The desk was easy to clear. One sweep of the Doctor's lanky arm had the paper and trinkets littering the floor, the 51st century glass unharmed in its frame. With no time to pick anything up, he turned and pulled River's limp body into his arms to lay her on the table. He pushed her hair away from her face and ran his screwdriver across the length of her body. She was fine, apparently, with only spiking brain waves to suggest otherwise and her moving eyes told him that she was just dreaming. She didn't do that very often. She whimpered softly, and her brainwaves showed she was waking up. The Doctor, unwisely, leaned closer.

She woke with a start, flipping herself off the table with the grace and agility he had but was unable to show. She crouched back on the floor, ready to spring like the lion her hair made her look like, one hand pressed to the diary as if it was a lifeline. He raised his hands to her, like he was attempting to both show his surrender and calm her together. She blinked up at him, confused.

"Doctor?" She sounded terrified, like she didn't understand too many things to feel safe. The Doctor faltered when he realised that was exactly like it was.

"Sorry." He whispered into the quite room, his fantastic hearing recognising the four heartbeats in the room and her gentle pants - he wasn't breathing currently. "Didn't mean to scare you like that. I was worried about you; you weren't breathing." He clarified as she stood, picking the blue book from the floor.

He spared it a glance, realising that she must have been carrying it with her. It was in her cell, it couldn't have gotten here any other way. But she was giving him a look. He knew that look: it was her ´I've done something I know you won't like but I don't know whether too regret it or not` look. It was normally followed by "I may (but I may not have) just killed it... but only because he was trying to kill us first."

He allowed himself a small wince, unsure if it still meant the same.

"Are you okay?" She nodded, the corner of her lips working up into a smile she couldn't, or wouldn't, contain.

"What are we going too do about the guards who are trying to kill me?" She asked frankly reminding him of the old River and his hands twitched because they wanted to be on her hips, where they should've been. He shrugged.

"Get you out." He made for the door, eager to do just that, and missed her shaking her head.

"No." She told him, stubborn to the last "they said murder, I need to be here, clearly, but I just don't fancy being killed." He winced, she sounded like his wife. He composed himself and turned to face the nearly stranger in a familiar body.

"I can't leave you here," He argued and then her hands were on her hips.

"Well, I can't leave! I killed someone!" She said it so casually, minus the rise in her voice as she got angry with him.

"You don't remember doing it!" She winced then, before she seemed to control herself.

"I still did it." She snapped, as angry at him as he was at her.

"Melody, I -"

"Don't call me that!"

Her violent outburst seemed shock them both but he raised a simple eyebrow at her.

"What else would I call you?" He asked slowly, and she cursed under her breath. He pretended not to hear her.

"I've decided I don't like the name," she told him calmly "I think I might change it." A quick dazzling smile and he forgot to question that.

A few uncomfortable moments later he rubbed his hands together in his usual fashion and straightened his back, eager to continue.

"Come on them." He beamed casually reaching for the door handle. "Let's -"

"Actually." She's cut him off, his hand frozen on the handle. "Maybe going back to the TARDIS isn't the best idea right now."

The Doctor almost stopped breathing.

"Pardon?" He exhaled. Had she? Had he imagined it? Had he told her? No she was grinning, her normal, cheeky face starring at him, her eyes twinkling and so full of love he wondered how he'd missed it.

"Melody?" He asked softly again, playing it safe the way River always told him to. She should be proud of him. Her eyes tightened slightly but her smile got brighter.

"Call me River." She cooed "My husband does."

He should have been happy - or irritated, at the very least - that his plan hadn't worked. He should have said something, done something, smiled perhaps.

But he stared, too angry to move.

"How long have you known?" He asked, attempting to keep his voice flat. Had she tricked him? He asked as much.

"No." She promised. "But I think I always known somewhere in me that I knew you. Loved you even." She's stepped forward towards him "I remembered when I read my diary - that's why I passed out. Sensory overload. I wanted to see if you could tell the difference."

He stalked towards her, very much the oncoming storm. River, on her part, submitted, allowing him to back her into the gray wall behind her. He stood far too close to her to be proper, putting only inches between them, if only to see how she'd react. Her smile never faltered.

"Well River Song," he drawled happily, letting the steely expression drop off his face. "Are you sure you want to be an Archaeologist? I'm sure the theatres would still take you." She grinned.

"Well, you of all people should know about my fascination with old things, my love."

He broke then. To be honest, he was very impressed (and she should've been too) that he'd managed so long, especially given how close together they had been standing. Normally, and these where her words not his, he'd get handsy. He really didn't understand the problem; they where both (normally) far enough along in there time stream and he never had the guts to even touch her in front of her parents. And he doesn't even have to ask to know that she likes it. He suspects that she just likes complaining.

He knew that he'd taken her by surprise - he could practically taste it on her. His hands wiggled themselves between her back and the wall, one burying itself in her hair, the other pulling her closer by her tiny waist. She pulled him just as close, sinking her teeth into his lower lip. She growled softly into the kiss when he nipped at her in return, and she shoved at him, flipping him into the wall this time, one hand staying in his hair until it
she pulled back away from him, almost gasping for breath, and dropped her head against his collarbone. Her check ended up pressed against a very familiar bowtie.

"You really shouldn't have remembered," he told the ceiling, his chin resting on her hair as his hands circled her waist, drawing absent minded Gallifreyan across the cloth. "It's safer for you to not know me." She growled angrily this time.

"Nice moment," she said bluntly. "Shut up, Sweetie."

"Yes dear." He laughed, glad to have her back in his arms again. He pressed his face into her hair to breathe her in, the hollow feeling in his chest dissipating.

The Time Lord and his wife, so lost in their reunion, almost in a different universe, missed the door handle turn.

Finaly a reasonably long chapter! Its about time. My two week holiday (and birthday!) stole a lot of time, but a good chunk of this was writen in my hotel room. Plus all these Anti-archaeology joke are killing my heart. :(
This was going to be two chapters, but I didn't want to give the wrong impression... and it made it longer!
We're in the home strech now!

The lack of mistakes goes to WholockedAnglophile. Again.

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