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The clock on the bunker wall hits zero, and The General looks at her pleadingly.
“Doctor Song—”
“I can’t wait any longer. I gave you one hour,” she snaps, turning on her heel to stalk through the barren hallway, the General on her heels. “Which is more than I was inclined to give in the first place.”
“But the rescue team isn’t back yet. If you go in guns blazing—”
“I get him out,” she replies, detouring to the weapons room to help herself to a set of knives, a second blaster, and, for the hell of it, a long sheathed sword she hooks to her back with a harness.
“You could ruin the operation—”
River whirls, narrowing her eyes. “There is no operation. Your troops didn’t make it across the borderline and you know it.”
“There’s still some hope—”
“That the Doctor’s alive. But every minute you spend wittering on is a second closer to his death.”
The General bristles. “There are ten other people with him, let’s not forget.”
River flicks her blaster to kill and reholsters it, turning to face the man she’s spent the better part of two days with, come to respect, as much as she can. “Let’s make something clear. I’m here because the Doctor has an infuriating penchant for seeing the good in people no matter how hopeless, and I’ve gone along with your little crusade for his sake, but trust me when I tell you that I could give a damn about your rebellion. He is my priority. I get him out alive and unharmed and there’s the slightest chance you’ll have your rebellion.”
The General swallows. “And if you don’t?”
“Then just pray I don’t come back for the lot of you when I’m through with them.”
–
Getting across the border is easy enough. She steps over countless bodies to do it, but she’s quicker than a group, smarter than any one soldier, and avoids the landmines and snipers without issue. It’s what she was trained for, after all, and she supposes there’s an irony in using the skill set to save the man she was supposed to kill, again.
She knows he won’t approve. Knows he’d never want her to risk her life, the lives of others hanging in the balance, but she can’t bring herself to care. He’s been gone too long, every second a second closer to him getting himself killed, and she won’t allow it.
Getting into the complex isn’t difficult, it’s getting out that will be the problem. She makes her way first around the perimeter, sets charges to blow—it’s a measly distraction, but it’ll buy her some time, will clear out the security hub so she can disable the cameras.
Once inside, she takes care of the guards - they’re big and slow, rely on intimidation to keep order, and she’s too quick, too quiet, striking them down almost without thought. She checks the cameras, locates the Doctor in a cell in the Northeast corridor, but doesn’t have time to seek out the others.
The Doctor bruised and bloody when she finds him, but still breathing, and she can’t help the sharp exhale of relief as she kneels next to him, a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“River.” He manages half a smile, tilting his face into her palm as she surreptitiously checks his pulse with her other hand. Two hearts, both strong. “You’re late,” he teases, and River rolls her eyes.
“I gave the General an hour.”
“Generous of you.”
“I thought so.” She darts a glance around the empty cell. “Where are the others?”
He shakes his head, using her arm to haul himself to his feet. “I don’t know. They separated us when—”
“When they figured out you were in charge.” She sighs, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “When will you learn to keep your damn mouth shut.”
He smirks. “Probably never.”
River huffs, but steadied him when he stumbles, wincing. “Can you walk?” He nods, and she steers them toward the door. “Then let’s get out of here.”
“The others—”
“I’ll come back if there’s time.”
He shakes his head, digging his feet into the ground. “They have children, River.”
She closes her eyes briefly. Of course they do.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But I heard—screaming.”
River sets her mouth in a grim line. “Then they’re close by.”
He slows her down, though she can’t quite blame him, and she can tell by the way he leans on her that he’s more injured than he’s letting on. It makes her see red, makes her jaw twitch in rage and if she finds out who, god help them.
They follow the faint sounds of crying, uninterrupted, but River knows it’s too easy, too simple. They’ll be waiting for them, give them hope and snatch it away.
But they don’t have a choice, not when the heavy door comes into view, the crying louder, and the Doctor stumbles away from her, clawing at the keypad almost desperately.
“Do you have your sonic?”
“They took it.”
“Stand back,” she says, and he’s barely out of the way before she shoots the lock, sparks flying. The door snaps open, and the sight takes her breath away.
There must be thirty of them, children and young adults, old men and women huddled together. They’re dirty and weak but look otherwise unharmed on first glance, and one of the young men - she recognizes him as part of the rescue team - lurches toward the Doctor.
