The world is dark pain. In the empty mists where echoes of Gallifrey once lurked, the Doctor waits, unable to scream or stop the poison tearing apart his cells. This is it. Goodbye universe. But it's wrong, wrong beyond the paradoxical timing; wrong, because it's River. His River murders him.

A figure shrouded in grey robes and veils, blurry around the edges, steps from the shadows. Humans would call it a ghost, but he knows better. A Never-Were: the echo of a timeline cut off by different choices. He's seen too many to be scared by them—seen them ever since his forced regeneration so many centuries ago. So, my life before my eyes.

The cloth thins, revealing a rounded face, a shoulder-length red ponytail, and a brown leather jacket. A girl? At least I'm dying before that happens.

She shakes her head, the word spoilers forming on silent lips. Her slender hands cup his left heart; each beat punches his ribs. Golden light spills from her palms, sprinkling the cardiac tissue.

You look like your mum.

She smiles, drawing back to make way for a second figure in a blue cloak. The newcomer folds her lips sternly, but her shining eyes laugh. Why do I let you out? Her cloak billows like a sail as she bends over him. He loses himself in the blue, brilliant TARDIS blue against the pain. Only when she stands up does he feel the steady rhythm of both his hearts, steady against his bruised ribs.

But with both his hearts pumping, River's poison rushes through his veins. Spasms twist his arms and legs like taffy, accompanied with scream-crushing pain.

A third woman presses her forehead against his. Spiderwebs of wrinkles spread across her face as her cloudy eyes meet his. I'm sorry, my love. Her phantom touch strengthens his defenses against pain, blocking the neuron's messages, all screaming pain, pain, pain. When the waves of torrent were reduced to a slow trickle, she lets go.

An entire planet sits upon his chest, heavy with forgotten memories. Though the pain is blocked, he is still aware of a lightheadedness threatening his body. Breathe. That's it. Just breathe.

But he can't; panic threatens to pull down the walls. Then warm air, smelling of oranges and cinnamon, wafts through his mouth, rushing to the lungs. The scent slices the weight away, while stout arms in mint-green sleeves press on his chest to force the stale air out and the new air in. The scent fills his nostrils as she turns away.

He tries to follow, only to be met by two gray eyes outshining the Never-Were's pale body. A whispered word of Old High Gallifreyan, blazing like regeneration and sharp as swords, slips from her lips, dissolving the poison into harmless atoms.

Five. Five Never-Weres, five faces she might have worn. Does River understand what she's losing for him? Five lives—two and a half millennia of careful living. Not that they're ones to be careful….but what scares him most is that it still might not be enough.

A younger figure steps up. Barely into her teens, her nut brown eyes—young and yet so old—pierce his weary surrender.

Trust me? he had asked River once, at the Byzantium.

Always, she had answered.

He tries to say I trust you, River, but the poison has seared his throat and scorched his lips. Instead he nods, and she nods back.

The girl is replaced by another, old enough to be her mother, with crew-cut brown hair. Her gleaming hands caress his ears, rubbing the earlobes between her thumb and forefinger, ticking where glasses would sit.

"River?" Rory's whisper, barely audible, grates like sandpaper after the telepathic whispers. How long has he been unconscious?

A Victorian dress sweeps the floor, ripped and stain like Idris's, but the wearer's elegantly coiffured hair and pearly skin contradict his memory. The figure presses each of his eyelids shut, like a mother soothing a child to sleep.

He forces them open, only to see River—his River—bending over him, hands spilling golden flames. Still seeing her face, he knows the next Never-Were only as a slight pressure on his lips. The kiss unties his tongue, leaving him gasping a question; more as a "why" than a "what" does he ask "What are you doing?"

"Hello Sweetie." River tastes the words on her tongue. But in the dark places, a woman in battle fatigues and combat boots lays down her gun and helps the Doctor to his feet.

"River," he tries to say, tries to thank the Never-Weres for their company and sacrifice, but the ten women burst into flame, jolting him fully awake.

He slowly sits up, holding River's fallen head against his chest. His fingers check her wrist for a pulse; when he finds it, he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "She'll be fine," he whispers. "Trust me, River. You'll be fine."