Fic: Water Music (4/?)
Title: Water Music
Author: azriona
Rating: PG, so far
Spoilers: Big ones for Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead. Compliant with Journey’s End, but if you haven’t seen it, you won’t be spoiled.
Betas: runriggers and jlrpuck

Summary: The Doctor meets River Song again...and again...and again.

Chapters One ~ Two ~ Three

The moment Alice stepped back into the TARDIS, the Doctor leapt up from the jump seat and threw a switch. They dematerialized before she’d even reached the top of the ramp.

“Job done, got the diary? Good,” he said, barely stopping for breath, and he didn’t look at her. “We’re going to Kespa, I need those spare parts, and another spare temporal orb. Hold that lever, Alice, would you, that’s a good girl. Just put the diary – ah – there. For now. Yes.”

Alice set the diary on the jump seat and reached for the lever, watching the Doctor flutter around the control panel. There was always a certain amount of frantic running when the TARDIS flew, but he seemed more frantic than usual. This was confirmed the moment they landed.

“Right, out I go. Back in two hours. Don’t touch anything.”

And he was gone. Alice sat on the jump seat, having not said a single word since boarding the TARDIS twenty minutes earlier. She picked up the diary and held it in her lap, thinking.

River hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised to be speaking – or rather, typing – to her. In fact, she’d seemed perfectly friendly – excited, even.. The rules River laid out were simple. Don’t look ahead. Don’t think too hard about anything. Don’t let the Doctor read the diary.

Alice thought these were good rules. She wondered if an older version of herself had helped devise them, and then promptly realized that might fall under the rule against thinking too hard.

Read the first and second entries, River had said. Skip the third. Read the fourth. And then you’ll find the letter.

Alice opened the diary, skipping the first few entries and found the letter just after the fourth. It was the letter that intrigued her now – she could read the entries later. The paper was softened with age but still white, and it gave Alice an odd feeling in her stomach to see her name in her own handwriting on it. She wondered if it would cause a paradox to even touch it – but River had seemed very sure she ought to read it, so Alice opened it and began to read.

Dear Me,

First, don’t believe the Doctor for one MINUTE when he says you’re going to love the planet Asparagus. It’s a lie, and even he knows it.

Second, don’t fear the Reapers (HA!) because not only do I remember getting this letter, I’m copying from it.

River’s a nice girl, isn’t she? Absolutely no use to us whatsoever, though, she doesn’t know anything about how long it is between trips for you and the Doctor. How could she? She’s just starting. So are you, really. And she’s keeping her journal in chronological order, and you have to jump around a bit. Makes it interesting, though.

I’m sure the Doctor has already started coming up with Rules. They’re good ones. Well, not the one about keeping notes. Tell him to bugger off. I have to think River left space in her entries for a reason, we might as well take advantage, don’t you think?

There really isn’t much you need to know. There’s only a couple of things you absolutely have to be sure you do. When you see River next, she’s going to be lots older. The time after that, you have to make sure you talk to her, where the Doctor can’t hear. You have to tell her about the Melancholies. You have to make sure she understands why he has them. It’s the most important thing in the world. Don’t leave anything – and I mean anything! – out.

The only other thing you have to do is to copy out this letter, and put it in an envelope, exactly the way you found it. And keep it on you all the time. Someday, you’re going to run into River when she’s 20 years old, and that’s when you give her the envelope, and tell her to keep it in the diary, because you’re going to need it later. She won’t understand, but that’s okay, because she will eventually, and that’s how you find it. Clever, huh?

Don’t read any of the entries until you know the date. Very important. You don’t want to know too much about what happens next. The Doctor and River will yell “Spoilers” at each other all the time; it’s true.

OH. One last thing. When the opportunity arises – TOTALLY KISS JACK HARKNESS.

But try to catch a glimpse of the Doctor’s face afterwards, because I missed it, and I’ll bet it was Expression 4,273.

Love,

Me

*

It was hard work, not thinking too hard about things, especially when the Doctor spent most of his time not asking questions (though clearly wanting answers), and forever looking at Alice for confirmation when they landed somewhere. Alice didn’t know anything; she was dutifully not looking ahead. The Doctor looked at the diary with a mixture of loathing and curiosity, but he put it in one of his voluminous pockets whenever they went somewhere, since it was easier for him to carry the thick book.

