In Moments Like This

Disclaimer: If I owned this, I sure as hell wouldn't bother with my last semester of college.

The life she leads here isn't the one she wanted. Technically, it isn't a life at all. But somehow, he's given her the one thing she never let herself want—a Pond of her own. And in the end, the Doctor always comes, doesn't he? River in the Mainframe.

Chapter 1:

It's very quiet.

She almost expected to notice a humming, a thrumming—something to prove that she was here, that this is her reality now. But there's nothing to hear, no mechanic whirring to notice. She stands at the threshold to her room, her diary clutched in her hands.

The bed is too big.

Gossamer white curtains hang from its four posts. The huge white comforter billows across the bed and down to the floor. Too large pillows pile against the headboard. It looks like a dream. Like a night. Like that night in the TARDIS they shared so long ago—a conjured room, a honeymoon in space, laughter and giggling and awkwardly gangly limbs.

She can't take another step. She can't lie down in that bed. She can't.

It's too quiet.

So she does what she does best. She runs.

The kitchen is too quiet as well, but at least she can turn on the kettle, can bang gently through pots and pans. She could cook. She opens the enormous refrigerator and finds it fully stocked with everything she could want to cook—all the things he always forgot to have in the TARDIS kitchen.

She closes the door and rummages through the cabinets. Those are fully stocked as well. The whole kitchen is modern in design but furnished with woods to match the rest of the building—a Victorian mansion they apparently all share together.

Cal—Charlotte—showed them around all afternoon. The grounds, the river, the playground, the endless rooms of books were at their disposal. Charlotte could make them go and appear at will and fashioned five bedrooms for them. River figures Anita and Other Dave will only need one. And Miss Evangelista and Proper Dave looked pretty cozy as well. That would be nice for them, paired off in this endless eternity.

She startles as the kettle whistles on the stove that looks about a hundred years old. The 52nd century burners, however, are anything but Victorian. She wonders idly if that was Charlotte's idea or Dr. Moon's, wherever he disappeared to.

She opens cabinets until she finds the mugs. Front and center sits a large blue mug—TARDIS blue. Of course.

She'll have to think about asking Cal—Charlotte—to stop.

Even as it breaks a piece of her digital heart, she takes the cup, can't help herself. And there, in the next cabinet over, is her favorite tea. Does the little girl search their memories, or is the database a little like Sexy, all knowing and providing what she needs, even if it isn't quite what she wants?

She makes the tea anyway then settles back against the counter, staring through the doorway to the expansive sitting room across the hall. Victorian furniture, an enormous fireplace, bookshelves, endless bookshelves. When was the last time she read a good book?

Her feet don't move.

She's happy she's here. She is. She gets this life, as it were. A half life, if she's honest. And if she pretends, and hasn't she always been good at that, she can trick herself into thinking this is just another stretch, just another expanse of time without the Doctor. The longest, perhaps, but he'll come. He always comes. And she can't begrudge him her life now—can't rage against a version of him that didn't know.

And here there is sun, and companionship, and books. Here, she is not alone in a cell, or in a house too big for her, where his pillow always smells faintly of him, an imprint of a night spent weeks earlier.

But his pillow won't smell of him. And those weeks will pass without a whisper. Sometime, months from now, the Doctor won't come, and she'll still be here—no adventuring off, no vortex manipulator, no carving Gallifreyan into stone as a calling card.

But of course she's happy to be here.

"River?"

She turns and watches as Charlotte pads into the room, one small hand rubbing at her eye, the other pulling a sweater over her nightgown.

"What are you doing up, sweetie?" River asks as the little girl shuffles over to stand beside her.

"M'all done sleeping," she replies.

"All done? It's barely," River glances at the clock, which blinks back at her, 3am. How long as she been here?

"I don't sleep as long as Josh and Ella," Charlotte tells her, yawning slightly. "I don't need to. Why are you up?

River smiles and reaches into the cabinet for another cup. A smaller, multicolored one comes to hand and she takes it down. "I don't sleep much either," she admits. "Tea?"

Charlotte nods and watches as River restarts the burner. They stand in companionable silence as the water re-heats. River glances at the little girl from time to time; she's totally content to stand there, her big eyes trained on the counter, obviously consumed by whatever inner monologue must run through a mind that knows every book in the universe. She has that far off look in her eyes, a ghost of the Doctor's expression, caught up in memories, futures, stories that swirled through an all knowing mind.

