Saw pictures, drew conclusions, wrote a fic. Read at your own risk.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon

A wonder fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other – Charles Dickens

"No. River, no!"

This cannot be happening! Looking around himself for any sign that this is a hallucination, a dream, fiction-mist, anything, but everything smells and looks and feels real. And yet right there in front of him, stands River Song and he doesn't know what to do.

She smiles at him and it is her, the golden curls are a major giveaway, no one can fake those. But her smile is cold and her green eyes are empty. "Hello Sweetie."

The Doctor glances back and forth between his wife – his dead wife – and the creatures flanking her. What had they called themselves? Whispermen. Behind her, standing just off her shoulder is The Great Intelligence's facsimile, Walter Simeon, and he looks all too pleased with himself. "Ah, you've met then."

Anger bubbling in his chest, the Doctor approaches without regard for the very creepy, very deadly henchmen. "What have you done to her?"

River is the one who blocks his approach.

No. No, no, no, no, no. Not her, not again. He cranes his neck to look around her. "What have you done to her?"

Simeon taps his cane against the ground, eyes trailing along River's form. "Oh, nothing she didn't want me to, Doctor. I just offered her what you couldn't. A way out."

Dread climbing up his throat, it's all he can do not to bolt. "A way out of what?"

"Why, The Library of course."

He dares a glance at her face, hoping against hope for a wink, or a smirk, or any sign that she's not... not part of this. But she only smiles that cold smile again. "There's always a way out, my love." He wants to throw up at the lack of warmth and depth in her voice.

Vastra pulls him away, Clara demands to know how that can be River if they'd just visited her grave. Strax is mumbling about baby milk and none of it matters!

Nothing matters because the whole game just changed. That's River Song and if she is in league with the Great Intelligence – if she has finally turned against him, then Rassilon help them.

"Why?" River blinks up at him in the dark. He's managed to lure her away from the Whispermen and Simeon, or rather he's let her corner him – her favourite alpha meson blaster pressed against his chest. "River, why?"

"He offered me a way out," is her simple answer.

"And you took it?!"

The gun digs deeper into his skin. "How long? For you, how long has it been?"

Leaning against the damp stones behind him, he tries to figure out what she means and how to stop all these humany emotions from clawing their way out of his chest. He wants to cry, kiss her, hold on to her and never let go, but he's quite sure this River won't let him. "Four centuries and a bit since the Library."

"And since you've last seen me?"

He sighs. "Six or seven decades, give or take."

"It's been four centuries for me too," River says in clipped tones. "In real time. Time in the data core is different. Poisoned. I haven't seen you..."

The way she chokes on her words is the first sign of emotion, the first sign that she's anything but a hollow shell of the woman he so loves. Hopes flares in his hearts, even though they break for her. "I'm sorry."

She laughs sharply. "Four centuries and you haven't gotten me out. You haven't even visited. Guess my younger selves kept your bed warm enough."

"I was going to—"

"Save me? Say goodbye? Stop time to tell me I was loved?"

Unable to bear witness to the damage he's caused, he closes his eyes. "River, please. Kill me, take your revenge, but please let Clara go. She has nothing to do with this."

"Oh my love, she has everything to do with this. We are not done with her yet."

"Why? Who is she and what could you possibly want with her?"

Through one eye cracked open he can just see her curls dance with the shake of her head. "Have you really not figured it out yet? You're getting slow in your old age. Now," she jabs the gun sharply into his breastbone, "let's go and say hello."

The Whispermen. What a stupid name. Really. His enemies always go for the stupid names. Perhaps that's why his companions always have such brilliant names. Donna Noble, Amelia Pond, Clara Oswin Oswald.

No, his enemies call themselves by unimaginative monikers. The Cybermen, ha! Daleks. Silence. And now the Whispermen. Oh.

Oh!

He bounds up against his handcuffs – honestly, always the handcuffs. "You don't hate me!"

River turns her head in his direction.

