Title: What a Fool Believes
Author: E.A. Week
E-mail: eaweek at hotmail-dot-com
Summary: River Song summons the Eleventh Doctor to the beautiful planet Vareda to celebrate the excavation of an ancient temple. A gruesome attack on the Doctor leads River to believe that someone on Vareda would do anything to keep her discovery buried forever.
Category: Doctor Who. Eleven/ River; Amy/Rory.
Distribution: Feel free to link to this story from another web page, but please drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.
Feedback: Letters of comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Send me an email and let me know why!
Disclaimer: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest!
The story title is shamelessly stolen from the Doobie Brothers.
Datclaimer: This story is rated M for sex, language, and mild gore.
Continuity (PLEASE read this): This story occurs between "A Christmas Carol" and "The Impossible Astronaut." At first, I'd thought the story would be set at some nebulous point after season five, but somewhat outside the continuity of season six, but in writing chapter four and the epilogue, I discovered a way to make the story fit better into the show's existing continuity, although it still might not be letter-perfect with the existing canon of season six.
EpilogueThe afternoon sun was shining when the TARDIS materialized behind River's house. The day was warm and drowsy, the garden full of the scent of River's autumn roses. She paused to look over the flowers, clucking at their neglected state. "I need to do some pruning."
The Doctor gave the house and the garden a curious examination. "It's nicer than Storm Cage," he said.
"After so many years of rain, I opted for a semi-arid climate," River laughed. "Lots of sun here. These are desert roses, very hardy. They smell wonderful, and they barely need any water."
The Doctor followed her into the small, secluded bungalow, an anonymous, unremarkable-looking house, detached from its neighbors, which were arrayed in terraces down the side of a hill. In the distance were more small houses, gardens, a few scrubby trees, and further away, the silver gleam of a lake or reservoir.
River had chosen her home with deliberate care, a time and place where her complicated past were unlikely to cause problems. The neighborhood's population was itinerant, most of the people working either in agriculture or for a government installation that monitored the region's weather and wildlife. Most people accepted River's frequent absences without question or even much curiosity.
Inside was cool and quiet. River's housekeeper had been in earlier, adjusting the climate control and stocking the kitchen with fresh food. River switched on her home computer to retrieve her messages, smiling as the Doctor explored the bungalow.
"It's not the TARDIS, but it's home," she said.
"It's… lacking personality," the Doctor said.
"What did you expect?" River laughed. "Something scandalous, I hope?"
"It doesn't feel like you," he said.
"It's just where I hang my hat, sweetie," River said. "My real life is lived elsewhere." She'd chosen the décor with the aim of keeping her identity concealed: the furniture and wall hangings, attractive but bland, could have belonged to anyone. To River, though, this space was precious, a valued sanctum. After years in a ten by thirteen prison cell, the bungalow felt like a palace.
The Doctor said, "Whose room is this?"
"What, the small one?"
"Yes." He tried—and failed—to keep a note of jealousy out of his voice.
"It's the spare room," River said, now scrolling down her list of new messages.
He emerged into her main living area. "Spare room?"
"Believe it or not, I have company sometimes," River said. "Usually just colleagues or friends." He still appeared miffed, so River added, "I wouldn't put a lover in my spare bedroom, if that's what you're thinking."
The Doctor turned around in circles a few times, then asked, "So, you have an actual academic appointment?" He seemed to have forgotten about the sleeping arrangements.
"Would you like to see my credentials?"
"You make that sound so dirty," he said.
River said, "Yes, I'm gainfully and honestly employed, but you'll have to wait to learn the details of how it all happened."
"Last time I met you, you were still in prison."
"You're really jumping around, then," River said. "Prison was a while ago for me. When was the last time you saw me?"
"The Pandorica," he said. "Which I know you've done, too. What was the last time for you?"
"Vikings," she told him. "Ring any bells?"
"Not yet," he said.
"It's still early days for you," River said.
"Fairly early," the Doctor hedged.
"You still have so much to look forward to. I'm a little jealous of that." River tried to maneuver in for a kiss, but he stepped away.
"Why not?" she asked.
"One, I still have no idea who you are," he said. "That note I'm going to write to myself told me I could trust you for one night. That's hardly a ringing vote of confidence."
"Fair enough," River said, though she was keenly disappointed: her bedroom was right down the hall, they had the place to themselves, and she had no plans for the next few days. "What's the second reason?"
