Soothe My Heart, Comfort My Soul (Comfortember 2021)

by GonnaCrochetThat

Summary:

A collection of stories for the Comfortember 2021 prompts, mainly focusing on Eleven and Thirteen, their companions, and their relationship with River.
Completed in November of 2025. Because what's four years when you write about time travel?

Chapter 1: Table of Contents

Update November 1st, 2025:

Hi. We're going to finish this, even if it's four years late. My writing style has changed a lot, but I'd say I've gotten better at comfort. And after just completing Whumptober, I'm craving some! 

I think I'm going to leave the older chapters untouched, apart from maybe tidying up the notes and any stray typos. 2025 additions will start with Chapter 13.

In 2021, I was under the impression that it's impolite to answer to comments on your own fic (and thereby inflating the number of comments). I'm sorry if you happen to read this now, four years later, and see I never got back to you. It still feels wrong to answer comments so much later, but any new ones will be answered gratefully.

2025 additions were betaed by the lovely Riflebird, though I can't guarantee I didn't swoop in afterwards and drop some more mistakes. Thank you.

 

Table of contents

Chapter 2: Day 1 – Discovery: Yaz makes a surprising discovery.

Chapter 3: Day 2 – Darkness: The Eleventh Doctor takes River on a date to a dripstone cave.

Chapter 4: Day 3 – Hugs: Rory gets a hug.

Chapter 5: Day 6 – Falling Leaves: Ryan doesn't understand why Graham keeps asking him to rake up the leaves.

Chapter 6: Day 7 – Insecurity: River is hurt by the fact that the Doctor never tells others about her.

Chapter 7: Day 10/11 - Cuddling/Warmth: Amy and her family cuddle in their living room.

Chapter 8: Day 12 - Make Something: Graham and the Doctor make something.

Chapter 9: Day 13 - Confession: Amy wants, but doesn't get to confess.

Chapter 10: Day 14 - Crackling Fire: The Thirteenth Doctor feels an inordinate amount of sympathy for a tree.

Chapter 11: Day 16 - Diary: The diary River carried in the library wasn't hers.

Chapter 12: Day 19 - Walk in the Moonlight: Amy and Rory take a walk in the moonlight.

Chapter 13: Day 23 - Hiding: The Doctor and the Doctor watch the Doctor find River.

Chapter 14: Day 25 - Mental Health: The Doctor looks at a snowy forest. (Post-Timeless Child)

Chapter 15: Day 27 - Confidence: The Doctor takes Mels out for ice-cream.

Chapter 2: Day 1 - Discovery

Summary:

Yaz makes a surprising discovery.

Notes:

This chapter keeps getting renamed to 'Table of Contents' and when I uploaded the final chapter, it became a duplicate of the first one with only the correct summary remaining. I'm not sure what happened.

‘Alright, fam,’ the Doctor sighed. There was the ghost of a smile on her face, but it was obvious by the tone in her voice that she was a bit put off by the fact that others than her were behaving reckless on an alien market. ‘Once more. What are you not supposed to touch?’

‘Anything that’s light blue,’ Yaz answered cheerfully. Ryan’s voice was a bit sheepish, but Graham was practically mumbling into the hem of his pullover.

‘Even if it’s…?’

‘Even if it’s really pretty!’ This time, nobody but her answered. She couldn’t keep from chuckling. Who would’ve thought that Graham would be the rulebreaker this time, with such a childish reasoning, too? The Doctor shot the two men a simple look, eyebrows raised, and they repeated after Yaz.

‘Because if you touch it, you’re going to get a…?’

‘Very itchy rash.’ Again, it was only Yaz who answered, probably because she was the only one whose hands the Doctor hadn’t needed to treat with antihistamine salve. Graham was positively pink as he studied his shoes.

And apparently this display of repentance was enough to appease the Doctor. She gave them a more sympathetic smile. ‘I know the vegetables on this market look very nice. But the azure marbling comes from an array of ingredients humans will have an allergic reaction to. Let’s just be glad none of you tried to eat any of them. Here.’ She handed each of them a plastic card, slightly thicker than on Earth, but still very similar to a credit card. ‘I know you wanted to go shopping. Buy something nice. If you want food, you don’t have to wait for me. Just keep away from anything light blue – or medium blue or purple or… you know, anything that could have blue ingredients mixed with other colours. No matter how pretty it looks. Alright?’

It was alright and they did manage to find food that wouldn’t kill them, right before going on a small shopping spree. Ryan bought a pair of running shoes that looked very similar to contemporary Earth ones to Yaz’s untrained eye. Graham found a few pullovers so cosy the other two were tempted to buy some too if it weren’t for the hideous designs on half of them and the realistic alien depictions on the other half. Yaz herself had bought a small doily, to give to her grandmother. She could almost see her future self, carefully holding the magnifying glass so that her gran would be able to translate the finished work into a pattern and try to recreate the unfamiliar stitches. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to tell her where (500 light years away) and when (a millennium in the future) it was from.

Finally, they found themselves at a stall selling all kinds of jewellery – the cheap to moderately expensive kind, Yaz reckoned. They still had time to kill until the Doctor found them after buying whatever replacement part she needed, and the earrings looked nice. Even Ryan was interested – apparently thinking about getting a piercing – and Graham was willing to wait. She was almost positive that she was going to walk away with at least one piece, but at the moment, Yaz idly went from earrings to bracelets and found herself inside the stall, looking at an array of colourful shawls. There were two other people inside, as well, clearly trying to decide on a gift and looking surprisingly human.

‘I know she likes the colour,’ the redheaded woman said. ‘I don’t think it will look nice right next to her hair, though. She cares about these things and I want to give her something she’ll want to wear.’

‘Then maybe we should stop looking at the scarves,’ the man answered. ‘I’ve never seen her wear any apart from that one ice planet. You know how rarely she gets cold.’

‘Scarves are not only for cold temperatures –‘

It was at this point, while idly looking through the shawls and listening to the conversation, that Yaz chanced to look through a gap in the display stands. Was that – ‘Oh my god,’ she breathed and then immediately felt annoyed at herself. It was just… way outside of what she had come to expect.

The TARDIS had been moved to the side of the plaza, close to the stand Yaz was currently in. And there, leaning against it, was the Doctor. Yaz could only recognise her because she was in profile, the main reason being the impressive head of curls of the woman currently kissing her passionately. She embarrassed herself further by contemplating for a second that she’d never seen her friend interested in anyone – was this consensual? But the way the Doctor was clutching at the other woman looked rather enthusiastic, almost frantic.

Next to Yaz, Ryan spoke up, startling her. ‘No way… I never thought she’d be interested in that. She’s always so… alien when it comes to social skills.’

By now, Graham and even the other couple were also peeking through the gap. ‘What are you doing, staring like that –‘ but he stopped himself when the couple gasped loudly, followed by the woman running out. ‘Alright, the staring was better.’

Yaz giggled nervously as they all followed the woman, who was stalking towards the pair. This couldn’t be good but they were going to defend the Doctor from whatever was going to happen. ‘Alright, stop it this instant!’ At the redhead’s voice, the two women drew apart, looked at the congregation and started grinning. ‘How – how can you – you’re married, River! How could you do that to – or maybe you aren’t yet, but still, how can you just walk up and –‘

‘Mother,’ the woman interrupted. She looked a bit older than both of the other strangers, but this was easy to take in stride compared to the fact that the Doctor was looking as if she’d fall over without clinging to this stranger and grinning madly. ‘That is the Doctor.’

‘Amelia Pond! I forgot I was here with Amy!’ The Doctor raised her hand in a wave, hair askew, then walked over and threw her arms around… Amy who appeared too surprised to react in any way. She extricated herself soon enough, though, accidentally tangling her hand in the ginger woman's hair. ‘Ooh, forgot, really not my speciality this go-round. Sorry. But, anything for the Ponds. And Rory! The Roman!’ This time, the Doctor was way less enthusiastic in hugging her friend, but the man made up for it, grinning and returning the hug for a second. The Doctor tousled his hair for a moment before she retreated next to the TARDIS, safely out of hugging distance.

Yaz traded confused looks with Ryan and Graham, was it really possible they’d met old friends of the Doctor?

‘Doctor… is that… Is that true?’ Amy asked, her voice a mixture of glee and disbelief.

‘Yep!’ The Doctor turned once as if to show off herself. The smile on her face made her eyes crinkle in a way she’d never looked before. Yaz had never seen her look so… carefree. ‘Well… I guess I never really explained to you how that works, right?’ She rubbed at her neck, further messing up her hair. ‘Amy and Rory, you do know about regeneration, though.’

River rolled her eyes. ‘I should have known. You are not going to get into lecture mode right now. Alright, everyone! Let her explain the specifics later on. All you lot need to know, is that this is really the Doctor, I’m actually her wife, we just met after a very long time, and we’ll be back for you shortly. Why don’t you go to one of the fancy restaurants around here, my treat? Just tell me afterwards, I’ll have a table reserved for you. Try not to meet the younger Doctor before we’re back or I’ll have to erase his memory. All right, lovely meeting you, bye.’

‘Bye,’ the Doctor repeated distractedly, already pulling River by the hand towards –

‘Doctor! Wrong TARDIS!’

‘Oops, that would’ve been awkward to explain!’ The two of them laughed before scampering off towards where Yaz had last seen the TARDIS, leaving the rest of them to look at each other incredulously.

‘Erm… I’m sure they have lots to talk about,’ Rory the Roman muttered.

‘They’re totally gonna pork,’ Ryan answered matter-of-factly.

Rory just gave him an uncomfortable look, but Amy exclaimed ‘Gross! That’s our daughter!’, at the same time as Graham’s stern ‘Ryan!’

‘What? We all know it! Did you see the look on their faces?’

‘They’re going on an adventure! Saving a different planet,’ Graham answered in a rather perturbed tone that only helped to confirm Ryan’s claim.

‘I’ve never seen the Doctor so happy.’ This stopped the argument in its tracks, everyone looking at Yaz. Her heart ached with joy for her friend. ‘That’s the only thing that matters to me. River must make her really happy.’

Rory laughed. ‘You know, you’re right. Let’s get some food and if you tell us about your Doctor, we’ll tell you about her, alright?’

Chapter 3: Day 2 - Darkness

Summary:

The Doctor takes River on a date to a dripstone cave.

‘This is boring already,’ River commented, drudging behind him through the soggy grass like a stroppy teenager.

It was and it would be – for him – but if he wanted to continue to impress her in her future, he had to start with small gestures while she was still young. So, the Doctor put on a – hopefully – enigmatic smile and answered: ‘You will love it. I know you’ll love it.’

‘I’ll see enough musty caves during my studies,’ she grumbled, but kept following.

The stalactite cave was small, the usual walkthrough twenty minutes for a group of up to ten, with advance notice only. It wasn’t exclusive as much as it was out of the way and way less spacious than similar caves, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her on their third outing from her point of view. From the outside, it looked even more underwhelming as they closed in on it – a small house, mostly a ticket stall next to a gated hole in the ground. They were coming from the wrong side, choosing a shortcut over the paved walkway, walking along a fenced-in empty pasture, the only other hint at settlement in the vicinity.

Donda was already waiting for them, wringing his hands. He was a mousy man, his grey skin and hair permanently blending him into the dreary landscape. ‘Ah, great to see you, good to see you. How nice of you to be perfectly on time!’ Behind him, a worker was exited the cave and hopped over the small gate, their bright yellow overall so oversized it was impossible to discern anything else about them. They gave Donda a quick thumbs-up.

‘Hello! “On time” is my second name,’ the Doctor answered, smiling jovially and hoping to get River on board. She gave a much less enthusiastic greeting, but she smiled slightly. Maybe she’d just surrendered and was trying to get it over with. ‘Are we ready?’

‘Oh, there’s just something I need to do first. Would you mind waiting for a minute?’ A second person was climbing the staircase he couldn’t yet see, showing another thumbs-up into Donda’s direction. ‘Why don’t you have a look at the farm animals? Our neighbour’s wigcows are very beautiful, he regularly wins prizes with them!’ The three hurried over to the ticket house. The Doctor stared after them incredulously. This date was supposed to be perfect! By his calculation, he had about three more minutes until River this young got too bored to be polite anymore and wandered off to blow something up. Or, worse yet, until she called off the da- the outing and wanted to be brought back home. Just because it hadn’t happened to him yet didn’t mean it wouldn’t one day.

But right now, he still had a few minutes before her patience ran out. When he turned around, River was staring at the empty pasture (or, maybe, that speck in the distance was one of the wigcows) with a smile that said “Told you so” just as loud as if she’d screamed it in his face. ‘Alright, it’s a small wait. Surely, he will let us in shortly.’ He walked up to the fence and saw that yes, the speck was indeed a cow. It seemed interested enough in them to slowly trot in their direction which would maybe give him another minute if – and only if – a funny name like wigcow came from an equally funny look.

‘Actually, would you like some cake?’ Donda shouted, squelching through the muddiest part of the meadow towards them. He was holding a big box, filled with an impressive assortment of bite-sized cakes. ‘Here, they are very good!’

