FANFIC: Five Times the Twelfth Doctor was There for River... (11/River, 12/River) PG-13
Title: Five Times the Twelfth Doctor was There for River When She Needed Him, and One Time She was There for Him
Author: ponygirl72
Characters: Eleventh Doctor, River Song, Twelfth Doctor
Pairings: Eleven/River, Twelve/River
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: swearing, off-screen sex
Word count: 7,381
Summary: Does exactly what it says on the tin.
1) Florida, 1969
Melody bit the fat man's hand, teeth digging into the rank, salty flesh. Jerking loose from his grasp, she tangled her small ankle behind his large one and pushed against his pudgy waist with all her might. The heavy thud as he fell was satisfying. She ran as fast as her nine-year-old legs would carry her, clutching the half-eaten loaf of stale bread to her side.
Behind her, the sound of cursing mixed with pounding footsteps as the homeless man regained his feet and started pursuit.
"Come back here, you little bitch!" he yelled. "Gimme that back!"
Melody kept running, trying to gauge her pursuer's level of fitness from the sound of his heavy breathing as his longer stride ate up the distance between them.
Evade, conceal, counterattack, disable, said the strange, hissing voice that sometimes spoke in her mind, as if it was an old lesson. Her own lungs were starting to ache and she fought not to succumb to the fit of wet coughing that was trying to rise up inside her chest.
A rickety old shed loomed behind the trees and Spanish moss in her peripheral vision. She darted off the path and through the gap where the wooden door was half off its hinges. The interior was dim, but she could make out a broken ladder leaned precariously in one corner. Hand tools hung from rusty hooks on the wall.
The ladder was heavy and awkward, but she managed to wrestle it into position, holding it parallel to the ground, the unbroken rail pointing squarely at the centre of the door. The rasp of her breathing sounded loud in the enclosed space, but she didn't try to hide it.
"Trapped yourself, didn't you? Stupid little cow," came the voice from outside.
Melody tightened her grip on the ladder, crouched in readiness. As the remains of the door creaked and swung open, she lunged forward, driving the foot of the ladder into the fat man's chest even as the fat man flung himself into the shed, trying to get to her. The impact jarred up the length of her aching arms and into her shoulders, but it was worth it for the sound of the breath whooshing out of the man's lungs as he went down hard just outside the doorway, hands scrabbling at his chest.
Melody dropped the ladder-- now even more broken than it had been before-- and picked up the precious loaf of bread before cautiously approaching the door. Inching past the writhing, wheezing figure on the ground, she turned, ready to take to her heels. She had only run a couple of steps, though, when an unfamiliar voice behind her brought her to a stumbling halt.
"Incredibly strong, and running away. You know, all these years later and I still like that."
Something about the soft Scottish brogue behind the words tugged at a forgotten place deep in Melody's chest, and she spun to look back. A tall, very thin man stood just in front of her victim. He was slightly scruffy, with wild silver hair and unusually large grey-green eyes, but the quality of his clothes immediately distinguished him from the denizens of the homeless camp she'd just come from. Once she met his gaze, it was hard to look away.
"Come here, child," he said, not unkindly.
Almost without realising it, she found herself retracing her steps until she was standing just out of reach.
"Who are you?" Melody asked, wary.
"I'm a friend of your parents," he said. "I've come to tell you how to find them."
"My parents are dead," she said, hearing the uncertainty and hope mingled in her own voice. In her mind, more images stirred and a female voice whispered softly.
I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved. That you'll be safe and cared for and protected...
"Oh, come now, Melody Pond," scoffed the stranger, in the same accent as her mother's remembered voice. "You know that's not true. You saw your mother only recently, in the children's home. The Silence took her away, but your father and I rescued her. Do you remember?"
Melody backed away as a fresh wave of adrenaline inexplicably coursed through her system, scrunching her eyes shut as confused flashes of memory assaulted her. Red hair, and the face from the photo on her dresser, but covered with black tally marks. Screams. Terror. Ripping her way free of the spaceman suit in a panic; fingernails torn and bloody. Hiding, running, hiding again, until the pangs of hunger and thirst drove her out into the countryside.
"Oi, you-- don't. We'll not be having any of that nonsense today," snapped the thin man suddenly, and Melody's eyes flew open at the unexpected change of tone. But his attention was no longer on her. His booted foot pressed down on her pursuer's hand, pinning it to the ground until the fat man dropped the knife he was holding with a curse. The newcomer kicked the weapon into the bushes and returned his eyes to Melody's.
"Give me the bread, please, Melody," he said, voice once again kind, though stern.
Melody clutched the crumbling loaf tighter for a split second, before the same instinct that had drawn her back to the man caused her to proffer it reluctantly. He tore the stale bread into two roughly equal-sized pieces, handed half of it back to her, and gave the other half to the fat man, who was climbing to his feet warily.
The growl was back in his voice as he addressed the homeless man, who seemed as helplessly drawn into the stranger's gaze as a snake before a snake charmer. "Now take it and leave, before I get angry. Believe me-- you really wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
It should have been comical the way the fat man's flabby jaw opened and closed a few times before he backed away and fled down the trail, but somehow it wasn't, even when the stranger smirked as if to himself, and muttered, "Brilliant. Always wanted an excuse to say that..." under his breath.
"You said you know my parents. Where are they?" Melody asked. "How can I find them?"
The stranger tracked the fat man's progress for a few more seconds until he disappeared around a bend in the trail. Confident that the man wouldn't be coming back, he turned back to Melody and crouched in front of her so their eyes were level.
"Your Mum and Dad are in New York City, lass," he said. "Do you know where that is?"
Melody scrunched her eyes shut for a minute, picturing maps and charts behind the closed lids.
"One thousand ninety-three miles east-northeast," she said eventually. "Four hours, twenty five minutes by air. Sixteen hours, twenty minutes by car. Forty-four days by foot assuming twenty-five miles traveled per day."
When she opened her eyes again, the man was looking at her with a raised eyebrow and a wry twist to one side of his mouth.
"Something like that, yes," he said solemnly, though Melody got the impression he was working very hard not to laugh with delight.
She opened her mouth to ask what was funny, but the wet cough that had been lurking behind her ribs chose that moment to shake loose, choking off her voice. She doubled over, pressing her mouth into the crook of her elbow until it passed and she could breathe again. The thin man made as if to grasp her shoulder in concern, but stopped himself before he could touch her. His hand hovered indecisively before retreating.
"You're ill," he said, sounding like he'd been the one hit in the chest with a broken ladder instead of the fat man. "That space suit-- it really was life support, wasn't it."
"Yes," she said hoarsely. "I estimate... a seventy-eight percent probability that I would die before reaching New York if I had to travel by foot. Can't my parents come here and get me?"
The strangers hands clenched convulsively into fists. Melody flinched, flighty as a wild animal, but he merely shoved them into his pockets, sitting back on his heels.
"No, they... can't." For the first time, he dropped his eyes, looking at the ground instead of her. "And I can't take you, either. I'm sorry, Melody."
"Why not?" Melody asked.
"I don't have any way to contact them," said the man. "And I've been... barred from visiting New York, I suppose you could say. In fact, I'm pushing whatever luck I have left by even telling you to go to New York. God knows what will happen to the timelines if I help you too much-- the only saving grace is that you were always going to end up there anyway."
Melody frowned. "How do you know that?"
The man flopped back to sit on the sandy ground, as if crouching at her level was suddenly too much work. He ran a hand over his face roughly, stretching the wrinkled skin.
"Everybody seems to, eventually," he said, gazing up at her. Before she could protest that he wasn't making sense, he continued, "Look, Melody. I have good reason to believe that you can make it to New York on your own. But there's something you have to know first. You're right-- you may die. But you mustn't be frightened, because you can fix that, if it happens."
"Wh-what do you mean?" she asked.
"Let me see your arm," he said instead of answering.
He nodded at her left arm. A rapidly purpling bruise above her wrist was swelling where the fat man grabbed her as she was trying to sneak away with the bread. She had just about managed to ignore it, but now that she was focused on it, it throbbed with pain in time with her pulse. Cautiously, she extended it.
The man didn't rise, but reached forward and cradled her forearm with one long-fingered hand. He closed his eyes in concentration, and a very faint shimmer of golden light traveled from his palm to her arm. The flesh itched and tingled. She gasped and pulled it back, and he let her.
"Sorry for the half-arsed job, lass. Almost out of juice with this old body," he said weakly, slumping back and bracing his palms against the damp ground to support himself.
