Chapter 4
"I have a question," the Doctor said.
They had managed to make it back to the coach before sliding onto it in a semi-clothed, boneless heap. They weren't snuggled into each other, but his hand was in hers, and neither seemed to be inclined to let go of the other.
River closed her eyes and rested her feet on the coffee table, thoroughly content with the universe. "What's that, sweetie?"
He squeezed her hand at the endearment, his thumb running over her knuckles. "You said it'd been awhile for you as well. Every book ever invented, and well … we've always had an understanding regarding such things."
"You mean why didn't I re-enact the Kama Sutra and its 16 million translations with every literary hero I've ever fantasized about?"
"I'm OK with it as long as it wasn't Christian Grey."
River snorted. "I deleted that series from the Library as soon as Charlotte allowed me access to help catalog the system."
The Doctor grinned. "That's my wee psychopath."
"Try your wee savior of the literary world. As for your question, I tried. I honestly tried. I wanted to, desperately." River sighed. "You noticed I was dressed all in white, yes? CAL envisioned me as an angel, a motherly figure. Which was all well and good until I attempted to satisfy any adult desire."
The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Every book in the universe and it was censored?"
"Not the books. I was censored, and I wasn't the only one. All the inhabitants were - the 4,022 before and the members of my team left behind. CAL is the mind of a child, Doctor, and a young one at that. Of course the Lux family was going to ensure everything remained PG-rated. Any time there was a hint of intimacy, the system leaped ahead in time. You never needed the loo, didn't need to shower or change a baby's diaper or deal with vomit. It also extended to sex. Intercourse, masturbation, fellatio, all of that was omitted. The same thing with murder, though you saw the end result. The most action I had while I was a data ghost was with you on Trenzalore."
"You were stripped of your sex drive?" he gasped at her.
"It was censored," River repeated. "I felt the urge, then there was the system skip, and then the urge was satisfied. Not as well as you and I just did, but CAL is oriented to keep the inhabitants happy. That included not being horny all the time."
"Huh," he said, and they lapsed back into a comfortable silence. His thumb continued to run over her knuckles as they lazily watched her bra dangle from a lamp, neither of them quite sure how it got there. "I have more questions."
"I'm sure you do, but I have one of my own."
He arched an eyebrow. "You do, do you?"
She smirked. "I am allowed."
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it softly, secretly thrilled at his desire to keep touching her. It was like a millenia of touch-denial debt had suddenly come due, and he couldn't keep his hands off her. He wondered if she was up for more, well … maybe they could make it to an actual bed this time. "Well then, wife, what is your question?"
"How do you believe Missy is involved in all this?"
The Doctor jerked into an upright position, dropping her hand. "What?"
River sighed, clearly considering their romantic interlude at an end. She got to her feet and located up her jodhpurs and knickers. She frowned at the ruined scrap of lace and tossed it in the bin before sliding the pants on over bare skin. "You have a theory about Missy being involved with my getting out of the Library."
"I haven't told you anything about her," he shot at her.
"Oh, but you have, my love. You partially wrote out her name in the med bay." She ticked it off on her fingers as she retrieved her bra, glancing around for what he presumed was her shirt. Shrugging, she grabbed the Doctor's and pulled it on. "You also have questions about her tied to Gallifrey on the board in the console room. The TARDIS data banks filled me in on the rest, how she's the Master regenerated into a woman. Fascinating. I've only read about it in books."
He scowled at her. "I wanted to tell you about all that."
"You weren't fast enough." River collected her tea mug and moved to the small sink in the lab area. "Sweetie, I want to know how I got out of the Library with regenerations just as much as you do. While you were pitching your fit-"
"I was not pitching a fit," he snarled as he found his trousers. "Did you really have to steal my shirt?"
She ignored him. "-I looked up data on Missy. So, show me where your questions are and we'll go over them together."
The Doctor grumbled and threw his hands in the air and pulled his undershirt over his head. Muttering under his breath, he snatched up his coat and stalked out the door. River smirked, glanced at the clock on the wall, and counted off the seconds.
"Doctor!" Clara's outraged shriek echoed through the room. "Do up your trousers and find a shirt, for God's sake!"
River laughed and walked out of her office to see the Doctor fixing his trousers while Clara stared red-faced at the wall, muttering under her breath.
