A/N: Look, it's a new chapter. This time River and Shadow learn a bit about each others past...pasts? Hm. Not sure. Anyway, I pulled together two songs for this one. And my originally planned storyline for this chapter went out the window whilst I was typing this up. But it still worked out alright I guess. So, I think you know the drill by now, but I'm going to repeat it anyway. Review! Reviews make me happy.

Chapter 10 - I Feel You, So I Need You

They gave me a life that's not so easy to live
And then they sent me on my way
I left my love and forgot my dreams
I lost them all along the way
- I Feel You – 3 Doors Down -

If you could step into my head
Tell me would you still know me
If you woke up in my bed
Tell me then would you hold me
Or would you simply let it lie
Leaving me to wonder why
I can't get you out of this head
That I call mine
- So I Need You – 3 Doors Down -

River and Jack walked over to the driveway of 13 Bannerman Road. But just as they stood there and Jack wanted to leave again and send River on her way, they were greeted by a woman with wavy hair.

"Ah, hello there, Mr Harkness. What a nice surprise." Jack inwardly rolled his eyes at the obviousness of that woman. That was a woman Jack didn't want to shag, no matter what. But still he stayed civil towards her. He didn't want to affront Sarah Jane's neighbors. That could be dangerous.

"Miss Welsh. You look nice today. New haircut?" That caused her to fluff up her hair a bit.

"Well, indeed. Thanks for noticing. And who is your friend there?" She finally acknowledged River's presence, giving her a once-over.

"River Song. Pleased to meet you." River smiled and extended her hand. Miss Welsh took it and gave a meek handshake. "Likewise." Was Miss Welsh's cold, clipped response.

"She's here to visit Sarah Jane. I just took her along because I had some business here in London." Jack tried to intervene. If the thing between Shadow and River should get somewhere, it would be better for the gossiping neighbor not to be jealous.

"She is? Well then, Mr Harkness, maybe you can come over for tea later." Miss Welsh was nicer in an instant upon learning that River was not with Jack.

"I'm afraid that's not possible. I have to get back to Cardiff as soon as possible. My business doesn't run itself and my subordinates get sloppy when I'm not around." He smiled.

"Oh, I forgot you're from Cardiff. Has Shadow visited you in Cardiff?" That woman was getting nosy. Jack decided to bend the truth a bit and hoped that River would tag along.

"No, why?"

"Well, this morning, Shadow arrived back here and we had a little chat. She said, she had been visiting a friend up in Cardiff. You didn't meet her?"

"No, I really didn't meet her. If I had, I would have asked her, if she wanted to come with me to London." River was good, Jack realized as he glanced over at her, she didn't even move a muscle at the blatant lie he was telling. "Save money, you know."

"Of course you would have. You're such a nice guy." At that moment, Sarah Jane, who had watched the conversation from a window, came down the driveway.

"Oh, you're here. Finally, I've been waiting for you. I hope Jack did drive alright?" Sarah Jane greeted River warmly.

"Yes, Sarah Jane, he did." River knew that this was partly a ploy for getting rid of this Miss Welsh, so she played along.

"My driving is not that bad!" Jack tried to defend himself. This only earned him a look from Sarah Jane and River.

"Well, I think I'll be going now. I just remembered I've got to run down to the store." Miss Welsh piped up and turned to Jack. "Next time your in town and have a little more time, come over for a cup of tea."

"Certainly." Jack assured.

"Alright. Bye." She turned around and walked away.

"I thought she'd never leave." Jack sighed as soon as Miss Welsh was out of earshot.

And that was the end of Sarah Jane's pleasantries. She looked at River with steely eyes.

"Well, I'm off then, been nice seeing you again, Miss Smith. Till next time." Jack picked up on the sudden chill and excused himself, all but running back to the car.

"I know you probably have a lot of questions and probably want to tear me limb from limb but, please, let us take this inside." River asked of Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane nodded coldly, then swiftly turned around and left River to follow her, which she did.

When they were in the living room and River had sat down upon indication from Sarah Jane, River tried to explain herself. "Miss Smith, I..." But was cut short by Sarah Jane.

"You're quiet now. I talk, you listen and you will only talk after I gave permission. Understood?" River nodded. This woman was not someone to mess with, she realized.

"Good. I don't know who you are; all I know is that you made a mess out of Shadow. The strongest and most controlled person I've ever met. And trust me when I say, I've met a lot of different people across time and space. From the few things that Shadow told me, I gather that you are imprisoned for murder of the Doctor. I don't know what your business with him is and I don't want to know. Shadow doesn't go into much detail about her adventures across the universe but when they are anything like the ones of the Doctor, she is constantly in mortal peril. Anyway, I don't know when she turned 26 or where. She doesn't want to talk about it. But what I want to know from you is that your intentions are absolutely sincere. That this is not all a ploy to get to her and then kill her, too."

River looked expectantly at Sarah Jane, not breaking the order to only talk when given permission.

"You can talk now." Sarah Jane realized her orders.