"You don't hate me!" He shouts at her again. She's a bit daft on occasion, better to make sure she hears. "Well, you do, but it's not your fault! River, please, Silence and Whispers, you have fought them before, you can do it again! Please, it has always been you. River Song, Melody Pond. The woman who married me. I am a daft and lonely old fool and a rubbish husband, but this is not you. You, Melody Pond, are a superhero. The Child of the Tardis. You are not a weapon!"

Her eyes are still dead when she steps up to him, but he's figured it out now. He can save her too. She crushes his hopes with a single sentence. "Oh, but I can be."

He watches helplessly as Clara is lifted into the mean looking contraption. River is at the controls, idly picking at her nails while The Great Intelligence puts the final pieces in place.

Clara is going to die. Well, more accurately would be to state that she is going to be absorbed into The Great Intelligence. His throat is sore from all the shouting he's done to get through to River. It isn't working, nothing is working. There is no way out this time. He can't fight his own wife. The only option left to him is to make her angry, so angry that she will make a mistake – give him an unintended opening.

And he knows just how to hurt her.

"No last words, River? No gloating on how you've outsmarted me? No jab about all those companions taking your rightful place besides me?" She looks at him over the rim of the console. Gotcha. "Four centuries I've travelled after sending you to your death and you know what? You were right. Your younger selves did keep me warm at night and when you weren't enough, I had my companions. Brave and clever and so human, so eager to trust and help me. And I never told them, you know. After your parents, I never told anyone. You want to know why, River?"

She plays along. "Go on then." Her voice flat and her expression bored.

Once again, his words are the only weapon he has left. It has to work. "Because it was never real. An aborted timeline in a world that never was, ha! A wartime ceremony? Oh you fell right for it, didn't you?" She steps away from the console, but her expression remains impassive, uninterested and his hope starts to fade. Nausea at his own cruelty boils in his stomach but he cannot, will not give up now. "All of your regenerations, your very last life you'd given me. I had to throw you a bone, didn't I?"

River smiles and she might as well have shot him in both his hearts. "Sweetie, you think I hadn't figured that out yet? Four centuries of introspection, do you really think that anything you can say, anything you can do, can hurt me? I'm a psychopath, I don't care."

He's still desperately trying to formulate a reply when Simeon calls River back.

This is it then. The order has been given, River has finished her prep work and the only comfort he has is that it'll soon be over for Clara.

River had spoken to her earlier, out of his earshot of course, but he'd seen Clara's body convulse and tremble. Now she was perfectly still, hanging in the contraption River had created. She might come back to life once more. He hopes so, fervently and ignores the likelihood of River preventing that.

Simeon gives the order from his make-shift throne and River casually flips the switch that will in all likelihood doom at least this galaxy.

The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut against the image of Clara's body convulsing in the contraption. Her screams pierce his ears, joined moments later by a dozen others. He recognizes the rasping voices of the Whispermen and then, in an agonized howl, that of Walter Simeon. "No!" The being screams, "what have you done?!"

River Song's voice cuts through the chaos clear and calm, like ice on sunburned skin. "Oh, you know. Tied up a boy, saved a galaxy."

Fearful of what he might find, the Doctor opens his eyes just as Clara's screams die away. Vastra and Jenny burst through the iron door that had been shut until a second ago and instantly rush to his cell. All around them Whispermen are clutching at their heads and falling to the ground.

He ignores it all, his eyes on Clara. "Please, no!"

River is at her side, bend over the girl's limp body and wiping locks of fine hair away from her face. Vastra shatters his cuffs with a well-aimed swipe of her sword and he is on his feet instantly.

"It's all right now," he hears River whisper when he finally, finally reaches Clara. "You were very brave."

He reaches for Clara, eager to pull her against him and makes sure that she's all right, but his hand moves right through her. His hearts seize. She's fading, literally fading before his very eyes. "No! Clara, look at me!"

She's barely visible, dissolving into nothingness when she opens her eyes one last time and smiles brightly. "Run, Clever Boy, run and remember."

Mind reeling, he spins around and comes face to face with River Song. Her body is so solid, real, all the things Clara's is not, as he grabs her upper arms and slams her into the nearest wall. "You! What have you done to her?"

River's smile trembles around the edges. "I saved her."

"You said you saved her. How?"

