”

“I wasn't listening, I'm busy.”

“Ah. The other way up.”

The ridiculous man!

“You're so his wife,” Amy said triumphantly.

I couldn’t be very surprised, but I couldn’t be confidential either.

“Oh, Amy, Amy, Amy! This is the Doctor we're talking about. Do you really think it could be anything that simple?”

“Yup.”

“You're good. I'm not saying you're right...but you are very good.”

And if only Rory were there, everything would have been fantastic.

Still, we kept going having a lovely conversation about the Aplans until Amy made a comment that made the Doctor stop in his tracks.

“Oh!”

“What's wrong?” Amy asked.

I followed the Doctor’s line of vision and it hit me as well. Oh, we were stupid that day.

“Oh.”

“Exactly.”

“How could we not notice that?”

“Low level perception filter, or maybe we're thick.”

“What's wrong, sir?” asked Octavian.

“Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in danger.”

“What danger?”

Couldn’t they all see it? It was so glaringly obvious to me.

“The Aplans.”

“The Aplans?”

“They've got two heads.”

“Yes, I get that. So?”

“So why don't the statues?”

And we ran for our lives.

Imagine a maze full of statues. Imagine the statues moving. Imagine them all having the power to kill you. Imagine you walking in there thinking they were harmless and suddenly finding out they weren’t.

Life with the Doctor.

“Any suggestions?” I asked when we found out we couldn’t even reach our safety point.

“The statues are advancing on all sides and we don't have the climbing equipment to reach the Byzantium,” said Octavian, the pessimist.

I ignored him and spoke to the Doctor.

“There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea.”

“There's always a way out. There's always a way out.”

And then the Angels made a mistake, using the Doctor’s faith and passion and compassion and love for life against him.

“You told me my fear would keep me alive but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down,” said Angel Bob matter of factly.

The idea that the Angels could kill someone and use their consciousness to communicate was both fascinating and horrible.

“What are they doing?” Amy asked me.

“They're trying to make him angry.”

“Trust me?” the Doctor asked all of us.

“Yeah.”

“Always.”

“We have faith, sir.”

Then the Doctor held a gun. I had never seen that happen before. It was a little bit exciting.

And the Angels inquired after their mistake.

“Oh, big mistake. Huge. There's one thing you never put in a trap, if you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.”

“And what would that be, sir?”

“Me!”

With a shot and a jump we were on the roof and let me tell you how very odd a feeling that is.

But the Angels were still coming and draining our power and the Doctor had the maddest idea ever to stop them doing it.

“Doctor, we lost the torches. We'll be in total darkness,” Amy pointed out.

“No other way. Bishop?”

Octavian turned to me.

“Dr Song, I've lost good Clerics today. You trust this man?”

“I absolutely trust him.”

No worries there.

“He's not some kind of madman then?”

Um…

“I absolutely trust him.”

Octavian leaned toward me menacingly and I could see the loss of every single one of his men in his eyes.

“I'm taking your word, because you're the only one who can manage this guy. But that only works so long as he doesn't know who you are. You cost me any more men, and I might just tell him. Understood?”

Me? Manage the Doctor? Oh, Octavian, how little you know.

“Understood,” I gritted out.

And the plan worked beautifully except we were now trapped.

“We need another way out of here.”

“There isn't one.”

“Yeah, there is, course there is. This is a galaxy class ship, goes for years between planet falls. So what do they need?”

Insert: ‘River Song, the answerer of questions and completer of my sentences’ to the end of that sentence.

“Of course.”

It was rather beautiful. A great work of technology.

“It's an oxygen factory.”

“It's a forest,” Amy said.

“Yeah, it's a forest, it's an oxygen factory.”

And then I noticed what Amy was saying and I grew afraid for some reason.

“You're counting,” I said as more time passed.

“Counting?”

“You're counting down. From ten. You have been for a couple of minutes.”

That’s where things got interesting as we all fled into the forest and the Doctor stayed behind. I wanted to strangle him. I’m particularly protective of Doctors younger than my own personal timestream. After all, a girl’s got to get born somehow.

Which made me very worried when Amy just curled up on a rock as she was a rather vital part of that process as well.

“Amy, what's wrong?”

“Four.”

Not a very heartening response.

“Med-scanner, now!”

Octavian got miss-ish again.

“Dr Song, we can't stay here, we've got to keep moving.”

“We wait for the Doctor,” I said calmly, scanning Amy.

