Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

177(G)

          Dreaming Back to Front

                    Emma_dghc

She jerks awake, her arm raised and pointed toward the shadows sprawling across the floor. She blinks a few times until the hazy shapes become her prison bars and her tensed fingers relax around her non-existent gun.

She lets out a breath and sucks air back into her lungs in sharp pants. A dream. It was a dream. Just a dream.

She feels her eyes sting before hot tears pour down her cheeks. She curls her legs up and shuffles into the corner, pulling herself into a tight ball. She tucks herself against the wall and buries her head in her arms across her knees, shuddering with the strength of her sobs.

She heaves in air, trying to calm herself down. She doesn’t want the guards to see her this way. A small part of her mind decides to talk about perception filters the next time she’s on the TARDIS.

The shakes begin to calm as the edge of terror fades away. She isn’t sure what it was, this time. Sometimes she remembers, others she doesn’t. This time, blessedly, she doesn’t. She feels only the precipice of horror and pain, but doesn’t remember the images, the sounds, the haunting memories.

And still, the wretched tears flow down her cheeks and her skin prickles with gooseflesh.

She is stronger than this.

And yet, it seems, despite all her training, and her life, and the insurmountable things she has in fact surmounted, River Song, Mels Zucker, little Melody Pond can still be brought to her knees by her nightmares.

“Oh, River.”

She jerks her head up and gasps at the figure of her husband kneeling at the side of her bed, his big blue box parked in the corner of her cell. She should have known.

She opens her mouth, trying so desperately to find her familiar words, her smirk, her something. All that comes out is a small, pitiful noise. The resulting look on his face is almost worse than the dread sitting heavy on her chest.

“River,” he whispers, rising slowly until he can perch on the bed.

She blinks at him as she tries to slow her heart rates down, tries to at least find some semblance of calm. He’s wearing a purple waist coat now, with a vest and what might be purple boots. The bowtie looks the same. At least some things never change.

His eyes lock with hers and she swallows at the depth in his—at the lines around them. He’s older. Much older than the last time she saw him. Yesterday? A week ago? Well, they’d been on the TARDIS for at least five days that time.

She watches, almost detached, as his fingers brush over her arm and curl around her hand. When she doesn’t move, he edges closer, quickly toeing off his boots so that he can curl up with her. He shuffles around until they sit shoulder to shoulder.

“When are you?” he asks softly.

“I—” she rasps. She swallows heavily around her dry throat and he hums.

He reaches out and grabs the small cup of water she keeps at her bedside. He doesn’t even bother handing it to her, merely tips it to her lips, and, damn him, she’s so tired and shaken that she sips from it like a child.

He takes the cup away after a moment and sets it back down without so much as a twitch of his lips. He turns back to her and slowly slides his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side and away from the wall.

She licks her lips and presses her temple to his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of him. “We just did Jexlien.”

“Which time?”