Work Text:
A Song In Passing
It was a little after dawn on a bitter January morning. Freezing fog hung across the low-lying land, leaving pockets of blankness along the narrow country lanes. Mel Bush stamped her numb feet on the frosty gravel of the isolated car park, and slapped her gloved hands together. It had been a difficult morning already, made worse by the twenty minutes she had spent scraping the windscreen of her 1970s classic MGB. The frankly perilous drive from London had taken three hours instead of two, and there had been no time to stop for breakfast.
A heavy diesel engine growled around the corner, and Mel spotted two UNIT officers leaning as far forward in their seats as possible, every inch of extra visibility a bonus. As the truck pulled into the car park, Mel looked across the ancient headstones to St Botolph’s church behind, its square Norman tower looming above the foggy blanket. She had left the specialist archeologist working in the crypt, although Mel was surprised to find her there at all. Kate hadn’t mentioned the extra help, but then, a potential alien virus in Norway was currently taking precedence in the Commander-in-Chief’s mind.
Mel wondered where the archeologist had parked, though in this fog her transport could have been ten meters away and she still wouldn’t be able to see it.
Whilst the removal of an ancient alien artifact from an 11th-century church was, in UNIT terms, the most basic of assignments, it was Mel’s first time supervising UNIT’s latest recruit in the field. On any other day, Kate would have taken charge. The UNIT chief always enjoyed seeing former companions in action on their first day. Subbing for the boss added a certain amount of weight to Mel’s responsibilities this morning. That the new recruit was Donna Noble made Mel very happy indeed.
Data signal through the fog was temperamental, and Mel frowned at her UNIT-issued phone screen. No messages. That either meant Donna was still negotiating the perils of the Sussex morning in her new car, or that she was lost in the back roads of Catcombe with no way to ask for assistance. Mel decided she would wait a little longer before sending out a search party.
From the back of the van, the senior technician gave Mel a wave. Corporal Charlie Meggins. Always ready to lend a hand, and always carried a huge flask of hot tea, whatever the mission. He raised a plastic mug in Mel’s direction and shot her a questioning look.
“Oh, yes, please!” Mel called back.
She was about to join them in the relative warmth of the technical support vehicle when a grinding and wheezing noise filled the air. Mel took an involuntary deep breath, and her spine straightened in anticipation. This was artifact recovery, wasn’t it? Oh, please, no alien invasions today. She hadn’t had enough tea yet to handle that.
As the TARDIS doors opened, Donna Noble’s voice pierced the morning fog like a lance.
“I told you, I can manage!”
“That’s what you said last night, when you tripped over the rug and landed face-first in the Black Forest gateau,” replied the Doctor, with a hint of already worn suffering. “Let me… let me… oh, for Pete’s sake, would you just let me help you!”
“It’s just a bad sprain; I don’t need you acting like my foot was amputated at the knee!”
There was a crash, a thud, and a string of unprofessional profanities that made Mel wince.
“Back off, Spaceman, or you know exactly where this stick is going.”
The Doctor’s response was too quiet for Mel to catch, but as the pair stepped out of the TARDIS, Donna hobbling on crutches, the Doctor hovering at her elbow, the Time Lord looked suitably chastised.
“Melanie!” The Doctor’s face brightened at the sight of his former companion.
“Ignore him,” said Donna, giving Mel a smile and the Doctor a look of pained sufferance. “He’s not here in any official capacity whatsoever.”
“Except taxi driver,” the Doctor suggested, rolling on the balls of his feet and stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Donna’s eyes rolled up and searched the foggy sky for strength.
“Except taxi driver,” she agreed. “But taxi drivers don’t get to mingle with the actual workers, do they? We talked about this. You go… tinker… or potter… or I don’t know, try actually cleaning the kitchen? When’s the last time you wiped that worktop? I swear there are stains there older than my daughter!”
It was not the first time Mel had wondered at Kate Stewart’s levels of professionalism. As she stood in the wake of the Doctor’s infectious smile, it was almost impossible to maintain a serious working environment, and the momentary urge to default into companion-mode made her pause. She looked from Donna to the Doctor and back again, and understood why Kate could be so blunt in the face of the Doctor’s antics.
“Doctor! Always nice to see you,” said Mel, forcing a businesslike tone. “We’re a little busy for social calls. Cuppa? After work tomorrow?”
His crestfallen, almost childish expression made Mel squirm, but Donna was having none of it.
“It’s my first day,” she said, turning awkwardly on the crutches and giving him a glare. “Do not mess it up for me.”
The Doctor raised his hands in surrender.
“Right, yes. Of course. Sorry,” he said, sniffing and taking a step back. “Nice to see you, Mel. Tea tomorrow would be lovely. Really lovely. Excellent.”
It was all Mel could do not to laugh.
“I’ll be… pottering, or… tinkering… when you’re ready to go home, Donna.” The Doctor continued.