Even now, when Alice had the backpack slung over her shoulder, the Doctor carried the diary. After three weeks, Alice supposed it was habit. She fingered the letter in her pocket absently – the one she’d written to herself, per the instructions, and which she always carried in her pocket, so that she could hand it to a 20-year-old River for inclusion in the diary. That way it would be waiting for her when it came time to fetch the diary at The Library, which of course Alice had already done....

Again, thinking too hard. Alice decided to stop thinking and keep knocking on doors.

“Doctor, we’ve done two streets already, no one’s seen anything like a sunset-colored egg. Are you sure you’ve got the right coordinates on your scanner-whatsit device?”

The Doctor frowned. Alice could see the nerve throbbing on his temple. It’d been throbbing the entire three weeks since their trip to The Library. “Alice? When you’re done daydreaming, can you do the houses on the left side of the street?”

Alice sighed. “I did not sign up to be a door-to-door salesman.”

“You’re not. You’re a door-to-door investigative agency looking for a missing artifact from the planet Anderope. Looks like an egg the color of the sunset. Off you get.”

Alice stuck her tongue out at him, but he was already heading for the closest door, and she stomped to the first house on the left, furious.

It was fine for him, to be all tense and anxious. He snapped at her, he looked over his shoulder all the time, and if anyone with ginger hair happened to walk by, he would stare in such a way that in two cases, the local constabulary was summoned.

And then they’d landed on Anderope. Nice planet, odd species, lots of water. The Doctor had been caught staring again, which didn’t end well in a more spectacular way than usual, and by the end of the day, they’d been pressed into service to the Grand Duchess, because her egg had been stolen and taken off-world. It was either retrieve the egg, or death.

Alice didn’t like knocking on doors. She wondered if she could reverse her decision.

They’d tracked the egg to one of the outer world planets, home to humans who’d been living away from Earth so long, they’d forgotten they’d ever started there. Even so, the neighborhood reminded Alice of something out of an old American 1950s sitcom, except of course it was in color, plus there was a family of Raxacoricofallapatorians living one block over.

The house on the corner was very well kept, with great big trees providing shade, and a row of flowers on either side of the walk. The door was a bright blue – about the same color of the TARDIS, with a similar block pattern giving it depth. If Alice had not been so intent on being unhappy, she perhaps would not have been so surprised when the door opened before she’d had a chance to knock, and there in the doorway stood a tall, thin woman. She looked to be about the same age as the Doctor – relatively speaking, of course. She wore a silk pantsuit of flowing blue fabric that looked extremely comfortable, casual, and not in the least bit like something Alice would expect an old bat to wear. Her ginger hair was pulled back in a messy twist, and her grin stretched from ear to ear.

“Alice!” she cried. “I saw you coming up the walk – oh, how good it is to see you!” The woman reached out and pulled the startled companion into a hug, rocking back and forth while laughing in glee.

“Ah – do I know you?”

The woman grasped Alice’s shoulders and held her out for inspection. “Oh dear – is this...no! This is really the first time we meet, isn’t it?” She laughed. “I knew it was coming, but today of all days – Alice, I’m River Song.”

Alice’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope!”

Alice broke into a grin. She ran down the walk a few paces, and shouted. “DOCTOR! Over here!”

“Did you find it?” he yelled back, and she saw him racing across the street.

“Not exactly,” Alice told him with a grin, and threw her arms at River, as if presenting the grand prize behind Curtain Number Three. “Ta-da!”

The Doctor stared at River. His temple seemed to throb harder than ever, or perhaps that was his jaw working. Alice grinned at him, waiting, wondering what he’d say first.

“Hello, Doctor,” said River warmly.

“Ah,” said the Doctor, his voice strangely high, “you haven’t got an egg lying about, do you?”

Alice groaned.

“No,” said River, amused. “But if you come in, I might have tea. We should probably do diaries.”

They followed River into the house, which was unsurprisingly neat and tidy, save for a pile of magazines in one corner and a set of extremely grubby boots by the door. River led them through to the back; the only indication that she might not have expected them was when she reached to quickly close a door to a side room, clearly unwilling to let them see whatever waited inside. Alice might have wondered what was in there, but it probably fell in with one of the Three Rules, so she let it go.

