Work Text:
Public Transportation
The note was short, sweet, and to the point.
Need a lift.
Come soonest.
XX
Below that was a set of coordinates in the twenty-eighth century on a small planet just outside the Beta sector.
He seriously considered ignoring the note which had appeared on his psychic paper just after Amy had gone to bed. Since then, he had stared at the note, put it down, and picked it up again to stare at it some more. On the one hand he had no desire to be public transportation to a stranded River Song. On the other, he could use something to distract him from his own unhappiness at the current situation.
Amy was sleeping a lot, lately. He could see the vague effects of depression in her, and he didn't know what to do about it. She couldn't decipher what was wrong, and his feelings were mixed. Wasn't she happier not knowing why she was so sad? Would it help her to try to tell her of a lost love that she couldn't even remember and never would? As he put his hand into his pocket and rubbed the red velvet ring box that remained there, he debated what he should do.
It was his fault, of course. He was the one who had let Rory come. He was the one who had brought Amy along. He couldn't just abandon her now. Before, she'd at least had Rory. Now she had no one... nothing. He couldn't just leave her that way, but he couldn't make her better, either. Perhaps he'd try to cheer her up with a trip, he thought. Yes, that was a good idea. He'd just wait until morning and take Amy someplace nice. She would like that. He wanted to see her smile again. He needed that.
Except that he had this note on his tablet, just staring at him. Could he leave River in whatever situation she had found herself? She had once saved Amy. She had once saved him, along with four thousand other innocent people. Could he really abandon her just on principle, to prove he wasn't at her beck and call.
With a sigh, he admitted the truth. Of course not. So it was the Doctor to the rescue, whether he was feeling like dealing with another female or not. Some things never changed.
He plugged in the coordinates and waited for the TARDIS to give her customary take-off noises. Oddly, she didn't. Quietly, she dematerialized and hurled herself through space with himself and Amy riding along. He glanced again at the coordinates, noted that there was an additional tag at the end of them – one he had plugged in without thinking – which had stabilized their flight path. Leave it to River, he decided. He still wondered how she knew his TARDIS so well.
It took him a moment to realize that the TARDIS had landed. Quiet landing, he mused, and once again he marveled at the fact that she could pilot the TARDIS as well as – okay, better than – he could.
He opened the door on a fairly deserted world with mountainous terrain and a small stream running nearby. He didn’t recognize the world on sight, so he returned to the console to check the location. The planet didn’t even have a name. It was a small planet with a stable atmosphere and a long series of numbers to identify it. Over history, little had been heard from the planet. There were no indigenous humanoids, and only small indigenous animals. The terrain was fair for habitation, but the planet was too small to support any significant population without eliminating resources. Overall, it was just one small planet in a small galaxy with little to recommend it. What in the universe was she doing here?
And where was she? That was the real question. He walked around the TARDIS, and then wandered a distance away with no sign of her. He cross-referenced the pad with the what he had typed in and found it accurate. With some confusion, he walked back out of the TARDIS and began a larger circle of the area. Finally he located an overhang that was likely habituated. A fire pit had been dug and wood arranged within it so that it could be lighted at a moment’s notice. Leaves and branches formed what might be a bed in the deepest area of the overhang, although there was no bedding beyond those branches. It was a Spartan area at best, but it could be a camp. Frankly it didn’t make a lot of sense.
He wondered if she hadn’t waited for him. There was no way to know when she had sent her message, if it was even indeed River. What if it wasn’t? He was going primarily by the flippant tone of the note, the handwriting, and the kiss-kiss symbol that was above the coordinates. Perhaps this was a trap of some kind. In retrospect, it wasn’t terribly safe for him to follow a blind note that had magically appeared. He probably should be more careful.
Just as he was deciding that he needed to reconsider waiting, he heard movement. He stood quickly and turned towards the sound. Almost immediately, his arms were filled with a scantily clad River Song. She was plastered against him, her lips on his neck, and he was completely at a loss.
“Thank God,” she muttered in between small kisses to his neck. “This has been the longest three weeks of my life.”
His arms remained suspended in the air, somewhere between the instinct of holding her and the uncertainty of her actions. It wasn’t the first time she had been more comfortable with him than he was with her, but this was probably the most extreme. Even when she had been at the end of her life, she had not shown a tendency towards public displays of affection. Actually, she had barely teased that first time, but then the situation had been mostly dire. And no, they weren't in public – far from it – but she was just so... close!
