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River materialises right in her own bathroom, looks in the mirror, and sighs.
The swamp planet of Aragoola V is a goldmine when it comes to ancient artefacts, but she will never approve of what it does to her hair. Even when she’s not covered in mud.
Dumping her shoulder bag on the floor, she unstraps the slimy vortex manipulator from her wrist and throws it on the counter. She kicks her shoes into a corner and is just reaching up to unzip her dress when the doorbell rings.
River pauses with her hand halfway up, waiting.
It rings again, twice in quick succession, and she smiles despite herself.
There’s only one person she knows who’s that impatient.
She wipes her hands on the nearest towel, reaches for the doorknob, and hurries downstairs before he can wear the bell out by sheer frequency of ringing. The silhouette she can see through the door is wearing a top hat, and her grin widens. That hat means romance.
“River!” he exclaims the moment she opens the door. His expression morphs into one of shock as he takes in her appearance. “River, what happened to you?”
“Aragoola V.” She shrugs, turning away to lead him into the living room.
“Again?” He kicks the door shut, making her wince involuntarily, and follows.
“I still haven’t found the lost totem of Harifex.”
“Because it’s a myth.”
“Because I haven’t looked in the right place yet.” River stops before she steps on the cream-coloured carpet with her muddy feet and faces him, running her fingers down the front of his jacket. “And what brings you here, sweetie, all dressed up and with your hair freshly cut?” she asks, batting her eyelashes.
“Oh.” He hesitates for a moment, but quickly plasters a wide smile back on his face and beams at her. “How would you like to see the Singing Towers of Darillium?”
“Really?” Her eyebrows shoot up of their own accord. “You’re finally taking me? I’ve only been asking for the last three hundred years, you could wait a bit longer if you wanted,” she teases gently.
“No. Can’t.” His smile is pained, she notices, and her hand flies up automatically to rest on his cheek as he continues, “It has to be now.” He swallows. “Spoilers. You know.”
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“Nothing!” he lies, grinning, and of course he knows she knows he’s lying, but he also knows she won’t push it, so she doesn’t. “You’ve got mud on my suit, though.”
“Oh,” she replies guiltily, stepping back to see that he’s right. “Sorry.”
“That’s fine, I can clean it and be back in a jiffy—actually,” he interrupts himself. “Meet me on Calderon Beta.”
“Again?” she asks, surprised. There are several versions of them wandering around there already; they’ll be flirting with a dangerous paradox if they’re not careful.
Not that that’s a reason not to go, of course.
“One more time,” the Doctor confirms.
“Whatever you say, sweetie,” she agrees pleasantly, stepping closer again to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips against his. He hums as he kisses her back, his warm hands splayed across her back, and River takes a moment to appreciate the moment. She’s seen more of his older self again lately, but she can never take it for granted. Every kiss is something to be cherished.
This one also happens to be a very good way to cover the Doctor in mud, and River giggles as she steps back to survey the damage.
She’s expecting him to scold her, but instead he looks down at himself with a wistful kind of expression and pulls her closer again, kissing her more fervently than before. “River Song,” he says fondly, pulling back barely enough to speak. “My bad, bad girl.”
“If you think that’s bad you must be younger than I thought,” she teases. “Where are we for you?”
“Last time I saw you was on Space Station 65,” he tells her. “It’s been a while, since then.”
“Oh?” River says, surveying him more closely. The Doctor she was with on Space Station 65 was fairly advanced in age, for this face. “I did the Hertesian Waterfall, a few weeks ago.”
That earns her a smile. “Now that was fun.”
“Wasn’t it just?” She grins, and gives him a push. “Go on, then. Let’s clean up. I’ll meet you there.”
“Promise?”
River rolls her eyes. “As if I would miss a trip to Calderon Beta, sweetie.”
She almost misses him, though, by stepping into the wrong TARDIS – how can she help it if there are half a dozen of the damn things dotted around the place? – but he comes to find her. And then won’t let her stay and play with the other him, which she pouts about all the way back to the correct ship.
“There were already two of you in that TARDIS, that’s quite enough,” he says as he pushes open the door.
“I don’t see why.”
“You might have if it was your wedding night,” the Doctor says pointedly, heading for the console.
“My wedding night? But there weren’t – oh,” she says, eyes widening as she crosses the threshold.
“Finally, finally, she gets it.” His fingers dance over the controls, activating the cloak and lifting the TARDIS into the air.
“You could have said something.”
“I tried. I was a bit preoccupied. Wedding night, remember?” Sticking his hands in his pockets, the Doctor wanders back across the room to join her.
“Oh, I do.” River grins. “Like it was yesterday.”
“It’s today, technically.” Grinning back, he reaches behind her and pulls the doors open as wide as they will go, draping an arm over her shoulder when she turns.
“So it is,” she replies, and she leans into him and looks out at the stars.
This night will never not be magical.
You could read a book by it – and she did, once. The Kama Sutra. Out loud. She didn’t get very far before they moved on to more practical demonstrations. But tonight she senses that the Doctor is in a quieter mood. There’s clearly something bothering him, and clearly he doesn’t want to talk about it, but she’ll do what she can.
She curls an arm around his waist.
“Go on, then,” she urges gently, nodding up at the sky. “Which new ones have you visited since last time?” And last time for him was probably last time for her as well, for a change; a wonderful oddity in their mixed-up lives.
He licks his lips, looking up.
“The Dustprint Nebula,” he begins. “The dust is so thick that none of the indigenous life forms on the planets in there have evolved eyes. They’re extremely sensitive to pressure changes, though. Make the most beautiful music.” He pauses. “Of course I couldn’t hear it very well above the sound of my choking on the dust. Pity, really.”
