CHAPTER ONE

The Good Doctor

"This man, the Doctor, had many friends. A good man makes a lot of friends in a thousand years of living. But one friend, in particular, was different from the rest. Her name was River Song.

"River Song was a peculiar sort of friend because when he knew her best, she knew him least. And when she knew him most, he hardly recognized her. You see, since the Doctor was a traveler in time as well as space, he didn't always live his life in a natural sequence. The first time the Doctor met River was the last day of her life. The first time River met the Doctor, he had known her for years. Quite by accident, and with a little help from River herself, he'd gone back in time, and met her before she knew him.

"He'd told her, then, that he would return, that they would surely meet again. He even hinted that one day, they would love each other very much. But then he disappeared from her life. And she didn't hear from him again for six whole years..."

*X*X*X*

The library was dark - at least this portion of it. In a room so large with a ceiling so high, row after row of books gathering dust on mahogany shelves, it was best to carry a torch if you intended to stand at the shelf and peruse your findings before dragging an armful of books back to the table. At the table, there were lights - personal lamps with shades that River always turned up to illuminate as much of the table as possible. When she came here - and that was almost every night - she undoubtedly ended up with pages and pages of maps and photocopied books, everything she ever wanted to know about the time period she was studying strewn across the table.

Most people in her field took an interest in one particular locality, one particular history of a particular people. But she had studied all of it - a hundred thousand worlds in a hundred thousand eras. The generalization would, perhaps, keep her out of the field. People wanted an expert with them on an archeological expedition - someone who knew all there was to know about the civilization they were attempting to uncover. But she wasn't doing this to land a good paying job in the field. She also wasn't doing it to be speculative on things that were and things that might have been, like the scholars and professors she had studied under. She was doing it because when the time came, as she knew it would, she wanted to know where, when, and how to find him.

Hefting her newest stack of books onto the table, she paused to rub the bridge of her nose, easing away the headache that was starting to form. This term paper would be the death of her yet. An overview of ancient Triskili history - particularly the war that resulted in the species' self-destruction, and fracture into sects. Besides the sheer number of resources to sift through, it wasn't really where her interests lie. There were so many things she would rather be working on. Her thesis, for instance, which was already well underway although she was only halfway through her Master of Arts. She had been gathering sources for years, and every time she found a new batch, reading through them was like opening presents on Christmas morning.

It had been six years since she'd seen him. Since she'd successfully killed him, then brought him back, and finally woke up in a hospital bed with the Doctor and his two friends. Her parents, she thought with a smirk. They'd left her on a planet called New Earth - a safer hospital for somebody with two hearts, the Doctor had said with a knowing smirk. And then they'd disappeared from her life. With nowhere to go and nothing particularly holding her in place except a driving urge to know whatever it was he knew about her, she had adopted the name River, and River Song had become a student of archaeology with a notable obsession for the legend known as the Doctor.

Plenty of records existed - stories and myths and accounts from all over the universe. She gathered them as she wrote her papers, delivered her presentations, made contacts with others in her field. And when she wasn't writing one of those papers or attending one of those conferences, she was reading over those stories and myths. She glanced, almost longingly, at the backpack that contained a dozen such documents that she'd not yet looked over. Christmas morning was so very near...

Just as soon as she finished this paper.

She sat down. She read and notated until her eyes hurt. One account of the Doctor said that he could read an entire book in a matter of seconds. If that was true, she envied him. Her mind could only take so much before she could hardly even comprehend what she was reading. With a deep sigh, she set her book aside, and stared at the backpack for a long moment. Maybe just a little peek under the wrapping paper.

She closed her laptop before she reached over and opened her bag, withdrawing the stack of loose papers and spreading them out in front of her. She'd been so excited to get her hands on these. Firsthand accounts, preserved from one of the planets on the outer rim of the Cistryn Nebulae. She smiled as she looked over them - her reward for a hard night's work. Maybe she should take them back to her apartment and sit down to read them with a glass of wine. Or maybe in a hot bath...

She left them scattered across the table as she stood, gathered her books, and carried them down one of the aisles to the cart for reshelving. She yawned - too much sitting in one place for too long - and turned back to gather the rest, pausing along the way as a title on the shelf caught her eye. Paleontology in the 22nd Century. She made a note of it just for the sake of curiosity - Earth history always did have a special place in her heart, for obvious reasons - then continued to the end of the aisle. There, she pulled up short, with a quick gasp at the realization that she wasn't alone.

"River Song." The man sitting in the chair she'd recently vacated looked quite settled in - as if he'd been there for several minutes at least. Leaning back with his feet up on the table, head lowered, he smiled in the dark. "How nice to see you again."

She recognized him the instant he looked up, and her jaw fell. Six years since she'd seen him. And he didn't look a day older. Of course, neither did she. That was to be expected. She'd even wondered, in her most recent regeneration, if she could turn her age back the other way - grow younger instead of older. But as it turned out, that was something that even Time Lords couldn't do. Shaking off her surprise and straightening her posture, she continued her walk to the table with as much calm and poise as she could manage.

"I was beginning to think I'd never see you again," she said, careful not to let her voice squeak. The topic of her scholarly obsession and her private wonderings for so long, and here he was right in front of her.

He smirked - a knowing smile that served as proof positive that the thought of not seeing her again had never once crossed his mind, no matter how much it had been on hers. Of course it hadn't, she chided herself. He knows about your future...

He glanced at the papers on the table. "I suppose that might account for your research topic. Flattered, by the way, though I can't say as I'm impressed by your avenue of study. Archaeology? Seriously?"

She raised a brow. "Is that what you said to Professor Summerfield?" She grinned. "I hear you two had quite an interesting relationship."

"Point taken," he conceded.

She swallowed, and pulled out the chair across from him, sitting down. Why did she suddenly feel so self conscious? She had never been one for schoolgirl crushes and he was no exception. But her life had revolved around him from the start, and he knew it. That was... unnerving.

"Besides, how else do you expect me to find you?" she challenged, managing to keep her voice full of confidence. "It's not like you left a phone number or forwarding address."

"I didn't."

"You didn't what?"

"Expect you to find me."

She smiled slightly at that. "No, of course you didn't."

"Dinner?"

There was no segue, and the question caught her off guard. Actually, it wasn't even properly a question. It was a statement of intent regarding how the rest of this evening would go. He was calling the shots, as if he didn't expect her to even consider saying anything but yes. Did he know her so well or was he simply operating with the clues he had? Of course, the accounts of him spread out over the tabletop had probably given him a clue about her interest in him...

In either case, the way he was eying her, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, it was clear that he already had the evening planned. He knew she wouldn't pass up the opportunity. But there was no way in hell she was going to give in that easily. It was the principle of the thing.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Why not?"

"I don't exactly make it a habit of going out with strange men I meet in libraries."

"Strange men?" Brows raised, he made a point of looking over the papers strewn across the table.

A smile slowly crept across her face. "Yes, Doctor, strange men. And few are stranger than you."

His eyes moved back to her, and his smirk seemed to grow a bit more knowing. "Intrigued?"

"An understatement."

"So that's a yes, then. To dinner."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" His tone held a note of challenge.

Giving a small laugh and shaking her head, she began clearing the papers and books. She'd hoped to last longer, but he was right. She was more than intrigued. She'd go as far as to say she was obsessed with this mysterious man sitting across from her.

"Alright, Doctor. That is a yes to dinner."

His smile broadened.