She could hear him. In her dreams, she could hear him. Cool arms hold her close; a hand cards through her mess of curls, no doubt making it uncontrollably wild. Lips kiss her forehead, rain down upon her cheeks. Call her by her name with love. Begs her to open her eyes. In her dream, she burrows close; wraps her arms around him, tucking her head under his chin. She holds onto his voice even as she rejects his words. She will never see him again. But so long as she has her dreams, she has this.
"Oh, River, my love," his voice is both sad and amused, with a hint of deeply buried anger. "So willing to give up the world? You shouldn't do that. There are still so many wonderful things to see."
She ignores him and holds him tighter, squeezing until he lets out an undignified squeak. She twitches. He's never made that sound before.
"Come on, darling," he coaxes, pulling away just far enough to gently tilt her head up with one finger. "Open your eyes. See me. You didn't kill me. Not even a scratch; it was all a trick. I had to get the Silence off our backs – and I had to satisfy your conditioning. Please, open your eyes."
Soft lips press against hers for the briefest of moments and it is that action, more than any of his words, that prompts her to open her eyes. She gasps. He is so close; his eyes fairly glow with love and adoration. He holds her tight within his arms, as if to never let her go.
"There, see?" he says, and drops another tender kiss upon her mouth, "I am safe, and so are you." Over his shoulder, she can see the dark wood paneling of the TARDIS' library.
"But," she objects, her thoughts awhirl.
"This is me," he tapped the side of his head, "fresh from Lake Silencio. Found a loophole in the rules of the fixed point. I was there. You shot me – nice aim by the way – but I wasn't hurt."
"How?" She can't think, can barely breathe as the full import of his words sink into her. He was at the beach? She shot him but he was fine? But that meant… She cried out and pulled away, surprising him into letting her go. "What are you doing here? Get out!" she screamed.
"What?" He stood from the couch they had been reclining on, and she scrambled to put the length of it between them. "Rose-"
"Don't call me that! Don't ever call me that!"
He stood there helplessly, one hand extended towards her in supplication. What went wrong? It was supposed to work! Bad Wolf had promised… "Is it the deception? I'm sorry. I know it was cruel. I came to you as soon as it was safe." He took a step towards her and she bared her teeth and growled at him. He dropped his hand in shock. "You growled at me!" Then, "not a very good growl, mind. You make a very Bad Wolf."
His attempt at joke fell flat.
"Get. Out."
He ignored the absurdity of her ordering him off his own ship. "No. We can work this-"
"OUT!"
Silence.
She dropped her head, agressive stance relaxing, but he knew better than to approach. "I won't hurt you again," she said, her voice filled with firm resolve.
"Darling, you didn't hurt me. Look, see? I'm fine!" He slid his jacket off, laid it on the back of the couch, and turned a small circle, arms outstretched as he demonstrated his lack of wounds.
She licked her lips.
Seeing that, he relaxed. That was more like the River Song he knew.
"She'll wake up."
The Doctor blinked, thrown by her words. "River, there's no one else here. It's just you and me on the TARDIS."
"No. Her." River touched her temple. "You have to let me go."
The Doctor straightened. Someone else was in River's head? Unacceptable. "Who is it?" he demanded.
"Rose," River hissed.
Well. Blimey. That…complicated things. "Rose is in your head? As a separate personality?"
"No. Yes." River shook her head, curls tumbling about wildly. "She wants to kill you!"
And he understood. For whatever reason, River had come to associate the name Rose with the conditioning to kill him. Explained her severe reaction to the name, earlier. "River," he took a step towards her and watched with a critical eye as she backed away from him fearfully. She didn't understand; not yet. But she would. He would make sure of it.
