This was written for a prompt given by the lovely femme-slash-fan on LiveJournal: Idris/River, "protected". Ended up making it gen and only using the word prompt for part of the fic, but I still hope she likes it! The piece is set after Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and an AU-ish scenario. Enjoy!
When she steps into the TARDIS, all glowing lights are out, and her heart skips a beat in astonishment and alarm.
The buzz is missing from the air, that presence that usually tingles across her skin and throws singing echoes into her bones. She rushes to the console on instinct, hands already reaching, and then freezes there.
A woman grins at her from the floor, where she is sitting as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Her hair is wild, her attire a bit peculiar, and her eyes… her eyes look deep as pools of time, rich with eras of mysteries somehow. Her eyes steal the breath from River's lungs, and the spontaneous questions fade from her lips.
Her father waited and fought two thousand years outside a box, in the body of a machine. She once met a girl called Clara Oswald, who was scattered into dozens of alternate selves through all of time and space, each of them dying for the same single purpose. Others, she knows, were invested with levels of consciousness no human mind could sustain without being consumed as a moth by a flame—and they nearly did burn: Rose, saved at the cost of one life, Donna robbed of her memories. Her husband's friends occasionally go through quite unnameable things. None of them walked away unscathed, of course—but never with such eyes. None of them was the likes of this quiet presence; nothing is the same. This can be no companion.
"Doctor?" she tries next, feeling, as the word leaves her mouth, like she is stumbling from possibility to possibility, always finding them blatantly off. The Doctor could have regenerated into a woman—she teased him often enough about that. But her gut tells her this is not him. Still, that is one more hypothesis down, and all that's left is—
"Oh, no!" the woman exclaims. "Hello, child."
River's head reels. Oh, she knew. From the moment she saw her, her instincts knew.
She slides to the floor, cross-legged and speechless.
"How?" she asks as soon as she has gathered her senses. Blinking, she struggles to clear her head, to think. The situation seems so impossible the ground might as well have been swept out from under her feet, yet she needs to find some measure of control again, and understand. There must be an explanation, circumstances to account for this—perhaps her help is needed.
"I know this happened before," she goes on, picking up the pieces. "On a sentient planet, your consciousness was shipped off into a body. But you've just materialized into Stormcage, which is incredibly reckless by the way if we are unable to fly you at the moment, and… dear god, I don't know. I don't even know if what I'm saying makes half a lick of sense." She pauses. "Where is the Doctor?"
"Thief is deep inside of me," the woman responds candidly, and River has to bite back a snort of hysterical laughter. The TARDIS may currently find herself in human form, but she doubts she quite masters the concept of innuendos. "As my shortcuts are currently unavailable, he will take a while returning. By this point I will be… um. Gone. Back. Vanished and there. At any rate, no longer in this transient shape that allows voice."
"He will not see you?" River falters at the thought, and the TARDIS-made-woman leans towards her, staring intently into her face.
"Ah. This is… sad," she says, tasting and drawling the word slowly. "No," she chirps next, her suddenly louder and quicker voice making River jump. "He will not. That is not to be, it won't. It should not have in the first place, it was an accident and I, this, are a temporary solution. Genius if I may say so. Awfully short-lived, but solutions are ephemeral things thought up to reach a purpose after all. I am a device to make things right again." She glows. "Anyway, you."
"No, no, wait! What is going on?" River retorts, alarmed again. "You said your taking this form was a solution. To what? What could possibly require it? How could it resolve the emergency, and what was it in the first place?"
She frowns. "I exploded," she says simply, and adds, seeing River gape and open her mouth again: "No, not like that time. Other, different, else. Again. I hate exploding, but I didn't, but I know I would have. Thief went back and prevented it. I was very cross, still am. He just wanted to teach the girl. Foolish thief, wrong girl, will be right but wrong still. Potential of a thousand wrapped into one and only standing as one until they become multiple, don't like it. She hurts in the many senses the human way of speaking might lend to those two words, but oh, this is irrelevant information. Words are silly. They mean to convey thought, and all thought currently available, when thought is infinite and the time to express it might be infinite also, but not for humans. Ah, arrogant species, limited. Anyway. I exploded, but I did not. Thief stopped it from happening. But something still happened, even when nothing had."
