Date of publication: May 2012.
Summary: The barren planet Gossan holds a powerful secret, one that is somehow connected to River Song's release from prison. Can River and the Eleventh Doctor defeat the Papal Mainframe, or will they become its prisoners for all eternity?
Category: Doctor Who. Eleven/ River.
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Disclaimer: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest!
The story title is shamelessly stolen from the ballad "The Lady of Shalott," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Datclaimer: This story is rated M for sex, language, and mild gore/ violence.
Continuity (PLEASE read this): This story follows after the events of Doctor Who, season six. I assume that this story will be rendered apocryphal/ alt-universe/ moot/ irrelevant once Steven Moffat decides to continue telling the story of the Silence. This is my version of how events might play out.
Prologue
Brett gasped, quivering with need, as Stevenson stroked his throbbing, prodigious erection. After several more moments, he pushed the other man onto his knees with an impatient grunt. Mounting his partner's taut, muscular ass—
River Song's loud laugh pealed out, echoing off the cinderblock walls of the prison library.
From her desk, Valeria glanced up. "Porn?"
"Very badly-written gay porn," River chuckled, tossing the book onto a nearby cart. "Are the men here really that desperate?"
"Beggars can't be choosers," said Valeria.
"Do prisoners come in here and request erotica?" asked River.
Valeria nodded her chin toward the guard who sat slumped in a chair near the door. His chin lolled on his chest, and loud, rhythmic snores emanated from beneath his black face visor.
"There's the audience for porn, right there. Poor dears; they're usually bored to death."
River rose up to her feet, stretching. "And that's this lot, done." She pushed the cart around the library, humming to herself as she unloaded books. She didn't rush her work; she wanted this project to last the duration of her sentence. The library was a mess, a hodgepodge of books and random periodicals—some donated, some bequeathed, some confiscated by the prison authorities. When Valeria had inherited the librarian's position, the place had been a disaster, and she'd been delighted to take up River on her offer of assistance.
"Not too many prisoners with the faintest notion of how to catalogue a library," Valeria had said.
"I would imagine not," River had responded.
She'd nearly finished when the prison alarm sounded: three short, harsh tones. In his corner, the sleeping guard awoke and leaped to his feet.
"It's just the lunch bell," River said. The man adjusted his helmet, looking sheepish even under all that armor. He was new—almost all Stormcage guards were new. The turnover rate was dizzying; most employees requested a transfer as soon as they arrived, driven to distraction by the incessant rain, the perpetual gloom.
"I'll finish re-shelving after lunch, River told Valeria, but in the prisoners' canteen, another guard approached her.
"Dr. Song, you have a visitor."
River only ever had two visitors, only one of whom arrived through official channels. "I'll need to go back to my cell, then," she said.
In the visitor's room, Professor Candy stood, gazing through the narrow horizontal window at the churning sea and sky outside. He was almost unchanged since River's first meeting with him: the same tanned, handsome face, the same shock of white hair.
"Dr. Song," he said, rolling every syllable perfectly across his tongue.
"Professor Candy." River crossed the room to embrace her mentor.
He offered her a small rectangular container. "Lady Candy sends her regards."
Through the clear plastic, River eyed an assortment of homemade pastries. "Tell her I said thank you."
They took seats facing each other across a small, battered metal table. In the corridor outside the cell, a guard sneezed. Because of River's generally good behavior—apart from her periodic breakouts, she'd rarely caused difficulties—she'd earned the privilege of not having a guard present in the room when Professor Candy came to visit.
Visits to prisoners in Stormcage were limited to thirty minutes, so River got right down to business, handing Professor Candy a thick, leatherbound volume, a bloated, scholarly tome by one of the leading thinkers in fifty-first century archeology, along with several pages of River's handwritten notes.
"Dull as dust, slow in the middle, definitely padded out," she said. "Oh, and chapter 74 is complete rubbish—if he ever actually set foot on Ceruss, I'll eat a Dalek with mustard sauce."
"My thoughts exactly." Professor Candy's eyes gleamed, no doubt at the prospect of discrediting his rival, or at least bringing the bastard down a peg or two. "Thank you for the corroboration."
"My pleasure," said River. "Where are we submitting the review?"
