Chapter 28

I breathe deeply as we're going up. It's like the longest elevator run, and also the most uncomfortable one. I'm not used to cry, I never was, and I cry even less since when I became a Time Lord. We run as fast as we can until we reach the teleport beams at the shop, and I access the terminal to hack the system and prepare the downloads.

"Come on, come on" I say as I type as fast as I can. When all is set, I boost the download power with the laser. That should do. Lux is still looking at me very puzzled when we hear the first voice.

"Excuse me, how am I here?". I see his face, relieved and happy. I underestimated him, thought he was only a snob, but he's a decent man. He was concerned about his family, and now he looks actually happy to see the saved people slowly return to life.

And oh, I'm actually happy to see one particular face among the crowd. "Donna!"

"Zoe", she says, confused. "There was... I was... What happened?".

"Are you okay?", I ask, scanning her with the laser.

"Yeah", she mumbles. "Yeah, I'm alright. What happened-".

"I'll explain later", I smile. "Really, this time. Gotta go now. Be back in a sec".

I'm sorry to leave Donna like that, but she's clever, she can manage. I have to run through the walls we cut and take the gravity platform back down because I felt it. During the explosion, the Doctor's hearts in the corner of my mind, aching, almost broken. I actually feared River didn't stop him after all, but I can feel them now, slowly reaching some kind of peace.

I slow down when I see him, still looking at River's diary and the screwdrivers on the floor ahead of him, just out of his reach. He turns, sensing my presence.

"Is Donna okay?", he asks.

"She's upstairs. As the rest of them".

I take the last few steps, closing the distance between us, slowly, crouching down in front of him to pick up the screwdrivers, and the diary. I twist it in my hands.

"River Song", I say, a little uncomfortable, raising my eyebrow. "Blimey".

"You really did know her, then".

"Good enough", I answer, vaguely.

"Who is she?".

River... I think about it. "Well she's... hell. In high heels". I try to force a smile on my face.

"Did you know?".

I wave my hands around. "I... she kinda hinted that the first time you'd meet her would be her last. I didn't really expect I would be there too". I'm aware of how bad that sounded, so I try to steer it. "And I certainly didn't expect it to go down this way". Again, what am I saying? "Not that you and her, I mean, that I could... I mean, about her...". For fuck's sake Zoe stop speaking now.

He looks around, puzzled.

He opens his mouth, but no words come out of it. Finally, he speaks.

"...Handcuffs?", he asks, bewildered.

"Oh, don't get me started", I giggle, crouching down to laser the handcuff open.

"Ah, Zoe", he says, stroking his wrist, in a fake cheerful tone that reminds me of his future self. "Where have you been lately? You're getting better at telepathy by the minute".

I stay silent, because all I could say is, well, spoilers. He seems to understand that, and lets the question hang.

"Come here".

He pulls me closer, his fingers reaching for my temples. Gently, he nudges my forehead against his. I gasp, breaking contact in surprise.

It lasts a moment, just the time for our skin to touch, and all of a sudden, I know how the last conversation between River and the Doctor happened, as if I was there with them.

I stand up, regaining my breath, and lay a hand out to pull him up.

I'm not sure why he wanted to share that with me. And there's a puzzle of doubts and emotions surrounding the fresh memory, I can't quite make anything out of it.

"What do you make of it?", he asks, as we step back on the gravity platform.

"...Are you reading my mind?" I tilt my head back.

"Naah", he shakes his head. "You've managed to open a part of your mind that was locked and make telepathy work. But, I have to say, it's quite a mess in there. You're not using it at its full. Yet still, you have some very good deadlocked shields in there, and you know how to use them, even if I'm afraid it wasn't you who put them there in the first place".

"I'm not doing that on purpose", I state. "All I can think of hiding from you are spoilers, but that's just good old common sense. Don't need deadlocked shields to do that. Do you think it was him?".

He shrugs. "Best psychic engineer on Gallifrey. Weell, in the whole universe. No one as good as him on mind manipulations".

I nod, distractedly, looking at the floor. "How did we end up talking about him again?".

"Well, you know", he's looking at the floor too. "I... I just suppose, if I end up getting... married" the way he says it, it's like he repels the idea "to someone else, I guess that's because there's someone else for you in this pattern".

He says something like that like he's talking about which brand of tea he likes. I freeze. How long does this planet stretch? How much longer am I stuck on this gravity platform? Can I just jump back and crack my head on the floor?

"I have a mind of my own, engineered or not", I say finally, a bit more offended than I wanted.

"We've already established that", he says. "Give me some credit here".

"It really doesn't help that you wind back not trusting me at every chance you have-".

