Aug. 22nd, 2012 12:36 pm
We start and end as one (3/6)
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savvyliterateRating: M
Word Count: 4,403
Characters: Doctor/River, original characters
Notes: This story came about as a desire to tell the story of the Doctor properly falling in love with River, which you can see starting at the end of "A Good Man Goes to War" and culminating with his fierce drive to protect her in "Let's Kill Hitler." Something happened between those two in the 3-month gap for the Ponds. It was also spawned by seeing gorgeous pictures on Tumblr of cities created out of trees and the tale of Jim the Fish that's in the diary excerpts of "The Eternity Clock." When I saw the tree cities, I knew that there was a story that needed to be told.
Summary: Oh, but it all made sense now. River Song was Melody Pond, and Melody Pond was River Song. And River couldn’t tell them that she was Melody because with one single misstep, she could have easily wiped herself out of existence. That, the Doctor knew, would be a very bad thing - a story of the three months between "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler."
Prologue | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
They took an elevator to the top of the tree where, River explained, there was a transport platform.
“I want to get a few things I left in the room I was renting,” she said. “Then, we can take the TARDIS to Anteria XVI. It’s where the Hydropi live.”
They stepped onto a narrow platform. Several long bridges jutted from the tree, but she bypassed those and headed for what looked like a garage.
“A lot of people use the bridges, but I prefer this.” River indicated objects by the garage, and the Doctor strode over to them. They were taller than he was, but very thin. He tugged on one, and it flipped forward, revealing itself to be …
“Airplanes!” His head snapped up. “These are paper airplanes! You can fly with these?”
“They’re quite sturdy.” River was securing goggles around her head, tucking her curls behind her ears before tightening the band. She tossed a pair to the Doctor. “Put these on, sweetie.”
He glanced at them, then tucked them in the jacket he’d been carrying since the lapels had ripped off. Because he didn’t want to bin it, and there was nowhere to stash it for the moment, he put the jacket back on and tried not to mourn the loss of his lapels too much. “What about helmets?”
River grabbed a paper airplane. “Helmets are boring!”
“But what if you crash?”
She dragged it out to a small platform and pushed one side open. “We’re not going to crash.” There’s laughter in her voice, and he knew she was mocking him. But still … he peered over the edge of the platform. It was a long way down. A very long way, so far that he couldn’t see the base of the trees. It would make a rather nasty splat. He’d already had one regeneration thanks to a fall, thank you very much. He really wanted to avoid going out that way again.
“Come on, honey,” River coaxed, and the Doctor found her waiting in the vee of the airplanes, two men wearing jumpsuits similar to the woman who helped him earlier standing behind the it. He rushed over and carefully climbed behind River.
“Where’s the controls?” he asked.
“Don’t have them!”
“Safety harness?”
“Grab on!” River waved at the men, and they suddenly pushed the airplane at a maddening speed toward the edge of the platform. With a yelp, the Doctor grabbed River around the waist as they became airborne. Her curls flew into his eyes and mouth, and it took him a moment to bat them away and get a look at the view. The sky, now that he could see it, was a purpley orange. There were a few trees that were of equal height to the one they left, but most of them were much shorter. It was exhilarating, and the magnificent wonder of the planet swept over and through him. This was why he traveled. He ventured the universe to see sights such as this, and it somehow seemed fitting that River Song was the one to show this particular one to him.
“Lean to your left!” River yelled, and the Doctor mirrored her movements, shifting his body weight as they soared around one of the taller trees. “We’re heading for that tree there.” She motioned toward one with several windmills lazily turning. “Lean forward!”
The only leaning he could do was into the middle of River’s back, and that was when he realized he was still clinging to her waist. He let go, wobbled, then grabbed hold again. No, no, he was very comfortable holding onto River like this. Besides, it wasn’t bad. She was warm and she fit well in his lap. He shifted a bit nervously. A little too well. He absently found himself wrapping a curl around his finger, pulling it out and letting it spring back in place. Oh, her curls did work like that. He repeated the motion, grinned, and she pinched his leg. It would be very easy just to bury his nose in her hair and close his eyes. But his dignity was saved when they suddenly landed with a soft thump, then tumbled to one side.
River slid easily out of the paper airplane, but it took the Doctor a moment of kicking and flailing before he could follow. He accidentally tore a hole under the wing and rushed off after River, hoping no one would notice until well after they were gone.
-----
The Doctor wasn’t surprised that River was staying in what was essentially a resort. The suite, just a couple floors from where they landed, was ringed with windows cut into tree bark. Light spilled into the room, with its stone fixtures and elegant furniture. He wandered to the windows as River peeled off her ruined boots and stockings, shaking her head ruefully as she moved to a slot in the wall and pushed them in.
“Recycler,” she explained as she pressed a button on the wall. “All organic and a good deal of synthetics are recycled here, usually to provide fertilizer for the trees. There’s a team of workers at the base of the trees that sort them out.”
The Doctor thought of the woman in the jumpsuit. “Wearing the blue suits?”
