A/N: Based off headcanons: X X X X x
Some days, he just didn't understand. It's not that he didn't try- bless him, he did- but it wasn't as simple as trying. One just simply can't understand exactly what was like to be in someone else's skin. River Song had very unique skin.
She didn't know her body was so different from anyone else's until she was nearly in secondary school and even then biology wasn't a subject she paid attention to much. There were things one was just supposed to know that their body did and didn't do and if it were normal or not. Whatever cycles of circulation or digestion or fertility a human was supposed to have, River never found her body consistent with most things, which apparently was not what was supposed to happen, even if one was partly Gallifreyan.
It wasn't until Utah that she started to investigate her strange biology. Just a little. It was hard not to what with all the investigating of her little-girl-self and finding records of what had happened to her. (She had trouble remembering most things from her first face.)
She didn't enjoy thinking about it much, but all of that genetic engineering and in-vitro procedures that had been done to her, well, it wasn't just Gallifreyan DNA they used to make her a weapon. She's not completely sure what else was used, but as result, she was a bit of a biological wonder- in the sense that she was practically impossible. (This is why she disliked hospitals.)
She managed, she always had, but the Doctor could be a bit of a pain sometimes when he worried. She couldn't blame him, she knows he was trying to help, but "don't be helpful unless asked" should be on his list of rules because sometimes she could really just throttle him.
She didn't like to be woken up in the middle of the night even with his excuse of her not having taken a breath for the past ten minutes and please warn me when you're using respiratory bypass, even though they both knew it happened out of her control.
She went without eating or sleeping for weeks sometimes because she just didn't feel the need to, (which made her think perhaps she was capable of photosynthesis or some other autotrophic mechanism), but if the Doctor was with her during those weeks he insisted on trying to fix it. It couldn't be fixed with scones or tea or breakfast in bed. In honesty, being presented with food when she wasn't hungry made her nauseous sometimes.
Then there were the things that the Doctor vaguely knew but she didn't outright tell him because it was just... too weird. She didn't berate herself for it, but she didn't feel the need to mention that random parts of her went numb sometimes when one of her hearts got confused and beat out of sync, or that she got patches on her skin that resemble scales if she swa in saltwater. (She suspected he probably knew due to her enjoyment of walking around the TARDIS without many clothes on). She didn't mention her frequent dentist appointments to get her teeth pulled because her mouth just kept on growing them and there was just not enough room. She said nothing of the bizarre and pointless vestigial organs she'd once found in a scan or her inconsistent menstruation patterns and nothing of her variable ability to smell things- some days she was nose blind and some days she could smell as well as a bloodhound.
She didn't like to mention the pain either and yet he always managed to catch her searching the cabinets for something to relieve it with. It wasn't just menstruation cramps, which had been known to give her hell; it was all the random pains that just happened and she could never be sure why they did. Headaches, limb aches, sharp shooting pains in her neck or chest. They didn't happen too often, but enough that she'd even ventured for a medical opinion about it, though that ended up being fruitless.
She managed. She always had. She adjusted and gained tolerance and distracted herself with work, which was exactly what she was trying to do now.
It was a very practiced lecture, she'd done it countless times for the introductory classes so she could practically recite it in her sleep. It was some known thing about Earth history that was really taught more for the theorizing practice and not for the actual content itself.
Luckily for River, this allowed her to open her mouth, say words, and not think about it. Thinking, she'd decided quite early that day, was too much energy, especially when her body had decided that today was going to be one of those random-pain-days.
She couldn't be surprised at it, she'd been having a good run of actually needing to eat and sleep for the better part of the school year-one of her longest runs of not losing her appetite to date- but when something good happened, something less good usually accompanied it. That was to say that she'd also had her longest run of random-pain-days, having one at least once a week for the better part of the school year.
It had woken her up that morning. It started mostly just back pain, slow and achy and utterly annoying because it was almost lunch time and not only did it not even hint at going away, but it had spread in a cascade to affect her entire abdomen.
Her last bad day, she'd called the Doctor over. On rare occasions, she actually did want him around, knowing she could easily gain massages or sex. The sex helped, if not by relaxation then by distraction. Bowtie had been over just a day or two ago, and Eyebrows had stayed for most of the last week, bless him.