He turned back to the TARDIS and made a show of examining the old blue box, checking the paintwork and the scuff marks on the threshold.
Donna took a breath, satisfied with her success.
“Mel,” she said with a brighter, more relaxed smile. “Donna Noble, Senior Logistics and Field Liaison. Reporting for duty.”
“Hello, Donna,” Mel gave Donna a broad smile and nodded toward the loitering but retreating Time Lord. “You are seriously going to have to tell me how you did that!”
“The trick is to remember that a billion year old Time Lord is not much different from a human toddler. They like to be involved in everything, don’t like being told no, and have a 5 second attention span for anything that isn’t inherently dangerous,” she replied, and then lowered her voice slightly. “Truth is, he was a total lifesaver this morning with the lift. I just don’t want him turning my first day on the job into some intergalactic incident.”
“It’s just a routine artifact recovery,” Mel said as she led Donna past the open TARDIS towards the long, sloped path that wound around the graveyard and up to the church. “No intergalactic incidents today. We have an archeologist on site that I wasn’t expecting. Professor Song. She’s in the crypt with the artifact now.”
Donna stopped, boot scuffing the gravel as she turned to look at Mel.
“She’s called what?”
“Professor Song, River Song,” Mel repeated. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the gravitational pull of the name drag Donna’s features into a pained grimace.
“Doctor…”
Donna’s voice dropped, and the quiet, precise pronunciation of his name cut through the Time Lord’s paintwork inspection. He was at her side in 3 steps, hand hovering above Donna’s arm, concern etched into his eyes.
“What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
The moment River’s name left Donna’s lips, the Time Lord was gone. Without pause, without hesitation, gravel spraying back at them as he ran.
“Why does it suddenly feel like that intergalactic incident is brewing?” Mel asked, turning from the swinging church gate to Donna, waiting for an explanation.
“River Song,” Donna said with a deep sigh. “She’s the Doctor’s wife.”
***
He skidded to a stop, a cascade of stones tumbling down the steps ahead of him. They bounced off the foot-worn slate and ricocheted into the crypt below with a clatter loud enough to wake any of the sleeping incumbents.
“Hello?”
River’s voice rose to greet him, and his hearts ached in unison. What was he even doing here? Their story was over, wasn’t it? River’s diary was full. He knew; he’d seen it. So how could she be here now? How could he? He had lived a hundred years since their last parting, and there had been no trace. Rassilon knew; he had looked. Now, here they were. And here he was, wearing a face that told too many truths without permission.
He hung on the threshold, fingers gripping the old wooden doorframe, breath held. This was a dance they had done so many times before. Living in the moment, a pirouette here, a shimmy there, the occasional awkward chassé when things got just a little too complicated for comfort. Why did this feel so different? If their dance was already over, this moment could shatter River’s timeline in a heartbeat.
No. He would not let that happen.
Lifetimes had been spent obeying River’s last words: never consciously re-writing their lives together. Time could be an unforgiving master for those who travelled in it.
Walking away; that would be the sensible choice. But he had rarely been sensible where River was concerned. And so, if he could not change the steps of their dance, perhaps he could mimic ones taken before.
The Doctor looked down at himself, at the too-blue coat, the too-tight waistcoat, raised a hand to his too-stubbled chin. He had to be the man River knew, not this aged echo of his former self. Be the brash, reckless, younger Time Lord who was too busy being clever to notice the important things.
He unbuttoned the waistcoat, flapped the coat lapels, and tried to adopt an air of nonchalance.
Perhaps, if he stuck to the shadows, he could pass as the man he had been before. A tactical lie, a tall tale. He had a lot of practice with those.
“I would recognise those shoes anywhere,” said River from the foot of the steps. “Hello, sweetie.”
There was no running now.
How had his younger self stood? How had he moved? Swagger and mask, the facade of youth. Oh, how he longed to say her name with warmth and love, but he could not be that man. Not today.
“Professor Song,” his voice tightened. “Always a pleasure to find you poking around in things that aren’t any of your concern.”
“I’m here,” she replied. “So it really is my concern, don’t you think?”
The Doctor swallowed, stuck out his chin, stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets, and descended with as much bravado as he could muster. She was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, dark grey knee-high boots, white skin-tight jeans, a white leather jacket over an ash grey sweater. He knew that look. He had noted that look long ago, back on Darillium. The night she had emerged from the TARDIS, coated in dust, with a ridiculous claim about a fault with the fire suppression system and a stray lava moth. He hadn’t believed her then, and now he knew why.
Typical River, flexing the boundaries of their last years together. He could almost feel time fracturing around them. In their lives, Darillium was a fixed point. There was no choice but to keep up the pretence now. He stood, a silhouette against the brightness of the world above, and schooled his face into a combination of polite displeasure that he vaguely remembered wearing for her before.
“You look... nice...” he ventured, forcing his tone half an octave higher, trying to capture his youthful timbre. “Not exactly dressed for grave robbing.”