“That’s them.”
He turned to ask her what she’d been doing when it struck him that this was the first time they’d been alone since … well, really since she’d kissed him in Stormcage. He’d been so angry when Rory had come back without her that he’d left right away, camouflaging his feelings in witty barbs and acting like it hadn’t hurt as badly as it had. Then she’d come, threw everything that he was in his face, rubbed in the cold, hard fact that his actions had caused the loss of little Melody Pond … then revealed herself to be that very child.
And, oh, how could he have not seen it before? He’d always suspected there was far more to River, that maybe she wasn’t quite human. There were certain things that carried through, despite the regenerations he suspected she’d gone through. The shape of the eyes and face, the personality, the hair … all shades of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. He thought of River and Amy standing next to each other on the beach outside the Byzantium, and how had he not realized them how alike they looked? River had been fiercely protective of Amy then and in Utah. Of course, she was her daughter.
For a long moment, River didn’t say anything as she studied him. “You look like you’ve never seen me before,” she said after a moment, then padded into the kitchen. He watched her go, fascinated with those toes with the red polish.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “in a way I haven’t.”
She paused in pulling down a tea kettle. Of course. No matter when and where in time and space, there would always be tea. “Where did you come from?”
“Demon’s Run.”
She twisted the taps and filled the kettle, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “Well. Imagine that. We’re pretty much linear for once.” She set the kettle on what looked like a hot plate. “The last place I was at before here was dropping Amy and Rory at home.”
He was surprised. He’d been expecting a much older River, closer to the Byzantium. Granted, this one knew the answers just as much as that one, and he was on a mission of his own. He slid onto one of the bar stools ringing a breakfast nook and fiddled with the salt shakers sitting there. Well, he presumed it was salt. He shook out a bit in his hand and tasted it. No, not salt. More paprika-ish and … hello, spicy! He coughed violently, slapping his chest as the spice burned all the way down to his gut.
“Oh, sweetie.” River grabbed a glass, filled it and handed it over. He gulped it down, water splashing over his ruined jacket.
“How are they?” he managed. “What did you tell them?”
“Not much of anything.” She took the glass from him. “I … We’d just barely gotten there when I realized someone else was waiting for them. I couldn’t stay.”
“You couldn’t say anything?” He gave her an incredulous look. “River!”
“I didn’t have time! One of their best friends walked into the house just after we got there. I couldn’t let her see me.” River snatched the boiling kettle off the plate, and he knew she was hiding something else. So many spoilers still. “They’ll be fine. I’ve seen that person before. She’ll take care of them, better than I can right now. I didn’t want to go back to Stormcage, so I went looking for a dig to join and saw the missive Tricopa sent out. It looked intriguing, so I came here.”
Where she had gotten in a nasty argument with the wrong people and nearly gotten herself burned at the stake. Really, the Doctor thought, it was rather a tame day for River Song.
Still. He watched her pour out the tea and fix his up with a lot of sugar -- something that made him blush, because River Song knew how he took his tea, and somehow that seemed more intimate than the kiss they’d shared -- and sit next to him with her own cup. All of those questions that he had at Demon’s Run, that he couldn’t ask in front of Amy and Rory, burned in the back of his throat. Then there was that vaguely disturbing feeling that he wanted to grab her, twirl her about and celebrate the fact that she was Melody Pond, and Melody Pond had grown up to be a superhero after all.
But then that would lead to other things. Because she and him had kissed and apparently kissed frequently. Kissing was a thing they did, and he was OK with that, especially since it was River involved in the kissing. It was best not to discuss anything involved kissing around Amy and Rory, because now they were her parents, and Rory had a sword. Right, discuss kissing and other things not around the Ponds.
River moved into what the Doctor realized was a sleeping area, sectioned off from the rest of the room with tastefully decorated screens and a platform. She removed her belt and started to unbutton her blouse.
“I don’t think I realized how early Demon’s Run was for you until now,” River said softly. She let the blouse drop, and the Doctor found himself staring at her chest. It’s not like she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the blouse. She had on a perfectly serviceable sports bra that covered up a great deal more skin than what Amy liked to call a bikini (and he called two spaghetti straps that showed far too much skin). But still, it was River, and she was clearly undressing in front of him,, and there was a bed, and they still needed to talk, and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her again, and he had the sudden urge to go visit that planet with the living punctuation marks even though semicolons were extremely nasty and …
His hearts clenched. She looked so sad, and it was his fault, and he wanted to say that no, it wasn’t too early. They’d run together, had fought like the married couple he suspected they were. He thought he even proposed to her at Amy’s wedding. Maybe. He was still trying to sort that one out. They’d kissed. It was pretty obvious they were going to be lovers in his future, and while part of him smirked about being the one to make her scream, another part wanted to hide in an immensely huge blanket fort. There was a planet for that most likely.
