Reaching the doors and setting down there shoes, The trio weren't laughing now, just smileing and panting lightly. All three of them glowing slightly in the early afternoon heat. "Are you sure he'll let us in here?" Asked River looking around at all the gold, just as Sky had done when she first saw the vast globe encasing them.
"Oh sure!" Said Sky, beating The Doctor who had opened his mouth too speak, "We're best friends now!" She giggled and strolled past The Doctor and River and into the room.
The Doctor offered River his hand, which she took,
"When you say he tells the truth...?" River began to question.
"He tells the truth!" The Doctor cut her off and pulled her into the room. They were greeted by the same sight at Sky and The Doctor had seen before. Shah was sat in the same chair, with the same vacant expression on his face and his glaring eyes which were staring at the ground, wide and focused on something unseen by the other three people in the room. It was Sky who took to the the centre of the room, staring at Shah, knosing exactly what she wanted too say to him this time, "Hello!" She almost shouted.
Shah blinked, looking around the room with an expression which clearly showed he had thought he was alone in the room, "Oh hello again!" He called back as they all walked closer, River still clutching the hand of The Doctor nervously, "I was expecting you!" He glanced at River, "Oh hello... Erm..." He frowned, "You prefer River I ashume?" She nodded once, in shock and terror that this man could even exsist.
Sky turned and mouthed quieter than a whisper, "It's okay, he's a bit... Odd at first..." She then directed to The Doctor and mouthed "It's all yours..."
The Doctor released River who nervously stood alone, and went to join Sky then spoke clearly to Shah, "Right! So last night when we spoke i didn't really see much of what you can do, maybe you could aid us by..." The Doctor trailed off, distracted by the smirking face of Shah. He wasn't even looking at The Doctor, but right at River. River wasn't scared of Shah. She wasn't scared at all. In fact she wasn't scared by most things. Well, only one thing... But it wasn't him. She strode forward strongly and spoke loudly "Why are you looking at me like that?"
He laughed lightly, almost without making a noise, "Congratulations." Was all that he said with a blank expression on his face, his voice deep and meaning.
Rivers eyebrows tightened into a frown, "Congratulations for what?"
Sky's weight shuffled nervously as she looked back and forth between the three people in the same room as her, taking everything in.
Shah then said "I'm afraid I cannot digress..."
"Then why say it?" River replied her words full of anger. Suddenly feeling hot and flustered at Shah's words, making sure too keep her calm as too find out as much as she can about him.
"Because you will find out soon enough... Without my help..." This could only end badly. If Shah continued to refuse River then she would surely find a different way to find out what he meant,
"The Doctor tells me you tell people the truth..." River said calmly,
"He is correct."
River's mouth contorted into an all too familiar smirk, "Then tell me something about me..."
"Anything..?" He asked, almost menacingly.
Sky interupted, "No. Not anything." Sky recognised... 'Congratulations'. That meant something to her, but she wasn't going to let River find out that she knew why. "Just tell her the things she already knows about..."
The Doctor had moved slowly around the scene for some time now, clearly not listening but paying attention too other things instead, to him River's truth was the diversion for something deeper.
"Okay..." Shah paused to think, "Your married... Your real name is Melody Pond, daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams... You are currently in storm cage, under the close gaurding, with some particular trouble from the religious race called the silence and a woman called Madame Kovarian. You are doing time for the murder of The Doctor which happened in a universe where time stood still and which no longer exists, which makes you question your own marital status but you would never dream of telling anyone that becuase you will always want to believe that its true..." River gawped at him, speechless for the first time in her life. Only a few seconds passed before she regained herself and spoke, "Partly true sweetie..."
"Oh and I forgot..."
"Yes?" River raised a disbelieveing eyebrow.
"Someone is watching you... And after all this time, they have still not forgiven you. They are not likely too until the very end of their time, which is so close now, even they fear it." River looked immediately at The Doctor, who had stopped looking around the room and was now looking directly at River, he was shaking his head slowly and mouthed, "Always forgiven..."
River turned to Shah, disbelevingly "Who? The Doctor? For..." They both winced at the thought. They both knew they were both remembering the all too recent events by the side of Lake Silencio.
River looked back at Shah as he answered,"No, someone much closer to you heart."
A wave of relief went through River and she remembered The Doctor's words on that endless non-exictant day. Then as she turned too see The Doctors face, her relief turned to anger, as she realised what Shah was saying.