Melody looked down, mouth open in amazement. Where swollen black and purple has surrounded her arm moments before, there was only the dull yellowish green and brown of an injury a week old or more. It didn't even hurt, beyond a bit of stiffness left over in the wrist.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"Nothing you won't be able to do better, when the time comes," he said, looking up at her. "The same regenerative energy is within you, only it's powerful enough to hold back death instead of merely sealing up a few leaky capillaries. If things get too bad... if your body can't go on... just look inside yourself for that power. It's a beautiful gift. Don't be frightened by it; let it flood out and heal you. Do you understand?"
Melody felt an unfamiliar smile start to spread across her face as she thought about finding her parents, and fixing the sick body that struggled to adapt to life outside of the space suit.
"I can do this," she said to the odd man, wonder tingeing her voice. "I can actually do this! I can find them again!"
The man's face softened into its own smile. "I have every confidence in you," he said. "I wish I could give you an address, but I don't even have that. Their names are Rory and Amelia Pond, though. Well, I suppose it will be Rory and Amelia Williams now. She's a writer, and a good one. He'll be a nurse, I expect... or possibly a doctor."
Melody jerked involuntarily at the word, but the stranger seemed not to notice. After a moment she relaxed, once more drawn into thoughts of finding her family.
"I could grow up with them," she said in awe.
The man's eyes crinkled with amusement. "I dare say you'll grow up with them in more ways than one, before all is said and done."
He got to his feet a little unsteadily, still weak from expending the energy he had used to heal her arm. Once he had regained his equilibrium, he dusted the sandy dirt off his hands and unwrapped a scarf from around his neck, offering it to her.
"Here, I want you to have this. I know it's not much good in Florida, but maybe you'll find a use for it as you get further north."
She took the scarf, which smelled faintly of sandalwood and ozone, and tied it around the waist of her baggy dress like a belt.
"Thanks, Mister," she said, unable to keep the smile from creeping across her face once more.
"And tell your parents that an old friend says hello. They'll know who it is. Will you do that for me?"
The swell of hope and joy in Melody's chest was too big to keep inside. She skipped forward two steps and wrapped her arms around the stranger's waist in a hug, surprising him.
"Promise," she said as she let go. Gathering up her bread, she grinned at him and turned to leave, heading north.
2) Sisters of the Infinite Schism
After her parents and the Doctor left her bedside in the best hospital in the universe, Melody slept, waking at intervals whenever the cat nurses would come in to scan her and administer fluids laced with restorative vitamins and drugs. Left alone, she gazed at the jewel tones of the blue diary, with its neat red ribbon, until exhaustion pulled her down in to the darkness for another few hours. Her dreams were confused; twisted. Old brainwashing warred with feelings of love and hope, shot through with threads of golden light.
The next time she surfaced from the darkness, something was different. The wickedly sharp cannula attached to her fluid drip was out of the vein in her arm and being brandished in her right hand as a weapon before she fully processed the presence of the thin, silver-haired man from her childhood lounging carelessly in the doorway. Bits of information hidden away in her mind for decades snapped into place like pieces of a Doctor-shaped jigsaw puzzle.
Vaguely aware that she was gaping at the slender figure, she snapped her mouth shut.
"It's you," she said flatly. "You were him, all along. You-- I don't-- were you out of your mind, confronting me in Florida? I could have killed you."
"Nonsense," the Doctor scoffed, his voice the same comforting Scottish brogue she remembered from that afternoon long ago. "As if I would ever let that happen. I mean, really-- that's too embarrassing for words, isn't it? The last of the Time Lords, finally shuffling off this mortal coil at the hands of a nine-year-old girl... even one as extraordinary as you, Melody Pond."
"It was still a horrible risk to take!" she said.
He shot a significant glance at her hand. Melody followed his gaze and realised that she was still gripping the long needle tightly, the point aimed unerringly toward his left heart. She dropped it as if it was suddenly red-hot, and it swung listlessly back and forth at the end of the rubber tubing connecting it to the saline bag for a moment, before settling against the frame of the bed with a soft metallic clink.
"Sorry," she said.
"Mental conditioning; not your fault," he replied, dismissing her lapse. "And believe me, I'm the one who's sorry."
She shook her head, trying to negate his words. "It's like it's not even me. It's completely separate from what I'm actually thinking and feeling. You should leave. Now. It's not safe for you to be here."
"You'll beat it, given time," he said with easy confidence. "In the mean while, though--"
Something metallic sailed toward her in a gentle arc, and she snatched it instinctively from the air, one-handed.
"Handcuffs?" she asked, looking down at the silver bracelets; then back up at her visitor, eyebrow raised.
"Or... I can leave and let you recuperate in peace for awhile. Totally up to you."
She examined the pair of shiny circlets, and tentatively snapped one around her left wrist. There was an awkward moment as she curled onto her side and located a usable slat in the frame of the blocky, permacast hospital bed, threading the chain through it.
Her mental conditioning roared like an enraged beast as she contemplated the second cuff, and very deliberately snapped it around her right wrist. It felt paradoxically liberating.
She looked up to where he was still leaning up against the doorframe, relaxed and unthreatening.
"Would you like me to hook up your IV again, or shall I call one of the nurses to do it?" he asked.
Melody smiled at him. "I think you'd better do it. I'd hate to shock the poor dears too much."
He smiled his odd quirk of a smile in return, and pulled a chair to her bedside, close to where the chain connecting her wrists clinked gently against the corner of the bed frame as she settled herself comfortably on her right side.
They both knew that the cuffs were largely a symbolic gesture when he was this close, and she mentally ran through some of the ways she could still kill him as he seated himself and tut-tutted over the slow drip of blood where she had torn out the cannula. Knee to the throat, shattering the hyoid bone; leg scissor hold around the neck, snapping the third cervical vertebra; head-butt as he leaned over her, driving fragments of the broken nasal bones into his forebrain.
He might have been completely oblivious to her thoughts, but for the arch glance he threw her way as he retrieved the IV's rubber tube, clamped it, and removed the used needle.
"Think nice thoughts now, you bad, bad girl," he said, unwrapping a fresh needle. "This will hurt a bit, and I'd prefer that it hurt you more than it hurts me, if you take my meaning."
"Oh, come now. What's life without a bit of uncertainty?" she teased, proffering her right arm, palm up.
"Oh, hopelessly dull, I agree," he replied, "but generally longer."
The flush of excitement and danger as her worst enemy loomed over her and skilfully pierced her flesh while she lay bound beneath him was intoxicating, and she shivered, rubbing her thighs together under the sheets. His hands were gentle as he taped the needle in place and arranged the drip tube so it would be out of her way. Once he was satisfied, he unclamped it and Melody felt the cool wash of the IV's contents entering her bloodstream once more.
"Thank you," she said, a bit breathlessly.
He waved her words off with an impatient hand. "You're only here because of me. Now. You have questions."
"Many," she agreed.
He began to pace around the room, shoulders hunched, stopping to examine bits of medical equipment and potted plants.
"I probably won't be able to answer most of them," he warned. "Spoilers."
"You said that before," Melody said. "What does it mean?"
"It's time travel," he replied. "We're not meeting in the right order. My past at any given point may be your future, or vice versa. Any foreknowledge that we let slip could have disastrous consequences-- both for us, and for the time lines."
"So... the diary--?" she asked.
"Is to help you keep track of where we are, relative to each other, when we meet. I keep one as well. Mind, it took me awhile to fully appreciate the details of the situation, so I may not have it during my early meetings with you."
"That will be a clue in itself then, I suppose," she said thoughtfully. "But you've had many faces. How will I recognise you? How many regenerations have you had?"
"That's a slightly more complicated question than you might expect," he said. "Suffice to say, there are thirteen faces you need to look out for, but only three of them have met you. If you run into any of the earlier ones, it will be up to you to make sure that I don't remember it. And, no, that is not license to hit me over the head with something heavy-- no matter how much I might appear to be asking for it at the time."
Melody smirked.
"As far as recognising me when you do see me... well... perhaps it would be easiest if I..."
He trailed off, indicating the be-ribboned diary on the side table.
"May I?"
Melody nodded wordlessly.
The Doctor picked up the small, blue tome and eased the ribbon off of it. Returning to the chair next to her bed, he flopped down and patted his pockets absentmindedly, eventually coming up with a well-used biro.
"Got a bit of an artistic bent for some reason, this time around," he said. "It won't be a proper spotter's guide, but I suppose an old man's scribbles are better than nothing."
"I imagine you're the resident expert on this particular subject," said Melody with a smile, "so I'll take my chances on it."
The Doctor huffed, and got down to work, resting the diary on one lean thigh and frowning as the pen scratched across the page in quick strokes. Melody resettled herself, curling up into a more comfortable position and taking the opportunity to observe this older, more reserved Doctor. Time passed, and for the second time in twenty-four hours she slipped into a relaxed, comfortable sleep in front of the man she had been raised to kill.
