Ch 29
The next thing to wake River were small fingers and curious eyes poking over the side of the cot. She blinked slowly, looking down. "Hello, Amelia."
"Auntie Vastra said you might be awake. Why were you sleeping?" Amelia whispered.
"Well, I had so much fun at the beach, it tired me out." River lied, touching her head gently.
"Growing babies makes you tired." She reminded herself. "It's dinner time and me and Freya want to go out."
She internally sighed, nowhere near having enough energy to take them out, "Alright," She stood anyway, "Where would you like to go?"
"The place that Uncle Jack took us on that green planet with the rings and the funny plants with stripes." She informed River.
"There again?" River asked, knowing exactly which restaurant they were talking about, "Are you sure?"
"Yes!" She nodded. "Today was suppose to be an outdoors day, but we left early so now we get to go there." Her logic made more sense to her sister.
"Alright, alright. We'll go there then. How about you go get your shoes on and I'll get your brother ready."
"What about Daddy?" She pointed to the Doctor who was still asleep.
"Let's let him sleep." She murmured, leading her out of the room, "It can be just the four of us."
"Five." Amelia skipped along. "My little sister counts. And what about Auntie Vastra?"
"I think Auntie Vastra will want to go home and eat with Strax and Auntie Jenny, don't you?"
She nodded. "I'm going to go put on a fancy skirt!" She scurried ahead of her and off to her room.
River went to the console room, offering to bring Vastra home. She placed Arthur on the floor so he could crawl around while she flew the TARDIS. She stayed very quiet as she worked on the controls, her movements a bit sluggish, and it took her a couple of tries to get the controls set right.
"River?" Vastra asked cautiously.
"Yeah?" She didn't really look up.
"Are you positive you're completely... recovered from your ordeal?"
"Yes, I'm fine." She whispered.
Vastra put her hand on River's shoulder. "I'd love for that to be true, but it doesn't take an expert to see it's not."
"Well, I don't really have time to recover. I have three children that need to get fed, my husband is sleeping and they're not your responsibility, they're mine."
Vastra tried not to flinch at her tone. "That doesn't mean you can't accept help. Nothing and no one say that. And your husband can and should be woken up at a moment's notice."
"I can handle this on my own." She sighed, "Thank you for coming to help. I can take it from here."
She bit back her disagreement, smiling instead. "Thank you for having me. Good luck tonight."
River closed the door behind Vastra, going to get Arthur ready and then bringing the girls to their restaurant.
They were their usual energetic selves, running around River and wanting to look at every little thing around them. River was quite obviously exhausted, chasing the girls around while holding the baby. She eventually got them corralled at their table, bouncing a crying Arthur while trying to help the girls read the menu. They got River to read them every item was before choosing what they regularly got.
The waiters were as sympathetic as they could be, though the family still got stares from other customers, likely because of Arthur's volume.
"Arthur, please, please, settle down," River begged, trying to hush him. He didn't listen, just as he hadn't been since they got there. He hated the lighting and the people and the noise. "Arthur, please." She was growing more and more upset, tired and distressed at the realization that handling all three kids by herself was something she seemed to be rather horrible at.
"Dah!" He wailed. Home, home!
"We can't see Daddy right now, we have to eat. It's eating time, remember? We'll go home very soon, I promise." She hushed, rocking him back and forth.
Loud. Too loud! "Nuuuuuuh!" He complained.
"Arthur please, please settle down for Mummy." She begged.
Quiet! Make quiet!
"I can't make it quiet, sweetie." She murmured.
Whhy? He sounded like an earlier version of his father.
"Because it's not possible." She sighed.
River struggled through the rest of dinner, trying to balance her attention between her son and her daughters. By the end of the night, she was beyond drained, apologizing to the waiters and leaving them a large tip as she led the girls out.
The TARDIS tried to make herself as welcoming as she could, her hum soothing and the lights of the console room warm. River wanted to collapse once she was in the doors, but the girls had to be put to bed. She ushered them upstairs, helping them brush their teeth and put their pajamas on, tucking them into bed.
"Can we have a bedtime song?" Freya asked.
River sighed, nodding. She sang her a short, off-key lullaby, nearly putting herself to sleep. The girls were oblivious to her exhaustion, setting in for the night.
River then went to put Arthur to bed, and then to check on the Doctor. The man was still out cold, though strangely, there was a streak of blood coming from his nose.
