The best prisons, to all outside visitors, should have the same serenity as any good spa. It should not be like a spa in any other way. Prisoners should not be able to come and go at will, should not view their cells as voluntary isolations and by no means should anybody related to them in any way put forward any argument that they receive a better quality of catering than any other prisoner. But enough about my marriage.

My point is, the landing bay of Stormcage being in chaos does not comfort me. All official vehicles are docked, but everything else is gone, moved on, sent packing like they tried to send me. That's quite interesting. I tell the Ponds to stay close by and try not to listen to any guards, ignore any stunners, that kind of thing. Then change my mind and tell them not to ignore stunners, but to get out of the way, because I'm not carrying anybody.

Outside, the guards are everywhere. Those stunners are all charged and humming ready. There's lots of noise and running and everything's locked. They're announcing, repeatedly, over a system of hidden speakers that makes the Little Ghost flinch, the emergency code. The reason for all of this chaos.

Songbird 84

The Ponds hear the word 'Songbird' and I feel them both look to me. "Don't worry, that's not her number. But yes, they named it after River." They have stopped, by the way, the Ponds. The Little Ghost is still at my side, but the Ponds are practically still at the Tardis door. When I turn, it is clear that they're cowering from the crowd of stunners that were immediately trained on us upon landing. After me telling them to ignore those. Honestly, they just don't listen. The Little Ghost can't hear me and she's a better listener. So now I have to wave them over and wait for them to catch up.

Pond, clattering up on her heeled boots, breathes, "But what does it mean?", soft, as if her voice might set off the stunners by itself.

"'Songbird' is code for an escapee in the prison. Eighty-four is the escapee's prisoner number. But it's not River, so let's not dwell on that."

Because Pond is on my right, Rory tries automatically to step up on my left. This is natural to him, he is accustomed. He stumbles on the Little Ghost's heels, stammers an apology to her, then continues, as normal, with paraphrasing precisely what I just said. "There's an escaped prisoner just running around somewhere?"

"Yes, that's what I meant. Indeed, it is, almost to the word, what I said."

"But you're not worried, because it's not River."

"See above."

"Why is it every time we land somewhere I end up thinking the words, 'We're all going to die'?"

"Ah, Rory, you see, this is why I so often travel with humans. It's their indomitable spirit, their boundless lust for life, their optimism." We have reached the lift down into the complex. There are two guards standing in front of it. This poses something of a problem for me. "Going down, please, fourth circle, just popping in to see the wife."

I could bore you with the details. In short, they try to deny me. I speak, they listen, I am not denied. It is so often the way that one rather tires of describing it.

The quiet of the lift is small and comfortable. Then, between floors, they announce the emergency code again. From farther away and trapped in the metal box, somehow it makes the Ponds more edgy than before. Then, as if he expects it to lift the mood, Rory laughs, softly, mostly to himself. "Last time I was in this lift I was dressed as a Roman." Amy, to my surprise, is also moved to laugh. The Little Ghost, who has been leaning against the front wall, squints through her mask, wondering if she read that right. That's what makes me laugh. Not the ridiculous, non-sequitur comment, no, that's not the reason we're all laughing when the doors open outside cell 46.

"Well, I'm glad you're all enjoying yourselves!" Ah, and her voice is as the call of the golden mountains in the valley, even when it grates like broken glass, for she is my love.

"Hello, River."

She has gotten up from the bed in her cell and come to the bars, where she stands so enraged she almost stamps her foot. Not that she does, but you can see her thinking about it. It's probably just because I was laughing before, but it's getting so I have to suppress it.

Lucky there's that wall of five guards holding the line between us. I can hide behind them until I straighten my face. And their presence very much helps to straighten my face. I peer around between them, and it would seem that they are what has left River so testy too.

"I was reading and they just appeared! They only come when I pack!"

"Well, do you know who prisoner eighty-four is? Prisoner eighty-four is gone, maybe they think you're in on that."

"Yes, because the isolation cells for convicted murderers, they make it so easy to be a social butterfly in here. Is that my parents?"

"Hi River!" Pond hitches herself up on my shoulder so she can stand on her toes and wave.

"Yes," I say, "and the other one's here and all-"

"Hello"

"Yes, but the fact of the matter is, you and I have to have a tiny bit of a chat before anything else, alright? I've ignored some really interesting things, and intrigues, and mischiefs, and things I can help with, coming down here to talk to you, and if you gentlemen could just get out of the way?" I stand up. Pond slips off my shoulder and falls into Rory. You'd expect one of these big strong guard types to try and help her. Not a one of them moves.

"Governor Bracewell said I could. How do you think I got landing codes?"

I didn't get landing codes. The landing was so rough that Pond flew from one side of the console to the other and knocked the Little Ghost for six. I am depending, of course, on the fact that these guards have been here for a while and probably don't know that. And none of them say anything, and one of them shifts from one foot to the other, so I reach down to my side and bring the Little Ghost forward.

