Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

111(M)

but your empty eyes seem to pass me by

                 areyoumarriedriver

Amy thought Area 52 was the first time he’d seen River since that lakeside in Utah.

She couldn’t be more wrong, but he let her think it anyway.

xx

When time compressed he awoke with a splitting headache, a useless TARDIS and the memory of a world that would never happen, pounding through his skull. Stupid of him really, in retrospect. He knew – he knew how stubborn, how like her mother River was. He’d tried giving her a signal, but she was so young and terrified on that beach.

“Stupid, stupid Doctor.” He mutters to himself as he stands, looking around the interior of the Tesselecta. Everything seemed to still be operational – thankfully because it would be more than frustrating to have spent so long working out a program that allowed him to operate the ship single handedly through a brain interface, only to have it all destroyed in this non-timeline.  He soniced the controls before interfacing with the ship, essentially locking himself in.

His program allowed him to run the ship through what was, essentially, virtual reality. He saw what the Tesselecta saw, he smelled, touched, tasted what the ship did. It had been the only way to ensure no other crewmember was on board, because he couldn’t risk them. In light of these turn of events, he was doubly glad he’d engineered it in such a way, because he would go mad, he thinks, driving it around like it was a boat or car. No, best to lock in and essentially become the ship during the days. He could come back to the TARDIS and work out a plan, rest and recharge during the nights while he ‘slept’.

The first thing he sees upon activating the ship and opening his eyes are signs warning not to feed the dinosaurs, and he can see Big Ben rising in the distant skyline. London, then, which is very good. He hopes she is nearby, but he cannot be sure.

He hadn’t really thought about it. About how strong her will was, and how much she loved him and how terrified she must have been, waiting in the deep, cold water of that lake for goodness only knew how long.

He should have told her the truth. But she was so young and still under their control – he couldn’t be positive that she wouldn’t tell them against her own will.

If he remembers the world that wasn’t, she is the other point in time that had been at the center of the explosion. He has to get to her. He has to explain. Not everything – not – not everything because Kovarian and the Silence – they still have their talons in her, and he can’t put her at risk like that. They have to believe he is dead. River has to believe he is dead. Afterward – afterward he could tell her the truth.

But first, he has to find her. No TARDIS he can use, no useable sonic either, nothing to his name but the ship he exists in.  He grins suddenly, clapping his hands together.

“At least it will be fun.”

xx

It takes him three months to track her. He travels across the UK, down to Egypt, through Turkey, up to Russia, Rome, Germany, and back to the UK again. He has nothing to go on but local reports and the faint traces of time energy he can pick up on the TARDIS scanners. Hell, he doesn’t even have a picture to show around, but the description alone does the trick at first, and eventually he gets his hands on some charcoal and parchment and he finds himself spending time every evening, sketching and drawing – her hair is almost murder to replicate in hand-drawn form, but finally he has an image to show people.

An image to keep tucked inside his coat at all times, and image he pulls out far too often to look upon.

He’s drawn her from Demon’s Run. Bright eyes and soft curls and she is smiling – that same smile that haunts his memories every night. One hundred and ninety six years, five months and fourteen days since he’d seen that expression on her face, but he remembers.