The hum of the TARDIS built into a whirlwind of noise. River felt a brush of satisfaction—maybe he was still her madman in a box after all. From across the controls the Doctor grinned at her. "Alright, one last go. Let's make it fantastic."
"Don't wear it out, sweetie," she replied.
"A little early for that isn't it?" he said, over the bright sounds of the gadgets coming to life around them.
River smirked. "We'll find out." She maneuvered the screen around in front of her and kept an eye on it as she worked the stabilizers. The Doctor started counting down. One of the stabilizers rattled, just a little. She squinted at it. It turned and she snatched at it to keep it still.
"…9…8…."
"Something's not right." River tilted the screen, shaking her head, not believing it. We can't be off. We can't be—
"7…6…"
She jammed desperately at any gears within reach. "We're off course." The Doctor's intense eyes reached up, edging on panic, but he didn't stop counting. Her hands slammed the console. "We can't correct it." The realization spilled out like a curse. No seconds chances. This was it.
"3…2…1…"
Rumbling. Fracturing, grinding, snapping, bursting. A cacophony, a cataclysmic pounding. The TARDIS lurched at a 45 degree angle. River felt her feet slip on the grates; the soles of her shoes came out from under her. She lunged for the console and then the air snapped out of her lungs. Gasping on top of the metal digging into her back, she tried for a full breath before crawling to her hands and knees. The Doctor was pressed up against one of the coral beams, hands wrapped around it, and his mouth was moving, spitting out dire shapes without any sound. He was screaming at her. Why couldn't she hear—?
Her thoughts cut off as the TARDIS whipped backwards, thrashing and tumbling like a car in a head-on collision. It threw her sideways. She felt the impact on her ribs as she slammed against something, and just as quickly jerked forward, her neck wrenching at the weight of her head. For half an instant she was looking up at fire—the console, sparks bursting across it and engulfing it in light and flame. The cables strung above their heads broke and swung down, cascading embers. The TARDIS lights flickered. River wrapped her fingers around the holes in the grating and shoved herself with a grunt onto her elbows. She glanced to the coral beam. But the Doctor was gone. She took a sharp breath. The air in lungs seared her sides, her chest burning. Broken ribs? Oh, god, she hoped not.
River tried to call out to the Doctor, but her voice wouldn't obey her. A grimace broke her features and she pulled herself to her feet, her body screaming profanities at her every movement. The ache was bad enough that she would have willingly just lain down again. Where was he? Where the hell could he be? River realized her ears were ringing, a cringe burst through her nerves. The noise…the awful noise in her ears…. Her back hit the TARDIS doors as the box fell to the right. One of her shoes slipped off and she stumbled back; her hands caught the latch. The door snapped open, wrenching her arms around. River wrapped her fingers around her side, biting her lips. Pain cut through her. She gripped at the windows. Outside, there was nothing. Complete gaping emptiness, extending forever, swallowing time and space. River couldn't stop the shiver that ran up her back. It was nothing, a menacing, imprescriptible void, looming, brooding…
The Doctor's hands gripped her and spun her around, fingers lying against her cheek, quieting the scream working its way up her throat. He slammed the doors shut behind her. "Look at me," he said loudly, practically shouting. She could still barely hear him. "Look at me. Energy is flooding the TARDIS. We broke through the barrier, punctured the time lock. Do you understand?" River's knees buckled underneath her. The Doctor held her up. Wide-eyed, she nodded. "Once the time lock repairs itself, that's it," he continued. "We're trapped."
"Get out before we're part of events. Okay." She grabbed onto the railings for support. Stubbornly, she pushed his hands away and sniffing to hide a grunt of pain, stood up straight. "Need to move fast." Oh, god. River turned back to the console, a dancing mess of lights and explosions breaking apart the TARDIS. The Doctor ran up the ramp, leather coat flaring. Pretend it doesn't hurt. Outside, there was a roar of noise, the impossible grinding of metal against metal. She didn't even have to ask what it was to know. Into the war. His hands were already darting through the flames leaping around the controls. He pushed up the sleeves of his jacket, fighting for all he was worth. . "You and me, we've been through worse," she gasped. The Doctor twisted, peeking back at her. Lines creased his forehead; his eyebrows wrinkled. Emptiness, blank and confused, was on his face.
"Doctor," River warned. "Doctor, do you recognize me?" Suddenly, he collapsed. River caught him before his body smashed against the floor. Her breath caught, pain and fear all together. His knees sagged; this time, she held him up. A groan ripped from his throat as his body curled and he clutched at his hearts.
"River," he growled, barely getting out the words. "River, I'm forgetting you."
She shook her head. He couldn't expect her to do this alone. "No, you can't. Not yet."
"It's working… the timelines are ripping apart. But we have to get out. Before…before we…" He roared, incoherently, fingers twisting his jumper. He panted quickly, "Before we forget. It's happening… to you… River, LOOK AT ME!"