Some unknown number of minutes or hours later, weathered knuckles ghosted across her cheek in a caress, waking her. The mind behind the gentle hand brushed against her own, short-circuiting her conditioning before the panic and instinct to kill could push to the fore. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking in the light from the low sun slanting through the room's large window. Grey-green eyes met hers.
"Ah. Sleeping Beauty awakes," said the Doctor.
River stretched luxuriously against the confines of the handcuffs, arching her back until it popped. The Doctor watched avidly, something of their future together escaping past his control and onto his face for a split second.
"How long was I out?" she asked, voice husky with sleep, and possibly other things.
"Not long," he said, shaking himself back to the present. "The nurses will be here with your supper in a few minutes, if you can stomach the hospital food. Best hospital in the universe, and they still seem to believe that overcooked rice pudding qualifies as a dessert item."
"It's not so bad," she chided, and indicated the diary still resting on his knee. "May I see?"
He handed it to her, and she flipped to the first page.
"It's in chronological order," he explained. "Youngest to oldest incarnation."
She hummed her understanding and flipped slowly from sketch to sketch, rapt. Thirteen faces looked back at her from the pages, young and old. All exuded character; some flirted with classical standards of male beauty; a couple exceeded them. Notations surrounded the pictures, mapping out time periods and offering hints to look out for.
On the page after the one containing a narrow, intense face with wild silver hair, there was a sketch in a softer, more thoughtful style. Melody recognised her new body mostly by virtue of the magnificent mane of curls spilling over the pillow in the picture. He had drawn her as she slept, the sheet pooling across her torso and hips like the fabric draping a classical statue... her face peaceful and unlined in slumber.
She looked up, surprised, but the Doctor was looking down at his folded hands.
"Time for me to be going now," he said.
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Visions of evasion and counterattack rose up to her consciousness in a flash, but it was easier to quash them this time. Instead, she turned her head just enough to meet his lips with hers. He froze for a minute, surprised, then a soft sound escaped him as she took control of the kiss. One of his hands tangled in her curls, steadying her as she drew warmth and life to his cool, dry lips.
He followed her lead for several moments before drawing back a scant couple of centimetres to rest his forehead against hers. She counted his slightly uneven breathing as a victory.
Collecting himself, he straightened, looking her in the eye.
"Until next time, Melody Pond," he said.
She smiled up at him wickedly. "Call me River... Sweetie."
The answering smile took years off his lined face. He stepped back and pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, releasing her handcuffs with a flourish and a wink before turning to leave.
"Wait!" She said, sitting up as he disappeared through the door. An instant later, he leaned back around the frame, looking at her enquiringly.
"What... do I do now?" she asked, suddenly unsure of the future and her place in it. "After I get out of here, what then?"
"Oh... my River Song. You know the answer to that." His eyes crinkled at the corners, twinkling devilishly. "Catch me, if you can!"
3) The Cliffs of Berengaria VII
The problem with looking over your shoulder as you ran, in an attempt to keep track of how close the flying dragons chasing you were getting, was that you couldn't simultaneously keep an eye out in front of you for obstacles.
River let out a surprised shout as her front foot failed to meet the reassuring resistance of rocky ground. Overbalanced, she tumbled over the edge of the ravine that she had totally failed to notice, her left knee twisting painfully as she tried in vain to stop her fall. Sharp-edged scree tore at her wrists and hands as she scrabbled for purchase, the smaller stones bouncing against her face before tumbling down the slope to rest who-new-how-far-down at the base of the cliff.
Her right hand slapped against a jut of rough stone and gripped it desperately, but she couldn't find anything solid with her left. Her stomach turned over as, only seconds later, the precarious handhold slipped loose like a rotten tooth from its socket, sending her sliding downward for a sickening instant before a long-fingered hand shot out from above her and clamped around her wrist like a vice.
"I've got you," said a familiar, yet completely unexpected Scots brogue.
"What the hell are you doing here?" River demanded, vaguely aware that she did not sound as grateful as she probably should.
"Birdwatching, of course," said the Doctor, his attempt at nonchalance suffering slightly from the strain in his voice as he held her weight. He craned his head awkwardly to search the skies behind him. "Are those kestrels coming up behind us, dear?"
"On Berengaria VII?" she managed breathlessly as she grabbed his wrist with her free hand, anchoring herself more firmly in his grip. "I think you'll find all of the kestrels were eaten millennia ago by the giant flying dragons, Sweetie."
"And the giant flying dragons are chasing you, because--?" he grated out, reeling her in with a strength not readily apparent in his slender form. She scrabbled for purchase with her feet, trying to help.
"I needed a copy of the inscriptions carved into the Ancestor Stones," she replied in kind, pausing to spit out the mouthful of grit that landed on her face. A moment of inelegant coat-grabbing and husband-climbing later, and she was tangled with the Doctor in a heap, more or less back on solid ground. "It's hardly my fault if the dragons chose to make that particular cavern their sacred breeding ground!"
The Doctor flopped onto his back on the rough ground.
"Sometimes I despair, River. I really do."
At that moment, the lead dragon swooped in to land in front of them, pointing a clawed arm at River Song accusingly.
"You have defiled the Cave of Fertility by entering without a mate!" it shrieked.
"Ooh, kinky," the Doctor interjected sotto voce, and River shot him a quelling glare.
"You must return with a cleansing sacrifice, and offer amends by sharing the gift of life within the caverns," continued the dragon solemnly. "Do you have a mate, heretic?"
The Doctor-- still lying on his back in the dirt-- was doing a poor job of stifling laughter, at this point. River shot out a hand to circle his wrist as insurance that he wouldn't run for the hills, and said, "Damn right I do." She turned her attention from the giant dragon to her captive husband. "Sweetie, I don't suppose you've got anything secreted about your person that might constitute a cleansing sacrifice?"
"How is this my life?" asked the Doctor matter-of-factly, though since he was still flat on his back with an arm draped across his face, it wasn't immediately clear if he was addressing her, the dragon, or the planet at large.
He sat up with a soft grunt and began patting down his pockets with his free hand.
"Let's see... I've got a yo-yo... bag of jelly babies... and a half-eaten apple?"
"That will suffice," hissed the dragon.
* * *
"Is it possible for two people to do the walk of shame, or is that strictly a solitary thing?" the Doctor asked three hours later as they strolled away from the Sacred Cave of Fertility, past rows of gawking dragons avidly following their progress with glittering eyes.
They were both rather disheveled, but to be fair, it had been a bit of a busy day.
"Not sure. All I know is that I still didn't manage to get the rest of those inscriptions copied," River groused.
"I'm fairly certain that if you had succeeded in transcribing ancient stone carvings during the ceremony, it would be proof that we were doing it wrong."
River couldn't stop the slow smile that spread across her face, or the low thrum of satisfaction buzzing just beneath her skin.
"No chance of that, my love," she said, threading her arm through his. "And just so you know, I really do appreciate your impeccable timing in showing up here."
The Doctor stopped, swinging her around so that they were facing each other.
"River Song," he said. "Remember this-- it's important. I will always catch you when you fall."
"Always?" she teased. "Could become a full-time job if you're not careful."
"Yes. Always," he reiterated, green eyes serious. "Though if you're planning on leaping off of a building or jumping out of a spaceship, a little warning ahead of time wouldn't go amiss."
"I'll keep it in mind," she said, and reached up to kiss him.
4) Luna, After Manhattan
Back home.
After Manhattan; after the Angels. Or, at least, back in her rooms at Luna University. What even qualified as "home", these days? These rooms? The TARDIS? The little scout ship she used to ferry her team to the next archaeological dig?
An empty house in London with a blue door and a red sports car gathering dust out front?
It wasn't fair. She couldn't save him, and he couldn't save her... not from the pain of love and loss... not from any of it. And after the first night when he allowed himself to succumb to grief at the loss of his closest friends-- to take solace in her arms-- he did exactly what she needed him not to do, and followed her example of hiding the damage... because of course he would, the bastard.
So, they traipsed through space and time together, fighting other people's fights and otherwise being the king and queen of "okay", until she found herself on the verge of hating him and left before she started to show it. For home... or whatever this was.
One psychopath per TARDIS, after all.
She prowled the small living area restlessly, trying to shove the anger and the hurt and the loss of her parents back into its box for another day. Her surroundings mocked her... the staid quarters of an academic, with untidy bookshelves, a desk piled high with data padds, and a shelf full of awards and academic achievements that meant nothing, right now.
Without truly intending it, her right arm whipped out, sweeping the awards and diplomas to the ground with a satisfying crash of glass and wood. Her books and papers were next, yielding to the irrational rage that hadn't fully surfaced since she was Mels, striking out at her environment in the vain hope that if she beat on it long enough, her life would start to make sense.
