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After 1969, it turned out that the next adventure Amy and Rory wanted to contemplate involved their bedroom.
“I am knackered,” Amy insisted, sounding as exhausted as she looked. For the first time, the Doctor felt a smidgen of guilt about withholding his scanner readings from his Pond. But there was no reason for her to worry. Why would she? She looked tired and drawn, and Rory didn’t seem that much better. It was best to keep quiet until he had more data. “You plan a proper adventure for us, and we’re going to go get showers and naps.”
As they headed to the stairs, Rory hesitated. “Doctor, the little girl.”
“Yes, what about her?” The Doctor frowned at Amy’s scan again and quickly flipped the monitor off before Rory decided to check it out for himself.
Rory urged Amy to head up the stairs. When she disappeared down the corridor, he walked back to the console. He braced himself on it. “It doesn’t feel right, going off on an adventure while there’s a child out there suffering. She was a prisoner of the Silence, and now she’s out there alone. Does she have parents? Does she need medical attention? We can’t just go swan off and have fun while she’s out there alone. River was right, we need to find her.”
The Doctor smiled thinly at Rory. “I haven’t forgotten her. Not for a single second.”
“But you just said-”
“I know what I just said,” the Doctor replied, cutting him off. “But Amy is exhausted, and while I am perfectly capable on running on less sleep than you humans, she needs her rest. So do you. Besides, what do you think I do when you Ponds are asleep? Sit around knitting extremely large scarves?”
“Well … actually, yes. I’ve seen a couple of the ones hanging in the wardrobe. I thought it was some sort of wooly parasite that was going to eat me. Good news, it didn’t.”
“Good indeed!” The Doctor clapped Rory’s shoulder. “Now, as for the little girl, I’ve got a few ideas. I’m going to do some research while you’re sleeping.”
“Fair enough. Night.” Rory headed back to the stairs and was halfway up when he glanced over his shoulder. “You know, Doctor, I’ve got the strangest feeling that River knows who the little girl is.”
The Doctor didn’t say anything as Rory disappeared down the hall. He pulled his psychic paper out of his pocket and absently fiddled it, turning it over and over in his hand. “You’re not the only one thinking that,” he murmured.
He leaned against the console and tapped the edge of the wallet containing the paper to his lips. The same lips that River Song had kissed minutes earlier. He fidgeted a bit. Really, it was just a kiss. Time Lords did not go bloody obsessing about kisses the same way humans did. It was the brief touch of Labia oris to Labia oris, which was a highly erogenous zone and designed to induce sexual arousal. His thoughts suddenly took a very sharp right corner and wandered into a very dangerous area that visualized the two of them tangled on that pitifully small cot in the corner of River’s cell.
With a frustrated growl, he tried to put River out of his mind. But he couldn’t. She’d wormed his way in there, lodged herself somewhere deep in the chest between his two hearts, and refused to budge while she smiled flirtatiously and went about her life. A life that involved Stormcage and archaeology and professorships and the god-damn Library – no, he was not going to think about that. She ruled the universe as she pleased, and he was pretty damn sure he knew who she was to him. But not in the general sense, though he was starting to suspect.
He was pretty sure he was the man she killed. Why? He was pretty sure she knew more about the little girl than she was letting on. How? Did it have anything to do with the odd test results regarding Amy’s pregnancy? Or non-existent pregnancy? Maybe. He needed answers and the best person to give him some would merely fluff those impossible curls of hers and reply, “Spoilers,” which simultaneously annoyed and aroused him. And the arousal was the most annoying part, given the physiological functions happening to his body as she snogged the daylights out of him in her cell … and were happening again when he relived said snog in his mind.
“Now, stop that,” he hissed to the lower parts of his anatomy and began to pace around the console. “Just behave. I’ve been around Amy and Rory too much. All that kissing. It’s rubbing off, not a good influence.” He noticed he still held the psychic paper and considered. It was … it was rubbish, right? No, it wasn’t. His fingers twitched and he shoved the paper back in his pocket before reaching for the controls. He was going to search for answers, and the fact that it’d only been about an hour since he’d last seen River had nothing to do with anything. Nope, not at all. This was pure research. He wasn’t asking her on a date.
He made sure he left the brakes on and fidgeted with his bow tie in the reflective surface of the monitor. He sniffed the inside of his wrist and plucked at his shirt. He ran a hand through his hair and sucked in his stomach a bit.
This was not a date.
He checked his shoes, his trousers, the fit of his coat. He took several deep breaths as he reached the door and rolled to the balls of his feet. He cracked his knuckles and mentally grounded himself.
Not a date, he reminded himself as he opened the door.
She sat on the cot in her cell, working on a lap desk. Books and papers were piled precariously high, and she tapped away on a mini computer. Her eyes lit up when he approached the cell, and her smile rivaled that of numerous suns. “Hello, sweetie.”
He felt his hearts tumble right out of his chest and land at her feet.
Maybe it was a date.
-----
“I feel like we’ve stepped into an episode of Scooby Doo,” River commented as she walked out of the TARDIS. She opened an umbrella and angled it above her head. “Or the stereotypical gothic horror novel, which I vastly prefer. I must say, going ghost hunting is an interesting date.” She gave the Doctor a flirty wink as he followed her outside. “Why here?”
“Why not? There’s a mystery to be solved.” The Doctor bopped River’s nose and led the way up the path. He crowded beneath the umbrella with her as the storm raged overhead. “They say there’s a ghost here.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but there’s quite a few ghosts all over the universe.”
