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Ch. 1.5
Amy gave the Doctor a tired smile from across the Control Room. “Long day,” she said by way of an explanation when he raised an eyebrow.
“Indeed,” he remarked, choosing not to comment on the fact that it would have been a much, much shorter day if she and Rory hadn’t chosen to engage in…behavior…at the exact moment they should have been running for their lives from an angry mob. He much preferred living in a universe where he could pretend that his companions simply slept in their separate bunk beds every night and never, ever chose to exercise certain marital privileges in the middle of adventures to alien worlds.
Really.
“Speaking of long days,” Amy continued, characteristically not having the sense to look abashed, “we haven’t seen River in quite awhile.”
“In what way is that ‘speaking of long days?’” he asked, startled by the ease with which she had turned the conversation away from her own romantic behavior to (what she clearly believed to be, though to his knowledge had never directly observed—he’d been very careful about that) his own.
“Only that we’ve been having long days more often than not lately, and long days for us mean less time at night for you to run out to parties with River.” Now it was Amy’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
“How many times do I have to tell you that I do not spend my nights with River Song?” he asked, irritation bubbling into his voice.
“Rule one, Doctor. Rule one.” And with that infuriating (and completely true) comment, Amy walked up the stairs and out of sight.
Damn her.
Chapter 2: The Euphemistic Euphonium
“So I was thinking just now,” he began, stepping out of the TARDIS and directly into the corridor in front of Cell 46 at Stormcage Containment Facility. “It’s been awhile since I last went to a concert, and there was a truly smashing performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony on Luna Base in 2343. But who wants to go to the symphony alone, because really, which I why I decided-“
“That you’d pop by and see if I was available?” she asked stepping out of her cell (how did she do that? He’d never seen her pick a single lock, and he was fairly certain the guards regularly checked the security of her cell given her penchant for escaping) already dressed as formally as he in a long, slinky black dress tastefully dotted with crystals.
“Something like that, yes,” he said, trying not to sound surprised that she’d not only anticipated his arrival, but also their destination’s dress code.
“Sounds delightful,” her lips briefly brushed against his cheek before she took his arm. “Shall we?”
Delightful, he mused, leading her back into the TARDIS’s waiting doors, is exactly what I had in mind.
***
“Really, River, It’s nothing,” he attempted to explain, as he jogged through the lobby outside the theater, attempting to keep pace with an infuriated River Song. “Simple misunderstanding between friends – Marilyn never did know how to take a joke, surely you know that. And really, how was I to know she’d be here? As far as history is concerned, she died nearly four hundred years ago!”
“Funnily enough,” she retorted, pushing through the glass doors and exiting to the street, “I’ve never read anything about Marilyn Monroe lacking a sense of humor. Sweetie. Oh, and everyone knows she didn’t die in the 20th century. She was a time agent.”
“You can’t believe that I married her and planned some sort of assignation with her tonight, River. You simply can’t,” he took her arm, hoping to at least slow her down long enough to get her to look him in the eye again.
This was apparently the wrong move, however, because the next thing he knew he was flat on his back in the middle of the sidewalk outside the Luna Philharmonic, River’s arm pinning him to the ground. Wordlessly she held one finger in front of her face as if to say that this was his final warning before she stood and stormed off again.
This time he didn’t follow her.
Passers-by watched him curiously but cautiously as he stood, brushed street grime from his jacket and trousers, and tried to figure out just when the evening had gone so spectacularly wrong.
River had seemed distant from the moment they set foot in the TARDIS. The light kiss she had given him outside her cell had failed to evolve into anything approximating the greetings they typically exchanged during their evenings together (which had begun to occur quite regularly - in spite of what Amy thought, long days did not automatically equal short nights when one was in possession of a time machine), and while she had smiled and nodded and generally done her best to appear interested in their destination, there had been something in her eyes that troubled him.
It was almost as if she was grieving.