Small furniture followed, and the crashes grew louder and more satisfying until... she froze upon seeing the figure leaning casually against the doorway leading to her bedroom, an instant before the lamp she had just thrown exploded against the wall near her husband's grey head. He didn't even flinch, and his eyes never left her.
He must have had the TARDIS running silent, or she surely would have registered his arrival. He continued to lounge against the doorframe, clearing his throat and raising the psychic paper to his eyes, making a show of reading it.
"'It isn't fair, damn it'," he quoted, all affected casualness as he returned the paper to his pocket. "Anything I can help you with, dear?"
River clenched her fists, forcing composure with an iron will.
"I'm fine," she bit out.
The Doctor looked pointedly at the small whirlwind of destruction around them.
"Yes, I can see that," he said, his sarcasm giving her no quarter. "So, where are we, then? No, never mind, I think I can guess. Still trying to hide the damage? Because I believe it's currently on full display, scattered around the floor of your rooms."
Feeling trapped, River lashed out. "I may have learned from the best, Sweetie, but you'll have to forgive me if I still haven't achieved your level of proficiency in that particular pursuit."
The Doctor pushed himself away from the wall, anger showing clearly on his face as he abandoned his aura of insouciance and stalked toward her.
"Just because younger me is an arse, that's no excuse for you be twice as bad as him! I mean-- what the ever-loving fuck, River? We're supposed to be married! You're better than that. Better than me!"
Blood boiling with years of things left unsaid, River stepped forward as well until they were toe-to-toe, pressing into each other's personal space and glaring, eye to eye.
"Don't you dare tell me what I am," she said in a deadly voice. "If you'd seen everything inside of me, back then, you'd have started running and never stopped."
"You think I didn't know already? I made you what you are!" he shouted, accent thickening.
She slapped him, revelling in the sharp sting of flesh against flesh, and gasped in surprise as he surged forward, grabbing her shoulders and shoving her backwards into the wall, hard... so unlike his previous self's usual startled, deer-in-the-headlamps response.
"I made you what you are," he repeated, growling. "Everything that was done to you-- that was done to your family-- was my fault. And you never let me try to make it up to you. You never trusted me to see the damage you'd suffered... in my name."
"How can you say that to me?" River snapped. "I've always trusted you! Even when I was a child and had every reason not to!"
"You trusted me to catch you when you fell. You trusted me to come when you called. But you've never trusted me to hold you when you cried-- not once, in all these years." His voice softened even as his fingers tightened, digging into her shoulders painfully. "River, your parents are gone. Neither of us will ever see them again-- not ever. And you haven't even cried, love..."
The reality of it hit her again like a freight ship. Mum. Dad. Separated from her forever, except for dusty, handwritten letters smuggled through time by solicitors' offices. As soon as she had seen Rory disappear, she'd known what had to happen to close the circle of her life. But the price of her childhood with Amy and Rory in New York in the past was for her to become an orphan in the present.
A keening noise halfway between rage and pain escaped her dwindling control, and she shoved against the grip pinning her to the wall, intending to flee. The two of them careened across the small space, feet crunching in the broken glass scattered across the carpet. The Doctor grunted as his hip impacted sharply with the edge of her desk, but didn't let go even as the unsteady stack of data padds piled there tumbled onto the floor around them. They came to rest with him half-perched on the edge, holding her tightly in both arms as she grappled with handfuls of his jacket; ugly, rhythmic noises of grief jerking free from her chest.
"I know," he said, gathering her even closer and burying his face in her hair as she slowly stopped fighting and folded into him. "I know, love. I'm so sorry. So sorry. I miss them, too."
5) The Data Core, and Beyond
"Honey, I'm home..."
The priceless alabaster chalice slipped from River's hands and shattered on the stone floor before the soft brogue of Gallifrey-via-Glasgow had completely faded from her ears, and she spun around, disbelieving. Impossibly, there stood her husband, looking around the Library data core's reconstruction of Tutankhamun's unspoiled tomb with interest.
"Love what you've done with the place, by the way," he added, meeting her eyes with a twinkle.
River felt her mouth hanging open, and closed it with a snap.
And what sort of time do you call this, she fully intended to say, but it came out as "Wha-?" and just sort of stuck there, in her throat... and then she was in his arms, and he was solid-- or at least he was not-solid in the same way that she was not solid, in this strange technological afterlife.
"You're really here," she whispered, burying her nose against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He even smelled the same, and the tears running down her face and soaking into his shoulder certainly felt real enough.
"I've missed you, River," he said, his own voice not completely steady.
After a long moment, she eased him back far enough to look at him.
"How can you be here?" she asked. "Please tell me you're not..."
"Dead?" he suggested, rueful but unflinching. "Nah, still knocking about in a rackety old blue box-- same old life. Had an idea; needed to run it past you."
River shook her head slowly, trying to clear it.
"Then... how did you get in here?"
The Doctor scoffed. "Oh... getting in is simple-- I just stepped onto the teleport platform in the Library and asked CAL to upload my pattern into the core. At the moment, I'm much more interested in the logistics of getting out."
River pulled away sharply. "You came in here without an exit strategy? You idiot! Where's CAL? We have to find her! I'll get her to--"
The Doctor stopped her with a hand on her upper arm.
"No, River. I meant, I'm much more interested in the logistics of getting you out."
"But..." River subsided for a few seconds, blinking. "I don't have a body to return to. I'm a data ghost."
The hand on her bicep squeezed briefly, reminding her of the unexpected strength in that slender, ageing frame.
"A data ghost with a mental link to a TARDIS," said the Doctor in his best I've got a secret voice, and River's eyes widened as she felt the first spark of a plan... of the possibility of escape to the real world. A slow smile spread across her face as he continued. "I daresay that between us, we can cobble together something for three-dimensional projection, at the very least. Wouldn't you agree, Professor Song?"
River felt her smile widen and turn predatory, mirroring her husband's exactly.
"Oh, Doctor. I think that between the two of us, reality won't know what hit it."
+1) A Whole Other Birthday
River materialised amid a scene of utter chaos. Ignoring the angry sparking of her vortex manipulator, she did a quick visual scan for danger. The Doctor lay crumpled on the floor like a discarded doll, his old-fashioned Victorian clothing and floppy hair singed; chest rising and falling shallowly. She forced herself not to go to him immediately-- there was still time.
Instead, she crossed quickly to where Clara was sprawled against a chunk of debris. The scanner hummed as she took a reading, but River didn't need the readout to locate the cause of unconsciousness; a dark bruise on the young woman's forehead-- only partially covered by a wave of dark hair-- was the obvious culprit.
After determining that there was no serious damage and no other injuries beyond scrapes and bruises, River carefully rearranged Clara into a more comfortable position. She removed her jacket and rolled it up to act as a rough pillow, administering a medi-patch to the side of Clara's neck for the inevitable headache-to-come.
Only then did she allow her attention to focus on the raggedly breathing figure across the room. His eyes, though slightly unfocused, burned through her with all the force of the not inconsiderable intellect behind them.
"You can't be here," he said with absolute certainty.
River raised an eyebrow, forcing herself to keep it light as she crossed to crouch next to him.
"Can't I? I'm so sorry, Sweetie... I must not have read the memo."
He stared at her for a long moment before making an obvious effort to switch mental tracks.
"Clara," he began. "Is she--?"
"She'll be fine. Unconscious from a bump on the head, but no major injuries. I made her comfortable and gave her a patch for the pain," River said. Unable to hold back any longer, she reached down to straighten the crooked bow tie, and brushed the Doctor's hair away from his face. He flinched hard at the contact, Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.
"Are you real? How can you be real?" His hand, when he raised it to her cheek, was glowing. She closed her eyes, covering it with her own for a moment.
"Bit of a loaded question, there, dear," she said, "but yes, I'm real. I'm sorry I couldn't be here sooner. I tried, but there was too much interference."
"It's been so long, River. I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he choked out as the flickering light enveloped him.
River reluctantly backed away, her fingertips tingling with the crackling of artron energy as she trailed them down his arm, his hand, before finally breaking contact.
"Oh, my love," she said, holding his gaze steadily, "I had to be here to make certain your next self would be all right. After all, we still have so much to look forward to, you and I."
Hope flared behind old, old eyes in a young face. River squinted, raising a hand to protect herself from the glare; forcing herself not to look away as the Doctor's back arched into a painful bow, regeneration energy exploding from his body. When she finally blinked away the afterimages, a new man in old clothes lay before her, grey-green eyes in a careworn face drinking her in the way a man dying in the desert looks at water.
"Besides," she continued in a tremulous voice, returning to kneel beside him and run a hand through his thick, silver hair. "We had a date scheduled, Sweetie. It's my birthday today, you know."