After a long, uncomfortable moment she moved back to look at him. She was indeed scantily dressed. A silver, sequined halter top, a mini-skirt of what appeared to be Earth denim, and silver high-heeled shoes to match the top. Her curls were at the very least askew, and her face and arms filthy. Closer inspection showed fairly significant wear on the clothing as well, with sequins missing, a small tear in the skirt, and more scuffs than not on the shoes. It was about that time her words registered.
“Three weeks?” he asked, his voice squeaking slightly in reaction to her closeness.
She nodded. “Well, I’m certainly not dressed for an expedition, am I?” she asked tartly.
“Um… no.”
“I was sitting with Mum on the patio. She was having a cup of tea, and I was enjoying the most lovely chardonnay. Next thing I know, my wrist gets hot and everything flashes. I managed to get a brief look at the vortex manipulator before it completely fried – enough to have a general date – but I missed the specifics.” She glared at the leather strap on her wrist. “Stupid thing must have shorted, and it took me with it. Mum must be frantic!”
He took her wrist in his hand and looked at the darkened leather and blackened display for himself. He also noted the healed burns on her wrist beneath the strap.
“The compositer likely shorted out,” he muttered, grabbing his sonic and whisking it over the device. “Complete meltdown. River, you must know how dangerous these things are! You’re fortunate it only burned your wrist and stranded you here… although why here I have no idea.”
“I was on a dig two years from now,” she explained. “It’s how I recognize the place. I remembered the location, but I only got a glance at the time. The dig was over a week before I got here, my time that is. It was the last time I used it aside from the trip to see Mum. In any case, I’m not as good at translating base-code as you are. I got a glimpse and took a shot.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “What would you have done if I hadn’t come?”
“You always come,” she said confidently.
“River, I very nearly… It’s too dangerous being around you. When I’m in my right mind – if I have a right mind – I know that seeing you is a very bad idea.”
She looked at him a long moment, considering. “When are you?” she finally asked, her voice unusually flat.
“What?”
“I should have asked first, but the last couple of times… When are you? When did you see me last? What were we doing?”
He gave her a long glance, almost a glare. “Dancing in Boston,” he admitted. “Nineteen forty-five.”
Her eyes widened and she developed a stricken look. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she replayed their conversation. Had she said anything wrong? Had she let anything slip?
“You didn’t give anything away,” he assured her. “I don’t know any more about you than I did before, except that you’re more reckless than I could have believed.” Well, he also knew that she had no qualms about a physical relationship. There was an extensive length of leg revealed beneath the skirt, and her back was smooth and soft and… He cut that thought off. All he’d really picked up was that she visited her mother, she liked good wine, and she was stupid enough to rely on dangerous technology to get from time to time.
“I’m not reckless,” she muttered. “It was a malfunction. I may be unlucky, and I’m not above leaving much of my life to fate, but I’m certainly not reckless.”
“Using a vortex manipulator is reckless,” he told her, thinking of Jack hopping all over the universe. But then, he had ridden the outside of the TARDIS and lived to tell the tale. More accurately, he had come back to life after riding the TARDIS. The devices were reckless and dangerous, he corrected in his own mind. “They aren’t safe, especially when they’re not in good repair.”
“So fix it,” she snapped. She looked cross, and almost sad. He had no idea why. They had argued before. In fact, he rather enjoyed arguing with her, and she had always seemed to like it as well.
“I’ll take you home,” he relented. “Just give me a date for Stormcage.”
“I’m not in Stormcage,” she told him. “Haven’t been in years. And you can’t take me home. Spoilers, and all that. You’ll just have to fix this.”
Her face was schooled into reasonable if unreadable lines. She was still upset, but she wasn’t going to let him see it. For the first time in a while, he felt the need to dig. She’d looked so sad a moment ago, before the anger had taken her. And now she looked… blank. He knew the shield was deliberate, and he didn’t know why she was using it. She had never guarded herself from him before, at least not this way.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
For a long moment he didn’t know if she was going to answer, but then she took a deep breath. Her eyes glistened, but she didn’t cry. “I’m tired,” she admitted. “I’ve been stuck here for three weeks, living on anything I could skewer with a stick or catch in my hands. Making fire with rocks and sticks is bloody difficult, but I didn’t have anything with me except what you see, and that’s not exactly all I need for nearly a month in the woods. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I’m sick of arguing with you. You came to get me, and I’m grateful, but you aren’t exactly who I was expecting.” The disappointment was almost palpable, coming off her in waves.
