He snorted, a faint noise of dismissal. "Forgetting this? Forgetting any of this, even one moment, means something worse for me. It means your brother and sister are torn from our lives. It means Molly goes back to being a thing to be used up and tossed in the trash. It means that so many people I care about are simply forgotten. Even if it would somehow protect your time line, I wouldn't allow it to happen. There is always a choice."
He shook his head. "That's a logical fallacy, assuming that the best possible result is you being raised in hostile territory. Time can be changed, altered. Things can be made better. The universe exploded, after all, and we dragged it all back, didn't we River?" He hadn't lived that time yet, but he knew there were so many impossibilities tied into the concept. All of them tied to Amy and the Doctor, with him there only as a witness.
They had done so many impossible things, and the Doctor had done quiet a few more. He had to believe that no matter how impossible, there was a point in time where he could save this daughter too.
"I don't think the Doctor will be going near my head for at least a few months, River, after that mission. So you don't need to fear that. I told you I wouldn't tell him." He watched her, making himself lean back and not forward. He didn't care who she killed, or what her reasons were. Those things mattered less than anything in the grand scheme of things. In his grand scheme of things. She was a Time Lord, like the Doctor, which meant that she could read his thoughts, if she really wanted to. That must have been why she pulled away before, still young enough that she didn't have control what she saw. But not so young as the other Doctor, who was so caught on the edge of glee and want to share that he-she, now, he guessed-didn't have much regard for the fact that his mind couldn't come close to taking it.
"River, look at me." He kept his love for his children to the forefront of his thoughts, his growing fondness for her. The love and loss that he and Amy had experienced in their dream of her. How much she had meant to them, their impossible much longed for daughter, he couldn't force her to look, but if she happened to, that was what he wanted her to find. "I'm very old and you have enough of Amy's stubbornness that you're not going to listen to me, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Time, the way you think things need to happen, is never set entirely in stone. Not with us hopping back and forth in it. There are points that even the Doctor says things can be changed. No matter what it takes, no matter how long, no matter if I need to go to the end of time itself and back again, I will protect my family. All of it."
That included her, that included Molly and Conner. He would not sacrifice one child for the comfort of another.
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He shook his head. "That's a logical fallacy, assuming that the best possible result is you being raised in hostile territory. Time can be changed, altered. Things can be made better. The universe exploded, after all, and we dragged it all back, didn't we River?" He hadn't lived that time yet, but he knew there were so many impossibilities tied into the concept. All of them tied to Amy and the Doctor, with him there only as a witness.
They had done so many impossible things, and the Doctor had done quiet a few more. He had to believe that no matter how impossible, there was a point in time where he could save this daughter too.
"I don't think the Doctor will be going near my head for at least a few months, River, after that mission. So you don't need to fear that. I told you I wouldn't tell him." He watched her, making himself lean back and not forward. He didn't care who she killed, or what her reasons were. Those things mattered less than anything in the grand scheme of things. In his grand scheme of things. She was a Time Lord, like the Doctor, which meant that she could read his thoughts, if she really wanted to. That must have been why she pulled away before, still young enough that she didn't have control what she saw. But not so young as the other Doctor, who was so caught on the edge of glee and want to share that he-she, now, he guessed-didn't have much regard for the fact that his mind couldn't come close to taking it.
"River, look at me." He kept his love for his children to the forefront of his thoughts, his growing fondness for her. The love and loss that he and Amy had experienced in their dream of her. How much she had meant to them, their impossible much longed for daughter, he couldn't force her to look, but if she happened to, that was what he wanted her to find. "I'm very old and you have enough of Amy's stubbornness that you're not going to listen to me, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Time, the way you think things need to happen, is never set entirely in stone. Not with us hopping back and forth in it. There are points that even the Doctor says things can be changed. No matter what it takes, no matter how long, no matter if I need to go to the end of time itself and back again, I will protect my family. All of it."
That included her, that included Molly and Conner. He would not sacrifice one child for the comfort of another.