Shah's answer only brought fear to The Doctor's body, like a shock of electricity, his hearts seemed to stop beating. He felt empty. There was someone closer to the heart of River than he was. River was the one thing in his life he had ever been completely sure of, and now, someone who didn't know a thing about her, was telling her the truth, and more. More than he could ever tell her or even know... Hurt and confused The Doctor could feel his hearts racing, pounding inside his chest. He looked wide-eyed and teary at River. How could something be closer to her heart than he was?
She had fixed her eyes too Shah once more, and when she spoke her jaw was fixed in place her eyes not sparkling now, but a stone cold murky colour, "There is no-one that means more to me than him. No-one, not even my own life isas important to me as he is. He's everything to me, there is no closer to my heart. There never will be! Its him and thats it!" She paused and breathed, then spoke with a voice filled with venom, "Your not a truth teller, your a liar."
Sky had been listening and feeling the tension in the room, not knowing where to look or what to say, if anything. She decided too look at the ground and try to listen too as much as possible.
The Doctor dryed his eyes and walked over to River, taking her hand. She didn't look at him nor did he expect her too, but her hand grasped his tightly to thank him. There was a moment of recognition, of understanding between the pair that no matter what anyone said or what anyway did, The Doctor and River would always love eachother, beyond the stars outside of Galaxies and across the whole of time their love for eachother would reach place's no person had even thought to reach. Everyone in the room could feel that from just that one move.
Shah stared at them still grinning comfortably, there was a beat of silence and Sky could feel the tension hanging in the air as River and Shah continued to lock eyes, "I have never lied. Nor do I intend to."
Shah's words made River stand streight with anger as she replied, "Then tell me... Who stands closer than The Doctor." She felt him wince at her side when she asked the question. "I think, if i'm not mistaken, that this person is someone from your future, who you've met only once, and is very much a young person in your present, whom you care for even now, without even realising it..." At his words The Doctor saw in the corner of his eye Sky fall to the floor.
Looking over fully at her, she appeared to have fainted. "Sky?" He shouted, releasing Rivers hand without thinking and rushing to her aid. River closely followed, unhooking her scanner from her belt and kneeling down beside the unconsious Sky. The Doctor lifted her head from the ground and tapped her cheek lightly, "Sky. Sky!" She stirred lightly leaning into The Doctor. "River what's wrong with her...?"
She shook her head, "Nothing according too this..."
The Doctor took her head with both hands and shook it lightly and said softly, "Sky?"
She stirred, opening her eyes limply and blinking. Looking around her she remembered what had just happened, "Wh- Did I faint?"
The Doctor nodded, "Are you okay?" Sky placed both hands on the floor and pushed herself up, The Doctor moved both his hands to support Sky and looked at River, who was staring at Shah. River stood up slowly, moving as though an invisible weight was pulling her to the ground. The Doctor held Sky in his arms, shifting his weight to watch River as she almost ran across the temples golden floor towards Shah, who was still staring at her with a calm expression on his face.
This seemed to anger River even more as she quickly assended the steps two at a time, by the time she had reached Shah she was breathing heavily, not from exhastion but from anger, "Now, you listen too me. Your being controlled by an alien race called The Silence. They are messing with your head and making you think you know everything. But your far from the truth teller. You don't know a single thing about anyone, that's something no-one ever considered about you. You inhumanity. Your just a host body for the real demons that have ruined my life, I will not let them ruin anyone else's. Especially not someone i am close too, Do you understand?"
Shah seemed to chuckle at her, like he was listening but to something completely different to what Sky and The Doctor had heard. After a beat of hearing nothing but Rivers deep angry breathing Shah said calmly "Nothing I have said is a lie, someday someone will mean more too you than he does. And you've met them... They are already a huge part of your life, and soon they will impart a great wisdom and you will understand them more as a human being. As for my so called inhumanity, i have been fully asured that whatever that maybe, i am fully human."
Sky could feel her head pounding as she slipped in and out of consiousness in The Doctors arms. She caught snippets of the conversation and could feel The Doctor moving something, and the strange wirring noise she recognised as the sonic. "He must be trying to fix me..." She thought as she closed her eyes against a blinding light. This wasn't the first time Sky had fainted like this, but they were happening less now. Whenever she was given too much time too think, she fainted.
River couldn't believe what Shah was saying, "I've met him...?"
Shah laughed quietly, "I never said it was a man..."
The Doctor looked at Shah with a surprised expression on his face, still holding Sky he flicked off the sonic.
River raised both eyebrows and said, "What?"
"It's not a man..."
"I fall in love with a woman..." She said the sentence breathlessly and quietly, almost trying to hide it from the rest of the room.
