Beta: natural-blues

Lamentation

The sun was high in the green-tinted sky and beaming down rays of warm light onto the bustling crowd in the market as the Doctor, his Ponds and River wove through everybody. Six dusty-looking children with furry ears nearly made them all topple over when they ran between their legs, each of them carrying stolen alien meat, and what was most likely a vendor elbowed Rory in the ribs in his haste to chase after them, shaking his fist and shouting.

"Street children?" Amy asked, watching them.

The Doctor beamed at her. "Bravo, Pond! There's a small population of them here on Yakosa Zeta— happened when the economy plummeted about a hundred years ago and the Emperor started up interstellar tourism to help. They also have the best chips in the sector!"

"Chips sound like heaven right now," Rory groaned, grabbing Amy's hand and tugging her in the direction the Doctor was pointing.

"Not to me— I'm watching my figure," said River smoothly, wrapping her arm around the Doctor's as they headed towards the food court.

"Come on River, indulge for once," Amy said.

"These chips are worth it," the Doctor agreed, as the tables by the chip stand loomed into view. "Not only are they baked, so they're healthier than the regular Earth, fried ones, they still taste like they're fried. And salted! Even though they're not!" He smacked his tongue and hummed happily. "Salty, salty…"

"Sounds brilliant, Raggedy Man," Amy grinned, as Rory rolled his eyes at the Doctor's rant and River made a disgusted noise.

"They are brilliant! Been here loads of times; sometimes twice in the same day! Imagine that, piloting the TARDIS here twice in the same day 'cos the chips are that— guh."

Amy snorted just as the Doctor halted in his tracks, making River stumble. "They're 'guh'? Sounds great."

The Doctor didn't answer, too preoccupied with gaping into the distance, his entire body rigid like he was pretending to be a statue. River frowned, tugging on his sleeve to try and get his attention, to no avail. "What's the matter, sweetie?"

"What're you starin' at?" Amy frowned.

She followed his line of vision towards the table nearest to the chip stand, spotting a young blonde woman — another human, she noted with surprise, since human visitors were rare here — sitting down with her legs crossed, chin resting on her hand and eyes locked on something only slightly out of sight from them. Whatever she was looking at had to be something magnificent, because the look on her face was a gentle smile that Amy could probably classify as the epitome of loving.

"Is it that blonde woman?" Amy asked, which was confirmed when the Doctor shut his mouth with an abrupt click, swallowing so hard they visibly saw his Adam's apple strain against the skin of his throat. "D'you know her or something?"

The only response she got was an odd gurgling noise, and he yanked his arm out of River's hold so abruptly she stumbled backward before he started to sprint towards the blonde woman. River let out an annoyed, "Oi!" and Amy called out after him, the three of them running as fast as they could weaving through the crowd. He stopped suddenly even though he was still a good few metres away from her table, making them all crash into his back, Rory even falling backwards and onto his arse. River was scowling in the blonde's direction and Rory was scrutinising her once he'd scrambled up off the cobblestone, so Amy was the only one who saw the Doctor's face crash like a landslide from terrified astonishment into sheer devastation. Her mouth fell open, gaping at her raggedy man's now utterly wrecked expression. She had never once seen him make a face like that— he was usually bouncing off the walls and spouting childish nonsense.

"What—?" Amy started to inquire, but she stopped herself, frowning at the sight before her.

Now that they were in proper view and hearing range, she spotted what the blonde was staring at— an older-looking man with rather large ears in front of the chip stand, wearing a utilitarian leather jacket and chattering excitedly as the vendor rang up a box of chips for them, clearly too caught up in his rant to notice the look the blonde was giving him.

"… no salt on 'em whatsoever, Rose Tyler, even though they taste like they do, so you don't have to drown 'em in salt like you usually do," he prattled happily in a thick Northern accent, shaking his head patronisingly. "Silly apes, you, finding ways to make unhealthy things even worse for you— dunno how you lot get by when you're practically killin' yourself with junk…"

"Rose Tyler?" Rory echoed, and the Doctor shuddered.

"She's in love with him," River commented with a smirk from beside him.

He gulped again, not tearing his eyes away from 'Rose Tyler', whose soft smile widened slightly when the big-eared Northern bloke snatched the chip box from the shocked vendor and sonicked it happily, never once stopping his chatter. "What?" he said, voice almost too quiet for them to hear.

"The blonde," River said, hand on her hip as she watched. "She's in love with the ears bloke."

"Yeah?"

His voice sounded almost shakily hopeful. River snapped her head around to frown at him, but Rory snorted as the Rose girl schooled her features into a more natural expression the moment the Northern man turned around to look at her for the first time since he'd started talking, pretending to be amused by his silly antics as she reached for a chip. "Definitely," Rory agreed, crossing his arms. "The look on her face…"

"I think they're holdin' hands under the table!" Amy exclaimed in shock, craning her neck to try and see. "They are!"

"That's cheesy," River snorted.

