Danni would always find herself far more nervous to meet the Face of Boe than she ever did when she went to see Jack. With Jack, it was like going to see an old friend. She could walk in without knocking, get comfy even if he was out. She could spend all day in his flat on her own and he'd be unsurprised to find her there. While years could go between visits, their time apart always felt very short.
With the Face of Boe, it always felt so much grander. Most of her dealings with the Big Boe Face actually seemed to happen without him there. She and the Doctor would get little messages to investigate something or another. There had been a time he'd sent her into a company to save the Doctor from being used as a live computer system. But he was this mystical figure. A head of an empire that spanned centuries and galaxies. To think that she was his friend was strange. The fact he was her father seemed so much so.
He always met them in such large buildings as well. She knew he must have had a home somewhere, but it was with a sense of surprise that she realised she'd never actually been. He was always travelling, he was always somewhere new, but it was always an office building.
Even now, the giant elevator they had been travelling in opened up into an even larger office. The Face of Boe was behind a desk that was obviously only for show, after all it wasn't like he could use any of the pens or papers that were laying neatly on top of it. Danni and the Doctor stepped into the room, walking side by side and over to the head and his helper, who was stood in front of the desk.
"Ah, Miss Fielding…"
"Mrs," Danni corrected her sharply. "Mrs Fielding."
The woman nodded her head in a small bow. "My apologies. Mrs Fielding, I just have a couple of forms for you and your husband to sign. A non disclosure agreement, and a disclaimer that covers this meeting."
Danni nodded. "Of course."
The woman smiled and handed the couple a small pile of paper each to sign. Danni glanced up at her husband, who caught her gaze. They then both chucked the papers over their shoulder, scattering it over the floor behind them.
"Me and my husband never sign anything," Danni explained. "You must be rather new not to know that."
The woman looked almost offended at their behaviour. "No one can see the Face of Boe without signing those papers," she exclaimed. "If you refuse to then you will have to leave."
"I don't think that is going to happen," the Doctor replied, looking down at his wife. "What do you think, my Pet?"
"Oh no, I'm not going anywhere," Danni replied cheerfully, but with a definite challenging edge to her tone.
"If you will not leave, you will be forcibly removed," the woman replied angrily.
"Forcibly removed?" Danni repeated with a little bit of a scoff. She looked past the woman to the Face of Boe, who had been silent up until that point. "Jack? Are you going to have us removed? I'm hurt."
Of course not, the voice in their heads replied. Sarah, do calm down.
The woman, Sarah, turned to look at him, her mouth agape. "But sir! I was told explicitly that no one was to see you without filling in those forms!"
Yes, I know, he replied. I do like watching people meet my daughter, it is always amusing. You can leave us now.
"But… but sir!" she spluttered.
Now, Sarah.
Danni always found it really interesting that a telepathic voice could put on emotion. There was definitely a hard edge to Jack's internal voice when he sent the woman away, and she had obviously heard it as well.
"Of course, sir," she replied hastily before turning and dashing out of the room.
Danni sighed. "Really, Jack? I don't just come here to torment your staff."
But it's so much fun, he said with a little chuckle. It's good to see you Danni, Doctor. What do I owe this visit to?
Danni looked up at her husband again, this time for reassurance rather than in a joint joke. He nodded, placing a hand on her back before gently nudging her forward. "Go on, he can help," he encouraged softly.
What is it?
"I'm being erased from time," Danni started quietly, already upset. Voicing it out loud to anyone who wasn't her husband suddenly made it feel all the more real. "Sometimes only for moments, but sometimes for days. I always come back but, for the time I'm gone, I never exist."
She made her way slowly to the desk. "I remember, when the Great Intelligence tried to kill the Doctor and I was erased from existance, you felt the ripples in time. You called me to visit you just to make sure I was okay. I didn't know who else to ask, because everyone else for-forgets me." Her lip quivered, the last couple of words coming out as barely a whisper.
Doctor, the giant head called. Do you forget?
"Never," the Doctor replied. "It's just everyone else."
Danni sniffed. "I'm really scared, Jack," she told the head softly. "One day I might not come back. Just because he hasn't forgotten me yet doesn't mean he never will."
One of the downsides of being a giant head floating around in a jar was the fact that very little, if any, contact was possible. Seeing his daughter upset had always been hard for Jack, and during the millennia he had lived it never became any easier. Unfortunately there wasn't much he could do about it.
Doctor, he said again. Perhaps you could…
Jack didn't need to finish his sentence, because the Doctor stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulder in comfort. Danni snuggled up against him, but shot the Face of Boe a grateful smile.
