For those of you who haven't been following, I'm ankle-deep in frigid ocean, and I'm supposed to be enjoying a superbly childish and uplifting paddle with the wife. Except I'm not and I have no idea where I actually am or how I got here.

But it's alright. There are ways to deal with this. There's protocol for these situations.

By way of an example, should you ever find yourself in an apparently perfect situation, in a landscape that seems to give back the very echo of your soul, think back to the last thing you remember from before. In that light, analyse how likely it is that you would have found this perfect situation. The last thing I remember is minor repairs, and another attempt to find the fifth moon of Gloriana, the known coordinates of which are very clearly wrong because it was the ninth attempt.

Rory saying, "I know where we should go."

Yeah, how likely is it that Rory brought me somewhere perfect and now is nowhere to be seen?

In addition, should one ever be faced with one's hearts desire, having previous been unaware that it was one's heart's desire, do question where it came from. Just in case. Again, as a for instance, I had not yet admitted to myself quite how much I missed River, and here she is standing in front of me. Her beckoning hand falls limp to her side and she laughs, "What's the matter? Too cold for you, sweetie?"

I step back out of the water. And yes, when I look down my feet look like they're dripping, but I can't feel that happening at all.

"Tell me something only River would know."

"You hate moths." Which rules out androids and shapeshifting aliens and other things that wouldn't have access to that kind of information.

"What have I ever taken from you?"

One eyebrow jumps almost to the hairline. "Do you really want me to answer that?" Which rules out Soul. Soul wouldn't have been able to resist telling me again how it used to have a body until I came along. Come along; I haven't done it yet. 'Will come'? Am to have been in the future? Bloody time travel, I'll tell you, it does terrible things to language. Like, genuine war crime things. If time travel were a person, language would have taken out a restraining order by now.

Which gives me an idea.

"River, define the future perfect tense."

She sighs, walking forward out the water. Falls down on the sand and stretches out. "Look, the sun's coming out, don't let's be grown ups now."

"And we won't. I promise you." I say that before I lie down next to her. Harder to lie when she's close. Real or not, she takes that from me. "But this one question."

Pouting, curling up against me, "It's a really weird question." I slip a hand under her arm and tickle her ribs until she giggles, "The future perfect tense exists in certain Latin-root languages to describe actions which will be completed at a known point in the future. Literary, journalistic, largely obsolete, stop it!"

I stop. And she seems to think that it, that we're not being grown-ups anymore now. That we're going to have a lazy afternoon on the shore and not think about anything terrible. That would be nice. Only I'm not entirely happy with her definition.

"Obsolete, River?"

"Mmh. Mostly abandoned in the colloquial, why are we discussing the finer points of French grammar?"

Feeling around in my jacket, because the sonic should still be there. Because that should help. "Because don't you wish sometimes we had a tense for the future perfect? Don't you ever wonder why the water out there didn't get any deeper when you walked farther out than me? Why your feet are dry?"

"No." A perfectly honest and limpid answer, with nothing behind it. No arch innuendo, no ulterior motive, not misleading or misguiding in anyway. No fun. I keep searching for the sonic. "Oh, you don't have it."

"Yes I do."

"No. You left it behind in case it fell in the sea."

"Ridiculous. It won't work, you know."

"What won't?"
"Tricking me into not believing in it. It's here."

Part of me knows it is. Can feel it even, the familiar shape of the grip. Just can't quite close my fingers on it. So I picture it, as clearly and precisely as I can. Down to the little scratch on one of the top claws from when it was stolen by the owls, the poison burn on the barrel from Alaya's tongue. And a slight grease stain at the bottom. From what? From butter. From this morning, from toast, with Jessica. Jessica. Where is Jessica?

The sonic becomes real again in my grasp.

I lean away from River and point it out to sea. About a foot beyond the tide the world turns transparent and reveals a wall painted in dull industrial taupe. One reading given; Tian Lu Quan.

Literally, 'Heaven Hotel'. In reality, anything but. Each room feeds off the mind of the occupant. Intelligent psychic programming. Small corners of hell so personal and perfect that you'll lie there forever, that you'll waste away your real life to stay there. If you fall for it, that is.

"Aha! I knew you had to be a figment of my imagination, you were far too honest."

But River doesn't hear me. She's staring into the horizon, where the wall was a second ago. "What was that? Where are we?" Wrong. All wrong. She shouldn't be confused. If she's a projection of my image of River, and I know her to be false, then she should be crumbling by now. So for the moment I ignore her, and I turn a slow circle with the sonic, looking for the door. "Normally you answer me while you do that."

"Heaven," is as much as I'm willing to tell her.

She gasps, "The Tian Lu Quan," and rushes up to me. Rolls up the sleeve of my jacket and pinches my wrist so I cry out. "How are you real?"

"How are you real? I'm imagining you!"

"I'm imagining you!"

Right. So at least I've got River then. The logic might be up the left and backward, but at least I've got River. Because the trick to the Heaven Hotel is keeping your head on straight, and heaven knows River's always such a wonderful help when it comes to keeping my head on straight.

I find the door, or at least the suggestion of it. Four lines making a rectangle in the wall, and with a small black glass panel. Seems to be about as close as we're getting. A little shift in the frequency aimed at the black glass breaks the illusion. The chalk cliffs, the ocean, the sun in the sky, they all disappear. Four taupe walls, two plastic chairs, grey industrial carpet.

"I miss the beach," River sighs. I could nod, could agree, but I'm concentrating on the door. Because the sonic is doing what it does, but not what it should do, and it's not opening. A moment later, River is leaning on my shoulder, her face right next to mine. "It's a psychic lock. You need to think the right passkey."

"Who set it, though? That's the question; who put us here?"

River ignores the question. River is behind me, breaking the leg off one of the chairs, and running it at the black glass so fast I only just get out of the way.

Spark, fizzle, all the usual. Then that horrible, held-breath moment where it's either going to open or we're entombed here forever without even the distraction of the beach. Somewhere in that moment, River's hand weaves itself into mine. It unweaves again when the door hisses and slips an inch backward.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

"You ever seen the inside of the Tian Lu Quan?" I ask her.

"No," she says right back. Both of us looking at the door, but her eyes shoot to me.

"Oh, no, darling, after you."

She walks up the door, to shove it sideways, to leave ahead of me. I watch her go those few steps. And yes, yes, I miss the beach.