TEN BIRTHDAYS FOR RIVER SONG
Fifth: She only knew it was her birthday because she saw it on her medical records during her latest physical. She did not quite understand the concept and had one of the guards that looked after her explain what birthdays meant. She spent her birthday learning about the Doctor, training to keep fit and run fast, learning on what weapon would kill the fastest, learning the basics that any child should know on top of that as well. In fact that was just an afterthought as long as she killed the Doctor they didn't care what else she knew. She could be mute for all they care. So after a tiring day she sat on the floor and drew a picture of a birthday cake and pretended to blow out the candles. I wish I had a Mummy and Daddy. Seventh: It was her birthday and it was the happiest day of her life. The year had been long and terrifying. She had been kept in a spacesuit surrounded by scary monsters in a rickety old orphanage, then she was shot at by the woman in her photo as a baby, and then she escapes only to fall very ill and change her appearance. She spends a couple months on the streets before she is found and put back in the spacesuit and sent out to kill the Doctor. She succeeds. All so she thinks because the day before she turns seven the Doctor appears and he saves her from the spacesuit. He carries her in his arms and into a blue box where it is bigger on the inside and he takes her on a strange scary journey where they land in a garden. They are met by the woman who is in her photo as a baby and a man with brown hair and a rather big nose. "Melody Pond," the Doctor murmurs in her ear, "meet your Mummy and Daddy." "Hi," she says shyly as she is lifted out of the Doctor's arms and into Daddy's. "It's my birthday tomorrow." They all laugh and hug her and kiss her and they tell her how much they love her (but how can they if they don't know her and she murdered the Doctor?) and then they tuck her into a bed in a bedroom they prepared just for her and tell her a story about how they met the Doctor and they kiss her goodnight. She could not sleep because she was scared she would wake up and find out it was all a dream. The next day she pinches herself because surely this is a dream. There are presents, birthday cake, party games, and ice cream and jelly. "Make a wish Melody," her Mummy cries out cheerfully as she's snapping photos of Daddy, the Doctor, and little old her sitting by the birthday cake. I wish it will always be like this. Twelfth: They try. It's raining and cold and she felt a little let down because she so desperately wanted a picnic party but the English weather ruined it all. It's just her, Mum, Dad, and a couple of class mates that don't pick on her for being smart. She is sitting inside in her new summer dress watching the rain while her Dad orders pizza and her Mum is putting the candles in the cake. She isn't waiting for the rain to miraculously stop. She's waiting for something far more magical and impossible to come. She is waiting for the Doctor. She had not seen him since Christmas when he took her and her parents to a planet dedicated to the Christmas celebrations and she sat on 'Santa's' lap. He promised her he would come again soon, very soon, and definitely be there for her birthday. He failed. Her Mum kept trying to reassure her. she kept retelling the story when she met the Doctor as a little girl and how he promised five minutes but didn't come back for another twelve years. Melody didn't want to wait twelve years. She wanted him and now. He was her best friend in the whole world and they shared a secret language and plotted against Mum and Dad to trick them into staying on the TARDIS at months at a time. She wanted the only boy who she would let hold her hand. Everyone crowds round her and sings Happy Birthday while her Mum comes out with the birthday cake. "Make a wish!" I wish the Doctor was here. A smile slowly grows on her face as she hears the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines. Seventeenth: She had never felt more beautiful than she did now. The Doctor had come along and swept her, her Mum, and her Dad into the TARDIS and out to a beautiful palace with ballroom dancing and a fancy feast that filled her to the brim. All the boys were admiring her, her Dad was attempting to scare them off while looking completely besotted as her Mum is dressed up which is a rare occasion. She dances with her Dad and almost every boy in the room. She flirts, flips her hair back and flutters her eye lashes and makes sure to touch each boy gently on the arm. The Doctor acted as if it didn't bother him and he only danced with her once. They all went back to the TARDIS running when he accidentally blows something up and she feels like the night was pointless when it was reaching close to midnight and she has yet to blow the candles of her cake or hear an actual compliment from the Doctor's lips. They all surprise her when she's in her pyjamas and she blows the seventeen candles out on top of what suspiciously looked like a banana frosted cake. I wish the Doctor will notice me as a woman. Twenty-First: She was at a university on an alien planet in the fifty-first century. Her father was a little disappointed that she didn't stay on Earth but other than that her parents were excited for her and phoned her every week to see how she was doing. She was study archaeology because she had always been interested in ancient civilisations since her mother told her the story of the Last Centurion. Her father was always her role model while the Doctor was her personal superhero. She went to the university under River Song. It was written on her prayer leaf and she suddenly felt that she outgrown Melody Pond. She stopped calling Amy and Rory, Mum and Dad, and began to use their Christian names. She did this ever since she saw a very young version of her Mum playing Raggedy Doctor with a very young version of her Dad on one of her trips with the Doctor. After all what if she met them before she was conceived and ruined the whole time-line continuation? The Doctor would not be very pleased with her that's for sure. The Doctor arrives to her party with several bottles of god knows what. They all get sloshed and she clumsily blows the candles out on her birthday cake. I wish the Doctor would just kiss me. She looks up to see him smirking and several other telepathic races sniggering and groans to herself. After ten drinks