Even in a world of four, River still lies. It doesn't matter that Amy's her mother, or the Doctor's her husband—to them, she's just a mystery, not Melody.

"So what happens here? Big bang two, what happens to us?"

As if it were that simple. As if she is an expert at rebooting the universe. Maybe she is. But a bowtie and a kiss isn't going to fix this one.

"We all wake up where we ought to be. None of this ever happens and we don't remember it." Will we? She tries to picture it—Amy and Rory, growing up in Leadsworth without a crack in the wall, without dreams of a raggedy man and his blue box.

Without her.

"River, tell me he comes back, too."

"The Doctor will be the heart of the explosion." Her voice cracks.

"So?"

"So all the cracks in time will close, but he'll be on the wrong side, trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of him will be purged from the universe. He will never have been born." Maybe she'll join him there, in the land of never-weres. After all, she won't exist anyway, not without the blue box, the honeymoon, Demon's run. "Now, please. He wants to talk to you before he goes."

" Not to you?"

The three words tie a knot in River's chest. Mums always know, don't they? "He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will."

She's still holding the diary. Holding her breath, she turns to the first page. Blank. The cracked binding was smooth, even stiff, just as she remembered it from those early days in hospital.

She remembers anyway. The front pages where she kept the spotter's guide, the latter notes from her thesis work, one page reserved for April 22, Lake Silencio.

Only then does she look around her. She's back in Leadsworth, pokey little Leadsworth, the dullest (and, she admits) the happiest place Mels had ever known.

In fact—she checks her watch—yes, June 26, 2010. Her parents' wedding day. For a moment, she imagines running into the reception hall, yelling out the whole story, begging Amy to remember. As if she wasn't already enough of a paradox.

No, she knew better. Even Mels never gave them anything, not so much as a "sorry I missed it" card. (She'd been in jail then, technically for theft or vandalism or something, but she'd timed it so she couldn't create a paradox.)

Instead, River caresses the blue cover. Perhaps there's another way to nudge things along. After all, isn't there an old saying about "something blue?"