He looked up at her in wonder.
"Mine, too," he said eventually, and pulled her down into a kiss.
fin
Author: ponygirl72
Characters: Eleventh Doctor, River Song, Twelfth Doctor
Pairings: Eleven/River, Twelve/River
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: swearing, off-screen sex
Word count: 7,381
Summary: Does exactly what it says on the tin.
1) Florida, 1969
Melody bit the fat man's hand, teeth digging into the rank, salty flesh. Jerking loose from his grasp, she tangled her small ankle behind his large one and pushed against his pudgy waist with all her might. The heavy thud as he fell was satisfying. She ran as fast as her nine-year-old legs would carry her, clutching the half-eaten loaf of stale bread to her side.
Behind her, the sound of cursing mixed with pounding footsteps as the homeless man regained his feet and started pursuit.
"Come back here, you little bitch!" he yelled. "Gimme that back!"
Melody kept running, trying to gauge her pursuer's level of fitness from the sound of his heavy breathing as his longer stride ate up the distance between them.
Evade, conceal, counterattack, disable, said the strange, hissing voice that sometimes spoke in her mind, as if it was an old lesson. Her own lungs were starting to ache and she fought not to succumb to the fit of wet coughing that was trying to rise up inside her chest.
A rickety old shed loomed behind the trees and Spanish moss in her peripheral vision. She darted off the path and through the gap where the wooden door was half off its hinges. The interior was dim, but she could make out a broken ladder leaned precariously in one corner. Hand tools hung from rusty hooks on the wall.
The ladder was heavy and awkward, but she managed to wrestle it into position, holding it parallel to the ground, the unbroken rail pointing squarely at the centre of the door. The rasp of her breathing sounded loud in the enclosed space, but she didn't try to hide it.
"Trapped yourself, didn't you? Stupid little cow," came the voice from outside.
Melody tightened her grip on the ladder, crouched in readiness. As the remains of the door creaked and swung open, she lunged forward, driving the foot of the ladder into the fat man's chest even as the fat man flung himself into the shed, trying to get to her. The impact jarred up the length of her aching arms and into her shoulders, but it was worth it for the sound of the breath whooshing out of the man's lungs as he went down hard just outside the doorway, hands scrabbling at his chest.
Melody dropped the ladder-- now even more broken than it had been before-- and picked up the precious loaf of bread before cautiously approaching the door. Inching past the writhing, wheezing figure on the ground, she turned, ready to take to her heels. She had only run a couple of steps, though, when an unfamiliar voice behind her brought her to a stumbling halt.
"Incredibly strong, and running away. You know, all these years later and I still like that."
Something about the soft Scottish brogue behind the words tugged at a forgotten place deep in Melody's chest, and she spun to look back. A tall, very thin man stood just in front of her victim. He was slightly scruffy, with wild silver hair and unusually large grey-green eyes, but the quality of his clothes immediately distinguished him from the denizens of the homeless camp she'd just come from. Once she met his gaze, it was hard to look away.
"Come here, child," he said, not unkindly.
Almost without realising it, she found herself retracing her steps until she was standing just out of reach.
"Who are you?" Melody asked, wary.
"I'm a friend of your parents," he said. "I've come to tell you how to find them."
"My parents are dead," she said, hearing the uncertainty and hope mingled in her own voice. In her mind, more images stirred and a female voice whispered softly.
I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved. That you'll be safe and cared for and protected...
"Oh, come now, Melody Pond," scoffed the stranger, in the same accent as her mother's remembered voice. "You know that's not true. You saw your mother only recently, in the children's home. The Silence took her away, but your father and I rescued her. Do you remember?"
Melody backed away as a fresh wave of adrenaline inexplicably coursed through her system, scrunching her eyes shut as confused flashes of memory assaulted her. Red hair, and the face from the photo on her dresser, but covered with black tally marks. Screams. Terror. Ripping her way free of the spaceman suit in a panic; fingernails torn and bloody. Hiding, running, hiding again, until the pangs of hunger and thirst drove her out into the countryside.
"Oi, you-- don't. We'll not be having any of that nonsense today," snapped the thin man suddenly, and Melody's eyes flew open at the unexpected change of tone. But his attention was no longer on her. His booted foot pressed down on her pursuer's hand, pinning it to the ground until the fat man dropped the knife he was holding with a curse. The newcomer kicked the weapon into the bushes and returned his eyes to Melody's.
"Give me the bread, please, Melody," he said, voice once again kind, though stern.
Melody clutched the crumbling loaf tighter for a split second, before the same instinct that had drawn her back to the man caused her to proffer it reluctantly. He tore the stale bread into two roughly equal-sized pieces, handed half of it back to her, and gave the other half to the fat man, who was climbing to his feet warily.
The growl was back in his voice as he addressed the homeless man, who seemed as helplessly drawn into the stranger's gaze as a snake before a snake charmer. "Now take it and leave, before I get angry. Believe me-- you really wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
It should have been comical the way the fat man's flabby jaw opened and closed a few times before he backed away and fled down the trail, but somehow it wasn't, even when the stranger smirked as if to himself, and muttered, "Brilliant. Always wanted an excuse to say that..." under his breath.
"You said you know my parents. Where are they?" Melody asked. "How can I find them?"
The stranger tracked the fat man's progress for a few more seconds until he disappeared around a bend in the trail. Confident that the man wouldn't be coming back, he turned back to Melody and crouched in front of her so their eyes were level.
"Your Mum and Dad are in New York City, lass," he said. "Do you know where that is?"
Melody scrunched her eyes shut for a minute, picturing maps and charts behind the closed lids.
"One thousand ninety-three miles east-northeast," she said eventually. "Four hours, twenty five minutes by air. Sixteen hours, twenty minutes by car. Forty-four days by foot assuming twenty-five miles traveled per day."
When she opened her eyes again, the man was looking at her with a raised eyebrow and a wry twist to one side of his mouth.
"Something like that, yes," he said solemnly, though Melody got the impression he was working very hard not to laugh with delight.
She opened her mouth to ask what was funny, but the wet cough that had been lurking behind her ribs chose that moment to shake loose, choking off her voice. She doubled over, pressing her mouth into the crook of her elbow until it passed and she could breathe again. The thin man made as if to grasp her shoulder in concern, but stopped himself before he could touch her. His hand hovered indecisively before retreating.
"You're ill," he said, sounding like he'd been the one hit in the chest with a broken ladder instead of the fat man. "That space suit-- it really was life support, wasn't it."
"Yes," she said hoarsely. "I estimate... a seventy-eight percent probability that I would die before reaching New York if I had to travel by foot. Can't my parents come here and get me?"
The strangers hands clenched convulsively into fists. Melody flinched, flighty as a wild animal, but he merely shoved them into his pockets, sitting back on his heels.
"No, they... can't." For the first time, he dropped his eyes, looking at the ground instead of her. "And I can't take you, either. I'm sorry, Melody."
"Why not?" Melody asked.
"I don't have any way to contact them," said the man. "And I've been... barred from visiting New York, I suppose you could say. In fact, I'm pushing whatever luck I have left by even telling you to go to New York. God knows what will happen to the timelines if I help you too much-- the only saving grace is that you were always going to end up there anyway."
Melody frowned. "How do you know that?"
The man flopped back to sit on the sandy ground, as if crouching at her level was suddenly too much work. He ran a hand over his face roughly, stretching the wrinkled skin.
"Everybody seems to, eventually," he said, gazing up at her. Before she could protest that he wasn't making sense, he continued, "Look, Melody. I have good reason to believe that you can make it to New York on your own. But there's something you have to know first. You're right-- you may die. But you mustn't be frightened, because you can fix that, if it happens."
"Wh-what do you mean?" she asked.
"Let me see your arm," he said instead of answering.
He nodded at her left arm. A rapidly purpling bruise above her wrist was swelling where the fat man grabbed her as she was trying to sneak away with the bread. She had just about managed to ignore it, but now that she was focused on it, it throbbed with pain in time with her pulse. Cautiously, she extended it.
The man didn't rise, but reached forward and cradled her forearm with one long-fingered hand. He closed his eyes in concentration, and a very faint shimmer of golden light traveled from his palm to her arm. The flesh itched and tingled. She gasped and pulled it back, and he let her.
"Sorry for the half-arsed job, lass. Almost out of juice with this old body," he said weakly, slumping back and bracing his palms against the damp ground to support himself.
Melody looked down, mouth open in amazement. Where swollen black and purple has surrounded her arm moments before, there was only the dull yellowish green and brown of an injury a week old or more. It didn't even hurt, beyond a bit of stiffness left over in the wrist.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"Nothing you won't be able to do better, when the time comes," he said, looking up at her. "The same regenerative energy is within you, only it's powerful enough to hold back death instead of merely sealing up a few leaky capillaries. If things get too bad... if your body can't go on... just look inside yourself for that power. It's a beautiful gift. Don't be frightened by it; let it flood out and heal you. Do you understand?"