"Doctor?...!" River hurried to him, shaking him, trying to wake him up. He made a hardly audible grumble but didn't stir further. "Full body scan of the Doctor!" She shouted, still shaking him and trying to wake him up.
The scanner on the bed side table flashed to show it was calculating before beeping with the information. His hearts were twice as slow and his brain function had lowered considerably. "Dammit, Doctor!" She quickly set up several more scans to try and find the source of the problem, running to the medicine cabinet to find something in hope of bringing up his heart rates.
The TARDIS tried to be helpful, showing her in the right direction to which medicines he needed and displaying a complicated amount of information relating to his brain scan. She injected all of the medicine the TARDIS showed her, but had great difficulty deciphering the brain scan in her tired state.
Afraid that she was going to run out of time, she pressed her fingers to his temples, trying to enter his mind just as he did for her. "Oh, how does he do it? Like thi-aah!" She was immediately thrown into quite literally a whirlwind of memory and thought that wrapped around her and pulled her roughly down until she hit something hard. River could feel the pain resonating through her body, the metal connections strong enough to transfer to her physical form. "Doctor?"
"River please, no!" The voice belonged to the Doctor, but not her Doctor, not the face she married. All of a sudden, River was surrounded by books and wooden floors, the scenery moving around her. She was brought face to face with herself, the other her in a spacesuit and a metal crown.
River stiffened, quickly turning so her back was to the memory, "Doctor? Doctor, it's not real!" The countdown of the computer rang louder and as it hit zero, light exploded around her and the floor opened up beneath her. Shadow engulfed her and she was falling again.
This time, the landing was on her feet. "Doctor?! Please, listen to my voice!" River looked around for him, hoping he was somewhere near by. It became clear that she was in some version of the TARDIS med bay and suddenly there was a scream.
It was her own, emanating from the cot in front of her. She was there again, part of the Doctor's mind, writhing in pain on the bed and clutching at her apparent midsection.
"Come on River, you can do this. It'll be over soon."
"Doctor!" The non-memory River shouted as loud as she could, trying to dissolve the nightmare with her own happy memories, "It's just a memory! Think of something else!" He couldn't hear her.
The space around her suddenly filled with what could only be assumed as water. River was washed ashore to red sand and the sound of explosions. She couldn't keep up with his mind, her's already too weak from the intensity it had endured that afternoon since she hadn't given herself time to rest. She stumbled through the memory of Arcadia's fall, "Please, Doctor. I can't do this."
There were vague, half complete people pushing her as they ran in the opposite direction as she was going. Most were in armor engraved with Gallifreyan symbols. There were ships above what was now a ruined city, beaming down Daleks and bombs.
The path she was on directed her behind a wall with words hammered into it: 'No more.' Lying on the ground in front of it, was the Doctor, her tweed wearing Doctor. River rushed towards him, kneeling down in front of him, "Doctor...Doctor, can you hear me?"
His nose was bleeding, just like in his physical body. "What are you doing here." His eyes didn't open and his mouth didn't move.
"I'm trying to help you." She touched his face, pushing back his hair, "There's something wrong and I'm trying to fix it."
"It's too dangerous for you to be in here. The baby..." He tried to say.
"I need to help you. You need to tell me how to fix this." She pressed.
"What's going on with my body?"
"Your hearts are very slow, so is your brain activity. I don't want anything to happen to you." She hadn't really realized until this moment that if she didn't fix it, he could be in very serious trouble and that thought terrified her.
The body in front of her curled towards her, like a child seeking comfort. "Sharp. You poked me."
"What do you mean? I didn't do anything..." She looked down at him, confused.
"No, in the fog. Something stabbed me." He tried again, showing her the memory.
"I don't understand, Doctor." She could feel her mind screaming, begging her to give up. If she didn't solve this quickly, her mind would snap under his.
"It couldn't have harmed my physical body so it must have hurt me somewhere in here. You've got to find where and repair it. It'll probably show in the form of an altered memory." He instructed.
She stood, looking around her for some sort of flaw, though the longer she spent in his mind, the hazier her vision grew. The Doctor's body rose, at least part of it did. It seemed like a glowing ghost had risen from his body. He took her hand. "This way."
She followed him, each step another shock to her brain. He brought them out of the memory to what seemed like a bank of them "We've got to look for anomalies."
She nodded, looking around the scene memories floated by them, each emanating a color of how the Doctor felt during the time. Most that went by had colors signifying fear, sorrow, and loss. There was quite a lot of loss.
