A/N: Go figure. Every time I try and write fluff, it crashes and burns and something goes wrong. What is wrong with me? Why can't I write just one completely fluffy story in my life? Anyway, I wrote this when I was half asleep, came back and looked at it and couldn't decide if I liked it or not. Sigh. I'm such a fickle person. Please enjoy.
Spoilers: um... generic Doctor Who stuffs? Maybe? There are very few specific spoilers.
Disclaimer: I don't really own anything, so please don't be angry at me for this harmless infringement of copyright laws.
Forever, Ever More
"This is the song that never ends.
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
'Cause it's the song that never ends.
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people starting singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
'Cause it's the song that never ends.
It goes on and on my friends..."
It was a horrible sound. A horrible sound above almost all other horrible sounds. It grated on ears like fingernails over chalk board. The sound echoed back and forth like a monstrous demon wail. It was horrible, horrendous, awful. So many words could be used to describe such an irritating sound!
"Sweetie!" River cried. "You're humming again!"
His head popped up through the off color railings of the consul room floor. The ever present screwdriver was stuck between his teeth and his hands were a bright cherry red. The binary control interface must be acting up again."Wasn't." The word was mangled and garbled, well beyond normal hearing range. The TARDIS shifted slightly, and let out a low sigh.
"I know, girl," River said, stroking the edge of the consul. "He's humming again." The TARDIS shivered, what River had decided to call a laugh, because she honestly had no better word for it. The TARDIS had a lot of strange emotions. Like when she bounced upward 0.3 meters and then down 0.6 meters, that was a hiccup. The poor girl got the hiccups a lot if the Doctor didn't keep the atmospheric pressure system under control. But then if the TARDIS bounced 0.5 meters down, 0.3 meters up and then 0.6 meters down, that was a cough. The Doctor claimed there was no difference. River smirked as the wonderful little machine whirled again. "Yes, yes, I know he's insane."
His head popped up through the floor again. One of his bright red hands pulled the screwdriver from his mouth. "Since when did you start talking to the TARDIS?"
"Since when did the TARDIS run on Huon energy?" River retorted, gazing down at the ruffled, rumpled, totally insane man in the floor.
"Who needs rhetorical questions?" He grumbled, disappearing down into the floor.
There was a loud bang, a crash, and then the Doctor swore something in Swahili. And the TARDIS didn't translate it. River glanced up at the glowing blue cylinders and raised an eyebrow. Anything he said couldn't be that bad. The TARDIS shiver-shuddered her little laugh again. River rolled her eyes. The TARDIS shiver-shuddered again. "Gotcha!" The Doctor cried, popping through the ground yet again with a long train of wire in his hands. Red goo dripped everywhere.
"Sweetie, you're staining the floor," River said, letting an annoyed frown cross her face. There was no way she'd clean up that mess. No way. Not this time. Not since the last time the Doctor had roped her into cleaning up some gelatinous goop, it had turned out to be some kind of telepathically controlled slim that tried to kill her. And she had thought the Nestene were bad. Well- "Weren't you supposed to be fixing the binary control interface?"
He didn't reply. He only raced to the TARDIS doors, yanked them open and threw the length of wire out into space. He ran back and disappeared beneath the floor again. River rolled her eyes. She gave the TARDIS consul another pat before grabbing her diary from her overnight bag and settling down on one of the consul benches. On page 3, she added another couple of under the title 'TARDIS emotions.' River snorted at the thought of a race of tri-sexual aliens they had run into a few days back. Three had been considered sacred, on that planet.
River Song. The Doctor. All of time and space.
Because time and space never really left them. It was always apart of them. It was a integral apart of them. In a way, the TARDIS was their third party. River flipped to a blank page to started righting and stopped. She lifted her head and sighed. The sound was back. Knocking the back of her pencil against her forehead, she cried, "Doctor! Stop humming!"
"But it's the song that never ends!" He cried back. "I have to keep singing it!"
River paused. She slowly closed the diary. With both hands, she picked the diary up and knocked it against her forehead. Momentary pain was better than that sound. Momentary pain would always be better than that sound.
"'Cause it's the song that never ends.
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people starting singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people starting singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
'Cause it's the song that never ends."
She went after his prize hat collection first. Having the TARDIS as an ally meant it was two against one and much, much easier than when they were out among the world. The fez was the first going, being smashed to pieces with a sledge hammer. And then the backup fez. And then the secondary backup fez. And wow this man had a lot of fezes.
