Shadows of the Past - Chapter Twenty-One

Author: Milady Dragon

Unknown Date and Time

Central Data Core

The Library

The moment River realised that this was her son, and not an avatar that Cal had created, her illusion was dissipated and she found herself back at the house that was the primary node of the Library's Central Data Core.

Where River 'lived' when Cal wasn't creating exciting adventures for her.

The pair of them stood on the perfectly sculpted lawn of the mansion, and she couldn't help but drink in his appearance. Merlin was a bit changed from how she remembered him, and how Cal often recreated him for her to interact with. Still, the real Merlin had a presence to him that any of the many illusions did not.

She had to hug him.

Merlin wrapped his arms around her, a ragged sob making his entire body quake. River stroked his hair, trying to soothe him as he wept against her shoulder, the tears feeling more real than anything she'd experienced since the Doctor had arranged to have her consciousness downloaded into the core. Her own eyes were prickling, River's chest aching with having missed him more than she'd ever wanted to admit.

She'd had time to think since her 'death', and she'd come to the conclusion that she'd spent way too much time away from her only son. She should never have stayed gone; she should have been with him as much as she possibly could.

But she'd had to have her own adventures, without any sort of ties to love and family. River had left Merlin with the Harkness-Joneses, knowing they'd take good care of him and that he'd found his mate amongst them. Merlin had had a destiny, and there had been no room for her in it.

She'd regretted her distance immediately upon realising she'd never see him again, as she'd sat in that chair in the Library, hooking herself up to the Data Core in order to bring the over 2000 people that Cal had 'saved' back, knowing that she was going to die in that place. And that the Doctor – her husband – had known all along as his past self begged her not to do it.

But now, he was there, with her, and River just knew this wasn't a good thing, even though she was so very happy that he was clinging to her in that moment.

Eventually, he pulled away somewhat reluctantly, rubbing his eyes with one hand while he slid the other down to grasp her fingers. His eyes were red with crying, and his face was blotchy…but he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

There were some small changes in him, and River realised that he must have regenerated since the last time she'd seen him. She knew he wasn't like the Doctor, who changed so spectacularly each time, but could, in some way, control his regeneration so that his features pretty much stayed the same. His black hair was a little shaggier, and his ears a little less protruding – but still fairly large – and his eyes were just a tad bit bluer, the gold around the irises startling.

But the cheekbones were the same, as was his slender form, but he hadn't felt like skin and bone. There was true muscle there, like his father.

"Hey, Mum," he whispered, smiling shyly.

She shook her head, smirking fondly. "I should be telling you that you shouldn't be here…but I'm so very happy to see you." Then she frowned. "How did you get here, anyway?"

Instead of answering Merlin was looking around at his surroundings. "Nice change from that jungle you were in." He checked out her appearance as well. "Instant clothes change as well. Wish I could do that with Arthur; he takes forever to get ready to go anywhere."

No, River wasn't going to let him get away with changing the subject. She gave him her best mother's glare. "What's going on?"

"I…" he swallowed, one hand going up to rub the back of his neck. "Can't I just enjoy being with you while I can, without having to worry about what's going on outside the Data Core?"

He was deflecting, but River really just wanted to spend some time with him, as well, without questioning the reasons why he was there, when he shouldn't have been able to get past the Vashta Nerada.

But something was seriously wrong, she just knew it.

Still, she dragged him toward the house, his hand warm within hers. He went with her meekly, not giving her any sort of argument. Which was odd for him as well, because if there was one thing she knew about her son, it was that he'd usually protest being dragged off somewhere, even if it was a place he actually wanted to go.

Besides, if Merlin wasn't going to tell her what was going on outside in the Library, she could always ask Cal.

The rest of her team would have been scattered about the house, or else off on their own. One of the things Cal loved doing was giving them their adventures, usually based on books that she had access to. River loved them; it gave her a sense of freedom within the confines of the Core. In the back of her mind, she might know she was only a data stream, but it still always felt very real to her.

That was what she'd been doing when her son had stumbled into the Data Core. A trip to a jungle; a quest for riches and artefacts; it was almost like being an archaeologist all over again. It kept her from going stir crazy, even if it wasn't real.

