"Hello!" He bounded into the middle of the morning budget meeting, causing everyone to openly gape and the city editor's cigar to fall from his mouth. He waved eagerly. "I'm the Doctor!"

"We know who you are," Amy hissed and grabbed his sleeve. "Sit!"

But the Doctor wasn't focusing on Amy. He scanned the sea of faces and the lack of one stood out. "Where's River?"

"Miss Song has taken a leave of absence," the city editor barked. "Now that's you've graciously decided to join us for the first time in your tenure here, sit down and go over your assignments."

The Doctor grabbed a sheet. "Church pet show? Rubbish. Give it to Simm. He's sitting over there looking all smirkish." He tossed away the assignment. "I only work with River Song now."

"Doctor!"

"Oh, and Amelia Pond too. Can't forget the Ponds." With a curt nod, he spun on his heel and stalked away. He didn't allow his shoulders to slump until he was out of eyesight.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

He'd loved photography. Ever since he was a teenager and had appropriated an abandoned No 1 Autographic Kodak Junior Camera, vintage 1914, he'd been fascinated by the way time could be frozen in a single frame. His world had become a sea of chemical baths, endless nights in the darkroom and days capturing everything he could on as much film as he could afford as he sought his Ph.D in fine arts, a concentration in photography.

It'd been Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, his neighbors and best friends, who'd gotten him the job at the paper where he'd turned into the eccentric, but the best beat photographer they had. What few photos the Doctor turned in always drove sales through the roof, and it was enough to justify the expense of keeping the Doctor around.

The Doctor perched on his stool, the darkroom in complete darkness. He heard the ticking of his wristwatch, the subtle clicking away of time as for the first time in years and years, his thoughts centered around something other than photography and the Silence. He thought of River, her sad, yet angry eyes, her confession. The fact that her lips had touched his, only briefly, and that even now, he could smell her perfume. The scent of rain on dry earth. Petrichor, he thought absently, and his heart ached.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

"Nothing?"

"No, and if you don't go do something, I'm going to send you to obituaries." Amy shoved the file drawer shut and poked her finger in the Doctor's chest. "Not to mention you pissed off Kirby the way you disrupted the budget meeting yesterday. Go lie low until he doesn't want to fire you again. Oh, what am I talking about, you don't even know the meaning of that."

Amy wove through crowded rows of desks until she came to hers, the Doctor on her heels. She dropped into her chair and absently fiddled with the photo of her baby daughter, Melody. "Look, if something pops up on the police reports, you'll be the first to know. She's all right, Doctor."

No, she wasn't, the Doctor thought. He picked up a pencil and began twirling it in his fingers. "About my other question …"

"No." The response was quick and sharp. Amy sighed at the crushed look in her oldest friend's eyes. "Doctor, even if my beat began to overlap River's, I don't have the skills she does or the connections. Plus, I've got to think of my baby now. We had such a close call already. The moment I even begin to sniff in their direction, the Silence will come for us. For Melody. I've got to think of my baby. Does River know what …"

"No," he said, cutting her off before any of the reporters could overhear. River had her secrets, and the Doctor had his own. And, when he saw her again, he privately vowed to tell her each and every one. Whisper them into her skin as he pressed kisses to her flesh, wrapping himself around her, melting inside of her and … he flushed, shuffled his legs and hastily held his hands over his lap.

Amy smirked. "Penny in the air, Doctor?"

"And the penny drops, Pond," he bit back, conjured a shot of the most disgusting thing he could think of - pears slathered with Tabasco sauce - and managed to walk away from Amy's desk with his dignity intact.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

"Would you like to play with me?"

The little girl seemed so very odd to John. It wasn't uncommon for someone new to wander onto the playground, but the nervous look on the girl's face belayed her eager-sounding voice. He normally didn't play attention to them. He found other things fascinating - the bugs, the trees, the plants, the small animals wandering about. He longed for a way to capture them, just for a moment to treasure them, then let them go again.

Amy looked up from her new doll. "Sure!" She held the doll out to the girl.. "I'm Amy. This is John. We're playing hide and go seek with Rory."

"And, you haven't found me yet!" Rory's voice came from a tree.

"That's because time's not up yet," Amy protested.

"It's been 30 minutes, Amy," John pointed out.

Amy made a shushing noise, then she turned back to the girl. "What's your name?"