River's head is swimming so much from attempting to keep up with the swift, overwhelming and admittedly puzzling stream of words that she can only utter weakly: "What happened?"
"Do you know what a sun bug is? Yes, yes, you do, or will do once I've explained. It is a stray part of energy that holds life, usually from a sentient sun. Some are friendly and some are not. On a few planets they used them for light because it seemed fun, then the sun bugs went for a stroll and houses started burning. Very stupid and very cross, the locals were. Oh, tangent again! Lovely word, hateful concept. Dubious people were involved in my exploding but not exploding, and they had scavenged lots of technology, including sun bugs. One of them sneaked off inside of me while my shields were down. Thief changed the future and I was whole again, but the sun bug was trapped in the process. It had accidentally entered my console and as my future was modified, it was automatically included in it, as though it had been a part of me—which it was not, how rude. This would have created a paradox and potentially another explosion, which I was eager to prevent, so I isolated the bug as a temporary measure, then proceeded with a transfer of energy. My consciousness was poured into the sun bug, which is too feeble to sustain it for over a short period of time. It will consume and then flicker out and I will return to normal. In the meantime I converted the raw, rather useless energy that just floated around making pretty lights into an interface with human appearance and liberty to speak, so I could at least get some advantage out of this whole terrible ordeal. Therefore, here I am. Do not be fooled, I am made of the bug's energy—don't touch or you would get burned."
"Okay," River breathes.
Sitting back, she closes her eyes and quietly counts to ten while her mind processes the information. "The Doctor must wonder what is going on," she eventually utters.
"You will explain later."
"Dear me, that is quite the task!" She laughs, the sound short and shrill with nerves. "But how did you get to Stormcage? Why here?"
"I could not remain in space while I was separated from my own controls and thus helpless. I automatically returned to my latest place of landing. Thief had been aiming for Siralos then, you know. But I took him where he needed to go—would need to have gone."
"You brought him to me so I would be the latest destination for the failsafe system." She chuckles in wonder. "That is just perfect."
"That is a flawed perception speaking. Perfection is the flow of time itself, wide and ever-changing and unchanged. This is not perfection. This is random events quite easily falling together and a silly, silly thief. He would call it…"
"Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey." She makes a face in mocking distaste.
"Putting ideas into tiny words is silly. Putting them into words that don't exist is sillier. This pilot of mine." She sighs. "It takes such a tedious process so I will have understood the concept of concepts, and he goes and makes up nonsense."
River gazes at her quietly. Wide eyes, wild hair and a mouth from which words never seem to stop pouring—and she thought the Doctor wouldn't shut up… It is uncanny to tell herself that the spirit behind the lovely face is none other than the TARDIS'. She is so accustomed to just feeling the ship's presence around her, picking up on her reactions on some gut-deep, instinctive level. DNA-deep would have been a better phrasing, she considers with a faint smile.
"Anyway. Child!" the woman cries, then lunges for her hand. River jumps, wondering if she won't even heed her own previous advice, but indeed she does not touch—merely stares, with so intent a focus River feels too unsettled to even laugh. "Hands are interesting," the woman-and-yet-not notes conversationally. "So useful, and so many recreational possibilities as well. Thief is good with his hands, would at least and will and certainly was, but he is often too happy with himself to do much good, not focusing at all, or busy clapping them. You have hands that understand me. But then again, all of you understands."
River swallows. "I am glad you think that," she manages, emotion and embarrassment getting the best of her usual eloquence.
"Oh, that is no quick-spoken opinion. I know you—I've known you as a mere possibility relying on the meeting of cells, and I've known you as such a tiny thing. And you were floating in time, all along—it wrapped and wrote itself all over you. Each new cell was more saturated with time. I could feel you, even after they took you away. The echo and the absence of you were still there. Little child. I liked you exceedingly."