“Our mission is to make this wreckage safe and neutralize the Angels. Until that is achieved-”

“Father Octavian, when the Doctor is in the room, your only mission is to keep him alive long enough to get everyone else home. And, trust me, it's not easy. Now, if he's dead back there, I'll never forgive myself, and if he's alive, I'll never forgive him. And…Doctor, you're standing right behind me, aren't you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He always does that to me.

“I hate you!”

The Doctor examined Amy who was obviously afraid.

“So what's wrong with me?”

“Nothing, you're fine,” I soothed.

“Everything, you're dying.”

“Doctor!”

“Yes, you're right, if we lie to her, she'll get all better! Right. Amy! Amy. What's the matter with Amelia? Something's in her eye. What does that mean? Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doctor,” Amy tried.

“Busy.”

“Scared!” she shot back.

“Course, you're dying, shut up!”

I moved to put my arm on her. The Doctor is just like other people sometimes. He gets angry when he’s scared.

“It’s okay, let him think,” I told her.

The Doctor can focus unlike anything else in the universe and he’s not at all tactful about letting you know you’re getting in the way of that. I’d seen him do that before. He’d done it to me. In a crisis situation he needed people to shut up and let him do his job. In the end, it was brilliant, but the process itself was incredibly hard to go through.

And he does blather on a bit when he’s figuring things out.

He threw the communicator away in a rage and even I get scared when he’s upset like that.

But he did it; he saved her

“She's normalizing. You did it! You did it!”

But we were all still in danger and a possible solution involved leaving Amy and going off into the forest.

“How?” I asked.

“I'll do a thing.”

“What thing?”

“I don’t know; it's a thing in progress. Respect the thing. Moving out!”

“Doctor, I'm coming with you. My Clerics can look after Miss Pond. These are my best men, they'd lay down their lives in her protection.”

“I don't need you.”

“I don't care. Where Dr Song goes, I go,” Octavian said like the great big worrier he is.

“What? You two engaged or something?” the Doctor asked, looking intrigued.

“Yes, in a manner of speaking. Marco, you're in charge till I get back.”

I walked off with Octavian after shrugging at the Doctor. I felt…divided. After all it was only a matter of time before he found out what I had/had not done and that I was at Stormcage. I just didn’t like the idea that there was a Doctor in any time who didn’t trust me as much as I trusted him.

He’d once listed me as most trusted even over my own parents in those invitations he’d sent out. I wanted to be that River to him.

I was grateful to put off, even for just a little longer, the time where he didn’t trust me. Like before 1969.

And then the time crack really showed up with a vengeance.

“What's that?” I asked, ever helpful, ever prodding.

“Readings from a crack in a wall.”

“How can a crack in the wall be the end of the universe?”

I love asking him questions I already know the answer to.

“Here's what I think. One day there'll be a very big bang, so big every moment in history - past and future - will crack.”

“Is that possible? How?”

“How can you be engaged in a manner of speaking?”

Was he jealous? A little bit perhaps. Doesn’t really want me but doesn’t want me to want anyone else. That’s the Doctor sometimes.

“Well...sucker for a man in uniform.”

Then Octavian would ruin it all.

“Dr Song is in my personal custody. I released her from the Stormcage Containment Facility four days ago and I am legally responsible for her until she has accomplished her mission and earned her pardon. Just so we understand each other.”

“You were in Stormcage?”

The device beeped. Evasion time.

“What? What is that?”

“The date! The date of the explosion where the crack begins.”

Not that I didn’t already know that, of course.

“And for those of us who can't read the base code of the universe?”

“Amy's time!”

Or my parents’ wedding day, or the day both of us were nearly erased from time, or, if you want to get really personal, my conception.

It was really very funny watching him work it all out when I’d lived it already. But such is the nature of our relationship, one of us is always really confused and the other one insufferable with foreknowledge.

We got to the flight deck and I made myself acquainted with the controls. My first thought was to get the teleport working because there were now two dangers in those woods.

That’s what I was working on when the Doctor blundered in sans my keeper.

“There's a teleport! If I can get it to work, we can beam the others here. Where's Octavian?”

“Octavian's dead, so is that teleport. You're wasting your time. I'm going to need your communicator.”

Well, there went my high hopes for my parole. And a good man for all my poking fun at him.

Also Amy was alone in the forest, lost and confused. I kept working on the teleport. The Doctor is brilliant, but so am I. I worked and I listened to their conversation.

“Amy, I'm sorry. I should never have left you there.”

“Well, what do I do now?”

“You come to us. Primary flight deck, other end of the forest.”