Though he was good at hiding them from Amy and Rory -- he was so good at hiding things from them -- River had always bubbled just under the surface of his thoughts. Even the TARDIS in human form had reminded him that River was there, as her temporary human body was dying. The only water in the forest is the river, she’d told Rory. Melody Pond was River Song. River Song had killed a man, the best man she’d ever known, and was serving a life sentence for it. Melody Pond had altered DNA and …
He was standing in front of her before he fully realized what he was doing, placing his hands on her breasts. High up, spread apart. Twin heartbeats thudded beneath his fingers, and his throat went dry. “Human plus,” he murmured. “You did regenerate.”
“More than once,” she revealed.
“How many times?”
She smiled sadly. “Spoilers. You’ll find out soon enough.”
His thumbs caressed the skin just above her sports bra. “When you were a little girl, were you kept in Florida in 1969?”
She closed her eyes. “The first time I regenerated,” she said after a moment, “I was on the streets of New York City in 1969. I was malnourished, dehydrated and very ill. Someone tried to help me, but it was too late. I was dying. I think I was 8, maybe 9 years old. The rest … the rest is spoilers. I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” He swallowed hard and tried not to think of a little girl with River’s eyes, helpless, starving and all alone. Dying in the alleys of New York. It took every ounce of self control not to go running out the door, to the TARDIS and comb every inch of New York in 1969 looking for her. She should have been with her parents. In Leadworth, 2011. She should have been loved and had a bedroom dripping in rainbows and magic and unicorns. She would have had a dog. No, a cat. She’d have a cat that would curl up with her while she read every book in the Leadworth library, then complain that she didn’t have enough to read. That sounded like something a little Melody Pond would do..
“Sweetie.” She laid her hands over his. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“It can change,” he said. “Time can be rewritten. River, you know what happened to you as a child. Where did you go? Where did Kovarian take you? I can save you. I can take you back to your parents and …”
Her hands on his tightened. “I told you,” she repeated, her voice steely with annoyance, “I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one minute of it.”
“But, you’d have a normal life …”
“Exactly what is a normal life? Growing up in a place like Leadworth? Trust me, Doctor, that’s a death sentence. You’ve been there.”
“Well, I agree it really is a boring little town, but there’s London, there’s …”
“No.” River stepped away from him, and he hadn’t realized how soothing her hands had been until she was no longer touching him. “You take me back to Amy and Rory when I’m an infant, and it unravels time. Not just for me. It unravels it for you, for Amy and Rory, for millions of people we’ve encountered through the years.”
“This is really the life you want?” He stepped into her personal space, his voice rising with each syllable. “You suffered, River. Your parents are suffering! You’re serving a life sentence in the worst prison in the universe. You died for … you died on the streets, starving! You could change all of that!”
“Don’t go trying to put all this on me,” she shot back. “I know perfectly well where Kovarian took me before 1969. I know the buildings, the people who took care of me as an infant, the landmarks, even where they ordered takeaway. Did you not think I didn’t look it all up as an adult? And I’m not telling you because you’re so bloody early that you’d go changing all of it.”
“What? To stop us from sleeping together at some point in the future? River, if that’s the only thing that changes because of this, stop being so selfish and …” The slap cut him off in mid-sentence, the sting sharper than the one her older self had delivered in Utah. When his vision cleared, River stood a few feet away. Tears and fury had darkened her eyes, and one hand was clenched in a fist.
“If you’re so vain as to think that was the only reason for not changing my past, then you’re an idiot,” she hissed. “I like who I am. I fought every inch of the way to be the person I am today, Doctor, and if you’re trying to rob me of my entire life without asking my opinion … why don’t you go ask Donna Noble what she thinks of that?” She stepped into him, lips inches from his, her voice low and slicing through him like knives. “Except, you didn’t ask her opinion. You robbed her of everything she was.”
“I saved her,” he hissed. “She’s alive and well and happy because I removed her memories.”
“Except she’ll always have that hole in her mind. That gaping place where something should be. A life that was there, gone now. Do you really think she’s happy, Doctor? How many spoilers do you want to know about that?”
He remembered the Library, how River had known of Donna, and it didn’t surprise him that she would know all of it. It still infuriated him, how she would throw Donna in his face like that.
“If you have any respect for me at all,” River continued in that same low voice, and he could see the tension on her face, the struggle not to give into tears, “then you will not go looking for Melody Pond. If you do, I promise I’ll stop you.” She turned her back on him, effectively dismissing him.
But, he wasn’t about to be dismissed. She wasn’t going to brush him off like some underling. This was her life at stake, and it was his fault that her childhood had been stolen away. He darted around her, blocking off the bathroom entrance. It was the only place she could go.
Without thinking about it, and really, if he had thought about it, there was no way he could have done it, he kissed her. She tasted of tears she’d just started to shed, and he didn’t deserve any of them. His hands spasmed a bit, still not quite sure what to do, but at least this time he indulged himself in burying one hand in her hair. The other slid around her waist, drawing her to him as her mouth opened under his. He was the one who started it, but she deepened it, and why did he ever run away from this after Utah?
