Sorry I didn't post this yesterday. Fanfiction wouldn't load!

Disclaimer: I do not own doctor who.

Chapter Four: She Stalled again.

I slammed my hand into the console in response, a screaming BANG echoing through the room.

"Why won't you work?" I demanded. "You always work for me! Why now? Of all times, why now?"

She tried to calm me, but I was way beyond that. I pounded the fleshy part of my hand into the console in syncopation with the throbbing of my head.

"Just not here!" I said. "Anywhere! Just. Not. Here!"

The noise and movement made me feel dizzy. I backed away, knowing full well my self control was too little to let me stay where I was. My hands wrapped around the railing behind me and squeezed. They hurt. I pressed my eyes shut and pushed my lips into a thin line.

Calm down, I told myself. You're only making it worse.

I sat on the floor and put my hands in my hair. I pulled at fistfuls of curls. My head throbbed, but it was worst around my squeezed eyes.

The TARDIS tried to console me, but she failed. I just wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. She was denying me that.

At the same time, I wanted to curl into someone, to hug someone and cry into their shoulder.

But I just wanted to be alone.

Thoughts for both sides warred in my weary mind. I wrapped my arms around myself, but I still felt exposed and cold. The Doctor could fix that. I knew full well he could, with ease even.

But...

Flashes of memories and thoughts and possible futures went by behind my eyelids faster than I could process them. All in the same second:

I sat alone in the classroom, hot tears locked tightly behind closed eyes. I was leaning against the cabinet. It was freezing.

The teacher, a young woman who I admit was nicer than I gave her credit for, came back in from hurrying the rest of the class into the hallway. I opened my eyes to watch what she was doing, and the tears escaped.

"Why didn't you tell anyone, Melody?" she asked me. "I'm sorry."

I'd had a fever and collapsed during class. Everyone had been terrified. Amy was trying to help me up, but I couldn't move yet... She didn't understand.

Kovarian stood over me. Her smile vicious.

"No one will ever understand, Melody."

Amy demanded to know what possessed me to do such... what was the word she'd used? Utterly stupid things. I shrugged her off, knowing she wouldn't understand.

"No one will ever understand you, because you're special, Melody." Kovarian knelt in front of my tiny body and took both my hands. I tried to back from her, my cheek still stinging from only moments before. "Only we understand you. That's why you're here. It's better for you here."

The Doctor would be so upset if he knew. If he knew what I really went through, he wouldn't be able to take it. Even if he could, it would just be that much more on his plate. I can't let him see. I can't let him hurt like that. I can't.

The TARDIS purred at me in the back of my mind. She tried to pull me from my thoughts.

There were tears in my eyes. I wiped them away. I couldn't look as if I'd been crying. I couldn't explain that. He wouldn't understand.

No one ever understands.

I focused on the feeling of my own arms wrapping around myself again. I wrapped them as tightly as I could, but it wasn't enough. Memories inundated me again.

You will never be held by anyone but yourself. You'll have to hug yourself. He'll be gone. One day, he will be gone. One day, Amy and Rory will be gone. There will be no one left. You will always be hugging yourself. You better prepare now.

Get used to it.

It's the best you've got.

Stop pretending like you've got someone to cry to. If you did, wouldn't you be with them now? Why did you have to send him away?

I pulled at my hair again. "Because! Because, he won't understand. Because I don't want him to understand! Because if I tell him one thing, the rest will just come out. Because if I tell him this, he'll know there's more. Because it'll hurt him. Because I'll hurt him. Because. I. Can't!"

A new thought came with every pound of my head.

Your only friends were your parents. Still are to be honest. They are always in danger. Always so close to the end. It could be anytime. What's stopping it from being now? Or tomorrow? Or yesterday even?! And there's nothing you can do except make it worse. You already killed your own husband twice. All murderers are good for is murder. You're a murderer.

"You'll end up in prison!" Rory had said to her, trying to reason with her. But she didn't listen.

"I didn't listen," I said, recognizing that I again had started talking about Mels as if she wasn't me.

You never listen. Listen for once! Or talk for once! It won't kill you.

But it might kill them.

I pulled myself back to reality after that one. I found a blinking light on the console and counted.

It was off for almost six seconds. It was on for about two.

Focus.

1...2...3...4...5..

1..

1...2...3...4...5..

1..

"River!"

I jumped nearly a half foot in the air and looked to his relieved face in the doorway. His arms hung in front of him, a bowl of soup pulling them toward the floor.

"You should be in bed. What are you doing out here?"

What am I doing? I need something plausible.

My mind felt like mush, but I pulled, "Took a walk," out of thin air. "Got bored of the bedroom." With an intent to distract, I added, "Thought I'd find you. It's pretty hard to be bored with you around."

For once, he didn't blush. Instead, he lifted the bowl to chest height. "I made the soup."

I pulled myself up with the railing. Every sense was tuned to max after the ordeal I'd just had, and my head was killing me. And there was no exit.

My final defense came out with full force.

"Take me to bed, Sweetie?" I taunted with a flirtatious sneer.

This better work. If I can convince him, maybe I can get out of here. I just have to keep him distracted.

He looked at me oddly, as if he didn't quite know what he was dealing with.

This is what he'll look like one day. He won't know you.

"What's wrong?" I asked, suddenly worried. What if he was younger than I thought? What had I done? Why was he looking at me like that?

"River, you're sick, you're tired, and you're trying to distract me."

Or maybe he was older than I thought.

"How dare you think so low of me!" I said, only light defense in the statement, more tease. "I'm only asking for my husband to take me to bed. It's been a while."

"River!" he scolded.

I let my smile drop and leaned further into the railing. This wasn't working. I wasn't getting out of here. He was going to figure out the full extent of what was happening, and there was nothing I could do about it.

There weren't any flat tables in the console room, so he set the bowl on the floor and came over to me. He wrapped his long fingers around my shoulders and slid them to my hands. I watched as they did this, not once meeting his eyes.

"River," he said. He waited for a response.

"Hello, Sweetie," I murmured.

He pulled his hands from my arms and cupped my cheeks. The Doctor tilted my head to face him. "River, tell me what's going on."

"You know what's going on."

"But tell me. Say it."

I blinked, confused. He was staring at me. Strict blue eyes stared at me. They weren't going to bend. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at him. "I have a flu. It's like a human flu, but it only affects creatures with triple helix DNA."

"No."

I opened my eyes again, one eyebrow raised. "What?"

"Wrong. You're sick."

"That's what I said."

"River."

I rolled my eyes. It made the room lurch again. "Fine. I'm sick."

"How does it feel?"

"How do you expect? I have a headache and I'm dizzy. It's the flu."

The Doctor pulled away from me and pulled at his own hair. "River, you don't understand. I know these things. I want you to tell me what I can't see."

Of course, I had figured that out. He knew I was hiding something. He wanted to know what.

He met my eyes again, and I let him.

"Please, tell me," he said.

I hesitated, not because I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say it.

"River?" He watched me nervously.

I shook my head. "I can't."