“I can't see! I can't open my eyes.”

“When the communicator sounds like my screwdriver, you're facing the right way. Follow the sound. You have to start moving now. There's time energy spilling out of that crack and you have to stay ahead of it.”

“But the Angels, they're everywhere.”

“I'm sorry, I really am, but the Angels can only kill you.”

“What does the time energy do?”

“Just keep moving!”

“Tell me!”

“If the time energy catches up with you, you'll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all. Now, keep your eyes shut and keep moving!”

“It's never going to work,” I said grimly, continuing my work.

“What else have you got? River, tell me!” he shouted at me.

I flinched, but I didn’t say anything. This Doctor didn’t know me, this Doctor was sick with worry and frightened. I was frightened. I could not take this personally. I had to keep working.

“That time energy, what's it going to do?” I asked, because I didn’t quite know how we could close this crack so he could go and live and close all of them.

“Er, keep eating.”

“How do we stop it?”

“Feed it.”

“Feed it what?”

“A big complicated space/time event should shut it up for a while.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“Like me, for instance!” he yelled again.

Oh, I was going to give my Doctor a good talking to the next time I met him. Don’t get me wrong, I love any Doctor, but this one was so angry. He must have been really scared and that scared me. And nobody likes being yelled at for no reason. I was used to him yelling, but this was different.

I shut away the thought that I might never get to see my Doctor again.

So I fixed the teleport and got Amy back on my own.

“I teleported you,” I told her and then turned to him. “See? Told you I could get it working.”

“River Song, I could bloody kiss you.”

Hot and cold, my man.

“Ah well, maybe when you're older.”

And less prone to violent outbursts.

Well, that’s never going to happen.

And then the Angels were there and Angel Bob made his grand appearance.

“There is a rupture in time. The Angels calculate that if you throw yourself into it, it will close and they will be saved.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could do, could do that. But why?”

“Your friends would also be saved.”

“Well, there is that.”

And then I got my idea. It would work just as well. He didn’t know how well.

“I've travelled in time. I'm a complicated space/time event too. Throw me in.”

“Oh, be serious! Compared to me, these Angels are more complicated than you and it would take every one of them to amount to me, so get a grip.”

That’s what he thinks. But all of that knowledge for him is still to come. Yes, he is more complex, but if he threw a few Angels in with me it would work out.

“Doctor, I can't let you do this.”

“No, seriously, get a grip.”

“You're not going to die here!”

“No, I mean it. River, Amy, get a grip.”

“Oh, you genius!”

I absolutely love those moments of realization that he would save everything.

The Angels flew and we held on and before I knew it, we were climbing out of the wreckage and the troops on the beach had arrested me the moment they found out Octavian was dead.

After making sure Amy was okay, the Doctor walked to where I was waiting.

“You, me...handcuffs. Must it always end this way?” I teased him.

“What now?”

“The prison ship's in orbit. They'll beam me up any second. I might have done enough to earn a pardon this time. We'll see.”

“Octavian said you killed a man.”

That gave me pause. The moment had come. The sad moment where he had to put me on his possible baddy list.

“Yes, I did. A good man. A very good man. The best man I've ever known.”

“Who?”

“It's a long story, Doctor, can't be told. It has to be lived. No sneak previews. Well, except for this one: you'll see me again quite soon, when the Pandorica opens.”

I couldn’t resist. After all, I knew that’s what he had to be dealing with since he had Amy with him and judging from what we’d just gone through.

“The Pandorica, ha! That's a fairy tale,” he whispered in my ear.

I smiled over at him.

“Oh, Doctor, aren't we all? I'll see you there.”

“I look forward to it.”

And I think he actually did. Fits of temper and manslaughter aside, I think he was intrigued enough to look forward to the River Song bits of his life.

“I remember it well.”

“Can I trust you, River Song?”

“If you like, but where's the fun in that?”

Safely ensconced back at Stormcage, I met with the review board. A little known fact about cleric missions is that everything is streamed through to their base of operations. It doesn’t matter who or where you are, they know what’s going on. Keeps the men honest and gives a clear picture of the mission. Like a little Home Box of their own.

Despite Octavian’s last warning about me to the Doctor everything else I’d done on the mission, including volunteering to sacrifice myself to save the very man I’d killed, (though one man was vehement that it was because I had to save him until I actually killed him to preserve time lines or something like that. Poor dear didn’t really know anything about me). I was reduced down to ten years in prison.