She was thinking of ringing him up tonight. For now, all she had was walking because sitting was just too uncomfortable. At least it fitted her job to pace as she lectured on.
When lunch rolled around, she was tired enough for a triple espresso, but that involved walking over to a cafe and she reasoned that energy output was just not worth it. Instead, she made her way to her office and sat on her couch there. She hoped to close her eyes and try to think about something else besides the mysterious pain that was making her whole middle tense like she'd done half a million sit ups. Or maybe she was digesting a cannon ball, though she'd never done that before so she couldn't be sure if that comparison was accurate.
Just then a knock sounded on her door, which opened to reveal her wife and colleague Anita. Well, wife who didn't know they were married because she was too early in her timeline. For Anita, they'd only recently started their relationship, and a younger River was off somewhere on a dig, allowing this post-library, older River to have a visit and fill in.
Anita smiled her warm smile. "Professor Song... you forgot didn't you."
"Forgot?" River frowned breathing silently, but deeply as the ache intensified then eased up to about half of what it was, which was relief enough that she was braved standing up to look more professional.
"You were going to meet me for lunch."
"Oh… Oh!" She looked shocked at her own memory lapse. "I was, oh dear, I'm so sorry-"
"River, it's fine." Anita was still smiling with her stupidly kind eyes, (River didn't actually find them stupid at all, she just thought it was a little cliche how perfectly welcoming someone else's expression could be, but maybe that was the schoolgirl in her talking.) Anita handed River one of the cups of coffee she had only just realized Anita had been holding. "Espresso."
"You're a lifesaver," River praised, happily taking the drink.
"I thought you might be tired."
River nodded as she sipped her coffee, but started to frown before the liquid actually touched her lips.
"What's wrong? Did I get the wrong flavor?"
"No, it's- excuse me for a moment." She quickly handed the coffee back to Anita and rushed out of the room. It was the pain that had flared up again, but it was accompanied by a wet heat between her legs, and not the good kind.
She found the nearest bathroom, quickly taking privacy in one of that stalls.
"River?" Anita had followed her. "Are you alright?"
River had to keep herself from gasping in surprise at Anita's voice, not having registered that she had followed. "Um… fine. My period's started is all." It wasn't a lie. There was blood on her knickers, quite a lot of it actually. At least she knew her cramps weren't so random after all. "Do you have any tampons?"
"I've got a pad," she replied, passing it under the door.
River didn't have the energy to be choosy, even if she preferred tampons over pads. "Thanks." She cleaned herself up and left the stall to wash her hands. "Sorry for running off on you."
"It's no problem." Anita handed the coffee back. "Blood stains are the worst, especially if you're not expecting them."
River made a noise of agreement as they made their way back to the comfort of her office. She knew quite a lot about getting bloodstain out of clothes, and it wasn't just because she had a uterus. "I was expecting it tomorrow." That was a lie; she never knew when to expect a period. "There you go, saving me twice today."
"Do you need any painkillers?" she offered. (Her and her bloody charming generosity.)
"I would say you've saved me three times, but I've already taken a lot today. They've not been helping."
"You've been cramping all day then?" They settled on the couch and River nodded. "That sucks. I get pretty bad ones sometimes. They make me nauseous."
"Well I can still keep a coffee down, so that must be a good sign," River murmured, however, she was starting to feel sick as the pain eased up again. If she'd had the pain tolerance of a normal human, she would likely have vomited by now, but she was used to this.
Anita and River chatted for the whole of her lunch break. Anita didn't have any more classes and promised meet River finished teaching hers. River reluctantly went to her next lecture.
It was by this point that River was finding a bit of a pattern to the pain that hadn't bloody stopped for more than five minutes all day. It was a like a rocking ship, tilting so far towards the water you thought you might start sinking, before leveling, out only to surprise you with tilting in the other direction. It was stronger than that morning, too. Because of that, she decided it was best to sit down for this class, even if it hurt her back a bit more.
Sitting down turned out to be a great idea because she was sure, as she breezed through the slide in her power point about the homework, that she wouldn't be able the stand very convincingly.
This was getting well out of the range of what was normal, even by River's skewed standards. She ended the class a little early, feeling clammy and hot. Maybe she was coming down with something. As soon as the last student exited the door River was sick into the rubbish bin. Screw digesting a cannon ball, this felt like trying to pass a mace.
