Work Text:
She spots it in the middle of a dig on San Helios. Doing some field research for a paper and having hands on experience ahead of her class isn’t exactly cheating but it’s close enough to it that for a moment, she thinks he has arrived to scold her. It would be so like him, dropping out the sky to wag a finger at her and disappear again without so much as a hello River thanks again for overcoming a lifetime of programming to save my life and by the way, you look lovely today how about a nice snog to make up for the last one where you passed out right when it was getting good? But the TARDIS doors don’t open and the blue box continues to sit there in the distance, hazy on the desert horizon, like the best kind of mirage.
Frowning, River tugs her gloves from her fingers and stands, wiping at the sand-encrusted knees of her trousers and squinting against the sunlight. Maybe he’s waiting for her to come to him, to show her that she has a choice in all this. As if she ever really wanted a choice other than the one that was given to her.
Abandoning her team with the excuse of needing the loo, River makes her way toward the TARDIS with a skip in her step. It’ll be the first time she’s seen the Doctor since Berlin and subsequently, her parents as well. University is nice – she certainly enjoys the studying more than she ever had as Mels – but she can’t bring herself to form close bonds with anyone there. She feels so set apart from them, so different. She’s quicker and cleverer and she doesn’t even need to try to get good grades or dates, she can close her eyes and feel the delicate threads holding the universe together, so entwined around her it feels like she could reach out and touch them. It’s difficult to look people in the eye when she can see every choice they never made.
The only people who have ever put her at ease were Amy and Rory. To them, she isn’t an anomaly, or a weapon or somebody’s future lover. She is their friend, their daughter, a Melody and not a River. With them, there is no pressure to be anything greater and River marches across the dry, cracked earth beneath her boots with thoughts of the familiarity of Amy and Rory – of home – waiting inside to greet her.
Pressing her hand to the TARDIS door, she slides her fingers over ancient blue wood and feels the box hum beneath her touch. She feels a distinct motherly aura overwhelm her, as if the ship is welcoming her back and maybe telling her to eat something because she looks far too thin. Breaking into a smile, River whispers, “Hello, Old Girl,” and pushes the door open with a creak, stepping inside.
Instantly, she notices that things are…different.
The interior of the TARDIS has changed completely – gone are the warm lights and the glass floors. Everything is a little darker, from the light to the furnishings, like the TARDIS herself is in a state of…grieving. It’s all very steampunk but River can still feel the reassuring hum of the Old Girl beneath all the changes, a reminder that Her essence is the same as ever.
For a moment, she thinks the control room is empty but as she shuts the door and takes a cautious step further into the room, she realizes there is someone lurking behind the time rotor – her eyes widen – someone in a voluminous skirt.
“Hello?”
A head with dark curls piled on top pops out from behind the time rotor with a squeak. “Oh. Hello.”
Briefly, River wonders if perhaps she might have happened upon a TARDIS containing a past Doctor and his companion, or maybe even a future incarnation who’d regenerated into a woman. That could be interesting.
“Are you – are you the Doctor?”
The head snorts and steps around the console, revealing herself to be a short, petite young woman with dimples and a button nose, dressed like she has just stepped out of the 1860’s. “He wishes. I’m Clara.”
River eyes her speculatively and tries to keep the curiosity out of her voice. “Are you in costume?”
Glancing down at her dress, Clara plucks at her skirts. “No. Why?”
River ignores her. “So did he rescue you then?”
Clara blinks. “I suppose, in a way. And then I kidnapped him and made him show me the stars.” She smiles. “But I don’t think it’s really kidnapping if I asked politely. And he was more than happy to have me aboard, the broody bugger.”
It’s River’s turn to snort now – the Doctor doesn’t brood. Even dying and in pain he’d still managed to fawn over the inner workings of the Teselecta intent on punishing her for her crimes. While she has done her research and knows that his other incarnations had a tendency to get a bit maudlin, the only thing she knows about this man is what she witnessed on the one occasion she’d met him and stories she’d heard from Amy. By these accounts alone, she had determined that this Doctor – she has privately begun to refer to him as her Doctor – is quite possibly the silliest incarnation of himself yet.
“Did you say you travel with the Doctor?”
“For about a week now.” Clara frowns and waves a hand. “Well, whatever a week means in a time machine, anyway.”
It’s true that the inside of the TARDIS is like a universe unto itself and her parents could be on board somewhere, but by all accounts, the Doctor doesn’t travel with more than one or two people at a time often. “But what about Amy and Rory?”
Clara bites her lip and looks at her with what can only be described as pity. River curls her hands into fists at her side and sets her jaw, because if there is one thing in the universe she does not want it is pity. “I’m sorry, did you not hear? Didn’t the Doctor tell you?”
