A/N: What? Two chapters in one day when there haven't been ANY chapters in a MONTH? I know. I'm nice like that.
I still don't own Doctor Who.
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Midnight Forest
Anna woke up screaming.
She thrashed in the arms of whoever it was, trying to escape, trying to free herself, she had to, she had to-
"Anna, it's okay, it's okay, it's me, the Doctor, it's all right! It's all right, sh, there we are, there we are, sh… it was just a dream, sh…"
She shook her head, sobbing. "It wasn't just a dream."
It was a memory. The memory of the last time she was ever in The Library.
That day would haunt her for the rest of her life.
#####
"Oh, no, no, no, no, come on, what are you-"
Anna's eyes were glued open. She was forced to stare at River as she worked.
"Anna, Anna, hey, can you hear me- what did you do, Anna!"
She felt her face being moved and she looked up at the Doctor's face before he released her, looking up at River with anger and panic and mania in his eyes.
"She's fine," River said, gently. "Paralyzing lipstick. The only thing it does is paralyze the motor functions. She'll come out of it just as soon as this is done."
"That's my job, you can't-"
"Oh, so you and Anna are the only two allowed to save the universe now? So like you two, to hoard all the credit."
"This is not a joke. Stop this now, this is going to kill you! I'd have a chance, you don't have any."
"You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I," River said.
"But Anna does."
She felt surprise leap in her chest.
"Did you just suggest sacrificing Anna in my place?"
"I trust her," he told River. "I trust her when she said that she wouldn't die permanently, and if you know her half as well as you seem to think you do, you know that's true. Let me help you hook her up, and we can-"
"Can what?"
She would've frowned if she could've. She could suddenly hear her own voice. How was that possible?
"Anna? Anna, I don't-"
"Well, I figured since you offered me up like a lamb for slaughter, I might as well do the decent thing and show up, right?"
"So… So you're River… then, yes? Yes, you're River, River Song, and you lived through it and that's how you know-"
"I'm a future Anna, actually. River never came back and punched you, I'm afraid, which means that I also kissed myself. An action worthy of Harkness, but hey, who's counting? My point being that I took River's place because she- well, I had to know that you trusted me when I said that I would come back to life. But, River doesn't have to die. Not here, not now."
"I don't understand."
"Ooh, say that again, I never get tired of that."
"So… So Professor River Song is a real person, somebody from my future, and you've taken her place because of something that needed to happen, but she is actually around here somewhere?"
"Yes," she agreed.
"Okay. Okay, good, great. So… so you've got your powers turned back on, so that means that you can hop out of there and-"
"Ooh, you were that close," she said.
"To what?"
"To understanding the situation. See, this moment in time is fairly delicate, and I'm not really willing to risk creating download space out of thin air if it means that all 4022 people aren't saved, you feel me?"
"Anna, no, what're you talking about? Stop this, we can-"
"We can what?" she repeated. "This is the way that it happened for me, and this is the way that it'll happen for her, and I'm sorry for how this'll hurt you, but you know, you just said that I would come back to life, so-"
"Time can be rewritten."
She heard the smile in her own voice. "It's funny, you know, the things that stick around, even when a new element is added to time. You said the same thing to River, that time can be rewritten. She told you that there was nothing that you could do, and you offered for the tenth time to do it, and she pointed out that if you died here, it would've meant she never would've met you. And you said, 'Time can be rewritten.'"
"Autodestruct in one minute."
"Do you know what she said? Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare."
"Anna, this isn't funny, just get up, just fix this without dying."
"I have to die," she told him. "There's no other way for this to work."
"There's always another way!" the Doctor practically shouted at her. "That's what you said to me, that's what you constantly say to me, there's always another way, so find another way!"
"Not this time," she said.
"Why?"
"Because the universe demands a sacrifice. And, just this once, just this one time…"
"Five, four-"
"It doesn't have to be her."
"One."
There was a blinding white light. Somebody was screaming, or multiple people were screaming. And then, it was over.
Except, it wasn't anywhere near over.