The trio watched for a brief minute more, no longer paying attention to the grief-stricken Doctor when Rose's napkin blew off the table, and she got up and bent over to pick it up. Amy burst into giggles and Rory grinned as he said, "He just stared at her bum."

"Ten quid says they snog over the chips," Amy wagered.

"They won't," the Doctor said in his near inaudible voice, making them jump when they remembered his presence.

They all turned to him with confusion, taking in his arched eyebrows and the forlorn look in his eyes, which were locked on the couple. "How d'you know?" Rory asked.

"'Cos he's me," he said quietly. "I… I need a moment."

He turned on his heels away from them so quickly that, when the three of them snapped their heads around to gape at him, the only view they got of him was the back of his head disappearing into the crowd. Amy opened her mouth to call out for him, but River's voice interrupted, "Doctor?" sounding almost as soft as the Doctor's.

Amy and Rory both glanced at their daughter, whose expression looked extremely reminiscent to the forlorn look the Doctor had worn. Amy opened her mouth yet again to inquire, but Rory nudged her shoulder.

"Look," he said softly, nodding his head in Rose and the past Doctor's direction.

Amy frowned but obediently looked back to the table, her breath hitching in her throat— the leather Doctor had scooted his chair directly next to hers so closely that the metal of the frames were touching each other, and as they rested their intertwined hands on his jean-clad thigh, she prattled happily about something incoherent with her head resting on his shoulder and he looked down at her with the same kind of gentle, loving smile that she'd had before, looking very much like he wanted to lean down and kiss the breath out of her.

River watched it too, shoulders slumped and eyebrows arched up. "Look at his face," she all but whispered. "He's never looked at me that way."

Amy swallowed, a lump of hurt for her daughter suddenly in her throat. "River—"

Before Amy could finish, River's frizzy blonde head took off after the Doctor. Amy started after her at once, but Rory grabbed her arm and shook his head at her confused glance. "We'll get answers later," he told her. "Right now, just let them sort things out."

Amy wracked her brain to think of a good excuse for why they most definitely should go after the both of them, but slumped with defeat, instead turning and watching Rose snuggle happily into the leather Doctor, said Doctor heaving out a visible sigh of happiness and discreetly nudging his nose into her hair.

"I wonder what happened to her," Rory said.

Amy's lower lip trembled when she remembered her raggedy man's devastated expression and she immediately assumed the worst. "What if she…?"

She didn't finish her sentence, breath hitching again, and she turned to her husband for comfort, wrapping her arms around his waist. He held her back and they simply rocked in the sunshine, tears streaming from Amy's eyes for a woman she didn't even know and for the raggedy man who clearly missed her.

The Doctor dragged himself into the TARDIS, the doors drifting open at his unenthusiastic snap. "You knew," he accused her quietly, taking a moment to lean on the console. "You knew you were bringing me to this time."

The TARDIS gave him nothing but a soothing hum, rearranging her doors so that the pale white one he hadn't seen for years appeared directly in front of him. He spared a brief moment of thought to give her a thankful pat before stumbling towards Rose's door with a sear of pain in his hearts. Her scent had long since disappeared from the room, but if he flopped down on her bed like he had so many times after he'd lost her — both to the parallel universe and then to his metacrisis counterpart — buried his face in her still unmade duvet and inhaled deeply enough, he could still smell faint traces of her perfume clinging to the fibres in the sheets. He exhaled with a shuddering breath, burrowing himself into the covers and ignoring the jabbing feeling under his leg from the photo album left underneath the sheets that he'd once spent hours looking at. When he'd lost her for good, he was at least soothed by the fact that she'd live a long and happy life with a human him, and when he'd regenerated he'd thought of her less and less often until she was just a fond remembrance. But seeing her right in front of him, looking at his old self like he was the most fantastic thing she'd ever seen; seeing his old self look so utterly happy in her presence like nothing in the world could go wrong, was like a punch to the face. He found himself wrought with the pain he'd thought was gone, like the wound was fresh all over again, like she'd only just told him with a tearstained face that she loved him on a windy beach. Like he was still in the body that had literally been born for her, born loving her. He curled into himself tighter— Rassilon, he wished she were here.

"Is this her old room?" River's voice whispered from the doorway.

His hearts clenched again, now with guilt over how his nostalgic devastation was probably hurting her. Sitting up but unwilling to let go of the duvet, he regarded her with tired eyes as he practically snuggled with another woman's bed; she was leaning in the doorway, mirroring his exhausted expression. "Yes."

Being River, she didn't ask permission to come in but heaved herself off the doorjamb and stepped towards him, sinking down onto Rose's bed next to him. He felt the briefest twinge of annoyance and the urge to shove her off — her scent would replace Rose's and it'd all be ruined — before shame washed through him at his horrible thought.

"Who was she?" River murmured quietly.

It took the Doctor a full minute to answer, feeling awful as she ran a comforting hand over his shoulder. He didn't deserve it. "She was… a companion."

