Author: Regency
Title: Heaven In High Heels.
Pairing: Kate Stewart/River Song/Bill Potts, references to River Song/The Doctor
Summary: River's only hell if you aren't into that sort of thing. Bill and Kate very much are.
Prompt: I wish you would write a fic where Bill AND Kate a both useless lesbians about the River Song (and River loves every second of it)
Author's Notes: Come flail with me about these amazing ladies on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose!
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Doctor Who. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
Bill recognizes her from the pictures on the Doctor's desk as soon as she steps out of the shadows of the Black Archive.
"Oh, wow. Uh…" She looks around frantically for the Doctor, or Nardole, or somebody a little more experienced in this paradox stuff. Far as Bill knows, River Song is supposed to be…gone. This woman isn't gone at all. She's very much alive, corporeal even, carrying a gun, and prettier than every photo the Doctor's ever shown her. None of them do that hair justice or that glimmer in her eye that says run while there's still time.
"You must be new." She strides forward on knee-high riding boots to shake Bill's hand. "Professor River Song, archaeologist." She croons her own name like a jazz singer, throaty and seductive as a crooked finger across as a dark and smoky pub. Where she calls, we follow. Bill is always going gaga for that type.
Bill nods dumbly, tries not to let her mouth fall open. River's hands are soft yet callused at a few knuckles, a soldier's hands and a worker's; a lady's touch. There's the smell of dust and ozone in her curls and some kind of mulled wine on her breath. The air around her tastes of danger done for a good time. "You're his missus."
River tosses her hair and laughs, full lips parting to reveal a set of dazzling, omnivorous teeth. She could eat me alive, couldn't she? "I won't ask which him you mean. Nobody ever means anybody but him indoors. Don't tell me, you're the magician's assistant."
"Magician?" The Doctor's pulled plenty of tricks for Bill to see, but none of it's been magic. Just seemed like it.
"Not ringing any bells? Ooh, this should be interesting." River co-opts Bill's arm and leads her toward the lifts that will take them into the heart of UNIT HQ like she knows precisely where she's headed. Oh, yeah, this one's trouble. Bill thinks she likes that.
"Excuse me, are you authorized to be here?"
The Woman, and she takes possession of the epithet at once, smirks wickedly at Kate's expectant tone. "Well well well, aren't you pretty as a picture and twice as incriminating? I think I'll like you very much this time, Kate Stewart."
Kate is taken aback, scans the expressions of her associates to see if they've heard what she's heard, if they understand it any better. Not the usual greeting for invading hostile lifeforms. Nor the usual guise. There are typically more appendages.
She isn't unaccustomed to being known by strangers, but she is unaccustomed to being known on sight by strangers like her.
"You hardly know me." She can't, Kate would remember a woman such as this. A tumble of honey curls falling into eyes that says irreverent and eccentric and otherworldly, attire that screams adventure, and a weapon on her hip the likes of which can only be found in the code word-protected depths of the Archive. But it isn't from the Archive; Kate recognizes every artifact stored there from memory. "We've never met."
Her intruder chuckles, a sound both husky and ecstatic for reasons only she knows. That laughter could tell stories about where those lips have been. Kate would listen to every word, and remember. Steady on….Kate marvels at how her mind will wander when given free rein near a fascinating woman.
"We've never met from your perspective," the Woman clarifies, oblivious to Kate's derailing train of thought. "I travel in time, my relationships aren't anything approaching linear." She treats Kate to an appreciative once-over, giving special attention to the skin revealed by the loosened top buttons of her blouse. "Or conventional." She winks conspiratorially and Kate is struck by the dead certainty that this woman has, will, must have seen her naked before. Bloody time travel. Can never quite work out the tenses.
"I take it you and I are previously acquainted?"
"Aren't we just?" A temptation and a promise in three small words. Not many could accomplish so much so succinctly and so far as she knows Jack Harkness hasn't yet mastered change faces. An alternative name pops into Kate's head at once. You must be River Song.