The Doctor, on the other hand, stopped in front of the door, gazing at it suspiciously. Alice glanced back at him with a frown; his hands were stuck in his pockets, and his temples still twitched. It was as though he couldn’t decide if he was still annoyed that they’d finally found River again, or that no one seemed to be paying him much attention.

By the time they joined River in the kitchen, she had already set the kettle to boil and laid out teacups on the table. Alice grinned when she saw River thumbing through a familiar diary.

Alice reached her hand out to the Doctor, who morosely fished their copy of the diary out, and handed it over. He sat at the table, and watched them, eyes darting back and forth before finally resting on River.

“So,” said River cheerfully. “Early days, since Alice only just met me.” She flipped towards the front of the book. Alice clutched the diary in her hands. They were so very nearly identical – perhaps River’s had one or two extra pages stuffed in, one less tattered edge. “How old was I?”

“Spoilers,” said the man at the table. River smiled at him.

“Not if it happened already, and it must have done, or Alice would have recognized me. And I’m supposing you, Doctor, have met me, since otherwise there’d be no reason for Alice to know my name.”

“Still clever,” he mused. “You were fifteen.”

“Fifteen? Oh, goodness.” River thumbed to the very beginning of her diary, and skimmed the page. The corners of her mouth turned up. “Oh, I remember now. Alice, you ought to be asking me the date.”

“Oh! What’s the date?”

“Gamma 452.”

”Is there a point to this?” asked the Doctor sullenly.

“Yes,” they chorused, and he sighed.

“Now that we’re all quite certain when and where we are – may I please remind you that we still need to find the egg. Preferably before it hatches.”

River didn’t miss a beat. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a pair of torches, tossing one to Alice and keeping the other for herself. “Well, then, let’s go. I suspect I know where the egg is, so we’d best hurry before high tide.”

Alice clutched the torch. “Tide?”

“Hurry?” spluttered the Doctor.

“I can’t swim!”

“I thought you didn’t have the egg!”

“I never said anything about the egg,” replied River as she opened the back door. “All the same. Coming?”

The back garden butted against a forest, with a clearly marked trail beginning at the base of the rose bushes. River led them onto the trail, switching her torch on within moments, and Alice followed suit, the Doctor behind her.

“Don’t I get a torch?”

“You have your screwdriver,” replied River without a bit of sympathy.

He pulled it out of his pocket and switched it on. Alice glanced back at him; his jaw wasn’t twitching, at least, but he still didn’t look very happy. “No pets? No lovers? You’re going into the woods with two strangers and there’s no one you should tell?”

River grinned at him over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes.”

“Three dogs, four fish, and a budgie.”

Alice made a face. “A budgie?”

“You should hear it swear!”

“Don’t believe her,” advised the Doctor. “And you – stop corrupting my companions, please.”

“But I’m so good at it.”

“And besides,” said Alice, showing an unusual show of loyalty to the woman she’d only just technically met, “you already introduced me to Captain Jack.”

River sighed. “Gorgeous man.”

“OI! We’re supposed to look for an egg, not take a trip down Jack Harkness’s memory bedpost, thank you.”

“And that’s where we’re going – not his bedpost, mind, but the egg. About the size of an orange, color of a sunset, scent of blueberries left in the deep freeze too long?”

“Ah...yes. How did—"

“Kendra Surylanderoi was on holiday with her parents, she brought it over to show me. She lives two doors down. You’ll meet her – oh, later. Spoilers.”

“I hate that word.”

“I know.”

Alice stumbled over a bit of root sticking up. “If she lives two doors down, why are we going to the woods?”

“We aren’t going to the woods – we’re going through them. There’s a beach on the other end, with a lovely cave where the girls keep their treasures. I suspect Kendra took the egg there.”

“A cave,” repeated the Doctor flatly.

“Yes.”

"You let a little girl just take a valuable egg of a near-extinct species to a cave?"

River bristled. “Well, goodness, I wasn't going to rip it out of her hands! And I didn't know what it was, anyway.”

The Doctor huffed, clearly not impressed, and the group walked on in silence. Alice began to feel a little like the child whose parents were arguing over the dinner table.