He backed her up until she was pressed into the doorway. Her hands were fisted in his hair, tugging just a little too hard and, oh, he liked that. His hand splayed over the small of her back, and he couldn’t get over just how small her waist was. She always appeared larger than life, but his hand spanned a good bit of her back, and he wondered if he could measure her waist with hands? He’d have to try it once that hand was done trying to work its way beneath the bloody sports bra. Really, sports bra. At a time like this?
She pulled away, just long enough to strip the bra over her head and fling it into the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of full breasts and hardened nipples before she pressed back into him, nipping and biting his jaw before moving down to one of his pulse points and … the heat that shot through him was unexpected and, all at once, his clothes were painfully tight. The hand still buried in her hair fisted tightly, and she gave a low moan of approval before moving back up to reclaim his lips.
She pulled away, scooping hair back from her face with a laugh. “Honey, the bathroom door might not be the best place for this.”
Rational thought began to do its best to work its way through his brain. No, no, no, not now. He wasn’t afraid of sex. When he’d chosen to do it, sex had always been highly enjoyable. But it would mean something to him, to them, and … he could see the doubt flash in River’s eyes and knew she was about to give him a way out. It was still too early, he was still too young, He could see so many potential timelines radiating from this very moment. Not just this moment, but the entire day. Had it really only been a couple of hours since he’d stared her down at Demon’s Run?
He thought of the warm smile she’d given him, her hand sliding over him as she guided him to look at the prayer leaf. He’d still been so angry, but that gentle touch had caused him to shiver. Her touch always did. He reached for her now, brushing his thumb over her cheek as she leaned into him, kissing him once more. Whatever anger that remained from their fight dissipated, the giddy joy when he realized who she was returning. River Song was many things, much of them still unknown to him, but River Song was Melody Pond and wasn’t that just miraculous? The daughter of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, and if she was anything like her parents, she was even more amazing that he’d already seen, and …
Wait a second.
Pond.
Amy and Rory.
Oh. Oh, no, no. Nononononononono, what am I doing?
He jerked away from her in shock, eyes wide and nervous as he took in her flushed face, eyes dark with lust, her naked breasts. He swallowed, hard, and tried to look at anywhere but those dusky nipples that he had to uncontrollable urge to … no, no, no.
River smiled fondly. “You’ve got that look on your face again, Doctor.”
He swallowed. Hard. And forced himself to look at her chin. “What’s that?”
“That ‘I’m about to shag my best friend’s daughter’ look.”
“I … uh … I assume that’s not my normal face. I hope. Well … I mean, the part that you’re the daughter of my best friends. It’s not like I haven’t thought the other part … well, I have thought about the other part. Not that often!”
River laughed, throwing her head back, and the Doctor’s gaze slipped to her chest before he squeaked and scooted back a bit. “You’re so adorable young,” she said and kissed his cheek. “All right, honey.”
She picked up the sports bra and tossed it into a hamper, then moved to a bureau to pull out more clothes. He leaned against the bathroom door and watched as she shucked off the rest of her clothes with her back to him. He was doing his best to not let his gaze linger on her bum, and he really should turn his back, but pride and curiosity kept him rooted there. So he forced his gaze back up to her hair and thought about their argument.
She was right. That was the thing that hurt the most. Everything River had said, at Demon’s Run and now, was right. His actions had caused the war that resulted in her kidnapping. He had erased Donna’s memories without her consent. And if he saved Melody Pond, he would be erasing River Song from existence. He thought of Donna and the 4,000 stuck in the Library. Of the cracks in time that would still be there if River hadn’t helped wire him into the Pandorica to get rid of them. Of the Weeping Angels she had helped send into those cracks, and the fact that she saved Amy’s life. Of the Silence she had slaughtered, again helping to save Amy.
Every time she needed him, he’d been there. And every time he needed her, and funny how much he hadn’t known how very much he needed her until now, she’d been there. Demon’s Run was the aberration, but she’d been there the entire time to begin with. Insulting his bow tie from birth. He thought of the devastated looks on Amy and Rory’s faces. He thought of River as he’d seen her in that bloody chair, sacrificing herself to save them all. “Don’t you dare,” she’d hissed, begging him not to change a single minute of their time together.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. It felt wrong to be saying that. He was the Doctor, he was suppose to be confident all the time. But, he really didn’t know what to do, and somehow he knew River understood and wouldn’t judge him for it.
River turned, now clad in knickers and was trying to fasten her bra. “I know, sweetie.”
He moved to her, taking over the task. He frowned as he tried to fit the little hooks in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Things like this aren’t easy, honey. You love my parents.”
Yes, he did. He loved his Ponds fiercely. But he also loved … no, he thought he was falling … Terrified of the thoughts that crossed his mind, he kept talking. He was good at that.. “There is a tribe of Dfrixal that has a temple made of shark teeth. Rather pointy that. Very slippery, if you fall, you could get hurt.”
She smiled. “So, you’re saying you’re afraid of falling on shark teeth right now.”