Because Anna's head had slowly been falling back down to the position it had been in before the Doctor had moved it, which meant that Anna had to see her own corpse sitting lifeless and burnt, her gnarled and burnt hands fused to the cables they had plugged in the moment before her own death.
And, because the Doctor was feeling such grief, he didn't even think to move Anna's view away from her own burnt body, staring at the image that would haunt her dreams for years to come.
River came in moments later.
#####
"No, no, you idiot, what did you do, what did you-"
"No, don't, don't touch her!" the Doctor shouted, and River startled, looking back at the two of them. Her eyes landed first on Anna and then the Doctor. For a moment, she just stared at them. And then, she looked back at the lifeless body sitting in the chair before she turned back to the Doctor.
"Then who's this?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter, give me the screwdriver," he said, pointing at it.
"You said… her," River said, before she looked back at Anna, frowning as she looked down at her. She frowned even further, moving to kneel down next to her.
"She's-she's paralyzed, you- Anna, the future Anna, she disguised herself as you, something about keeping the timelines intact, it doesn't matter, hand me my screwdriver."
River, on the other hand, was knelt down in front of Anna, searching her eyes.
"So that was Anna, then," she said. "The future one."
Anna didn't understand why she was looking down at her as if she were mesmerized by what she saw.
"River-"
"I know, I heard you," she said. "Screwdriver." She wasn't paying attention to him, instead, gently caressing Anna's cheek. "This is early days for both of you, yes?" she asked.
"I don't know what that has to do with anything, River," he said.
"It's got to do with everything," River replied. "I could stop it. All of it, right here, right now. I could tell her everything, and it would never come to pass." She looked up at the Doctor, her hand stilled on Anna's cheeks. "That's what you're always saying, isn't it? That time can be rewritten? And where Anna's involved, that's double-y true. I can fix it. I can fix everything."
"The only thing that you'll be doing is potentially destroying the timeline," the Doctor said, quietly.
Say it again so that I know you mean it.
No.
I'm not kidding, Doctor.
Neither am I.
I will do it!
River, my River, I don't think you will!
"Whatever terrible thing that it is that's come to pass, the only thing you'll be doing by telling her is making it a thousand times worse-"
"You told me once, standing on a beach, that I absolutely should, that the words you tell me right now will mean nothing. That I should tell you everything the first chance I get. And now I can, right here, right now. I can fix it. I can fix all of it. And I promise you, you will thank me for it. Standing in the alternate timeline, with Anna by your side, you will thank me a million times over for what I'm about to do."
"You know what I am, River, and you know that I can feel the flow of time around me, what is, what must be, and what must never come to pass. River, this thing that you're trying to prevent, preventing it will break all of the laws of time. Believe me, neither of us will thank you for that."
"Even if it-"
Anna screamed.
Not the present Anna. The future Anna. The one who had just come back to life.
"River," Future!Anna got out, through haggard breaths. "River, you can't, you mustn't."
"So you're the only one who's allowed to change the fabric of the universe?" River asked. "You're the only one who's allowed to make life altering decisions for-"
"River," she begged her. "Berlin. Remember Berlin. What I said then."
"Berlin will never have to happen if you let me do this!"
"I'm sorry, River. I'm so, so sorry. But I can't let you."
"You don't get a choice."
Everything happened so quickly in the next three seconds. River stood in one fluid motion. She heard her blaster powering up. It wasn't a second later that River's legs vanished from view.
It wasn't a second later that Future!Anna vanished from view, too.
#####
"Any luck?"
"There wasn't anyone called Lee in The Library that day."
Did you really think that would work on me?
"I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?"
"Maybe not."
They're not sleep patches. They induce a dream state. Makes you very suggestible. I allowed the whole scenario to play out just as you planned.
"I made up the perfect man."
I was curious about how far you would go.
"Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word."
Well, now you know.
"What's that say about me?"
Yeah. Now I know.
"Nothing," Anna cut in. "Because he was, in fact, real."
"Sorry?" Donna asked.
She nodded at the teleporter. "He'll be over there in a minute, if you want to stick around and see him."
"But how'd you- oh, never mind! Where is he?"
