They had told her she couldn’t die. They hadn’t told her how much it would hurt. She was used to hunger, used to cold, used to loneliness, but she wasn’t used to dying. It was something that happened to others, something she’d do to others, not herself.

A noise echoes down the corridor. "Ah, that would be the phone. I'll leave you ladies to talk, get things sorted out." The Doctor practically leaps from the bench and runs out of the room.

I turn to a display of 12th –century illuminated manuscripts, but River grabs my left arm and twists it behind my back. "So maybe it wasn't your idea to be my clone, but I swear I will never let you take my place. You do anything—you look at him the wrong way—and you will pay."

"That's rich coming from you—the woman who kills him."

This story is officially AU as of 'Let's Kill Hitler,' but I'm going to take a very close line on Melody/River's original development.

"That was my fault, really. I dropped the Ibonian crystal at the wrong moment-"

He presses his finger against her lips. "No. Do you know who this is?"

"I don't know! Just because she could pass for my reflection doesn't mean I have the faintest idea who she is." She turns to me. "Who are you, exactly?"

"They call me River Song."

"Yes, but who are you?"

"Melody Pond."

In fifteen minutes, at midnight on the thirteenth of Delution, the Guabancexian Parliament will execute the infamous criminal River Song.

The Guabancexian Parliament believes that I am River Song.

I place my hand above my left breast to feel the heart beating fast enough to power a spaceship. But there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I am in a cage of glass, less than a meter wide and two tall. Just enough room for me and my executioner.