A/N: Continuing on from the last chapter, we're now at "The Big Bang."
See first chapter for additional notes and disclaimers.
Chapter Eleven
River had lost count a long time ago of how many times she lived through the sequence. She kept opening the doors to nothing, watching the console explode, apologizing to the Doctor for letting him down.
Over and over and over. It was enough to make her mental.
And then the sequence finally changed. The Doctor appeared in the console, looking smug. "Hi, honey, I'm home!" he sang out.
Well, no reason for him to know how terrifying it had been to repeat that same loop so many times. He wanted banter; she'd give him banter. She checked her watch. "And what sort of time do you call this?"
They materialized back on the roof. "Amy!" River exclaimed happily. "And the plastic Centurion?" He looked familiar. Something niggled at the back of her brain.
"It's okay; he's on our side," the Doctor said cheerfully.
"Really? I dated a Nestene duplicate once... swappable head, it did keep things fresh." Ah, those early days after Berlin, before the Doctor had come to call and ruined her for other men. "Right then, I have questions. But number one is this... What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool," he proclaimed proudly.
River exchanged a glance with her mother. Amy might not know that she was her mother yet, but that didn't stop her from picking up on exactly what River wanted her to do. Amy grabbed the fez and tossed. River aimed and shot. Good-bye, fez.
They might have enjoyed the lighthearted moment a bit longer, but the Dalek chose that moment to show up. "Exterminate!"
"Run, run, move, move. Go! Come on!" the Doctor shouted. He used a satellite dish as a shield as they all scrambled back down the stairs. The Doctor sealed the hatch with his screwdriver. "It's moving away, finding another way in. It needs to restore its power before it can attack again. Now, that means we've got exactly-" he checked his watch "-four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity."
"How do you know?" Rory asked.
"Because that's when it's due to kill me."
That got River's attention. "Kill you? What do you mean kill you?"
But the Doctor was too busy trying to work out how the Dalek even existed...and how they could use that to save the rest of the universe.
Rory asked him to explain it again, and the Doctor obliged. "The box contains a memory of the universe, and the light transmits the memory. And that's how we're going to do it."
"Do what?" Amy wondered.
"Relight the fire. Reboot the universe. Come on!"
River saw Amy and Rory look at each other in confusion. She caught up to the Doctor. "Doctor, you're being completely ridiculous! The Pandorica partially restored one Dalek. If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how will it reboot the whole of reality?"
"What if we give it a moment of infinite power? Transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?"
River huffed. "Well, that would be lovely, dear, but we can't, because it's completely impossible."
"Ah, no, you see, it's not." He tapped her forehead. "It's almost completely impossible. One spark is all we need."
"For what?"
"Big bang two. Now listen..."
But River never got a chance to hear what was coming next. The Dalek had found them, and it fired. The Doctor went down.
River knelt next to him, ignoring Rory as he told her to get back, ignoring him as he fired at the Dalek and incapacitated it again. "Doctor. Doctor, it's me, River. Can you hear me? What is it? What do you need?"
But the Doctor used the vortex manipulator and disappeared. "Where did he go? Damn it, he could be anywhere."
Amy looked sick. "He went downstairs. Twelve minutes ago."
"Show me."
"River, he died," Amy said.
But suddenly the Dalek was restoring and Rory was saying that they needed to move. "You go to the Doctor. I'll be right with you," River said.
She wanted a word with that Dalek.
Amy and Rory left, and the Dalek gloated. "Systems restoring! You will be exterminated!"
River spoke coldly. "Not yet, your systems are still restoring. Which means your shield density is compromised." She took out her gun and adjusted the settings. "One Alpha Mezon burst through your eyestalk would kill you stone dead."
"Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's."
Stupid Dalek. "I'm River Song. Check your records again." She took aim.
And the Dalek was starting to get it. "Mercy!"
"Say it again."
Daleks didn't beg, but this one did. "Mercy!"
She bit off the words with icy precision. "One more time."
"Mercy!"
She looked it straight in the eye and fired.
###
River met back up with Amy and Rory as they were trying to figure out where the Doctor had gone. "But he was dead!" Amy insisted.
"Who told you that?" River asked.
"He did."
Oh, her poor mum, too young to know the truth. "Rule One: the Doctor lies."
They found the Doctor in the Pandorica. Amy realized that they'd been a diversion, keeping the Dalek occupied while the Doctor did what he needed to do here.
River looked around. "Reality's collapsing. It's speeding up. Look at this room. The displays are empty."
"Where did everything go?" Amy asked.
"History is being erased. Time is running out. Doctor, what were you doing? Tell us! Doctor?"
And the Doctor managed to get out, "Big...bang...two."