Anything sweet was worth trying in the Doctor’s eyes, so they both thanked him and took one each. The man quickly closed the box, turned around and walked away without another word. The Doctor looked down at the tiny piece in his hand. River looked at him from the corner of her eye, face suspiciously blank. He had to stop her before she could break into laughter, or he was going to call this quits. ‘All the better, a little nibble now for the blood sugar, but we should be hungry for dinner!’ he exclaimed.

River nodded solemnly and daintily put the cake into her mouth. Damn it. It was so small she didn’t even have to take a bite.

And the cow was still about one hundred meters away, but at least it looked like there might be a lot of hair on its head.

‘I think the lighting works again!’ a female voice called from the hole in the ground, causing Donda to scurry out of the ticket house again and hastily shushing her. Then, he gestured for them to come over. River was doing very interesting things with her face, obviously trying not to laugh. The Doctor groaned, but they followed the invitation.

‘So sorry for the wait,’ Donda mumbled. He didn’t sound sorry, rather disinterested. ‘I had to… there was an important phone call. Very important.’ Nobody mentioned the lights. They were working further down the cave, that much they could see even from the top of the metal steps screwed into the stone. ‘How much do you know about stalactite caves?’

The Doctor, knowing everything down to the chemical composition of these specific dripstones and the stone and soil above them, was going to let him explain for River’s sake, but she answered with an airy: ‘Quite a lot, actually. It’s come up in my university courses.’ And just like that, they bonded. Donda started to talk to her with newfound enthusiasm and River answered in a way that suggested Archaeology was about way more than just misinterpreting the posture of some bones one stumbled upon, quite ridiculous. The most interesting thing the Doctor heard during their slow descend of the outer part of the cave was that it had been found because the local wigcows had congregated here during particularly cold winter days. ‘The warm airflow from the lower layers of the cave must have helped them to stay warm. It feels cold now, but in winter it’s positively hot compared to outside!’

And then the first dripstones appeared. Another peculiarity of the cave was the fact that it was very steep, not allowing for a lot of formations to build, at least in the uppermost third. Because of this, the beauty started gradually: Bit by bit, the walls seemed to get encased in smooth, off-white and pastel pink layers. They made River smile and the Doctor felt a weight lifted from his hearts. He hadn’t miscalculated. Then, the ripples started, forming waves like falling fabric along the ceiling.

‘It looks as if a curtain got petrified,’ River whispered, clutching his arm in awe. He felt validated in his decision; apparently it was her first time in a dripstone cave. All the better he hadn’t brought out the big guns this time.

After another two minutes of climbing down the stairs, the cave formed an abrupt kink into a more gradual descend. The walls turned to stone again, almost hidden behind curtains and bars formed of dripstone. Whatever the matter with the lights had been, they were working perfectly – illuminating the interesting forms from behind and throwing shadows on whatever canvas nature had built.

River had gone silent, still holding onto his arm. He chanced a small glance at her. She was beautiful – she was always beautiful, of course – but he loved it when excitement brought a blush to her face, her look open and awed. The lights played interesting tricks with the shadows of her curls, making them dancing across her features. She looked so innocent, so… untainted by him. After Berlin, they hadn’t kissed again. They’d flirted, yes, but apart from holding hands the Doctor had let her take the lead, and River had showed him quite clearly that what she needed mostly was a friend.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, oblivious to his musings, and slipped her hand into his. ‘It’s beautiful. You outdid yourself.’

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, both focusing on the formations all around them. It was easy for the eye to see pillars and fantastical monsters and cities in the stalactites and stalagmites. The path ended at a giant formation where dripstones from top and bottom had joined into a stalagnate and formed a pastel pillar that blocked almost the entire path, rippling along its edges.

‘And now for our secret highlight,’ Donda said, his voice suddenly awed. He picked up a small torch and held up a switch with the other hand. ‘Careful, I’m going to turn out the lights.’ Immediately, the whole cave went dark, safe for the lit torch. Donda held it against the dripstone pillar – and it lit up, illuminating a few feet of the darkness, bright like a beacon in the night.

River gasped with joy, squishing his hand as she stared at the stone which was now emulating a warm yellow light. ‘It’s so… peaceful. Like a cold winter’s evening, walking up to a friend’s house, the light behind the windows calling to you.’ She took a deep, long breath before turning back to the Doctor, her face illuminated from the side, half light, half dark. ‘Thank you. It’s really beautiful.’

He smiled at her, ready to kiss her while she still had this rare and overwhelmed look on her face – and the lights went back on. ‘Oi!’

‘Sorry,’ Donda said in a decidedly un-sorry tone, and then immediately cursed. He sounded much more genuine as he explained: ‘I’m sorry, we can’t go on. The lights behind the corner didn’t turn on with these.’

‘You have the torch, though.’ River’s voice was quiet but sure. The Doctor grinned. Yep, she had already decided what was going to happen now. The question was only whether they would have to argue or not.

‘Look, I don’t feel safe enough not to trip with only a flashlight with me,’ Donda protested immediately, then audibly closed his mouth. He gave the Doctor a calculating glance. Ah, he had paid in advance, but maybe an additional tip would be in order. He nodded back slightly and their guide’s manner changed. ‘But, you know, if you want to, the two of you, you could go alone…’ It was clear that he was warming up to the idea as he almost thrust the torch at River. ‘There’s a little underground lake, a pond, more like. It’s small, but there’s a stone way in the back, reaching out of the water, and there’s a small stalagnate on it. People around here say it’s the guardian of the cave. I’m sure it will look very nice with just this little light.’

As they inched their way around the stone, the darkness rapidly crept up on them. River lead with the torch, holding the Doctor’s hand in an excited grip. The tiny light danced across dripstone formations, their wet surface glittering mysterious, before loosing itself in the distance of the suddenly open cave.

‘It’s very romantic,’ the Doctor heard himself mutter. He could almost feel the thoughts in River’s head spilling over, and for a moment he was sure she was going to contradict or distract him, just like he would have done a long time ago because feelings like this tended to loom ominous above one when one was still as young as her.

‘It is,’ she acquiesced instead. They both looked at the glimmering stones. Nothing of significance happened and yet they both felt the shift. River pressed his hand once. ‘Let’s look at that lake now.’

Notes:

This chapter was heavily inspired by the time I took my partner on a date to a dripstone cave, the Jama Baredine. We were kept occupied for half an hour with the neighbour's donkeys, tiny cakes and a gallery of pictures. The lights really didn't work, but our guide didn't let us go alone, for obvious reasons. The formation Donda describes comes up as the second picture on Google Maps and it really looks like a figure if your only source of light is a tiny torch. It's a small cave, but the experience in the dark was mystical and a memory that will always stay with and comfort me.

Chapter 4: Day 3 - Hugs

Summary:

Rory gets a hug.

It was a quarter past twelve, meaning only 15 minutes left on his lunch break, and Rory Williams was in the roof break area, having a glaring match with a soggy Ben & Jerry’s cup. After keeping this up for the last ten minutes, the cow was starting to seemingly stare straight into his soul, uncaring about the mess of vanilla soup sloshing around inside the colourful packaging. ‘It’s either this or a cigarette,’ his co-worker Drew had told him, depositing the cup in his hands. ‘And I don’t think you want to start smoking.’ Rory saw the sense in using ice-cream to soothe one’s nerves (especially over any sort of drug, soft or not), but that didn’t change the fact that his stomach felt like a tight little ball – like frozen cookie dough pieces – and he was quite sure that ball would not react favourably to anything ingested.

‘I don’t think that’s going to be good for much longer,’ a vaguely familiar voice said. He looked up into River Song’s eyes, a kind smile on her face. ‘Are you – you are not alright, huh?’ And with that, she sat down next to him on the bench, looking serious and kind and much less intimidating than the last -first – time he’d seen her.

Strangely touched that she would be so concerned for him, Rory nodded, then shook his head. ‘Hello, River. What are you doing here?’ She looked… good. Her skin seemed to almost glow with what his grandmother would have called ‘a healthy colour’. There were no circles beneath or redness in her eyes, no signs of pain. Whatever had brought her here, she didn’t look like it was her health.

‘I’m here to give you a hug,’ River answered matter-of-factly. ‘When I asked you about the time you really needed one you told me this specific time and date.’

‘No offense, but I barely know you and I really don’t think a hug is going to make this better.’ He glanced at her nervously, wondering if that had been too aggressive. River was a scary lady.

But she only nodded, wearing the Doctor’s problem-solving-expression. It was easy to imagine her reaching up to right a non-existent bow-tie. ‘Alright, do you want to tell me what happened?’

He didn’t particularly want to, but if he’d learned anything while travelling with the Doctor, it was that others usually out-stubborned him, and the whole thing would be over faster if he just complied. ‘A comatose patient’s girlfriend had a nervous breakdown because we legally can’t tell her anything about him.’ He could see the pity in River’s face and turned to look away. ‘I had to take her outside and – we waited for her parents.’

There was a long pause, then, she said in a much shakier voice than he expected: ‘That poor family. I’m so sorry for her and for you, Rory.’

‘It’s not like it even concerns me, you know! I shouldn’t be this… this…’

Carefully, as if fearing that he would turn it down just like the hug, River laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’re one of the most caring people I know. Of course you’re allowed to feel sad for others. That just shows what a great person you are.’

The touch felt nice and suddenly, Rory understood why future him had told her about this day. ‘Can I have that hug now, please?’

With an indulgent smile, River leaned forward and put her arms around him. Rory put his hands on her back, in the safe zone Mels had taught him about long ago. He didn’t have too many friends who were eager on hugging – and when the Doctor hugged one, it was usually a frantic and energetic affair, nothing comforting like this. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, squeezing once with the intention to indicate he was going to end the hug, but River gasped and drew back sharply. ‘Erm, sorry?’

‘It’s okay.’ But she was clutching her collar bone through her blouse, a pained look on her face. Their eyes met, and even before he could say anything, River sighed in the way one did when losing an argument. Strange. ‘Yes, I shouldn’t have come here immediately. I have a bit of a bruise, that’s all.’

Usually, he wouldn’t care about somebody’s bruise. But, having seen how carefree the Doctor was with his own life and how similar to him River was, Rory felt it necessary to demand: ‘Show me, please.’ He was expecting her to put up a fight and so was a bit surprised when River capitulated again with an annoyed look and took off one of her earrings.

Immediately, her looks changed. Her skin lost some of its colour, showing that she was not actually wearing any make-up beneath the illusion. Still, she mostly looked the same – apart from the area below her left eye. A bruise, already in the late yellow-greenish stage, appeared across her cheek, together with an almost healed scratch. River didn’t seem especially perturbed by it, not even as she explained: ‘It’s from when the Doctor shot me.’ He just stared at her. The horror must have been quite clear on his face, because River carried on: ‘Not on purpose, mind. He just found an unknown device lying around and started playing with it, as he usually does. And when it went off and grazed my face, what did that idiot do?’

Too confused to offer anything but the first thing that came to his mind, Rory chanced: ‘Drop it?’

‘Exactly! And it went off again and hit me here!’ It was obvious River was mostly annoyed and not actually angry, but when she pulled the collar to the side to reveal another green bruise just below her throat, Rory felt the need to be upset at her behalf. ‘At least it was only bolts and not some kind of bullets or laser gun.’

‘Does this happen often? What did he do then?’

She laughed, completely carefree, as if this kind of thing happened often. ‘When he was done apologising and grovelling, he – oops, you cleaned the scratch. Sorry, Rory, you’ll need to act as if you don’t know what’s happening. Anyway, he offered me a favour. Retroactively. And so I said I wanted to meet a younger version of you.’

Different questions were racing around in his head, but Rory tried to focus on the most pressing one. ‘You asked him for permission to meet me?’

Finally, they seemed to get back on track when River made a grimace in agreement at the ridiculousness. ‘Well, I wouldn’t call it “permission”. His younger self doesn’t like sharing his –‘ pets, for a moment he was sure, she was going to say “pets”, ‘friends and at this stage he sees me a bit like a competitor for your favour. So I asked him if he minded because sometimes it’s important to stroke that giant ego of his. He’ll also make it so you’ll walk through the hospital doors five minutes early from your break so we can catch up a little.’ This sounded a lot more affectionate than he would have expected – usually it was Amy who was at the centre of attention.

‘Okay, then let me ask – you asked him for permission to meet me?’

River answered with the enigmatic smile Amy had talked about so often. ‘You are – have been and will be – one of the best friends I ever had, Rory. And I rarely get to talk to you all on your own. If I can help you and also spend some time with you, I’ll gladly do it. Now, how do you feel?’

Confused. To be honest, he was so confused that it was difficult to feel upset at the moment. ‘Erm. Better?’ And then, because he was taught to be grateful for people doing things for him, even if they were confusing: ‘Thank you?’

‘Well, better is not exactly good, is it? Tell you what,’ River lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘how about we go on a little trip? How does anti-gravity racing in the thirty-second century sound? It’s also a huge charity drive. Only, we need to be fast, because he only thinks I’m here to talk to you. And… I suppose I should give you this.’ Pulling an envelope out of a pocket entirely too small for it, River pushed it into his hands.

