"Duck!" shouted the Doctor, shielding River's body with his own. She yanked him back by his tweed jacket, into the doorway they had just come through.
But it wasn't the doorway to her room at all. It was what was left of a brick building - an intact alcove in a wall and not much else. They crouched there in the uncertain safety of the overhanging arch of bricks, the Doctor protectively sheltering his wife. The explosions seemed endless, but eventually they were able to discern that the detonations were moving away, and that there was more time between each one. They shifted silently, understanding that this was a situation that called for quiet, and held each other tightly as the distant sounds of concussive force slowed and finally stopped. The Doctor was struggling between his habitual desire to help and his instinct to protect River when she whispered, "My love, you can let me up now. I want to see if we can help." He didn't let her go, but he nodded and relaxed, moving his hand down her arm to grip hers. Together they crept out of the ruined archway and surveyed the scene.
It was dark, but there were fires burning where the bombs had hit, enough to see by. River shuddered. Of all the times she'd visited on Earth - and she'd visited a lot of them - the London Blitz was probably her least favourite. And the first thing she saw was a dead body. She tugged on the Doctor's hand and indicated it with her chin. He nodded and they started over to it, but then he stopped and did a double take.
And amazingly, he started to laugh.
It was a quiet, wry chuckle, but it was a laugh, and River was confused and ever so slightly angry at his callousness; usually she was the more unfeeling one of the two of them and this was... uncharacteristic. "Come on," he said in a surprisingly normal tone of voice, as he led her to the body. As they got closer, River noticed that the dead man had been handsome, very handsome in fact, and that although he did appear to bedead, there was barely a scratch on him. She shook her head; he must have caught one hell of a concussion from that last explosion, to kill him without burns or bleeding. They got to the body and she knelt by it, feeling for a pulse, because why else would the Doctor be laughing at a dead man unless he knew something she didn't? There was no pulse, and she looked up at her husband, still chortling away, with annoyance.
And then the corpse gasped and sat up.
River shrieked and scrambled to her feet, colliding with the Doctor, who laughed louder as he pulled her into a one-armed hug. "It's all right, River," he said, his voice deep with affection and amusement, then turned his attention back to the man sitting in the street and extended a hand to help him up. "Hello, Captain."
The man looked up at them with an expression of perplexity on his handsome face. River watched him warily as metaphorical light dawned; his face was so open that she practically saw the light bulb ping on over his head as he bounced to his feet and wrapped his arms around them both. "Doctor?" he asked, with incredulity and joy in his voice, and it was so infectious that River started to chuckle too. "But... but you're so young! If you keep regenerating like this soon you'll be too young even for me... and that would be a tragedy. And you," he turned those amazing twinkly blue eyes on River, with a mischievous glint in them, "You're gorgeous. Where in the universe did he pick up a Companion like you?"
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Really, Jack," he said with affectionate exasperation, "Could you leave off until you've been properly introduced?" It began to dawn on River who this good-looking rogue must be, and she almost laughed aloud.
"My apologies, Doctor," said Jack, with a florid bow. Somehow - even with the World War Two clothes - this did not make him look foolish. He took her hand and bent over it, brushing his lips over her knuckles. "Captain Jack Harkness, at your service, Miss...?"
"Mrs.," she corrected, throwing him that smirk that always made even her husband wary around her. "Mrs. - or Doctor - River Song." She withdrew her hand smoothly from his. "Isn't that right, Doctor?"
"You surprise me, Doctor," said Jack, "Bringing a married woman on the TARDIS. What must her husband think?"
"Oh," purred River in that voice, the voice she always used when she teased her husband, "he loves it. Of course, there are... ups and downs to every relationship, ups when we can be together, downs when I have to kill him. Especially the second time. Isn't that right, Sweetie?" And she reached up to cup her hand around the back of the Doctor's neck, drawing him down and kissing him breathless. She let him go, and they grinned at each other until finally Jack cleared his throat. They turned to look at his raised eyebrows and slightly wistful expression... and then his face cleared and he began to laugh.
"I assume congratulations are in order, then?" he inquired, slinging an arm around each of them as though he'd known them both forever. "This is a story I've got to hear. But first, tell me why you're here, now, again. I think I haven't quite met you yet, Doctor, and I know I'd remember if I'd met your lovely wife before."
"The TARDIS is ill, Jack," said the Doctor, shrugging Jack's arm off his shoulders, not unkindly, so he could reach for River's hand, "and her rooms are all disconnected from one another because of it. We're trying to find the pieces of her Timedrive to patch her up. She said we'd know them when we see them, and we'd know when we were done finding them, and sent us here, and then..." River squeezed his hand, "And then she just... just disappeared. We came out in that alcove over there," he pointed with his free hand, "and then when the bombs went off the door we came through was... gone. I don't know whether it was the explosion or whether she... she couldn't hold herself together anymore." He looked miserable, and Jack's heart went out to him. He knew how much the Doctor loved his Old Girl. "She must have sent us here for a reason, Jack, here to you. She said that the pieces were scattered over time and space, and that finding them would... upset me."