After another ten minutes, they reached the end of the forested area, and found themselves on a narrow rocky beach, flanked on one side by tall cliffs. River stayed near the trees, where the ground was firmly packed, and walked briskly to the cave. She had to duck to enter, as did the Doctor; Alice could have fit perfectly if she hadn't minded losing the skin off her head. The three of them walked along a narrow tunnel for a few meters, before it opened into a larger space, approximately the size of the TARDIS console room, if not as tall.

“Oh, this is very Tom Sawyer,” said the Doctor, clearly approving of the cave.

“Who's that?” asked Alice.

“Your next homework assignment, obviously,” he replied dryly before throwing a glance at River, who pre-empted his next words.

“Already finished my homework, thanks.”

“I told you to read Tom Sawyer but not about the egg?”

“Spoilers,” said River cheerfully, and settled down near a small brown chest, nestled in amongst the rocks. “Here we are, ought to be in this.”

“Odd place to keep treasures.”

“Safe place. The tide is down only once a day, for perhaps an hour or so. When the tide is up, it blocks the entrance to the cave, and no one can enter or exit. You're trapped inside.”

Alice’s eyes went particularly wide. “We're not going to drown, are we?”

“Drown? No – this area stays perfectly dry. But of course the air would likely run out, if there were a few of you, and you'd asphyxiate.” River opened the trunk and grinned. “And here we are – one very valuable sunset-colored egg. Doctor.” She lifted out the egg carefully, cradling it with both hands, and he took it with a sigh of relief.

Alice pulled her backpack around, and he handed her the egg. She wrapped it in the cloths she'd packed, and nestled it in the bag. “All safe,” she reported. “Well, that's that. I suppose we should head back.”

“There's a path back there,” said the Doctor suddenly. “Do you see it? Just behind those rocks.”

River peered where he pointed. “So there is – never saw that before. I've heard tell that there were some extensive caves in the area, but I’ve never had the chance to really explore my own backyard. That might be one of the entrances.”

“Really?” asked Alice. “How very interesting.”

They grinned at each other for half a second before setting off, running like madmen for the entrance.

The path was even more narrow than before, and they were forced to walk single-file. The Doctor went first, switching from setting to setting on the screwdriver as he determined the safety of the cave, while Alice and River trailed behind a short ways. Alice found she didn't mind walking with River; the woman was cheerful and friendly, and besides, watching the Doctor explore something new was like watching a kid in a candy shop.

“He's doing it again,” Alice observed with a grin. “He's so funny – the least bit of danger, and he has to protect his womenfolk.”

“It's a lark, isn't it, traveling with him?”

“Have you done?”

“Spoilers.”

“Not for me. There's lots I don't tell him.”

River smiled. “Are there now? Never thought of you as deep, Alice.”

“Never met someone I've met before. Last time I saw you, you were fifteen and at St Oscar's Library.”

River frowned. “I remember that – but I don’t think I saw you there.”

“I wasn’t, not really. My brother went there for uni, I made him take me to dinner.”

“Who was your brother?”

“Travis Cooriweather.”

River stopped dead in her tracks and spun to look at Alice. “You're joking! Travis?”

Alice’s mouth dropped open. “You know him?”

River shook her head. “He was quite a bit older than me, I don't think he ever gave me a second glance. But everyone knew of him.”

Alice bit her lip. “Is he....”

“Spoilers,” said River gently.

Alice sighed. “Yeah.”

River smiled at Alice, and reached out to brush a bit of hair from Alice’s cheek. It was loving, and very familiar, and Alice found she didn’t mind a bit. “Don't you worry about your brother, Alice Cooriweather. He does fine.”

Alice smiled. “In my timeline, he's sleeping through classes and skiving off work. Hard to believe he'll amount to much.” She wrinkled her nose. “Wait – if you're younger than Travis – that means you're younger than me. How old are you now?”

“42.”

“That makes me...49, if you were fifteen when I saw Travis last month.”

“I must say, you look very good for 49,” River kidded her, and Alice laughed. “Tell me how you met the Doctor.”

“Why?”

“Because every time I ask, you say you've already told me, and you'd rather not repeat the story.”

Alice laughed. “So this is your chance?”

“Exactly. And I'd really like to know.”

