The forest smells of wet earth and new growth on her return, thawing spring. Birds whistle, flitting from evergreen branch to branch. Around the stones the air tastes like burning tin, River's hair beginning to lift with static.
"Time to go?"
"Are you ready?"
"I am. Are you?" Clara fiddles with the shoulder strap of her small rucksack, avoiding eye contact for a moment. "Come with me. Come on, I know you want to."
She risks a glance and finds River smiling. That wry, slightly sad smile. "I can't."
"Why?"
Golden curls bounce as she shakes her magnificent head. "I told you. Not enough pages left in the diary."
"I know. I've been thinking about that." Clara's fingers close around the stiff corners of the book in her pocket. "How about a second volume?"
She expected amusement, or rage. Instead River turns away, eyes on the ground. "No," she says softly.
"From one Doctor on behalf of the other—"
"No." She does not shout. She is not angry. Simply resigned.
Clara sighs. "I don't understand."
"I know. Because you're right to borrow his title. Anyone else using his name and I'd scratch out their eyes but you… You are the Doctor. You both hate endings. You don't do goodbyes. There's always a clever plan; a way around."
"So?"
"So… I want every moment of our history together to be left as it was lived. For better or for worse. And that includes our goodbye."
"But you haven't—"
"But he has." River's fingers touch briefly on the screwdriver at her belt. "I know what's coming. I've accepted it. And so will he, eventually. I want to keep my happy ending. What?"
Clara's own smile, twisting up at the corners. "Nothing. I just… I can see why he married you."
"I married him. Don't let him tell you any different. Now…" She places her hands on Clara's shoulders. "Don't forget to give him this from me."
"Give him wh—?" Her foolish question is cut off by River's kiss, surprisingly tender, although her iron grip on Clara's arm leaves no illusion as to who exactly is in control of their embrace.
"You can keep a little of that for yourself too," says the Doctor's wife, when she finally withdraws.
There is a curious sound, like a grinding millstone. They turn together to find the stones have started to revolve gently, their iconography now illuminated in glittering blue.
Clara squares her shoulders. "Right. No one is to get themselves killed here. Once I'm through, get the hell out of the way." She steps cautiously inside the circle. "So, what do we think?" she ponders, turning back to face the Professor. "Magic words? Or do I just picture—?"
With that, she winks out of existence.
She lands, hard, on bare rock. The fall would have shattered bones in her previous life. Now she merely winces; pain has always been the hardest habit to cast off, even if she is indestructible. It is night-time but the sea of stars overhead cast enough light to pick out detail. The constellations are unfamiliar; she has moved a long way, in time as well as space.
Polygonal stacks of rock stretch away in every direction. Seven tall pillars form a rough circle around her, iconography carved into their smooth surfaces fading blue to black. She pulls out a mini-comp from her pack, scanning the curling letters. Today's date. Huh.
Perhaps this is a landing pad and the Doctor is somewhere close at hand. She picks her way across the lava field, heading downwards on general principles, with no other guiding features in the landscape to be seen.
She walks for three days across the alien landscape, endless miles of black basalt rock. Day and night the same, the regular pendulum swing of left and right. She does not need sleep, or food, or rest. Perhaps River knew, she thinks, the thought chasing around her brain step after step. Only an automaton could endure this; the zombie made by Time Lord witchery.
There is no sign of the Doctor. There is no sign of anything living, other than the restless planet's core, which produces hissing jets of gas and ominous rumbles as she walks. Pace after pace, on and on, down the slopes of an immense volcano.
Dawn of the fourth day reveals the glimmer of blue ocean on the horizon and she makes for the sea. There is no sandy beach, the rocks platform out under the waves; a boundary of creative force against destructive.
Her fingers find the stiff cover of the diary in her pocket as she weighs up whether it is worth starting to swim. Yes, she decides, she will swim. But in the interests of preserving sanity, a moment's pause to record what has come so far.
She has barely finished a sentence when the boat edges around an outthrust of rock. It is barely more than a raft; lashed-together logs and tattered sail. She leaps to her feet, waving at the pilot who paddles in closer to the infant shoreline.
"Hey!" she calls.
"Hey!" the pilot shouts back, mirroring her waving arms.
"Any chance of a lift?"
She grins in response to this, and rattles off a reply in a language Clara does not understand. She is about to pull out the mini-comp, with its rough and ready translation software, when the woman says her name. "Clara Oswald."
"Yes," she nods, touching a hand to her chest. "Yes, that's me."
"Doctor."
"That's right. I'm looking for him," she says, still nodding.
"Janel," says the woman, tapping her own chest. She motions to the front of her boat and Clara understands, splashing from stone to stone until she is close enough to jump aboard.
"Thank you Janel," she smiles.
The journey takes a fortnight. An ever increasing band of followers join her and Janel as they walk, the landscape gradually changing from bare rock to virgin earth. Talking and laughing, her companions pick wildflowers and eat strips of dried fish. They offer the latter freely to Clara, who accepts gratefully. She feigns sleep when they rest each evening, and tries to remember to breathe.
The second circle is similar to the first, seven pillars of basalt thrust high out of the ground. Despite herself, her heart sinks at the sight of it. Others are waiting when they arrive, with more food and flowers. A veritable feast, singing and dancing but no sign of the Doctor. Another jump to be made, she assumes.
She waits until cover of darkness to scan the icons, until all of the camp followers appear asleep. Three times she scans, in disbelief at the mini-comp at first.
There are twenty-five years to wait.
"Oh, Doctor," she breathes. "What have you done?"