"I sincerely hope this meant the problem you came to my flat to address was dealt with," Clara grumbled.
"I've made some progress in that area," he boasted with a crooked smirk, and Clara glared after him as he strode away from them, swaggering just a bit.
Minutes later, they stood around the chalkboard as the Doctor and Clara gave River a brief overview of what happened with Missy, explaining the Nethersphere and how she had created Cybermen to build the Doctor an army.
"So the question is," the Doctor said as he scribbled out more notes on the board, "why would she approach Ellie Oswin?"
"Shouldn't you be asking a different question?" River asked.
"I have lots of questions. Someone told me not that long ago to just to pick one," he shot back.
River arched an eyebrow and very nearly rolled her eyes. "The question you should be asking is, what did Ellie Oswin tell me?"
The chalk halted in mid-scribble. The Doctor just stared at her for a moment, then made a sweeping gesture with his free hand. "And would you share with the rest of the class then, Professor Song?"
Now River rolled her eyes, which caused Clara to turn away to hide her snicker. "We were in The Secret Garden. It's one of Charlotte's favorite books, and she identifies with the story. One minute, I was at a tea party in the garden and the next, I was in CAL's control room with Ellie. Ellie had been my graduate assistant for two years, but I didn't link her to Clara until I saw her again."
Clara turned back to River. "So you knew she was one of my echoes?"
"Yes, it was obvious now that I knew what to look for, plus I had met the real you and knew what happened to you on Trenzalore. Dozens of echoes splintered among the Doctor's timeline, all to save him. Ellie told me how she'd been told what happened from Lux through his assistant. She didn't know the whole story though. I had to relay that to her."
"How did she take it?"
River nearly went with cheeky, but quickly switched tactics at the dismay in Clara's eyes. Instead, she smiled gently at her. "Quite well, all things considered. I think part of her always knew that this was her destiny, to save the Doctor."
"Though in this case, she saved you," Clara pointed out. She folded her arms over her chest and considered the aberration. "He was so lost without you," she murmured. "Didn't realize it then. Couldn't realize it. Not until … well, I can see that. Saving you saves him."
River nodded, pleased that Clara had figured it out. "She asked me if I would stay or go. There wasn't a choice."
Clara managed a wan smile. "Good. That's good. Because, you don't want to know what I'd done if you hadn't. So Ellie, did she just fade away?"
"I don't know. I wish I could tell you one way or the other, but we can check. Not only can we check, we should. I think it would be beneficial for everyone if we could talk to Ellie. We'll know her fate one way or the other then." River turned to the Doctor. "We can interface with CAL from the TARDIS. It'll spare us having to go back into the infested area."
"But it doesn't explain why Missy wanted Ellie to save you to begin with when Ellie's fate was always to save the Doctor," Clara pointed out.
"Missy wanted to raise an army for me," the Doctor replied. "Who better to lead such an army than the women who was born to kill me?" His gaze flitted to River, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "My wee psychopath, who fell in love with me instead. Missy would bring my wife back, and I would be forced to be grateful to her."
"So the regenerations came from her?" Clara asked.
"I think that was the original plan," River agreed. "But Ellie didn't come to the Library with Missy. The Doctor did."
"So who … oh. Oh!" And Clara punched the Doctor in the arm. "You did, you idiot. Isn't it obvious? You even admitted you didn't know how many regenerations you have now. Of course you'd give some to your wife. Who else would it be?"
The realization hit her like a sucker punch to the kidneys. Of course. Of course. Suddenly, her mind filled with memories of Manhattan, of her tweed-bedecked husband giving her his already-dwindled regeneration energy to heal an insignificant wrist. Next to her, this new face of his twitched, and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
"I haven't given anyone any regeneration energy!" He held up his hands in self defense, backing away slightly. "No slapping, dear. I haven't done anything of the sort."
"Yet," River said tersely.
He narrowed his eyes at her, the brilliant blue suddenly going cold. "And even if I chose to do so, it's my bloody regenerations. I can give them to you whenever I want."
"The hell you will!"
"Try and stop me." The Doctor stalked away.
"He'll do it now just because you said he can't," Clara said, and ignoring her, River followed the Doctor.