Rory, it said in Amy’s writing. Inside, a small card only read: Just go with her. You’ll love it.

‘Uh. So.’ He nervously scratched the back of his head. ‘So, is this like the trip you took Amy on last week?’

‘I did?’ Ooops. But River’s voice was so full of glee that he couldn’t even feel bad for the spoilers. ‘Don’t tell me where we went, I’m looking forward to planning it!’ So he’d really been first choice. How very strange, being so important to these two people who’d held his life in hands more than once that they would squabble about him. ‘Anyway, what’s important is that anyone can enter the competition since the cars are remote-controlled. Zero chance of getting hurt. You have to buy your way in, and the fees are used to build schools in impoverished areas on over a hundred planets.’

Rory felt his head swirl. Not only had River found an event that sounded like he’d love it, it was also a humanitarian function? And again, all this just to cheer him up? ‘That sounds very nice, but I don’t want you to pay just so I can have –‘

‘Oh no, my dear, not just you. We’ll both race. And I don’t pay for tickets. I provide the main prize every year. Just try not to make first place because the Doctor would definitely remember if he ever saw Amy wearing that diadem, alright?’

Before he could answer, River pulled him into another hug, there was the sickening lurch in his body he’d already learned to associate with a vortex manipulator, and suddenly, they were standing in very bright daylight in front of the biggest stadium he’d ever seen. River was grinning widely at him and Rory laughed. This was going to be one of the good adventures.

Chapter 5: Day 6 - Falling Leaves

Summary:

Ryan doesn't understand why Graham keeps asking him about the leaves.

‚Ryan? Ryan, son, are you home?’

Groaning, Ryan hid his face in his pillow. The attempt at an afternoon nap had been futile from the start, but still. It was nice and cosy and he really didn’t fancy getting up right now. Especially since he knew exactly why Graham was calling for him. Maybe, maybe he could fake sleeping right through it. The footsteps were coming closer and he made an effort to relax his body.

‘Ryan? Are you – oh, sorry.’ Apparently, Graham had pushed the door a bit more open and seen his “sleeping” form. Much more quietly, the footsteps retreated.

Ryan heaved out a sigh. Why was he behaving like this? The request was simple enough, it was just the timing that was problematic.

October had come and gone, the weather still unusually warm, colouring the leaves fiery tones of red and orange. The days leading up to Halloween, he had admired the autumn hues, especially the vibrant yellowy orange of the birk right next to his window. But with the first day of November, the wind had picked up again, and deposited quite a lot of the former beauty on the ground – right next to the back door of the house, to be exact. Graham had cited a bad back but urged him to rake them up. Ryan didn’t really see the sense in it, though. The only one using the back door was him. Graham had no need to use the shortcut through the garden to the bus station and the area in front of the house barely saw any leaves. So, it really shouldn’t matter how thick the layer of leaves in the back was.

But for some reason, Graham was adamant about it.

And Ryan was going to do it for him. Only – on the first day he’d come home from work after dark. They’d talked about it and after voicing his objections he’d taken a look at the mess and made a tentative plan for the next morning. But then, they’d called him in earlier than scheduled, and when he’d come home, the Doctor had turned up to whizz them away on an adventure. Then, the next day, was his friend Toby’s surprise birthday party. Graham, who’d helped him come up with plans for this, had had no objections. “Of course you need to help with the preparations,” he’d said. “They’re counting on you. But tomorrow I’m counting on you to make the walkway safe again.”

So, here he was. Trying to nap after a morning spent tinkering around and avoidance-cleaning the house. This time, he had no excuse apart from not wanting to do it.

The guilt was getting the better of him. Ryan heaved himself up – and heard the tell-tale sound of the TARDIS, a loud crack and Graham’s exasperated: ‘Nooo!’ It looked like the leaves had to wait for another day.

Two hours later, they were slithering over a field of frozen leaves.

It was eery, the nearest trees at least a hundred meters away, but the meadow – or whatever they were running across – was completely covered in leaves. Which in turn were covered by hoarfrost, making their escape from the squirrel-aliens all the more difficult. Ryan wished he could just run on all fours like them, it certainly looked a lot easier to keep one’s balance like this. At least they were slow. In normal conditions, they would have had no problems outrunning them.

He made sure to stay next to Graham. No matter how fit he was, fact was that he was the oldest of them. Coupled with the back pain, he was probably scared of falling behind or loosing his footing –

And that was the moment Ryan felt his own feet slip in two different directions. He landed heavily on his right knee, his hip starkly protesting the way his left foot still slipped forwards. For one, two seconds, it was all he could do not to keen in pain. And then Graham was pulling him up, slinging one of Ryan’s arms over his shoulder. ‘Come on, son, you can do it.’ It only took them two more minutes to the TARDIS and Graham kept on murmuring encouragements while Ryan did his best to hobble along.

Later, he found himself sitting on the stairs with his leg stretched out sideways, miserably watching the Doctor dash around the TARDIS console, when he found himself thinking that this was what happened when he didn’t pay constant attention to his limbs. Graham was sitting next to him, anxiously waiting for the Doctor to get them somewhere – or sometime – safe, so they could fuss about his knee together. Ryan thought darkly that there really was no need for Graham to get upset about the leaves back at home; clearly, they posed a much bigger threat to –

‘You were worried about me!’ The sudden clarity caused him to exclaim it much louder than planned. Yaz looked up from the first aid case she’d been raiding and the Doctor stilled for a moment, precariously balancing on one foot, both arms stretched across the console, a puzzled frown on her face. But Graham was looking away, staring at his hands.

He grumbled: ‘Of course I’m bloody worried about you, taking a tumble like that –‘

‘Not those leaves – the leaves in the garden.’ There was a small pause in which Ryan tried to decide whether he ought to hug him now. ‘You wanted me to rake them so I wouldn’t fall when I run to the bus in the morning.’

Graham laughed slightly uncomfortable. ‘I know it’s probably annoying. But I can’t help it. I’m always worried for you, Ryan. It’s part of the job when you’re… Anyways, if there are steps we can take to be safe I’d rather take them.’

It’s part of the job when you’re a… ‘Thanks grandpa,’ Ryan murmured. The pain became much more bearable at Graham’s answering smile. Awkwardly, he turned as far as he could and gave him a sideways hug. Then, sufficiently hidden from the other two, he whispered: ‘Love you, too.’

Chapter 6: Day 7 - Insecurity

Summary:

River is hurt by the fact that the Doctor never tells others about her.

It was Özge’s first day at the new job – with the government, a secure position in an age of uncertainty – and all the worst-case scenarios were happening. A cosmic joke, as the universe is wont to play. Not only was there nobody here to train here (surprisingly, she still understood and knew all the parts necessary), she was also fighting off a strange dizziness whenever Tomas – also new – asked her about her previous jobs, and now there was an alarm.

To her complete bafflement, both Özge and Tomas knew exactly what it meant and reacted instantly. ‘Containment breach in the Black Archives,’ he was bellowing in his walkie-talkie, while she entered the code to open the doors without recalling the numbers. The alarm suggested some kind of tempo-spatial hole, something that she must have encountered somewhere before and forgotten about. Özge didn’t really have the luxury of time to think about it – the person (or monster, even though they’d explicitly forbidden her to use that word) on the other side of the door was definitely dangerous, and all she had was this strange laser gun thingy. Hopefully, she’d know what to do with it, too, when the need arose.

But even though it was only two minutes from the start of the alarm to her entering the Archives, the intruder was already gone. They’d found a computer, probably already booted up, but the knowledge gained was little: Apparently, they’d only rummaged around a few particular files, pertaining to someone with the codename “The Doctor” and their known consorts.

The last file opened read “River Song”.

Özge worriedly took the little information it provided in, all the while trying not to look at the post-it on the upper right corner of the screen. She kept forgetting what it said, but it scared her. I could have overpowered you with a kiss, but your memory is already too scrambled as is. GET OUT!

River Song, the file said, was probably a time-travelling human-alien hybrid born in the 32^nd century, judging from her showing both human traits and surviving usually-fatal events nearly unscathed. Her and the Doctor appeared so rarely together, UNIT had doubted even their acquaintance for some time. The one and only time the Doctor had talked to a UNIT representative about her, he’d only said that she appeared to be allergic to nuts and shellfish. Apparently, River Song had died from a nut-related incident while helping UNIT out on a mission. Due to her time-travelling nature, there had been three confirmed and over a dozen unconfirmed sightings of her since.

There was a crumpled-up post-it in her hand, but Özge paid it no mind. She had to inform her superiors of this security breach. Even though she highly doubted there was any way she could help this Ms. Song, anyone able to break in here and read up on her was bad news. With barely a glance, she flicked the paper into a bin and strode out to her desk.

 

~*~

 

He found her in a cave in a desert. There had been ruins here once and he was almost sure she’d been part of an excavation, but that had been centuries ago and the wind and sand had destroyed what little the archaeologists had left.

River was hurt, and she was hiding.

It had taken him a long time to see past the façade, but it was obvious now. For one, if she had actually been focussed on research, she’d chosen a more obvious time – being able to just walk out the cave and look at the buildings would have made a lot more sense. Plus, he knew that this particular place had never been in use for long, and there were so many points of bigger interest for her on this planet alone. Third, she hadn’t noticed him yet.

The Doctor leaned against the warm stone wall, taking in the looks of his wife. And she already was his wife, that much was obvious from the lines of hurt on her face while she frowned at her drawings and calculations. Nobody but him ever managed to put them there quite that thoroughly. What hubris, to think that the one to inflict such pain should be the one to take it away. But that’s how their relationship worked, him always pushing and pulling until she broke, and then sweeping in to put the pieces back together.

Sometimes, she even returned the favour.

She still hadn’t noticed him, so the Doctor walked up to the desk and hopped up on it, placing himself decidedly on top of her pointless project. River didn’t say anything; she just leaned back in her seat and looked up at him. He wasn’t quite sure whether the weariness on her face was from emotional distress or if she was actually exhausted. It didn’t particularly matter, he’d have to take care of either.

‘What’s bugging you, wife?’ he asked, deliberately nonchalantly. No point in giving her an option to deflect.

River sighed, licked her lips, looked away. ‘I read up on me.’

The Doctor tried very hard not to sigh exasperatedly. Nothing good ever came from that, and he thought they both knew that. ‘Where – and what did you find?’

‘UNIT thinks I’m allergic to shellfish and will die of an anaphylactic shock after ingesting nuts.’

‘Well,’ he hedged, scratching his neck in embarrassment, ‘I admit it doesn’t sound that funny when you say it. At the time, I thought it was hilarious to mess with UNIT to stop them from snooping. But surely, inventing an allergy can’t be that bad?’

It was clear that whatever he’d done, it was bad, though. River was still looking away, focusing on the walls somewhere to his right. ‘You don’t see anything wrong with telling people how I allegedly died, but never bring up who I am to you? They weren’t even sure whether we were friends or acquaintances!’ Finally, she looked back up at him. ‘What is it with you and not telling others you have a wife? They knew about the Elizabeths, but not about me?’

Oh. Oh no. Everything was working perfectly, but he’d forgotten the one weak spot in his plan again: What it would do to River. For a second, he felt frozen, too many thoughts and explanations running through his mind, he could deny it, but that would be cowardly and cruel. Then, he slipped off the table, pulling pages filled with calculations she’d already done centuries before to the floor with him. River was glaring at him as he kneeled before her – her go-to when she was close to crying and trying very hard to mask it. She let him take her hands, but held them limply. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. But River – River, if people found out who you are to me – don’t you have any idea how dangerous that would be?’ With a sudden rush, he felt his own eyes grow hot and wet. ‘If, if – I can’t bear to think what would happen if all of my enemies found out who you are.’ He was clutching at her hands now, River’s eyes wide. ‘Don’t you remember what the Master, what he did to Jack – it is all I can do to protect you from me by trying to keep everyone from knowing about you.’ He was babbling now, scaring himself with visions of what the timelords, or the Master, Davros or even any ordinary person he’d ever thwarted and angered, could do given the right timing. But there was no other way to bring his fear across, to make her understand just how much more in danger she could be at any given moment, just because of her relationship to him.

River sank down on the sandy floor next to him. She was laughing and crying at the same time as she drew him close to her. ‘My love… I understand.’

‘It’s vital for you to stay hidden,’ he tried to explain once more, forming a coherent sentence despite the quiver in his voice, ‘because it is the only way to protect the most important –‘ He didn’t have to end the sentence. River was kissing him. It was messy and sticky and salty, but they were both crying and kissing felt a bit like the thing that might make them grasp each other’s view better. She was pushing against his mind, a soothing ‘enough, enough’, but there was no way he’d stop before her insecurities were all but done for. When he pulled away, their faces were both smeared and wet, but he bumped his forehead against hers – ouch, maybe a bit too hard – and, pushing back just as hard while saying it out loud at the same time, he told her: ‘I love you and I’ll never tell anyone because it’s the only way I know to keep you safe.’