Kate lets this knowledge settle without a visible reaction. Well, I can't fault my taste in paramours. Not that Kate ever does. She knows what she likes in a lover and this woman ticks all the boxes, cleverness to fox slyness, silver tongued wit to an arrestingly avant garde sort of beauty that the Woman possesses in spades.
"Then let me introduce myself for the first time from my perspective: Welcome to UNIT, Professor River Song. I am Kate Stewart."
She offers a handshake and is pulled into Professor Song's deceptively strong arms to receive a kiss that leaves Kate all atingle. "Knew you'd get there in the end. Hello, Kate."
Bill makes a mental note to never let the Doctor swipe her memory, because she wants to remember the day River Song kissed Kate Stewart speechless for the rest of her hopefully long life.
It isn't even that Bill usually goes for older woman, she's more than happy with girls her own age, but she has eyes and she can see beauty when it's right in front of her. Kate Stewart is authoritative and powerful, brilliant as no other human Bill's ever met (except maybe Erica that one time the world was ending), and she's got a sneaky smile and runner's legs that go on for days. Bill would have be dead not give her a look, sod the age difference. River Song, on the other hand, is in fact suppose to be deceased, but she's looking very well-preserved for a few hundred years dead and buried. She's like the Doctor, she radiates power, you can't help but watch her; she commands any room she's in, and that's impressive with Kate Stewart for competition.
"Uh, should I call the Doctor?" He's wandered off again to do something, probably troublesome with Missy while Nardole keeps the TARDIS in check and Bill has been here doing UNIT-y tasks. Learning how the labs work and poking about the Archive to gander at tech deemed too dangerous for regular use. Watching Kate put the fear of UNIT in their detractors and gentling her tone for the higher-ups in Geneva. UNIT is scientific as much as it is political; Kate ensures, however, that it's the human element that prevails.
…Bill might be nursing a bit of a crush, all right. She likes a woman who knows what she's about. Now there's two of them. What's a lesbian to do?
"I don't think that will be necessary," answers River Song in lieu of UNIT's Chief Scientific Officer. "I think we're getting along just fine. Don't you, Kate?"
Kate Stewart is not a woman to get stars in her eyes. She hasn't time for them. She's seen too much to be overawed by people, with the Doctor perhaps being the sole exception, and that is as much to do with his connection to her late father as it is the man himself. Kate finds people of immense talent and intellect extraordinary and ordinary all at once. Amazing and yet, perhaps, nothing terribly special in the scheme of the universe. They're allies and assets and Kate has plenty of both.
Then there are supernovas in humanoid form, who burst across Kate's experience in a blast of combustion, fire and heat and light, colors blinding. Those are the ones who make Kate stand up and take notice.
River Song is such a creature.
River Song is far from 'nothing special.' Which makes her all the more worrisome.
Kate blinks. "I certainly hope so, Professor Song. I'd appreciate the opportunity to liaise with a eminent scientist of your caliber, not to mention the known consort of the Doctor. Supposing, of course, that wasn't hallucinogenic lipstick you just attempted to dose me with."
River pouts, though it's more of a grin-and-shrug combo than an expression of real remorse. "Can't blame a girl for trying, can you? All these guns and too few exit points. I had to press the advantage while I could."
"I'll thank you to keep your lips away from the personnel from now on. We run a tight ship here. Tight but fair, you won't be held against your will without just cause."
"Isn't that what all the jailers say? Due process, due process, rule of law, as if it isn't the institution itself that's the problem and not the offender."
"I didn't take you for a legal scholar."
"You try being sentenced to a few thousand life sentences for killing a nonexistent man and see how you feel about the rusty gears of the Intergalactic Criminal Justice System." Though for a moment she seems genuinely aggrieved, it passes in a blink and her impish grin resumes its place, shadowed eyes be damned. "But you didn't hear that from me."