“Ah, yes, but this is a special ghost being investigated by special people.” He leaped up to the doors and knocked on the right side. After a moment, they heard shuffling, and the opposite door opened. With a manic grin, the Doctor poked his head around the open door, startling the person inside. “Boo! Hello! We’re looking for a ghost!”
A middle-aged man took a few steps back in reflex and swallowed hard. “And you are …?”
The Doctor held up his psychic paper as River poked her head around the door as well. “I’m the Doctor and this is Dr. River Song. Doctor and Doctor, you see? Like Hart to Hart. Ooh, that’s a few years too early for that one. Forget I mentioned that, utterly rubbish. It’s American telly.”
He rushed into the parlour while the man gaped after him. River shook out her umbrella, closed it, then patted the man on his arm. “He gets so excited when he’s in these moods.”
“What sort of moods?”
River considered, then grinned. “All of them.”
“River! River! Come look at this!” The Doctor stood in front of an elaborate setup of electrical equipment spilling over a table. He leaned in and squinted. “This is magnificent!” He whirled around her and grabbed the man’s hand as River inspected the machine for herself. “Major Alec Palmer! Member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Specialised in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance behind enemy lines. You’re a talented water-colourist, professor of psychology, and a ghost hunter!” He pumped Alec’s hand. “Total pleasure! Massive!”
“Ah,” River muttered, sotto voce. “It’s starting to make sense.”
“You’re wrong.” An unassuming young woman with dark hair and glasses spoke up from another part of the room. “Professor Palmer spent most of the war as a POW.”
“I’m afraid he’s right,” River told her.
“Exactly! A lie told by a very brave man involved in very secret operations. The kind of man who keeps a Victoria Cross in a box in the attic, eh? But you know that! Because you're Emma Grayling!” The Doctor sauntered over, air-kissed Emma’s cheeks and pointed to her. “You’re the Professor’s companion!”
“Assistant,” Emma sniffed.
“It’s 1974. You’re the assistant and with all the equipment ...”
“Psychic,” River filled in.
The Doctor grinned at her, ridiculously pleased. “She always knows,” he told Emma.
“Relax, Emma,” Alec said soothingly. “He’s Military Intelligence and she’s um …”
“An archaeologist,” River supplied.
“In aid of?” Emma asked skeptically.
“Health and Safety!” The Doctor piped in. “Yeah, the Ministry got wind of what’s going on down here. Sent me to check that everything’s in order.”
Emma pointed at River. “Health and Safety sent an archaeologist?”
“Yes! Never know when she’ll get the urge to start excavating. Do try to control that this go around, you’ll scare the natives.” The Doctor bopped River’s nose once more, and she rolled her eyes. She counted to 10 beneath her breath and turned away to stare at the equipment before she gave into the urge to use one of the wires on the machine to strangle him into his next regeneration.
“They don’t have the right,” Alec protested as the Doctor scooted around River to fiddle with the toggle switches on the equipment.
“Look, look!” The Doctor giggled and flipped the switch back and forth a few times. “The ACR 99821. Oh, bliss, nice action on the toggle switches. You know, I do love a toggle switch. Actually, I like the word ‘toggle.’ Nice noun. Excellent verb. What do you think of toggle switches, River?”
She smirked and leaned into him, her curls brushing beneath his nose. “It entirely depends on the switches you’re intending to toggle,” she purred.
“Well, I was thinking of-” He cut off as his gaze dropped to River’s breasts, and two very different ideas of toggle switches came to mind. He yelped and backed away, tripping over a chair. “Right! Um … equipment! No, not equipment. Equipment. Must inspect the equipment.” He jabbed his finger at the setup behind River. “That equipment. Not other equipment. Just … oh, stop it.”
“I haven’t said a word,” River said smoothly, her face the picture of innocence.
The Doctor jerked his sonic out of his jacket and pointed it in her face before his wrist twisted, lifting the sonic in an entirely suggestive manner. He yelped, slapped his wrist, then scooted around her to scan the equipment.
“Was that some sort of bizarre mating ritual?” Emma asked River.
“Actually, that was rather tame for him.” River picked up a report and began to leaf through it.
Emma pointed to the Doctor sonicing everything in his reach. “And what is he doing now?”
She arched an eyebrow but didn’t bother to look up. “Trying to prove his virility with a screwdriver.”
“I told you to stop it,” the Doctor warned River as he swept by her.
“I’d like to see you try, honey.”
He halted and waved the sonic under her nose. She glanced up from the report to see his mouth inches from hers. “Maybe I will.”
“Would the two of you kindly stop the flirting and tell me what the hell is going on?” Alec demanded.
“Just determining that the two of you haven't been exposed to any life-threatening transmundane emanations. Which you haven’t.” The Doctor said, his lips still hovering over River’s. His gaze landed on her lips, and he licked his own in reflex. He spun away from her, tucked the sonic back in his jacket, and clapped his hands. “So, show me the ghost! Come along, River.”
She rolled her eyes and discarded the report. She intended to fish her torch out of her pouch, but the candelabra fit the mood so much better. She picked it up, absently dating back to the 16th century as she followed the Doctor down the dark hall with it, Alec and Emma at their heels.
“I won’t have this stolen from under me, do you understand?” Alec said as he pushed past River to the Doctor’s side.
