CHAPTER TWO

A Night to Remember

"A date with the Doctor - a proper date, mind you - was a night not to be forgotten. I told you he was a traveler of both time and space, didn't I?"

The little girl nodded against her bony arm. Her smile had softened, but her interest had not faded. Even the pangs of starvation - as familiar now as they were painful - could not tear her mind away from the story the old woman was weaving.

"He knew where and when all the most amazing events occurred. Once in a lifetime events, or brilliant spectacles of nature that no one had ever witnessed before. And in his magical ship, he could arrive at just the right moment to witness the best parts. And that sort of thing can really sweep a girl off her feet, you know..."

*X*X*X*

There was no shortage of meteor showers on Earth - or New Earth, for that matter. River had seen a few. But she'd never seen one like this.

"What's causing it?"

The Doctor raised a brow as he glanced at her, as if he couldn't believe she would ask that, and she rolled her eyes before rephrasing the question.

"I know they're rocks burning up in the atmosphere but why? Why so many of them? And so many colors..."

The sky was littered with flashes of yellow and green and blue and purple - streaks across the blanket of stars. This planet was uninhabited but for the two of them and the Tardis behind them, its force field providing a bubble of breathable air. They were sitting on the surprisingly soft ground of a planet with no light pollution, no sound but the sounds they made, and a billion stars in the sky. It would have been an awe-inspiring sight even without the meteor shower.

"There's a planet only a few hundred thousand miles away that just blew up," he answered simply. "You're seeing all the fragments, different elements of the planet's composition interacting with the atmosphere as they burn."

She frowned slightly. "What happened to the planet? Why did it blow up?"

"A war."

His tone was a bit colder, with that, and she glanced over to see him picking at the last of the sweet and salty takeout from a planet she'd never even heard of - a point in fact that reminded her how much she still had to learn.

"The Caromau and the invading Perepetics," he continued after a moment's pause. "Only lasted about ten years, which isn't really that long when you think about it. In the end, the Caromau evacuated as many people as they could and destroyed their own planet to keep it from falling into enemy hands."

"I see," she answered softly. Two more races she had never heard of. Just how many wonders of the universe had this man explored? Was there anything he didn't know?

He glanced back up at the sky and sighed. "They'll survive as refugees for the next six hundred years or so before they've mixed so much with other races that their culture and memories simply fade away. The slow death of a civilization..."

"I've not read anything about them."

"You won't. Not on New Earth, anyway. Humans won't interact with the people of this galaxy for another hundred thousand years or so. By then, there won't be any trace of either civilization."

"Either? What happened to the Peripetics?"

"They overestimated themselves. Started a war with the Sycorax. That one didn't last very long either."

Finally, a name she knew. "The same Sycorax who invaded early 21st century Earth?"

He raised a brow as he glanced at her. "Someone's been doing their homework."

"Someone's done an awful lot of saving Earth. Sycorax, Cybermen, Autons, Zygons, Axos, Threllips."

"Threllips, really!" He laughed. "I completely forgot about that; how did you even hear about that?"

"It was in the memoirs of Captain Vengorr."

The Doctor laughed harder. "I'll bet that's a fascinating read."

"Indeed. I had the hardest time figuring out what World Cup Fever was. Did you really get him drunk?"

"He made it easy. I've never seen anyone drink a bottle of whiskey that fast."

"I'll bet he never did it again."

"Hell of a hangover."

She laughed.

The Doctor turned onto his back with his arms under his head and smiled up at the sky. "I don't know that I'd call that an invasion. It would've been, I'm sure. But it didn't get anywhere near that far. If you're going to count that, I'm sure there's a couple thousand you could add to that list."

"Rather the point, I think."

"Now, the Daleks..." He drew in a breath through his teeth. "History records three Dalek invasions of Earth but I can count another half dozen at least. But only three times they actually succeeded in nearly exterminating the humans from the face of the planet."

"Why do you suppose they had such interest in Earth? Too close to Skaro?"

"Not really. Same galaxy but hardly in their backyard. I don't know why they were so intent on taking that particular planet, other than the fact that they knew I wouldn't allow it." He paused. "Maybe it reminded them of Skaro before they blew it up."

"You mean you blew it up."

"Well, technically, Davros blew it up. But that wasn't what I meant." He glanced at her with a smile. "The war between the Kaleds and the Thals. Skaro might have looked a lot like Earth before they started launching neutron bombs at each other."

She tipped her head curiously. "I can see why archaeology is useless to you. You know the answers to all of the great questions of history."

He raised a brow. "The history of Skaro is a great question of history?"

"The Daleks in general are a great question of history. What man do you know who would visit Skaro and live to tell about it?"

"Point taken." He sat up again, folding his legs in front of him as he changed the subject abruptly. "So where are you? Sometime in your Master's degree, unless I overshot."

"Does that happen often?"

"Almost never."

"It's been six years." She paused and tilted her head as she looked over at him, studying him curiously. "How long has it been for you?"

"Since Hitler? Much longer."

"That's not much of an answer."

He smiled knowingly. "Your future's my past. No spoilers."

"What if I like spoilers?"

"Doesn't matter; you still can't have them."

"Why not?"

"Because those are the rules."

