Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

2(G)

            a gift confers no rights

              areyoumarriedriver

“My life in your hands, Amelia Pond.” The air around them seemed to ease, loosen and expand as he turned away from her. He caught sight of River in the corner of his eye and almost stumbled. It was a flicker – half a second but that half-second was all he needed to have it stamped on his eidetic memory. Her hands had been fisted over her thighs, knuckles white with strain and her eyes had been closed as she listened to Amy convince him to do this – 1969, and this mysterious summons. The fact that her eyes had been closed would have been enough but he could see the sharp lines in her face – recognized that expression. Pain.

His own hearts clenched tightly at the thought as he moved past her to the monitor. Pain etched across her face in sharp relief. It was an expression he’d seen once before on River Song’s face. Just once, just a flash – a shadow of what he had just observed. A long time ago, when she’d held a hand against a different face and asked if he knew who she was. But this – this was far starker than that had been, and he felt his stomach twist in response to it even as he heard her thank Amy softly. Thank her.

All three of them believed this was something he had to do. All three of them were lying to him – or if not lying, at the very least not telling him everything. He knew they knew. Rory, bless him, couldn’t tell a lie to save his life and the weight and breadth of that lie had flashed across his face earlier, plain as day.

It had been River he’d turned to though, River he’d stared at with an icy demeanour, River who he lashed out at as he pressed her for details he knew she wouldn’t provide, poked her in places he knew she didn’t like to be poked. Who did you kill? Her face had been impressive. Stony and determined as she met his gaze and took it all, without saying a single word in retaliation. But then he’d turned away, and he wondered – just what had Amy and Rory seen on her face then? Because if it was a tenth of what he had just caught out of the corner of his eye-

This wasn’t who he was. Wasn’t what he did, wasn’t the man he wanted to be. Someone who would hurt someone else deliberately because he could. But oh he had. And he did. And he could see that pain every time he blinked. He walked and talked quickly, trying to escape it. She joined him by the monitor, her face a mask of calm once again but he watched her instead of the screen as they tried to figure out just who this Canton fellow was, and he could see it now. All of it. The tense muscles around her eyes, the set in her shoulders. She stood, calm in almost every aspect of her face and body, but he could see it now. See the cracks.

He wished he could unsee it. Because the harder he looked at her, the more he realized she was like some beautiful ancient artefact. The closer he looked, the more he saw the history of her. And the more he saw the history of her, the more his hearts ached.

She was strong enough to survive ages, but would crumble to dust in his hands if handled improperly.

And he was no archaeologist.

~*~*~*~*~

Sitting in a chair, in a straight jacket with his invisible ship at his back gave him plenty of time.

Time to plan.

Time to calculate.

Time to remember.

He thought of her more often than he probably should have. He was worried about all of them, of course. Amy and Rory. But Amy and Rory were sticking together – that he knew. Rory had stood guard over Amy for two thousand years – he wasn’t about to stop now.

And someone would have to go check outlying areas. And he knew that that task had fallen to River, on her own. For some reason the thought of that – the thought of River, on her own, sat in his mind, surrounded by disquiet.