Chapter 25: Love a tomb
There had been other companions in the past who had sensed her watching them. Martha had moments when she'd look up uneasily, listening as though she really could hear her talking; but River had never been quite certain about Donna. She'd been quite chatty -someone who talked to herself or at inanimate objects when she was alone as she contemplated what she'd seem in the Universe- and River couldn't tell whether Donna had ever actually heard her, or if she just left spaces in her conversations out of habit.
In comparison: Amy had been frustratingly, almost amusingly oblivious, though Rory… Well, Rory had always seemed to notice when she was around. There was an odd logic to it, River felt, that of everyone, it would be her Dad who could feel her presence; though he generally reacted by leaving out plates of biscuits and cups of tea, as though he thought he was making homage to an ancient house-spirit.
But Clara was more unobservant than even Amy had been. Idly, River wondered it was because she wasn't around, except in flight. There had been a few instances when it might have been possible –wandering the depths of the TARDIS in an aborted timeline, or during a time loop the Doctor was unaware of when she searched fruitlessly for her deleted bedroom- but for the most part, she was very rarely on the ship except for going to or coming back from adventures. And during those times, her attention was taken up entirely by the Doctor; so she was unaware of anything or anyone outside of him and what he chose to tell her.
Which was why: finding herself in a conference call -facing the Doctor's previously unmentioned wife- must have been as surprising as it was.
Vastra's summons were akin to thinking of someone the moment before the phone rang; and River ran the information through her head before she willed herself to join them.
Conference call, about the Doctor. Please come quickly. We will all be there.
There had been a hesitation in Vastra's mental invitation before using the word all; so River surmised who would be in attendance there. Strax and Jenny, certainly… but not him, almost definitely not him. Vastra would never have been foolish enough to invite them both; plus the Doctor so rarely responded to phone, text message, email or really, anything other than huge comments scrawled across time and space. So logic dictated that it would have been someone else close: hence, a companion.
But from the surprise and thinly veiled antagonism in Clara's voice, Vastra hadn't made her privy to that information. River sipped her champagne, managing only brief smiles and vague comments as she thoughtfully eyed the girl. She didn't hate her; she didn't. It was the Doctor she resented more and more each day. Each time he ignored her, each time he turned his head away and did exactly the opposite of what she suggested… He had only himself to blame for the Van Baalan brothers trying to cannibalize the TARDIS; because she'd protested vociferously about him taking down the shields. She'd reminded him that the Spacey Zoomer was not actually as interesting as the ads printed; and that having two hearts didn't make you immune to red prehistoric red venom, so kindly be careful in Sweetville.
Emma had said that love involved terrible sacrifices. But, River thought bitterly, hadn't she sacrificed enough? Over and over again; and her reward was the Doctor forgetting she existed. Who wouldn't feel bitter, in her situation?
So she smiled at Clara, still unable to stop from smugly commenting that she knew the Doctor's name. Not the girl's fault, not at all… and yet she couldn't help doing it.
But then Vastra explained what she had summoned them for… and if River still had blood, it would have run cold at the mention of that name. Trenzalore. His greatest secret is discovered.
"You misunderstood," River said, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
She knew it, of course she knew it; couldn't do research into the Doctor's life and not come across a mention. The location of his greatest defeat, the end of his long lifetime. Ended not in peace, but in strife; and she shivered, knowing how he would feel about that. There was a part of him that never had recovered from the Time War; that still longed to run away when he even got mention of war and bloodshed in conjunction with his name. But she had a feeling he wouldn't be able to run this time, not if what she knew was correct; and it was surprising how much of the information on him out there was. He was always going to Trenzalore; he was always going to die on Trenzalore… and she couldn't do a thing to stop it.
In fact, she wasn't supposed to stop it. In the depths of the Library (when she'd first arrived and couldn't help glutting herself on rare history and archaeology texts) she'd even found one thin volume that talked about the role of River Song through the end of the Doctor's days. Her involvement began as the Truth-Sayer, saving the Doctor and his associates from bodiless horrors. And then the book had gone on to give highlights of the thousand year siege when she'd fought alongside her husband…
River hesitated. She hadn't thought of that book for years; actually, she'd forgotten it. River Song wasn't mentioned in any of the others she'd read while at Luna, it had only been in that one from the Library which she'd dismissed as a typo because she'd already been dead; so how could she have been there?
Vastra was still talking but River couldn't hear her words anymore; only the tone of her voice –intense, worried- somehow the same as it had been all those years ago when urging her to venture outside.
'I have the sense that your presence among us is an indication that your adventures are unfinished, and there is still more for you in the Universe. And if you never take the steps to leave this house, it will all be for nothing.'