She shifted uncomfortably, the paralytic still washing out of her system. Thanks, future Anna, she thought, sarcastically, before she shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "You and the Doctor're supposed to be having a conversation about, oh, how are you, are you doing all right, I'm always all right, is always all right time lord for-"
The Doctor cleared his throat, "Listen, if you want to wait by the teleporters to see if he'll show up, we'll be more than happy to-"
"Okay, I'll see you two in a minute!" she said, dashing off as she rushed to meet the love of her life.
"Donna, Donna!" The Doctor called after her.
"What?" she asked, sounding every bit as impatient and Chiswickian as she was.
"Just meet us back at the Tardis when you're done."
Donna looked a little crestfallen before she nodded. "Yeah, all right. See you two in a minute? Don't go swanning off without me, or I will be shouting you back here!" she warned them.
"I'm sure we'll be able to hear you all across the galaxy, but I promise that won't be necessary," the Doctor told her. "See you soon."
"See you later!"
There was silence between them for only a moment before the Doctor spoke. "Come on," he said.
Despite the celebration in the air, there was a somber air between the two of them. She'd saved River Song (even if she couldn't get the image of her own burnt and charred body out of her mind). That was something to celebrate all on it's own.
But, River was different, somehow. There had always been the psychopath underneath the… well, the Song. She'd once described River as being able to switch between River 'sweetie' Song and River 'kill you with a kiss' Song. But, this was something different. This was something entirely new. River wasn't… she wasn't River. Not anymore. There was something much more manic about her, something much more wild than she'd known previously.
That was the thing, though. River hadn't acted that much differently during the crash of the Byzantium. She'd acted like the River that Anna knew.
That was the thing, she realized, quietly. Anna didn't know River. Anna knew a version of River that she'd seen on television.
Maybe this really was a story that she would have to live to understand.
She let out a soft breath at that.
She was so distracted in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the Doctor snapping his fingers, the Tardis doors coming open happily and willingly. The only thing she noticed was that the door was open, and she quickly took steps inside.
She started for the kitchen, (some part of her very annoyed that she already needed sustenance), but the Doctor stopped her.
"What happened back there?"
She raised her eyebrows, turning to look back at him. "Sorry?" she asked.
"The way you were acting, before. What happened…" he paused, uncertainty resting about him like a blanket. "When we first landed, you started quoting the show," he said, his eyebrows barely raising. "It was compulsive, like you couldn't stop, like you had to."
She raised her own eyebrows. "I was in shock," she said. "I thought that I couldn't save River, and you were saying that we were part of events. I couldn't come back when I had my powers back on, which meant that she would've died."
"So you started quoting the show?"
She frowned, searching him. "You're getting to a point, I think."
He let out a breath, searching her, concern etched on his face. "Do you know what being time sensitive means?"
She shot him a deadpanned look. "Being sensitive to time?" she guessed, before understanding reached her. She frowned. "I don't… But you know about my abilities, so I don't understand why you think I'm making the television show up?"
He quickly held up his hands. "I don't think you're making it up," he quickly told her. "I think that your brain is trying to understand the time stream any way that it can. With the expansive amount of knowledge that you have about me, it would make even more sense, actually, that your abilities would turn that into a television show."
She frowned, running her tongue over her top teeth. "So… What you're saying… is…?"
"Anna, I've never seen you like that," he told her. "I've seen you panicked before, but that was… that wasn't panic, that was mania. That was… having an episode," he told her.
"And you're still about to make your point, which is?"
Something about him seemed to calm at that, genuinely calm. "That being inside of an episode like we just were makes you… it takes a toll on your psyche," he told her. "It makes you start to see the timestream as a whole, instead of just seeing a single moment."
She narrowed her eyes before she raised her eyebrows. "So. You're saying that… you think I'm insane?"
"I never said that," he quickly replied. "I just said that being in what you perceive as an episode tends to make you lose touch with reality."
Surprise, realization, and anger hit her all in the same moment as the puzzle pieces assembled themselves.
"Oh my god," she said. "Oh my god, is that why you weren't listening to me about getting down to the data core? Is that-is that why we wasted all that time running around, because you thought- thought what, what exactly were you thinking?"