“Not yet,” he muttered softly.
“No. Not yet.”
He thought of the way she had hugged him, molding herself against him without a breath of space between them. “You know, there are times I’m almost jealous of him,” the Doctor admitted. “The way you talk about him, and the way you trust him. It’s a lot to live up to.”
She smiled at that. “I’m sure you’ll get there.” She honestly didn’t sound very sure. She took another deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know why the message went wrong. You’ve taught me how to reach the psychic paper, and how to find you. So many times the message went straight through, the same time frame for both of us. I don’t know why it was off this time.”
“Maybe it’s because I was close,” he offered. “Distance-wise, that is. I don’t normally get to this sector. There just isn’t much of interest.”
“Tell me about it,” she mumbled. “I’ve been bored out of my mind. No books, no music, and nobody to talk to.”
Three weeks alone, with no idea when or if she’d be rescued. He supposed he understood why she was a little sensitive. He didn’t want to think of what might have happened if he’d ignored the message altogether. “I’m here, now. Let me take you home.”
“I can’t,” she repeated. Stepping forward, she rested a hand on his arm. “This is too far in your future, and there are people and places you aren’t ready for. Besides, I need to get a message to Mum and let her know I’m okay, and I need to do it three weeks ago. Just fix the band, and I’ll go home on my own.”
“I’ve always been in your past,” he said softly. “It’s never bothered you before. Why now?”
“There are degrees,” she told him. “Let’s just say I am a very long time in your future, and it’s a future I very much want to be a part of. I don’t want to do anything to… damage it.”
“How will dropping you at your mother’s house endanger the future?”
“You’ll just have to trust me,” she said, looking away. It was unlike her not to meet his eyes. He decided to follow his instincts and not press her on this.
“I can't fix it here,” he reasoned. “Let's get in the TARDIS. You can get cleaned up, we can get this fixed, and we'll go from there.”
She considered this for a moment, then nodded. He led the way, and opened the door for her. She walked past him with a tired smile, and into the control room. He watched her take a deep breath, walk to the console, and lay her hand on a space between gauges. Her eyes closed, the smile became more genuine, and she visibly relaxed. “Thank you,” she said softly, and he knew that River wasn't talking to him.
“Right. Let's start with a bath. You have to be sore.”
She gave a nod and followed him silently through the corridors to a large bathing room. It wasn't where he would normally take her, but he didn't want to wake Amy with his visitor. He gestured to the large tub with its large faucet and trays of toiletries, and left her there to go raid the wardrobe.
He found any of a number of outfits, but he finally settled on a large, fluffy robe. He grabbed several large bath sheets from a cabinet on the way out and returned to the bathing room. He could hear water running, so he knocked before cracking the door.
“Just me,” he warned her, keeping his eyes politely averted. He'd seen about as much of her tonight as he was comfortable with. “Brought a robe and some towels. You can raid the wardrobe when you're done and pick what you want to wear. I think your outfit is about done.”
“Thanks,” she replied. Her voice was barely audible above the running water, and it was decidedly... flat. It wasn't exactly River's voice. It lacked the snap, and the playfulness. There was no teasing innuendo. She sounded tired and defeated.
“Are you... That is, can I...” he began, but he wasn't sure how to finish.
“I'm covered. You can turn around.”
He did so cautiously, not entirely trusting her not to embarrass him. She was true to her word though, and she was covered to the chest in water and thick bubbles. Her hair was piled atop her head in a kind of knot, leaving shoulders bare and strangely vulnerable. Her knees were also visible above the water, pulled up near her body with her chin resting on them. Her eyes were red rimmed and slightly puffy, and greener than he'd ever seen them. He was grateful she wasn't crying – he had no idea what to do with tears – but it was clear that she had been.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asked.
“No. I just need some time to settle. Can you...” Her voice trailed off.
“Can I...?” he prompted.
“Can you stay a minute. It's just... It's been so quiet for so long.”
He smiled at her. He could do that. He sat down on the floor of the room with his legs crossed. “You know, I had a companion once. She was pure hell during an emergency, and I can assure you we had many of them. She could defend herself, keep a calm head in the worst of disasters, and she was rather good at keeping me out of trouble. But when the situation was over... Well, I learned to stay clear. It was after the crisis that she came apart. She hated for anyone to see it.” He thought back to Martha, and how she had made it through so much before asking to go home. She had finally reached her breaking point, but she hadn't given up. She had just backed off. “She's a doctor, now,” he mused. “Then,” he corrected. “Works with Torchwood to keep the Earth safe.”
