Danni wasn't sure why the Doctor was sending her out first. She stepped out into the stone hallway yet again, hesitating in the TARDIS doorway. She wasn't sure how much more her self esteem could take. Each time they had reappeared River still didn't know who she was, only knowing her as the woman who appeared occasionally with the Doctor. They'd gone forward in her time line, dropping in just after he dropped her off and seeing if she remembered Danni.
She didn't. Well, beyond the strange woman that her husband was acting peculiar over. The Doctor still refused to tell her, and Danni didn't have the emotional capacity to continue to protest her own existence. Being told she wasn't important by the person who had always treated you like the most important person in their universe was devastating and exhausting and Danni didn't want to do it anymore.
The Doctor had told her to head out without him, though. Sometimes to do with background radiation testing and measuring spikes in some sort of energy when she spoke to her mother. She glanced back at him at the console, then slowly headed down the stone corridor to the cell. He was making it up, she knew. He just didn't want to deal with a touchy-feely River again. To be honest she didn't want to see that again either. It was all just so… tiring.
River had obviously heard the TARDIS arrive because she was exiting her cell, dressed to impress and obviously eager to leave the prison. She took a look at Danni and rolled her eyes. Danni winced, expecting some sort of snappy retort.
"Did he dump you here again?" River asked with a sigh. "Honestly, that husband of yours… It's a wonder you stay with him." She frowned at Danni, who seemed to have frozen in front of her and was staring like she didn't believe she existed. "What? What is it?"
"You… You think he's my husband?" Danni asked and River nodded slowly.
"I suppose so, yeah," she agreed. "Not a good one, though. You always could do better."
Danni took a couple of steps towards her, too scared to get any closer in case she broke the spell and River reverted back to the woman they'd been meeting. "Who am I?" she asked.
"Danni Fielding," River replied with furrowed brows. She glanced back at the TARDIS and had to wonder if maybe she was being tricked. Probably not, though. "Have you just regenerated?"
Danni shook her head. She wanted to believe they were finally back on track for their timeline but she just couldn't let herself yet. Her hearts were racing, hope glimmering from the woman in front of her.
"No, tell me who I am to you," she replied urgently. "Please, River, just… just tell me."
"You're my daughter," River replied. "And my friend. You're married to the Doctor, who never deserved you but you never did listen to me. You shot me once but I got over it… what is happening?"
Danni just let out a little sob as she closed the gap, pulling River into a hug. River immediately wrapped her up in her arms, startled and more than a little worried. "It's okay," she replied. "Honestly, you were always so dramatic."
Danni laughed and cried harder at the mention of their shared past. River didn't let her go, though, enjoying having her in her arms for a time.
"I'm guessing you answered correctly?" the Doctor called and River looked over at the TARDIS. He was stood in the doorway watching the pair.
"Answered what correctly?" she replied.
He nodded into the TARDIS. "You should join us. Danielle, you might want to let her go."
Danni shook her head, but did as he said, letting the woman go. She rushed over to her husband's side, her eyes glittering with tears as she smiled up at him. "She remembers me!" she exclaimed. He nodded, placing a hand on her shoulder and gently pushing her in.
"I know, I heard," he replied lightly. "Go on, in you get."
She nodded and dashed in, practically bouncing as the Doctor and River entered at a much more leisurely pace.
"Do either of you want to explain what is going on?" the archaeologist asked. "Not that I'm not pleased that you seem happy to see me, Danni-Girl."
Danni nodded. "You're our control River," she replied happily. "We've been looking all over for you."
"Control River?"
"Danielle is being slowly erased from time," the Doctor explained as he sent them into the vortex once again. "Very slowly. Too slowly, in fact. If it was going to happen, she should have been gone but she is not. She's still very much here." He glanced over at his wife, who knew those words were for her and not for her mother. She shot him a smile in return. "But someone is playing with my timeline, and because we all know how much of her existence rides on it, something is slowly giving."
"And it's erasing her from history?" River finished for them. "Well? Who is it and how do we stop them?"
"We don't know," the Doctor replied. "We don't know who, and we don't know when and we don't know how. All we know is that the last seven Rivers we have visited have had no idea who she is." The Doctor leant on the console. "Do you remember going to see the 700th anniversary showing of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone?" River nodded. "Do you remember when we came to see you afterwards?"
"It was a couple of weeks later," River replied. "We went to see Eurovision."
The Doctor shook his head. "No, not then," he corrected. "Straight afterwards. This me, and this Danielle came to see you. Do you remember that?"
"No, not at all," River replied.
