River’s hands are bloodied.
River knows Donna can see what she’d done, and just how dangerous of a woman River Song was. It wasn’t like River hadn’t tried to reason with Donna; because she did and it was Donna’s stubborn nature that kept her there. So now, River was standing in front of the corpse of a hostile alien who’d attempted to attack them and so very unlike the Doctor, River killed it. And the worst part about it was that River didn’t feel sorry for ending some being’s life. River doesn’t care that the alien is now dead and blood is pouring from the gaping wound the gun left in its neck.
What River cares about is behind her.
What River cares about is probably somewhere between shock, fear, and sickness at what she’s seeing. The simple fact is—is that River Song is a psychopath, she’s a murderer at the core of her being and always would be. The simple fact was, River wasn’t safe. Not for Donna, and maybe Donna would see that. Demand her to be brought home and River would never see the fiery red head again. River looks like a murderer, the arterial wound having splashed a good amount of crimson blood onto her torso, hands, and just a small amount on her face.
“Right.” She’s staring at the corpse momentarily, reaching a toe out to give the alien a nudge.
“I should get you home.” River doesn’t look at Donna. River can’t bring herself to look at a woman who just witnessed River murder someone. Donna shouldn’t have seen this, of all the things in the universe this is the one thing she didn’t want Donna to see. And yet here she is, trying to reach around her companion and avoid touching her with bloodied hands. The coordinates and time-period were already pre-programmed into her vortex manipulator. River’s mind doesn’t drift to the thought that a child may be without a parent now. That a person might be without their loved one, and that world was one person short.
River’s mind is a maelstrom of thoughts, with echoes of Kovarian’s laugh in her ears. Regardless of everything she ever tried to do, no matter the good in the world she did. River Song was Kovarian’s little psychopath, and she was still the murderer she was programmed to be. She can remember her imaginary friends urging her to kill people. And murder she did, in fact it was because of her imaginary friends that she got away with it. That her training was such a success. The police could never remember what exactly happened because of them.
River’s wounds run deeper than she wants to think about. They’re infected and festering, rotting her from the inside out and—it was possible to heal but… it’d take a whole lot of rubbing alcohol to disinfect those gashes.
And a whole lot more time for them to heal. And time was something River didn’t have, as much as she liked to preach that it was.