Calderon Beta - 21 September 2360

There was something to be said about spending your wedding night — or what could pass for your wedding night when it happened quite sometime after the wedding — sitting on a platform more than 400 feet in the air wearing standard-issue prison sweats and sharing an order of incredibly greasy chips with your presumed husband while watching the most stars ever in history. He'd been right about the light. You could read a book by it. You could do a lot of things by it, really. Sharing chips really wasn't at the top of River Song's list, even though it was the planet of the chip shops. She hadn't had the heart to say no to that earnest face when he'd popped into a shop and returned with them.

The Doctor was quiet and she was quiet, and there was the issue that she wasn't sure how to broach. She'd be the one to broach it, because it had to be said. She had to know, and if her life had centered around anything since Berlin, it was the pursuit of knowledge.

She could see his not-so-subtle glances at her out of the corner of her eye. Sadness, a bit of fear. Mostly the sadness. He'd been so full of joy when he'd picked her up from Stormcage, and something had happened with that other Doctor from the future to cause it. Well, then. She was enough of Amy Pond's daughter to know not to let this brooding keep going. The issue needed to be addressed, otherwise the night would be absolutely rubbish.

Eyes fixed on a falling star, River drew in a deep breath. "What happened at Area 52. I'm sorry."

He jumped, and she hid her smirk. "For what?"

"Well, first of all, for embarrassing you." For being horribly, infallibly human, and she wasn't doing that again. Not when the consequences had nearly torn the universe apart. She could see that now, and she should have trusted him. Then again, she thought with a bit of annoyance, he-

"I should have trusted you," he blurted.

Surprised, she risked a glance at him. He, too, was gazing at the stars. His foot tapped nervously, and his hands danced along the railing, drumming out an absent beat.

"Well, everything is fine now, isn't it?" she said with as much jovially as she could muster. It surprised her at times, just how very good she was at acting when she put her mind to it. "I'm just curious. Was it real? Or are you visiting me out of a sense of obligation?"

His jaw dropped, and he stared at her like she'd grown a few extra appendages. River kept her breathing steady and her hands loosely fisted as she met the Doctor's eyes. "I understand why you did what you did. I don't hold you to it. It's an alternate timeline in a place that no longer exists. The only people who know about it are you, me, and my parents, and to them you're dead. I promise you, I'll keep your secret until the day I die. But, I won't hold you to whatever vows you think we took on that pyramid."

His mouth opened and closed a few times, and he shoved away from the railing. He fisted his hands in his hair and muttered under his breath. River swallowed and promised herself not to cry until she was back in Stormcage. She would remain strong. She'd survived far worse, and this was the decision she'd made.

She was just about to walk back to the TARDIS when he sudden spun on his heel. He marched to her, gently spanned her waist with his hands and boosted her onto the railing. He moved between her thighs, and her hearts began to race just a bit. She could smell his cologne now, whatever he'd most likely splashed on in a rush. It was woodsy and comforting. Her hands automatically went to trace his bow tie, then limply fell into her lap.

"Look at the stars," he urged, and she peered over her shoulder at the brilliant galactic display, still as impressive as it'd been minutes earlier. "Somewhere in time, there is a sad, grieving man harnessing the power of a supernova to say good-bye to the woman that he loved. Somewhere else, there is a man waiting 2,000 years beside a box for the woman that he loves. Yet elsewhere, there's a lonely old man who locked the door of his ship on his granddaughter, loving her so much that he is forcing her to make a life with the man she loves and knows that she'll be happy. Well, and then there's me. Common thing about that. All of them involved me."

"I know," River replied softly. His tenth incarnation and Rose Tyler. Her parents. His first incarnation and Susan. She'd read all those stories or had them related to her in some form or another during her thesis study.

"I'm an old man, River. I've been running for a very, very long time. I've been running away from a lot of things, including you."

She swiveled her head back so she could look at him again. "Me now or in the future?"

"Spoilers." He tapped her nose, prompting a smile.

"I understand." She shifted, started to inch her way around him to climb down, but he held her still, leaning forward to whisper in her ear.

"I lie about a lot of things. Have to, really. But not about what happened at Area 52, wife." He said it so softly that she had to strain to hear him. She pulled back, wondering why her eyes were suddenly so misty. Oh, tears. She blinked them away. This time he leaned in, pressing a kiss to her lips briefly.

"This is going to hurt like hell, isn't it?" she guessed.

She could see the answer in his eyes, as he wiped the tears away with his thumb. Yes. Yes, it would. It would be twisty and turny and there would be times they would be fully in sync and others when they were scrambling not to be hurt because of their mismatched timelines. Two lost souls making their way through the universe together. It was marriage, and it was theirs. Like her parents, they would choose each other. Every time. They would make it work.

The Library — 51 st Century

Her palms sweat as she kept an eye on the shadows, and she wiped them on her trousers absently. The Vashta Nerada didn't just exist in this universe. It'd spread beyond the void to universes beyond, using the broken-down walls to aid travels. Creatures of the likes that her world had never seen were now catalogued into Torchwood databases: the Weeping Angels, the Zygons, of course the Cyberman, and now the Vashta Nerada.

But, she was OK. She was really OK, because she was almost to him.

She pulled out her scanner and flipped it on, hooking it into the dormant CCTVs so she could work out the best route. She whooshed out a breath in relief when she spotted the familiar shock of brown hair spinning around and commanding the group of spacesuit-clad people like he was the general. "Finally," she gasped and beamed. The Doctor was bickering with a curly-haired woman while Donna watched. Suddenly, everyone stilled, and the spacesuit people began putting their helmets back on. Suddenly, the woman pulled out an object that made her gasp.

"How did you get a sonic screwdriver?" she whispered to the scanner.

"Hello, Rose Tyler."

Rose's gaze flicked up to find a diminutive girl standing a few feet away. She was clad in a short red dress, tool belt slung low on her hips. "Sorry, have we met?"

"Oswin Oswald." Oswin skipped over the growing shadows and held a hand out to Rose. "You and I are going to save the Doctor."

Warily, Rose took her hand. Months upon months of travel had tempered her impulses to rush ahead and trust everyone. But this girl knew her name. She knew who the Doctor was. "We are?"

"It's why you're here. It's most certainly why I'm here." Oswin tucked a long lock of hair behind her ear and pulled out her own scanner. "4,022 people stuck in a database, the Doctor, Donna Noble, and a team of archaeologists. We'll have them out of here before lunch. We've just got to make sure she gets out along with them."

"She?" Rose's thoughts drifted to the curly-haired woman, and her stomach churned. "She who?"

"River Song. The Doctor's wife."

"The Doctor's what?"