A/N: Welcome back, my lovely fans and readers! This chapter might hit hard with some readers, so be warned. Even then, I hope you enjoy the story all the same :)

Chapter 7: Push

For an entire month, the Doctor continued his search for the real River, only for his search to come up with the same message every time: no results. Despite this, he never gave up his search, knowing that the real River—wherever and whenever she was, despite her mind currently occupying a Flesh body that she believed to be her real body—was counting on him to find her, save her, and bring her back home safely.

At one point during the month, even though he didn't expect to find much, he decided to return to Demons Run, because who knew; maybe he would get lucky and find something of use there. The moment he arrived, of course he found nothing; not a single thing that indicated any sign that River was there, nor any sign that the Silence returned to attempt to revive their former base of operations. No surprise, the place was left just as abandoned as how he last left it, after he rescued Amy all those years ago. A small part of him hoped that the Silence had returned to revive their former base with River, as it would've been much easier to save her since he knew the place so well after the last time, but at the same time he didn't think the Silence would be dumb enough to return to a place where his army knew they previously operated and would take over the base again just as easily as last time. No, he thought, the Silence are much cleverer now; of course they would've moved their main base of operations elsewhere—somewhere they would never think for me to look. Of course there were a million bases all over Time and Space, maybe more, and despite knowing that River could be in any one of them, he swore to himself that he would search all of them if he had to or die trying.

Turning his focus back to the present, at this point the Doctor was beginning to sense that his wife was reaching the end of her pregnancy, which was both good and bad—good because she wouldn't have to deal with the pain that typically came with Pregnancy any longer, but bad because in reality she was about to give birth with their worst enemies, the Silence, as witnesses, and once the child was born they would automatically swoop in and do unfathomable things to her; things the Doctor did not want to think about. That's why he wanted to find the real River as soon as possible—so he could stop the Silence from doing whatever it was they were planning to do to his first child in centuries, and he was determined to get there first.

One of the major things the Doctor sensed that was a sign that his wife was, indeed, reaching the end of her pregnancy was the fact that she had been in a lot more pain than she was letting on over the last few days. He could sense through their weak psychic link (it was considered 'weak' on account of River being only part-Time Lord) that she was dealing with menstrual pains that have been becoming more frequent, but whenever the Doctor would ask about the pains, she would just shrug it off as simply being 'Braxton Hicks'—"Just practice contractions," she would say; though the Doctor knew otherwise.

Despite all of this, the Doctor continued his search of the real River in secret from her Flesh self. Since his search has continued to come up empty-handed, he was beginning to think about the worst-case scenario for the reasoning behind this lack of information: he may have to go ahead and 'melt' River's Flesh self, after all. This was something he'd been thinking about for a while, and he was beginning to think that this was the only way to get a proper result. Of course, he didn't want to go about this decision, because the instant he does, he would lose her. Once he melts River's Flesh self, her conscious mind will return to her real body, and only then will the TARDIS find a proper connection, but she would still be lost. He remembered having to do the same exact thing with Amy before he melted her Flesh self, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to go through all of that again, remembering how much it hurt Rory to lose his wife and baby daughter. Of course he found Amy and reunited her with Rory (though it took much time), but they ended up losing their daughter to the Silence, and they didn't reunite with their daughter until she was a fully grown adult, long after the Silence had done what they planned to her (of course this was long before they found out that their childhood best friend was their daughter all along). The Doctor hoped that once he found the real River, he wouldn't be too late to save his daughter as well.

