Notes: Hello everyone! I apologise deeply for the delay - RL has been a bit intense lately, both in uni and in work. Meanwhile I've started Camp NaNo and finishing this fic is definitely part of that project - there are only two or three chapters to go now, depending on whether I opt for an epilogue or not. This chapter mainly serves its purpose in the last few paragraphs, to be entirely honest, but it does serve a purpose for tying things together with canon eventually, so there's that.
Hope you guys enjoy it and, as always, feel free to let me know what you think! ^^
Even with River's makeshift temperature-adjusting protective layer above them still in place, it was easy for the Doctor to tell that it was significantly warmer when she next opened her eyes. It wasn't her only observation upon waking up, but it was, surprisingly enough, the easiest one to tackle and she reached out with her senses until she'd found the source. Another time shift.
They'd already experienced one while she'd been here. It had been an unsettling experience – the entire city had travelled about two days into the past and even though no one but them had felt it, watching people go through the motions of things they had already done wasn't a sight she wanted to ever lay her eyes on again. It was one thing to see people disappear and age and die because of the way the Weeping Angels worked, but another thing entirely to see it in motion when it was this warped and even more unnatural than she would have usually deemed it.
But this was different. For one, they'd definitely moved into the future from what she could tell. They'd moved through a much greater period of time, too, which had managed to disturb just about every internal sensor she had.
River, on the other hand, was taking it all in stride – not much of a surprise. Being a little bit of a paradox herself must have been helpful, the Doctor thought, although it was difficult to determine – as per usual, her wife wasn't too eager to open up in front of anyone, least of all people she was only cautiously starting to be fond of.
"Oh, it's happened a couple of times," she waved her off once the Doctor had voiced her concerns and decided to ask whether this was a frequent occurrence or not. "Nothing to be afraid of, from what I've gathered. You just need to be somewhat used to time travel, I think. As long as you're aware of it, things go pretty smoothly."
"And if you're not?" She wouldn't be affected either way, of course, but the unease in her voice had nothing to do with keeping up her cover. This city was enormous. Despite all the time she'd already spent here, she hadn't been able to see it all, but it had still been enough for her to realise that millions of people lived in it. If they just vanished every few months—
"You'd still be safe for the most part." They'd made their way back to River's flat and she started rummaging through her piles of barely used technology, flashing her yet another mildly patronising smile as if worrying about time jumps entirely out of your control was the least of her troubles and a minor annoyance at best. Knowing her, it might just have been true, especially at this point in her life. "Even on a larger scale, the Angels affect any living creatures in their immediate surroundings before they do it to anyone else. Random disappearances in a city like this one aren't unheard of; in fact, they can be a part of the scenery sometimes. The Angels have more intuition than any real thought processes, but even the most basic predators have enough sense to know where they won't be stopped." She took another look at her device, seemingly still lost in thought. "April the 2nd, 1938. Ah, it could've been much worse, you know."
It could have been, the Doctor knew. It didn't stop a chill from running down her spine.
It could have been such a simple statement and if the date had been any other, the Doctor knew that she would have been relieved. They'd moved forward in time and not by that much, either. It was vastly preferable to turning back but it was also far, far too close for comfort.
One day. She only had one day to find a way out of this mess before her own past self arrived here. How was she supposed to handle this in one day?
"There's no need to panic," River reminded her, still gentle if a bit tentative, as if she wasn't too used to offering the sort of comfort needed when you've accidentally travelled several months into the future in your sleep. "If your crew is caught in the in-between in the way everyone else until now has been and they haven't ended up anywhere else instead, they'll be fine. Chances are, they haven't even noticed the shift, much less been stuck on the slow path for it."
"If," the Doctor stressed, terrified to realise that her fear had very little to do with her team. It was a rather convenient cover story when compared to the crushing realisation of how quickly their time was running out and she was willing to keep it going for as long as needed. She'd accepted a long time ago that this was all she would get – loving her and worrying for her from afar, only voicing what she felt when River had done it first. It was a long, painstaking game, given how closed off her wife tended to be to any sort of communication that wasn't either directly related to whatever mission she'd given herself or forced upon her in some way. She had always hoped to slowly ease her into it over the years but had never quite managed it – even in her very last moment, half-woman, half-ghost in the Doctor's arms on Trenzalore, she had still preferred to listen to his voice as the essence of her slipped away. It had always been an easier way out when compared to putting herself in the vulnerable position instead.