Needless to say, the slap he had received from one very affronted (and, from her perspective, jilted) Miss Monroe outside their box hadn’t improved matters.
What he kept coming back to was the fact that normally River would have found the notion that he’d accidentally found himself engaged and possibly married to to an intergalactic sex symbol (an arrangement he considered null and void given that he had told her his name was Martin Amis and thus entered into the entire thing under false pretenses) hilarious. He was certain of it. River had never been the jealous type, and if they were going to play this game he had a few questions for her about exactly what kind of relationship he and she had from her perspective that even gave her the right to be angry about his romantic interactions with other women.
For once, “spoilers” would not have been sufficient.
Nor would the fact that they had been kissing on a regular basis for linear months now.
He was tired of the hints, tired of the promises that he would know everything “soon,” and tired of standing on this street corner, watching her walk away from him and having no real idea what was going through her head.
Well she can just find her own way home, half of his brain decided while the other half shouted Chase her, you idiot! which resulted in his feet attempting to go in two directions at once before he tripped over both of them.
This really wasn’t his night.
Just as he’d reconciled both voices to a cup of tea at a diner across the street (where he most certainly would not be waiting for River to change her mind and come back, but planned to station himself at a table next to the plate-glass windows just in case she did) he heard a scream coming from inside the concert hall.
A brilliant orange light briefly engulfed the building, and the lone scream turned into many as the auditorium doors were pushed open and terrified concert-goers began to flee the building. The Doctor looked up into the night sky expecting to see an alien ship or device creating the light, but found nothing. It appeared to originate within the structure itself.
Utterly failing to conceal his relief at having a tangible, tackle-able, and solveable task set before him, the Doctor plunged back into the building through the crowd of panicked men and women. He might not be able to figure out the whys and wherefores of River Song, but this he could handle.
***
He creeped in a not altogether dignified way around the exterior doors of the auditorium. The havoc caused by the audience’s flight had passed, and the place was now nearly silent. Nearly, in this case, meant that he could still overhear sporadic noises from behind the doors – most notably squeaks and squawks from musical instruments sounding as if people who had never touched them before in their lives were attempting to make music.
While he couldn’t be certain without looking, the Doctor was fairly sure that the members of the orchestra were still inside. He hadn’t seen any of the performers in the fleeing crowd, but from the sounds he heard they were either not in possession of their instruments or they were no longer in their right minds. Regardless, that left potentially a hundred likely innocent individuals inside (keeping in mind that they might be behind the whole thing) along with whatever had caused tonight’s excitement.
His hearts pounded in excitement. Tonight was decidedly improving.
“Need a hand?” a quiet voice next to him murmured.
“River! What are you doing here?” he demanded, hoping that she hadn’t seen just how high he had jumped when she’d whispered in his ear.
“You, me, date to the symphony? Ringing a bell?” her tone was sarcastic, but there was an undercurrent of genuine inquiry there too. For her, running into a past or future version of him was always a possibility.
“Yes, yes, of course. Same me from earlier. What I meant was, what are you doing back here? You were fairly intent on getting as far away from me as possible a few minutes ago.”
“Alien invasion, Doctor. Do try to keep up,” she turned her attention to the auditorium doors. “You’re not seriously planning to go through there, are you?”
“As a matter of fact, I-“
“Remind me to review the importance of the element of surprise with you next time,” she said, giving him a patronizing pat on the hand before she stood. “I really can’t take you anywhere anymore, can I?”
Infuriating (and largely rhetorical) questions aside, he couldn’t deny the surge of relief he felt at seeing her back by his side. They would deal with the issue between them later, for now they would be working together. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Have you locked the outer doors yet?” she asked, pointing at his sonic.
“No, why?”
“Because hundreds of people just saw whatever happened inside, and unless I’m very much mistaken local law enforcement will be here any moment. The last thing we want is for them to burst in here and get themselves killed.”
The “or worse” implication was best left unsaid. The Doctor hurried down the staircase back to the front doors, which he promptly soniced shut.
