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Who: Eleventh Doctor and River Song
Where: Space Walk
Summary: The Doctor checks up on River post-Master mind-screw

The Doctor finds River on the Space Walk. So far she doesn’t seem inclined to take a gun to anyone. He takes it as a good sign.

It was a long fight to get to the River Song he knew; he’s probably seen things he wasn’t supposed to, glimpses, dangerous little hints that even now are probably threatening to unravel his future. Well! Make that one possible future. With Stacy and the nature of the Bleed, it could still be a different man or it could be the same. At any rate, he still thought it best to have a sniff around and see how Doctor Song was doing. The Doctor’s foot-steps fall behind River as he joins her, clearing his throat and copying that human gesture. It seems to work more often than not, he finds.

“I assume we don’t need the handcuffs anymore.” He says with a little sniff. Of course River’s probably taken them back by now because she’s her and anything less would almost be a disappointment.

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It was a lot to process, to say the least. It wasn't like she'd been completely brainwashed, that was the hard part. The Master had just tweaked parts of her to bring back her old psychotic self again, so she could remember every word, every thought, and every action she took.

She took it hard, of course. The very last thing she ever wanted was to be turned back into a weapon against the Doctor and that's precisely what had happened. She'd held a gun to him! Had been completely ready to pull the trigger without so much as a second thought! That would have completely undone everything they had in his future.

She wasn't around the TARDIS much, seeming to think her presence wasn't exactly welcome. Even though the Doctors, one of them anyway, had taken her off the TARDIS blacklist, so to speak. Not that she hadn't proven she could get in regardless.

It was on one such walk, when she was deep in her thoughts, that she heard a throat clearing behind her. When she turns to acknowledge this presence, surprise clearly registers on her face.

Oh dear. Killing the Doctor would have almost been preferable to what he'd seen, what she knew he'd gleamed from her mind. It was part of the reason she'd been avoiding him for a little while.

"Mm, I could think of other uses for them, but I wouldn't want you to get all flustered." She puts on her usual cheeky grin, like nothing had happened at all. The old River, with her glorious hair and wild personality, was definitely back.

And then her smile is gone, "I'm sorry, Doctor. I would never have wanted you to see me like that. I suppose there's no point in denying I wasn't always as tame as you know me to be."

Edited 2012-04-15 12:12 (UTC)

The Doctor joins her, the Bleed as always scary and amazing and everything in between out past the transparent tunnel.

“Well, you had mentioned you were a soldier,” he points out. But of course that isn’t what she means and neither is that what he means, either. They’re still dancing around each other, just like they have from the start. Or, his start. Her end, if you had to be technical. “The important thing is you didn’t kill anyone on Stacy.”

She might have been targeting him with this odd little war of hers, but she could have easily hurt or killed crew members who may have stumbled in her way. The Doctor wrings his hands together out of old habit, thinking, trying not think, and knowing that it’s all rather impossible because he’s already gleaned too much from River Song’s mind and it’s enough to reinforce how dangerous it all is. The question is now what? It’s usually one of those questions he always finds exciting, that he can ask and not always know and he’ll still have to make things up as he goes. This, however, probably requires more delicacy.

The Doctor glances aside at River. She’s not smiling anymore. She’s herself but this is probably the closest he’s seen to her being open without actually being in her head again.

"A mercenary might have been a better description." She had been trained to kill him for as far back as she could remember. Anything from before she'd wound up in Leadsworth was a bit blurry though, the Silence had ensured she could remember little, except what they wanted her to know. Fantastical stories about a mad man in a blue box. Oh, Amy had told her so much, but Madame Kovarian had told her much more. His strengths, his weaknesses, how she had been created as the perfect weapon to bring him down. The one person to whom his guard would constantly be down.

"When we first met, you called me your bespoke psychopath. Seemed appropriate. I'm sure you can understand why now." She says with a small, secret smile of her own. Oh yes, good times.

For the next few minutes, the two of them walk on in relative silence. The tension was so thick that even Rory would have commented on it by now, had he been along. Finally, River stops and turns to face him, her eyes searching his, "I know you have questions....and you know I can't answer those questions."

She slides a hand through her hair, sending those golden ringlets swaying as she sighs, seeming just as forlorn and sad as she had been outside of Amy's wedding "I'm sorry, Doctor. Sorry that you had to see me at my worst and I'm sorry for what you saw of my memories. It seems no matter how hard I try to protect our timeline, circumstances seem to intervene."

A “mercenary” implies River had a say in this, that there was a more or less equal ground between her and this Woman with the Eyepatch. The Doctor makes a disbelieving noise under his breath but decides that it’s not worth it to argue semantics with River.

Ah, yes, the first meeting. He’d gotten some more flashes of that, specificially, than almost anything else from River: clearly that had been a great big impression on her, even when she was busy trying to kill him and it was odd, watching it unfold from someone else’s eyes, seeing a future Rory and Amy flinching at the gunshot that didn’t happen. (Also that was a lovely coat.) The Doctor nods because she’s right, he does understand. More than before, obviously. But there’s so much more that he doesn’t, or there’s only those half-glimpses, that he’s still left wanting to know more. It’s the River Song Effect. The Doctor walks next to River, his expression thoughtful, his eyes having that far-away look he sometimes gets.