Melody felt an unfamiliar smile start to spread across her face as she thought about finding her parents, and fixing the sick body that struggled to adapt to life outside of the space suit.
"I can do this," she said to the odd man, wonder tingeing her voice. "I can actually do this! I can find them again!"
The man's face softened into its own smile. "I have every confidence in you," he said. "I wish I could give you an address, but I don't even have that. Their names are Rory and Amelia Pond, though. Well, I suppose it will be Rory and Amelia Williams now. She's a writer, and a good one. He'll be a nurse, I expect... or possibly a doctor."
Melody jerked involuntarily at the word, but the stranger seemed not to notice. After a moment she relaxed, once more drawn into thoughts of finding her family.
"I could grow up with them," she said in awe.
The man's eyes crinkled with amusement. "I dare say you'll grow up with them in more ways than one, before all is said and done."
He got to his feet a little unsteadily, still weak from expending the energy he had used to heal her arm. Once he had regained his equilibrium, he dusted the sandy dirt off his hands and unwrapped a scarf from around his neck, offering it to her.
"Here, I want you to have this. I know it's not much good in Florida, but maybe you'll find a use for it as you get further north."
She took the scarf, which smelled faintly of sandalwood and ozone, and tied it around the waist of her baggy dress like a belt.
"Thanks, Mister," she said, unable to keep the smile from creeping across her face once more.
"And tell your parents that an old friend says hello. They'll know who it is. Will you do that for me?"
The swell of hope and joy in Melody's chest was too big to keep inside. She skipped forward two steps and wrapped her arms around the stranger's waist in a hug, surprising him.
"Promise," she said as she let go. Gathering up her bread, she grinned at him and turned to leave, heading north.
2) Sisters of the Infinite Schism
After her parents and the Doctor left her bedside in the best hospital in the universe, Melody slept, waking at intervals whenever the cat nurses would come in to scan her and administer fluids laced with restorative vitamins and drugs. Left alone, she gazed at the jewel tones of the blue diary, with its neat red ribbon, until exhaustion pulled her down in to the darkness for another few hours. Her dreams were confused; twisted. Old brainwashing warred with feelings of love and hope, shot through with threads of golden light.
The next time she surfaced from the darkness, something was different. The wickedly sharp cannula attached to her fluid drip was out of the vein in her arm and being brandished in her right hand as a weapon before she fully processed the presence of the thin, silver-haired man from her childhood lounging carelessly in the doorway. Bits of information hidden away in her mind for decades snapped into place like pieces of a Doctor-shaped jigsaw puzzle.
Vaguely aware that she was gaping at the slender figure, she snapped her mouth shut.
"It's you," she said flatly. "You were him, all along. You-- I don't-- were you out of your mind, confronting me in Florida? I could have killed you."
"Nonsense," the Doctor scoffed, his voice the same comforting Scottish brogue she remembered from that afternoon long ago. "As if I would ever let that happen. I mean, really-- that's too embarrassing for words, isn't it? The last of the Time Lords, finally shuffling off this mortal coil at the hands of a nine-year-old girl... even one as extraordinary as you, Melody Pond."
"It was still a horrible risk to take!" she said.
He shot a significant glance at her hand. Melody followed his gaze and realised that she was still gripping the long needle tightly, the point aimed unerringly toward his left heart. She dropped it as if it was suddenly red-hot, and it swung listlessly back and forth at the end of the rubber tubing connecting it to the saline bag for a moment, before settling against the frame of the bed with a soft metallic clink.
"Sorry," she said.
"Mental conditioning; not your fault," he replied, dismissing her lapse. "And believe me, I'm the one who's sorry."
She shook her head, trying to negate his words. "It's like it's not even me. It's completely separate from what I'm actually thinking and feeling. You should leave. Now. It's not safe for you to be here."
"You'll beat it, given time," he said with easy confidence. "In the mean while, though--"
Something metallic sailed toward her in a gentle arc, and she snatched it instinctively from the air, one-handed.
"Handcuffs?" she asked, looking down at the silver bracelets; then back up at her visitor, eyebrow raised.
"Or... I can leave and let you recuperate in peace for awhile. Totally up to you."
She examined the pair of shiny circlets, and tentatively snapped one around her left wrist. There was an awkward moment as she curled onto her side and located a usable slat in the frame of the blocky, permacast hospital bed, threading the chain through it.
Her mental conditioning roared like an enraged beast as she contemplated the second cuff, and very deliberately snapped it around her right wrist. It felt paradoxically liberating.
She looked up to where he was still leaning up against the doorframe, relaxed and unthreatening.
"Would you like me to hook up your IV again, or shall I call one of the nurses to do it?" he asked.
Melody smiled at him. "I think you'd better do it. I'd hate to shock the poor dears too much."
He smiled his odd quirk of a smile in return, and pulled a chair to her bedside, close to where the chain connecting her wrists clinked gently against the corner of the bed frame as she settled herself comfortably on her right side.
They both knew that the cuffs were largely a symbolic gesture when he was this close, and she mentally ran through some of the ways she could still kill him as he seated himself and tut-tutted over the slow drip of blood where she had torn out the cannula. Knee to the throat, shattering the hyoid bone; leg scissor hold around the neck, snapping the third cervical vertebra; head-butt as he leaned over her, driving fragments of the broken nasal bones into his forebrain.
He might have been completely oblivious to her thoughts, but for the arch glance he threw her way as he retrieved the IV's rubber tube, clamped it, and removed the used needle.
"Think nice thoughts now, you bad, bad girl," he said, unwrapping a fresh needle. "This will hurt a bit, and I'd prefer that it hurt you more than it hurts me, if you take my meaning."
"Oh, come now. What's life without a bit of uncertainty?" she teased, proffering her right arm, palm up.
"Oh, hopelessly dull, I agree," he replied, "but generally longer."
The flush of excitement and danger as her worst enemy loomed over her and skilfully pierced her flesh while she lay bound beneath him was intoxicating, and she shivered, rubbing her thighs together under the sheets. His hands were gentle as he taped the needle in place and arranged the drip tube so it would be out of her way. Once he was satisfied, he unclamped it and Melody felt the cool wash of the IV's contents entering her bloodstream once more.
"Thank you," she said, a bit breathlessly.
He waved her words off with an impatient hand. "You're only here because of me. Now. You have questions."
"Many," she agreed.
He began to pace around the room, shoulders hunched, stopping to examine bits of medical equipment and potted plants.
"I probably won't be able to answer most of them," he warned. "Spoilers."
"You said that before," Melody said. "What does it mean?"
"It's time travel," he replied. "We're not meeting in the right order. My past at any given point may be your future, or vice versa. Any foreknowledge that we let slip could have disastrous consequences-- both for us, and for the time lines."
"So... the diary--?" she asked.
"Is to help you keep track of where we are, relative to each other, when we meet. I keep one as well. Mind, it took me awhile to fully appreciate the details of the situation, so I may not have it during my early meetings with you."
"That will be a clue in itself then, I suppose," she said thoughtfully. "But you've had many faces. How will I recognise you? How many regenerations have you had?"
"That's a slightly more complicated question than you might expect," he said. "Suffice to say, there are thirteen faces you need to look out for, but only three of them have met you. If you run into any of the earlier ones, it will be up to you to make sure that I don't remember it. And, no, that is not license to hit me over the head with something heavy-- no matter how much I might appear to be asking for it at the time."
Melody smirked.
"As far as recognising me when you do see me... well... perhaps it would be easiest if I..."
He trailed off, indicating the be-ribboned diary on the side table.
"May I?"
Melody nodded wordlessly.
The Doctor picked up the small, blue tome and eased the ribbon off of it. Returning to the chair next to her bed, he flopped down and patted his pockets absentmindedly, eventually coming up with a well-used biro.
"Got a bit of an artistic bent for some reason, this time around," he said. "It won't be a proper spotter's guide, but I suppose an old man's scribbles are better than nothing."
"I imagine you're the resident expert on this particular subject," said Melody with a smile, "so I'll take my chances on it."
The Doctor huffed, and got down to work, resting the diary on one lean thigh and frowning as the pen scratched across the page in quick strokes. Melody resettled herself, curling up into a more comfortable position and taking the opportunity to observe this older, more reserved Doctor. Time passed, and for the second time in twenty-four hours she slipped into a relaxed, comfortable sleep in front of the man she had been raised to kill.
