Memory Space ('River' entry)

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

Title: Memory Space
Word Count: 440
Rating: PG for angst
Spoilers for ‘Forest of the Dead’
Warnings: None
Summary: River grows into her half-life.

This is a secret: there are times when River regrets that CAL ever saved her.      

On days like those she does not wait for the mood to pass. In the Data Core such yearnings can make a Hell out of eternity. Instead she wishes for her best walking boots, engrained with the earth from a thousand different worlds; shoulders the rucksack that awaits her by the door, and leaves without a second glance.

No need for a map or itinerary. Here the hours move with the seamless rapidity of thought. She can begin one trip in Ancient History, where the dust lies thick as snow and the air buzzes with time distortions; take her next steps in the noonday sun over Romance, and still be home before the children think to miss her. As long as she forgets them, they will never be left alone: Doctor Moon makes sure of that.

He is waiting by the kitchen table upon her return, briefcase in one hand and a mug of cocoa in the other. “Good evening, Professor. The children are looking forward to their bedtime story.”

And just like that they are restored, Joshua Ella Charlotte, a surge of love so fierce it is almost painful. River stoops to kiss each of them in turn; perfect little fictions, real as she is. “Hello, my dear ones.” The smell of books is still in the roof of her mouth, and words pound within like her pulse once did, countless lifetimes ago.  “Have I told you about the Singing Towers? No? Well. Let me see if I can remember the tune.”

They are (will always be) too young to know the sadness of that song, yet its rhythm holds them nonetheless. The twins huddle close to each other, burrowing into their duvets; Charlotte sits cross-legged at the foot of her bed, her face calm and impassive as its echo in the Library.

“River, do you imagine being back outside?”

The memory breaks over River like a wave, then recedes.  “Outside what, darling?”

“Outside this. The Data Core.”

Her first instinct is to lie, but she represses it. Lies can only protect the living. “Yes. I do.”

“Me too. But it’s good in here, isn’t it? A special place.” Something clears from the child’s gaze, a falling-away of centuries, and she reaches out her arms for an embrace. Even when River blinks, the warmth of her remains. “Sing it again, please.”

(Here is another secret: every once in a very long while, at the end of a day in which nobody dies at all, she wants for no other world but this.)

Comments

[but_can_i_be_trusted]

Wow. I'm really impressed. This actually very strongly reminds me of Neil Gaiman's writing style.

Nicely done. :)

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you. I've just spent the last few weeks utterly absorbed in 'American Gods', so while any echoing of Gaiman's style wasn't deliberate, that doesn't surprise me.

[but_can_i_be_trusted]

Aha! That'd go a long way toward explaining it! :D

[justascrewup2.livejournal.com]

Nice little snippet.

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you. My brain can only seem to stretch to 500 words atm, which is why these challenges are such good fun.

[paynesgrey.livejournal.com]

Wow, lovely and deep and such a great River portrayal in this. You really touch on her character while she's in the Data Core. Fantastic job.

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The idea of eternity has always seemed vaguely horrific to me, so it was interesting to think about how River might cope without an end in sight.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

This was just perfect, as your fics often are—flawless writing, simply entrancing, perfect emotion and the catching of moments that say so much in a few simple things. Your first and last lines were just perfect (secrets ♥ and opposition and balance between paradoxal feelings that simply coexist). The troubling perception of time within the Data Core was perfectly conveyed, very aesthetically in your descriptions of it too. The history is always there, always the archaeologist. Always the wanderer, too, walking alone through the years and centuries. Forgetting the children, but knowing they will not miss her—and when she returns, loving them so fiercely and caring for them, singing for them. Joshua and Ella just quiet and innocent and entranced, and Charlotte with such moving wisdom, for all of her youth. Charlotte's lines and River's reaction to her were perfect (you do the counting of how many times I said "perfect" in this comment…). Lies only protect the living. Yes. ♥

My heart and a few leftover splotches of blown mind must be somewhere on the floor nearby. If you find them, give me a wave.

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you so much. I initially conceived this as a sort of fix-it for ‘Forest of the Dead’, because while I adore that story and the climax in particular, the notion of the Data Core troubled me the more I thought about it. To be consigned forever to a place that you didn’t choose to be in but can’t escape from - that sounds pretty much like my definition of Hell.
And yet the story demands that we take it as River’s happily-ever-after. So I wanted to try and square that ending with everything that we learn about River in subsequent episodes: what she values, who she decides to be, the people she learns to love.
Because it’s all down to her in the end, isn’t it? Even when it looks like time and causality and the Universe are making the decisions for her, she’s still mistress of her fate.

[gallif-migrant.livejournal.com]

"She's still mistress of her fate."