They raided a museum for a drawing of them kissing that night, and three more in the days that followed.

Chapter 7: Day 10/11 - Cuddling/Warmth

Summary:

Amy and her family cuddle in their living room.

‚Well,‘ the Doctor said, ‚this is a bit unfortunate.’

Amy, sweeping her gaze across what little she could see of the living room from her position, found that this statement was entirely accurate. Everything that could be easily turned over was lying on the floor, and all the frames were missing from the walls as well as the flowerpots from the windowsill. She was almost glad she couldn’t see the heaps of broken glass and pottery right now. Maybe lying on the floor was even going to save the few flowers and herbs they somehow managed to keep alive despite their frequent absence, after all, the floor was the only habitable zone left. She couldn’t see the stairs; they were blocked by the couch they were currently using for cover.

To her left, Rory sighed and put his head in his hands. Normally, she found incidents like this quite fun – a bit destructive, but still an adventure – but it turned serious when her husband stopped complaining. Maybe a showdown in their own living room was his breaking point.

So, it looked like it was time for her to make the Doctor understand that lines were being crossed. ‘You know, when I told you that mice keep trying to get in because of the cold, this was certainly not the kind of help I wanted.’ The Doctor gave her a befuddled look, and in a way, rightly so. What else had she expected of him? ‘I thought maybe you would find a trap – some kind of mechanical trap – and relocate them to the Planet of Rodents!’

The Doctor snorted at that name, but before he could answer, the sound of breaking glass came from upstairs. Probably another window. ‘This was more fun. But if you look at it from the pest-control perspective, it worked. I can guarantee you that there’s no living mouse upstairs!’ He started to mumble: ‘Unless it built…’

‘There’s not anything alive upstairs!’ Rory interjected with a slightly hysteric voice, gesturing wildly and bumping his head on the couch table they were partially crouched below. ‘You killed my avocado tree and the cacti and your Christmas present for your wife! And now we have frozen mice in the walls which will thaw and –‘

‘Now, now,’ the Doctor interjected. ‘I thought we agreed on the fact that the mini-wigcow had eaten them all before it went on its rampage. The chance that any mouse was still alive and hiding when I set off the drone is very slim.’

‘Why did you think giving me a carnivorous miniature cow was a good idea anyway?’ River asked. She was positioned a few feet away from them, behind the turned-over table, steadily aiming a giant gun at the stairs. If the drone decided to do another sweep of this area, she would eliminate it. To Amy, she looked as badass as ever, even if she was wearing the couch blanket around her shoulders like a cape.

The Doctor, having chosen to put Rory and Amy between him and his wife as a buffer, spluttered. ‘It’s omnivorous! And don’t you remember the first time I took you to a dripstone cave? There were wigcows there, too! It’s a reminder! It’s romantic!’

At this, River turned around with an incredulous look on her face, aiming the gun at the ceiling. ‘There was also an ethereal angelic figure in the lake that turned out to be a dead weeping angel! Will you give me one of those next Christmas?’

‘Now, don’t tell me you wouldn’t collect them if they weren’t too dangerous –‘

‘Doctor!’ Amy did not shout, she just used a loud voice to get his attention. ‘Stop quarrelling and tell us how long this is going to take!’

Rory sighed again and she sidled a bit closer to him. The Doctor, apparently feeling the loss of her body heat, followed suit. ‘If the drone doesn’t come down here so River can shoot it, it’s programmed to stop functioning in approximately two hours. If it’s dormant already, it has succeeded in lowering the temperature to about minus ten degrees Celsius, or fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, and has found no heat source to shock-fry. The good news is that the windows broke and as it’s now significantly warmer outside, this will help heat up the house! This means, we just have to wait it out – we’ll need to stay below its homing area which should be about yay,’ he started to put his hand up but reconsidered, ‘uhm, probably as high as the couch. As long as we stay put, this will be over in no time!’

‘And then you will repair all the damage to the house,’ River said in a voice, so quiet and consciously unthreatening that the Doctor audibly gulped.

‘Of course. Rory.’ When there was no reaction, he got up on his elbows, then physically reached over Amy to poke him in the ribs, leaning on her heavily. ‘Rory! Do you prefer old-fashioned glass panels or would you like something cool like a force-field that is completely impenetrable to temperature and insects, but sends out a low-psychic field to repel birds?’

‘Uhm.’ Rory, seemingly slowly regaining his bearings, looked at Amy; she nodded. ‘As interesting as that sounds, after today I really prefer the old-fashioned, boring method.’

‘Hm,’ the Doctor answered, burrowing his elbow into her back. Amy groaned, but he ignored her. ‘I suppose I did hamper my credibility today. Alright, glass it is. Say, isn’t this cosy?’

Amy groaned: ‘Nouh!’, but River bent down to look at them under the table and snorted. ‘It looks like you got yourself sorted against the cold.’

‘Would you like to join the cuddle puddle?’ the Doctor asked, nestling back down next to Amy in an obvious attempt to curry her favours again.

‘I would, thank you very much! It’s just like when we were kids and had a sleepover!’ Apart from the facts that River had to crawl on the floor to safely reach them and that she was still carrying her Very Large Gun. Rory didn’t even lift an eyebrow when she cuddled against him, only shuffling to the right to give her enough space to get under the table, and then helping her with spreading the blanket over all of their backs.

Amy giggled at the surprised look on the Doctor’s face, and, after a moment, he started to laugh, too. When the two of them had calmed down again, he asked: ‘So, I suppose this is not quite what you expected when you invited me for the Christmas preparations?’

Rory groaned, but when she turned her head to him, was clearly trying to stop himself from laughing. ‘Do you think I want to spend my Christmas hiding from a tiny cow and an ice-drone, crouched under a table with my family?’

‘Oh, it could be worse,’ River muttered. ‘Remember that one time I brought Absinth because –‘

‘”It’s green, that means it’s festive”!’ Amy laughed, feeling the comfort of the blanket and her family’s closeness finally warm her up. ‘Thankfully, Brian took it away from us after the first glass.’

‘Oh, and do you remember when we went to the Planet of the Christmas Rebels?’

‘But that was at least funny! What about the time that stray cat attacked the lights we had in the windows and pulled them all off?’

The floor was hard and cold, but cuddling with her husband, her daughter and her best friend, Amy felt warm, both inside and outside. Another year was slowly coming to a close, but what was that to time-travellers? As long as she had her family by her side, there was nothing they couldn’t take on together.

Chapter 8: Day 12 - Make something

Summary:

Graham and the Doctor make something.

Notes:

Warning: MOOD WHIPLASH. The last chapter was supposed to be fun and whimsical. This is about grief.
I was very surprised by the way Graham just seems to... forget or not care about Grace's death until it became plot relevant. Obviously, it also had to hit Ryan harder than in the show, but I wanted to focus on one of them, so it became Graham. Because seriously? He can't be okay, at the very least not in the first half of season 11.

With the change in the temperature came a change in the wardrobe. Graham sighed as he pulled the last of the thick pullovers from the back of the uppermost shelf – and let it fall to the floor, where there was already a sizeable mound of warm clothes. This was the easy part. Now he had to get his summer wear up there and store it in a way that resembled order.

Of course, all his clothes would easily fit in the parts of the wardrobes he could access without a ladder if he’d just put all of Grace’s clothes up there. This was… not an option he could see himself take right now, or anytime soon. And so up and down the ladder he went. The pain in his back (a souvenir from running while carrying a stone heirloom to its rightful owner) was not helpful, but at least it didn’t seem to get worse. If anything, it distracted him from the other half of the wardrobe, filled with her colourful clothes that had all been washed and ironed before being put in there, ensuring that they all smelled completely uniform, not like Grace’ hair or her perfume. It was bearable. Not an Extremely Bad Day, just a miserable one.

By the time there was something that could be called order to the heaps of clothes in his room, of course, the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS materialising in his living room called him away. He was going to come back later, exhausted, to this chaos and he would have to try and shuffle everything off the bed to sleep.

Suddenly, it was too much.

He didn’t really know what happened, only that he found himself sitting on the bed – partly on a neatly folded stack of T-shirts – and the Doctor was sitting next to him, a warm and steady hand pressed against his arm, pulling him back to reality. She wasn’t looking at him, staring at the corner with a look of deep concentration on her face. Graham raised a hand to his face, found it wet, and allowed himself a few more seconds alone in his mind.

When he was sure he could deal with the world again, he turned to the Doctor to greet her, but found that his voice was gone. She seemed to understand all the same, giving him an awkward smile, and a once-over. Then, she removed her hand and scuttled away, pushing a pile of worn pullovers to the ground. ‘Wanna tell me what happened?’

‘Grace.’ It wasn’t really an explanation, and at the same time, it was. It wasn’t just raw pain, or immediate grief, it was discovering something insignificant and suddenly feeling it was the most important thing in the world because it had belonged to her, it was finding that all the things in this house that had smelled like her had lost their smell long ago, it was having to realise that all the small reminders of her were tethers to the world of the living slowly coming undone. He tried to inhale past the painful lump in his throat.

The Doctor put a hand on his, squeezed. Her fingers were clammy. She didn’t like touch, he remembered. He should take his hand away. But it was nice. Having somebody just listen to his silence. He squeezed back and just breathed.

They sat there for a few minutes until he could feel her vibrate with anxious energy next to him. ‘Thanks,’ he murmured, pulling his hand back. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to do this a third time.

‘Anytime.’

A few more moments of silence, then the Doctor squeezed her knees and, addressing his dresser in a low voice, said: ‘I’ve lost my wife, too.’ I know how you feel. You are not alone. At least that was what he gathered from the way her fingers were burrowing into the fabric of her trousers.

‘You got yours back, though,’ he answered. No envy there, he knew that if anyone deserved a happy ending, then it was her. Still, he didn’t really understand how she was trying to empathise with him.

The Doctor hummed a quiet acquiescence. ‘When you met her, that was River relatively shortly before her death. Two more adventures – a rather long one, though – and she was going to die. And she didn’t know it yet.’ She was almost whispering, and Graham could hear the same pain he had felt in her throat now. ‘All these happy moments, so fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye. I did save her, I did, but she’s dead and dying and being abused because of me at some point in time, all the time, at the same time I’m holding her in my arms. Every time, any time.’

It was a complicated feeling, one he could logically comprehend, but not emotionally. ‘I wouldn’t want to go back and see Grace one more time if it meant leaving her again. The Solitract was… I couldn’t imagine being with real her.’

The Doctor nodded. She was still looking at the dresser and Graham could see she had put a small box on there. Probably the reason she’d come here in the first place. ‘I grieved her. And then I met her again. And I had to start all over.’

‘Will it get better? Does the grief ever get better for you?’

A shudder went through her frame and the Doctor closed her eyes for a second. ‘Grief doesn’t get smaller. You… you just get bigger. You grow around it. It becomes part of you.’

Graham nodded, trying to get his breathing under control. ‘What is that box you put over there?’

‘Oh,’ the Doctor said, and her voice broke for a moment, but then her whole demeanour became the one he knew from her normal self again. ‘I found a way to dismantle the toxins and made you a blue cucumber sandwich. Actually, I brought you ones I had made for you, because the TARDIS kept bringing up human digestive organs on the monitors and making mine disappear, but, same thing.’

Graham laughed, thankful for the distraction and the Doctor’s acting skills. There was no way she had found a way to make a toxic food edible and then botched up the easy steps, but it was nice to think of her as his goofy friend, nonetheless. He wiped his eyes and found that he was exhausted, but not weary anymore. ‘I’m sure it’s great. Not so sure I’m hungry right now, though.’

‘Noooo, eat a sammich, Graham.’ The Doctor got up and deposited the cardboard box in his lap. ‘You need to try them.’

There were four of them, obviously intended for the whole group. He took one, anyway. The blue looked still beautiful, an intricate pattern of blueish streaks. It tasted exactly like a normal cucumber sandwich when he bit into it. For a second, Graham wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He’d never had any strong opinion on them, but it was… plainly mediocre. ‘It’s great!’

The Doctor smiled back at him, obviously pleased at having found a way to make him happy. Then, her leg started twitching and he knew the pent-up energy from sitting for what was probably at least the quarter of an hour was getting to her. ‘Let’s make something, Graham.’

‘Do you mean “do”?’

‘No. Let’s make something. I like to make things. I think you might like it, too.’ She picked at a pullover, discarded on the floor. ‘Did you knit that?’

Graham laughed incredulously. ‘No. I can’t knit. Do I look like I could do those intricate cables?’

‘I used to know how to knit. But that was a long time ago. I was running from my death and doing something peaceful was what kept me together at times. Dunno if I could do it now… probably not. He just had the wrists for it…’ She was rambling again, and Graham gave her an affectionate smile. How much of that was reminiscing and how much was an act to help him pull himself together? ‘Anyway. You don’t have to be good at it. I just want to make something. If you don’t like knitting, we could try and learn crocheting. You see, I like the mathematics behind those doilies I saw at Yaz’s place. They’re all based on the number six, or twelve, which are great numbers because of the number of divisors they have. This is actually why the ancient Mesopotamians chose a number system superior to–‘ She stopped herself and laughed. ‘No. What would you like to make?’

