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She heard the doorbell ring while she was looking at the moon through the window, and she sighed heavily. It couldn't be Danny as he'd given her a lift back to her flat and she'd made clear that all she wanted was a good night’s sleep.
All she wanted right now was oblivion.
She still headed for the door. If she was lucky it would only be a neighbour asking for something or other. If she wasn't he'd probably just sonic his way in. There was no point playing dead anyway.
"Hello Clara."
Except it wasn't him at all. On her doorstep stood River Song, in flesh and bone, with a apologetic smile on her face.
"Have we met yet in your perspective?"
Clara blinked several times and then quickly regained her composure.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Professor Song, 'course we have," she said, unconsciously mirroring what she'd said to her a long time ago when she'd first met her.
"I'm sorry, I know it's late and you must be exhausted. Can I come in?"
Clara stepped back to let River in and closed the door behind her. Then she led the other woman to the kitchen.
"What can I do for you, Professor Song? If it's him sending you, I'd better tell you we had an argument and I'm not going to be the one to apologize. Would you like some tea?"
"Tea would be nice, dear," River replied, shrugging off her coat and sitting on a chair.
She remained silent for a moment and Clara stole quick glances at her while she was making the tea. She looked so alive and vibrant with her blond curls bouncing around her face, her red lipstick on lips that were curved in a calm and lovely smile and her bright green eyes, gleaming with energy and cleverness.
"Thank you," she said, taking her mug from Clara’s hands and cradling it between hers like she needed to warm them up. Clara sat next to her.
"I'm not here on the Doctor's command, I promise you," River started and Clara sighed in relief. "But I do know you had a fight. He's been travelling alone for quite a long time since that and I've just made him tell me why." She took a sip of her tea. "Vanilla, it's a good one." Then she gave Clara a knowing smile. "I just thought you might not be okay after that."
Clara frowned and stared at her for a moment, because she didn't know if she wanted to confess things to her or not. She'd already talked to Danny. But Danny didn't know the Doctor like River probably did. And River had tried to protect her, back on Trenzalore.
"I happen to know you're quite a big fan of Amelia Williams’ stories," River added, apparently feeling her hesitation.
"I am. Her books were favorites of mine when I was a child. They still are. My mother read them to me quite often," Clara answered, slighly disturbed by the sudden change of subject.
"She's my mother."
"What, but she..."
"Lived some decades ago, I know. Her maiden name was Amelia Pond and my given name is Melody Pond. She was a time traveller, like me. Didn’t the Doctor ever mention his Amelia?"
"The first face his eleventh self saw."
"Yep, he kind of traumatized her for the rest of her life, I can tell you." River chuckled lightly and Clara didn't know what to think or say. She should have asked River to go, claimed that all she needed was to be alone and have a good rest, but it felt oddly right to sit there with her and talk. She just seemed to trust River when she said she was here to comfort her.
"Listen," said River, putting a hand over one of Clara's, "I'll tell you an Amelia Williams story, an exclusive one, never written, never published but a real one, just for you. How does that sound ?"
"Sounds good."
River talked then, and Clara saw the point she was trying to make. She told her how Amy-as the Doctor called her-saved a gigantic whale in space. She told her the complete story, from beginning to end. How the humans used to torture the star whale to make her move, how the Doctor chose to kill her in the most painless way possible, how Amy made a reckless decision and how the Doctor nearly gave up on her.
"She compared the whale to the Doctor. She was very old and the last of her kind. And so is the Doctor, but he was also very kind and Amy assumed the whale had the same kindness in her."
"But she couldn't really know?"
"No, she couldn't. She'd had a clue, the whale didn't eat the children, she cared for the little and the innocent ones, as did the Doctor who couldn't bear to hear children cry. But the whale did eat the adults, she could as well just not have liked the taste of children." River had a slight chuckle again and drank more of her tea. "The Doctor was right, it was reckless and she could have killed all those people on board."
"But she didn't."
"No, she didn't and that's what matters in the end. What matters more now is this, Clara: the Doctor didn't make her take that lonely, heartbreaking and impossible decision because there weren't any good choices. He didn't put that responsability on her shoulders." She gently stroked Clara's arm, and her smile was shaky. "But he did it to you, and I'm sorry."
