Yay, time for the Doctor and River!
The Doctor roared. It was an angry, frustrated sound, but River could hear tendrils of pain and anguish breaking through the Doctor's feeble façade. He slammed his fists against the console. "She's not working!" he hollered. "Why isn't she working?" he threw up his hands and stormed to his chair, in which he collapsed, shaking his head. He got up in a flash and tried numerous levers and buttons on the console that River knew would do nothing but get them into trouble. She quickly undid what he had done and placed a steady hand on his chest, even though inside she wanted to scream too.
"Calm down." She said angrily. He glanced at her, nodded stiffly and rubbed his hands together nervously.
"Coelus seemed to have…coded a virus, almost, into the coordinate setter. There is absolutely no way we can get to where he is. And it's a smart virus too. For instance, we can't just land the day before he does, or anytime after, and wait for him. It is as if, to the TARDIS, this place simply does not exist. All roads or possible ways to this place are unreachable. He's made it absolutely impossible to reach him. There is no undoing of this. It's…permanent. That boy is too smart for his own good." The Doctor for once was speaking slowly, at a rate others could actually comprehend, and he sounded uncertain. Uncertain and terribly worried.
"Reminds me of someone." River murmured. The Doctor rounded on her and looked at her as if she were crazy.
"River this is serious! He is in terrible danger and there is absolutely no way we can get to him! Why would he do that?" the Doctor sounded strange, not at all himself. He was angry, and River knew far too well that the Doctor could do stupid, extremely dangerous things when he was angry.
"Doctor." River said. She turned his face towards her and forced him to look into his eyes. She saw his last bit of resistance crumbling, saw all his defenses smashing to the ground, and he crumpled. "Does he not remind you of someone?" She said to him, softly this time.
She held out her arms and he went into them willingly, confining her in an iron cage of his spindly arms. He wasn't really even crying, just shaking and breathing in trembling gasping breaths that rattled out of his lungs and then caught in his throat.
As River leaned on him as much as he leaned on her, and tears managed to escape from her eyes and race down her cheeks, she wished that her and the Doctor were not who they were.
She wished that he wasn't an ancient man who had suffered through the loss of so many people he loved, so agonizingly many, that it was a mystery why he wasn't permanently curled up in a ball, mourning.
She wished that she was not right there alongside him, mourning with him because that was the only way they could cope.
She wished that her one, beloved son had not run away from them, running to find independence and adventure.
She wished that the Doctor hadn't done exactly the same thing, running from all he loved.
She wished that their spinning blue box was only a dream, and she that hadn't really lost anyone.
But sometimes even River Song could not get what she wished for.
A/N: Well that was depressing. The next one won't be so doom and gloom, honestly. It won't necessarily be puppy dogs and rainbows, but it'll be something happy. If you feel so inclined, please review; it makes me ridiculously happy :) -Blue