"River," he repeated, and the tone of command had her glancing at him, "you aren't crazy. You don't have split personalities. That's just regeneration. One person dies in the fire, and another one walks away from the ashes. Same memories, different person. It's natural to have opposing viewpoints about the same events. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to smack a younger regeneration for doing – or not doing – something. What I thought of then as a clever move seems now to be foolhardy. You are Rose, and Rose is you. But you are also River. As she is River." He quirked an awkward grin at her. "Part of why Time Lords keep the same name across regenerations. It's hard enough to go through different personalities as you age. You need to focus on the similarities to tie all your various selves together. Just remember that you are the same person – even as you are not."
He paused. "And as for your conditioning," he refused to use one of her names to identify the horrible brainwashing she'd gone through, "are you listening?"
She nodded miserably.
"It's been satisfied. Just like coding on a computer, it has parameters that had to be met. And they have been. It's not intelligent. Think about it. Do you want to kill me right now?"
"I never wanted to!" she wailed. "But I did anyway!"
He strode towards her, dodging her flailing hands as she tried to keep him at bay. He wrapped his arms around her, refusing to let her push him away. Time after time she had stormed his defenses, carving out a place for herself within his hearts. The least he could do was return the favor. "A part of you did," he murmured into her hair. "But it doesn't now. Listen."
River was panicking. He was too close. She could hurt him. She would kill him. Rose would wake up and the fight would begin again. She'd lost the first time, she would lose again – only this time he would die for real! Her heart was racing, her breathing quick and shallow; wide eyes stared at nothing as her mind called up ever more horrible ways that she would find herself hurting him. She felt something touch her, her mind, and she screamed, fists striking his chest hard enough to bruise. He bore it stoically before pulling her close again. The thing came back, again and again, brushing against her mind in a rhythmic caress.
Gradually, she recognized it for what it was. It was him. His mind, reaching out to hers. The very essence of her Doctor surrounding her in comfort and love in a way she'd never felt before.
::It's gone. It's gone. The conditioning is gone. You can relax. You never have to worry about it again. Relax.::
His voice in his mind soothed her, showed her that the parts of her that had been moulded by Madam were black or blackening. Thin, brittle twists that fractured and melted away with the lightest of touches. All that was left was swirling golden light, growing ever brighter as she shed the chains that had been on her for more than half her life. But even so. She'd done this before. Twice, she was convinced that she had removed all traces of Madam and the Silence from her mind. And twice, she'd been proven wrong. How could she be sure it wouldn't happen a third time? No. No, it was best if she just stayed away from him for good. It would hurt, god would it hurt –
The wild howl of a wolf cut through her thoughts, and River jolted in shock. She knew that howl, felt its meaning in her bones. Within her mind, the gold abruptly intensified, brightening exponentially until there was no corner of her being untouched by its radiance. Out of it, through it, from it, an image of her younger self stepped forward, the wolf goddess of space and time.
::Doctor!:: River called, reaching out for him back along the telepathic connection he'd formed with her. ::Are you seeing this?::
::I am.:: He confirmed, wonder and awe in his voice.
Doctor. River. Bad Wolf whispered in her mind, touching them only softly with her immense power. You need not be afraid. The Silence is gone from our mind, their time there only transient.
::Are you sure? How can you be sure?:: River objected. Arguing, in essence, with herself. ::You claimed to end the Time War when you killed the Dalek Emperor, then look at what happened at Canary Wharf! More Daleks! You were wrong then, you could be wrong now!::
Bad Wolf raised one sardonic eyebrow. The Daleks you encountered at Canary Wharf were from the Cult of Skaro. They did not fight in the Time War with the Time Lords; they were, in fact, occupied with other things throughout the entirety of it. She turned toward the dark corner of River's mind where the Doctor hovered in silence. «I love you, Doctor.»
River frowned, not understanding what Bad Wolf had said. But before she could begin to voice the question, the gold of Bad Wolf began to fade, dissipating and losing some of its brilliance as she vanished from the timeline – probably for the last time.
The Doctor withdrew from her mind, gently guiding her back to her physical form. It wasn't until she'd fully arrived that the true weight of Bad Wolf's message came clear. She was free. For the first time since she'd left her pink and yellow body behind, she was free.