River's expression had morphed into a strange mix of exasperation and concern. Even now, fully unaware of the identity of the woman in front of her, she still managed to read her like an open book. It really should have been less of a surprise by now, the Doctor thought bitterly.
"We will find them," she vowed now, stepping closer and letting one of her hands rest on the Doctor's shoulder, her hold firm enough to surprise anyone else into conviction. While she was by no means fragile, people tended to underestimate the kind of power she could yield when she really wanted to. "Everything about the plan stays the same, right?" She didn't wait for a response, clearly used to taking charge in similar situations. The Doctor had started to wonder how often she had done this, exactly, and this was the first time it brought out something other than pride in her. It wasn't fair – River was here on a job, she reminder herself, and what she had or hadn't done in the long months of it were supposed to be a page of their combined history that the Doctor had closed a long time ago, but the sudden bouts of intimacy so far had brought both desperate need and a distant, bizarre sort of jealousy. "We go in, we see what we can find about this Angel – it seems to be one of the most powerful ones in the city and if their network is growing stronger, it might be the catalyst for that. Best case scenario: we take them all down. Worst case scenario: we get caught, I have to kill my way out of a crime boss's house and then find your crew. However we look at this, it's our only choice."
"I know." When she'd presented their case like this, it was impossible to argue with her – it always had been. The Doctor let out a defeated sigh. It was rather relaxing, in a way, knowing what all their options were, even if the number of said options could be contained on the fingers of one hand. Plus, capability of rewriting time notwithstanding, the chances of either of them losing their lives here, whether to death or to being forced back into the past, were really rather slim. Trusting River had been suspiciously easy since the very start no matter how much she'd fought it, but by now, it was a given. "I know. I'm not doubting you, it's just— it's been months. This entire city is one small chunk of a small planet and it's not going to be strong enough to withstand a continuing paradox for long. The more things fall out of rhythm with the outside world, the more disappearances will happen, am I right?"
She knew she was, but it was still worth asking – both for her cover story and to catch River off guard; to get the chance to surprise her while also seeing how impressed she was by the observation. The matters of time and space weren't an easy topic for some of the greatest minds in the Universe and while her wife had always accepted it as part of the picture when she'd been around the Doctor before, it felt different through a supposed stranger's eyes.
"Yes, of course," River encouraged. She'd taken off her coat and was working on the elaborate buttons of the side of her dress absently as she headed into her room. It was rather warm, the Doctor thought grimly, which would doubtlessly mean yet another wardrobe change to go with their most recent plan. "That's why I plan on putting an end to it. That, and it's at least somewhat likely at this point that I'm actually immune to them. If there's one person who could do anything about it, it's me. I'm almost certain my Vortex Manipulator is perfectly capable of surviving another time shift; if I do get caught in the limbo somehow, I can sort things out from there."
Loving the almost, River had said to her centuries into the past and a little over a day into the future, but this time, the sentiment wasn't entirely shared. It wasn't that the Doctor didn't want to trust her, really, but the doubt had still managed to creep in. "You think you'll somehow get yourself out."
"No," River conceded. She had no reason to hold back – as far as she was aware, the possibility of her getting stuck, torn between the fabric of time and space, wouldn't be a cause for much grief when it came to her client. "I think I'd be able to tell everyone who matters what happened to me and that's about it. Even I'm not selfish enough to hint where I am and let anyone else get trapped in an attempt to save me, but it'll give me just the time I need to say goodbye."
Oh, but this was so much like her wife; breaking the Doctor's heart with a smile on her face. "You could be going to your death."
"Could be." River had clearly lost interest in the conversation in favour of browsing through her wardrobe instead. "I guess we're about to find out."