"Then there's two separate timelines working together," Danni said, stepping towards. "One where everything is normal, and one where…"
The Doctor felt it again. It tore at his hearts and, to his side, River gasped as well. Danielle was gone again, nothing but an empty space where she was stood. He turned to River, eyes blazing.
"What's her name?" he demanded.
"Where did she go?" River asked in reply and he narrowed his eyes, letting his urgency come through.
"What's her name?" he demanded again.
River realised what he was doing. He was making sure that she could remember Danni. "Danielle Fielding."
He nodded. "Who is she to you?"
"She's my daughter."
"When was she conceived?"
"On the night of my graduation," River replied, cocking her eyebrow slightly. In any other situation she would have asked if he'd wanted the gory details, but she just made sure he knew that she was holding it back.
"Who's her father?"
"Jack Harkness."
He sighed, obviously pleased with her answers even though it still didn't mean that she was back. "Where did she go?" River asked again, this time quieter, trying to keep calm.
"She's been erased from time," he explained. "She'll reappear at some point, but I don't know when and no time at all will have passed for her."
He pointed at River. "You can't leave the TARDIS," he suddenly declared. "The TARDIS can help preserve your memories for as long as possible, but you are the first River with any memory of her."
"If I get reintroduced into the timeline I may forget her as well," River agreed, feeling slightly horrified at the idea of her losing her best friend and her daughter in one swoop. "You have no idea when she will return?"
"Last time it was three days," he told her, keeping the nature of their activities at the time to himself. "Sometimes it's seconds. We don't know."
"So, we just have to wait?" River exclaimed, but for once her anger wasn't at the man in front of her. Even she could see the way he'd reacted to Danni disappearing, and to save her daughter arguing with the only person who could potentially help wasn't the way to go.
The Doctor nodded. "It's terribly frustrating," he admitted, leaning back against the console once again from his straightened position. He still needed more information. Going back and trying to save her was only good if he knew the point she was removed from time. She never existed, but when did the change happen?
"Tell me about your graduation," he said to River, who frowned.
"I don't think I can," she replied slowly. "It's not happened for you yet."
"Just don't tell me when it is for me," he replied. "Tell me what happened."
She shrugged. "Nothing, really. Danni convinced you to come and watch, then afterwards…" she frowned to herself. "No, wait, that's not right."
He shot off the console, moving closer and watching her with those hawk eyes that she teased him about. "What's changed?" he asked.
River was still frowning, obviously lost in her search of her memories. "You came to see me, but you didn't," she told him. "I remember it both ways." She jolted slightly, looking up at him and looking horrified. "I remember looking out and wondering if you were going to turn up," she said. "Not Danni, just you. I…" she pulled a face. "I wanted you to be there. What's that all about?"
The Doctor nodded in agreement at her disgust. "The Rivers before you kept kissing me," he explained. "Danielle said that in her other universe, we were married. That we were… together."
Both of them looked at each other, neither of them particularly happy at that news. "That explains why it was such a worry for her. Well, thank the universe for small miracles," River murmured. "The point is that I'm starting to gain the memories of two different timelines, even if I remember the original. The change is already becoming permanent."
"But she doesn't exist at the moment," the Doctor replied. "The true test will be when she comes back." He set off towards the hallway. "Wait here for her. Hopefully she won't be too long."
"Where are you going?" she called after him, but he had already disappeared. She grumbled to herself. "Arse."
What exactly was she supposed to do? It was obvious that Danni was missing from her life, even if she still had the memory of her in her life. There had to be something that she could do to help.
But there really wasn't, so she slowly walked up to the console, grabbing the monitor and pulled it towards her. "Show me Danni Fielding," she murmured to herself, using the keyboard she'd pulled the monitor to. "Come on, you know you can find her."
The symbols spun around, but nothing came up. No pictures, no information and River smacked the monitor. "Come on, you stupid box. I know you know who she is. Show me."
The TARDIS normally cooperated with her fully and happily, and usually River had nothing but patience for the box. She knew the Doctor didn't fly her properly and that Danni had zero experience doing so either, so River was certain the box enjoyed having her on board to treat her right.
But, still, nothing showed up. River sighed heavily and flopped into the pilot seat, crossing her arms. She felt so useless just sat there waiting, although what exactly could she do about it? Danni had saved her when she was a child although she wasn't sure what from and then she'd helped her show her parents that she was actually their daughter. She really was her best friend, but all she could do was wait.
~0~0~0~
"…everything is…"
River jumped out of her thoughts as Danni suddenly, and with no warning, appeared in front of her. She'd been trying to recall every memory she could about her daughter in the hopes that she could pinpoint the ones where it had changed. It had become obvious that she was starting to gain two different sets of memories; one with her and one without.
