"You're the Doctor?"

The question made her frown. She reached for her tea and took a sip.

“Gray Pedersen. You’ve got a PhD. You like humiliating students in your office and making waffles and have an uncanny ability to get lost. Why?”

“Your mother seems to think that I’m married to her and that you’re my daughter and that I voluntarily dropped out of your lives and forgot myself,” she said after a moment.

“Is it a horrible joke, or did I really?”

Brooke sat in the little kitchen, a plate of steaming waffles in front of her and a cup of tea to her left. Gray hadn’t been herself, and she wanted to find out why. 

“So,” she said, buttering one of the waffles and cutting into it with a fork. “Wanna tell me what’s going on with you?” 

@thevery-one

Gray hadn’t been surprised when Brooke had let herself over. Gray had  been avoiding everyone since the fight. She’d kept to her students and her papers and her books. 

When Brooke had come over, Gray had silently made her waffles and tea.

At last, the dreaded question emerged.

Gray stared down at her waffle.

She expected a question, instead, she received nothing but an attack.

The accusation stung. Stung her into silence

And then she was running away. Just like the Doctor to do, run away when things get hard or complicated or you’re just plain sick of the boring day to day responsibility. River should have known. His actions and behavior didn’t quite match with the Gray River knew, but regenerations always were tricky, and if she found a way to forget everything about the people who thought they were loved by the Time Lord, well then the outcome was a tossup.

Rushing over to the door, River slammed it shut before the other woman could escape, ignoring the tears that were running down her cheeks.

“Don’t you dare leave now and blame me for it. If anything, it’s you who didn’t like me. Didn’t have the decency to say it either. Just left your wife and daughter alone, abandoned us while you obviously went off and regenerated, finding a way to forget us in the process. Didn’t care that for years I tried every damned way of calling you short of getting myself killed.”

She glared at Gray, the anger and pain taking over. “So how’d you do it then? Fobwatch? Memory worm? Stole some of the poisons from my stash? You have memories of the cherished times, I’m sure escaping us must be high on that list, too.”

Before she could leave, River stopped her. She kept a hand on the door, keeping her from walking away, imprisoning her to every little insult and accusation that tumbled after. 

It was curious, the way Gray’s tears refused to fall. They stung her eyes, but somehow, she couldn’t cry. Maybe she was angry. Gray couldn’t ever remember being angry. She didn’t know what she did when she was really, truly angry and she found herself frightened by that.

“Maybe I did,” she said. Her voice was strange and level. She felt as if she wasn’t really in control of it. “Maybe you’re right. But I don’t remember. You could tell me I’m the queen of fucking England, or a drug dealer, or a  murderer, but I don’t remember. When I woke up, the doctor had to tell me my name. Sometimes, I wake up, and I’ve forgotten it again, and I can’t--  I can’t breathe, and I don’t know where I am. Maybe I left you; maybe you’re right. But you’re the one who didn’t tell me the moment you met me that you knew who I was. You’re the liar, then, not me. And you’re the one who chose to make me think you liked me only to tell me how much you hate me now. So, maybe, maybe I had a good reason for leaving.”

A breath. “And if it’s not that -- if this is just some horrible, terrible joke you’re playing on me for fun, then I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m not your plaything. I’m not poor, helpless, forgetful Gray. Maybe, sometimes I don’t  know who I am, but I do know that it’s a dick move to pull something like this, and that you’re a CUNT for doing it.”

She felt as if she might burst into flames, and yet her voice had stayed queerly calm the whole time she’d spoken. There was a rage there that crouched  between each word, in the way her hands trembled in her trousers’ pockets.

She reached for the doorknob again.

“I really, really liked you, River. But I’m beginning to think that I’m not the crazy one, here.”

Her breath caught in her chest at Gray’s affirmation, River becoming a very uncomfortable mixture of excited and upset. If Gray knew about it, that could only mean one thing – well two, but the Doctor being perfectly cloned into a woman’s body was very unlikely – that the Doctor was gone for so long because he had regenerated into a woman and forgot all about her and Brooke. Relegated them to just dreams.

The thought itself ached.

