Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all.
River stops her recitation, her breath halting in her throat—or rather, binary language sending signals across a motherboard tell her consciousness that that is happening, flashing imaginary synapses in her electronic brain. It is fairly convincing, almost mistakable for the real thing, but that just makes River even angrier.
He just couldn't do it, could he? Couldn't possibly let her die, certainly couldn't let her death have meaning. Couldn't let her rest.
She shakes her head. That impossible man.
River looks down on the children slumbering in their beds, all of them snug in their covers like little piggies in blankets. Or perhaps that is just River's stomach rumbling, or perhaps it is just the memory of it—with a pang, River realizes she will never eat again, not truly. The next time she eats an apple, savors its crisp sweet burst of flavor in her mouth, it will not be real. Or will she even experience such a thing as eating in this new reality of hers?
But that is surely a small price to pay for living forever, isn't it? Even if "forever" in this instance means inhabiting a digital world with children and houses and trees made up of lines of code.
River leans down and kisses Charlotte on the forehead. She remembers that the Doctor had children, once, and wonders if he ever tucked them in like this, kissing their foreheads and cheeks, tenderly brushing soft baby hairs away from their faces as they slept. She wonders how often he thinks about his family, and suspects it is far more often than he pretends. She wonders if he was thinking of today when he asked her several months ago which she'd rather have, him or the alternative: children, and a home, and a community, and a "real life", as he sometimes wistfully says.
River wonders if she'll ever wake up from this nightmare.
"Sweet dreams, everyone," she murmurs aloud, to no one in particular.
She cannot believe the audacity of this man, this skinny-floppy beanpole of a man in a corduroy jacket and pants slightly-too-short and a bowtie, of all things. For whatever unthinkable reason, he has positioned himself between River and her quarry, a rogue Judoon cowering at the end of a greasy corridor off the Mamadar space market. Dim lights flicker yellow overhead and a brackish pool of green blood pools on the dirty floor beneath the Judoon, spreading outward and staining the soles of the man's boots, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's too busy standing in River's way.
"If you hit him with that thing, he'll die," the man patiently tries to explain, holding both hands out in front of him in a placating gesture.
River is not placated.
"That's sort of the point," she drawls, and cocks her laser-pistol with a flourish. The man does not move.
"You don't have to do this," the man says.
"Oh, but it's ever so fun," River counters, in a scotch-velvet voice that has sent many a weaker-willed man to his knees.
She gestures lazily with the pistol. "Now move aside, sweetie, or you'll get just as splattered as him."
The man most certainly does not move aside, and instead throws his head back and lets out a frustrated sigh. He says, in a very tired voice, "Oh, the first time you call me 'sweetie'. Of course it has to be in a hostage negotiation. I should have known."
"I won't ask you again," River says, wondering if the fellow is trying to bait her, or if he's just simply mad. (Later, he'll tell her, "Both.")
"And I won't tell you again," the man says, and he looks down at her with a sharp glint in his eye. "Don't do this, River."
River feels one eyebrow quirk high on her forehead. Normally she doesn't like to express surprise, or much of anything else, really (except her natural confidence and bouts of flirtatiousness and the occasional teensiest smidgen of well-earned smugness), but considering that this is the first person who has ever managed to identify her since she wiped all her records clean, she figures he earned that small gesture.
"I'm sorry," she says, in a manner that suggests she is not sorry at all. Her grip on the laser-pistol is still firm, the gun is still firmly pointed at him. "Do I know you? Only I feel like I'd remember someone so daft."
"You don't know me yet, but you will," the man says, taking a slow step forward. "I can't tell you much—spoilers, you see—but this isn't you. You're not like this. You're better than this, River."
He takes a deep breath, and steps forward once again. "Please. You don't have to kill him."
River watches him with a rapidly declining interest. "So that's who you are," she says, almost disappointed. "Just another one of those anti-hunter types. You know, I've encountered more than one of you in my career, but none so persistent as you—and I must say, I am flattered that you've followed my career closely enough to figure out my given name."
"River—" the man warns.
"But I'm going to give you the same spiel I give everyone else," River says, because she has grown impatient of this man-child standing between her and her prey. "Bounty hunters are the vanguards of law and order on the outer rim," she recites. "Since the downfall of the outer galactic police, bounty hunters have been sanctioned to complete official police work for them. This saves the Federation valuable time and money. This bounty has committed heinous crimes against the citizens of the Federation, and his, her, their, or its execution is approved by Federal government. Said crimes include—"
"I know what he did, River," the man says, and his face darkens. "I was there. I saw it."
River laughs. "You were at the great Slaughter of '199?"
She looks him up and down. He can't be older than his late twenties. "You look good for your age," she mocks.