River feels her stomach knot and she nearly stamps her foot in frustration. “Tell me what?”
Before Clara can answer, the man himself appears at the top of the stairs, head down as he fiddles with something in hands, mumbling, “Alright, so I managed to find a couple of thermo couplings stashed away at the bottom of the swimming pool next to the Helter Skelter – don’t ask, really – so we’ll be off to Barcelona before you know it and you should really change into something else because nose or not -”
River hears nothing else he says, watching as he descends the stairs without the bounce in his step that she is so used to after just one encounter. He doesn’t even look up as he rambles and it gives her time to take stock of all the other changes that have occurred since the last time she saw him. The tweed is gone, replaced by a long dark purple coat that she doesn’t really mind – it’s the set of his shoulders in it that bothers her. This Doctor is nothing like the Doctor who had left her at the Sisters of the Infinite Schism. This Doctor looks tired, bowed down by the weight of the universe. She finally understands what Clara had meant by brooding. The vast change in him from the man who’d been able to smile at her even as he died unsettles River, and she takes a step back before he notices her.
“Doctor.”
“- Although, really, who doesn’t like a good banana? What?”
Clara heaves a long-suffering sigh, a hand on her hip. “I thought you said no one could get into the TARDIS without a key except you.”
He blinks at her. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that there’s a woman standing by the door with serious amounts of hair and no key. Friend of yours?”
His eyes widen and tired of being ignored in favor of this girl she’s never even seen before – Amy had certainly never mentioned a Clara – River steps out of the shadows, wary of this very different Doctor, out of sorts in this new TARDIS and maybe she is nearing fifty years old but every now and then a girl just wants her mum. “Doctor?”
The shock written all over his face tells her everything she needs to know. He hadn’t meant to land anywhere near her. Her managing to spot him in the desert had nothing to do with him giving her a choice or wanting to see her – it had been entirely by accident. But even through the surprise in his gaze, his eyes still rove over her face as if he’s drinking her in, as if he hasn’t seen her in a long time either and for some reason, the thought makes her shudder. She wonders if everyone can read him so easily or just her. For a thousand year old Time Lord, he has a terrible poker face.
“River.”
Clara gasps, looking as if she might trip over her skirts in her excitement. “River? As in your -”
“Spoilers, Clara,” the Doctor snaps.
“Oh. Right.” Clara quiets immediately, pursing her lips in an exaggerated manner and then pretending to zip them shut.
Normally, River might have been intrigued by this exchange. The Doctor’s what, exactly? But there are more important things at hand now – namely why this Doctor looks so forlorn and why her parents aren’t following behind him like ducklings.
The Doctor finally smiles at her, a shadow of the way he’d beamed at her in Berlin, and bounds across the control room, taking her by the hand. It’s all for show, she realizes, allowing him to pull her with him, ushering Clara out of the way as he goes, and settling onto the jumpseat next to her. He looks bouncing and eager but he doesn’t really feel it. He is putting on a front for her sake, hiding the damage of whatever is plaguing him.
“Alright, dear,” he says, rummaging around in his pocket until he pulls out a thin blue book and River doesn’t know whether to gape at him for calling her dear or the book because it looks so much like her own. “Where are we, then?”
She blinks at him, watching him rifle through pages with his lips pursed. “Where?”
He glances up at her with cautious eyes. “Have we done…Manhattan?” He frowns suddenly, looking her over as if to inspect her for something. “Hang on, where’s your diary?”
“You mean that blue book you gave me?”
The Doctor pales, snapping his book shut and pocketing it as he stands, pacing away from her. He tugs at his hair, waves Clara away when she tries to touch his arm, and mutters to himself about getting a River Song without a diary and honestly Old Girl, what were you thinking?
Eyebrow raised, River crosses her arms over her chest and tries not to feel insulted. Or glare at Clara because honestly, what does she care if she touches the Doctor? She can touch him anywhere and everywhere she wants. It’s certainly nothing to do with River. “Been avoiding me then?”
The Doctor stops, whirling to face her, his coat swishing around his knees. “No. Not you. Just…”
The you that doesn’t know hangs unsaid in the air between them but River hears it as loudly as if he’d shouted it. Suddenly, she no longer cares about the different TARDIS or the strange girl still standing at the console and staring at her, she is suddenly and explicably frightened and only this Doctor with too much weight on his thin shoulders understands why.
Steeling herself for the worst, she asks, “Where are Amy and Rory?”
The Doctor’s hands settle on her shoulders as gently as if he were handling a fragile, terrified bird but she feels the weight of them like a great burden, one she isn’t sure she’s ready to bear. “Your parents are fine, River. They’re happy and they’re together. They’re just not traveling with me anymore.”
