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The Doctor is quiet.
Yaz and the guys haven’t been with her long (just the fourteen times she’s tried to get them home), but already they’ve gotten used to the constant noise of their guide. If she’s not talking, she’s moving, pressing buttons and pulling levers and pumping the pedal that dispenses biscuits. (Which she eats way too many of to be normal, but then again, what’s normal for an alien?)
But ever since they’d reentered the TARDIS (and Yaz still wasn’t used to how unnaturally large it was on the inside), the Doctor has been mostly silent, using mainly hand gestures to point the group toward which hall would lead to bathrooms and kitchens, so they could get cleaned up and eat. After doing just that, Graham had come across an empty bedroom and decided to lay down for a bit. Ryan and Yaz had continued on back to the main area (the control room? Probably).
They’d found the Doctor standing at the console, staring at the large crystal at the center as if it was telling her the history of time itself (which, knowing her, she already knew). Yaz doesn’t think the crystal is a screen, at least she hasn’t seen it used as one, but nothing on this ship makes sense anyway.
“Doctor?” Ryan had asked hesitantly. “Is... everything alright with the TARDIS?”
She had jumped and spun around in surprise before smiling at the pair. “Yes, of course!” she’d exclaimed, smiling. It wasn’t a normal smile. “Where’s Graham?”
“Having a bit of a kip, I think. He found a bedroom, I hope that’s alright,” Ryan added as if remembering at the last second that they were guests on this strange ship.
“Of course!” The Doctor said again, with that same not-normal smile. “Beds are for free, beds for everyone, beds beds beds...” She’d trailed off into silence again before jolting into action and flicking a switch that made the TARDIS whoosh.
That had been hours ago. Graham had reappeared from the hallway, bringing a tray of sandwiches and tea for everyone with him. The trio of humans ate together in a little circle on the second tier of the platform, talking quietly about Alabama at first and then other, more mundane things when they ran out of stuff to say. All the while, the Doctor had stood at the console, eventually taking off her coat and letting it pool on the floor. She ate half a sandwich and absentmindedly sipped her tea. Occasionally she held her screwdriver in her hand and stared at that, before she’d put it away and resume staring into the empty air.
When it hits hour four, Yasmin stands up. The other two shoot her wary glances -- this behavior has been bothering them too, and even Graham hasn’t said anything -- but don’t stop her.
“Doctor,” she starts.
There’s no response.
Letting out a silent sigh, she repeats herself. “Doctor.”
The slightly louder tone gets the woman’s attention, and she finally lifts her head. The look in her eye startles Yaz. She’s seen that look before, very recently, not even a month ago (maybe, depending on how time passes here), on the faces of the other two humans in the room, when they lost the one they loved. When Grace passed away.
Yaz would know grief anywhere.
But then the Doctor blinks, and the emotion is gone, replaced with a blankness that worries her even more.
“Yes! Yes, right, Sheffield, England, two thousand and eighteen, coming right up!” But she doesn’t reach for anything.
Yaz steps forward. “Doctor, wait.” She hesitates. “Are you alright?”
The alien freezes for just a second before pasting that false smile on her face again. “Course I am! Always alright, me. A little tired, maybe, but not to worry, I haven’t crashed the TARDIS yet! At least, not this time. And I don’t know if I can really be blamed for most of those other instances, either, it’s always regeneration that does it.”
This is not her normal rambling. It sounds like it, but there are just a few too many pauses between words, like she’s thinking of them instead of them spilling out naturally. So, recognizing the words for the deflection they are, Yaz decides on a different approach.
“Who was it?”
Everyone freezes. The room seems to get colder, which is usually just a saying, but it feels like the temperature in the TARDIS actually goes down several degrees. If Yaz didn’t believe before that the ship was somewhat alive (and to be honest, she really hadn’t), she does now.
It takes a moment for the alien woman to react, but then she looks up with that same not-right smile. “What do you mean?”
Yasmin takes a chance and climbs the steps to where the woman stands, keeping enough space between them to hopefully give her an escape if she needs it. The Doctor hasn’t moved yet, but her gaze is wary.
“I know that look, Doctor,” Yasmin says. “I’ve seen it before, through work, through life. You’ve been quiet since we stopped by the asteroid, since we left Alabama, really. Now that I think about it, you’ve been a little off since you went and confronted Krasko alone. It was covered up by our mission to save history, but looking back I can see it now. Something that man said affected you. It made you remember someone, someone you lost. Who was it?”
From the corner of her eye, Yaz sees the guys gazing at her in what’s mostly shock but might also be -- is that awe in Ryan’s eyes? In front of her, the Doctor is doing an excellent impression of a statue, her mouth slightly open and eyes wide as if she’s surprised anyone caught on, or maybe just that someone said something about it. Yasmin keeps her expression as open as she can, and waits.
