"You're impossible."

Those were the first words she said. They had been staring at each other over a dubiously sanitary table in a dusty old bar for several minutes now. Both wore equally intense, focused expressions, and in all the time, neither had spoken a word. The way she had looked at him when she first saw him, the way she'd ordered their drinks without taking her eyes off of him, he'd known it would take time and silence to solve the mystery of her.

The man quirked the corner of his lips up into the faintest of half-smiles. "Go on," he challenged.

The girl continued to stare at him. Her appearance was unusual by most standards. There was just a little something off about her, her expression, her voice, her attire. If he had to put a word to it, the word would've been, "ghostlike." There was a certain ghostly quality to her, something not quite solid. Almost like she could vanish in a wisp of smoke if you reached out to touch her.

"You dance across Time and Space, the Universe itself, you dance across her spine, laughing at the stars and the moons," the girl continued in her soft voice, which was vague and intense all at once. "They all stand still, moving but not, dragging slowly through the sky, but you glide and dance and fly. Hands have touched and eyes have seen, but the feet never touch, they never stay, the shadow hasn't time to form before it's gone again. You've been to Before and to After and looped around. How are you doing that? How are you seeing that?!"

She grew more agitated as she spoke, but the man didn't move to respond. Instead, he looked at her with interest. "A question for a question?" he proposed with a grin.

The girl considered it. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," she remarked, without seeming to mean anything by it. After a moment, her voice sharpened, became solid, weighed with clarity. "Agreed."

"What is your name?" the man asked.

"River Tam," the girl shot back easily, adding in a matter-of-fact tone, "You are the Doctor."

The Doctor looked somewhat disappointed at this revelation. "Ah, this isn't going to be any fun if you already know all the answers." He leaned back in his wooden chair, which creaked in protest at the shift in weight, the picture of relaxation. The girl didn't blink at this change in posture. She could see the sharp interest hid underneath.

"Answers are easy," she replied. "Facts and knowledge and whats. Got eyes can see them." She frowned, peering at the Doctor with an air of frustration. "Whats are useless. Need whys and hows."

The Time Lord's eyebrows raised in understanding. "You want explanations."

She didn't respond. Her gaze was unfocused again, but the Doctor knew better. She was trying to see under him, under the layers of him, to find the whys and hows she needed. In a dreamy tone, she asked her first question. "How do you throw a pebble in the stream without making ripples in the surface?"

Anyone else would've seen the words as nonsense, the product of a broken mind. The Doctor, however, was not anyone else. He knew just how to keep up with River's flighty thoughts. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin propped on his hands, expression thoughtful. After a few moments, he began to explain; "Time is... fluid. It's always moving, everything changing. Anything you change, the universe will wrap itself around the changes and shape itself accordingly. Usually, any changes are compensated for. There are certain points that have to happen, that are fixed in time, but the rest of time is in flux."

River's eyes were sharp with interest as she drank in his explanation. Wheels were spinning away in her head, equations firing off as she tried to explain the Doctor's words to herself. "The water flows around the rocks in the stream," she decided after a few moments.

The Doctor grinned, pleased. "It's a good analogy," he praised. The Time Lord grew serious as he considered his next question for a few moments. After a brief pause, he inquired, "Do you know why you can see these things about me?"

"Yes." It was barely above a whisper, and there was a tremor of fear as she spoke the word.

"Then tell me."

The pale, fearful look on her face faded, a weak smile replacing it. "That's not in the rules," she chided softly. "An answer for an answer."

The Doctor was itching to ask more, to find out more about this strange little girl, but he knew it would be useless to push. She'd answer when she was ready. "Good point," he admitted with a grin. "Alright then. Ask away."

The girl's intense gaze scanned his face, tone serious as she asked, "Why here?"

The Time Lord grinned in response. "Oh, I love this era. Such a rare time. The past and the future, all hobbled together in one little bundle of planets, perfectly balanced. The wild west with spaceships. What's not to love?"

River's grin suddenly turned sharp with triumph. "Liar," she informed him smugly. "You were taking the Wolf Girl to a planet with dogs, noseless."