“I think they’re already jabbing me in the side.”
Chapter 4
Word Count: 4,403
Characters: Doctor/River, original characters
Notes: This story came about as a desire to tell the story of the Doctor properly falling in love with River, which you can see starting at the end of "A Good Man Goes to War" and culminating with his fierce drive to protect her in "Let's Kill Hitler." Something happened between those two in the 3-month gap for the Ponds. It was also spawned by seeing gorgeous pictures on Tumblr of cities created out of trees and the tale of Jim the Fish that's in the diary excerpts of "The Eternity Clock." When I saw the tree cities, I knew that there was a story that needed to be told.
Summary: Oh, but it all made sense now. River Song was Melody Pond, and Melody Pond was River Song. And River couldn’t tell them that she was Melody because with one single misstep, she could have easily wiped herself out of existence. That, the Doctor knew, would be a very bad thing - a story of the three months between "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler."
Prologue | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
They took an elevator to the top of the tree where, River explained, there was a transport platform.
“I want to get a few things I left in the room I was renting,” she said. “Then, we can take the TARDIS to Anteria XVI. It’s where the Hydropi live.”
They stepped onto a narrow platform. Several long bridges jutted from the tree, but she bypassed those and headed for what looked like a garage.
“A lot of people use the bridges, but I prefer this.” River indicated objects by the garage, and the Doctor strode over to them. They were taller than he was, but very thin. He tugged on one, and it flipped forward, revealing itself to be …
“Airplanes!” His head snapped up. “These are paper airplanes! You can fly with these?”
“They’re quite sturdy.” River was securing goggles around her head, tucking her curls behind her ears before tightening the band. She tossed a pair to the Doctor. “Put these on, sweetie.”
He glanced at them, then tucked them in the jacket he’d been carrying since the lapels had ripped off. Because he didn’t want to bin it, and there was nowhere to stash it for the moment, he put the jacket back on and tried not to mourn the loss of his lapels too much. “What about helmets?”
River grabbed a paper airplane. “Helmets are boring!”
“But what if you crash?”
She dragged it out to a small platform and pushed one side open. “We’re not going to crash.” There’s laughter in her voice, and he knew she was mocking him. But still … he peered over the edge of the platform. It was a long way down. A very long way, so far that he couldn’t see the base of the trees. It would make a rather nasty splat. He’d already had one regeneration thanks to a fall, thank you very much. He really wanted to avoid going out that way again.
“Come on, honey,” River coaxed, and the Doctor found her waiting in the vee of the airplanes, two men wearing jumpsuits similar to the woman who helped him earlier standing behind the it. He rushed over and carefully climbed behind River.
“Where’s the controls?” he asked.
“Don’t have them!”
“Safety harness?”
“Grab on!” River waved at the men, and they suddenly pushed the airplane at a maddening speed toward the edge of the platform. With a yelp, the Doctor grabbed River around the waist as they became airborne. Her curls flew into his eyes and mouth, and it took him a moment to bat them away and get a look at the view. The sky, now that he could see it, was a purpley orange. There were a few trees that were of equal height to the one they left, but most of them were much shorter. It was exhilarating, and the magnificent wonder of the planet swept over and through him. This was why he traveled. He ventured the universe to see sights such as this, and it somehow seemed fitting that River Song was the one to show this particular one to him.
“Lean to your left!” River yelled, and the Doctor mirrored her movements, shifting his body weight as they soared around one of the taller trees. “We’re heading for that tree there.” She motioned toward one with several windmills lazily turning. “Lean forward!”
The only leaning he could do was into the middle of River’s back, and that was when he realized he was still clinging to her waist. He let go, wobbled, then grabbed hold again. No, no, he was very comfortable holding onto River like this. Besides, it wasn’t bad. She was warm and she fit well in his lap. He shifted a bit nervously. A little too well. He absently found himself wrapping a curl around his finger, pulling it out and letting it spring back in place. Oh, her curls did work like that. He repeated the motion, grinned, and she pinched his leg. It would be very easy just to bury his nose in her hair and close his eyes. But his dignity was saved when they suddenly landed with a soft thump, then tumbled to one side.
River slid easily out of the paper airplane, but it took the Doctor a moment of kicking and flailing before he could follow. He accidentally tore a hole under the wing and rushed off after River, hoping no one would notice until well after they were gone.
-----
The Doctor wasn’t surprised that River was staying in what was essentially a resort. The suite, just a couple floors from where they landed, was ringed with windows cut into tree bark. Light spilled into the room, with its stone fixtures and elegant furniture. He wandered to the windows as River peeled off her ruined boots and stockings, shaking her head ruefully as she moved to a slot in the wall and pushed them in.
“Recycler,” she explained as she pressed a button on the wall. “All organic and a good deal of synthetics are recycled here, usually to provide fertilizer for the trees. There’s a team of workers at the base of the trees that sort them out.”
The Doctor thought of the woman in the jumpsuit. “Wearing the blue suits?”
“That’s them.”
