A.N. Apologies for the delay in updates. Classes here got . . . China crazy. So! I'm desperately sorry for not getting back to comments and promise to do a much better job about that & hopefully to get out weekly updates now that my semester is finished. Thank you so much for following, reviewing, or choosing to favorite =] That is just completely awesome!
Arm-in-arm, Rose and River wound their way through the hallways of the TARDIS finally coming to a stop midway down their third hallway before a set of double doors. Rose pushed one open and stepped into the beauty that was the TARDIS library. It was quite a bit smaller than the one on the original TARDIS but that was because it had far fewer tastes to accommodate. It didn't have the preferred reading of eleven regenerations and numerous companions; it only held that of the Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Rose and River settled themselves in oversized and overstuffed arm chairs, one pink and one blue, before a charming fireplace. Although, Rose had found fireplaces quite lacking on charm until the TARDIS had conjured this one up.
"You wanted to talk?" River asked, her quiet understanding smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.
Rose nodded, taking a moment to gather her thoughts.
It was so easy to understand what the Doctor saw in River. She was a brilliant woman and she was apt at dealing with things with an unassuming grace of being completely ready for anything you threw at her. Rose thought there were probably very few things that surprised River, and apparently, Rose was one of them. That didn't exactly bode well.
"You've known him, longer than me, probably better than me too . . ." Rose trailed off, not sure how to phrase what was worrying here. How did you ask someone if her husband seemed to be a little less wary of his Time Lord-ness than he used to?
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," River said, filling in the lull.
Rose glanced at her in surprise. "How'd you mean?"
River's lurking smile faded.
Its disappearance left her expression somber, like a woman waiting to be told her husband wouldn't be returning from war - we're so sorry ma'am, his sacrifice was greatly appreciated. Rose's worry amplified. What could make a woman as strong as River had shown herself to be, as River had been explained to be through the story of her life, look that sad? That bereft? That vulnerable?
"I have had to make many sacrifices in my life to be with the Doctor. He knows, or will know, absolutely everything there is to know about me. And until you barged through the TARDIS doors this morning, I thought I could say with equal conviction that I knew everything there is to know about him. But of course, I was wrong." Her brittle smile as she said this only strengthened Rose's conviction that something was seriously amiss.
"How could I forget," continued River, "that the Doctor lies? That he doesn't like when things end?"
Rose felt herself squinting as if it would only require her looking in the right way, from the right angle to make sense of what River was saying. It didn't seem the right thing to do, squint at someone like they were a soufflé turned out wrong. But, the Doctor lying? The Doctor not liking things to end? What did that mean?
"No one likes endings," Rose offered feebly, her head now titled to the side as if changing her angle might suddenly put things back in 20/20.
River's laugh was the least joyous thing Rose had ever heard. "He never mentioned you. Did you know that? Not once in all the time I've known him did he ever say one word about a Rose Tyler. You came out of the literal blue, all hell fire and golden eyes, and all it took was once glance at him staring at you as if you were another Time Lord he had just discovered for me to realize –"
"No!" Rose interrupted, her hands waving frantically before her, the squint abandoned in preference of trying to physically stop River from forming words that weren't true. "River – it's not like that –"
"Of course it is." There was nothing questioning in River's tone. She sat perfectly composed, her spine straight against the comfy arm chair, the bright light Rose had grown accustomed to seeing in her eyes, gone, replaced with something close to finality, martyrdom.
"Don't be ridiculous," Rose snapped. River hitched an eyebrow of surprise. "Come off it, you're talking like – like it's all been this big façade. Marrying you, loving you, until I show up and bang! The whole charade's off."
River lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. "The Doctor lies."
"What does that even mean?" Rose pressed, leaning forward in her seat, legs crossed Indian style in her lap. "You keep saying that but I don't know what you mean. Lies? Everybody lies, but the way you say it, s'like it's something more than it is. And the Doctor doesn't lie like that."
Her thoughts slid to the only two occasions she had known the Doctor to truly blatantly lie. When he'd told her to get into the TARDIS that everything would be brilliantly fine when in actual reality he was sealing her in for safety, sending her back to her present to protect her from certain death on Satellite Five. And once she'd realized that, she'd fought tooth, claw, and heavy duty machinery to get back to him, to rectify him on that grievous error of thinking he needed to save her when all she ever wanted to do was try and help him.
Then there was Donna. Wonderful Donna Noble whose life, her all important life, had to be sealed away to save her. Hidden memories that if remembered would burn her up. To save her, the Doctor had lied to her, had done so without asking, just as he had done to Rose. But unlike Rose, Donna didn't have the chance to fight her way back. It was something Rose and the Doctor had long night talks about, her doubts, his guilt, her comforting him over a past he couldn't change.
"Not – not if he doesn't have what he thinks is a very important reason," Rose amended. "Doesn't mean it's a particularly good reason or actually the right thing to do, but that's why we're here, to call him out on absolute bollocks."
But the way that River was watching her now, with eyes wide, and lips trembling, Rose didn't think these were the same lies. And what did that mean? Why did the Doctor lie now?
River said, "Of course he does, to save us; that's all he ever does, try to save the world."
Rose shook her head as if that could clear the confusion swamping her from every side. Instead, all it did was add a little golden shimmer when she closed her eyes. Bad Wolf, ever present, was lying in wait.
"But he's worth it," River pressed on, her tone earnest, "the lies, the sulking when things must end."
Pressing frustrated fingers to her temples, Rose felt Bad Wolf uncurling from the place so close to her soul. She felt the wolf stretch, felt her attention shift to what was presently upsetting her guardian.
"Everything has it's time, everything dies." The voice that wasn't entirely Rose sent chills running down River's arms.
