The Adventures of the Doctor: Chapter III

“River,” the Doctor said urgently, “I must know when we last left off!”  The smile from her face began to dwindle as the waiter discreetly poured her another glass of champagne.  “Oh, you’ve gone Scottish!” she said lightly, “and your hair!  It’s all white!”  The doctor ran his fingers through his hair nervously and asked, “Is that okay?”  “I love it,” she replied with relish, “It’s so new!  Speaking of which, it’s been six months since I’ve seen you, there is so much we need to catch up on…”  The doctor dry-swallowed at her risqué comment before he snapped out of it and said, “River, where did we last meet, you have to tell me!”  “My love, I cannot answer that,” River whispered quietly.  “But you must!  I don’t know what I can tell you!  River, when did we last-”  “You fool!” River hissed back, for everyone near them had turned to stare, “Damn you!  The library, the library!  That was when we last spoke!  Now I cannot tell you any more than that, so please don’t even ask!”

There was a stunned silence as the two stared at the linen cloths in front of them.  “There was another reason why I came here,” River murmured peacefully as the atmosphere returned to normal.  The Doctor looked at her quickly, exasperated.  “You come here, not because you want to see me, but because of a different reason?”  Rolling her eyes, River said, “It is related to you…Or at least I think it is.”  “What is it?”  River looked at him pensively and asked,
“Have you ever heard of the Big Bad Wolf?”    

The world tipped sideways as Clara took another stride towards the door.  Forcing herself to remain steady, she concentrated on the back of the person in front of her, for anything beyond that point wavered and went in and out of focus.  “Excuse me,” she said, though no one seemed to have heard her.  It wasn’t that she was in pain or disliked what she felt, it was just that she was greatly disoriented and she felt like a breath of air would do her some good.  When she got to the threshold, cold air hit her like a wall and Clara took several appreciative breaths.  Colors shifted together and shadows danced at the edge of her vision.  She looked up and stopped dead.  
A tall, lean man with thick, brown hair sauntered towards her with a dark look on his face.  “Doctor,” Clara stammered as he stopped before her.  Surely, she thought, this was the drugs playing tricks on her mind…he could not be in this form, she had seen him regenerate…  
The Doctor leaned in, his nose an inch away from hers’.  There was something sinister lurking in his eyes, something that she did not remember seeing.  He looked wilder, and without uttering a single word, he grabbed her arms and pulled her out the door, in which she followed willingly, curious as to what would happen next.

The Doctor’s face blanched.  “What…What on earth…Where did you hear of this?”  His voice was hoarse and trembled with fear.  Worried by his tone, River responded, “It’s not much of anything, it’s just something that has cropped up here and there.”  He relaxed temporarily, but then anger flashed across his face.  “You’re lying to me!  Something’s happened, something’s made you suddenly notice ‘Bad Wolf’, and I know it’s more than what you describe it as because otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked me about it!”  
River took a deep, shaky breath before rummaging through her purse and extracting an old and tattered blue book.  Opening it to the very last two pages she said, “This cropped up earlier today.”
Written across the last two pages of the book, in big, blue letters read, “BAD WOLF”.