Run darling, run

Chapter 4: Spoilers

Our meetings are so out of any linear concept of time, that at times it is frustrating, exciting or heart-wrenching. Chronology is not a word in our vocabulary; yesterday, today and tomorrow all merge together when you are with the doctor. Time flows in all directions and it's a both exciting and sad adventure. Either I am the one ahead afraid to say too much, to somehow spoil our future or he's the one with a knowledgeable smirk and sprouting 'spoilers, spoilers'. Hell, what I wouldn't sometimes give to just for a time to be in synchrony.

- Diary of River Song

"Oh – it's you,"

"You don't have to sound so excited"

I had accidentally knocked on the door to her room. Had accidentally landed on the campus of her University – incidentally it was in the 51st century and she still lived here. And coincidentally I had ransacked through the entire University and grounds before finding her. I felt slightly out of breath from all the running down and up staircases, through long, dark corridors to finally find that she was located underground. A little sonicky-magic and computers really do blabber! – too bad I'd been running around like a headless chicken for half an hour before realising the usefulness of ransacking the University computers. I must be getting old!

I was lonely and could use some company. I wondered why she didn't travel with me, why everything about us had to be so strange and frustrating. I wondered whether I had asked her; if she wanted to come along with me, see new worlds and foreign galaxies, exciting adventures and strange species. Maybe I had asked, maybe she had declined. Maybe that was why I hadn't asked her yet. Confused? – welcome to the wonderful world of a time traveller.

And here she was, and everything wasn't quite as I had imagined. River stood in her door opening, book in one hand and an electro-laser-pencil in her other one. She neither collided with me in a bear-like embrace nor grinned at me. The least I had expected was a nice hello or perhaps a nice greeting with her treasured shovel.

"So, what do you want?" she asked and turned around, "Don't just stand there, come on in," she continued when she saw me still standing outside her door.

"Err, just happened to be in the 51stcentury, thought I would look you up," I replied rather foolishly, feeling self-conscious as I stepped inside. Why did she make me uncomfortable? I had no clue! And why was I here?

"Nothing much too 'adventureable' has happened here, at least not that I know of. No dangerous and megalomaniacal aliens, no mad scientist trying to eradicate some form of life to create monsters and really no weird happenings at all," she told me as she went further into the room and sat down on a couch.

"Sounds rather dull," I quipped and sat down as well.

We sat for a while none of us speaking. I would look at her but her eyes were focussed on something else, avoiding me. The situation became more and more awkward and uncomfortable, until I was inwardly cursing myself for ever coming. The silence was slowly killing me.

"So, still studying?"

"No, became a professor last summer."

"Congratulations," I said happily trying to give her a smile. She smiled a little but it did not last long.

"So, are you doing research?"

"Yes"

"What kind?"

"Going on a dig next week"

"Anywhere interesting?"

"Trying to uncover a lost civilisation on the shadow moon of Hoxzial"

I grinned. And she finally looked at me with something other than annoyance.

"You know something?" she asked with an undertone of excitement and curiosity.

"I might," I told her airily, trying to keep the laughter at bay, "Good ol' moon of Hoxie"

"You want to come?" she asked, her tone again monotonous.

"Maybe," I replied, starting to get a little annoyed myself. Again silence dominated the room, but now we sat and stared blankly at each other.

"Is something wrong?" I at last asked when I was just about to choke on the atmosphere.

"Spoilers," she told me and leaned back, her eyes avoiding me again.

"Have I done something?"

"Spoilers!"

"How do you know, I don't already know why you are upset?"

"If you knew, you would be acting very differently," she told me with just the tiniest uplift of her mouth and a miniscule glint in her eyes.

"How different?"

"Spoilers!"

This was getting frustrating.

"So obviously I did something and now you are upset."

"Maybe"

"What if I apologised, would that help?"

"Perhaps"

"You are being rather elusive today – actually not that out of character," I added as a side thought.

And again we were enveloped in silence.

"So why are you really here?" she enquired; apparently she wasn't comfortable with the silence either.

"Spoilers," I replied childishly loving how her face scrunched up darkly.

"Guess I deserved that, huh"

"A little"

Silence. Stupid, thick silence about to suffocate me. Secretive, spoiler silence.

"I'm sorry," I told her even though I had no clue what I had done or hadn't or would.

"I know you are. But the future you, the older you, what about that doctor! Is he sorry as well?"

Silence again. Dark, withering silence. Poisonous silence ready to render me unconscious.

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked her, expecting her to at last smile and say yes please.

"No – I mean I want you to stay – it's just, I can't let go – I am rather mad with you, I mean not you – the other you," she spoke uneasily, her hands twitching, her eyes sad.

"River," I started and didn't quite know how to continue. That was the trouble with time out of order. It made things so darn interesting and simultaneously complicated. Maybe it was a mistake coming here, deliberately seeking her out. I barely knew her and she knew me too well. What would the future me do, I wondered. I ended up with sitting down next to her and gently trying to give her a hug. I did so with a little hesitance, I didn't know whether she would accept it or not. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder, her nose against the nook of my neck. I slowly exhaled.

And again the room was filled with silence; however it was a silence less heavy, less dark. Just a delicate silence, that still reigned. Fragile. I hugged her a little closer and heard her sigh into my chest.