‘I don’t really want to work with yarn and needles,’ Graham found himself saying, which was not quite the refusal he had been aiming for.

‘Hmmm…’ the Doctor made, failing to suppress a small smile that told him she had already made up her mind. ‘Let’s go to Kano. You’ll like it there. C’mon, get up.’ She made a move as if to pull him up by the arm and then stopped herself. ‘Leave that sandwich. It’s not very good anyway.’

Graham groaned, stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and got up, dutifully following his friend.

‘You see,’ the Doctor said hours later as they carried the ice cream-sculpture the two of them had carved and decorated with chocolate and fruit into the TARDIS, ‘it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be something you did, with your own two hands – or however many you have, my point still stands – and you need to care about it. It doesn’t matter if it melts afterwards. For as long as you’re making it, as long as you made it, it’s all that matters.’

‘Going forward; break it down into small, manageable steps,’ Graham translated.

The Doctor gave him a smile. It wasn’t radiant as usual; it also wasn’t a fabricated one. It was tired and there were lines of pain around her eyes. But it was honest, and it told him all he needed to know: That he wasn’t alone. ‘Today, I think the next step will be to destroy this statue with our friends. Tomorrow, maybe you can tell me a story about her.’

On the next day, he found that he couldn’t. But that was okay, too, and they built a castle out of semi-sentient sand.

Chapter 9: Day 13 - Confession

Summary:

Amy wants, but doesn't get to confess.

On the drive back home from her parents’ house, Amy thought about all the things she had planned differently. Officially, it was just three weeks since her wedding, the first two of which they had supposedly spent in Thailand. Unofficially, it had been significantly longer since she’d seen them the last (and, partly, the first) time. Though the memory of the other timeline was waning, she still knew that she once didn’t have any parents, no real maternal figure. She had wanted only her mother to be there (Dad was wonderful, and maybe it was an old-fashioned opinion to have, but to her, there were some things a woman shared with her mother first), and then her father had been so elated by her visit that he had decided against his monthly fishing trip. Of course, three people instead of two meant not enough food (at least in her mother’s eyes), so they had gone out to eat and then, it was time to drive home again.

It was a short drive from Leadworth, no more than fifteen minutes, just enough to try and get her mask back up. The afternoon sun was painting everything in a surrealistic white, like an overexposed picture. Fitting, she felt overexposed and hyper-focussed, too.

No more than two minutes alone with Mum, she thought, not nearly enough time to share the secret. At least it had been a nice day – the joy Dad seemed to feel every time he looked at her, even after twenty-one years, was endearing. Maybe, she mused, they did remember the fact that they had once not existed in some way? Maybe, just like for her, there was a second set of memories, one that they were desperately trying to make up for – though what that would look like for someone who’d been written out of the uni–

Something small and black dashed across the street from left to right and then there was a child and she didn’t know if she was going to hit them if she steered to the right or the left and she pulled at the wheel with all her strength and the sun was suddenly in her eyes and then she found herself stumbling out of the car, into a wheat field, and collapsing onto the warm dirt.

There was someone there to keep her upright, arms wrapping around her. Her head was pressed against a chest. She could still feel the way she’d jerked around the wheel in her arms, her shoulders. She could still see the little body running in front of her car.

‘The child, the child?’

‘It’s alright,’ River’s voice said, and she didn’t even think to question why River was there. ‘You did good, she’s unhurt.’ River had always done her best to keep her safe. If she was here, then everything was going to be alright.

She could still feel the jerk in her shoulders. She could still see the child on the street.

Amy tried her best to concentrate on the steady beat below her ear, but it made her feel almost as nauseous as the other sensations, so she pulled back and blinked at River. That was alright, looking she could handle. As long as she looked at her, she couldn’t see the child on the street. ‘Is the child really alright?’

River nodded and pointed to the side, but Amy refused to look away from her face. That was safe, everything else… a gamble. ‘It’s a little girl and she stopped when you pulled the car to the right. You didn’t hit her. She didn’t even stumble. I think she was crying for a while, but she’s completely fine.’

Crying. The black thing. Furry. ‘What about the puppy?’

River didn’t look as if she cared much for the puppy, but seeing as Amy refused to look anywhere else than straight in front of her, she got up, patted down her pants and walked over to where, apparently, other people were standing and tending to the girl. Amy didn’t dare look. Less than a minute later, River kneeled back down in front of her. ‘The puppy is a grown toy poodle. His name is Fritz and they told me you can pet him if you want to. He’s fine, too.’

But Amy didn’t feel up to something as complex as walking or moving her hands in any particular way. ‘I wanna sit here.’

Sounds were a bit muffled now. She could still feel the jerk in her shoulders. ‘I can talk to them about what happened, if you want to. The dog and the child just ran into the street. Everybody knows it’s not your fault, okay?’ She nodded. ‘Nobody is hurt, apart from your car and we’ll have it fixed. I’ll make sure it gets sorted.’

And that was that. Amy sat on the warm dirt and watched the greenish-yellow wheat sway gently. At some point, she became aware of a tickling on her hand; looking down, she saw two ants running over it. Watching ants was peaceful.

At some point, a phone – her phone – was held in her line of sight. ‘I think you should call a friend to take you home,’ River said.

‘Why can’t you take me home?’ Her neck seemed to start working again, or at least moving was easier, so she looked up at River, who had a very concerned look on her face.

‘Because you told me in the future about your friend bringing you home. I’m trying to change as little as possible.’

‘Ah.’ She took the phone, hands still shaking, jerk in her shoulders, and mechanically called Mels. Later, she couldn’t recall what had been said, only that Mels had promised to be there as soon as possible. Another friend she could always count on when the need arose.

‘Come on, now,’ River said, not unkindly, pulled her to her feet and led her around the car. Amy caught a glimpse of a small gaggle of people staring at them. ‘You and me, we’re going to take a trip, alright? You’ll be back before Mels gets here.’ Amy stared dully at the vortex manipulator on River’s wrist before her friend hugged her again. The teleport, or whatever she was supposed to call it, was jarring and reminded her of – no. Actually, it helped to get her head a bit clearer.

They were standing in front of a giant building on a walkway that was partly covered in white sand. A light breeze was blowing it over from the beach. It looked as if had someone build a mixture of a skyscraper and a stadium, going big in all directions, right next to an ocean, the front a confusing mixture of glass, plants, and metal from their point in front of the entrance. River looked up at it and made a small grimace. ‘I promise it’s nicer inside. You’ll like it.’

‘Inside’ was a lobby, still big enough to fit a small house and still be accessible, but far less sensory overload-inducing. There was a lot of white and beige marble and plants in high pots. Normally, Amy would have found it boring and snobby, but right now it felt soothing for her nerves. By the time they were walking up to what looked like a reception, she felt able to ask: ‘Where are we?’

‘Curidas. Biggest spa this side of Proxima Centauri and the only one without questionable work ethics.’ River walked up to the reception and, curiously enough, took off her earrings. The woman behind the counter (human-looking, but a bit pink) used a tiny device to scan the both of them and then handed River a stack of cards. Nobody said anything, the two nodded at each other, smiling politely, and then Amy felt herself tugged away. ‘We’re going to take a few minutes to ourselves before the treatments.’

She wasn’t really given a choice, but by the time they reached the suite River had apparently booked for them, wonder had overwritten the shock. She was deposited on a fancy-looking couch and a cocktail-y looking drink placed in front of her. Amy took a sip – fruity, no alcohol – and asked: ‘Why are we here?’ Probably too blunt, but she didn’t feel up to polite small talk.

River plopped down next to her, nonchalantly propping her feet on the couch table. ‘Because I think you just had a very bad experience and I wanted to soften the blow.’ She seemed to expect the next question that came to mind because she continued: ‘I know you don’t know me very well yet and I thank you for your trust. But to me, you are a dear friend I never get to spend a lot of time with without the Doctor interfering. I was hoping to turn the shock around and into a nice girl’s weekend. Don’t worry, you will be back on time.’

It was probably not the most pressing question, but Amy still asked: ‘Don’t you think he will just turn up here?’

River laughed. ‘He spent a day with me here once. They have pools, but no water slides. Can you imagine, Amy? No water slides!’

Her interpretation of the Doctor’s affronted voice made Amy laugh, too. She sipped at her cocktail. ‘River, what exactly happened back there?’

‘It’s a day-care centre. They picked up the girl, the dog got loose, and she ran after him into the street. I gave them your insurance information and put theirs in your car. When we go back, all you have to do is wait for a phone call.’

It suddenly occurred to Amy that she’d never been a part of an accident before. She wasn’t even sure she knew exactly what to do. But River had known. She was showing a surprising amount of knowledge of this time. ‘Thank you. How did you do that?’

‘I pulled a small piece of paper out of the compartment in your car?’

Embarrassed, Amy clarified: ‘How did you know that I needed help?’

River also seemed a bit embarrassed when she answered: ‘You told me about this day in the future. And I… wasn’t sure your friend would find the right words to make it better.’

‘Did I also tell you about why I went to my parents in the first place?’

This time, River looked positively guilty. It was a bit confusing, but Amy was used to the Doctor’s friends acting strangely. ‘I don’t think this is something I should know about. I also can’t tell you anything.’ So… she probably knew about the possible pregnancy. Did that mean it was real or was it just that they talked about in the future? She could just ask and confess that she was too cowardly to take a pregnancy test. But that would mean telling her about it.

And, Amy found, she really didn’t want to tell her. It was something to tell Rory first, but she was still a coward, so she was going to tell her Mum or, if desperation hit and she really needed advice, she’d confess it to the Doctor. So, she chose to attack instead of defend, as a way to gauge whether River really knew. ‘Do you have children, River?’

That was the wrong question, a very bad choice, judging from the way not even the unflappable River could conceal the pain flashing over her face. ‘That’s… spoilers.’ This was her cue to drop the topic, and Amy was more than willing to do something drastic to distract, but then River continued quietly: ‘Look at the life I lead, Amy. That is a dream I let go of a long time ago.’

Because it’s too dangerous or because he’s not human?

But she got saved by the bell, so to speak: A chime, followed by a pleasant voice informing them that their first appointment would start in ten minutes and that they were kindly asked to please proceed to the elevator to the right of their room.

River perked up at that, obviously trying to get the mask back into place, but also seeming genuinely excited. While they were walking towards the elevator, she explained: ‘It’s warm sand packages. They get your muscles nice and relaxed for the first massage. It’s the first time I booked the full package, so I’m not sure about the order, but by the end of today you will feel like a whole new person.’ It made sense for someone who constantly got into fights to need quite a lot of massages, so Amy nodded along. ‘We will also do the beauty package and I really can’t tell you anything about that besides the fact there will be lots of non-alcoholic cocktails.’

Amy wasn’t used to having to read other people, but it seemed to her that she’d just been told a lot more than just spa information. ‘Don’t you like getting pampered?’

River laughed, reassurance all over her face, but then she faltered and confessed: ‘Actually, it makes me a bit nervous. Lying down this long, letting others do all the work? I never do this with the Doctor. We’re more… hands-on. But I’m sure with you I’ll feel comfortable enough to enjoy it.’

How much of that was the truth and how much was reassurance to make her happy? Amy didn’t know – The Doctor lies, her brain supplied, and River is just like him. But three hours later, she found herself lying on what felt like warm coffee beans, every decent part of her skin covered in different luscious creams, sipping a gingery smoothie, and listening to her friend’s happy little sighs. ‘Need to do this more often,’ River murmured, sounding even more relaxed than Amy. ‘I’ll come get you. Every Saturday. When you’re older. Please.’

Like so many things in her life, this didn’t make a lot of sense, but Amy decided to ignore the ‘older’ part in favour of feeling glad there would be repetitions to this pampering. It was strange, knowing that someone who seemed to have so much more knowledge and, and… power, someone who seemed closer to the Doctor than to any human was so happy to spend time with her. It was touching, if a bit sad. Too relaxed to coordinate any better, Amy randomly waved her hand around until she found River’s arm, patting down until she found her hand. What should have been a quick, reassuring squeeze felt actually quite comfortable and so she lay there, let her body drift slowly towards sleep and returned River’s grip just as tightly.

Chapter 10: Day 14 - Crackling Fire

Summary:

The Thirteenth Doctor feels an inordinate amount of sympathy for a tree.

The Great Evil Tree was burning and the Kaanzi people were celebrating.

Obviously, it hadn’t actually been evil. The round, apple-like fruit contained a potent poison, though, killing people, animals and even insects trying to feed on them. There were very few insects in the valley that survived on fruit because most had died from it. Nothing was able to compete against the tree’s poison because nothing had evolved next to it. The leaves were hard and leathery, taking up to three years to rot, hiding fallen fruit so that it could sprout, but the new plants usually died early because the root system killed anything in its vicinity. During its long life, the tree had grown taller than any other tree in the valley, casting shadow on an otherwise prime farming field. Its bark had grown so thick over the centuries that nothing the Kaanzi did could penetrate it.

