Water Music
Title: Water Music
Author: azriona
Rating: G
Spoilers: Big ones for Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Betas: runriggers, earlgreytea68, jlrpuck

Summary: He thought she might pop up when he least expected it. When he let down his guard, when his back was turned. She’d take him by surprise, just as she had when he first met her, when she last met him. The Doctor wondered when he would meet River Song again.

A/N: This may be a one-shot, unless folks would like me to continue. But I had the idea in my head, and couldn’t shake it. That’s sort of how it goes with me....

He spent the next fifteen years wondering when he would meet her again. He kept his eyes open whenever the TARDIS landed somewhere new. Every ginger-haired girl received close scrutiny. He chose his companions with half a mind to ask them about their sisters.

He stayed far away from The Library, knowing he might not be able to resist the spoilers.

He thought she might pop up when he least expected it. When he let down his guard, when his back was turned. She’d take him by surprise, just as she had when he first met her, when she last met him.

Somehow, he thought, it would be fitting that way.

He spent fifteen years wondering how he would know when it was time to say goodbye.

*

“Doctor!” yelled Alice from across the park. “Doctor, I think I’ve found it!”

The Doctor jumped up from the carbon-resonator, still half-shoved under the phylandria bush where the thief had tried to hide it. He started to run towards his current companion (Alice, nice girl, always burned the toast but was handy with a hammer), but tripped over the blanket which had suddenly appeared next to him. He fell heavily onto a body, which gave out an insulted oof, and the two of them rolled a few meters down the gently sloping hill.

“What?” he shrieked, half torn between checking to see if the body was all right, or forgetting the possibly injured person entirely in order to rescue Alice from whatever nonsense she’d found herself in this time.

“I’m all right,” replied the muffled voice – young and female, the Doctor noted. “You could watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry!” gasped the Doctor, and he scrambled to his feet as the girl tried to crawl out from under his legs. “Next time, don’t set your blanket next to phylandria bushes!”

Her tousled and curly head popped out from the blanket. Her nose was wrinkled and her mouth was pressed thin. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. “Next time don’t go crawling around in phylandria bushes,” she countered.

“Doctor, it’s getting away!”

“I’m coming, Alice!” he yelled back, and was off.

The Doctor was halfway to Alice before he realized.

The girl’s curly, unruly hair had been ginger.

*

Later, when the thief had been caught and order restored to the galaxy, when Alice was comfortably chatting with her brother on the TARDIS’s video link, the Doctor went back to the phylandria bush. It hadn’t been more than two hours since he’d tripped over the girl, so he didn’t have any reason to think she’d moved. Sure enough, she was still there, laying on her stomach and busily drawing something out on a bit of paper. Her bare feet were in the air, the nails of her wiggling toes painted blue.

“Are you all right?”

The girl looked up, squinting in the sun. “Yes. You?”

“Oh, me. I’m always all right. Worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” said the girl. “Did you find your friend? Alice?”

“Yes. In the nick of time, too, she was about to be eaten.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Eaten?”

“Well, not eaten. Digested. Well, not digested – amoebas don’t really digest so much as consume by osmosis.”

The girl stared at him, clearly unsure what to make of him. “Looking up at you makes my neck hurt.”

He took this as an invitation and sat on the opposite end of the blanket. “I’m the Doctor.”

“I’m River,” said the girl, and to the Doctor’s great surprise, he managed not to swallow, blink, or shudder. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“A bit of this and that. I’m very clever at thermodynamics,” he replied. He leaned in to look at her drawing. “That’s quite good.”

She glanced down. “No, it’s not. What kind of amoeba is big enough to swallow a whole person?”

“A very large amoeba. Aren’t you meant to be clever too?”

The girl bristled. “I am clever. But amoebas aren’t that big.”

“This one was.”

“I’ve never seen one.”

“Good thing, too, they’d think you looked very tasty.”

“How did you stop it?”

“Weren’t you paying attention, I’m clever,” said the Doctor airily.

“Not so clever,” countered River. “You don’t watch where you’re going, or you wouldn’t have tripped over me.”

“I was preoccupied!”

“With Alice.”

“Yes, with—" He frowned. “You can’t be jealous, you don’t even know me yet.”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

He sputtered. “How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“You don’t look big enough for it.”

“I’m petite, and you’re rude!”

It wasn’t as though he didn’t already know this, but some things were not to be endured. “You really shouldn’t put your blanket next to the phylandria bushes, they attract wasps.”

“I like wasps,” said River with a toss of her head. “I don’t like doctors.”

“Oh, well then,” said the Doctor, and he stood up again. “It was very nice to meet you, River. I’ll be seeing you again.”

River’s eyes narrowed. “No, you won’t. Mum and Dad and I are going back home tomorrow.” She thought for a moment. “And I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “But the next time you see me, you’ll know me. I won’t be a stranger, will I?”

River stood up and turned around. “Mum!” she shouted. Half the women on the hill looked up, responding instinctively to the call. “There’s a strange man talking to me!”

The Doctor didn’t wait to see which woman came running. It didn’t matter which companion in which universe – when it came to mothers, he always ended up being slapped. He ran helter-skelter back to the TARDIS, throwing himself inside and falling back against the door. Alice looked up from the jumpseat, mid-sentence in her conversation with her brother.

“That went well,” gasped the Doctor.

“Time to run?” asked Alice mildly.

“Best do,” agreed the Doctor, and twenty seconds later, they were in the Vortex again.

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