teleen_fiction | Photographs

Title: Photographs
Author: Teleen (

teleens_journal)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: River/Eleven
Rating: Teen
Word count: 920
Spoilers: Forest of the Dead, The Time of Angels
Beta:

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Summary: The Doctor shows River some old photographs.

“Here’s me when I was really young.”

“You look ancient.”

“Yes, well, that was the only one that got to die of old age.“ He gave her a moment to digest that and went on. “This is the one who came after. He was a bit odd-“

“And you’re not?” Pause. “Sorry.”

“As I was saying, he played the recorder and made the High Council very angry.”

“How angry?”

“Angry enough to kill him, which brings me to this one. Those two, they never got on because of that. Not fair, really. This one knew how to fence. That came in handy later, I can tell you that, even if I did lose a hand because of it.” He broke off and something in his face came close to frightening her for a moment. He shook his head. “Where was I? Oh, yes – that one died fighting a giant spider.”

“You’re having me on.”

“I’m not and if you don’t believe that one, you’ll never believe the rest.”

“Try me.”

“Well, teeth and curls fell off a radio tower, celery here died saving a sweet girl named Perpugilliam Brown-“

“Who would name their daughter Perpugillium?”

“Who would name their daughter River?”

“Touché.”

“This one hit his head on the TARDIS console-“

“You’re not serious.”

“This one was killed by human medicine after getting shot in the late twentieth century.”

There was a longer pause this time as she looked at the next picture in the stack. “Time War?”

He started and gave her his most piercing look.

She shrugged. “You talk in your sleep sometimes.”

He ignored that and went on.

“This is the one who first met Rose.”

“I always feel as though I should be jealous when you say her name.” He cocked an eyebrow at her and she grinned. “I didn’t say I was jealous, only that I feel I should be.”

He gave her the barest hint of a smile and she found she didn’t like this, didn’t like it one bit, her Doctor being so serious.

“He died saving Rose from the Bad Wolf.” He went on before she had a chance to comment. “The one after him was probably the most complicated one of me. He’s the one who had the hand cut off, who got cloned from that hand and became a part of the Doctor Donna. All of that and a glass jaw as well. One punch and boom! Out went his lights. He became me when he saved Donna’s granddad from-“ He sighed. “It doesn’t matter, really.”

“If that one doesn’t matter, why tell me all the rest?”

“So you’d remember all their faces. Nothing helps you to remember someone like knowing how they died.”

“Says the voice of experience.”

He shook his head and kissed her and it was only much, much, much later, as she sat in the chair arguing with his younger self, putting on her bravest face as she waited to die, that she realized that yes, it had indeed been the voice of experience speaking when he’d given her all of those photographs.

Not to mention that despite all of the warnings he’d given her, the way he’d been so very careful to make sure she knew all his faces, she’d never met any of the other Doctors except him…

Not until the Library, anyway…

Ruminating about it in the artificial world of CAL, she thought she knew why he’d done it that way. It wouldn’t have done to just focus in on one of them. He’d had to make it seem that she could possibly run into any of them, at any time.

She’d used to wait for it, to wonder which ones she’d get to meet, wonder how different they’d be and if they’d love her as much as her Doctor had.

Well, she’d found that one out, hadn’t she?

And having to hurt him, having his first memory of her to be her betraying him to himself. It made her wonder how much of what they had was real and how much was just him making sure that time stayed as it should be.

It wasn’t fair, really, for him to do this to her, to leave her here, immortal, never having a chance to ask or know just what the hell was in his head.

Not that she’d probably understand it anyway. Oh, she was clever, cleverer than most, but the mind of the Doctor wasn’t something that could be understood by just anyone.

And while she wasn’t just anyone, she was beginning to wonder just how special she’d really been?

He’d given her his name and all that went with it, but did he do it because he truly wanted to or because of the Library? Did he do it so that his younger self would trust her? Was anything they’d ever had together really real?

She examined every moment they’d ever had together, and after much painful deliberation, discovered that she didn’t care.

What they’d had was what they’d had and while it might not have been perfect or even everything she’d wanted, she’d had the Doctor. So she was more than just special; she was unique.

Because no one else, not even the almost-mythical Rose, had ever known his name. Whether he’d told her because of what she was to him or because he’d known she was going to the Library, he’d told her.

And no one else.

That meant something, didn’t it?

Didn’t it?

She found it did.