Chapter Text
She had spoken his name. Tears in her eyes and voice, she had spoken his name and walked away. A part of him was galled at her, this perfect stranger who dared sully his name with her human tongue. That side of him raged behind his eyes, wanting nothing more than to shake her until the truth poured out of her in fear. But there was more inside of him than the son of Gallifrey, her last son. His rational monster had reared its head at the familiar fashion in which the sounds had flowed from her lips.
River Song had not merely recited his name, she had spoken it with an ease that should not have belonged to a child of Earth.
The Doctor knew of many a humanoid race and he had presumed the archaeologist to number among them. Yet, now that he thought of it, he realized that she had confounded him more than once today. The more he had questioned her, the less she’d responded. She was not only filled with spoilers, she carried in that book an embarrassment of secrets. This left him more curious than he had either right or time to be. The Vashta Nerada were lying in wait, time was neither their friend nor their grudging ally. It was their enemy outright; nevertheless, he couldn’t resist giving a portion of thought over to the mystery of River Song.
She knew his name, she knew his future, and she knew his faces. She knew entirely too much, and he wanted to know why.
…
They were, quite simply put, waiting to die. Their numbers were steadily dwindling and they were fast running out of places to hide. In a moment when things could have not have felt more hopeless, he was once more preoccupied with Professor River Song, archaeologist.
“You need to be less emotional, Doctor, right now.”
He’d taken that bit rather personally. Yes, his hearts had hammered in grief for Donna. She had quickly earned the position of his best mate in their too brief journey together. He counted on her and had looked happily forward to all good times they’d share. He’d like to be able to look forward to those times now, but that evidently wasn’t to be. There wasn’t a question that he was grieving, though he would never let that show. Centuries of playing his feelings close to the vest had made him an expert at compartmentalizing his emotions to deal with the moment at hand. He had been coping just fine thank you, thinking clearly and planning feverishly when she’d distracted him with her nonsense.
If only it had been genuine nonsense.
Her expression had told the tale, his inner turmoil bursting the seams of the calm she was attempting to exude. He was her open book and the pages had become a shambles. He didn’t like the feeling. While Time Lords were gifted with telepathy, their brains were structured in such a manner that there were whole swathes of telepathic races with whom they—he, now, just he—had difficulty communicating at all. There was even the rare creature capable of breaching his psychic defenses sight unseen. River Song shared obvious physiology with none of them, neither did her colleagues. To his eyes, she was utterly human. He still couldn’t shake the sense he had that she’d read him word for word without uttering a one.
Then, of course, there’d been her other curious statement to consider—said, not for the first time: “Dear god, you’re hard work young!”
The Doctor was many things, none of them was remotely young. There were few beings in existence that would dare stand before him and call him so. This woman, this girl in the relative scheme of their apparent ages, had done it twice. Felman Lux had all but named them wed amid their domestic; she hadn’t denied it. He was simultaneously galled and mortified at the idea that he would deign to marry such a child, and at his growing sense that she was no child at all; not a human one, at any rate.
In the quiet, frantic peace they had left, his curiosity overruled his good sense and he tentatively reached out for her mind. Time Lords were better equipped for touch telepathy than the distance variety, but he didn’t doubt she was on her guard now. A probing tendril brushed against her consciousness, only enough to register the contact and no more.
He pretended at busyness and futzed with his screwdriver while avidly counting shadows.
She blinked. Then, tilted her head to peer more easily at a book on a shelf.
He frowned. She hadn’t noticed the contact. Doesn’t say much for any psychic ability. Admittedly a tad disappointed, he tried again.
He shouldn’t have.
An abrupt explosion of numbness lunged through the connection and he blinked madly, trying to break free. There was nothing. He couldn’t sense or feel and or taste, Time was a concept of which he’d suddenly lost all comprehension. Staggering, he moved to put physical distance between them, though there were few options that kept him safely in the protection of the light. Not that he cared, he’d rather be dead than go on like this, completely senseless in a universe designed for the blessedly aware.
The professor spun around to pin him with a dark look. He supposed; he couldn’t see her. Feel her, maybe, yes, something, but not see her. “Kindly keep out of my thoughts, Doctor. You may discover something you don’t want to know.”
He rubbed at his temples frantically. This psychic emptiness was more than he could bear. “Noted, Professor. Duly noted.” He grabbed his head. “Gah, what was that?”
“Never experienced a psychic void before?” She was amused. “Oh, don’t be an infant.” She strode over, confidence rolling with the certainty of her stride. He twitched in response to the sudden presence of her sure hands on his face.
Out of the emptiness came a sparkling light that warmed his senses, all twenty-three of them. Familiarly, it brushed against his consciousness, a gesture he returned, only too glad to be able. Seconds, it had been seconds without this part of himself and, now, he wanted to tether that part to life forevermore. He wouldn’t be who he was without those senses. Thank you, he offered graciously to his offender and savior. He’d all but done this to himself.
Anytime, sweetie, she replied, her thumbs tenderly caressing his cheeks as she retreated from his mind. Her absence was immediately felt and he couldn’t help the relieved cough the leapt out of his mouth. For a shining moment, he’d tasted brotherhood, as though one of his kind had blinked into existence and right out before his eyes. Like an amputated limb, those phantom flickers.
She released him completely and moved away, all business. “I’d avoid attempting to form any psychic links for the next little while. You won’t be able to control the strength of your probes. You could do serious damage to someone less accustomed to telepathic communication.”
He was still gaping after her when what remained of Proper Dave appeared once more. This bears thinking about again, he realized. But not right then.