Long minutes drag by with no one saying a word, barely daring to even shift position or breathe. Then, all at once, the tension melts off the Doctor’s thin frame and, surprisingly, a smile, this one different from the others, takes place on her lips. She lets out a little laugh.
“You know, I’ve been traveling most of my life, almost 2000 years, a lot of that time with others... and I don’t think humans will ever cease to amaze me. You’re incredibly perceptive creatures, did you know that? Maybe you’re not there yet with space travel and the like, but you people are talented in so many other ways.”
She gazes up at the ceiling, her nose scrunching up the way it does when she’s thinking hard. Yaz finds it to be a cute quirk. After a moment, she seems to decide something and looks back at Yaz, head tilted.
“River Song,” she says, almost states, staring right into Yasmin’s eyes, before switching her gaze over to Ryan and Graham, who at some point had climbed the stairs to stand with the women.
“Who’s River Song?” Ryan asks when nothing more is said.
That sad look is back in the Doctor’s eyes. It tints her little smile.
“Krasko used to be a prisoner of Stormcage, the most secure prison in the universe. It holds the worst of the worst, not just mass murderers like Krasko, but any being who’s a flight risk, who can’t be trusted not to escape a normal prison. It’s on a planet where a storm always rages, away from any habitable planets, so even if someone does get out, there’s nowhere for them to go.
“Of course, it doesn’t exist yet in your time. You’ve got a long while til the 52nd century.”
Ryan looks like he wants to ask about that last part, but Yaz rolls over that. “What does it have to do with River? Is that where he worked? Did Krasko meet him there?”
“Oh, no, River wasn’t a guard. She was a prisoner also, although well before Krasko was ever locked away there. Twenty seven centuries before, as a matter of fact.” The Doctor shakes her head. “Ah, River. She was such a bad girl.” But her tone is fond.
“Sorry, Doc, maybe I’m just getting slow in my old age, but nothing you’ve said makes any sense,” Graham cuts in. “So River was a prisoner, but didn’t know Krasko, and that’s connecting, but who was she exactly? She must have meant something for her memory to affect you like this.”
A faraway glaze takes over her green eyes, bringing attention to the sadness there, along with something else Yaz can’t quite identify....
Someone lets out a soft oh, and Yasmin glances to her side to see Graham looking at the Doctor with understanding on his face.
“You loved her.”
Yaz and Ryan’s mouths drop open a bit in shock, but one glance at the woman tells them Graham hit the nail right on the head.
The Doctor’s eyes glisten a bit in the strange light, but her expression has morphed into one of pain-tinged joy. Yasmin wonders if she’s ever told anyone about River before.
“I still do,” the alien says, and while her voice doesn’t quite shake, the heartbreak is clear.
And that’s what that other emotion is. Yaz has seen love in her parents’ eyes when they look at each other, but this is something else entirely. This is unchained adoration, something that she hadn’t even seen in the small moments between Grace and Graham, although that was similar. From what the Doctor is saying and how she’s been acting, Yaz is almost positive River is no longer alive, and it’s sad because just from the Doctor’s expression Yaz can tell she would’ve done anything to meet this woman.
She must have been something amazing to mean so much to the Doctor.
“What was she like?” Yaz asks abruptly, suddenly needing to know more.
The Doctor looks surprised. “You want to hear about her?” She looks at the other two.
Ryan doesn’t look so sure, probably thinking he’s about to get dragged into girl talk, but Graham smiles and speaks for all of them.
“Absolutely.”
***
“River Song’s real name, the name her parents gave her, was Melody Pond.”
The group had relocated to a kitchen, different than the one they had found earlier and different still from the one Graham had used to make lunch. Apparently the TARDIS had approximately 100 kitchens, and that was just at last count, which happened a while ago (which could mean years or decades, when it came to the Doctor).
This one has a small round table, just enough space for the four of them and their fresh mugs of tea. There’s no head of the table, but if there was, the Doctor would have been sat at it, her coat draped over the back of the chair, her blonde hair pushed behind her ears, exposing her ear cuff and earring.
As story beginnings go, this one isn’t so bad.
“She was born on a military base on an asteroid called Demon’s Run in not-so-nice circumstances, and--” The Doctor cuts herself off with a frown. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to think of a way to tell this story without talking about my past companions, but I can’t really...”
Ryan frowns. “Past companions? You mean you traveled with people before you met us? Why would you leave them out of it if they’re important?”