But the little girl looked fearfully over her shoulder. Something about her grabbed his attention, actually keeping it on the girls. The new girl was blonde, he thought, and her eyes looked so sad. And something inside him suddenly twisted into a fearful knot, and he knew something was very, very wrong.

"Please," the little girl suddenly said. "You have to run."

"You want to play tag?" Amy asked.

"No," the girl begged. "Please! Run! Don't let them take you, too!"

"I don't understand," Amy replied, glancing at John in confusion.

Then she looked up.

And screamed.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

"Doctor? Doctor, you in there?"

He promptly tumbled off the stool, landing on the ground with a crash, still half-asleep. The past bled into the future, and Amy's screams and the ripe smell of fear was replaced with the comforting scent of darkroom chemicals. The door opened slightly, and he spotted the silhouette of Rory Williams, dressed neatly in a suit and tie, just arriving for his copy editing shift.

"You OK?" Rory slipped in, but left the little sliver of light coming in. "Amy wanted me to check on you. She said you're acting funny."

"Who, me?" The Doctor rolled to his feet and promptly tripped over the stool. "Never better! Rory Pond, how are you?"

"Stop calling me that, Doctor," Rory said in a resigned voice as the Doctor hopped on one foot and uprighted the stool. "Melody'll get confused if you keep saying that around her."

"Melody's a Pond! All three of you are magnificent Ponds! "

"Look, Amy wanted to see if you'd come over for dinner. You've not seen Melody since the christening, and she's worried." Rory smiled and walked out of the room ahead of him. "She told me you're actually working with someone else. Never thought we'd seen the day you'd be gone over a woman."

"I am not gone over a woman. Whatever gave you that idea?" The Doctor promptly ran into the door.

"I haven't a clue," Rory said, amused.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

"Amelia Pond."

"John Smith." Amy looked up from where she stirred rice to watch the Doctor dangle little Melody on his knee. He'd insisted he spoke baby and that the child had mocked his customary bowtie, but Amy knew that was all rubbish. Still, it was cute to allow him to think that he understood Melody.

"Doctor John Smith," he reminded her.

"Why don't you just gold-plate that Ph.D certificate? Hang it 'round your neck?"

"You're just jealous." The Doctor twirled around with Melody, and she let out a little gurgle of baby laughter. He tucked her in the crook of his arm, and both appeared utterly content. "Amy," he said quietly, "do you remember that day?"

Amy bit her lip, then nodded quickly. "Hard to forget the day you were kidnapped."

"You remember that little girl? What did she look like?"

"I … I don't remember that." Amy tapped the wooden spoon against the side of the pot, then carried it to the table. "It's all sorts of strange. I remember her, but not the girl. But, I know she was there. It's like I just looked away, and I can't remember."

The Doctor didn't say anything, but he cuddled Melody just a little closer as he started putting the pieces together in his mind.

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

Three days later, Amy thumped a telephone directory on the table in the darkroom as the Doctor stared forelornly at the glass plate River had shown him the very first day of their partnership.

"Here," she ordered. "Pretend to be a journalist. Find River yourself. She's probably in the phone book."

The Doctor scoffed. "She's River Song. She's too River-ish to be in the directory."

Amy merely lifted an eyebrow and nodded to the book.

The Doctor pulled it to him, flipped through it, intending to prove Amy wrong.

But when he got to the 'S' section of the book, a piece of notebook paper with Amy's handwriting floated out of it. He picked it up and saw an address and phone number written down. "What …"

"You're right. She's not in the directory. But, she is in the personnel files." Amy gave a little wave as she headed back into the newsroom. "Oh, and you owe Donna lunch for that. See you!"

Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж•Ж

The Doctor sat outside the small apartment for at least an hour in his battered Model T, debating the merits of going in. Of course, he wasn't going to find River there. That would just be too easy.

But, he reasoned, he could find a clue to River's whereabouts. Piece of mail, receipt, something. And, surely she needed someone to water her plants. That was actually a plausible excuse, he thought as he finally got out of the car. Maybe there was a cat that needed to be fed. She had to leave so fast she couldn't tell the neighbors, so the cat was hungry and it was his duty to save the cat. That was even better.

Breaking in took little work. the Doctor always carried a screwdriver in his jacket pocket, and he made quick work of the locks. He quietly eased the door open, with no guilt about breaking and entering whatsoever. River really needed a new lock anyhow. Actually … the Doctor glanced at the marks he left and grinned sheepishly. She really needed a new door as well.

