River broke her wrist, knowing from experience the pain to expect, and slipped her hand through the restraint. Within the space of a breath, she was free of her bonds and Kovarian's pale throat was in her grasp. River slammed the smaller woman down onto the exam table; the woman's head clanging against the cold metal as the restraints locked back into place.

"Oh, Melody," Kovarian giggled in a way that froze River's hearts even as her hand squeezed the breath from Kovarian, "Always a step behind," she wheezed.

As if on cue, River felt a gut wrenching pain shoot through her, doubling her over before sending her to her knees. Her eyes went wide as she slipped in the water spreading beneath her. Using the exam table to steady herself, she stood and met the momentarily triumphant gaze of Kovarian.

The pain radiating through River's body should have been crippling, instead it drove her, as if through action, she could escape it. A shame, she thought, she had wanted to take her time with Kovarian, but now she knew time was something she had precious little of. Escape and the safety of her child were more important than drawing out her revenge. Conveniently, they were in an operating theatre.

An unbelieving gasp was all the sound that accompanied Kovarian's demise; seemingly, with the flick of a broken wrist, the woman's entrails fell to the floor. "No resets this time," River spat at the woman through clenched teeth. The brown eyes that met River's were almost blank, so in shock was she. Even in that final moment, as the scalpel blade drew across her carotid, even as her own blood sprayed across the face of one she knew so well, Kovarian couldn't quite belive that it was her own creation that had killed her. In an instant, that moment River had longed for for centuries was her's and Kovarian was dead by her hand.

Escape, how and on what, were River's next thoughts. As she turned from the operating slab, a door on the other side of the room hissed open and two men in scrubs entered. A thrown scalpel to the eye took down the first, but the other managed to use his companion as a shield and ducked back behind the door, closing it before River could get to him. "Fuck!"

She was in labor, in a hospital gown, covered hrom head to toe in Kovarian's blood; an inconspicuous exit had never been on the books, but now, she was trapped. "You're River bloody Song," she scolded herself, "Come on!" Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the stark white walls, glassed in vieing room above her, and the solitary door which the man had just retreated behind. A door which she had to assume, led to a base of some kind which, if she was on it, must be heavily guarded. As another contraction took her breath away, she realized she had never felt less like River Song in her life.

"Breathe!" She yelled at herself, her voice echoing in the cavernous room as she staggered towards the door. An anguished cry broke from her as another contraction brought her to the blood soaked floor. It was too late. She could hear sounds beyond the door now; yelling and hurried footsteps.

River closed her eyes and felt a hot rush of tears on her cheeks. "Doctor, please," she whispered. It was the only prayer she'd ever known.

"Pathetic!" Really! Just pathetic!" Missy was shouting as they made their way through the tight halls of the base where River was being held.

Clara yelped and ducked for cover as a pulse blast fried a chunk of her hair. "I don't think that's helping!" She yelled at Missy. The unhinged Time Lady had a maniacal grin plastered on her face even as shots singed her clothing, even as one put a hole in the nest she called hair.

"I suppose it's too much to ask for a bit of a challenge!" Missy sniped as her wrist gadget fried another soldier.

The Doctor did not hear or feel a thing beyond the pounding of his hearts and the looping of his mind screaming his wife's name. River. She was here. This wasn't like last time; he knew his foe now, and himself, and he knew just what he was capable of to save the woman he loved, as evidenced by the Cybermen flanking him and the crazed Timelord beside him. Only days ago, he'd told River that he would have butchered worlds to save her, and he meant it.

He clutched at a wounded soldier's collar, "Where's my wife?" He yelled into the man's terrified face.

"I swear I don't know!" He sputtered.

The man distingrated in The Doctor's hands. Missy shrugged as he glared at her, "What?"

"Doctor!" Clara was grabbing at his arm, "Listen!"

Alarms and flashing lights had been blaring at them since their coterie had stepped from the TARDIS, but now there was a panicked voice. "All men to sector B! Prisoner has escaped!"

The Doctor smiled; River was alive.

There was an alarm blaring now. Prisoner escaped. They knew she was free, well, free-er. River braced as best she could for the fight she knew was coming, her hand instinctively reaching for the blaster that was not there.

She took the first man through the door down as soon as he crossed the threshold, ripping the gun from his hands and pulling the electrified baton from his belt. The second man received a jolt from the first's baton and a shot to the chest from the blaster. The jumble of bodies and pulse blasts gave River enough time to retreat behind the operating table; scant cover, but the only available to her.

The sounds of a fight exploded around them as the doors of the lift opened onto Sector B. The Doctor didn't wait, but bolted ahead towards the sounds of blaster fire. He didn't notice the soldiers ahead of him dissentegrate. He didn't feel the viselike grip on his arm trying to pull him back or the floor beneath him as he went down. What The Doctor saw was his wife, covered in blood, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a scream as the gun fell by her side.

