-love is a choice-

"I've been sending out a message. A distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere. To the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. 'The Doctor is dying.' Please, please help."

"River! River! This is ridiculous! That would mean nothing to anyone. It's insane. Worse, it's stupid! You embarrass me."

And for a moment all she can do is stare at him. Stare at him, and stare at him, and think: Where did he go? That wonderful, bright, funny little man—who always tried so hard—where did he go?

And he is screaming at her. Screaming.

The man I fell in love with. Where . . . ?

But then she realizes: this is that man.

He's dying on the floor, kidneys failing, hearts slicing themselves open. She remembers the death kiss, that quick press of his lips against hers as she kissed him ill, and she refuses to feel pity for this man. Hadn't Anna told her, time and time again? Love is a weakness. Determination, strength, and hate. Vengence. Those are strong.

Little Melody had believed her, had always, always believed her (until she the space man ate her

ate her

ate her) and she ran home to mummy and daddy, who Anna had said didn't want her anymore, because the Doctor had stolen all love from them, turned them into soldiers like himself. (Because she is a child, she doesn't realize that she's the one becoming a soldier.)

It takes her ages and ages to find them, with her chocolate skin and 1960, 70, 80, 90 worlds, always running away before people notice you're not really aging properly, until you find them. Because mummy and daddy might not want you, but you want them, so you're going to go get them, and you're going to keep them.

You meet them. Amy and Rory.

And they want you.

You lie to them, so many lies, and they love you, these parents you never had, in that complicated simplicity of a child's love. The three best friends, traipsing around Leadworth with their Raggedy Doctor, and she sees a side of him that Amelia sees, the funny side that's good, and she thinks that maybe Mels might love that side of him.

But programming's programming, and she still wants to kill him in the end.

So she sits there, and watches him die. She asks him about that woman he keeps mentioning. River Song. (She pretends she isn't jealous.) He's obviously very much in love with her.

And then he dies. He dies, and River Song becomes her. She saves his life not because she loves him (no, she's far, far too young for that), but because she's going to keep him. Her Doctor. Time and space man. Who visits her at university, in the thin white pages of the books, and she remembers him, with his olive colored duster and his stupid hair and his even stupider face. The way he'd looked at her, as if she was the most precious thing ever.

Yes. She falls in love with him through books, so when they meet again she can't kill him at all.

This is that man. And she looks at him, at him frantically handcuffed whirling, face flat white with anger and despair, and she doesn't regret it. Not once.

She'd not kill him again, a second time through, because Melody Pond is more than programming or silent forgotten post-suggestion memories. Melody Pond is River Song, and she loves the Doctor, and by God, she is going to do what it takes.

She is going to keep him.

I'll suffer if I have to kill you.

More than every living thing in the universe?

Yes.