The mansion where they all lived was enormous. It often reminded River of the TARDIS: while it was quite large on the outside, inside it was even bigger. As she crossed the threshold, she called out, wondering if anyone was around; a voice called back, and she grinned as she recognised it as Evangelista's.

In many ways, death had been an extremely advantageous change for Evangelista. The Data Core had changed her basic nature, and she was a true delight to spend time with. To be honest, River hadn't been all that nice to her back when they'd all still been alive, but it had been more because of her employer, and not the fact that the young woman hadn't been all that intelligent. There were different forms of smarts out there, and Evangelista had been very good at her job…even though she had allowed Lux to boss her around a bit too much for River's taste.

River dragged her son into the lounge off the entryway, pushing him down onto one of the sofas and plopping herself down beside him. Seconds later, Evangelista came in, and stopped just beyond the doorway, staring at Merlin as if she was seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was; at least, the real version.

River had often asked Cal to help her recreate Merlin in various stages of his life. But River often gave up the interactions when her mind simply couldn't accept the fact that the illusion was her child. Even though the core version of Merlin was just as she would always remember him, there was something about him that River just knew was fake.

She'd eventually stopped torturing herself.

Evangelista stood there, crossing her arms across her chest, raising a rather eloquent eyebrow in River's direction.

"He's the real thing," was the only thing River could say.

She could tell that startled her friend. "How did that happen?"

"I'm about to get that story," River assured her. "Is Cal around somewhere?"

Evangelista nodded. "Something's going on in the Library. It has her a bit…distracted."

Cal – real name Charlotte Abigail Lux – was the original mind in the machine, so to speak. Her father had built the Library for her, and had implanted her mind within the Data Core in an attempt to save at least a part of her. Cal had eyes and ears throughout the Library complex, even though she'd pretty much given up active surveillance when the last people had left the place to the mercies of the Vashta Nerada.

River couldn't blame her. Knowing that your home had been overrun by a voracious lifeform would have been enough to put that sort of thing off for anyone.

River turned to her son. "I take it this distraction is why you're here?"

Merlin shuddered. He chewed his lip absently – it was good to know he hadn't lost that little affectation – before he took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, Mum. You could say that."

Even as a sentient data stream Merlin looked exhausted. River reached over and pulled him close, wrapping an arm around him. Merlin burrowed into her embrace, sighing contentedly.

"I've missed you," he whispered.

"I've missed you too."

River could admit to herself that she'd never been the best mother. If she was also honest, there had been times after Merlin's birth that she'd wished she'd never had a child; not because she resented Merlin in any way, but because she was so crap at raising him. It didn't help that his father had been just as bad, but then the Doctor wasn't one to stay still for very long. They'd tried it, back when Merlin was too young to travel, but the Doctor's itchy feet had gotten the best of him, and he'd left them for months at a time at Ddraig Llyn.

Things had been a bit different when Merlin got old enough to accompany them in the TARDIS, but it hadn't lasted very long. Merlin had wanted to go back to Arthur, and they'd ended up dropping him back off and then not seeing him for centuries in Merlin's timeline.

Then, of course, River had ended up in Stormcage, and that had meant she'd seen him even less.

Still, she'd thought he'd had a good life with the Harkness-Joneses and that enormous family. It had gotten even bigger when River had taken it upon herself to find all those dragon eggs. She wondered how they were all doing now. She had no doubt they were thriving.

But, always in the back of her mind, was that niggling voice that kept telling her that she was missing her boy. River had never acted upon it, and she'd lost her chance when she'd given her life to make certain everyone that Cal had 'saved' could be rescued.

What made it worse was the idea that the Doctor had always known, and hadn't bothered to give her enough of a heads' up so she could have at least said goodbye when she'd dropped off the baby dragons.

"Alright," she said briskly, "tell me everything."

Merlin frowned, but she knew it wasn't because she was demanding an explanation. The frown was slightly confused, as if there were things he simply didn't have knowledge of.

Then he sighed once more, relaxing further into her arms.

"I had this student," he began. "She was brilliant, Mum. She might even have given me a run for my money, power-wise, once she became more confident in her magic."