"I'll give you one last chance to stop, River," the man says, and he takes yet another step forward, and it unsettles River that he doesn't even flinch with her laser-pistol still pointing at him, the weapon now mere inches away from his chest. She has the authority to terminate him, but still, she'd rather not—he's so young, it seems a bit of a waste.
"And I'll give you one last chance to move," River says, wishing once again that the corridor weren't so narrow, so she could simply sidestep this fool.
"That's a chance I can't take," the man says sadly, and then, of all the strange things to do in the world, he lunges for her pistol.
River shoots him without hesitation.
The man flies backward, landing in an awkward pile atop the Judoon. Both bodies lie still in the dark corridor. The Judoon must have died on its own, died waiting for judgment it would never receive. All is silent save the echoes of the market nearby and the hum of the laser-pistol charging up for another shot. River switches it off with a sigh.
"Great," she says, stowing the pistol in its holster. "More paperwork."
She snaps a photogram of the two bodies and sends an airwave to the captain of the local precinct with a brief explanation of what transpired here, along with a sonogram of her pulse for the precinct's truth-detection policies. She also collects samples of the bodies' DNA for police records, and sends her current location data for a Collector to come by and dispose of the bodies.
Business as usual.
She feels distantly regretful that the man had to die, but that's the penalty for assaulting a bounty hunter on official business. He should know that; everyone else does.
"Sorry, sweetie," River says sympathetically to the body of the young man. "Better luck next time."
She leaves without a backward glance.
River doesn't normally do double-takes—it's very rare that things surprise her—but that's exactly what she finds herself doing when she spots that same unruly mop of hair three months later on Gnarlbrax III.
She encounters him in the ruins of an ancient temple, over which tourists are scrambling to get photograms of this fascinating bit of rubble and that charming bit of brick, as if the whole building hasn't been photogrammed to death by everyone else anyway. River's hot on the trail of a mad killer, and it looks like the man that she killed is here for the tourist bit, of all things.
River considers. The DNA scan she performed on his body several months earlier had yielded no results, which was hardly surprising—the Federation is so huge, there are millions of undocumented people running about. And she had frowned a bit when the Collector called her in confusion to ask where the second body was, but she just assumed some body-snatchers had grabbed it after she left, probably to go through his clothes and look for loose change. She didn't spare him another thought after that.
There was no way he could have walked away from that shot, she thinks. No way in bloody hell.
"Sorry, but didn't I kill you?" she asks him without preamble.
"Sorry?" the man says. He turns to face her, and his face has a bit of chocolate on it from the funnel cake he's eating. A wide grin slaps itself on as well.
"River!" he says genially. "How lovely! I was just wondering when I'd get to see you again! Now if you'll hang on just a mo', I'll see if I can track down the Ponds—"
"How are you alive?" River interrupts.
The man stares at her, his face blank. "Blood pumps through my hearts to my various and sundry organs and my respiratory system helpfully supplies oxygen throughout. Charming little things, hearts, sort of make the whole process work, and then there's the bypass for you, always good in a pinch."
He takes another bite of funnel cake. "Why do you ask?" he asks around a mouthful of sweet.
"Don't fuck with me, please," River said. "I'd appreciate a real answer."
The man stops chewing. "That is a real answer," he says. "What's gotten into you? Haven't heard you talk like that in a long—"
His eyes widen. "Oh," he says, as if he's just now realizing something. He thumbs the smudge of chocolate off his face, his nonexistent eyebrows knit together in thought. "Oh," he says again. "This is early for you, isn't it?"
"I killed you," River says, refusing to let herself get bogged down by this man's bizarre verbal detours.
"I see," the man says with a nod. He's taking this surprisingly well.
"I shot you," River tells him, growing more confused by the second. "Don't you remember?"
The man looks uncomfortable. "River—"
"The Judoon?" River prompts. She can't tell who is more mad, this man, or her. He still doesn't seem to recognize anything she's saying. "You tried to protect him, and I shot you?" she says.
"Ah," the man says, dropping his funnel cake with a great splat so he can clamp his hands over his ears. "I shouldn't be hearing any of this! You can't just spring things like that on me, River! You've already told me too much, you'll mess with the whole thing! And oh, look—"
He gestures to the chocolatey, doughy mess that has splattered on the ground. "You made me drop my treat!"
He walks right up to her and sticks a finger in her face. "You owe me a new one," he says, like an angry, petulant child.
River raises an eyebrow at him. "You're more upset about your dessert than the fact that I killed you?"
The man adjusts his jacket. "I'm sure you had your reasons," he says.
River feels the ghost of a smile starting across her face.
"You're a bit mad, aren't you?" she asks.
"Mad man with a box," the man says. "The maddest man there ever was, is, or will be."
He shoots her a smile of his own, and his hand juts out forward in a manner that suggests he expects River to shake it.
"Nice to meet you, River," he says. "I'm the Doctor."
-End Part 1-