As much as she tried to stifle it, the spark of anger had found its way into the Doctor's voice. "And the prospect doesn't bother you, does it? Not at all?"
"Oh, no, I'm terrified." The grin she got in return was as sincere as it was manic. It had been a rather stupid question – she'd never feared anything more than she did another prison. She drew something out from in-between the elaborate outfits inside; dark and shimmery and altogether too familiar. "Wait here; I need to get dressed."
It took approximately three more hours for River to do her hair again, fiddle with the dress and coat to her hearts's content and then pick out the shoes she wanted. The Doctor wasn't used to waiting too long with no clear result in sight to begin with, but by the time they left, she was almost entirely sure she'd done it with the sole purpose of driving her insane. There could be no other excuse for this amount of effort going into something so mundane, and she said so as soon as they'd got into the car that River had picked today.
"Nothing of the sort, dear," her detective informed her cheerfully as she glanced sideways, both at her and at the interactive navigation tool she'd pinned to the windscreen. "Clothes are a weapon just as much as anything else, I'll have you know." Her smile had turned far too smug for it to bring anything good and it would have filled the Doctor with the usual fond exasperation she felt at witnessing her wife's antics if it hadn't been for the fact that she knew this particular weapon of hers better than she would have liked to. With River, any piece of clothing was a weapon, there was no denying that, but this? The Doctor had never really forgotten about this one.
The fine material of the dark skirt and the coarse leather of the shimmering corset above paired with the coat she'd picked, all of it clearly unsuited for their mission but ever so typical for River and her urges to fully commit to whatever asinine disguise she'd picked this time, had caught the Doctor's eye the moment he had seen them on the cover of a detective novel that he'd found in his pocket and then, only a few immeasurable hours later, in person too. Both of those instances had made him feel like he was falling in love with her for the first time all over again. River had never worn the dress after that day and perhaps she was right – it was a weapon and a reminder all wrapped into one, nearly far too dangerous to be worth the awe. Nearly.
Taking a fleeting look at her doubtlessly admiring, if a little devastated, expression, her wife ventured, "I can teach you to appreciate that, if you'd like."
The Doctor scoffed before she could help herself. She'd read the description River had given of herself in the book she'd later use as a guide – despite it being nothing but a short sketch of who the unsuspecting reader had on their hands, the sort of confidence oozing off of it had been just as hypnotising in words as it was now, right in front of her.
"I'm not sure I'll ever be as good at it as you are."
Well, she wasn't being entirely sincere. She was sure she could never be on River's level when it came to the finer points of staying under the radar and still managing to show yourself off as much as possible. It was what had drawn her to the job of a detective, the Doctor supposed – moving silently through the shadows while still somehow shining brighter than anyone else had always been one of her wife's biggest strengths. She clearly revelled in everything around her – the glamour, the mystery, even a bit of the misery that reigned around them. It was the kind of world that she'd spent her entire life in; if nothing else, at least it was familiar.
"There aren't many places in the Universe that would require you to be as good as me." From anyone else, it would have been terribly immodest, but River, with her attention switching between the Doctor, the road, and one of her many radars, had made it sound almost soothing. "Not unless you're in the same business as me, that is. What is it that you and your crew do, exactly? You never said."
"Oh, it's just exploring." This was an easy one, at least. A lot of the still-underdeveloped planets across the Cosmos, Earth included, had only barely started being aware of the enormity of the space they were spinning madly into and were ever so eager to expand their horizons. Gallifrey, by the time the Doctor had been young enough to decide what he wanted to do with his life, had already been rather bored by the concept, backed up by the confidence of having mapped up every star and planet and species ever born, but that had never been particularly discouraging – not when the Doctor was still proving them wrong to this day every time she stumbled onto something new. "That's all I ever do, really."
"It's always exciting, living in a world that's still in that stage." River's agreement, encouraging at a first glance, was rather brittle. "Earth has plenty of those milestones still to come and it's shaped so much of their history. I, in particular, have always had an interesting relationship with the Moon."