Meanwhile, from River's point of view, she had, indeed, been dealing with severe menstrual cramps more often, but even now she was beginning to doubt that they were truly 'just practice contractions.' She had been trying to push through the pains and ignore them as much as possible, but it was becoming much more difficult for her every day. Of course, the Doctor was taking care of her as much as he could, but at this point he was beginning to act a little strangely. Lately, she'd been noticing her husband seeming more frustrated, secretive, and, at some points, even distant, the latter seeming especially unusual for him. Then again, she'd seen him frustrated plenty of times for various logical reasons, but this seemed to be a different kind of frustration entirely, and she wanted to know what and why. More often than not lately, she'd find him always at the TARDIS console, staring at the screen like he was searching for something or someone, and she had seen him do this so many times at this point that her curiosity had reached its peak. At one point while he was distracted, she caught a glimpse of what he was staring at on the screen, and she was shocked and puzzled to see an image of herself on the screen with a loading icon, and a few seconds later the words "no results" came up, like the TARDIS didn't know where River truly was, which confused River greatly, as she had been on board this whole time and never left its protective walls like her husband asked. Why was the Doctor seeming to be searching for her, when he already knew she was currently on board the TARDIS and hadn't left since that incident at her parents' house during her last visit? It made absolutely no sense to her, and she was determined to find out what the deal was with this strange behavior. However, every time she did ask about his 'secret research,' he would keep denying what he's doing and lie about it, which started to really annoy River, but today she was determined to get the truth out of him once and for all.

"Come on!" the Doctor grumbled to himself when he saw the 'no results' message pop up on the TARDIS screen yet again. "This is ridiculous! Stop showing 'no results' when you're obviously somewhere! I keep telling you, you're not in the TARDIS, so where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?"

Before he could attempt to damage his beloved time-machine with his peaked frustration, River spoke up softly. "Sweetie? What's wrong?"

The Doctor jumped, startled at the sound of her voice, and swiftly turned off the screen (again). "Oh! River! I didn't hear you come in. I thought you were sleeping. You're supposed to be sleeping."

"I couldn't sleep," she shrugged in response as she slowly descended the stairs to him.

"Why not?" he asked her, turning to her with worry while, at the same time, trying to act innocent as if he didn't just get caught doing something illegal (not that searching for River while she was already standing in front of him was illegal, but it was definitely strange to her). "What's wrong?"

"Bad cramps," she admitted as she placed a soothing hand over her belly on the lower half below her stomach. "They seem to be getting worse and worse every day, and the meds you've given me are no longer helping. I think it might be a sign." It had to be, she thought. It couldn't have been anything else.

"Yes, perhaps it is," her husband nodded in agreement. "You're due any day now, perhaps sooner than you think. Perhaps we should get you to the Med Bay, just to be safe."

River shook her head as he began approaching her. "Honestly, my cramps aren't that bad. I'm more worried about you right now. Tell me what's wrong, Doctor." Even if they weren't normal menstrual cramps, finding out the reasoning behind her husband's strange behavior was more important to her in that moment.

"Nothing is wrong, River," the Doctor said what River was one-hundred percent confident was a lie. "Things are totally fine. I'm fine, you're fine, the baby's fine; we're all fine."

However, River knew otherwise. She shook her head, saying, "No, Doctor. Things are not fine. You've been lying to me. Tell me what's really going on." She was growing tired of 'Rule Number One' being his excuse for everything; it was now time for the truth.

However, the Doctor insisted on continuing to use said excuse by replying, "River, I'm not lying to you at all. Things really are fine. You're just paranoid. I keep telling you that you don't need to be. You are perfectly safe here in the TARDIS. Nothing can get to you or the baby he—"

"Enough, Doctor!" River snapped, truly having enough. "Stop lying to me right now! I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you always lying to me! That's all you've done since that incident at my parents' house! You've been acting way too secretive lately, even distant! Every time I walk into the room, you immediately stop what you're doing, hide it, and claim nothing is wrong! I am so sick of your excuses! I'm done! You need to tell me what's going on right now, Doctor, or so help me, I'll string you up by your bow tie and make you hang there for a whole century!"

"River—" he attempted to protest, but his wife was having none of it; in fact, she was never going to again.

"Tell me right now! Why are you searching for me, when I'm already here in front of you and have been the entire time? Why do you think you're cheating on me, despite already being with me? Why do you act like I'm not really here, that I'm somewhere else entirely?" She then paused, afraid to know the answer to the next question on her mind, but she knew she needed to know the answer anyway, no matter how horrible it may be. "What really happened in that kitchen that day?"

