A/N: I am finally and officially back! And let me tell you, these past five weeks has been the best and some of the worst of my life, I don't regret it for a moment but I wouldn't do it again even if I got paid more than the scraps that I did...

Anyways, here's the new chapter!

Eva was waiting inside the TARDIS for the Doctor to finish his last goodbye to Robin Hood. She had already said hers, right after smoking a much needed cigarette and ignoring the Doctor's frown at the smoking fag. Clara walked into the TARDIS about a minute ago but the two hadn't said a word, instead looking at the console.

The Doctor stepped inside and closed the door, walking past Eva and towards where Clara was standing.

"Admit it," Clara told the Doctor, breaking the tension in the room. "You like him."

"Well, I'm leaving him a present, aren't I?" the Doctor asked.

"What?" Clara asked. "What present?"

"Marian," Eva said. "They're reunited, at last." She looked at the Doctor. "Pity not all stories have a happy ending."

Clara nodded, looking at them. "I think I'll leave the two of you alone," she said. "Good luck. Don't kill each other."

She disappeared from sight and Eva continued looking at the Doctor expectantly. "Well?" she asked. "Are you going to say something?"

"Let's go somewhere new," the Doctor said, turning away from her. "Orient Express, maybe? We hadn't been there yet. Or maybe ice-skating on a frozen moon? I'm sure you'll love it! And there's a planet, with a restaurant, with the best burgers you'll ever eat..." he trailed off. "I'm not going to be able to avoid this one, am I?"

"No," Eva said. "You promised me an explanation, and I will get one. I don't understand what was your problem with telling me in the first place!"

"Don't you?" the Doctor asked.

"No," Eva said. "I don't."

The Doctor sighed. "You were flirting with Riddell," he said. "And with Robin. You keep thinking this is a dream and that you'll wake up in your bed, back home." For the first time since she met this version of him, the Doctor looked her in the eyes. "I was scared that if I told you how you got here, you'll look for a way to reverse it and go back."

"It wasn't your decision to make," Eva told him, shaking her head. "This affects my life –"

"And you affect mine!" the Doctor called out. "Two thousand years, Eva! Two thousand years that would be rewritten if you were gone! Can you honestly say that you don't want to go back home?"

"Yes!" Eva all but screamed, shocking the Doctor into silence. "Do you know what I did today?"

"I was there," the Doctor said.

"Today, I shot a golden arrow at a spaceship," she went on. "Yesterday, I met Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The day before that, I talked to Queen Nefertiti and saw dinosaurs on a spaceship." She paused, looking at him. "Do you know what I did the day before that?" she asked quietly.

"What?" the Doctor asked impatiently.

"I worked the Saturday morning shift."

The Doctor paused and looked at her. "What?" he asked, failing to understand the point she was trying to make.

"When I died and woke up, I thought for a moment that it was all a dream and that I woke up back in my bed at home," Eva told him. "And I was terrified. This small taste of the wonderful, crazy life I could have here was enough so that I didn't mind being dead if it meant it was real. If I didn't have to go back to my boring, mundane life."

"Even if you had no control over your life?" the Doctor asked. "Even if you just pop up in different points of my life with no control over where you'll end up or what me you'll end up with?"

"I wouldn't trade it for the world," Eva stated. "If you explain everything to me."

The Doctor sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Your locket was forged using time energy," he said. "I don't know exactly how it works, but all I know is that it sends you to different points of my timeline."

"You and Jack said that my father gave it to me," Eva said.

"He has," the Doctor confirmed.

"And..." Eva hesitated for a moment before resuming, looking for every hint of lie in the Doctor's face. "Jack said he knew my dad."

"No," the Doctor said. "Jack said that you could say that he knew your dad."

Evangeline looked at the doctor, confused. "I don't understand," she said.

"Never mind," the Doctor replied with a sigh. "You'll understand later on."

"No," Eva said. "You're going to explain, and you're going to explain right now."