“All right. It was almost two years ago, and there was an attack on my planet. You've heard of the Judoon?”

“Intimately. What planet?”

“Egrotat.”

River's eyes widened. "Goodness, you are out of your own time, aren't you?"

”So are you, if you went to school at St Oscars with Travis.” Alice frowned for a moment. “How are you here, anyway? I thought we were in the 51st century or something, and Travis and I live in the 25th.”

“Spoilers, sweetie. Go on with your story.”

Alice thought for a moment. She hadn’t told the story all that often – but it was very true that she didn’t like telling it. For a moment, she wondered if her older self was trying to give her a message through River, putting off the telling, but since Alice couldn’t determine if the message was to tell or not tell, and because she was beginning to like River, she decided to gamble. She began to walk along the path again, picking her way over the rocks as carefully as she chose her words.

“Travis was at school, and I should have been too, but I was getting over Heptellon virus. The Judoon – well, they see the world in black and white. You are who they’re looking for, or you aren't. And as it turns out, they were looking for me. Well, not for me, for someone with my blood pattern. They wanted the person who carried Heptellon virus to Egrotat. It wasn't me - I hadn't been off-world in months - but I still had the antibodies in my bloodstream. But try telling truth to a Judoon. They don't know truth, they only know facts."

River was listening intently. “So they took you away...”

“Long and short of it, yeah. Almost all the way to the Shadow Proclamation, too, before the Doctor showed up. See, after the Judoon found me, they stopped looking, and the real carrier stayed and ended up infecting 75% of the planet. Epidemics of that size don't go unnoticed, and sure enough, the Doctor showed up, and learned about me, and came running.”

“Why you? I mean – yes, it's lovely and all, but...”

“It's okay,” Alice told her with a shrug. “It doesn’t sound like I’m a linchpin to society, does it? The Doctor didn't know me or my dad, he didn't have any sort of connection to me. But see, he needed me. I was the only person to carry the antibodies for Heptellon virus, and without those, anyone left was going to die.”

River stopped in her tracks; Alice nearly ran into her. “Wait. Heptellon virus? But I’ve heard of that. It's fatal in every case."

“Every case but one.”

River turned and shined her torchlight on Alice’s face. “Explain.”

“Heptellon virus isn't a real virus, that's the problem,” explained Alice. “It's sort of an...infestation of parasites that rewrite your DNA. They work slow, most of the time. My dad, he was brilliant, he figured out how to rewrite the code on the parasites to make them benign. I was the first person who got it – and that's what the Judoon saw when they scanned me. Except dad never got the chance to inoculate anyone else. The Judoon, they don't like resistance.”

River studied Alice’s face, her brow creasing in concentration. “Your father—"

“Didn't like them taking me away,” said Alice flatly. “I didn't know about it until later, when the Doctor told me.”

“I'm sorry.”

Alice could only manage a half smile, and took a breath. “Anyway. Without dad, there wasn't anyone to recreate the antibodies. So the Doctor rescued me from the ship, and we went back to inoculate the few who were left. It proved I wasn't the carrier, so I was free to go – except there wasn't anywhere to go. My mother died when I was little, and all I’ve got for family is Travis, and he’s still in school. No one stayed on the planet, and St Oscar’s was scared to let me re-enroll, even though I wasn't contagious, so I just stayed on the TARDIS.”

“And that's it?”

Alice grinned. “Well...the first thing the Doctor saw me do was take out the engines on the Judoon ship by reversing the plasma conductors, and then I disabled the atomizers. You don’t want to destabilize those, trust me. Accident, really, not that he believes it. It's not my fault that something nearly always explodes when we go somewhere.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Nah. We'll be fine. I already know—"

“Spoilers!”

“We'll be fine,” said Alice cheerfully.

The Doctor's voice echoed through the tunnel. “Alice! River! Stop dawdling, this isn't a gab fest!”

“Rich coming from him,” said River cheekily, and Alice laughed. They moved along a little more quickly, even though they had to crawl the last three meters. Within moments they crawled through the tunnel opening into a much larger cavern. It was dark, save for streams of light falling like ribbons from high above, and a crystal green pool glistening in the center. Steam rose from the pool, curling, and it smelled vaguely of sulfur, which made Alice cough, but River broke into a grin, and leaned forward to touch her fingers to the water.

