Deep in the Stormcage, River Song is woken from her silent sleep by loud talking in the halls. She's up immediately, looking out through her bars. It's a girl, not all that tall and fairly curvy but still thin with dyed-blond hair. She's talking a bit loudly to an escort that's trying to lock her in the cell next to River's. "Wait, please!" She's saying, almost but not quite desperate. "Really, I need to get to the Doctor! I fixed the hole anyways, why do you have to put me in 'ere?"

The main guard speaks gruffly as they shove her through the door, locking her in. "You committed a crime, you'll pay the time. No visitors." Then they walk away, and River can hear the girl groan and her footsteps, telling River that she's pacing.

But she mentioned the Doctor, River is curious. She peeks her head out of the bars a bit, enough to see the girl pacing next to her own bars. River whistles to catch the girl's attention, who peeks her own head out of her bars to look at River. "Yes?"

River smiles. "Hello Sweetie. Who will you be, then?"

Rose furrows her brow. "I'd tell you, but then they'd know. That would be disastrous."

River frowns in confusion, but lets the oddness slide. "So what'd you do to get in here?"

Rose shrugs. "Not much. Ripped a hole in the fabric of reality, walked across from another Universe, through the void, to this one. I was fixing the hole when they found me, and I'm surprised they found me before the Doctor. Honestly. He'd 'ave known it was me immediately, if he saw it, surely he'd 'ave hurried to find me."

River almost smiles. Obviously an ex-companion of his. So who? "How do you know the Doctor? Or better, which Doctor?"

Rose smiles. "I was his… companion for a few years, till I got stuck in another Universe with 'is duplicate. I knew two of his forms, the one that was all big-eared and leather clad, and I knew him when 'e wore a trench coat over a suit with converse. Had great hair, just great."

River frowns. She hasn't met either of these forms. Not yet, anyways. He must have been younger. "Alright, so how'd you rip that hole?"

Rose shrugs. "I looked into the heart of the TARDIS while I was still traveling with him. Turned hundreds of Daleks to dust with the power; I could see everything and do anything. I even brought my friend back from the dead, a bit too permanently. He's Captain Jack Harkness, and 'e can't die. Or age. I think he eventually becomes the Face of Boe. You know 'im?"

River almost smiles at her rambling. "Back to ripping the hole, or, better yet, the duplicate."

Rose nods. "He loved me but I was human. Erm… Am? Any-" River cuts her off.

"He… He loved you?" Her face is full of shock and hurt.

Rose immediately looks guilty, and sympathetic. "Oh, oh gosh. I'm sorry, I- You love him too, don't you?"

River packs away her hurt into her mind, hiding it, and smiles sheepishly at Rose. "I do. And I know he loves me, in his future. Because we keep meeting in the wrong order, his firsts are my lasts, my lasts are his firsts. Time travel."

Rose nods. "Wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey." River almost laughs at how much this girl sounds like the Doctor, and how seriously she just said that.

"We, in the future-wait. Oh. Spoilers." At this, she stops talking. Assuming she is confusing Rose, she gets ready to explain what she means by spoilers, but Rose just nods.

"Don't want to cause a paradox or anything by one person knowing too much. Although, I probably already know it. Time Vortex coursing through my head and all, making me live forever."

River frowns. Rose sees the frown and explains, "With the Time Vortex in my head since I was nineteen, I'm stuck like this. Currently, I'm 126. You wanted to know about the duplicate?" River nods. "Alrigh'. The Doctor left me with him and my family in another Universe, one with a living version of my father in it, that we'd been in before. We'd sorta made lives there. So, at twenty-six, the duplicate (John Smith, we called 'im), and I had a boy. 'E was Jack.

"But everyone was growing old, dyin'. My mum and dad went first, around then we realized I wouldn't ever age. So I've just been living there, watching my family die. My son went last, and I lost it. The Time Vortex woke up in my mind and I walked through the walls of the Universes, just strolled through the Void, to here." River notices how she takes up a far-away look as she explains this, and she can sympathize with her pain.