The TARDIS monitor sparked into life, displaying a picture of the blonde in front of her along with details that scrolled next to it.
Danni looked around, trailing off her sentence as she realised that the Doctor was nowhere to be seen and River had moved to the chair. Her hearts clenched painfully in panic and she shook her head. "No, not again."
River quickly jumped off the chair, rushing over to pull her in for a hug. She never did like to baby Danni, but even she knew that now wasn't the time to make her feel worse about being upset. She deserved to be.
"You're okay," River promised. "You're back, you're okay."
"Was I- Was I gone long?" she sobbed, shaking in her mother's arms.
"Only about 20 minutes," she reassured her. "The Doctor went into the TARDIS, but I don't know what for. He'll be here any minute."
Even now they both could hear his footsteps echoing, and Danni broke out of River's arms to rush over to him for comfort. But she was stopped by the sight of him holding bundles of messy paper, eyes wide and a grin on his face.
"What's that?" Danni asked him.
"I'm an idiot," he replied joyfully. "A complete fool. I don't know why I didn't see it before," he rushed over. "It's in the photographs!"
"Photo- are those my pictures?" she asked as he crouched on the floor and dumped the photographs down. Danni could already see the images of all of their friends staring up at them.
"Yes," he replied, looking up at her. "I'm going to fix this," he promised. "I'm going to make sure none of this happens again. These are the key!"
"How?"
"Because they exist because you do," he replied. "Not one of these would be here if you weren't here to take them, and they still existed when you didn't. Which means that the TARDIS is working very hard to keep them in place."
"When I tried to bring up information about you, the TARDIS couldn't find anything," River added. "If she's preserving these, it must be for a reason."
The Doctor nodded, already sorting through. "We need to find the earliest one," he said. "The earliest photo where you are still in it."
Danni crouched on the floor next to him. "Why?"
He smiled at her. "Because that's the Doctor where everything changed. If we find him, we will find out what the hell is going on."
~0~0~0~
"You know," Danni started and the other two looked up at her. "There's no pictures of Rose in here."
Danni had a lot of photographs. The Doctor had gone out and come back with even more the ones that didn't make it onto the wall of her bedroom and it became apparent that a strategy was in order. So they'd started to sort into companions in the hope that something would become apparent.
"Maybe we just haven't found any yet?" River reasoned. "I mean, this is an obscene about of pictures. I'm not sure when you had the time to take them all."
"There's always time to take a picture," Danni replied matter-of-factly. "And you never know if you'll want a different one, so I like to take a few. I had loads of Rose, we should have found at least one by now."
"So, we know that it's already changing your timeline too?" River said to the Doctor. "Do you have memories of Danni with Rose?"
"Yes, but I'm the end point," he retorted. "Anyone after me is going to have sorted this out or…"
"Or would have already forgotten me," Danni finished softly. He shot her an apologetic look and she shrugged. "So we know that it's becoming more permanent, and that at least Nine and part of Ten do not know who I am."
The Doctor jumped up. "We should test it," he declared. "River, you keep sorting, see if we come to another pattern."
"Oh great," she grumbled. "Continuing the trip down memory lane."
The Doctor held his hand up and helped Danni off the floor. "There's some of me and Mels in there somewhere," she said pointedly to the bushy-haired woman. "Remember when we followed Rory to work?"
River's eyes did light up slightly, even though she held the rest of her face neutral to hide it. "Well, I guess it won't be all bad," she replied, turning to the pile once again. "It's not like I can go with you anyway."
"What are we going to do?" Danni asked the Doctor as he headed to the console. "Are we just going to drop in on him and ask?"
~0~0~0~
The Tenth Doctor wasn't lost. He didn't get lost. His companions got lost, not him. The marketplace was very large, it was easy to see why they would maybe lose their bearing, but it definitely wasn't him.
Rose had to be somewhere. She wandered off on her own all of the time, but he always found her. They always found each other eventually, he would have just preferred to find her sooner rather than later.
He quickly apologised as he bumped into someone, turning on his heel so he could address them properly. He smiled, feeling slightly guiltier but almost happier to see that they had bright ginger hair. He always wanted to be ginger.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't paying attention at all to where I was going."
She smiled at him, a bright grin that turned slightly playful as she looked him over. "That's alright," she replied. "Feel free to bump into me anytime."
He chuckled, running his hand through his hair. It was always nice to get the attention of someone like he obviously had with the very attractive young lady. Nothing wrong with padding out the ego a little bit. "I'll bear that in mind," he replied happily before shoving his hand out to her, remembering his manners. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."