It made such bloody sense that the logistics of it all had half worked themselves out in the Doctor's mind before he reached the console room. It would be little work to go back a bit before Ellie triggered the final program and make the necessary adjustments. Ellie had figured out how to switch places with River, so there had to be some sort of conduit that Ellie would hand off to ensure it happened. Stupid, stupid, why didn't he pay attention to the items she carried? He had uploaded River the first time via the sonic screwdriver he'd given her. He could pull off the same maneuver, infuse it with his regeneration energy, give it to Ellie so when the transfer happened she would …
River's hand slapped down atop his as he grabbed the first control he could see on the console. "Doctor," she hissed, "don't be a sentimental idiot."
"Too late," he shot back at her. "You already have the regeneration energy. It's a done deal. I just have to make sure it happened."
"Don't you dare," River ordered. "Don't you dare shorten your life to make mine longer. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it."
"Yes," he bit out, "you are. I have no idea how much regeneration energy the Time Lords gave me on Trenzalore. I could have 13 lives or 130 or 13 million. I can certainly spare a small part of it for my wife."
"Or you can just have this one!"
"Don't be stupid, River, it's beneath you. Clearly I didn't, else you wouldn't have three more regenerations." He flicked a glance over River's shoulder at the monitor and saw they'd already landed. The TARDIS, bless her, had taken matters in hand once more and he was grateful for it. Things were building up to a quite smashing row, which really was quite normal for them. He simply didn't want to deal with it at the moment, so he pushed past River to stride back into the Library.
About a minute later, Clara emerged from the TARDIS holding a large lantern in each hand. "Just in case," she said, and placed one of the lanterns atop CAL's console, then another on a nearby table. "I figured we still had time before dark, but it never hurts."
The Doctor sat at the console, booting into the system as Clara rolled a chair next to him and straddled it.
"So, why's River angry?" Clara asked.
"None of your business."
"I suppose not, but neither one of you excel at quiet arguing. I think they could hear you two the next galaxy over"
"Shut up, I'm concentrating."
"Doctor."
"Just shut up," he snapped and sighed at the wounded look in Clara's eyes. She looked very much like a kitten who'd had its paw stomped on at the moment, and he hated when she pulled that tactic of making him talk. So, he didn't say anything as he opened the communication channel.
River had always been touchy about this sort of thing, going back to when he had healed her wrist when she broke it and lied about it in Manhattan. If she refused to acknowledge why he gladly gave her his regeneration energy, then it was her problem, not his. He wasn't about to lose her again because she stepped on a banana peel and broke her neck while in one of the TARDIS's kitchens. OK, really, the chances of River stepping on a banana peel and breaking her head was quite low. Quite miniscule. He had a far likelier chance of doing so, but more in his last body than anything. It was a miracle more often than not that he survived to old age on Trenzalore.
"Oh," Clara breathed and suddenly rolled her chair away so she couldn't be seen, and the Doctor squinted at the monitor to see his companion's doppelganger, flushed and with a pirate's cap hanging off one side of her head, appear on the screen. He flashed a broad grin. "Ellie!"
"Doctor!" Ellie sweeped the hat off her head, tossing it aside as her smile lit up the screen. It was a bit more toothy than Clara's, but his friend also hadn't smiled very much in the past few months. "Oh, you're checking in! That's a new thing, Charlotte tells me. She said you never communicated at all when River was here."
The Doctor flinched and could feel Clara's glare. Had she not taken such care to keep out of sight, he was quite certain she would have smashed one of the lanterns over his head. "I need some information, Ellie. It's quite important."
"Of course! What do you need to know?"
"Have you ever heard of the Nethersphere?"
Ellie pursed her lips, then caught the bottom one between her teeth. "No, that doesn't sound familiar."
"Lux's assistant never told you about this?"
Ellie shook her head. "No. All she said that she had a backup installed in case something ever happened to CAL's database."
"Backup? Missy installed a backup?"
"Yes. Lux's assistant … I'm sorry, Missy, said she installed a special backup that would work both ways. If CAL failed, the hard drive she hooked up to it would kick in. But if that hard drive failed, CAL could sustain it. She assured me that the inhabitants of CAL would feel quite at home in the backup."