"Their history?" The Doctor echoed. It shouldn't draw much attention, she thought: Joan Smith would have been confused and she herself was painfully curious. Oh, River had talked about her years on Earth, of course; every time she'd been made to stay or had purposefully been looking for something, up to and including her parents. It had always been detached, almost careless, as if she'd never considered it a home and the Doctor had refrained from asking, well aware of how confusing and traumatic a lot of it had been. Now, under the guise of a clueless stranger, it felt a little easier to probe, armed with the knowledge that River wouldn't feel obligated to speak. "I thought you said you'd grown up here."
"I did." Her wife's focus had very carefully diverted to the city in front of them and nothing else, as if she feared that a glance in the wrong direction could be enough to make her reveal more than she intended to. "In more ways than one; more times than one. It's really very—" Her grip on the steering wheel had turned resolute enough to look painful. "—complicated."
Perhaps this wouldn't be as guilt-free as the Doctor had hoped, after all. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"You see, it's not that I don't," River confided, a quick glance in her general direction backing up the truth behind it. "It's just that no one would ever understand it, not even the— forget that, I barely understand it and I've had more years than you can imagine to try and do just that. You saw what time does to me."
The Doctor wasn't entirely sure if a response was required, but she nodded all the same. She had seen more than she'd expected to by now – and on more than one occasion, no less – and wasn't likely to forget it anytime soon, if ever. Her wife's wide, unfocused eyes as the Universe raced through her mind was a terrifying sight, beautiful and fascinating as it was, and all the times she'd told her how much she admired her for handling the way her mind worked suddenly didn't feel adequate. It had happened so many times with two – three, now – different faces and it still wasn't enough, but that was always the problem with them, wasn't it? There was never enough time. It was as ridiculously stupid as it was heartbreaking.
River shrugged, as if she could hear her thoughts and had decided to respond with her usual infuriating acceptance. "It's the same with my memories. There's the real world and the world of nightmares and they're the same thing. I have memories I'm almost entirely sure aren't real, ones I wish were, and ones I dread the possibility of. Every time I look back, I can see all the ways time could have changed; every single line diverting from the choices I – or, more frequently, someone else – made. So yes," she said at least, the corner of her mouth lifting in a semblance of a smile, "I did grow up on Earth. I know it better than almost anyone actually living here could ever explore it, but that's not— I've never felt particularly welcome here. My home is light years away."
It wasn't all that far, really, the Doctor wanted to reassure her. Her home would only arrive in twenty-four hours in a blaze of near-explosions and the fraying matter of time already surrounding them. But there would have been no way for Joan Smith to be aware of any of this and in the end, it was only the sound of River's voice that stopped her from doing something incredibly stupid.
"Speaking of home," she said, tapping the scanner where the radio should have been with an impatient gesture, "I think I'm finally picking up on yours. It's just slightly outside the bubble of this temporal spot, so if there's any hope of getting to your ship, this must be it."
She should have been happy, the Doctor knew. Her team was out there, dealing with this entire situation stars knew how while she sat down here, prolonging her stay as much as possible and playing into her wife's detective novel of a life, desperately hoping to never have to let go. Forget happy, she should have been guilty.
All she could bring herself to be was afraid.
In the end, it all boiled down to her allowing this to go on for far too long. She should have told her who she was ages ago, right at the very start. It would have been so easy to wipe her memory afterwards, but she'd been too unwilling to inflict upon her what so many others had before; too wrapped up in love and hope to see that there had never been any other way. It had been absurd, even imagining that she could get the chance for another collision of their timelines and, hand in hand with it, another goodbye that wouldn't feel quite as final as all the others that had come before it. Absurd and pointless and all the more painful in the end, and she should have—
"Miss Smith?" River's voice was gentle and there was a note of concern to it now. They were in the outskirts of the city again, the Doctor noticed, rows of warehouses lining on either side of the road as they approached their destination, and her wife nodded towards the navigation once again. "Are you seeing this? You're going home."