“Who said I was grave robbing?” River asked.
She turned her back on him and returned to the central tomb. Picking up a tool, she adjusted the settings and resumed loosening the lime mortar seal.
“Oh, I dunno. You. A crypt,” he wrinkled his nose into a sneer, “... a sonic trowel...”
Keeping to the darker spaces, the Doctor leant casually against one of the great stone pillars. It seemed strangely out of alignment with the others. He sniffed dramatically and crossed his ankles.
“... and, to be fair, you are resonating the mortar on a 900-year-old tomb. Grave robbing seems like a fairly reasonable conclusion to draw.”
She frowned, irritated by his accurate accusations. Twenty minutes ago she had been in bed with his older self, listening to him snore. In twenty minutes’ time she intended to be back there, with him none the wiser about her little sojourn. The TARDIS would be back in the corner of the honeymoon suite, chameleon circuit disabled once more, and she would have tidied up the loose end she had left in 12th-century England without him ever knowing.
Or not.
“Are you going to help me? Or just offer criticism from the sidelines?” River asked, throwing him a disdainful look of her own.
He made a show of ignoring her request, then rolled his eyes and reached for his sonic, hesitated, and stopped. Ah, yes. Not the right sonic for his younger self either.
“On charge,” he lied.
The Doctor straightened anyway and swaggered over to the tomb, dodging the bright beam of River’s working light. He could do this. He could play his part.
“Henri d’Eubode,” he exclaimed, reading the Latin inscription on the tomb, pronouncing the name as though he could taste the words in his mouth. “Knight and Lord of Catcombe, who founded this church in the year of our Lord 1126. Catcombe. Cat combe. Cat comb... Cat’s. Yeah… Already not a big fan.”
River shook her head, exasperated.
“If you don’t mind, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” she said.
River held out the trowel and waited for the Doctor to take it. She bobbed a curtsey when he lifted it between his finger and thumb and examined it as though it were an affront to his existence.
“I am supposed to be somewhere, and I had rather hoped that...” She paused, recalibrating her answer to account for the timelines. “I had rather hoped I could make this brief pit stop without drawing attention to myself. Here or... there.”
There. Darillium. The Doctor raised an obligatory eyebrow and focused on adjusting the settings on the sonic device in his hand while watching River’s expression in its reflective surface.
“You seem quite cross,” he observed. “Was it something I did?”
River fluffed her hair and smoothed her jacket, accentuating her curves. It was always fun to make the clueless young Doctor hot under the collar. Oh, the things he had to look forward to. She watched the Doctor’s Adam’s apple bob and considered that little mission accomplished.
“We are supposed to be... somewhere, doing... something. I thought I could borrow the TARDIS, a 10-minute trip, and be back before anyone noticed. But it would appear not.”
“Oh,” said the Doctor, feigning ignorance. “Well, I’m sure if you don’t mention it, I won’t either.”
“How very thoughtful,” said River with a testy smile.
Returning the trowel to River, the Doctor stepped back, retreating into the darker shadows at the edge of the chamber. That scent. How he had longed for its essence in the years between. His eyes pricked, and he turned to the wall, pretending to scan the dedication plates displayed there.
River looked at his back with narrowed eyes. Something was off. She had only met this version of him a handful of times, and the ancients of the universe knew just how hard work he was as a younger man. All the same, disquiet gnawed at River’s mind.
The funny thing was, she hadn’t expected that face to get quite so old. The lines around his eyes that made little shadows creep into his hairline, the stubble on his jaw. No. It wasn’t just his face. She wanted to ask him what had happened, but that wasn’t how their relationship worked. River looked at her bag, open on the crypt floor. No diary. She’d left it beside the bed on Darillium. There was a first time for everything, she supposed.
The Doctor bounced back across the room, conscious of his own silence and crouched at the side of the tomb.
“Come on, then, don’t keep me in suspense. Why’s old Henri here got an alien artifact smuggled into his final bedchamber?”
He squinted through the crack in the mortar, took a tentative sniff, and licked the edge experimentally.
River stared at him. She had kissed that mouth.
“It’s a recording device,” she said under the weight of his inquisitive stare. There were some arguments even River knew she could not win.
“A broadcasting recording device?”
River shrugged.
“Apparently so, yes.”
The Doctor stood up, rocked on his heels, and took a step backward. Deliberate evasion from River. Interesting.
“And why do YOU want it?” he asked more slowly.
“Because it’s mine,” she replied, her tone clipped with frustration.
“Yours? You buried a recording device in this tomb, eight hundred and ninety-eight years ago, and just... forgot about it?”
“I’ve had a very busy life.”
He almost flinched and walked around the great stone casket to peer at River’s hand-held scanner, which bleeped quietly on the floor.
“Ooh,” said the Doctor, reading the screen upside down. “That’s quite the beacon. No wonder UNIT are outside. Four point seven gigahertz on the chronon-modulated frequency. Loud! That will set off alarms in a dozen time zones, and three parallel universes. It will even make the Prime Minister’s little duck bath-radio chirp.”