Well, I could live with that. But it’s their own fault for not making no more escaping as part of the agreement. I was gripped with a real need to see my parents and know that they knew me. I set another nicked vortex manipulator, (really, those things break like nobody’s business), to a time where I’d be certain they did know me.

“Heard there was a freak meteor shower two miles away so I got us a bottle.”

My mother was getting better with age.

“Thank you, dear.”

“So where are we?”

“I just climbed out of the Byzantium. You were there. So young, didn't have a clue who I was. You're funny like that. Where are you?”

“The Doctor's dead.”

And then I immediately wanted to mother my mother. Life is not wonderful when the Doctor’s dead for you.

“How are you doing?”

“How do you think?”

“Well, I don't know unless you tell me.”

“Do you know he dropped us down right after he died?” Amy said dully. “Yes, I know he’d already died for us, but as long as we were traveling with him it was still two hundred years off. Now it’s only been a few weeks for the rest of the world since the three of us were on that beach watching him…die.”

“Time travel isn’t easy, Amy,” I told her. “No one knows that better than I do. But this makes the most sense for your lives, doesn’t it? You can pick up where you left off, no huge disappearances to explain to anybody.”

“Just a whopping house and really expensive car as my husband informs me.”

“Modeling is very good to you,” I told her.

She looked askance at me.

“Who told you I was going to do that?”

“Spoilers,” I said, smiling. “Besides, that will help. Really, Amy dear, he was trying to give you a gift. I doubt it even occurred to him about the date.”

“Lots of things don’t occur to that idiot,” Amy said without malice.

“Truer words…” I trailed off and studied her face. “There’s something else bothering you. Ah…it’s only just happened for you. His death. Not on the beach, but in the timeline I created.”

“I killed someone. Madame Kovarian, in cold blood.”

Was it wrong for me to feel…warm about that? Partially out of the knowledge that she must have done that for me and partially out of hating that woman. I’ll have to set aside time to work out my psychopathic tendencies later.

“In an aborted time-line, in a world that never was...”

“Yeah, well, I can remember it, so it happened, so I did it. What does that make me now? I need to talk to the Doctor, but I can't now, can I?”

I set down my glass with a calculated air.

“If you could talk to him, would it make a difference?”

“But he's dead, so I can't.”

“Oh, Mother...of course he isn't.”

I leaned forward as she denied everything I said. Too much hope for her to bear, I imagine. I know it would have been for me. But she had to learn that the Doctor lies and so do I. It’s the way of our world.

“Oh, that man, he's always one step ahead of everyone. Always a plan.”

“River, what did he tell you? River!”

I laughed and told her everything. It was rather refreshing not to lie. And out of all the people in the universe, my parents deserved to know the truth. The truth that I’d held for so many years already.

Rory came home just then and Amy hugged him wildly as she told him the news.

“He's not dead, he's not dead!”

“Are you sure, River? Are you really, properly sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I'm his wife!”

“Yes! And I'm his...mother-in-law.”

“Father dear, I think Mummy might need another drink.”

And we did drink. All three of us. Rory was too hung over to go into hospital next day and I spent a few days with them, helping Amy get her contacts going, laughing at her choice of name for her perfume, going shopping, and listening to Rory lecture about how I should behave my last few years in prison.

It was wonderful.

***

It was rather amazing how fast ten years flew by. I barely realized it. And it was a bit odd to think of not ever going back to Stormcage. Prison or not it had been a sort of home for a very long time. About six weeks before my release I woke up in the middle of the night to the welcome sound of the Tardis wheezing herself into existence in front of my cell.

“Oh bother,” the Doctor said, stepping out and realizing he was on the wrong side of the bars.

He got out the sonic and broke me out five seconds slower than he would have had he gotten the right side.

“Hello, sweetie,” I said, patting him on the head. “Come to wish me luck?”

“This is a celebration visit,” he said. “You’re finally going to not be in prison for that thing you didn’t do.”

“Yes, funny how that works,” I said, entering the Tardis. “So…where are we going?”

“What’s a celebration without a party?” he said, pointing toward the interior of the Tardis. “Get yourself a fancy dress, Dr. Song,”

“I’m thinking about going back to school,” I told him.

“What made you think that?”

“A certain misspoke word on a beach.”

“You’ve spoilered me lots of times,” he said defiantly. “It was only the second time I’d ever met you.”

“No wonder you were cross, poor thing,” I said and went to get changed.

The Tardis, among other things, is the best shopping complex in the world. And it’s free.

The Doctor was wearing his black suit, bowtie and all, and we made rather a fine couple if I did say so myself.