"Sorry," the Doctor said. "I can't do that."

"Why?" Eva questioned. "Because that's not how or when I find out?"

"No," the Doctor replied. "Well, that too. But mostly because your locket is glowing."

"Does that mean I'm gonna pop away?" Evangeline asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "You're supposed to meet the one with the hair, if I remember it right. Which reminds me..." He took a deep breath. "Please remember that I'm only doing this right now because you told past me that I did," he muttered, taking two long strides to close the distance between them and pulling Eva into a kiss.

She pushed him away almost immediately, and barely managed to hear him utter an apology before she disappeared. She blinked and found herself standing in front of Ten, who was smiling brightly at her.

"Eva!" he said happily. "You're here!"

Her hand collided with his cheek loudly, the slap echoing around the console room.

"Eva!" Donna's voice called out, shocked.

"The one with the hair," Eva repeated mockingly. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?" She paused for a moment as she remembered that the kiss was still in his future. "Will be thinking?"

"Something I haven't done yet, I suppose?" he asked, rubbing his cheek.

"I don't understand," Donna said, confused. "What did he do?"

"He kissed me!"

A look of understanding crossed the Doctor's face. "Oh, you're a young one."

Eva stepped closer to the Doctor, making him back away and his back to hit the console as she looked at him with murder in her eyes.

"I dare you to say that again," she said. "Because I warn you – next time it won't be just a slap."

"Okay," Donna said, stepping forward and putting a calming hand on Eva's shoulder. "Let's just breathe deeply and relax."

Eva stepped back, doing as she was told but still looking at the Doctor angrily.

"Good," Donna said, sending a worried glance at the Doctor's direction. "Now, when was the last time you ate or slept?"

"Does dying counts?" Eva asked bitterly.

"Er... no," Donna replied.

"Fine," Eva sighed, trying to remember. "Saturday, I think."

"Well..." the Doctor started, looking uncomfortable, "About that."

"Let me guess," Eva said. "Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey?"

"Kinda," the Doctor said. "Sorry."

Eva frowned. One day with the dinosaurs and two more at Sherwood meant... "Three days ago," she stated.

"Three days with him and no sleep?" Donna asked. "No wonder you're cranky."

"Tell me about it," Eva muttered.

"Go to your room," the Doctor instructed. "Sleep, we'll have breakfast when you wake up and we'll see where we go next after that."

"My room?" Eva asked, surprised. "I have a room?"

"Of course you have a room," the Doctor said, frowning. "How early are you?"

"Three days," Eva replied. "Three days ago, I was in my universe."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "No wonder you're like that," he muttered. "I bet future me wasn't the most understanding about it?"

"That's an understatement," Eva replied. "You were unbearable, disrespectful, annoying –"

"Will be," the Doctor corrected, putting a hand on the small of Evangeline's back and directing her to her room. "Will be unbearable, disrespectful and annoying."

"Yes, but you're the one here right now, so –"

Eva stopped mid-sentence, looking at her room, shocked. It looked almost the same as her old room, back home, except that the walls were dyed TARDIS-blue rather than the pale shade she was used to, and covered with pictures of her with the different companions.

"It's..." she muttered. "I..."

"Do you like it?" the Doctor asked carefully.

Instead of a reply, Evangeline wrapped her arms around his neck and started weeping, breaking down in his arms.

EMH

"Better now?" the Doctor asked her an unknown amount of time later, after she slept, ate, and smoked three cigarettes in success.

"Much better," Eva said.

"Going to slap me again?" he questioned.

"Haven't decided yet," she replied. "Depends."

A smile broke on the Doctor's face. "Depends on what?" he asked.

"On where you take me next," Eva replied.

"Good," the Doctor said, flying the TARDIS away. "Because I know something that you always love, young or old."

"Really?" Eva asked sceptically. "And what is that?"

"Books!"

Eva froze. "What?"