Some unknown number of minutes or hours later, weathered knuckles ghosted across her cheek in a caress, waking her. The mind behind the gentle hand brushed against her own, short-circuiting her conditioning before the panic and instinct to kill could push to the fore. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking in the light from the low sun slanting through the room's large window. Grey-green eyes met hers.
"Ah. Sleeping Beauty awakes," said the Doctor.
River stretched luxuriously against the confines of the handcuffs, arching her back until it popped. The Doctor watched avidly, something of their future together escaping past his control and onto his face for a split second.
"How long was I out?" she asked, voice husky with sleep, and possibly other things.
"Not long," he said, shaking himself back to the present. "The nurses will be here with your supper in a few minutes, if you can stomach the hospital food. Best hospital in the universe, and they still seem to believe that overcooked rice pudding qualifies as a dessert item."
"It's not so bad," she chided, and indicated the diary still resting on his knee. "May I see?"
He handed it to her, and she flipped to the first page.
"It's in chronological order," he explained. "Youngest to oldest incarnation."
She hummed her understanding and flipped slowly from sketch to sketch, rapt. Thirteen faces looked back at her from the pages, young and old. All exuded character; some flirted with classical standards of male beauty; a couple exceeded them. Notations surrounded the pictures, mapping out time periods and offering hints to look out for.
On the page after the one containing a narrow, intense face with wild silver hair, there was a sketch in a softer, more thoughtful style. Melody recognised her new body mostly by virtue of the magnificent mane of curls spilling over the pillow in the picture. He had drawn her as she slept, the sheet pooling across her torso and hips like the fabric draping a classical statue... her face peaceful and unlined in slumber.
She looked up, surprised, but the Doctor was looking down at his folded hands.
"Time for me to be going now," he said.
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Visions of evasion and counterattack rose up to her consciousness in a flash, but it was easier to quash them this time. Instead, she turned her head just enough to meet his lips with hers. He froze for a minute, surprised, then a soft sound escaped him as she took control of the kiss. One of his hands tangled in her curls, steadying her as she drew warmth and life to his cool, dry lips.
He followed her lead for several moments before drawing back a scant couple of centimetres to rest his forehead against hers. She counted his slightly uneven breathing as a victory.
Collecting himself, he straightened, looking her in the eye.
"Until next time, Melody Pond," he said.
She smiled up at him wickedly. "Call me River... Sweetie."
The answering smile took years off his lined face. He stepped back and pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, releasing her handcuffs with a flourish and a wink before turning to leave.
"Wait!" She said, sitting up as he disappeared through the door. An instant later, he leaned back around the frame, looking at her enquiringly.
"What... do I do now?" she asked, suddenly unsure of the future and her place in it. "After I get out of here, what then?"
"Oh... my River Song. You know the answer to that." His eyes crinkled at the corners, twinkling devilishly. "Catch me, if you can!"
3) The Cliffs of Berengaria VII
The problem with looking over your shoulder as you ran, in an attempt to keep track of how close the flying dragons chasing you were getting, was that you couldn't simultaneously keep an eye out in front of you for obstacles.
River let out a surprised shout as her front foot failed to meet the reassuring resistance of rocky ground. Overbalanced, she tumbled over the edge of the ravine that she had totally failed to notice, her left knee twisting painfully as she tried in vain to stop her fall. Sharp-edged scree tore at her wrists and hands as she scrabbled for purchase, the smaller stones bouncing against her face before tumbling down the slope to rest who-new-how-far-down at the base of the cliff.
Her right hand slapped against a jut of rough stone and gripped it desperately, but she couldn't find anything solid with her left. Her stomach turned over as, only seconds later, the precarious handhold slipped loose like a rotten tooth from its socket, sending her sliding downward for a sickening instant before a long-fingered hand shot out from above her and clamped around her wrist like a vice.
"I've got you," said a familiar, yet completely unexpected Scots brogue.
"What the hell are you doing here?" River demanded, vaguely aware that she did not sound as grateful as she probably should.
"Birdwatching, of course," said the Doctor, his attempt at nonchalance suffering slightly from the strain in his voice as he held her weight. He craned his head awkwardly to search the skies behind him. "Are those kestrels coming up behind us, dear?"
"On Berengaria VII?" she managed breathlessly as she grabbed his wrist with her free hand, anchoring herself more firmly in his grip. "I think you'll find all of the kestrels were eaten millennia ago by the giant flying dragons, Sweetie."
"And the giant flying dragons are chasing you, because--?" he grated out, reeling her in with a strength not readily apparent in his slender form. She scrabbled for purchase with her feet, trying to help.
"I needed a copy of the inscriptions carved into the Ancestor Stones," she replied in kind, pausing to spit out the mouthful of grit that landed on her face. A moment of inelegant coat-grabbing and husband-climbing later, and she was tangled with the Doctor in a heap, more or less back on solid ground. "It's hardly my fault if the dragons chose to make that particular cavern their sacred breeding ground!"
The Doctor flopped onto his back on the rough ground.
"Sometimes I despair, River. I really do."
At that moment, the lead dragon swooped in to land in front of them, pointing a clawed arm at River Song accusingly.
"You have defiled the Cave of Fertility by entering without a mate!" it shrieked.
"Ooh, kinky," the Doctor interjected sotto voce, and River shot him a quelling glare.
"You must return with a cleansing sacrifice, and offer amends by sharing the gift of life within the caverns," continued the dragon solemnly. "Do you have a mate, heretic?"
The Doctor-- still lying on his back in the dirt-- was doing a poor job of stifling laughter, at this point. River shot out a hand to circle his wrist as insurance that he wouldn't run for the hills, and said, "Damn right I do." She turned her attention from the giant dragon to her captive husband. "Sweetie, I don't suppose you've got anything secreted about your person that might constitute a cleansing sacrifice?"
"How is this my life?" asked the Doctor matter-of-factly, though since he was still flat on his back with an arm draped across his face, it wasn't immediately clear if he was addressing her, the dragon, or the planet at large.
He sat up with a soft grunt and began patting down his pockets with his free hand.
"Let's see... I've got a yo-yo... bag of jelly babies... and a half-eaten apple?"
"That will suffice," hissed the dragon.
* * *
"Is it possible for two people to do the walk of shame, or is that strictly a solitary thing?" the Doctor asked three hours later as they strolled away from the Sacred Cave of Fertility, past rows of gawking dragons avidly following their progress with glittering eyes.
They were both rather disheveled, but to be fair, it had been a bit of a busy day.
"Not sure. All I know is that I still didn't manage to get the rest of those inscriptions copied," River groused.
"I'm fairly certain that if you had succeeded in transcribing ancient stone carvings during the ceremony, it would be proof that we were doing it wrong."
River couldn't stop the slow smile that spread across her face, or the low thrum of satisfaction buzzing just beneath her skin.
"No chance of that, my love," she said, threading her arm through his. "And just so you know, I really do appreciate your impeccable timing in showing up here."
The Doctor stopped, swinging her around so that they were facing each other.
"River Song," he said. "Remember this-- it's important. I will always catch you when you fall."
"Always?" she teased. "Could become a full-time job if you're not careful."
"Yes. Always," he reiterated, green eyes serious. "Though if you're planning on leaping off of a building or jumping out of a spaceship, a little warning ahead of time wouldn't go amiss."
"I'll keep it in mind," she said, and reached up to kiss him.
4) Luna, After Manhattan
Back home.
After Manhattan; after the Angels. Or, at least, back in her rooms at Luna University. What even qualified as "home", these days? These rooms? The TARDIS? The little scout ship she used to ferry her team to the next archaeological dig?
An empty house in London with a blue door and a red sports car gathering dust out front?
It wasn't fair. She couldn't save him, and he couldn't save her... not from the pain of love and loss... not from any of it. And after the first night when he allowed himself to succumb to grief at the loss of his closest friends-- to take solace in her arms-- he did exactly what she needed him not to do, and followed her example of hiding the damage... because of course he would, the bastard.
So, they traipsed through space and time together, fighting other people's fights and otherwise being the king and queen of "okay", until she found herself on the verge of hating him and left before she started to show it. For home... or whatever this was.
One psychopath per TARDIS, after all.
She prowled the small living area restlessly, trying to shove the anger and the hurt and the loss of her parents back into its box for another day. Her surroundings mocked her... the staid quarters of an academic, with untidy bookshelves, a desk piled high with data padds, and a shelf full of awards and academic achievements that meant nothing, right now.
Without truly intending it, her right arm whipped out, sweeping the awards and diplomas to the ground with a satisfying crash of glass and wood. Her books and papers were next, yielding to the irrational rage that hadn't fully surfaced since she was Mels, striking out at her environment in the vain hope that if she beat on it long enough, her life would start to make sense.