"First of all, I don't want to kill Shadow. I didn't even want to kill the Doctor. He forced me. He married me so that I would kill him."

"Wait." Sarah Jane held up a hand. "You are the Doctor's wife?"

"Yes, I am." River briefly wondered why everyone was so surprised that she was married to the Doctor.

"Oh, that is just brilliant. But I guess with the Doctor involved, it's all a bit dysfunctional when it comes to family matters." Sarah Jane said with a small smile, reminiscing.

At that moment Sarah Jane's front door was ripped open and in stormed two teenagers. River instinctively sprang to her feet and jumped in front of Sarah Jane in a flash, reaching for her non-existent gun. The two intruders stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Sarah Jane who peered around River.

"Sarah Jane, are you okay?" Tried the girl.

"Yeah, Rani called and said she saw Jack walking very fast to his car. So, where is the danger? And who's she?" The boy added, somewhat rudely.

River turned around to Sarah Jane, relaxing again, and raised her eyebrows questioningly. Sarah Jane nodded slightly, giving permission for her to talk freely again. Thus River turned back around and faced the enthusiastic teenagers.

"My name is River Song. I'm here because of Shadow and I am of no danger to you."

"Alien?" The boy interjected.

"Sort of." River said whilst sitting down again.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The boy again.

"Clyde!" Sarah Jane spoke up. "I think your mother would be very disappointed, if she knew you are not introducing yourself before you ask questions that would be considered rude." Then she sat down herself.

"Sorry." The two sat down, too.

"Clyde has a point, though. What is it supposed to mean?" Sarah Jane asked River.

"Well, it's complicated. Very complicated." She drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Basically, I'm human. But I was conceived in the TARDIS. So the background radiation mixed with my genes, making me partially Time Lord. I even had been able to regenerate. So, you see, I'm a sort of-alien."

Then angry footfall could be heard coming down the stairs. And a grumbling. And then Shadow appeared in the door.

"What in the name of sanity, are you doing here, yelling about? I'm trying to sleep..." Then she spotted River. "Oh. You." River stood.

"Yes, me." There was a sizzling tension in the room suddenly. Sarah Jane looked at Rani and Clyde and then motioned for them to follow her outside. When out in the corridor, Sarah Jane closed the door behind her but left it open a crack so that in case of an emergency, they could step in between the two inside. And she was very curious...

"Sarah Jane, what is going on?" Whispered Rani behind her.

Sarah Jane turned around and faced the two. "Shadow came home this morning and was in a state of near breakdown. She told me she had met someone but that wouldn't work out because no one would even be remotely interested in her in a romantic way. Then Shadow dropped the bomb and said that she isn't 17 anymore but 26. But she refused to talk about it. Then she went to sleep. Shortly after, Jack called and told me that I would get a visitor today. Jack brought her himself." At the confused looks from Rani and Clyde, she added. "River is the one Shadow was with last night. And now psst...it gets interesting." Sarah Jane turned around again and peered into the room. The other two followed suit, still not quite understanding what was going on.

Inside the living room River and Shadow still hadn't moved a muscle and were just sizing each other up. Then Shadow spoke up.

"What do you want?" Her words were harsh.

River made several attempts to speak but everything she could have said sounded dumb to her ears. In the end she settled for simply saying "You."

Shadow narrowed her eyes suspiciously, prompting River to elaborate. "I want you. Hell, I don't even just want you. I have absolutely fallen for you. You need to believe me, I have never felt anything like this before. When I woke up and you were gone...the emptiness I felt inside was almost painful."

River sat down again. Shadow made a few steps towards her. She looked down at herself, if she ever were to blush, she would do so now, but she never blushed, so she didn't. She stood there, before River, in a pair of old, slightly ripped grey cargo pants and a t-shirt that would reach over her knees, if she hadn't tucked it into the trousers. And her hair was still a little tousled from sleeping. She tried to straighten it a bit but to no real avail. Dropping her hands again she walked forward and sat down next to River.

"Why did you come here? You could have walked away from it, could have forgotten everything...could have forgotten me. Why come after me and risk more pain?" Shadow looked into River's eyes with a sorrowful expression.

"Because..." River drew a shaky breath. "Because I wanted to know why you left. Last night, there was something more between us than just physical attraction. It was a meeting of minds. Our minds were intertwined in bliss. And forgive me, when I'm getting sappy now, but I believe you've felt it, too. So why did you leave?"

Shadow looked away from her. She was in a conflict. If she told her, her resolve to stay away from her would break away completely and she couldn't let that happen; but River deserved the truth about it. Shadow rose from her place and started to pace. After several stops and starts, she came to a final halt and faced River.

"You know, my life has never been easy. I have been through hell to get here. Well, I didn't get here by choice. I got here because I was send here. Well, not here here...but I ended up here. Wibbly-wobbly. Anyway, I wasn't shocked when I found out that you're imprisoned for the murder of the Doctor because that was, and probably still is, my mission when I was send here." Shadow sensed that River was about to interrupt. "No! Please let me get this out." Shadow all but pleaded with her eyes for understanding from River.

