Archive of Our Own ^beta

By the time they make it back to the TARDIS, by the time Yaz has put Graham in a chair and fetched cups of tea none of them drink; by the time the shouts and screams have faded into the quiet of the vortex, the hum of the TARDIS calming her mind enough to think clearly, she’s already come up with and discarded over a dozen plans.

There are schematics on the console screen, a brief history of the planet pulled up in text, words leaping out at her like prisoners of war and no survivors. Graham is quiet, sitting on one of the ledges, watching her. Yaz stands beside him, saying things like, we’ll get him back and the Doctor will figure it out, just give her a minute.

There’s a tightness in her chest that reminds her too much of failure—of Amy, dissolving into flesh on the console room floor; Clara, split into thousands of lives across all of time and space. She thinks of Donna, weeping, begging to stay, everyone alive but at what cost?

She glances at the screen, the running text, absorbs phrases as they scroll by like fiercest guards in the galaxy and no aptitude for negotiation.

She knows what she needs to do. Has known, from the moment Yaz stumbled into the TARDIS, breathless, her hair singed and a streak of dried blood on her arm and said, “They took him. They took Ryan.”

But knowing is different from moving. From careening around the console and pulling the lever that will put them into flight, put them on this path—put her on this path—that once she’s on, she can’t avoid.

It will change history. Their history.

The thought makes her eyes sting and her throat close and there has to be another way, someone else she can call.

She can’t do this to her, not again. She shouldn’t.

It’s not just history, but her history, their history, their past coming back to haunt them. She has her suspicions, but there’s no reason to tell her friends, not yet. In case she’s wrong—but she glances at the readouts again, reminding her:

Kushiel—the Angel of Punishment.

It’s a terrible idea.

But there’s another, quiet part of her, a nudging in her mind that sounds suspiciously like the TARDIS, that whispers of opportunity. Of chance. Timelines swirl in her head and she thinks she could do it, somehow—thinks they could have this, that she could see her, and keep everything intact. She doesn’t know how, exactly. But it’s there, a cruel whisper.

And then there’s Ryan. And Yaz, and Graham, staring at her expectantly, with all the trust they haven’t learned yet how to break.

She needs time, but there isn’t any. She needs help, but there’s only one person she trusts.

Cuing in the coordinates, she stares at them for a long moment, hand hovering over the lever.

“Doc?”

It’s Graham, his voice trembling.

She drops her hands and turns to them, holds her hands together in front of her to keep them from shaking.

“Right, fam. We’re going to need some help.”

Yaz moves closer, and Graham follows, and they stare at the coordinates, though they mean nothing to them, and everything to her.

“Help from who?” Graham asks.

The Doctor opens her mouth, the words nearly tumbling out without regard. She turns away so they can’t see her jaw move, biting the name back in. “An old friend,” she says.

She can feel Yaz’s hesitation. “He’s not… your last old friend, yeah?”

Graham snorts despite himself, and the Doctor flinches, covers it with a twirl and a wide smile. “Nah, she’s much better.”

“Who is she?” Graham asks. “Can we trust her?”

The Doctor swallows, her smile falling away, the lump in her throat so thick she can barely push the words out. “I’d trust her with my life.” With everything, she thinks.

Graham nods. “Well then, let’s go get her.”

The Doctor nods. She hesitates, just a moment, just long enough for Yaz to ask, “Doctor?” before she takes a deep breath, and sends the TARDIS into flight.

—

Luna is exactly how she remembers it. 51st century technology, disguised to look like 14th century architecture. The hallways are wide, the arches high, and it smells like old books.

“Are we on Earth?” Yaz asks, looking around, and the Doctor shakes her head, shutting the TARDIS door behind them.

“The moon. 51st century.”

“Then why does it look like Oxford?”

“Nostalgia,” the Doctor says, walking a familiar path, muscle memory dragging her down the hallways even as her mind and hearts reel in protest. She wants to run. Wants to turn back to the TARDIS and fly away and pretend they’ve never come here, that she’d never said a word.

But Graham is behind her, and Ryan is not, and she pushes forward, winding down a staircase, maneuvering around humanoids and aliens alike. No one pays them any attention—they don’t look any more or less out of place than anyone else, and she focuses on Yaz and Graham’s quick footsteps behind her, trying to level her breathing to the sound of theirs.

“Is this a school?” Yaz asks, and the Doctor nods, and rattles off information about the University—when it was built, how many students, famous discoveries and anything else she can think of to keep her mind distracted as they get closer and closer.

She thinks she should have parked elsewhere, saved herself the long walk through familiar halls, but she’d needed the time to center herself, to swallow down the bile in her throat.

“So your friend, she’s a student?” Graham asks, somewhat skeptical.

“Professor.”

“Of what?”

“Archaeology.”

Graham frowns. “How’s an archaeologist going to help us get Ryan back?”

“Not just any old archaeologist,” the Doctor promises, just as they turn the corner, and the Doctor can see her office at the end of the hall, the door shut. The door is rarely shut. The only time she remembers she ever closed her office door, it was because she was with a student, or with him, and she remembers so abruptly—pinning her against her desk, his hands wandering, her lips on his neck, her breathless laughter—“You’re going to get me fired!”—her first day, but she’d been so irresistible, in a pencil skirt and bright red blouse, red lipstick to match, her hair wild around her face and he’d grinned—“No, I’m not.”—and she’d moaned softly, his lips on her neck, “Isn’t that spoilers?” and he’d chuckled, slipped a hand under her skirt.

The Doctor slams her eyes shut and shakes her head quickly, dislodging the memory.

There’s a new desk sitting outside it, with a short woman with four arms behind it, typing frantically on multiple computers.

She looks up as they approach, takes in their gait, their severe expressions, and immediately shakes her head before the Doctor can even open her mouth.

“Professor Song is in a meeting.”

“Professor Song doesn’t take meetings in her office,” the Doctor counters, and the woman blinks, startled.

“She’s asked not to be disturbed.”

“So she’s in, then?”

The woman purses her lips. “She’s not available.”

“She’ll want to be. Tell her The Doctor is here.”

“Doctor what?”

The Doctor glances over her shoulder at Yaz and Graham. “I hate it when they say that.”

The woman ignores her, turns back to her computers and types with lightning speed on three of them, eyes flitting between the screens faster than a human could ever be capable of.

“What’s your business with Professor Song?” She gives them all an assessing look. “You’re not students.”

“How do you know?”

“No textbooks,” she says flatly.

“Right, you got us. I’m an old friend.” The words stick in her mouth.

The woman—a little sign on her desk says T’unera D’galaati, Administrative Assistant, Department of Archaeology—shakes her head. “You’re not on the registered list of acquaintances.”

“Since when does she have a list of acquaintances?”

T’unera glares. “If you were a friend you’d know that,” she says smartly, and the Doctor likes her instantly. Turning back to the computers, she announces, “If you tell me your name and point of business I can schedule you for an appointment next week.”

“Too far away,” the Doctor says, “I need to see her now.”

“Too bad,” T’unera says, “She’s not available.”

The Doctor eyes the distance to the door, thinks she could probably get there before T’unera could get up.

She looks back at Yaz and Graham, then eyes the door. Then looks back.

Yaz steps up immediately, clearing her throat and trying very obviously not to stare at T’unera’s many fingers.

“It’s important,” she says. “We need her help. My friend, he’s—in trouble.”

The Doctor inches out of her way, slightly closer to the door.

“I’m afraid your friend will have to wait until next Tuesday, at 11:15am.”

Graham shakes his head. “We can’t wait. He’s in danger. Doc says the professor can help us. He’s my grandson.”

“My condolences,” T’unera says without looking up.

The Doctor moves further to the side as Yaz and Graham approach the desk.

“Do you have family?” Graham asks, and T’unera scoffs.

“Of course I have family. I’m Abergarrean.”

Abergarrean, the Doctor thinks—hatched from eggs, hundreds of siblings, communal parenting, other stuff.

“So… you’d do anything for your family, yeah?” Graham asks, and T’unera sighs.

“Your attempts at pathos are endearing but misguided. I am merely a receptionist. My responsibility is Professor Song’s schedule, and since you are not approved acquaintances, I’m going to have to ask you to either make an appointment or leave the premises—”

She’s mid-speech when the Doctor bolts toward the door. She makes it two feet when a hand clamps around her wrist and drags her back in a vice grip. Yaz and Graham make startled noises, and the Doctor looks back to find T’unera still in her seat, one long, stretchy arm holding her back.

“Abergarrean,” the Doctor sighs, remembering suddenly their propensity for flexible limbs. The Doctor struggles, but T’unera doesn’t release her.

“I’m calling security,” she says, and with one of her other hands, presses a button on her desk.

“There’s no need for that—” the Doctor says, at the same time Graham finally cracks,

“We need to speak to the professor. My grandson’s life is in danger and the Doc says she can help and I don’t care what you say we’re going to speak to her—”

“Graham, don’t—” the Doctor says, at the same time he tries to push past. T’unera reaches out another long arm and grabs him, and he struggles, hard.

“Let me go!”

“Graham!”

“T’unera, please, there’s no need for this—” the Doctor tries, and then there are two men in anachronistic suits rounding the corner, and Graham’s yelling and Yaz is yelling and the door behind them opens and there’s a voice that makes the Doctor’s hearts stop beating.

“Is it too much to ask, T’unera, for one hour of peace and quiet?”

She isn’t angry, just long suffering, almost slightly amused, and T’unera—still holding the Doctor and Graham—turns to her with a chagrined look.

“I’m very sorry, Professor, these interlopers—” She tightens her grip on them both. “—are refusing to leave. I’ve called security, so there’s no need for you to—”

“River.”

She doesn’t mean to speak, doesn’t mean for her voice to break. Doesn’t mean to stare and stare but she can’t help it. River is there, right in front of her, in slacks and a blouse, unbuttoned to be just shy of appropriate. Her hair is pulled back from her face, her nails painted a light shade of pink, she’s leaning just slightly to one side, her nostrils flare slightly and she turns her gaze to the Doctor, all at once staring at her without an ounce of recognition and it hurts. More than the Doctor ever thought it could, more than she imagined. It isn’t even the lack of familiarity—she was prepared for that—but just seeing her, alive and whole and breathing when she’s not, when she’s dead and she’s been dead for so long, and the Doctor wants nothing more than to run to her, to bury her face in her neck and never let go.

River appraises her slightly, clinically, with an air of disinterest the Doctor knows is a farce. “Do I know you?”

She opens her mouth to reply, to say something, anything, and then Yaz, sweet Yaz, fumbles,

“She’s the Doctor. She has a new face, but she’s the Doctor. You know her.”

Time stands still. In the background, she can feel the security guards hovering. She knows Graham is still struggling under T’unera’s grip. She knows Yaz is looking between them, but everything has faded into the background. Everything is just noise. There’s just River, and her bright eyes, her frown. She turns back from Yaz to the Doctor and stares, eyes roaming over her face, her body, back up. She can see when it dawns on her, sees the recognition slip into her gaze, and she almost wilts in relief.

And then there’s nothing. No warmth, no joy, no sweetness or kindness. She knows her, the Doctor can tell she does, but she stares at her like she means nothing, and the Doctor can’t breathe. She can’t breathe, can’t think, can feel her hearts lurch and pain spikes through her chest and she doesn’t understand. Her whole body aches and she searches River’s gaze for something, anything—the last time she saw her, the morning on Darillium, she stared at him with such devotion, sadness, too, but it was anchored by love, so much love and now there’s nothing, and she can’t breathe.

“Get out.”

The words slam into her chest, the apathy, the anger and she doesn’t know what she’s done or what she will do or when they are but River’s name falls out of her mouth like a plea.

“River, please—”

River looks away, at her receptionist, a hard edge to her voice that the Doctor rarely heard. “Get them out of here. All of them.”

“River—”

She turns, walks back to her office, and slams the door shut behind her.

The Doctor barely registers security dragging them out. She barely hears Yaz and Graham’s protests. Her hearts are thudding wildly and she just keeps seeing River’s face, the pain there masked by anger, so much anger, nearly hatred.

She barely remembers sneaking back into the building to the TARDIS, barely thinks about getting inside, barely hears Yaz and Graham’s questions, folding over one another into a static in the background.

She barely thinks about piloting the TARDIS, hears faintly Yaz’s voice in the background,

“What happened? Why didn’t she know you?”

And Graham’s panicked, “That’s it, we’re just giving up?”

“Stay here,” she manages, landing the TARDIS.

“But—”

“Stay inside,” she snaps, knows she’s snapping, knows they don’t deserve it.

But she has to know what she’s done, what’s gone wrong, and she’s parked the TARDIS and out the doors, closing them behind her and there’s River, standing on the other side of her desk not a moment later, glowering at her.

“I told you to leave.”

“River—”

“Now,” she says, and she means it, and the Doctor feels like she’s been punched hard in the throat.

“What happened?”

River scoffs. “Like you care.”

“Of course I care.” She steps forward, and River’s look stops her in her tracts. “What have I done?”

“Oh, what haven’t you done, Doctor.” She says her name like a sneer, and the Doctor swallows.

“When are we?”

River glares at her. Her jaw twitches and the Doctor’s eyes fall to her hands, clenched in fists at her sides.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, obviously,” the Doctor says, terrified and confused and frustrated. “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what I’ve done.”

River laughs. It’s harsh and bitter and the Doctor rears back at the sound. She’s never heard River laugh like that. It’s broken.

“That’s always your answer for everything, isn’t it? Break it and fix it later.”

The Doctor hesitates, thinks of a bloody wrist and a bright yellow glow. “You know me. You know this face.”

There’s a pause. A long, aching silence and she can hear her own hearts pounding.

“When did you see me last?”

River doesn’t answer, and she isn’t above begging.

“Please, River, when did you—”

“Darillium.”

She inhales sharply, breath seizing in her lungs. “Darillium? How—”

It doesn’t make sense. They were happy. The last time she saw her, they were happy, and sad, and so, so in love and it doesn’t make any sense. If she hasn’t gone to the Library, if the last face she saw was her last face, the one who spent 24 years with her, the one who tried so hard to make everything right and thought he succeeded, who thought River knew. Thought River loved him—

“Books have pictures, Doctor,” she says, and her hearts stop.

Everything freezes. Her mind whirls and snaps and tries to make it make sense, tries to make everything fit but there’s only one answer, one, impossible answer.

“The Library,” she breathes. And then, barely daring to hope, “You got out.”

River doesn’t answer, and it’s an answer in itself.

“How?”

“I’m clever,” River snaps.

The Doctor can’t help it. She smiles. River, brilliant, clever, gorgeous, River, standing in front of her, alive, and her hearts start up again and they’re restless and loud and she wants to go to her, wants to kiss her, wants to fold her in her arms.

“So, so clever,” she says, barely on a breath. “You—” She steps forward again, closer to the desk, and River stiffens, steps back, away from her.

“Are we done?”

The Doctor frowns. “No, we’re not—you’re angry.”

“Brilliant deduction.”

“Why are you angry?”

River scoffs. “Take a guess.”

The Doctor licks her lips, lets her eyes leave River’s face for a moment to scan the office. It looks mostly the same, a few different books, a different chair behind her desk, which makes no sense, because she’d loved that chair, loved pushing him down into it and straddling his waist, her hands in his hair and lips over his—

There’s a new shelf and a few different items hanging on the wall, and she registers everything in a few seconds, doesn’t have dwell on them.

“How long have you been back?”

River shifts her weight, and the Doctor can tell by the stubborn set of her jaw that she’s debating not answering. She lets the silence hang for a moment before she says,

“Two years.”

The Doctor blinks, another wave of pain roaring through her chest. “Years?” she breathes, and then, more to herself, “You didn’t find me.”

River scoffs again. “Of course I didn’t. I’m not an idiot.”

The Doctor frowns, doesn’t mean to speak but the words slip out, and they sound too distraught to her own ears.

“I don’t understand.”

“Think about it,” River snaps.

Part of her wants to. Wants to sit down in the antique chair River stole from a museum and talk and figure out what’s gone wrong, what’s happened to make her like this, what she’s said or done to put that look of rage on her face, the sound of it in her voice.

And she should. She should make the time, now, should put this first, her wife first, for once.

But a louder, terrified part of her doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to face it, whatever’s caused this rupture. She thinks if her last face, his patience and kindness, traits he learned from the woman currently glaring at him from across a large, heavy desk, the desk her even younger self had helped her move into her office, the desk they’d sat on and talked and the desk he’d pinned her to, too many times to count. She stares at it, everything heavy and too much, far too much to handle.

And then there’s Ryan, afraid and alone and she knows she has a time machine, knows River knows that, but she’s a runner this time, and he’s a good excuse, so she swallows down the guilt and says,

“I will. River, I promise, I will, we’ll talk, but I need your help. My friend, Ryan. We got separated on Hajos during the Apocrypha. He was taken.”

River picks up a book on her desk and turns to replace it on the shelf behind her.

“Along with plenty of others, I’d assume.”

“Yes.”

She turns back, but her eyes are downcast, rifling through papers on her desk.

“And you want my help finding him.”

“We know where he is. Prisoners of war were held on the Kushiel space station.”

River glances up briefly. “That’s cheating.”

“It’s heavily armed and secured. Getting in is almost impossible.”

There’s no chance River can’t hear the plea in her voice.

“I tend to break out of prisons, not into them.”

“You broke into Stormcage all the time.”

“Yes, I remember,” River says tartly. “Serving a sentence for a crime I didn’t commit.”

The Doctor falters, thinks of a million different things to say and somehow what falls out of her mouth is a frustrated, “Never bothered you before.”

She winces as she says it, but River doesn’t seem to notice, packing up her satchel.

“You never asked.”

It’s pointed and brutal and honest and the Doctor feels winded all over again, feels like she can’t keep her footing. River isn’t looking at her anymore, and she’d do anything to see her face, to see her smile, to see the brightness return to her eyes.

But there’s nothing to say, no counter argument she can make that would help so she drops her eyes, stares at her shoes for a moment before admitting, quietly,

“No. I suppose I didn’t.”