He turned to ask her what she’d been doing when it struck him that this was the first time they’d been alone since … well, really since she’d kissed him in Stormcage. He’d been so angry when Rory had come back without her that he’d left right away, camouflaging his feelings in witty barbs and acting like it hadn’t hurt as badly as it had. Then she’d come, threw everything that he was in his face, rubbed in the cold, hard fact that his actions had caused the loss of little Melody Pond … then revealed herself to be that very child.
And, oh, how could he have not seen it before? He’d always suspected there was far more to River, that maybe she wasn’t quite human. There were certain things that carried through, despite the regenerations he suspected she’d gone through. The shape of the eyes and face, the personality, the hair … all shades of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. He thought of River and Amy standing next to each other on the beach outside the Byzantium, and how had he not realized them how alike they looked? River had been fiercely protective of Amy then and in Utah. Of course, she was her daughter.
For a long moment, River didn’t say anything as she studied him. “You look like you’ve never seen me before,” she said after a moment, then padded into the kitchen. He watched her go, fascinated with those toes with the red polish.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “in a way I haven’t.”
She paused in pulling down a tea kettle. Of course. No matter when and where in time and space, there would always be tea. “Where did you come from?”
“Demon’s Run.”
She twisted the taps and filled the kettle, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “Well. Imagine that. We’re pretty much linear for once.” She set the kettle on what looked like a hot plate. “The last place I was at before here was dropping Amy and Rory at home.”
He was surprised. He’d been expecting a much older River, closer to the Byzantium. Granted, this one knew the answers just as much as that one, and he was on a mission of his own. He slid onto one of the bar stools ringing a breakfast nook and fiddled with the salt shakers sitting there. Well, he presumed it was salt. He shook out a bit in his hand and tasted it. No, not salt. More paprika-ish and … hello, spicy! He coughed violently, slapping his chest as the spice burned all the way down to his gut.
“Oh, sweetie.” River grabbed a glass, filled it and handed it over. He gulped it down, water splashing over his ruined jacket.
“How are they?” he managed. “What did you tell them?”
“Not much of anything.” She took the glass from him. “I … We’d just barely gotten there when I realized someone else was waiting for them. I couldn’t stay.”
“You couldn’t say anything?” He gave her an incredulous look. “River!”
“I didn’t have time! One of their best friends walked into the house just after we got there. I couldn’t let her see me.” River snatched the boiling kettle off the plate, and he knew she was hiding something else. So many spoilers still. “They’ll be fine. I’ve seen that person before. She’ll take care of them, better than I can right now. I didn’t want to go back to Stormcage, so I went looking for a dig to join and saw the missive Tricopa sent out. It looked intriguing, so I came here.”
Where she had gotten in a nasty argument with the wrong people and nearly gotten herself burned at the stake. Really, the Doctor thought, it was rather a tame day for River Song.
Still. He watched her pour out the tea and fix his up with a lot of sugar -- something that made him blush, because River Song knew how he took his tea, and somehow that seemed more intimate than the kiss they’d shared -- and sit next to him with her own cup. All of those questions that he had at Demon’s Run, that he couldn’t ask in front of Amy and Rory, burned in the back of his throat. Then there was that vaguely disturbing feeling that he wanted to grab her, twirl her about and celebrate the fact that she was Melody Pond, and Melody Pond had grown up to be a superhero after all.
But then that would lead to other things. Because she and him had kissed and apparently kissed frequently. Kissing was a thing they did, and he was OK with that, especially since it was River involved in the kissing. It was best not to discuss anything involved kissing around Amy and Rory, because now they were her parents, and Rory had a sword. Right, discuss kissing and other things not around the Ponds.
River moved into what the Doctor realized was a sleeping area, sectioned off from the rest of the room with tastefully decorated screens and a platform. She removed her belt and started to unbutton her blouse.
“I don’t think I realized how early Demon’s Run was for you until now,” River said softly. She let the blouse drop, and the Doctor found himself staring at her chest. It’s not like she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the blouse. She had on a perfectly serviceable sports bra that covered up a great deal more skin than what Amy liked to call a bikini (and he called two spaghetti straps that showed far too much skin). But still, it was River, and she was clearly undressing in front of him,, and there was a bed, and they still needed to talk, and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her again, and he had the sudden urge to go visit that planet with the living punctuation marks even though semicolons were extremely nasty and …
His hearts clenched. She looked so sad, and it was his fault, and he wanted to say that no, it wasn’t too early. They’d run together, had fought like the married couple he suspected they were. He thought he even proposed to her at Amy’s wedding. Maybe. He was still trying to sort that one out. They’d kissed. It was pretty obvious they were going to be lovers in his future, and while part of him smirked about being the one to make her scream, another part wanted to hide in an immensely huge blanket fort. There was a planet for that most likely.