"People never really stop loving books, and my Evie most of all," the Doctor said, heading out of the TARDIS. "51st Century. By now you've got holovids, direct to brain downloads, fiction mist, but you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna," he added when he saw the ginger wasn't following, opening the doors that led to the Library. "Deep breath."

"The Library," Evangeline said as she looked around, wide-eyed. When she saw the Library on TV, she hadn't quite managed to wrap her head around it's size. A whole planet, the Doctor said, but that didn't even begin to describe the stacks of books that filled every room top to bottom.

"So big it doesn't need a name," the Doctor added with a small smile. "Just a great big 'the'."

"It's like a city," Donna said, amazed.

"It's a world," the Doctor told her. "Literally a world. The core of the planet is the index computer, biggest hard drive ever. And up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python's Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed. We're near the equator," he added, licking his finger and raising it in the air. "So... this must be Biographies! I love biographies."

"Yeah, very you," Donna said. "Always a death at the end."

"You need a good death," the Doctor said. "Without death, there'd only be comedies. Dying gives us size."

Donna reached out to take a book, but the Doctor immediately snatched it away from her.

"Oi!" she called angrily.

"Spoilers!" the Doctor told her.

"What?"

"These books are from your future," the Doctor said. "Don't read ahead - spoil all the surprises. Like peeking at the end."

"Isn't travelling with you one big spoiler?" Donna questioned.

"I try to keep you away from major plot developments," the Doctor said.

"Which, to be honest, he seems to be very bad at," Eva added. "This is the biggest library in the universe. Doesn't something seem a bit off to you?"

The Doctor looked around, a frown forming on his face. "Biggest Library in the universe," he repeated.

"So?" Donna asked.

"So," the Doctor said, "Where is everyone? It's silent," he said, heading to a nearby computer and using his sonic screwdriver to start it up.

"The Library?" Donna asked.

"The planet," the Doctor said. "The whole planet."

"Maybe it's a Sunday," Donna offered.

"No," Eva said. "He never lands on Sundays."

"Why would I?" the Doctor questioned. "Sundays are boring."

"Well..." Donna said, trying to think of another explanation. "Maybe everyone's really, really quiet."

"Really?" Eva asked. "That's the best you could come up with?"

"They'd still show up on the system," the Doctor said, typing on the computer. "Now, that's interesting."

"What?" Donna asked.

"Scanning for life forms," the Doctor replied. "If I do a scan looking for your basic humanoids - your book readers, few limbs and a face - apart from us..."

"Let me guess," Eva said. "You get nothing."

"Zippo, nada, see?" The Doctor marked at the screen to show Donna the writing on the screen.

Scanning for humanoid life forms: 3.

"Nobody home," the Doctor said. "But if I widen the parameters to any kind of life..."

"The computer gave up after a million millions," Eva read out from the screen.

"A million millions," the Doctor repeated.

"But there's nothing here," Donna said. "There's no-one."

"And not a sound," the Doctor added. "A million millions life forms..."

"And silence in the Library," Eva said.

The Doctor turned to look at her. "I suppose you already know?" he asked.

"Yup," Eva replied.

"And I don't suppose you'll tell me?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

"But there's no-one here," Donna cut them off. "There's just books. I mean, it's not the books, is it?" she asked, panicking as she turned to look at Eva. "I mean, it can't be the books, can it? I mean, books can't be alive?"

She turned to look at the Doctor, whose expression was worried and thoughtful. He and Donna turned to look at the books, both of them reaching out to touch one. Just as they did, a voice was heard and they jumped.

"Welcome!"

Eva burst out laughing, leading the way to where she knew the computer was talking. "That came from in here," she said.

They walked back to the room where they parked the TARDIS, seeing a Node wearing the face of a black woman.

"I am Courtesy Node 710/aqua," she said. "Please enjoy the Library and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers regardless of species or hygiene taboo."

"That face, it looks real," Donna said.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," the Doctor dismissed.