"That getting you to focus on the present moment would lessen the effects of being locked in to my life, and it did!" he said. "It did, because-"
She felt anger rush through her so fiercely that she wanted to hit him and cry, all in the same moment. "You… oh my god I don't have a word for you right now," she told him. "Really, really, seriously, I- I was trying to prevent that forking shit show and you just went and forked that up! How-how-how- you- you- you-"
"Anna, just-"
She made a noise of frustration, holding up her hand. "No, nu-uh, no, Doctor does not get to talk right now, Doctor gets to drop me off somewhere and not look back for twenty minutes while Anna cools down because I have literally, I have actually literally never been more angry with you in my-" she considered, before she shouted. "You get my point!" she shouted at him.
"Anna-" he started stunned.
"No!" she shouted. "No, my friend, no! You do not get to decide that your wife has just gone crazy because she starts mumbling some- no, no." she pointed at him, feeling fierceness running through her veins. "No."
He held up his hands. "Anna," he started. "I understand that you're upset with me. I get that. But walking away from me isn't the way to solve this. We need to work this out, we need to talk about this-"
"The time to motherfucking talk about it was before you decided in all your infinite time lord wisdom that I'm just insane!" she shouted at him. She was letting out huffs of air through her nose before she raised her eyebrows. "When Donna gets back. You're going to drop me off. You'll pick me up in a day or two when I've had some time to cool. The hell. Down. And then. We'll talk about how you nearly let River Song die because you weren't willing to believe me."
She felt betrayal and cold sadness wash through her, and it took everything in her not to sob and break down, right then and there.
How long had she not been believed, about her emotions, about what she was feeling or what she was saying? How long had she been afraid?
And that fear had just come to life, right before her eyes.
Realizing that's what this was about and knowing that he wasn't her, it made her less inclined to want to be dropped off. It didn't make it any easier to look at him.
"I can't," she said, shaking her head, everything about her body as heavy as lead as she turned from the console room.
"Anna, just-"
"Seriously, I can't," she told him, quietly, holding her hand up and back to him. "Just give me a minute."
He gave her more than a minute. He gave her an hour to cool down, wandering about the Tardis like the ghost he'd always feared she'd one day become because the last time she'd died had been the last time.
He didn't voice this. Even as he found her in the kitchen, staring at the empty table in front of her with a look in her eyes that he couldn't describe.
He didn't say anything. He simply walked into the kitchen, starting to make some food for her because he was sure she was hungry, even if she wouldn't voice this.
"Just start from the beginning," her quiet voice surprised him. "Tell me what happened."
He did just that, even as he continued to cook some fettucine alfredo.
"We walked out of the Tardis, after we'd landed, and you sounded… crazed," he said. "You just started mumbling about us needing to take off, and then you started to say things, things that I didn't understand. It wasn't until you said that it was the wrong show that I understood," he told her. "You were quoting the television show, and this was an episode. And I thought, maybe, because you'd always had your powers, it made it easier to… see the timelines as television shows, make it palatable, in a way. And, because your powers are off, that… broke down any sort of protections you had. This is the first time you've been in an episode without them, and I thought it was just too much for you," he told her. "I thought that, without any way to protect yourself, the timeline was pouring all into your head, all at once."
"The worst part is, I don't know that you're wrong," she said, and he raised his eyebrows, whirling around to look at her, but she wasn't looking at him. She looked like she wanted to be sick. "I kept having these flashes, you know? Of other episodes, of… of this one in particular, this one that happens in the future, and I didn't… I thought it was just me being triggered, or whatever, but what if-" she sucked in a breath before she shook her head. "But that doesn't make sense," she told him, looking back at him. "There is a television show, where I'm from. I watched it, growing up, I saw it, and I-"
He steeled himself over. "Anna," he said, quietly. "What if there never was a Somewhere? What if there was only ever a Somewhere Else? What if you are from here?"
She shook her head, standing. "That's impossible," she said. "I had a life, a whole life before I came here-"
"Because it made it more palatable. It made it easier to focus your sight if it was broken down into television formats-"
She laughed. "So, what-what, you think that every television show that I've ever seen would mean that it exists, here, somewhere?"
He shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "It's a big universe."
She shook her head. "That isn't- that isn't-" she steeled herself over. "That isn't possible," she said. "And I won't accept it."
"Why?" he asked, feeling some desperation creeping in.
"Because it means that she exists, here, in this universe, and I cannot accept that. Not when I'm not like this. Not when I'm powerless."
It took him a moment to understand what she was saying, and it clicked for him, realization cresting through him.
"Oh… Anna…"
Because that was how the abuse had affected her. It had broken apart her realities, made her believe that what she was seeing was television shows, and that's how she escaped the abuse. That's how she'd survived all that time, never being turned into someone cruel or cowardly by what her mother had done to her. She'd had the fantasy of television to escape to.
It meant that it was likely that the woman who had hurt her was here. He made a mental note of that for later, but quickly pushed it from his mind, nodding.
"Okay," he said, holding up his hands. "Okay, well, this is all a moot point anyway, isn't it?" he asked. "Because we won't know for sure until you…" he cleared his throat, the image of Anna's burnt remains sitting in the chair still haunting him. "So this is a moot point anyway. But, Anna?" he asked.
She hugged herself close, barely shaking. "What?" she practically snapped at him.
"I'm sorry."
She furrowed her brows, looking at him.
"For-for what?" she asked.
"For not believing you and for not listening to you when you said we needed to get down to the data core. I should've known better, and I'm so sorry that I didn't."
She looked down at the floor, as if there was a pattern there she could memorize. She furrowed her brows, staring at it for a long moment.
"Can we get chips?" she asked him, though she didn't look up at him.
"Yeah, sure," he said. "Whatever you want."
There was no part of him that didn't mean that.
++Midnight++
They didn't land at a chip shop. Instead, they landed in a posh lobby of what looked to be a posh spa.
"Ooh, are we having a spa day?" Donna asked, trying to act chipper. Anna still had no idea what had went down between her and Lee, and she wasn't keen to ask. She already knew far too much about the redhead without her permission. Let her keep some things private.
She frowned, though. A spa? Why did that-
She felt herself groaning inside, letting her head hang down as she let out a breath.
"Anna? What is it?"
"Midnight," she said, in spite of herself as she looked up. "We're on Midnight."
"And why's that a bad thing?"
Anna furrowed her brows. She stepped out of the Tardis, taking in the brochures and the pamphlets and the people who were milling about, not having noticed that a big blue box had landed smack dab in the middle of the lobby. But why would they? They were nowhere near on high alert, and that aside, she doubted these people would notice something like that. Rich people rarely noticed anything that didn't have to do with them making a profit.
"Maybe it isn't," she noted, before she looked over at the Doctor, making the decision to tell him about the Midnight monster. "How's time feeling right now?" she asked him, refraining herself from calling him Doc, for some reason?
He put his hands in his pockets, sniffing, before he shrugged. "Fine," he said.
"Hold on, what's that mean, how's time feeling?"
Anna took two steps back so that they could fully step off of the Tardis. Donna did so and the Doctor filled in the space. "Time lord's not just a title, remember?" the Doctor asked, as he closed the door behind him. "I can feel what is, what was, and what must never be. Anna's asking me if I can feel a paradox on the horizon, because-" he stopped, abruptly, looking over at her, a silent question in his eyes, before he dismissed it, acting casual. "Because that's what she does, on occasion. It feels fine, by the way," he said, tugging on his ear.
"You said that already," Donna pointed out.
"Donna, the Doctor's gonna get you set up with a spa package."
"And why is the Doctor gonna do that, then?" she asked.
"Because you deserve it," she told her. "Kick back, relax, all that good stuff."
"What'll you two be doing while I'm- You know what? I've just realized, married couple, in a spa, don't really need the complete picture. Yeah, sure, you two dash off. Just do me a favor, don't get into any trouble without me," she said.
"Why not?" The Doctor asked.
"Cause I won't be there to get you out of it," she said. "I swear, some days, I've no idea how you two survive without me."