Time is always in flux, the Face of Boe explained. The waves are very hard to keep track of, as I'm sure your husband will confirm. Let me see what I can remember.
They all stayed silent, waiting for Jack to searched his gigantic memory for anything that felt out of the ordinary. His eyes closed and he seemed to take a deep breath, although Danni wasn't sure how, or if, he breathed at all.
His eyes opened. Time is changing. Something is trying to alter the course of history. Can you feel it, Doctor?
Danni looked up at his husband, who took a similar stance; eyes closed, deep breath as he felt along the course of time. He'd been so concerned about his wife's life slowly being unravelled that he'd not taken the time to look at his own.
His eyes snapped open. "Someone is playing with my timeline," he commented darkly. "They're not doing a very good job at it, though. Bloody amatures."
"Why would someone do that?" Danni asked. "Is that what's affecting me?"
Your mother would be the best place to start, the Face of Boe told her. I suspect that in her studies she may have picked up something that we do not know.
"I went to River," the Doctor replied. "She had no recollection of Danni. She thought we were married," he pulled a face. "It wasn't pleasant."
"She thought you were married?" Danni asked sharply. "Like you were actually her husband?"
"She was nice to me," the Doctor continued, as if he'd been put though something awful. "It was deeply unsettling."
Danni looked at Jack. "Time is being reverted to before I came," she said. "Like it was in my other universe."
"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked. Danni bit her lip, still not sure how to bring this subject up. She'd hinted at it in the past, but she never wanted him to know about the television show she barely remembered from before they'd met. No one deserved that humiliation, and there was nothing they could do about it. In fact, the television show helped them so much in those early years, changing the fact that it existed probably wasn't the best idea.
"When I knew you, before I knew you," she started vaguely. "In the other universe where I grew up, you married River on top of the pyramid and you meant it. She was your wife, you loved each other a lot. She was raised by the Silence to kill you, but she became obsessed with you instead of me. If I hadn't come here, that's how time would have gone too."
"That's not right," the Doctor retorted. "I owe her a debt, but I wouldn't ever love her."
"You did," Danni corrected. "I saw it. It broke my heart and you weren't exactly…" she shrugged sheepishly. "You weren't exactly real in the other universe, either. But that was why I was always so adamant that you were going to leave me for her; I'd seen it already."
Time is changing to a universe unaffected by Danni's presence, Jack summerised. How large are the gaps when she is not here?
"The last one was over three days," the Doctor replied. "River is intertwined in both of our lives. It would make sense that she's affected by any change." He grabbed Danni's hand. "We have to go."
"But…" Danni stuttered, looking to Jack for an explanation.
I would guess that each gap is someone's attempt at changing history, he reasoned. If the gaps are getting bigger, they must be becoming more successful at changing it. Soon you will not come back at all. It needs nipping in the bud.
She nodded. "Alright," she agreed, letting the Doctor pull her to the elevator again. "I'll let you know if we find anything else."
Take care, Danni-Girl, the Face of Boe told her. And be quick.
~0~0~0~
Stormcage wasn't the best home River had ever had. She'd had comfier beds, and more reading material than she had access to. However, she made her little cell her own, much to the dismay of the guards. A little box of things under her bed, a little pile of books that somehow they never seemed to be able to take away from her. And it was the longest she'd ever had a base to return to.
She didn't hate it was the crux of the matter. She didn't love it, but returning to it in the early hours of the morning after a trip out into the stars wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Still, it was always nice to hear the wheezing engines of a TARDIS whose breaks had never been taken off.
She fluffed her hair a bit, checked her reflection in her standard-issue mirror and then walked over to the cell door. With an ease that shouldn't have been possible if they had been locked, she pushed it open and glanced down the hallway at the brilliant blue box. Nothing made her day better than seeing that box in the flesh. It meant adventure, it meant new sights. It meant the most important person in the universe was about to step out.
She frowned just slightly in confusion at the old man that stepped out, dressed not unlike a magician before she realised that the Doctor must have regenerated. Well, there was always a first time for any meeting. She should know. It was a side effect of living out of order from each other.
"I wasn't expecting to see you until later," she called to the two people. "But I'm definitely not disappointed."
There wasn't much distance between them, which meant that before either of them could answer, River was already grabbing hold of the Doctor's lapel, pulling him in for a kiss.
Danni's eyes widened in surprise and she quickly reached out, shoving River off her stunned husband. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she snapped.
River just smirked. She loved new companions because it was always so easy to tease them. Especially considering how obvious the young woman fancied the Doctor. She was stood very close, her eyes full of anger at the kiss.
