2. In which time is very wibbly-wobbly

"Shit," said the young woman. She shoved curly hair behind her ears and smiled widely in an apologetic sort of way. "I'm so sorry. I was supposed to meet…a friend of mine, here, and I guess I mistook—"

"Rubbish," spat the Doctor. "You're trying to tell me that your bloke's car looks like this police box?"

"Not my bloke, not a car, and not a police box," the girl reeled off in a single breath. "Otherwise it wouldn't be so big on the inside, now would it? It's a TARDIS: which stands for Time And Rel—"

"—Relative Dimension In Space," the Doctor interrupted sharply, peering at her. "I know that. And I bet you knew I knew it, too. The question is: how did you know?"

She grinned even wider, but it was more smug than apologetic this time. "I've been here before. I didn't mistake it for another TARDIS. This is the TARDIS. The only one left in existence." She looked around, wrinkling her nose slightly. "But, um, the console room looks different. Archaic. I would know, I'm at the Luna University right now, studying archaeology. I love old things. Tombs…TARDISes…" She winked. "Time Lords."

"But—Never mind." The Doctor shook his head, trying to suppress surges of both anger and curiosity. He couldn't help expressing both. "How the hell did you get in here?"

Once again, though, the girl seemed undaunted by his anger. Raising an eyebrow, she held up a small, glinting object. "Same way you did. I've got a key."

"You've got a key."

"Yes," she prompted the Doctor as though he were slow-witted—which, given his dazed repetition of her words, wasn't too big of an assumption to make, he thought disgustedly. "You gave it to me. Will give it to me. I'm sorry. You'd think I'd be used to the whole dislocated time stream by now, but I'm really not."

The Doctor studied her for a long moment. It really was a simple explanation. Not that simple ever necessarily meant "true." "You'd be a future companion of mine, then? What's your name?"

"River. River Song," she said primly.

"Bit hippie, that."

River Song raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Bit rich, that. I mean, coming from you, who don't even have a name, Doctor."

The Doctor was not amused. He scowled at her.

But River didn't care. She continued blithely. "I suppose if you want to get technical, River's not my given name. It's just what people call me. But it'll do, won't it?"

"What's your given name?"

River smiled. "That, Doctor dear, is what people on Earth like to call 'spoilers.'"

"Don't call me dear," the Doctor snapped. He wished whatever future incarnation of himself River Song knew had thought to warn her that she was dealing with a much less patient version of him. Who knew? Maybe she was used to worse as he got older, a cranky old man. But anger was swiftly fading in the face of wild curiosity; and anyways, he'd picked up on something else. "You say 'people on Earth' as if you're not from here…"

"I'm not."

"Then how…?"

River held up her forearm. The Doctor had initially taken the band around her wrist for a watch, but now, as he approached her, he saw it was a vortex manipulator. "But then, where are you—" he began.

"I told you. Spoilers."

The Doctor was beginning to be aware that River didn't seem to have any compunction about interrupting, patronizing or otherwise annoying him; she now chuckled at some private joke. "I'm going to begin saying that to you quite a lot. I know it for a fact. After all, you tol—will tell me. I mean, you told me when I was younger. But that was when you were—hold on—" River hoisted a canvas messenger bag from her shoulder and riffled through until she produced a small blue leather book. The Doctor couldn't help but notice that with its square embellishments and deep color, the book resembled the TARDIS.

River opened the book, which appeared to be a recently-begun journal, to the back cover and pulled a small stack of photographs out of the attached folder. Shuffling them, she said absently, "I've known you for most of my life in your eleventh incarnation—" without even looking up River tucked the corresponding photo back into her journal before the Doctor could get a good look at it "—and while this is my first time, you said you would be sending me into your past to help you. So I ought not to have been surprised just then. But you sent me co-ordinates and I assumed it was the Doctor I already know. I had a nasty shock when I saw you instead of, um, later you."

"Thanks so much."

"Pleasure." River sighed, assessing what else to explain. "I suppose I gave you a nasty shock too. You did warn me that you wouldn't remember my visit—which I thought odd. You said that the only reason you knew you had to send me, was because an older me tells him, I mean you, to send me. By then, it'll all be written down in my journal, which I use to keep track of my meetings with you. Which you gave me." She finished her breathless explanation and looked up at the Doctor. Up close, River's gray-green eyes were intense, wide with excitement. "Have you got that?"

The Doctor paused before replying. "Yeah, I think so."

River giggled. "It confused the hell out of you, the first time I tried to explain it. Finally you mumbled something about 'wibbly-wobblies' and made me write it down." She pulled another photo out of the stack. "And here you are." She passed the photo over to the Doctor. "I've got a picture of all eleven of your regeneration cycles, so far, but other than my Doctor—I mean, your eleventh incarnation—I've no idea what order you've been regenerating in." She flipped through the nine photos she was still holding: a man in an overly long scarf taking a walk with a robot dog on a leash; a man with an umbrella, the handle of which was in the shape of a question mark; an elderly-looking man with his arm around a thin girl with short hair, a little younger than River (she guessed); a tall skinny man in a pinstripe suit and glasses, alone. "I suppose it's a bit silly, but can you please tell me which regeneration cycle you're—Doctor?"

The Doctor hadn't heard most of what she was saying. He was studying the photo of himself intently.

The picture had been taken in front of the TARDIS; in Cardiff, judging from the buildings in the background. A grinning, handsome man in a blue shirt lounged against the open door of the TARDIS, a man the Doctor had never seen before. But comparatively speaking, the man wasn't important. What had attracted the Doctor's attention was that a) he himself was laughing in this picture, laughing as he had not in months, and b) he seemed to be laughing with the third person in the picture, a blonde girl.

Rose Tyler. Undeniably.

"This girl," he began, unsure how much River knew about his future. "I've met her. Her name is Rose Tyler."

River gave an almost imperceptible start at the name. However, she said evenly, "You've told me about her."

The Doctor stared. It wasn't his way to discuss and dissect his previous companions with every new person who came along. Besides—what was there to tell? "But I've only met her once," he said blankly. "For several days. None of which were in Cardiff. I offered to take her traveling with me; she refused." He looked back at the picture. "I suppose we meet again, after all? Strange. How could she find me twice?"

River looked smug beyond all reason. "Spoilers!"

"Spoilers…" the Doctor repeated, frustrated. "If you really do begin saying that all the time, River Song, I will strangle you."

"No thanks," she said breezily. "I've never been an S&M sort of girl. So that's Rose?" she asked interestedly, leaning over the picture before the Doctor could recover his powers of speech. "Well, well. You do prefer blondes."

The Doctor glanced at River's thick curls. They were a dirty sort of blonde, but blonde nevertheless. This did not please him. "Yes, that's Rose," he finally managed. "And if you're not going to tell me any more about her, let's get down to business. You say that in my eleventh body, I'll be sending you here to help me?"

"Yes," said River, suddenly serious. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her jeans pocket and opened it, scanning a short note which, the Doctor was not altogether surprised to see, was in his own handwriting. River looked up at the Doctor again, her eyes twinkling despite her grave expression. "How much do you know about the explosion of Krakatoa?"