AN ~ Set kind of as a prequel to 'Time of Angels'. This was a challenge entry for another site, and really motivated me to hone doen my 'show don't tell' skills, especially as many of my potential readers had never watched DW before. It was loads of fun and I hope you guys like it – the title is meant to be ironic. Enjoy!
Song of Salvation
The ceaseless rain pounded the walls of her cell as River Song glared up at the ceiling. She had already memorised every crack, every stain, every patch of mould and mildew that decorated its storm-grey surface. Twelve thousand consecutive life sentences spent in the same 3x3m room would do that - and she was only up to day 4763.
Well, she told herself. You did kill the Doctor. You can't exactly expect to get off lightly.
So she lay there and stared, and wondered how all these days of nothing could make her shoulders hurt so much. The last time she had broken out, she'd practically had them torn off by the Jadoon and they hadn't ached this much. As she pondered it, the pain crept through her veins, engulfing all of her – muscles, bones, heart and lungs - until she felt like screaming.
Instead, she shut her eyes, and waited.
.o.o.o.
Across the hall from Prisoner 187, Stefan Dvorak was getting restless. His hands all but wrung the neck of his gun, and it took a significant portion of his concentration to avoid tapping his foot. The remainder, he channelled to watching the prisoner, who was still lying on her bunk like a corpse.
After twenty more minutes of this Godforsaken silence, Stefan snuck the handset from the emergency contact point on the wall, and called HQ.
"Sir, it's 187." He tried not to whisper, but couldn't help hushing his voice in the hopes that she couldn't hear him.
"What about her? How many do we need?"
The Director's voice was urgent, such a contrast with 187's stillness that it made Stefan fumble the headset.
"What? Nothing...none..." he stammered. "I mean, she's just staring at the roof. Like a dead body or something."
"Staring? Look, Dvorak, half the prisoners in this place go nuts staring at their ceilings. If it keeps 'em off the streets-"
"No, no." He pulled himself together. "That's not what I mean. This is 187. The woman who killed the Doctor. She should be plotting something. Escaping, I dunno, but-"
"No, Stefan," the Director corrected, patronising. "She shouldn't. As much as Doctor Song should like to deny it, this is a prison. Maybe the last ten years are starting to get to her, hm?"
"...Maybe." Stefan shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, turning to press his forehead to the wall. Silently, he scolded himself for his paranoia. Maybe 187 was going crazy, but maybe it was just him: he couldn't count the hours he had spent in this hallway.
"I'd send you a relief, but it appears Ms Song has a visitor. Bring her down to Holding Three."
The Director hung up. Stefan replaced the handset and ran a palm over his face before he turned back to fetch her.
"So who wants me?"
Stefan jumped.
Standing a few metres down the hall, hands cuffed behind her back and mischief sparkling in her eye, was Prisoner 187: Doctor River Song.
.o.o.o.
Now this was more like it.
Leading him down the corridor with a swagger in her step, River smirked as Stefan struggled to look like he had control. His hands were both tightly clenched around his gun: one on the handle, one about halfway down the barrel, so that he could take her down the instant she moved too far away. She didn't doubt the boy's practical ability, nor his determination, to do just that, but River enjoyed counting his frantic glances at the back of her head, or at her hands, in between pretending to keep his eyes straight ahead.
When they reached Holding, she stopped. Stefan bit back a growl as he saved himself from walking into her. She chuckled, and he glared at the back of her neck, no longer caring for the Director's warnings not to react to her taunts.
"Where to?" she asked, without turning to him.
"Holding Three," he muttered, shoving her forward before she had time to take a step.
Inside Holding Three, standing behind the steel table and chairs as they had entered from the other door, two men were waiting. The first – tall, silver-haired, with a crisp suit and tight eyes – greeted her with a stiff nod.
"Doctor Song."
"Director." River nodded back and added a small curtsey as Stefan removed her cuffs. The Director's face did not so much as twitch. Instead, he gestured to the chair on her side of the table. River examined it for a moment, and behind her, Stefan held his breath until she sidled forward and slid into the seat, taking a calculated moment to cross her legs before looking up again.
"And who's this?" She made a peak from her fingers and raised an eyebrow at the shorter man beside the Director. It was not hard to ascertain the basics: he wore the fatigues of the Church and a purple badge identifying him as a Bishop Second Class, as well as a stitched label naming him 'Octavian.' What River really meant was Why is he here?
"Father Julius Octavian," the Bishop supplied. "I have a rather dangerous project under way, and I've been told you might be able to help me out, Doctor Song."
"That I might."
Father Octavian turned to the Director. "If I may..."
The Director nodded and left the room through the same door he had entered. Without a word, Stefan followed. Once they were alone, Father Octavian slid into the seat opposite River's and pulled from under it a manilla file brimming with paper.