"Oh, there are rules?" she challenged playfully.

"Yes, my rules. And they're not to be broken." He glanced at her, waiting for a comeback, but she let him continue, let him explain. "You can ask about me, you can ask about things I've done and places I've seen and I can even take you to some of those places if you'd like... But you can't ask me about your future. It has to be lived. You can't know how it ends."

"But you do?" she asked warily. "You know how my story ends?"

"I know how a thousand of your stories end."

"You know what I meant."

"Ask me something else." His eyes were dancing as he watched her. "Ask me something I can answer."

She paused to consider before replying. "Alright, well, perhaps you can tell me why everything I find about you is so vague. I find more in story books than I do history books."

"Safer that way," he answered simply.

"Safer for who?"

"For everyone."

She looked back at him, thoroughly intrigued and unable to deny it. "Why?" she asked, but he only smiled. She frowned as she studied him for a long moment, then finally asked, point blank, the question that was burning in her mind, "Who are you?"

"Who do you think I am?"

She smiled. She'd hoped that once she saw him again, he'd be able to explain everything. But she wasn't surprised to find that he had no intention of giving her an interview without at least making her work for it. "I think you're an impossible man."

He smiled.

"A man that few have encountered and even fewer have survived to tell about. A man who seems to have gone to great lengths to make sure no one finds him unless he wants them to do."

He watched her steadily, and nodded. "Yes."

She frowned. "You're also incredibly vague and a little infuriating."

"Infuriating? Already?" He laughed. "Go on, ask me something else, then!"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She'd waited all her life for this moment - the chance to just ask him for answers to the questions she couldn't satisfy by the accounts in the legends and history books. She wasn't going to ruin it by asking the wrong questions.

"What happened to the Time Lords?"

He sighed as he looked away, muttering under his breath. "Oh, it would be that, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I can at least find information about you, albeit vague. But there's practically nothing on your people. What happened to them?"

"They died."

Stunned by the simplicity in his answer, all she could do for a moment was stare at him. But he didn't continue. Very carefully, she forged on. "All of them?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Genocide," he answered with that same simple, detached tone. "I'm the only survivor. Well, and... you, I suppose. Though that gets complicated very quickly; how much do you know about what you are, anyway?"

She shook her head and looked away, casting her eyes down. He was changing the subject. But maybe it was best to let him do. "Not much, really. No one ever really sat down and explained to me what I was."

"Tell me."

She frowned as she considered the questions that had plagued her since she was a child - questions of her own existence. "I knew my parents were human but as early as I can remember, I also knew I was different. The first time I regenerated, it didn't even surprise me. I just knew... that was what was supposed to happen. Like a race memory, I suppose."

"As early as you can remember; when was that?"

She choked on her answer, and looked away.

"A little girl in a space suit, am I right?" he asked mysteriously. She looked back up and saw him smiling softly. "You were caught in it, and you were afraid. And you forced your way out."

She was sure her eyes were a bit wider as she swallowed the lump in her throat. "How do you know that?"

"Because I was there, remember?"

She stared at him. "No," she finally whispered. "No, I didn't realize... My God, that was you, wasn't it?"

He stared back for a moment, then glanced away, casually.

"You were able to pilot the Tardis which means you have enough inherited memory to operate the controls when the Tardis recognized your artron energy signature. Which she no doubt should have done because you inherited it from her."

"From your ship? I inherited memories from your ship?"

"In a way, yes. Though it's a little more complicated than that."

She looked up at him in shock, again. He seemed to be very good at shocking her. She wondered if she'd ever get used to it. He had answers to more questions than she had even thought he could. Not only questions about who he was, but who she was. As if sensing her confusion, he grinned as he looked back at her.

"You're a child of the Tardis, River Song. Conceived in the Vortex by two human parents, and that made you so much more than what you should have been. Not a Time Lord, not human, but both simultaneously - one DNA chain overlaid upon the next, a mutation... You're a miracle, River. You shouldn't even be alive. No organism is meant to survive that - to be completely and totally, one hundred percent, two different species at the same time."

She stared as the words sunk in. She had known what she was - in name, at least. But to hear it described that way, to truly understand what that meant... It was almost too much to take in. Of course, she still didn't really understand. She knew virtually nothing about the Time Lords except that the Doctor was one, and apparently he had two hearts and could regenerate. Regenerate - how did she even know that word? She had never really thought about it; she'd just known it. She'd just done it. Without speaking, she looked back out at the sky, not sure where to go next. For one of the few times in her life, she'd been rendered speechless.

He chuckled quietly as he sat up beside her, leaning in a bit until he was talking into her ear, over her shoulder. He was too close to be casual and too far away to be intimate. Instead, he was both at once.

"Ask me something else, River Song," he teased.

She pulled away slightly and looked at him with a flash of irritation. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Immensely."

She couldn't help but smile at his confidence and exuberance. It derailed her thoughts, and made her shake her head as she looked away, marveling at the man next to her. He was a man she'd only ever heard legends and read stories about. A man she'd been programmed to kill, but never knew how dangerous he actually was. And she was beginning to understand why she would fall in love with him.

"You are a ridiculous, impossible man."

He beamed, as if she'd just paid him an incredible compliment. "Yes."