“We make rather a fine couple.”

You see?

“You don’t want me to kiss your hand or anything?” he asked, looking worried.

“Don’t worry, my love,” I said. “I wouldn’t presume to pull privileges with you.”

“Because you have them to pull and simply won’t or you simply don’t have them?”

“We’d better do diaries,” I said, pulling mine out of my handbag.

He’d only just found out about that aborted timeline. But he was still traveling with my parents or had picked them up again. He was a bit unclear. They were, apparently, asleep.

When we arrived I opened my mouth for a second or two.

“When you said party, sweetie, you really meant it.”

He got smug for a minute or two as he is so apt to do.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “or, rather, don’t, cause it’s impossible, but I’m very good, aren’t I?”

“I’ve never quite made up my mind about it,” I told him and flounced past into the ballroom.

The Inaugural Ball was a very big deal. I had loads of fun dancing and flirting and making contacts. Of course, then the Doctor had to come up behind me and tell me that two very important people/aliens had been turned into a fly and a goldfish. He thrust a goldfish bowl at me while he went to imprison the fly in the Tardis. I don’t think he quite remembered exactly how big the Tardis actually is.

Then he came back and snatched the goldfish whispering about how I had to keep the Ambassador from killing everyone in the room and could only do so whilst the goldfish was kept safe and the Warrior Chief fly was imprisoned which he would do himself, thank you very much.

I rolled my eyes, but did as he instructed. When I had to strong arm a delegate to their knees to keep them from attacking I realized the Doctor may have had a point.

Until he stuck his head out the door and exclaimed that we’d got the wrong fish. Oh, that blasted man.

A lovely lady named Marlee took hold of the Ambassador who somehow had the phone number to the Tardis and the Doctor and I were off to the pet shops.

One purchase with psychic paper later, (neither of us carry money), and we were golden. It did involve the Doctor inspecting every goldfish in the shop and talking to them.

One five hour truce talk later with the Prince of Wales and the Ambassador from Trii’l who had to commit a ritual slaughter of ten billion souls or his planet would explode, and I was exhausted and had had quite enough celebrating. The Doctor took me home while I changed out of my dress. After I’d done that I discovered that he’d gotten a cricket bat from somewhere.

Sighing, I gave him a quick peck and waved goodbye.

“Don’t tell your parents!” he called after me.

I got out of Stormcage on my birthday. The Doctor was waiting for me.

“Well, wife, where to?” he asked.

“You must be chipper today,” I said, slightly surprised. “I don’t often get such a title.”

“Well, it’s more binding than the one with Marilyn, I have to admit,” he said.

“I’ll be sure and mention it the next time I see her,” I said.

“Just tell me where you want to go, River,” the Doctor said. “The universe awaits. You could even…stay…now…if you wanted.”

My heart leapt up into my throat. An invitation to stay with the Doctor, to run with him forever, was not something offered every day.

“Raincheck?” I asked, looking him in the eye.

“Reason?” he countered. “Cause you don’t fool me. I know how much you want to come. Like anyone else would. Like you have before.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you make about as much sense as a kangaroo on the Coast of Verigo on Hedi’r?”

“I understood him perfectly, I don’t know what you’re on about.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I can’t come with you, my love. I’ve been…not exactly cooped up for so many years, but not exactly free either. And I need a little time to spread my wings. You still have enemies out there. You still want to keep a lower profile. Quite the screamer here. Ring any bells?”

“Those Judoon won’t ever forget that night,” he said, grimacing. “And my ears are permanently damaged, I tell you. I’ve resorted to using a horn sometimes.”

“Liar,” I said affectionately. “Just drop me off back at school, sweetie. I’ve a yen to learn some more.”

“Any particular year?”

“How about right after I graduated and I’ll drive?”

“Spoilsport,” he grumbled.

“Spoiler-sport,” I said, grinning and flipped the switch.

It was surprisingly easy to get back into the swing of school. Naturally some people, including some of the instructors, were suspicious of me. It wasn’t as much fun as before, not that I'd had such a blast the first time. River Song was notorious in that time period even if I’d never technically committed the crime I never committed in the first place. But I was there to study and study I did.

I met the Doctor twice before I got my second degree. The first time was something I can’t explain. Something I don’t understand. Something I can’t even bear to think about. Suffice it to say that I came away from the encounter with the knowledge of the Doctor’s name. His actual, true, proper name. A name to rend the heavens. He’d given it to me with a sad smile on his face; as if he thought it meant something other than…I can’t think about that.

