Disclaimer: I own very little of this. Quotes taken from the parting of the ways, all rights to the BBC and the original writers.
Author's note: Just a heads up, I love River Song, I just don't like her with the Doctor. Thank you all for your follows, favorites, and reviews, they are much appreciated and I will try to live up to your praise.
"Okay, so why are you stuck here and I'm not?" Rose asked. They had relocated to a small gazebo in the Japanese garden behind the mansion.
"Only your consciousness is here, this place doesn't have a physical existence. You have a body to go back to, we don't."
"But that means that you're..." Rose trailed off.
River raised an eyebrow. "Dead? Yes. In a way."
Rose looked into the steady, light green eyes of her new-old friend.
"Saving the Doctor." River said, answering the unspoken question. "This reality was created by the largest computer in the universe in the largest library in the universe. The library was created for the benefit of an ill little girl, Charlotte, CAL. She was dying. Her father built the library and moved her consciousness into the computer. In a way, she is the computer."
River paused and looked into the distance.
"Something went wrong." She continued. "The library was attacked and all the people present vanished in an instant and the library was sealed off. One hundred years later, I was asked to lead an expedition into the library. I sent a message to the psychic paper and the Doctor met us there. But I sent it too early and the Doctor had no idea who I was.
"Turns out there were creatures living in the trees that were used to make the books of the library and they weren't happy. The Vashta Nerada they're called. The Doctor said they live in the shadows and strip flesh, that's where the fear of the dark comes from.
"CAL had teleported everyone in the Library at the instant they attacked but there was no where safe for her to teleport them to, so she saved them to the hard drive. The Doctor struck a deal with the swarm and prepared to get everyone out, but the computer didn't have enough space. So he was going to wire himself in. But it would have killed him, so I did it instead."
"He wouldn't have liked that." Rose murmured.
River smiled softly at her. "That's why I knocked him out and handcuffed him to the wall a safe distance away."
"So then, how did you end up here?"
"The screwdriver. The Doctor, the future Doctor, gave me his screwdriver just before I went to the Library. There was a neural relay inside which downloaded my consciousness and he uploaded that to the computer.
"He didn't even know me then, but he still didn't give up."
Rose stood and hugged the other woman, who was beginning to cry again. Rose held off asking about the others.
"Alright, so that's how you got here, but what about me? I thought the walls between the universes were sealed." She asked as she returned to her seat next to River.
"This place isn't exactly another universe, but it isn't in your home universe, it's sort of a bubble on the outside. And you didn't physically travel here. As to why you came, I think partly it was because of me."
"Because of you. How?"
"I was missing you. You and I, we're sort of- connected. I may have pulled you here."
"What do you mean connected?"
"Oh, this is the very beginning for you. Rose, what do you remember of Satellite Five?"
"I broke into the Tardis, and there was this sort of singing, and then I woke up after saving the Doctor. And then he regenerated."
"Oh that man. For such a brilliant man, he can be such an idiot."
Rose agreed.
"So, your memories from that time are locked away in your mind. I can guide you through unlocking them."
"Sorry, is this telling me how you and I are connected?" Rose interrupted.
"Yes. It's complicated and it'll get there." River winked at her.
Rose frowned back at her.
River smiled wider. "You know, the Doctor once said that if he only knew one of us, he'd think that one would be the single most complicated being in all of time and space, but when you put the two of us in the room, the complication increases exponentially. I'm explaining it as best I can. You talked me through it over the span of years."
"Hang on, I did what?"
"To quote the Doctor, it's all very Timey-wimey. Nearly everything that I'm going tell you, you told me. My timeline is, quite frankly, a jumbled mess in comparison to you and the Doctor."
"And what's that mean?"
"About half the time that I meet you will be before the last time we meet up. Let's get moving with this, I'm not sure how long we'll have, and I need to teach you how to get back."
"Would you just tell me something straightforward? What do you mean how long we'll have? I'm not going anywhere." Rose was reaching the tipping point, there was too much information, scattered and hidden like nuggets in River's words.
River sighed, "Sorry, I am trying. What I meant is that, while you're here, your body is unconscious back in the real world. How long do you think it will be before someone finds you and tries to wake you up?"
"And will I wake up?"
"It all depends on what they do."
