River is reading A Tale of Two Cities (for the millionth time), sitting on a rock beside a rather large pond. Of course, the rather large pond only exists because she wants it to, and every time she glances at the cover of the book the graphics change, but still – she's sitting on a rock reading her favourite book.

Then the world starts to shake and she can't help but sigh. She can't even get a peaceful afterlife?

River places the book aside and stands, a gun appearing in her hands. She knows it won't do any good, but she just likes the weight of it. After a second, the gun morphs into a sonic screwdriver, which flickers for a few seconds before changing into a regular screwdriver because there are some things even the brilliant Cal can't copy. She tries wishing the gun back but images of that damn man scowling at her when she shoots things invades her thoughts and it keeps turning back to a good ol' Phillips head non-sonic screwdriver.

Sighing, she tucks the useless scrap of metal and plastic into her belt and waits.

She's not waiting long. For a second, all the colours of her world drain and an almighty groan echoes through her little sanctuary. Then everything rights itself, but there is one extra thing standing before her.

A redheaded woman, or girl, really. About eighteen, by the looks of it. Long, curly red hair, wicked green-blue eyes and a mischievous smile.

Oh, and a fez.

River sighs again. "Not that I'm unhappy to see you dear, but since you just nearly destroyed me I think I'm entitled to ask – a fez? Really? Has your father rubbed off on you that much?"

Hope Amelia Song laughs delightedly, racing to her mother and throwing her arms around her. River hugs her back, almost desperately, trying to forget that this isn't quite real.

"Nice to see you too, Mum," the girl whispers in River's ear. River just holds her tighter, until she becomes aware of a faint sniffing.

Pulling back, she holds her daughter by the forearms and keeps her about a foot away. "Sweetheart? What's wrong? Did you and your dad have another fight?" She frowns, releasing one arm to trace her daughters face. "It's only been about a week for you since you last visited, I can tell. Although why you teleported in here rather than just talking to me through the computer is a question I'm holding off for later." River examines her more closely. "It can't have been more than a month for you since I, well, died. What on earth is wrong?"

Hope laughed between sobs. "God, what I wouldn't give for a normal conversation. Um, where do I start? Oh, yeah. My mother lives in a computer, I'm an eighteen year old time lady and, wait for it – you just killed my father. When you were eight. Did I miss anything?"

River turns white and drops her arms. "Oh, god. Oh, no. I thought – I thought you had longer with him. I – ." she trails of helplessly. She always knew how their story ended.

She just didn't think it all fell away so soon.

"I'm so, so sorry, Hope. Oh, god, I'm sorry." River takes a step away and sinks down onto her rock. "I can't believe it. He – he doesn't exist anymore. Our timelines are caught up, we've both lived it all – that beautiful, terrifying story – we're caught up, and now he's dead." She blinks. "We're both dead."

Hope sniffles again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. It just sort of hit me. Sorry."

River shook her head, regarding the distance between the two of them as though it were made of something more substantial than air. Or computer generated pixels. Or – oh, whatever. "Don't be sorry. I'm just glad I can be here for you, in some way," she gestures around herself hopelessly. "Though I know it is nowhere near enough. You'll go see your grandparents, right?" she asks, concerned. If she can't be there for her daughter, then it would almost be poetic for the parents that could never be there for her to step up.

Hope winces. "Well, I don't think that would be such a good idea, actually. It would just worry them. Things aren't really as bad as they sound, because, quite honestly, I'm brilliant."

River looks up sharply. "You get that from me," she says warily. "But you're going to have to explain how things aren't as bad as they seem."

Hope adjusts her too-big jumper and looks at the lake. "So, when Dad died, I sort of went through all his stuff on the TARDIS. He'd been working on a way to save you – for real – but the idiot couldn't work it out." Her eyes flash. "I could."
River makes a bizarre sound, somewhere between a grunt and a yelp.

"But I figured that, you know, that was just sad – if I could finally bring you back and he was gone, and you know I hate Romeo and Juliet, but then I found this other thing that he was working on, where he was rebuilding a sonic screwdriver to do what yours did – only I sort of accidently on purpose threw the instructions he left me into a supernova, so I had to work it out for myself when and where I would find the screwdriver with his consciousness inside, then I bought that here and plugged it in and then I went back in time again and this time I tweaked Cal just a little bit and now – Dad!"