"But a statue with a real face, though!" Donna went on, before raising her brow at the Doctor. "It's a hologram, isn't it?"

"No," the Doctor replied. "But really, it's fine."

"There follows a brief message from the head librarian for your urgent attention," the Node said. "It has been edited for tone and content by a Felman Lux Automated Decency Filter. Message follows. 'Run.'" Donna and the Doctor exchanged worried looks as the Node continued in a monotone voice. "'For God's sake, run. Nowhere is safe. The Library has sealed itself, we can't - Oh, they're here. Arg. Slarg. Snick.' Message ends. Please switch off your mobile com units for the comfort of other readers."

"So that's why we're here," the Doctor muttered, earning a confused look from Donna and a roll of eyes from Eva. "Any other messages, same date stamp?"

"One additional message," the Node said. "This message carries a Felman Lux coherency warning of 5,0, 11 –"

"Yeah, yeah, fine, just play it," the Doctor told it.

"Message follows. 'Count the shadows. For God's sake, remember, if you want to live, count the shadows.' Message ends."

"Donna, Eva?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah?" Donna asked.

"Stay out of the shadows," he ordered, starting to walk deeper into the Library.

"Why, what's in the shadows?"

"Nothing good," Eva replied, following the two of them.

"So..." Donna started, catching up to what Eva knew all along. "We weren't just in the neighbourhood."

The Doctor looked at Eva worryingly.

"I know you lied," she said. "Nice attempt, but you should know better than try to lie to me. It only makes me angry."

"So you know what happens here?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," Eva said.

"What is it?" the Doctor questioned.

"Nothing good."

The Doctor sighed, turning to look at Donna. "I got a message on the psychic paper," he said, taking it out of the pocket and showing it to the duo.

"The Library," it said in a handwriting that was all too familiar to Eva, even though she had never met the person it belonged to. "Come as soon as you can. X."

"What do you think - cry for help?"

"Cry for help with a kiss?" Donna questioned.

"Oh, we've all done that," the Doctor told her.

"Who's it from?" she asked.

"No idea," the Doctor replied.

"Not telling," Eva said. "Although..."

She looked to the side of the isle, as the lights started turning off one by one.

"Donna, Eva," the Doctor said, following Eva and looking at the lights go off.

"What's happening?" Donna asked, worried.

"Run!" Eva called, starting to run away.

The Doctor turned to a door, trying to open it but it wouldn't move.

"What, is it locked?" Donna asked.

"Jammed!" the Doctor replied. "The wood's warped!"

"Sonic it, use the thingy!" Donne said, imitating the sonic screwdriver with her hands.

"He can't, it doesn't do wood!" Eva told her, frustrated.

"If I can vibrate the molecules, fry the bindings," the Doctor started thoughtfully. "I can shatterline the interface –"

"Oh, get out of the way!" Donna called, pushing him back and kicking the door open.

The trio ran inside, the Doctor and Donna shutting the door behind them. The Doctor quickly grabbed a book and used it to hold the door closed as Eva pulled Donna into a hug.

"Donna Noble, you are absolutely amazing!" she told her, ignoring the Doctor's frown as the three of them turned to see a silver ball flying in the middle of the room.

"Oh, hello!" the Doctor said, smiling. "Sorry to burst in on you like this. Okay if we stop here for a bit?"

The ball fell to the floor and Eva knew that somewhere in the computer's library, CAL opened her eyes.

"What is it?" Donna asked.

"Security camera," the Doctor replied. "Switched itself off." He leaned down next to it, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and using it to perform tests on the ball.

"Stop it!" Eva called out, reaching out and grabbing the screwdriver from his hands. She could still remember the girl's pain-filled expression from when she saw the episode. "You're hurting her."

"Hurting who?" the Doctor asked.

Eva swallowed hard, knowing that this day won't get any easier as they moved on. "Spoilers."

The Doctor rolled his eyes but said nothing, choosing to focus on Donna instead. "Nice door skills, Donna," he remarked.