That was a shock. River knew Merlin's destiny to be the most powerful wizard in the universe, so to have someone nearly match him…

"I…started to notice things. Troubling things. And then she started asking me about certain…magicks…"

"What sort of magic?" River, though, felt like she didn't need to ask, but wanted it confirmed.

"Dark magic."

Yes, that was what had crossed her mind.

"She asked me about this book. Called the Darkhold. It's the most evil book in the universe. If I could have, I would have destroyed it centuries ago, but it's indestructible. The thing was, I'd hidden it where no one would have thought to look."

River fought back the shiver that threatened to consume her, not wanting to upset her son any more than he already was. "It was in the Library, wasn't it?" It really was an elegant solution, to hide something so dangerous in plain sight.

"Yeah. It had been in the Torchwood Archives for millennia. Grandtad Ianto had put it there, but there was something about it…it called, even to me. So, when Felman Lux began building his Library, I asked him if he could take it on. He'd already had the idea of creating certain secure areas where more dangerous literature could be stored, so he agreed…but for a price. He asked me to help him import his daughter's mind into the Data Core, because the one thing he was missing from the equation was magic. I was happy to help, Mum; I'd met Charlotte and she was such a wonderful, happy child, and she was perfectly willing to become a part of the Library. In fact, it was like a dream come true for her. I never would have helped Felman if Charlotte hadn't wanted to do it."

That made sense. Although she'd been 'introduced' to Cal as a Node, there had been something different about her, and that had been confirmed once she'd gotten to know the consciousness within the core. Cal was absolutely delightful, and an excellent host. She and Doctor Moon kept everyone within the core happy and would do anything within their power to help.

"Anyway," he continued, "this student was asking questions about necromancy and resurrection magic, and I had no choice but to expel her from the school."

Resurrection magic. Those two words scared River more than anything else. And yet, there was a very small part of her that wondered if it couldn't bring her back…not that she would, of course. She wouldn't abandon her team on the off-chance that something like that would work. She also would never have put Merlin into that sort of position. He was far too good to even contemplate something so inherently evil.

It said quite a bit about her son that he hadn't considered trying something like that to bring her back. River might not know as much about magic as she wished she did, but she knew in her very soul that committing such an act – even out of love – would have tainted Merlin forever.

"When the Vashta Nerada infested the Library, I realised they would have been the perfect deterrent for anyone going after the Darkhold. I thought I didn't have anything to worry about it any longer."

"But this student found out."

"She found out about the Darkhold, yes." Merlin began to shake against her, and River held tighter. It was bothering her, seeing her strong son in such distress. "She fooled me, Mum. I started official expulsion proceedings against her, but she came to me and apologised. And I believed her."

River's heart went out to him. "You've always seen the good in people, Merlin." Her eyes darted up to where Evangelista was still in the doorway, but she'd been joined by both Daves now. She wondered where Anita was, guessing she must have been with Cal and Doctor Moon.

He didn't say anything to that. Instead, he took a deep breath and continued. "But I found out she'd lied to me. When I confronted her, her…boyfriend, accomplice, I don't know what he was to her…shot me. Only it wasn't a bullet…it was something that negated my powers. I lost consciousness. When I woke up…it's really foggy after that. I remember…pain. A lot of pain. I…must have told them about the Library…"

It sounded as if he was tortured. River was so very glad he didn't recall it, but at the same time she was furious that someone had done that to her child. She found herself suddenly wishing she could leave the Data Core, to kill whoever had put him through all of that for some damned book.

"The next thing I remember, I woke up in this spaceship. I didn't have my magic back, but I still managed to sneak off. I guess…they were off looking for the book. The entire Library stank of death, and the Vashta Nerada were gone. I think…I think she killed them."

That wasn't good at all. It was the Vashta Nerada that had been protecting the Library, albeit unintentionally. All those deaths, even though they'd been responsible for so much death themselves. They'd only been following their natures, and it certainly wasn't their fault that all those books had been pressed from the Vashta Nerada's forest.