…
Handcuffed to a piece of machinery, he watched River Song prepare to go to her death. She was far too contented about the whole thing for his comfort. Not too contented, he had to remind himself, she’s just brave even when she’s crying. Anita and River’s commonalities made him strain more desperately at his bond. He would have slain the Vashta Nerada for Anita if he could have, he hadn’t yet conceived of what atrocities he would commit for this woman.
She doesn’t even cry like other people. The tears, he thought they must have glowed just a bit.
“Let me do this!”
“If you do this, it’ll mean I never met you. It can’t be you.”
“Why not? Time can be rewritten!”
“Not those times, not one line. Don’t you dare.” Her face was filled to the brim with sympathy and regret. “You have to be the last one, not me.”
“The last one?” He stared, continuing to do battle with the cuffs as she continued to hardwire the uplink. “What do you mean ‘the last one’?”
“There’s no time.”
“What. Do. You. Mean?” He surrendered all pretence of calm. He couldn’t sit by and let this happen. One more death on his hands was too much. Please.
Relenting, she put down the implement of her demise to reach inside the collar of her spacesuit. From it she pulled a necklace that carried two pendants, one he recognized as a TARDIS key and the other in the shape of home; the symbol for ‘home’ in Gallfreyan, that is. She yanked the keepsake from her neck and tossed it at his feet. He never saw it arrive for her felt her first.
The earlier spark he had mistaken for a highly-evolved mind was, in fact, a highly-evolved mind evolved in the same manner as his. I’m not the last one anymore. It isn’t just me. Her essence was different than any he’d encountered in his long life, but he’d know another Time Lord in any form. She’s been wearing a perception filter! A perception filter, I should have realized.
“It was you! When you fixed the void. It was you I felt. You erected your psychic shields to hide from me.” They would have to be formidable to succeed while she remained in such close proximity. He was dying to know just how formidable they were, in how many ways River Song could confound him simply by breathing.
Her smile, teasing yet understanding, grew amid her tears. “Spoilers!”
He didn’t want to let her go, this stranger, not now. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, River.” He found himself shaking at the force of his dread, fighting harder to get free. The only other left of his kind was voluntarily going to her death for him. Why must it always end this way? “Please. Please, don’t leave me alone.”
Although her hands moved with purpose, her mind was preoccupied with him, attempting to soothe him by sharing feelings of love and reverence he couldn’t yet understand. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s not over for you. You’ll see me again.”
“I don’t want to see you again! I want to see you now.” He didn’t care if he was crying and he didn’t care if that made him seem a modicum less brave. All he wanted was another minute, another lifetime with her.
“And to think, ten minutes ago you couldn’t stand me.” He could see himself growing to love her smile, wicked as it was.
“I didn’t know you yet.”
“You still don’t, Doctor.” You and me, time and space. You watch us run. It was a promise.
“I want to, I want to so very much.” He fought off his tears; he didn’t want to miss a moment of her face. Which face is this? How many have you had? She didn’t answer.
“Someday.” The timer was counting down, but she was ready now. He couldn’t possibly be.
“River, you know my name. You whispered my name in my ear. There’s only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There’s only one time I could.” The truth was written on her face and, now, on his.
“Hush now, spoilers.”
And very quickly, very painfully, The Doctor became the last of his kind all over again.
~!~
He went to Midnight to forget her. He’d reached out his proverbial feelers in the hopes of finding her and gotten nothing in return. If she lived at all, at any point in time, she either didn’t know him or didn’t care to. All was quiet on the sacred band, the one where Time Lords came to call. No one called but him, and then even he was forced to stop. The echoes nearly drove him mad.
Midnight finished the task. Only Donna’s careful handling and a touch of something far off and healing kept him level.
He hardly slept, but when he did, River Song’s remembered spark lit midnight to noon and he slept well.
~!~
He gained a new face and new hearts and a new companion, and thought he had outgrown his old yearnings; he thought he had outgrown the mystery of her. He was wrong.
When she landed on top of him, dressed to the nines, he instinctively reached out for that inhuman spark he knew her human face concealed. She searched his eyes curiously before rising gracefully from their crush. He had managed to touch something before she quickly slammed her mind away from his. It tingled.
“Follow that ship!”
…
She was done-up in combat fatigues for the Church now. She wore them easily, as easily as her dress and heels, perhaps more so. The hair was tucked away neatly; he dared say with military precision. Her oddity confused him—and comforted him, as he knew from where it stemmed. Whatever spoilers she might have called her own, he knew the greatest one so far.
“You’re a Time Lord, or a Time Lady, rather,” he declared to her turned back. Her attention was held raptly by an old leather book. It wasn’t the diary; he’d know that one anywhere; still, she was captivated all the same.
“No idea what you mean.”
“You can’t lie to me, River Song. I know what you are.”
She whirled on him so swiftly there wasn’t anything he could have done to prevent their collision. He backed up quickly from the too-pleasant experience of being flush against her. His former self had been so preoccupied with her mind that her form had gone largely unevaluated. He had reached the end of that ignorance.
“The sooner you understand what you don’t know, the more you’ll learn.” There was so little teasing in her voice, he hardly recognized her.
“You speak in riddles.”
Then, like a light, she was herself again. “I know! Infuriating, isn’t it?” She winked and strode away, swing enough in her walk to make him linger.
“Incredibly!” he agreed, to her disappearing backside.
Oh, hush, you! He turned in distracted circles for the source of the voice, only to realize it had come from inside his mind. He shoved her right out.
“That will do, thank you!” Ignoring the confounded clerics around him, he strode in the direction of crashed Byzantium. Without doubt she’d be where the action was. And that was precisely where he wanted to be.