"Right. Okay. Interesting."
The Doctor looked at her strangely, just staring at her face. He scratched his own, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers.
"What's wrong?" River asked, starting to feel uneasy but keeping a smile on her face nonetheless. It was as if the idea of them kissing was a foreign concept to him. He certainly hadn't returned her affections as much as he usually did. She had known he was much younger than the Doctor who had sent her, Amy, Rory, himself, and the other man invitations to Utah, but surely he wasn't that much younger. "You're acting like we've never done that before."
In her head she begged it not to be true. She begged with all her heart. She prayed to whatever deities were scattered across the universe. She had known such a day was coming for quite a while, but she hadn't expected it quite so soon, especially after what they had been through over the past three months. The shameless flirting, the whole ordeal with the Silence- River shuddered slightly.
The two of them kept meeting almost entirely in the wrong order. When she had first met him, truly met him instead of being brainwashed by horror stories of him as a child or listening to Amy's story of the Doctor visiting her that night when she was seven, in Berlin, he had known more about her than she did. He'd known her own name before she did for heaven's sake. He had already trusted her. He'd already loved her so, so much. He'd been willing to forgive her even when she was fully intent on killing him.
Naturally their meetings didn't happen in a strict opposite order (there were plenty of fluctuations in their timelines as she knew from often meeting up with a younger or older version of him that the him she had just left), but for the most part they were traveling different ways along the same path. If, for him, they had never kissed before – if it really was that early for him – how late was it for her? How soon would it be until he didn't even recognize her? Until he didn't know her name? Until he would simply look through her – her wildly curly hair not ringing even the smallest bell of recognition in his mind. Long ago, for her at least, he had become the only person she could rely on beside herself, and she didn't want to give that up. She didn't know what she would do without him.
Her own words, spoken to her mother and father three months earlier echoed in her head.
There's a far worse day coming for me.
But how soon would that day be in coming? It seemed it could be closer than she'd thought. But she held out hope, pulling herself together to hear what he said next, hoping he would clear away her fears.
"We haven't."
He smiled slightly, in his goofy-and-adorably-awkward-at-the-same-time way, but it slid off his face almost immediately. Her Doctor (could she even call this version of him hers if he didn't know who she was?) scratched his head as if confused, still staring at her.
River could do little more than stare back at him, trying to shove the rising panic to the back of her mind. 'Never let him see the damage. Never let him see the damage,' she chanted inside her head 'Don't let it show, don't let him know'.
"We haven't?" she managed to ask without her voice breaking. As soon as she spoke the words she could tell from his expression that he was about to run away again. As he always did. But a very worried, very scared part of her couldn't help her frightened thoughts 'But what if he never returns? What if this is it?'
"Oh look at the time," he said quickly, backing away and checking the watch on the inside of his wrist. "Must be off. Um," he paused for a moment, shifting from side to side as he continued. "But it was very nice. It was- It was good."
She felt, despite the sick ache growing in her gut, an insane urge to laugh.
He was walking backwards (she half-expected him to trip over his own feet, but he didn't), retreating toward the TARDIS. "It was- uh, unexpected," he said brightly, smiling his goofy smile again and pointing as he always did when he found a word he had been looking for.
He turned toward the TARDIS and River was left standing at the door to her cell, her left had tightening reflexively on the metal bars to steady herself, to keep her body from falling over.
Her husband – not that he was that yet, or knew anything about it, she supposed – was just opening the TARDIS's door when he turned back, looking as if he had just figured out a very important problem.
"You know what they say," said her Doctor, still smiling cheerfully. "there's a first time for everything."
He turned away from her again as lightning flashed from outside the window to her cell. The warm orange light of the TARDIS spilled out for a few moments before the ship's door closed, making the prison seem quite a few degrees colder than it had felt before.
"And a last time," she found herself whispering, unable to tear her eyes away from the TARDIS as it dematerialized, the sound of the brakes whirring bringing a small smile to her face. A chill spread through her as the blue box vanished though, rooting her to the spot and wiping the smile off her face.
She stood still for a few more moments before forcibly shaking her head and shoving her thoughts back in line. She blinked rapidly to dispel the tears that were gathering in her vision as she pulled the cell door gently closed with practiced skill, the metal hardly even whispering on the floor and the hinges silent. The only noise it made was a sharp click as it locked shut.