“Now I know that you do have a worst,” the Doctor says. “We’ll have to keep this from Past Me, even if it is his business.”

That probably went without saying but saying it anyway filled up that silence. Silences. Nasty things. The Doctor could bring himself to appreciate a good heavy silence and with River Song walking next to him, doing that thing where she tossed her hair and swayed her hips, he could still say he wasn’t too keen on the idea of peaceful silence. The Doctor suddenly stopped, turning to face River.

“Anyway, those memories of yours. Good, bad, they’re still yours.”

"I won't say a word. Believe me, the less I influence your younger self, the better." At least in that matter, they were both in agreement. She still wasn't sure how things were ever going to go back to the way there supposed to be if there were two versions of the Doctor occupying the same time and space. Maybe their timeline had already been altered too much. Time could always be rewritten, after all.

Walking in silence does little to calm her nerves. His words were a welcome distraction, even if she couldn't quite look into his eyes just yet. "I never wanted to be used as a weapon against you again." This was really eating away at her. It was almost like an old wound had been brought back to the surface. The haunting of a memory. The still waters of the lake....

"I'm not Gallifreyan. You know that, don't you?" There aren't many questions she could answer, not without giving away too much. To be honest, she wasn't sure how she could spin this so he didn't realize the whole truth. "I know you saw me regenerate. The first time...in New York." She'd only been a little girl. Lost, in pain, and utterly alone. Alone, but free. She hadn't been afraid though. Oh no, she'd known how to make herself better. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do, regeneration.

The Doctor can see that hurt in River’s face, though she seems to be busy trying to look anywhere but at him at the moment. She’s doing that thing humans sometimes do, looking just off to the side. Another popular variation is looking you in the face but not quite in the eyes. It’s not a look that he’s seen River try on for size often. Oh yes, he can believe she didn’t want any of this. He reaches out and gives her shoulder a squeeze, for a moment looking like that’s all he means…but then his hand drops down to hers. He gently entangles his fingers in hers.

“I know you don’t. And I’ve come to that conclusion, yes.” Whatever River Song actually was, the Doctor can say that there hasn’t been anything quite like her from Gallifrey. Besides, he thinks he would have known if she had been from there, that he would have sensed it. “Ah, the little girl. You weren’t scared then.”

He remembers seeing it. Feeling it happen, from her eyes. He doesn’t know why she would be already dying as a little girl then – perhaps he won’t ever know – but it surprises him all the same.

His hand on her shoulder is comforting, but it wasn't until his hand slid into hers that she finally looked him in the eye. Clearly startled by his tender gesture. She had tried to kill him. Both of him. And here he was, willing to forgive her transgressions without even a single question or accusation.

Her heart might have skipped a beat. Sometimes, when she looked him in the eye, she could swear she was looking at her Doctor.

"Were you afraid the very first time you regenerated?" It was a valid question.

Her fingers entwine with his.

"I was free from the captors that terrified me and that twisted excuse for a nurse maid. What was left for me to be afraid of, Doctor? I knew how to make myself better. Terrified a homeless person in the process." She chuckles.

He has to think about it, it’s been so long and no, you don’t every really forget the first time you died. Or all the times after, really. It’s not exactly the sort of conversation you could have with most people.

Most people except for River Song, apparently. “I was. But I had my friends with me,” the Doctor says, falling silent for a moment. Knowing you were going to regenerate and then having the reality of it sinking in was another thing entirely – it was exactly the sort of thing were you didn’t want to be alone. Not if you could help it. “I’m sure he’s had that burned into his memory, River.”

He gives a quiet sort of laugh. That man is still somewhere in Time, no matter what people think the Ohm have done, and the Doctor is confident than one way or another, it’s possible to fix the damage. So that man is still there, shocked at River’s regeneration, and he’ll still be there after they’ve fixed the universes and the respective timelines. The Doctor walks on down the Spacewalk and finally stops, turning to face River.

“You gave up your lives, though. You shouldn’t have done that.” He frowns at her. The Library is still waiting for her.

"I didn't have the luxury of friends or family at that time. Weapons don't need distractions." There's something so very sad about that statement. She'd lived in that orphanage for as far back as she could remember. No specific events ever happened, not that she could recall, save for when the Doctor arrived to help her. Madame Kovarian had been her sole companion. Now imagine what kind of companion that twisted servant of the Silence had been to a child?

"Oh yes. Poor fellow, I really gave him a scare." It was quite a sight for anyone to see, let alone a homeless man who was already probably half-crazed.

River stops walking when he does, his words startling her. She hadn't realized he'd seen that particular memory. It was one of the few things she'd done as a psychopath that she didn't regret. "Hush now, I had every reason to try and save you. Besides, you've always been there to catch me. You always come when I call." Even when he didn't rightly know her at all, he still came. "I don't regret giving up my regenerations. It was the single most selfless thing I've ever done."