He can feel the weight of her gaze on him, can imagine exactly the set of her jaw and the exasperated fondness in her eyes. It gnaws at his conscious that he has done very little to be awarded the latter so he doesn't look over to find out if he's right.

River abandons her post at the Tardis console, her heels clicking along the floor until she stop right next to him and sinks down. Her back, like his, against the wall. The familiar scent of her shampoo and River envelops him.

Below and behind them Sexy is thrumming impatiently. Scolding him, soothing her.

"River."

"It took me ten years," she starts quietly. There's a weariness in her voice that tugs on his heart strings, but he makes no move to touch or comfort her.

She has yet to explain herself. He doesn't even know if Clara is really safe or if it's just a clever lie. He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do if it turns out to be a lie.

"Of course in there it felt like a lot longer, but details, right? Ten years and then I found a way out." He looks up at her sharply, but she continues unfazed. "It was a bit tricky of course, messed up the equations a couple of times – maths was never my strong suit – but we got it working. Once."

The Doctor swallows hard. "Once?"

"Hmmm. Quite a choice, don't you think? Six of us and only one ticket out."

The puzzle pieces are falling into place and he finally, finally dares to meet her gaze. Air rushes out of him in a whoosh. Never, not once, not ever has he seen the look of defeat in her eyes. But there it is, shimmering between the greens and blues of her irises. Despite himself he reaches out and brushes his fingers along the back of her hand.

Her breath hitches. His hearts burst into flames.

"You chose."

"Yeah. The others were content. Every book ever written and an eternity to explore them all. It was paradise."

"Not for you."

"But did I really deserve to leave? I'd already lived for so long, why should I be the one to go back? Who would miss me."

His fingers curl around her wrist to anchor himself as her words crack his chest open. "Me. I missed you. So much. River, I..."

She shakes her head sharply. "Don't. I wasn't the one who deserved that chance. I had a husband who would get me out anyway, eventually. Or not."

"You saved CAL."

"Build her a matrix, linked to her DNA. For all intents and purposes she would be a real girl again. Brought into the world by human parents to grow up, learn and love and eventually die."

"Except she didn't. Let me guess, when she dies the matrix reboots itself." Daring another glance at his wife, he finds a soft, genuine smile on her face. She really is stunning and here. How could he have just given up? How did he forget that he'd been running from her?

"Hmmm. Upgrades – each life a little bit smarter, a little bit more resilient. That's why The Great Intelligence was so enamoured by her. I couldn't... if he had absorbed her – all that knowledge, the biggest data core in the Universe. No one would have been able to stop her. He figured it out of course, even managed to connect to The Library. But a mind like CAL's cannot simply be absorbed."

"He needed help."

River's smile turns cold then, betraying the calculating and merciless parts of her psyche. "She would never be safe unless the Intelligence was eliminated."

The Doctor shakes his head, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "Will she...?"

"No. She's back in the data core. But she lived, loved, ran to the ends of the universe and back." Tears fill her eyes as well and she takes a shuddering breath. "You saved her and she saved you."

"And you?"

Laughing hollowly, she pulls away from him. "I don't know. He gave me a body, Doctor Moon helped to download my consciousness. I assumed that when CAL uploaded the virus to The Intelligence and destroyed him, I would just... cease."

"But you didn't."

"Fancy that."

They sit in quietly and he just can't get over the simple sound of her breathing. She's really here. In spite of everything, in spite of all the horrible things he's said, of how he failed her – again – she's here and she's not screaming at him or slapping him, but she's not quite herself either. And can he blame her? Can anyone? "And now?"

River shrugs, looking so vulnerable, so lost he aches to wrap his arms around her. Torn between the desire to touch her and the fear of the damage he's caused, his limbs try to solve the dilemma by flailing every which way. Her bottom lip quivers an a sob fights its way out of her throat.

It's the last straw.

As soon as he touches her, River flings herself at him. Her hands fist into his jacket and her shoulders wrack with the force of her sobs. "I don't know how to do this anymore," she confesses in a broken whisper.

Rather than admit he hasn't got the faintest clue either, the Doctor buries one hand in her mane of curls and pulls her even closer with the other. He's not going to let go again, not ever.