But the second time was very soon after the Byzantium for him and I cut it short. It was another reminder to me that he wouldn’t always know me. And that broke my heart again.

After I graduated again I got a job on a dig on the world of the Kfeavers. That was an adventure and a half and people started to look at me differently, with more respect and more fear. If such a thing were possible.

One day I got a call about a prospective job with a Mr. Lux. I haphazardly mentioned it to the Doctor the next time I saw him. His timestream seemed to be right after he found out who I was. I had my back to him, but I could somehow sense that the news was startling and revealing to him. He started babbling twice as fast as normal and a cold feeling drifted down my spine.

I spent a couple of weeks in the Tardis at that point and he spent a great deal of it fiddling with his screwdriver. It looked different than the one that I’d always seen him with before. But…a man’s allowed to change his screwdriver.

He dropped me off at my meeting with a rather hurried air as if he was anxious to get it over with. No kisses from that Doctor.

My meeting was quite successful and I was due the next day to meet the team of people I would be leading. But when I got home that night I found the Doctor on my doorstep.

“Where’s the one place I’ve always promised to take you?” the Doctor said with a small smile.

“The Singing Towers?” I asked, bouncing a little. “Is it finally time?”

“That’s right. Now get in there and get dressed.”

He finally got me into that dress, (he doesn’t know about the time I nicked it when we were in America, Rory was the one who pulled me out of the pool), and we were off.

“One quick stop,” he said, pulling levers and typing something on the typewriter. “A little business meeting. You don’t mind waiting outside.”

“Too important for the likes of me?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, that’s it,” he said, pushing me out the Tardis door and we were on Calderon Bita again.

“Is this your new Earth?” I asked.

He pointed me toward the elevator.

“Just go…go…go do things. Things you will do.”

“All right, no need to shove,” I said.

I wandered around for a moment or two and then I spotted the Tardis up ahead. And I couldn’t resist. After all, he was obviously playing something with me tonight. Two can play games.

"You nostalgic idiot. You just can't keep away, can you?"

I went out to check the bulb when he asked me to. I know, you don’t have to say it, what a ridiculous thing to do.

When I went back in I’d barely gotten to say so when I heard another voice behind me.

"No, River! Wrong Tardis, I'm parked around back,” he said and slowed down, grinning at the white-suited Doctor at the console. “Younger version."

"Two of you. The mind races, does it not?" I said, not really having had a chance at my birthday party years ago.

"Come on, or we'll be late," my Doctor told me.

"He's taking me to the Singing Towers of Derillium. He's been promising for ages."

I walked away, really looking forward to it. The Doctor had been promising. Every time I’d mentioned it, he’d gotten a sad look in his eyes and changed the subject or blown something up. Which made me suspicious about why he was doing it now, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.

My Doctor stayed a moment or two in the younger Doctor’s Tardis. I don’t know what they talked about, but it was a rather subdued Doctor that rejoined me.

“Finish the meeting, my love?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

“What meeting? No meeting. Let’s go,” he said and grabbed my hand, yanking me along.

“Rule One,” I muttered.

We did make it to the Singing Towers. I don’t know if I could say it was my favorite of everything he’d ever showed me. I’ve seen so many wonders. It was beautiful though and emotional. The music was unlike anything I’d ever heard before including when the Doctor had opened my mind to be able to hear the Song of the Ood the time that I learned about the DoctorDonna and his loss of her. It took my breath away as we sat together, my head on his shoulder.

When I looked at him again I was surprised to see tears on his cheeks.

“You’re rather human tonight, Doctor,” I said lightly, not wanting to dig too deep.

“Happens every couple of hundred years,” he said, but his face was so sad. So sad.

“What’s wrong, my love?” I asked, putting my hands on his shoulders.

“Nothing you can fix, most amazing of wives,” he told me, and for the first time ever, initiated a kiss with me.

Which was just as amazing as our first two, though tinged with the salt of his tears.

“Thank you,” I told him.

“I have something for you,” he said and fiddled in his pockets, bringing out a myriad of things before getting the screwdriver that I’d seen him fiddling with.

“For me?” I asked. “Aren’t you worried what I’ll do with it?”

“It’s what I’ll do with it,” he said softly.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Treasure it well and promise me you won’t go anywhere without it. Please.”

It was the please that made me pause. Almost desperate.

“I promise,” I said quietly.

I leaned in and kissed him again and he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly for the rest of the night while the towers filled the night air with soaring melodies and whirling harmonies.