The mortar on the casket cracked like a gunshot, the sound bouncing off the stone floor and vaulted ceiling.
“Ah, there we go,” said River with a satisfied smile. “A little help, if you please?”
Taking his place at her side, shoulder to shoulder, the Doctor leant his weight against the stone slab casket lid. He looked at River, and River looked back at him. He was too close now to avoid physical scrutiny, and the wear of his years echoed in his eyes. They stared at each other, River’s soft features creasing into a frown.
“What happened to you?” River asked quietly.
She held back the urge to reach out and stroke the lines from the Doctor’s face.
“Oh, River...” he replied with a boyish wink and a smile his hearts did not feel. “So many things. But those are stories for another day.”
Was that cruel? To give hope of a future that could never be? It was certainly less cruel than the alternative.
The Doctor shoved at the ledger stone and grunted for effect.
“Blimey, River, how did you get it in here in the first place?”
“It didn’t have a lid on the last time,” said she, bracing herself against the stone. “If you must know, when I was very young and far too careless, I had the misfortune to run into a couple of Time Agents with a warrant for my arrest.”
“Surely not?” The Doctor raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “You? In trouble with the authorities?”
She pointedly ignored his comment.
“In a deplorably underhand tactic, the prettier one of the two introduced me to the delights of hallucinogenic lipstick. It’s a shame really, she was a terribly good kisser.”
“So was Madame de Pompadour,” he said, unable to restrain the need to score points. “Sorry, sorry... You were saying?”
“They took me to their transport and under the influence of the hallucinogen I divulged a number of secrets that should never have been shared,” said River, an uneasy look in her eyes. “When I realised what I’d done, I borrowed one of the agent’s vortex manipulators, grabbed the recording device, and found myself in 1126 with a rather unpleasant hangover and two terribly cross Time Agents in pursuit.”
“Borrowed?” he queried.
The only thing River ever borrowed was the TARDIS. Everything else could be considered stolen.
“Appropriated,” River gave a shrug. In the scheme of her life, theft was a paltry crime not worth mentioning. “I didn’t have a lot of time, and I didn’t want them to retrieve the recorder, so I found myself a slightly smelly set of monk’s robes and popped the device in the reliquary under dear Henri’s head while he was being interred. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“The dead tend not to worry about that sort of thing,” he agreed.
With a little more shoving and shunting, the ledger stone gave way, sending a cloud of dust into the air, coating them both in particles of stone, mortar, and long-desiccated knight. While the Doctor made a dance of brushing the particulates from his hair and coat, River reached into the tomb. Dispassionate and practical, she pushed aside the remains of the recumbent Henri’s skull and plucked the reliquary from its eternal rest.
The wooden box disintegrated in her hand, the ancient oak turning to dust and trickling through her fingers. River tightened her grip. There was a faint snap as a saintly bone shard cracked and crumbled, and as her thumb landed on the biometric scanner, the sound of her younger voice echoed around the room.
“... is he a good man? I don’t know. Amy said he was worth it, worth all the lives I could have lived...”
River’s recorded voice cut off, and she shoved the small device down the neck of her sweater, tucking it into her bra.
The Doctor stared at her.
“Spoilers?” he suggested, his voice tight and high.
“Spoilers,” River agreed.
She stared at him, heart aching. He had so been worth it.
The Doctor looked away, covering an old pain with a coughing fit and another cloud of dust shaken from his clothes.
“Well then,” said River, breaking her stare and gathering her belongings into her bag. “I must be getting back.”
Don’t go. The words almost spilt out of his lips. Instead, he ran his hand through his hair, straightened his tie, and rubbed the empty space on his ring finger with his thumb.
River rested her hand on the oddly placed pillar, and it opened. TARDIS light framed her in a halo of gold, making her silhouette glow. She lifted a finger to her lips secretively and glanced at the TARDIS in its alternative form.
“You should probably forget about this bit,” she flashed a radiant smile at him one last time. “Don’t worry, I’ll put it back. I know how much you like the blue.”
“Just, just, just how often have you borrowed my TARDIS?” he asked. Anything to keep her there, just one moment longer.
“Oh, sweetie,” River glided over the question with ease. “That would be telling!”
He pouted for effect.
“Well, just make sure you put her back exactly where you found her.”
River laughed, and his hearts cracked at the sound.
“I always do,” she replied as she retreated into the time machine.
He wanted to stop her. To grab her hand, to hold her, to kiss her one last time.
“Goodbye, Doctor!” River called back to him.
His throat tightened.
“Goodbye, River.”
The TARDIS door closed. River crossed to the console, flipped the fast return switch, and watched the Doctor on the monitor as the ship dematerialised.
Watched as he stroked his empty ring finger again.
Watched the first tear cross his cheek.
“Oh, Doctor,” she said softly, an uncomfortable realisation spreading through her. “You ridiculous old man. What have you done?”