"Ghost," I tell her, very clearly. "You are to go and find Governor Bracewell, and inform him that I have arrived. Take one of these gentlemen with you as a witness."

She nods, once, reaches for the nearest guard and takes him by the arm. I see him smile. Just in the corner of his mouth, like a Buckingham Palace guard who just can't resist anymore. Such a sweet little thing in her stupid little mask. He doesn't realize he's going with her until she actually pulls, and he goes. I slip through his gap in the line before it can be closed.

"Doctor?" Pond calls through them, "You're sending her? She can't talk how can she inform anybody of anything?"

"Mmh, you're right. You'd better go with them." The boot heels clatter a step or two before they stop. "Don't worry, you'll be back here, get your quality family time, whatever it is you want. Rory, you best go too. In case Pond loses her voice. Or something."

They mutter and comment and probably insult. Something like that. But they go. I cannot stress enough, I'm not paying very much attention. Not to anything other than River, who has said no more since she greeted her parents, not even when I stepped up to the bars. She waits for the lift doors to close before she tries to kiss me. I say tries, I let her. I just let her know there's not much in it at this particular moment in time. When she steps back again, she says, "Where are you coming from?"

"Funny, there's a lovely unity about the whole thing this time, with the when and the where and the why. I've just come from 1946, where your father was bioprogrammed and a thief tried to steal everything he's ever known about you, me, him and Amy out of his mind."

"Is he alright?" It's the natural question for her to ask. Oh, yes, it's perfectly lovely of her to be so concerned about dear Rory. That's not how she asked the question.

"Who wrote that program, River?"

She shrugs, smiles prettily, "How should I know? You dumped me here before you went running off to the movies. What happened to your eye, by the way?"

Referring, of course, to my slightly faded, and all the more rugged for it, black eye. For a moment, I almost fall into her trap. I'm flattered, and I'm about to tell her, though perhaps with a few stretches and elaborations to cover up the fact that I asked Humphrey Bogart to dance, a fact of which I am less and less proud with each passing moment. Almost. Almost, but I don't. I don't, because River said something else.

River said 'movies'. Before we ran off to the movies.

"I never told you we went to the movies, River." She falters at that. Falls back from the bars and sits down in her hard lonely chair and sighs. "Bet you could kick yourself." To her credit, she admits it, nods over, her expression matter-of-fact. The guards behind me are as good as a wall again, so I lean back against them. It's their own fault for behind there when she has a seat and I don't.

"I suppose we're being honest now."

"You think because you say that I'll believe you?"

"Well, it was worth a try."

"Oh, God, River, I'm not in the mood. Just answer, who wrote the program?"

"I have no idea, sweetie."

"You expect me to believe that you installed a program in your own father's brain without even knowing where it came from? Amy knows better than to do that to a laptop."

River grins, and thinks she's got me, and crosses her legs, not that I would be paying any attention to anything other than her answers. Though my mind is advanced enough to be perfectly capable of handling both. It's not that I'm easily distracted, I'm a multitasker, it's the principle of the thing, why am I still talking about this. Anyway, her response, her reason for looking all Cheshire and clever, is "Whoever said I installed it?"

"Nobody. It's called a deduction, dear, it's what clever people do when they have all the facts bar one. Fact, there was a program installed in Rory's head, fact, nobody at the party could have done it because it wouldn't have been complete in time, fact, you're the only factor I can't account for in the days preceding, except for that one little time when you pressed a gun to his head."

"Just a gun."

"Not a gun at all, in fact. You know, even at the time I thought that was a bit over the top. Even for you."

"There's a compliment in there somewhere."

"Keep digging, let me know what I said, I'll correct it."

"I thought you weren't in the mood for banter?"

"Where did you get it!" Somewhere, somehow, when I wasn't paying attention, I stood forward off the guards and crossed to the bars and somehow on that last exclamation, which was rather louder than I had noticed I was getting to be, I slammed the flat of my hand against them. And I only notice that because River flinches. Long moments after that, my hand starts to hurt.

More long moments and River closes her eyes, breathes deeply, "When the time comes-"

"Oh yes, I know, I'll understand. Funny, River, how the time never seems to come. Now I don't know what you think you're playing at, but I need to, and soon. I need to understand very soon, and I swear, I swear River, should the word 'spoilers' be the next thing to leave your lips, there will be consequences."

I want to add that I miss her. That when she does things like this I start to feel very far away, that I don't like it. That I preferred it when she was cleaning up vodka and liquid nitrogen from the floor beneath the console and we were laughing about it, and how we can't laugh now and that annoys me. But I don't know how to phrase it, and she seems too aware of the guards behind me to say anything more at all.

I would like to say, Right at that moment, the lift returned, with the Ponds in it and bad news and the call to intrigues and mischief.

In truth, it's about another forty seconds before that happens. And if you say anything in seconds it sounds like a short time, but it's not. Really. Try it. Count to forty, I can wait.

It's a bloody long time.

Then, "Doctor! The guards took the Little Ghost. They said she was prisoner eighty-four."