her mental shields are down and she has a habit of projecting her thoughts. Her embarrassment dies a quick death when the Doctor bends down and kisses her. A soft, gentle, loving kiss. Seriously, best birthday ever. Twenty-Fifth: Someone had been investigating the Doctor's murder and found her. She's now locked in a cell and expected to spend the rest of her life in there. Yeah right, who did they think she was? Melody Williams the Geography teacher? No she was River Song, the archaeologist, the woman with the gun, the sexiest thing next to the TARDIS (the Doctor's words not hers). She was not to be held in the cell all the time. She spends her twenty-fifth birthday in it though. Surprisingly enough her parents visit and they bring her a cake and a couple presents. One of them being a blue diary that has markings similar to the TARDIS. "So you can kill time by writing all of your adventures with the Doctor," her Mum says. Her parents share a suspicious knowing look. She thanks them and spends the day talking to them and trying to ignore how sick her Mum looks right now and enjoy the moment. She blows the candles out and makes a wish. Her wish never comes true because that's the last time she ever sees her parents looking older than her. Thirtieth: Out of all the days for her Dad to die it had to be her birthday. She never saw him after her Mum died the Doctor said he was so heartbroken that he went off and wanted to be on his own. She tried to ignore the chilling shiver down her spine as she recalls how many times her father had said he'd die without her mother. The guards had a hate/love relationship with her. Some guards found her impressive, beautiful, fascinating, and enjoyable company; others thought she was annoying temptress who made it her life mission to torture them. It was the latter that broke the news to her and they laughed horribly as she cried. She threw something at them and swore at them in many different languages that it would make the Doctor blush so bright that a red alert would pale in comparison. She loved her Daddy. He was the most important man in her life after the Doctor and he was always happy being second place because he knew he had his love returned. And now he was gone and she was stuck in this horrible cell. She wakes up to a small cupcake with a candle on it and a small present badly warped up left beside it. A note in messy handwriting that she knew so well stood out. Make a wish. She opens the present and admires the small stud earrings. For someone who was clueless with woman he certainly had fine taste in jewellery. She blows the candle out and makes a wish with all her heart. I wish I was free to see them one last time. Thirty-seventh: It was a wonderful birthday. The Doctor came and took her to 1814 where she ice skated to Stevie Wonder. They then had a lovely warm dinner and he presented her with a little something to keep safe and kisses her tenderly. It was very different from her last birthday where two of them accidentally came and they spent it all in bed. She strolls back into prison and was already to write her day into her journal and dream about her kisses. She sees a guard and he's dressed as a Centurion, she smirks and says something witty about her request. Out of grief and desire to see some sort of reminder of her father she had once asked the guards to dress in Roman armoury. The man steps out of the shadows and she feels her smirk falls away as she looks at the most impossible man after the Doctor. "Rory." It kills that she can't just say Dad but she remembers meeting him in America and she was only just about conceived around that point. This young man would not know he was staring at his daughter. They talk and she can't help but blurt out "It's my birthday today!" and begins to retell her day to him. They then debate a little, he wants her to come with him and help save her, and she knows what she needs to do and cannot be there until the very end when she will tell him who she is. When he is gone she closes the cell and cries a little. She has no birthday cake but goddaminit she will make a wish! Even if it is useless and does nothing at all. I wish that time can be rewritten and they save me before all this mess starts. Fortieth: She was a free woman once again. They finally let her out and on her birthday as well. She goes out and gets herself a present of a masters degree so she could take that final step and become Professor River Song. She celebrates in a bar with a handsome man called Jack Harkness who sort of vaguely knows her while she only knows him from the stories the Doctor told her. Drinking with Jack led her to dancing with the Doctor while Jack flirted with the whole bar. She laughs, she flirts, she kisses, and she dances, she has never felt so alive in a long time. She didn't get any presents that year or special grand gestures or special outings or even a birthday cake to make a birthday wish. She found she didn't need to make a wish at all. God Knows but it's definitely over a Hundred: Life in the CAL system was very different from her life in the real world. Her real life had been difficult, adventurous, passionate, and field with an ache that could never be cured. In the CAL she was a proper wife, a mother to two children (called Amy and Rory, she didn't know what else to choose and Amy had red hair like her grandmother and Rory almost looked like his grandfather) and an adoptive mother to Charlotte who controlled CAL, she cleaned, cooked, told stories, and occasionally relive adventures from stories. Her fake husband who looked far too much like the Doctor to not be a virtual version of him woke her up and her children came bouncing in singing and laughing and they watched her open their presents and admire them happily. They have a picnic out in the park and she tells stories about her past birthdays (deliberately leaving out all the miserable ones) as she tucks them all to bed. Her computerised husband puts a cupcake in front of her with a candle on it. "Make a wish," he said. "I have nothing to wish for," she said leaning against him content. It was a small lie. Her only wish had been for her parents to have seen this, to see their grandchildren and to spend every day with them and her. The next morning she wakes up to find CAL answered this wish and recreated her parents for her. Now she definitely had nothing to wish for.
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