“They didn’t travel with me, or at least not this me, it was the me two me’s ago, but anyway. In past experience not all companions like to hear about those who came before them.” The Doctor huffs out a breath. “It’s all very complicated and emotions get in the way and-- blegh!”
Yaz doesn’t laugh at the sound, but it’s a close thing. She chooses not to address how the Time Lord’s phrasing is implying that their little trio are her current companions (because they’re going home, right?) and instead says, “If they’re important, don’t leave them out. You don’t have to erase old friends just ’cause you’ve got new ones.” Like her mates had after primary school.
The Doctor looks at her, checks that Ryan and Graham agree with Yaz, and starts again.
“Her parents were Amelia and Rory Pond. They had been traveling with me awhile when Amy got pregnant, so Melody came out a little... different. She was a beautiful child, though, and I’m sure I would have been her godfather if... well, anyway, Melody didn’t end up being raised by her parents, and she took on the name River Song. She had an interesting childhood, mostly spent pretending to be her mother and father’s best friend, growing up along with them and making sure they ended up together.”
“She was the same age as her parents?” Ryan bursts in, clearly just as confused as Yaz.
“Not at first,” the Doctor clarifies. “Because Melody was... conceived in the TARDIS, most likely while it was inside the time vortex, she was born with regeneration energy. That gold mist you saw that first night we met? And she got hurt as a little girl, so when she regenerated into another little girl, one who looked nothing like Amy and Rory, she found a way to have her parents in her life without having to wait for them to grow up and, you know... have her.
“I hardly knew her when she was little Melody. The first time I met her, three me’s ago, I hadn’t even met Amy yet. River was a doctor, with a PhD in archeology and everything, and a fully grown woman. And I had no idea who she was, even though she knew everything about me.”
The Time Lord’s face darkens a bit. “That same trip that I met her, she died. But I -- I being a different me, in my future and her past -- had given her a sonic screwdriver, so I pseudo-saved her and was left with knowing I would meet her again.
“And I did!” She smiles. “I met her again and again, and every time I knew her more, and she knew me less, and it slowly killed me inside because I knew her fate, but I wouldn’t give up one moment of it. And every time I met her, I fell more and more in love, in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time, different, even, from what I felt for Rose, which is... a whole other thing, never mind, forget I mentioned that.
“We fought so many things together. Weeping Angels, Daleks, the Vashta Nerada, that was the first one--”
“Doc,” Graham cuts in. “River sounds amazing, and I can see how much you love her, but I’ve got to ask -- how did she end up in prison? What did she do that got her put in maximum security?”
The Doctor smiles fondly. “Ah, that. She killed me.”
“WHAT?!”
She startles at the volume of the trio’s shouts and blinks a couple times. “Well not actually killed me, obviously, I’m still here. But someone controlled her to kill me, and being a time traveler, I used future knowledge to make sure it wasn’t actually me she shot. She went to prison for it, for a long time, but she was too clever for that place. She would get out and come visit me and her parents all the time.” She looks down at her hands wrapped around her mug. “River did a lot of things I didn’t exactly approve of -- carrying a gun being one of them -- but under it all she was a good person. She didn’t deserve to go away for life, although she eventually was released when all record of me was erased. Can’t keep a person in prison for murdering someone who doesn’t exist.
“The last time I saw her, in my timeline, was the night before she went to the Library, the place where she would die. I took her to see the Singing Towers and gave her a sonic screwdriver, and we spent 24 wonderful years together before she had to go. It wasn’t nearly enough time.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, staring at the steaming tea. The trio lets her have her time.
Eventually, she shakes herself a little and looks back up at them, trying for her usual smile and almost hitting the mark. “But anyway. No use dwelling on the past. I lost her, like I’ve lost many people, as is the way life goes. Being reminded of Stormcage just brought it forward for me again. You’ll have to forgive an old Time Lord, I’m getting soft in my old age.”
“You can’t be that old,” Ryan objects.
“On last count, I was...” she wiggles her fingers, “one thousand nine hundred and five years old.”
At the looks on their faces, she breaks into a bright grin. “And on that note, storytime is over. First one back to the control room is a rusty Dalek! Or is it last one? I can never remember the order of these things.”
And she takes off running. Laughing, the trio follows her down the hall, although Graham does more of a fast walk and Ryan spends more time watching his feet than racing.
Yasmin knows there’s things the Doctor hasn’t told her. Something happened during River’s childhood, some reason she couldn’t be raised by her parents the normal way, and she’d never said what happened to Amy and Rory, why they weren’t with her anymore.
But maybe those questions would be answered later. Or maybe they were never meant to be answered. The Doctor would open up when she was ready. Yaz just had to give her time.