She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and when she glances up, River is looking right at her, but her expression is unreadable.

“River—”

“Why me?”

“What?”

“You have plenty of friends, some more scrupulous than others,” she says, leaning over the desk to sign something before adding it to a stack in the corner, so casual. “You obviously don’t want to be here, so why me?”

The Doctor can feel her hearts in her throat, but her voice is steady when she asks, “What makes you think I don’t want to be here?”

River meets her gaze again, and there’s anger this time, but also pain. Hurt. She tries to cover it, bury it, but the Doctor can see it so clearly, can hear it in the so faint tremor in her voice when she looks back down at her desk, says, “You left me for dead. I assumed that meant your obligation had finally ended.”

“Obligation?” she echoes, her mind reeling, trying to make sense of the word; but River snaps her back shut and the Doctor knows she needs to convince her, needs her more than ever now—not just for Ryan’s sake, but for her own. So she can fix this.

They have so much more time.

The thought intrudes abruptly, and she can see so much future—River is alive and here and there’s no more end in sight, no more Library looming. They could run together, be together again the way they were on Darillium. They can have more years, countless, countless years and the Doctor knows if River walks out that door right now none of that will happen.

“You’re the only one I trust to get him out alive,” she says, and means it, but River doesn’t hear her, not the way she meant it.

“So it’s about him. Your new family.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “River, please—“

“I don’t have time for this.”

It’s a risky move, a terrible card to play but she plays it anyway. “I’ve been there every time you’ve asked.”

River stops, halfway to the door, the heavy bag drawing her weight to one side, and the Doctor stares at her profile, the slope of her nose, the way her eyes shut briefly and then she turns, eyes narrowed.

“So this is quid pro quo?”

“No, it’s not—I just meant—"

“Because considering I gave up my life for you, multiple times, in fact, you have a lot of nerve asking me for anything.”

She’s right, the Doctor knows she’s right, but she remembers so many nights, River’s hands in his hair, her soothing voice against his skin telling him it wasn’t his fault, that she forgives him, that she’d always choose him, every time.

She’s never used her past as a weapon before, and the Doctor can see the brief flicker of regret that passes over her face before she hardens her gaze and lifts her chin defiantly.

“I know I do,” she says. “But I can’t do this without you. And Ryan—he doesn’t deserve to suffer because I made a mistake.”

River looks at her, barely blinks, and the Doctor doesn’t have a clue what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. Can do nothing but wait in the long, agonizing pause.

“On two conditions,” River says finally, and the Doctor straightens, resists the urge to shove her hands in her pockets.

“Name ‘em,” she says, and isn’t surprised at the first rule, had expected it:

“You do things my way. You follow my lead. If we’re going to break into the most secure prison in the universe, I can’t have you crying over every casualty.”

She winces, doesn’t like it, but she knows River is right.

“Fair enough. What’s the second condition?”

River pauses a moment, then meets her gaze. “When this is over, you leave me alone. For good.”

The Doctor inhales sharply, tries to cover it but fails. It feels like a punch when she’s already down.

“If that’s what you want,” she says, aware her voice is hoarse and cracked.

River doesn’t respond. There’s a moment, a flash of something in her face that the Doctor can’t read, not anymore. Maybe, on Darillium, he would have known, but it’s been so long, and it’s hurt so much, she looks away.

“Right,” River says flatly. “I’ll need to make arrangements. I’ll be back in an hour.”

With that, she leaves, the door swinging shut behind her, and it’s all the Doctor can do to make it to the chair, collapsing into it, her knees weak.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to survive this, and she’s torn between complete desolation and a resilient, small burn of hope that at least now she has time. She needs a plan, needs to work it out, but she takes a moment to sit, and close her eyes, and breathe.

—

Yaz and Graham are on their feet the moment she shuts the door behind her.

“Well? Is she gonna help us?”

The Doctor nods, tries to push past the lump in her throat.

“We leave in an hour.”

Graham nods, and her two friends exchange a look.

“Are you sure we need her?” Yaz asks, quickly adding, “It’s just, she didn’t seem happy to see you.”

“She wasn’t,” the Doctor says, moving past them to the console. She pulls up all the information she can find about Kushiel, sends the information to one of the tech rooms.

“Are you ok?” Yaz asks, and she’s not, isn’t certain she’s ever been further from okay, but she forces a smile.

“Yeah, we’ll work it out.”

“Did she say why she’s angry?” Graham asks.

Yes, and no, and she doesn’t know for certain, couldn’t read her.

“You two should get some rest. Once River gets back, we’ll go after Ryan.”

“Doctor…” Yaz starts, trails off, and the Doctor braces her arms against the console, tries to concentrate on the TARDIS’ soothing hum.

“It’s complicated,” she says by way of explanation.

“Complicated how?” Yaz asks, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to think. Her head aches, and she feels unmoored, lost. The TARDIS nudges her, and she knows it might help, telling them, talking it out—knows they might be able to see something she can’t see.

But it’s River, and she’s precious, and the Doctor finds she can’t quite share her, even still.

Thankfully, Graham seems to understand, and she sees him touch Yaz’s arm out of the corner of her eye.

“We should do what the Doc says, get some rest. I’ll put the kettle on.” He tugs lightly at her arm. “Join me?” He asks, and it’s too obvious, too pointed, but Yaz relents, offering the Doctor a small smile.

“We’re here if you need us, yeah?” She says, and the Doctor nods, and they leave the room and she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

The hour ticks by so slowly, and yet, it’s over far too fast—she doesn’t have a plan, not for any of it, for River or Ryan or her friends, what she’ll tell them, and she’s barely been able to think clearly when the door opens, right on time, and River slips inside.

She pauses, hasn’t seen the Doctor yet, behind the console, but the Doctor can see her, sees the way her shoulders slump and her eyes close. Sees the way she lays a hand on the wall, her small, sad smile. She can feel the TARDIS grow so bright, so warm, like a hug, and a pang of envy washes through her—she wants to be the one to bring River that comfort. She wants to be the one with her arms around her. But when she moves slightly to get a better look, to drink in the sight of her wife, she bumps into the console and there’s a clatter, something by her feet, and River startles, braces herself, opens her eyes and glares in the Doctor’s direction, and the moment is gone.

She’s wearing all black, functional shoes, a utility belt around her waist with a flashlight, a gun, a familiar vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.

The Doctor watches as she crosses the room, a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She approaches the console, pulls the monitor toward her and scans the information on the screen.

“You have a print out of this?” she asks, all business, and the Doctor clears her throat.

“I sent it to the tech room.”

“Good. I’ll take a look at it when we get back.”

“Back from where?” Graham asks, and the Doctor starts, whips around to find her friends; she has no idea how long they’ve been there.

“If we’re going to break into the highest security facility in the known universe,” River says, keying in coordinates. “We’re going to need information.”

“What kind of information?” Yaz asks, and then, as if remembering herself, adds, “I’m Yaz, by the way. This is Graham.”

River doesn’t look back at them as she eases the TARDIS into flight. “I know.”

“How do you know us?” Graham asks. “We’ve never met you before.”

“Spoilers,” the Doctor says quickly, sees River flinch. “She probably met you in the future—your future, her past. She’s a time traveler, too.”

“Not anymore,” River says flatly, pulling a lever to land.

Before Yaz and Graham can ask, she’s moving toward the door. “I suggest you stay here.”

The Doctor takes another look at the coordinates—Arnos V—and swallows. There isn’t a chance in hell she’ll let River go alone, not out there; not that she has ever let River do anything. But it’s dangerous, and as strong and fast and capable as River is, the Doctor would never forgive herself if something happened.

“She’s right,” the Doctor says, grabbing her coat from where she’d discarded it earlier, when the room felt too hot, too much like it was closing in. “We’ll be back soon.”

“I meant you as well, Doctor.”

“Not a chance,” she says, and there’s a flicker of something in River’s eyes, but it’s gone too soon.

“Your life,” she shrugs.

“Where the Doctor goes, we go,” Yaz says, and the Doctor wishes she wouldn’t. She understands, and part of her feels grateful for Yaz and Graham’s presence but they ask too many questions, arouse too much suspicion; they ask her too many questions, personal things, and she isn’t in the frame of mind to talk about any of it right now.

“Yaz—” she starts, but River is already at the door, pulling it open.

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says, and steps outside.

The Doctor stops them just before they get to the door, and looks seriously between them, voice low. “This area is dangerous. Keep quiet, keep up, and don’t make eye contact with anyone. Got it?”

They nod, and she reluctantly allows them outside, stays behind, keeping them between herself and River.

She’s brought them to a club, dark and dingy and it smells like piss and alcohol and sweat. Graham wrinkles his nose and Yaz coughs quietly into her arm, but they pick up the pace until they’re behind River as she easily weaves her way through the throng. There’s loud music, if it can be called that, pulsing, people on a make-shift dance floor, people in blackened booths in the corner. She sees someone slide something in a clear glass vial across the table to someone else; sees money exchanged, sees weapons tucked into the trousers of nearly everyone.

“Where are we, Doc?” Graham asks quietly when she’s close enough, and the Doctor leans in to whisper,

“Arnos V. The dodgy end, to be precise.”

“You’ve been here before?” Yaz asks, and the Doctor glances at River, hopes she can’t hear, or isn’t paying attention.

“Once. A long time ago,” she says.

“Why?” Yaz asks, but the Doctor shakes her head—they’ve made it to the end of the room, and River’s stopped in front of a blood red curtain and a towering man with enormous muscles and a scar over one eye.

“Hello, Reggie,” she greets, and the Doctor stops alongside, glances at her profile and finds her smiling, a bit cheeky, a bit sinister.

The man glowers. “Get out before I throw you out.”

River affects a pout, raising her arms innocently. “Don’t be like that. I’m here strictly for business.”

Reggie—if that is his name—snorts. “Yeah, right.”

River smirks. “You can search me if you like.”

He eyes her a moment, like he’s thinking about it, and the Doctor imagines his meaty hands on her, touching her, and shudders.

“Actually,” she interrupts, pulling his gaze away from River with annoyance, “We’re just here to see Dorium. He in?”

Reggie wrinkles his nose at her. “He’s with a client.”

“I’m a client,” River says, drawing his attention back to her.

“You’re a thief.”

“So are you,” she returns. “And unfortunately, I’m a thief on a deadline, so I’m going to need you to stand aside.”

Reggie straightens up to his full height, at least seven feet, as if River couldn’t fell him in a moment. “Can’t do that,” he says.

“I think you can,” River says, her voice dropping as she adds, “Unless you want a repeat of Juno?”

Reggie glares, his muscles flexing and the Doctor holds her breath, fully prepared to leap between them if necessary. River merely wings an eyebrow and waits, patient and calm, until he steps aside.

“Three minutes,” he grunts. “Just you.”

“Thank you, dear,” River says, at the same time the Doctor says,

“Where she goes, I go.”

Reggie blinks, then looks between them with a smirk. “New guard dog?”

River scoffs. “Hardly. More like a stray. But she heels so well,” she says, her voice dripping with innuendo and sarcasm and it makes the Doctor cringe, but Reggie merely shrugs.

“Whatever,” he says. “But they stay.”

“Fine by me,” River says, and the Doctor turns to Yaz and Graham.

“Remember: don’t look at anyone, don’t speak to anyone. You’re not here, got it?”

They nod, and the Doctor quickly follows after River down a long, dark corridor. “What happened at Juno?”

River waves a hand, affecting an air of nonchalance. “Oh, you know. Just a little tete a tete between girls.” At the Doctor’s raised eyebrow, she adds, “And I shot him in the head.”

“River!”

She rolls her eyes at the Doctor’s scandalized tone, but before the Doctor can add anything, she pushes past another curtain with a flourish.

“Dorium!” she greets, all false joy. The Doctor follows, sees Dorium, not, as Reggie had said, with a client, but meticulously counting currency from various planets. He startles, dropping what looks like an Yamenean Old Coin and glowers.

“Oh, not you again,” he mutters, and then yells down the hall, “I told you not to let anyone in!”

River sighs, as if put out by the suggestion. “I’m anyone now, am I?”

“You’re a menace is what you are,” Dorium grumbles, and River smiles like he’d paid her a compliment.

“Lovely to see you, too,” she says, just as two guards appear from the corner, and Dorium gestures at them vaguely.

They move fast, too fast, for the Doctor to protest, and there’s a man patting her down and rifling through her pockets before she can stop him. “Oi!” she manages, at the same time she hears River, her voice flat and unwavering,

“Touch me, and I’ll break every bone in your body.”

She turns her head, distracted, and finds the other guard with his hand caught in River’s vice grip, and he hears Dorium sigh.

“Don’t bother with her,” he says, resigned, and the man steps gratefully away, back to his post in the corner. The Doctor’s relieved to see River unharmed, untouched, that it takes her a second to realize the man searching her has pulled her sonic from her coat pocket and is holding it up to the light.

“Oi, give that back!”

“Found this, Sir,” the guard says, ignoring her as he turns to Dorium and hands it over.

Dorium frowns, looking at the device, then at her, then back and forth again. “Is this—Doctor?”

River rolls her eyes and the Doctor gives a little wave. “Guilty.”

Dorium blinks at her. “You shouldn’t be here.” The again goes unsaid, she’s quietly grateful. Whether he knows or not, she isn’t certain, doesn’t know exactly where they are in his timeline, and she breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

“I like to live on the edge. See new places, meet new people.”

“People who want you dead,” Dorium says pointedly, and the Doctor shakes her head minutely.

She thinks of the last time she was there, after her supposed death. After night after night stealing River away from Stormcage, showing her more stars in one sky and caves made of diamonds and anything and everything bright and hopeful she could think of. Remembers the way it still hadn’t vanished the little shadow from her eyes, just in the corners.

She remembers the night River admitted that she couldn’t sleep—the faces she saw in her nightmares. The faces she couldn’t remember.

But the Doctor could. Remembered all of them. Remembered what they did to her. How they needed to be punished.

She thinks of the Silence, run off the planet. The caretaker, his mind in shambles.

She thinks of Kovarian and the Colonel and everyone else who played a hand, and what she did to them, in the end. The arrangements she’d made in a back corner of the very club they’re standing in.

River doesn’t know. She never told her, never could. It wouldn’t have been fair.

“Not that I don’t love small talk, but we’re here for a reason,” she says, looking at the Doctor. “Unless you want to make him wait a bit longer?”

The Doctor looks away. Ryan. They’re here for Ryan.

“Carry on,” she says, and Dorium finally sighs, setting the screwdriver on the table.

“What can I do for you this time, Dr. Song?”

“Nothing fancy,” River says. “Just some blueprints.”

“Blueprints?”

“Of Kushiel. The more recent the better.”

“Kushiel is the highest security facility in the galaxy. They don’t just hand out maps.”

“But you have them,” River counters and Dorium raises an eyebrow.

“How do you know?”

River smiles. “Because I’m going to steal them for you.”

There’s a beat, and Dorium looks confused, and then he huffs. “Time travel is such a headache.”

“But efficient.”

He nods, moves to take a sip of his wine sitting off to the side, then looks back at River, back at the wine, and sets it down again.

“And what do I get in exchange for these blueprints?”

Reaching into her shirt, River pulls out a small card, something that looks vaguely like a scandisk, and holds it up between her fingers. “Perception filter. One of a kind. No more bulky device—it goes under the skin, virtually undetectable, virtually indestructible. It’ll fetch at least a billion credits, if not more.”

Dorium holds out his hand, and River places the disk in his palm. “And how did you come by this?”

“You know I don’t kiss and tell.”

Dorium shrugs, and goes back to examining the device. His distraction is enough that the Doctor steps closer to River, feels her tense as she does so.

“A perception filter of that strength could be dangerous in the wrong hands,” she whispers, “We can’t just—”

River glares, reminds her stiffly, “My way, or I walk. Your choice.”

There’s nothing she can say to that. River can’t leave, for Ryan’s sake and for her own, but it’s disturbing, the way she so easily hands over what could be a weapon in the wrong hands. It reminds her of when she was young, reminds her of the aftermath of Manhattan, how reckless she was, how broken. How River repaired herself each and every time. How she helped, or at least, she thought she did. Now she isn’t so sure.

“Trouble in paradise?” Dorium asks, and they both start, looking away and back at him. River recovers first, folding her arms across her chest.

“The maps, Dorium.”

He sighs. “Alright, alright,” he mutters, and stands, and rifles through a few drawers behind him, muttering under his breath. The Doctor looks back at the table, but her screwdriver is gone.

“River—” she starts, and Dorium makes a triumphant noise, then turns around with a roll of paper blueprints—safer, in the 56th century, when technology can be so easily hacked.

River takes the blueprints and tucks them under her arm. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“River,” she whispers, “My screwdriver.”

River elbows her in the ribs.

“If this explodes,” Dorium says, waving the perception filter. “I’m cutting you off.”

River grins. “That’s what you say every time.”

The Doctor’s about to make a louder complaint when there’s a commotion from outside, some yelling, a crash, and then Graham’s voice, “Oi, get your hands off her!”

The Doctor exchanges a glance with River and then breaks into a run, skidding down the hall and bursting through the curtain in a matter of moments. One area of the bar is in chaos—Yaz is desperately trying to pull a patron off of Graham, but his arm is tight around Graham’s neck and he’s yelling, but there’s too much noise to make out exactly what he’s saying.

The Doctor grabs his attention, starts talking, a litany and even she isn’t quite sure what she’s saying, only that she’s trying to talk him down, to explain there was a misunderstanding, and Graham’s face is turning slightly blue, and Yaz is yelling, and then there’s a shot and the man holding Graham lurches backwards and falls.

Yaz screams and there’s silence in the bar and Graham falls to the floor, coughing violently. When the Doctor whirls around, River is still holding her gun up, her expression flat and empty.

“Get back to the TARDIS,” she says, as a few other patrons move toward them. The bar returns to normal so quickly, it gives her whiplash, but she stares at River and River isn’t looking at her and it makes her abruptly angry, furious, a body on the floor by her feet.