Ever since that incident happened, she felt that there was something different about herself, but she couldn't place what was so different, apart from the strange nightmares she'd been having of seeing her former guardian's wretched face through a 'hatch' in just about every room in the TARDIS that she was alone in. There were even times when she saw Madame Kovarian's face when she was awake, which was even stranger, and she couldn't figure out why. However, oftentimes through their psychic link, she sensed that her husband knew exactly why, but he never admitted it. One thing that she did know was that it reminded her of the stories that her mother told her about seeing Kovarian's face in the exact same way during her travels with the Doctor and Rory when she was stuck in her Flesh form while pregnant with River, and considering that that seemed to be happening to River now, she began to wonder if she was a Flesh avatar herself, and the Doctor knew it but was refusing to admit it for some reason. In any case, she wanted to know the truth behind her nightmares as well, and she felt her husband's secretive behavior had some sort of connection with her nightmares and sense of wrongness within her own body.

The Doctor was silent for several minutes, just holding River's hands tightly in his own and seemingly failing to prevent himself from breaking down in tears. "I hoped I wouldn't have to tell you…" he whimpered while staring at the floor between them while gripping her hands tighter, like she would disappear if he let go. "Or if I had to, it would be after I found you—the real you."

"The 'real' me?" she frowned in confusion. "What does that mean? I don't understand what you're on about, Doctor. What do you mean, 'the real me?' I keep telling you, I'm right here. It would be impossible for me to be anywhere else. You told me to never leave the TARDIS, and I haven't—Ah!" She winced in pain from a sudden contraction in her pelvic region, and she immediately knew what that meant.

It was happening! It was finally happening! She was about to have her very first child, and it was on its way right here and right now!

"Breathe, River," her husband urged while wrapping his arms around her to steady her as she bent over in pain. "You need to breathe."

"I'm doing the best I can, Doctor," she groaned in irritation. "It's not easy." She winced again from another painful contraction. "I…I think she's coming. The baby is coming!"

"You're going into labor…" the Doctor nodded, now catching on to the situation before him. It was happening! He was about to be a father again! Any second now…

But he wouldn't get a chance to meet his new daughter properly; not while River was like this, as a Flesh avatar. River's real body was going into labor, but she couldn't go through the proper delivery while she was still in her Flesh form. In that instant, he knew what he had to do, and he was not prepared for it whatsoever, but he didn't have any other choice.

"It definitely feels like it…" River winced again through another contraction while wrapping her arms around her middle. She grunted as she attempted to ignore the pain, "To Hell with it right now. We're not done talking about this yet. You need to tell me—Ow!—why you've been acting so distant lately… Why you've been acting…like I'm not really here. Don't…lie to be anymore, Doctor. You need to tell me…the truth. Right now." In her mind, she wasn't going to have her baby until she got the answers she was demanding from him.

The Doctor, however, now acting like a legitimate doctor, had other plans. "Let's get you to the Med Bay, and I'll tell you everything there." At this, he began guiding her in that direction, but she pushed him away.

"No. You need…to tell me right now. Right now! I can't…wait any longer! I need the truth now!"

In that moment, she screamed in agony as she instantly felt warm, slimy liquid release and run down her bare legs.

"River!" the Doctor shrieked at her once he saw the stuff that had plopped from between her legs to the glass floor.

"I think my water just broke!" she gasped once the pain temporarily subsided as she looked down at the damage, but rather than seeing a puddle of water at her feet, she saw a puddle of sickly-looking white stuff instead. She frowned in disbelief. "What the… What's that? That's not water…" She bent down to touch the strange white substance that had spread across the glass floor.

"River, don't!" the Doctor gasped in an attempt to stop her, but it was too late.

She straightened back up and examined the slimy stuff on her fingers in the light and gasped. "I know this stuff… It's Flesh! Like the stuff that Kovarian used on my mother and me years ago at Demons Run! Why is it here, and how the hell did it come out of me?"