She threw her bag over her shoulder and resolved that she would take the rest of the day off and maybe tomorrow if it was still this bad. She tried to stand, immediately feeling weak in the knees and half collapsing onto her desk. She braced herself on her forearms, trying very hard to just fucking breathe because maybe it would pass.
It didn't.
River was not going to let anyone find her like this. She'd rather shoot the next person to walk through the door in the foot. Luckily for her, no one walked through as she tried to go from chair to chair, hunched over just to make it to the door.
She had to wait a minute to catch her breath when she got there, mind working overtime to figure out what the hell what happening to her. She'd thought she lived long enough to see all the strange things her biology could throw at her, but apparently, she was wrong.
She waited until the hallway seemed empty to start hobbling out of her lecture hall. She was leaning against the wall, trying to move as fast as she could so no one would see her (which was fairly pointless since she couldn't move fast than a kava'Raith).
She made it about ten feet before a stronger surge of pain had tears springing to the corners of her eyes and she ducked into the closest door to avoid curling up on the floor in the middle of the hall. It happened to be an empty staff lounge and she all but fell onto one of the couches, lying down on her side with her knees tucked close to her chest and her arms wrapped around her middle.
River amended what she thought earlier; She needed someone to find her. She needed Anita to bring her home and give her morphine or something. She needed this pain to fucking stop before it kills her.
Just then there was a shadow of someone outside the door which looked like an angel in River's mind because if she wasn't sure about standing before, she couldn't move a damn muscle now. But then the shadow started moving away and River panicked because how the hell was she supposed to get home without help, so she made the first noise that would come out of her mouth- which humiliatingly enough was a groan of pain, but it was enough that the shadow came back and opened the door.
"River!" It was Anita. River made a pitifully relieved noise at both having someone come help her and at the fact that that someone wasn't some random colleague she'd have to embarrass herself in front of.
"Anita…" River whimpered, mortified at the sound of her own voice, "Take me home. Please!"
Anita only seemed to half register River's words, crouching down beside River. "What happened?"
"Fucking cramps, now take me home." She grimaced.
"I think this is more than just cramps, River." Antia bit her lip, moving River's shaking arms away from her middle. "Does this hurt?" She pressed her hands slowly into River's gut.
"Ah! Fuck, yes that hurts!" she cried, immediately trying to move her arms back. "Please just take me home!"
"I think you need to go to the hospital," Anita whispered.
River went silent at that. Instinctively she wanted to insist that it wasn't necessary, but somewhere she knew that this had never happened before and maybe should be checked out. "I-I can't move," she admitted, "It hurts too much. I can't move."
"Then I'm calling an ambulance." Anita looked determined.
"No! No, please don't. You can take me to the hospital but no amb- aagh!" River clamped her mouth shut to stop herself from screaming, clamping her eyes shut.
Anita started to dial for the hospital. River couldn't speak now, only irritably listen as Anita spoke to whoever had picked up: "I have a woman here with severe abdominal pain and a tender abdomen that's been happening for a few hours. She can't move and there's vaginal bleeding." There was a pause before Antia asked, "Are you pregnant?"
River shook her head. "I can't get pregnant."
Anita relayed the message into the phone, said yes to something, then put the phone down next to them on speaker.
There was some androgynous voice of a nurse or some medically trained person over the line. "Ma'am, can you describe the pain?"
Anita had taken River's hand, which River hadn't realized until she saw Anita wince at how tight she was holding on. "It-it's was far apart this morning but it's been getting closer together and now it won't stop…" She trailed off as she realized that did sound a bit like contractions, but she wasn't pregnant which was why the next question annoyed her.
"When was your last period?"
"I started bleeding this morning!" she said a little too harshly.
"I mean before today," said the voice patiently.
River swallowed. "Almost a year ago, but they're never regular anyways."
"Have you had unprotected sex with a male in the past year?"
Anita looked a bit pink at that comment, but they had an open relationship and Anita knew about the Doctor, so it did surprise her when River answered 'yes'. What did surprise her was when the voice on the other end of the phone asked her if she would be willing to perform a pelvic exam on River.
"I'm not pregnant!" River insisted loudly, irritated that the voice kept hinting that she was. "I'm infertile! Barren, eggless, call it what y-you like, I can't have ch-children!" Her words ended with another loud groan of pain and suddenly she heard the voice telling Anita how to give a pelvic exam.
