Should have been, could have been
Chapter 3: Don't save me
River's PoV
We use the gateway through the TARDIS that has appeared in Jack's Torchwood office. I nervously step inside, together with Martha and Sarah-Jane, who look at me curiously. It's good to be back, although it is a version of the sentient ship I'm not really familiar with.
Despite everything that has happened, I look forward to see the Doctor again, even though it's a younger version, not the man with the bowtie and the ridiculous love for fezzes I've come to know so well.
And yes, I look forward to see Rose Tyler again as well.
The last time I saw 'my' version of the Doctor, my parents had just died, touched by a weeping angel.
The last time I saw 'my' version of the Doctor, the TARDIS warned me. Something bad was going to happen in my future and the Doctor's past. It would influence the time lines. Although it wouldn't cause such a large damage the Reapers would show up, it would certainly influence my marriage.
As dangerous as the situation currently is, I allow myself to wonder what influence it would have on my life.
In the original timelines, Rose would live in an alternative universe with a meta-crisis version of the Doctor. Donna would lose her memory and cannot be near the Doctor again. The Doctor regenerates and moves on and then, once upon an aborted timeline, will marry me.
Now, Rose hasn't returned deliberately to warn the Doctor about the stars going out because they aren't. There will not be a meta-crisis and Donna will not lose her memory. Rose has grown a second heart and will live for far much longer than a normal human woman.
In my original timeline, the Doctor offered Rose a part-human version of himself because he couldn't grow old with her, whereas the meta-crisis could. The Doctor knew that if he had to watch Rose die, even if it was from old age, he would become just as depressed, angry and volatile as he was before he met her, or when he had lost her the first time. He would take unnecessary risks, like he did when he had just met Donna and Martha. He might even turn into the Valiard, a version of the Doctor that had all of his bad character traits and none of his good.
As the last of the Timelords, with his responsibilities, he couldn't let that happen, no matter how much it broke his hearts. So, he let Rose go.
But did he?
Truly?
I told my mother how I never let him show the pain. Never showed him how much it hurts.
My mother believed I was simply referring to the fact that our timelines aren't linear but I wasn't. I was also referring to the fact that I knew he was always holding something back. Always remained silent about certain subjects. Always stopping himself from fully giving himself to me. Never sharing everything.
By that, I don't mean the Time war and the horrors he has seen there. I also don't refer to his tendency to never fully explain everything to me, my parents or any other companion, out of his need to protect us and to play the hero.
I talk about the little things he did and didn't do. How he offered me all the flowers you could possibly imagine every time he visited me in Stormcage, except for the most romantic ones. Roses.
How he always flinched when certain words, events, places were mentioned. It might be almost a good thing I didn't grew up in the TARDIS, because something tells me the Doctor would not react well to my mother reading Little red riding hood and the Big Bad Wolf to me as a bed time story.
How he hesitated before marrying me.
How he refused to bring my parents to Norway and me to Women Wept.
How he suddenly looked very guilty when we were watching a documentary on the telly and Madame De Pompadour was mentioned.
Don't get me wrong, I know he loves me, in his own way. And I will always care about him. However, I do not know if, in the end, he loved me more than he loved Rose. Still loves Rose.
If he had to chose between her and me, who would he chose? I don't know the answer and I don't wish to know either.
However, I do think he would have been less hesitant in his choice to marry me if it wasn't for her.
I don't know if my marriage in that aborted timeline will happen now or that I'm the only one who will remember.
I do know that the Doctor will know me less and less and it will kill me. Something tells me that moment has already happened to me in his timeline. I can tell by the way he and Donna look at me.
I don't regret anything.
I loved our time together and even if I'm the only one who will have the memories, I don't mind. Because it was fun while it lasted but I know it could never last forever. I hope he gets his forever with Rose now.
If it had to be someone else, I'm glad it was a woman who is a sister to me and to whom I will become a sister as well.
I simply refuse to play second violin. I accepted it before I knew the truth but in the end, if I'm truly a second choice, it won't be something I accept for the short period I still have.
I knew all of this when the Doctor, the one with the bowtie, asked me to travel with him after I had lost my parents.
That's why I refused.
Because I had to visit another woman. The only woman who could truly relate to how I feel.
Rose.
Although, Sarah-Jane could probably relate as well, I think as a look at my travel companion. Even though the Doctor was a thousand year old going on seven sometimes, he did know how to make an impression.
As for Rose, she'll remember me sooner or later. As for now, I'm a free woman again and the Face of Boe is quite dashing before he turns into a giant head. Then again, if there was anyone I'd picture to become just a head, it would be Jack Harkness.
Rose's PoV
I curiously look at the woman in front of me.
"So you travel backwards in time?" But isn't that difficult? Emotionally, I mean? You can never tell too much and have to keep a lot of things secret, or else the Reapers would come."
Professor River Song nods.
"It isn't always easy, certainly. However, it s a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the fantastic life I'm living."
Well, I can relate to that.
"River….Can I call you River? You know me in the future?"
"Yes, I do and yes, you can."
"Can you tell me if we're friends? Or is that too dangerous for you to say?''
River smiles at me.
"Oh I can guarantee you Rose, we are friends."
"I look forward to that."
We are interrupted by the Doctor, who asks us to gather in the control room of the TARDIS.
I look around at our group: Jack, Mickey, who is staring with a smile at the woman named Martha, Donna, Sarah-Jane, K9, River and I. My parents and Jake follow.
Ten people and a tin dog.
I can't even imagine how lonely my…the Doctor is but doesn't he realize all of us are his family? How we're willing to be alongside him to save the universe? In the present, past and future?
Hopefully he realizes it now.
"Alright everyone, what do we know? We can figure this out together."
"It can create a pathway between two universes, through the void," I pipe up.
"Walking from one universe to another can kill a human being," Martha adds.
"It can create a hole in the universe, which seems to show up randomly in someone's office," Donna winks at Jack.
"Information from one universe can bleed through the hole and end up in another one," Mickey adds.
"Whatever it is, it influences the Rift on one side and gives off strange energy readings on the other," Jack points out.
"The hole doesn't show up on the same place in the two universes. One end of the pathway ends up in a basement and the other on the third floor of a skyscraper in Cardiff, doesn't it?" Sarah-Jane adds before looking through the window of the TARDIS curiously.
"If this…whatever it is, influences space, does it influence time as well?"
The Doctor has grown pale at River's question. When we were listing all that we know, he had grown uncharacteristically silent and I had wondered what was going on. The haunted look on his face is one I know well. One we all know well.
It is reserved for the memories of the Time War. Suddenly I realize what is going on.
"Doctor, the Daleks weren't the only species you fought in the Time war, didn't you? There were others as well. Are the aliens that have caused this, have this amount of power, your enemies from the war?''
He swallows heavily.
"It could be. There are only four species in the universe, the multiverse even, who have the power to cause this, which is exactly the problem. One of those species, are the Timelords. The other three, my enemies. ''
He swallows heavily again before continuing.
''They're all supposed to be dead.''