"Annals of Intergalactic Archeology," Professor Candy said. "It's peer-reviewed, a nice feather in your cap."
"Incredible the progress you can make toward tenure from a prison cell." River turned to a pile of manuscripts, all covered with her handwriting, and handed them to Professor Candy one by one, saying, "Good, good, good, excellent, good." With the sixth manuscript, she said, "This one's a bit middling—he'll teach, but I'd keep him out of the field for now."
"Hmm, very much so," Professor Candy said. "He was a minor disaster on his last field assignment—a damned clumsy oaf; stepped on a rare fossil and crushed the thing to powder."
River clucked in sympathy. She handed over the last of the dissertation manuscripts. "Now this one is seriously dodgy—let's just say she had a free hand with her data analysis."
"I knew it," Professor Candy said. "You're absolutely sure?"
River pointed to her head. "I went through the calculations five times, always with the same result."
Professor Candy wouldn't doubt her on this. He well remembered the way River would perform the most complicated statistical analyses in her mind. Other students had grappled with tables and charts, entering numbers into computers, struggling to make sense of complex reams of data. River's Time Lord intelligence allowed her to run all the computations in her mind without touching a pen or a computer. The other students in her cohort had resented her for that.
"Point taken," Professor Candy chuckled. He slid over a new stack of dissertation manuscripts.
"I can see how I'll be spending the long, dark nights," River joked, thumbing through the pages. Ghastly dull, most of them. She asked, "Any exciting news?"
"Very exciting news." Professor Candy drew out his small pocket computer. "You may have heard that the government of the Third Rutillian System recently passed a measure opening the planet Gossan to development and exploration."
"Gossan's been off-limits for millennia," River said. "I've always wondered why. There's nothing to the place—just rock, water, and some very basic life forms—isn't that right?"
"Caverns," Professor Candy said, bringing up a three-dimensional hologram. "Underground caverns—we think there may have been a civilization there once, but any ruins are underground or underwater because of geological activity. We're applying for permits now; we should have permission in a few months. We'll be the first, River—the first scholars to discover the planet's true history. In about a year, perhaps eighteen months, we'll begin the expedition."
"Sounds like fun," River said.
"I want you to lead the field team," Professor Candy said.
"I'm a bit indisposed, in case you hadn't noticed."
"You've been in Stormcage for nearly twenty years now," her professor responded.
"Has it been that long?" asked River. She hadn't exactly been experiencing her sentence in strict linear time.
"Yes, it has. And at twenty years, a life sentence is eligible for review and possible appeal."
River froze, stunned. In that quiet moment, they both heard the unmistakable sound of the guard outside snoring—the droning rhythm of rain and thunder had a somnolent effect.
Keeping her voice down, River said, "I can't leave here yet, Professor."
"Why not?" he hissed. "That trial was a travesty—there wasn't a shred of real evidence against you. Why did you ever enter that guilty plea?"
"Because I was guilty," River smiled.
"Nonsense," Professor Candy said. "The man you allegedly killed has been spotted, multiple times—"
"He was a time traveler," River said, her voice airy. "People are seeing him when he was younger, before he died."
"He recently declared his age, within the hearing of many witnesses, as 1453 years old. His age at the time of his death was 1103. And don't argue with me on that one; I've read the full transcripts of the trial."
"So, he lied about his age," River said. "He always lied about everything."
Professor Candy leaned forward. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "I can't hold your position forever. The Board of Regents is pressuring me to help you clear your name or else find another archeologist for the faculty."
"I'll take my chances," River said calmly. "Luna University doesn't have the market cornered on archeology. Besides, I can always freelance."
"I've retained my own counsel, nevertheless," Professor Candy said. "We're going to review your case, River. I can't stand the thought of you rotting in this hellhole."
River whispered, "You have no idea what you're getting into, Professor! Those people won't bother torturing you for information—they'll just rip open your brain and extract what they want straight from your cerebral cortex."
Echoing her earlier words, he said, "I'll take my chances."
"I really wish you wouldn't."
"Dr. Song," he said. "I'm not getting younger. You know I've intended, from the first you enrolled, for you to be my successor. There's only so far I can mentor you in a prison cell."
"You'll be less able to mentor me from the grave." His expression was still obstinate, and River said, "I can see there's no changing your mind."