River whirls so fast she nearly falls off her rock, but she finds an arm there to catch her. "Careful, Sweetie. Apparently our brilliant daughter has figured out a way to save us – let's not make it harder on her than it has to be, eh?" His eyes are twinkling and she can feel herself tearing up. Next thing she knows she is on her feet and they are one great big mess of arms and lips and hair and tears and laughter, and she can hear Hope alternating between giggling furiously and exclaiming 'gross!'.

They pull apart just enough to bring their daughter into the embrace, which at some point ends up with the three of them lying side-by-side on the grass.

"Now, my Impossible Hope, I'm not even going to start on you reading my journals or wearing my fez or throwing a very emotional and instructive goodbye hologram into a supernova, all of which are faintly disturbing and slightly hurtful. No, what I really want to know is," he narrows his eyes at the girl. "What have you got planned next? Because I know that look." He shoots a wink at River. "And it always leads to trouble."

River rolls her eyes and runs a hand through his hair. "You love the trouble."

He grins. "Little bit, yeah." For a moment, he is lost in his wife before remembering that he is supposed to be grilling his daughter. "Right," he says, frowning and propping his head up on a hand, so he can look at Hope – who is all-too innocently lying on her stomach and thumbing through her mother's book. "So then, Impossible, what have you done?"

Not looking up from the book, she begins to mumble. "Well I sort of went back in time and reprogrammed Cal so she would take a DNA sample from everyone who comes into the library and then taught her how to add the DNA information to the heart and soul consciousness information in a binary replenishment data stream and then fast forwarded the process by a few light years and then reinstated the teleport stream so that I could come in here and so that you two can teleport out." She looks up.

Two identical expressions of awe and confusion stare back at her.

"What? But – but that's - ."

"Don't even say it. You're the one who gave her the nickname," River responds sharply, eyes still locked on Hope's.

"Right. So I did. OK." His eyes narrow. "But the only time I was here, physically, I was another me!"

Hope shakes her head. "The consciousness DNA will reprogram the physical DNA. If you wanted to, you could go back to any regeneration."

His eyes gleam.

River pokes him squarely in the chest. "Do it and I'll go to a body that doesn't have this hair."

He backs down instantly. "Bully."

"Idiot."

Hope sighs happily. "Parents." She grins hopefully. "So am I forgiven for engaging in a series of events that could have possibly bought about the end of the universe?" She thinks. "Again?"

The Doctor stares at her for a second, contemplating being angry.

Instead he grins and hugs her.

Yeah, he was never very good at the discipline thing.

"Right, then," Hope says after a moment, springing to her feet. "I'll leave you to it!"

River looks up at her, her expression one of tolerant amusement. Her daughter was far too much like her father; important details sometimes escaped her. "Leave us to what, honey?"

Hope screws up her nose. "Right. Yeah. So, right now, your DNA is still cooking. Might take about 10 years before you're ready to teleport out. So, I'm off – I'm taking the shortcut." She pulls her parents to their feet and hugs them before they have a chance to complain. "It shouldn't feel that long for you – time moves strangely in here and I told Cal to make it go quick. Oh, and all your friends will be able to leave too, Mum. Just check that none of them want to live out their days inside a computer before I teleport them out." She hops backwards, waving her bright purple sonic screwdriver (hers translated) at thin air. "See you in ten years! Love you guys!"

And she vanishes.

The Doctor and his wife are left staring into space.

Somewhere, in the pond, a duck quacks.

He turns to her. "Right. So. What exactly do we do for ten years?"

River gives him a wicked grin, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh, Sweetie – I'm sure we can think of something."

His arms circle her waist, drawing her closer. Then he stops. River feels a faint tug at her belt and pulls back.

To see him examining the screwdriver intently. "And exactly what is this?"

Ten years, or two seconds later, Hope waves the sonic screwdriver at Cal's control panel. "And thank you, Cal. You've been wonderful." She kisses the computer screen, then hits the big green button next to her. "But now I'm going to finish what you started."

The room shudders for a second, and Hope laughs as she falls into the side of the TARDIS, gripping the bright red fez to her head. "Hold on, old girl! They're nearly here!"

Seconds later, the once empty room is full. Brimming with people she barely knows, with two she knows better than anyone.

And all completely, utterly naked.

Hope gasps and closes her eyes. "Right, clothes. Forgot clothes. Would anybody like a fez?"

