A/N: It kind of hit me on a whim. I was thinking about Time of Angels and River's line. "You. Me. Handcuffs. Does it always end like this?" And it got me thinking. I kind of just had to do it. Oddly enough, what started out as whimsical idea turned a bit angsty on me. I feel so sorry for River after Impossible Astronaut and her speech to Rory about timelines. That really influenced this story. Takes place in River's timeline probably only a few weeks before Silence in the Library. The Doctor, on the other hand, is soon after Planet of the Dead.
Warning: This contains spoilers and/or mentions and lines from just about every River episode so far. If you haven't seen 6.07 yet, don't read!
Disclaimer: If you keep insisting that I own Doctor Who, I will have to set Rory or an army of Weeping Angels on you. You chose.
"It's strange River. I know I should have stopped them ages ago. I should have destroyed them when I had the chance back on Skaro, long before the War."
"So why didn't you?" River's eyes seemed to be looking into his very soul as she said those words. Eyes that had looked at him an untold number of times. Eyes that this Doctor, in his pinstripe suit, trench coat, and converse barely knew.
"I couldn't," he whispered, looking away. "It was like I said to Sarah and Harry. If you knew that a child would become a murderer, destroy so many lives, would you have done it?"
River bit her lip. He had hit a nerve. Her Doctor would have noticed. But this man, as wonderful and impossible as he was, still did not know her. Her heart ached as he looked at her without that special gleam in his eye that she was so used to. She missed his baby-face and bowtie. She even missed the fez.
"I just couldn't. And so many lifetimes later they were killing the people I love." An image flashed past River's face. From a time when she didn't know her own father's face after he had been erased from history. The flash of light, and the Doctor crumpling, crying out. Her own fury, so quiet, so calm, as she held a Dalek at gunpoint, demanding it to plead for mercy.
"But does that make me responsible?" he whispered, looking at her. His eyes, so much younger than in her memories and yet so ancient already, were full of dying embers, not the roaring flames of righteous fury or even the flickering light of mischief and joy. This Doctor was broken, ready to die, even if he hadn't accepted it yet. Did he want her to condemn him? She would never do that to him.
"No. You didn't mean for anyone to be hurt. Refusing to do that… it just shows that you have morals. More than most humans do, anyway." More than I do, she thought to herself.
He smiled at her. It was a different smile, but it was a smile from him nonetheless. She forced herself to smile back, refusing to listen to that voice in the back of her head wondering how many more of his smiles she had left to see.
"Now, as wonderful as this conversation has been Sweetie," she said, her smile genuine this time. "I think perhaps we ought to concentrate on the bomb we've been handcuffed to?"
Embarrassment flashed across his features, and the light in his eyes seemed to light themselves as she reminded him of the peril that they were currently in. "Right, sorry." He aimed the Sonic Screwdriver, oh so different from the familiar device that she was accustomed to from her younger days, at the handcuffs and tried another setting.
"Did you try setting 564?" River snapped, a little anxious in spite of herself. She was sure they'd get out, but she wasn't exactly sure in what condition the two of them would be in.
"Yes River, I did," he said, giving her the look that she had long ago identified as the "I hate it when you know what you're talking about look." It had appeared on baby-face often enough. Her heart warmed a little to this man as she saw that not everything was different between the two Doctors.
River reached into her pocket and withdrew her scanner, running it past the bomb. It actually didn't have the oh-so-stereotypical countdown clock. (He had once told her that most villains seemed to have a weakness for those. Apparently he had used it against the Master once. Something about Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, and Toclafane.) It was a bit more suspenseful, not knowing when it was going to go off. But she'd had enough of it, and wanted to know how much longer they had until the bomb went off.
"Twenty-nine seconds," she warned, glancing at the readout on her scanner.
"What exactly is that?" he said, looking at the scanner with surprise.
"Doctor! Focus!" she demanded, ignoring her private shock that he had never seen her use her scanner before.
"Right!" he tried again. River rooted through her pockets, hoping to find the squareness gun that she had stolen off Captain Harkness. Or, failing that, the set of lock picks that she had gotten from her mother. Or had she left those in the hotel room?
Then she remembered that the squareness gun was currently resting on the seat in the TARDIS (it was so different now. He called it "coral." She called it "organic and gloomy.") He had insisted that they wouldn't need it.
"Something wrong?" he said, clearly a little bit panicked.
"I was just thinking about how useful that sonic device you made me leave in the TARDIS would be at the moment."
Guilt appeared on his face. He switched settings again. The familiar whir filled her ears.
"Fourteen!" River called out.
He switched settings.
"Thirteen!" Both of them seemed to know that they were really running out of time now. Thirteen lives, twelve regenerations, his lives were running out. They both knew it.
"Twelve!"
"Come on," he pled with the screwdriver. "You can do this!"
"Eleven." River felt almost hopeless.
"Nine." River said, recalling listening to her own mother counting down to her death onboard the Byzantium. She became more certain than ever that the universe had a bad sense of humour.
"Eight," River said, looking at him.
"Got it!" he yelled in triumph. The handcuffs fell away from the square object.
"Run?"
"Don't you know it," he said with the largest grin possible. The two of them ran, and River felt him slip his hand into hers as the two of them barrelled away from danger. This was how it was meant to be. The two of them, hand in hand, running away from danger, in a distant world, in a distant time. This was right. No matter which Doctor was holding her hand, she knew that much.