“That isn’t going to keep them out for long,” he said softly but urgently, once again joining her outside the auditorium doors. “There must be a dozen entrances to this place.”
“Two, actually, and I already got the performers’ doors,” she replied. “With luck, it’ll be enough to buy us a few minutes.”
“To do what, exactly?”
“Improvise.” She grinned at him then – perhaps the first genuine smile he’d seen from her all evening.
***
Someday, the Doctor resolved, slowly advancing forward on his hands and knees and trying very hard not to think too hard about the fact that River was providing him with an extremely distracting view as she crawled in front of him, I am going to find out exactly why she knows exactly where every trap door and hidden cupboard is in this place.
The plan, insofar as there was a plan, was to make their way under the stage so they could covertly determine what they were dealing with. After securing the auditorium doors against the police (who were doubtless already attempting to make their way inside the building) River had unceremoniously shoved him into a small, dark closet, through which they had been able to access the crawlspace under the main stage.
As interludes in dark closets with River went, this one had been remarkably anticlimactic.
“Do you know where we’re going?” he asked, realizing that the stage was quite large, and it was too dim for him to make out just where the lone trap door was located.
“Not much further,” she whispered back at him as the discordant sounds of misused instruments above grew louder.
“Have you ever seen that orange light before?” he whispered back, fairly certain of the answer, but wanting to keep her talking.
“I don’t think so.”
“Ah. Me either.”
“That much was pretty obvious, Doctor.”
Silence descended again, and they crawled several more feet.
“Do you suppose the musicians are still up there?”
“I really don’t care to speculate – and stop chattering. You’re going to get us caught.”
“Are you hearing what I’m hearing? Nothing with even moderately good ears could possibly tolerate that noise for this long. Well, unless they’re Hexcoritihans: great ears, terrible taste in music. Really, makes one’s hair stand on end to listen to it for longer than a few minutes. Though-”
She stopped and turned around, her nose almost bumping into his as she shifted her weight onto one hand in order to raise the other so she could point it in his face. “Shut up. I mean it, Doctor. I know your primary coping mechanism when you’re confused, or bored, or trying to work something out is to babble, but not now.”
He nodded, and they resumed their crawl.
Less than a minute later, just as he’d been about to open his mouth again to ask if she was really sure she knew where she was going, River stopped. The Doctor looked above their heads, and was pleased to see the trapdoor. Together, they pushed up just enough to open a small crack between it and the level of the stage. They peered out into the auditorium, utterly unprepared for what they were about to witness.
Dozens of musicians lay prostrate on the floor, twitching and grasping at empty air. Their eyes held the same bright orange light as the building itself had earlier. A handful more had managed to pull themselves into a sitting position, but seemed incapable of righting themselves further as they fruitlessly kicked their legs in an effort to find purchase against the glossy wood. Only a few were standing, and these appeared to be the ones who were attempting to operate the instruments. As the Doctor and River watched, the strongest looking of the bunch clumsily brought a euphonium to his lips, blew, and the horn began to glow orange as well. A moment later the man dropped the instrument to the ground, where it landed with a loud clang. He gasped for breath and stumbled, nearly falling on his own face in the process.
Without exchanging more than a glance, the Doctor and River slowly and gently pulled the trapdoor back down, careful not to make a sound as it settled back into place. The Doctor pointed at the far end of the crawlspace, underneath an area of the stage currently unoccupied by any of the clearly possessed musicians.
“What are they?” River asked him when they had reached their destination.
“No idea, but they’re fascinating,” he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He loved this part. “They’ve clearly taken over the higher brain functions of the performers, but can’t operate the bodies effectively. That would tend to indicate that their original form isn’t corporeal – once you can operate one physical form, mastering another generally comes easily.”
“You think they’re gaseous,” River nodded.
“Or plasma! Yes, plasma would be a possibility. Never met a plasma-based life form before!”