"Or make you happy. That says to me, my love," River said, "that Jack has a piece of the Timedrive, or knows where to get it. And that others who have the other pieces won't be as willing to help. You do plan to help us, don't you, Jack?"
Jack looked at them, and wondered if they were aware of how they leaned supportively toward each other. He sighed, missing that sort of companionship. Even sweet, simple Alonso was gone... "Of course I will, if I can," he said simply, and kissed each of them firmly on the mouth. "I don't know what I can do here, now, but we'll just have to figure it out. Let's go; I have a place."
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Jack looked at them across the scarred wooden table. "Okay, let me see if I've got this right," he said, his usual exuberance a little muted. "River, you are the child of the Doctor's most recent companions, but also the child of the TARDIS because you were conceived while your parents were aboard her. And you live backwards. Sort of." River nodded and smiled at him. "And she - the TARDIS - is sick, she's got some kind of 11th-dimensional virus. Any idea where she got that?" River shook her head, but the Doctor nodded thoughtfully.
"It might've been House," he said, a little hesitantly, and River stroked his hand at the tone in his voice. "He was a... a living planetoid outside our universe, in a sort of bubble universe, and he'd been trapping TARDISes and their pilots and anyone else who wandered by for... well, for spare parts." He shuddered at the memory, and River made a shocked and sad noise in her throat. "Anyway, I think she must've caught something in that bubble space - there was a lot of shifting of her rooms involved in our escape. I... that's where Idris comes in; the House moved the TARDIS' consciousness into a human body and... well, even a healthy Time Lord doesn't last very long with a TARDIS in his head, much less a patchwork human." Jack nodded. He remembered. The Doctor sighed. "River missed that one," he said wryly, "but her parents were there. All three of them... So now she's ill, and she says she needs the 'pieces of the Timedrive' to make her well. We don't know what they are, but she sent us here to you, in this time and place..."
Jack nodded. "I think she... must have called me here," he said. "I mean, I'm already here, younger, meeting that Doctor and his friend Rose. So why not just meet that me? Why would I come here - now - again? I was on my way to that bar, you know, the one where I met..." he trailed off, avoiding the Doctor's gaze, "... anyway, and I just... showed up here."
River and the Doctor shared a look. The Doctor nodded once, and they looked at Jack and said in unison, "Spoilers." The Doctor continued, "Talking about this to that you, Jack, the you who isn't immortal yet, who hasn't even met the tenth me, it would be very difficult to get his help without telling him things he shouldn't know. And even if we could convince that you, he was hanging about with that me... and crossing my own time stream is almost always bad. Except that one time... or was it two?"
"All right, then, gentlemen," interrupted River, "Think. What happened to the two of you in this time and place that could possibly be used as a component in a Timedrive to repair an ailing TARDIS? Who did you meet besides each other?" She watched Jack's face, and saw the realisation appear just as the Doctor squeezed her hand.
"Nanogenes," said the Doctor, and Jack nodded. "Has to be."
"I'll get them," offered Jack. "I know where everything is and since that me already knows I was a Time Agent, if I do run into him - and I don't think I did - he'll listen to me more than you. And you don't risk running into yourself." He paused and took a deep breath. "But I have a favor to ask you. Both of you. Can I come with you? Please?" An expression of pain and loneliness crossed his face momentarily, but when they didn't move, it set into resignation. "I'm... at loose ends, both here and in the 21st century, and I... need something to do." Fleetingly, his face grew bitter, and he shoved his chair back away from the table and stood up. "I'll let you kids think about that while I go get you some nanogenes." And he strode out of the room, letting the door slam behind him.
The Doctor and River looked at each other. "From what you've told me, and what I've read of him..." said River a little cautiously, "that's... atypical." He nodded. "But we're going to let him come along, aren't we, my love?"
"He's always been... brash," he said, and scratched his jaw nervously, "but not usually that volatile, like a bomb about to explode. But he can come with us if it's okay with the Old Girl. Once she wakes up, I mean," He scratched the other cheek. "She doesn't always like him - I don't always like him - because he's a... his immortality, he's just wrong. She can feel that. Neither of us can help it. But if she wants him with her, it's fine with me..." he trailed off, looking even more worried, and she took his hand as it was about to scratch nervously again. She used it to draw him closer to her and kissed him.
"You're a good man, Doctor," she said simply, sensing - was it guilt? - for Jack's wrongness, and kissed him harder this time. This kiss was long and lingering, and they broke apart, flushed, when the door slammed open again. Jack stood there, holding a standard-issue Royal Navy Thermos bottle, grinning.
"Delivery for the Doctor and Mrs Doctor River Song. That's really cumbersome, you know, that "Mrs Doctor" thing. So, when do we leave? And how?" River took the vortex manipulator out of her pocket and waved it at him, then fastened it around her wrist. She and the Doctor each held out a hand to Jack and the three of them clasped hands over the table.
"Ready?" River asked. Both men nodded. "Then let's go. I'm aiming for my room; that seems most likely to work." She smiled wistfully at her husband as she said this, and he smiled encouragingly back at her.
She pushed some buttons at her wrist and the three of them disappeared in a flash of lightning and dust...
...and appeared in the Cloister Room of the TARDIS, the Bell tolling loudly over their heads.