It takes a long few minutes, but River bullies Octavian into giving her his communicator. She may be blind, possibly for the rest of her life, but she isn't going to be useless.

The Doctor doesn't seem to have much of a problem with her having done this when he answers his comms. Mostly, River suspects, because he realized he needs her to walk him through how to use her pocket scanner.

Idiot.

"Now, press enter and it'll be calibrated."

"Ah, it's working!" The Doctor trumpets through the comms.

"Of course it's working." She would have rolled her eyes if she could.

"I'm getting readings on the crack."

"The crack in the wall that's also the end of the universe?" River says carefully, knowing that he has to figure the rest out himself.

"Here's what I think," he reports like he's trying to get a thesis approved by her. "One day there's going to be a very big bang. So big every moment in history, past and future, will crack."

"Is that possible?" She can hear herself going teacher on him, but a push in the right direction will help him. "How?"

"How can you be engaged, in a manner of speaking?"

River sighs. And to think she might have almost forgiven him for being an idiot. Instead, she goes all temptress on him and purrs back in a way that usually makes him squirm, "Sucker for a man in uniform, sweetie."

Silence follows on the Doctor's end except for a faint, "Doctor, have you gone red?" from Amy.

River looks pleased with herself until Octavian grabs the communicator from her hand and corrects the situation. "Doctor Song is in my personal custody. I released her from the Stormcage Containment Facility four days ago and I am legally responsible for her until she's accomplished her mission and earned her pardon. Just so we understand each other."

River huffs and holds her hand out. Octavian reluctantly places the comms back in her grasp.

"You were in Stormcage?" The Doctor seems to find his voice, only to be interrupted by a chirp from the pocket scanner.

"Did it pick something up?" she asks.

"The date. The date of the explosion, where the crack begins."

"And for those of us who can't see what's on the screen?" River prompts.

Before any answer can be provided, static fills the comms.

"There never was a Philip on this mission, Doctor Song," Octavian insists. "The Angel is messing with your head again."

"No, I heard you," River pushes back. "Before you sent Marco, you sent Phillip, and now you can't even remember them. Something happened. They must have gotten too close to the crack."

"Phillip?" Octavian frowns.

"Yeah, before you sent Phillip."

"Who's Phillip?"

River pinches her nose. She can deal with an idiot, but not an idiot who won't listen to her. "Octavian, it's a crack in spacetime. I've seen enough times to know—we have to start moving now. There's Time Energy spilling out of that crack, and we have to stay ahead of it."

"There are Angels everywhere, Doctor Song," Octavian murmurs. "I'm not so comfortable moving you on my own."

"We wouldn't be alone if your men weren't idiots," she bites under her breath. Louder she says, "Well, the Angels can only kill you."

"Say I believe you. What does the Time Energy do?"

"If the Time Energy catches up with you, you'll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all," she says this all quickly, sparing no details—fear is ever so useful as a motivator.

Unfortunately, it's fairly good at doing the opposite. "But the Angels—"

"Never mind the Angels!" River snaps. "There's worse here than Angels, can't you understand that?"

It's not exactly silence that follows. The forest isn't quiet, to begin with—the sounds of wires and creaking wood make up most of the ambient sounds. There is also, River notices alarmingly, stone scraping on stone.

It's then that she realizes Octavian hasn't said a word.

She draws her gun as he finally chokes out, "I beg to differ."

River holds her breath, her shoulders tense with the expectation that stone hands will wrap around her throat at any moment. "Why aren't you dead yet?"

"It's holding me tight, Doctor Song," he answers. From the way he strains, she can guess that the Angel is holding him around the neck.

"Can you wriggle out?"

There's a moment where Octavian grunts before shaking his head. "No, it's too tight. You have to leave me. There's nothing you can do."

"Leave you?" River gawks with panic. "I can't even—" She stops herself before she can say 'see'.

She can't see. And Octavian isn't dead yet.

Something must be triggering the Angel's quantum lock and she has a feeling it's her.

"It's going to kill me anyway," Octavian breathes. "Think it through. There's no way out of this. You have to leave me.

"I'll be sooner dead myself. You're dead if I leave you."

"Yes. Yes, I'm dead. And before you go—"

"I'm not going." River steels.

"I just want to know, River. Why did you kill him?

"Kill who?" she asks, though she knows exactly whom he's referring to. Her gun is leveled in his direction, though she has no way of knowing if she'd hit Octavian with a shot. Maybe he'd rather that instead of a broken neck.

"The Doctor. You said you trusted him. You once told me you loved him. It that true?"

River exhales slowly. The man she'd know for years is dying in front of her and she can't even give him the decency of a proper witness. "No one's ever believed it when I've told the truth."

"Then tell me." It sounds like confess. "A dying man can keep secrets, you know."

And a dying woman can spill them, she thinks.

"I was forced to do it. Madame... the Church forced me to do it."

"No wonder you weren't so keen on me when we met."