River giggles, snuggling into him, and he looks at her expectantly. “Okay.” She nods. “Just above the horizon, there – see, by the tip of that branch? – that’s the home star of the Mazvatites. They worship the sun god Azpitin and they’ve built a huge artificial moon as a temple to him. It has a hollow core containing the planet’s only known piece of gold, fashioned into his likeness, but no one is allowed to see it lest they be blinded by his glory. The visitors and keepers of the temple may touch it, but only in a darkened room.”
“You stole it, didn’t you?” He nudges her gently.
“Of course I did. What’s the use of having a beautiful sculpture that’s never seen? I replaced it with a replica I bought in a gift shop.” She shrugs. “No one seemed to notice.”
“You bad, bad girl.” He smiles at her, eyes wide and wistful. “I love you, River Song.”
“I love you too,” she says, surprised. Whatever is bothering him must be bad – he’s not one to come out and say things like that, usually.
“I know,” he whispers, leaning in to press a kiss to her temple. “You mad, mad woman. Why d’you have to go and do that?”
“What can I say? Your madness complements my own.”
The Doctor giggles into her hair. “We are quite a team, aren’t we?”
“Sweetie, we’re the best team there is.” His grip on her shoulder tightens painfully, and she looks up to find him squeezing his eyes shut. “Are you really not going to tell me what’s wrong?” she demands.
“Can’t,” he says, blinking hard and looking back out at the stars. “Sorry.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” she says, rolling her eyes.
He pulls her around to face him then, one firm hand on each shoulder, and meets her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, and kisses her.
Her fingertips fly up to dance along his sleeves and rest on his chest, and she flattens her palms over his hearts. He is forgiven, of course. Always and completely, and she whispers as much in his ear when they part.
His smile is pained, but sincere. Bopping her on the nose, he swallows. “Well then. Onwards,” he declares, heading back to the console. “To Darillium.”
It’s a gorgeous planet, it has to be said.
The Doctor, show-off that he is, has landed them right on top of the tallest of the famous Towers, and the vista spreading out from all sides is breathtaking. The Tower, which is in effect a tall, sturdy mushroom, is surrounded by others like itself but shorter and thinner, dotted around in an uneven but roughly circular pattern. Beyond those lies a vast expanse of purple grass, glowing in the light from the rising sun, and bordering that in the distance is a forest of tall, spindly trees.
And they’re so, so high up.
River loves being up high. For some reason it gives her the most incredible feeling of power; sometimes she thinks she can feel the potential energy sparking through her, giving her strength. A woman up high can do anything.
She turns to look at the Doctor, giddy, to find him frowning.
“What?” she asks, looking around for anything that might be amiss.
“They’re not singing,” he says. He kneels down and presses his ear to the Tower’s top. “Not even a little bit.”
“…Oh.” She shouldn’t have been looking for what was amiss. She should have been listening.
In the legends of the Towers, they never stop singing.
Suddenly the stillness all around them is eerie.
“What’s happened to them?” River asks. Not because she expects him to know – rather because someone asking the question out loud will set the gears in his head in motion.
“I don’t know,” he says, getting to his feet and turning slowly in a circle, taking in all the details he can see, hear, smell.
He looks up at the sky, and River follows his gaze. “The reverberation inside the natural chambers of the fungus is what causes the singing, isn’t it?”
“So the story goes,” the Doctor agrees, a sudden grin spreading across his face. “Professor Song, do you fancy some abseiling?”
There’s only one answer to that. A matching grin, and, “Always.”
The rope, anchored around the TARDIS, stretches over the edge of the Tower and extends all the way down to the ground.
They’ve stopped, however, halfway down, and are jostling for the best position to see into the first hole they’ve found in the rubbery surface which is big enough to peer into.
“There’s definitely something moving in there,” River declares, elbowing the Doctor out of the way. He sways back a bit on the rope and then crashes back into her, knocking her from her perch, and she finds herself dangling a few feet below him. Scowling, she climbs back up to balance on a small outcropping beside him.
“But what is it?” he mutters, as though nothing had happened. He pulls his screwdriver from his pocket and fiddles with the scanner settings.
Rolling her eyes, River grabs it from him and uses it to illuminate the whatever-it-is inside the Tower.
The whatever-it-is turns out to be a large number of very large larvae.
“Oh,” the Doctor says, staring into the hole.
“Are they eating it?” River exclaims, fascinated and appalled at the same time.
The Doctor licks his lips. “It would appear so.”
“Well. That’s one way to make natural chambers inside, I suppose.”
“But…” Shaking his head, he looks back at her. “But what’s going to stop them from eating the whole thing? No Singing Towers, if that happens…” Strangely, he looks almost hopeful.
She looks back pointedly. “Doctor. Time can be rewritten, yes, et cetera, but in my experience that happens far less often than one might think. And the answer to the question of who is going to make sure things happen the way they’re supposed to is almost always you, me, or us.” Beginning to descend again, River holds out his screwdriver. “Here. Let’s explore some more.”
“Um.” He flails a bit, still holding on to the side of the hole. “Actually, River… you can keep that.”
She stops. “What?”
“The screwdriver. You keep it. It’s a gift.” He attempts a smile.
“Doctor…” she says, climbing back up so that she can frown at him more directly.
“Ooh, those must be the parents!” he declares loudly, raising a hand and pointing.
Turning despite this obvious attempt at redirection, River finds that her breath stops for a moment when she sees what he’s talking about.
Silhouetted against the orange sky is a swarm of giant flying beetles.
“You may be right,” she concedes.
“Do you think they’re sentient?” he asks. “If we explain…”
“Yes, yes, they may be amiable and understanding and move their offspring on to another food source. On the other hand, if they’re not, I think we’re about to find ourselves in a very bad position.” She yanks pointedly on the rope and begins to descend as quickly as possible. “Come on!”
Left with no choice, the Doctor follows. River casts an appreciative eye over him – this view is the main reason she insisted on using just one rope – before looking over her shoulder again at the approaching hordes.