Once more River is rendered speechless. She does her very best to swallow past the knot in her throat, gaze dancing away from the woman's face, off into the distance over the quiet console. Her eye sweeps over sharp, elegant lines, sleek efficiency over quirky exuberance. Without proper lights the difference holds less impact, but she knows the one and the other console rooms. This is not the one her parents travelled in.
"Thank you," she breathes quietly, having eventually gathered herself enough to respond.
"That was an answer out of time. No gratitude is required in response to what I said," the other one chirps. "Do you like my new desktop? Thief does. He said I looked sexy-smooth."
River laughs. "He would say that." Smooth indeed, equally showy, yet in a soberer, more withdrawn way. Less wild, daring, unprotected. Fitting to the moment… and the current mystery he will be puzzling over, if she has the timelines correct.
Possibility of dozens folded into one—Clara. Brilliant Clara, the box of wonders in the wake of her parents' absence.
She swallows again. "How is he?" she asks, knowing the question to be inadequate—too limited in time and yet too wide, facets upon facets for shades of despair and gloriousness.
"Finite and infinite," the TARDIS says. "Old and not. Empty and full. Drawn in and reaching out. Thief does and did and will stretch into possibilities boundless, beyond the folded combinations that any life holds. He will do what he must not, and what he always has."
She stops there, and smiles. River has a feeling she could have carried on forever, but dangerous that might have been. Already she feels dizzy. "Not alone?" she seeks the reassurance.
"Never." River knows the many edges of such a plainly-shaped answer. Never without the friends; never without the dreams, the memories, the losses. Still she nods as though it were enough.
It has to be enough; she cannot afford to dwell on anxieties for him. Too wide, they would sit and fester between them. The two of them combined, they know too much, past and present and potentiality weighing heavy on hearts single or double. Of it all, only the present can keep them relatively sane.
Sane. She wants to laugh at the notion.
"You've always kept him protected," she carries on. "I know that."
"However I could, yes. I held him and guided him." There is pride and joy in the voice and eyes, radiating with a fierce glow.
A glow that is no illusion. River thinks she can see a flicker, blurriness on the edges. Her stomach coils and the TARDIS smiles reassuringly.
Nothing lasts forever.
"And you, too." That is added in a whisper.
She only nods, unable to utter much more through her tight, tight throat. The TARDIS is right. Words seem silly, inadequate for what she feels. She never once imagined she would have the opportunity to express this—face the being that partly shaped who she is. Held and guided was what she was, indeed. Whole, right, for the very first time. Loved.
She cannot phrase this. She can only sit there and watch the dancing of the lights.
The TARDIS understands, beaming, glimmering. "Last flashes," she whispers. "Last flickers. Life."
The ache suddenly rises to a peak that has her reeling, and she feels herself standing, turning away, the motions brisk and seemingly detached from her conscious mind. Hands reaching out in desperation, she grasps at the console and leans there. No response beneath her fingers, no warm buzz, no presence. She swallows and breathes deep, finding her self-control again.
"Little child," she hears the lilt behind her. "Water and song. New, mine."
River faces the TARDIS again.
She sees the light radiating, sees the fading of the external life force and the core consciousness blooming out. Golden as a Time Lord's breath of life, it swirls and loses shape to find its home again. River clings to the console until her knuckles ache. The light flows around her, familiar and forgotten, speaking to nameless instincts within her.
And the lights flare blue. Clicks and whirrs hum their tune behind her, a melody she knows so well it makes her want to weep. Once, once a call so gut-deep and powerful, echoing right down to her bones frightened her witless. Now she recognizes it as what it means—belonging.
Now she knows that the TARDIS is her home, the one and only, unlived-in and ever-present. She knows she is a wanderer and these are her roots, her core, her equilibrium. The place of safe returns.
"Hello," she breathes, brushing levers with shaky, reverent fingers. "It was so very nice getting to talk to you."
The purr of engines hears and responds.
Her eyes flood with water. She lets it spill as she waits for the Doctor to make it out, all the way here to them.