But they hadn't made it that far when the bomb exploded. The force ripped them apart, sending River sprawling in one direction, while sending the last Time Lord in the other direction. Gravel flew everywhere, cutting her face and scratching her hands. She staggered to her feet, calling out for him. "Doctor!" Smoke billowed, and she found it difficult to see anything.
She raced towards where the two of them had been standing. She looked for him, feeling her curls hit her cheek as she whipped her head around in all directions in her search. There.
She rushed towards him, feeling almost as hopeless as she had as she had stood at that beach in Utah with Amy and Rory by her side, an impossible astronaut rising out of the lake. He couldn't die yet...
The Doctor's words echoed in her mind. Time can be rewritten.
"Don't you dare," she whispered to herself as she knelt over him, reaching for her scanner. "Don't you dare." He had to meet her parents. He had to be there when the Pandorica opened, when the Byzantium crashed, when they defeated the Silence...each and every time that she had called for him or he for her and they had come flashed through her mind. Time can be rewritten. She almost refused to look at the screen, not wanting to see what it had to say. But she did.
She sighed in relief as she saw that he was alive. Just unconscious. Even as she thought that, his eyes flickered open.
"Hello," he said, his voice dry. He smiled at her.
"Hello." She responded, smiling. "That was a close one."
"Don't tell me you were worried?" His smile was cocky as it could be. "You know me, always okay."
Of course I'm okay. I'm always okay. I'm the king of okay.
She swallowed and forced a smile.
"Oh come on River," he said. "You know I can't die here."
"Time can be rewritten," she whispered. An automatic response now. How often had they said it to each other? Or even just to her parents, worried that the other would not return from an adventure one day. But he just grinned at her.
"Well, now that that's done," he said, getting to his feet. He dusted off his trench coat and attempted to tame his wild mane of hair. It was so odd looking up at him, she thought. Smiling, she helped him dust off his suit and straighten his tie. Not a bowtie, she thought with a stab of sorrow. What would she give to hear him protest about the coolness of his latest stupid fashion accessory again. She wondered if she'd ever see her Doctor again.
"Are you going to leave now?" she said, smiling sadly. Another adventure over. She tried to think if he had given her a message to tell her at the end of this one. But she couldn't think of one, if he had.
"Yeah, I think so." His grin wasn't sad. And why would he be? He had so many more meetings to look forward too, unlike her, who felt her time with him slipping through her fingers like sand.
He offered his arm to her, which she took, laughing. The two of them walked out of the wood, to where they had left the TARDIS.
The beautiful blue box, which wasn't quite right. It was missing the St. John's Ambulance sticker, and the windows were different. The blue was wrong as well. River swallowed the lump in her throat that had an odd habit of turning up nowadays when the Doctor did and applauded him as he snapped his fingers and the door swung open. He looked so proud of himself as he did that. When she had been younger, he did that to show off the TARDIS, or to impress someone. Now, it was like he did it just to prove to himself that he could.
She tried to imagine a Doctor who couldn't do that trick. It seemed too impossible.
"Need a lift?" he offered her as he strode inside. This was his territory. His home, the last remnant of his home planet. His eyes still projected the sorrow of being the last of his kind. Oh, how this Doctor needed someone. She longed to say yes. To go with him, and help him.
But she knew that she couldn't. It would hurt too much.
"No, I'm alright," she said, picking up the sonic blaster and tucking it into its holster.
"And will you need me to get that off your wrist?" his eyes were directed at the silver handcuff still looped around her wrist. He had, apparently, gotten rid of the one that had attached him to the bomb.
She laughed, offering it for him to remove. "You, me, handcuffs... does it always end this way?"
His eyes met hers, and she thought she saw a flash of sorrow as she said those playful words. Words that she had uttered often to him. Why was that a sad thing? But it was gone, and she almost wondered if she had imagined it. But she knew the Doctor. She hadn't.
"Is something wrong?" The handcuff fell to the floor of the TARDIS, making the sound of metal on metal instead of metal on glass, like it out to be.
He smiled thinly, no mirth in his face. "Spoilers."
He knew something. Something big. Something that was coming up for her. She understood. How often had she had to lie, by omission mainly, but sometimes by just plain falsehoods about his future? Too often.
"Well then," she said smiling. "I guess I'll find out soon enough." She turned around and walked away, blowing him a kiss as she walked out of the TARDIS that seemed so much smaller. The TARDIS with grating on the floor instead of glass, without a swing underneath where he would be dangling, fixing things (or breaking them more likely) with those ridiculous goggles on his face, without the beautiful glass rotor in the middle. She pulled the door shut behind her. She didn't look back as the familiar dematerialization noise filled the air. She felt a single tear leave her face.
He had barely known her. He had almost looked right past her. It was a look like he gave to people he barely knew. She had only a handful of times left, at the most.
"You're leaving the brakes on," she whispered, knowing he couldn't hear her.
Was this the last incarnation she would ever see? Or would she get to see one of the others that the Doctor had drawn for her in her diary. Would she get to meet Celery Boy? Leather Jacket? The Clown? Scarf? Would she meet any of the companions he had loved to talk about, Rose, Martha, Donna, Ace or any of the others?
"Goodbye." She murmured.
A/N: I feel a bit mean to River. Please review! I really am a bit concerned about the quality of this fic, and I would love your input.
Thanks for reading!
Hinn-Raven