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Her skin had been itching all day.
It had nothing to do with the heat of the binary suns baking the dig site, or the grit of cerise sand that made one feel synesthetic until they’d adjusted and that got into everything during the daily sandstorms. It wasn’t even the tedium of the dig itself and the pompous director who refused to acknowledge that his dig plan was turning up none of the results he had predicted.
This was…different. Like there was something she should be doing. A pressure to act without knowing in what direction.
A footstep shifted in the sand behind her and she was in motion instantly, all the static energy that had made her twitch suddenly focused into pure, kinetic action.
He caught her wrist before she was even aware that she had snatched up the long sandstone shard on the worktable, ready to bury it in his chest. He just smiled, unruffled. “Hello there.”
She trembled, fighting off the murderous compulsion, letting the shard fall from her fingers. “Sorry…sorry. Instinct. I didn’t mean…”
“Shh, it’s all right. I expected as much.” He hadn’t let go of her wrist, and they stood much too close together, although she suspected he didn’t give a lot of consideration to personal space. “How are you?”
She could feel his hearts beating, wanted to reach out and caress them through his lapels. “Good, fine. Why are you here?”
“Because this is where you were.”
“You came for me? That’s a bit idiotic, don’t you think? Considering what I could do to you, I mean.”
“Maybe I wanted to see if you’d found River yet.”
“I’m…working on it. Maybe you’d like to help?”
He grinned. “I would love to help.” Still holding her hand, he turned to lead her away from the dig site.
She didn’t resist. “I can’t just leave. If Director Arturo finds out, I’ll get sacked from the program.”
“Are you actually learning anything from this Arturo fellow?” Not slowing his stride in the least, he turned and walked backwards, watching her.
“Well, no, but…”
“Don’t worry about it. Time machine, remember? Come on, let’s go learn something important, and then I’ll bring you back. He’ll never know you were gone.”
She laughed, surrendering. “Is this how you charm all the ladies?”
“It worked with your mother. Twice.”
2.
“Did you see the look on his face when we showed up with his daughter?”
It was still strange, running with the Doctor when Amy and Rory were with him. But in times like this, when everything has gone well, when they’ve won, when no one has died and only the villains suffer, she can forget that they are her parents and her childhood friends and just be this person they’ve forgotten she’s not, this person they look up to as a role model, as a mother figure and they can laugh together and celebrate.
She watched them take each other’s hand and resisted the urge to do the same with the Doctor.
The TARDIS was a welcome haven that they all ducked into, no need to run this time. Amy tugged at the hem of the shift she was wearing. “Time for a change, I think. I’m not entirely comfortable in this.”
Rory shook his head. “You wear skirts shorter than that all the time.”
“Yes, but that’s because I want to, not because I have to.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Come help me pick something out?”
“You have to ask?”
She hides behind the console, covering her observation with the comforting steps of take-off. She’s not even certain if it’s deliberate or Freudian when she bumps into him.
Neither move away.
“That was good,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you liked it.” They drifted together, close but not touching, not quite embracing.
“Is there anything you aren’t good at?” She pitched her words lower, filling them with innuendo.
He bent closer, his voice taking on the same flirtatious lilt. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried everything.”
“That’s a shame.” She grazed her nose against his.
“Were you planning to poison the Emperor?”
That was unexpected. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?”
His tone remained playful and soft. “Because I can smell Judas tree poison on your breath.”
Damn. She hadn’t even realized she’d applied it. “Well, maybe his prime minister.” She took a chance, resting her hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating strong and fast beneath it before she tugged out his pocket square and slowly, firmly wiped her lips with it. “Nothing to keep you from kissing me now.”
His breath was warm and smelled of apples as he brushed his lips over hers before trailing up her cheekbone to her temple. “Maybe when you’re older,” he breathed in her ear, making her tremble.
She couldn’t help but laugh.
3.
The Temple of Milles Fortunae sat at the top of the highest peak of the Termament Mountains. Still not as high as Olympus Mons on Mars, but high enough to take her breath away as she climbed. Humans didn’t come up here. It was too hard to breathe, even with supplementation. But she wanted to research the funerary art of the sisters there where the burial icons were made rather than secondhand from the graveyards below, so she climbed. The road, more of a goat path, had given out a thousand feet below, and since she wasn’t gifted with the wings the sisterhood had, she was reduced to searching for handholds and ledges to make her way up. Her altimeter said she was now a scant hundred meters below the abbey, but the thin air and exertion was making her mind swim.
Deep breaths, relax, focus. Step by step.
A broad male hand invaded her line of vision. “Care for a hand?”