Clara looked up at River and was shocked to see that her mask has crumbled and there were tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
River took a deep breath and carried on, like she had something really important to add. "A long time ago, in his tenth incarnation, the Doctor changed a fixed point in time, he became what we called a Time Lord victorious, a Time Lord who'd subjugated time to his will. All that because he wanted to save people. But it didn't turn well. I believe he's now thinking that he'd better not interfere, not get involved." She set her mug on the table with shaky hands. "He forced that decision on you and he kept information from you. He knew there wasn't any risk of debris of moon hitting Earth." She sniffled a little, rubbing away her tears. "He was plain cruel. You have every right to be angry and to give up on him."
"Thank you, Professor Song," Clara said sincerely, and then squeezed the other woman's shoulder. "I think I might need something stronger. Fancy some wine?"
Rived nodded. "Wine will be nice," and she rubbed her eyes again. "I'm sorry, I'm really getting emotionnal, old age I suppose."
"You're not that old," Clara said in a friendly tone, handing her a glass of wine.
"A few centuries," River replied, then added at Clara’s shocked look, "I'm part Time Lady, Human plus if you prefer."
"How?"
"Long story." She took a sip of the wine. "It's good, thank you."
"Did he... Did the Doctor ever push you too far, Professor?"
"Please, call me River." She sighed and remained silent for a while, lost in her thoughts—and for the first time, in the odd and cold electric light of Clara's kitchen, she seemed tired. "Yes, he did. You've been on Trenzalore, and you know about the Silence I assume?" Clara just nodded, not wanting to interrupt her. "A few of them went back in his timeline, trying to prevent him from ever reaching Trenzalore. They took his companion's daughter because she was conceived on the TARDIS while it was on the vortex and she was filled with time energy. They almost managed to make a Time Lady of her, brainwashed her and tried to use her as a weapon against him. And it was me."
River took a deep breath and shuddered a little. Clara could only stare at her in shock.
"I had to kill him and it was a fixed point in time. I had to do it, but I refused. I loved him and I tore time apart for him but he just told me I was reckless, that I embarrassed him. There were rumors you know, idle gossips he called them, but I knew I was either the woman who murdered him or the woman who married him. The first time I met him, he told me he loved me, and I'd seen him quite a lot of times after that when he'd proved it. I fell in love with him, but that day, while I was claiming my love for him he just said he didn't want to marry me."
"Why?"
"He was trying to make me angry, thinking I'd give up on him, maybe he just wanted to know how far I would go for him, how desperately in love I was." She sighed and finished her wine in one sip. "Turned out it wasnʼt him that I was bound to kill for the sake of the fixed point, but a bloody robot with him inside. A doctor in a doctor's suit, he called it. Teselecta, lovely shape-shifting robot, very realistic, with tiny little people inside as drivers."
"Why didn't he tell you it was safe to kill that robot?"
"He was afraid I suppose. Afraid of treating me as his equal, of letting me in, because his fake death was quite a big secret at the time. We had a pretty bad fight about that later, and he made up for it times and times after."
"Didn't he care about your feelings?"
"Actually, I wasn't just that I had to accept his death or that I had to be the one to kill him. I knew all the good things he had done, and I decided that the universe wouldn't be better off without him. You thought the same, right? When you shattered yourself in his timestream."
"I did."
"I'll talk him around, I promise. He'll come back to you someday to say he's sorry," River said, standing up and putting her coat back on.
"Do you see this version of him often?"
"Not that much. I feel like my time with him is running out. I haven't see his twelve-year-old face for a while now. Currently it's just the grumpy old one popping around and a lot of his tenth self. This one doesn't know me much, but he's far easier to handle than his twelfth self, I can tell you."
Clara's throat tightened, because she knew River's faith, knew where all of this was going and because River was so kind and wise and in a way, she reminded her so much of the eleventh Doctor.
"I'd love to see you again," she just said and followed the sudden urge to pull River in a tight embrace. River hugged her back in a maternal manner and Clara wondered if River had children. That kind of protective, caring embrace reminded her so much of her mother that Clara pulled back in regret.
"Goodbye River. And thank you."
"Bye Clara."
River typed some coordinates on her vortex manipulator, so much like the one Clara had used in the black archive of UNIT, and disappeared into thin air with a light buzz and some sparks of electricity.
It was only then that Clara allowed herself to cry.