A buzzing sound is beginning to make itself heard now, low-pitched and echoing unpleasantly through her body like an itch in her bones. She can see the green of the insects’ exoskeletons now, a bright, vibrant colour that almost matches the dress she is wearing. Their legs, useless while they’re in the air, are all stretching and curling restlessly, as though they can’t wait to be crawling all over the Towers’ surfaces, mirroring the movements of their children within.
River climbs faster. She doesn’t want to be caught underneath when they land.
She lands lightly on the grass at the Tower’s base, and reaches instinctively to catch the Doctor when he drops down next to her rather more clumsily. She would swear he does it on purpose, sometimes. Any excuse to touch her.
Not that she minds.
They reach simultaneously for each other’s hands and run for the trees, leaving the rope dangling down the side of the Tower. Hopefully none of the beetles will take any notice of it – climbing with ropes is not likely to be something that they know very much about.
The buzzing noise disappears quite suddenly when the beetles reach the Towers, smacking into them with an alarming force. River glances back again to see the Towers swaying under the onslaught, and she winces. Perhaps she never will get to hear them sing, after all.
The thin, leafless branches of the trees don’t offer much in the way of camouflage, but the beetles seem to have no interest in the two of them anyway. They are far too busy crawling all over the Towers, and the grass when every inch of the Towers is covered, and, oh dear, the TARDIS up at the top there too. River looks over at the Doctor to find a horrified expression on his face, and squeezes his hand reassuringly.
“But what are they doing here?” he says in a low voice, shaking his head. “This isn’t how it goes!”
“Apparently it is,” River replies wryly.
“Where did they come from?” he mutters.
River tuts impatiently, and tugs again at his hand. “Let’s find out.”
They circle carefully around the Towers, avoiding the beetles except for the few stragglers still flying overhead, who again take no notice of them at all. The sparsely populated forest extends for miles, but it’s pretty clear which direction the bugs have come from. They’re left a lovely, fragrant trail of droppings for anybody who might be interested.
Which River is, she has to admit.
Not in the droppings, per se, but in what is happening here. The Singing Towers sing, so whatever is happening here must be something temporary, but what exactly is happening here? She can’t think of any reason for the giant larvae ever to climb back out of their new-found food source, but there must be one. And the food source must be a new one for them, or surely it would be gone by now?
Her curiosity is enough for her not to care about the long hike, in any case. For the Doctor, curiosity is perhaps not the right word – his movements are charged, almost unsettlingly so. Whatever has been bothering him is obviously still on his mind, complemented unfortunately by this unexpected mystery.
But he doesn’t want to talk about it, so River takes his hand and leans into him, slowing their pace as the morning sun climbs higher in the sky.
“This is far more interesting than I thought it would be,” she confesses.
The Doctor blinks. “You thought the Singing Towers would be dull? After badgering me about them for centuries?”
“Not dull. I just wasn’t expecting an adventure.” She says the word with relish, grinning at him in a way she knows he finds infectious – and yes, look, it’s a little reluctant but there is his answering grin, dimpling his cheeks and making him look a hundred years younger. She raises a hand to touch his face, running her thumb over his cheekbone.
“I suppose I wasn’t expecting one either,” he confesses, looking down as he steps forward again, tugging her gently through the trees.
“What were you expecting, sweetie?” she enquires, pushing a low-hanging branch out of the way.
It takes him a moment to answer, and when he does his smile is only half there. “The best night of our lives.”
That stops her short, but she lets herself be pulled farther by him. “Interesting that you should land here at dawn, then.”
He won’t meet her eyes, but he shrugs wryly. “Perhaps some build-up is required.”
“Perhaps, indeed.” She frowns, struck by a sudden thought. “Is that why the three hundred years?”
The Doctor stops walking, again, and finally looks at her, lifting his hand to curl a strand of her hair around his finger. “Perhaps,” he says again, tugging lightly before letting it bounce back into place.
She’s about to make a joke about raising her expectations, but something in his face stops her. He’s trying his hardest to be light-hearted, but everything he’s just said sounds like the truth.
Oddly, she’s not sure she wants to hear the answer to Why now?
The Doctor is looking away now, anyway, listening intently, and when River strains her ears she can hear it too; the sound of gushing water, a lot of it, somewhere in the distance.
He grabs her hand tighter and pulls her toward the noise.
It turns out to be a waterfall – a pretty new waterfall, by the looks of things. A natural dam has burst and water is cascading over an incline still covered in plant life under the flood, with a few treetops poking out above the waterline. It pools in a large basin, trickling over the sides to form assorted little streams in all directions, one disappearing into the forest not two metres from where they stand.
The sun, quite high in the sky by now, reflects off the pool’s surface and twinkles brightly on the ripples fanning out to its sides, but doesn’t quite hide the unusual beige colour filtering through from the depths.
They both stop for a moment instinctively, taking in the view, and then continue on, stepping carefully through the stream in front of them – only they don’t get through it, because the Doctor catches his foot on something under the surface and falls sideways awkwardly, clutching at River for support and only succeeding in pulling her down into the foot-deep water on top of him.
River scrambles backwards immediately, landing on her backside with a splash; the Doctor pushes himself upwards at a more leisurely pace and sits there blinking at her, bedraggled and rather adorable with his hat askew and water dripping from his hair.
Not that she’s fared much better herself.
“Look what you’ve done to my dress!” she manages, standing and watching the water cascade down her sides.
“At least you know that dress can survive being soaked,” he counters, reaching up to clutch his top hat with concern. “Look at my hat!”
“Your hat will be fine.” She offers him a hand up and he takes it, only to lose his balance yet again and pull them both back into the stream with an almighty splash.
When she has emptied her mouth and nose of water River glares at him. “I hate you.”
He grins and bops her on the nose. “No, you don’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” She raises an eyebrow and then, pulling away from him, cups a handful of water in her hands and throws it at him.
The Doctor gasps. “River!”
