Disclaimer: We do not own Doctor Who.
This is a oneshot I worked on with randomgirl1385. (I wrote and she edited.)
It's written to go with our longer fic called The Lost Ones.
River wrapped her tiny daughter tighter in her pale pink sweater. One of the buttons had broken off. She needed to sew it back on. It didn't help that she'd never sewn before.
The baby's smooth head, completely bald, was covered by a thick, soft bonnet to protect it from the cold, and Renee's blue-green eyes watched her as River pulled it over the girl's ears.
She was generally a happy baby. She rarely cried, and mostly watched her mother in silent curiosity as she did everything. River hesitated to ever put the child down, and often carried her around the house as she did chores.
She hadn't gone on any sort of trip in more than four months. Renee was four months old, but River had been on hiatus for longer than that as it became harder to hide the baby bump. She never knew when she'd run into an early Doctor or an enemy for that matter. She wondered which one was worse as she buckled her baby into the carriage.
Staying in the apartment most of the time was boring. She needed something to do other than teach and clean. She spent time reading and drawing hypothetical trips in her diary (of course with the label that it was in fact imaginary), but even that became boring after a while.
So she was taking Renee on an outing.
The night air was cool but not cold, maybe sixty degrees or so. The university's campus was extensive, and the skyline was littered with buildings and street lamps. There was one place River knew would be great for stargazing.
They crossed a final road to get to the field not ten minutes later and were faced with a new skyline: a tree-line. Behind them, there were still faint lights, but they were designed to minimize light pollution, so they didn't quite reach this area.
During the warmer months, the field was used to grow wheat, but at the moment, it was just a huge expanse of grass. If you didn't face the campus, it was as if you were no where near civilization. The stars and the planets that hung in the sky looked as though they were painted up there. It seemed too good to be true. It was as if there were no atmosphere where the light had to pass through. There was only slight distortions.
From the basket under the carriage, River pulled a large quilt and draped it over an area of the grass. Dew was already starting to form, and she didn't want Renee to be cold.
She lowered herself onto the blanket and pulled her heels off, sitting them beside one of the wheels and letting her feet get tickled by green blades.
Renee babbled and reached her hands up toward the sky. River smiled and pulled her from her seat. "Yes baby. I know. I want to go too."
The baby kept her eyes trained on the sky as river laid on her side and sat her up in the curve of her stomach. Her body served as the baby's support, and she leaned into it with full trust.
"Daddy's out there," she told Renee and pointed where she was looking. "He's probably waiting to see us." What the poor child didn't know was that her father didn't know she existed. River hadn't seen him since the night before she'd found out she was pregnant. It was part of the reason she checked. He'd noted her early drowsiness, and she'd found herself nauseated after dinner. She doubted she was sick. She rarely was. There was only one other explanation.
The baby squealed, and River looked over in alarm to find a moth fluttering around her. It kept trying to land, but Renee squirmed. She smiled and put out her finger for it to land on.
"It's a moth," she said. Renee stared in wonder and reached for it, her pudgy fingers spread wide. It flew away. Maybe that moth would find The Doctor before River did.
She was going to ask him to come, of course, but you could never really be sure with The Doctor. Sometimes he'd show up. Sometimes he'd be months -or years- late.
Renee tried to roll onto her side, but ended up losing her balance and tumbling onto the blanket. River quickly righted her, but instead of leaning the baby in the crook of her stomach again, she sat up and placed her in her lap.
River took out her camera. It had been given to her to use to catalog her archeological findings on her trip to The Library tomorrow, but it printed the pictures instantly. One wouldn't hurt.
Stretching the camera at arms length, she was about to snap the picture when the moth came back and landed in her hair. Renee giggled and grabbed for it, and River laughed at the poor moth as it got tangled in her curls. The camera snapped.
The picture was small, but it looked relatively professional. It was good quality, and the camera had a night setting with realistic colors, so it looked well lit. River may not have been a trained photographer, but the picture had her, the baby, and the sky in the same shot.
She placed it in the back of her journal with a paper clip and hoped it wouldn't fall out.