“Um … no. Sorry?” The Doctor frowned at him.
“I will not have my work stolen, then be fobbed off with a pat on the back and a letter from the Queen. Never again! This is my house, Doctor, and it belongs to me!”
“It’s definitely interesting,” River said, holding the candelabra up and inspecting the construction and furniture with an archaeologist’s eye. “Solid construction, the furniture that came with it is worth a dainty fortune. Property value is going to go up in a decade or two. Roof needs some patching, and if anyone tries to convince you that Renoir in the parlour we just passed is genuine, they lied.”
“Listen, Major,” the Doctor placated Alec, “we just need to know what’s going on here.”
“For the Ministry?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
Resigned, Alec sighed and beckoned to a nearby doorway. “Then follow me.”
He led them into another room, where pictures and notes of the ghost were tacked up on a board. A camera sat on the table, and the Doctor made a beeline for it. He started fiddling with it, snapping various photos as River moved to the bar where a couple bottles of beer and a half quart of milk sat out. He sidled around her and started to drink the milk from the bottle, but she slapped his wrist before he could get away with it. Sulking, he went back to taking photos while River rummages beneath the bar and unearthed a surprisingly good bottle of brandy. She poured out a glass for Emma and one for herself. They sipped as the Doctor chatted with Alec.
“I’ve studied empathic psychics a bit in university. Had class with a couple,” River said. “How strong are you?”
Emma blinked, as if not quite sure she wanted to believe River. She shook her head and absently turned the tumbler in her hands. “Sometimes, I sense feelings. The way a telepath can sense thoughts. Not always though.”
“It’s a lonely existence,” River agreed. “It’s not easy allowing yourself to be exposed to all those hidden feelings. Guilt, pain, and sorrow. It’s bad enough when we have them ourselves. It’s worse for you.”
Emma blinked once more. “Are you a telepath?” she asked after a moment.
River glanced at the Doctor, still preoccupied with the camera. “Of a sort,” she admitted.
Alec added a few items to the board, then beckoned them over. “Would you care to have a look?”
The Doctor, River, and Emma gathered around Alec and the board as he began to point out various photographs. “Caliburn House is over 400 years old but she's been here much longer, the Caliburn Ghost. She's mentioned in local Saxon poetry and Parish folk tales. The Wraith of the Lady, the Maiden in the Dark, the Witch of the Well. In the 17th century, a local clergyman saw her. He wrote that her presence was accompanied by a, ‘dreadful knocking, as if the Devil himself demanded entry.’ During the war, American airmen stationed here left offerings of tinned Spam. The tins were found in 1965, bricked up in the servants' pantry, along with a number of handwritten notes. Appeals to the Ghost. ‘For the love of God, stop screaming.’"
“Well, it is Spam,” the Doctor muttered and leaned in to inspect the photos a bit more closely, River hovering over his shoulder. “Do you see?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she replied. “In the photos, she never changes. The angle's different, the framing, but she's always in exactly the same position. Why is that?”
“We don't know,” Alec said. “She's an objective phenomenon. But objective recording equipment can't detect her.”
“Without the presence of a powerful psychic,” the Doctor concluded.
“Absolutely. Very well done,” Alec said tiredly.
Emma trembled and placed a hand on River’s arm. She glanced up to see the younger woman’s face had gone sheet white. “Emma?”
“I can feel her.” Her grip on River’s arm tightened. “She’s calling out to me.”
“Drink the brandy,” River ordered, and hands shaking, Emma complied. “What’s she saying?”
Emma sobbed a bit. “Help me.”
River ran her hand up and down Emma’s arm, but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a shadow. She quickly glanced over her shoulder, but whatever was there was gone. Chills shot down her spine. She’d seen too much in her lives to dismiss ghosts. There was an explanation for every phenomenon out there. But, god, it could still spook the hell out of her.
The Doctor and Alec gathered around plans for the house, spread over one of the tables. River guided Emma to a chair and urged her to sit and sip at the brandy once more. When Emma’s breath steadied, River wandered back to the photos to inspect them herself. She mentally catalogued dates and the types of photography used. She barely blinked when the Doctor suddenly hovered over her shoulder, his breath blowing in her ear. But it didn’t stop a delicious tingling spreading from head to foot, concentrating in certain neglected parts of her body.
For River Song, it had been a long time since 1969.
“You coming?” The Doctor whispered.
“Of course.” River smirked at the double entendre.
His brow furrowed. “Other companions would take some convincing.”
“Well, I’m not a companion now, am I?” River flashed him a cheeky grin. “Now, are we going to go find a ghost, or do I go it alone?”
“You’re not having all the fun.” He poked her side and River shook her head before slipping out the door.
“Doctor?” Emma called out. He glanced back to see her smiling at him; one of those little knowledgeable smiles that said the psychic knew something that he didn’t. “The music room is the heart of the house.”
He swallowed, his thoughts drifting to another song drifting away from him. He saluted Emma and ran to catch up with River, who had picked up the candelabra on her way out. They wandered through several rooms in silence, absently poking into corners and doing their very best not to be spooked by creaking noises, low snarls, and the scraping of something against the wood.
The music room lay just beyond the kitchen, with a harp in one corner and music stands scattered throughout. The Doctor began scanning with the sonic as River set the candelabra on a small table. She pulled her tablet out of her pouch and began conducting her own readings.
“Do you feel anything?” the Doctor asked as he inspected the harp.