"Not a word." Kate can't see the harm in keeping River Song's secrets for now. The woman who killed the Doctor, who married him and wrote him an elegy for the ages in memoriam. If that isn't love, then Kate's never heard of it, and love is the only force in the universe she is inclined to trust on blind faith. "What brings you to UNIT, Professor Song? How may we assist you?"
"You have something I need."
"In the Black Archive?"
"Yes. Well, it was. I helped myself."
Kate senses trouble on the horizon. Though that may be her overdeveloped sense of foreboding talking. Sensing her alarm, her soldiers rise to alertness around UNIT main thoroughfare. The professor's corresponding shift from casual readiness to a defensive posture is subtle one, only notable due to Kate's extensive contact with active duty service members. Eyes narrowed, smile tightened, hands loose and weight swung lightly to the back foot, River Song is prepared to fight them en masse and win. Don't forget, Kate cautions herself, heart kicking up a staccato beat. She was raised to defeat Time Lords. Humans are no match for her.
"It would be much easier for all concerned if you told me what it was. Or else I'll have to search you for it." Her hands begin to sweat. She doesn't clench them into fists, keeps still to make herself a neutral target.
"Please do. Shall I assume the position?" Professor Song flutters her eyelashes in a pretty challenge backed by poison and Kate is tempted for all of a moment to indulge her. She takes a mental step back and reconsiders. Given how surely that hallucinogenic is swirling through her bloodstream she doesn't trust her gut impulse to follow the professor's instructions despite the fact that she might be willingly comply under circumstances less dire than an alien incursion.
She turns out her palms in nonverbal acquiescence, an unconditional surrender. "Never mind that, we'll complete a full inventory later."
Professor Song relaxes her battle ready stance one muscle group at a time, a forcible stand down from hostilities, visible for Kate's sake, for Kate to know that all is well. She's the Doctor's match for a reason. She files the thrill of being at the center of River Song's gun sights away for midnight contemplation. I have always favored the deadly ones.
The act continues, the pendulum swinging from covert bristling to flagrant flirtation. "Pity, I could have gone for a nice full body inspection. Another time." Another proposition, another promise. No less sincere for the tension ratcheted up between them. And why shouldn't it be? River Song has nothing to fear from the powerful. Nothing she hasn't already endured. Kate finds she has no choice but to admire this woman she might otherwise be tempted to corral. Some women deserve a medal just for surviving. The least Kate can offer was her unending respect.
The professor winks as though Kate's thoughts are perfectly intelligible to her. And perhaps they are. Kate is hardly privy to the specifics of the woman's genetic makeup. The Doctor safeguards such information fiercely lest some enterprising future terrorist take it upon themselves to try their hand at Human-Plus farming. Kate secretly thinks his motives are less heroic than all that: He guards everything to do with her jealously; it's his idea of romance.
River Song swings her eyes from Kate Stewart's impassive expression to Bill when she makes a bit too much noise scuffing her boots on the cement floor.
"Something the matter?"
Bill purses her lips. There are lots of things the matter, she figures, but nothing she knows enough about to mention. "Nah. I'm good. You're really pretty is all." Which is not why she's worried at all, but also has the benefit of being true. River Song is gorgeous and terrifying. Fodder for a certain kind of dreams, definitely.
The professor, who is also her professor's wife, beams at the compliment, and she's just as lovely when it's sweet rather than flirty as all get out or threatening as a loaded gun. "Why thank you, darling. Aren't you positively delicious? I could put you in my pocket and carry you off."
"Yes, please," Bill says with a little laugh. River Song is the sort of woman you flirt with if you're lucky enough to get her to look your way. Not even the Doctor could be immune. No wonder you mourned her for a thousand years. She's that sort. Her heart twanged for the Doctor. He should be here to see her again.
Kate clears her throat decisively, interrupting the moment. "The Doctor would probably be less than pleased to find you've absconded with his companion."
"He would understand," the older woman retorted, no quarter given.