Anita obediently tried to get River to lay on her back so she could examine her, but River refused to budge. "No pelvic exam! We're in the m-middle of a school ground for god's s-sake, Antia. Call the bloody ambulance if you want to, but nuh-" she had to pause to suck in a gulp of air, causing her to whisper the last part, "No pelvic exam."
Antia looked didn't know whether to listen to her girlfriend or to the medically trained person on the phone trying to help. The phone voice continued to persuade River, "Ma'am there is already an ambulance on it's way to your location. I understand your concern but your symptoms are alarming. Undetected pregnancies happen more often than people think and it's important to rule it out. If you are pregnant, I need to alert OB as soon as possible. Please let us assist you."
River was hardly listening, instead focusing on not screaming because she was sure being carted away in an ambulance with all the bells and whistles would be embarrassing enough without the addition of some unsuspecting teacher or student barging in because they heard her shout and causing even more of a scene. She would've gone red with mortification by now already if her face weren't so drained of color.
"River..." Anita's voice brought her back to the present momentarily. She looked scared, more scared than even River ought to have been. "Listen to the doctor. Please. This isn't normal. Something's wrong and I can't bear to see you in so much pain. The faster they figure this out, the faster they can treat you and all this will be over."
River had to admit that finding a stop to the agony sounded more than appealing, even if it just meant get drugged up whilst the doctors argued over what the hell kind of biology they were looking at. She was ready to chop a leg off if it meant relief. "Fine." She half growled, though more due to pain that more anger. At least it would make everyone shut up about her being pregnant when they found nothing.
They could hear sirens in the distance. Antia helped River turn slowly onto her back eliciting whimpers from her at the mere small movement. Antia was saying more things to the person on the phone as she pushed River's dress up and stalkings down. River could hardly think anymore, the pain too much. Her own muscles felt horribly tense underneath her hands. As many fantasies as she'd had of Antia pulling her knickers off while hidden away on campus, this was not the circumstance she'd had in mind.
Anita proceeded exactly how the person on the phone told her to. She had been with enough women to know what she was supposed to be feeling and where River's cervix ought to be and feel like under normal circumstances. The phone-nurse still described what the cervix would feel in a terribly technical but descriptive fashion (that sounded an awful lot like something River's bowtie and tweed Doctor would read to get things right).
"You're frowning," River panted at the woman at her feet. "W-why are you frowning?"
"Um…" Anita hesitated then addressed the nurse. "I can't feel her cervix."
"You really have to go deep to feel it-" the nurse started to reply but Anita was shaking her head.
"No, I mean there's something in the way. I can't go any further."
"How do you mean?" asked the nurse.
"There's something hard in the way." She was looking at River now, but still speaking loud enough for the sound to get through the phone.
River was suddenly very aware of where exactly Anita's hand was in her body and the unfamiliar pressure of something very large just an inch past her fingers. "L-Like a tumor?" she asked. It was the only explanation she could think of.
"Like a head," Anita said sternly.
River held her breath, dead silent.
The voice over the phone said something that River couldn't both hearing. Anita said something to her as well and she couldn't hear it either. Or maybe she had heard it, but whatever the words were, they definitely did not stick in her brain long enough for her to remember them. What she could here were the sirens; so deafeningly close she was sure the EMTs were already in the building searching for what room they might be in.
Her head was pounding hard, each pulse from her overworked hearts as loud as gunshots in her ears. The beads of sweat that had worked up since she'd ended her last class trickled down her face like spiders across her ghost-shocked white skin.
Anita looked rightly worried and River almost wanted to slap her and call her a liar because there was absolutely no way that there was a baby in her. River couldn't have kids. That was made very clear to her, especially on Darillium, and it hurt and she managed but this was just kicking the dog while it was down. She couldn't carry children and that was it. She just couldn't.
And there Anita still sat with her hand between River's legs, sick with worry, and saying words that River started to realize were: "Take a fucking breath, River Song, do you hear me?"
Shadows passed by the other side of the door and Anita took her blood covered hands back to move them up and grip River's bare shoulders. "Please, say something!"
River inhaled. Then she brought her own hand up to rest on Anita's shoulder and whispered, "Y-you're lying to me."