River shifted in her chair, one hand going to her blaster attached to her belt. Even the Doctor didn't know what made Rose golden, and right now River was closer to the Bad Wolf than she had really wanted to be.
Then just as suddenly it was gone. Rose's eyes were brown and she was sucking in a deep breath as if someone had held her underwater. "That's what he told me," Rose said when she regained the ability to speak. "When I first met him, the Doctor, that's what he told me."
River's fingers brushed over the blaster's hilt, then up to the arm of the chair. "Not him, though. He's eternal and forever, isn't he?"
"No," Rose sighed in annoyance. "River, stop. You don't need to defend him to me or – or whatever it is that you're doing. The Doctor isn't forever, he just lives a lot longer than the rest of us. And even if he was forever, that doesn't give him the right – I mean, that's why he needs us, River! He needs someone to tell him when he's going too far to remind him that having abilities the rest of us don't, doesn't make him God, that protecting doesn't mean deciding for others."
"He didn't decide for you?" River countered.
Rose waved this away, her face pinched with displeasure. "He tried, and maybe sometimes he did, but-River are you happy with the way things are? With having your whole life – "
She broke off. This really wasn't her territory to step into. Yes, River had been kind enough to share her life story with Rose, but that didn't give Rose the right to comment on it, to tell her that it was crazy, this insanity of chasing after a man whose very existence had changed the course of her life irrevocably.
"He's worth it, Rose. I wouldn't change anything that happened to me because it brought him to me."
"River!" Rose threw her hands up then slapped them back against her thighs. "Okay. This isn't my place, and I know that – but – I am so sick of people telling me what the Doctor is worth. That's not how this works, River. The Doctor isn't worth the heartbreak, he isn't worth the monster, he isn't worth the lies, and he certainly isn't worth not liking endings. He isn't worth anything you weren't prepared to give up even before he came into your life."
"And what did you give up?" River asked.
"I gave up the life I knew, everything about it, I gave up my family, but I was ready to do that even before he stepped into my life. I would have done those things eventually, only they happened sooner because I wanted to be with him, to travel with him. I made those choices, River . . . don't you –" Roes cut herself off again.
This wasn't any good. And River wasn't who she should be talking about this with. It was the Doctor she need to talk to, the Doctor she need to demand answers from. River's life had already happened, nothing Rose said was going to unwind the time that had occurred.
"Just – just don't forget, River, you are brilliant, you've led a brilliant life, you can handle things on your own, you don't need the Doctor, you can live a brilliant life and choose for yourself if he's in it or not."
The look River was giving her was something akin to puzzlement and patronizing. Maybe River was thinking that Rose had lived with a very different Doctor, and that was starting to become abundantly clear to Rose, which was the entire reason she had asked River to the library in the first place, so better to get on with that then continue to make a nuisance of herself to River whom she liked rather a lot.
"I'm sorry," Rose said, one hand running through her long blonde hair. "This isn't – this isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the Pandorica, about Lake Silencio. Time Lord Victorious."
The fire crackled, sparking up then down a bit. The books dulled and muffled the atmosphere, her words came soft off the spines of classics and books not yet written. River waited for Rose to continue.
"What happened, River? From the crash of the Byzantium to LakeSilencio, what happened?"
"I don't know what you mean, Sweetie," River said quietly.
Rose's sunk back on the arm chair. She was tired. Exceedingly tired, because obviously River really didn't know. She didn't see the difference that Rose did, the difference between the Doctor she knew and loved and the one who called himself Time Lord Victorious, the one who worried her greatly.
So instead she opted for something else that worried her. "Do you think he's here?"
"I don't know that either. If this is where the TARDIS is, then he can't be far, I'm sure."
The door to the library creaked open, even though the library was newly established and the door was metal on the outside, one of the magical qualities of the TARDIS. The door creaked because Rose and the Doctor wanted it to creak and the TARDIS agreed that it should.
There was a nervous cough followed by what Rose could swear was fiddling with a bow tie. "Mind if I join you?"
River patted the arm of her chair as invitation and Rose was ashamed by her relief when the Doctor chose to pace in front of the fireplace instead.
"Sweetie, do settle down, it's not as if we were comparing," River paused for effect, "styles."
There was a wild moment where Rose was sure she was the one who was going to regenerate from the heat burning in her cheeks. In the next moment, she was laughing. At River's comment, the Doctor had tripped over his boots mid-spin and almost toppled into the fireplace.
"River! I – Why – What – I – Styles!"
This only made Rose laugh harder, especially as the Doctor frantically pulled at his bow tie to the point where he cut off his own air supply therefore stifling off his own stuttered attempt at a sentence.
Standing gracefully, River smoothed her hands down her jeans. "Now, I'm going to find my mom and dad before they discover a bedroom without bunk beds and refuse to ever come out again." She wiggled her fingers. "See you two later."
Rose managed a gasping 'bye' in between laughs, accompanied by a wave. For his part, the Doctor refused to acknowledge his wife, even as he watched her sashaying exit. That was River, the only person he knew who could reduce him to ridiculous with one word. She always had the first word and usually the last; while it drove him crazy, it was part of what drew him to her as well.
His gaze stayed stuck on her, not quite ready to face Rose yet. The two women had been locked in the library for quite some time, more time than it took him to do dishes and he'd begun to worry. Not about anything distinct which only worried him more. Nervously, he fidgeted with his bow tie, more gently this time since he didn't want to choke himself again. He felt Rose's gaze burning into his back.
Well. He wasn't going to talk first. He was a Time Lord, after all. He had pride, he had dignity, he - wasn't entirely sure he could talk until the ache in his throat from nearly strangling himself subsided.