“I know that weapon has a stun. You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Not the time,” River says, “Get your friends and get back to the TARDIS.”

“Why, what are you going to do? Kill everyone in the bar?”

River glares at her. “No, but I thought I’d give you enough of a distraction to get out of here before Tom and Jerry decide to make their move.” She pauses, tilting her head. “Unless you’d rather lose a few more companions this evening?”

The Doctor exhales sharply, the words just as biting as her tone. She looks at River, looks at the two patrons advancing, and drops to Yaz and Graham's side, helping Yaz hoist him up.

They half drag, half carry him back to the TARDIS, and behind her, she hears two more shots, two thuds. A minute after they enter the console room, River follows, shuts the door, and eases them into the vortex. There isn’t a scratch on her, isn’t a hair out of place, and the Doctor feels something cold at that, something like failure.

She’s failed her.

It’s a selfish thought, the one that insists River is better, is more like her, or less like her, depending. The one that remembers goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage and virtue is only virtue in extremis. She’s carried those words close to her heart, carried River’s diary, still in her pocket, though she’s never read it. Never could. She carries it like a sacred text regardless, the few things she knows echoing at her worst moments.

And yet, there are bodies already. Graham is fine, still a bit winded, Yaz hovering over him with a glass of water. But there are bodies, and River killed them, and it’s unlike her, not to know, not to care—she thinks of Hydroflax, the Butcher of the Bone Meadows; thinks of Nardole and even Ramone, the guilt and regret that poured out of her later, when they were alone. She thinks of Anita and the Daves and even Mr. Lux, how desperately she’d tried to protect them. Her anger at her own failure.

If she feels any remorse now, it doesn’t show. She pilots them easily, saying something to Graham about needing to look at the blueprints, and the Doctor feels something curl in her stomach, something like guilt, like helplessness. It makes her frustrated, makes her angry, and she turns to River before she can think clearly, before she can reason with herself.

“You didn’t have to shoot him.”

River doesn’t look away from the console. “You’d rather I let him strangle your friend?”

“There are other ways—”

“What would you have done? Bore him to death until he let go?”

The Doctor clenches her teeth. “We’ll never know, will we? Because you’re trigger happy—”

River hits something too hard on the console, and the TARDIS makes a soft moaning sound. She immediately backs away, a look of apology flashing over her features before she turns to the Doctor, eyes narrowed and expression tight.

“Then take me home. I meant it, Doctor. I’m not playing by your rules and if you have a problem with that, take me home.”

The Doctor glowers back, resists the urge to fold her arms across her chest and stop her feet like a petulant child. “Maybe I should.”

River’s jaw clenches. “Fine then. Good luck getting past the trans-dimensional shields.”

The Doctor blinks—how River could have known that without even looking at the blueprints, she doesn’t know—and River laughs shortly.

“What? You thought you were just going to land the TARDIS in Ryan’s cell and pop him out? Or perhaps another Demon’s Run, no casualties?”

The blow hits her in the chest, and she tries not to stagger. “I can manage without you,” she bites out, storming up to the console to key in coordinates for Luna.

This was a mistake. Bringing River was a mistake, finding her again, everything, and her hearts can’t take it. Can’t take the absence of affection.

“Then why bring me in the first place?” River demands, but it’s rhetorical, and she folds her arms over her chest, looks at her with too much knowing. “You need someone to do your dirty work. The things that need to be done that you can’t or won’t do. You want your friend back alive, or you want to play innocent and let him suffer? Your call.”

The Doctor stills. She knows, in part, that River is right—she does need someone. But not for the reasons she thinks, and not her for that reason, never, ever her. She needs River’s grounding, River’s belief, River’s conviction that there’s always a way out. She needs River’s insight and River’s hand in hers. She needs someone just as clever and just as fast, just as willing to fight for the people the Doctor loves even if she doesn’t know them.

She needs her wife, but her wife isn’t here and she doesn’t know how to deal with that, how to say all the things bubbling in her chest.

“Yeah, except it’s not your call, Doc,” Graham says, and she startles, had forgotten they were there, listening, watching. Guilt steals down her spine and she turns, looks at him with a slight frown as he stands and approaches River. “He’s my grandson,” he says to them both. “And I ain’t leaving him there.” He stops in front of River and looks at her, almost imploring. “You saved my life. Please. Help me save my grandson. Whatever it takes.”

River stares at him a moment, and the Doctor can see her deliberating, sees the way her shoulders soften, her expression relaxes. Sees a glimmer of the River he used to know, the River who helped, whoever, whenever.

And she nods. “I need to look over the blueprints,” she says, without a glance in the Doctor’s direction.

Graham nods. “I’ll help you.”

She nods again, picks up the blueprints and glances at the Doctor—not a question, but a challenge.

The Doctor looks away, and River disappears out of the console room, Graham on her heels.

The room is so quiet. She looks back to the console, eases them back into the vortex, away from Luna, though she isn’t sure if she could have left her, regardless.

She hears Yaz approach, tentative and still. “Are you alright?”

The Doctor smiles. “Fine, yeah, peachy keen. Do I say that now? Nah,” she decides, aware she’s rambling but unable to stop under Yaz's careful gaze.

“Are you sure we can trust her?”

“Who?” She asks absently, and then, “River?”

“She just killed a man.”

The Doctor runs a hand through her hair. “I know.”

“You hate guns,” Yaz says, a question. “You told Graham if he killed Tzim Sha you wouldn’t let him travel with you anymore.”

“I did. Ground rules, remember?”

Yaz wings an eyebrow. “But they don’t apply to her?”

“They never have,” she says quietly. “We have different rules.”

“Like what?” Yaz asks, and the Doctor remembers: never run when you’re scared. The Doctor lies.

She’s done so much running, so much lying, especially to them, her new friends—to Yaz and Graham and Ryan. Lies by omission, all the time.

“Who is she, Doctor?” Yaz asks softly. “Why does she hate you so much?”

The Doctor flinches.

River has never hated her. Even when she was young, even when she was trained and conditioned to kill her, she never hated her. She was merely doing as she was told, as she was brought up. She was following what she thought was her only choice. But she’d admitted to her one night, wrapped in each other’s arms, in the dark quiet of their bedroom, that even then, she hadn’t hated her. She’d been a curiosity, a challenge, a way out—kill the Doctor, and we’ll let you go.

She’d believed it, she’d said, so stupidly.

It wasn’t stupid, he’d said. It was hopeful.

She thinks of the Library, of River, waiting and waiting and waiting. Hoping.

He left me, like a book on a shelf. He doesn’t like endings.

She flinches away from the thought, and catches Yaz’s expression—open, sweet, without judgement or fear. She expects the Doctor to say something that will explain it away, that will exonerate her from River’s ire. That will put her back on her pedestal, where they think she belongs.

She doesn’t want to break that, not again. Not now. She can’t.

They’re all she has left.

“I don’t know,” she says, and it feels like sandpaper in her mouth, half a lie.

“Maybe you should ask her.”

The Doctor nods. “When we’ve got Ryan back.”

Yaz smiles faintly. “We’ll get him,” she says, all belief. “He’ll be okay.”

Moving around the console, the Doctor stops suddenly, frowns. Her screwdriver is sitting on the edge of the console, safe and sound.

The Doctor returns her smile as best she can. “Yeah. He will.”

—

They spend the next several hours pouring over blueprints. River takes charge, filling in Graham and Yaz as she goes. By the time they’re ready to move, the Doctor has to admit the plan is fairly sound, though she didn’t contribute much to it, just nodding along, interjecting here and there, mostly out of nerves.

It’s dangerous, and she warns Yaz and Graham that this isn’t going to be easy. That one false move and they’ll be trapped, they could get caught, they could be imprisoned.

“Why can’t we just fly the TARDIS there?” Yaz asks, early on, frowning down at the blueprints River has splayed on a large table in the tech room, a virtual projection of the station above her head. It reminds the Doctor of Hydroflax, maneuvering a diamond.

“Kushiel has a trans-dimensional shield in place around the prison,” River says, though how she knows that automatically, the Doctor isn’t certain. “It would interfere with the TARDIS’ landing capabilities.”

Yaz, a bit too quick, a bit too clever, asks, “Why would they have that? There aren’t a lot of ships like the TARDIS, are there?”

River catches the Doctor’s glance, and The Doctor shakes her head minutely. She hasn’t told them. Hasn’t told them much of anything, if she’s honest. This isn’t the time to tell them anything, but River doesn’t seem to know that, shrugs, says blithely,

“You’d be amazed at how many people want to keep the Doctor out of their business.”

The Doctor flinches, but Graham and Yaz don’t notice, merely shrug. “She does have a tendency to thwart evil plans,” Graham says lightly, almost proudly, and it makes her stomach sink, when River doesn’t agree.

“Something like that,” she says, and then adds, almost an afterthought, “It’s not just for the TARDIS. Other forms of time travel exist, such as vortex manipulators and time ships—any of those could get close to the station as well, without the shield.”

The Doctor glances at her wrist again, but her vortex manipulator is gone. It wouldn’t do any good, regardless.

“So how do we get in?” Graham asks.

River types something on the keyboard, and the projection zooms out; next to the station is a small shuttle, slowly making its way toward the prison.

“Every 48 hours, a guard relief crew docks by shuttle here, at the south end of the station. We’ll infiltrate from the pickup point on the planet below.”

Yaz frowns. “Every 48 hours?”

River shakes her head, hears the question she doesn’t ask. “We’ll split into teams. Two of us will get Ryan, two of us will disable the shields.”

“That easy?” The Doctor asks, a bit surprised.

River shakes her head. “Unfortunately, no. Prisoners on Kushiel are kept according to numerical identification—no names. It’s too big to search cell by cell—we’d be found out before we got out of the first section.” Leaning over the blueprints, she points to the docking area. “This is where we’ll come in. This,” she says, drawing her finger to a square box several levels down and at least a quarter mile away, “is the Ordinariate’s office.”

“The Ordinariate?”

“The warden,” River supplies.

“Why’s he called that?”

“He oversees the military wing of the prison as well as the prisoners themselves,” River says. “And he’ll be the only one with a prisoner roster. We have to get to him before we can get to Ryan.”

“How do we do that?” Yaz asks.

River smirks. “Distraction, obviously. Something that goes boom.”

“Or,” the Doctor cuts in, pushing Yaz gently aside, “we could send off a communique from here,” she says, pointing to the communications center on the ship. “All deep-space communications have to be approved by the Ordinariate. He’ll have to confirm the transmission.”

River nods slowly, her irritation fading. “It would lure him out of his office without arousing too much suspicion.”

“See?” The Doctor says, a bit tartly. “Not everything has to blow up.”

“But it’s so much more fun that way.”

The Doctor rolls her eyes, and smiles, forgets for a moment that they aren’t flirting, aren’t bantering; that River’s gaze is still harsh and her words still biting.

“So…” Yaz says, pulling their focus back, “We get the… Ordinariate out of his office, and then what?”

“Steal his keys,” River says, and the Doctor says it at the same time, and they look at one another, almost smiling.

River looks away first, clearing her throat. “We take the keys, get into the office, and then someone needs to be able to get the keys back to the Ordinariate before he reaches the communications center.”

“Why?”

“Because the moment the keys go missing, the entire station goes into full lockdown. No one in or out.”

“That… sounds risky,” Graham says.

“No risk, no reward,” River shrugs. “Once the shields are down, the TARDIS can pick us up.”

“On its own?” Graham asks, more to the Doctor than to River, and she nods.

“We can program the HADS to lock onto our signal. We’ll have to time it exactly.”

“57 minutes and 42 seconds,” River says. “Provided everything goes right.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Graham asks, staring at her with a little bit of horror, a little bit of worship.

River shrugs. “Prisons are my speciality,” she says, turning back to the maps. The Doctor knows it’s a deflection—she’s already memorized them—but she doesn’t call her on it, just watches her profile, the line of her jaw, and wishes.

“What…” Yaz starts, licks her lips and speaks very quietly, “What kind of archaeologist is she, exactly?”

“A really good one,” the Doctor says, and spies the corners of River’s lips turn up, just for a second, before she schools her features.

“Right. You lot should get ready—take a breather, get something to eat. This won’t take long, but it isn’t going to be fun.”

“What are you going to do?” The Doctor asks, following on her heels as she exits, heading toward the console room. Yaz and Graham follow her, despite the instruction.

River moves effortlessly around the console, breaks off, the flight smooth and it takes Yaz and Graham a moment to realize they’re moving.

“Wait, what about the noise?” Graham asks.

“And the… falling over?”

River smirks and the Doctor flushes.

“She leaves the breaks on,” River says, at the same time Yaz seems to realize,

“Hang on, how come you can fly the TARDIS? I thought only the Doctor could do that. Well, her and...” She trails off, the note of suspicion turning into one of curiosity, of shock. “Doctor, is she another—”

“Friend! A clever friend,” the Doctor says, “But not like him. Promise.”

Yaz eyes them both warily, and Graham looks a bit confused in the background, trying to piece it together.

“Time Lord?” River asks sharply, glaring at the Doctor, though she isn’t quite sure why. “In a manner of speaking.”

“So you’re like O! Like O and the Doctor!” Graham says, excited, and the Doctor shuts her eyes, cringing. She hadn’t wanted to have that particular conversation.

But River merely shrugs. “The Master’s one type of the Doctor’s friends. I’m another.” There’s something derisive there, in the way she says ‘friends’ but the Doctor isn’t sure why, what it’s for. Unless—

“Hang on, you’ve met the Master?”

“Which time?” River asks absently, landing the TARDIS somewhere. The Doctor looks at the coordinates—they’re planet-side, nearish the guard station, but not close enough to arouse any suspicion. “Right,” she says, before the Doctor can ask. “Stay here this time, if you please—this’ll go a lot faster if I don’t have to shoot anyone. Well, anyone else,” she says, and the Doctor flinches.

“What are you going to do?” she asks, following River down toward the door.

“Isn’t it obvious?” She gestures out the door with a smirk. “I’m going to get us some clothes.”

—

While River is gone, the Doctor urges Yaz and Graham to eat something. She follows them into the kitchen, yammering on about something—she isn’t quite sure what, her mind going a thousand miles an hour in one direction, her mouth in another. Something about sentient kettles, she thinks.

Yaz and Graham sit at the table, and it’s a while before she notices how quiet they are, how Yaz has her hand over Graham’s, and he’s staring down into his cup of tea, a half eaten biscuit on the side. She pauses, watching them, and thinks about what he must be feeling—his grandson, missing, in danger. A rescue operation he isn’t remotely suited for. A dead wife.

She sighs, and sits down at the table next to them, chewing her lip a moment before she says, “We’ll get him back, Graham. I promise.”

He looks up at her with a wane smile. “I know. I just—”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I’m just scared,” he admits, and Yaz squeezes his hand.

“He’s gonna be just fine, Graham,” she soothes. “Just a few hours and he’ll be safe and sound, just like the Doctor said.”

“But what if they hurt him?” Graham asks, words bubbling up, his free hand moving anxiously in front of his face. “What if they, I dunno—”

“They won’t hurt him,” the Doctor promises. “Prisoners are kept isolated, but unharmed. And he’s not important.”

Graham looks up at that sharply. “Oi!”

“I meant, he’s not important to them—he has no strategic value. He’s just an ordinary prisoner, like everyone else. That’s a good thing.” She forces a smile. “Means they won’t pay him much attention.”

Graham breathes out a sigh. “That’s good, I guess,” and the Doctor hopes, prays, she isn’t lying.

“Do you think River’s plan will work?” Yaz asks. “Pretending to be guards, stealing a set of keys—it seems, I don’t know….”

“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” the Doctor says, standing up, puts space between herself and them and pretends to fiddle with the kettle again. “River knows what she’s doing.”

“How?” Yaz asks. “How can she know all this, about the prison? She barely looked at anything besides the blueprints.”

The Doctor shrugs. “It’s like she said—prisons are her speciality.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Yaz—”

“You’re asking us to trust her with Ryan’s life,” Yaz says, over Graham’s meek protests. “I feel like we should know something more about her. Is she really like you? Like the Master?”

The Doctor stills, hands shaking, her back to them so they can’t see. “Yes. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got some time.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Not enough,” she mutters, then turns to them, arms out, almost placating. “Right now, the most important thing is Ryan. You trust me, don’t you?”

They both nod without hesitation.

“Then trust me. Trust that I trust her, more than anyone else in the world.”

“We do,” Yaz insists, glancing at Graham. “Just… give us something. One reason. For Ryan.”

She’s my wife, the Doctor thinks. She’s my wife, and I love her, and she saved me, so many times, in so many ways. She’s better than I could ever hope to be.

Instead, she opens her mouth, and no sound comes out. She clears her throat, unsure what she’s going to say.

And then River’s there, hauling a duffle bag she sets a bit too harshly on the table, a wide, fake smile on her face.

“Got our costumes,” she says, and doesn’t look at the Doctor, and she knows River overheard. Heard their questions, her lack of an answer. There’s a wounded set to her jaw, hurt behind her eyes, and the Doctor swallows tightly.

“River—”

She ignores her, pulling out four sets of uniforms, handing one each to Graham and Yaz, and throwing one rather aggressively toward the Doctor.

“Fit might be a bit off, but I did my best.”

“Where did you get these?” Yaz asks, studying the black trousers and shirt, the body armor River pulls out, the helmets.

“Made a few friends,” she says, which the Doctor knows is a lie. There’s probably four trussed up guards somewhere in a cellar, best case scenario. “Yours might be a bit snug, Graham, but I’m sure you’ll look dashing.” She winks at him, and he blushes faintly. Then she looks at the Doctor, almost a question, something seeking and tired, and the Doctor nods, her throat dry.

“As I said, shuttles leave every 12 hours, but we need to be on the next one. Apparently, Kashiel is expecting a visit from one of the higher ups, and the officers will be distracted preparing for his arrival. It’ll give us a window to get in and out without attracting too much attention.”

