Work Text:
One moment everything is going fine and the next alarms are blaring and a viscous liquid is flooding the room, swiftly submerging them.
The Doctor has just enough time to reach for River's hand, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, his other hand closing over his sonic in his pocket. "Just breathe."
River just turns toward him but doesn't have a chance to question why before the liquid pouring over them solidifies into an immovable gelatinous substance, trapping them with ruthless, ingenious efficiency. He can feel her pulse double and see her panic in the way her eyes flit nervously back and forth.
Just breathe. There's always a way out, he begs her with his eyes locked on hers, but she isn't really seeing him anymore.
They're completely frozen, except for their eyes; trapped. Like insects in amber. The Doctor aches to reach for River, to reassure her. So he reaches out with his mind instead of his body, stepping neatly into hers and leaving the door wide open to invite her back with him.
He never would have dared when he was younger, but there are few spoilers left and he keeps his under lock and key.
River's mind is usually organized to the point of obsession. Everything neatly filed away and categorized and padlocked. His own mind tends to be cluttered with the detritus of his many lives, thoughts discarded haphazardly like spare clothes.
At the moment, River's mind is chaos. Equations and plans and memories darting and swirling into a dervish.
The Doctor extends his arms slowly, taking in the panicked, wild mess. Encouraging calm. Just breathe, River, he implores, trying to find her amidst the chaos.
She appears from the center of the whirlwind, wild. A goddess even in the midst of her nightmares. "Doctor."
He reaches for her hand here as he had in the physical world, leading her out of the chaos and into the relative calm of his own mind, where he can soothe her and shelter her until it's safe to emerge.
For one terrible moment between heartbeats, he thinks she won't join him. Her anger can be a terrible thing, and River prefers anger over fear. Terror. The look in her eyes is pure terror.
She's so tiny inside his mind. Usually, River takes over entire quadrants, tidying and brightening as she goes, but she is small in her terror, tucked up in a corner, hiding herself amidst his lives as though she might never emerge again.
As interesting as the memories resurfacing of her with his sixth and eighth selves are, the Doctor doesn't let her distract him.
"We aren't trapped," he promises.
River's eyes flash at the reminder of where their bodies physically are. There's that anger again, digging at the places in his mind that echo her sentiments.
The wrath of a Time Lord is a terrible thing. He would know.
She's his own bespoke hurricane, raging just barely controlled in the center of his mind while he stands off to the side, patiently waiting for River to come back to herself.
It takes long enough that the Doctor begins to wonder if she's going to or if, like those long ago early days, she'll need him to wade into her demons and brush them aside so that River can take his hand.
Her voice is hushed against his mind, strained at the edges. "Tell me you have a plan."
"I have a plan."
He watches the storm slowly disintegrate, his certainty cracking the winds of her panic. He catches glimpses of it in the images she carries in the tempest surrounding her, of the darkness at the bottom of a lake and spacesuits that cling like tombs.
"I can't breathe," she admits, still lashing winds and wide eyes.
"You can," the Doctor promises, rambling in his effort to drive away the dark clinging to her thoughts, "this isn't meant to kill us - just immobilize us until the authorities arrive. The gel is oxygen permeable."
River shakes her head, the ends of her curls sparking like fire in her distress. "No, Doctor, I can't."
Her voice is tenuous and close enough to breaking that the Doctor feels his hearts start to shatter in her stead. "Then perhaps you need a distraction."
The Doctor wraps River in the safety of his arms as surely as he wrapped her in the safety of his mind, scattering thunderstorms in his wake and breathing life back into her lips.
River tenses for a moment before she melts into him, the edges between them blurring as he inhales River's panic, pouring his love into their kiss until there's no room for left for her doubt.
By the time they part, the memories projected across his mind are decidedly explicit; the storm of River's thoughts soothed into swirling Gallifeyan.
The Doctor smiles gently, kissing her forehead and keeping her tucked close. "Better?"
"Mmm," River rests her hand over his still chest. "Breathing is overrated."
"For the moment," the Doctor agrees, mentally reaching in his coat pocket for his sonic. "But just for the moment."
She lets him settle them among more pleasant memories of violet waves and endless stars. "You actually have a proper plan?"
He does the equations in a corner of his mind tucked well away from them, his attention focused on River. "Always."
The last of the winds fade from around her, a hard fought calm in her voice. "Liar."
He finishes the equations as the word crosses her lips. Just a nanometer of space - an air bubble from his thumb moving as the gel set - but it's enough. The Doctor painstakingly thumbs the correct setting on his sonic and the gel melts around them in a whoosh, leaving them drenched and sticky and struggling to choke out stale air.
The alarm is piercing without the gel to muffle the sound.
The Doctor turns immediately toward River, still reeling from the abrupt loss of her mind against his, even though her pulse is strong and steady under his palm. "Breathe, dear." His own voice is hoarse and fire lances his throat.
River coughs and sputters but keeps her feet, spitting out liquid goo and swiping her sodden curls out of her eyes. "Oh shut up and run."
But River smiles, soft and somehow still wicked, her hand squeezing his reassuringly when she takes it.
The Doctor laughs, though his lungs heave with the effort.
The alarm blares, footsteps echoing behind them.
And they run.