He sighed. "Eh, it was worth a try," he said wistfully. "Trying to keep some semblance of dignity. Ah well, we'll reach Barcelona one day."

The girl grew serious now. "You're a liar. Secrets and layers and pages and pages, lock and key, hidden away. Things the Wolf Girl doesn't know, things you try to forget, words that must never be spoken. Words to tear a universe to ribbons. Dangerous. What are you hiding? What are you?!"

River was growing agitated again, but this time, the Doctor reached out a comforting hand. She took it, her own hands trembling as his steady fingers wrapped around hers. His expression was warm, his voice soft as he told her, "River, I'm a friend. I promise."

The girl shook her head in weak protest. "A storm is coming," she whispered, but the Doctor overlapped her with his soothing tone.

"I'm not here to hurt you, River Tam. I'm a friend. I want to help you, if I can. Do you believe me?" The girl thought about it for a few moments, then gave a small nod, her agitation slowly melting away. Satisfied, the Doctor began to look at her more critically. "Normally, I'd just say you were tapping into your innate psychic potential, but you're way more powerful than you should be. Not many people can see into my old head. Something's amplifying your psychic abilities far beyond what they should be."

"Blue hands reached inside and pulled her apart," River whispered. Her voice had that slight note of fear again, her eyes glistening with frightened tears, but she managed to push on. "Tiny men with metal fingers poked around her head. All cogs and wires and springs inside. Made it better, made it worse. Tore the pieces out to make them faster, tore her head open and left her screaming." The girl smiled sadly at the Doctor, a single tear slithering down her cheek. "She sees better now," she told him softly.

The Doctor listened in horror. He'd guessed, of course. Something had clearly hurt the girl in the past, and with how powerful she was... But hearing it was still horrifying. While telling him the truth, the girl had seemed to grow smaller, more vulnerable. She looked as small and lost as a child.

He tightened his hands around hers, offering comfort in the only way he could. "I'm sorry," the Time Lord said softly. "River Tam, I'm so sorry."

River took a deep, shuddering breath, pulling herself back together. After a few moments, she turned to the Doctor with an alarmingly sharp gaze. "You've lost. So many, you've lost. GallifreyTimeLordsCompanionsPlanetsFriends." She rattled off the names and places at rapid-fire speed. "An answer for an answer. A loss for a suffering. And there's more loss to come. The valiant child will die in battle. The big bad wolf will soon fall silent, she will howl no more. He will knock four times, silence will fall, it is discovered, no more, no more, no more!" She paused, then shook her head as though coming out of a trance. "Sorry. I see time in your head."

The Doctor hadn't caught everything she'd said, and half of it didn't make sense to him yet. The parts he did understand worried him. However, he somehow felt, from the look in River's eyes, that he wouldn't get any more answers out of her. He just gave her a knowing grin. "It's hard being me," he joked lightly.

The girl started to speak again, but before she could, a man passed by their table. He wore a long brown coat, not unlike the Doctor's, and he spoke in a heavy rim accent. "Best wrap it up now. We're headin' out in a few. Get back to your brother then." With a slightly suspicious glance at the Doctor, he turned and walked away.

River smiled sadly. "I have to go."

The Doctor hesitated. There was still so much more he wanted to know, about the people who had hurt River, and what could be done about it. He grasped her hands tightly, looking intently into her eyes. "I could come with you. I can help. Just say the word."

The girl did seem to consider it for a few moments. In the end, however, she shook her head. "Stars are waiting for your box," she reminded him. "And I have dark places to walk. I need to see."

The Time Lord felt a pang at that, that she should have to keep her mind as mangled as it was in order to function, but he trusted her judgment. Strange, how much he seemed to know her, even though he'd met her only minutes ago. With a sigh, he stood. "Right, I better go see where Rose has wandered off to."

River stood as well. She smiled at him, and for once, it seemed like the smile of a seventeen year old girl, smiling at a new friend. "It was nice to meet you, Doctor."

She held out a hand, which the Doctor took, and shook while returning the smile. "A pleasure, River Tam," he replied.

Just... don't judge this too harshly. It was written between 12 and 6 AM, in the middle of writer's block, in an attempt to write through said writer's block.