The infernal humming nose would not stop. It even turned into singing after River destroyed one of his top hats. The full out war was commenced when River found his old white hat; that precious old white hat. She had squealed. Literally, squealed. This was prime. This was great. This would finally get him to stop singing! The Doctor's worried face appeared at the entrance to the wardrobe. "River?" He questioned, a slightly worried lilt to his tone. But he was still humming, just softly enough to be annoying. "What've you found?" River pranced towards him, the white hat pulled down firmly around her ears. The Doctor paled. "You can't destroy that."
"Sweetie, you're still humming," River retorted, flouncing past him. The humming noise momentarily increased to a yell of cautionary rage and he leapt at her, trying desperately to get the hat. She ran. He chased.
"'Cause it's the song that never ends.
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people starting singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people starting singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever, ever more,
'Cause it's the song that never ends."
The humming war lasted for a good six hours. They ran through the TARDIS, frolicked through the library and spent an hour playing hide and seek in the observatory alone. The white hat and the red handkerchief had survived, yes, but River silently vowed that it would be a long, long time before she told the Doctor where she had hidden them.
Towards the end of the sixth hour, River stood over a soaking wet Doctor, his precious screwdriver in her hands pointed at his shelf of dolls. He said they were collectors items. Action figures from twentieth and twenty-first century Earth. But of course, River knew better. They were dolls. "Stop humming?" She ordered, her finger slipping ever closer to the switch on the screwdriver.
He stopped humming.
"Good," River said. She lowered the screwdriver and crossed her arms, watching him to make sure he didn't start humming again. "Never to that again." The Doctor sighed. Water dripped down from his hair and splattered on his nose before it rolled off and plunked down and down and down. It made him look lost and bedraggled, like a little lost kitten who couldn't find his home. River could feel the TARDIS laughing underneath her feet. "Now, lets see to the terms of your surrender." River ordered.
The Doctor paled.
The TARDIS giggled.
River smirked.
"You will never hum that song again, you will clearly speak the words so I know the verses, and you will explain why it was so important that you keep singing it! Also, I get to choose the next three locales." She continued to smirk. "All in all, I think you're getting a light deal." The TARDIS stopped laughing, almost immediately, but River didn't take the time to figure out why.
He pouted and sulked. "Fine. This is the song that never ends. It goes on and on, my friends. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they continued singing it forever, ever, more. 'Cause it's the song that never ends. It goes-"
River held up a hand. "Got it. Now the third item?"
All color drained out of his already white face until he was a gray, ashen color. Sickly. Deadly. A strange, oddly horrified fear rose up in River's chest. "Because," whispered the Doctor, his voice low and hoarse, "if that song doesn't have to end, why does my time with you have to end?" The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. River shivered. The TARDIS rocked back and forth, slowly, gently. The way a time machine would cry. "Why?" he continued. "Why is it so unfair?" He looked at her, and all the raw pain was visible in his eyes. "Why do you have to die? Why does everyone have to die when I can't?"
He wrapped his arms around himself. "The number of times I've wanted to die and the world just won't let me. Why? River? Why? I've seen you die. I don't understand."
"You've-" River whispered. She was unable to find her voice. The screwdriver dropped from her hand and clattered to the ground below. "I've- Time- End- What?"
A cloud crossed the Doctor's face. "You asked," he said. Now his voice was harsh. Cold. He spun and stalked away from, leaving River Song: alone and shivering. Tears ran down her cheeks.
And the TARDIS cried.
"This is the song that never ends,
It goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever ever more.
'Cause it's the song that never ends."
When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies. And nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment accepts it. ~ Professor River Song, Archeologist
Their story - River, the Doctor - they became legendary among the stars. Everyone knows how she died, and how he cried for her. He tried to rewrite time to save her, and it almost destroyed all of reality. In the end, she had killed him herself to protect the future. Funny that, everyone thought, their time lines would cross in such away that even after both were technically dead; they would meet each other. They are legend. And everyone forgets about their time machine.
The TARDIS cried when River Song died. The Time Machine cried and cried and cried, sobbing her broken heart out for her two friends, the Doctor and his Song. And inside, where no one could see, the TARDIS hummed a little song, because when there is a memory of a person, that person remains real and tangible, remembered. She lost her Doctor. She lost her Song. For millennia upon millennia, the little, lonely, lost time machine would blaze through the heavens, followed by the sad little tune: because the TARDIS never really did stop humming. "Cause it's the Song that never ends.