3. In which sushi is eaten

"Krakatoa?" repeated the Doctor uneasily. "Did I have something to do with that, then?"

"I suppose so," grinned River. "But…first things first." She picked up the plastic carton she'd dropped earlier, which had been lying forlornly on the floor of the TARDIS, and shook it gently at him. "Sushi?"

"Oh! That reminds me," the Doctor realized. "I left my bag of groceries by the door." He didn't need to explain what had driven all thought of groceries from his mind.

"Well, we ought to put them away, then," River decided. "We can eat in the kitchen, anyways. Which one are you using now, then?"

"Northwest," the Doctor managed, flustered, as he followed River (instead of the other way round, he couldn't help but notice) down the hallway. He noticed nervously that River navigated hallways, anterooms and dimensional bridge-port generators almost as well as he did. As though she, too, lived here. Or something. "River?"

"Doctor?" River's voice echoed in the corridor they were crossing.

"You said you've known me since you were quite young?"

Her laugh rang out, magnified by the echoey acoustics. The Doctor wasn't sure why River was laughing. He wasn't even sure why it so unnerved him. "I have."

"And…?"

"Spoi—"

"Fine," snapped the Doctor. They proceeded in silence for a few minutes.

"Good boy," said River eventually. "I'll tell you this, then: I believe we're more or less traveling in opposite directions.

"I'm told you held me as a baby," River added as a sort of teasing afterthought. "But I doubt that counts."

They stepped into the kitchen, which was minimal: white, metal, and pale wood dominated the scene. "Posh, isn't this? I'll really be glad when you move into the south kitchen."

The Doctor spluttered. "The one that looks like it came out of a Harry Potter novel? Garish yellow? Badger cookie jar?"

"The very same," smirked River, holding the refrigerator door open as the Doctor put the eggs, frozen peas, and sandwiches in. "Besides, you're very Hufflepuff by then—"

"Oh, fuck."

"—even if you're a bit Ravenclaw right now," finished River. "Snarky. Sarcastic. A genius. I suppose you might be a Slytherin, though…I found a very good Sorting Hat Quiz online the other day. I've got my laptop. Want a go?"

The Doctor's voice was muffled as he stowed pasta and his precious Earl Grey in the pantry—which was fortunate, as what he said was unprintable.

"Sorry, sweetie?"

The Doctor ignored the endearment. "You were saying something about the first time you met me?" he prompted pointedly.

To his great relief, River took the hint without comment. "The first time I met you, I was…quite young. A young adult, if you will…and a 900-something man showed up. Amazing, brilliant, wonderful, and absolutely barking mad. And a good man." River was clutching the carton of sushi with both hands now. "But you had my number, as they say. You knew all about me. My real name. You even knew my parents. My—background." Her voice broke. "And of course, I resisted strenuously at first. Tried to kill you once or twice. Finally—" River broke off, glancing nervously at the Doctor. She seemed too agitated even to make a quip about spoilers to cover the sticky moment. When he didn't press her for the rest, River resumed. "But once I was convinced you were worth it…"

She gave her head a little shake as if to clear it, and looked at the Doctor as he sat down at the table. "And I know we've years to go. But as I've got older I worked out that if we really are going in opposite directions, someday we'll meet again and you'll have no idea who I am. Not today," she elaborated, as the Doctor opened his mouth. "You told me once that we had decades and decades ahead of us. But if it's anything like today has been, I think I'll go mad."

The Doctor felt sorry for River Song. He looked at the young woman, her lovely face defiant even in melancholy, and knew what it was like to go around being clever and cocky despite a looming past—or future, as it were. But he didn't feel there was anything to say. So instead he got up, pulled out a chair, took the plastic carton out of River's hands and opened it on the table. "Sushi?"

River looked at him as if he was mental.

"Decades and decades," he reminded her, surprising both of them with a real smile (well, it wasn't every day one rendered someone like River speechless).

After a moment, River smiled back—a smile of comfort, as opposed to her usual smug/spoiler smile—and sat down, producing packets of soy sauce, ginger, and real wasabi, and chopsticks from her bag.

The Doctor was taken aback. "How much can you fit in there?"

"Maybe my bag is bigger on the inside," River winked. "Now, I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I got two rolls that are both good, and you can choose the one you fancy. This one is essentially California rolls covered in various raw fish, and that one is tempura shrimp with masago."

"You know," said the Doctor, indicating the first sushi roll, "I never did understand why they're called California rolls. Probably something obvious, such as being invented in California…"

"Well, that is where I got them. There's this little place an hour outside of San Francisco…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

River raised an eyebrow right back. "Vortex manipulator," she prompted.

"Never mind all of time and space, you could have gone to Japan for sushi. And you went to a little place in the States."

"A tried-and-true place," protested River. "I haven't been to Japan yet."

The Doctor stared, shrugged, and fiddled with the chopsticks."Time and space."

"No, wait, those are mine," exclaimed River. She handed the Doctor the wooden take-out pair.