"I'm still not." River almost laughs and for the moment is glad she can't see his face. "The Church needed a vessel and… well, let's just say they had a flair for the dramatic. On the head of every living thing in this universe my love was tested—it was him or everything."

"And you would have chosen him?"

"I did choose him," she breathes. "And the universe reaped the consequences. He's a good man, Octavian. He couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear the pain in his eyes, so we fixed it together. And I killed him."

She swears she hears him smile when he says, "Not the ruthless killer everyone makes you out to be, then, Doctor Song. I knew my faith in you was not misguided." And she doesn't have the hearts to tell him how wrong he is.

"River?" The Doctor's voice comes scratchy through the comms. "River are you there?"

She hears Octavian shift to hand her the device. She puts her gun away—it would've been useless anyway—and carefully reaches forwards until her hand comes in contact with the communicator.

"I'm here, Doctor," River says into the comms as she maintains her best seeing-person's face.

"Where are you? Are the Clerics with you?"

"The Clerics are gone," River swallows. "They walked into the light. And Octavian… uh…" she hesitates, not sure how to describe the situation.

"I'm as good as dead, sir," Octavian provides. "There's an Angel around my neck, sir. I'll be dead when Doctor Song leaves."

There is a beat is silence before the Doctor says lowly, "River, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I should never have left you there."

"How are my Clerics?" Octavian asks.

"Dead here too, I'm afraid," the Doctor admits. "Necks snapped. I'm sorry Octavian, I really am… Are you sure there's no way for you to get out?"

"No, sir," Octavian's tone remains level. "Doctor Song is keeping me comfortable, though. She's telling me a story."

"A story?"

"The story of a good man." River is sure Octavian is looking right at her as he says this. "A hero to many. And something very special to someone who doesn't know she deserves it."

There is some more silence before the Doctor whispers, "Are you ready?"

"I will die in the knowledge that my courage did not desert me at the end. For that, I thank God, and bless the path that takes you to safety." He pauses and River has a feeling he's addressing her now. "I have faith and I have I feeling that you do too."

"You know I've never believed in any god," River manages quietly.

"I wasn't talking about Him."

She hears a thud on the ground before any words manage to make their way out of her mouth. Stone moves on stone again and she realizes the Angel has figured out she wasn't really looking at it.

"I'm sorry, my love," she whispers into the comms, not sure if they're on or not. Instinctively and with not many other options, she stumbles back and ducks down defensively, curling in on herself.

The hum of the cybernetic trees curls around the twisted paths of the forest as the moments pass and the sound of grinding stone dissipates into the distance.

"River?" The voice on the comms is hardly loud enough to be a whisper. "River are you there?"

"Not dead yet," River answers in the same tone, quite confused that she's alive enough to respond. "Why aren't I dead?"

"I'm sending a bit of software to your communicator," the Doctor says promptly followed by the sound of his sonic. "It's a proximity detector. It'll beep if there's something in your way and it'll warn you if there are Angels. You just maneuver 'till the beeping stops."

Slowly, River gets to her feet. The communicator in her hand is beeping steadily. "Is the Angel… is it gone?"

"I think so," the Doctor confirms. "The comms isn't picking it up. It must have ran."

"Ran?" River frowns.

"The Angels are running from the fire. They came here to feed on the Time Energy, now it's going to feed on them," he's talking more quickly now. "River, listen to me, you have to come to us. The Primary Flight Deck, the other end of the forest."

"I can't see, Doctor. I can't open my eyes."

A pause, the sound of the sonic, and then, "Turn on the spot."

"Sorry, what?"

"Just do it. Turn on the spot!" He demands and she tries not to flinch at his tone. "When the communicator sounds like my screwdriver, that means you're facing the right way. Follow the sound."

"And if I die trying?" River asks softly, turning until the comms makes the right sound.

She holds her breath as she's met with silence.

This is it, isn't it? All those times he looked at her like she was already gone—this was why. It isn't just the new memories that have been popping up, but the old ones too. The look of pain he thinks he hides so well when she teases him about life and death. You and your secrets, Doctor. You'll be the death of me.

This must be why.

"You have to start walking now," he says, voice low. "And I'm sorry, but you're going to have to walk like you can see."

River says nothing and does for once as she's told.

She walks in relative silence for a while, clutching the comms to her the bloodied fabric on chest and avoiding trees as gracefully as she can manage.

Amy takes over the comms after a while, deciding that some light conversation would be appreciated. She explains to River what they've been doing since they split up: the Clerics being taken, the mess of a computer system they found, and the teleport the Doctor insists won't work.

"Does it really erase you from existence? The Time Energy?" Amy asks

"Yes," River nods. "Like you've never been born."

"But the clerics that were with you, they got erased, yeah? I can still remember them."

"Octavian couldn't. But you're a time traveler and he's not."

"What does time traveling have to do with it?" Amy queries.

River smiles weakly. "It changes the way you see the universe, Amy. For the better, I hope."