She was silent for a moment, simultaneously stuck between being unable to vocally form any words at all, and having so many words to say that she wouldn’t be able to get them all out.

River closed her eyes, her head lowering to fight back tears of sorrow, anger, and joy.

“Because they’re not dreams, they’re memories,” River finally whispered. “And they’re my memories, too.” Her voice broke a bit, the realization becoming too much for her. “I think I know who you are… or were.”

Gray stared at River.

Then, slowly, the horror started to seep into her eyes.

She hadn’t thought the other woman to be that cruel. No. Not River. Not this person she liked, who had walked her home when she was terribly drunk. 

White-knuckled fingers curled into the fabric of her trousers. Her chest hurt.

              { -- What’s your name?                 -- I don’t know. }

“Don’t say that,” she murmured. Her voice was just a whisper, a breath. It  sounded as if it were coming from faraway even to her own ears. “That’s not funny, River. If you don’t really like me, then just say so.” 

No, even if River wasn’t lying, even if they were her memories...that meant  that River had abandoned her. That she’d forgotten all about her until just now. If River really had known her before...then she would have said something, wouldn’t she?

             Unless you were a horrible, nasty person before. Then she’d have              every reason to play a joke on you like this.

A small smile formed at Gray’s insistence, humming lightly. She hadn’t expected to make such a lasting impression on the other woman so quickly, but she wasn’t one to argue either. Though she hadn’t exactly tried to this time, she was happy to see that she had made a strong connection regardless.

Especially since Gray had done much the same to her.

Listening carefully to Gray’s description, River sipped at her tea. At least until it started sounding familiar, painfully and wonderfully and awfully familiar. Her hands slowly lowered, her face going pale and her eyes wide as Gray so surely described something that was one of River’s memories, one of her most cherished.

Her fingers trembled as Gray described the library and that magical night, with details that she couldn’t possibly know unless she had been there. River knew she had an inkling of telepathic force thanks to her DNA, but not enough to create a memory like that for someone who wasn’t there. To strongly suggest an action, yes, but not to create a whole memory.

“Was it the softest rug you’ve ever felt,” River began quietly, her gaze dropped to her teacup and shaking hands, “and the closest you’ve ever felt with someone in such a way that it almost felt like you were them and not at the same time?”

Her breath was growing ragged and it was hard for her to calm down. What she was hearing was impossible, and yet there she was.

“Have you ever dreamt about a meadow alongside it?”

It had felt exactly like that, Gray thought, her heart jumping in her chest.  Part of her wanted to reach forward, to press her finger’s to River’s pulse just to see if that inane part of her dream-- the double heartbeat-- was really true. But that’s impossible. No, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t be.  Yet River seemed to know her dream. What were the odds of that?

She stared at River, watched the nervous energy in her hands, watched it  well up in the other woman’s earnest eyes.

Smiling softly as she shifted the attention away from herself, River calmed. If she could prevent herself from thinking about the dream, it would stop bothering her. True, it didn’t work extremely well, in general, but it was a somewhat decent coping mechanism.

“But if it was so unspecific, how can you be sure it was me?” River asked gently. Sometimes a bit of doubt of the meaning of the situation assisted - and sometimes it made it a lot worse.

“Though I must say, showing so much skin in your dream is rather naughty. Tell me about it? You don’t have to, but I’d like to know what you dream about.”

Gray’s fingers twitched on the rim of her cup at the question. She lifted it to her lips and took a sip. What could it hurt to tell River the truth? It was just a stupid dream-- perhaps even a memory that her brain had super- -imposed River on to for lack of another subject. 

“It was you,” she said, that smile still touching her mouth. “That much was specific. The rest--” she shrugged, fidgeting in her seat. “It’s all rather silly. We were on a rug in front of a fire. My brain told me there were a lot books nearby. We were very close; we kissed.” Another blush at that. She threaded her fingers together. “We were close like this. I can’t describe it. I don’t know  if it’s my stupid brain’s interpretation of sex or not. It all sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud.”

With a light grin, and thinking that she had successfully shifted the conversation to something more comfortable and common ground, River took a sip of her tea. She really did like seeing Gray blush, and experience told her that she was rather good at generating the reaction.