"I would understand. She's…quite impressive." Anybody can tell that isn't what she meant to say and Bill isn't sure how to take that. She and River share a look and River's is all unruly mischief.
"She's absolutely gorgeous. You can say that, can't you? It won't kill you."
"Erm," Bill intones, feeling slightly awkward at being the topic of conversation.
Kate fixes the professor with a quelling glare. "Ms. Potts is lovely and not for playing with. She isn't going anywhere with you so long as she's in my care."
"Uh oh, she's gone all strict over you. Isn't that something?" Addressing Kate with a curious expression, "Maybe I'll let you come along to chaperone. You can make sure I keep my hands to myself, give me a swat when I act out of turn. You seem like the strict disciplinarian of our little trio." She drapes a toned arm over Bill's shoulder and squeezes her close. "Don't you agree, Bill?"
Bill knows better than to answer that. She'll leave the banter to the two of them.
Kate saves her the trouble, effecting a lighter tone. "Tough love was always my speciality." And Bill really shouldn't let that thought settle, but settle it does.
Bill's thoughts are rattling in her head like marbles, centered on one thought if she's honest: they're debating who gets to keep me and they keep finding new ways to call me cute. GET IN. She is going to have some really lovely dreams for once, and not just because she's seen the whole of the universe up close.
"Well, now that that's settled, I'm in the mood for a girls day out. Any takers?" She gazes at Kate wide-eyed and expectant and Bill has to swallow a giggle at how certain she is that Kate will fold. Kate's got a River-shaped soft spot just under her ribs probably unnoticed by the woman herself. Bill blames the sea green eyes and the smudge of lipstick on Kate's cheek.
"I'm in," she intones when the silence goes on too long. Bill is very much about any adventures that River Song is part of. "Ball's in your court," she defers to Kate Stewart.
Kate's instincts for ensuing mischief force her to decline. "Afraid not. Some of us have an agency to run."
"You forget, dear Kate. I've a time machine." Professor Song taps the vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist. It far exceeds the standard issue UNIT encounters when amateur Time Agents are caught gallivanting about in the twenty-first century. This one features all the bells and whistles an imperiled time-faring adventurer could wish for, phase-shift generator, temporal scanner, environmental controls, and universal translator and communicator. A DIY job, she doesn't doubt. Like the Doctor, River Song does love to tinker with her toys.
"Hopefully your trigger finger is better than that of a certain Doctor I could name."
The professor's arrogant smile asserts itself boldly. "The things that finger can do." At Kate's deadpan expression, she relents. "Oh, come on, we'll call it a cross-cultural exchange. Think of it as research. Aren't you a scientist? You know you'd like to study me." This time, it only sounds like a partial innuendo.
Kate looks around. There's only paperwork ahead of her for the evening. The remainder of her week is largely free of important meetings and none that can't be rescheduled for a later date. She gives Osgood a speaking look. 'You're in charge. Do nothing I wouldn't do. Use your best judgment. I trust you.'
"I need to be back in 72 hours."
The professor darts forth with surprising, inhuman speed to gather Kate up by the waist and pulls her into a tight huddle with herself and a grinning Bill Potts. "I did say time machine, darling. Now hold on to your knickers, this will be a rocky trip."
In a flash of lightning, they're gone. Kate hasn't the faintest idea what she's in for, but she hasn't been this excited in years.
Their adventure proceeds thusly: They liberate a slave ship in the Andromeda Galaxy and sell it for scrap to help the liberated start new lives. They apprehend some horribly rude patrons at a space brothel and get banned from no less than three separate star systems, including TRAPPIST-1 in the year 4677. They consume entirely too much hypervodka for two humans and one Human-Plus (River Song is laughingly, beautifully unaffected). They get engaged in various configurations at numerous restaurants in the Dunderorx Constellation to avoid paying the check. Kate marries Bill Potts at least twice to both their newly sober embarrassment (stammering, they each agree it doesn't count, while River snorts in the background).