"So how are you, Doctor?" he inquired amiably as he opened the file. River remained silent and watched his hands as he shuffled past statistics and reports to pull out first a news article, and then some kind of contract or declaration.
"I've been informed you're not the most talkative of company." Father Octavian lowered his forearms to shield the documents. Touché. River raised her eyes to his, and the Bishop continued.
"I also understand that you have some level of control over certain persons in this establishment. I respect that - though your methods of maintaining it, I find somewhat questionable."
"I find that well behaved women rarely make history; don't you?" She smiled like a cat and leaned over, propping her chin up with one hand by putting an elbow on the table. It didn't get her any closer to reading the documents the Bishop was hiding, but she saw his face twitch, and her grin stretched at his discomfort.
"Nine break-outs in the last year," the Bishop continued, eyes steeled but locked on her face. River pouted. "And each time you turned yourself back in. Some believe you're simply fond of the spotlight, but I'll admit I'm curious as to how much deeper this goes. What better way to investigate than to offer you an adventure you can't refuse?"
Father Octavian pushed the news article across the table to River. She lifted her chin off her hand and reached for the paper, pausing a moment with arm outstretched to study the man more deeply. His watchful eyes revealed nothing new; only that he was observing her with just as much intensity as she did him.
How much deeper this goes, he had said. Not If this goes deeper.
Laughing it off, she turned a little to the side and lifted the article from the table, looking down her nose to read it.
"I'm not sure you grasp the gravity of the situation, Doctor Song," the Bishop pressed as she her eyes danced through the article. "You see, in return for your assistance, I'm prepared to offer you something I doubt you'll come across again in the near future."
She had just reached the last paragraph, and hesitated. Oh, he's good. She dropped the page, and allowed it to float back across the table to the Bishop.
"Forgive my language, but this must be one Hell of a mission, then."
"How so?"
"One doesn't go handing out reductions to Stormcage inhabitants – let alone the woman who killed the Doctor - for any old espionage mission, Bishop." Eyes narrowed, River uncrossed her legs and leaned across the table. "What's on the Byzantium?"
The Bishop smirked and mimicked her.
"Tell me, Doctor," he invited. "What do you know of the Weeping Angels?"
Father Octavian leaned back. He had to relish the expression that crossed River Song's face at this name. It was horror without audience, as though the blood had simply frozen in her veins. He wondered, with demonic passion, whether she had felt the same fear when she had destroyed the Doctor; if her refusal to bow to the Shadow Proclamation's judgements, or to those of the rest of the universe, was entwined with some fear beyond the mortal realm.
No, he concluded as he watched her face settle back into a cool expression. This was a woman who had calculated her every move; she had measured up all possible costs, and murdered nonetheless. But she had a soul, the Bishop believed, and like any other, that soul yearned for freedom.
"We're not sure," he clarified, pulling a fountain pen from his left breast pocket. "That's why I'm here, in fact. I could have chosen anyone – any prisoner in this place - to investigate the contents of the Byzantium, but if we are dealing with one of the Winged Assassins, we're going to need someone with a lot to lose."
"Oh?" River Song raised her eyebrows. "And what makes you think I'm that someone?"
The Bishop lay the pen on the second sheet of paper and pushed them across the table together.
"For your assistance in this matter, Doctor Song, I have been granted the authority to award you a pardon."
She didn't pick the page up this time, but as River read through it, her jaw began to slacken. The criminal known as Stormcage Prisoner 187, Doctor River Song, is to henceforth be recognised as a ward of the Church...
"The Church values your skills as an archaeologist, and your military training – not to mention, your extensive connections and resources," the Bishop explained. "The first part of the mission is a simple infiltration, but make no mistake, Doctor: you are not being freed to break into a party. Goodness knows you do enough of that on your own. You'd be in it for the long haul, and if this turns out to be an Angel, we're going to need the equivalent of a whole Congregation on our side. If you can get us the manpower, I can get you your life back. Do we have a deal?"
River signed the contract with a flourish and beamed at Father Octavian as she pushed it back across the table.
"If you're that desperate to have me, I'll go you one better," she declared. "Get me my freedom, Father Octavian, and I'll bring you the equivalent of an army."
"Excellent."
The Director stiffly opened the door behind the Bishop as Father Octavian tucked the contract away. He kept his eyes locked on Prisoner 187, and she beamed back before turning, with a flick of her hips, and strutting towards the doorway on her own side.
"Doctor Song is now in my custody," the Bishop informed the Director. "I'll have her picked up in exactly one hour."
She could practically hear the Director's blood boiling. Still beaming, River half-turned back as she opened the door.
"I take it Stage One is Black Tie?"
The Director glared. Father Octavian nodded. River bobbed a curtsey and swept herself from the room. She had the perfect outfit in mind.