Work Text:
River's memories of living with his mum were mostly hazy. After all, he had been seven when she dropped him off with her parents, and she didn't exactly come back or even remember he existed all that often. River remembered just enough to call Grandad O. B. in his head even decades later. He remember enough for fear to be an all-too-familiar friend by the time he was training to be an MI5 officer. He had hand to hand combat training before the age of six; he just had never won back then.
River had mostly known his mum secondhand, from his grandmother. David Cartwright didn't talk about his daughter much, but Rose had shared how River had been named when Isobel's rebellion was taking the form of a hippie phase, when she had ran off to the continent to participate in protests as soon as River had left diapers.
"Blame my mum, she was in her hippie phase."
River didn't talk about his family much at work, but he did let Louisa know who would need to be notified in case of his death, considering River had zero trust Lamb would do as asked in the event of losing another Joe. Sure, Lamb had notified the right people in Min's death, but Sid had disappeared completely. River was unsure if he would ever need to disappear completely, but part of him still hoped his mum would care if he died.
River hadn't expected to have to disappear completely, but in retrospect he probably should have. Grandad was losing his marbles day by day. His mum had always brought chaos to his life, even in her absence. The existence of a maniac father she had lied about counted as adding chaos. River ignored his mum's calls when he was back in Britain, in the land of the living. He told Louisa the bare minimum to make her understand why exactly River had no interest in remembering his mum existed.