"I know." Despite the – rather pathetic, really – attempt at a smile, the response came out too strangled to sound anything other than tortured. She couldn't breathe and that wasn't too much of a problem, typically, even if it certainly felt like it now. "I know, it's just—"
Much to her gratitude, River had stopped paying her any mind in favour of the increasingly louder beeping coming from her machinery. She watched it with a frown, adjusting the settings with her free hand, to no avail. "How big is your ship, exactly?"
"That's, er." She couldn't do this. She never had been fully capable of facing the fact that their time was coming to an end, no matter how often it had happened, and now was no different. "Big, I suppose, if you compare it to a lot of other vessels. It's all a bit relative, you know."
"I'll say," River muttered, her expressive eyes widening just a moment later as she fiddled some more. "I'm sorry, I think I got it wrong. There's no way— this isn't your ship."
She wasn't going to cry, the Doctor thought resolutely. Whether the impulse had been provoked by disappointment or relief or frustration, she wasn't sure, but it was very definitely there and she couldn't give in now.
"You just said it couldn't be anything else."
"Well, I was wrong." River had taken a swift turn into a dimly-lit alley and slammed the brakes so quickly that it sent the Doctor lurching forward in her seat. "This is better."
"Oi!" She was already out of the car and therefore at least somewhat immune to the outrage that followed, but the Doctor made a show of it all the same. "There's nothing better than my ship."
"We'll see about that once I get this one to find the way to yours," River quipped with a brand new spring in her step, her stolen screwdriver hastily pointed towards the door in front of her. The building was clearly in use, if somewhat derelict, and it gave little resistance. "It seems to be in the same kind of stasis that I was thinking that your ship might— well, never mind, I'll know as soon as I manage to get on board."
"Miss Malone," the Doctor warned, eyes already locked onto the Angel in the middle of the room. It had been used as a centrepiece for a while, it seemed, although it was bound in too many ropes now to suggest anything but paranoia on its owner's side.
"Oh." River's face brightened as she looked up from her scanner, finally clocking in on her dubious prize. "There you are. Okay," she added, shoulders set as she strode towards it, "Let's get down to business."
Right. Giving into the Angel's affect to have a look into its power source had been the plan since the start, just as the Doctor's own plan had been to somehow prevent it from happening. As well as underestimating River's technology enough to not realise that it would recognise the TARDIS, she had thought that she would get some more time to think of something, but then again, wasn't that usually the case?
"No," she said, soldiering on despite the overly loud exasperated sigh that followed from River's direction. She stepped forward blindly, reaching out for her wife's hand without taking her eyes off of the statue. "You can't. Whatever it is that you've seen, whoever you think is coming, it isn't worth the risk."
"How would you know?" River wasn't even a little bit phased, it seemed, and the hint of curiosity in her voice was the only thing the Doctor could hold on to. It would have to be enough.
"It couldn't possibly be. If the Angel kills you—"
"I told you, they can't do that." For someone marching forward without any semblance of a direction, River sounded awfully confident. She had tested this before, she'd said so herself and perhaps it did work like that – the Angel back in the house where the Doctor had landed would land tomorrow hadn't harmed her and at the time he'd assumed that it lacked the strength and even if there was more to it, it was still insane to risk it all to a flimsy theory and no backup plan. It wasn't that River wanted to end up stuck, she knew; it was that she preferred getting stuck in the TARDIS rather than the endless void that could await her if she wasn't sent into the past, but the thought did nothing to warm her hearts when so much was at stake. "Not to me. I'm almost entirely sure and—"
"Almost entirely sure is not enough!"
That made her look up, the Doctor thought with a surge of perverse satisfaction. Yelling usually did the trick with River even when nothing else would. She looked startled, but it had had the desired effect – for now, at least, she'd stopped and the Doctor had been just about ready to keep talking when her wife stepped closer again, her eyes as well as her hold where their hands were connected even more determined than before. The Doctor blinked away from the Angel and sure enough, it didn't move – it was far too restricted to do anything of the sort, but if either of them touched it—
"I want you to listen to me," River started, voice stony and careful and nearly loving all at once. "The machine caught up there is the most powerful ship ever created. If the Angels find a way to corrupt and exploit that, this entire planet – this entire system, possibly – could implode in on itself. I've seen a similar thing happen before, I've lived through it and I never want to experience it again." I'm sorry, my love. The memory was as stark in the Doctor's mind as the impression of it she could feel from River's mind. For someone like her, a time loop must have been the most terrifying thing that the Universe had to offer. "If I'm right, I'm too complicated for any Angel to hurt me. If I'm wrong, I might still end up where I need to be and get us both home. Don't you want to go home, Miss Smith?"