But then she responded, and River’s smile faded, images of the dream and the guilt of what they could mean or entail causing the guilt to rise once more. She was quick to recover, setting her tea down.

“A bit cheating since I asked first, but I’ll let you have this one.” Quiet a moment as she looked the other woman over, she shrugged. “Just a bit. But it wouldn’t be my dreams if they weren’t a bit naughty.”

After all, murdering someone was technically just as naughty as bedding them, and she had plenty of those her whole life.

“Now what about yours?”

Gray felt, for a brief moment, that she had somehow made the other woman sad. As fast as the change in River’s mood had happened, though, it shifted again. 

A bit. Gray wondered just what that meant. What was a bit naughty for River?

She traced the rim of her cup. 

“I couldn’t really say if it was naughty or not, it was so unspecific. But there was quite a lot of skin,” she said, smiling. 

River tried not to fidget as Gray continued to be silent, reaching for a biscuit and, eventually, just staring at her in return instead of giving an answer. Maybe it was weird, or at the very least a possible sign and red flag to the other woman that River was trying to move too fast in their relationship. She wasn’t, of course, but it would be very easy to misconstrue it as such.

But then she finally spoke, and it was River’s turn to be quiet once more. Her admission took quite a bit of bravery to share and, while River admired it, she was rather curious as to just what it entailed.

Especially if it was enough to make Gray slightly blush.

Hoping to shift the mood, River hummed, giving her a small, playful grin. “They weren’t naughty, were they? Is that why you’re blushing?”

At the question, and River’s playful insinuation behind it, Gray blushed an even deeper shade of pink. She set her teacup down, leaving a finger on the rim. There was a little quirk of a smile on her lips as she looked up at River through almost-coy pale lashes.

“Why?”

“Were yours?”

River hadn’t dreamed in a long time.

Partially, it was because she didn’t want to see his face when she closed her eyes, the man she loved so much and would risk anything for, regardless of regeneration, but who apparently did not love her back in return. At least, not enough to even visit her and Brooke. She knew from experience that he was absolute rubbish at time and timing, but years between the times seeing him was ridiculous and unacceptable, even for her.

Perhaps it was why her dreams were becoming less about him and more about her. And it was worse than that, it was like Gray was replacing the Doctor in her mind, and River wasn’t sure if it was a coping mechanism or something more important. She was even becoming part of her most cherished ones, the flowers in the meadow, the psychic connection on the soft carpet, even their first night together.

It was unusual for her, and River wasn’t sure how much she liked or hated it.

She didn’t realize that she was staring at Gray, studying her for at least a few minutes without saying a single word. She cleared her throat and shook her head.

“Sorry, love. It appears that you’ve begun to invade my dreams as much as you have my life which, I’ll admit, hasn’t happened to me in a long time. It’s not bad, it’s just different for me.” Looking for a distraction, she picked up her tea, avoiding looking at Gray.

“That’s weird, isn’t it?”

River had been staring at her. Gray had been sitting, sipping her tea and wondering if she ought to try and catch the other woman’s attention.  She looked as if she was thinking about something very hard. Gray thought that maybe it would be best not to interrupt.

At last, she seemed to come back to the room they were in, to the table  where the two of them sat drinking tea. Gray reached for a biscuit. 

It appears you’ve begun to invade my dreams.

Gray’s mouth went dry. She looked up at River in surprise, her own brain flashing back to that stupid dream of the carpet, where she’d lay wit her limbs all tangled into River’s, where she hadn’t seemed herself.

That’s weird, isn’t it? 

“I-I don’t know,” Gray began, her voice cracking. She took a second sip of her tea for fortification. “I dream about you sometimes.” 

Considering that Gray toyed with her hair and kissed her more instead of giving her a proper answer, River had no choice but to assume that she must have felt relief or some manner of happiness at the answer she gave.

Her happiness made River happy, and, though she didn’t want to admit it, gave her the same spark of attraction and affection that she felt so long ago with the Doctor. That she last felt so long before that horrible last visit.