It was easy to see why the natives saw it as a source of evil.

The Doctor, on the other hand, remembered the people who’d been here before the Kaanzi. The planet had seen a rare parallel emergence of two intelligent species in the polar regions, completely separated by a vast ocean that had prevented any crossing until about five hundred years ago at the beginning of a cooling period. By then, the Dossa had been dying out, slowly getting ravaged by a disease that turned most of them infertile. By the time the Kaanzi moved inland, they were basically extinct.

All that was left were ruins where they’d once built huts above their burrows and Sano Trees like the one she’d helped cut down. Unlike most other species on this planet, the Dossa had been able to eat the fruit; the leaves they’d used as insulation in their burrows. They’d carried saplings, over hundreds of kilometres from their original area, planting them wherever they lived.

The Great Evil Tree might very well have been the last grown sano tree on the planet.

Of course, it was only right to cut down a tree that was a hazard to anything in its vicinity. At the same time, it felt a bit like taking destroying the last reminder that the Dossa had ever existed. It hit a bit close to home. But it was not her life threatened by a poisonous tree, not her livestock prone to try and die from the leaves. So the Doctor had kept her mouth shut, swallowed any protest and gone to work: Providing saws sharp enough to work through the giant trunk, calculating the best direction to have it fall, providing even more equipment to help them hack it into pieces. Getting the Kaanzi to wear masks against the toxic dust from the tree hadn’t been fun. And then she’d had to saturate the wood overnight in a mixture to stop the burning logs from emitting even more toxic gases, so that the people could have their celebration. All in all, she’d had quite a lot of work for doing something she didn’t feel happy about. The Doctor pressed the tips of her fingers against her knees, short nails digging into fabric. It helped, to an extent. Pressing hard, she dragged her fingers along her legs.

‘And why are you moping around?’ The Doctor froze and Yaz plopped down next to her, a big grin on her face that lasted only a second longer. As soon as their gazes met, the cheekiness was replaced with genuine concern. ‘Sorry. What’s wrong?’ Yaz smelled like smoke and burning wood, like food and human sweat, a smell that bordered dangerously on “home” after all these years.

She could lie. She did that. Or she could just change the topic. But she it had been a long day yesterday and a long night of prepping the wood and a long day chopping it further and preparing the bonfire. She was tired. ‘It was very old,’ she said instead of lying, ‘and the last one of its kind.’ A small part of her was curious how Yaz was going to react to that. She was smart, surely she would pick up the implications.

And Yaz did, but not in the expected way. ‘Please tell me you’re not just empathising with a tree. I mean… if you really want me to pretend, I can do that. But you’re quite a bit more complex than that.’

That was true. How pathetic, to mope around because of a tree. The Doctor’s hands picked up pace until she consciously stopped them. She was going to join the festivities and she was going to have fun. She was going to act goofy, find a few phrases to misinterpret and make sure people had a good laugh.

But next to her, Yaz sighed. ‘Alright. So. Imagine an old man – or woman, I don’t care – and this old person has survived anyone they ever knew. They never made any effort to meet new people, at least not to be nice to them. And as this old person grew older and older, they grew meaner and meaner. They never did anything for the community and yet they took whatever free handout they could get, always insisting that they were owed more. They shouted at children and laid out traps for pets. And when the community heard about a chance to put them in a nursing home – because we’re talking about a person and not a tree – do you blame them for taking it?’ A glare in the Doctor’s direction, and she had to laugh. It was ridiculous, Yaz was right, but it was especially ridiculous to get called out by someone this young. ‘Now imagine a friendly old granny who always went above and beyond for everyone. When the Millers’ house was burning, she helped evacuate, then took in their seven cats for half a year and taught them to meow a canon. When the Brunner family was struggling, she brought over food. Not her own, mind, because her cooking’s rubbish. When there was a bit of a scandal because the daughter of – ‘ Yaz had to stop on a wheeze and then joined the Doctor in laughing.

‘You’re right,’ she said as soon as she got enough air into her lungs again (definite advantage over Yaz). ‘Plants die out all the time. Dunno what I was thinking. Thanks, Yaz. You’re brilliant.’ There really was no reason to feel sorry for something that wasn’t able to feel anything at all.

When she turned towards the festivities, the first thing that caught her eye were the way they’d evenly distributed the fires over the meadow, forming very loose circles. People were weaving between them, shouting and singing, dancing and laughing. The wood burned bright orange (probably mostly due to her soaking it in chemicals) which certainly added to the atmosphere of the narration that they’d slain the Great Evil Tree.

There were happy sounds all around them. It was warm as she stepped among the celebrants and their bonfires, and loud, and very bright. It was just on the right side of A Lot, instilling a sense of giddiness instead of being overwhelming. The fire was crackling and the meat roasted over it was sizzling, the vegetables bubbling away in small pots. The smell of burning wood and cooking food permeated the night air. People laughingly stretched their arms their way, encouraging to join them in their joy.

The Great Evil Tree was burning and the Doctor was celebrating with the Kaanzi people.

Chapter 11: Day 16 - Diary

Summary:

"The diary River had carried in the library had not been hers."

The diary River had carried in the library had not been hers.

He never suspected, for almost four hundred years. It was stupid, really, for him to take that long to figure it out – and quite by accident, too. They had been trying to get information out of a local warlord, feasting and drinking with her the sour wine her oppressed subjects produced. Neither of the two of them would get drunk from this little alcohol, and both were slowly increasing their acting, by slurring and singing, River almost knocking her glass over a few times. And then she dropped her diary.

Her diary, indistinguishable from his, apart from the black burn across one back corner. A burn the first one he’d ever seen didn’t have.

He found himself staring, thousands of possibilities swirling around in his head, none of them making sense. ‘Doctor, what’s wrong?’ River’s voice was alarmed and very sober, pulling him out of it a little, but not enough to keep up the farce.

In the end, they had to run because of his fluster, but they accidentally toppled the feudal system, getting rid of the warlord all the same. River was unhappy about the power vacuum, so the Doctor acted indifferent to it to ensure she was occupied with founding a loose government. He had to investigate.

He didn’t dare ask River for her diary because there was no explanation why he needed it. Out of other options, he started with the other data point he had: The diary he’d picked up at the library, put in a safe room in the TARDIS and tried his best to forget about. Once he found it, indeed, without any burn, he swapped his own – current one – against the other to ensure River wouldn’t notice there were three books and only two of them.

It was his and it had everything in it.

For about five minutes, the Doctor was under the impression that he’d died and River had picked up his diary. It was full, every page future from his current one crammed in letters so tiny it was barely legible. Oh, it seemed like he wasn’t even halfway there! If he was going to die right before her, then… then maybe he could live with the knowledge that she was going out, too. If they really had a life like this, so many wonderful moments, then… it could actually be okay. Their perverse way of dying side by side.

But then he found the note, scribbled by his own, future hand, and realised that he’d been alive when the swap took place.

River,
I know you’ll be confused, maybe even angry and wonder why I swapped our diaries. Please trust me and please don’t let my younger self know if you meet him. I want to say this is the most important thing I ever asked of you – you might say ‘But haven’t we saved the universe, the whole of reality, a few times?’ THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT.
Don’t read it. Don’t let me notice.
I love you.

How many times did he read it, looked for a secret code between the letters? His fingers stroked over the indentions in the paper where he’d crudely underlined the letters. He was dimly aware of the fact that there were tears on his cheeks and pain in his throat. But the fear and the loss and the sadness were soon quelched by a rising sense of anger. The universe had tried to take her away from him. And he had been almost willing to accept it. There was no way he was going to stop fighting now.

It was obvious the diary was not meant for her to read. He must have known – he would still know in the future – that his past self had picked it up. The message must be for him.

Now, where would he put a message to himself without risking any spoilers?

Right at the beginning. The first few pages contained not only their first few adventures after he’d gotten it (the encounters before that started on page 10 when he’d finally realised he needed to write down everything), there were also new adventures squeezed into whatever margins he’d left when writing for the first time. Different colours for easier reading told him about a naked race in the snow with hot springs as way markings. It didn’t sound appealing unless one fancied frostbite, but his future self apparently felt it was rather romantic.

So, the last page was probably not the last adventure if he’d decided to cannibalise the first few at some point. It was as good a second guess as any, so he opened it in the back.

And there, on the inside of the cover, it said, beneath a row of space-time coordinates:

I met myselves today. The older must will have sent a message to the younger one at some point because he knew what to do, even though we stayed away from him to ensure he keeps the memories.
When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a casket and that it was some kind of trap. Oh, how wrong I was! I don’t know yet what they needed me for except to smooth things over with this River.
She’s back again.
-----
It all makes sense now. She says I need to swap the diaries. Everything will fall into place by itself. Oh, and River is a bit self-conscious. Maybe you should take care of that.

He was laughing and crying, laughing at his inability to make sense, crying because of the hope the underlined sentence alone stirred in his chest.

All those times he’d tried to come up with a plan, only to be stumped by physics or moral. Suck the energy out of every living thing on a planet into a Dogengart Comprimator and he’d be able to twist it into something resembling regeneration energy enough to revive River’s body. Find a double, overlay her own psyche with a copy of River’s, which would eradicate this poor woman’s mind even before she was forced to killed herself. Easier to do, equally unthinkable. Without killing something, there was no way for him to revive her and he had no idea how to swap her out (or who with) at the last second. None of his ideas had ever been viable.

So, to read it in his own letters was hilarious. There was no plan, the plan was to let things play out by themselves. All he had to do was show up at these coordinates. He didn’t know whether his oldest self was the mastermind or River herself, but who cared?

Everything will fall into place by itself .

He took the TARDIS, completely forgetting about the River who was still busy explaining election and fraud prevention and shouted something unintelligible when she noticed the noise. He’d probably come back very soon – or maybe not, but he was almost positive he was going to make it up to her.

For now, he was going to save her future past version.

Chapter 12: Day 19 - Walk in the Moonlight

Summary:

Amy and Rory take a walk in the moonlight.

It was a romantic walk in the moonlight.

Never mind the fact that Amy was limping a bit because the heels on her shoes were two slightly different heights. Never mind the fact that they were dressed up as doubles for their daughter and son-in-law. Never mind the fact that he was still shaky from the adrenaline of having stood up (loudly!) to the Doctor only five minutes ago. The pathway was also a bit slimy, but after a whole day of dealing with their hosts, that was par for the course.

They were going to have a romantic walk in the moonlight.

Amy wobbled a bit on her mismatched shoes and he put a hand around her waist. There, even more romantic. He chanced a sideward glance at her, yep, still angry. Thankfully, it wasn’t him in the doghouse tonight.

‘They are giant slugs who’ve never seen humanoids before. They won’t be able to tell us apart,’ she drawled in a not very flattery imitation of the Doctor. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ Even though he wasn’t the recipient of her ire, it made Rory laugh nervously all the same. ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Amy continued in her normal, angry voice. ‘Maybe my daughter and best friend don’t tell us they’re way more susceptible to these people’s alcohol than us and decide to get drunk together instead of reprogramming the computer so the slugs don’t accidentally blow themselves up. And maybe they conveniently time it so that we get stuck with the head of state, pretending to be experts on radiation technology, when actually, we know nothing!’

At this, Rory felt the need to clarify. ‘I think Blergh knew even less than us about it. And they’re not incompetent, surely, they got drunk after doing their thing.’

Amy snorted. ‘I don’t want to hear anything about them doing their thing.’

And just like that, the anger was gone. They giggled like someone half their age and proceeded on their walk along the pathway. ‘Do you think they’re alright?’

‘We put them into the TARDIS. They were just tipsy and laughing at everything, not passing-out drunk. I’m pretty sure they don’t need us taking care of them. Also, River stole one of my shoes and I won’t talk to her until lunch when I can laugh at her hangover. Let’s just enjoy the night.’

On closer inspection, the way was rather similar to one on earth, although it looked as if someone had placed large white stones and boulders in the earth and then just cut off the pieces sticking out. He thought about the Doctor’s warning not to touch the corroding slime the people of this planet excreted with his bare hands and shuddered. Thankfully, they were peaceful and intelligent.

‘It’s quite nice at night,’ Amy murmured. She changed her grip on him, less to hold her steady and more snuggling. ‘Without all the light at home…’

And indeed, it was. The sky was a black canvas, dotted with unfamiliar stars and a hint of the violet hue of a nebula the Doctor had shown them before coming here. The view was unobstructed, no clouds or any other lights drowning it out, the slugs had no need for outdoor lighting. Besides, the light of the stars was more than enough to see their surroundings. It felt… peaceful.

‘I like the silence,’ Rory whispered. ‘It’s as if nobody but us is here.’

Amy hummed in agreement. She carefully stepped away from him and stroked her fingertips along the tall, reedy grass with its tiny flowers, took a deep breath. And suddenly, there were sounds: Far off, in the distance, someone was playing music. It was just loud enough to be noticeable, but he couldn’t make out a melody.