River stood in the center of the room and absently turned in a circle. “Just the normal feelings one gets when they feel like they’re being watched by a supernatural creature.”
“Right. Very good.” The Doctor paused in front of the door and blew out his breath, creating a small puff of smoke. The creaking and scraping grew louder.
“Cold spot.” He stepped forward one and exhaled again. “Warm spot.” He held out his hand, wiggled his fingers. “Care to dance, Dr. Song?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She took his hand, and he pulled her into him. Not too close, just the proper length that would make the grand dames of any Regency-era ballroom proud. He led her in a waltz, back and forth, turning in a circle. They exhaled with every turn, small puffs of air hanging in the cold spots. As they made the final turn, they lingered a moment. He stared into her eyes and marveled once more at River’s secrets, and Emma’s cryptic smile when she talked about the music room. He found himself leaning into her slightly, then coughed and leaped back. “Right!” Fishing chalk out of his pocket, he drew a wide circle to mark the cold spot. “We better go.”
As they walked out of the room, steam rose from the chalk circle as the line began to disappear.
A loud thudding followed their footsteps as they retraced their steps to the kitchen. The Doctor rubbed his hands together as River shivered a bit. “It’s getting colder,” she observed. The Doctor exhaled in response, his breath hanging in the air a second before a gust of wind blew the candles out. They yelped, and River immediately pulled out her torch. She flicked the switch, but it remained dark. She muttered beneath her breath and slapped the torch against her palm, but it remained off.
“Didn’t check your batteries, Dr. Song?” the Doctor asked.
“I picked this up in the 52nd century,” River flicked the switch once more. “It doesn’t run on batteries.”
She didn’t need to elaborate. They stared at the torch, and she immediately put it away as the thudding grew louder.
“Sweetie?” River said after a moment.
“Yes, dear?” the Doctor automatically replied, then frowned. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Dear? When had River become ‘dear’? He muttered the word beneath his breath, allowing the syllables to roll off his tongue. Dear, dear, dear. Well, it sounded … well … it sounded like something he would say around River. It didn’t seem strange. Just strange-ish. But not strange strange. Just a nice strange. He’d simply have to practice using it more.
Thankfully, River didn’t appear to be noticing his linguistic dilemma. “I confess that I’m just a bit terrified.”
“Yes?”
“But, you and I are both adults.”
“Mostly,” he corrected.
“And as much as I love holding your hand, you don’t need to do so quite that hard.”
The Doctor held up his hands and swallowed. “River?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
He waved them at her. “I’m not holding your hand.”
River gasped at his hands, then together they looked behind them as lightning flashed, bright enough to illuminate hall and the outline of something. They screamed and took off for the stairs.
This time, they were holding hands.
As they hit the bottom of the stairs, a whirling dark disc materialized. The Doctor took out his sonic to scan it as Alec and Emma rushed to the foot of the stairs.
“Has this happened before?” The Doctor yelled to Alec as River grabbed the camera from Alec’s limp grip.
“No, never!”
“River!” The Doctor twirled around the disc with the sonic as River snapped pictures rapidly. It spun faster and faster, cracks forming inside of it. He heard a small gasp and noticed Emma staring at the archway. Like a television antenna being adjusted, a fuzzy picture of a figure in a wooded area faded into view, along with eerie shouting. “Get that!”
River whirled around and kept taking photos as Emma grabbed her head. As she reached the last image on the roll of film, the ghost shrieked for help as Emma collapsed. Alec darted around the Doctor to catch her as a crash sounded from upstairs. River raised her gaze to the landing and swallowed. “Doctor?”
He followed where River’s eyes tracked and saw the faint glowing on the wallpaper. He crept up the stairs and ran a finger over the words “Help me.” After a second, it faded away, along with the disc.
-----
As the Doctor and Alec wandered off to develop the photos, River helped herself to more brandy. She offered it to Emma, who shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ve had too much. I’d rather have a nice cup of tea.”
Quite frankly, River wanted the brandy, but Emma had a point. But she put it aside and unearthed the tea kettle and a tin of Earl Grey from beneath the bar. “How long have you been with Professor Palmer?”
“Stayed with him, you mean?” Emma asked.
River raised an eyebrow. “Been with him.”
She flushed. “No. No, we’re not like that.”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be.” River placed the kettle on a burner and turned the gas on. The spooked either clammed up or started rambling, and Emma tended to lean on the side of rambling.
“There is,” Emma corrected her. “People like me, sometimes we get our signals mixed up. We think people are feeling the way we want them to feel when there’s really nothing there.”
River didn’t reply as the water burbled, then came to a roiling boil. She poured it over the tea bags she’d plopped into two mugs and offered one to Emma. “There is something there.”
Emma wrapped her hands around the mug and didn’t say anything as she waited the couple minutes for the tea to steep. That, River thought, and she was perhaps mulling over her relationship with Alec. “How do you know?” she finally asked.
River’s lips curved in a smile. “Spoilers.”
Emma blew on her tea before taking a sip. “An odd thing to say.”
“You get used to it.” River slid into the seat next to Emma’s.
“What about you and the Doctor?”
River found herself staring into her tea. This was a young, young version of the Doctor, one who was definitely not her husband. He’d come up to her cell and was rather insistent about whether or not she was pre- or post-1969. He’d just come from it, she realized quickly, from a kiss that left her hearts shattered. She’d acknowledged that she was post-1969 as well, and that the Pandorica was nothing but an elaborate myth. This satisfied him, even as she protested they were meeting out of order.