She tried to keep focused, finally seeing one strange looking memory float by. The memory was from his early days with River, sometime during the Pandorica incident. The events displayed didn't match with what had really happened, the scene rather warped with parts missing and things added.
"I found it." She murmured, "Now how don't fix it?"
"I can't help you there." He murmured. "This memory looks normal to me because this is what I think happened. You need to repair it before the damage spreads."
She closed her eyes, focusing on the warped memory and trying to repair it with her mind. Nothing seemed to happen, though the Doctor's back stiffened. She tried harder, taking the stiffening as a sign that something was happening.
"Here." He tried to help, tapping the memory. Suddenly the whole thing spread out around her scene by scene. "What's different? I know you were there, so try replacing it with the memory you have."
She did her best to repair what she knew was wrong, searching the memory from top to bottom. He watched the new information, frowning at how different it was from what he'd thought he'd remembered. He kept glancing at her somewhere between worried and stunned. She wasn't paying much attention to him, wrapped up in what she was doing.
The red sand started to crumble, leaving a tiled floor. They were in a museum, the Pandorica open and around them and the Ponds and River running down the hall towards them.
"Does that look right?" He asked.
"Yes, I think so." She sighed wearily.
"Then you've got to get out of here before you're crushed." She nodded, though it didn't seem as though she had actually heard him.
He started at her, waiting for her to move. "Go. Now!" She fell to her knees, breathing heavily. "Dammit, River."
He pulled on her arms and suddenly they were flung upwards. The Doctor let go and River went crashing back through the way she came.
The force was enough to throw her about a foot away from the bed, landing unconscious on the floor.
Vastra was standing over her, looking very concerned and instantly trying to help her up, worrying more when River didn't open her eyes. "Oh dear..." She did her best to drag River over to separate cot getting her onto it and moving to tend to her.
River's forehead was burning with the overheating of her brain. Vastra started to realize what she'd walked in on, running to get ice and surrounding River's head with it.
The Doctor's mind was a dangerous place, even for full Timelords and River's mind wasn't much safer. Vastra didn't know why, but the two had gone into each other's minds unprotected and now both were suffering dire consequences.
River's nose had started bleeding as well, get heart rates dropping. Vastra looked frantically around the shelves, finding the device she'd scanned the River's baby with a few months ago. Quickly setting the dials and buttons, she placed it on River's chest, running to get more ice. She'd need a constant supply. River's mind was shutting itself down to avoid further aggravation.
The TARDIS flashed to show the information to Vastra, who made a frustrated noise. She had no idea how to help either of her friends without accidentally hurting them. The TARDIS, looking to help the woman, began to show diagrams and names of medications she had to give River in order to help her.
Vastra went over the list, already mentally crossing off ones she knew weren't safe. Strung high, she searched for the ones the TARDIS suggested, still having strong doubts. The device she'd put on River was only a temporary fix to keep her hearts steady, and even so, she was afraid her efforts would fail her friends.
The TARDIS scanner showed a positive response to the device, though it was unclear if the response was permanent. Vastra found what medications she could, triple checking all the labels before preparing syringes with each one. She checked the scanners again, trying to process all the information she was given and keeping watch for new notes or more clear directions.
After about an hour, River's stats looked stable enough so that she didn't need anyone treatment. "Oh thank the Goddess." Vastra sighed in relief, slumping into a nearby chair and putting her head in her hands.
Arthur started wailing down the hall, his cries starting out as whimpers, soon turned into loud, hungry wails. Vastra, concerned to leave the parents alone, got up to tend to the crying baby. His cries increased when there was no immediate response, wanting River and the Doctor.
Vastra went to the nursery, scooping him up and hushing him. "It's alright, little one."
"Muuummaha." He whimpered, "Daa!"
"They're a little busy at the moment." She murmured, walking back to the med bay.
"Daaaaaa." He whimpered again. Vastra sighed and put Arthur on the still unconscious Doctor's chest. He whimpered and squirmed, wanting the Doctor to wake up.
Though his nose bleed had stopped and he'd been stable since River had intervened, the Doctor was still repairing. "I'm sure he'll be awake in the morning."
Arthur calmed down a bit, babbling to himself as he lay on the Doctor. She certainly hoped they'd be awake, though she was praying to the Goddess that they would just make it through the rest of the night.