“You’re alive.”
“Oh, you know me. Nine lives and all.”
River rolls her eyes, but quickly takes stock of their circumstances. They can climb out the way she climbed in, but not all of them. The charges she set will have the guards scattered, but it won’t be long before they regroup, before they all come.
“Any ideas?”
“The usual,” he says. “Run.”
River nods, pulls the second blaster from her holster and hands it to the nearest person, a short woman with a hard look in her eyes and anger fizzling under her skin.
“Ever used one of these before?”
The woman shakes her head, staring down at the gun.
“It’s got a wide range,” she says. “If your aim is even close, you’ll hit something. Don’t think. Just point and shoot.”
“River,” the Doctor says, but she fixed him with a hard stare.
“There are no civilians, not anymore,” she says, and he nods reluctantly as she passes out the weapons of the small arsenal she’d brought with her.
She turns to the group. “Move fast,” she tells them. “Don’t stop. Keep the children in the middle.” She looks at the Doctor. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They’ve barely made it down the hall when the first set of guards rounds the corner, and she doesn’t blink. Four quick shots and they fall; the sounds make the children scream, and she looks back over her shoulder with a sharp, “Keep them moving!”
The Doctor has gone to the back of the group, she knows, to catch the stragglers, and she hears his almost panicked, “River, behind us!”
She doesn’t see the soldiers, trusts that they’re there, trusts her aim as she pulls the pin from a smoke bomb and arcs it over the group. It hits the ground behind them and blows.
It’s enough, but the guards keep coming, and she’s running out of charge, and there are too many people to keep safe, and her concentration is split between getting them out and keeping the Doctor alive. She can still hear him behind her, encouraging the others, calm even when she knows he isn’t, and she’d be proud if she didn’t want to bloody strangle him.
Her gun dies as they round the last corner, and she tosses it aside, pulls out a handgun and keeps shooting, doesn’t count the bodies. The woman beside her is a crap shot, but she tries, and the sound is enough to send the guards that come their way reeling and ducking for cover.
She can see the exit, a hole she blew in the wall on her way in, and she grabs one of the men as he passes. “Don’t go straight through. Head for the forest, fast as you can. I’ll hold them off.”
He nods, instantly takes charge, leading the group one by one out the small gap. She falls behind, lets everyone pass until she sees the Doctor, bringing up the end.
She pushes him forward, doesn’t look behind her as she fires over her shoulder at the three men who’ve rounded the corner before clambering out behind the Doctor. There’s no cover out here, no relief, and she hears herself scream as two men break from the group across the field.
“No, don’t!”
The mine beneath them explodes, and people shriek, and they’re going to get picked off one by one by the snipers if she doesn’t do something.
But there’s nothing she can do; her bullets won’t reach that far, and people are too terrified to listen, to hug the wall. They keep stopping, ducking, breaking the group and the children are exposed, and she barely has time to throw herself on a young girl before a bullet whizzes over their heads.
“River!”
She’s fine, they’re both fine, but she doesn’t have time to tell him that. There’s no way out.
There’s always a way out.
This time they just get lucky.
She hears the whirring overhead before she sees the drone, watches as the last of the rebel bombs slams into the complex, taking at least three snipers with it.
The group cheers, and River feels her lips quirk—the General wasn’t useless after all, she thinks, and then there’s a click, and the Doctor freezes.
Behind him is a man she doesn’t recognize, in government uniform, holding a gun to the back of his head, and River trains her weapon on him in less than a second.
It was stupid and careless and he came out of nowhere, but she should have expected, should have anticipated, should have noticed—
The soldier wraps a meaty arm around the Doctor’s neck and she knows, can tell by the sneer on his face, the gun pressed against the Doctor’s temple, that he’s the one who hurt him. He’s responsible.
“Drop it,” he says, “or I gut him.”
River arches an eyebrow but drops the gun, waits. The Doctor stares at her, almost apologetically, as if he knows, but he can’t know. Can’t understand the terror in her veins, the rage, the calm that steals over her, how everything quiets.
He won’t die here, she knows, because she won’t let him.
I’m the end, it’s less dramatic than the stories will say. She doesn’t have the patience for a villainous speech, or the energy to go 20 rounds trying to talk him down.
