Deserving it.
The party was fun. There was no doubt about that. But what with Clara and the Doctor and the Cybermen and the Aexin and just how tiered she was, she could only stand around idly chatting for so long before she simply had to get away. Normally the public toilets where the go to place to go for several moments of solitude but. The mirrors. The creature that lurked in them, staring her in the face. The creature that followed her, scaring her, haunting her nightmares.
Yet River had barely closed the door behind her, turning the lock on the door and lent against the sink when the knocking started, which was easy to ignore. It was the Doctor after all. She risked a glanced at the mirror despite knowing what was waiting for her; her own reflection stared back at her. Poofy hair, green eyes, gold skin, red lips and white teeth. Exactly the same as she had looked for the last 174 years.
She flicked the golden hooped ear-rings that played with her brainwave and blocked the creature from sight. Perception filters.
The constant banging for the door began to grate on her nerves; it wasn't like the Doctor to give up on something one he wanted it and right now he wanted her attention.
"OI, Song!" came the shout through the wood. "Open this door before I sonic it!"
Maybe she could persuade him to let her rest in the TARDIS instead.
There had been no time to rest. The Aexin's maturity levels where always low and now, through some chain of events that River struggled to understand, they now stood in front of a bomb with a speechless Clara on their hands. Literally speechless. The pollen had swollen her vocal cords leaving her unable to talk. The Doctor diagnosis was simple: Shut up. Yet River doubted it would work. She made a mental note to check with the TARDIS when she got back.
The Doctor, the hypocrite, was waffling on about he desperately needed a tessla binary coil or they would never be able to stop the bomb and the world would explode and the Relason's would invade and take over and that just wouldn't do and where you even listening to me River because where could we get a tessla binary coil from in less than three minuets and fourteen seconds, thirteen twelve eleven…? But she was to busy working through her current dilemma. Of course she knew where they could get said tessla binary coil's from, she had two on her person, dangling from the small holes in her ears, which kept the world (and herself) from seeing her demons. She pulled at the right one and the safety catch unhooked itself. When she dropped it beside him he glanced first at it, then at her.
"Why do you have a perception filter?" he asked
"Hearts." She answered simply and he bought it. She'd used perception filters so often in her younger days to hide her double heart beat that it had become a habit. It wasn't hard to see why he accepted it so easily.
"It's not enough." He told her with his back to her; fully engrossed in his work "You have another one right?"
The power the left ear-ring supplied was just sufficient to keep the demons at bay. She had planned to keep it but this planet needed her and she was strong enough to not let it disturb her.
She hoped.
She tossed the gold hoop to the floor and turned her back. She eyes met Clara's in the reflective surface of the glass wall. She knew the emotion on Clara's face well. Pure fear.
She heard the Doctor gasp and knew exactly what he saw.
The Doctor eyes followed her around the room, burning into her back as the black dress slipped from her shoulders easily, the silk piled on the floor around her ankles. She could hear his mind working at a hundred miles a minuet.
"What happened?" he gave up trying to not ask the question, she could tell when she looked at him. His almost nonexistent eyebrows where drawn together and his nose crinkles. His hair flopped in his eyes and she couldn't help, despite the situation, that he was total adorable.
"StormCage." She answered truthfully "This is what I see every day, in every mirror and it's my punishment, I know that. And I know I deserve it."
The Doctor had spent many years attempting to convince her that she didn't deserve the hell she went through daily and know he would succeed now any more than he had last time. Or the time before that. Or the time before that. He simple stood, kissing her softly on her temple as he pasted her and left the room to plot her saviour.
As the door clicked close she glanced back at the mirror at the creature that lurked there. With twenty-four individual ribs visible and pointy shoulders, collarbones with a dip deep enough to safely hold a chicken egg safely and wrists thinner than said egg. Yet its back was worse shoulder blades that stuck out worse than its cheek bones and each vertebra was visible from miles away. It balanced on stick thin legs as it held its arms at an awkward angle, elbows to boney to be held naturally. And its face; the sunken, dead eyes and dipped cheeks with gray skin with visible vanes and flat hair. That was it. All muscle had worn away and there wasn't a scrap of fat on it.
Its hand clutched at a chain around its skinny neck, the ring succoured on it one its fingers became to thin for it.
Yes she deserved every minuet of this.
River released the ring around her neck.
As did her reflection.
Dedicated to a dear friend becasue i wouldn't have put this up if it wasn't for her.
You know who you are.
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