So... I'm pretty happy to be posting this chapter, I think you'll see why ;)
Thank you for your patience, enjoy!
The Tardis refuses to move for the rest of the day, and then another, and another, and suddenly a week has passed. It's terribly amusing, watching it all from afar, the Doctor all flustered and frustrated, the Gallifreyan cursing drifting up from the console room and under the console itself late at night. He's never responded well to being cooped up, and even in his own internally massive ship she can see the walls taking their toll on him. The Tardis grumbles against her mind about his attitude, his lack of trust in her, his bad language and pouty temper, and a small part of her enjoys it. Even a big, comfy cage is still a cage, and selfishly she wants him to realize that, even now that it's too late.
Being stranded works out better than she'd hoped. She spends the waking hours with Clara, talking and going swimming and exploring the library, or sitting in the open doorway enjoying the view until the Doctor's temper drives them back into the depths of the Tardis. He is thoroughly distracted, and easily avoidable, even late into the night.
On the first night, after faking a few yawns and saying goodnight to Clara, she'd spent some time digging through old storage closets. The most useful of her finds was a bigger-on-the-inside duffel bag the Doctor had proudly presented to her a year into her time at university. It's old, ancient really, with patches here and there, and her name, written is swirling gold Gallifreyan across the top flap, is faded and barely legible.
On the second night she changes into a set of flannel pajamas and hides her duffel in a conveniently generic backpack before pulling one strap over her shoulder. She finds the library, and spends the rest of the night hours pouring over every Gallifreyan medical text she can find, tucking the useful ones away in the backpack.
On the third night she takes the books with her down to the seldom-used medical center. She digs through long-disused drawers and cabinets for bottles and tubes of medicine, comparing the labels with what she finds in the books. She documents and labels and takes notes, and hides the whole lot away in her bag. She stumbles across a stash of what is essentially generic Time Lord painkillers, and, inspired, finds the Gallifreyan equivalent of disinfectants and – of all things - children's vitamins as well.
On the fourth night she goes back to the library to continue her research. Halfway through the night and tucked away in a corner, she finds the children's section. It is perhaps one of the saddest places she's yet seen in the Tardis; quiet and dark and empty. She spends almost an entire evening pouring through the books with their simplified Gallifreyan and bright, vivid pictures that shimmer across the pages. It's terribly difficult to pick which to take with her, and in the end she takes far more than she probably should, leaving empty spaces gaping obviously on the shelves. She's pretty sure this is one of the places he doesn't come to though.
She's in the library again on the fifth night, sitting on the floor between towering shelves, her head buried in a complicated Gallifreyan anatomy book, when she hears the distant door slide open and the familiar cadence of the Doctor's footsteps. She crawls to the edge of the balcony, peering down at him and cursing him silently as he heads directly for the stairs that will take him up to where she's hiding. Suddenly the gaps in the shelves where she's taken books seem as wide as canyons. Quickly and silently she picks the book she'd been reading up off the floor, slipping it carefully back into place. She can hear his feet on the stairs and the hum of his voice as he mutters to himself. There's an ancient Earth languages section tucked away in a corner, and she grabs her backpack off the floor, padding quickly towards the corner. She hears him pause at the top of the stairs, a shuffle of feet as he heads in one direction and then corrects himself, swinging around the opposite way with a muttered, "no no no, it's this way!"
She darts behind the narrow end of a bookshelf, pressing her back flat against it as he walks by at the other end. They're still in the Gallifreyan section, and the backpack slung over her shoulder is much too suspicious. In the aisle behind her she hears him stop, listens as he uncaps one of the bottled Galifreyan books. An old, nasally Gallifreyan voice floats into the air, something about dealing with Tardis personality malfunctions. In the cover offered by the noise, she takes a deep breath and slips out of her hiding place, counting in her head the milliseconds that's she's visible from his vantage point as she darts down a few rows and slips back into another aisle, weaving as silently as possible through the Gallifreyan section.
She's never been so relieved to see ancient Greek. In passing she snags from the shelf the most boring title she sees, something about property inheritance and purchase laws.