"Will do," the Doctor 'played along.'
Meanwhile, Anna shivered, Donna having no idea just how true that statement really was. Well, how true that was for the Doctor, in any case.
#####
Taking care of the mythical Midnight monster was easy enough. It was strangely easy to convince hotel management that some things existed out in the x-tonic sun and that taking certain pathways would only end like it did for Hansel and Gretel when they followed breadcrumbs. Come to think of it, the Midnight monster had been pushed back into it's own metaphorical oven, the Midnight monster meeting a similar end to the witch in that respect.
In fact, the Doctor was a lot like Hansel and Gretel, in his own way, always eating candy (finding mysteries) that he shouldn't, being beckoned in by a friendly witch only to nearly be consumed by the very thing he found so fascinating in the first place. How many times had he been so lucky, she wondered? It had to literally range into the upper millions. Before, he hadn't had someone by his side to pull him out of the oven. But even now, when he had a partner, he was always finding trouble where he shouldn't, very nearly ending up as a witch's dinner.
Even the Doctor's luck had to run out eventually.
But, that wasn't now. Now, the Midnight monster disaster had been averted, two lives had been saved, and she and the Doctor got to do what they rarely did: enjoy a day, just the two of them, ordering room service and partaking in other activities that were common in hotel rooms.
#####
"This was an episode. Wasn't it?"
The way the Doctor said it, he may as well have been delivering a cancer diagnosis. It wasn't the greatest thing, considering that she was currently laying in his arms.
"Um. Yeah?" she tried. "So?"
His breath fanned the top of her head, sounding dejected.
"Because you're still you," he said. "You're still you, and calm, and sane, and rational."
She shook her head. "It's not the same," she said, quietly, and it wasn't. "For one thing, we diverted way off track of where the episode was supposed to be. You were supposed to…" she shivered, shaking her head as she burrowed herself deeper into his chest. "You were supposed to be possessed by the Midnight monster," she said, quietly. "Two people were supposed to die. Maybe it's easier for me to handle because what I saw didn't come to pass. That aside, River is… complicated, and that's extraordinarily mild of a word for what she actually is. She's tied up with so many episodes that it would make sense, what you were saying before. Being around River was too much to handle," she told him, quietly.
There was silence for the space of about twelve heartsbeats before he spoke, his words gentle and quiet. "I thought you said you didn't want to believe it, that you wouldn't, because of… everything," he said, choosing his words with great care.
She shrugged, though she felt ice filling up her veins at the mere thought of her.
"If this is the truth, then denying it because I'm scared won't change that. I did that for too long, and it's not who I am anymore, even if I still have the knee jerk reaction to every now and again," she told him. She looked up at him. "I do trust you," she said. "And, if that's what you really think, that this is time sensitivity or whatever, then until we can prove otherwise, we'll treat it as fact."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because devolving into unchecked insanity is not the way we end," she told him. "Because we don't end, but that aside, because I won't be the wife you have to hide in the attic because I have good days and bad days. If this is time sensitivity, then I need to learn how to control it and how to be okay during episodes. At least, until…" she tapped her fingers on his chest, barely smiling before she shook her head. "So. In a few days, we'll come up with a plan, figure out how to deal with this whole mess."
He frowned. "Why in a couple of days?"
"Because I've got an all expenses paid trip with my husband, and I plan to use that time very, very differently than delving into a conversation about my sanity," she told him, reaching up and kissing him, which he was more than happy to respond to.
And so, they did spend their time much differently, even if the thought of that horrible conversation was still on both of their minds the entire time, festering in a corner like a wounded animal waiting to strike.
A/N: So. Yeah. This happened. Diverted from canon a little earlier than expected, but that does tend to happen when you're me. Again, sorry about the quality, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway, especially the whole thing I did with the episode quotes. Even if you didn't, I'm happy with how it turned out (even if that is one of the only things I'm happy with how it turned out).
Before you comment on the whole 'why haven't they discussed their lack of connection?' let me say that there wasn't room or time in these past two chapters. I'm delving into it next chapter.
As always, thanks for reading!