She'd thought at the time it was ridiculous. Vastra's well-meaning way of encouraging her to look in on the Doctor. But now: she could feel the strange tickling in her mind of those long-dormant Time Lord sensibilities awaken. She could feel those links of time and fate and fixed points and this must happen now taking effect.
Which was… ridiculous.
River Song was dead. She was an echo, unseen and unheard and likely even unremembered by the Doctor. She shouldn't even have been there at all, let alone on Trenzalore… but River frowned as Jenny faded out; and she tested the boundaries in her mind, feeling Silurian and Sontaran but only one human mind still connected.
For just a moment, she could hear the Doctor's voice in her ears; calmly, patiently explaining her own timeline to her after Berlin.
'People assume that time is a strict progression of cause-to-effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more a ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff. That sentence is rubbish; I should stop trying to explain it that way because it always gets away from me. The point is, River, you can feel time and fixed points like I do. And it's not a straight line at all. Someone can be born in the 20th Century and die in the 19th. Or in your case: be born in the 21st, raised in the 20th, go to University in the 51st, and die…'
He'd stopped then, not finishing his sentence and pretending he'd meant to say it like that; but she'd guessed even then, that he knew something he wasn't going to tell her.
Strange the things that came back to you when you least expected them. River bit her tongue, hard, welcoming the brief spasm of pain. He'd meant for her to understand that she could live and die in any era. But… fixed points were that way for a reason. They had to happen so that time could continue as it should; and Trenzalore was one of those. She could feel it, rushing through her brain like adrenaline. What was to come hinged on her; and real or echo, alive or not, River Song was meant to stand beside the Doctor there. She was meant to save him, yet again.
She spared a moment to hope Jenny was alright; grieving, even as she realised it was unlikely. Conference calls with human participants simply didn't end when someone wanted to leave. There was a proper procedure for how they were to be concluded. Mental links had to be severed completely either through deliberate means or brain inactivity; or else a human might go mad, walking around with someone else inside their mind.
She should have reminded Vastra of that fact instead of sending her and Strax back to wakefulness. But she hadn't wanted to. Rather; she'd needed Vastra not to remember; because she had a feeling there was something she'd need to do; and she wanted to be able to draw on Clara's physical strength because she had none of her own. Merely strength of will, and she wasn't sure it would be enough for what was to come.
"Ugh," River groaned, finding herself lying face-down in a graveyard. "What I wouldn't give for a vortex manipulator now? At least then I always landed on my feet."
It had been hard to force herself to go somewhere she'd never seen. For so long she'd only had to let herself fade to insubstantial mist and then focus on the Doctor, her Doctor to lead her home. But this time -after Clara disappeared in a sudden blip of displaced energy- she'd held the space-time coordinates Vastra had shown them in her mind, grumbling under her breath at how difficult it felt to materialise there. As though the planet itself was trying to push her off. If she'd had a proper lip to bite in concentration, she would have done so. Not that she had proper teeth as a ghost… but those were the Doctor's sort of ridiculous thoughts she was having, and she was grateful to leave them behind as she jumped to her feet and turned to walk toward the tallest monument there.
The TARDIS. She sighed, feeling as though her hearts were breaking at the sight of her at her end; the Gallifreyan technology leaking out until she looked as though she brushed the sky. The only thing worse really, was the gravestone she passed along the way with her name on it. She paused, wrinkling her nose at the sight of it; though it made sense for the book she remembered from the Library. If she had been there and the Doctor died, then it would make sense that she'd done, too.
Or –and she grinned- it was only his sense of humour. Such a grave had to be false… because the only suitable resting place for the child of the TARDIS would have been the TARDIS itself; and she spun around to see the Doctor and Clara, walking purposefully in her direction.
"Clara," she hissed. "Don't speak, don't say my name. He can't see or hear me, only you can."
Even at this moment, saying that aloud hurt. And seeing him look through her –as he had for a long time- still made a little fission of pain blossom up in her chest. She followed as the ground opened up beneath them and they fell through to the catacombs beneath; she drifted alongside as they ran from the Whispermen, but when they met up with Vastra, Strax and Jenny she slipped away. Concentrated for the briefest of moments on the TARDIS and found herself inside, staring at the rips in time he'd left behind and the Cloister bell tolling forlornly in her ears.
"Love a tomb," she murmured aloud to herself; surprised to hear her voice echo in the dark gloom around her. She'd forgotten for a moment that the link with Clara lent her more strength than she'd had before. "Archaeologist, you know. Someone thinks it's a ridiculous profession, but it is much more fascinating than he assumed."
Even this old, this sick and tired and dying; the TARDIS was still alert and could still hear her. Through the soles of her feet she could feel it, the faint vibrations of welcome emanating from the floor and the warm flash of love that overwhelmed her mind.