There's a cozy open space at the back, with a mismatched collection of overstuffed chairs accompanied by squat footstools and an intricately carved desk pushed against the back wall. Ducking behind the desk she pulls the chair out to tuck her backpack underneath. As she hurriedly pushes the chair back into position, one of the legs hits the bottom of the desk with a muffled thump. She stills, listening, as the muffled thrum of the Gallifreyan book cuts of abruptly. Cursing under her breath, River throws herself into the nearest chair, crossing her ankles on the footstool and trying to steady her breathing. She flips the book open just in time, as out of the corner of her eye she sees the Doctor come around a bookshelf. She pretends not to notice him, humming softly out of tune and squinting at the page in front of her. She hopes he'll just walk away, disinterested, but it's strangely relieving when he doesn't. Instead he strolls casually into the circle of furniture and flips a lamp on.
"You're up late," he says, flopping into the chair across from her, all gangly limbs and floppy hair.
She sighs deeply and turns the page of her book, lifting it up slightly between them. "Yeah, so? Clara didn't say anything about a curfew."
She hears the rustle of his clothes as he shrugs his shoulders, "You just seemed like the, ah, early to bed type."
"I am. Then I woke up, and came here to read. Alone."
"Right, right," he says, but doesn't move from his chair. She holds the book a little closer to her face and the silence stretches out between them. He handles the silence as well as ever; twitching and fidgeting, his fingers tapping out a pattern on the arms of his chair, his long legs crossing and uncrossing at irregular intervals. When he begins to quite literally bounce in his chair, the legs creaking ominously, she gives up on even the pretense of ignoring him.
"Do you want something?' she snaps, setting the book down on her lap.
"Oh! No, no not at all. I was just examining this chair, what it's made out of. You know when they first started putting padding on chairs they used hog's hair. Well, on earth anyway. On Maltros, that's in the Lynth system, they used the hair from defeated opponents. Sporting opponents, that is. Bowling, specifically. Well, not Earth bowling, generally the same idea though."
She rolls her eyes and picks her book back up, determined to ignore him into going away. She underestimated his boredom though, because a moment later her footrest dips to one side, her crossed ankles sinking against a familiar thigh as the tip of a long finger curls into view over the top of her book. The Doctor tilts it forward to peer at the title, reading it aloud with derision in his tone. She barely hears him. There's a rushing in her ears, and tingles flying up from her ankles.
One fingertip drifting across her cheekbone, tracing down across her lips as her eyes flutter closed.
"Nobody's asking you to read it!" she snaps at him, jerking the book out of his grip and dropping it back in her lap as she sets her feet on the floor and leans forward angrily, "What do you want anyway?"
She realizes her mistake a moment too late. He'd been leaning forward to see her book, and he hadn't bothered to move back, and suddenly she's closer to him then she's been since
"I thought it would hurt me too much, and I was right."
She can see the flecks in his eyes and the depth of the creases on his forehead. Her fingers twitch and she squeezes them around the pages of the book in her lap, refusing to let her gaze drop any further down the familiar landscape of his face. He's looking at her too, eyes tracking across her face, and, it's silly, but she feels like looking in the mirror to make sure her face isn't slipping back into the nose with the arch in the middle and green eyes.
"Why are you angry at me, Mo?" he asks her, his voice surprisingly soft.
"I can always see you."
The Doctor lies.
She's holding her breath, and for a moment she imagines what it would be like to smile at him, cross the short distance between them with a hand on his cheek and assure him that it's not his fault, she's not mad at him and he's brilliant, doesn't he know that? River would have done that, and then he would smile, and pretend to believe her, and they'd go on an adventure and in the midst of all the running she'd be able to forget.
"Of course it matters, River, they were your parents."
"You shouldn't have to ask me that," she answers just as softly, but her words shake with anger, "Clara is my best friend," she continues, moving seamlessly into the lie as the tremor fades and her voice rises, "she has been for years, and I have never seen her like this. Because of you." She shoves one finger in his chest, he hardly moves, his face closing like the automated curtains in the window of her hospital room.
"It was her choice," he tells her, his voice still low, but hard, "I never asked her to do what she did, I didn't want this to happen!"
"Do you think I wanted this?"
"Is that what you tell yourself? Do you honestly expect me to believe that you thought Clara would be safe with you? You knew it was dangerous to take her with you! You're dangerous!"
