An Unwritten Song - Chapter 2: Rule One
By Sylva Dax
A/N: This story is just beginning. It will be a bit open-ended; after all, River's new future is still unwritten. Please read and REVIEW! I really do want to know what you think about what I'm writing and what you'd like to see.
Disclaimer: All but the idea for this story is owned by the BBC.
~DW~
Horrified, Amy looked at River. She couldn't tell. Was that her daughter laying so still on the bed or a ganger? It wouldn't be the first time the Doctor spared a family grief by replacing their dead loved one with his ganger.
"Doctor, please, tell me that's my baby over there. Tell me that's River," she pleaded.
"Amy, upon my life, that is River," the Doctor vowed.
"Rule one," Rory stated flatly.
Holding Rory's gaze, the Doctor finished for him, "the Doctor lies. Not this time; never about this." Slowly, the Doctor got back on his feet and walked over to where River lay. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, drinking in the sight of her beloved face. "I've had to live with the nightmare of her death every day of my life since she walked into that Library and whispered my name. I'd never been so afraid in my life. She terrified me. Here she was, this beautiful, headstrong woman that I'd never seen before, offering up promises of a future that I didn't even know I wanted, and she knew everything about me. But I didn't know her. She took advantage of that and knocked me out. When I came around, she was already in the chair." He closed his eyes against the memory.
Rory and Amy watched the Doctor as he lost himself in his memories, each leaning on the other for support as they listened to his heartbreaking tale.
"She'd handcuffed me to a pole. I pleaded with her to let me take her place; time could be rewritten. I've heard her response over and over in my head like a mantra for over two hundred years: 'Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare!' What cheek! Telling a Time Lord what to do with time." He wandered away from River and the Ponds, lost in time. "She told me about our last time together. The Singing Towers of Darillium. I couldn't stop crying. How was I going to let her go?"
Suddenly, the Doctor spun around to face the Ponds. Amy gasped at the self-directed fury in his eyes. "Simple. I'M A TIME LORD! We're above such foolish sentimentality. We do what must be done even if - even if it kills us." Amy and Rory rushed to the Doctor's side as he visibly deflated. They carefully guided him back to the bed. Almost in a whisper, he added, "So I gave her the screwdriver she had when we met and let her go with a lie on my lips. I didn't even try to warn her."
"You warned me with your tears."
"River!" All three exclaimed.
"Hello, Sweetie," she said, smiling weakly. "Mum; Dad."
"Oh, River, I thought I'd lost you. Don't you ever let go of me again." The Doctor managed to say even as he peppered her with kisses.
Unable to get to River because of the Doctor, Amy and Rory ran around to the other side of the bed. Amy gathered her daughter in her arms. With her one free hand, River returned her mother's embrace. Her father held her other hand as he smiled through the tears that insisted on falling. Gently, Amy lowered River back to the pillow her head had been resting on and tucked in the sheet they'd covered her with. She smiled at Rory who appeared to be unable to release his child's hand.
"Doctor, Donna and the others?" River asked.
"You did it, River. You saved all those people trapped in the Library's computer core," the Doctor said with a sad little smile.
Letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, River said, "Then it was all worth it."
"I wish I could have saved your friends too," the Doctor told her, thinking about Anita and the others.
River smiled as she said, "You can't save everyone, Doctor. You saved me and-"
"No, this was all Sexy's idea; she saved us."
"And CAL saved the others: Anita, Proper Dave, Other Dave, and Miss Evangelista. We were in the middle of one big group hug when Sexy appeared and told CAL that she was taking me home," River said, still smiling. "I think Doctor Moon was quite taken with her."
"Doctor Moon? CAL?" Rory asked, perplexed.
"Charlotte Abigail Lux and her protector," the Doctor explained. "Her family built the Library. She was a young girl dying of a terminal illness so they uploaded her mind to the main computer node of the Library to carry on her existence amongst the literature she so loved. She managed to upload all the people visiting the Library the day the Vashta Nerada attacked and sealed off the entire planet. CAL created a virtual world for them to live in."
River took up the tale. "It took the Lux family a hundred years to break that seal. I was hired to lead this first expedition. Of course, I had to invite the Doctor to join us. He came," she said, pausing, the heartbreak of that moment still so fresh, "but it wasn't him. It was an earlier Doctor; not my Doctor at all and he - he looked right through me. He didn't know me." She looked longingly into the Doctor's eyes and felt Rory squeeze her hand as he recalled their conversation a lifetime ago in America. The Doctor's eyes reflected her pain at the memory.
Stroking her daughter's brow, Amy broke the momentary silence. "The vat of flesh. Doctor, you sent River's ganger to the Library, yeah?"
Rising abruptly from his perch on the bed, the Doctor smiled wanly at the Ponds and River. "Well, I think we all know the answer to that. Ponds, shall we move River to your house? I have a bit of an errand to run."
"An errand, Doctor? Now?" Amy asked, surprised. "What could be so important that it'd take you from River's side at a time like this?"
Holding River's gaze, he said, "Trust me?"
"Always, my love," she answered with a nod and a smile.