"Well, that's the last of them," the Doctor says, pulling a lever on the control panel and sending them into the vortex. He is – thankfully – now clothed in his usual tweed-and-bow-tie combo. Hope still has custody of the fez. "All your little archaeologist friends, off to make more trouble," he finishes, tapping River on the nose. "And as for you, Impossible," he rounds on his daughter, who is sitting on the consol chair looking mighty pleased with herself. "You could have ripped a hole in the universe. You could have changed our timelines. You could have bought us back as nothing more than vegetables, or alternatively, as stark raving mad carnivores. You," he says sternly, waving a finger in her face. "You could have bought back two people who weren't really your parents, but just clones."

Hope studies him closely. "Have you been rehearsing that for the past ten years?"

He pulls back and straightens his bow tie as River laughs in the background. "Little bit, yeah." He grins. "How did I do? Did I sound," he pauses gravely. "Parental?"

Hope laughs. "Yeah, you sounded positively fatherly. I thought you were about to ground me." She can't keep a straight face for that one and they all end up laughing hysterically. When River has wiped the tears off her face, Hope continues. "And, for the record, I knew what I was doing. I used some of your research to do it. Anyway," she grows serious. "You saved Mum, heart, mind and soul into that computer. You told me that." She shrugs. "All that was missing was the physical form."

The Doctor pulls her into a bone-crushing hug. "You are wonderful, Hope Amelia Song. Just wonderful."

She wraps her arms around him too, allowing all the fear and doubt and mad, insane, overwhelming relief that her plan worked to come falling out of her. "Yeah. Learnt from the best." She looks over his shoulder at where River leans against the consol, watching them with intense eyes. "Both of them."

It's not until later when she is climbing into her bed (not a bunkbed, per se, but more of a double bed on a platform with a wonderful little reading nook underneath. And a ladder) that she starts to shake. Carefully, she wraps her blankets around herself, figuring somewhere in her brilliant mind that if she is going to absolutely lose it she might as well be warm for the experience.

And then she starts to cry; huge, body-wracking sobs that seem to tear her apart. She clutches at her blankets, and at two other things. A bright red fez and a battered old denim jacket.

Even brilliant young time ladies are allowed to fall apart after almost destroying the universe to bring their parents back to life.

She can't help but feel so horribly, helplessly alone, even though she isn't anymore. But there were nights; a month worth of nights, when she curled up in this bed, or in the library, or on the floor of the control room, and wondered if she could do it. Wondered if she was clever enough or inventive enough or them enough to be able to save them.

And oh, she remembers the other nights. The ones where her father was still there, but he had said his last goodbyes to her mother. Where she had screamed at him, for hours, because how could he let her go to that place when he knew what would happen?

Projecting into a computer wasn't the same as having a mother who could hold you tight.

And having a father who had lost the love of his lives wasn't the same as having the Doctor.

Still, he had done his best. And he had apologised, over and over and over, when he told her what he had to do. He had held her as she screamed and sobbed and begged him, begged him not to leave her. He cried too, as he told her he had thought he had more time. But he didn't and, unless he wanted to destroy the universe, he had to go.

She wanted to destroy the universe then. She wouldn't let him go. So he put her to sleep with the briefest touch and let her wake up, two hours later, parked in her grandparents backyard with a holographic message telling her he loved her and begging her forgiveness (and instructions on how to save him that she didn't listen to). And another one to give her grandparents to explain everything so that she wouldn't have to.

It didn't matter. She still couldn't look into Amy's eyes after she knew that her daughter and her best friend slash son-in-law were dead.

So she didn't. She ripped both messages out of the hard drive and threw them into the nearest handy supernova. Then cried for hours, because she wanted to hear his voice again.

It wasn't until days later, days of wandering aimlessly through the ship and not eating or sleeping, that she quite literally tripped over her father's journal.

Since he wasn't exactly one to leave his journal by the swimming pool, she figured the tardis had something to do with it.

Opening up to the very first page, she had seen the words she needed to hear the most.

Oh, my dear impossible child – have Hope.

And so she had.

She's crying for only ten minutes before River climbs carefully into bed with her, wrapping herself around her daughter and holding her tightly, shushing her as though she were still a child running from nightmares.

The Doctor sits silently on the end of the bed, tears running down his own face almost unnoticed as he watches the aftermath.

Later, when he and River have left Hope asleep, he grabs his wife furiously and holds her like she's made of moonlight and he's afraid she will fade away. She grips him back just as tightly.

"You're never leaving again," he whispers savagely into her ear. "I don't care what archaeological finds there are to be explored, I don't care about your job. I don't care about anything, River, you're not leaving again." His hands are in her hair and on her back and he doesn't think he can possibly be close enough to her.

She's of the same mind, snatching greedily at the back of his shirt. "Neither are you, my love. Neither are you."