She can practically hear Amy smile as she wanders back to the topic of the crack. "The crack is just going to keep growing, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," River sighs.

"How do we stop it?"

"Em, well it's sort of made of time, so a big, complicated space-time event should shut it up for a while."

"Like what? How are we going to get our hands on that?

River stops dead in her tracks. "Hand me to the Doctor, right now."

Amy does so and there's another long beat of silence before the Doctor murmurs, "You can't stop me, River."

"Like hell, I can't," she growls at him. "Don't you dare throw yourself in."

There's an alarmed 'what!?' from Amy in the background but they both ignore her.

"What else would you have me do, River? It'll consume everything—whole planets, probably this whole galaxy if it's not stopped here!"

"You're not the only complicated space-time event here, sweetie. If anyone is getting thrown into the fire, I won't be you."

"Please, River," he scoffs and she squares her jaw. "Be serious. Compared to me, these Angels are more complicated than you, and it would take every one of them to amount to me."

"It's going to take you years to realize just how wrong you are," she hisses. When he says nothing she adds, "You do understand, our timelines are irreversibly intertwined. If you get unwritten, so do I—"

"Spoilers—"

"No!" She snaps. "Screw spoilers. If you get unwritten then So. Do. I." She bites out the last three words like she's carving them into stone. He won't remember anyways if she gets erased. "And there's no point in us both dying today."

Pointedly, she turns around and faces the curtain of light she knows is hovering somewhere behind her. At the same moment, the comms start beeping urgently.

"Doctor?" She whispers.

"It's a warning," he answers solemnly. "There are Angels around you now. Turn back around and walk like you can see. The Angels are scared and running, and right now they're not that interested in you."

"I'm not coming to you, Doctor. One of us has to walk into that crack and it's going to be me."

"Don't be stupid, River! Just come to us and we'll figure this out."

She doesn't flinch. "No."

The comms go static for a moment before Angel Bob's voice comes over both lines. "The Time Field is coming. It will destroy our reality."

"We've already covered that, thanks," River huffs.

"There is a rupture in time." Bob continues. "The Angels calculate that if you throw yourself into it, it will close, and—"

"I know," River interrupts, exasperated. "We've gone over already. I'm going in—and for the record, it's not to save any one of you, its to save everyone else."

"You're not going in, River," comes the Doctor's voice. "I can't let you do this."

"You're not going to die here if I can help it."

His next words come from her left and not out of the comms. "No one is going to die if I can help it."

Startled, she jumps and very nearly hits him in the face. "How did you—?"

"Shut up and hang on!" He grabs her arm and drags her to the closest tree.

As he does, the ground beneath them seems to lurch sideways. River's feet fall out from beneath her and the Doctor clings to her wrists to keep her from plummeting.

Stone cracks around them, sharp fragments of rock scraping and bruising the two of them on their way down into the light.

River opens her eyes and looks up at the idiot who happens to be the only thing between her and never having existed. "I hate you."

He doesn't miss a beat. "No, you don't."

River stares intensely at the place the scar on her hand should have been. There's nothing there now except uninterrupted, smooth skin.

"You're an idiot, you know," she sighs.

The Doctor stands next to her, looking out over the rocky beach with pride, though it's more humble than she gives credit for. "And everyone's alive. I think it's a fair trade."

River glances behind her where Octavian and the other clerics are breaking down the tents and boxing up equipment. "The prison ship's in orbit," she murmurs absently. "They'll beam me up any second. I might have done enough to earn a pardon this time. We'll see."

The Doctor nods knowingly and looks right at her. She doesn't meet his gaze. "Octavian said you told him a story."

"Yes, I did."

"The story of a good man," he adds.

"A very good man." She glances up at him only to find him looking back, eyes swimming with the gentle curiosity of a man who's lived too long and still wants to help. "The best man I've ever known."

"Who?" The word falls from his lips as quiet as the waves slowly rocking against the shore.

"It's a long story. Doctor," she chuckles. "It can't be told, it has to be lived."

He leans in close his breath tickles the shell on her ear. "And here I was hoping you'd say 'spoilers'. I like that word."

"I thought you might," she hums, trying to keep from smiling like a schoolgirl with a crush.

He pulls away, just far enough so he can look at her face. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"You first, sweetie."

He reaches his hand up and adjusts his bowtie. She tries not to dwell on how much she wishes that hand were on her cheek instead. "Time can be rewritten."

Somewhere in space, about week prior, a blue box floats by. Inside the Doctor laid on a bed with his wife curled up next to him as she explained the two options she had for her mission next week.

"It's either a ship called the Byzantium or some planet called the Library. Can't do both, but I bet I could save one for later."

"I wish you wouldn't go." His arms wrapped tighter around her as she turned to face him. "It'll be dangerous."

"That's what I'm counting on, sweetie." She wondered if she was imagining the worry in his face. "But if it makes you feel better, why don't you pick which I do now and which I do later?"

"I choose here." He kissed her neck and buried his face in her curls. "I choose you."