He dug his Winchester flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. The copper felt solid and steady in his hands as he swung it around the small living room. Luggage was stacked near the entrance, and one of the suitcases was open with laundry spilling out. He moved the light to the mantel and froze at the line of photographs.

For the most part, they were his work, some of the color photography he'd shown her the day they met. He knew he should be upset that she'd rifled through his precious darkroom, but he was too busy being pleased that she'd treasured his work to be bothered with it. He was so pleased he almost missed the final photograph, tucked behind the others. His throat went dry as he recognized the two people in the image, and he snagged the picture, tucking it in his inside pocket.

He moved through the kitchen toward the bedroom and saw light spilling out of another room, and the sound of a shower, pipes clanging as heated water moved through them. He went nearly weak with relief. Oh, she was there, and she was fine. Then the Doctor flicked off the flashlight, a bit indignant. River had been gone two weeks. Really, had she not heard of a telephone?

He weighed waiting for her, then shrugged and walked through the bedroom to the open bathroom door and promptly froze.

The curtain was one of those half-shower deals, where it only wrapped around half the tub. She was facing the spray, as he had an extremely nice look at her rear. He gulped, skittered backwards and promptly knocked the clothes hamper over.

In a fluid motion, River swept the curtain aside and around her body, plucked a gun out of a vase of flowers on a shelf in front of the toilet tank and aimed it at him. It took both of them a moment to realize exactly what had happened.

"Doctor," River hissed and put the gun back in the vase.

"You keep a gun in your bathroom?" he managed. OK, that hadn't been the first question on his running list of things to ask her.

"A girl never knows who's going to visit while she's in the shower." She swiped at her forehead as shampoo ran into her eyes. "Just what are you doing here?"

"You've been missing! I thought someone had kidnapped you!"

"Kidnapped me? Not hardly, my love." River turned her back on him and let the curtain fall away.

He swallowed. Hard.

Pears slathered in Tabasco sauce. Pears slathered in Tabasco sauce. Pears … not working!

"Well," he squeaked, "you wouldn't answer your phone."

A throaty laugh came from the shower. "You didn't even know I had a phone before five minutes ago, I'd wager."

He thought of the Silence, the speakeasies, the guns and smoke. He thought of the way he would kiss every vow he could make into her skin and promise to keep her safe. He thought of Amy, Rory, and Melody. He thought of the little girl and was quite sure the reason he suddenly remembered the worst day of his life was because of the woman rinsing shampoo out of her hair.

And then she turned, shielded just enough by the curtain to where she kept the majority of her modesty. Her gaze raked his form, lingering on where the thought of pears slathered in Tabasco sauce was definitely not working, and bit her lip. He could see her mind, that brilliant, analytical mind nearly as bright as his own, working through the possibilities, and he wondered if she had her own version of pears slathered in Tabasco sauce.

Their eyes met. Held.

Then she spoke, her voice low and sultry. A true siren's song. "Hello, sweetie."

He broke.

So did she.

She shoved aside the curtain as he took the room in two strides, shoving her up against the tiled wall and nearly knocking her out of the claw-foot tub. His mouth covered hers, and her hands immediately made their way into his hair, fisting it so hard that it bordered a pain that only added to the pleasure. His hands swept up and down her curves, mapping them with light touches, knowing he'd have every part of her committed to memory within minutes. She frantically pushed at his tweed jacket, and he allowed her to push it off. It landed in a sodden heap at his feet.

Oh, he needed to think. They couldn't do this. No, no, shouldn't. That was all the difference. There were so many questions that needed answering, and this … this would change everything.

No. Everything had changed the moment she slapped on the lights in his darkroom.

"Most accidents," he managed in-between nibbling her neck, a quick bite before laving the spot with his tongue - a move that he found made her shiver and moan a bit, "happen in the bathtub." His hands found the faucet and turned the water off as she managed to get his braces undone.

"Then by all means, my love, the bedroom is right through that door." She started to pull away, but he simply hitched her up until her legs wrapped around his waist. He slipped a bit on the wet tile and discarded jacket, but they laughed with careless abandon as he carried her into the other room.

He found, much to his delight, shock, and a bit of fear, that this was a first for them both.

And, he discovered that in addition to photography, there was something else that he was very, very talented at - making River Song scream.