"That sounds… horrible. I'm not going to lie, I've never felt anything like that, no one has-" Rose cuts River off here, snapping back to reality.

"Jack has. And the Doctor, to an extent. He outlives everyone he loves, and in the end he'll be alone. No family left. No one left. Except, not anymore. Jack an' me, we can live forever with him. When we traveled together, the three of us, every second was wonderful. Forgetting the minute when a Slitheen was choking me. But, even then, something good came of it. I could see how much the two love me in how they reacted to that. But, anyways, he's got us now, once I serve my 200 years… Or break out." She shrugs at the last bit, and River finds it very hard to be Jealous of the Doctor's love for her. With what she's been through, she needs him, he needs her. He needs her and this Jack person she mentioned. Besides, she won't be with him anymore linearly to her own timeline.

So River nods and says, "Well, I've got some snooping around on a great big Space Ship to do, and I'm sure I'll be meeting up with the Doctor afterwards. Would you like to come?"

Rose laughs an infectious laugh at her words, and River finds herself chuckling also. With a big grins, Rose responds, "Nahh. S'like ya said! You future is 'is past. It'd cause a great big paradox if I went with you. Couldn't have those reapers coming to clean the wound, now could we?"

River is a bit confused by her last sentence, but understands most of what she means. So she nods. "I'll see you when I get back, then? Ta-ta, Sweetie." With that, River Song presses a button on her wristwatch and disappears.

Rose grins. River Song is definitely one to drive the Doctor mad, he'll think she's just sooo enigmatic, almost as enigmatic as when the Face of Boe teleported with a beam of light on New Earth in New New York, which was technically New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York…

It's almost three hours later when Rose is startled from her peaceful daydream by River Song being escorted back into her cell by three different guards. Rose laughs at her expression, and what she says. "Spare me the talk Sweetie, I know how bad I am for breaking out again."

It's as they lock her cell doors when Rose sees it, the truth of Doctor River Song. Of Doctor Melody Pond and her parents, how they travel with the Doctor, how he's changed his face once more… It's all in the gold shimmering around the now laughing River Song/Melody Pond.

Once the guards are gone, Rose speaks to Melody. "I know your name."

River pauses, smiling confusedly. "Yes, I think you would, I… have told you before."

Rose smiles, shaking her head. "You know exactly what I mean, Melody Pond. I can see it in the gold swirling all around you. The only thing I can't see is… why are you in here? What did you do?"

River takes a deep breath in, getting past her shock. She doesn't hear her real name often. "I killed a man, a good man. And I made a promise."

Rose takes a deep breath as the story behind this cryptic answer is revealed in the myth. She was so young, he was so old. She was made for the task. "Oh. No, but wasn't your fault. You were forced to. You were made, morphed for the task. On that lake beach in Utah, middle of the desert, strapped in the space suit. It was controlling you. Oh!" Rose stumbles and falls against the bars, hissing in pain and clutching her head. The burning, the ever-swirling knowledge, so so so much… "Oh, River, Melody… You had to pretend that… Pretend you didn't know it's you. You couldn't stop yourself, you couldn't cause that paradox… it had to happen. You had to convince them, your parents, your mum and your dad… Amy and Rory had to think you didn't know what's going on. Or at least, no more than you usually do." Rose looks up at River and River gasps at her golden eyes, the tears rolling down her cheeks. How can she know what she did? On that beach in Utah? She'd gotten the blue letter, the picnic, when they were told to do nothing… She's had to shoot at herself, knowing it wouldn't pierce the suit. The emotions had taken over, she'd almost forgotten that he'd die that day… Rose speaks once more, "The girl, torn from her mother's clutch at such a young age. The haunted childhood, growing up, the schools, and soon… Soon, the expedition… You'll call, he'll be mine. Doctor Donna…. Can't come… Paradox… Never return…" At this point, she squeezes her eyes shut. Rose's fingers twist in her bottle-blond hair, clutch her head, her burning mind. How can she withstand it? Burning, itching hurting, burning, the drums! One two the four, one two the four, one two three four…

River watches the woman sink to the floor, her head reeling at her cryptic words, the way her eyes glowed. What could she have meant? Certain bits she understood but… Oh, her mind is beginning to piece it together.