"Did he not tell you who I was?" River asked. She held her hand out to her. "River Song, the missus."
Danni's eyes narrowed and she didn't take her hand. "Danielle Fielding," she replied. "Also the missus."
River rolled her eyes. "Of course, he married another one," she dismissed. It wasn't exactly uncommon for the Doctor to get married. She knew hers was special, though, because she was the one who he kept coming back to.
"You don't know who I am?" Danni asked before looking up at the Doctor. "How does she not know who I am?"
"I'm not sure," the Doctor replied, also concerned by the archeologists behaviour. River should have recognised Danni straight away, after all she'd spent time with this particular body on many occasions. And, even if she hadn't, the name itself should have brought out a least a little reaction. He pulled out his screwdriver, pointing it at River and setting it off.
River frowned as he scanned her. "What is it, what's going on?" she asked. "Has something happened?"
"Most definitely," the Doctor murmured. The results showed nothing out of the ordinary. He popped it back into his pocket and pointed at the blonde woman to his side. "You don't know her at all?"
River shook her head. "Maybe you're too early?" she offered. "Should I remember her?"
"You gave birth to her," the Doctor replied bluntly. "You don't remember that at all? Sleeping with Jack Harkness? Being pregnant? Nothing?"
"I'm sorry?" River asked in disbelief. "Do you expect me to believe that?"
Danni tugged on the Doctor's arm. "I don't like this," she said bluntly. River's complete disregard was really unnerving, as was the proof that her theory had been right. Without her in their lives, River and the Doctor would have been married.
"No, I don't either," the Doctor replied. Danielle still hadn't disappeared from his side, which meant that she was still in his timeline, but River proved that the damage was already becoming irreversible. He also really didn't appreciate the fact that she suddenly found it okay to kiss him, and not in the joking way she and Danni used to tease him with. That was a full on snog, and it made him feel rather uncomfortable.
He reached up and wiped his mouth, as if there was still residue on it. "When was the last time you saw us- I mean me?"
River looked between the two. "Are you going to explain what is going on here?" she demanded.
"No," the Doctor replied. "When was it?"
Well, that took care of River's worry that it wasn't the Doctor. That familiar frustration at his behaviour was building and she knew that no one could fake that. "We went to the 200th birthday of the King of Dre'em, remember?" she replied. That had been an earlier Doctor so it was safe to share the spoiler. "We danced all night underneath the…"
The Doctor pointed at her, the distress coming off his actual wife in droves. "No, no, stop it," he told her. "We didn't dance. We've never danced." He grabbed Danni's hand, pulling her away. "Goodbye, River."
"Wait, Doctor!" she called after him, jogging to keep up with his long strides. "Tell me what's going on!"
"I told you, no," he snapped. "Stay here. Try not to forget anything else."
He practically shoved Danni inside the TARDIS, walking up to the console. "Where did we go after the King's birthday?" he mumbled to himself more than asking his wife. He quickly flew them into the vortex before pulling open one of the console panels.
"I don't understand," Danni declared, storming up to his side. "How can she not remember me? I'd understand if I wasn't here, but I was! She should have remembered me."
"Yes, she should have," he agreed, rummaging through the junk he kept underneath the console. "Why don't I keep this clean?"
"I told you to clean it out years ago," she pointed out. "You said you knew where everything was so it was a wasted effort."
"It was then," he replied before grabbing the book he was after. Danni's eyes widened in surprise at the blue TARDIS book that looked much less worn than River's did.
"How do you have that?" she asked.
"I know you gave River hers," he said. "It seemed like a good idea, so I got one of my own." He rotated it in his hand, looking to work out which side was the front. Each cover was identical and with no marking it was hard to tell. "Even though it was River, it felt like keeping track would probably help in the long run. I just wish it had a better cover, but I thought it would be easier to find if it looked like hers. What did we do after the King's birthday?"
He started flicking through the pages as Danni's brows furrowed in thought. "Was that when we went sailing on those green lakes?"
He shook his head. "No, that was later on. Here." He handed her the book. "Find out where we need to go next."
He hopped over to the console. "I have a couple of theories," he told her, referring to what was happening. "None of which are ideal, but we need to narrow it down. Find the right River."
"The right River?" she asked, quickly flicking through the book. She'd seen River's before, and each of the adventures had details, and some drawings, and had obviously been added in by someone who loved noting them all down. The Doctor's basically had places, names, dates and things of note. It was designed to keep track and nothing more. It was rather sad.
Then again River's rarely, if it all, mentioned the Doctor. And when it did, it was never a nice reference.
"The first River who remembers you," he clarified. "We find her, and I think we will be able to work out what's happening."