‘They said something about outdoor dancing. Do you want to…?’

‘No thanks. Can you imagine what slugs dancing would look like?’ Amy snorted. ‘Anyway… it’s nice. You, me, all alone at night…’

Rory shared her suggestive smile, but neither of them moved. He was content watching her in the dim light of the stars, hands still caressing the grass. He would have loved to suggest sitting down with her here, but there was a tiny chance of corrosive slug excretions, and he didn’t want to end this night treating chemical burns. Instead, he watched her silhouette. Everything about Amy was beautiful and seeing her with this little lighting, her features more shrouded than visible, made her look like a mythical being to him.

Amy gasped and gripped his arm. ‘Did you see that?’ Rory shook his head, no, but when he followed her pointing finger, there was a blink in the sky. And another one. ‘It’s shooting stars!’

For a moment, the Doctor and his explanation (“No outer planets catching meteorites, so you’ll see lots of shooting stars here”) popped into his mind, but Rory did his best to concentrate on his infinitely more alluring wife. He stood behind her, laying his head against hers. Amy snuggled against his chest, pulled his arms around her. They looked at the occasional gleam in the distance. ‘What should we wish for?’

He closed his eyes for a moment, focused on her body against his. ‘Nothing. I have everything I could possibly wish for.’

Chapter 13: Day 23 - Hiding

Summary:

The Doctor and the Doctor watch the Doctor find River.

Notes:

Even now, four years later and needlessly fighting with pronouns in this chapter, do I not regret putting Eleven in here twice. After all, it allowed me to write that convoluted summary, and what's more comforting than getting the chance to laugh at your own terrible jokes?

‘I do not look like this from behind,’ the Doctor protested, watching himself threaten a stasis machine because the beeping – informing the reading hall that the download was complete – had startled him.

‘Do too,’ his older self answered absentmindedly. She was busy clearing enough room to peer through the bookshelf they were hiding behind, carelessly putting them onto the floor. Not like anyone was going to be reading here ever again, at least as far into future as he’d checked.

‘Do not!’

‘See how his left shoulder droops when he holds up the sonic? Yep. You always grip it as if your life depended on it. That’s where you get the tension headaches from.’ The scandalised look he gave her at the mere suggestion he might be holding his sonic wrong was ignored. ‘And anyway – we’re facing enough shenanigans as-is, do you really believe anyone else would be stupid enough to traipse around a Vashta Nerada feeding ground after barely a century? And that they’d pretend to be us?’

A compelling argument, even if it was lacking the elegant whimsy he would have aimed for. ‘Aren’t we a bit testy?’

His older self only scoffed at that, the lines around her eyes pronounced as rifts in a landscape. ‘I can be as testy as I want to be. You do remember you had to pull me away half an hour ago, right?’ They both cringed at the memory of her collapsing over the machine, almost onto the body within it. She continued with a sigh: ‘And also… there’s so much inside that noggin – I can’t be sure I still remember everything – what if he makes a mistake?’

…of course. She was scared.

So that’s why she still needed him here, even after he'd switched the diaries and physically pulled her away when she became overwhelmed by the regeneration transfer. Deep down, she was probably way more anxious than he was. He reached out a hand to pat her arm, caught himself at the same time as she pulled away. ‘I still remember. He’ll do alright. Not perfect, but... she'll forgive us.’

'Like she always does,' his older part answered wearily, voice ever so slightly trembling.

The Doctor doesn’t admit to weakness, not in front of friends, much less in front of foes. He didn’t really fall in either category, but the trembling in her arms, leaning heavily on the table in front of them, was a sign he knew. He could almost feel it from the way she held herself – a certain kind of pain associated with regeneration, with using that power, before its time.

This was something he was familiar with, a problem he could do something about instead of hiding behind these bookcases, watching his younger version making a fool of himself.

‘Watch him for me for a moment,’ he mumbled, and skipped away before she could answer.

He didn’t need to watch, all he needed was to remember. Any second now, his younger self would finally understand that the machine wasn’t really a threat, recognise that it was the one they’d stolen from the Slug-people in their drunken haze so long ago, and then, finally, do what he should have done from the beginning: Read the damn screen on its front and use his sonic to learn all there was about the inhabitant's physical traits. He was still scouting the messy floor for an undamaged chair by the time he heard the surprised shout from behind.

For a moment, he just closed his eyes, let the memories flow through him. A small part of him wondered what his older self was doing. Maybe she was watching, maybe she was caught in remembering as well. All he could do was think back in marvel at the absolutely bone-deep, soul-searing relief slamming into him, rocking his understanding of the universe and allowing hope back in. The realisation that the woman inside the stasis machine was genetically all Pond, that the data it had downloaded was his loved one’s mind, that regeneration energy was flowing through her veins, still sizzling with newness.

By the time he had roused himself from his stupor, found a chair that was only missing one armrest and pulled it over to his older self, the younger Doctor had already started the unloading sequence, barely even watched by their older self. She didn’t even pretend to be annoyed at the care and set down heavily, face angled suspiciously away from him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he offered. ‘I’ll start crying the moment…’ But it didn’t even take that long, he realised as his throat spasmed for a second.

His older self giggled, the sound merging seamlessly into a sob, and patted his arm in commiseration. Even with her doing it herself and preparing accordingly, the rush of emotions, memories, and flashes of thoughts was heady. Less comforted than disturbed, they both pulled away from each other soon enough, eyes transfixed on the scene in front of them so as not to have to look at the other.

He really wished he could remember what it was that he said during the waking sequence, even if she might not even have heard it. River was quick to wake up, but slow to react, taking in the situation in front of her instead – he knew better than most that if necessary, she could explode out of that ‘peaceful’ stance in a moment’s notice. Only when the Doctor of days past made a sound – something between a laugh and a sob – did she slowly lift her hands to her face, touching cheeks, mouth, forehead.

He cringed at his past self’s inability to understand the way she acted, how overwhelming this must be – because he himself had been so overwhelmed. ‘River!’ that Doctor shouted, all up in her face, ‘River! We did it!’

The woman raising her face towards him didn’t look like River at all: neither the straight, auburn hair, nor the freckles, her frame much slimmer – but the one difference that truly counted was the unsure look on her face. ‘Am I– who– Doctor, how?’

How, indeed. He gave his older self a discreet look. In theory, he knew what the two of them had done to bring her back, but how she had been able to do that was still beyond him. Spoilers, obviously.

‘I don’t know how, just that it was us – you and me,’ the younger Doctor cheered, then finally seemed to take in her confused demeanor and slowed down, cupping her face instead. His next words were much quieter.

‘Huh,’ the older Doctor growled. He looked over to her – she was looking even more exhausted than a minute ago, heavily leaning against the shelf they were using as a cover. ‘Us?’

‘I wrote about “her” coming back,’ he answered quietly. ‘I forgot – I thought it was River the message referred to, not you.’

His older self giggled tiredly. ‘You have no idea how hard pulling Amy and Rory’s hair without alerting them was. And then the worry that I didn’t get any intact follicles on the first try.’ They shared another look, marvelling at the fact that things had gone according to her plan, allowing her to create this body for River, to pump it full of regeneration energy. ‘But this works out. Better than spoiling another regeneration to him.’

Together, they watched the pair in front of them for a moment longer. Seeing River so insecure, touching her body in lack of a mirror, fretting at her different hair, and his own increasingly gentle and worried attempts to calm her down – it made him feel like an intruder. Why were they still watching, anyway? All they'd needed to oversee was that he actually got her out of that stasis pod as soon as her brain patterns had been properly downloaded. They’d swept the place for Vashta Nerada beforehand anyway.

‘I think we should go.’ His older counterpart didn’t move, only staring at her lap. ‘Alright, come on, I’ll help.’

Helping, comforting his own self felt wrong. There was never any Doctor he could really stand – every version of himself nothing but a failure in a new, horribly exciting way – but he wasn’t cruel, and she’d exhausted herself rescuing their wife, pouring regeneration energy he had no business knowing about into the mindless body before the download.

Throwing up every mental shield he could, he pulled her up by the arm, then laid one around her back. She barely helped, but from the way her feet dragged he assumed that she was mainly focused on keeping her own telepathic ability in check, her own shields basically non-existent and broadcasting at a volume he could only dream of.

Shuffling back to her TARDIS felt like the trek of a lifetime, with her feeling heavier with each step. At least they didn’t really need to be quiet, not with the Doctor behind them still loudly proclaiming his happiness. The fact that he couldn’t hear a sound from River left a bad taste in his mouth now.

‘Do you have anyone you can spend some time with?’ he murmured, mindful of the floor littered with debris. ‘Someone who can take care of you?’

The older Doctor’s mouth curled in apprehension and her ‘yes’ was so slurred it could almost have been a ‘yahs’.

‘Good, because…’ he tried to find something fun to say, something energetic. ‘Because just imagine if I tried to nurse you back to health! We both know we wouldn’t take a second of rest, and have you ever heard of a Doctor doing a nurse’s work and not failing? I’d be rubbish at it.’

She was at least smiling now, so he felt compelled to continue.

‘Change the sheets every few days, three meals a day – if you let me be in charge, I’d probably mix up the numbers, and–’ He stopped abruptly, startled.

There was a woman leaning against the door of the TARDIS, the same one he’d seen back with his younger self. This River looked much more at home in her new body, a perfect blend between her parents, relaxed and oh so full of herself. The hard look on her face would never fail to give away that she was still his wife. ‘Hello, Sweeties,’ she purred, smiling widely as she opened the door for them. ‘Need a hand?’

Soon, he found himself dancing around the console of a strange TARDIS together with his wife, the real owner sitting to the side. But it was the older Doctor he felt closer to right now, his older self either returning his gaze knowingly or staring at River with the same hungry look in her eyes that he must be sporting himself.

They had done it. The future was theirs to take again.

Chapter 14: Day 25 - Mental Health

Summary:

The Doctor looks at a snowy forest. Post-Timeless Child

CW: Implication of depression (the Doctor isn’t doing too well after everything)

The snowy stretches of Snejig were a sight to behold.

The soft, white curves of buried hills, the uniform yet constantly subtly changing line of trees, the glinting under the starlight above… all of them appealed even to a Doctor stretched thin, past the edges of her very being. She was wearing layers upon layers, defying nature once more, denying the cold any power over her.

Staring at the snow, silvery-grey and glistening, at the dark line in the valley, was peaceful. She could imagine herself getting up, walking down the hill and into the deep and lovely woods. Depending on how deep the powder snow was, it would take maybe ten, twenty minutes. But for now, she kept sitting here and looking.

Imagining.

For once, it kept her head clear of all the carnage, the memories of past lives, of a child used, abused and twisted until she could no longer remember which part of herself was truly hers.

The TARDIS had long since stopped whining behind her, and she was grateful for it. Listening to the wind, the occasional shift of snow, was enough for her ears.

The crunch of approaching steps was not that unwelcome either, though.

‘Found you,’ River murmured, barely audible over the wind. Her voice was deeper than the last time they’d talked, and that was almost interesting enough to turn around. Instead, the Doctor resigned herself to forming a picture of her in her own mind.

‘New body?’

‘Mhm. I think you’ll like the hair.’

Without looking, she gripped her wife’s hand. ‘You know my favourite part of your body?’

And dang, it hurt her heart every time to notice River immediately perking up at the chance for information. ‘Yes?’

‘All of it.’ She squeezed the hand in hers, then, on a whim, slid off her gloves and pressed them into River’s hands.

‘Did you come here directly from Gallifrey?’

The Doctor sighed, tried to find her earlier tranquility again. It didn’t work. Her hearts were beating painfully again, the need to fight or flee slowly rising again. If only she could run from all of it, run and run, and then lay down in that wood.

‘I thought knowing that it wasn’t your fault would make it better.’

With a finality felt throughout her whole body, the Doctor let herself fall back into the snow. ‘Do you have any idea how long I have been used by other people? How long I kept showing up, only to be harvested and then pressed into a box everyone knew I would escape from eventually?’ The answering silence was almost long enough to make her think she’d imagined River, but then snow crunched, and her wife slowly slotted her body along hers. ‘I don’t. And I want to know, but I don’t want to know, and all I do know is that the universe would be safer if others couldn’t profit from me the way they did.’

River’s emotions started to bleed through, just like hers were doing in the other direction. This regeneration always seemed to brim with telepathic power, almost tearing itself apart in its hunger for connection. She wasn’t equipped to deal with that overload for long, so touching others was close to unbearable. But River had always been different. Where there was chaos in other people’s mind, hers was a labyrinth the Doctor could navigate with ease, every corner an old friend she’d greeted a hundred times before.

River didn’t comment on the torrent of grief, numb anger, directionless longing, and sheer nothingness she surely must be feeling through their connection. Instead, she leaned over to gently brush away some hair from the Doctor’s face, briefly blocking her view of the night sky. She hadn’t put on the gloves, and for a second, the Doctor marveled at the dark colour of her skin.

Change.

There was still change, movement, elsewhere in the universe, even if it seemed to have come to a standstill within her.