She would like that title, I think! :)

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

the notion of the Data Core troubled me the more I thought about it. To be consigned forever to a place that you didn’t choose to be in but can’t escape from - that sounds pretty much like my definition of Hell.
Yes, that's absolutely true—this virtual after-life, there is a lot to be said about it. And it's all the more thought-provoking when you take into account the Doctor's reaction to the uploading of people in the database in Bells of St. John, although the context is quite different, in both the intent and the conditions of that happening. The symbolism is still there…

And yet the story demands that we take it as River’s happily-ever-after. So I wanted to try and square that ending with everything that we learn about River in subsequent episodes: what she values, who she decides to be, the people she learns to love.
♥ I love the complexity of it. Layered, bittersweet.

Because it’s all down to her in the end, isn’t it? Even when it looks like time and causality and the Universe are making the decisions for her, she’s still mistress of her fate.
Yes, I like that… :)

[jay-vingt-six.livejournal.com]

This. Is. Incredible. I love it! I agree, reconciling the River we come to know in the later seasons to the first River we met is not easy. But this has been portrayed so flawlessly, if I had a hat on my head, I'd throw it down.

Bravo!

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you. I sometimes hear people criticise River's storyline for its inconsistencies and loose ends, and while it's certainly not straightforward to tie all the ends together, the knottiness is part of the point; because that's how River experiences her life. As a character she's shaped by things to come as much as what's been before; she has to work to make herself into the person she knows she will be, and the audience has to do some of the work too. It's part of why I love her so.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

This was gorgeous...I love stories that focus on River's life within the core - and I must say, this is one of the best ones by far!! Just...perfect. Perfectly River. Contradictory and yet steady. Loving and fierce, yet wild and free. The woman of Time and the woman of no-Time.

Honestly, every fiction I read of yours is layered in so much truth and perfection, it is just mind-boggling that we don't all give up and just wait for you to give us just another taste!

Perfection.

*HUGS*

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you. River's story is so riddled with paradox and half-truth and contradiction that it could easily get frustrating, but I just think she gets more fascinating the more you try to straighten it all out.

[radiolaires]

Oh. This is fantastic. The way you wrote River's adventures in the datacore is amazing: without a doubt my favourite excerpt. River being selfish enough to lose herself in stories and lose the children altogether. And the possibilities described: all the books in all of human History. A mind timeless and daring like River's would not resist.
The structure is on point -an open secret disclosed by the end, another between parentheses that includes words from the very first story the children heard from River- and Charlotte and Dr. Moon are scarily accurate in their speech and roles around River. In fact, the whole simplicity as well as cruelty and kindness of this universe is so perfectly written. It's a program, but still her final resting place, her "Heaven". It's so striking how much you managed to pour in of the original datacore Universe depicted in the short time the show allowed to it. What I meant is that most writers will come with their own interpretation of it, sometimes darker, or more complex, or lighter, or more romantic, and to a certain extent it may be only natural. But here it seems so exactly fitting to the tone set in the show and on such a short length, it's quite a feat.
I absolutely adored the Singing Tower being a song -or was it an extended metaphor? Perfect. Really beautifully written and intelligent. Thank you for sharing!

Favourite line: And just like that they are restored, Joshua Ella Charlotte, a surge of love so fierce it is almost painful. The opposition between the physical pain and the computer physics... The rush of names, as if they were one person -and in the datacore, surely they are one entity... And of course River being loved... Because she deserves it so much.

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. <3 I love these drabble challenges, because it becomes about trying to fit as much as I can into a relatively short space; and River's fate, suitably enough, starts off looking relatively simple but becomes more complex and bittersweet the more we know about her. Thematically it can be difficult to reconcile with other aspects of the show, which dwell on the implicit horror of immortality or condemn the pursuit of it. Yet River is a character who takes ownership of her story in life, with all its twists and revisions and half-truths - so to me it seems entirely fitting that she would actually become the story in the end.

[radiolaires]

I am half tempted to quote back at your answer because it is such a poignant and accurate description of River in the Library. Heart-breaking. You conveyed everything there is to explain. Thank you!

[swan-secrets.livejournal.com]

Not a notion I've seen tackled before, well thought out and beautifully written.

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The Data Core is one of the most interesting concepts from that story, imo; a very troubling sort of paradise-cum-prison. But I think River would have found a way to be happy there, because her whole life was about exercising freedom where none appeared to exist.

[eve11]

River in the Data Core: fundamentally changed and yet still fiercely her won person. I love the way your style blinks around the core as River must, but settles too, building and lifting veils. So much about the Doctor "saving" River was so hard to take; I love that you give River a way to thrive and even appreciate her life at times, even if it's still bittersweet.

perfect little fictions, real as she is. Sums it up; lines blurred between reality and fiction. How real is River?

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

How real is River? As real as the Data Core itself in the end; which is to say, scarcely real at all. But that doesn't matter, because as Moffat is always fond of reminding us (Listen being only the most recent example), something doesn't have to be 'real' in the strictest sense for it to be important. Stories are important; daydreams and dreams and imaginary heroes and heroines are important. River is aware of her own unreality, but that doesn't make her life insignificant; in fact, it allows her to grow as a character.
And that's why I love her so.
<3 Lovely comment, thank you.