Am I really… she thought in horror. No… I can't be!

"Calm down, River," her husband said, attempting and failing to soothe her. "Try to calm down and breathe. Let me get you to the Med Bay."

"That's what happened in that kitchen!" she said, the terrible realization dawning on her. "That's what you've been doing behind my back… Why you've been acting so distant… All this time, you've been searching for me—the real me, as you said!"

"River, please, let me explain—"

"The Silence attacked my mother and me," she interrupted her husband, refusing to let him speak, "and they swopped my real body out with a Flesh duplicate, just like they did to Mother during her and Father's honeymoon! All this time, I've been a Flesh avatar, and you've been searching for my real body in secret!"

"I'm sorry, River. I am so sorry! I wanted to tell you, but—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded of him, incredulous that he would keep a secret this extensive from her. Then again, he's kept many big secrets from her to avoid spoilers, but this was a secret that she didn't think was anywhere close to a typical spoiler; not by a longshot.

"Because I didn't want to lose you again!" he snapped with tears of anger blooming in his old eyes. "I didn't want to risk you spontaneously disintegrating if I told you, before I even managed to find you!"

"So where am I?" River winced in fear through another contraction. "If I haven't been here this whole time, where the hell have I been—my real body? What are they doing to me? To my daughter?" This entire time—however long it had really been—the Silence have been doing who-knows-what to her real pregnant body, including the baby, and she'd be damned to find out what sick deeds they've done without her knowing. If they've done something life-threatening to her, especially to the baby…

"I don't know," the Doctor sighed sadly in genuine honesty. "I really don't know. That's what I've been trying to find out…what I hoped to find out on my own. But every time I get the TARDIS to scan for you, it always comes up as 'no results.' Every single time! The only way to get a proper result is if I—"

"Is if you disintegrate this me so my conscious mind can reconnect with my real body," she finished his sentence with a grim nod.

"Exactly," her husband sighed in agreement while rubbing his eyes irritably.

"So why haven't you?" River frowned, puzzled. "Why am I still here? If you knew this whole time that this was the only way to find me—"

"As I said, I didn't want to lose you!" the Doctor said, his frustration reaching its peak. "I hoped I could find you on my own without having to disintegrate you. But I realize now that I can't find you with your mind connected to your Flesh self and not your real self. That's why the scanner kept coming up as 'no results'; I was scanning for traces of you outside the TARDIS, but your conscious mind needs to be connected to your real body in order for there to be a proper result. This exact thing happened with Amy when I first found out she was a Flesh duplicate."

After a minute, River sighed sadly, knowing what her husband needed to do, which she knew he wasn't going to like, but it had to be done anyway. "Well…I guess you and I both know what that means… You need to disintegrate me. You're going to have to anyway now that I'm about to have a baby—our baby."

"I can't," the Doctor sighed, this time with tears streaming down his cheeks, as he gripped River's hands in his own again even more tightly than ever before. "The moment I disintegrate you, I'll lose you, and I can't lose you again. I won't lose you again. I swore a long time ago that I wouldn't…on the day I married you." Deep down, he even swore to himself that he would do whatever it took to keep River from going to the Library, despite knowing she would have to go there eventually, since it was fixed in her future.

"Sweetie, you won't lose me," she said while reaching up and caressing her husband's cheek, wiping the tears away. "Well, you will, but it'll only be temporary. It's alright, my love. You don't have to worry about me—about us. No matter what happens or where I am, I know you'll come for us…"

"And I will never stop looking…" he whimpered in her hand as he brought it up to his lips, "just like I never stopped looking for Amy. I swear, River Song, Melody Pond, that whatever happens, however hard, however far, I will find you, and I won't rest until I do."

"I trust you will," his wife smiled at him with tears in her own eyes as she watched him reluctantly take out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and adjust the setting on it.