“How long do we have?” Yaz asks.

“The next shuttle leaves in half an hour. We need to be on it. No dallying.”

There’s a pause, and Yaz and Graham both look at the Doctor for confirmation. She nods, and they stand up, take their suits and hold them close, Graham fumbling with all the extra parts.

“We’ll get changed,” Yaz says, and they leave, and the air feels thin in the room all of a sudden. River doesn’t look at her, just sets more items on the table—four guns, four personal computers, four radios, four batons. The Doctor scrambles for something to say, something useful, something to bridge the space between them.

“Thank you,” she says finally. “For doing this.”

River shrugs. “Consider it a final favor.”

The Doctor flinches, but before she can say anything, River asks, “What were you doing on Hajos anyway? During the Apocrypha?” She arches an eyebrow. “Not exactly a tourist destination.”

The Doctor looks sheepish. “I was aiming for New Year’s.”

“Ah,” River says. “You always did love a party.”

“We got separated in the fighting,” The Doctor elaborates, for no real reason other than she needs to keep talking, needs to keep River with her. “Yaz said Ryan got caught trying to help someone escape the Bishops’ holding area.”

“Stupid and brave,” she says absently. “Sounds like your type.”

“They’re good people,” she says defensively, but River only eyes her, a bit sad, so guarded.

“Aren’t they always?” she asks, and the Doctor knows she’s thinking of her parents, and she doesn’t have an answer, other than the obvious, yes. “It’s a good thing you changed faces,” River says mildly. “If the Clerics had recognized you, it’d be a whole different rescue mission.”

The Doctor shoves her hands in her pockets. “The Church has other things to worry about these days.”

River hums in agreement, and the Doctor looks at the uniforms, the Church symbol emblazoned on the sleeve, and feels her stomach clench.

“Are you alright with this?” she asks, and River frowns before following her gaze. She stills, then shrugs.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” the Doctor says firmly, and River looks up, surprise flashing over her features before they settle into something placid, unconcerned.

“It’s the best way in.”

“I know,” she agrees. “But you—”

“You’ll have to act the part,” River interrupts, looking away, and the Doctor can see the mask come back, her walls coming up, hiding the damage. “The Clerics on Kashiel aren’t brutal, but they mind their own business. No interference.”

“I know.”

“Good. Make sure your friends do the same.”

“I will. River—”

“You should get changed.”

“River—” she tries again, but River is moving toward the door, and she panics, can’t let her leave, can’t pass up this moment, for whatever it’s worth. She stumbles forward, and grasps River’s hand. “Wait, I—”

River stills, a flash of pain across her face, and the Doctor drops her hand and curls her fingers against her thighs.

“I—” She doesn’t know what to say. How to erase the look of betrayal on River’s face. “What did I do?” she whispers. “Please, just tell me.”

River stares at her, her expression unreadable. The Doctor thinks she’s going to turn around and walk away, but when she speaks her words are flat, empty.

“You lied.”

“Lied about what?”

“Everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her words are seeking, desperate, and River falters for a moment, then presses her lips into a thin line and makes to leave again. “We don’t have time for this.”

“We have 26 minutes.”

She pauses again, her back half to the Doctor, and sighs. “My whole life has been one prison after the next,” she says suddenly, eyes fixed on a point on the wall. “Kovarian, Stormcage, the Library.” The Doctor winces. “The only escape I ever had was in choosing you. And I thought, stupidly, that you chose me.” Her lips flatten in a ruthless smile as she turns, and looks at the Doctor, and there’s fury there, but so much pain, it staggers her. “You made a fool out of me. And you know I hate playing the fool.”

The Doctor shakes her head, almost wildly. “I didn’t—”

“Oh, just admit it,” River snaps. “The whole thing was a farce. Everything that mattered to me—Darillium. Your name.” She shakes her head. “The best parts of my life and you were just closing a loop.”

The Doctor feels winded, can’t quite latch on to what she’s saying, the ridiculousness of it all. “You think I spent 24 years with you because I had to?”

River shrugs. “Why else would you?”

“I did it because I—” The words stick. She stares at River and River stares back and the words won’t come, the truth, the one thing she’s never said, not out loud. Not to River. Not to anyone. River waits, and waits, and then looks away, her shoulders falling slightly.

“I know I shouldn’t blame you,” she says quietly. “But if not you, then I have to blame myself, and I’m not ready for that.”

“River—”

“We have 22 minutes,” she says. “Better not waste it.”

And then she’s gone, and the Doctor stands in the kitchen, alone and dumbfounded and with the sinking realization that she is to blame—that she’s screwed up, the most important thing in her life, the most important person, and she’s screwed up and River doesn’t know, doesn’t have a clue how she feels, thinks everything was just fate and she doesn't quite know where it comes from, the anger, but she’s suddenly slammed her fist on the table, pain spiking down her arm, and it isn’t enough—isn’t enough pain, isn’t enough grounding, and she does it again, and again, the items on the table rattling and she kicks a chair and it slams into the ground and everything goes silent except for her breathing, harsh and ragged.

—

Getting onto the guard relief shuttle isn’t difficult. They have security badges, and the Doctor rigs their mics to mimic the voice identification of the four people River had incapacitated. The helmets are opaque, keep their identities secret, and no one can tell they don’t belong.

The trip is quiet. Some of the guards chat aimlessly in the hold, strapped in to the sides of the shuttle. There are sixteen of them, in total, and the Doctor wonders what might happen if their cover is blown. She comes up with a few backup plans, sitting in her seat between River and Yaz, Graham on the other side of Yaz. None of them speak. The silence is stony, awkward, and she resists the urge to chatter out of nerves. It won’t help.

They’ve gone over the plan several times: as soon as they dock, they’ll all report to and check in at their various assignments. River was smart enough to find four guards with rotation areas in proximity to one another, in proximity to their goals. River and Graham take the south quadrant, closest to the Ordinariate’s office; the Doctor and Yaz are in the northwest bay, nearest the communications center. All they have to do is sneak in and set off a deep-space transmission, one that needs the approval of the Ordinariate. That’ll get him out of his office, and from there, they can intercept his keys.

It isn’t foolproof, but then nothing ever is, and the Doctor can’t help fidgeting in her seat, frustrated with the slow passage of time.

She isn’t certain how long she’s been bouncing her knee when River clamps a hand down on her thigh. It isn’t kind, isn’t sweet, but it’s River and she’s touching her and it makes the rest of the Doctor’s thoughts fade, her concentration focused on the burn of her hand through their layers, River’s leather gloves. The pressure is soothing, somehow, despite the fact that River isn’t looking at her, isn’t speaking to her.

It makes her uncomfortable, River’s silence, so unlike long days on Darillium, some days passing without much speaking, just a contented quiet as they went about their own business—she remembers playing the guitar on the stoop while River planted vegetables in their garden; remembers making dinner while River moved around him, sneaking bites until he swatted her away with a tea towel; remembers early morning lie ins where sometimes they spoke and sometimes they didn’t, sometimes they just held each other and she remembers her fingers through River’s hair, River’s soft sighs against her neck, the way she’d burrow into him; how safe he felt, and how wanted.

She stares down at River’s hand now, her touch a bit lighter, but there’s no soft words of comfort or exchange of glances, and she hasn’t once called her sweetie.

She misses it. Misses it like an ache, and it’s that thought and a million others that makes her note, without preamble,

“You said two years.”

“What?”

“Two years. You said you’ve been back two years. Have you—have you been on Luna the whole time?”

There’s a pause. River removes her hand from the Doctor’s thigh and tangles her fingers together in her lap. The Doctor feels abruptly, horribly cold.

“For the most part, yes.”

“The most part?”

“I travel sometimes.”

“Travel where?”

“Wherever I like,” she says, snappish, and the Doctor takes a breath, tries to reign in her frustration. River is a liar, always has been, has always needed to be, but she hates this lying—lying for lying’s sake. There are no spoilers, now.

No spoilers ever again, and the thought makes her as giddy as it does terrified as it does heartbroken that maybe River’s distance is because she doesn’t want—

The best parts of my life, she remembers, and holds fast to it.

Still. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t moved on, and the thought, abrupt and unwelcome, makes her throat go dry and she doesn’t mean for it to sound quite so bitter, quite so entitled when she says,

“Off to visit your other husbands, then?”

It’s meant to be teasing, the return of a long-standing joke they’d had on Darillium, but in the space between them it falls flat, sounds anxious and angry and River turns, her face shielded by the helmet, only her voice giving away her irritation.

“I wouldn’t have to if mine ever stuck around,” she snaps, catching Yaz and Graham’s attention.

River notices immediately and quickly settles back in her seat, turning away again, and the Doctor holds her tongue, waits until Yaz and Graham are distracted again, talking quietly to themselves, before she mutters,

“I would have if I’d known you were, you know, not dead.”

“Well maybe you’d have known that if you bothered checking in.”

The Doctor frowns. “I did.”

River snorts.

“No I did. I sent letters, and you never answered,” she says, and the words themselves are enough to remind her of how much it hurt, each letter unanswered, each adventure unremarked upon. After a while, she’d figured it out, or thought she had—thought that River was finally gone, had faded out of the Library, left her for good. It had been the worst night, when she’d finally admitted it to herself. A night spent destroying room after room, a rage he hadn’t been able to quell—stuck on Earth, watching Missy, only 12 years into his tenure at the university, alone and heartbroken and River was gone, she was dead and gone and it was his fault he hadn’t saved her, hadn’t been quick enough, hadn’t been clever enough.

He’d gone through five rooms on the TARDIS before he collapsed, and Nardole found him hours later, brought him a cup of tea, told him to get some rest.

She remembers the next day, sitting in her office, fingers poised over the keyboard, and Nardole’s soft, “Are you sure you should be doing that, Sir? It won’t help.”

He’d known it wouldn’t help.

He’d written her anyway.

And now she thinks of River, reading her emails, discarding them, ignoring them, and it hurts and hurts and hurts until she can’t breathe and then River shrugs, almost careless: “I never got them.”

“You never—”

It must have been after.

After she escaped, after she was alive and whole and didn’t tell her and she wants to ask if River has any idea how much and how long she grieved. How she never stopped grieving. Even now, she feels it—with River sitting next to her, she feels it. Lost. Untethered.

Half of herself.

“When did you get out?”

“Just after Trenzalore. You said goodbye. I had what I needed,” she says, and even though she knows it’s false bravado, the words sting.

“And now?”

“Now we get Ryan. And you do what you promised.”

Leave me alone. For good.

She doesn’t know if she can. Doesn’t know how she’ll possibly bear it. But she stares at River and knows, deep down, that if it’s what she wants, what she needs, the Doctor will do anything, give her anything.

Even if it means letting her go.

Again.

She just wonders how she’ll survive it.

“And if I can’t?” she asks, almost too quiet, but River hears her, stiffens.

“Wouldn’t be the first promise you’ve broken.”

The Doctor flinches. “River—”

She’s interrupted by the announcement that they’ll be docking shortly, and she sighs, leans back in her seat and closes her eyes for a moment, tries to recenter herself, to focus. They have a job to do, Ryan’s life is at risk, all her friends, River, and she needs to be ready, needs to settle her hearts, to stop thinking about the phantom hand she can still feel on her thigh.

When they dock, River gives them a nod, but the Doctor can’t see her face, her eyes. She wants to say something, wants to remind her to be careful, to be safe.

But there is no careful, no safe here, and River wouldn’t listen regardless.

They go their separate ways. She tries to stand taller, to keep her mouth shut, like all the other guards. Just a number, not a person.

It’s simple enough. They have commdots on their necks, hidden by the helmets, and she can hear everyone’s steady, if slightly nervous breathing. Only River is calm, and the Doctor steadies her breathing to hers.

When they’re out of earshot of everyone, the Doctor murmurs, “Alright, fam?”

Yaz and Graham hum in agreement. River doesn’t answer.

“River?”

“Shut up.”

She checks in where she’s supposed to, walks up and down the corridor of cells a few times—it’s not like Stormcage, with its chill and open bars and perpetual damp. This is temperature controlled, each cell is a room with a large, concrete door and a small window for trays of food. There are no names, just a number on the side of the cell, corresponding to a prisoner. She has no way of knowing where Ryan is, in the maze of cells—he could be anywhere, on any level. She tries not to think about that. Tries not to think about Graham and Yaz, on their own, impersonating guards. Tries not to think of River, on her own—more than capable of handling herself, but still.

The next shuttle doesn’t depart for 12 hours. Without the shields down, without the TARDIS, they’re trapped.

She thinks of the homing device River had shoved into her hand, with a curt, “If anyone gets out it should be you.”

The Doctor hadn’t liked that, had protested, but River wasn’t hearing it, wasn’t listening to what she was trying to say:

Not one living thing is worth you.

She’d slipped it back in River’s pocket almost immediately.

Still, it goes by quickly—she slips away from her post on a terrible excuse of needing the loo, and she can hear River’s snort through the comms. A few corridors and unnecessary nods to passing guards later, she’s at the rendezvous point, and a moment later, another guard comes around the corner, whispering, “Doctor? Is that you?”

She nods, and gives a little wave of her hand, a signal they’d come up with. It looks ridiculous, but Yaz’s shoulders relax, and she makes the sign back.

In the uniforms and helmets, it’s near impossible to tell who’s who.

She supposes the Church likes it that way.

“What now?” Yaz asks quietly, and the Doctor nods to a room at the end of the hall.

“That’s the communications bay. We need to get in there and send off a distress signal.”

“How do we do that?” She points at the guard at the door. “It’s not like he’ll just let us in.”

“Sure he will,” The Doctor says. “We’ve got a plan.”

“What plan?”

“Overconfidence, mostly,” the Doctor says, “Stay here,” and without another word, walks towards the guard.

“State your business.”

“I’m the relief,” she says, her voice cheery in her head, flat and static because of the voice manipulator.

“Relief isn’t for another four hours.”

“Not according to the manifest,” she says, making a show of checking her personal computer. She’d soniced it earlier, to display a different roster. “I’m taking over this shift, now.”

“I have to call up,” the guard says.

The Doctor shrugs. “If you like. But the relief shuttle leaves in five minutes. I’d hate for you to miss it.”

She shows him the fake readings, and he frowns.

“Did my request go through?”

“Request?”

“It’s my kid’s birthday. I thought they denied it.”

“They were looking for someone to take over,” the Doctor says quickly, catching on. “And they found me. Hello.”

“Idiot,” she hears River mutter.

The guard hesitates, but easily relents. “Thanks, mate. Tali’ll be thrilled.”

“Good on her,” the Doctor says, slipping past him to take his place. The guard hurries away toward the shuttle, and the Doctor motions Yaz from around the corner.

“Why was that so easy?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor shrugs. “A day off is hard to complain about.”

“Get moving,” River hisses, and the Doctor nods to Yaz.

“Stay here, guard the door. “If you see anyone—”

“I know. Routine cleaning. Got it.”

The Doctor salutes her and uses her ID card to slip into the room. There are two people at the desk, and she walks towards them confidently, rattles off a series of lies about testing the deep-space signal, orders from up high. They question it, of course they do, and the Doctor shows them a fake order on her computer.

“We haven’t heard about this.”

“Yeah, I know. Inter-ship communications are busted,” the Doctor says, and hears River curse on the other end of the line.

The guard at the desk says, “Let me check.”

“I hate you,” River says, and the Doctor can hear her breathing pick up as she runs, obviously en route to shut off the ship’s communications.

“No you don’t,” the Doctor whispers.

“Sorry?” the guard asks.

The Doctor shakes her head. “No, you don’t need to check. Unless you want me to tell management you were uncooperative.”

The guard checks anyway, and the Doctor holds her breath, relieved when all that comes back is static.

The guard sighs. “Every fuckin’ Monday,” he says, and stands up. “I’ll go see what the problem is.”

The other one nods, and turns back to the computer. “Deep space, you said?”

The Doctor nods. “It’s just a test. Any message will do.”

Inputting information, the guard is distracted, and the Doctor turns away slightly, whispers, “Get out of there, River. They’re on their way.”

There’s no answer, and the Doctor feels panic in her stomach. “River?”

“Shut. Up.”

It’s enough, and she sighs in relief.

Five minutes later and the communique has gone out, and the guard nods to her. “You’d think they’d schedule this kind of thing,” she says.

“Oh, absolutely. Management, am I right?”

She hears Yaz and Graham sigh in unison.

Ignoring them, she bids thanks to the guard and slips back out to find Yaz waiting.

“Did it work?”

“Like a charm. Now phase two. River?”

“We’re on our way to intercept the Ordinariate. Kindly keep your mouths shut for five minutes,” she says, and the Doctor hears the comms go quiet.

“Did she just mute us?” Yaz asks.

“Ah… yes. Yes she did.”

“Rude,” Yaz mutters.

“Psychopath,” the Doctor counters.

“What?”

“Never mind,” she says quickly, and ushers Yaz down the hall, toward the second rendezvous point. Unlike Stormcage, Kushiel is bright, too bright, but the helmets dim it somewhat. The halls echo with their footsteps, quick and assured, and every time they pass a guard, the Doctor finds herself holding her breath.

No one pays them much mind, fortunately. They’ve moved on to the fourth level of the ship, away from the cells, and the Doctor spies a few offices, a number of guards on break, and even a kitchen. It’s clean and smells sharp and she hates it, hates the austerity, the knowledge that beneath their feet are thousands of “inmates,” guilty or not. That Ryan is there, somewhere, waiting. Hopefully.

“How do you know where we’re going?” Yaz asks quietly, keeping pace with her.

“Memorized the blueprints.”

“Seriously?”

The Doctor nods. “Eidetic memory. River has it too,” she says absently.

“Is she like you, then? A Time Lord?”

“Part Time Lord. Mostly Time Lord. I think. Two hearts, all that.”

“So she was born on Gallifrey, like you and the Master?”

“No. She was born—”

But it’s too much, too much talking, too much history. The Doctor shakes her head.

“Later,” she says.

