Title: Names
Summary: There's a Time Lord in River's dreams, and it's not the Doctor.
Rating: T for sexual references
Word Count: 1026
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer: The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Doctor Who and all related trademarks. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.
Pairings: None.
Contains: SciFi nonsense.
Warnings: No major warnings.
"The River..." she said slowly, and before River could correct her, she smiled. "Yes. I like it. It's... fluid."
River smiled back.
"They say a Time Lord's chosen name tells you everything you need to know about them,"
"They said many things on Gallifrey," River said coolly. She didn't want to be impolite, but she was very curious as to what a beautiful stranger was doing in her dream fully-clothed.
The woman laughed teasingly. "What do you know of Gallifrey?"
"Enough to mistrust its conventional wisdom." River actually wasn't sure if she believed this saying or not. Certainly, a Time Lord's chosen name told you a lot about them, but she wasn't sure it told you everything. The Doctor didn't always heal. The Master could be convinced to River didn't always stay on course...
"Then you won't mind if I keep my own name to myself," the stranger said.
"Wouldn't trust you if you told me," River said. Her eyes lingered on the ouroboros tattoos on the stranger's arms. Maybe the Doctor would know something about a Time Lord with ouroboros tattoos. Maybe she'd ask him. (But maybe she shouldn't.)
The woman laughed again. "You're an odd thing. Clever, though. Everyone on Gallifrey knows I'm a liar."
River's smile faded. She felt as though she'd been tricked, somehow, in her own mind, and she didn't like it.
A bowl of cherries appeared on the coffee table in front of them, because this was River's dream and her uninvited guest was gorgeous and therehad to be cherries. She'd had this dream before. This sofa and cherries. It had been Lucy Liu last time, though. Her guest reached into the bowl, picked a cherry up by its stem, and stared at it for a moment. "Something on your mind, River?" she asked, batting sparkling dark eyes at River. She put the cherry in her mouth, sucked its juices for a moment, then she pulled the stem away. Then River saw the woman's jaw clamp down and pop the cherry in her mouth.
"How did you get here?" River asked. "And why are you here?"
She looked at River oddly for a moment. "You wouldn't have gone to the Time Lord Academy, I suppose."
River rolled her eyes. "I went to Leadworth school."
The woman nodded. "Learned nothing useful, I suppose?"
"Plenty that was useful," River said. "Nothing that was measured in school league tables and nothing about how time and space and the fabric of reality function. Enlighten me, if you're going to hang out in my head anyway."
"Both of those questions have the same answer: Regenerative spacial connection," she said, looking down at bright green polish on her toes that shined against her dark skin. "I—This me died in roughly the same place that this you was born. Might have been billions of years apart, but the location was near enough. The energies from our regenerations mixed. I got in your head. But I'm not here, really. Just a dream. A very detailed memory of something you never knew which no longer exists."
"So you'll be in my mind for this entire regeneration?"
"Yes."
"Why have I never seen you before? I've been in this body for months."
"I'm buried in the back of your mind. This might be the only time you ever see me, or you might see me every time you shut your eyes for the rest of this regeneration. It depends on you more than it does on me." She eyed River carefully. "Of all the Time Lords in the universe, I'm glad it was you. You are fascinating. Completely human. Completely Time Lord. How did it happen?" She smiled. "If I had anything to gamble with, I'd bet it all that your story involves the Doctor."
River laughed. "His moving TARDIS. My parents on their honeymoon. Nine months later, I come into the world on an asteroid with Time Lord DNA."
"He always was fond of humans. Strange obsession, but... it suits him, somehow." She glanced at the coffee table with vague dissatisfaction. "I don't suppose you ever want anything to drink, during your sex dreams?"
River blushed a bit, but two glasses of water instantly appeared on the coffee table. River neither wanted nor particularly thought she needed to ask how her guest knew this was a sex dream.
"I was hoping for something stronger," the woman said, but she picked it up anyway. It turned to wine in her hands, and she grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere." She took a sip and smiled and River. "Why didn't he take you to Gallifrey?"
"Humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey," River pointed out, to avoid mentioning the infinitely more pressing reasons why not.
"Oh, a Time Lord human would be," she said, though the way she said it unsettled River. River wasn't sure the Time Lord Academy would have been interested in her as a student. She looked unsettled herself, though, like she were mulling it over and weighing several very bad alternatives against each other.
"Would you have?" River asked.
"It would be irresponsible not to," she said. She sipped her wine. "So no, probably not." She and River both laughed.
"Of course not," River said. "You seem to know the Doctor well. It's always been my impression that his Gallifreyan friends were not the most responsible of Time Lords."
"He's not the most responsible of Time Lords."
"Don't I know it," River said. She lifted her own wine glass. "You were the good ones, though."
"The best. But why do you keep doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"You refer to Gallifrey in the past tense." She looked into River's eyes, and River thought she saw just a hint of nervousness. "I'm dead either way," she said. "So what happened to it?"
The Doctor. But no. That wouldn't be fair to him. "The bad Time Lords," she said.
Her guest nodded solemnly.
"What can I call you, though?" River asked.
"The Corsair."