"I have been conceived in this universe but my parents were forced apart by some...whatever. But what I'm trying to say is that I was born in another universe, where I had been abducted by some people that are mortal enemies of the Doctor's. Well, my mum was at that time trying to find a secure path back to my dad and left me with my grandparents. Very high-ranking and influential people over there. But they couldn't prevent that I was taken. Anyway, these people moved me across the galaxy and far away. They trained me to be a merciless and fearless assassin without regrets. They didn't do it in a nice and fluffy way, by the way. They had sent me out across the galaxy to eliminate targets they wanted eliminated. I did what was required of me. I obeyed. Albeit sometimes I interpreted my assignments a bit...freely. If the person I was told to eliminate, was some good person that actually helped the people and didn't let them suffer then I tried my hardest to find a way to keep this person alive, to not have to kill it. Except it was a fixed point in time, of course." Shadow resumed her previous position next to River.

"I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I'm not used to feel any emotion. I prefer to justify my actions with logic. I'm not saying that I don't have any emotions, just my emotions come in second when I have to make a decision." At this point Shadow looked back up into River's eyes. "To put it simply...I just got scared, that's all. I got scared of what there might be, I got scared of what you made me feel, I got scared of that I got scared. And I'm not even making sense anymore." At that point River took Shadow's face in both her hands and looked her deeply in the eyes.

"You are making perfect sense to me. You're a psychopathic sociopath. You were made one. Emotions never touched you and you didn't have any emotions. And when you showed emotions it was a ploy. But now you're feeling something and it's alright. You don't have to be scared of it." River let her hands drop to Shadow's shoulders. Then smiled. "You know what's kind of funny though?" Shadow slightly shook her head. "Our lives seem to have a lot of parallels. Just the ones that took me took my mother first and then they took me. They also trained me to become a killer, an assassin. But my one and only mission was to kill the Doctor." At Shadow's slight incline of her head River explained further.

"Yes, I succeeded. But I did it kicking and screaming. Well, metaphorically speaking. I didn't want to kill him anymore. On my first meeting with him all I initially wanted was to kill him; and I almost succeeded then. But he showed me that everything I had been taught about him was a lie. He did care about everyone although he himself was dying. He pleaded and begged me to save my parents. The ones that had raised me had taught me he didn't care about anyone except himself. But there, right in front of my eyes, was he lying on the ground, dying, and still trying to save them. I did save them. And then I saved him. I threw everything I knew out the window and saved him. I screwed their mission and decided to go my own way. Their stupid war wasn't worth it." Now River got up and started to pace.

"On my second meeting with him though, they had succeeded in forcing me to kill him. Well, they had drugged me and then put into an astronaut suit with special weapons systems." River turned and looked at Shadow willing her to understand. "I didn't want to kill him because I loved him. I still do. And at that moment I drained the weapons system and rewrote a fixed point. That caused time to collapse in on itself and everything happened at once. Well, practically time stopped. We, the Doctor, my parents and me, gathered on top of a pyramid and I told him that he didn't have to die. That everyone he helped would be willing to return the favor. But that insufferable man had already mapped out a plan of his own. I really should have known." She resumed pacing for a moment again.

"I loved him so much and I was willing to do almost everything to save him. So he married me on top of that pyramid to ensure that I would kill him. We...kissed and time...healed because I then killed him. He didn't really die, by the way. He just sort of faked his death. Anyway, I never told anyone till now that the Doctor is still alive. But you've got to believe me that although I love the Doctor, I love you more. I know we hardly know each other and you probably see me as some kind of weird person now because I'm sort of your stepmother and I knew it and I shouldn't react in this way to you and...and...and..." River was rambling and on the verge of completely breaking down. Shadow realized this and took immediate action, stepping in front of River and grabbing her shoulders.

"Ssh... It's alright. And no, I don't think you're weird. I just think the universe has a kind of cruel sense of humor. And we might not know each other for very long but sometimes we don't need to when it hits us. And if I were you, I wouldn't worry that much about the marriage with my dad." That calmed River down again but then also confused her.

"Why shouldn't I worry about it?"

"I'll explain it some other time." Shadow smiled.

"Like you explained to me why you did expect more guards?" Quipped River.

"Exactly." Shadow still smiled but now also moved closer, dropping her voice to a barely audible whisper. "You know...you really are hot when you're flustered." River looked disbelievingly. "And absolutely cute when you look like this."

"Oh, stop it." River whispered back, by now also smiling, moving towards Shadow so that their faces were not even an inch apart. Deeply looking into Shadow's eyes, searching for something she wasn't even sure of herself.

Apparently Shadow had also done some searching but had already found what she was looking for because she closed the distance between them, letting both forget everything around them.

The last semi-coherent thought flitting through River's mind was not one of her own but one from Shadow. It whispered, it challenged. "Make me."