I'm already home. "Not if it costs you your life. To tell you the truth, there's nothing in the whole wide Cosmos that costs as much as that. Not me, not the ship you're chasing, nothing."
"Why do I always end up with people like you on my hands?" If she wanted it to be an admonishment, it hadn't quite worked. River seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaning in, lightning fast, and kissing her so briefly that the Doctor barely had the chance to chase after her once she was gone. It didn't do much good – her wife was keeping her at an arm's length, just like usual. It seemed to be her modus operandi for near-death experiences and even after so many years, it never failed to leave her feeling like she could have done more. More to convince her, more to keep her safe, more to save her from herself – more of everything they could get for themselves before their time ran out. "It's a good thing that it's no one else's choice to make, then. Tell you what, if I end up where I think I will, I might not be needing this anymore; not in the near future, that is. You've watched me work with it long enough to know how to get yourself back to your ship in case I don't manage it and bring it back to me." As the Doctor watched, eyes wide with horror, she started unclasping the Vortex Manipulator from her wrist. "If I'm wrong – which, I have to tell you, is a very rare occurrence – you can be the one to save me. How about that?"
There was no point left in pretending. The Doctor neared her again, halting her hand when it was halfway through removing the device. Her free hand cupped River's cheek, bringing her closer, drawing her in like she hadn't been allowed until now, but— but River had kissed her. If nothing else, she could at least remember this – no matter what happened, her wife would always recognise pieces of her even if she hadn't allowed herself to see the whole picture; would always fall a little in love with what few shreds she could get her hands on."I don't want you to need saving."
"Me neither, but it does happen occasionally." River had leant into her touch slightly and, as much as the Doctor detested the thought, it felt painfully like a final moment of comfort for both of them. "If I'm lucky, I won't be alone. On the off chance that I am, I'll still try to come and get you, I promise."
She'd stepped closer to the Angel again, risking a look towards it, and the Doctor gravitated towards her again, unable to stay away. Her fingers her intertwined with River's, sliding under hers until she could reach for the controls while her wife kept herself occupied with trying to convince her. "That's not what it's about. It's not about me or my crew or any of—" She hadn't meant to admit that much – hadn't even meant to think it, considering how horrible it actually was – but there was nothing left to lose by now. "I can't let you go just like this."
"I'm sorry, darling." The endearment was nowhere near the usual condescending amusement that she bestowed it with upon strangers; instead, it had somehow managed to be both confused and sincere. "There's no other way. Even if it isn't about your ship – which it should be, from what you've told me – it is about this one. I can't let it or its inhabitants stay trapped. It doesn't matter what it costs me; it never has. And it really is my choice to make."
She would hate her for this for however long they had left, the Doctor thought as River turned towards the Angel again, their hands still clasped in one another. She'd hate herself for it for the rest of the same time if she left her friends alone for even a while longer, but the prospect wasn't enough to convince her not to set the coordinates she needed just as her wife reached for the outstretched beckoning arm of the statue.
"No," she said again, decisive enough to draw some of her attention despite River's determination to ignore her. She tended to operate like this – once she'd said goodbye, nothing could make her look back. Well, almost nothing. There had always been a loophole; one lone person in all the Cosmos that she would always respond to. It was about time the Doctor learnt how to abuse that. "I'm sorry, River, but it's really not."
The last thing she differentiated from the growing darkness crowding them in was the sight of River's eyes as she turned around, shining with an emotion she couldn't yet discern and a question she didn't get to ask as the Vortex swallowed them both.