And that's when the tears came.
The Doctor's arms came around her at about the same time she collapsed against him, his arms gentle as he cradled her to him, guiding them to sit and then lounge on the couch again. She gripped the his shirt in both her fists, twisting the fabric as she bent her head under the weight of her emotions. He said nothing, perhaps understanding that his presence, rather than his words, were what she really needed.
At first, the tears were of simple relief and joy. They'd made it. Despite everything that had been done to them, here they were, together again. She'd lost her life (multiple times) and her family. He'd lost…so much more. But they still had each other. But…the things she'd gone through to get here couldn't simply be forgotten, and her happy tears turned darker.
She'd been violated.
Stripped bare and gutted; her pure and selfless love had been twisted into something evil. How could she ever feel safe again? Her very mind had turned against her, used as a weapon against the one person she loved more than life itself. She had defied gods and monsters and the devil himself for this man – had defeated them all. But the one thing she couldn't beat was the sickness inside. Even Bad Wolf hadn't said anything about how to prevent it from happening again. Only that this particular problem had been solved. Her mind was so vulnerable. She was so vulnerable. And she had no way to defend herself.
And there was the anger, a hot gush of emotions burbling up. She pulled back and slapped him across the face with all of her strength, the force of the blow snapping his head to the side.
He didn't protest.
"Where were you!?" she screamed at him from inches away. "I needed you, and you weren't there. Where were you? For years – years! – the Silence had me. And every day. Every day I woke up, I'd tell myself: 'today's the day. Today the Doctor will find me.' They told me," she choked, stared at him with furious tears streaming down her face. "They told me how they got me. Said that you'd built that damn bridge to Pete's World and that they had just walked right through without you noticing. They…said they were going to break me. That they were going to use me to kill you. But I said to myself that you were going to find me. You were going to save me from your enemies – who only wanted me because I loved you. Who could only get to me because you loved me. You led them to me and then let me rot with them! I waited," her voice dropped to a whisper, breaking over every word. "I waited for you. For so many years. I waited for you. To come for me. But that's not what happened, is it? You never came for me." She pulled away even more, never letting go of her white-knuckled grip on his shirt. "I stopped expecting you. After a while. Told myself that you – look at me!" She shook him violently back and forth when his eyes had slipped closed in anguish at her words. She stared hard at him, insisting that he not turn from her pain. "I believed that they'd just hidden me too well. That you couldn't find me. But that's not right, either. You weren't looking."
She attacked him then, fury overcoming reason as her hands morphed into claws and she went for his eyes.
His face was blank and his hands were strong as he caught her wrists and redirected her energies to his chest. She dug in and he let go, moving his hands to steady her as she shredded cloth and flesh with her nails, spitting vitriol and accusations.
Time Lords were hardy, and generation after generation of genetic enhancements had only made them more so. So it wasn't until after she'd made him bleed that she came to her senses. She saw the blood on his chest and her hands, felt the slickness of it and it was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown in her face.
"Oh, god. Oh my god!" she reared back, away. Tried to escape him and the reality of what she'd done. She'd been so terrified of hurting him, and now – look.
But he lunged at her, heedless of his wounds and her fear, "Don't – don't leave me!" he cried, his hands iron bars on her arms.
His fear sparked hers in turn. "Leave? No!" she dove back down, used the sleeves of her shirt, the ragged edges of his, to wipe away the blood. Saw the healing gashes underneath. Fear slid into regret. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Doctor!" She looked up at him, eyes wide with remorse.
"Hush." He cupped her face in his hands. "Don't you dare apologize to me. I deserve much worse."
"No," she choked on the last of her tears, "you don't."
"Hush," he kissed her gently, tears and all, hands sliding into her hair and around her shoulders. He leaned back until he was reclining on the couch and drew her down so that she lay with her head on his chest. This close, she could see that they were only minor scratches, not as deep or as wide as she'd feared. Either Time Lords were phenomenal healers, or her mind had made it out to be worse than she'd thought. No permanent damage.