She realized her attention had drifted, and for a brief, terrifying instant, she had no idea who he was. "Doctor….I can't…" Her eyes flickered shut and snapped open. His nose, his ears, his short hair—she tried to memorize every feature because she would not forget again, but—she released him. The TARDIS shuddered violently. She caught herself on the console. The lights flickered. The noise around them built into a deafening thunder. River pulled out the flashing, sputtering screen, showing the puncture in the time lock…closing. Healing itself. "We have to go now." She wrapped an arm around her ribs.
"The Time War…" he trailed off distantly.
"It's affecting you. I know, my love." The Doctor steadied himself, hands on her shoulders. She leaned in and kissed his cheek. Somewhere beyond the noise, she heard the cloister bell ringing madly. Reaching blindly into the control, she pulled a lever.
Her Doctor had told her once about stepping through the crack in time, about stepping back through his own memories. But River had never realized how much it hurt. Memories erasing in reverse. Falling across time. Bits of herself fizzled out of existence. She tried to keep a hold on them with futile desperation, but they passed across her eyes and vanished out of her head completely. Things she'd known minutes ago were so far away and she couldn't reach them, but she tried, like wrapping her fingers around smoke.
Lemonade on the palms of her hands, sticky, slipped and forgotten cups all around her.
"No. Stay here." she couldn't hold him any longer. The Doctor crumpled on the grates and she helped to hoist him onto his feet. He collapsed against the chair.
There were hundreds of feet trampling by, unaware of what came next. She wanted to scream at the, to warn them… but she knew better. The Doctor had threatened to shoot the assassin of John F. Kennedy. She had to…
"I did what I had to," she ground out apologetically. The hole was shrinking faster. They had to make it through. She had to focus. If she kept slipping through memories, they would die… another flash of the past startled her.
Jack grinned handsomely. Bright, finger on the trigger of his gun. Plaster from the ceiling settled on her shoes.
"No, stay here!" River yanked up a knob, grabbed a handle and pulled. The TARDIS rocketed forward. The crashing around her only intensified. Metal ripping, explosions thrashing. She wasn't even fighting, and she could feel the horror of the Time War pressing in on her. A burst of flame stopped her short. The TARDIS exploding—through the smoke, River couldn't see the Doctor any longer. She worked blindly, fighting to stay in the present.
The breeze stirred her curls as the TARDIS disappeared. She gulped a deep breath of air, trying to calm her racing heart. Her lips trembled and she pressed a hand over her mouth. She could count the times he'd kissed her before, and never once had she thought this would be one of them. The students clearing past stopped to look at her, this woman kneeling in the middle of the hall. Did she want to believe what had just happened?
The memory dissolved. River shook her head furiously, pushing forward. Her fingers curled around the monitor. A seizure-like pulsation rocked it, and the screen shut off entirely, leaving River with only the image of the shrinking puncture engraved in her eyes. She hoped he was going in the right direction. How could she know? "We aren't going to make," she breathed. Her head felt like it might burst.
Salt water in her lungs.
The Doctor. She had to remember the Doctor.
The Titanic.
Her Doctor. Always.
"You expect me to choose? Play god?! We don't get to decide who lives and dies, that's not fair! We don't do that!"
River's body shook. The pain in her ribs, the ripping apart of the thoughts in her head, the burns coating her hands. Her legs wobbled. "One last try," she whispered. She circled the console, using it to keep herself up. The blur of levers grew foggy in her mind. "Come on, old girl. Please." The TARDIS crashed against something and River lost her grip. She curled up on her side against the burning grates. Her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.
All of the sudden, like a switch snapped, coolness slid over River, replacing the terror, the void of the Time War. The air cleared. She took a deep, arching breath, inhaling with a shudder. Across the TARDIS floor, lying beside the console the Doctor… the Doctor. He was fading from her memory. The color of his eyes, gone. His smile, dimming.
But they'd done it. River crawled to her knees and landed the TARDIS. She smiled, gasping, and started to laugh. "We did it. Doctor, we did it." She glanced upward, nearly giggling like a little girl. River stumbled to her feet, tottering as she left the TARDIS.
They were in an alley. Earth. London. Oh god, of all places. River barely made it out into the street, searching around. Her memories… the Doctor… all so muddled…
She looked up, squinting in the sunlight of the late afternoon. A shop towered above her and she read the name, not understanding why it was important. Henrik's. Stylish mannequins stood in the windows. Maybe it was where the Doctor was meant to be, there to be saved by his Rose. Who was that? Or maybe it was nothing at all.
River tumbled onto the sidewalk, the world skewing with over-bright colors and silence.
She rolled over in bed, glancing over at her bedroom door. A long evening dress hung there, a note in the Doctor's untidy scrawl pinned to it. He'd popped in, middle of the night, to leave her clothing for a date. She shook her head, a pleased little smile crossing her lips. Her mad man. Mad man with a box.
For an instant, the thought caught her off guard, as if she expected something else to be there. She had the peculiar feeling that she'd been dreaming something terrible and impossible, but just as quickly, it was gone, and she lay back on her pillow, wondering where he planned to take her this time.