She took it. And pulled. Hard.
He fell.
“Oh, bloody hell.”
She flung herself off the cliff after him.
She shouldn’t have been able to catch him. Newton insisted on it. That didn’t stop her from trying, straightening her body, aiming herself like a dagger, praying neither of them hit any of the mountains outcroppings on the way down. Although that would let her catch him, she didn’t know what state he would be in.
This time when he reached for her hand, she grabbed it and held on. When he had a hold of her, she released her grip long enough to slap the emergency patch on her shoulder, activating the small antigrav pack that slowed them enough to lower them onto a wide ledge.
She hunched there, fighting for breath as she glared at him. “What on earth did you think you were doing?”
He had the decency to look sheepish. “I wanted to see if you were doing anything interesting.”
“Interesting? Are you mad? I almost killed you!”
“But you didn’t.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.” He glanced back up the cliff. “We have to get back up there. I left the TARDIS in the temple courtyard.”
“I hope you’re good at climbing, then,” she snapped, still panting.
“Climb? What about your—” He gestured at his back and then hers “—your jetpack thingie.”
She shook her head. “No good. Emergency only. The extra weight of saving you will have burnt out the battery. It’s climb or fall, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t really like falling.”
“I rather doubted you would.”
4.
She slung the hovercar around the corner without touching the brakes, careening down the narrow side street, sending vendors and pedestrians lunging for cover. One gravbike shot past the turn as she’d hoped, but two others slowed enough to bang around the corner after her, extending her lead on them but not much else.
She had to get up. The surface streets were too narrow, too overbuilt for her to be able to hide effectively, and there was nowhere to go if she bailed out here. If she could get to the upper stories, though, she could slot in with the regular traffic or even drop onto an unsupervised landing pad, ditch the craft and disappear into the arcologies.
But first she had to get out of these arcades.
Another left and a sharp right brought her out into the naturally lit atrium between Teresium and Valtri Towers. Perfect. She jumped the vehicle barricade and spun towards the airlocked sally port. Everyone scattered in front of her.
Everyone but one.
He looked up, surprised but unmoved. Her memory flashed to a red sports car and a corn field, and she slammed down the accelerator.
He didn’t flinch.
“Bloody—” She slammed on the brakes at the last moment, fishtailing the back end around before she kicked open the passenger door. “Get in!”
His face breaking into that brilliant, mad grin, he did. “What are we doing?”
“Stealing the crown jewels of Arctus Antares III.” She didn’t wait for him to shut the door before gunning the engine.
He clutched the car frame. “We aren’t on Arctus Antares III!”
“Neither are the crown jewels!”
When she glanced over at him, answering her grin with one of her own, she realized that in that moment, she really didn’t want to kill him at all, instinct or no.
5.
She ran.
He was in trouble. She could feel it. Could feel his hearts pounding as if they were in her own chest, could feel the panic threatening to overwhelm that bloody brain of his.
She had to find him.
The branches lashed at her as she ran through the trees, catching at her clothes, spattering lingering drops of last night’s rain in her face, the evening winds making the limbs rattle like old bones over her head. The sun was setting even now, making every shadow threatening. She didn’t dare call for him for fear of alerting whatever it was that was after him. He had to be here. She had to find him.
The trees gave way to clearing and she hesitated, gasping for breath, taking in sun, moons and stars to get her bearings, listening for anything over the sounds of bark and wood.
He broke through the trees opposite, all gangly limbs and desperation, running from whatever chased him.
It was automatic.
Her gun snapped up to ready, the laser sight trained on his forehead. Too many hearts, but only one brain. If it was going to be the gun, it had to be this way…
She fired.
The blast caught the creature behind him full in the chest, flipping it backwards where it twitched once, twice and then went limp.
Gun still in hand, she crossed the clearing, putting herself between him and the creature, watching it suspiciously. It didn’t move again.
“How did you know I would duck?”
At last she relaxed her stance to turn and smile at him. “You always duck.” Sliding her gun in her holster, she stepped closer, hands on his chest before sliding up. “Are you all right?”
“How did you find me?”
“How do I always find you, my love?”
“River…” It was more benediction than chide.
She moved closer and at long last he put his arm around her. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that.”
“It’s the first time you’ve truly been her. My River Song.”
She brushed her lips over his and was rewarded with his hand in her hair. “I am, you know. You made me.”
“No.” His voice was as fierce as it was breathless. “No, you made yourself. Only you could do this. You are…magnificent.”
He kissed her. At long, long last, he kissed her.
It was what she had waited her whole life for.