River Song smiled cattishly at the guard, who looked nervously back. He was new here, but he’d heard the whispers. Miss Song. She was only here because she wanted to be. What sane person would want to stay in a prison?!? Sure, Stormcage Containment Facility was a rather clean place to be held, but it was still a prison! The guard couldn’t understand it at all.
“Are you all right sweetie?” the prisoner purred at him from her bed.
The guard looked away, realising he’d been staring. And why did it have to be him to watch the prisoner? It was only his first week here! He let his gaze slip back to her and she grinned.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not escaping quite yet.” She paused. “But I’ll let you know if I do.”
He looked away again.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding the slightest bit sorry. “Have I scared you off?”
He looked at her then. “No.” He hoped she hadn’t heard the tremor in his voice.
“Good boy,” she told him. “Never let the enemy see your fear.”
He looked her over. She was the enemy. He could see it in her posture, in her voice, and in the gleam in her eye. She was a proud creature. She was like the large cats they had back on his home-planet. There the Katten played with their food before the kill – letting it think that it could escape before the final blow. That’s what Miss Song was. She was playing with him. He shook his head. No, he told himself. He was in control here. He had the weapon, the training and the key. There was nothing she could do about it. She was just playing head games. He was perfectly safe. Even as he told himself that, he knew it was a lie. Deep down inside, he knew it was Miss Song with all the power. She was the professional, not him. And she knew it too.
She smiled at him and rolled on her back.
“So sweetie, tell me about yourself.”
“What?” he asked, sure he’d misheard.
She lifted her head. “Tell me about yourself,” she repeated. “If we’re going to be here all night, I’d like to know whose guarding me.”
He didn’t respond. She gave a chuckle.
“Let me guess,” she said, turning back on her stomach. “You’re from some small planet on the Outer Rims.”
He took a step back. What was she? A mind reader? “How did you-”
“How did I guess?” she interrupted. “Simple, really.” She gestured to his face. “That mark, of course.”
The guard relaxed slightly. The tattoo, of course. She wasn’t a psychic after all. The mark on his cheek was a Rite of Passage mark for his tribe.
“So what is a little hunter boy like you doing in the big bad galaxy out here?” she asked.
He hesitated. Why should he tell her? Then again, it’s not like it was important. His whole life was unimportant to the grand scheme of things, what could she get out of it.
“I got bored.” He told her, sitting down next to her cage, leaning against the bars.
“Bored?” she asked.
“My world was just so…so small.” He continued. He knew he should just shut up, stand up and do his job, but it felt so good to talk to someone, even if it was just some criminal. “I wanted to see more.”
“Ah,” River said. “I know what you mean.”
“Really?” he asked, intrigued. If she wanted more, why was she continually returning to a prison world? He couldn’t understand it. The moment he had gotten a good enough reputation to get away from this planet, the better.
“Oh yes,” River purred, sliding off the bed, onto the floor. “Every girl wants to run away.”
The guard frowned to himself. “But then why-”
“Why am I here?” River completed for him. “It’s a long story. But, in the end, it’s because of a friend.”
“A friend?” He had no idea why she was in the prison, but he felt that this ‘friend’ was at the heart of it.
“Oh, yes.” River said, her voice now vibrant. “My wonderful friend. He was brilliant, you know.”
“Who, uh, was he?”
She gave a sigh. “The Doctor.”
“The Doctor?” the guard replied incredulous. Even he, from his little backwash planet, had heard of the Doctor. To call him a hero would be an understatement. The Doctor was a legend. Him and his blue box. The guard frowned. “If you know the Doctor, why are you…” This time, she let him trail off.
“Still here?” she offered. “Well, as I said, it’s a long story. But there was…trouble. My Doctor and I…Things went a bit wrong. Oh, but don’t worry,” she said, her voice picking up. “The story isn’t over just yet.”
He frowned. “Is that where you go?”
“What?”
“The Doctor, he’s a time traveller, right?”
She chuckled. “You’re rather informed for a jungle person.”
He blushed slightly. “Not really. He came to our planet once.”
“Really?” River asked, her voice becoming interested.
The guard nodded, still not looking at her. “He saved us.”
River made a noise. “That sounds like him.”
“He was a friend….he befriended my grandfather. Grandpa used to tell me stories…”
“Stories?” River asked, right next to his ear, and the guard jumped. He hadn’t realised River had crawled up to the bars.
The guard blushed even more as he nodded. “He took him with him, you know. The Doctor, I mean,” he added nervously. “He took Grandpa places.”
River nodded. “So that’s why you left. Because of the Doctor.”
The guard nodded. “I wanted to be an explorer like Grandpa and the Doctor,” he admitted.
River sighed. “He does that to you, you know.”
The guard nodded back, closing his eyes for a second, and listening to the rain outside. Rain. It was always so wet here. One day, he would go to a desert planet, he told himself. No rain ever.
There was a silence.
The guard let his mind rehash the conversation.
“Oh,” he said sitting up straighter. “I asked before, but is that where you go? With the Doctor? When you escape?”
River chuckled. “Yep. The Doctor and I have had quite a few adventures.”
“But you return.” He finished. “Why do you do that?”
Her eyes searched his. “Because I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I committed a crime.” She said, as if it was obvious.
“What crime?” he asked, frowning once more.
She sighed again, and closed her eyes. “I killed a man. A great, great man.”
He paused and looked her over. “Who?”
She looked back at him. “Does it matter?”
He looked away from her, finding her dark eyes to be relentless. “Not really,” he said.
She laughed. “I wish all my guards were like you,” she told him. “It’d be ever so much more fun.”
He felt the blush work its way back to his face. She was teasing him again.
“So when do you leave next?” he asked, genuinely interested.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It could be next week, next month, or next year. I never know with him.”
“Sounds troublesome,” the guard mused out loud.
River laughed. “Oh, it is. But it’s worth it. Oh, it’s worth it.”
“What do you mean?”
She grinned. “Spoilers.”
He got the feeling he was missing out on a joke. “So what, you just drop everything when he calls?”
She smiled. “Wouldn’t you?”
He thought about it then. If the Doctor, the one his Grandpa had told him about, came for him, would he drop everything for him?
“Yes,” the guard said, after a pause.
River smiled and was about to reply, just as a strange wind blew through the corridor, along with the noise of an engine. The guard struggled to his feet.
“What is that?” the guard asked.
“A great, great man,” River replied.
That was the last thing the guard heard before he was knocked unconscious.