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

[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… :)