"Why haven't you told me about her?" she asked. "You've told me about so many, but never her." He didn't answer her, struggling to find some way to respond without hurting her and finding none, even with his magnificent Time Lord brain. "Was it because you still love her?" River added, somehow managing to sound compassionate, downtrodden and sulky all at the same time.

The corners of his mouth turned down lower. "River—"

"Don't deny it, sweetie," she said firmly. "We all saw the look on that daft-looking face." He chuckled, spurring her on. "Nice ears, by the way." He smiled for the briefest second, but it dissipated quickly. "I've seen you happy and excited so many times," she said quietly. "I have never seen you look like that."

"That was a long time ago, River."

"Hasn't stopped you from still caring about her," River pointed out a bit moodily. "You're holding onto her blanket like it's your lifeline." He immediately tried to relinquish his hold on the blanket, only to fail miserably and merely bring it closer. "Did…" River swallowed. "Did she die?"

"No," he said immediately, shaking his head so vigorously his bangs flopped from side to side. "No, she's… so alive."

"Then what happened to her?"

"What makes you think anything happened to her?"

"She didn't leave you," River said almost sharply.

"How do you know?" he countered, just to avoid the subject.

"She had the same look on her face that you had."

He stayed quiet for a long time before admitting, "She didn't leave. She got trapped. In a parallel universe." River nodded in understanding. "Only she came back." He hid the stupid smile in her duvet, not wanting River to see it. "Despite everything, she found a way back."

"Then why isn't she here?" River frowned.

The Doctor played with a frayed thread on Rose's covers, inhaling discreetly again to try and find some more of Rose's scent. "Things… happened. A human version of me was made, one that could spend his life with her. I left her with him in the parallel universe."

"You didn't give her a choice, did you?" River guessed immediately, her voice turning icy. When he ducked his head shamefully, she stood up, fury in her eyes. "I'm assuming you're talking about a biological human-Time Lord metacrisis?"

He smiled weakly at her brilliance. "Bravo, Doctor Song."

"It's Professor now, I'll have you know," she said, and his face blanched, but she didn't notice. "Metacrises are known for their instability, you idiot! Add in the parallel universe and that's a ticking time bomb waiting to go Chernobyl!"

"He wasn't very human, River," the Doctor mumbled. "Only about twenty per cent."

"It doesn't matter how little the chance is, the point is, there's a bloody chance that his mind imploded in on itself and you left her all alone!" River snarled. He blinked up at her; she looked ready to pummel him, for the sake of his feelings for another woman. Oh, River was ten and twenty shades of confusing. "We have to go back."

The thought made a spark of something unidentifiably warm spurt in his chest, as he imagined seeing her again in Pete's World. It dissipated quickly, and he sighed. "River, we can't cross parallel worlds."

"Forgotten the basic rules of cross-dimensional travel, have we?" she smirked.

"The walls are closed and trying to cross them would mean imploding the multiverse," he said sourly.

"There are always ways, Doctor— you just have to look," River said smoothly. "For example, just off the top of my head, we could convert the TARDIS into a void ship by reinforcing her hull and making a few tweaks to the navigational array."

Hope was already starting to bubble in his chest, but he squashed it. "There are billions of universes to look through— how could we possibly find the right one?"

"Targeted molecular DNA tracking," River said triumphantly. "We take her latest DNA samples and most recent scans and get the TARDIS to scan interdimensionally for corresponding attributes."

The duvet fell from his numb hands, eyes wide and staring off into the distance. She was right — they could do it — and his mouth moved silently as the calculations to achieve the right upgrades started whizzing through his mind. "W-we could do that?" River nodded, looking somewhere between victorious and downtrodden as he hopped up from the bed and tossed his arms around her, choking back happy sobs as he lifted her off her feet and twirled her. She hugged him back almost laxly, and he immediately felt guilty again and set her down, still keeping her close. "Why, River?"

She didn't need him to elaborate. "I want you to be happy. She… makes you happy." Oh, he could never pay back this woman. His grip on her tightened and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could stop hurting her for all she's done for him. River pulled away after a bit, taking his hand and leading him towards the bed. Sitting back down, she smiled a bit crookedly and said, "So, before we get started, tell me what's so special about this girl."

He emulated her smile, reaching underneath the sheets and pulling out the photo album. Propping it up on his knee, he flicked it open to the first page and sighed at the first picture of Rose, mid-laugh and utterly glowing.

"Her name was Rose."

A/N: Just another little drabble gone out of hand :) As you notice, despite me despising River Song with all of my evil little heart's content, there was no River-bashing whatsoever; so like I didn't make the Doctor yell at her or make anybody put her down or have her out like a stupid idiot. As much as I hate her I like to keep a neutral(ish) viewpoint on the characters I write... regardless of how terrible they are :)

This one will have TWO sequels (which I think makes up for the people who were mad that By Any Other Name doesn't have a sequel :3) so look out for 'Commemoration' and 'Deliberation'. DON'T FOLLOW THIS STORY PLEASE. I mean it :p