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She spends most of the next week either spending time with Clara in New York, or answering emails and phone calls from future Clara already back in England. She sends future Clara a package of her favorite snacks from New York, laced with micro-bots to counteract the trackers in her blood stream, and watches in satisfaction as the signal disappears from her monitor screen a day after Clara received the package.
When she's home, and not contacting Clara, she spends time with Anthony. She meets his friends, co-workers and former foster kids who bring their own kids to visit him. They all call him "Grandpa", and Anthony's face lights up every time. He introduces her as his niece visiting from England, and they laugh over the role-reversal when no one else is around.
She cooks dinner at night, he helps, and they eat together. Anthony is very much the retired and widowed bachelor, his freezer well stocked with frozen meals, and cooking really is something she enjoys now, which is new. She's not sure if it's the pregnancy hormones, the new regeneration or some combination of the two, but Anthony appreciates it, and it's calming and normal in the midst of everything else.
When present-Clara goes back, River goes to the airport with her, and they have a suitably tearful farewell. It's a little easier after that to keep track of the timeline, and River visits her a couple times in England for a few days over Clara's summer holidays.
On her first visit, just a few days for her after saying goodbye to Clara, but a year later for Clara, she's settled on an air mattress next to Clara's bed, waiting for Clara to fall asleep so she can answer waiting emails from future Clara.
Clara starts to talk about her mother, her voice soft and sad in the darkness of the room.
When her voice catches, all River can think about is Amy.
"Scoot over Clara," she says, and climbs onto the narrow bed with her. She wraps her arm around Clara, and Clara rest her head on her shoulder.
"What's your favorite memory of her?" River asks, and Clara tells her a story about a disastrous Christmas and setting a soufflé on fire. She falls asleep smiling, and River stays with her, running her fingers through Clara's brown hair as her breathing deepens and eyelids begin to flutter.
River blames the maternal feelings she develops after that on pregnancy hormones and Clara's naivety, which proves to be dangerous on more than one occasion. She sends an uncomfortable amount of emails lecturing Clara about her need to be more cautious and less open with people she hardly knows. The irony is not lost on her. She also spends a lot of time checking up on the people Clara meets, always asking for full names and cross-checking, looking for someone that shouldn't be there, like the man at the club.
There's only one time that someone seems really threatening, and River hops over to England at the time of Clara's email, following quietly and watching the handsome young man drop Clara off. He drives a short distance away, parks his car in an alley and pulls out a vortex manipulator. He's gone in a familiar crackle of electricity.
River steals his car. He hasn't left anything interesting in it except a wallet with what is clearly a fake ID. She pops into a supermarket for a bottle of whiskey, pours half of the amber liquid out the window and throws the bottle under the passenger seat, leaving a trail of whiskey across the upholstery and pooling on the floor. She then proceeds to crash the car into the nearest empty building, which happens to be the local public library. As she runs away from the smoldering car and the sound of approaching sirens, she drops his wallet a short distance away.
By the time River gets back to Anthony's house, the smell of whiskey and smoke clinging to her clothes, there's a voice message from a weepy Clara.
"Mo, it was terrible, the police came and there was a car accident, at the library! They said he was drinking, oh my gosh, he's going to go to jail and the library was on fire!"
Anthony sticks his head in the door, "Did you set a library on fire?"
"Hush Anthony," River says, dialing Clara's number, "Clara's very upset and I need to call her back."
"Yes, well, just try not to sound as pleased with yourself as you look at the moment."
It is indeed hard to sound regretful with a grin splitting her face, but River manages.
"Maybe he just wasn't who you thought he was, Clara," she comforts her gently over the phone, "Someone better will come along."
And then one day that someone better does indeed come along.
An email from Clara arrives, full of stories about a funny man who wanted to take her traveling, a plane crash and internet problems. Clara also downloads Skype and figures out how to set up a webcam, a feat which had been utterly impossible for her before.
"Oh, I have a new friend who's been helping me," she says vaguely when River asks her about her sudden drastic leap in technological skills.
"The same friend who wants to take you traveling?"
"Well, yeah… but it's not what you think!" Clara says quickly. "You'd be proud of me, Mo, he wanted to take me with him right then, but I said 'no!'"
"You did?" River asks, suddenly worried that her interference had changed things, that Clara would not go traveling with the Doctor like she was supposed to because her good friend Mo had taught her to be more careful of strangers.
"I did!" Clara affirms, looking proud of herself in the grainy Skype image.
"So…you're not seeing him anymore?"
"Oh, well, yes I am. But just once a week! On Wednesdays."
River covers up her relief with a frown and says, "Clara, you should be careful. Where does he take you?"
"Oh, you know, around. It's just Wednesdays so nowhere to….distant." Clara is a terrible liar and even over Skype River can see the guilt on her face at the blatant lie.
"In his car?"
"Um, yeah, in his….car. It's blue," she says, quickly, like that one truth will make up for the lie.
"Doesn't that seem a little dangerous? I mean, how long have you know this guy, really? And you said he was weird, you said he showed up at your front door in a bathrobe acting like he knew you, like a stalker or something."
"He's just a little eccentric. And it wasn't a bathrobe, it was a….well, it was a monk's robe – what do they call those? A habit? Anyway, we took the kids with us last week, to a theme park! Well, it turned out the theme park had been closed down, and it was a bit dangerous, but he was very nice to the kids!"
"Sometime serial killers do nice things to throw off their prey."
"Mo!"