“Call off your rebels,” he says, “or I’ll make sure you never hear another word from your precious Doc—”
The knife leaves her hand and embeds itself in the man’s forehead, right between the eyes. The Doctor lurches, stumbling to the side and away, and River reaches him easily, quickly, but doesn’t touch.
“You alright?”
He shakes his head, staring wide eyes at the man on the ground, eyes open, lips parted.
“River, you just—”
“Saved your life. You can yell at me for it later; right now we need to go.”
“River—”
She hauls him to his feet, pretends not to notice when he flinches away from her touch.
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
–
Home doesn’t come til much later, til after they’ve ensured everyone is safe, til the battle’s over and the rebellion is victorious, dictator overthrown, evil plans thwarted.
River sighs the moment the TARDIS doors close behind her, closing her eyes briefly at the blissful silence. She needs a shower, needs to sleep, to recenter herself after days cooped up below the ground; but the Doctor is too quiet, his movements jerky and stiff as he pilots them into the vortex, and when he speaks, his his voice trembles with anger. “You killed that man to save me.”
She knew it was coming, knew by the way he’s been looking at her for days, like he isn’t quite seeing her. It’s on the tip of her tongue to snap at him, to turn around and leave the statement hanging in the air between them, but she can’t. Doesn’t.
Instead, she nods. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” she says, “and it won’t be the last.”
“River, you can't—”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s terrifying!” he says, whirling around to face her, expression panicked. “You didn’t flinch, River.”
She sets her jaw and folds her arms across her chest, but it feels more like holding herself, like a loose embrace and less like the stern, unflappable image she wants to present. “I was trained not to,” she says, relieved when her voice doesn’t waver.
The Doctor falters, and she can see the guilt written plainly across his face, in the tremor of her name across his lips.
River shakes her head and drops her arms, forcing herself to move closer, pausing halfway up the stairs. “My actions are my own, Doctor. They aren’t your burden.”
“Aren’t they?”
“No. And I won’t thank you for trying to take them from me.”
“Yes, but it’s my fault you have them in the first place,” he says, the words spit out, so much self-loathing and pain and she wants to wrap him up, wants to protect him from himself. “I make you dangerous.”
River sighs and comes to stand next to him, but as badly as she wants to, she doesn’t touch. “Honey, I’d be dangerous with or without you. But you’re the one who taught me there are other ways.” Taking a chance, she rests a hand on his arm, relief flooding through her when he doesn’t pull away. “I don’t regret my choice, and I never will,” she says gently, “but before you I wouldn’t have even seen it as one. You showed me.” Squeezing his arm, she lets her hand fall away. “I’m better when I’m with you.”
The Doctor looks at her, eyes bright, and licks his lips. “You weren’t today,” he says, but there’s no malice, no anger, and River offers him a weak smile.
“I didn’t say I was better for you.”
He says nothing, and eventually, turns his stare to the time rotor, to the controls beneath his fingers.
“I’m going to bed,” River says, trailing a hand over his back as she goes. “You can join me if you like.”
He nods, almost mechanical. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
–
A minute becomes the better part of an hour, but she’s surprised he shows up at all. He looks haggard, mostly healed but still limping slightly as he makes his way to the bed, collapsing down on the end.
River wrings the last of the water from her hair and sets the towel aside, sits next to him, waits. She isn’t sure how long they sit in silence, but it’s long enough that she’s startled when he takes her hand, presses a kiss to her knuckles and holds it tenderly between his own.
“I don’t think I ever said thank you. For rescuing us.”
You, she wants to say, but doesn’t. “What are wives for?”
He manages a half-smile. “Certainly better things than husbands.”
“Too right.”
The Doctor nods, and turns, and kisses her, one hand leaving hers to cup her cheek, fingertips in her hair, and she sinks into it, into him. She’s kept it together this long, but the warmth of him, the thrum of his hearts she can feel beneath her palm as she presses a hand to his chest, unravels something in her chest, and she deepens the kiss, desperate to be closer, to know he’s here and alive and safe.
“It’s alright,” he murmurs against her lips. “I’m alright.”
She nods, pressing her forehead to his for a moment to breathe. “And us?”
“Always,” he promises, and it’s enough for now.