His hazel eyes refuse to meet hers, however, and River wrenches away from his grasp, angry tears suddenly springing to her eyes and the Doctor looks miserable at the sight of them. Squaring her shoulders, she says coldly, “Then take me to them. I want to see my mum and dad.”
When he doesn’t move, she strides over to the console and doesn’t spare a glance for Clara, who scrambles out of her way. If he won’t take her, she’ll get there herself. She pulls levers and switches, presses every button that could possibly work and a few that don’t do anything useful but the TARDIS does not move. She knows she’s flying it right – she remembers – all the instructions like a map laid out inside her mind. Moving a lever back and forth irritably, she hisses, “Come on.”
Silence. Even the Old Girl isn’t willing to help her and River buries the feeling of betrayal, telling herself it’s ridiculous to feel let down by a ship.
Whirling to face the Doctor, she says in a voice she refuses to let shake, “Doctor. Please.”
He hangs his head, looking more defeated than he ever had lying on a staircase in Berlin. “I can’t, River. I’m sorry.”
Her knees tremble and she grips the edge of the console to steady herself, thinking of Amy’s red hair shining like a beacon in the sun, the feel of Rory’s hand gripping hers as she slept in that hospital bed, steady and reassuring. Daddy’s here. You’re safe. He never said a word, but she knew.
“What happened to them?”
Face pinched, the Doctor stares at the floor. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Oh, you and your bloody spoilers,” she snarls, watching him flinch. “I’m sick of spoilers.”
The Doctor raises a trembling hand, eyes desperate as he reaches for her. “They’re fine, I promise -”
“Rule one,” she snaps, eyes flashing.
The Doctor recoils as if she’d slapped him and despite her fear and her anger, River regrets the words instantly. “Not about this, River,” he whispers. “Never about this.”
She remembers all too clearly the way he’d crawled weakly across the floor, desperate to save Amy and Rory even in his final moments, begging for her help. Whatever fate had befallen her parents, she has seen firsthand that the Doctor would fight to his last breath to save them. He watches her hopefully, looking so broken and so full of self-loathing that she’s afraid to move; afraid he’ll shatter under her inexpert touch. She is lost, with no memories of being comforted to rely on and no soothing voice from her past to tell her what to say to make his lower lip stop trembling or quell the fear in her own heart. But the distance between them yawns wide, filled with the things he can’t say and the things she wishes she could take back, and River feels the overwhelming urge to bridge that gap the only way she knows how.
One step at a time.
Eyes locked on his, she slowly puts one foot in front of the other and she watches the look on the Doctor’s face gradually soften into tear-filled relief. The moment she’s close enough, he wraps his arms around her and gathers her into his chest, holding her as if he’ll never let go again. He buries his face in her neck and still unsure, she tentatively strokes her fingers through his hair, quietly marveling at the strength of his arms and the softness of his hair. It’s the first time she’s been hugged since Amy and it feels nice, being held. She feels safe and warm in the Doctor’s embrace – she feels like she belongs here. It should be terrifying, considering this is only the second time she’s met him, but somehow it isn’t. It’s as natural as breathing in and out – she doesn’t even have to think about it.
“They’re alive and safe,” he whispers tearfully into her hair. “I just can’t ever see them again. But you will, River. You have so much more -”
“Was I there, Doctor?” She asks quietly, and he stills instantly. “Do I get to say goodbye?”
His indrawn breath is harsh as he pulls back to search her face. “River, I told you, they’re not dead -”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not lost forever,” she snaps, and his resulting flinch is answer enough. “So answer my question. Was. I. There.”
He swallows, his eyes wet as he looks into hers and she doesn’t know how but she knows that whatever he’s about to say will be the truth. “Yes.”
She breathes out quietly, nodding once as she gives his fringe one last hesitant stroke before stepping out of his embrace, oddly bereft without his arms around her. She wraps her arms around her middle, feeling out of place and wondering if she should just leave now and wait to come across another Doctor, one with her parents still in tow. Standing apart from her now, he fiddles with his bowtie and watches her watch him, looking as unsure as she feels.
Behind them, Clara clears her throat pointedly. “Still here. Y’know, in case anyone is wondering. Or thinking about undressing.”
Turning, River studies the young woman while the Doctor blushes and stammers. “I thought you preferred 21st century girls?”
Rocking back on his heels, his mouth twitches in a smile. “Clara’s special.”
The girl preens and River narrows her eyes. It doesn’t go unnoticed by the Doctor, who giggles and points at her, suddenly looking centuries younger.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, circling her like a lanky predator. “I just forget sometimes, that you’re so young. You don’t know yet.”
She frowns. “Know what?”
He bops her on the nose, his eyes still sad but his smile bright. “Spoilers.”