When the call with Clara is finished River walks to the timeline pinned to the wall. It's covered with marks now, all of her conversations with Clara marked in red, with notes in between filling the gaps. For Clara it had been almost two years since her week in New York. She'd changed since then. It had been fascinating to watch on fast-forward, the transformation into the brave young woman River had watched save the Doctor, and consequently the universe, at Trenzalore.
River slips a blue pen out of the pack. There's only one other blue mark on the timeline. She'd marked it there after her previous conversation with Clara, not long after she'd met the Doctor. She marks the new point on Clara's time line with a blue square, and measures the time in between. It had been a few months now for Clara of traveling with the Doctor, which put Tranzalore right around the corner for her. River had been waiting for it, but suddenly she remembers Clara's face, lit up in blue and silver as she'd faced certain death.
"Remember me," she says, finally, a sad but brave little smile on her pretty face. Her hair swings against her narrow shoulders as she turns back to the twisting, shimmering pillar, and she is so very small against it.
"I'm sorry Clara," she says to the timeline on the wall, criss-crossed with colorful shapes and rimmed with scribbled notes, "you'll be brilliant though, completely amazing."
Knowing she's getting close, River contacts Clara more frequently, while Clara's responses come slower and grow vague. She knows it's because Clara is with the Doctor, she understands, really, but it feels strange, like Clara is slipping away into that other world, the Doctor's world that her friend Mo isn't part of.
"Stupid hormones," she tells the baby after a Skype call with a particularly distracted Clara, "it's your fault I feel this way. Honestly, I've only really known her for two weeks."
She knows the moment she hears Clara's voice that she's finally post-Tranzalore. She can hear the familiar weight of lifetimes in her voice.
"Clara, you…you sound…different," she says, gently, "is everything alright?"
The line is quiet for a moment, and of course she isn't, how could she be? River hears a long exhale, "Mo, I feel…." She stops, laughs humorlessly, "I can't really say," she says finally, "If I said I feel like I've lived a dozen lifetimes within the space of ten minutes, would that make any sense?" River rubs the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes in exasperation as she reads between the lines. He'd taken her back ten minutes after he'd taken her away to Trenzalore. The idiot.
"Not really," she lies, "Can you tell me what happened?"
"I….it's really hard to explain Mo."
"Well, would a hug help?"
Clara laughs, and says, "Actually, that sounds perfect right now. I don't suppose you could teleport over here real quick and give me one?"
River picks up the vortex manipulator sitting on the desk next to the computer, twirling it around her fingers.
"I'll work on it," she says, and Clara chuckles. "Actually, remember how I said my uncle wanted to make a trip to England to visit family?"
"Um," says Clara, tiredly, and clearly she doesn't, "honestly Mo I'm having trouble keeping things straight in my head right now."
"Well, doesn't matter really," River says, "the point is, I'm coming over there next week."
"What, really?"
"Consider this my air mattress reservation, okay?"
"Mo, I…. it would be great to see you, but I think I might be…. Different, since last time. I mean, we always have a lot of fun, you know?"
"You bet we do," says River, which is true, actually
"But," continues Clara, "I might not be as much fun anymore, at least not right now."
"Psh," says River, "you just want all the air mattresses to yourself you little hoarder."
Clara laughs tiredly, and River doesn't wait for her to respond.
"Anyway, I'm coming Thursday, I'll stay until I feel that I've filled my Clara quota. Could be two days, could be ten, we'll just have to wait and see."
She goes downstairs, to Anthony, sitting on the couch working on a crossword puzzle on the back of an old newspaper. There's a Star-Trek re-run playing on the television. She walks up behind him, bending over the back of the couch to wrap her arms around his shoulders and rest her chin on the top of his head. He sets the newspaper down and pats her arm, Captain Kirk's voice soft in the background.
"I loved this show, when I was a kid. I thought it was the closest I could get to seeing mom and dad's stories," he chuckles, "I don't suppose the rocks really bounce like styrofoam on alien planets though, do they?"
"Well, depends on the gravity of the planet and composition of the rock, really. It's not impossible. Those strings though, I've never seen an alien bird with those."
Anthony laughs and she squeezes his shoulders a little tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of his grey head.
He stiffens suddenly, the warmth of the buzz of his mind growing cold, "Are you leaving?" he asks.
She nods, "I just got off the phone with Clara, it's time to go," she feels him slump in her arms, "do you want to come with me? Visit Leadworth, maybe?"
He turns to face her and she lets her arms slip from his shoulders, "Really?" he asks.
"Well… yeah. If you want to, I mean." He's looking at her strangely, searching. River frowns, "What is it?"
"I just…. I've been dreading it, ever since you appeared. I thought you'd leave, and that would be that…."
A tear slips down one cheek and he turns away, looking embarrassed, "Gosh I'm old, you know how we old people get with the watery eyes, next week I'll be drooling, just you wait."
"Better pack some tissues then."
"Why? Haven't got those in the future?"
He turns back to her with a smile, eyes slightly red.
"When are we leaving?"
"Very soon. I've got some things to do first though. I thought I'd drop you off in Leadworth."
"In Leadworth when, exactly?"
"Recently, I think, maybe a few years in the future. Have to avoid those paradoxes, you know. Would you like to meet your Granddad? Because I've got this funny feeling he would be pretty thrilled to meet you."
"Because we're in the same age range and will have lots in common?"
"I think you're older, actually."
"Lovely."
"Hey Mister, I'm older than both of you combined, so no complaining, got it?"