***
Donna had never been the most blessed when it came to co-ordination, and the combination of crutches and loose gravel slowed her pace across the car park to a crawl. It had taken ten minutes to explain the essentials of the situation to Mel. She could have done it in five, but Donna was buying the Doctor time and a little privacy.
“Time is tricky,” she told Mel at the gateway to the churchyard. “And with him and her, about as fragile as your grandma’s best teacup, balanced on a flagpole, on top of the Empire State Building.”
Mel, who had once stood on the edge of a temporal paradox and felt the winds of time ripping at the fabric of the universe, knew exactly what Donna meant. She held the gate open for her companion, who negotiated it with the finesse of a rabid buffalo.
“I can’t believe he’s married,” Mel said, resisting the urge to take Donna’s arm.
“If you believed every story he’s told lately, he’s been married half a dozen times, with a couple more near misses,” she replied, screwing up her face to suggest she did not entirely believe all these tales.
Mel tried to imagine her Doctor with a romantic partner. No matter how hard she tried, Mel could only imagine indignation on one face and bafflement on the other.
“When I travelled with him it was all science and adventure; romance didn’t get a look in.”
Donna snorted.
“Romance? Romance! No... he’s just a bloody idiot who found himself in positions where he couldn’t say no.”
Mel laughed. That sounded a lot more like the Doctor she remembered.
“And Professor Song?” Mel asked.
“Another time traveller,” Donna replied, her eyes firmly fixed on the uneven, treacherous gravel that kept shifting under her feet. “They kept bouncing in and out of each other’s lives, totally out of order. I suppose it added to the mystique.”
“You keep using the past tense.”
Donna paused and looked up.
“River Song died the first time he met her. They married at some point after that, and he said goodbye to her two regenerations ago. To be honest, he’s been pretty vague about the whole thing.”
As much as Donna liked the idea of meeting River again, she knew she could not. At the steps to the crypt, she stopped, unable to risk the timelines by descending into the tomb.
“I’ll go,” said Mel, giving Donna’s arm a light, reassuring pat.
She made her way down the steps, toeing away gravel fragments left by the Doctor’s hurried descent. One or two skipped down the steps ahead of her; the skittering of pebbles across the stone slabs echoed around the quiet crypt.
The Doctor did not turn at the sound, his gaze fixed on the dust-free circle on the floor where the TARDIS, in pillar form, had stood. He rubbed his thumb over the absent ring one last time, and took a long, slow breath that he let out as a sigh. He closed his hand into a loose fist, feeling time slip through his fingers like desert sand.
Mel waited, poised at the foot of the steps, the Time Lord’s stillness making her cautious. The tomb was open now, just a few inches, the Doctor and the chamber floor sprinkled with particles of grey dust. The eerie hush had Mel almost holding her breath, not from fear, but from respect. Earlier this morning the ancient crypt felt like a quite interesting museum; now it echoed with the essence of loss.
When her old friend did not turn, Mel moved forward, treading lightly on the smooth worn flags, dust grinding under her boots. At the Doctor’s side, Mel looked up into his frowning profile and saw tears beading on his lashes. She had never seen the Doctor cry. Until this moment, she wasn’t even sure he knew how.
Back in the old days, when they had been so much younger and far more carefree, the Doctor would waggle his eyebrows, or brandish the sonic, and everything would be magically better again. This was different. This Doctor wasn’t a have-a-go hero with pretensions of grandeur, or a funny little comeback king with a brolly and a penchant for playing the spoons. This Doctor, Donna’s Doctor, he carried a weight of devastation Mel couldn’t begin to comprehend.
She understood now why Donna’s protectiveness was so fierce. Time hadn’t hardened the Doctor’s soul; it had shattered it.
Mel’s hand on his arm called the Doctor into the present. Drawing in a long, slow breath, he reeled himself in: spine straightening, shoulders pulling back, nostrils flaring, eyes widening. Rebooting into an automated version of himself.
“Mel,” the Doctor sounded surprised.
He blinked, and the remaining tears ran down his face, clearing a path through the dust on his skin. If he noticed, he made no attempt to wipe them away.
“Doctor,” Mel said, giving him a small, reassuring smile. “Has the professor gone?”
“Yes. Yes... the professor... River... she’s gone,” he said, glancing back at the place where River last stood.
Mel didn’t ask how. She would get the details later.
“Are you okay... so to speak?”
The Doctor looked down at Mel’s hand on his coat sleeve, blinked again, and finally reached up with his other hand and placed it over hers.
“I think, perhaps, I will be,” said the Doctor in a halting voice, as though the concept was foreign.
Mel looked up at him, and the Doctor looked down into Mel’s eyes. A smile and a frown battled for supremacy on his features, with neither winning.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
Mel nodded, unsure what to say. Instead of offering platitudes she had heard and never found particularly supportive, she gestured to the open tomb.