The kettle whistles a few minutes later and River pours her a mug before handing it over. She adds more hot water to her own cup then turns to Charlotte.

"What kind?" the girl asks softly as she blows on the water.

"Cinnamon."

Charlotte smiles brightly and takes a sip. "My favorite."

"Mine too," River says lightly. "Why don't we go sit. It's chilly in here."

Charlotte follows River through the archway and across the hall into the sitting room. Together, they settle on the large couch. A red blanket appears over the back and River chuckles, spreading it out over their legs as they both curl up onto the surprisingly soft cushions. For all its Victorian appearance, the furniture is wonderfully cozy.

"This place is lovely," she tells the little girl after a minute of watching the fire in the huge stone fireplace.

"Thanks," Charlotte says easily. "It used to be a hospital, but we don't need one now. Dr. Moon did most of it with me."

"Where is he?" River wonders.

"I don't know. He kind of comes and goes," Charlotte explains.

"I know that feeling." Charlotte smiles knowingly.

"I used to live in a house for a while."

River considers the little girl, who looks so peaceful, but had a parent for a long time before River arrived. This little girl, who, like her, was left here, a loving man's wish for a dying woman, a dying little girl.

"Do you like it better here?"

Charlotte shrugs. "Josh and Ella are fun."

"Did you make them?"

"Once," Charlotte says quietly. "I was lonely."

"That makes sense," River tells her, rather at a loss for something more. She would have done the same, a lifetime ago, three lifetimes ago, if she could have. She fingers the edge of her diary. Loneliness—that's one she knows, maybe better than anyone.

"Would you read me another story?" Charlotte asks a few minutes later.

River smiles and puts her mug down on the side table before burrowing into the couch a little more. She notices Charlotte shifting closer, a shy look on her face. River opens her arm and beckons Charlotte into her side, patient as the girl hesitantly obliges, until her small body is snuggled into River's side. River puts Charlotte's mug on the table with her own then opens the diary.

"What to tell you, hmm?" she poses aloud, flipping through the pages. "Jim the Fish's a good one. Oh, you might like the bone meadows. Asgard's a little dull as a story."

"What about the TARDIS?" Charlotte asks quietly.

"A story about the TARDIS?"

"Just what it's like," she explains. "To go everywhere in time, all those places. Did he ever let you drive it?"

River laughs and closes the diary, watching with a small smile as Charlotte strokes a finger down the broken binding. "Oh, sweetie, I was best at flying her."

"You were?"

"She taught me, though, don't tell my husband that—"

"Spoilers," Charlotte puts in helpfully.

"Yes," River agrees. "Spoilers, clever girl."

She feels Charlotte sinking against her and looks down to see her smaller face split in a wide yawn.

"She's much bigger on the inside," River begins, carding her fingers through Charlotte's long brown hair. She feels the girl relax a bit more and closes her eyes, picturing it. "All golds and oranges and silvers. There's an enormous center console in the middle on a platform, with hundreds of levers. He'd tell you most of them are boring, but she gets rather mad at him for not using them."

"She?" Charlotte asks, her voice smaller, fading off with the edge of sleep.

"The TARDIS is a woman," River explains. "Well, was a woman, once, for a few hours; it's complicated. But we always think of her as she, and she used to talk to me, very much a woman. Used to make fun of the Doctor, actually."

"Talk to a ship?" Charlotte mumbles.

"Oh, well, I'm—how to explain—I'm the child of the TARDIS, really. She's an aunt, almost, or second mother, I suppose. Very complicated, come to think of it."

But Charlotte is already asleep, her head in the crook of River's shoulder, an arm across her stomach. River watches her sleep, tracking the deep breaths, so real and human, passing through her smaller chest. It's hard to think, looking at her, that she, and River, and the house, and the lawn, and the sky, are all part of the mainframe. It's hard to think they're not real when Charlotte snuggles into her, smacking her lips, as much in a dead sleep as any child.

She could be happy here. It isn't the life she wants. And it isn't with the Doctor. But maybe, in moments like this...

The fire is nice, at any rate.