The door hit the wall behingd it as it was thrown open with an almighty thud, a noise which the two could not miss, even in the state their minds were in, all tangled together they way they were. River turned herself on the spot, her back to the wall the Doctor had been leaning against. He wasn't there anymore - he was stood in front of her, acting as a physical blockage between her and the intruder. He was, ridiculously, holding his screwdriver like the weapon it wasn't.
Their intruder was, rather predictably, the owner of the office, wondering who his intruders were. But of course, the moment he saw the curly hair peaking out from over the Doctors shoulder, he, being the idiot he was, hit the alarm.
River growled (something she seemed to be doing more often than not now) and pushed passed her protective – over protective – husband towards the middle-aged, grey-haired man by the door. The guard (a very high rank inside StormCage and ex-military, the Doctor decided, based on the photos and certificates hung around the room) advanced towards her at the same time and, idiotically, made a grab for her wrist. She punched him in the mouth without a second thought and in the time he took to recover himself, she had him shoved up against the wall, face first.
"River!" The Doctor chastised, savouring the way her name felt in his mouth, no longer confined to his head. He scowled as one of her hands disappeared at her prisoners waist to unfasten the regulation handcuffs from his belt. "You and your handcuffs." he snorted, letting himself smile as she winked at him, her hands busy.
The guard attempted to talk, his words slurred by the wall and the bump to the head. River rolled her eyes as she released him and his weak knees had him on the floor.
"Try again." She implored, kicking him onto his back. "We may be able to understand what you're trying to say now." She smiled, and it seemed almost sweet. "But maybe not, of course."
Her prisoner glared up at her.
"They're coming. " he told her, casting a glance at the screaming siren above them. "They're coming to kill you." River pulled a face.
"Yes, about that," she looked up at her husband loitering uselessly in the corner. "I take it you have a plan Sweetie?" The Doctor jumped, forgetting that he actually had yet to tell her what he hoped to do. He shot her a grin as he rummaged through the paperwork he'd shoved on the floor, looking for the mini computer all the guards carried.
"Check him for his computer, River. It's one of the- HA! Got it!" He grinned triumphantly, waving his prize in the air. He pulled the sonic out of his pocket and when the light flickered on, the sirens squeeked and switched off.
He clamped the screwdriver between his teeth, ready for when he would need it again. River left the guard at the side to peak over his shoulder.
"Quite simple really." He told her with a smile, his words miss formed around his screwdriver. "A few swipes here and there, a few lines on complex computer code and-" he yanked the sonic from between his teeth and pointed it at he screen. The machine went blank for a few seconds before it stuttered back to life. "Thumbprint here." She complied, pressing her the pad of her thumb into the computer he offered her.
"And there you go." He grinned, waving the devise in her face. "One high-quality, highly advanced algorithm, good for deleting all records of one escaping Archaeologists. Only after the second escape obviously; we can't have you looking too suspicious, now can we?"
She took the computer from him, scanning over his equations, not trusting him to have perfected it the first time. He had.
"That's amazing!" She laughed and her face split into a smile, her teeth shining white as his hearts constricted in his chest. He took the opportunity to drop a kiss on her nose as he tucked the sonic back into his pocket. "Thank you."
"For what?" He waved her off as he stalked towards their prisoner. Rassilon he hated that word. "Saving my wife from a painful death? Trust me River, it was as much in my interest as it was in yours."
Pretty green eyes rolled in their sockets. "But what," she seemed to take delight in asking "do we do with him? He sorta knows what you did, doesn't that make him a liability?"
The Doctor turned to look at her, his eyebrows raising drastically. "Have I ever told you that it's ridiculously easy to tell that you where raised to be a psychopath?"
He didn't give her a chance to answer. He simply turned his back to her and crouched beside the still slumped man. "What's your name?" he asked, shoving his quiff out of his eyes.
"Leonard." He told the Time Lord as he wiggled into a sitting position. "Leonard Hooper." The Doctor helped the guard - Leonard apparently - stand up, his hands still cuffed together at messy angles. He tutted mentally; he know River could do a neater job. And now River knew it to.
Leonard's eyes expanded as River drew closer to his side, and the Doctor let himself smile. River was unarmed and still this guard feared her - the Doctor couldn't decide what to think about that. It was currently more attractive than it should have been.
"What are we going to do with you, Mr. Hooper?" She drawled at his side, her self satisfied smile held a way of making her look both innocent and guilty together. Her voice was almost sickly sweet when she spoke. "Do we kill you, or erase you memory?"
"Or," the Doctor interrupted, "can we rely on your silence?"
Leonard chose to ignore the question as he forced his eyes to focus on the man in front of him.
"You're the Doctor aren't you?" He asked and the Doctor tilted his head at him. He turned to River.
"You told him about me?" Her eyes flew wide, anger filling them. "No."
"Actually." Leonard interrupted quickly, a peacekeeper at heart apparently. "My aunt told me about you."
The Doctor glanced over River. She was already staring at him. Reluctantly, she turned her head to the guard, her confused eyes shining.
"Pardon?" She asked, suddenly polite in typical River fashion. "Your aunt?"
"Yes. She lived off-planet though, so I saw her as often as I could. My parents accused me of loving her more than them. She used to tell me stories of places she'd been with her trope-" Leonard attempted to raise his right hand to wipe his certainly not leaking eyes against his sleeve... and very nearly punched himself in the eye with the other hand. "And of the people she met."
"I'm sorry." The Doctor offered, placing a gentle hand on the other mans shoulder. "She sounds like a wonderful woman. May I ask her name?"