Anita frowned more but any reply she'd had was halted as River's hand turned into a fist around the fabric of Anita's shirt and her face contorted into the most pained expression Anita had ever seen on the woman. And she screamed.
River Song did not scream like a damsel in distress, no that was the Doctor's scream. River didn't scream like she was scared or under attack, that was Amy's scream. River screamed like she was attacking. It was very guttural and almost gravely, her vocal chords unsuccessfully trying to cut off the sound before it happened.
The door burst open, revealing a few people who looked much more medically trained than Anita, and a throng of confused, muttering students and staff behind them.
River closed her eyes as Anita explained everything to the paramedics and when she opened them again there was an oxygen mask over her mouth and she was on some sort of gurney. Anita was walking hurriedly beside River, still saying words to the other humanoids carting her off. Then there was the sky above her head, then tin roof that belonged to the inside of the ambulance.
The sirens filled her ears. Then nothing filled her ears. Her eyes were closed, and it was silent and cold. River thought maybe she was dying until the horrid pain came flooding back to her all at once and it was suddenly much too hot.
Anita's voice broke through to her nothing filled ears with, "I'm not leaving her!" and River was vaguely aware of a hand on her own so she squeezed it very tightly because dear god she was definitely in the process of dying a very painful death.
The room was not the ambulance and it was annoyingly bright. There were too many people and they were moving too fast. Why were there so many? She found her legs in stirrups with a too-clean sheet over them and an agonizing burning sensation where her legs parted. There was some doctor down there, but it wasn't Anita and River wasn't sure if the person was holding a flame or perhaps trying to rip her open, but her vocal cords were already ahead of her mind and crying out through her oxygen mask for them to stop.
The person between her legs lifted their gloved hands but the burning still remained, apparently being caused by an invisible assailant. Anita's face became clear over River's so she tried to focus on Anita's face because her lips were moving with words that still wouldn't make sense. River saw the word 'push' mouthed, even if her ears didn't get it and suddenly she was screaming again.
The noise and the burning stopped all at once.
Her insatiable assailant started to cry with a soft and new voice.
River started to cry as well without any voice left at all. Then her ears filled with nothing again.
Anita's hair was not white. River was 99% sure that Anita's hair was not white or grayish or any sort of color that meant an old age, yet the hair of the head that was resting on her bed by her hip was white and grayish and facing away from her.
She reached for it weakly, running her fingers over the person's- who was probably not Anita- scalp. The hair was much thinner than Anita's too. River looked at the rest of the body that was attached to the head, noting they'd pulled up a chair to be next to her, but had apparently fallen asleep while waiting for her to wake up. How long had she been here?
Besides small movement of her fingers, everything else was exhausting. Lifting her head was definitely too much energy and the mere thought of sitting up was out of the question.
Suddenly the head of the person shifted under her hand, realized her hand was in their hair, and sat up quickly. River briefly entertained the envy of being able to move with such lack of exhaustion.
The man, it was a man, looked at her with same concern Anita had and spoke her name like if he said it too loud she would dissolve into thin air.
"Doctor," she said his name with the same volume. "You're here."
"I got a phone call, said you were running out of blood and they needed next of kin to screen for matches. I'm on your list."
"I didn't know I had a list," she said hoarsely.
"You do. They wouldn't tell me anything. What happened?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me." She was silently in awe at her ability to make words and understand them, so unlike the confusion from earlier.
"You can't remember anything?" he fretted.
"Em, well I can a bit, I just don't know how accurate my memory is. Where's Anita?"
"The doctors wanted to talk to her."
"She came in with me, I think. Why didn't you go see what they had to say?"
"Well… You'd be alone… and what if you woke up alone?"
"Idiot." She whispered with the utmost affection. "Do we need diaries?"
"Later, darling," he said quickly. He was obviously trying to avoid something. "Tell me what you remember."
River sighed. "Well, em, I was in a lot of pain. It was happening all day and it got really bad- couldn't really stand up at all. And Anita found me and wanted to take me here so she called for an ambulance." She frowned, remembering the phone call. "They kept us on the line and they wanted to, em, they wanted to rule out a pregnancy. I kept telling them I couldn't have kids- you told me that yourself. But-"
The Doctor cut her off. "Wait, I told you that?"