"Doctor?" she repeated just as he expected her to. "Doctor who?"
He couldn't help the wolfish grin. "Oh, just… just the Doctor."
"Well," she drawled, "Doctor. I'm Danni. It's very nice to meet you." Her brows furrowed and he frowned at the concentration that appeared on her face. "Wait, let me just…" she waved her hand over him. "You're looking for someone," she declared and his brows furrowed. "A blonde girl. A girl who is very far from home. In jeans and a hoodie. And a flower... a lily? No. Rose."
He suddenly felt the humour fall away and he took a step closer, looking at her with suspiciously. "How did you know that?" he asked lowly.
"Because the story of you life is painted in the winds of time," she said ominously before her grin spread. "Or I was approached by a lovely South Londoner who was looking for her devilishly handsome friend in a blue suit and overcoat, with messy brown hair."
He felt himself relax when he realised that she had well and truly played him. "Did… Did she say that?"
Danni shrugged, still looking smug. "Well, I may have added the 'devilishly handsome' part, but she was definitely looking for you. Over that way," she pointed towards a shoe shop. "Seems a bit miffed she couldn't find you. Better hurry along."
"Yes, I guess I better…" he started before looking at her suspiciously. "Devilishly handsome?" he repeated, obviously unable to let it slide. She nodded.
"What can I say? I call it like I see it," she retorted and he grinned at her.
"Well…" he drawled and she motioned over to the shoe shop.
"Maybe I'll see you around, though?" she asked and he nodded eagerly.
"Definitely," he promised, although she knew that he never went back on himself. "Definitely see you around, Danni."
She watched him walk off after Rose with a smile on her face that slowly faded the farther he walked away. When he dipped into the shop she turned and headed away from him and into a little alleyway where the TARDIS was hidden.
The door opened before she made it to the box, and she stepped inside to see both the Doctor and River look over at her. "I hate this thing," she told them both bluntly, pulling the small black box off the waistband of her trousers.
"You always said you missed your first body," the Doctor pointed out as she shimmered back into her blonde self.
"I did… I mean, I do," she stuttered slightly. "I just didn't think that I'd have it back while working out if my husband knew who I was."
"Did he?" the Doctor asked and she shook her head.
"He was lovely to me. Flirted a bit, didn't call me a stupid little girl. It's safe to say that he had no idea who I was," she confirmed. "Now what?"
"Now we know it's eating into my time line as well," he reasoned. "What we need is to find out when it stops. We need to find out the first Doctor who remembers you, maybe we can correlate that with River."
Danni frowned. "Correlate?"
"He means see if we're at the same point in time," River explained for him. "I suspect that the idea is that we will be at the same point in our timelines together."
"Which is very hard to measure when you constantly meet out of order," the Doctor continued, a bite to his tone as if it were her fault. "We don't even meet backward to front. We're all over the spot. Sometimes it's linear, sometimes it's not."
"But we know the Doctor who took her out," Danni reasoned. "Surely it's him we're looking for."
"I'm already gaining two sets of memories. We need the Doctor after me," River said.
"Alright, well, where did we take her next?" Danni asked, walking up to the Doctor's side. He handed her their TARDIS diary but neither of them said it out loud. It wasn't anything special, just a trip on a space cruise, but they couldn't spoil it for River.
"Alright, give me a pen," Danni demanded, holding her hand out to the Doctor expectantly. He frowned but did as she said.
"What are you doing?" River asked as she sat down on the floor.
"The photos are a good indication, but I can narrow it down further," Danni replied, a thoughtful frown on her face. "He never picks you up without me, and I remember both of these dates. They're both when I was jumping. I think I can remember the Doctors in between them."
"The ones you jumped to?" River asked and she nodded. River looked up at the Doctor. "That might work," she told him. "If she's being erased, it makes more sense that the memories are being removed through her timeline rather than your own. It's just more permanent for us both the farther away from the change we are."
"There's a Doctor in here somewhere that lines up with you," Danni replied. "The next Doctor, or the one afterwards. We get to him and we can work out where whoever is messing around has uprooted time."
The Doctor watched her scribbling down notes, trying to jolt her own memory. He walked over and knelt next to her, putting a hand on her head to pull her closer. He placed a kiss on her hair. "You can do it, my Pet," he encouraged lowly. He couldn't lose her.
~0~0~0~
Sorry for the long wait between updates, but as I'm sure that most if not all of you came from the main series you're going to know why :D :D
Hopefully I won't be as bad next time around. Thanks for all the support/reviews xxx