They continue in silence for a moment as they pass another guard.

“It’s just,” Yaz starts, hesitant. “It’s just the way you look at her.”

“How do I look at her?”

“I dunno,” Yaz says. “Like… like you’ve lost her. But she’s standing right there.”

The Doctor swallows the lump in her throat, picks up her pace, as if to outrun the conversation itself.

“I did,” she says. “Many times.”

There’s a pause, and then Yaz, bright, clever Yaz, asks, “Is she your family? The one you said you lost, when we first met?”

The Doctor hesitates, then gives a curt nod, unsure if Yaz can tell behind the large helmet. “Yeah,” she says. “She’s family.”

“Who is she to you, Doctor?”

The Doctor swallows. “She’s— she’s my—”

And then the comms crackle back on, and Graham’s low voice in their ears, “Can I ask you something?”

The Doctor frowns, starts to tell them she can hear them, but River is already answering,

“Can’t promise an honest answer, but sure.”

“Why did you kill that man? The one who was strangling me?”

The Doctor holds her breath, exchanges a look with Yaz, and they both keep quiet, guiltily.

There’s a long pause. “He was Trudorian.”

“A what?”

“Trudorian,” River says, and it makes so much sense now, that the Doctor has to close her eyes against the wave of guilt. “They’re a regenerative species. Cut off an arm, another grows back.”

“Like a lizard,” Graham offers.

“Something like that. But much faster. They’re trained warriors, great in battle.”

“So…if you’d stunned him…”

The coms crackle slightly as River exhales. “With the type of weapon I have, he would have just absorbed the energy. It would have made him stronger.”

Of course, she thinks, of course, and she should have known that, should have seen it. Too emotional, too sentimental—

“And the other two?” Graham asks.

She can hear the shrug in River’s voice. “Androids,” she says. “Sonic blast just short circuits them for a bit. They’ll be fine.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Graham says, and then, awkwardly, “Thanks. I mean, I don’t really know what you say in this situation, but I—”

There’s a softnes to River’s voice the Doctor hasn’t heard yet, and clings to. “Thanks is good enough.”

There’s a shuffling noise, a pause, then, “The Doc thinks you killed them all.”

River snorts. “She’s an idiot. Aren’t you, Doctor?”

The Doctor fumbles and drops her screwdriver. “Ah,” she says, staring at Yaz, wishing she could see her face. “Yeah, that’s me. Doctor Idiot.”

They turn the corner a moment later, find River and Graham at the end of the hall, waiting. The Doctor thinks, if a helmet could look cross, River’s certainly does.

“Stay here,” she says shortly. “He’ll be coming by in a moment. I’ll circle around.”

“What are you gonna do?” Graham asks.

“Cause a fuss,” River says, a bit jovial behind the strange voice manipulator.

She disappears, and the three of them wait, peering around the corner where the Ordinariate is supposed to appear.

Sure enough, a minute goes by and there are footsteps, quick and sharp, and a voice grumbling about untimely communications. The Ordinariate has two guards in tow, dressed in the same black uniform, but with a red badge on their chests to identify them as part of the Ordinariate’s guard.

She thinks of the symbol on her own arm, on all their clothing, the symbol of the Church.

Thinks of River, wearing the badge of the people who kidnapped her, tortured her, conditioned her.

Thinks that she hasn’t said one word in complaint. Hadn’t even protested.

Brave, <span, she thinks sadly, so very, very brave.

Shaking herself, she whispers absently, “The keys’ll be in his left inside pocket,” unsurprised when River comes back with a tight,

“I know.”

Of course she knows. The warden at Stormcage had kept the keys in the same place, tucked away. She remembers River’s glee one afternoon, dangling the keys in front of her past self, explaining how she’d nicked them.

“What for?” she remembers asking, “I’m picking you up.”

River had shrugged, her eyes bright. “For fun, of course.”

He’d rolled his eyes, then, but kissed her just the same.

Beside her, Graham wonders aloud how she’s going to get them if they’re in his inside pocket.

The Doctor smirks. “Watch,” she says, and they peer around the corner after the Ordinariate passes. River rounds the opposite corner right on cue and slams into the Ordinariate. The guards beside him raise their weapons immediately, stalling as she breaks into profuse, fumbling apologies.

“Watch where you’re going!” the Ordinariate snaps, and River steps back quickly, shaking her head.

“I’m so so sorry,” she says, playing into it. She’s turned the voice manipulator off, and her voice is smooth and a bit erotic, and the Doctor clears her throat and tugs at her shirt, muttering about the heat.

“What are you doing up here, anyway?”

River hiccups.

Actually hiccups and the Doctor doesn’t understand. She hadn’t expected this, but then River is sniffling and saying so tearfully, “I’m so sorry, Sir, I wasn’t watching—I was just— trying to find—” She sobs, and Graham and Yaz exchange a look.

“Get it together, girl!”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I just, it’s my brother, sir. He’s in hospital—”

“I really don’t care.”

“He’s dying,” she nearly wails, and the Doctor has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. It’s an admirable performance, she’ll give her that, but maybe too good, because the Ordinariate has paused, staring at her.

And then she bursts into tears, and throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly. The guards cock their weapons but they don’t shoot, and the Ordinariate flails his arms haphazardly.

“What are you—no—get off!”

She staggers back, stares down at the floor. “I’m so sorry, I’m so—” She hiccups again. “He’s my twin, I’m so worried, I can’t—”

“Alright, enough!” He snaps, and River meekly steps away, attempting to wipe the tears from her eyes, her hand hitting the helmet uselessly.

He sighs. “Oh for God’s Great Sake,” he says. “Go clean yourself up. And you’d better be on your lunch break right now.”

River sniffles. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Now get out of my way.”

“Yes, of course, Sir, sorry Sir,” she says, stepping out of his way, eyes downcast.

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” he mutters, nodding to his guards. They follow him around the corner, and the moment he’s out of sight, River straightens, her demeanor changing, and she crooks a finger in their direction.

She meets them halfway, waits until they’re close to hold up a thin keycard between two fingers. “Well that was easy,” she says brightly.

The Doctor huffs. “And you call me ‘damsel.’”

Graham chokes, “Damsel?” at the same time Yaz says, “How did you do that?”

“Disgracefully,” River says. “Now come on. We’ve got less than 20 minutes.”

—

It’s a short, brisk walk to the Ordinariate’s office. Inside, the Doctor knows, is a roster of all the prisoners—under lock and key, but hopefully nothing the sonic can’t handle.

There’s a guard at the door that River disposes of, quickly and quietly, while Yaz, Graham and the Doctor hide. The Doctor flinches at the muffled grunt. When she peeks around the corner, River is dragging the unconscious guard into the office, her helmet off. The guard’s helmet is off, too, and there’s a smear of pink on the corner of his mouth.

At Yaz and Graham’s bafflement, River shrugs. “Hallucinogenic lipstick,” she offers, picking up her helmet and setting in on the desk. “He’ll come round in an hour.”

“How did you get him to kiss you?” Graham asks.

River blinks and the Doctor flushes and it’s Yaz who mutters under her breath, “You have seen her, yeah?”

Graham gapes and Yaz clears her throat and River smirks, moving across the room to a cabinet in the corner. She opens it in a matter of moments, pulls out two rolls of paper and tosses them to the Doctor.

“The blueprints?”

“You’ll have to get them to Dorium.”

“Why me?”

“Your pockets are bigger.”

The Doctor huffs, watching as she puts her helmet back on, and abruptly misses being able to see her face.

“Right. I need to get the key back to the Ordinariate.”

“Keep comms open,” the Doctor says. “Let us know if you get into trouble.”

“I love trouble,” River says, and winks just before she secures her helmet. She disappears, and the Doctor can hear her steady, quick breathing as she moves to intercept.

“Where are the files?” Yaz asks, snapping her back to attention.

The Doctor lurches forward, drops her helmet on the desk, hears herself start talking, something about acoustics in the room and Asguardian harmoniums, all the while fumbling in her pocket for her screwdriver. She sits behind the desk, hears River over the comms tell Graham to stand guard, and starts opening various drawers and file cabinets. She ignores the computer on the desk, and Yaz notices.

“Why isn’t it on a computer?”

“The Church is paranoid,” the Doctor mutters. “They consider technology too easily hacked. It’ll be on a drive rather than accessible via the mainframe.”

“Oh,” Yaz says, at the same time Graham asks,

“What’d you mean, the Church?”

The Doctor hesitates, can almost hear River’s bated breath through the comms as she says, carefully,

“It’s the 56th Century. The Church is different. New priorities.”

“But a prison?” Yaz asks.

“Clerics,” the Doctor grumbles, trying another drawer. “I hate Clerics.”

River’s voice is soft through the comms. “So do I.”

“I don’t understand,” Graham says, “How come the Church has a prison?”

The Doctor waits too long, distracted by a stubborn drawer, and it’s River who elaborates quietly,

“They consider themselves guardians. Responsible for interstellar security, special ops, sometimes protectors of new human colonies, until they can establish militaries of their own.”

“Oh,” Graham says, and then, “So that’s why he’s called the Ordinariate!”

The Doctor nods and Yaz asks what he means, and Graham explains, “Military ordinariates take care of Catholics serving in the armed forces. So he’s… kind of like a warden?”

River nods, but doesn’t tell them the rest. Doesn’t tell them about the Silence, doesn’t tell them about Trenzalore. They ask more questions and she skirts them easily, a flirtatious joke here and there, and nothing of substance. The Doctor rifles through drawers, tries to keep focused, but half her attention keeps slipping, remembering: centuries on Trenzalore, alone. Her name, falling softly in silence around her dying ship. If you ever loved me.

The Doctor freezes, hands hovering between files.

If you ever loved me.

It makes sense. Abruptly, and oh, she’s getting old and stupid.

She thinks of River’s admission: You lied. You made a fool out of me.

“Stupid,” she whispers.

“Excuse me?” River says shortly.

“No, me,” she says, “I’m stupid.”

“Very,” River agrees, over Yaz and Graham’s protests.

“You didn’t get my letters.”

“Not the time,” River says, and she knows, of course, she knows. “The file, Doctor. Ryan.”

“Ryan,” she repeats, and turns back to the folder. “Ryan.”

“What just happened?” Graham mutters and she sees Yaz shrug out of the corner of her eye.

“Got it,” the Doctor says, slamming the drawer shut. She opens the folder, conveniently labeled Prison Roster, but instead of a scan disk, like they’d expected, it’s a key. An ordinary, human-looking key.

The Doctor stares down at it, color draining from her cheeks.

“Oh, no.”

“What is it?” River demands.

“It’s a key. It’s an actual key. River—”

There’s a pause, then a soft, annoyed, “How did we forget that?”

“Forget what?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor swallows. “Fear of technology. The prison roster isn’t on a drive.”

“They’re actual files,” River adds.

“Stored somewhere on this ship.”

“We hope.”

“You hope?” Graham says.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” the Doctor says quickly, standing, “Just… complicated. Give us a sec.”

River’s breathing is heavy for a moment, and the Doctor knows she’s paused, maybe waiting, maybe hiding. “We looked at the blueprints. Where’s a space big enough on this ship to house a thousand plus files?”

“Lower deck?”

“Too close to the engines. If there was a fire—”

“Deck 7. The south wing.”

“Or the north end. There was a room—”

The Doctor scratches her cheek. “Two options.”

“One key.”

She can hear River’s smirk. “Toss for it?”

Her hearts pick up at the familiar flirtatious tone.

“Oi, do one of you want to explain what’s going on?”

The Doctor blinks, shakes off the emotions— sentimental —and turns to Yaz and Graham. “Change of plans,” she says. “The prison roster is stored somewhere on hard copy. We’ll have to go find it before we can find Ryan.” She looks down at the key in her hand. “We’ve got one shot to get it right.”

“Go to Deck 7,” River says.

“It could easily be—”

“It could,” River says, “But something in that enormous brain of yours picked Deck 7 before the north end and there’s probably a reason you haven’t figured out yet. Trust your instincts, Doctor.”

The Doctor nods. “Right. Where are you now?”

“Almost to intercept. Two minutes.”

“Alright. We’ll have to split up. Yaz, Graham, head to the prison decks. The closer you are when I give you the cell numbers, the faster we can get Ryan out. If you get stopped, tell them it’s Prisoner Transfer Code 87.”

“What’s code 87?”

“Interrogation.”

“Great,” Graham mutters. “Now I’m torturing my own grandson.”

Yaz places a soothing hand on his arm.

“River,” the Doctor starts, but she interrupts, almost a whisper,

“Control room, shields, got it.”

The Doctor grins. “That’s my girl.”

Graham and Yaz exchange a look and the Doctor quickly looks away, flushing. “Right. Yaz, Graham, keep your comms open. Try not to attract any unwanted attention. Find Ryan, and get to the rendezvous point—the control room. The TARDIS will hone in on my signal in 22 minutes.”

They nod, put their helmets on and check their personal computers for the route. The Doctor takes off for Deck 7, key tightly in hand. She’s halfway there when River’s voice crackles over the line.

“We’ve got a problem. The Ordinariate. He’s not here.”

The Doctor frowns, still moving. “We timed it. It was supposed to take him—”

“I know what it was supposed to take, Doctor, and I’m telling you, he’s not here.”

“Is he inside already?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could he have beat you there?”

“No, I took a shortcut. There’s no way he—”

Her voice is cut off by klaxons, red lights in the hall flashing and a mechanical voice over the loudspeaker, “This is an alert. This station will go into procedural lockdown in seven minutes. Repeat: this station will go into procedural lockdown in seven minutes. Please return to your designated stations.”

River curses and Graham says, “What’s happening? Doc? What’s going on?”

“Something went wrong,” she says, “I don’t know—stick to the plan. River—”

“I’m on my way to the command center.”

“Can you get there in time?”

River hesitates. “Yes. But if I’m stopped—”

The Doctor swallows. “Be careful.”

There’s no answer, no retort, and the Doctor quickens her pace. She knows River can do it. Knows, based on schematics, based on their history, on her faith in River that she can and will get to the control room to lower the shields before seven minutes are up, and the station goes into complete lockdown. But if she’s stopped, if she’s delayed—

She can hear over the intercoms a short, “Hey! Where are you going? Return to your post!”

“Doctor?” Yaz asks, alarmed, just as she rounds the corner to her goal.

“Ah, yeah. You’re gonna hear some noises,” she warns, just as there’s a grunting sound, a thud, another grunt.

“What is happening?” Yaz demands, and the Doctor uses the sonic to unlock the door, thankfully not deadlocked. Yet.

The room is vast, and empty, save for at least a mile of file cabinets, arranged in rows. It takes her thirty seconds to figure out the system, pulling arbitrarily at cabinets and leafing through the contents, her mind working faster than her hands.

She runs, hears a few more grunts and thuds, and tries to put them out of her mind, tries not to ask, not to distract River from what she’s doing, but she’s frightened, properly frightened, and asks,

“River?”

“Not now,” she grits out, and there’s the sound of a blaster, and another thud.

“Doc?”

“Almost there,” she says, pulling up in front of another row of files, eyes scanning the codes.

There.

She wrenches open the drawer, flips through the files as fast as possible until she lands on one labeled Sinclair, Ryan. She pulls it out, flips it open.

“Deck 2, subsection E, cell 04-04-952. Access code U738AJ1. Go.”

She can hear Graham and Yaz break into a run, their breathing pick up.

“Don’t stop,” she reminds them. “Get Ryan, get to the rendezvous point. You have three minutes before the station goes into lockdown, and all the lifts will shut off. If that happens, find the access shoots—you’ll have to climb.”

“But Ryan—”

“He’ll be fine, he can do it,” the Doctor promises, already on her way to the control room. “River?”

“Almost there.”

There’s a punching sound, a scream, and then another klaxon, blaring, “Intruder alert. Intruder alert. This station will go into emergency lockdown in 1 minute.”

“We’ll never get to him in time,” Yaz says breathlessly.

“I know,” the Doctor says, “I’m thinking I’m thinking I’m—River, what’s the fire code?”

“The what?”

“The fire code! What happens if there’s a fire?”

“Priority maintenance,” River says, then realizes, “The system can’t shut down while the extractor fans are on.”

“There was a kitchen. I can—”

“No time. Get ready for a boom.”

“River!”

There’s a pause, an aching silence, and then the walls rattle slightly—she’s too far from the blast to feel it, the ship too stabilized, but another round of lights come on and a voice announces,

“Fire on Deck 12, fire on Deck 12, all emergency personnel please report—”

“River, you just brought them all straight to you!”

“I know! Why do you think I’m running?”

The Doctor keeps moving, keeps running, checks in with Yaz and Graham, tells them they’ve bought themselves another few minutes, mind whirling and escape routes taking shape in her head, a myriad of different escape plans and options she contemplates and dismisses, and all through it she can’t help but ask,

“Where were you keeping a grenade?”

She thinks about her own guard uniform, tight, no room on the belt. She hadn’t seen River carrying one.

River’s voice is breathless. “ Spoilers,” she says, and it makes the Doctor’s hearts pick up, and she smiles in spite of herself.

“We’re here,” Graham says suddenly, and there’s a pause, a whirring sound, and then a short, breathless silence.

“He’s not here.”

The Doctor freezes in her tracks. “What?”

“Ryan, he’s not here—the cell’s empty, we—”

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

“Yaz? Graham?”

“By the authority vested in me by the Papal Mainframe, you are under arrest. Hand over your weapons.”

“Yaz!”

There’s some static, shuffling, a gasp and then,

“Commdots, sir. There might be more of them.”

“Search the ship,” another voice says, familiar, in some way, but she can’t place it. There’s a grunt, Yaz’s muffled cry, and then a high pitched feedback as the guard, presumably, stomps on the comm link.

“Yaz?” She says anyway, hopeful. “Yaz!”

“Doctor—” River starts, and she turns around, starts running, picturing the layout of the ship. They’ll take them to interrogation, on Deck 9. “Where are you going?”

“To find Yaz and Graham.”