“Time can be rewritten,” he insisted.
“Not this,” River had replied, standing her ground. “Doctor, you know what happened outside my cell when we returned from Florida. My firsts are your lasts and vice versa. They’re your rules.”
“And they’re made to be broken,” he told her.
“River?” Emma asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
“Sorry,” she apologized and took a sip of her tea. “The Doctor and I have been together for a very long time, but it’s complicated.”
“Then you know about him. About the sliver of ice in his heart.”
River smiled absently. “I have seen him rise higher than the gods and fall further than Satan when he tumbled into Dante’s hell. I am fully aware of what lies in his heart.”
“Yet, you still love him.”
It was an arrow aimed at her deepest emotions, and her throat seized over the sheer amount of love she held for her lonely god. Before she had to answer, the Doctor shouted for her. River tossed Emma a flirty grin and a wink. “If you’ll pardon me, him indoors is bellowing.”
-----
They ran through the rain to the TARDIS without the umbrella, not quite dodging the raindrops. River stripped off her soaked jacket as the Doctor bounded up to the console, pulling photos out of his jacket. He shuffled through them, peeled off three and handed them to River before shoving the rest back in his jacket. He pulled out the camera next and a fresh roll of film. “So, we need to travel in time, but not in space. Can you take care of that?” He placed the camera on the console and stripped off his jacket. “Got to make a run to the wardrobe room!”
“And just when in time do you want us to go?” River set the photos on the console.
“The beginning!” The Doctor disappeared up the stairs.
River shook her head fondly and reached for the Doctor’s jacket to move it out of the way. The photos he’d shoved back in fell out, and she automatically bent over to scoop them up. Her lips quirked in an amused smile. There were about 16 of them, all of herself. The Doctor had zoomed in on River talking with Alec and Emma, inspecting the equipment, even had a few very nice shots of her arse.
“Oh, honey, you are growing quite besotted.” She heard bumps and scrapes from the wardrobe room and took the chance to brush on more lipstick. She pressed a cheeky kiss to the picture of her bum and tucked the whole pack back in the Doctor’s jacket as he bounded back out to the stairs with a hideous mass of bright orange in his hands.
He snapped it out with a flourish. “What do you think?”
“Utterly hideous. Haven’t you burned that thing yet?”
He wagged a finger at her. “Nuh uh! Spoilers!”
“Sweetie, it is no spoiler that I don’t think much of your hats or your choice of environmental suits.”
The Doctor merely dropped into the captain’s chair so he could pull the suit on over his trouser legs. “You got the TARDIS where we need to go?”
“Just a second.” River left him to his task and programmed in coordinates for a date not long after the Earth formed. The TARDIS resisted being pulled to such an unstable moment in the planet’s history. She absently stroked the time rotor as the console shuddered, not noticing the Doctor as he stilled and watched her interact with the TARDIS. When they landed, he dashed outside with the camera and came back in five minutes later, suit smoking. River was ready with the fire extinguisher. They repeated the maneuver during the Paleolithic Era, the Victorian Era, and he donned the environmental suit again as River navigated them to a point mere days before the sun engulfed the planet as it went supernova.
As the entire life cycle of the Earth spun by in the matter of minutes, photographs and a few selfies from the Doctor’s end, River found herself looking away from the scanner, unable to watch the rapid passage of time at the same time that the timelines associated with the different eras spun through her head. It was an odd, melancholy thing, and she blamed the Doctor for speeding through time so fast. She knew what he was trying to document. Whatever the so-called ghost of Caliburn House was, how long it lingered.
The rapid passage of time felt like a microcosm of her life, her marriage. There were days she thought her time with the Doctor would last forever. But since the second time she went to Utah, since Florida 1969 and that last kiss, she’d become painfully aware of her own mortality and how fast their time together was slipping through her fingers. She shoved the dark thoughts to a deep recess of her mind, but it didn’t change the fact that she was going in one direction, and her husband was going in the other. Now she was at a point in her life where the Doctor didn’t know he loved her, and never laid naked in bed with her and traced every vein with his fingertips, didn’t know of the vows they made to each other. Amy and Rory didn’t know she was their only daughter.
“What’s wrong?”
The Doctor’s low voice pulled River out of her thoughts, and she refocused her attention on him as he stood just inside the TARDIS door, camera in hand. “It’s nothing.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. There was something about that move, that innocence, and he was so bloody young that her tongue got ahead of the rest of her brain.
“We haven’t been born, and at the same time we’re dead and buried.” The words poured out of her before her common sense could remind her that this Doctor wasn’t yet hers. “Yet, we’re standing here, right now, having this conversation. It makes me wonder how you see us in the end. Those of us you interact with through all your long lives.” Me, she added silently, grateful that her self control kicked in just in time.
He gently set the camera on the console and walked around the console to her. Taking both her hands in his, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You are the only mystery worth solving,” he said softly. His gaze fell on her lips, and before she could remind him that she’d already had her last kiss with him, he swallowed nervously and pressed his lips to hers.
She gasped a little in surprise, then sank into it, seizing the stolen moment as it if was a precious cache of priceless gems. She cupped his cheeks, ran her thumbs over his sharp cheekbones as he experimented with kissing her. It pleased her he had been the one to initiate it, but he still didn’t know what to do with his hands. They flailed about a bit before he clasped them behind his back. With a low chuckle, she reached for them and gently guided them to her hips. He jerked them back sharply, then let them linger. His thumbs ran over the joint in a way she loved, and she purred her pleasure.