“Asset recovery? Do I assume that’s no longer on my agenda for the day?”
“Ah... yes,” the Doctor let go of Mel’s hand and moved away. This was more familiar territory. This was a conversation he could manage. “Turns out the artifact was River’s after all. Not stealing, for once. That’s quite novel for her. Sorry, Mel. It was... important... to River. Nothing UNIT would have wanted. Sentimental value.”
Mel doubted Kate Stewart would be of the same opinion. Sentimental value or not, alien tech was alien tech, and UNIT could always learn things from it. Eventually. But what was gone was gone, and Mel would have to write a report about that later.
In the churchyard above, Donna leaned against a recessed section of the church wall, ready to flatten herself into a foggy shroud should River emerge from the crypt. With the crutches dangling from her arms by the cuffs, she rubbed freezing fingers together and blew into her cupped hands. Sitting this one out made her restless, and she regarded the crutches with renewed resentment.
Just as her patience broke, and she was about to take the tiniest peek into the crypt, the Doctor and Mel appeared in the doorway. She watched as the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed at his stubbled chin, and knew the risk of bumping into River was over. Pain and co-ordination struggles almost entirely forgotten, Donna took the crutch grips in her hands and hurried to join them.
As Donna approached, the look Mel fired in her direction and the Doctor’s deflated shoulders confirmed all the suspicions she had spent the last ten minutes brooding about. Cursing the universe would have been the easy answer and would have achieved nothing. Donna sucked in a breath, puffed out her cheeks, and did her best not to hit the Doctor with a crutch as she patted his back.
“Not the day either of us were expecting, eh, Spaceman?”
They trudged back down the gravel path to the car park, the Doctor leading, hands in pockets, Mel at his side, and Donna bringing up the rear. Beyond the squeaking gate stood the TARDIS, Mel’s car, and the UNIT van, with the techs waiting for orders and sipping tea from plastic mugs. No longer eager for company and never one to take part in any clearing up, the Doctor made his excuses and, after a hug from Mel, retired to the solitude of his ship.
“No intergalactic incidents, at least,” Donna mumbled to herself as she opened the TARDIS door thirty minutes later. You had to be grateful for the small mercies.
The tidying up of loose ends hadn’t taken long: a quick catch-up with Mel while the UNIT techs made the crypt tomb safe, a carefully worded email to Kate Stewart, and a new entry opened in the Black Archive for River Song. Finishing that would be Donna’s afternoon task, from the comfort of the sofa with her foot up.
She had half expected to find the Time Lord loitering in the control room, but the cavernous space was silent and empty. Perhaps he had finally deigned to clean the kitchen? No. Not likely. The Reminiscence Room, where he kept the picture of River. That’s where he would be. Donna scowled down at the crutches and her offended ankle.
“Great. Another three-mile hike,” she grumbled, and set off up the ramp to the second level.
Past the kitchen, which still looked like student digs on a Sunday morning. Through the library. Right at the griffin statue, which Donna could have sworn was facing the other way the last time she had looked. The heavy wooden door to the Reminiscence Room stood ajar. She knocked on it lightly before entering, aware that her last foray into this space had not been entirely welcome.
The Doctor slouched in one of the old leather chairs, legs stretched out. He was not so much sat as sprawled, shoulders halfway down the backrest like a brooding teenager, a deep frown creasing his still dirty face. His right hand knotted in his messy hair, tugging at the follicles thoughtfully while he toyed with a small puck-like device in the fingers of his left. He looked up when Donna entered and raised a half-smile of welcome.
“All done then?” he asked, still turning the little disc over in his fingers.
Donna flopped down into the chair beside him and let the crutches clatter to the floor.
“All done, for now,” she said with a sigh, and looked at the device in his hand with narrowed eyes. “That better not be what I think it is. Mel and I just spent ten minutes working out how to tell Kate there was no artifact to recover.”
“I didn’t take it!” the Doctor replied indignantly. “It was here, on this chair. Waiting for me.”
“What is it?” Donna asked.
She reached out her hand, and the Doctor dropped the device into her palm. It was about the size of a poker chip, metallic black, with smoothed, rounded edges. It was heavier than Donna expected, and in her hand it felt weighted, natural, and strangely right.
“That,” he said, sucking in a long breath and stirring himself enough to sit more upright in his chair. “That is a Gates J 9002 memory capsule. A Time Lord could store their whole life in there. Practically indestructible. Product of the year Albatross Backslash Curtain. That’s human-made. Excellent workmanship.”
Donna gave him a sour look.
“It’s a memory stick?”
He sniffed, offended at her dumbing down of his superior explanation.
“Yes, it’s a memory stick. Usually found in the equivalent of a plane’s black box. Keeps a record of flight deck conversations, instrument readings, and space charts. Sends out a locator beacon if lost. This one came from a Time Agent’s ship.”
“How did it get here?” she asked, turning it over in her fingers once more before handing it back to the Doctor. “Is it one of the room’s re-creations? A memory prompt?”