"I hate you sometimes," she told me in a whisper, her voice betraying her as the words escaped from her lips while she tenderly fingered with the corners of my jacket.

"Spoilers," I whispered softly.

"Why is it that you do not travel with me in the Tardis?" I asked her sometime later, breaking a long silence, both of us slumped on her couch, her body resting warmly against mine. I had been staring at the opposite wall for quite some time, contemplating this wibbly-wobbly companionship.

"Who says I don't," she drowsily half-smiled.

"You do?"

"Spoilers," she yawned.

"I'm really beginning to loathe that word. I swear one morespoilerout of your mouth and I might just…" I stopped, letting the sentence end with an ominous silence.

"Just what?" her eyes glittered with curiosity and a hidden smile.

"Spoilers," I grinned.

And she laughed as well and it was beautiful. I loved making her smile, loved making her laugh.

"I can take you anywhere, any place, any time. You just name it, and I'll take you there," I told her later on, breaking another silence, having spent quite an amount of time staring at before-mentioned wall.

"I know," she murmured, half-asleep.

"I want to take you somewhere," I told her, nudging her side gently. She just groaned and softly slapped my hand away.

"How about ancient Rome? Planet Earth before the birth of man? The far reaches of the solar system? The 73rdcentury?... Ah – the home of the Judoon, how about that?"

"Thought Judoon was from the Shadow Proclamation?" she half-yawned.

"They were born on an altogether different planet, different galaxy. It's been abandoned due to, err, mysterious happenings," I told her and looked closely at her face, seeing her mouth quivering with a smile and her eyes slightly opening to look at me.

"Mysterious happenings?"

"It's a myth. Something lurks in the dark, they say, hiding in the shadows from the twin suns. Something that drove away a whole raze of Judoon, something which have made the planet and nearby planets desolate for the last two centuries."

I looked at her, she looked at me.

"No one knows what happened? Not even the Judoon?" she asked the sleepiness gone from her voice, replaced with the sweet tune of excitement.

"No. The few expeditions to the planet have all gone missing, never to be seen or heard from again," I whispered, my own voice alike tinged with exhilaration.

"Sounds dangerous," she mumbled.

"Sounds like adventure," I stated and both of us fell into silence again. Not the oppressive, terrifying silence, but a somewhat comfortable silence that seemed to echo with something thrilling, something good.

I must have been staring at the wall again for quite some time, lost in a daze, because I suddenly came to and found two pair of blue eyes studying me carefully. She gave me a secretive smile when she noticed I was again focused.

"Let's go, Pretty Boy" was all she told me, her voice full and soft.

"Go where," I asked, my mind not catching up.

"The lost planet of the Judoon" she announced as she held up her beloved shovel, thrusting it under my nose.

I jumped up and enclosed River and the damn shovel in a swift hug before I grasped her hand firmly in mine and strode out of her room, a bounce in my steps. I looked to my side, and noticed her smiling from ear to ear as well. We ran all the way to the Tardis humming the tunes to an old classic.

"Memeind e gen vej ei gneed o kome wit ju," River garbled, her voice muted by the dense filmy cloth of material that were keeping us apart in the cocoon we were presently wrapped up in.

"What?"

"I said, Remind me again why I agreed to come with you,"she said again this time clearly and unobstructed; she had found a small crack in the cocoon. I struggled a bit and managed to push myself farther up so I could speak through the fracture as well.

"Remind me again who wanted to trail off into the forest where all the screaming was coming from?" I counteracted.

"At the very least I didn't try to reason with the Mangen-te-zsp-what's-its-name!"

"At the very least I can enunciate the Mnanghent!hez=s#pease!"

"A fat lot of good that did you!"

"Personally I think it was offended by your grotesque pronunciation of its family name!"

"I thought it was your pretty alien look he took offence to!"

We were silent for a while. I could hear her breathing next to me; I could even slightly feel where the cocoon between us bulged out where her body was imprisoned. I tried to stretch my legs, but the cocoon wouldn't budge. I could feel an itch on the tip of my nose and tried to scratch it on the interior of the cocoon.

"River?"

"Mmm"

"You wouldn't by any chance have a teleporter with you?"

"Weell of course I have – I have just been loooving being cocooned so much I forgot I had a device that could magically transport me to safety," she sardonically retorted. River tended to resort to sarcasm when she was under pressure I had noticed. I let it slip and again we were silent. If I concentrated I could hear small sounds coming from the outside – sounds of the night in an alien forest. I figured we were hanging in our cocoon from a branch of a tree; like a dangling snack. I took a sharp intake of breath as I began imagining how the Mnanghent!hez=s#pease would devour us.

"Doctor?"

"Mmm"

"You wouldn't by any chance have a chainsaw in those gigantic time-lord pockets of yours, now would you?"

"Weeelll," I started and we both burst out laughing and I could feel the cocoon swinging from side to side concurrently with our laughing.

River was sleeping – safe and sound again, back in the Tardis. I reached out and tenderly brushed away a stray lock of hair from her face. I stood and watched the rise and fall of her chest. She looked tranquil and at peace – and I felt enclosed in sweet serenity from merely watching her. For the time being.