Stormcage, the planet as a whole, was always chilly. Constant dreary weather made the climate damp and very cold, especially when it rained for days on end, the thick clouds blotting out any hint of sunshine. The prisoners inside the prison itself might have been dry and protected from the elements, but it was still freezing in the cells with their open windows and solid concrete sides. But despite River's sleeveless dress being hardly appropriate for such conditions she couldn't bring herself to change into something warmer.
Mechanically she sat on the edge of her bed and stared blankly at the wall across from her. She willed herself to remain calm and collected, to retain her composure long enough to write the necessary events down in her diary, lest they be forgotten later on.
Pulling out the blue book, River traced her fingers over the rectangles embossed on the front cover and the tattered bindings from so much use, the spine becoming fragile and slightly torn. The blue color was fading as well, dulled from the bright blue it had been when he'd given her the empty book so many years ago. The TARDIS blue that reminded her so much of her home away from home (if Stormcage could ever be considered a home). Flipping to her last entry – three months prior, after the Doctor had let himself be captured and the three Ponds – herself and her parents – had split up to gather information on the Silents and the Silence – she sighed, brushing her thumb over the inked-in words and thinking of simpler times. When she could forget what that horrible woman had done to her growing up: sending her to that orphanage, brainwashing her to be little more than a tool for their own greater goal. This trip had brought all those horrible memories back. Memories she shouldn't have, memories of Greystark Hall and Doctor Renfrew and spacesuits and guns and calls to the President and terrifying voices that whispered while she slept, that should have been dulled by time or exposure to the Silence but weren't.
Not that anything was ever simple with the Doctor. She flipped to the, currently, penultimate entry in the book. Her return to Demon's Run. After the battle, after her month-old Flesh Ganger had melted. When her parents had discovered who she was to them.
Her eyes stung with the early warning of oncoming tears as she remembered the meeting – her Doctor's brilliant understanding, her mother's understandable anger. But she couldn't have gone any earlier, not with Kovarian there watching their every move. It would have only turned out worse, for all of them.
Droplets slid down her cheeks when River thought of her parents during their most recent adventure – how they hardly knew her, how she had to pretend for them, how she couldn't say anything, how she had to stop them from "helping" the Doctor and changing time. Granted, they'd obviously had several adventures involving her future self, as they had known who she was when they had first met up in Utah, but they hadn't known her as they had at Demon's Run. There hadn't been any recognition of the fact she was their daughter, nothing to imply that they knew her as more than a good friend of the Doctor. She'd had to keep all her thoughts locked up inside even more than usual, resisting the urge to say anything, to reveal to them who she really was. It was so hard, especially when they asked her why and she had to respond with her signature "Spoilers."
How she was beginning to hate that word.
River remembered her mother's reaction when she had discovered who her little Melody had become, had grown into. All the shock in their faces had nearly broken her heart before Amy had carefully, hesitantly, pulled her into her arms. The first hug her mother had given her. And probably the last she would receive.
A sob escaped her at the thought, and River raised a hand to wipe away her tears, but they kept falling. It was just too much. The mistrust, the not knowing, the keeping it hidden. He'd said it himself, the first time he'd picked her up from Stormcage: "You and I, it's all in the wrong order. We never meet in sequence." But he hadn't told her just how hard it would be, how hard it was keeping hidden the spoilers she was known for. Even though the idea was something she had picked up from him. Except he had picked it up from her future self... It was all so confusing.
Sometimes she really hated being a rogue, time traveling criminal who had been brainwashed into wanting to kill the best man she had ever known. Or, at least, hated it more than she usually did. Was it so much to wish she had grown up in Leadworth with her parents, not having to worry about being forced into something she didn't want to do and not growing up with a hatred of a man who had ended up being practically everything to her?
Of course it is, she thought to herself bitterly, letting her thoughts drift briefly off to an imaginary life where she could go to sleep feeling safe and happy, where she would get daily kisses and hugs from her parents.
That wasn't what she had grown up to be or what destiny'd had in store for her. River reluctantly pulled her mind out of the dream world and pulled herself together. She rummaged in her pocket for a pen with one hand, wiping away the last few tears that had fallen with the other.
It was her life and, though it was frustrating and painful much of the time, she was determined to live it to her fullest – saving the Doctor whenever needed and saving others when the situation arose. It was her life and she was going to keep living, even if sometimes it felt like she was living it in reverse.
First Doctor Who fanfiction I've posted! (but not the first I've written...)
Please leave a review to tell me what you thought!
As always, thanks for reading. :)