‘You used that power to bring me back,’ River finally said in a low voice. ‘We can argue ethics, but I feel that this is a pretty good use for it.’

But she hadn’t brought her back yet. The Doctor grabbed at her until she could find a hand, a forearm, to pull against her chest, while trying to work through the information. The knowledge that this was how she’d done it, how she would do it… it felt overwhelming. Of course, the problem had always, always been the lack of power, the energy missing within any body that wasn’t a timelord’s… Now, creating it wouldn’t be that hard, but she’d have to find a way to get DNA from the Ponds, and then she’d have to ensure the resulting body didn’t actually have a consciousness that would get destroyed, but there was an easy workaround to that, the only remaining problem really being the regeneration energy she suddenly had at her disposal– It all looked so easy, suddenly. ‘Huh.’

River didn’t react, but she could feel her waiting, anticipating, through the mental link.

It felt as if somebody had jumpstarted her brain. The universe was still waiting, so many threads she’d started in this life or a past one, so many things she still had to do– ‘I’ve got promises to keep,’ she muttered to the night sky. Tried to find out how that revelation tasted in her mouth.

River helped her up the second she moved. Finally, the Doctor allowed herself to look her wife over in all her glory. Beautiful, in every life, every incarnation. She tried to tell her with her smile, with the way she gripped the cold and now wet hand in hers.

‘And eons to go before we sleep,’ River answered, a slow, confident smile spreading over her face. ‘Together.’

 

Chapter 15: Day 27 - Confidence

Summary:

The Doctor takes Mels out for ice-cream.

CW: Mels era, nothing specific about her upbringing

‘Oh, Melody,’ Miss Eliston sighed, ‘it’s so obvious you copied the answers from your neighbours. If you don’t at least try, you’ll never amount to anything.’

Mels scowled, but she accepted the paper back all the same. It was just calculations, something she could do with her eyes closed (if somebody else were to write for her, because her writing wasn’t that pretty to begin with, and she probably wouldn’t manage to do it legibly with her eyes closed). Anyway, this time, she hadn’t been able to do it. The numbers were right in the end because she could still calculate all of it in her head, but she had missed the period where Miss Eliston had explained the process of how to get there. So she’d winged it and just written down anything that came to mind – wrong, obviously.

It was obviously Madame Kovarian’s fault, but that wasn’t something she’d ever dare say out loud. If she hadn’t been forced to keep up the whole night before the Math test and train shooting soldiers that were probably just robots – she hoped – then she would have been able to put two and two together and reverse-engineer the way she was supposed to do those divisions.

Miss Eliston had kept her back to return the exam in private, either to keep the humiliation to herself or, a bit more likely, to avoid getting bitten by Amy.

That meant that Mels was alone when she stepped out of the classroom and came face to face with the Doctor.

The Doctor.

Training kicked in, instincts gained through years of repetition.

He avoided the punch to his stomach, but it forced him to jump back, giving her time to pull out the gun – and he wrestled it out of her hand with ease, putting a finger to his lips.

‘Everything alright out there, Melody?’ Miss Eliston called, and Mels stared him down in defiance. The only sounds they had made was their jumping around, so she felt confident she’d be able to pull this off.

‘Of course, Miss Eliston,’ she answered sweetly. ‘I thought there was a rat, so I tried to scare it away. But it’s only a shadow.’

The only answer she got was some grumbling and a radiant smile from her enemy.

‘Let’s talk outside,’ he whispered, still holding her gun as if he knew exactly how to use it. ‘I promise you’ll get another attempt on my life in.’ The gun disappeared into his jacket pocket.

Begrudgingly, Mels followed him through the school’s corridors. The Doctor’s back was an inviting target, but there was no way to get more than one gun into school without getting found out, and her knife was in the backpack on her back. Taking it out would have drawn attention to her.

‘Outside’ turned out to be the ice cream parlor one street over. Mels scowled at the Doctor. Well-played. He knew that she wouldn’t want to attack him between all those people, even if she had a clean shot. Now she would have to lie to Madame Kovarian, to make it out as if that was the reason she didn’t shoot him, not the fact that he’d disarmed her.

She was even less amused at the fact that the moment she sat down across from him – because there was no way she was going to sit next to him – a server came by, and the Doctor ordered what could only be made-up words, and quite a lot at that. The server smiled at them before retreating.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, tracing a finger over the surprisingly clean surface before remembering to take off her backpack. There was still the knife in there… but she was curious. And taking it out would take too long – yes, that was the reason.

‘Because I think you’ll need some assurance,’ the Doctor explained. ‘And I’m here to give it to you.’

Baffled, she stared at him for a few seconds. ‘For what?’

‘Well, for one, right now you think you’ll never manage to get these math problems right, even though you barely need to think to know the answer.’

Mels growled at the reminder. ‘She wants us to write all of these unnecessary steps out! I don’t even know why she’d make me do this, I always get the end result right!’

The Doctor nodded, a look of grim understanding on his face. ‘I took a look at the way it’s calculated, and I agree – it’s like they expect their nine year-olds to be unable to process divisions in their head!’

Yes! Mels nodded with gusto. That’s what she’d been trying to tell Madame Kovarian ever since the first crossed-out homework had come back. ‘She did tell me that, too, that she felt I was cheating off someone else’s paper, but come on! Why would I need to, when it’s so simple?’

Now it was the Doctor’s turn to nod, almost bumping into the server setting down two giant ice cream bowls down in front of them. It took Mels by surprise – even more so when she recognised a few of the colourful balls of ice cream as yoghurt and fruit variants. He knew what she liked.

Suddenly, she was reminded of the fact that this was still her enemy. No matter how charming the man on the other side of the table was, he was still responsible for millions of people’s deaths. The spoon he was lifting just now was long and sleek – it wouldn’t be clean, but she might be able to use it to take out an eye– but the one on her own plate was a soup spoon, clearly custom-ordered by the Doctor for her. Damn him.

‘So anyway,’ the Doctor said around a mouthful of ice cream (chocolate and caramel, judging from the colour of his bowl), ‘I can show you the way she wants you to do calculations. Your mother taught me in the future.’

Mels blinked up at him, finally daring to touch the cold treasure in front of her. It still felt strange to think of Amy as her mother when she was just… Amy. And the fact that the Doctor knew so much about her, while not surprising, was still a bit disconcerting.

But that was just the way her life was, a large sum of slightly disconcerting things adding up to uncomfortable truths she’d learned to live with.

In the end, it was kind of nice. They both got brainfreeze at the same time, the Doctor groaning and holding his head while simultaneously keeping his spoon out of her reach. He used a napkin to show her the two-digit number division and she tried it out on 21 462 and 73, which worked well, aligning with her mental calculations, until she ran out of space.

‘How many children like you has Miss Eliston met?’ he finally asked her, a lot more serious.

The answer was simple enough, even with her half-frozen vocal cords. ‘None.’

‘So why would she believe you when you tell her that you’re different from everyone else? She might go about it very rudely, but she has no reason to believe you won’t fall behind if you can’t do the basic calculations.’

Mels mulled that over. It was not a revelation she wanted to have, but it did make sense. Bollocks. She didn’t want to understand her teacher. ‘So you’re saying just doing it the way she wants me to will keep her off my back.’

‘Yes, see it as dumbing it down for her sake.’

That was a nice way to see it. She accompanied him to the till, not even trying to reach for her knife. Her belly full of ice cream, the tool for the next test easily accessible, she was starting to feel a bit better again. One thing remained, though: ‘Madame Kovarian will be furious that I went out to eat ice cream with you.’

The Doctor shrugged, giving her an enigmatic smile while paying with some kind of golden coins. He didn’t answer until they had cleared the ice cream parlor. ‘There might have been difficulties with her ability to survey the area today. Also, I don’t think she really expects you to manage it until you’re grown up. You might be very good at it, but you’re still smaller and physically weaker for now.’

It was said quite kindly and there was a “for now” in there, so she pondered it over without bristling. ‘But you were so many steps ahead of me today, I doubt I could ever outsmart you, even as an adult. And how will I get her off my back then?’

‘Time tra–’ the Doctor automatically answered, then stopped. The playful smile vanished from his face and he crouched down to her level. ‘I promise you one thing, Melody Pond. One day, you will kill me, and it will be the day you get away from her. Your destiny won’t revolve around me for the rest of your very long life, unless you choose to. You will hold the most fragile remnants of history in your hands, and the fate of the universe, and my hearts. Metaphorically speaking. I don’t think you’d like it very much otherwise. Anyway–’

‘That’s more than one thing to promise,’ Mels interrupted before he could confuse her even more.

He laughed at that. ‘It is, but in a way, it isn’t. The path might look predetermined to you, but at some point, it will all have been predetermined by you – future you, that is.’

‘And you’re saying I’ll actually manage to do it?’ She didn’t really know what prompted that. This much insecurity wasn’t allowed at home, and she’d never even admitted it to herself.

‘I promise you’ll kill me one day,’ he answered, same enigmatic smile back on his face. ‘First, you’ll have to catch me, though!’

Two things came flying at her, and by the time she’d caught and recognised them as her deconstructed gun, he’d already had a head start big enough to make following him impossible, rounding a corner while waving wildly at her while all she could do was gaping.

Still, Mels thought while fitting the parts of her gun back together, the future looked a bit brighter now.

 

Chapter 16: Day 29 - Reunited

Summary:

The Doctor and River are reunited. She doesn’t feel like they truly are.

CW: Unhealthy attachment, body dysmorphia (related to having a new body)

Notes:

Only four years later, I did it! This fic is finally finished!
I've been really fixated on my Owl House fics lately, but it was so much fun to return to the Doctor and River. I was reminded of just how much I love them, and will probably come back at some point. Thanks for reading!

The coolness of the bed was what woke him, his hand landing on empty bedding where there should have been a warm body. Slowly, the Doctor dragged his thoughts back into his mind, fighting sleep for awareness and only barely winning.

He found her in a vanity room the TARDIS was only willing to produce for her, mirrors and desks, all kinds of beauty products he barely knew the names of and oh, so many clothes. Period costumes and dresses she actually enjoyed, interspersed with more practical and comfortable clothes on racks took over more than half of the space.

But River only had eyes for the face in the vanity dresser’s mirror – again. A brush and a comb were lying in front of her, the only items visibly out of place.

‘I know it’s a lot,’ he said quietly.

Her mouth only twitched, unhappily, so he walked over and sat on the bench next to her, River willingly scooting over. Unlike her, he paid no heed to the woman in the mirror.

‘And as much as I hate to see you unhappy, I take comfort in the knowledge that this is only the first of many new faces. I loved the River who came before you and I love the woman you are now.’

She made a small huff. ‘Even when I look like this?’

That gave him pause. ‘What’s wrong with the way you look?’

‘Oh, let’s not play this game, Doctor,’ she said, voice hurried and trembling. ‘I know how much you loved her hair, her… don’t make me say it.’

A bit unsure, he looked the woman in front of him up and down. She was more slender than the River he knew, her hair flat maroon instead of curly blonde, her features a bit more sharp, and he was decidedly not thinking about how the new curves implied under her clothes would feel. There were no horns or strange protrusions, nothing he could think of that could look unappealing to someone with a human upbringing.

Maybe that was what his older self had meant when he’d written that she’d be self-conscious? This was not like regenerating – the body she inhabited looked too much like her parents for this to be a coincidence – so maybe she disliked this body because she hadn’t chosen it herself?

‘For what it’s worth, I think you look beautiful,’ he tried, but River only scoffed, not even looking away from the mirror.

‘You never shut up about my breasts when we were naked,’ she said, voice harsh before it broke. ‘You kept telling me how much you liked to hold me, but I can feel how different my body is. You kept going on about my lips, my eyes, my… everything. And now everything looks different. Every part of me is different from the one you loved.’

The words washed over him like a bucket of cold water. Of course. River had never, ever gotten over the fact that he loomed over her entire life. As much as he’d tried to set her free, she was still trying to measure up to whoever she thought he wanted her to be. ‘Darling…’ he finally said, slowly raising a hand to stroke a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘Everything about your last body was beautiful to me because it was you who was inside. And everything about this body is beautiful for the same reason.’ He paused at the sob that shook her frame for a second, opening his arms. She could see it in the mirror, and a second later she took the invitation, pressed against him. When he continued talking, it was into her hair, its smell different and oh so new, comforting to him as it was disconcerting to her. ‘This is your body, and you get to choose how you feel about it. It shouldn’t matter how I feel about it, but I will love every dimple, every hair and every mole the same. I can’t undo what my younger self did, but I will always adore every part of you.’ He paused only long enough to get a better grip, to hold her better. ‘We’re back together. That’s all that matters to me.’

‘Will you stay?’ River murmured into his shoulder, hands crawling up his back, slowly starting to return the hug.

‘For as long as I still have left,’ he answered. ‘Now it’s you with all the regenerations.’

That made her laugh for some reason, and he just held onto her, trying to keep the wonderful, sad, complicated thing her laughter did to his hearts well within his grasp.

Together, for one more lifetime.