Before he used his sonic to disintegrate his wife in the exact same way as he disintegrated Amy all those years ago, he rushed up to her, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her with every ounce of his being. He refused to believe that this would be their last kiss, despite this exact feeling eating mercilessly at him, consuming his very soul. "I love you," he whispered as he connected his forehead with hers, failing to prevent more tears from falling. "I love you so much, River Song, Melody Pond, with all of my hearts, and I will never ever stop loving you until my last breath."

"I love you too, my Doctor…" his wife whispered back as she secretly wrapped her own hand around her husband's hand that gripped his screwdriver, "and I'm very sorry." In that moment, she angled the screwdriver just right and pressed down on his thumb, forcing him to press the button, and without warning, she disintegrated into a puddle of Flesh on the floor at her husband's feet.

"RIVER!" the Doctor cried in horror at what he—rather, she—had done. "NO!" He immediately fell to his knees and sobbed uncontrollably, inserting his hands into the fleshy sludge that his beloved wife had become.

Unbeknownst to the Doctor, River Song wasn't truly gone.

Somewhere far across Time and Space, River woke up in a white chamber that looked about the size of a tanning bed, though she somehow knew this chamber wasn't used for tanning at all. Once she woke up, she felt instant tears flood her eyes and roll down her cheeks, but she ignored them as a hatch mysteriously opened directly above her, revealing the face she'd been seeing in her nightmares that, she now knew, were never truly nightmares, though her face was still a genuine nightmare to behold.

"Welcome back, dearie," her former guardian, whom she never thought to ever see again, smirked and sniggered down at her. "Long time no see."

River frowned with contempt and in disbelief that she survived the '5:02' timeline. "Kovarian… How… How did you survive?" She then began panicking once her eyes set on her rounded belly that was significantly larger than it looked while she was aboard the TARDIS in her Flesh form. At this point, her belly looked exactly like a balloon that was ready to pop at any unexpected moment, and it absolutely terrified her. At this point, she didn't know what was more terrifying: this, or seeing her former guardian and torturer alive again, having returned for yet more torturing.

"Now, now, dearie," Kovarian ignored her, her eyes focused on her rounded middle. "We don't have time for that right now. You have a little princess to bring into the world. Looks like she's ready to pop now. It's time. Push…"

In that moment, River couldn't stop herself from releasing a guttural and ear-piercing scream from her lungs as she was forced to give into the contractions and finally release her child out of the womb. All the while, she could hear Madame Kovarian's deep sniggering above her as she watched the birth before her, gratified that her scheme was finally beginning to come to fruition.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!

Props to everyone who caught that homage to the "Rebel Flesh/Almost People" ending :)

Also, to avoid any confusion, I would like to make a statement. I don't remember if any of the characters mentioned how long it took the Doctor to find the real Amy after finding out she was a Flesh avatar at the end of the "Flesh" episode, and from then going into "a good man goes to war," but if I had to guess, it may have taken him a few weeks to find and save Amy between those episodes. Also, I don't remember if it was mentioned how the Doctor found out where the real Amy was before he revealed her to be a Flesh avatar, but my personal theory is that he couldn't track the signal to her real body until after he disintegrated her Flesh body, hence why I included this theory in this chapter. If anyone knows the answers to any of these questions within the actual show, I would really appreciate the help so I may edit them in this chapter; or it could be that Steven Moffat failed to give this answer, which he sometimes does to confuse us, lol :)

Also, the rest of the prequel story will be written, and possibly considered, as "a good man goes to war" Part 2, so be prepared for that for those, like me, who liked that episode :)

As always, friendly reminder that kudos, comments, and favs are appreciated and will keep me motivated to post more often. I see that many of you are reading my works but not subscribing, favoriting, or commenting on them. I always encourage feedback from my readers and enjoy reading about my readers' favorite moments. I'm sure everyone has at least one favorite moment. Please, please, please share them! I would love to talk about them.

Also, friendly reminder that I tend to have a major habit of rewriting things, so be sure to check back every once in a while (maybe even reread the previous chapter or chapters) to keep up to date on any changes I may make or add.

Also, if you like this story, be sure to check out the rest of the series found on my profile :)