"You've got Star Wars chopsticks shaped like purple lightsabers." He couldn't help but laugh as he handed them over.

River opened the wasabi, spread a generous amount in one corner of her plate with her lightsaber chopsticks, and doused it in soy sauce before replying. She indicated the wooden utensils in his hands. "And you don't even know how to use chopsticks."

"Of course I do!" protested the Doctor, stabbing at his California roll.

"They're not stilettos," River chuckled, rising and coming around to his side of the table. "Not that you'd be using them right if they were, anyways. You hold this one firm, like a pencil…yes…and you hold the other between your thumb and forefinger—no—like…so." River reached out, adjusting the Doctor's fingers.

He sighed. "Are you enjoying this, then?"

"Oh, yes." River squeezed his hand once or twice, released it and returned to her seat. Picking up her own chopsticks with a certain awkwardness that made the Doctor feel inordinately smug, she arranged them in her hand in the same positions she'd just shown him. "Now you can move the second one independently, and that picks up the sushi." Without further ado, she began eating. The Doctor followed suit.

It was a quiet meal. The Doctor was hungry, and just a bit resentful—as much because of River's unprecedented, unwelcome arrival as because it didn't annoy him quite as much as it probably ought to, which in turn was annoying (if he was annoyed enough, she might leave, mightn't she?); and between bites, River stared at the Doctor whenever he wasn't looking.

The Doctor she'd fallen for was incredibly young-looking, compared to the incarnation who sat across from her; River had in studying his photographs entertained the notion that the older he looked, the younger he was. But that was too simple, wasn't it?

Her Doctor was a bit baby-faced, with his expressive lips, wide forehead and floppy hair. He could act as if he was nine or nine hundred on the turn of a dime, and this strangely suitable contrast was completely charming—at least to her. In her own various incarnations River had never felt any maternal instinct whatsoever (perhaps as much due to her upbringing among clerics of the Church as well as the severe lack of parental guidance until much later in life, when she'd finally found Amy and Rory again), but there was something about the Doctor that made her want to reach out and take him in her arms, although not always necessarily in a motherly way, of course.

She almost always, however, smothered these impulses. It was hard enough trying to get a snog out of the Doctor (seeing as she had once killed him with paralyzing lipgloss) without her getting all clingy.

River picked up a piece of sushi with her fingers without thinking, and stuffed it into her mouth (earning her an odd look from her dining companion, which she didn't notice).

The Doctor she was now eating with could not have been more different. He was not nearly as talkative, or as childlike, or as attractive as the man she adored. Instead of floppy hair, this Doctor had short-cropped hair, and huge ears and nose. He dressed very simply and in dark colors, nothing at all like her Doctor whose clothes reminded her of elderly college professors, with a dash of Simon and Garfunkel.

However, River couldn't be sure which man trusted her more.

Oh, there were days, weeks even, when her Doctor was like a second self, a kindred spirit, and all that. They'd steer the TARDIS together, and they'd put on some music and sing along. He'd flirt, he'd grin, he'd call her absolutely brilliant and indispensable—but there were times, during an argument or even glances stolen when he thought she was busy, when the Doctor looked at her as if remembering vividly that she had been raised to kill him. And had succeeded before, notwithstanding the sacrifice she'd subsequently made to resurrect him. "As far as first dates go," he told her mock-sternly one day, with a wag of his finger, "I'd say that's mixed signals."

On the other hand, this dark, taciturn Doctor obviously didn't like her. He obviously didn't welcome the intrusion. He obviously didn't quite believe that he himself would one day write a note along the lines of "Come along, Song! We're going to blow up Krakatoa. Meet me at 3096/487 by 142/peach. Bring sushi."

But the thing was, this Doctor was quite willing to hare off to Krakatoa with her, at least as far as River could tell. Would her Doctor have trusted her so far?

River wasn't an idiot; she knew that her Doctor would, eventually, come to trust her enough to send her into his past like this. She just wished that the man she was eating sushi with, and the man who she'd last seen a month ago (in her own time-stream)—the man with whom she'd traveled to Filidoos and nearly been eaten by carnivorous beings resembling blobs of ice cream—trusted her already.

"I'll do the washing-up."

River started, as much out of distraction as because the Doctor was being kind to her. She hastily forced her features into a smirk. "I brought takeout. There's no washing-up to do, just a bit of throwing-away."

"I'll wash the chopsticks then," offered the Doctor, removing hers from the edge of her takeout carton and carrying them to the large sink.

She laughed. "Doctor, why are you suddenly being such a kiss—"

At that, the Doctor threw her lightsaber chopsticks unceremoniously into the sink. "I am trying," he interrupted, gritting his teeth, "to do something productive while you tell me all about what I will, apparently, send you here to do. Enough prevarication."

"Wasn't the sushi good?" River asked innocently.

The Doctor's eye twitched.

"Best I ever had," he admitted, tersely. "But that is not the point. You're an archaeologist. You've already done the research. So tell me about Krakatoa. Tell me what we have to do."