She laughs and goes to climb out of the water, but he grabs her by the ankle and she falls headlong onto the muddy bank with a splat. It’s her turn to gasp as she stands and surveys herself. “I hate you,” she repeats.
The Doctor stands as well – and then lets himself fall into the same patch of mud, arm stretched up in the air to hold his hat out of harm’s way. “No, you don’t,” he says happily.
Damn him, the endearing twelve-year-old, but he’s right. “Fine,” she says, poking him with the toe of her water-logged shoe. “Maybe I don’t.”
He leaps to his feet with a smile, re-positioning his hat on his head and pulling her close for a muddy kiss. “Told you so.”
She lets her lips linger on his for a moment, feeling them twitch upwards of their own accord. “You always do.”
The Doctor steps back and frowns, and she thinks for a moment that it must be something she said before she follows his gaze and turns to see what he’s looking at.
Washed up at the edge of the water is a giant beetle. Dead.
“I’ve got a theory,” the Doctor says, raising a finger and trudging upstream.
River follows. “Their home was flooded,” she guesses. “They had to lay their eggs somewhere else.”
“That’s pretty much it, yes.”
“And the odd colour at the bottom of the pool – that’s the fungus that would have housed them before.”
“Yep. Well, probably.” He jogs the last few steps to the water’s edge. “Maybe we should take a look.”
She’s about to protest when he removes his top hat from his head and places it carefully on hers, adjusting the angle until it is just so, and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Look after that, wife,” he says, throwing his sodden jacket to the ground and kicking off his shoes.
“Of course, dear,” she replies, and watches him dive in.
It isn’t long before he surfaces a bit farther out, turns to mouth something she can’t quite decipher, and disappears again under the water.
River stands watching the rings rippling out from where he disappeared, running a finger along the brim of the top hat absently.
Sometimes it just hits her how much she really does love him.
He rises back out of the water with a spray and a goofy grin, and makes his way back towards her, pulling something along behind him.
“You were right!” he declares as he climbs out, reaching back and waving a dead larva over his head.
“So I see. I would have taken your word for it, you know; you didn’t need to bring proof.”
“Thought we could take a closer look at it. Hand me the screwdriver.”
River does as he asks, retrieving it from the hidden pocket she stashed it in earlier. “You’re not serious about letting me keep it, are you?”
“What? ‘Course I am.” He bends to inspect the larva, and very determinedly doesn’t look at her.
“What for?”
“Because I’ll need it—I mean we. We’ll need it.”
“What for?”
“Spoilers.”
“Doctor.” She throws his hat on the ground next to him and he looks up in shock.
“What?” he demands, grabbing the hat and positioning it carefully back on his head.
River puts her hands on her hips. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
The pause as he stands is charged, but his reply is barely a mumble. “That’s what spoilers means, isn’t it?”
“I know what it means, Doctor, but—“
“Yep. Drowned,” he declares, holding up the screwdriver to demonstrate. He grabs her hand and presses it into her palm. “Please, River. No more questions.”
His voice is pained but that’s not enough to counterbalance her frustration. He hasn’t been so full of things he won’t tell her in centuries, at least for her, and she can’t say she’s missed it.
“Fine,” she says, turning on her heel and marching ahead of him.
“Where are you going?”
“To inspect what’s left of the natural dam,” she tells him shortly. It’s not exactly something she’s dying to do – large bodies of water still aren’t her thing, even after all this time – but she’s got to find something else to focus on than the Doctor’s pouting.
“What for?” he demands, echoing her own question as he scrambles after her up the steep embankment.
Unlike him, she deigns to give a proper answer. “Maybe we can fix it, drain the water from the fungus, the bugs come back here, hello Singing Towers.” The slope is slick with mud and she can tell he’s having trouble climbing below her, but she’s too worked up to care.
“Why would they come back when they’ve found a perfectly good home over there?”
“I don’t know! Do I have to do all the work? Maybe that part of the plan should be your responsibility.” Struggling for purchase as she reaches the top, she reluctantly accepts a push from him and steps out, only slightly wobbly, onto the muddy surface.
It’s clear what’s happened – most of the natural embankment is just mud, and the part that caved in to form the river’s new path was almost completely devoid of vegetation. The bit they’re standing on is covered with a smattering of purple grass and a few small trees which have helped to anchor it, but River doubts it would hold in the event of a bad flood.
“I suppose we should rebuild the dam,” the Doctor says, grimacing as he clambers up beside her.
“I suppose you’re right,” she agrees absently, already running through possible blueprints in her head. Abruptly, she turns and hurries back down the slope.
“River!” the Doctor cries, whirling to follow her. “Where are you going?”
“To fetch some building materials, sweetie!”
“From the forest? You know the screwdriver won’t do wood!”
River decides to respond with a practical demonstration, and she pulls out her blaster and neatly takes out the bottom of the nearest tree. It keels over right next to where the Doctor is sliding to a halt, and he makes that face that means he is both exasperated and impressed.
Perhaps there’s hope for this date yet.
Deciding not to waste time waiting for him to help, River grabs the end of the thin tree just above the scorch mark and begins to pull it up the slope. Half-way there the load is suddenly lightened by the Doctor, lifting one of the smaller branches and unsuccessfully attempting not to get tangled up in them.
River looks down and smiles her appreciation, and his answering smile melts her heart.
She never can stay angry with him for long just for being an idiot. That would involve a near-constant state of anger, and at her age the mere prospect sounds exhausting.
Always and completely better to forgive.
The building work takes several hours, and when they’re done they both collapse on top of their new dam, dangling their legs over the edge and listening to the water rushing past behind them as the pool below slowly drains. More dead bugs are revealed as the water seeps away, washing up on the huge expanse of uncovered fungus.
“Looks more like a graveyard than a home,” River says, studying the way their wings glitter in the sunshine.
“Homes have been built over graves before,” the Doctor replies, swinging his legs. “They have to be, often. I’m sure it’s no different for giant beetles.”