“I don’t bite,” she murmured, breaking the kiss. “Well, I do, but this isn’t the time or place for it.”
“When I’m older?” He kept his hands on her, and he shook slightly, unsettled.
She nodded, unable to speak. As much as she wanted to take his hand, lead him to their bedroom, strip him bare and touch every exposed bit of flesh, it was far too early for him. She had to be patient. She had to wait. Oh, but she was her mother’s daughter, and she really was no good at either despite the façade.
She vividly remembered the first time he had come to her after Demon’s Run, finally seeing her for who she was. “We will sleep together. We will do all sorts of things together, much of it quite naughty.” She laid a finger over his lips. “But, not yet. Not now. You don’t know who I am yet, and you’re not ready to know.”
“When will I find out?”
River thought of her mother, asleep in another part of the TARDIS, not knowing she was Flesh. Not realizing she was pregnant. “Sooner than you’d think.” She slipped from his hold before her lust got the better of her. She picked up the camera, smirking when she overheard his “not soon enough.”
------
They headed back to Caliburn House. As the Doctor and Alec went to develop the film, Emma touched River’s arm and offered her a mug of tea. “What’s wrong?”
River took it, arched an eyebrow. “Nothing.”
“There is. I can see it in your eyes.” Emma smiled kindly. “Psychic, remember? You hide yourself very well. What did you see, when you and the Doctor were gone?”
River contemplated the tea, not wanting to give Emma the brush-off entirely. “Just a reminder that everything ends,” she said after a moment.
Emma squeezed her arm. “No, not everything. Not love. Not always.”
Hearts in her throat, River almost missed the Doctor bounding back into the room ahead of Alec, waving a handful of slides at them. “Got it! Gather round, gather round.” He inserted the slides in a projector and activated it with a wave of his sonic. A picture appeared on a screen that Alec pulled down, showing off one of the picture the Doctor had taken while in the environmental suit.
“The Ghost of Caliburn House. Never changing, trapped in a moment of fear and torment. But, what if she's not? What if she's just trapped somewhere time runs more slowly than it does here?” The Doctor clicked through the slides as he talked. “What if a second to her was a hundred thousand years to us? And what if somebody has a magic box. A blue box, probably. What if said somebody could take a snapshot of her, say, every few million years?”
The last of the melancholy fled River’s mind as she put all the pieces together. “She’s a time traveler trapped in a pocket universe.”
“Got it in one! Full marks, Doctor Song!” The Doctor pointed at her, pleased. “Go on, keep impressing the class.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled out her scanner, running a visual scan of the slide of a woman that the Doctor projected. “Hila Tacorian, one of the first humans to perfect time traveling.”
“Time travel isn’t possible,” Alec insisted.
“How do you explain us, eh? Blue police box appearing and disappearing?” the Doctor replied.
Emma approached the projector screen and trailed her finger down the woman’s cheek. The scanner in River’s hands beeped, and she arched an eyebrow at the data on screen. “Oh, I see,” she murmured as the Doctor explained the concept of pocket universes to Alec and Emma and what they needed to do to call Hila back to her original universe.
“Now!” The Doctor spun back to her. “Think you could coax more than three minutes out of the TARDIS in a collapsing pocket universe before completely draining her power sources?”
“I’m good, honey, but I don’t want to risk the TARDIS like that if we don’t absolutely have to. Which,” she added, “you already thought of.”
“I’ve got a subset to the Eye of Harmony in the wardrobe room.”
“Nope. The swimming pool is back. Check by the diving board.”
The Doctor jabbed a finger at River. “Wardrobe room! My TARDIS, I know where everything is!”
River bit back a smile. “Diving board.”
“Wardrobe!”
“Ten quid says I’m right.”
“Twenty quid and cheesecake from Paxtonia!”
“Oh, now you’re just upping the stakes.” River tucked her scanner away. “Fifty quid, the cheesecake from Paxtonia, and seven bottles of honey-yaxla wine from Ttron 2.”
“Deal.” They shook on it.
-----
River idly consulted a menu of fine cheesecakes from Paxtonia as the Doctor hooked Emma into the subset of the Eye of Harmony and explained its abilities. He glared at her approximately every 18 seconds. As he did so, he picked up a parachute harness and started to shrug into it. That tore her away from the decision between red velvet or Xitahn chocolate. “What are you doing, Doctor?”
“Oh, I’m just going to dive into another dimension, find the time traveller, help her escape the monster, and get home before the entire dimension collapses.” He started to do up the buckles. “I’ll be back in time for tea.”
“No.”
The Doctor’s fingers stilled over the buckles. “Pardon?”
River brushed his hands away and began to undo the buckles. “I’ll take care of it.”
“River, I’ll be fine!”
“No,” she repeated, voice steely as she fought with him over the buckles. “Doctor, it will hurt like hell. It will tear you apart. If you linger too long, you will be trapped, just like Hila. Stay here, monitor the Eye subset. You’ve always been more attuned to it anyhow.”
“I can handle it.”
“I’d rather-”
“I’m not going to risk a human on this!”