“There are too many guards, they’ll be looking for us—”

“I’m not leaving them here!”

“I didn’t say you should, just be sensible!” River snaps.

“I am!” She says shortly, sonicing the lift to arrive faster. “Can you get to the control room? Get the shields down?”

“Yes, but the shutdown will reactivate them immediately.”

As if on cue, the klaxons blare again, “Fire alleviated. Recommencing system shut down.”

“It doesn’t matter. Get out of here.”

River snorts.

“I’m serious, get out, you can find a way to get us later—”

“You have the homing beacon.”

“No I don’t,” the Doctor says, slamming the doors to close just as Clerics round the corner and start shouting at her.

“Yes, you do, it’s in your—”

“I gave it to you.”

There’s some shuffling, and then River’s short, sharp, “You son of a b—”

The lift doors open and there are guards, three of them waiting. “Hey,” one says, “You’re not supposed to be—”

And then they crumple, three lingering shots echoing in the hall, and there’s River—she knows it’s River, by the stance, by the blaster, by the way she reaches out a hand and says, “Run.”

The Doctor takes her hand and they’re careening down the hall, and the Doctor hasn’t felt so alive in years. She looks to the side, and though she can’t see River’s face through the helmet, she feels her chest swell and tighten and it’s everything, everything she’s ever wanted, to be running with her again.

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

“No plan, overconfidence, running headlong into danger?” River asks rhetorically. “I took a guess.”

“The interrogation rooms will be just around the corner.”

River shakes her head. “We need the TARDIS first. There’s a command bay down the hall, we can—”

“Freeze!”

They both stop at the sound of multiple guns cocking, and they turn slowly, find themselves face to face with five Clerics, maybe Bishops, it’s hard to tell. They have red badges on their uniforms, the same helmets, and they’re all training their weapons on them.

“Take off your helmets,” the one in front says.

They both pause, and he raises his weapon. “Now!”

The Doctor slowly reaches up, removes the helmet and sets it on the ground, can see River out of the corner of her eye do the same.

“Aren’t you boys a little short for a storm trooper?”

“Storm trooper?” The Doctor wings an eyebrow.

River shrugs. “Comedy.”

“Archaeologist.”

“Not today,” River says, and the Doctor doesn’t have too much time to think about that because the man in front starts speaking,

“By the authority vested in me by the Papal Mainframe—” he begins, and River sighs,

“Oh, sod this,” she says, and before the Doctor can blink she has her hand around the Cleric’s gun, her elbow in his face, and the Doctor yelps and dives out of the way of blasts as River slams her foot into one guard’s knee, pitches another over her shoulder and slams his head into the floor.

There are five of them and one of her but River is deadly, and the Doctor can’t do anything but watch as she throws punches and uses their own weapons against them. She ducks, cries out River’s name but she isn’t paying attention to her, just does as she was trained to do and it’s been so long since the Doctor’s seen her like this. Older, she remembers, River preferred to talk her way out, to use her wits instead of her body but here, now, it’s clear she hadn’t forgotten any of it, and the Doctor feels a mix of pride and awe and guilt, overwhelming guilt for the way River doesn’t break a sweat, doesn’t panic, doesn’t flinch.

Two guards are down and another comes around the corner but she doesn’t stop—a cleric hits her side, hard, and she grunts and her leg buckles, but she uses the drop in gravity to swing a leg around, knocking the guard to the ground.

She’s fast and efficient and terrifying but there are too many of them, more Clerics approaching from either end of the hall and one grabs River by her hair and the Doctor lurches forward, grabs his arm and swings him around, uses her own quiet but brute strength to rip him off her before she headbuts him as hard as she can.

“River, we can’t win,” she says breathlessly, putting her body between River and another guard, aiming his gun.

“That’s right, you can’t,” one says, and they turn at the voice, unmuffled, and there’s a man standing in front of them with no helmet, dressed in officer’s clothes, a General, going by the stars on his lapel, and it can’t be.

The Doctor knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that it absolutely cannot be him but he looks the same and sounds the same and she stares, falters.

Colonel Manton.

“How—” she starts, and it’s enough of a distraction for the Clerics to grab her arms, hold them tightly behind her back; she sees them try to do the same to River, sees her fight them. The guard slams the butt of his gun into her head and River flinches, hard, and the Doctor cries out.

River glowers at the man, but her eyes are slightly unfocused and she stumbles, and they use the time to grip her, three men holding her back.

“Welcome aboard Kashiel, Doctor,” Manton says, smiling. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.”

—

Instead of an interrogation room, the Clerics lead them to one of the control centers a few decks up. The Doctor keeps an eye on River, her gait somewhat faltering, and resists the urge to ask if she’s alright. She’d lie regardless, with all the eyes on them, but there’s something wrong, something off. She doesn’t know what it is, can’t figure it out, her mind whirling with escape plans and fears and she stumbles when the guard shoves her into the room.

There, on the other side, are Ryan, Yaz, and Graham—their helmets are off, but they look relatively unharmed, and she runs to them, awkward, with her hands cuffed behind her back.

“Doctor!” Yaz greets, stepping forward; a guard behind her clamps a hand down on her shoulder, keeping her in line.

“Alright?” She asks them, and they nod.

“What’s going on?” Yaz whispers, and the Doctor shakes her head.

“Dunno. Haven’t worked it out yet. Still thinking.”

She remembers River telling her about a general’s visit, thinks about the Ordinariate, not in the right place at the right time. She thinks about Ryan’s empty cell and the key they should have known about, and tries to piece it together but she needs more information, and she turns, glares at Manton, standing smugly next to River, and the sight of them together, in the same room, so close, makes the Doctor feel sick.

She never should have asked River to come here. Never should have involved her.

But she doesn’t understand, how Manton can be here—not after what she did. He can’t be here, there’s no possible way, and she looks to River, hoping there will be something on her face, in her eyes, something to remind her what she’s missing, what she isn’t seeing.

There’s nothing. Her expression is blank, not even irritated, and the Doctor takes a few steps closer, away from her friends.

“Well, you got us.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Now what?”

Manton nods to the guards standing behind River, the ones behind Yaz and Graham and Ryan and they all nod back, and then, strangely, leave the room. Never a good sign.

“Now you pay,” Manton says.

“Pay for what?”

He steps forward, hand on his holster, and behind him, she sees River slip out of her handcuffs.

“Everything. Doctor.”

She frowns.

“How did you know it was me?” she asks, not really sure why she’s asking, but it feels important. Fleeting, she remembers River’s comment about her face.

“We had a spotter’s guide,” he says, and the words resonate, echo, they matter, but she isn’t sure why.

You don’t always show up in the right order. I need the spotter’s guide .

A coincidence, it has to be, and the Doctor pushes it aside. “Well, now that you’ve got me, what’s your plan? I’ve been dead for centuries.”

“Lies,” Manton spits, and she has to remind herself: it’s not Manton, it can’t be Manton, Manton is dead and she killed him and it’s like looking at a ghost. “The Papal Mainframe may have kept your secret, but the Kovarian Chapter knows the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That we failed. You survived. Granted,” Manton says, pacing a bit. “I don’t know how, but that hardly matters. You’re here now. And now, I’m going to kill you. And your friends.”

The Doctor steps in front of them as best she can. Behind Manton, River has moved, just a little, just a bit closer to him.

Foolish, she thinks, to leave them alone in a room with an assassin. In a command center, of all places, where they can disable the shields and it makes no sense, none, why here and why now and how. Unless—

She looks back over her shoulder at Ryan.

Looks back at the man who cannot be Colonel Manton.

“This was a trap.”

“Very good.”

“You took Ryan on purpose, to lure me here.”

“A happy coincidence, to be honest,” Manton shrugs. “One of my Bishops heard him, sounding off about how ‘The Doctor’ would help, ‘The Doctor’ would save them.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you knew it was me.”

Manton smiles again, cruel and sinister, something almost like joy in his voice, “We had help.”

Fooling you once was a joy; but fooling you twice, the same way, it’s a privilege.

He turns, and looks at River, and she shrugs, dropping her cuffs in his outstretched hand.

“A deal’s a deal,” she says, and the Doctor feels her hearts stop.

“What?”

River laughs, but it isn’t sweet, isn’t kind. It’s mocking, and she steps away from Manton, toward the Doctor.

“It was almost stupidly easy,” she says casually. “‘The easiest lie you can tell a man.’ Or woman, in this case. I’m not bothered.”

The Doctor swallows, unable to speak. It’s not possible. River wouldn’t, not ever, and there’s fury and confusion and she shakes her head, even as all the pieces start to fall into place.

“Who are you?”

“I’m River Song.”

“You’re lying. River would never—”

“Oh, River, River, River,” she says mockingly, words echoing. “You’d be amazed what a little isolation can do, Doctor,” she says. “All those years in the Library. All that time spent with nothing and no one but books for company. It’s enough to do a girl’s head in. Make her… reevaluate some things.”

You lied.

“Reevaluate what?”

River shrugs. “Everything. Our story. My life, always so intertwined with yours.” She cocks her head. “Did you tell them who I am, Doctor? What you made me?”

The Doctor’s head pounds and her throat is numb and she can hear Yaz behind her, “Tell us what?” and River scoffs.

“Figures. You never tell the new ones what happened to the old ones. Why would you? No one would ever travel with you again.”

“River,” she manages, but it’s hoarse and she can feel tears sting her eyes, can’t believe this is happening, can’t accept it. But River’s expression is hard and her eyes devoid of any warmth, any love. She moves around the Doctor, walking in front of her friends, stopping by Yaz, her head tilted.

“Was it worth it?” she asks. “You’re going to die here. All of you. No one to tell your family, your friends what happened, why you never came home. Though I supposed it’s better than being trapped for decades, alone, waiting. Hoping.” She turns back to the Doctor, her eyes narrowed. “You abandoned me. Left me for dead. Is it any wonder I’d want to return the favor?”

The Doctor can’t think, can’t concentrate, but she finds herself shaking her head, clinging to her belief, her love.

“You’re not River.”

“River Song died in the Library,” she agrees. “I’m what happens when you screw up.”

The Doctor tries to speak, tries to think of something, anything, but before she can say anything, Yaz lurches forward.

“You’re lying,” she says, so fierce, her devotion, but careless, reckless; River merely puts a hand on her shoulder, keeping her in place. She leans in, lips near Yaz’s ear, but her voice is too soft for the Doctor to hear what she’s saying.

When she pulls away, Yaz is glowring. “You’re a monster,” she hisses.

River shrugs. “I am what they made me.”

“No,” the Doctor says. “No, you’re not. You’re better than this. River—”

“Oh, spare me the speech, Doctor. Your wittering has never been as attractive as you think it is.”

“As enjoyable as this is,” Manton breaks in finally, “I believe we had a deal.”

“Yes,” River says, “we did.” She arches an eyebrow, and Manton nods, and River moves to the console, keying something in.

“What deal?”

Her back to the Doctor, River says mildly, “An exchange. Manton gets you. I get the TARDIS.”

The shields. She’s bringing down the shields, and the Doctor feels a pang of hope.

“What do you need the TARDIS for?”

“Why wouldn’t I? All of time and space. Besides, the Old Girl and I have some catching up to do.”

“She won’t allow this.”

“She won’t really have a choice.”

Beside her, Manton makes a show of holding his gun, musing, “Which one should I kill first?”

River shrugs. “Yaz, probably,” she says. “She’s the brightest of the bunch. The other two—” She looks at Graham. “Trudorian,” she says. “Can’t believe you bought that.”

Graham protests, but the Doctor catches it—she wasn’t lying, not about that. He was Trudorian, he was a threat, there’s no reason to say that unless—

“So that’s your plan? Just get in my TARDIS and fly away?”

“You did it to me.”

“And you’re better than me. You always have been. The River Song I know would never work with the Church. Not willingly. And especially not with Colonel Runaway.”

River sighs. “You really do romanticize me, don’t you, Doctor?”

The Doctor looks at River, hope in her throat and she whispers,

“No. I see you.”

Manton sighs. “Can I shoot them now?”

River turns, and there’s something, a flash, and then it’s gone.

She does what she does best, in these cases: she stalls. “You’re missing something,” she says to River. “You know you are. Don’t you want to know what it is?”

River tilts her head, leaning back against the console, her arms folded. “Enlighten me.”

The Doctor pieces it together as she speaks, her mind whirling, everything falling into place. “You were wearing your vortex manipulator when you first came on board. That means you left Luna. Found Manton. Made this… deal. And he played along because it was too good to pass up. He’s the reason the Ordinariate didn’t show up. He’s the one who lied about the key.”

“I knew about the key,” she says. “I needed time to meet with him—” She jerks her head in Manton’s direction. “—and make sure everything was in place.”

“Maybe. But you’re missing it, River. Too emotional, too sentimental.”

“I’m not sentimental.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” the Doctor says sharply, and River’s gaze hardens. “All this plotting and planning and handing me over to the Church, and you never realized?”

“Realized what?” River snaps, patience thinning.

“That’s not Colonel Manton.”

River pauses. Something like surprise flickers in her eyes for a moment, then she narrows her gaze.

“Of course it is.”

“He’s a General.”

“He was promoted.”

“No, he wasn’t.” The Doctor steps forward, steps closer to her, and River leans back but doesn’t move away. “Colonel Manton has been dead for centuries.”

“You’re lying.”

“He died on Delphini.”

“Delphini’s a barren planet.”

The Doctor nods, tries to feel regret but she can’t, even still. “I know,” she says softly. “That’s why I left him there.”

River stares at her, her eyes widening slightly and she really hadn’t known. Had no idea, and she sees the anger and annoyance in River’s gaze, the self-censure, and she turns away, looks at the man who isn’t Manton—or at least, isn’t the right one.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? It’s not about the Church, not about belief. It’s about him. Colonel Manton. Your brother.”

Manton glowers, raises the gun and points it at her, his voice trembling with rage. “We gave our lives to the Church. To the cause. And you killed him. I’ve waited years, searched for you, hunted you. And now I’m going to kill you for what you did to him.”

River looks between them.

“What are you talking about?”

The Doctor looks at her, looks past the anger, sees what she’s never wanted to see, always ran from: little Melody Pond, scared and alone and despite everything, despite the betrayal—and she still isn’t convinced it is that—her hearts soften and she explains, carefully,

“You can’t remember everything. The Silence—being around them for so long, every time you looked at them, every time you looked away, it caused a tear in your memory. You only remember Manton from pictures, research you did after the fact.” She nods towards the General. “He looks similar, but not exactly the same. It’s an easy mistake to make, and he went along with it. Pretended to be who you thought he was, to use you. To get me here.”

River’s jaw clenches, a curt silence before she says tightly, “That makes no sense. You’re lying to save your own skin.”

“No, I’m not. Manton is dead, River—”

“Stop saying that.”

“He’s dead. I made sure of it.”

River freezes. Swallow tightly. “Why would you do that?”

She sighs, pulls on her cuffs, tries to run her fingers through her hair but she can’t. “You really think after everything that happened, everything they did to you—Kovarian, Manton, the Silence—you think I just let them walk away?”

“Why? Why would you—”

“Because,” she says softly. “Not one living thing in the universe is worth you.”

River stares at her, her eyes bright, her voice low and trembling, but it isn’t quite anger, not anymore. “You had no right.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “River. Please.”

“The Doctor, begging,” Manton says. “This is better than I thought.”

River turns away, back to the console. “It doesn’t matter. My job is done,” she says, cuing in the last few commands. There’s a shudder as the shields come down. “Do what you want,” she says to Manton, and he raises his gun, aimed at Yaz.

“No!” the Doctor cries, and Ryan moves in front of her and there’s a wheezing sound, and the TARDIS begins to materialize, but it isn’t around River. Isn’t taking her away.

It materializes around them, around Yaz and Graham and Ryan.

The TARDIS lands softly, a soothing hum in the Doctor’s head and Yaz and Graham and Ryan are inside, they’re safe, and Manton is staring between them, slack-jawed.

“Why did you do tha—” he starts, but when he turns to River, she has a gun at his head and the Doctor can hear her companions through the door, shouting, can hear River, her voice like ice,

“Drop it.”

He swallows and drops his gun, glowering at River. “We had a deal.”

“You should never make a deal with a psychopath, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“A psychopath?” he asks, at the same time the Doctor steps forward, shakes her head.

“River. You don’t have to do this.”

“Get in the TARDIS, Doctor. Fly away.”

“No.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“He’s not Colonel Manton.”

“I know that,” she says, frustrated. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because I read it in a book. And now I have no choice.”

“A book? What book?”

River doesn’t take her eyes off Manton. “It’s how I knew I could get out. I found stories—things I’d done in books, but I hadn’t done them yet. I knew I still needed to come here. ‘And the Child of Time took her revenge on the Church and its followers, in a shower of blood and glory.’ Bit poetic for my taste, but—”

“History can be rewritten. This isn’t fixed, River, you know that.”

She makes a tsking sound and shakes her head. “You promised. No crying over casualties.”

“This isn’t a casualty—this is an assassination.”

“It’s what I was raised for.”

“And you’re better than that. You’re better than him.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do,” she says, struggling quietly with her own handcuffs, trying to get out. “I know you better than anyone. And I know what happens if you kill him in cold blood. I know how it changes you.”

“I’ve killed people before.”

“Not like this. This is a choice—you don’t have to do this.”

River lifts her chin. “I want to.”

“No, you don’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if you did, you would have done it already.”

River swallows, stares down the barrel of the gun, stares at Manton’s face, but not her Manton. Not him, not the one who hurt her.

“River.”

“You have no idea what they did to me,” she whispers.

The Doctor shakes her head, takes another step forward. “Yes, I do. I know exactly what Manton did, what he deserved.”

“How?”

The Doctor softens, looks at River, her wife, and feels so much guilt she aches with it. Not for what she’s done, but for what she was never able to do—convince her how much she is loved.

“You think I didn’t try?” She asks softly. “To save you? You think I just skipped forward, abandoned Melody Pond to the Silence and Kovarian without trying to do everything in my power to figure out a way to her, without erasing who you are?”