"Lorna." Leonard chocked, struggling with wiping away the tears now. "Her name was Lorna." The Doctor nodded in understand.
River glanced up at the Time Lord, her own eyes shining with tears.
"You met her yet?" She asked, her voice watery. Despite the guns and the no-noncience attitude, she really was an empath at heart.
"I don't know." He offered, slipping the key to the handcuffs out of her small hands. "I've met a lot of Lorna's."
"Lorna what, Leonard? " River asked as he undid the cuffs. "Hooper?" Leonard shook his head and muttered something inaudible. "Come again?" River asked softly.
"Bucket. Lorna Bucket."
The Doctor blinked repeatedly, stunned into silence for the first time in a long, long while.
"Lorna Bucket." He whispered back, eyes fluttering behind suddenly closed eyes, memories poring through. He didn't see Leonard nod.
"You know her?" River asked, finishing slipping the handcuffs off of Leonard's wrists for her apparently incapable husband. The Doctor nodded slowly.
"I met her twice. Once when she was little girl in the Gamma forests. I don't know exactly how old she was. I met her again before that, when she-" and he jerked his head to the emotional Leonard. "You met her too. Briefly. I doubt you'll remember it, you were incredibly small." He gave her a small, fond smile.
"She was nine when she met you." Leonard said sadly as he tried to stand. The Doctor and River stood with him. "It was her lucky number. It was mine too for a while." He glanced back down to the floor. "'S not anymore though."
"Why's that then?" The Doctor raised an almost non-existent eyebrow.
"He was nine when she died." River offered gently, pressing a comforting hand to Leonard's shoulder, in line with her noes. "Weren't you?" And Leonard nodded dumbly at her.
"Do you know why your aunt died, Leonard? The Doctor asked as he perched on the desk. Leonard stood defensively, as close to the wall (and as far away from River) as he could get.
"Not at length." He shook his head "I only know it had something to do with a demon's run." River winced, and was exceedingly glad that Leonard missed it.
"Your aunt died to save a baby." The Doctor told him with closed eyes. "To save a baby from being taken away from her mother. She was part of the opposite faction until she knew what they were actually fighting for. She wasn't successful but she gave everything she could to help. In the end, she was killed by her original group."
"A baby?" Leonard blinked. "She died for a baby?" And now he looked very angry. Which, the Doctor decided, was very not good.
"A very special baby. Who saved the world - many times, in fact," the Doctor added, and River stood the very sharp heel of her boot down on the Doctor's foot.
"The baby's name," the Doctor continued, "has no translation in the language of the Gamma forests. Which is where the babies adopted name comes from." Leonard nodded, and the Doctor let the information sink in before he straightened and told him:
"The babies birth name is Melody Pond."
As a native speaker, the translation only took seconds for Leonard, and the Doctor and River could point out the exact microsecond that his brain connected the dots.
Leonard's eyes expanded as his head turned to River. He didn't look at her in fear anymore, only with contempt.
"You."
"Yes."
Silence filled the room an neither TimeLord bothered to ake a note of how long it was before River spoke up again.
"We burried her." She offered. "In the Gamma forests. I can take you if you like."
River hung her head low. Shooting and killing she could do with ease, but for someone to die for her rather than because of her, this was something she couldn't take to well.
"How?" Leonard stepped closer to her now. He didn't seem petrified of her anymore, yet he wasn't completely trusting her either.
"The same way I get in and out constantly." River's voice still held that horrid, saddened tone when she looked up at the man. "Vortex Manipulator."
"Cheap and nasty." The Doctor huffed under his breath and River pushed her heal down on his foot. Again.
"What? You're offering visits to my Aunt's grave as payment for my silence?!" Leonard sounded disgusted at the idea, and River moved forward a few steps, her gead shaking frantically.
"No." She gasped, equally disguised "No! Not at all. I want to make things right. I don't expect your silence." The Doctor pressed his hand to hers, a silence show of comfort that even Leonard could understand. "Although it would be reassuring to have it." She continued, touching a hesitant hand to his shoulder. "We could get on. Maybe?"
Leonard mulled it over, his breathing the only sound in the room; both TimeLords held their breath.
"Okay." He nodded after several miments worth of tense silence. "Deal. I'll keep quite. If -" he paused, seemingly for effect. Then he smiled. "-you promise not to go running off on my shift. I need this job you know." River smile back at him.
"Deal."
He took her hand, shaking it enthusiastically.
"Right." The Doctor butted in between them, physically, slipping a hand gently around River's waist while clapping the other down on Leonard's shoulder. "I think everything turnes out just fine don't you? Everyone's happy and no one got hurt - actually that's not strictly true is it? But everyone's fine now."
"Doctor Sweetie?" River cooed gently. "You're rambling again." He hummed softly into her hair, fully aware of what he was doing.
"Doctor Song?" Leonard timidly stretched a hand out, brushing his fingers against her wrist, as if she was concealing her Vortex Manipulator in plain sight.
"'River' Darlin'. You might as well use it, considering what we're getting into. Just not in front of the other guards, 'ay Darling? Don't want them getting jealous now do we?"
"River then." Leonard seemed to have a permanent grin stuck on his face now. "Do you think we could... you know..."
"Go now?" The Doctor finished. "I don't see why not. What dk you think, Honey?"
"What do I think?" River rolled her eyes. "I think there's someone we should introduce to the TARDIS. Don't you, Sweetie?"
Ahem. So apparently I'm not dead. I'm very sorry this took three months, and its hardly long at all.
Many of you may be relieved to learn that there's only one chapter left of this monstrosity.
My thanks go to WholockedAnglophile. Again.
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