“Still. All those corpses… We should move them. Bury them.”
“That’s a big job.”
“We’re good at big jobs.”
That makes him chuckle. “That is true.”
“Come here,” she commands, and yanks him closer by his bowtie until she can press her lips to his. She rests her hands on his shoulders, warm from the exertion even through the damp and muddy sleeves of the suit he’s still wearing. “I don’t know why,” she tells him, breaking away to look up at him and bring a hand up to caress his cheek, “but you look even more delicious when you’re all worn out and covered in dirt.”
“Likewise,” he breathes, and kisses her again.
His hand slides down her back and he grabs a handful of her dress, grunting into her mouth and—
A loud cawing sound above them is all the warning they get before a huge winged creature appears beside them and knocks them both off the dam with the force of its landing.
They fall, clutching at each other instinctively, and River glimpses the water-logged fungus coming rapidly towards them and just manages an “Oh shi—“
—before they crash into a thin patch with enough force to break through it and plunge into the water beneath, and they find themselves in darkness except from the faint pink light which filters through from above. The impact has pulled them apart but the Doctor reaches out and grasps her hand tightly, pulling her back up towards the hole they’ve made in the fungus.
Except she’s stuck.
She has to close her eyes rather than see the Doctor’s panicked face in the gloom – panic is the last thing they need right now, and she presses her lips together and fights hard against the clamour rising in her own chest.
She’s stuck, her dress is caught on something, so she has to become unstuck, simple.
She opens her eyes when she feels the Doctor tugging at her dress, trying to free it from what turns out to be the talon of a giant beetle, a huge creature rotating gently with the ripples from their impact. It’s wedged tight though, in a tear in her dress that is caught on the serrated edge—
…serrated edge.
Grabbing the Doctor’s hands, River tries to make a sawing motion, but the angle is all wrong and he’s looking at her with desperate incomprehension. So she hopes that they have time for this, and presses his hand to her forehead.
Immediately the bubbling panic in her mind doubles and it takes precious seconds to beat it into submission, fighting back images of water and drowning and death and electricity – what? No time – and to present, as clearly as she can, the single image of a saw.
The Doctor yanks his hand away and redoubles his efforts, pulling the fabric taut with one hand and moving the talon stiffly back and forth with the other. It’s working, she can tell, her movement is freer, he’s almost sawn right through the bottom of her dress…
…but the talon gets stuck on the seam, and the Doctor’s movements are getting more erratic as he runs out of air, and River is getting too dizzy to think any more and it’s all she can do not to open her mouth and gasp for oxygen that she won’t find…
And the Doctor braces one hand against the talon and the other against the giant beetle’s side, and gives it an almighty kick.
River’s not sure if she blacked out for a second or if it’s really all happened so quickly, but the next thing she knows the Doctor is pulling her upwards and her mouth and nose and lungs are full of water, and she wonders if she will ever breathe air again, and—
Air.
They break through into the air and the Doctor pushes her onto the surface of the fungus, throwing himself after her and struggling to help her as she tries to breathe, coughing up quantities of water so vast she wonders vaguely if her lungs are bigger on the inside, and all the while his hands are skating over her back and he is muttering to her, “Come on, River, not now, this isn’t how it goes, come on, come on…”
At last she manages to breathe, deep, wheezing breaths that leave her dizzy with relief, and she collapses against him, shivering. He strokes her back, peppering her with kisses wherever he can reach, and he tells her again and again that she’s okay.
They stay there for a long time, letting the sun slowly dry them out, until she’s stopped shaking and crying and she feels like she might actually be able to look at him again.
When she does, she sees that he’s crying too.
“I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely, raising a hand to wipe his tears away, and studiously ignoring the ones still stinging her own eyes.
“Whatever for, River Song?” he whispers, clasping her wrist and pressing a kiss to her palm. “Sorry for daring to be mortal?”
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” she clarifies.
“You’ve always scared me,” he tells her fondly. “But it’s the best kind of scared there is.” He smiles, and his tears drip from his cheeks to land on hers.
A shadow flits overhead, and River sits up instinctively, her hand resting on his arm.
The fungus around them is dotted with what look like pterosaurs, picking at the dead bugs and swallowing them whole.
“Maybe we haven’t got to bury them,” the Doctor comments.
River lies back with a sigh, closing her eyes against the sun. “Do you think they’ll try to eat us, too?”
“They haven’t so far,” he points out.
“Good.” She tugs on his sleeve. “Lie with me.”
He snuggles down beside her on the rubbery surface and laces his fingers through hers. “Always.”
The sun dries their clothes, eventually, leaving River feeling warm and toasty and thoroughly content. She pushes herself upright as it begins to drift towards the horizon to find the pterosaurs gone, the fungus free of insectoid corpses, and the water almost completely drained from beneath it.
The Doctor is asleep beside her.
She reaches out to smooth his hair and a smile flickers briefly across his features as he blinks, raising a hand to capture hers and press it between his hearts.
“Good evening,” she says, returning the smile.
“Good evening,” he replies, sitting, still gripping her hand with his – until he sees the big black talon still sticking out of her dress and grabs it eagerly, disentangling it with ease now that the pressure to do so is gone. “Souvenir, Professor Song?” he says, holding it up with a grin.
“To remind me of almost dying?” she teases, and pulls it from his hands before he can take her seriously. “Mount it on a stick and this would make a great weapon,” she muses.
“Why is everything a weapon to you?”
“Assassin? Trained to kill? Ring any bells?” she teases, running her hand over the talon’s smooth edge. “Besides which, they have a certain beauty about them. Such power, honed for one purpose, carefully crafted to deliver that single fatal blow…”
“Can we please stop talking about death?”
River shrugs, hiding the shiver that goes through her as she’s reminded of her most recent experience. “Everybody dies, Doctor.”
“I know,” he says heavily. “Believe me, no one knows that better than me.”