"It's you and me, dear heart," she said. "Who would have thought that even after he was gone, we'd still be here? In whatever way we are. The thing is," murmured River, "I'm not sure why we are. You, of course; I understand about you. With him gone, where else would you go? But me?
"I'm not supposed to be here, really." Her voice was soft. "In the normal scheme of how time runs, I'm supposed to be dead. Or an echo, that the Doctor trapped in the database. I'm still not really certain of how I got out… though I suppose it doesn't matter how, only that I did. At least," she smiled wryly, "that's what the Doctor would say. He does tend to accept things on blind faith, sometimes. Pity I'm not like that."
The TARDIS whined; and River ran her hand gently over the doors. "I'm sorry, dear. The perils of being married; you start to speak like each other. Or," she sniffed, "the perils of hanging around as an unseen, unheard ghost for a few centuries. You do start talking, just to hear yourself sometimes. Even if no one is listening… but you always listen, don't you? Unlike him. All those years, all that time and he never heard anything."
She sounded bitter and she knew it, but she couldn't help the venom with which those words came out. The TARDIS was quiet, the Bell fading to a faint chime; and River sighed, dropping her hands to her sides.
"I shouldn't be here, and yet I'm supposed to be here," she mumbled. "Found a book in the Library which told me so… that River Song stood beside her husband at the siege. And that she saved the Doctor by speaking the truth; which hardly sounds like me, does it? I lie better than he does… and besides, I don't know," she paused, taking a deep breath, "if I want to. Save him this time. I saved you in Yorkshire; he was only the by-product.
"Doesn't it seem to you like I always do that? Save him, whenever he needs it. And so often it comes at the expense of giving up another piece of me, my life for him." Her hands were shaking as she knotted them into fists. "I'm already dead; so what should I give up now? There's nothing left of me."
She managed a soft laugh. "The Witch said it, back in the Library. Even my hair isn't real anymore."
There was a tiny rattle from the console. "Yes," River said. "I know. I'm real to you. And I know I'm being foolish; I know that he's been there for me too. Whenever I called, he was always there. Even the last time, when he had no idea who I was. And yes, he managed to save me then; in an utterly sweet, useless way. But I don't know if I want to do this again, get trapped in this endless loop of saving him again; and it's not just that I'm upset he seems to have forgotten me in favour of figuring out Clara."
The TARDIS let out a soft wheeze that sounded faintly reprimanding.
"I said, it's not only because of that."
The TARDIS wheezed again, sounding sterner.
"Alright," snapped River. "That is part of it. You know, he had his time of brooding on the cloud, refusing to do anything productive. He does that when he gets upset… so why does it seem that I always have to be better than him? More caring, more appreciative, more understanding, more…everything! I bargained for my existence with a parasitic virus in the Library, and then had to run away because he couldn't how to help me. I sacrificed myself to rescue him and over four thousand others… Why is it always me to save him?"
But even as she said that, she knew. Because one could be a hero and not give everything you had away; and despite his big words and ability to find himself in the fray of difficulties, he was still the type to be reserved. To hide his true self and run from committing to anything, even emotion… whereas she'd never been like that. She threw herself into whatever she did; she made bold gestures and grand plans, not caring of the outcome to herself as long as what or who she protected would be safe.
The speakers started with a tinny rattle, and River realised she could hear their voices outside: Jenny and Strax and Madam Vastra, all of whom she cared about. And the Doctor. Her Doctor. He pleaded for the lives of his friends; she could hear the tears in his voice; and River suddenly managed to smile.
"Alright," she murmured, her voice echoing in the dark stillness of the TARDIS. "Alright. I know what you're trying to do. Prove to me that he's worth it…aren't you, old girl? He's always been worth it… that bad and good, selfish and selfless… Even when I hate him, I still love him. For who he is, and who he could be."
She had a sudden memory, sitting in a replica of her room on the TARDIS, staring into a mirror and seeing the Doctor's Ninth self, bitter and angry after the Time War. Herself, coaxing him to be the man she knew he could be again if he'd just go out, if he'd let himself care for anyone again…
Despite whatever twists and turns they'd taken, he was her Doctor again. The man who was willing to do great feats for love… and weren't they the same, really?
"Everyone keeps saying it. Emma… even me. The greatest sacrifices can have the greatest rewards. Still not sure I believe that, really. But when it comes to it… it's the Doctor. The man I love and the man I chose to give things up for. And I will always choose saving him in the end. No matter the cost to myself."
River's fists unknotted and she turned to the doors; her lips parted as she whispered a name long unspoken, and the TARDIS doors opened with a groan.