"I'm sorry," she said between slow, purposeful breaths, trying to get herself back under control. "I'm sorry."
He grunted a reproach as if to say 'Didn't I tell you not to apologize?' and rubbed a hand soothingly down her back. "I'm sorry," he said after a long moment.
"No!" she tried to pick her head up; to frown and argue as he tried to take the blame upon himself.
"Nope." He tightened his hold, held her head to his chest until she subsided with a grumble. "Your turn to listen." He shifted them until she lay along the length of him, her knees on either side of his left leg. Even completely stretched out as they were, it was still an intimate position and she had to fight off a blush. He took a deep breath, let it out, and she heard utter contentment in the sound.
Unthinkingly, she turned her head and kissed the skin under her cheek.
He made a happy sound and squeezed her shoulders. "That's one."
One? She thought.
"You are absolutely right," he began, his voice both intimate and far away. "I should have looked for you. If I'd known the details of the crash, I would have. After I learned who River Song was, I looked into it. Fishy. Very fishy. One of the problems with how the Silence edit themselves out of beings' memories is the way it has nothing to fill the hole with. Just a blank period of time for everyone involved. Of course, I didn't know who the Silence were, yet. No guarantee I would have figured it out. Still, I would have looked. So there's that to apologize for."
"Doctor, no. You can't-"
He frowned down at her, placing a finger against her lips. "Hush!" he insisted. "My turn."
She kissed his finger and his face brightened. "Two," he breathed as she settled against him again. "Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?" She giggled and he kissed her mess of curls. "Ah, yes. I'm sorry I left you at the university so long. I didn't know what to do to help you with the conditioning. I'd just about given up on finding a proper solution and was going to just wing it like always when the Silence took you. And after that, well. I avoided Lake Silencio like it had a plague until I had a way around the fact that it was a fixed point."
"Yes, how did you do that?"
He tapped her on the nose. "Spoilers."
"Spoilers?" she huffed.
"Well, I mean. Sort of spoilers. Half spoilers?" Then, "better not risk it."
She rolled her eyes.
He carded his fingers into her hair, seeming to enjoy making the unruly mess even worse. "I'm sorry, but we aren't done with secrets. Not yet. My past is your future. You'll be seeing a lot of me, but it won't be sequential. Use that diary I gave you to keep track. You'll be needing it."
"Why's that? Why can't I just go with you now?"
He grimaced. "Stormcage."
"The maximum security prison? The long-term, only for war criminals, never-been-escaped-from prison? That Stormcage?" She yelped.
"The same."
"But, why? I haven't-" she groaned and thumped her head down on his chest, making him grunt. "The Silence. Lake Silencio. They can't know. Augh! I'm going to jail for killing you." She thumped him a few more times – with her hand – until he captured it and kissed her fingertips before smoothing it on the other side of his chest from where her head rested. "Hope you remember this," she groused. "I love you enough to go to jail. To take the slow road while you get to run off and have adventures."
"Ah," he said, tracing the bones of her hand. "And that leads me to the next thing."
"Hmm?" she said after a protracted pause. The day was getting to her; it felt like weights had been tied to her eyelids and she was having trouble keeping track of the conversation. Especially with the soothing way he was drawing on the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry I can't count."
"Ummhmm."
"I said two minutes, but was off by five seconds. Inexcusable for a Time Lord."
She had no idea what he was talking about, and was too tired to try and figure it out. "Spit it out, Sweetie," she slurred, nuzzling into him.
He chuckled softly, the sound making his chest rumble and she grunted in annoyance. "River Song. Melody Pond. Rose Tyler."
Her eyes flew open, a wordless sound of protest escaping.
He bowed his head. His lips so, so close to her ear. "Bad Wolf," he breathed. "I love you."