“You’re being self-aggrandising again, sweetie,” she tuts.
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, stop moping.” River rolls her eyes, clutching the talon and pulling him to his feet. “I’m fine. Now let’s see what we can do about these Towers, because I want to hear them sing. Okay?”
The Doctor looks down, straightening his bowtie. When he looks back up there is a new resolve in his eyes, and he nods determinedly. “Then so you shall.”
The Towers are still crawling with bugs, apparently unaware of the repair work River and the Doctor have been busy doing on their home, although they did see several of them flying back and forth overhead as they made their way back through the forest.
“Do you think they’ll mind if we just climb back up to the TARDIS?” River says as they stand at the treeline, still hidden for the moment.
The Doctor grins almost manically. “Only one way to find out!”
Without another word, he grabs her hand and walks boldly towards the towering mushroom on top of which the TARDIS is still perched, blissfully undisturbed by all the insect activity. The bugs pay him no attention even when he grabs the rope and begins to climb, so River follows suit.
The frantic crawling masses from earlier on have become more sedate, some settled comfortably on the sides of the Towers, some still strolling leisurely across them, and, not counting the couple which are sitting on the rope and lumber away when it begins to move, it’s as if they don’t notice them at all. Inside the cavities of the mushroom the movement seems to be ceasing as well; she’s not sure, but she thinks she sees several of the larvae in the process of pupating. Everything is calming down, in contrast to earlier.
Until River happens to climb right past one’s face and its antenna brushes against the severed talon she has shoved under the back of one of the straps of her dress.
The insect immediately lets out an ear-piercing screech, followed quickly by an ominous hissing sound, and lumbers to its feet, its mandibles gnashing audibly.
“Sweetie,” River warns, climbing the rope with renewed vigour.
“Yep, noticed, thanks!” he blurts from above her, scrambling upwards faster to clear her path.
She manages to dodge her attacker by swinging backwards on the rope and finding another foothold, but by now the other insects are lurching to their feet and their hissing is getting louder and more threatening by the second. They both climb a few more feet before her path is cut off again by a larger-still bug stepping right on the rope above her hand, leaving her recoiling in shock.
“River!” The Doctor is kicking at the thing’s back, trying in vain to dislodge it – and River’s not sure she wouldn’t be crushed underneath it even if he could – but she looks up past him to where the rope disappears from view.
“You’re almost there, Doctor!” she yells. “Just go!”
“I’m not leaving you!” he insists.
“Then take the TARDIS and come and get me, you big numpty!” she shouts impatiently. Honestly, he chooses the best moments to be thick…
The Doctor looks uncertainly from her to up to where the TARDIS is standing just out of sight, still dithering, so with a sigh River looks down at the distant ground and makes some quick calculations. “Doctor!” she calls again pointedly, and when he looks down, she lets go.
Thankfully his reflexes are as fast as she thought they were.
His knee-jerk reaction of course is to reach for her, but he aborts that futile attempt before his arm is even half outstretched and turns instead to scramble up the last few feet and disappear over the top.
River counts down in her head, and listens.
At ten she hears the noise, above, of the TARDIS dematerialising.
At nine, eight, seven, six, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, very determinedly not listening for the sound she knows she will not hear yet.
Then she gets to five.
At four, a second later than she had hoped and hanging on the very edge of just in time, she hears her reappearing somewhere below, not that there’s very much below left to go now, and she clasps her hands above her head and looks down.
And there he is at the door, his expression part worry and part glee as he turns to run back to the console before she flies through the doors, right past him, down the corridor and into the swimming pool.
Either the Doctor has run very fast or the TARDIS is being extraordinarily kind to him today, because he is standing by the pool when she surfaces, holding her towel and reaching down to offer her a hand out of the water.
River takes both gratefully and falls back into a deckchair with a laugh, adrenaline only just kicking in now that all the action is over. The Doctor, more sedate, pushes a second deckchair to rest next to hers and collapses into it, smiling affectionately.
“Impeccable timing as usual, sweetie,” River comments, rubbing vigorously at her hair with the towel.
“Yeah, there was a blip in the temporal locking system, had to cut it a bit close to stay clear of it.” He is watching her with such adoration in his face, bless him. She wonders if he knows how much he does that, or how much she loves it.
“If you say so, dear,” she says, nodding indulgently.
“And I’ve had the most brilliant idea about the Towers,” he says, bouncing a bit.
River rolls her eyes fondly and stands, pulling him to his feet and tugging him into the corridor and towards the wardrobe. “Go on, then. Do tell.”
“Poison!” he declares. “Well, not really poison, don’t want to kill them, but that scan I did of the larva will tell us how to deter it from them, so the next bite it takes it’ll just go bleurgh, and slither off back where it came from.” He beams, following her into the room and unzipping her dress without her even having to ask.
She reciprocates by pulling the battered top hat from his head and running her fingers along the brim fondly, setting it aside to reach for the buttons of his shirt. “You’re freezing,” she remarks, pressing the back of her hand against his cold skin.
“Hence the need for dry clothes,” he replies, reaching for – and missing, the first time – a clean shirt identical to the one she is slowly relieving him of.
“I can think of a few other remedies,” she tells him in a low voice, leaning in to press her lips against his.
His hands fly automatically to her hips, shirt still clasped in his fist, but he shakes his head when they break apart and bops her on the nose. “Not yet. Things to do first.”
“We’ve got a time machine, sweetie,” she reminds him, moving her mouth down to kiss the patch of his chest she’s just uncovered. “First doesn’t have to come first.”
A hand slides into her hair and he pulls her back up to face him, smiling as he kisses her again, and that look is back in his eyes but if she spares it any more thought it’s going to drive her mad, so she presses herself against him until he breaks the kiss again and tells her, “This time it does. Trust me.”