“Well, whatever they are, there’s something about those instruments they need desperately. Do you think we ought to show ourselves?”
The Doctor considered for a moment. “I don’t see any way around it. If we can communicate with them we can possibly help them get what they want before anything happens to them or to the musicians.”
“You think they’re still alive?”
“Yes – probably. Well, hopefully. Possibly.” He scratched his cheek absently. “River, not to change the subject, but-“
She cut him off. “Not now.”
“Right, of course. Bigger problems and all that.”
He started crawling back to the trapdoor without waiting for her to follow. Bigger problems indeed.
“All right, here’s the plan. I’ll pop up there and see if I can’t engage our glowing friends in conversation and you stay down here in case they decide to take over my body as well.”
“What kind of a plan is that? That’s a rubbish plan!” River shook her head firmly and pulled what he was beginning to think of as her evening-wear gun out of the bodice of her gown. “No, scratch that plan. We’re going up there together, and I’ll cover us while you do the talking. At the first sign of trouble I shoot and we run.”
“No, no shooting! As far as we know the musicians are still alive. Let me talk to them first-“
“Compromise: we go up there together, I hold this and look threatening while you talk, and if there’s trouble we just run for it.”
He could tell it was the best he was going to get, so he nodded in agreement. This time when they pushed up against the trapdoor they didn’t bother being quiet about it. As it fell aside and loudly banged on the floor, the Doctor lifted himself out of the crawlspace and turned back to offer River a hand. Naturally, she was already out and brushing dust from her skirt.
“I don’t know that we needed to be so concerned about them hearing us earlier,” she observed drily, and he realized that the possessed performers didn’t appear to have taken note of their arrival.
“Indeed not,” he agreed, stepping around those still on the floor and heading towards the small cluster of men who were still attempting to use their instruments. “Hello, I’m the Doctor.”
He waited a beat, then another for them to answer or even acknowledge that he had spoken. Nothing.
“Is it possible that they can’t see or hear us?” River asked, stepping alongside him after waving her hand in front of an adjacent clarinet player’s face.
“I don’t believe so,” he said, deep in thought. “It’s possible they don’t realize we’re trying to communicate with them, though.” River shook her head, not understanding, and he continued. “If their original form is gaseous or plasma-based it would stand to reason that their senses aren’t the same as ours. Think about it. If you were to suddenly become a cloud and were thrust into a bank of other clouds-“
“You might not understand what you were observing or how to interact with anything. Got it.”
“But they do seem able to recognize the function of the instruments,” he mused as one of them attempted to hoist a tuba to his lips.
The Doctor had turned to face River as he spoke, and was understandably shocked a hand belonging to the musician who had been attempting to play the euphonium earlier suddenly slapped itself on his shoulder.
“You…friend…us?” the man wheezed.
***
Shaking slightly, the Doctor lowered his hand from the musician’s face. Communicating verbally had been a non-starter from the beginning as the man could hardly work out how to speak and keep his lungs going at the same time, but he absolutely hated using telepathy.
“What?” River asked. “What are they, and what do they want?”
“We were right, they’re a plasma-based race. The orange light is energy they’re using to maintain contact with these bodies.”
“Are the musicians still alive in there?”
“Oh yes, and I was able to reassure the gentleman whose body that is – his name is Philip, by the way – that everything will be back to normal soon.”
“So what do they want?” River stepped aside as a violin-player who had been slowly pushing himself to a sitting position suddenly collapsed to the floor again. “They’re not getting any better at controlling their movements, and at some point they’re going to hurt themselves.”
The Doctor nodded. “They know. They’re here because they needed sound waves.”
“Sound waves?”
“Yes. Apparently it’s part of a rather elaborate mourning ceremony that’s only held once a millennium or so when a member of their royal family dies. They need a perfectly pitched ‘C’ in order to release her spirit into the afterlife.” He pointed at the euphonium. “They used to be able to produce the sound themselves, but their world was destroyed and they lost the technology.”
