Work Text:
Excerpts from River Song's Diary:
2 March - 14 March 5145
Finally got to see the Transit of Vandabar/Astral Nebulae conjunction. Just as beautiful as reported. Trilecta, however, bit of a disappointment. Not really his fault as cruise my idea in the first place (though, honestly, that was over a decade ago and he's generally gotten better at figuring out relative times than that, but maybe tickets are harder to come by than I'd thought?) Spent most of the time in stateroom anyway, so suppose hardly matters. And no, dear diary, the rest is none of your business.
*Note – Really must remember to turn television on before. No matter how distracted. Though did he really have to look quite so smug when the porter mentioned 'screaming'?
Must also remember that.
Impossible man.
18 March 5145
It arrived today. Should have seen it coming. Did see it coming. Literally.
An invitation to Utah. 22 April 2011.
Show time.
8 April 1969
Everyone's decided mother's frequent nausea is caused by exposure to the Silence. Of course, it's not the Silence.
It's me.
12 April 1969
Sick today. Father remembered I was sick back in Florida, too.
Everyone assumes it's the Silence. Only I know the Silence don't make you sick.
As if I didn't have enough to deal with.
Sometimes, I could just kill him.
God, I miss him.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
She wiped her mouth off with a strip of toilet paper and threw the wad into the bowl in front of her. She was meant to be tracking down Silence – and trying not to even think of the irony of that – yet here she was spending the better half of each day rushing off to the nearest washroom and the other half trying to find someplace safe enough for a quick sleep.
And if experience had taught her anything, it was going to get a whole lot worse before it got better. A single shared strand of temporal DNA might make the entire process possible, but it hardly made it easy. And unlike Amy, she'd be showing soon, too. Which, under the circumstances, surrounded by Silence...
If things got really bad, she knew she'd have to use the Vortex Manipulator. Only she'd had enough lectures from him on the dangers of that, under these conditions, for it to be a last resort. A last last resort.
Still, if it came to facing the unshielded vortex or the Silence...
She knew which she would have to choose.
The room seemed to suddenly shift around her, twisting her insides, and she was leaning forward again, gripping the porcelain.
A sudden hand on her back, another gently pulling her hair back from her face, and if it hadn't been for his gentle touch on her mind, despite her condition, she'd have already laid him out on the floor. He chuckled, "I've no doubt you would, dearest."
Sitting back on her heels and taking the tissue he held out for her to wipe her face, she observed, "You really shouldn't be here."
"I'm not here," he said, "I'm at Area 51. Ask anyone." Then, scrambling to his feet, he held out his hand. "Now, lets get out of here before someone notices I'm not me."
She took his hand and he helped her to her feet. Stepping her out of the stall, he opened the invisible door of the equally invisible TARDIS he'd somehow managed to park inside the tiny Ladies' Room and led her inside.
As soon as the door had closed behind them, he turned to her. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Now. How...?"
"The Silence don't cause nausea." He chuckled. "I know that now. And of course, I also know what does. The Trilecta, if I've got the timing right?" he asked, with just a touch of the smugness which for once actually didn't make her want to slap him. "Unless I've got something else to look forward to...?"
She returned his smile. "No, I think you're right. You and your guilt complex..." she began, but broke off at a sudden wave of queasiness.
His hand on her arm steadied her. "Cup of tea usually helps," he said. "At least, the way I make it."
She nodded gratefully. "Yes, please."
And, hand still on her arm, he led her back to the TARDIS kitchen.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
River returned to the small Ladies' Room, via Vortex Manipulator, a few seconds after she had left. Or, possibly, a full fifteen months afterwards. It was all a matter of perspective.
She'd left him sitting in the back garden of the small cottage he'd rented, or rather, that one Doctor John Smith had rented, outside Stanwell, dangling their infant son upon his knee. He'd been trying to convince the poor child – who was clearly having none of it – that Daddies could be just as good as Mummies, at least for short periods. Even without mammary glands.
She hadn't wanted to leave them, of course. She never did. But she knew where to find them. And they were never more than a Vortex Manipulator away, anyway.
And, in the end, River discovered the timing really wasn't as terrible as she had thought.
After all, nothing can make the price worth paying as much as a reminder of just what exactly it has bought.