Looking miserable, he said, "I don't deserve it."
"Oh, sweetie," she said. "Don't do this to yourself."
"I ended a civilization today," he said. "You think it's something I should take frivolously? And celebrate by—by—?" He waved one hand, making a vague shape in the air.
"By shagging your missus?" River smiled sadly. "I never said it would be a celebration."
"Celebration, happiness, comfort…" He shook his head. "I don't deserve any of that."
Raising an eyebrow, River said, "Do you think what you did on Vareda was wrong? They crossed a line with you that, as far as I know, nobody has ever crossed without regretting it." He still looked miserable, and River continued, "What did you see in Hector's mind that made you so angry?"
The Doctor said, "His plans to clone my blood and make it into a cure for any illness. As the owner of the patent, he'd have become the richest man in ten galaxies. Vareda would become a great center of healing, an intergalactic Lourdes, with Dr. Hector Griffith as its patron saint."
"But it wouldn't work—you saw what happened to Miranda."
"Even after watching her burn to death, Hector was thinking, scheming, trying to work out how the Time Lord immune cells could be altered to cure illness without turning against the host species. And he'd almost got it right. He was close, River. So very close."
Shocked, River said, "He loved Miranda so much! Like his own daughter."
"That wouldn't have stopped him from trying to make a profit on her suffering," the Doctor said, looking revolted. River knew that of all possible vices, he hated greed the most.
"Don't punish yourself, then," she chided. "What you did was—was—" She sighed. "A necessary evil." He made a noise of protest, but River said, "What choice did you have? Let Hector use your blood to acquire the power of life and death? He would've altered your DNA to engineer immortality for anyone willing to pay the price. The information had to be destroyed, Doctor. And there was only one way to do that."
"People died," he said.
"Yes, obviously," she responded. "It was a fixed point; it couldn't be avoided." River could see that nothing she said would make any difference, nor was it likely to get the Doctor in bed with her. So she said, "If it's punishment you want, there's an empty cell in Storm Cage. Go lock yourself up for a few centuries."
The Doctor gave her a look, and River could see his thoughts, plain as day: he was already in prison, a prison he carried around inside himself wherever he went.
"Don't," she said, her mind vaulting forward in a sudden lurch of intuition.
"Don't what?"
"Don't you dare wipe your own memory of what we did on Vareda! That was one of the most beautiful nights of my life. Don't try to pretend it never happened because you feel like playing the martyr."
The torment in his eyes gave way to miserable guilt, and River could see that was exactly what he'd been planning, that he felt he didn't deserve even the memory of happiness, however brief, however fleeting.
"Promise me you won't," River said.
"I won't," he finally relented. "But I'm going to put it in a, a back room for a while. I need to be able to think without… distractions."
"Is that what I am?" River put her hands on her hips. "A distraction?"
He touched her nose. "You're an enigma."
River knew she wasn't going to change his mind. "Go on, then. When you're done punishing yourself, when you're ready to open that room in your mind, come find me."
He said nothing for a moment. They'd reached an impasse of sorts.
"I should go," he said at last.
"It's your call." River followed him out to the garden, wishing they weren't going to part on this miserable note. "Amy said to look her up. I hope you're not planning to run out on them as well?"
"No," he said. "No, of course not." He stopped in his tracks, turned back toward River, turned again toward the TARDIS, and back to River again, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether to stay or to go. "What about you, River Song? When we meet again, will I find out who you really are?"
"It's coming soon," she said. "You'll get a sign that'll be unmistakable. And that's how it starts."
He lifted his eyebrows. "And?"
"Sorry, sweetie," she laughed, but inwardly she cringed, knowing the emotional tumult that awaited him. "It's long and complicated, and if any of it changes… well, the consequences wouldn't be pretty."
"On that cryptic note—" He opened the TARDIS door.
River blew him a kiss. "If you ever get lonely, you know where I am."
He nodded, briefly tapping the doorframe. Then he was inside, the engines groaning, the blue box fading from view. River waited until the breeze caused by its departure died down before returning to the house and her interrupted life.
(ii)
He tried solitude—uninhabited islands, barren asteroids, the bottoms of fathoms-deep caverns. He tried crowds—bustling spaceports, sporting events, the intergalactic circus. He tried busy, he tried bland, he tried sophisticated, he tried simple. He tried cities, jungles, suburbs, farms, empty prairies. He went everywhere, looking for something he knew he'd never find—forgiveness, peace, maybe just a sense of reassurance that he wasn't turning into the kind of monster against which he'd been fighting for so long.