Small furniture followed, and the crashes grew louder and more satisfying until... she froze upon seeing the figure leaning casually against the doorway leading to her bedroom, an instant before the lamp she had just thrown exploded against the wall near her husband's grey head. He didn't even flinch, and his eyes never left her.
He must have had the TARDIS running silent, or she surely would have registered his arrival. He continued to lounge against the doorframe, clearing his throat and raising the psychic paper to his eyes, making a show of reading it.
"'It isn't fair, damn it'," he quoted, all affected casualness as he returned the paper to his pocket. "Anything I can help you with, dear?"
River clenched her fists, forcing composure with an iron will.
"I'm fine," she bit out.
The Doctor looked pointedly at the small whirlwind of destruction around them.
"Yes, I can see that," he said, his sarcasm giving her no quarter. "So, where are we, then? No, never mind, I think I can guess. Still trying to hide the damage? Because I believe it's currently on full display, scattered around the floor of your rooms."
Feeling trapped, River lashed out. "I may have learned from the best, Sweetie, but you'll have to forgive me if I still haven't achieved your level of proficiency in that particular pursuit."
The Doctor pushed himself away from the wall, anger showing clearly on his face as he abandoned his aura of insouciance and stalked toward her.
"Just because younger me is an arse, that's no excuse for you be twice as bad as him! I mean-- what the ever-loving fuck, River? We're supposed to be married! You're better than that. Better than me!"
Blood boiling with years of things left unsaid, River stepped forward as well until they were toe-to-toe, pressing into each other's personal space and glaring, eye to eye.
"Don't you dare tell me what I am," she said in a deadly voice. "If you'd seen everything inside of me, back then, you'd have started running and never stopped."
"You think I didn't know already? I made you what you are!" he shouted, accent thickening.
She slapped him, revelling in the sharp sting of flesh against flesh, and gasped in surprise as he surged forward, grabbing her shoulders and shoving her backwards into the wall, hard... so unlike his previous self's usual startled, deer-in-the-headlamps response.
"I made you what you are," he repeated, growling. "Everything that was done to you-- that was done to your family-- was my fault. And you never let me try to make it up to you. You never trusted me to see the damage you'd suffered... in my name."
"How can you say that to me?" River snapped. "I've always trusted you! Even when I was a child and had every reason not to!"
"You trusted me to catch you when you fell. You trusted me to come when you called. But you've never trusted me to hold you when you cried-- not once, in all these years." His voice softened even as his fingers tightened, digging into her shoulders painfully. "River, your parents are gone. Neither of us will ever see them again-- not ever. And you haven't even cried, love..."
The reality of it hit her again like a freight ship. Mum. Dad. Separated from her forever, except for dusty, handwritten letters smuggled through time by solicitors' offices. As soon as she had seen Rory disappear, she'd known what had to happen to close the circle of her life. But the price of her childhood with Amy and Rory in New York in the past was for her to become an orphan in the present.
A keening noise halfway between rage and pain escaped her dwindling control, and she shoved against the grip pinning her to the wall, intending to flee. The two of them careened across the small space, feet crunching in the broken glass scattered across the carpet. The Doctor grunted as his hip impacted sharply with the edge of her desk, but didn't let go even as the unsteady stack of data padds piled there tumbled onto the floor around them. They came to rest with him half-perched on the edge, holding her tightly in both arms as she grappled with handfuls of his jacket; ugly, rhythmic noises of grief jerking free from her chest.
"I know," he said, gathering her even closer and burying his face in her hair as she slowly stopped fighting and folded into him. "I know, love. I'm so sorry. So sorry. I miss them, too."
5) The Data Core, and Beyond
"Honey, I'm home..."
The priceless alabaster chalice slipped from River's hands and shattered on the stone floor before the soft brogue of Gallifrey-via-Glasgow had completely faded from her ears, and she spun around, disbelieving. Impossibly, there stood her husband, looking around the Library data core's reconstruction of Tutankhamun's unspoiled tomb with interest.
"Love what you've done with the place, by the way," he added, meeting her eyes with a twinkle.
River felt her mouth hanging open, and closed it with a snap.
And what sort of time do you call this, she fully intended to say, but it came out as "Wha-?" and just sort of stuck there, in her throat... and then she was in his arms, and he was solid-- or at least he was not-solid in the same way that she was not solid, in this strange technological afterlife.
"You're really here," she whispered, burying her nose against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He even smelled the same, and the tears running down her face and soaking into his shoulder certainly felt real enough.
"I've missed you, River," he said, his own voice not completely steady.
After a long moment, she eased him back far enough to look at him.
"How can you be here?" she asked. "Please tell me you're not..."
"Dead?" he suggested, rueful but unflinching. "Nah, still knocking about in a rackety old blue box-- same old life. Had an idea; needed to run it past you."
River shook her head slowly, trying to clear it.
"Then... how did you get in here?"
The Doctor scoffed. "Oh... getting in is simple-- I just stepped onto the teleport platform in the Library and asked CAL to upload my pattern into the core. At the moment, I'm much more interested in the logistics of getting out."
River pulled away sharply. "You came in here without an exit strategy? You idiot! Where's CAL? We have to find her! I'll get her to--"
The Doctor stopped her with a hand on her upper arm.
"No, River. I meant, I'm much more interested in the logistics of getting you out."
"But..." River subsided for a few seconds, blinking. "I don't have a body to return to. I'm a data ghost."
The hand on her bicep squeezed briefly, reminding her of the unexpected strength in that slender, ageing frame.
"A data ghost with a mental link to a TARDIS," said the Doctor in his best I've got a secret voice, and River's eyes widened as she felt the first spark of a plan... of the possibility of escape to the real world. A slow smile spread across her face as he continued. "I daresay that between us, we can cobble together something for three-dimensional projection, at the very least. Wouldn't you agree, Professor Song?"
River felt her smile widen and turn predatory, mirroring her husband's exactly.
"Oh, Doctor. I think that between the two of us, reality won't know what hit it."
+1) A Whole Other Birthday
River materialised amid a scene of utter chaos. Ignoring the angry sparking of her vortex manipulator, she did a quick visual scan for danger. The Doctor lay crumpled on the floor like a discarded doll, his old-fashioned Victorian clothing and floppy hair singed; chest rising and falling shallowly. She forced herself not to go to him immediately-- there was still time.
Instead, she crossed quickly to where Clara was sprawled against a chunk of debris. The scanner hummed as she took a reading, but River didn't need the readout to locate the cause of unconsciousness; a dark bruise on the young woman's forehead-- only partially covered by a wave of dark hair-- was the obvious culprit.
After determining that there was no serious damage and no other injuries beyond scrapes and bruises, River carefully rearranged Clara into a more comfortable position. She removed her jacket and rolled it up to act as a rough pillow, administering a medi-patch to the side of Clara's neck for the inevitable headache-to-come.
Only then did she allow her attention to focus on the raggedly breathing figure across the room. His eyes, though slightly unfocused, burned through her with all the force of the not inconsiderable intellect behind them.
"You can't be here," he said with absolute certainty.
River raised an eyebrow, forcing herself to keep it light as she crossed to crouch next to him.
"Can't I? I'm so sorry, Sweetie... I must not have read the memo."
He stared at her for a long moment before making an obvious effort to switch mental tracks.
"Clara," he began. "Is she--?"
"She'll be fine. Unconscious from a bump on the head, but no major injuries. I made her comfortable and gave her a patch for the pain," River said. Unable to hold back any longer, she reached down to straighten the crooked bow tie, and brushed the Doctor's hair away from his face. He flinched hard at the contact, Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.
"Are you real? How can you be real?" His hand, when he raised it to her cheek, was glowing. She closed her eyes, covering it with her own for a moment.
"Bit of a loaded question, there, dear," she said, "but yes, I'm real. I'm sorry I couldn't be here sooner. I tried, but there was too much interference."
"It's been so long, River. I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he choked out as the flickering light enveloped him.
River reluctantly backed away, her fingertips tingling with the crackling of artron energy as she trailed them down his arm, his hand, before finally breaking contact.
"Oh, my love," she said, holding his gaze steadily, "I had to be here to make certain your next self would be all right. After all, we still have so much to look forward to, you and I."
Hope flared behind old, old eyes in a young face. River squinted, raising a hand to protect herself from the glare; forcing herself not to look away as the Doctor's back arched into a painful bow, regeneration energy exploding from his body. When she finally blinked away the afterimages, a new man in old clothes lay before her, grey-green eyes in a careworn face drinking her in the way a man dying in the desert looks at water.
"Besides," she continued in a tremulous voice, returning to kneel beside him and run a hand through his thick, silver hair. "We had a date scheduled, Sweetie. It's my birthday today, you know."
He looked up at her in wonder.
"Mine, too," he said eventually, and pulled her down into a kiss.
fin