He couldn't understand why he was no longer on his feet; he had to get to her. Missy's face suddenly blocked her from view. He tried to tell Missy to get out of the way; that he had to help River, but the other Timelord was holding him down.

Clara dropped to her knees beside him as well, her already large eyes massive. "Doctor! Don't move!"

"River!" His voice came out in a strangled whisper as his hand reached out, trying to push Clara away. Clara swung her head around and immediately was on her feet and running towards the blood soaked figure of the Doctor's wife.

River's feet were tangled in the pile of bodies she was attempting to clamber over and her balance gave way as Clara reached her. She fell heavily into the other woman's arms, almost dead weight that the smaller human couldn't lift. "River!" Clara needed to get her attention, the Doctor's wife was shouting, "No!" over and over again, clawing at Clara's arms in an attempt to reach her husband. "River!" Clara was shouting into her face, as close as she dared get. "Can you walk? I can't carry you!" River's grip on her suddenly tightened as an anguished cry broke from her. "Oh my god, River are you? Shit!" The gravity of the situation hit Clara; the Doctor was dead or dying and his wife was in labor while they were still in the midst of a battle on a space station.

"Missy!" Clara had at least managed to drag River to an open spot on the floor, but that was as far as she could go. The lady Timelord was ignoring her. "Missy!" She tried again.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Missy shot Clara a look that froze her to the core. She's going to kill us, Clara thought.

The Doctor was going into shock, muttering half incoherently, but he had seen the same look as Missy's eyes again found his; the maniacle rage that told him his wife's life was in even further danger. "No," he clutched at her collar, "please." The agony in his voice gave her pause.

Missy's nostrils flared in contempt, "She killed you," she spat through a clenched jaw.

The Doctor was shaking now, going cold beneath her. "You have to protect them, all of them," he emphasized.

Missy shook her head, "I will not!"

The Doctor's hands locked onto hers with the last of his strength, "Please, Missy, for me."

Missy released a feral scream that echoed through the cavernous room, but when her gaze met the Doctor's it was calm, resolved. "Alright."

TARDIS

Clara fell through the doors of the TARDIS into the cavernous halls of the Sisters of the Infinite Schism.

The doors of the TARDIS opened and Clara fell at the feet of a white veiled woman and terrified looking man; a gurney beside them at the ready. "Where's The Doctor?" The man demanded.

"He's dead," she whispered as a woman's scream came from behind her.

Clara couldn't remember the last time she slept, but if River was asleep, she was awake; it was a promise she'd made, and thus far kept. River hadn't wanted to rest, hadn't wanted to take her eyes off her peacefully sleeping daughter following her birth. No matter her exhaustion, no matter the doctors' insistence that her recovery depended upon her taking care of herself; nothing mattered to River but keeping her daughter safe.

"River, please," Clara had pleaded when the doctors suggested a sedative, "you have to try and rest. Kovarian is gone. You're safe. She's safe."

River's eyes were wild and her body had tensed as her grip tightened on the infant in her arms, "No, they'll take her from me!" The doctors worriedly watched the machines monitoring River. To say she'd been in bad shape when they found her, was putting it mildly, and now she'd given birth and gone without sleep for thirty-six hours.

Clara shifted tactics, "The Doctor's gone River," the sweetness was gone from her voice, "you're all she has now. If you die that's it. She's the Doctor and River Song's daughter alone in the universe! What will happen to her then?" Her words echoed in the stark hospital room and shook River from her exhausted mania.

"He trusted you," River said as the tension in her body relaxed incrementally, and Clara had no need to ask River who she had meant by "he". River held the little bundle in her arms towards Clara, "You saw what I did to Kovarian."

Clara winced at the memory as she gently took the baby from River, "Understood."

River's hand shot out to grip her arm, "No," she said, her eyes cold and menacing, "I'll do worse to you. I'll take my time." The Doctor would have understood River's terror at the thought of losing not just her daughter, but that last tether to her humanity.

Clara nodded her head, "I swear I won't shut my eyes. I'll be right here."

River released her grip on Clara but watched her as she moved to let the doctors near.

River clawed her way through the layers of dream and sleep to consciousness in a panic; someone was in the room. Her hearts thundered in her ears as her eyes fastened on the stranger holding her daughter. The blue eyes beneath the severe brows locked with hers and her breath caught; they were regarding her with such love and delight that his identity could have been mistaken for no other.

"Hello, Sweetie," he whispered, and River gulped in a lungful of air as tears welled in her eyes.

'But how? Aren't there rules?" She asked as the tall lean figure strolled towards her, daughter cradled in his arms.

He smiled and sat on the edge of the bed, "A thing happened."

River smirked and ran her fingers through the thick grey curls; this new one was going to be a handful, "Well, I bet it probably did."