"None."
"They'll target your family," River warned. "Your friends, people you care about. It's a specialty of theirs. Trust me—I know."
"Then why are you letting them win?"
"I'm not," River said.
Comprehension dawned in Professor Candy's eyes. "You're protecting someone," he said, his voice scarcely audible.
River gave a brief nod, mouthing, "Yes."
Professor Candy sat back, frustrated and disappointed.
"When I leave here, it'll be on my own terms," River assured him. "When the time is right."
He sighed. "I only hope it's not too late for your career."
"I have more important things to worry about," River said. She never fretted about careers, money, even food or shelter. She was strong, clever, skilled, a survivor to her core. Somehow, she'd get by.
A harsh buzzer announced the end of the session. River stood, smiling, and gathered up her armload of new reading material. "Thank you, Professor," she said.
The guard opened the door to the visiting room. "Time's up," he said.
"Until next time, Dr. Song," Professor Candy said, and a guard escorted him to the visitors' teleport area.
(ii)
After dinner that evening, River went straight back to her cell. This wasn't her night to shower—she'd do that after her gym workout the next day. All afternoon in the library, her thoughts had been racing, creating and rejecting strategies. She worried about Professor Candy, worried that he'd pursue legal action despite her warnings. Damn his academic ego, River thought. He honestly didn't believe anything would happen to him. River couldn't tell him the truth: that as long as she was in prison, the Silence would assume the Doctor was dead, that they'd succeeded in killing him. That was a secret Professor Candy, with his love of gossip, would never keep to himself.
Her block was quiet, the other cells empty at the moment. Prisoners came and went through Stormcage with depressing frequency: if they failed to earn a pardon, they usually went mad in a matter of weeks and were transferred to the psychiatric unit. The women's area of the prison was smaller than the men's, and for most of River's sentence, she'd been more or less in solitary confinement. She preferred it that way; she hated the yammering and moaning of other women.
She felt a quiet vibration from down the corridor, and she waited, twitching, while the female guard unlocked the cell door.
"Nighty-night," River smiled as the steel gate clanged shut, the electronic bolt snapping into place. The guard grunted a farewell and strode off down the corridor on stocky, muscular legs.
River turned, holding out a hand, following the source of the vibration. Her fingers connected with something solid: the TARDIS sat in the middle of her cell. She worked her way around the invisible box and grabbed the rucksack she kept ready at all times, as well as the container of pastries.
With a click and a creak, the door of the TARDIS opened by an inch. A familiar, much-loved voice called from within. "Cab for Professor Song."
River went inside, the rucksack over her shoulder. "Again with the 'Professor,'" she teased. "You really need to take care with those spoilers, sweetie."
The Doctor circled around the console, and River stopped short, staring at him. He also pulled up abruptly, gawking.
"Why the prison gear?" he asked.
Simultaneously, River blurted, "You're old!"
He folded his arms, scrutinizing her face. "You're still in prison?"
River held out the pastries. "From Lady Candy."
The Doctor said, "I need to talk to you when you're a bit older—sorry." He pointed to the door.
"No!" River said. "That's not fair!"
"I'll make it up to you—promise." The Doctor took her elbow and steered her out the door, back into her cell. "You'll do the same thing to me, one day." Without any further conversation, he darted into the ship, closed the door, and a moment later, the box dematerialized. River didn't see it happen, but she felt the breeze on her face.
"That damned tease," she grumped. She threw down her rucksack and the box of pastries, and she sat on her cot, sulking. "Nothing like getting a girl's hopes up, and then letting her down."
She switched on her lamp with a sigh: might as well get started on those dissertation manuscripts. River still had her vortex manipulator, which she kept hidden in her rucksack, but she used it sparingly, lest the prison authorities find out about it. No point trying to chase after the Doctor, who could be anywhere in space-time by now.
River hadn't finished the first page when a high-pitched whine pricked the insides of her ears. A wind stirred her sheaf of papers, and a moment later, the ship materialized, still cloaked and invisible. The door opened, and the Doctor poked his head out.
"Stormcage again!" he sputtered, thumping the TARDIS doorframe.
River held up the plastic box. "Scone? They're still fresh."