The Doctor smirked still looking at Shah, shifting his weight slightly to get a good veiw of the scene, knowing that no matter how much he believed everything Shah was saying was true, it was deffinately not true, even though a cheeky part of him inside wished it was true.
"I never mentioned love either. River Song you twisted my words..."
River thought for a moment, "You said they would be much closer to my heart..."
"Exactly..."
"Then who!" She shouted, jumping as her own voice echoed through the temple, causeing her hair to bounce.
"I believe you call them spoilers..." It wasn't Shah who had spoken, it was Sky. Without The Doctor knowing she had gotten up off the floor, without The Doctor's knowledge and was now standing in the middle of the temple.
River turned and saw her. Shocked more by her sudden apperance rather than her remembering of 'spoilers', "What?"
"Oh... Sorry Shah wasn't that what you were going to say?"
Shah nodded, he was grinning from ear to ear now.
The Doctor slowly got up off his knees and looked around the room at them all, "Sky... Are-Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" She nodded standing with her hands on her hips, more confidently than she ever had.
"Then what's happened too you...?" River said, turning on the balls of her feet too fully face Sky. Seeing that she too was beaming, almost mirroring the expression of Shah.
"I don't know..." She shrugged looking almost through River as she eye-balled Shah restraining herself from laughing.
Shah spoke from behind River, who had moved out of the way so that Sky and Shah's eyes met, "Sky..." He was calling her name rather than asking a question, "Why don't you just tell them...?" Sky's face dropped from matching Shah's face to one of pure horror, "Tell... Them... Now?"
Shah shrugged, "Why not?"
Sky looked at The Doctor and River's scared looking faces, "How?"
"With words..." The Doctor said.
Sky stuttered, "I... Ca-Can't"
"Yes you can..." River nodded, "What's stopping you?"
Sky slowly shook her head, "You are..."
Shah slumped into his chair, smirking, knowing what was happening.
"Me?" Asked The Doctor.
"No, not you" Said Sky, who then looked at River, "Just you..."
"What are you talking about?" River moved quickly down the steps and stood where Sky was standing, right in front of her face, "You know you can tell me a anything..." She said quietly, holding both of Sky's hands.
The Doctor too moved to stand by the side of them and said, "Sky..."
A scared look was etched across Skys face, "Anything is exactly what i can tell you. But I can't tell you everything..."
"Why?" River asked quietly.
"Becuase i'm scared."
"Of what?" The Doctor asked as he moved in closer to comfort her.
"Of what you might think of me..."
River squeezed her hands to comfort her, without any one saying anthing Sky continued, "I'm..." Sky sighed, "I'm from your... Future..." River dropped her hands as Sky continued to speak, "I'll save your life... And..." Sky trailed off at the strange look on The Doctor's face. It wasn't strange too look at, but strange because he was smiling.
River turned away too look at The Doctor and frowned at the look on his face, "What?" She asked and The Doctor continued to smile.
Sky looked between them both as The Doctor whispered to Sky, "You save my life?"
Sky nodded slowly, "Yeah... Well I save both your lives..."
They were both whispering now, as River joined in the whispering, "My life too..."
Sky continued to nod, "Yes..."
"When? Why? And how could we be mad at you for that?"
Sky opened her mouth too speak but The Doctor interupted, "She's not going too tell you that..."
"Why not?" Rivers voice raised slightly from the whisper it had been before.
Sky then asked, "River... Do you remember all those things you wanted too tell The Doctor but couldn't because you knew something bad would happen if you did...?" River nodded slowly as she continued, "That's exactly how this is for me..." Sky took hold of Rivers hands this time and said, "I can't tell you, because its my past and your future. It has to be lived, not told." River looked wide-eyed into Sky's, knowing that she would have only have been told those words by one person. And it wasn't The Doctor. River half smiled, "So how much can you tell us?"
Sky smiled back shaking her head, "Not much..."
The Doctor whispered at their side, "That's still something though right... Something that will help?"
Sky took a deep breath and said, "Promise me you won't hate me...?"
River and The Doctor frowned, shocked. "Why would we hate you?"
River said. "Just... Tell us..." "
Okay..." She released Rivers hands and looked into The Doctor's eyes, "You will have heard the first part of this... And not told River..." River gave The Doctor a dissapproving frown then rolled her eyes and then listened to Sky as she spoke again, "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked, question that must never, ever be answered." Sky's voice wavered at the look The Doctor was giving her, River had a silent tear rolling down her face, then Sky said the words that made her sure that there was nothing for River to cry over, nothing for her to be upset about... "But Doctor, Someone will speak for you."