She sees Manton frown, out of the corner of her eye, but she’s focused on River, on the way her hand trembles slightly, her voice quiet,

“You were there?”

“There was nothing I could do, River, but I tried.”

River glances at her, and she stares back, open and honest and tries to let her see everything, everything she’s never been able to say.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice cracks, and the Doctor feels her eyes sting.

“I was ashamed.”

“Of killing him?”

She shakes her head. “No. Of failing you.”

River looks at her, properly looks at her, for what the Doctor thinks is the first time since they started. Her eyes are wet and she looks so much older, so much sadder, but her gaze isn’t frustrated or angry or annoyed. She isn’t lying, not anymore, as she says, so quiet,

“You never have.”

The Doctor inhales sharply. “River—”

And then Manton moves, grabs River’s wrist and twists, hard, and she drops her gun, crying out. The Doctor staggers forward but Manton is too fast, using River’s momentary lapse in attention to point the gun at the Doctor. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t give a grand speech, just squeezes the trigger, and the Doctor shuts her eyes, waits for the bullet and the pain.

It never comes.

She opens her eyes and River is in front of her, struggling with Manton, fighting for the weapon and the gun goes off again, a blast taking out part of the console and she dives out of the way, shouting for River. It fires again, though she can’t see who did it, and River grunts and then turns, dropping, using her body weight to throw Manton to the ground. She turns at the same time he lunges, and she fires, and he freezes, eyes wide.

The Doctor stares, and there’s silence, and then Manton looks down at his chest. “Melody Pond,” he says, a realization, and his knees buckle and he falls. The Doctor scrambles towards him, shrugs off her coat and presses it to his wound on instinct. He smacks her hands away, a vicious, “Don’t touch me,” torn from his throat and she hesitates, stares at his face as he glares up at her. “I would rather die than be saved by you,” he sneers, coughing, blood in his mouth.

“I can help you. We can take you to hospital—”

“Doctor,” River says softly.

“You betrayed us,” he says, voice straining, eyes unfocused, but directed towards River.

River nods. “Yes. I did.”

He coughs. “You were our last hope.”

Hope, she thinks, In this endless, bitter war.

She looks at River, looks back and Manton, and his eyes are shut, his chest still. She checks his pulse, but he’s gone, dead, her coat bloodied and she picks it up mechanically, rises to her feet, stares down at the body and supposes she should probably feel guilt, feel sorrow. All she feels is pity.

When she looks back at River, she’s standing still, looks solemn, almost sad, gazing down at him.

“I read it in a book,” she says, almost without thought, and the Doctor moves closer, slowly, gently, takes the gun from her hand.

“River,” she starts, but it’s not the time. There’s more to be said, more they both need to say, but the Doctor takes her hand and tugs her gently toward the TARDIS. “Come on,” she murmurs. “Let’s go home.”

But River doesn’t move, just stands there, almost apologetic, and the Doctor doesn’t understand, and she doesn’t understand, and then she sees River’s hand over her abdomen, over the black clothes, something dark and wet.

“River?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and tries to move forward but her legs buckle and the Doctor shouts, catches her around the shoulders and River winces. “I hate stomach wounds,” she says, almost with a laugh, but the Doctor can’t find the humor, just hears herself say, Hold on and then she’s shouting, and she hears the TARDIS door unlock and Yaz and Graham and Ryan stumble out,

“Doctor!”

“What happened?”

“Where’s the—”

“Help me!” She says, frantic, trying to hoist River along. Graham moves instantly to their side, hooks another arm under River’s and helps the Doctor carry her back towards the TARDIS. Ryan moves out of the way, back into the TARDIS, holding the door open and Yaz stares.

“She betrayed you,” she says, almost a question.

“Help, or get out of the way,” the Doctor snaps, and she moves quickly, following them back into the TARDIS. The doors slam shut on their own and the Doctor feels the TARDIS move, piloting them on her own, and the Doctor and Graham half carry River down the hall. She’s moved the med bay close to the control room, and they help her up on the table, Ryan grabbing her legs and gently placing them on the bed.

“Stay with me, River,” the Doctor says, and she blinks up at her, smiles weakly.

“My favorite sentence,” she murmurs, and the Doctor’s hearts pinch and she grabs a scanner, realizes the wound is deep, critical, and there’s no time. River is pale and drifting, though the Doctor can see she’s fighting.

“That’s it,” she says, “Hang on.”

She frantically peels off the vest, useless against a sonic blast, and rips open the button up shirt.

River smirks. “This is hardly the time, sweetie,” she teases, and her hearts catch on the endearment and hold fast even if she can’t reply, can’t make her mouth move, all her concentration focused on the wound, the blood on her hands as she pulls the undershirt away from her skin.

“Stand back,” she says, rolls up her sleeves, and she hears River protest and Ryan step away and Graham asks,

“What are you doing?”

“Just get back!”

They move, and River is shaking her head, “Don’t you dare—”

“Shut up,” she returns, too much fear, and she places her hand over the wound.

“Sweetie, no—” River pleads, her hand covering her wrist but she’s too weak to push it away, and then there’s light. So much light, bright and yellow and she channels it, focuses it, presses her hands against River’s stomach and pours everything into the surge of regeneration energy under her skin. “Stop it,” River says, “Stop it, Doctor, please—”

“No,” she manages. “I’m not losing you. Not again. Never again, do you understand me?”

Her hands shake and the light is warm and she can feel the TARDIS in her head, anxious but relieved; feels a life leave her, and it’s a pittance, compared to the way the wound starts to close, the way she can feel River’s fingers, wrapped around her wrist, grow stronger.

She’s just about done, almost completely healed when River pushes her away, hard. “Stop it!”

The Doctor staggers, moves forward again, her hands outstretched, and River slaps her. It’s not entirely surprising, but she glares regardless, reaches for her again.

“Let me fix it.”

“No, you’ve done enough,” she says, breathing hard, and there’s still a scar, still pain, and the Doctor tries again.

“River—”

“I didn’t save your life so you could waste it all—”

“It’s not a waste!”

“Just take me a hospital and let them—”

The Doctor nearly growls, grabs River’s wrists and holds them tight, keeps them pinned between them, her words choked and raw, “You are my wife and I will save you any damn way I well please so shut. Up—”

Her words are cut off, River’s mouth against hers and it’s clashing and sharp and she isn’t used to kissing in this body but it’s River and she can’t help it, can’t stop herself from leaning in, from opening her mouth and moving her hands to cradle River’s face when she tries to pull away, holding her close and kissing her back, fiercely, centuries of loss and heartache and regret pouring into it, centuries of grief and longing and love, so much love, she feels herself shake with it.

There’s salt on her tongue and she doesn’t know who’s crying, but she holds River as close as she dares, until they’re both breathless, and she finally pulls away, gulping in air, her forehead pressed to River’s.

“I hate you,” River says, her chest heaving, voice hoarse, and the Doctor can’t help her smile.

“No you don’t,” she murmurs, and River makes a small, needy sound and the Doctor pulls back, keeps her hands on her cheeks and looks at her, her beautiful wife, alive.

And then Ryan’s voice, low and confused, “So… what’s going on?”

She laughs. It’s weak and breathless, but she laughs, and River smiles, and it’s so beautiful she can hardly think.

“Fam,” she says after a moment, turning toward them, dropping her hands to River’s arm, her hand, holding tight. “This is my wife. She’s a bit of a drama queen.”

River slaps her chest lightly. “Rude.”

The Doctor grins.

Graham looks stunned, Ryan confused, and Yaz looks suspicious, outright glaring. “She double crossed you.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Actually, triple-crossed.”

“How?” Yaz asks, and the Doctor smiles at her.

“Check your pocket.”

Yaz frowns, but dutifully digs around in her pocket, frowning when she pulls out the homing device. “I thought you had this.”

“I gave it to River. River gave it to you.”

She glances at River, who looks a bit chagrined. “Sorry about the intimidation. I had to slip it into your pocket so the TARDIS would lock onto your coordinates exactly.”

“And she extended the shields to protect us.”

“Just in case,” River shrugs.

“Clever girl,” the Doctor says, and taps her on the nose. River smiles, but there’s something lingering there, something melancholy, and the Doctor frowns. She doesn’t have time to address it, though, because Graham has finally found his voice, saying,

“Your wife?”

The Doctor nods. “Picked a good one, eh?”

River rolls her eyes.

Ryan looks between them all, and scratches his head. “I have so many questions,” he mutters, and the Doctor smiles.

“And I’ll answer them. But first—tea. Maybe a kip on the sofa. Definitely biscuits.”

“Biscuits?” Ryan asks, and she catches Graham’s gaze, the way his expression, though still confused, has softened. She nods to him, and he nods back, and a moment later he’s ushering Ryan and Yaz out of the room despite their protests. He knows she needs time—time with River, time to talk, and she counts on him to keep the other two busy for a while, out of her hair.

She looks back at River, who’s staring down at her hands, still bloodied. The Doctor swallows, moves to get a soapy washcloth, and returns, prying her hands gently apart. She says nothing, just starts cleaning the blood away, and it’s River who speaks first, an almost casual,

“You know we’re going to have a massive row about what you just did.”

“I know, dear.” She leans forward and kisses her forehead, relieved when River sinks into her just slightly. “But it can wait.”

—

River insists on showering, and as much as she hates to let River out of her sight for a moment, she knows they both need the time. Time to think clearly, to process.

She’d known, she’d known River would never betray her, but her words still sting and she isn’t sure, over the course of the day, which words are true and which aren’t. What River believes and feels, and what she doesn’t.

While River is changing, the Doctor sits down with Yaz and Graham and Ryan and explains as succinctly as she can what happened, leaving out a tremendous number of details. She explains how River pretended to be on Manton’s side, how it was the only way to move around the facility as easily as they did. She explains how River knew so many things, her experiences in Stormcage.

“She was in prison?” Ryan asks, and the Doctor nods, full of sorrow.

“Yes. For a crime she didn’t commit.”

“What crime?” Yaz asks, still suspicious.

The Doctor smirks. “Killing me. As you can see, it didn’t take.”

“Through no fault of my own,” River says, and the Doctor looks up and she’s standing close by, leaning against the TARDIS, arms folded across her chest, listening. The Doctor smiles.

“Win some, lose some, dear,” she says, and River’s cheeks pink slightly at the endearment, and the Doctor feels a surge of hope.

“So… she didn’t kill you, and then you… got married?” Graham asks, and the Doctor nods.

“Basically.”

She explains a bit more—how long they’ve been married, how River died to save her, and then saved herself from the afterlife. She sees River stiffen out of the corner of her eye, and look away, and the Doctor knows that’s something else they’ll need to address, and quickly, before River gets the wrong idea, again.

“So… turning the Doc down and pretending to be mad at her, that was part of the ruse, yeah?” Graham asks.

River hesitates, and it’s all the Doctor needs to know. “Of course,” she says, but her smile is stiff and plastered.

None of them seem to notice, but the Doctor does, notices the way she closes her eyes and looks away when they aren’t paying attention. The way she almost seems to be folded in on herself, hiding the damage.

The Doctor wraps up quickly, a bit too quickly, and when she asks, “Any more questions?” she doesn’t give them a chance to respond. “Great,” she says, slapping her hands on her thighs before she stands. “You all should get some rest. Ryan—welcome back.”

He smiles. “Thanks, Doctor. For everything.”

“Don’t thank me.” She nods to River, and they all stare at her, Graham with something like longing, though the Doctor knows, he’s thinking of Grace. Yaz looks torn, and the Doctor knows she’ll have to deal with that sooner or later, especially if River is going to stay—she hopes River is going to stay. Ryan nods, and gives his thanks, and River shrugs it off, as she always does, a teasing,

“You’re too pretty for prison.” She winks and Ryan stammers and Graham rolls his eyes. The Doctor waits for them to file out, bidding her goodnight. The silence in the kitchen is uncomfortable, strained, and the Doctor stands up, makes work of washing and putting their dishes away while she tries to come up with something to say.

“I’d like to grab a few things before I go, if that’s alright,” River interrupts her thoughts, her voice soft.. “I have some books here, still, and some clothes—”

“River—”

“I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “That’s not what I want.”

River looks down at the floor. “I know. But it’s for the best.”

“The best for who?” the Doctor challenges. River doesn’t answer. There’s a long silence, and the Doctor searches for something to say that will convince River that it isn’t for the best, that her leaving has never, ever been for the best. That she wants her to stay, forever and always and be with her like they were on Darillium, except this time, they’ll have all of time and space, all the years, stretched out in front of them. She grapples with the right words in the right order, too awkward and unsure and afraid, still, that River will leave regardless. That she’ll pour her heart out and River won’t care.

She always cares.

As usual, River breaks the silence before she can. “How did you know? That I was lying about working with Manton? Or, his brother, rather.”

The Doctor stops washing dishes and looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously?”

She shrugs. “It could happen.”

“No, it couldn’t. Not you.”

River sighs. “People are capable of almost anything when they’re—” She breaks off, shakes her head.

“When they’re what?”

River pauses, then shrugs. “Heartbroken,” she says, like it doesn’t matter, and the Doctor flinches, stares down at her soapy hand and doesn’t understand why she does this, why she always makes River do the work, why she never just says what she feels—she hates that about herself, hates so many things.

“Stop it,” River says gently. “I can hear your self-loathing.” She sighs, and pushes off the wall, moves to help the Doctor dry the dishes, put them away. “It’s not your fault.” The Doctor swallows the lump in her throat, the desire to scream at her suddenly, to lay out all her mistakes for River to see and judge.

Except she’s always seen them, and never judged, and it’s almost a moment before River says, almost guiltily, “It had to be believable. He had to think I was just as betrayed by you, but I didn’t mean it. What I said.”

“Any of it?”

She shakes her head. “You need people, Doctor,” she says, “And people need you. What happens to them—you can’t always control it, can’t always fix it. That’s not your fault. That’s just life.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “I wasn’t talking about that. You said I left you for dead. Do you really believe that?”

River pauses, sets the plate down and looks at her, her eyes bright. “What am I supposed to believe, Doctor? I never heard from you. Not once. On Trenzalore, you said you could always see me but you never—”

“I know.”

River takes a shaky breath. “I didn’t mean what I said with Manton,” she says carefully, so quietly, like the words are just too much, “But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t love me.” She smiles, achingly sad. “Even I’m not that sentimental.”

The Doctor looks at her—the tears in her eyes, the bravery. Stepping away because she thinks it’s what’s best for them both, finally trying to do what’s best for her, and for a moment, the Doctor thinks she should let her. Let her go, let her live her life, away from her, safe and unharmed and then River looks away, and a tear slips down her cheek.

“What if I could prove it?”

River looks up again with a frown. “Prove what?”

“If I could prove that it wasn’t a lie, that I wasn’t just closing a loop.” She swallows, forces herself to continue, “If I could prove that I didn’t abandon you. That I feel exactly the same way about you—”

“Doctor—”

“Would you want me to?” She asks, almost desperate, hoping. “If I could prove it, right now, would you want me to?”

Or do you want me to let go? is the question she doesn’t ask, but River hears her, always does.

“Yes,” she says, so breathless. “Of course I would.”

The Doctor shakes the water and soap off her hands, not bothering to dry them. Instead, she takes River’s hand, cradles it in her own, hears River’s sharp intake of breath as she brushes her thumb over her skin.

“Then trust me. One more time, River. One last run.”

River tries, so bravely, to smile, and the Doctor knows that she doesn’t quite believe, is prepared, one more time, to get her heart broken. But she nods, and the Doctor tugs her gently out of the room, down the corridors, deep into the TARDIS.

“Where are we going?” River asks, but doesn’t let go of her hand, and the Doctor holds it tightly, afraid if she loosens her grip even for a moment, River will let go.

She doesn’t.

She follows the Doctor down more hallways, around corners, until they arrive at a door, just like any other door on the TARDIS, except that the Doctor rifles in her pocket for a key. It’s a bit awkward, opening it with one hand, but she refuses to release River’s hand, and it’s a moment before she can shove open the door, stepping inside, River on her heels.

The room is dark, pitch black, and the Doctor reaches for a familiar light switch on the wall. The room comes to life slowly, lights flickering on closest to the door first, then further and further away and the room is cavernous, full of desks and whiteboards, computers and chalkboards, control areas and projections. She glances at River, sees her frown, and pulls her gently over to one of the consoles, bringing it to life.

A projection appears before them, a slowly turning planet, and River blinks, recognizes it instantly.

“This is the Library as it was the day you died,” she says, lets go of River’s hand to type in a few commands. The image flickers, and another version of the planet appears. “This is the Library before the Vashta Nerada infiltrated the books.”

River shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s one of the first things I tried,” she says, pulling up schematics, the image zooming in on a familiar room with a familiar iron throne. She winces, but looks at it anyway. “I thought I could plant something in the Library ahead of time, something neither of us would notice but would prevent what happened. I tried a few things,” she says, pulling up a list that betrays the word few, at least a hundred options on the projection. “Nothing worked.”

She walks around the console to one of the whiteboards and flips it around, shows River the notes she’d taken. “Flesh gangers were another option. The difficulty there was figuring how out to keep it stabilized—the energy surge from the upload would have turned you to, well… yogurt.”

“Again,” River says, somewhat absently, and the Doctor nods, moves to another table, rifling through books.

“The Hazandra of the Apocalypse Monks, otherwise known as the Ghost of Love and Wishes—it draws energy from the nearest star to grant whatever its owner desires. Formed in the heart of a red hole, stabilized in dwarf star crystal.” She looks a bit chagrined. “Grant ate it.”

“Grant?”

“Long story.”

She moves around the room, pointing out various plans—intelligent downloads, androids, various technologies from around the universe, from all eras. There are notes everywhere, mostly handwritten, pages and pages of ideas and mathematical equations laid out on tables, organized by attempt. She narrates a few of them, lets River wander around, ask questions.