“So they came all the way to Earth’s moon and possessed the bodies of an entire orchestra in order to make the right note?” River shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“Most truly profound gestures in the universe are, River.”
“Do they have to produce the note themselves or can we do it for them?”
“They’d prefer not to have outsiders participate in the ceremony, that’s why they didn’t just take advantage of the original concert, but at this point they realize that they need to get out of these bodies as quickly as possible, so they’ll accept our help.” The Doctor gently plucked the euphonium out of Philip’s hands. “Care to do the honors?”
“I’m sure you’re more than capable, Sweetie.”
His hearts skipped a beat as he realized it was the first time she’d called him anything other than “Doctor” all night. Perhaps whatever had gotten into her earlier had passed and they’d be able to enjoy one another’s company once this excitement was over.
The Doctor positioned his fingers over the keys, pressed his lips to the mouthpiece, and blew. As the sound filled the hall, brilliant orange light blossomed from the euphonium and spread to every other instrument. He saw River’s eyes light up with wonder for just a moment before the light faded and the room was enveloped in darkness.
***
Euphoniums, the Doctor reflected as he and River stepped out of the building and into a thankfully empty alleyway behind the concert hall, weren't exactly the easiest instruments to carry.
Philip had insisted that the Doctor keep the thing after he had regained consciousness. He’d looked too distressed at the evening’s events to touch it again, so the Doctor had agreed to take it off his hands. Just need a piccolo now and I’ll be able to assemble a full marching band he thought.
“I’ll say this for tonight,” River began, taking his hand in hers, “I’ve never attended a briefer concert. One note and done!”
They laughed together, and he appreciated how her earlier moodiness seemed to have disappeared. He was just about to put his free arm around her waist and suggest that they adjourn to the TARDIS when a long, black car pulled out at the end of the alley. The rear window rolled down, and he could see blonde curls inside. River stepped away from him and, in a quiet voice he almost didn’t think belonged to her said, “Go.”
“What do you mean, ‘go?’”
“You and her – there’s something there, Doctor, don’t try to deny it. Go and talk to her.”
“That something was a clever lie I told someone I met at a party one time when I barely knew you. It was to help a friend, who, incidentally, wound up saving Amy and Rory’s lives thanks in part to what happened as a result of that lie. It was nothing more, though.” He was well and properly irritated now and didn’t mind if she knew it.
“Is that what you’re about at this point? Hm? You say whatever you think we want to hear because it’s convenient or serves some larger purpose?”
"River, how could you even think that?" he asked, offended on behalf of his future self. "I may not know everything - or anything -" in response to her cocked eyebrow, "about what we are or will be, but I do know that you're important. I've known that for quite a long time now, and that's not a spoiler. I would never use you like that. You’re..." he searched for the right word, something concrete. Something in his hand. "You're a euphonium."
"Beg pardon?"
"Yes, a euphonium. You're complicated, difficult at times to understand properly, but utterly necessary for the-." He stopped, suddenly realizing just how absurd his metaphor was about to become, but now that he was committed to it he could hardly back out without feeling even more foolish.
To her credit, River was biting back the laugh that was clearly on the verge of erupting. "You were about to compare your life to a symphony, weren’t you? Go on."
"It’s a metaphor, River. We’re speaking metaphorically so I can make a grand, sweeping point about the nature of the universe. Please pay attention.” He cleared his throat and began again, “I meet a lot of people, you know that. And they're important, all of them are important in their own way. Marilyn-" he gestured toward the door, "was important. But she wasn't a euphonium."
"Let me guess, she was a sousaphone." River was grinning broadly.
"She was..." his mind raced, searching for an appropriate term, "a biplane. Marilyn was a biplane."
This time she did laugh.
He might have been trying to make her laugh.
"Biplanes, as you know, were quite important. Essential, even, when one considers the history of aviation. I was there, you know, when the Wrights took their first successful launch in a biplane."