Her fingers stilled, and she closed her eyes. She took three deep breaths as he pulled away from her and fastened the buckles. He didn’t know, she repeated to herself. He didn’t know who she was, what she was. Damn it, he was such hard work young. She heard the low buzz at her ears, the biodampeners she wore to keep the Doctor from figuring everything out. He hitched the harness to the rope as Emma connected to the pocket universe and a wormhole developed. Without saying a word, he approached it and stared deep inside, strong winds blowing his hair back. He tossed her a burning look over his shoulder, then leaped in.
She knew what he was trying to say. He trusted her to save Hila if he failed.
-----
One minute passed. Two. River counted each second and hid her growing panic under the icy façade she’d cultivated over decades of training and brain-washing. “Try calling to him,” River suggested to Emma.
“Would that work?”
“He’ll hear you. You’re connected to Hila more deeply that you know.”
Emma swallowed and curled her hands into fists. “Doctor!” she yelled. “Doctor, come home!”
After a few seconds, the rope jerked three times. Alec and River grabbed the rope and began to haul it in together. A dark-skinned woman clad in a spacesuit tumbled through the wormhole into Alec’s arms as Emma began to scream.
“Doctor!” River dropped the rope and ran to the wormhole. “Doctor, come through!”
She tore off the biodampeners, fingers trembling as she yanked the earrings out. She knew the risk she was taking, but she didn’t care. She forced herself to reach out, to deepen her connection to the TARDIS and the one she made so long ago to the Doctor when he had whispered his name in her ear during their second wedding, the one that actually counted. Not everything ended. Not love. Not always. He was growing to love her, and he had to survive this so they would have a life together in his future, her past.
Doctor, Doctor, please. She put everything she had into the thought, prayed that their tenuous connection at this point in his timeline would be enough. Doctor, please, come home!
Emma’s screams increased until she gave a high-pitched shriek and pitched forward in her chair, unconscious. The wormhole snapped shut in front of River. Hearts in her throat, she spun and left Alec trying to rouse Emma. She raced through the house, outside to the TARDIS. She had three minutes to save him. Four at the most. Timelines swirled in River’s head as she started yanking levers and mashing buttons.
She wasn’t even aware of the tears rolling down her cheeks.
The TARDIS jerked into motion, tearing through the vortex as River clung to the console and prayed she wouldn’t be flung across the room. She inched to the scanner and yanked it down, surprised to see that the wormhole had re-appeared and the TARDIS was using it to gain access to the pocket universe. Emma’s connection, along with River’s to the Doctor, would give them just enough time.
When the TARDIS pitched again, River allowed herself to fly across the room. She grabbed hold of the front door and fought it open. Trees and shadows and the horrible shriek of an animal blew by, and she suddenly spotted him, a white and brown blur racing across the surreal landscape. Swallowing hard, River leaned out as far as she dared, stretching her hand as far as possible. On the second pass, he grabbed hold, and she tugged. Another jerk of the TARDIS had him tumbling into her arms. They slid together in a tangle of arms and limbs across the console room.
“Are you all right?” He levered himself onto his elbows, fringe flopping down into his eyes as he scanned her body.
Her hearts were still somewhere lodged around her vocal box. Terror, pure and honest terror, still made the adrenaline pump through her veins as she thought about how close she came to losing him. “Fuck it,” she muttered, borrowing a phrase from his future self as she grabbed him by the lapels and crushed her mouth to his. His eyes popped open wide with shock before gathering her to him.
She flipped them so she straddled his waist. Hands shaking, she peeled off the jacket she wore and fumbled with the buttons on her shirt before giving up and tearing the fabric with her hands. Buttons popped and flew across the console room as she tossed the shirt aside. He swallowed at the sight of her – smooth skin with the slightest hint of a tan, breasts supported by a bra that was more built for adventuring than seduction. His hands flapped about a bit before he settled for stroking her stomach, his focus on the rise and fall of her breasts.
That simple caress was enough to shake some common sense back into her. What the hell were they doing? Too early, too early, too early, her brain said on repeated loop, and she started to scramble off him. His grip on her waist tightened to near bruising, and for the first time that night, she looked down into the eyes of her Doctor. The one who knew her. The one who loved and married her time and time again. No, but that wasn’t possible. There was no way he matured this early. There was flashes of it, of course. But, she was positive Demon’s Run had been the tilting point in their relationship.
“Rule 408,” the voice of a Doctor long in her past reminded her, “time is not the boss of you.”
This entire trip seemed to be one long reminder of that.
“How much did you see when I was in the pocket universe?” he asked when they broke apart, gasping for air. “I know you were there. I could hear you in my mind. Thought it was a trick, that the beasts in the forest were playing games on me. But, you couldn’t have gotten through that wormhole to me without some sort of psychic connection, not without tearing the TARDIS apart.”
Three lies, all plausible, sprang to her lips.
“Why would future me forge a psychic connection with you? Why couldn’t I detect it before now?” He levered them so he was sitting, and she was in his lap. She could feel him through his trousers, growing hard against her inner thigh. Slowly, he brushed her curls aside to expose her naked earlobes. “You’re missing your earrings, Doctor Song.”
Before she could curse and move away from him, he kissed her left earlobe and flicked his tongue. Pure lust shot through her as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck and rocked her closer. His fingers danced over her back, tracing around the moles he encountered. A bit of fumbling, and she felt her bra slacken. He pulled away just enough to remove it, toss it over his shoulder. He slowly smoothed his hands up her ribcage to her breasts. She moaned, tilting her head back as he cupped and squeezed.