Though he was good at hiding them from Amy and Rory -- he was so good at hiding things from them -- River had always bubbled just under the surface of his thoughts. Even the TARDIS in human form had reminded him that River was there, as her temporary human body was dying. The only water in the forest is the river, she’d told Rory. Melody Pond was River Song. River Song had killed a man, the best man she’d ever known, and was serving a life sentence for it. Melody Pond had altered DNA and …
He was standing in front of her before he fully realized what he was doing, placing his hands on her breasts. High up, spread apart. Twin heartbeats thudded beneath his fingers, and his throat went dry. “Human plus,” he murmured. “You did regenerate.”
“More than once,” she revealed.
“How many times?”
She smiled sadly. “Spoilers. You’ll find out soon enough.”
His thumbs caressed the skin just above her sports bra. “When you were a little girl, were you kept in Florida in 1969?”
She closed her eyes. “The first time I regenerated,” she said after a moment, “I was on the streets of New York City in 1969. I was malnourished, dehydrated and very ill. Someone tried to help me, but it was too late. I was dying. I think I was 8, maybe 9 years old. The rest … the rest is spoilers. I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” He swallowed hard and tried not to think of a little girl with River’s eyes, helpless, starving and all alone. Dying in the alleys of New York. It took every ounce of self control not to go running out the door, to the TARDIS and comb every inch of New York in 1969 looking for her. She should have been with her parents. In Leadworth, 2011. She should have been loved and had a bedroom dripping in rainbows and magic and unicorns. She would have had a dog. No, a cat. She’d have a cat that would curl up with her while she read every book in the Leadworth library, then complain that she didn’t have enough to read. That sounded like something a little Melody Pond would do..
“Sweetie.” She laid her hands over his. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“It can change,” he said. “Time can be rewritten. River, you know what happened to you as a child. Where did you go? Where did Kovarian take you? I can save you. I can take you back to your parents and …”
Her hands on his tightened. “I told you,” she repeated, her voice steely with annoyance, “I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one minute of it.”
“But, you’d have a normal life …”
“Exactly what is a normal life? Growing up in a place like Leadworth? Trust me, Doctor, that’s a death sentence. You’ve been there.”
“Well, I agree it really is a boring little town, but there’s London, there’s …”
“No.” River stepped away from him, and he hadn’t realized how soothing her hands had been until she was no longer touching him. “You take me back to Amy and Rory when I’m an infant, and it unravels time. Not just for me. It unravels it for you, for Amy and Rory, for millions of people we’ve encountered through the years.”
“This is really the life you want?” He stepped into her personal space, his voice rising with each syllable. “You suffered, River. Your parents are suffering! You’re serving a life sentence in the worst prison in the universe. You died for … you died on the streets, starving! You could change all of that!”
“Don’t go trying to put all this on me,” she shot back. “I know perfectly well where Kovarian took me before 1969. I know the buildings, the people who took care of me as an infant, the landmarks, even where they ordered takeaway. Did you not think I didn’t look it all up as an adult? And I’m not telling you because you’re so bloody early that you’d go changing all of it.”
“What? To stop us from sleeping together at some point in the future? River, if that’s the only thing that changes because of this, stop being so selfish and …” The slap cut him off in mid-sentence, the sting sharper than the one her older self had delivered in Utah. When his vision cleared, River stood a few feet away. Tears and fury had darkened her eyes, and one hand was clenched in a fist.
“If you’re so vain as to think that was the only reason for not changing my past, then you’re an idiot,” she hissed. “I like who I am. I fought every inch of the way to be the person I am today, Doctor, and if you’re trying to rob me of my entire life without asking my opinion … why don’t you go ask Donna Noble what she thinks of that?” She stepped into him, lips inches from his, her voice low and slicing through him like knives. “Except, you didn’t ask her opinion. You robbed her of everything she was.”
“I saved her,” he hissed. “She’s alive and well and happy because I removed her memories.”
“Except she’ll always have that hole in her mind. That gaping place where something should be. A life that was there, gone now. Do you really think she’s happy, Doctor? How many spoilers do you want to know about that?”
He remembered the Library, how River had known of Donna, and it didn’t surprise him that she would know all of it. It still infuriated him, how she would throw Donna in his face like that.
“If you have any respect for me at all,” River continued in that same low voice, and he could see the tension on her face, the struggle not to give into tears, “then you will not go looking for Melody Pond. If you do, I promise I’ll stop you.” She turned her back on him, effectively dismissing him.
But, he wasn’t about to be dismissed. She wasn’t going to brush him off like some underling. This was her life at stake, and it was his fault that her childhood had been stolen away. He darted around her, blocking off the bathroom entrance. It was the only place she could go.
Without thinking about it, and really, if he had thought about it, there was no way he could have done it, he kissed her. She tasted of tears she’d just started to shed, and he didn’t deserve any of them. His hands spasmed a bit, still not quite sure what to do, but at least this time he indulged himself in burying one hand in her hair. The other slid around her waist, drawing her to him as her mouth opened under his. He was the one who started it, but she deepened it, and why did he ever run away from this after Utah?