And it finally dawned on River what he had in mind. "The TARDIS is still burning. It's exploding at every point in history. If you threw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire…"
"Then what?" Amy wanted to know.
"Then let there be light. The light from the Pandorica would explode everywhere at once, just like he said."
"That would work? That would bring everything back?" Amy sounded hopeful now.
"A restoration field, powered by an exploding TARDIS, happening at every moment in history. Oh, that's brilliant. It might even work!" River pulled out the sonic screwdriver and ran it along the wires. "He's wired the vortex manipulator to the rest of the box."
"Why?"
"So he can take it with him. He's going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion."
###
River spoke with the Doctor briefly. She knew the ramifications of what the Doctor was going to do, even if Amy and Rory didn't yet.
But River was no longer the young, foolish girl she'd been on that pyramid. All of reality was in danger. And this time River was wise enough to let the Doctor fix it without any interference from her.
River walked up to her mother. "Amy...he wants to talk to you."
Amy knew enough to be scared. "So, what happens here? Big Bang Two? What happens to us?"
River hid her wince. "We all wake up where we ought to be. None of this ever happens, and we don't remember it."
If only it were that simple. River wasn't actually sure what "waking up where she was supposed to be" would even look like in her case.
Amy still clung to hope. "River...tell me he comes back, too."
"The Doctor will be at the heart of the explosion," River said.
"So?"
Oh, Mum, why are you making me say it? Can't you see that this is hurting me too? "So all the cracks in time will close, but he'll be on the wrong side...trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of him will be purged from the universe. He will never have been born. Now, please. He wants to talk to you before he goes."
Amy still didn't get it. "Not to you?"
River fought back the tears. "He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will."
A few minutes later, River watched as Amy slowly backed away from the Pandorica. It began to glow. "Back! Get back!" She pushed her mother out of the way. They saw the Pandorica launch into the sky. River's communicator beeped with a message. "It's from the Doctor," she said.
"What does it say?" Amy asked.
"Geronimo."
###
River awoke with the worst headache of her life.
She looked around. Where was she?
Forget that. Who was she? How did she even exist?
With the universe rebooted and her father properly restored to reality, River could remember enough to know that she shouldn't be here. Because a universe in which there was no Doctor meant that there was no TARDIS. And no TARDIS meant that Melody Pond could never be conceived in the time vortex.
River shouldn't be in this universe at all. Maybe a Melody Williams could be out there somewhere, teaching geography, but there shouldn't be any River Song.
And she shouldn't really be remembering all this anyway. Wasn't she supposed to forget? Just like Amy and Rory would have forgotten?
She frowned, concentrating. No, she wasn't supposed to forget. There was something she was supposed to do...something the Doctor wanted her to remember…
But what was it?
It wouldn't come. But River knew enough to know she needed to get to Amy. Somehow Amy was the key to everything.
So River made her way to Leadworth. Oh, what lovely timing! There was a wedding today!
Amy and Rory's wedding.
Mels had never made it to the wedding, she remembered.
River would.
She watched from the back of the church, staying in the shadows. She smiled at the joy on her mother's face and the look of utter awe on her father's.
But she left a few minutes early. She had a job to do. It was starting to come back to her now. "Your job is something blue, River. You remember that. Something blue…"
Well, how handy that she just happened to have a blue book. It was completely blank inside, and it shouldn't be, but maybe if she did her task correctly it wouldn't be for much longer. She sneaked into the reception and left the book.
And she made sure to pass by the windows so that Amy would see her.
She hoped it would be enough.
###
Apparently it was, because River watched the TARDIS materialize in the middle of the reception. Amy had done it-mad, impossible Amy, with the universe pouring into her head all those years, had remembered the Doctor back into existence.
The Doctor loved weddings and dancing, so River had a long time to wait. She didn't really mind. She enjoyed watching the Doctor's crazy antics, and she smiled softly when a slow song played and Rory held Amy so tenderly.
Her parents-a love story for the ages.
Finally the Doctor headed out to the TARDIS and unlocked it. She spoke up. "Did you dance? Well, you always dance at weddings, don't you?"
"You tell me," he replied.
She just smiled. "Spoilers."
He handed her the diary. "The writing's all back, but I didn't peek."
"Thank you."
He returned the vortex manipulator as well. "Are you married, River?"
She strapped the manipulator to her wrist. "Are you asking?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"No, hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me, o- o-or asking if you were married?" The poor dear-he sounded so flustered now.
River could only feel amused. No wonder the older Doctor had enjoyed this conversation so much when their roles were reversed. "Yes."
The Doctor tried again. "No, but was that 'yes,' or 'yes'?"
She leaned toward him. "Yes."
"River, who are you?"
She turned serious. "You're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes." She entered the coordinates and zapped herself away.