“Martha Jones,” River said softly, and then smiled at his surprise. “At some point in your future, you talk to me quite a lot,” she explained.
He normally didn't speak of one companion to another, so that surprised him. Then again, most everything about this woman surprised him.
“I'm really fine,” she assured him. “Just relieved. When you didn't come – at first – I thought I must have mistaken the date. I found the excavation site just as we'd left it, so I knew another archeological team would be coming by in the next few months... a year at most. I just had to wait it out. I've lived on less to eat, and I had fresh water. There weren't any predators to speak of, which was a mixed blessing. Nothing was there to hunt me, but all of the wildlife was very small.” She sat for a long moment, staring at nothing as she appeared to remember. “I spent most of my time hunting or preparing what I'd caught. I've certainly eaten worse, and I've lived through harder times. But in the past few years I've become spoiled, I suppose. I really didn't fancy that lifestyle for another year or more.”
“No panic. You just did what you had to.” He couldn't hide the admiration in his voice. Most women – and many men – he had known would have given up and starved to death under those circumstances.
“It wasn't the meals or the living arrangements that bothered me,” she said quietly. “It was the silence. I suppose I spent too much time in isolation when I was in prison. Sensory deprivation was one of the few effective punishments they had for me. You lose track of the time, the day, yourself... you can't tell up from down. Being alone there... it was almost the same. The days started to blur together, and the sameness was just... I am so grateful that you came to my rescue. Again.”
“So, I do this often, then?”
“Spoilers,” they said together, and then they both laughed.
“I take it you were in trouble a lot while you were in prison,” he commented. “I remember you once mentioned annoying your warden.”
“There was that,” she admitted. “Mostly they were offended that I came and went so freely. I don't know why it bothered them... I always came back. I never stayed gone more than a day or so, and that was only when she had trouble getting through the firewalls.”
“She?”
“The TARDIS,” River said. “Even with my help in calibration, they made adjustments to the firewall that scrambled the time focus. It was designed to prevent teleportation and psychic communication, but it was bloody murder on the Transtall coils. We had the hardest time pinpointing landing time. Location wasn't a problem, but the time was always just a bit off.”
He nodded his understanding; that would be a problem. He wondered briefly why he hadn't had any problem so far dropping her off when he intended... and then wondered if he had. She really hadn't said anymore after his first visit, when she told him he'd have her back five minutes after she had left. What type of trouble had he let her in for? And when was she planning to tell him about it? Rather than going into it – she really did look worn out – he decided to change the subject.
“Your water must be getting cold,” he offered, and he knew that the bubbles were fading. Her skin was nicely pink beneath the water, and if her knees hadn't been pulled to her chest, he likely would have seen far more than he was ready for.
“It feels good,” she told him.
“Come out when you're ready. You can take your pick of the bedrooms.”
“No thank you,” she told him.
“River, it will take me a while to repair...”
“No rush,” she told him. “I just... if it's okay, I'd rather come to the control room. I'm really not ready for any more silence.”
Looking at the plea in her eyes, he realized that she was more shaken that she was letting on. He gave a nod, and turned to leave. Only a few moments later, she padded out to the control room wearing the warm robe and some fuzzy blue socks. He decided they must have come from the wardrobe. She sat down silently on the steps and just watched him while he fiddled with the vortex manipulator she had left on the floor of the bathing room with her filthy clothes.
Vortex manipulation was a relatively simple concept. It used magnetic resonance propelled through a compositor to create a miniature time vortex through which it transported the wearer. It was low-tech compared to the TARDIS, but then everything was. It wasn't a living unit, but a mechanical device. And this one was well and truly dead. It was a flaming wonder that she hadn't been blinked out of existence or propelled into the sun. He took a few deep breaths to try to control the anger that surged through him when he considered what could have happened. Didn't she place any value at all on her life? He turned around to tear into her, and was shocked to see her sitting on the step with her head on her knees and her eyes closed.
Anger died, only to be replaced by an overwhelming tenderness for this brave, stupid, wonderful woman whom he desperately wanted to know better. What was he going to do with her?
He didn't have an answer. What he did have was a few spare parts that could repair the device and get her back to the time and place she was so desperately protecting from him. He wanted to know her secrets, and that surprised him more than anything. He reminded himself – again – that this was not his time to know. He would wait. He would have to wait. What choice did he have?