"Right. Focusing, following directions, and asking fewer questions." Her mum wasn't going to be happy to hear her daughter was unconscious and unresponsive.
"Good. Do you know how to meditate?"
"Yes." It was part of the Torchwood basic psychic training.
"Wonderful. Slip into your meditative state and I'll guide you from there."
Rose shifted to the ground, sitting cross-legged, her back straight and hand loose and relaxed on her lap. She took a deep, slow breath. Beneath her she could feel the smooth boards of the gazebo. The breeze danced across her skin, giving movement to air that may have otherwise been too warm. She could smell the flowers from the garden, a delightful mixture of honeysuckle and lilac. She slipped further into her mind and that awareness faded away. Instead, she stood, alone, in a room. Around her, the light was gold and turquoise. The tree-like branches of coral circled the room. She smiled. Home. Her teachers had instructed the students to think of their safest place to use as their center. The Tardis console room was the safest place she'd ever been.
"Can you hear me?" River's voice asked from center of the room.
Rose walked up the ramp and found River speaking from the vid screen on the console.
"Yeah, loud and clear."
"Good. So you're going to need to seek out the memories of the Heart of the Tardis. When you find it, think of the gap in your memories. It might be difficult to find where it lives in your mind. It's golden and glowing and it will sing to you."
Rose smiled, "Yeah, might be easier than you think."
"Why's that?"
"Because my safe room is the console room." Rose couldn't help but giggle at the end.
River laughed too. "Alright, find that memory, and then come out. You don't need to deal with the rest of it in there."
The rest of what? Rose wondered as she walked over to the panel she'd pulled open with a big, yellow truck so long ago. She pulled on it and it refused to budge. She frowned, this was her mind after all. She closed her virtual eyes and imagined (within her imagination) the panel opening as she pulled. This time it lifted smoothly up. She heard singing. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard and it sounded familiar. She couldn't believe she'd ever forgotten it. Opening her eyes, the swirling mass of gold tendrils overtook her, filling her with gold. As River instructed, she thought back to saving the Doctor... and remembered.
She remembered casting the doors shut and flinging them into the vortex.
"I looked into the Tardis and the Tardis looked into me."
"I want you safe, my Doctor"
"I am the Bad Wolf, I take the words and I scatter them in time and space."
"You are tiny."
"I take every atom and I divide them."
"I bring life." Jack, Jack is alive.
"I think you need a Doctor."
The Doctor's cool lips on hers.
She blinked. The memory filtered its way back into her awareness. She closed her eyes in her safe room and let out a big breath before opening them back in the real world. Well, River's virtual reality.
"Blimey, how many alternate realities can I be in at one time?" She said as she stood and stretched. She slumped back into her chair.
"And now? How much do you remember?" River insisted.
"All of it. Well, not all of time and space happening at once, but I remember how that felt."
"That's what the Time Lords did, sort of. Their initiation was looking into the Untempered Schism, a gap in reality where all of time and space exists at once. That's how they became Time Lords."
"But I'm not a Time Lord." Rose said shakily, almost asking for confirmation.
"No, you aren't. But you looked into the Tardis..."
"...And the Tardis looked into me."
"Exactly." River said, "The girl in the Tardis and- the Tardis in the girl. The only reason you can remember that is because you are still connected to the Tardis. As am I."
"So you looked into the Heart too? What did the Doctor need rescuing from then?"
River laughed, "No, I was exposed to the Tardis and the Vortex at, let's say, my most vulnerable time."
She glanced at Rose's blank face and sighed. "At conception."
"Oh. OH." She paused, then, "So you're like me."
"Not entirely. I am actually part Time Lord because of that. I can regenerate, you can't. But yes, I have some of the same Tardis abilities that you do."
"What abilit- ow!" Rose yelped as her skin prickled painfully and a pounding sort of ache started in her head.
"I think they're trying to wake you up." River said, "To get back here, slip into your trance again, find the Heart, and think of me. Be seeing you soon."
Rose winced as a she felt a sharp pinch on her arm and the prickling turned into burning. "Good bye, River. It was very nice to meet you."
Rose felt herself slipping away, the same pulling feeling in her stomach and the song in her head, the song of the Tardis.
In a world that wasn't real, a slow, solitary tear traced down the smooth cheek of Melody Pond.