"And all this, my love, in fear of you."
She bites the words out into his face, leaning further into his space to see the anger and guilt flashing in his (such a very old man) eyes. She's so close to him now, she can feel his breath brush against her cheeks. If she leaned forward just a bit more their noses would brush, or she could turn her head, and then their noses wouldn't brush, they would slide past each other. The air crackles between him, and then his eyes
drop.
It's only for a moment, but her lips tingle under his gaze and her heartbeats pound in her ears. He looks back up into her eyes, and opens his mouth to say something. She watches him reach for words, lips moving soundlessly, but his eyes drop again, and he seems to lose them, leaving him right there with his forgotten mouth open and far too close to her own.
His breath flutters across her lips, warm and familiar.
She wills her own eyes up, watches the creases in his forehead deepen, she can count them.
The book falls from her lap, landing open with twisted pages across her slippers as she stands. He jumps, his eyes following her and she can't look at him, but she can see his confusion in the way he runs his fingers over his face and back through his silly hair. She's confused too. This shouldn't happen. Can't happen. Mo is the tin dog, the Rory Williams, Rose Tyler's third wheel.
"You shouldn't have to ask," she says again, but her voice is breathless and throaty. The top of his head is right there, eye level with her elbows, her belly button. Her fingers twitch and it isn't getting any easier to breathe.
He looks up at her, slowly, and there's something familiar in his eyes that starts to spread, warm and swooping through her veins, all the way to her toes that just start to curl there under the pages of the fallen book- and then the wrong-ness of it all catches and burns like ice, because for all the familiarity that she feels with that look in his eyes, there isn't even a hint of recognition there.
"Who are you to me?"
She tucks her arms around herself, suddenly chilled. Under her arms crossed over the perception filter, she feels the two tiny heartbeats picking up speed, and the fear stirring, foggy and vague.
Not yet, no no no, not yet.
"I think," she says, fighting to keep her own sudden panic out of her voice, "that I'll go read in my room now, since apparently the library isn't big enough for the two of us."
She turns on her heel, trying to take deep even breaths and long, even strides. Back through the rows of Greek, Macedonian and ancient Chinese, until the script around her is swirling circles again, down the stairs, her eyes catching on the distant, darkened corner with the little chairs and bright pictures caught between the pages and the gaps in the shelves. She slips out of the door, into the grey hallway and leans up against the wall. Out of sight she presses one hand against her stomach, counting the muffled heartbeats as they pick up speed.
Don'trundon'trundon'trun, you should never run when you're scared.
She takes deep breathes and thinks about the children's books hidden away in her duffel; about the bright, swirling pictures and a silly story about a very old man learning to dance.
The heartbeats slow, she can feel sleep stealing back over the baby's little mind as the effects of the sedative overpower his calming panic.
"Are you sick?"
Her eyes fly open. At some point she'd slid down to her heels, arms wrapped around her stomach and back against the wall. She's still in the hallway, a few steps away from the doorway where he stands, looking puzzled and concerned.
Suddenly she wishes she'd done a bit more running after all.
"A little bit queasy, yeah." She tells him faintly.
"That's strange," he says, and suddenly he's squatting down next to her, peering into her eyes clinically. He's wary though, she can tell by the distance he leaves between them. "We're not deep enough into the Tardis for that."
"Maybe I caught a bug."
He snorts, "from who?"
"I don't know, Clara maybe."
"Clara's not sick."
"Well maybe I'm allergic to some weird alien thing."
"Like what?"
She glares at him pointedly.
"Oi! You can't be allergic to me!"
"How do you know?
"I'm very old, I know a lot of things. Most things, actually," he straightens his bow tie and she fights back a smile in spite of herself.
"I'm feeling better now anyway," she says, standing up, "I'll see you later. Or maybe I won't, wouldn't mind that, really," she waggles her fingers over her shoulder at him dismissively.
When she's gone a few steps, feeling both relieved and disappointed to be finally making her escape, his voice stops her.
"Mo, I'm very sorry, you know, about what happened to Clara." And he really is, she knows. She can hear it in his voice, in the awkward rustling of his clothes as he fidgets behind her.
"So am I," she tells him.