It was that familiarity that caused her to instinctively reach out with her mind as the Doctor had once taught her, the tendrils of her mind searching for that familiar warmth and love that had once held her impossibly close to the man she loved. She was reaching, searching, hoping to get the same feeling and then –

Gray pulled away, leaving her with a tiny bit of emptiness, so akin to the one that she once called her best friend. It didn’t quite hurt as much as that one did, probably because she didn’t get to make a proper connection, but the ache and loneliness was still here.

Still, despite all that, she smiled, humming.

“I’d say they are, yes.”

Just before she pulled away, there was that tingling warmth at the edge of  her mind. Gray wanted to chase it, to grab hold of it, but she didn’t know  how. It stayed elusive, like the pale warmth of sunlight on a winter’s day.  Soon enough, it was gone.

She found her hand searching for River’s, her fingertips ghosting along the other woman’s pulse-point, and that tiny spark returned. Gray’s blue eyes  flicked up to River’s. Her breath hitched. It was the barest of touches, but  it still felt like an echo of that dream she had. It made her feel like herself, like she was whole somehow, as if all the broken pieces that made up Gray finally made sense in her head.

Was this what it felt like to be in love? Could she be in love already with someone she hardly knew? Was that even possible?

Her fingertips traced circles, interlocking patterns that mirrored the turn of stars and the orbit of atoms around a nucleus. It almost felt like a language she’d forgotten how to speak. She watched River. Finally, she found her voice again. 

“You’ve utterly bewitched me, River. I don’t know how, but you have.”

Closing her eyes a moment and taking a deep breath, River silently cursed herself for letting the truth out, no matter how little and possibly insignificant a truth it was. River never openly admitted her fear about anything, at least not to anyone other than her husband and, in special cases, her daughter, and yet here she was admitting a weakness to the person who caused it.

River was either losing her mind, or becoming softer than she ever wanted to be.

What Gray would do with that information frightened her even more. What would it do to her reputation among the other professors and students if they found out that one of the most merciless – though devoted – professors was going soft? That she was afraid of relationships, of all things?

River glanced up as she heard the other woman move closer, watching her with nearly the same level of tension and fear that a wounded animal would, at least without the ferocity and readiness to bite – at least in this situation.

She allowed Gray to take her hand, just watching her and listening, stunned.

Gray… liked her? Properly liked her? It seemed impossible. Sure, she was flirting, but she wasn’t exactly expecting Gray to fall for it like others had. But maybe she hadn’t really. Gray was unusual, but so was she, so maybe them being affectionate and forming a relationship was… okay.

She continued to listen, a small smile forming and growing slightly as Gray continued to ramble. True, some of her words echoed things she had heard from the Doctor, but he wasn’t here and Gray was, and was making her feel things that she hadn’t in quite some time nad it was refreshing and welcome.

When Gray finished speaking, the smallest of laughs escaped her before she tightened her grip on Gray’s hand and tugged her closer, leaning over her desk to close the space between them and kiss Gray firmly, smiling into the kiss and breaking away after a moment.

“Thank you, and does that answer your question?”

The longer she talked, the more River began to smile. If that was going to be the outcome of her speech, then Gray never wanted to stop. 

Then River kissed her.

River kissed her!!

All of her anxiety melted away in an eighth of a second. She felt that warm crackle of energy, a fizzle of it, really, just like she had in the dream. Only it  felt farther away, somehow, as if it were locked behind a door and Gray didn’t have the key.

It hardly mattered. Gray was smiling ear-to-ear, that big, stupid grin of hers.

A laugh. Gray reached for one of River’s curls, felt it in her fingertips. She  kissed her again, and a third time-- just for good measure, because if she  was going to kiss River, she might as well do it thoroughly.

Another laugh. Gray sat back, ran her hand through her own short hair.

“I suppose that means waffles are back on the table, then?”

“Because I know it aggravates you and I like seeing you aggravated.”

It was so close to seeing her flustered, and she really liked that. Really, she liked any of the emotions Gray showed to her, not that she’d admit it aloud or to anyone – not even herself.