“For your first time with me, you’re far more talented than I give you credit for,” she observed, her breath catching as he leaned in, laved his tongue over the newly exposed skin.
“Really, I’m over 900 years old. I’ve been around the block a time or two,” he muttered and gave her a playful nip in retaliation.
“Honey, you were flailing about in Caliburn House earlier like an acrobatic.” That realization pulled River back into reality, and she suddenly jerked away from him. Not just in Caliburn House, but even earlier in the TARDIS when he kissed her. This was a complete 180, and no matter how much she wanted it, it wasn’t right. “Close it,” she ordered. “Close it now.”
“Sorry?”
“The psychic connection. My memories are bleeding into yours.” And if he was sensing all the times they made love, could use that to feel his way around in an area he’d barely begun to explore with her from his point of view, then there was the risk he could see everything. Demon’s Run. Utah once more. Area 52. Hands shaking, she started fishing through his pockets. “I need the earrings back.”
“River!”
“Please!” Her voice went shrill as her fingers combed through half-eaten Jammie Dodgers, plastic toys, a couple notebooks and – ow – fishhooks. She gave up, pulled her hands out and started hunting for her bra. He caught her wrist, and she closed her eyes, looked away. His breathing leveled, and after a moment, hers did as well. She felt her connection with him recede, even without the earrings. It meant he was closing it off from his end, and though it hurt even worse than that blood kiss after 1969 did, it was for the best. He couldn’t know. Not yet.
“River.” Ah, there he was. Her young Doctor, nerves in his voice as she focused her attention on him once more. He was bravely looking everywhere but at her naked breasts. “Are you all right?”
“It depends. Are you?”
He turned her wrist and kissed the inside of it. Her hearts leaped. “I want to- I need to- I hurt you not long ago.”
“We wouldn’t have much of a relationship without that,” she admitted, then squinted when his face fell. She leaned forward, absently flicked her fingers through his fringe. “Is that a grey hair?”
“It is not!” The Doctor shoved River away so fast that she landed on her arse as he scrambled to his feet to look at the closest reflective surface.
“It is!” she crowed. “Your first grey hair! Oh, that is absolutely delicious! You are getting old then, aren’t you?”
“That is not funny!” the Doctor growled.
“Just wait until I tell Amy.” She grabbed her bra and kissed his cheek as she sauntered to the wardrobe to look for a replacement for her shirt.
“You are not telling anyone, especially Amy!”
-----
“You wanted a word?”
The Doctor watched as River spoke with Alec and Hila in the front garden, making arrangements to give Hila a new life in the 1970s with her grandparents six times over. Not that Alec or Emma knew that yet. River could take care of that part. He had explained almost everything else, about the monsters chasing Hila that caused the cold spots and the phantom hand-holding in the house. He startled, then smiled at Emma. “Well, if that’s …”
“It’s fine.” Emma stepped to his shoulder. “You didn’t come here for the ghost, did you?”
“No,” he admitted.
“You came here for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The Doctor hesitated. Nervously, he plunged his hands in his pockets, fingers closing around small pearl earrings he found on the floor of the console room after the aborted intimate encounter he had with River. They buzzed against his fingertips as he stroked the smooth pearls – genuine and rare. Biodampeners, blocking the strange psychic connection he had with her. He wondered when he gave them to her. “I needed to ask you something.”
“Then ask.”
“River …”
“Yes?”
His fingers closed over the earrings. “What is she?”
Emma gave him a slightly befuddled look. “Well, she’s a woman.”
“Yes, but what kind of woman? Specifically?”
Emma hesitated and considered River. Up until their return from the pocket universe, everything about River had felt normal. She shook her head, dismissed the changes in the other woman as her own senses being off. “She’s perfectly ordinary. Very pretty. Very clever. More scared for you than she lets on.”
The Doctor frowned. “And that’s it?”
“Why? Is that not enough?”
It wasn’t, the Doctor decided as he and River took their leave of Caliburn House and the reunited family. It wasn’t, but it would have to be for now.
As River keyed in the coordinates for Stormcage, he stilled her hand. Gently, he took her hand and turned it palm up, poured the earrings he held into it.
“Thank you.” River immediately put them in her ears before he could reach for her again, before he could test the theory he was starting to formulate. She lightly laid her lips on his, and this time he heard the slight buzz of the biodampeners as she kissed him. His fingers tightened on the console. He was so bloody tired of playing by her rules, the rules she insisted he drilled into her. Rules. Ha! He’d show them.
He was mentally reviewing and discarding all the ways he could get those earrings back off River when the doors to the corridor leading to the bedrooms banged open. Amy stomped through, hair looking like it’d been caught in a wind tunnel. Rory was at her heels, a purple bruise blooming on one side of his forehead.
“Doctor, what the hell were you doing? Rory and I were literally thrown out of bed, hurled against the walls several times and-” She drew to a halt as the Doctor and River hastily broke apart. She swallowed, then gave a happy little shriek, danced in a circle, then hauled Rory back in the hall. “Carry on! Don’t mind me, Raggedy Man! And use protection! Don’t want any little Time Lords running around, do we?”
“Amy!” The Doctor yelped as River laughed until her sides ached. By the time he regained his composure, she had kissed him and slipped out the door into her prison cell and away from his wandering hands and questions. Until the next time, he privately vowed as the TARDIS moved back into the vortex on its own. He would figure out the mystery behind her next time.