“Your handwriting,” she notices, and the Doctor nods. There’s handwriting from four of her past selves, all different, all adding to one another as time went by.

“I started looking a few days after you died,” she says. “And this is from three days ago.” She points to a table full of books and papers and a strange device that has thankfully stopped beeping.

She shows River the simulations she ran, some when they were on Darillium.

“When did you have time to do this?”

“When you were sleeping, mostly,” she shrugs. “I’d slip out for a few hours, try a few things, come back to bed.”

River nods absently. “No wonder you were such a grump in the morning.”

The Doctor smiles. “Never lasted long, though did it?”

“No,” River agrees softly, and the Doctor knows she’s remembering: all their mornings on Darillium, sitting outside on their porch in the dark, with cups of hot tea, talking about stars.

She watches as River leafs through plans, studies the boards and snorts at some, goes quiet at others. Through nearly every plan, there’s a red slash once the Doctor realized it wasn’t viable, wouldn’t work, would be too dangerous.

The plans change after Trenzalore, after the Doctor knew for certain River had to be uploaded, to keep their time streams intact. There’s a hole in the wall near the table with the plans, where he’d punched it so hard he broke a finger in his anger, his guilt. River eyes it, but says nothing, and the Doctor doesn’t offer.

It’s quiet for a long time, and she follows absently as River moves through the room, looking at plans. The Doctor tries not to fidget, but she’s nervous, uncertain what River is thinking, what she feels. River stops in front of one idea, scrawled in her last body’s hand on a chalkboard.

“Why didn’t you try any of these?” River asks finally. “This one… this could have worked.”

The Doctor shakes her head, doesn’t even need to look at the equations to know which one she’s talking about. “37% chance of irreparable tissue damage.”

“And this one?” River turns to a table, scans the items.

“12% chance of memory loss.”

“And this?”

“11% chance you wouldn’t survive at all.”

River looks up at that. “11% is good.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Not good enough.”

“Doctor—”

“I knew if I told you about any of this, you’d make me try it. I wasn’t willing to risk it.”

“That wasn’t your call,” River reminds her softly.

“I wasn’t going to save you just to lose you again. I wasn’t going to risk your life, not when you were safe.”

“Safe is relative.”

“I know. But I couldn’t—River, if I’d been wrong, if I’d screwed up, and something happened, I couldn’t—” Her voice breaks. “It was selfish.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sorry.”

River smiles softly. “I know.”

The Doctor swallows. “I didn’t abandon you. I never could.”

River’s eyes are wet and her lip trembles slightly. “You should have told me.”

“I know. I was stupid, and arrogant, thinking I could find a way to save you, to swoop in at the last minute but I—I had to believe,” she says softly. “I had to believe, or I wouldn’t have been able to—to bear it.” She looks down at her hands, wrung together, and admits, “I was lost. After Darillium. I was so lost, and I didn’t know how to—I couldn’t—so much happened, and every day I wished you were with me. Every day I thought about you, missed you.”

“Doctor—”

“I did,” she says, almost desperately. “I had your picture on my desk. I carry your diary. You might have been in the Library, but you are always with me, every moment.” She looks up, meets River’s gaze. “Did you ever think maybe I was closing the loop because I wanted to? Because it mattered just as much to me to keep our timelines intact? Our wedding, my name, Darillium—they’re as precious to me as they are to you and I needed to make sure they wouldn’t be erased. Not one line.”

River breathes in shakily, looks around the room like she can’t quite process the words. “You tried to save me.”

“I would have burned stars to bring you back, River. I just… I couldn’t do it unless I knew for certain you’d be safe.”

River nods, and says nothing, and the question in the back of her mind grows louder, more insistent, the question she’s been wondering since the moment River said, books have pictures, and she finally asks,

“How did you get out? All these plans—I thought I’d tried everything,” she admits.

River clears her throat. “I changed the code in the Library’s network to a million revolutions per second. It sped up time there, but only seconds passed in the Library itself. I redownloaded myself back into my body.”

The Doctor frowns. “But I was there. You burned,” she says softly, and the words hurt to say.

“I knew you hadn’t seen me survive, so I rigged a transporter to move me to a different location. Sent a message to Lux to have someone there to meet me.”

The Doctor stares at the back of River’s head as she leafs through more documents, and she can’t make sense of it. “That wouldn’t work. The injuries you sustained in the download—if you could have survived, you would have been hurt—you could have had brain damage, electrical burns, decreased motor function. The risk was so high, I tried that early on.” She shakes her head. “How did you get out without hurting yourself?”

River doesn’t answer. For a long moment, she says nothing, and the Doctor can’t see her face, and she starts to panic, starts to feel fear well in her chest, fear that spikes when River says, so softly,

“I didn’t.”

The air leaves her lungs. “What?”

River clears her throat, but she doesn't turn around. “I was unconscious when they found me, took me to hospital. I had burns over 40% of my body and I was septic, but they fixed that fairly quickly. The contractures are taking longer to heal, but my doctor says a few more months of physical therapy and I should regain most of my motor function without pain.”

The Doctor stares at her, eyes wide, hearts in her throat. River speaks so cavalierly, so easily, about something the Doctor has spent so many restless nights dreaming about, waking up in a cold sweat, fear making her hearts beat rapidly. It doesn’t make sense, her words, paired with her actions—River fought her way through Kashiel. River doesn’t have scars.

River, leaning her weight to one side in her office, in the console room.

The blow she took to her side, her leg buckling.

The flash of pain across her face when she’d taken her hand, pain the Doctor thought was emotional, not physical.

“You—” she tries, but her voice hitches, and River turns, finally, but can’t quite meet her gaze.

“I had to get out.”

The Doctor looks at her—really, properly looks—the way she’s standing, her weight subtly on one leg, her hand still against her thigh, and she stares and stares and starts to see something, blinks and it’s gone and it’s like her eyes won’t quite focus, won’t quite see her.

The perception filter. The one she gave Dorium in exchange for the blueprints. The Doctor licks her lips, looks at River’s face, catches her gaze.

“Show me.”

River shakes her head. “There’s no need to—”

“Show me,” the Doctor pleads.

River hesitates, then slowly lifts her arm, taps a rhythm on the inside of her wrist. The Doctor watches, knows the moment the perception filter, embedded under her skin, disappears. She stares at her hand, at her arm, and sees the remnants of scars, faded and pale. Her eyes travel up River’s arm, her shoulder and chest covered by her dress, to her neck, the spiderweb of red scars along her jaw.

Part of her face is burned, not terribly, but she can tell the wounds were deep. Her skin is red and leathery in places, around her eye and River shrugs, darting her eyes away.

“Skin and facial reconstruction in the 51st century is quite good,” she says. “I have another six months of treatments, and then we’ll go from there.”

“River.”

River looks back at her, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare pity me. I did what I had to, and I’m alive.”

The Doctor shakes her head, her words barely audible. “It’s not pity.”

“Then what?”

“You could have died.” River eyes her warily as she steps closer.

“I was already dead.”

“Not to me,” she whispers, stopping just in front of her, their chests almost touching. She lifts a hand, hesitates, asks, “Can I—”

River nods once and the Doctor lifts a hand, trembling, to her cheek. Her skin is rough with scars, her lip slightly discolored on the right side, and River won’t quite meet her gaze.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

River swallows. “I didn’t want you to look at me differently. Like I was… less. Incapable.”

“Never,” the Doctor murmurs, brushing her fingers so lightly over River’s cheek. “You’re brave,” she says. “You’re so brave, River, I—” She feels tears sting her eyes and she tries to push them back, but one slips down her cheek.

“Doctor—”

“Are you in pain?”

River hesitates. “Sometimes,” she admits. “But it’s getting better every day.”

The Doctor swallows. “I made you fight.”

“You didn’t make me do anything, and I won’t thank you for trying to stop me from living my life the way I choose.”

The Doctor nods, but doesn’t stop touching her, doesn’t move away. “Two years?” she asks, and River nods. “Two years, you’ve been on your own?” River doesn’t answer, and the Doctor’s voice feels strangled. “You should have called me.”

“I didn’t want to burden you, again.”

“You were never a burden,” she says sharply, lifting her other hand to cup River’s cheeks, so gently. “Never.”

“You had to be with me,” River says, so stubborn, so afraid. “I made you. I trapped you into it and—”

“You didn’t trap me, River,” she says fiercely. “If I hadn’t wanted it, wanted us, I would have found a way around it, you know I would have.”

“Then why didn’t you?” River asks, and her voice breaks, and the Doctor hears the question she isn’t asking, hears what she’s begging for, what she needs.

“Because I love you.”

A tear slips down River’s cheek, and the Doctor brushes it away gently.

“I knew who you were to me the day we met, and I ran from it, not because I didn’t love you but because I knew how it ended. I ran, and I hurt you, and I’m sorry, I never meant—I never meant for that. But I thought if I let myself love you the way I wanted to, it would hurt too much. And then you found me again, and I realized I was a fool—that I’d wasted those years instead of holding onto them. And I wanted them back.”

River sniffles. “Darillium.”

“I didn’t know for the longest time, and I tried everything to avoid it, what I thought was our last night before you—you died. I didn’t know it was 24 years.” She offers a lopsided smile. “I think I’d have been more eager earlier on if I had.”

River laughs softly, a bit watery, and the Doctor presses her forehead to River’s. “Please believe me,” she whispers. “Please.”

River takes a shuddering breath, and the Doctor feels her nod.

“I’ll try,” she promises, and the Doctor looks up at her, bites her lip, her hands dropping to hold River’s gently between them.

“You’ll stay?”

“I have to teach,” she protests, but it isn’t very convincing, “And I have appointments—”

“We’ll get you to those. I’ll give the fam a tour of the Moon, I’m sure they’d like that. We’ll pop back for your classes, and your doctor’s appointments. There’s probably some other options in the 99th century that would be useful, better than the 51st century, at any rate, and you shouldn’t be traveling anywhere by vortex manipulator regardless, and—”

“Okay.”

The Doctor stills. “Okay?”

River smiles softly, a bit nervously. “I’ll stay. If that’s what you want.”

The Doctor beams, hearts full of light and hope. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

River nods back, her smile a bit tremulous, a bit uncertain, and the Doctor knows this is where she’s supposed to kiss her. Supposed to kiss her, and try to erase any lingering doubt River has; but she isn’t sure River wants that, though she kissed her earlier, so she probably does, but River isn’t moving and the Doctor doesn’t quite know how to initiate anything, as badly as she wants to, and she means to say something romantic, something brilliant, but what comes out is a somewhat declarative, somewhat questioning,

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

River laughs softly, a quiet, melodic sound that warms the Doctor’s hearts instantly. “I was hoping you would,” she murmurs, and the Doctor swallows, nods, and leans forward, kisses her softly, gentle and close-mouthed, afraid of hurting her.

River pulls back slightly, like she knows. “You won’t hurt me.”

The Doctor hears her voice crack. “Promise?”

It means more and says more and feels so heavy, when River reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind the Doctor’s ear. “I promise,” she murmurs, and the Doctor surges forward, kisses her firmly, wraps an arm around her waist and the other clings to her shoulder and River whimpers against her. She feels River’s hand on her cheek and the other around her waist and she opens her mouth and closes her eyes and everything is River—the smell of her, the soft sounds she makes, the feel of her pressed so close and she finds herself walking her backwards, moving somewhere, anywhere, until River’s knees hit a table and the Doctor presses her into it, gentle but firm. River chuckles again, the sound vibrating against the Doctor’s lips and she moans softly, moves her hand to tangle softly in River’s hair. She tries to get closer, wants to crawl inside her, wants to touch her and make love to her and feel her all around her; she wants to apologize for everything she’s done and everything she didn’t, for every failure, for every regret. She wants to lay her out on their bed and show her with each caress how much she means to her, how precious she is, how she’s everything to her and always will be. But she can’t quite move, can’t take her hands away from River even to pull her down the hallway, just keeps kissing her and kissing her and she decides then and there that she’s never going to stop kissing her—

“Doctor!”

The scandalized voice comes from the front of the room, and she turns her head to see Yaz standing near the doorway, Graham and Ryan on either side, Ryan looking embarrassed, Graham looking a bit smug.

“I told ya,” he says. “Five quid.”

Yaz looks uncomfortable, but manages, “We were just… gonna order dinner. From that Thai place on New Phuket.”

The Doctor nods, a bit breathless, her voice a bit hoarse. “Ah, yeah.” She clears her throat, and abruptly realizes her hand is on River’s ass, and quickly removes it. “Sounds good. We’ll be right there.”

The three of them nod and quickly file out, and the Doctor feels her cheeks burn and she looks at River, her expression so full of fondness, of that familiar affection and love that the Doctor stills.

“What?”

“Nothing,” River says, leaning forward to kiss her sweetly. “Just missed you.”

The Doctor swallows. “Ditto,” she says, and then cringes, and River laughs, her eyes bright and the sound honest and true.

—

They eat dinner with the fam. It’s tense at first, strange, but then Ryan asks River something about archaeology, and River spins a tale of adventure, full of good humor and suspense, and soon Graham and Ryan are laughing, Yaz smiling tentatively across the table.

River’s turned the perception filter back on, and the Doctor understands why, but she hopes soon River won’t bother with it—won’t try to hide. Now that she knows, that she can see, it doesn’t work as well on her, and she’s gentle, settling a hand over River’s thigh under the table.

River smiles at her, a bit shy and endearing, and asks the fam about their lives, and with a few well-placed compliments and the Doctor’s reassurances, even Yaz starts to smile more, get involved.

They spend a couple hours talking, laughing, and the Doctor hasn’t felt so light, so carefree in so long, since Darillium, and she keeps looking at River out of the corner of her eye, afraid she’ll somehow disappear, or that she’ll wake up and this will have all been a dream.

When they’re done eating, Ryan and Yaz offer to clean up, and River nods gratefully. “I’m a bit knackered, to be honest.”

“Getting shot will probably do that to you,” Graham offers, and River chuckles.

“True.” She turns to the Doctor, “Speaking of which, we still need to have that row.”

“Later,” the Doctor waves her hand, and River rolls her eyes. Still, she leans over and kisses the Doctor’s cheek, and wishes her goodnight. She’s halfway to the door when the Doctor shakes her head, “What? That’s it? What’s the matter with you?”

River blinks, then smiles. “Why, am I forgetting something?”

“Forgetting—” the Doctor grumbles, “Me, obviously.”

River frowns, when instead of giving her a kiss, the Doctor takes her hand, and turns back to Yaz, Ryan, and Graham, all watching her with differing expressions of confusion and understanding. “Right. Goodnight, fam! Don’t stay up too late. Or, stay up as late as you want. Time machine. Tomorrow is whenever!”

“Goodnight, Doc,” Graham says, and the others echo him and the Doctor hears them taking bets once she leaves the room about how long they’ll be gone, and smirks. Way longer than they think, she knows, and keeps her hand clasped in River’s as they walk toward the bedroom.

“Honestly, you don’t need to chaperone me.”

“I’m not,” the Doctor says. “I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not tired.”

The Doctor looks at her. “Neither are you,” she counters. There’s a pause, a beat, and she thinks maybe she’s misjudged everything, and then River smirks, and the Doctor grins, picking up her pace slightly.

She doesn’t sleep much, hasn’t slept in a long time, usually takes a nap on a random sofa, sometimes in the library, sometimes in the park on board, sometimes at her desk, bent over a plan. The room is just as she remembers it, from the last time they were there, and she pushes the thought aside. River is here and alive and safe and that’s all that matters. She turns, and kisses her, and River kisses back, and they both kick off their shoes, and River is only a little bit taller than she is, and she likes the change. River seems to be waiting for her, ceding control, and the Doctor swallows nervously. Part of her wants River in charge, wants to just let go, but River is watching her with some nervousness, as if she’ll change her mind, as if she’ll run away, and the Doctor soothes her hands down River’s arms and kisses her again as she gently backs her toward the bed, tries to tell her with her lips and her touch that she isn’t going anywhere. That she wants this, wants her.

Her aim isn’t helped when she glances at the bed and notices, for the first time, the wood box near the edge. She freezes, staring at it, and River stiffens.

“Sweetie?”

The Doctor swallows.

It’s the TARDIS’ doing, she knows, moving the box there, but she thinks perhaps it’s what she wanted, deep down, but was too afraid to offer. Even still, she isn’t certain, but the TARDIS hums soothingly, and there’s something in the sound that makes River turn around and follow her gaze.

“What is that?”

The Doctor licks her lips. “It’s for you.”

River frowns, looks back at her, then at the box, and doesn’t move until the Doctor’s soft,

“Go on.”

She lets go of the Doctor, faces the bed and runs her fingers over the ornate lid, the Gallifreyan word for eternity carved into the top. The Doctor shuffles nervously as River slowly, carefully, opens the box.

Inside are letters. All the emails she wrote to River in the Library over the years, hundreds of them—she tried to write at least once a week, while she was guarding Missy. And there were letters from before, in her earlier bodies, and letters after, in this one. So many, all organized in rows in a bigger on the inside box.

River frowns, looking down at the first stack, wrapped in blue ribbon.

“Doctor?”

“I told you, I wrote you letters.”

“There must be hundreds of these.”

“At least,” she agrees.

River looks up. “You wrote all these… to me?”

The Doctor nods, scratches her cheek nervously. “Some of them are a bit rambling. It was hard to keep track of what I’d already told you, so, they might be a bit repetitive. I might have accidentally written you a book, once.”

“A book?”

“Did I mention I missed you a lot?”

River laughs, the sound a bit watery, tears in her eyes again and the Doctor hopes they’re happy tears, happy crying. So human.

“River?”

“I want to read them,” she says, and the Doctor tries not to feel a little bit put out. “I want to read all of them.” She closes the box, and sets it carefully on the nightstand before she turns back around, her cheeks a bit flushed. “But first, I want you.”

The Doctor moves forward without thinking, reaches for her, cups her cheeks between her palms. “You have me,” she says. “Always. And completely.”

“Good,” River whispers, and for once, the Doctor thinks, she just might believe it.