He backed her up until she was pressed into the doorway. Her hands were fisted in his hair, tugging just a little too hard and, oh, he liked that. His hand splayed over the small of her back, and he couldn’t get over just how small her waist was. She always appeared larger than life, but his hand spanned a good bit of her back, and he wondered if he could measure her waist with hands? He’d have to try it once that hand was done trying to work its way beneath the bloody sports bra. Really, sports bra. At a time like this?
She pulled away, just long enough to strip the bra over her head and fling it into the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of full breasts and hardened nipples before she pressed back into him, nipping and biting his jaw before moving down to one of his pulse points and … the heat that shot through him was unexpected and, all at once, his clothes were painfully tight. The hand still buried in her hair fisted tightly, and she gave a low moan of approval before moving back up to reclaim his lips.
She pulled away, scooping hair back from her face with a laugh. “Honey, the bathroom door might not be the best place for this.”
Rational thought began to do its best to work its way through his brain. No, no, no, not now. He wasn’t afraid of sex. When he’d chosen to do it, sex had always been highly enjoyable. But it would mean something to him, to them, and … he could see the doubt flash in River’s eyes and knew she was about to give him a way out. It was still too early, he was still too young, He could see so many potential timelines radiating from this very moment. Not just this moment, but the entire day. Had it really only been a couple of hours since he’d stared her down at Demon’s Run?
He thought of the warm smile she’d given him, her hand sliding over him as she guided him to look at the prayer leaf. He’d still been so angry, but that gentle touch had caused him to shiver. Her touch always did. He reached for her now, brushing his thumb over her cheek as she leaned into him, kissing him once more. Whatever anger that remained from their fight dissipated, the giddy joy when he realized who she was returning. River Song was many things, much of them still unknown to him, but River Song was Melody Pond and wasn’t that just miraculous? The daughter of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, and if she was anything like her parents, she was even more amazing that he’d already seen, and …
Wait a second.
Pond.
Amy and Rory.
Oh. Oh, no, no. Nononononononono, what am I doing?
He jerked away from her in shock, eyes wide and nervous as he took in her flushed face, eyes dark with lust, her naked breasts. He swallowed, hard, and tried to look at anywhere but those dusky nipples that he had to uncontrollable urge to … no, no, no.
River smiled fondly. “You’ve got that look on your face again, Doctor.”
He swallowed. Hard. And forced himself to look at her chin. “What’s that?”
“That ‘I’m about to shag my best friend’s daughter’ look.”
“I … uh … I assume that’s not my normal face. I hope. Well … I mean, the part that you’re the daughter of my best friends. It’s not like I haven’t thought the other part … well, I have thought about the other part. Not that often!”
River laughed, throwing her head back, and the Doctor’s gaze slipped to her chest before he squeaked and scooted back a bit. “You’re so adorable young,” she said and kissed his cheek. “All right, honey.”
She picked up the sports bra and tossed it into a hamper, then moved to a bureau to pull out more clothes. He leaned against the bathroom door and watched as she shucked off the rest of her clothes with her back to him. He was doing his best to not let his gaze linger on her bum, and he really should turn his back, but pride and curiosity kept him rooted there. So he forced his gaze back up to her hair and thought about their argument.
She was right. That was the thing that hurt the most. Everything River had said, at Demon’s Run and now, was right. His actions had caused the war that resulted in her kidnapping. He had erased Donna’s memories without her consent. And if he saved Melody Pond, he would be erasing River Song from existence. He thought of Donna and the 4,000 stuck in the Library. Of the cracks in time that would still be there if River hadn’t helped wire him into the Pandorica to get rid of them. Of the Weeping Angels she had helped send into those cracks, and the fact that she saved Amy’s life. Of the Silence she had slaughtered, again helping to save Amy.
Every time she needed him, he’d been there. And every time he needed her, and funny how much he hadn’t known how very much he needed her until now, she’d been there. Demon’s Run was the aberration, but she’d been there the entire time to begin with. Insulting his bow tie from birth. He thought of the devastated looks on Amy and Rory’s faces. He thought of River as he’d seen her in that bloody chair, sacrificing herself to save them all. “Don’t you dare,” she’d hissed, begging him not to change a single minute of their time together.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. It felt wrong to be saying that. He was the Doctor, he was suppose to be confident all the time. But, he really didn’t know what to do, and somehow he knew River understood and wouldn’t judge him for it.
River turned, now clad in knickers and was trying to fasten her bra. “I know, sweetie.”
He moved to her, taking over the task. He frowned as he tried to fit the little hooks in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Things like this aren’t easy, honey. You love my parents.”
Yes, he did. He loved his Ponds fiercely. But he also loved … no, he thought he was falling … Terrified of the thoughts that crossed his mind, he kept talking. He was good at that.. “There is a tribe of Dfrixal that has a temple made of shark teeth. Rather pointy that. Very slippery, if you fall, you could get hurt.”
She smiled. “So, you’re saying you’re afraid of falling on shark teeth right now.”
“I think they’re already jabbing me in the side.”
Chapter 4