Sighing because at this precise moment she really doesn’t care, River nevertheless steps back with nothing more than a pinch of his bum for good measure. “If you say so,” she says in response to his indignant squeak, shrugging the dress from her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. She adds some extra swing to her hips as she steps away from it and saunters farther into the wardrobe to find a replacement – if he is going to torture her she may as well return the favour.
The TARDIS is being temperamental, though; she can’t find a single thing to wear that she would consider appropriate, especially for the purpose of torturing her husband. There’s her ragged old dressing gown, there are the rubber-duck-patterned pyjamas he bought her when she turned 203, there’s his old dressing gown, tracksuit bottoms, woolly jumpers… “Where are my dresses, dear?” she hisses to the TARDIS, poking her nose into what turns out to be an entire room of near-identical scarves.
The ship does not deign to respond.
Eventually she has to give up and, rather than give in as well, River goes back to find the Doctor in only her underwear.
Which turns out to be the right choice, as he is now in a complete, dry replica of his previous outfit and is holding up a hanger which itself holds River’s dress, clean and dry and whole.
“Looking for this?” he inquires innocently.
River narrows her eyes. “What are you two in cahoots about?” she asks, hooking the hanger with one finger.
“Who two?”
“You and the TARDIS. She knows what you’re up to, doesn’t she?”
“Of course she does. She’s a time machine.” The Doctor licks his lips, reaching for the dress. “Put something pretty on now, dear. I’m taking you out.”
Via a trip to an intergalactic pest control specialist, where they end up fleeing another army of insects, but hey, there’s nothing like a bit of running to whet her appetite.
When they finally step out of the TARDIS and onto the top of the tallest miraculous mushroom once more, the sun is low in the sky and the Towers cast long shadows into the distance.
There’s not a single bug to be seen anywhere.
“Doctor…” She doesn’t want to break his quietly smug little bubble, but… “Are you sure this is the right night?”
“’Course I am.” He’s holding the insect deterrent in his hand, and he strolls to the very centre of the roughly circular surface to administer it. Chucking the empty canister back into the TARDIS, he walks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. “Watch,” he whispers, leaning his chin on her shoulder and nodding vaguely at the sky.
There are some occasions when it’s better not to question, so River does as she’s told.
The setting sun lights the sky in the same shade of orange it was this morning, softly illuminating the ribbon of a river in the distance until it shines like gold. The forest casts long, intricate shadows on the purple grass, which glows warmly underneath the…
“Oh,” River breathes.
A solitary insect is flying unsteadily towards the light, its shining wings beating determinedly, and a faint buzzing sound from below them grows louder as more and more of them appear, seemingly out of nowhere, but…
But the Doctor walks her right to the edge of the Tower and that’s where they are coming from. They’re crawling out of their cocoons and launching themselves from the cavities in the fungus’ side, each and every one taking a leap of faith as they venture forth until a huge, new swarm of them is flying off into the sunset.
And as the buzzing fades, another, different sound becomes audible.
It’s like a soft humming at first, in one and then several keys all fitting together like a symphony orchestra gearing up… and then, over the top, a trilling sound that is soon joined by others until it turns into a fluting melody, vibrating through the Tower under her feet and creeping up like a caress through her bones.
It’s one of the most beautiful things River has ever heard.
“The first time they ever sing,” the Doctor murmurs in her ear, and to her surprise she feels something drip onto her shoulder, and she turns to find him crying.
“Doctor…” She reaches up to cup his cheek.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he whispers.
“Alright, sweetie. You’ve impressed me,” she assures him.
He smiles at that, though he’s still sniffling, and pulls her close. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he tells her with a wink, and kisses her.
And if there’s one thing the Doctor has taught her, it’s that that is always, always true.
She tangles her fingers in his hair and he moans into her mouth, the vibration intertwining with the physical effect of the Towers’ song still reverberating through her and intensifying the sensation, and it is absolutely, definitely still true.
“Doctor,” she breathes when they break apart, and the grin on his face is so smug she could slap him, but she kisses him again instead just to feel that again. It feels like her whole body is singing a duet with his, and if that’s what she gets just from kissing him, well…
…what is more than kissing going to feel like?
The Doctor is taking his time though, gently assaulting her mouth and stroking his thumb back and forth across the bare skin of her back where his hand keeps her anchored to him firmly, almost as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold her tightly enough. As if she would ever walk away from a moment like this, she thinks, smiling, biting his bottom lip lightly and humming as she does so, automatically adjusting her pitch to complement the Towers’ song, and she wonders for the first time if there isn’t a psychic component to it all, helping them to harmonise. Psychic fungus? Is that even…?
“Certainly possible,” the Doctor murmurs, smoothing a curl back from her forehead. “The simplest of connections, but that’s all we need.”
River moans in anticipation and fumbles with the buttons of his shirt.
He slides his hand across her back to dip his fingers under the fabric of her dress, skating them lightly over her skin before pushing further until he can pinch the side of her breast, making her moan louder as she presses her chest against his. “There is a zip, sweetie,” she reminds him breathlessly, taking her hands from his last button to reach for it herself, but he slaps them away.
“I know, thank you,” he tells her. “I have removed this dress from you a fair few times before, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” She flashes him a grin as she unfastens his last button, pushing the shirt aside to walk her fingers back up his skin until they reach his bowtie. She is practised in the art of bowtie removal by now and manages it in one deft twist of her hand; slyly, she hangs it about her neck just as the Doctor is finally working on her zip. He is bent down with his head by her chest when he’s done, and doesn’t see what she’s done until he looks up; when he does, she can’t blame him for licking his lips.
Wordlessly he surges upright again to press his mouth to hers, hands curling into the bowtie on either side of her neck and tugging her closer. The effect of the Towers’ song echoing through her is magnified the more aroused she becomes – and by this point she’s pretty damn aroused – and she hums again in return as she feels his erection pressing into the top of her hip.