Once again, she looked up at her team…her friends. Evangelista looked shocked, Other Dave was nodding, and Proper Dave had a hand to his mouth. None of them remembered their deaths, only that they'd been eaten, so this was an almost abstract concept for them all. In a lot of ways, their deaths had been a bit easier than River's own.

"I didn't get very far before they noticed I was gone. I didn't have much of a chance against them, so I did the only thing I could: I went to the nearest transmat, and asked Cal to save me. And I guess she did, because here I am."

This was why Cal was so distracted. She'd long ago stopped monitoring the Library, only keeping the passive sensors active. The burst of magic that had destroyed the Vashta Nerada would have sent those sensors off, and River figured that she was most likely trying to figure out the situation. Plus, Merlin begging to be 'saved' would have added to the load she'd have already been carrying.

She couldn't blame Merlin, though. It wasn't his fault. It was those bastards who'd kidnapped and tortured him, and then killed all the Vashta Nerada. They were most likely still in the Library, doing whatever damage they saw fit in their search for a book that was so bad Merlin couldn't stand to have it on the same planet as himself.

"Where's Cal?" River asked as she soothed her boy.

"She's in the TV room," Evangelista answered. "We should go and talk to her."

River agreed.

She chivvied Merlin up off the sofa. "C'mon, sweetheart," she murmured. "We need to see what's going on out in the Library, and to do that we need to speak to Cal."

River led the way out of the lounge. The TV room was just down the hall, and was well-named for the large screen telly on one wall. More often than not historical videos played on it, files saved in the core from various civilisations in the Empire. There were two comfortable sofas and three overstuffed chairs, along with a coffee table and end tables. It opened into the kitchen, where they would often have snacks while watching the shows.

It might have been, at the very base, faked, but it was home now.

Cal was seated on one of the sofas, Doctor Moon on one side and Anita on the other. The avatar of the little girl was sitting ramrod straight, staring at the monitor, which was now showing the shadow-festooned interior of the Library. Nothing seemed to move, and as River watched the picture changed, to show another room, equally shadowed, lined with now-dusty shelves.

River knew immediately that the dust was the dead Vashta Nerada.

"There are people in the Library," Cal said without her eyes leaving the screen.

"And they aren't good people," Other Dave replied, "from what our new friend says."

That had all three of them turning on the sofa. River could practically feel Merlin twitch under their scrutiny.

"Thanks," he said, "for hearing me and saving me."

Cal gave him a beatific smile. "You were in trouble. And you asked nicely."

"What are they after?" Anita wanted to know.

Merlin once again explained what had happened, and how he'd ended up in the Library. Anita's face went fierce as she realised that they had to have tortured Merlin for the information on the Darkhold. Doctor Moon looked unhappy, but Cal was nodding in that grown-up way she had that always gave away just how old and intelligent she really was.

"They killed the Vashta Nerada," the avatar said. "Not all of them, but most. And the ones left are really riled up from what I can tell."

"Torchwood is in control of the Library now," Merlin offered. "You can bet they're gonna know what's happened and investigate."

"Cal," River said, "can you keep an eye on our visitors without them knowing it?"

"Just watch me!" she exclaimed, turning back to the screen.

"There are satellites in orbit," Doctor Moon replied. "Are they from Torchwood? I can just read their signals, as well as the listening post they set up on my surface."

"Torchwood did all that?" River demanded. "How come we didn't know that?"

"It was after you…died," Merlin answered, stumbling over the last word. "The shields over the Library were damaged when Strackman Lux hacked his way in. When the people were finally evacuated, Lux requested that Torchwood take over surveillance."

River nodded. That made sense. After all, Torchwood was quite possibly the only organisation with the resources to handle anything that occurred.

"You can bet we'll be seeing others in the Library before long," Merlin added. "Once those satellites transmit back that there are people in the Library, it'll be investigated."

"Is Phillip Coulson still Director?" Being within the Data Core meant that River really had no notion of time. She didn't know how long she'd been living inside the core, so it could have been a thousand years…or ten.

"Yes, he is."

"He's a good man. He'll take care of things."

At the time, River had been certain of that fact.

That was before Phillip and the Doctor showed up.

Things turned horrible after that.