The Doctor shook his head.
“No. This is a gift from River.”
Donna raised a questioning eyebrow.
“It came sealed with a kiss,” he said, his eyes softening as he looked down at the coffee table and the battered old envelope with fading lipstick marks on the back.
He turned the memory capsule over in his fingers again, reverently.
“What are you supposed to do with it?” asked Donna.
“Listen to it,” he replied. “You’ve just got to know the password, or have the right biometric access.”
Donna waited to see if he would continue, but he did not.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to recognise your fingerprint,” she observed as her impatience levels rose. “Do you know the password?”
“I’ve got a couple of ideas,” said the Doctor.
He lifted the disc, held it between his finger and thumb, and squinted at it with one eye closed.
“Would you stay?” he asked without looking at Donna. “Listen to it with me?”
Donna restrained her surprise. Maybe all her lectures on ‘letting people in’ were actually paying off. She gave him a warm smile and nodded.
“Of course, I will.”
He gave her a little nod of awkward appreciation and spoke into the memory capsule.
“Hello, sweetie.”
The device remained silent in his hand.
“Hello, sweetie!” he said, intoning more clearly.
They shared a look, and Donna raised an eyebrow.
“Too obvious,” she concluded for him. “Try something else.”
He thought for a moment, then issued a stream of increasingly unlikely passwords.
“Gallifrey. Time Lords. Kasterberous. Darillium. Bow ties are cool! Fezzes are... or... No. Maybe not.”
The device remained perniciously silent. He stood, ran his hand roughly through his hair, and stared around the room, searching for a clue, a prompt, anything.
“River wouldn’t have left this here just to drive me mad,” he said, beginning to pace. “The password would be something familiar. Something only the two of us know. Something... personal.”
He threw his hands in the air and looked from object to object. A toy soldier. A Jane Austen novel. Queen Anne’s silver teapot, still sporting the dent made by Ace’s baseball bat.
“Oh, come on!” he cried, as much frustrated with himself as with River. “Apocalypse Vault. Picnic at Asgard! Jim the Fish!!”
Silence followed every suggestion, and he spun and threw a look of desperation across the room at Donna.
She raised her hands in a defensive shrug.
“Don’t look at me!” she protested. “She’s your wife!”
The Doctor rocked back on his heels. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened in a slow oh of disquieted realisation.
“No... oh... but... no. She can’t have. No. Because... because if she did, then...”
He collapsed into his chair, deflating into a sullen heap of dusty clothes, and glowered at the little black pebble.
Donna leaned towards him, frowning with confusion and frustrated by his habitual lack of clarity.
“She can’t have done what; exactly?”
Ignoring the question, the Doctor raised the device to his lips and whispered something so quietly that Donna could not hear the words. A small blue light flickered across the surface, and River’s voice filled the room.
“My dear, dear Doctor,” River’s tone was warm and bright. “I have asked the TARDIS to deliver this message at the correct intersection of your life, using the temporal-spatial geolocators and an image of you I captured earlier.”
The Doctor groaned softly. Watching the TARDIS dematerialise had been a mistake.
“By rights, if you are the man you claimed to be, you ought not to be listening to me now,” she paused, and continued with a smug whisper. “But you are, aren’t you?”
“What does she mean? The man you claimed to be?” Donna asked, her frown deepening.
He waved her to be quiet and earned himself an icy stare.
“Timeline protection,” he muttered, visibly uncomfortable with the confession. “I pretended to be my younger self.”
Donna raised an eyebrow. “And how did that work out for you?”
“Not as well as I’d hoped, apparently,” he said, sulking and sinking lower in the chair.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to reclaim that old face,” River continued, speaking over the Doctor’s grumble. “But I certainly hope it wasn’t an exercise in vanity! And if it was, the least you could do is to shave that awful stubble. You look like a squirrel that lost a fight with a hedge trimmer. And if you think I’ll be kissing you with that on your face, think again!”
“Told you so,” Donna hissed. She had practically begged him to shave on a number of occasions already.
The Doctor rubbed his fingers ruefully over the scratchy surface of his cheek. He quite liked the look.
“I suppose you have your reasons for that charade, although what they were I cannot imagine,” said River. Her cheerful tone slipped as she added. “I would say you can tell me about it later, but something tells me there isn’t going to be a later for us… is there?”
Donna reached out and rested her hand on the Doctor’s arm.
He closed his eyes and said softly, “I’m sorry, River.”
“And I don’t want to hear your sorries, so don’t even think of starting.”
“Sorry,” he replied, tongue running on automatic.
“Oh, she’s good!” said Donna, impressed by River’s timing. “I can see why you married her.”
The Doctor shot Donna another silencing look, which she had no intention of heeding.
“So, now that I’ve seen through your little masquerade, I want you to know I am very, very cross with you!”
The Doctor’s head snapped up. He didn’t know what he had expected from River’s message, but this was most certainly not it.