Pushing his shirt and jacket off in one go River sets to attacking his torso with her mouth, experimenting with biting and humming at the same time; if the noises the Doctor is making are anything to go by, her experiments are successful, and he finally pushes her dress down her body so that he can experiment himself.
His experiments are very successful indeed. He would love that analogy, as well, but she’s not about to share with him right now because she is far too busy enjoying the way the music reverberates through his body to connect to hers via his teeth and sends a symphony trilling across her skin, meeting with the vibrations driving up through her own feet to create something that feels almost alive inside her.
The Doctor is moving his mouth farther down her body now, set to meet his hands which are skirting up the sides of her thighs and then down again with his fingers hooked through her knickers. She steps out of underwear and dress both at once, steadying herself on his shoulders as she repositions her heel-clad feet and he repositions his… mouth, his tongue, and she finds herself standing with her legs apart and her husband crouched beneath her, licking across her folds and circling her clit with his tongue, until he sucks there firmly and hums.
River gasps and fists her hands in his hair, almost overwhelmed as everything centres on her core and she’s almost, almost there when the Doctor breaks the contact and kneels back, making her whimper pitifully and look down at him with the most searing glare she can manage – which isn’t very searing at all given the state she’s in, but he seems to get the message because he looks back apologetically as he stands, reaching out with one finger to tilt her face towards his.
“Just so you know,” he whispers hoarsely, “tonight you are not going to come undone without me seeing your face when it happens.”
His fingers ghost across the insides of her thighs and River gasps, reaching blindly for the fastening of his trousers. He covers her shaking hands with his and together they get the job done, yanking them down with his underwear and shoving them out of the way.
They take a moment, then, though they are both flushed and breathless, to join hands and kiss more chastely; then River knocks the top hat off his head and he growls, pulling her to the ground with him and climbing on top of her.
She can feel the music flowing up and down her spine and she’s almost apprehensive as he pushes slowly into her, wondering if she can take the intensity, but then the notes spill through her body like a waterfall and it is exquisite.
The Doctor can clearly feel it too, moving in counterpoint to the rhythm and humming again when he captures her mouth with his. River pulls him down closer still, splaying her arms across his back and pressing their bodies together until they are touching everywhere possible, and the music swells and it’s like they’re the centrepiece of their very own rhapsody.
She’s not sure if she’s causing the crescendo or if the pealing music is part of what’s driving her higher, but it doesn’t take long until the Doctor tugs at her lip with his and twists his hips just right and she is thrown over the edge into pure bliss, riding on the melody like a leaf on the wind, drifting down gently until the Doctor reaches his own crescendo and pulls her higher again for a moment; and they climb down slowly, together, as the music continues seamlessly into something calmer and unobtrusive.
Slowly, the Doctor presses a kiss to her cheek before rolling off of her and pulling her closer, lacing his fingers through hers, and even that light contact sends waves down her arm.
River brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles, sighing contentedly.
“Go on, then,” the Doctor says eventually in his smug voice, giving her hand a squeeze. “Marks out of ten.”
River giggles, unsurprised. “Eleven,” she says warmly. She grins, turning her head to look at him. “Let’s do that again.”
The Doctor hesitates, but a matching grin soon spreads across his face, and he stands and pulls her up with him. “Come along then.”
“I didn’t mean now,” she protests, trying to keep her legs from wobbling too much.
“Neither did I,” he assures her, bending to pick up their clothes before tugging her back inside the TARDIS. “But two thousand years from now there’s a big solar flare, and the Towers sing their most beautiful song in recorded history. Can’t miss that, eh? There’ll be a few more people, of course, but they won’t be able to see us if we stay up here.” He’s already inputting coordinates as he speaks, dancing around the console completely naked, and dammit if he isn’t the epitome of adorable right now.
“I need some clean clothes first,” River tells him firmly. “And something to eat, and maybe a nap. But then…” She grabs him by the arm as he twirls past and kisses him soundly. “Then, absolutely.”
Eventually they materialise back in her front garden – River refuses to allow the TARDIS to land in the house, because even if she does the landing he will be doing the taking off – and they step out together onto the moonlit grass.
Well. River steps onto the grass. The Doctor somehow manages to step into a flower bed.
“Sorry,” he says guiltily, tiptoeing gingerly out and stepping on several more flowers as he does so.
“It’s a good thing I’m going away tomorrow,” she says. “They’ll be grown over by the time I’m back. Otherwise I might’ve been rather upset right now.”
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says again, pulling her into his arms and hugging her tightly.
“It’s fine, Doctor,” she says, surprised. “Like I said, I’m going away tomorrow anyway.”
“I know,” he says into her hair. “I’m still sorry. The very end of the night, and I messed it up…”
“It’s fine,” she repeats. “It was an accident. Not your fault.”
He pulls away, and she sees the lost little boy expression on his face that always breaks her heart. Bless him, he takes these things far too seriously sometimes.
“I love you,” he tells her firmly. “To the end of the universe and back. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she reassures him, reaching for his hands.
He squeezes hers tightly in return. “Good,” he says. Then, letting go and turning abruptly, “I’d better be going.”
River watches wordlessly as he stalks back to the TARDIS, snapping his fingers three times before the doors deign to open for him, and disappears inside.
Poor dear. As if a few squashed flowers could really ruin tonight for her.
The TARDIS stays resolutely solid, and she wonders if she should go back inside and try to cheer him up a bit before he goes. He clearly needs it.
Before she can make up her mind the door swings open again abruptly, and the Doctor marches back out, straight towards her and, without a word, grabs her by the back of the neck and kisses her, deeply and desperately and leaving her breathless.
“Goodbye, River,” he says firmly, and he turns on his heel and strides back into the TARDIS.
This time it isn’t long before she dematerialises, and River is left alone on her front lawn with the niggling feeling that something is wrong with her husband that she can’t fix.
But the stars are out tonight, and she’s seen the Singing Towers, and anything not right with the world can wait awhile.
Humming to herself, River goes inside.