The Doctor and River silently followed Jack through the door. It was the medical bay, and River thought wryly that perhaps they should hook Jack up to a machine and see whether they could get to the root of whatever was causing these violent mood swings. Since he obviously was unwilling to share. Men! she thought with exasperation, gender transcends lifespan or even species, it seems. She sighed, and the Doctor squeezed her hand. "Right," he said in that brisk tone he used when trying to change the mood, "What've we got to work with? Nanogenes, thank you, Captain Jack, you're the best, let's have those then." He accepted the Thermos bottle from Jack and placed it on the exam table, flashing Jack a smile and hoping it helped with... whatever was troubling Jack. It took a lot to upset Jack, and it was... disturbing how volatile his temper was just now. "And a piece of TARDIS Coral from me - the Tenth me - his er... meta-crisis duplicate... but let's just call him John Smith, all right?" He laid the irregular chunk of coral next to the Thermos bottle and smiled around the exam table. "Now what?"

"I'm sorry," Jack muttered, abruptly, "I... I don't like being alone. Sorry." He made eye contact this time, trying automatically to flirt his way out of trouble, and River thought the effect was rather ghastly. But he was trying, and she brought their hands, hers and the Doctor's, to cover Jack's hand, patting it in a friendly and sympathetic manner.

"Apology accepted," she said, "so let's see about trying to find out what else the Old Girl needs to make her well. Last time she needed us to ask her, so we can try that again... but do we need to be in the Cloister Room or the Console Room?" She looked inquiringly at the Doctor, who shrugged.

"I don't know, but let's try here," he said, nodding at their joined hands on Jack's in the center of the exam table.

"Wait, me?" Jack exclaimed, "She doesn't even like me, and in case you haven't noticed, she's not at her best right now anyway! I don't want a sick and angry TARDIS on my case!" He trid to pull his hand away but the Doctor gripped it tightly.

"Jack." His voice was low and tense. "She didn't like you, it's true, but you've saved her and me more than once since then, and I'm sure she's forgiven you for being... what you are. Just try with us, please? I'll drive." He waited until Jack's hand relaxed, and nodded to River. "Ready?"

She nodded, and they closed their eyes.

(grief, love, trust)

(love, sorrow, pain)

(need, hope, friendship)

They broke apart, gasping. "Wow," said Jack, "I guess she's willing to talk to me after all. That was intense, and in a good way this time." He looked at the others. "Not in a good way? Tell me it's in a good way!"

River shook her head, slowly. "I'm not sure. It was intense... but all I got was a sense of loss and pain. Shadows..." The Doctor winced, but she didn't see it as she continued, "just... shadows and fear and..." she trailed off, looking troubled.

Jack patted her hand. "How about you, Doc?"

The Doctor blinked, and put on a deliberately cheerful face. Jack recognized it; he'd felt it on his own face often enough. "Oh, mostly just a feeling of trust that we can do this, she trusts us. Did you get anything specific, Jack, or was it just intensity? She's good at intensity you know, very intense, our Old Girl, it may have to do with that eleventh dimension, after all the first six are space and time, and then the next four..." he noticed them staring and subsided. "What?"

"Um, yeah," said Jack, "she wants me to stay here. But at least she told me this time so I won't be taken by surprise." He smiled at them both. "Come on, may as well get going." He moved around the exam table and kissed each of them briefly but firmly, and River got the impression that he was saving up the physical contact, storing it somehow, so he wouldn't break down again after they left. She smiled at him and took the Doctor's hand.

"I don't see a new door," she said, "So do we need to use the vortex manipulator, or find a door in one of the rooms we have available to us? We don't know where to go, unless one of you got something more than I did." As she spoke, a door appeared in the wall behind her, and Jack laughed and pointed.

"Does that answer your question?" And his warm laughter followed them out of the room.

...and into the lobby of a brightly-lit resort hotel.

"I don't recognize this place," said River as the elevator doors closed behind them. "Any idea where we are? Or when?"

The Doctor's grip on her hand loosened a bit as he said, "Yeah, we can relax, we don't have to worry about crossing my time stream; I'm trapped in a bus two hours from here, being taken over by an entity that wanted to... that doesn't sound very restful, does it? And it wasn't; it was terrifying, but at least we won't cross the... what?" She was looking at him with that fond half-smirk on her face as he babbled, and when he stopped she reached up and kissed him, a sweet kiss full of promise for later. She sighed into his mouth and he decided they'd better get the rest of the components for repairing the Old Girl right quickly, because he wanted... "-right! let's go get whatever the next bit is..." The Doctor looked around, and noticed a uniformed hotel employee - a busboy maybe - watching them. He swung River around and they started toward the boy, who rushed up to them as soon as he saw them heading his direction.

"Er, hallo? I've a parcel for you, I think. Are you the Doctor and Professor Song?" Professor? thought River, Hmm... now there's a pleasant spoiler! The Doctor nodded, and the boy handed him a small package, touched his cap, and scurried off. River and the Doctor shared a long look as he tucked the package into his pocket.