The Doctor makes a little sound in the back of his throat at River’s trust in him, as if he has a mind to argue with her about that trust of hers. Despite her background, she does seem to have as much trust in him as, say, Amy. Or all his other friends in the past. Maybe more so here. There’s that brief second where he aches to just tell her about the Library, that it’s going to be one time he won’t be there to catch her and he should have been.

“Well, if I haven’t said anything to you then, I probably ought to say it now, even if it's technically early. Relatively speaking.” The Doctor pauses. “Thank you. And for also being there for the Ponds. Amy looks up to you, you know.”

Apparently the memories he did get hadn’t covered the bit where she was Melody Pond…just that she was not your standard Time Lord and that right now, post-Germany, she was more or less a human. Unlike the Master, she had been willing to give up all her lives. That took a special kind of person, especially to find it in herself to go against all those years of brainwashing to be that perfect soldier

That wasn't his fault. Technically speaking , River had sacrificed herself to keep their timelines intact. Also because she loved him. Seeing him so young, well, it was her every fear come true. Still, she smiles when he thanks her. It was true, River had given up the many lifetimes she could have had, out gallivanting around all of time in space, for just one lifetime filled with love and adventure with him. "You never did thank me. You just swaggered off to your TARDIS with Amy and Rory in tow." She musses, sharing a smile. Fond memories. "I hardly even think of it. I would have probably wasted my regenerations anyway. I used to be pretty reckless."

There were so many more things she wanted to tell him, but she couldn't. She didn't dare risk anything more.

Well, maybe just one more.

"Melody was my birth name. You always spoke of this 'River' woman so fondly." She chuckles, "Imagine my surprise when that woman turned out to be me."

Trust River to redefine the very concept of the word complicated.

The Doctor comes up short, taking in a quiet sort of breath – the startled kind – and looks at her all over again. Melody. It’s a beautiful name, of course. It’s also one he’s heard and now he has to wonder just what Rory of all people was doing with that name. Something was clicking in the back of his mind, something so painfully obvious, so painfully ridiculous that he’ll wonder why he never came to that conclusion before. Rory shouldn’t know her name. She’s even more of a stranger to him and yet. Well, it’s all rather obvious. Timey-wimey. River Song, the time-traveling archaelogist who knew far far too much. Rory’s protectiveness toward her.

It clicks then.

The Doctor’s expression goes from still to baffled to shocked and then downright curious because it still doesn’t answer everything.

“Are you their ancestor or their descendent?” The Doctor can’t help but ask.

Oh she knew that dumbfounded look on his face. It was like all the pieces of a very complicated puzzle were finally snapping into place. Great, she'd said a bit too much. Then again, it's not sometihng he wouldn't have figured out eventually. The way Rory had acted towards her, his concern for her safety and the way she'd acted towards him in return - it screamed family.

Instead of answerring him, she just pats his shoulder and gives him one of those infuriatingly myserious grins of hers, "Spoilers, sweetie." Which pretty much confirmed it was one of the two. But which one? It wasn't at all unlike that time outside Amy's wedding. Is that yes or yes?

"A girl's got to keep a few secrets, darling. Otherwise I fear you'd get bored of me."

Edited 2012-05-01 23:03 (UTC)

The corner of his mouth quirks. “Bored of you? Never. I’m sure you’ve seen to that.” The Doctor reaches up and squeezes the hand on her shoulder, noting that yes, she hadn’t give him a yes or a no or even a yes-yes to help things along. True River Song. He can’t imagine a time when she drops the games, the word-play, even the way she tends to bat her lashes at him that she doesn’t quite do to anyone else. Don’t think he hasn’t noticed.

He turns serious, turning to watch the Bleed outside the Spacewalk. It stretches to infinity and then some. In a way, it’s almost sad, and yet he would love nothing more than to give her a good adventuring through with the TARDIS if there was the Ohm and the Daligig to worry about. There are, after all, far worse places to end up stranded on than Stacy. The slime just adds flavor. In some cases literally. He doesn’t recommend that River try her luck on the Hanger’s special brand. It’s nothing to write home about.

There will be a time, oh yes there will, when the Doctor holds all the cards - all the pieces of the puzzle - but today, tonight, even these past months - just wasn't the time.

River held all the cards and what she allowed him to glimpse only seemed to lure him even more into her hold.

She had to wonder if that was a good thing? Hard to tell when all of this was entirely out of your - their - timeline.

Still, she smiles and tenderly ruffles his fluffy bangs.

"I'm a Pond. Future, present, or past - I can't tell you. All you need to know is I mean to protect you - to see to your well being..."

Her hands are over his hearts. Like she'd done this hundreds of times before. Others had to fumble to feel his double pulse. Not River. She knew it instinctively. As eery as it sounded, she knew him. Perhaps that was part of being the weapon meant to destroy him.

Edited 2012-05-11 04:57 (UTC)

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