"That can't possibly be a spoiler...?"
"No," he said quickly and much more emotionally than River expected. "But there's only one time we ever talked about that-"
"-Darillium." They said at the same time. This face had always done Darillium, even if she hadn't.
Something in the Doctor's eyes shifted, like a melancholy she hadn't really noticed was there before left him completely. "You're passed Darillium?"
"A decade or two," she nodded.
He was squeezing her hand. "The Library?"
"Yes," she whispered, "I did that but Anita hasn't yet, she doesn't even know we're married, so don't-"
She found herself cut off as he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her neck. She winced at the suddenness of the movement and at how tightly he was hugging her. "Ngh, careful sweetie, please, I'm really rather sore. What's gotten into you? You spent twenty-four years with me and now you're acting like you haven't seen me for decades." She paused. "Oh, sweetie, when did you last see me?"
"A few months ago," he croaked and she looked confused because that shouldn't have been unusual until he continued, "I dropped you off with Lux."
"The Library," she echoed and pulled back to look at his properly. He was a mess of emotions, joyful and lonely broken and fixed and all at once. "You thought I was gone…?"
He sniffed and nodded and grinned from ear to ear like an idiot because he was wrong and for once in his life thrilled about it. She shook her head her own eyes watering, "You stupid man." She grabbed his collar and kissed him with as much energy as she could manage for the moment. Now they both looked like idiots.
He gave the kiss as much affection as was possible until she pulled back and was no longer smiling. "What is it?"
She hesitated. "...I think I had a baby." He stared in shock. "You didn't let me finish my story, but I think I had a baby. They made Anita do a pelvic exam and she said she felt…" She stopped as the door opened.
Anita and two other medically trained persons came into the room, the former holding a swaddle of blankets. River squeezed the Doctor's hand tightly.
"Professor Song," one of the nurses addressed her. She looked like a nun and had a cat face, a defining character of the staff of the Sisters of the Infinite Schism, but River was sure they could be there because that was much too far away from Luna.
The cat nurse continued, "I'm consulting on behalf of the Sisters to oversee the transfer of your medical history and assure it's privacy. Do you remember what happened?"
River looked helplessly at Anita. "...Not all that much, no."
"Well, it seems you had an undetected full term pregnancy." The other doctor said. This woman was not a cat, but she was a bit scaley and had one more arm than her colleague. "It's much more common than people think. The baby is a bit underweight but everything else is fine. You lost a lot of blood, but your husband here supplied us with more. You'll be here for a few days of observation."
River was speechless, still stuck on the words "pregnancy" and "baby". "I don't understand. I… I can't carry children."
"Chance picks at random, Professor." The cat nurse said. "Nothing is impossible."
Anita took the opportunity to bring the thing in her arms over to River. Logically, River knew that it was baby Anita's was holding, she still gasped when she saw its face and suddenly it was being given to her and she wasn't sure what to do but her arms somehow knew how to hold the infant. It blinked up at her through eyes that looked like they belonged to the man at her side.
"It's a girl, by the way," Anita said, pulling up a chair to sit on the other side of River.
The doctors left them alone as River and her husband started in shock at the infant.
"You two alright?" Anita put her hand on River's shoulder.
"Amazing," the Doctor whispered, a grin spreading across his face. He traced his fingers over the baby's face, in complete awe. "We made this. River… River?"
River's expression was one of worry. "Doctor… I don't know the first thing about being a mother. I thought… I thought we couldn't have kids."
"Is it so bad that we can?"
She tore her eyes off the child. "It's…" She hesitated at the look of joy on his face and her fear of him being angry melted away completely. "It's wonderful."
Her own smile grew and she started to laugh just a bit because, hell, there were tears in his eyes and already leaking down her own face as well. He wanted this, he really did and she'd tried to throw this dream out the window so long ago, but now it was all flooding back and all she could do was laugh and cry and grin like an idiot. She was happy. It was such a rare adjective she had the opportunity to describe herself with since Lux took her out of the Library. She had a daughter. She'd had a daughter for all of five minutes and she loved her with more love than one could possibly love another with and from the Doctor's look, he did, too.
"Faina," she whispered.
"Hmm?"
"That's what I want to name her." She gazed at the baby. "Faina."
He leaned over and kissed her temple, then Faina's forehead. "Perfect."