"The Nethersphere? She linked the Library to the Nethersphere?" Clara gasped, instinctively leaning in. She jerked back just in time, before Ellie could spot her.
"It makes sense. She probably created the Nethersphere from the same artificial core keeping the Library going, giving people virtual lives. She copied the program from CAL, used it to network the matrix slice she held. She would use that connection to copy River over, or have Ellie do so. But I got to her before she enacted that part of the plan." The Doctor swiveled his chair back to the monitor. "So is the network link still intact, Ellie?"
She nodded. "It has to be monitored externally."
"I'm checking right now." River's voice from somewhere to his right startled him, and the Doctor glanced up to see her standing at an auxiliary unit, hands flying over the keyboard. He hadn't notice her walk out of the TARDIS and wonder how much of the conversation she had heard. "It is. There's an unknown drive connected to the network. Shooting you the data, second screen"
The Doctor flipped on a secondary monitor, maintaining the connection with Ellie while he scanned the data River was sending through. "Checking the digital signature … that's it. That's the Nethersphere. It's still connected to the Library, still running because Missy didn't disconnect it before she died."
"So if the Nethersphere is connected to the Library …"
"We can enter it through the network connection, perform a data transfer, the reverse of what Ellie was going to do with River. Clara, this means we can get Danny back!"
Clara went pale. "What?"
"It's what you want, right? PE back in this world, go off and have three kids, live happily ever after."
"No!" Clara shot out of her chair, forgetting to keep out of view. "No, that's not what I want at all!"
"Doctor," River said softly, but he brushed off her warning.
"After everything that happened," the Doctor began, but Clara cut him off.
"Yes, after everything that happened, I finally moved on. Finally. I love Danny, I will always love him. But ... you won't understand. You'll never understand!" Clara leaned over and slammed her hand on the keyboard, cutting off the connection with Ellie. She spun on her heel and disappeared into the TARDIS, the slam of the door echoing through the empty room.
"Tell me," the Doctor said to River, "she didn't just act like a petulant teenager."
She sighed and folded her arms across her chest. "Doctor, just because you give Clara and Danny the means to get back together doesn't mean that's what Clara wants."
"Yes, it is! She wanted him back. She was willing to break time to get him back."
"Well, that makes one of you," River muttered, and everything in the Doctor went cold.
"Sorry?" he said icily.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. "From what I understand, the two of you broke a hell of a lot of rules to give Danny the chance to come back. And he refused. He sent a lost child in his place. Am I right?"
He nodded.
"That's well and good and all. Probably in the cosmetic order of things, it was the right thing to do. But he had a chance to come back to Clara once and passed on it. How do you think it made her feel, after everything she risked for that one shot? She was- She had every reason to feel that Danny abandoned her."
"You thought I abandoned you."
"Yes." That simple acknowledgement nearly floored him. "You know that. We were both at Trenzalore in one form or another. Just because we're together again, just because we've had sex, it doesn't mean our problems have been magically solved. There are still issues in our marriage."
"Like what?"
River just stared at him, jaw dropped. She paced away from him, then suddenly whirled around and gestured in a way that made her look just like her mother. "Like the entire fact you put my living mind inside of a library database run by a child for eternity, never once dropping by to say hello in the thousands of years between then and now. That you never asked for my consent regarding that, especially once you learned about Stormcage. You hate good-byes so much that you don't even bother checking with the people whose lives you're affecting to avoid them."
River moved into his physical space, and he wasn't even aware that he had risen from the chair. But despite their difference in height, the anger and betrayal in her eyes made him feel incredibly small. "You said it yourself on Trenzalore," she continued. "You didn't know how to say good-bye. You didn't acknowledge me, nor did you visit me because you didn't want to cause yourself pain without considering that maybe, just maybe I might be hurting because part of me was alive and aware that I would never see my husband again. I look at you, and I still wonder if you ever loved me for myself or because you had an obligation to maintaining the timelines and to my parents."
"Maybe I thought you just wanted me because your mother had that crush on me," he shot back rather nastily. "I could have left you there." He gestured to the computer.
"No. I would have broken out. I can break out of anything, even the Library." She pivoted and walked back to the TARDIS. "Before you even dare criticize Clara for her choices, try taking a look in the mirror if you can stand it."