At last, he realized that he'd never find the answers to his questions anywhere but inside himself, and that he might as well stop traversing time and space in a futile search for the intangible. Besides, he was getting lonely. And bored.
He was on Aleph Minor, wandering the Great Bazaar, looking at things without really seeing them, when this epiphany struck. The Doctor turned and made his way through the slow-moving crowds, past the vendors, the street performers, the mobs of merchants and tourists. In an alley off the main concourse he'd materialized the TARDIS, concealing it behind a couple of nondescript tarps.
When he lifted the canvas, he froze. Stuck to the front of the time machine was a square envelope, as blue as the TARDIS itself, with one word printed on the front: DOCTOR. He realized his name had been printed on a clear label, typed in an anonymous typeface in capital letters. And on the back of the envelope, on the flap, he found the number 1.
The Doctor glanced all about the alleyway. "Hello?" he said, but there was no answer. He felt a funny little thrill: whoever had left this message knew exactly when and where to find him, which was odd in and of itself—he'd chosen Aleph Minor on a whim, scarcely two hours earlier.
He went into the ship and locked the door before he opened the envelope. Inside, he found a square card with a set of coordinates printed on it. He didn't need the TARDIS computer to tell him the destination was Earth—Utah, to be precise—on twenty-second April, 2011. There was nothing else in the envelope, and no indication of who'd left it on the TARDIS door, but clearly it was meant for him. He frowned, then broke into laughter: was River summoning him again, in her usual imperious manner? Excited, the Doctor bounced over to the console.
The exact location of the rendezvous turned out to be a small diner. The Doctor emerged from the ship to find himself in alleyway behind the restaurant, near the loo and a rear exit. The back wall of the diner was painted with a mural, a life-sized image of Elvis Presley covering the door. The Doctor paced the length of the diner, from front to back, but he didn't see anyone he recognized.
Behind the polished Formica counter, a young man asked, "What'll it be?"
Stalling for time, the Doctor said, "Um, Coca-Cola, if you please." It was one of the few Earth brand names he could remember. Deep in a pocket of his tweed jacket, the Doctor found a couple of crumpled American one-dollar bills, which he used to pay for the bottle of soda.
He set the beverage and the blue envelope on a table at the rear of the restaurant, bouncing a bit with excitement. He took a sip of the cola, then returned to the TARDIS on a whim: at the Great Bazaar, he'd acquired a straw that would increase carbonation, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any to try it out.
When he emerged back into the dining area, he came face-to-face with River, Amy, and Rory. From their expressions, he knew something terrible had happened: River and Rory were very pale, almost white, while Amy's swollen, blotchy complexion and red eyes suggested she'd been crying for some time.
"Oh, this is cold," River said. She appeared younger than she had when they'd met up on Vareda. A tiny tremor shook her voice, like a barely-perceptible earthquake. "Even by your standards, this is cold!" The Doctor felt he'd walked into the middle of a heated argument. He glanced at the faces of his friends, trying to reconcile their haunted, baffled expressions with the whimsical summons in the blue envelope.
"Or, 'hello,' as people used to say."
"Doctor?" said Amy, her voice little more than a whisper.
"Just popped out to get my special straw—it adds more fizz." The Doctor was playing for time, hoping that some lighthearted banter would ease the tension and perhaps cause one of his friends to say something that would give him a hint of what had happened, why they were so apparently thunderstruck to see him.
Amy was circling around him, as if his mere presence in the diner was something both unexpected and extraordinary. "You're okay," she said. "How can you be okay?"
"Hey, of course I'm okay! I'm always okay! I'm the King of Okay—oh, that's a rubbish title; forget that one." The Doctor kept prattling, waiting for one of them to tell him something useful. "Hello Rory!" The Doctor thumped the gobsmacked young man across the shoulders. "Rory the Roman, that's a better title. And Dr. River Song! Oh, you bad, bad girl. What trouble have you got for me this time?"
She responded by smacking him straight across the face, with enough force for his head to be whipped around.
"Okay… I'm assuming that's for something I haven't done yet."
"Yes," said River, and the tone of her voice was deadly serious. "Yes, it is."
"Good," said the Doctor. "I'm looking forward to it."
The End