"So you've said," she agreed.
"They couldn't have done it without me. But the thing about biplanes is that they became obsolete so quickly. They're still nice to look at and will unquestionably always have their place, but they ceased to be useful in the blink of an eye." He felt rather pleased with his analogy.
"So I'm a euphonium and Marilyn Monroe is a biplane?"
"Exactly! And people will always need euphoniums!"
This time River laughed deeply, throwing her head back. When she looked at him again, he could see a trace of the earlier sadness was back in her eyes, though. Suddenly, he felt very, very tired.
“Do you mind if we call it an early night?” he asked.
She nodded. “Go home, Doctor. I suddenly feel the need for a long chat with a very confused film star-slash-time agent.”
He touched her hair gently, then enfolded her into a one-armed hug. “Thank you,” she whispered into his coat sleeve. “Oh, and you might want to pop by Antwerp around February of 1894 sometime in the near future.”
“Any particular reason?”
She smiled, and they said together, “Spoilers.”
As he opened the TARDIS doors, the Doctor felt supremely smug. He really was getting the hang of this whole River Song business. He jogged up the stairs, euphonium still in hand, but when he got to the top he realized he’d not said a proper goodbye yet. Tonight definitely wasn’t the night to forego such things. Hurrying back to the door, he leaned out and called out to her retreating form, “River, I’ll see you in Antwerp! Tell Marilyn she’s too late – she’ll have to take the biplane! Take care!”
***
SOME TIME LATER
For the first time in recent memory, the Doctor checked the TARDIS's scanner for his exact temporal coordinates before stepping outside the doors. Half the fun came from never knowing exactly where and when he was until he was actually there, but in this case fun wasn't exactly his objective. If he botched the coordinates this whole trip would be for naught.
Stormcage Maximum Containment Facility, Cell 46. For her it had been one week since he'd sent Rory here dressed as a Roman soldier. It had also been two days since he'd arrived to pick her up for the symphony. The latter had been months ago for him, the former just yesterday.
Yes, he was exactly where he wanted to be.
Giving the old girl a pat by way of thanks, he straightened his bowtie, took a deep breath, and stepped out the doors. River's cell was directly in front of him, but the door was closed, and River was sitting cross-legged on her bunk, scribbling in her diary. He had left the brakes on this time, so she was plainly ignoring him. In fairness, he now knew just how much he deserved it.
"I didn't know," he said without preamble.
That got her attention. She looked up, puzzled, and closed the diary.
"The possessed orchestra - euphoniums and biplanes. I didn't know when that was for you."
- "I knew that."
"That was the point, wasn't it?"
She sighed and rubbed her forehead as if she was battling a headache. "It's not that simple."
"It is, though. You hadn't ever seen a version of me who didn't understand who you are - that you’re Melody Pond. It bothered you."
Tears welled in her eyes, and had she not been standing behind bars (bars either of them could open, but the fact that neither had made a move to do so spoke volumes) he would have embraced her. "It... it wasn't just that, Doctor. When are we for you?"
"I just left you to take your parents, Jenny, and Vastra home."
"Ah." She looked at the ceiling for a long moment, and when her eyes met his again they were clear. "There's still so much you still don't know that it's going to be difficult for me to explain much more than that what happened that night was really just the final straw. I saw you with her, and... I can't even explain it properly. I was frustrated and angry and resentful. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”
“For the record, I shouldn’t have accidentally told Marilyn Monroe that I’d marry her.” He was relieved to see a small smile twitch at the corners of her lips.
“I shouldn’t have told her you had a thing for aquatic mammals,” she teased, and his grin matched her own as the door to her cell swung open. Their lips met, and as his hand wound its way into her hair, the Doctor considered just how much he loved brass instruments.
***
The Stormcage guards never asked Dr. Song where she had gotten ahold of an antique concert-quality euphonium. They did, however, request that she please refrain from playing it while the other inmates were trying to sleep.