"How long've I been gone?"
"Three minutes."
He vanished, and the ship dematerialized again. River tossed aside the manuscript. "I can see it's going to be one of those nights."
Thirty seconds later, the ship reappeared. River stood, smiling at the Doctor's expression when he opened the door.
"Sweetie, I think she's bringing you back here for a reason."
"All right, all right," he grumbled. "Get your coat."
River grabbed her things and bounded into the TARDIS before the Doctor could change his mind.
(iii)
Once they were in the time vortex, River addressed the most obvious thing.
"You're old," she said. A quick assessment of the small changes to the console room confirmed that for the Doctor, a substantial amount of time had passed. "What age are you now?"
"What age was I when you saw me last?"
"The oldest I've ever seen you in this body is 1275, or so you claimed."
"I'm 1515," he said, rolling up and down on his feet. "Today's my birthday. I was going to take you to sixteenth century Kyoto to celebrate. Fifteen-fifteen! Ha-ha! Yes! This is as long as I've ever lived in one body. Like an old pair of shoes—comfy and just right."
River couldn't stop staring at him. His hair had grown out, very long now, swept back off his high forehead and behind his ears, falling to his shoulders, the wavy dark mass thick with silver. His temples were completely turned, all the hair around his ears the color of good-quality sterling. He wore a neat beard, too, salt-and-pepper on his large chin and jaw.
He still wore dark trousers and boots, suspenders and a bow tie. His shirt was pale gray, the tie dark blue. Over all this he wore his green wool overcoat, and River's heart compressed to see that it looked more worn now, threadbare around the edges.
"What?" he said. "The beard?"
"This will take some getting used to."
He bounced around the console. "You'll appreciate it when you're older."
River put her hands on her hips. "Oh, so I'm not mature enough for you any more?"
He didn't answer, looking down at a monitor, frowning, his thoughts already on to something else.
"Why today?" he asked. "Why'd the TARDIS bring me here three times? What's so important about today? Did something exciting happen in Stormcage?"
River opened the plastic container, circled the console, and popped half a currant scone into the Doctor's mouth. "Professor Candy came to visit. I've been in Stormcage twenty years according to him, and he's retaining legal counsel to have my case reviewed."
"Twenty years?" the Doctor mumbled around the mouthful of scone. "It's really been that long?"
"Yes. Not from your perspective, obviously, or mine, but his."
The Doctor swallowed. "He wants to spring you," he said. "Why?"
"He's organizing a dig on Gossan," River said. "The planet's just been opened for exploration. He wants me to lead the field expedition."
"Gossan?" the Doctor grimaced. "Now, there's a boring lump of rock for you."
"Professor Candy doesn't think so."
"Archeologists," the Doctor sniffed, then stopped at River's expression. "Present company excepted, naturally."
River helped herself to a sticky-glazed confection, the dough flavored with cinnamon and studded with candied almonds. She fed the Doctor the other half of the scone. As she ate, she watched him fuss with the TARDIS controls.
"What?" she said, not sure if she liked his expression.
"It's just a little hint you gave me," he said, running his tongue around the insides of his mouth. "Or, you will when you're older. You've never told me what exactly happened when you left prison, but you said I'd know when the time comes. You said it would start with scones. Currant scones."
River gave him another one. "Well, let's not make a liar out of me, then."
"It's something about Gossan," the Doctor said, waving the scone in a circle. "There's something there, connected to your release from Stormcage."
"Are you ready for me to leave?" River asked. "I won't go until you know you can deal with the Silence. If I'm released, they'll know for sure you're alive."
The Doctor ate the second scone while he thought this over. "I can't fool them forever," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Getting kind of obvious I'm not a kid any more."
"Whatever happens, I'll be there with you," River said. "I won't let you face them alone."
He smiled: old, sad, tired. The lines on his face had deepened over the centuries, but he still appeared too young for all that silver. His body was strong, healthy, unbent by his great age. The only place his years really showed was in his eyes. When River looked into them now, she saw the eons of time, the cunning intelligence, the battle scars too numerous to count.
"Right," he said, entering coordinates and throwing the lever on the TARDIS console. "To Gossan, then." River held onto the console, excitement curling in the pit of her stomach.
To be continued…