But she can't. If she figured it out, if she learns what she meant, she'll know her future. That's her future. And she can't know that. But Donna, Doctor Donna… She'd heard that name before, in his stories. Donna's the woman that he told literally everything, his confident when he was so sad about losing someone. A girl he missed dearly, a previous companion of his that he wouldn't describe to River, even speak the name of. And after the Time War… Well, he never really heals from the loss of his home. And it does take him just about forever to realize his new home is his TARDIS…

Rivers knows now. This must be the woman he refused to tell her about. She's the only companion he ever refused to tell her about flat-out, the one who's memory continually brought sadness to his face, and occasionally anger and possibly jealousy. This is the mysterious woman. Well, meeting her hasn't cleared much of any of the mystery up. "You know, you're the only companion the Doctor won't talk about. Always, whenever he accidentally mentions you or I ask about you, he won't even say your name. He gets sad. He's always missed you."

Rose's hands, previously knotting through her hair and rubbing her head, go still. She slowly tilts her head up to face Melody Pond and opens her golden-glowing eyes, blinking them repeatedly. "And I, him."

River tilts her head at her. "But you've had his duplicate?"

The woman nods, confirming in a strange tone, "But I've had his duplicate." Then she laughs a haunted laugh. "Such a strange thing to say! Such a strange thing to say that I spent the best two years of my life traversing time and space in a living wooden box! Such a strange thing to say I'm over 100 years old in my 19-year-old body! Such a strange thing to say-" Rose stops here, seeming like she's going to go on but falling silent, her hands resuming the head-rubbing, closing her eyes and looking down. She pulls her knees up to her chest and River has the impression that she's gone mad.

Worried, River speaks up. "Are you alright Sweetie?"

She's more worried when Rose looks back up at her with her eyes back to normal through the tears, grinning. "I haven't been alright for a long time now, Melody." Then she sighs, standing and looking Melody Pond in the eyes. "I'm gunna knock off for a bit. 'Night." Then she walks out of River's vision and a bouncing on the springy bed can be heard.

"Good night," calls Melody. Then she goes to sleep herself.

A couple of weeks later, Rose and Melody find themselves talking like old chums. "So, you still haven't told me your name?"

Rose smiles at the woman. But her smile is bittersweet. Melody leaves for the expedition in a few minutes. The expedition to the Library. "Oh, you know I can't."

"But why?" She's pressing for more and more information on the woman. They've mostly talked about River for the time they've known each other.

Rose almost laughs. "The wrong word in the wrong place can do so much damage, Melody Pond. My name alone could possibly bring about the end of the Universe, if only the right person hears it. I can't tell you more than I've already said about myself."

River looks into the woman's eyes, searching them for something, what she's not sure of. "Oh… Then what can I call you?"

Rose smiles, "What you've always called me."

River frowns, knowing she won't get anything more from the woman. What does she always call her? Does she mean 'Sweetie?' Somehow, River knows that is not what she means. Eventually, she sighs. "Your pain and your suffering, how do you deal with it?"

Rose smiles at her. "I don't believe I do deal with it, Melody. I do what the Doctor does."

River understands this part. "You run."

Rose grins, one of her few real grins, a contagious smile. Nodding happily, she agrees, "I run."

Melody looks down at her wrist watch and smiles at Rose when she looks back up. "It is time for me to go, Sweetie."

Rose holds her smile for Melody's sake. "Goodbye, Melody Pond." River smiles.

"Goodbye, Sweetie." With that, River presses the buttons on her wristwatch and disappears.

A couple of hours later, strapped into the chair, the countdown on 1, River Song knows what she always calls the woman.

Forty years pass. Rose sits, same as ever, whistling a tune no one else knows in her Stormcage.

Hi! I hope you liked this chapter! PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! And Favorite! BTW-Don't own anything. :)