"Yeah, well, you know, boyfriends," Donna shrugged. "Sometimes you need the element of surprise." She paused, looking thoughtful. "What was that, what was after us? I mean, did we just run away from a power cut?"

"Possibly," the Doctor replied.

"No," Eva said at the exact same moment.

Donna looked between the two of them worryingly. "Are we safe here?" she asked.

"Course we're safe," the Doctor replied, taking his screwdriver back from Eva, much to her protests. "There's a little shop." He pointed the screwdriver at the ball a bit longer before calling out triumphantly. "Gotcha!"

Eva's eyes widened as she rushed forwards, looking at the ball. Words appeared on its small screen.

"NO STOP IT NO!"

She hit the Doctor over the head, causing him to call out. "I told you to stop!" she said. "Now look what you've done!"

"Ooh, I'm sorry," the Doctor said, looking at the ball. "I really am, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It's alive," he told Donna, explaining what he just understood and what Eva already knew.

"You said it was a security camera," Donna said.

"It is," Eva told her. "It's an alive one."

"OTHERS ARE COMING," the ball said.

"Others?" Donna asked, looking at Eva. "What does it mean, 'others'?" When Eva didn't reply, she walked over to the Node at the corner of the room. "Excuse me, what does it mean, 'others'?"

"That's barely more than a speak your weight machine," the Doctor told her. "It can't help you."

"So why's it got a face?" Donna questioned.

"This flesh aspect was donated by Mark Chambers on the occasion of his death," the Node replied, causing Donna to turn and look at the Doctor and Eva, shocked.

"It's a real face?" she asked them.

"It has been actualised individually for you from the many facial aspects saved to our extensive flesh banks," the Node went on. "Please enjoy."

"It chose me a dead face it thought I'd like?" Donna asked, disgusted. "That statue's got a real dead person's face on it!"

"It's the 51st century," the Doctor told her. "That's basically like donating a park bench."

"It's donating a face!" Donna called out, starting to back away but Eva stopped her.

"Wait!" she called out, as the Doctor held Donna back.

"Oi!" Donna called. "Hands!"

"The shadow, look," the Doctor said.

"What about it?" Donna asked.

"Count the shadows," Eva reminded her.

"One," Donna said. "There, I counted it, one shadow."

"Yeah," Eva replied. "But what's casting it?"

"Oh!" the Doctor called out, making the two women jump in surprise. "I'm thick! Look at me, I'm old and thick! Head's too full of stuff, I need a bigger head!" He pounded his hands against his head, walking towards one of the isles as the lights flickered.

"Power must be going," Donna said, looking at it.

"This place runs on fission cells," the Doctor said. "They'll out burn the sun."

"Then why's it dark?"

"It's not dark," Eva said.

Donna turned to look at her and froze, her hand reaching out and grabbing the Doctor's sleeve. "That shadow," she told him as he turned around. "It's gone."

"We need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said.

"Why?" Donna asked.

"Because that shadow hasn't gone," Eva said. "It's moved."

"Reminder – the Library has been breached, others are coming," the Node said. "Reminder – the Library has been breached, others are coming. Reminder – the Library has been breached –"

They jumped back as an explosion was heard, followed by a blinding white light. Through the door that had just opened, someone wearing a spacesuit walked in, followed by five more. The first person walked straight to them, and reached out a hand to a button at the back of their mask.

Eva couldn't help but be both relieved and afraid when the face of River Song was revealed, a smirk growing on her face as she looked between Eva and the Doctor.

"Hello, sweetie."

A/N: And we have River! Honestly, she's one of my fave characters and what you'll get in the next couple of chapters will be just a taste of the role she has in this story.

And, on this note - Until next time, you can look for me on Tumblr (mayalr96, Fandoms All Day) for sneakpeeks and updates, or on pa tr eon (Delete the spaces on the site name, ffnet is annoying. username: Mayalr96) where I will upload up until chapter 7 this weekend.