They each get to kiss River Song exactly once when there isn't a gambit or a con or a scam afoot. They're huddled under the constellations of a distant solar system talking longingly of home. Kate has no idea how long she's been away anymore, but she's begun to miss UNIT and Osgood, her kids and her fuzzy green house shoes. This will be her last night of adventure, she decides, and rests her head on River's shoulder, pillowed in River's hair.
Bill reaches past River to squeeze her hand and Kate smiles at her in the twilight.
"Home, then, ladies?"
"Yah," Bill says, hugging River's waist. "Bout time. I think he might be looking for me."
"I'm sure my children would like me to answer their calls eventually and Geneva does get impatient about their quarterly earnings reports."
"Far be it for me to keep Geneva waiting." She sighs and for the first time Kate wonders how lonely it must be being River Song. She has the vast universe at her fingertips, any companion she can compel save the one she probably most desires. What a solitary existence, Kate posits. What a miraculous one.
"What will you do next?"
"The same thing I do every day, Pinky."
"Plot to take over the world?" Bill asks, cheekily.
River taps her nose fondly, leans over and kisses her, a soft peck in the moment that leaves Bill's giggling. Kate has the warmest, softest spot for how easily she laughs.
"Plot to save it, as many as I can, for himself if nothing else." She squeezes Kate's other hand. "I've got debts to re-pay."
"Does he know you're out here? He'd love to see you. I mean, I think he would." Bill quietens, knowing she's said too much.
Kate doesn't pretend to know what Bill knows. She hasn't made much of a secret of what foreknowledge she possesses about River's future and Kate worries what it might mean for the Doctor and all of time. What might a heartsbroken Time Lord do?
"I'll see the Doctor someday or never again. It's not up to me."
"Will you wait for him?"
"Oh no, waiting is my parents' game. I wait for no one, not even him." And she sounds remarkably proud of that fact. Kate's met the Ponds; their defiance and persistence is written all through her.
"How does he keep up with you?"
Her laughter quakes through the three of them. "He doesn't, though bless him, he tries." Kate wonders to herself if he wouldn't benefit from trying a little harder.
The next morning finds them preparing to return home. Bill is gabbling happily about the pictures she's taken and what she'll tell Nardole and the gadget she found for the Doctor. Kate has already packed what she'll take back to UNIT to make up for leaving Osgood to carry her load. But first there's River Song, intrepid time traveller, rescuer of the downtrodden, and trampler of the oppressor. Not an unimpressive card shark, she appends in her own mind. She is everything written down about her and more. Just the sort of woman the Doctor would love. And one he'd dearly love to hear from, she wagers.
"Would you like me to give the Doctor a message when I see him?" It's a risk. She could compromise their nonlinear love story if she doesn't take care, but she can't do nothing for the woman she would gladly call a friend after today.
"Just this."
River sweeps Kate's hair away from her face and slides her fingers down to the nape of her neck. Kate shudders, unaccustomed to such intimate touch anymore. She's just settling when River pulls her into a searing kiss. Kate sinks into the gesture, tangles her finger int River's boundless hair and hugs her close knowing she won't get to again. Kissing River Song is the act of being willingly consumed in fire. Kate finds it's more than a pleasure to burn.
When they part River licks her lips like a contented panther who's had her fill. "On second thought, keep that one for yourself."
"Oh, I will." Kate's lips tingle once more with no chemical to blame this time save dopamine. "I will."
Huffing, River butts her brow gently against Kate's and for a flickering instant Kate can sense what must be all of time in her head. She sees frightening shadows, countless books, and dazzling golden light. Kate has no reference for any of these images, nevertheless they fill her with hope.
"Goodbye, Kate Stewart."
"Goodbye."
River remains just long enough to return Kate and Bill to UNIT, at precisely the location from which she stole them, three days hence. And then she's gone, leaving nothing behind but the scent of violets, dust, and smoke.