“Whatever your reasons were for choosing that face, again, you absolutely cannot keep pretending to be a younger man. Apart from anything else, you have far too many wrinkles.”
He rubbed the lines around his left eye and grumbled something Donna didn’t quite catch.
“And whatever it is you’re hiding from, for God’s sake stop!” River’s exasperation rang around the room, making the Time Lord shift in his seat.
“That’s hardly fair...” the Doctor began, but the words fell away into nothingness.
“Honestly, you’re starting to look like a knackered old scarecrow, all sticks and no stuffing. And let me tell you, sweetie; withering away isn’t attractive.”
The irritation in River’s voice was reaching its peak, and the Doctor looked down, scolded into silence. What would he even say? You couldn’t argue with the dead.
The change in his mood was palpable, and Donna gave his arm a little squeeze.
“So stop being a bloody fool and grow old disgracefully like the rest of the universe. I expect nothing less from you!”
A flush of shame pricked at the Doctor’s cheeks. River was right. How was she always right?
“I’m not going to stand here and lecture you all night; quite frankly, I have a dinner engagement to make. We’re going on a double date. I can’t wait to see how you handle that.”
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. The double date.
“Oh, River,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “I really am sorry about the wine... and the exploding pastries.”
Donna logged that particular comment for a proper interrogation later.
“So, Doctor, my love,” said River, her voice softening. “It’s time to do what you’ve always done before. Pull yourself up by those ridiculously long bootlaces and have another go!”
The faint sound of the TARDIS re-materialising came from the device.
“Gosh, home already! I really must shower before dinner; my hair is full of dear old Henri.” There was a pause, and then, almost as an afterthought, River added. “Oh, and you should probably pop this little capsule in a blast hole quite quickly. It’s set to self-destruct in 30 seconds, just in case anyone should try to obtain the original recording. Until next time, sweetie.”
The Doctor and Donna looked at the little black disc in the Doctor’s hand. The reassuring blue light had turned red and pulsed in one-second intervals.
“River!”
“She didn’t...” Donna’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
He was already on his feet and running.
“Oh, yes, she really did!” he cried as he disappeared into the corridor.
By the time Donna had limped all the way back to the control room, the Doctor was standing at the console, calm and collected as ever. He looked up at the sound of her crutches clinking on the metal walkway and gave an impudent little smile.
“You took your time,” he said, secure in the knowledge she could not move fast enough to deliver a signature slap.
“Yeah, hilarious,” she growled at him from the top of the ramp. “Has your wife finished trying to blow us up?”
“It wouldn’t have done that much damage,” he replied, shuffling one foot over the blackened edges of the blast hatch in the white floor. “Might have singed a few nose hairs if we’d been a bit too close. Would have made less of a mess than your mishap with the coffee.”
Donna rolled her eyes and came to a stop at the side of the console, leaning against it with a sigh.
“Are you ever going to let that go?”
The Doctor’s nose wrinkled as he sniffed, considering the possibility, then shook his head.
“No, probably not.”
Donna gave him a playful shove on the shoulder.
“You alright then? After today?”
The humour drained from his eyes, and his lips pursed. Donna could feel the lie forming on his tongue. Always fine. Always alright. She knew the look, knew the actions. A flip of a control here, a little subconscious sidestep away from her, a tight nod, all buying him just enough time to come up with some new way to pretend loss didn’t hurt.
“It was a gift, of sorts, seeing River,” he admitted, his voice quiet but steady.
Donna’s eyes widened, surprised by this new candour, but the Doctor’s gaze remained fixed on the console, oblivious to the reaction.
“A gift?”
He nodded, twisted a dial, flicked a switch, and inhaled a short, sharp breath.
“River’s been gone a long time,” he said, still avoiding Donna’s sympathetic stare. “I’d gone a whole regeneration without seeing her face. I thought that was it. No more moments. Our era was over.”
The Doctor’s fingers hovered over a control, slowing, pausing. He lowered his hand to the edge of the console and turned just enough to glance at Donna.
“I got to see River one last time. And it hurt and... yes... I’m ... sad,” his face wrinkled with the discomfort of putting emotions into words. “But... I feel more... at peace... somehow.”
Donna wished he was a little closer, so she could wrap him in a hug, but the Doctor remained just out of arm’s reach and looked back down, studying the dials, intent on maintaining some kind of control over the situation.
“She kicked your arse,” said Donna, lightening her tone.
He looked up, brightness returning to his eyes and a smile curling onto his lips.
“She really did. And I needed it.”
“Don’t worry,” Donna said with a smile. “I took notes for future arse kicking reference.”
“What next, then?” he asked, rolling his eyes.
“Home,” she replied. “I’ve got a report to write.”
“Home it is,” he agreed and started flipping buttons again.
“And then tonight,” said Donna with a smirk. “After dinner, you can tell me all about that double date of yours and whatever happened with the exploding pastries.”