It would admit that someone had managed to start thawing the cracked heart of ice that being abandoned by her husband in one of her biggest times of need had left her with. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

But maybe she needed to, glancing up at the other woman at her question, starting to wish that maybe she hadn’t left that night. Or, if she did, she had a legitimate excuse that merely speaking with her daughter wouldn’t prove her as a liar.

River moved back to her desk, her fingers brushing the drawer handle that hid away the journal she could no longer look at as she moved past it to her chair, unable to look at Gray.

“I was afraid,” she whispered, nearly inaudibly. “I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I couldn’t stay any longer.”

In just a moment, River’s entire demeanor changed. She stepped back to  her desk, creating a chasm of space between them. It seemed like ages before she answered Gray’s question. When she did, her voice was small-- as if she was frightened of Gray hearing her.

I was afraid.

Afraid of what? Afraid of-- of falling in love, like all of the books said? River  seemed too sensible for that, but perhaps this was her one weakness. Gray’s mind flashed to that dream she’d had-- of her skin-against-skin, roaming,  exploring, the wild intimacy that her stupid cake of a brain had sought with  River. Maybe River was right to be afraid.

But maybe, maybe Gray was right to want that. Maybe River was the right  person to want it with.

Gray set her teacup down and stood. She hovered a moment, picking at her hands, at her skin already raw from her nervous energy. Then, she crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps, and reached for one of River’s hands to take it in her own. 

“I like you a lot, River. A lot. A-and-- maybe that’s weird. But I quite liked it  when you kissed me, and I thought you liked it too-- and-- and I’d quite like to make you waffles and talk with you about Quantum Theory and-- and kiss you again.” 

She paused, her voice caged in her throat. She shifted from foot to foot, that nervous energy burning like stars in the synapses in her skin.

It took only one look at the other woman’s face to know that she hadn’t quite chosen her words very carefully. She had forgotten that Gray wasn’t quite as used to teasing as her other past interests had been – besides when she was beyond drunk, anyway. It was weird to see her so down from so simple of a phrase though, it must have been a sore spot she’d have to avoid in the future.

River hummed lightly, closing her book and the distance between them, stealing a sip of Gray’s tea, just to see if she could get a rise out of her, distract her, and remove that pained look off of her face. Of course, in doing so, she made a face of her own with how sweet the tea was.

“Weird is a perfect thing, love. I’m weird. Brooke is weird, for god’s sake. If you were normal, you’d be boring. Take it as a bit of pride that you’re weird. I know I do.” River rested a hand on the other woman’s, smiling at her. “Okay?”

Gray was about to be annoyed that River had stolen her tea, but she could only laugh in that stupid way of hers at the face River made when she drank it. She took her cup back, cradling it in both hands.

“If you hate it so much, why did you drink it?” 

She took a sip of her tea, and then found the courage to say:

“--River, why did you leave?” She meant, of course, that morning after Gray had gotten horribly drunk for the first time in her memory, and River had spent the night in her living room. “I would have made you waffles.”

“Well… yes,” River began, glancing up from her book to the other woman.

And Gray really was weird. True, they had met from Gray getting lost which, considering the size of the university, wasn’t all that surprising, but the fact that she could continue to get lost, no matter where she was, however, was.

And there was something about her besides this unusual quirk that kept River interested – more so than she had been with anyone else besides the Doctor. The thought of him made her chest ache a moment, but she quickly brushed it off. Gray was nothing like him, and her being amusing made River’s affection finally point elsewhere than the man she hadn’t seen in far too long.

She grinned.

“But if I didn’t think you were a bit weird, I wouldn’t be the least bit interested in you. Normal and regular is boring.”

Gray had asked the question almost idly from where she sat, adding sugar to her tea. River’s initial answer caught her breath, caging it in her throat.  She almost felt like crying. Weird had been everyone’s pet word to describe her of late. It shifted with the weeks, with the class terms. Some of the other professors called her odd. Others called her crazy. The students liked to talk about her as if she were a creature in a box at a museum. It always hurt.

But then River smiled and amended her statement. Gray found that her  breath still stayed locked in her throat, but it didn’t hurt quite so much.