Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

117(G)

He had given her a shrug – he hadn’t really done anything, after all – and asked her where she wanted to go. River had been just as willing as he was to move on from the moment. He didn’t think she was any more comfortable with it at that point than he was. And the room had gone to good use. Many nights, she had slept there while he dealt with minor repairs. Some nights she came and just slept. She rarely closed the door to the room, although he kept it closed when she wasn’t around. He didn’t want to deal with Amy’s teasing over the room – her insinuations that River was really his wife – any more than he had to. It might be true – future true – but it was still uncomfortable.

Tonight had been one of the nights when River seemed too quiet, and he had finally suggested she get some sleep. She hadn’t argued, which she normally did by explaining that she didn’t want to miss a minute away from Stormcage, but instead she had walked up the stairs and taken a few steps down the hallway before returning.

“I don’t…” she began, but she didn’t seem to know how to finish.

“Don’t?” he prompted.

She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be by myself,” she finally admitted. “Would you mind… either you can come sit in my room, or I can rest out here.”

He looked at her a long time, noting the fatigue around her eyes and the vaguely haunted look. He knew that look. “You wound up in solitary, again?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, which was an answer in and of itself. He didn’t press her. Instead, he set the TARDIS in orbit around a comfortably deserted planet in a quiet corner of the universe, and put her systems in standby. Then he left the console and headed for River.

He climbed the stairs and followed her down the hallway to her room. Solitary confinement wasn’t simply putting her in a private cell – she was always in a private cell – but rather an exercise in sensory deprivation. The sessions in solitary, River had explained, involved a cell with smooth walls and floor, no light or sound, and minimal food and hygiene accommodations. It wasn’t torture, but to a mind as quick as River’s it was miserable. She needed… stimulation.

He had learned when he picked her up that when she wasn’t in her room, he needed to check back on the next day. He tried to keep his visits relatively chronological for his own sanity. The secondary benefit was that he didn’t have as much guess work about where they were in time. He knew where to find her, what he had said and done on their previous visits, and for the most part what she needed from him. It had been a good way to get to know her without letting things get more complicated than they already were.

He had checked in on her the previous two nights – if the TARDIS was correct in her navigation, and he had no reason to think she hadn’t been – and she had not been in her cell. That meant that she had likely been in solitary for a couple of days at least. “What did you do?” he asked. “Is it the warden again?”

“No,” she told him quietly. “I got in a fight.”

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “A fight? River, you could have been hurt.” She might be imprisoned for a horrible crime, but she wasn't a horrible person. To his knowledge, she didn't have any specific skills in fighting. The guards were armed with multiple weapons, and the prisoners there were the worst criminals in the universe. Was she trying to get herself killed?

She shook her head. “I’m stronger than I look,” she reminded him. “Some of the other women aren’t. Most of the time, the guards keep us separate, but once in a while… I’m not going to stand by and watch someone hurt, or worse, when they don’t have the strength to fight back.”

He followed her into her room, noting that she left the door propped wide open. She sat on the edge of the bed, and she looked exhausted.

“I would have thought you might have slept some of those two days,” he remarked. “To pass the time if nothing else.”