Chapter 4: Secret lives

"Doctor?"

"Shush River! Right now my name is Lord Vislor Turlough."

"Oh right. Also my name is not River."

The Doctor sighed.

"Hiding is hard..." he whimpered.

"No, you're just not very good at it."

"Hey, you were the first one to say the wrong name."

"Well Doctor isn't exactly a name, you might as well be a Doctor instead of a Lord."

"Well I kind of am both already..."

"Also, why do we have to change name every time period?"

"A precaution, so people can't find us in history files. It's hard for me too, usually whenever I'm in need of a human name, I just use the name John Smith."

"John Smith? Oh please, that's the most common and generic name in existence."

"Only because I use it so often."

"Of course, because every little special thing in the universe is your doing."

"Well, most of it anyway. Well, we got sidetracked there, what did you wan't to ask me?"

"Do you like this dress or this dress?"

"That one."

"Okay, remind me to never again ask you for fashion advice."

"Look River! I mean Lady Martha Jones, a fez!"

"Well that just supports my argument..."

I had been travelling with the Doctor for a while now. I wasn't sure how long though. Weeks, months? Time sort of disappears in that blue box of his. Or...invisible box of his...

I could feel on him that our current way of travelling was very new to him. He's not used to being discreet, or silent, or being at one place for more than a couple of days or hours it would seem. He's used to speed, danger, excitement, adventure and spontaneity. Same as me, that's what I hoped to find by travelling with him. Luckily I had two years of university to teach me patience, while the Doctor had a thousand years of adventure to wean of. Also I can't say that I minded the fashion of Elizabethan England.

That's where we had been for about three weeks, though the Doctor seemed to be getting impatient after two days, or two hours, time was very hard to tell those days. It's surprisingly easy getting by. The Doctor just finds some clothes true to our current period in his fabulously infinite wardrobe (he should really use that more often, and less exentricly), gets some food from the TARDIS, and just does our thing. Suddenly we're nobles. We had been living at a bunch of different places, the stone ages, New Earth, the 80s, which was quite a fashion catastrophe, especially for the Doctor. We dress based on our current time period, which seems new for the Doctor, I'm fairly sure he wears the same outfit every day. I can tell he misses his bowtie.

"We should visit Shakespeare tomorrow, lovely chap, I haven't spoken with him in a hundred years..."

"Doctor why did you buy the fez?"

"Shhh, it's Lord."

"Wandering around in a fez is not very discreet."

"I haven't seen a proper fez for years. Fezzes are cool."

"This isn't even the first time you talk about fezzes! What's so special about a fez?"

"Spoilers."

"You always say that, you know you can't keep secrets for me forever."

"I'm not, it's just payback. You'll get it some day."

"Well surely there must be something you can tell me."

"Like what?"

"Maybe what we're hiding from in the first place?"

"No, that's also spoilers."

I sighed annoyed. I was getting pretty sick of that word. I tried to think about some other questions I could ask. One had been on my mind for a while now, it just hadn't come out, I guess I was just afraid of the answer...

"What happened to my parents?"

The Doctor was quiet, he had that expressionless but sad face he usually had when you asked him about something emotional.

"I left them."

"Left them?"

"Don't worry they're safe. They're in their own time period, their own home."

"Why did you stop travelling together? You seemed so happy..."

"Oh we were, we were the best of friends. I hope we still are. But it can't last forever, it never can."

"Was it because of me...? Be honest."

He was silent, considering.

"Your parents went through a lot, especially with the Silence. But don't blame yourself, you didn't do anything, you were just born. If anything it was my fault, I was the one who took them out travelling again, even though all my work with them was done. I could have left them after their wedding, but I wanted more time with them, I had grown too attached to them, I was selfish."

"Have you travelled with many before them?"

"Oh yes, quite many. You wouldn't believe how many."

Suddenly I didn't feel so special anymore. But I knew that was silly so I carried on.

"Is this what always happens to them?"

"No, not always. Some left me, some got left behind, and some...not many but...well, some died..."

I sort of had an idea of that already, but it was different hearing him say that. With that empty face and sorrowful eyes.

"Did they ever tell you how they got together?"

"No, actually now."

"Well, the three of us were all friends growing up, they were sort of my guardians, trying to keep my out of trouble. They failed. But I always knew Rory had a thing for Amy. One day I mentioned how they should totally get togehter, do you know what Amy answered?"

"No, he's my friend?"

"No. She said: 'He's, you know, gay."

The Doctor burst out laughing. It was cute at first but then people started looking.

"Oh classic Pond that is!"

"Well then Amy was all like: 'When have you ever shown any interest in a girl?' Then Rory got all nervous and awkward and was like: 'I gotta go!' Three seconds later and Amy is like: 'Oh my God Rory!'"

"Haha! Oh those two. Well have they ever told you how they got married?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well I started travelling with Amy the night before her wedding day, one day I found out, that she had fallen in love with me. Slightly awkward. So I showed up as the stripper to stag, picked Rory up, and got them back together."

I couldn't stop laughing at the thought of the Doctor as a stripper, and my father's reaction to that.

"Wait, so if it wasn't for the two of us they would've never gotten together? I wouldn't even exist?"

"No, I suppose not...high five!"

I couldn't believe him, but I high fived him anyway. It was sort of cute.

I woke up in my bedroom in the TARDIS the next morning. Happy and content. It's those sort of times where you begin to wonder how you could have ever lived any differently. It was a magical life. We had access to everything worth exploring, all the dresses worth wearing, all the men worth flirting with. It was beautiful. I did feel like there weren't enough aliens and dangerous stuff at this time, but relaxing was nice too, at least for a little while.

Once I was dressed I went down to the control room, expecting the Doctor to be ready to go, but instead he was wearing his pajamas and running around pressing buttons.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh River, perfect timing we have to go."

"What? Why?"

"We always have to go, just come along Song! Oh! That's actually better than Pond!"

"I know we always have to go? But why so urgently. Weren't we going to flirt with...I mean meet Shakespeare today?"

"Yes but the plan's changed! I just got an angry letter from queen Elizabeht I! How does that woman even find me?"

"Queen Elizabeth I? What does she have to do with anything?"

"She's my wife."

The TARDIS stopped, we were now floating peacefully through space, very fitting since my brain seemed to had stopped too. Wife?

"You're married?"

"Well, it was kind of an accident. Long story. But she's always been very angry with me for not staying with her."

"Oh how fascinating(!), any other 'accidental wives' I should know about?"

"Well there's Marylin Monroe, but don't tell her if we ever meet her, insist that it was never a real church! Oh, and I almost got married to this aztec woman. Oh the memories, that was my first incarnation."

"Yeah, wonderful childhood memories..."

"Anyway. Where to now? How about Barcelona? Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona! I always wanna go there, but nobody ever wanna go with me. Well, come along Song, of to the wardrobe!"

I tried hiding my anger, tried telling myself that I had no right to be jealous, that he promised me space and time, and nothing else. But still, when I met him, there were hints that he loved a woman named River Song, who turned out to be me, or at least future me. But can it really be that simple with the Doctor? He talked about accidental wives, but I had never heard of any genuine loves of his life. Even when my mother came onto him, his first thought was to get him back together with her fiancé. I felt smaller and smaller every day I spent with the Doctor. I knew I wasn't the first he travelled with, far from it. Was I the first he would ever love? Was he even capable of love?