The Doctor did not visibly react, or at least, Asher did not think so. He knew the Time Lord, but not that well.
"But," the redhead stepped forward, her face confused, "I thought that River and the Doctor were…"
"Amelia." The Doctor's voice was firm, and something flickered in his eyes, but it disappeared quickly
The woman, Amy Pond—Asher remembered her name—stopped talking.
"River's your mum?" The Doctor asked but did not wait for an answer. "What's happened to her?"
"It was just supposed to be a dig. I begged to come along, you know, because I love when she lets me time travel." Asher lifted his wrist, showing off the vortex manipulator that he knew the Doctor did not like. "But then…there were these men…or they weren't men, but they were male humanoids. They had some low level psychic talent, and that's how they got so close without anyone hearing. I should've noticed-" Asher Song shook his head.
"Did they say anything? Did Riv—your mum—tell you anything before they took her?" The Doctor's eyes were intent, and Asher took a step back.
"No," he answered. "She just threw me her bag, and begged me to run. What was I supposed to do?"
"You called me. That's the most intelligent thing you could possibly do." The Doctor turned away from him, pacing around the TARDIS. Amy was cleaning up his sick with her husband Rory.
"I can clean that," he offered, not actually believing that he should be around the stuff until he felt better.
"Go talk to the Doctor, I think you've overwhelmed him." Rory nodded to the console of the spaceship, where the Doctor was fiddling with nothing in particular.
Asher bound up the stairs, taking in the magical box that he had heard about his whole life, but never been in. He surveyed the levers, sensing the time vortex flowing around the console. He could identify what some of the pieces must do, but his mother had mentioned that a lot of the console could truly only be taught if one wanted to fly it well.
"I don't suppose you can fly the TARDIS, too?" The Doctor watched the boy curiously.
Asher shook his head. "This is my first time in the TARDIS." He grazed his fingers over the levers. "I think I could fly it well though." He grinned.
"Don't touch anything," the Doctor spoke sharply, although his eyes looked more weary than angry.
Asher held his hands behind his back, looking properly chastised anyway.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor waved his hands around his head, showing his frustration. "I just don't really know your mother yet either." He ran a hand through his hair, and then smirked. "Every time I think I've got something about her figured out…"
"If it makes you feel any better, she hides everything from me too," Asher offered, thinking of all of the secrets that his mother kept, saying it was for his safety. "She hardly ever lets me out of the house."
"Surely she would know that any child of hers would need to get out now and then?" The Doctor watched the boy curiously.
Asher shrugged. "I said the same thing. She said that she would tell me why when I'm older, and that I should remember that it is absolutely for my safety that I don't go with her everywhere."
The Doctor just watched him for a few long moments before quickly turning on his heel. "Right! Okay, let's get to work. River. River. What's happened to you? Asher, what kind of dig was this?" He was pointing at the boy, and Asher felt the same urgency to answer quickly as he always did when the Doctor talked to him.
"A fairly simple dig. It's why mum let me go." He leaned against a chair on the console, feeling exhausted. "We just used the manipulators, travelled to a time right before the Caves of Maltran fell in. Mum was coordinating for the grad students, and I went poking around."
Asher shook his head, ashamed. "It's why I didn't notice the kidnappers. I was distracted with some hieroglyphics that I found…anyway, Mum yelled my name and I ran back. The grad students had already time jumped back, but mum waited for me. By then the aliens had used an electromagnetic pulse and it shorted our vortex manipulators.
"We ran and ran, but eventually the aliens caught up to us. They were Martrans, and they brought the Salda for extra manpower. Those were the nasty buggers that you found me with. The Martrans gave up on me after they had mum…" He let his head fall, feeling helpless.
The Doctor nodded slowly, showing that he understood. "Martrans. Intelligent. They like time energy; they learned how to harness it into weaponry ages ago. But as far as I know they've never used time travelers as a source of energy."
The Doctor suddenly hit his head. "River's son! Come here. Genetic tracking."
Asher furrowed his brow, walking toward the Time Lord.
"Hand." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver.
The boy supplied his hand, and the Doctor pricked his finger, causing a drop of blood to well up.
"Suck on that," the Doctor told him, while reading the numbers that the sonic was supplying.
Asher sucked on his injured finger, while the Doctor plugged his sonic into the console. He moved a few knobs around, pressed some random buttons, when Asher saw the familiar double helix model begin to form on the screen.
"Alright. Good old DNA, reliable as ever," the Doctor murmured to himself. "Tracking genetic code. Parental chromosomes."
The computer whirred ever so slightly before dinging, and coordinates appearing.
"No," the Doctor shook his head at the screen. "Don't locate Asher. Locate his mother." He pressed a few more buttons, and this time two sets of coordinates appeared on the screen.
"Well, I'm guessing this one is River," he pointed at the second set. "The first set of coordinates is right here, in the TARDIS, so I suppose it's tracking you."
The Doctor frowned, obviously not happy with the results. "Unless…" He pulled more levers and hit more buttons. "Of course River's child would mess with my TARDIS…" he spoke under his breath.
Suddenly, the Doctor stopped moving, his face going blank. Asher might not know the Doctor well, but he did know well enough to notice when the Time Lord thought of something that jarred him so completely that he visibly stopped breathing.
The Doctor's hands were shaking, a sight that Asher had never seen before.
"Amy!" The Doctor called his friend with a yelp, his voice strangled. He was pulling the raw DNA helix back onto the screen, watching as Asher's genetic code swirled, and bringing up the numerical stats of the molecule.
Amy appeared, obviously noticing the Doctor's agitated status as well as Asher. "What's wrong?"
The Doctor was muttering numbers to himself, and he continued to do so even as he looked at Amy. "Right," he whispered, his voice sounding terrified. "Amy, take Asher to get some clean clothes. Maybe a bath."
"Doctor?" Amy walked over to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Asher needs clothes, Amy." The Time Lord was obviously speaking on autopilot, not really thinking about the people around him at all.
"Rory can do that. Tell me what's wrong." She was looking at the screen too, but obviously had no idea what she was looking at.
"Doctor," Asher stepped next to him, reading the screen, trying his hardest to remember everything he knew about biology. "Is something wrong with my blood?"
The Doctor looked over at him, a strange look on his face. His eyes were wide with surprise and his voice was disbelieving as he said, "Ah, no. Just irregular. Not wrong." He cleared his throat, moving his gaze back to the screen. "You should really change clothes. The TARDIS will need more time to process your DNA anyway. And we need to be ready to save River."
Asher took one last look at the DNA before following Amy off of the flight deck. He glanced over his shoulder, and he met the Doctor's eyes.
The Time Lord looked terrified.