"Is it just me, Sweetie, or was that far too easy?" He nodded and she continued, "You know how Idris said we'd know the pieces when we saw them? I felt that way in the Blitz, and on the beach, but I don't feel that here; it's like we've left something und-"

"Oi! I know you!" The voice was unfamiliar to River, but she could see by his face that the Doctor recognized it as they turned to look in the direction it came from. There was a red-haired woman reclining on a beach chair, waving vigorously at them, and she beckoned them over as she sat up straight and took off her dark glasses. As they approached, the Doctor's grip on her hand tightened slightly, and the woman said, "I knew it was you! You're the Doctor's friend, Professor Song, the one he didn't remember!" River felt a chill at the words, and clutched tightly at the hand she held in hers, but she didn't let anything show on her face. Fixing the TARDIS was their first priority, and she must not break down. "I thought you'd died there on the library planet," the woman continued, oblivious, "but I guess he went back to save you after all, eh?" She grinned in a friendly fashion, not noticing the frozen half-smile on River's face or the stiff posture of the young man holding her hand.

"I'm... better now, thank you..." River heard herself say, faintly, "but we'd better keep this meeting a secret from the Doctor. He..." she trailed off as the ginger woman tapped her own nose with her finger.

"I gotcha," she whispered conspiratorially, "he hasn't done it yet, so he can't know he's done it. Will do it. I understand." She let her voice go back to its normal and somewhat shrill volume. "Nice seeing you again, Professor! And good catch on the... er... young man." She eyed the Doctor up and down, winked at River, and closed her eyes behind the dark glasses, reclining on her chair again. River stared blankly at her for a moment, and then realised the Doctor was tugging gently on the hand he held in his.

He put his arm around her and guided her back to the elevator, murmuring in her ear, "Oh, River, I'm so sorry, it'll be all right, River, please, say something, River." He'd seen that expression - that lack of expression - on her face once before, in Stormcage when she had kissed him and he had run away. It was terrifying, that blank half-smile.

She could hardly hear him for the roaring sound in her head, one two punch and River is down, said her mind, dead and forgotten, forgotten, gone... The elevator doors opened and he dragged her inside, punched the buttons to close the doors and freeze it where it was. Tick tock, tick tock, said River's mind, he'll forget you and then you'll die, in a library, a student of ancient civilisations dies in a library, after she is forgotten, how fitting... The Doctor was patting at her face ineffectually , whispering her name over and over, begging her to stay with him, trying to bring her out of the shocked state she was in, but she found the world turning grey and then black and she just couldn't care...

Oh, my River, thought the Doctor despairingly, I'm so sorry. He caught her as she slumped and carefully lowered the two of them to the floor of the elevator. She had been amazing, magnificent, she had had the ultimate shock, but she'd held herself together until they were in a safe place and he was so proud of her. He feverishly pressed buttons on the vortex manipulator round her wrist to get them back to where they came from, the TARDIS' medical bay, and he didn't realise he was crying until the indicator on the wrist band blurred and he swiped angrily at his eyes with one hand. Oh, River...

Jack jumped when the swirl of dust and lightning indicated their return. That had been quick. And then he stared for a second at the scene; the Doctor on the floor of the medical bay, with tears in his eyes and his unconscious wife in his lap, cradling her gently and looking up at Jack with such pain along with the tears in his eyes. "Jack," he said in a choked whisper, "Help me. Please."

"My God, Doctor, what happened?" Jack asked, horrified, as he instinctively dropped down on the floor next to them and gathered them both up in his arms. He'd been with the Doctor in a lot of very serious situations, but he'd rarely seen this kind of... of breakdown. "OK," he murmured, holding the Doctor holding River, "tell me."

And he did. The Doctor, his voice sometimes nearly inaudible in his grief and shock, told Jack about the Library, the Vashta Nerada, River sacrificing herself to save Donna and the rest of the people saved in the Library's hard drive "-and me, she went in my place, I would have done it but I didn't know her and she didn't show it much but now I know how much that hurt her, me forgetting her..." He shuddered, fighting to regain control of his emotions, and Jack's arms tightened around them both, his turn to be the comforter now. "So we were on the planet Midnight just now, and we saw Donna and she didn't know, Jack, but she told River, she told her what happened in the Library, in the patented offhand Donna way, and oh Jack, River was amazing, she played along even though it was killing her-"

(sorrow love trust)

The Doctor's voice grew less frantic. "I know you couldn't help it, Sexy, it's not your fault," he said sadly. "I just... I wish I could take the pain away from her." He heard Jack sigh and glanced up at him, then back at River's face. "Yeah, you get it, don't you, Jack? We're too old and too tired and too... broken by the things we've seen and had to do. I... you know I needed Rose, after the Time War, just because she was... sweet, and I needed proof that such sweetness could exist in this universe. That's why I introduced you to Alonso, I thought you could use that kind of friend after what you had to do with the 456." He looked up again, and saw the tears in Jack's blue eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you."

Jack shook his head. "Don't be," he said softly. "You can't be everywhere, everywhen. No, not even you. Right now, you need to be there for her," and he nodded at River, cradled in the Doctor's arms. "She loves you, and she needs you, as much as you need her. It's obvious in every look, every gesture. From both of you. And I won't lie, I'm envious. But I've got a long life ahead of me, and it'll happen for me someday. I know it will." His expression lightened, and he grinned cheekily at the Doctor. "Hey, even your TARDIS likes me now. If my modest charms can win her over, there's hope for the rest of the universe." He got up and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. "Like I said, just be there for her." And the Doctor looked back down at his wife, nestled in his lap, and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled weakly at him, still looking drawn and pale at her foreknowledge.

"Hello, Sweetie."