“Hot springs,” she said delightfully. “They're all over the planet, but I didn't think there were any very close by.” She looked up at the Doctor, who watched with a grin on his face. “And to think, you've known about them all this time! And you never said!”

“Spoilers,” he said, clearly enjoying the word. “Now, if you'd pretended to know about it, then maybe I'd make sure to mention them to you.”

River splashed him with the water, but he'd already stepped out of the way, turning to examine the cavern walls.

“Now, this is interesting.” The Doctor pulled out his glasses, and Alice quickly joined him, kneeling on the dirt-lined stone. “River, you said that Kendra keeps her treasures here?”

River knelt on his other side. “Not so far back. As far as I know, the girls have never come back this far – this pool would certainly be something they'd mention.”

The Doctor ran his fingers along the stone, twisting and curving them as if drawing out a pattern. “There’s something sketched out here, do you see it?”

“Oh,” breathed Alice, straining. “It's faint, but yeah, I see it.”

“Recognize it?”

Alice frowned, leaning in for a better look. “It’s...writing, isn't it? The way it's shaped, all sorts of small symbols pushed together with spaces sometimes. I've seen writing like that before.”

Alice glanced at River, almost in confirmation of what she suspected, but River sat back on her haunches, her face oddly blank and quiet, her hands resting on her knees, as if waiting. River kept her eyes focused on the writing, almost as if she could read it, but didn’t understand what it said. Odd, how a child living in the 25th century was alive, well, and young in the 51st. Alice wondered if...but no. The Doctor would have said if River Song was a Time Lord too, wouldn’t he?

“I saw it on the TARDIS,” said Alice. “It's Gallifreyan, isn't it? That's where I’ve seen the writing. That's why the TARDIS isn't translating for me.”

“Clever you,” said the Doctor proudly. “Now, we have to ask ourselves – what is Gallifreyan doing here? And more importantly - why is it still here?”

“It should have disappeared.”

“Exactly.”

“What does it say?”

The Doctor read it silently, and frowned. It was the shiver that made Alice blink.

“Doctor?” asked River quietly. Alice had nearly forgotten the other woman was there, but her voice seemed to wake him up.

“We should go,” he said, his voice oddly strained and thick. He stood and began walking away. “We should really go.”

“Why?”

“That's what it says,” he replied, and handed Alice the backpack with the egg. “I'm inclined not to argue with it.”

“Why not?” pressed Alice.

“Alice, do me a favor and for once in your life, if I say run, RUN.”

“You didn't actually say run.”

“ALICE.”

They ran – or to be more precise, crawled extremely quickly and then ran – through the tunnels. River hurried Alice in the tunnel before her, and Alice rather wished she hadn't, because she wanted a last look at the writing on the wall before going. She didn't know Gallifreyan, but she'd seen it often enough to know that there was a great deal more on that wall than instructions to run.

It was only when they reached the first cave that they realized the tide was coming in, and in fact had already blocked the entrance.

“We'll have to swim for it,” said the Doctor.

“Alice can't swim,” said River.

“I'll help her,” said the Doctor.

“We could wait it out,” suggested River.

“It's long cycle, we'd be waiting 24 hours,” snapped the Doctor.

“Um,” said Alice suddenly, her back straightening.

“Why are you so anxious to leave?” River demanded, and the Doctor glared at her.

“What is it with my companions? I say it’s a good idea to leave, and they all want to set up house and have tea.”

“I hate to interrupt,” began Alice, taking the backpack off and sliding it around to peer inside.

“I just want to know what’s got you so afraid that you’re barely even stopping to breathe.”

“By-pass respiratory – HA!” yelled the Doctor, pointing at her.

“You still need to breathe,” River yelled back.

“I have a problem!” yelled Alice, and they both stopped to look at her.

“Yes, Alice, we know, you can't swim,” said the Doctor impatiently.

Alice glared at him and opened the backpack so that they could see the thin line stretching across the formerly smooth surface of the egg. The Doctor opened his mouth, about to scold her for cracking the egg, but she interrupted him without blinking. “No, just a bit bigger than that. The egg's started to hatch.”

Jump to Chapter Five