"Zoe, I trust you with my life", he says abruptly, before I even finish speaking. His words are soft, relaxed, without rush. He's not pretending to say something unimportant, and he's not putting up a theatrical show either. He's just stating that, matter-of-factly.

He's sincere.

I glance up to him, and his eyes are just piercing my skull right now. I avert my gaze immediately, but I give in, leaning to him. He runs his arm around my shoulder and pulls me over, his chin resting a second at the top of my head.

I tilt my head back to breathe and he draws down quickly, placing a very quick, and very firm kiss on my lips, then rests his head again, as quickly as it happened.

We finally reach Donna in the large hall where everybody is busy with the teleports. "Nice work, Zoe", he says, as we spot our ginger friend.

She tells us about her dream sequence, and the man she met there in the fantasy the Library created for her. I walk over to the terminal to scan for someone named Lee, but there are no records. She decides to take a look around the room anyway.

I return to the Doctor.

"Well I didn't run off with the Master, if that's what you were wondering", I blurt out. We almost never say his name out loud, and it's like it left an echo of his presence. "What did I miss? Are you and Donna allright?".

"Well...".

"I mean before we all met here". Come to think about it, it's never going to end up in a campfire story. Too grim, even for me.

"Yeeeah", he stretches it. "The usual, running and running. Had a daughter. With Martha. And Donna, of course. No, I mean. Martha was there, too. Oh. And then we met Agatha Christie!", he starts.

I blink vividly, making a mental note to remind me of asking more about a... daughter? But I drop it for now. "Agatha Christie! Oh now I'm jealous!", I pout.

He looks at me quizzingly, when Donna returns to us at the door.

"Any luck?", he asks her.

"There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the library that day. I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?".

"Maybe not", I say.

"I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?".

"Everything", the Doctor says. We both glare at him. "Sorry, did I say everything? I meant to say nothing. I was aiming for nothing. I accidentally said everything".

"What about you two?", she asks. "Are you all right?".

I nod.

"I'm always all right", he states, shrugging. Nobody's buying it.

"Is all right special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?", Donna asks.

"Why?".

"Because I'm all right, too", she repeats.

"Come on", I say, but it's not like an order as much as a request.

"Your friend, Professor Song", Donna says, as we respectully leave River's diary on the balcony rail where we first entered the Library. "She knew you in the future, but she didn't know me. What happens to me? Because when she heard my name, the way she looked at me...".

She's clever enough not to ask me, even if I'm not sure I ever told her I know quite a lot about the Doctor's future. I remember her asking me, the first time I met her, a long time ago, when my body was still human.

"Donna, this is her diary. My future. I could look you up. What do you think? Shall we peek at the end?", the Doctor invites, his hand on the cover of the blue Tardis diary.

She is tempted. "Spoilers, right?".

"Right". He puts River's sonic screwdriver on the diary, giving it a last look, then turns up the marble stairway. "Come on. The next chapter's this way".

I stay back for an instant, only in time to see the Doctor run back to the ledge, frantic, and pick up River's screwdriver again.

"Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that? Thing is, future me had years to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver. Why would I do that?". It's like he's asking me.

I've asked myself the same question.

He twists it around his finger, and a small latch opens, revealing a neural relay, It still has two lights blinking.

He looks at me, beaming. "Oh! Oh! Oh, look at that. I'm very good!", he cheers, already running away.

"What has he done?", Donna asks me as the Doctor runs past her.

I smile. "Saved her".

We walk back to the Tardis. As we wait for him, I look up for books on psychic engineering for humans. There's not much there, but I want to check if there's something that can help me. All the manuals in the Tardis' library assume the average telepathy student or trainee is at least a two hundred years old Time Lord with access to the Matrix and Gallifreyan technology, which, apart from the Tardis, I'm a little short of. I find a bunch of books from the 51st century, and I download them to the laser screwdriver.

The Doctor shows up, a relaxed smile on his face, as I walk to the Tardis. He's standing there, staring at the blue doors. He looks at me, then takes a deep breath.

"Oh come on, give it a try", I scold him.

He snaps his fingers, and the doors swing open, the bright light from the console room washing over us. His smile is contagious.

He shakes his head, giggling. His hand is at the small of my back, gently pushing me to the doors. "After you", he shows me in.

Shorter because of big adventures ahead!
thanks for reviewing and following 3
little notes for you:
-I hate when fics rewrite the end of River Song. "You watch us run" are such good final words, and so meaningful in regards to how Moffat built River's charachter in the following seasons, that I almost forgive him everything else.
-Isn't it timey-wimey that Jenna Coleman is playing Queen Victoria while Matt Smith is playing the Duke of Edinburgh?