The Eye of the Storm (audio story)

 was the fourth and final story of the audio anthology, The Diary of River Song: Series Two, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Alex Kingston as River Song, Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Salome Haertel as Rachel Burrows.

Publisher's summary
The Great Storm of 1703 approaches. The fate of planet Earth hangs in the balance.

The only person who can save it is the Doctor. Or River Song. Or quite possibly another Doctor. Or maybe this whole situation is their fault in the first place.

Two Doctors. One River. An infinite number of ways to destroy the world. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

Plot
In London, 1703, at the height of the Great Storm, the Sixth Doctor and a young man, Isaac George, jump into a collapsing house to save the latter's sweetheart, Sarah Dean. The Doctor rescues Isaac from a collapsing wall only to be crushed; Isaac proceeds, but finds the Seventh Doctor in his way, intent on preventing him from reaching Sarah.

A day earlier, River Song is locked up in Newgate Prison, where she finds herself sharing a cell with Daniel Defoe. To him, River tells how she found herself in that situation. Having remained at the Golden Futures site while it exploded, she managed to partially stop what she and the Doctor started, preventing the proliferation of numerous alternate Earths; only two remain, fighting for existence, the original and the duplicate created by the company. At that moment, the Seventh Doctor lands at Golden Futures, notices the presence of the Speravores and learns of their plan, as well as their presence on Earth and the paradox that is happening. River tries to steal his TARDIS to leave, but the emergency anchor has been engaged, and so the Doctor and she meet again (and both have some vague memories of their previous encounter). River manages to convince the Doctor that she wants to help, and the two head to the point in the story where the two Earths converge: London, 1703.

Here River discovers that the Sixth Doctor is also present, with no recollection of his part in what happened, and has only arrived there to investigate the cause of the paradox. He has discovered that a large amount of Chronon energy lurks around the couple consisting of Isaac George and Sarah Dean and is trying to help Isaac declare himself to Sarah so they can get closer. River tries to convince him to give up, but the Doctor (mistaking her for a CIA agent) decisively refuses.

River befriends Sarah and learns that she works as a maid in the house of Sir Robert Harley, a member of Parliament. Together, she and the Seventh Doctor sneak inside at night, and find a Speravore nest there, dominated by their Queen. The latter is feeding off the quantum possibilities around Sarah, manipulating her life so that she gets together with Isaac and begets children, thus continuing the cycle. The Doctor handcuffs River to a piece of furniture (he never trusted her) and escapes to resolve the situation himself, leaving her arrested for attempted theft.

In the cell, Defoe confides in River that Sir Harley himself has offered him freedom if he will agree to work for his party, and he does not know whether to accept; River urges him to do so, telling him that only by retaining his freedom can he accomplish great things. The Sixth Doctor visits her in prison, but instead of freeing her, he merely deprives her of her vortex manipulator and leaves her there so that she will not interfere further: it is Defoe who, in exchange for his cooperation, obtains from Sir Harley that she be set free, just hours before the Great Storm begins. With the help of the writer (who knows Isaac because he worked in his brick factory) River reaches Sir Harley's house almost at the same time as the two Doctors, who at that moment remember everything. Before they can begin to clarify, however, the Doctors and River are whisked away, leaving Isaac and Sarah to find shelter from the storm.

The two Doctors and River find themselves in the Sixth's TARDIS, which is actually a mental projection of the Speravores who are holding them prisoner. After an initial squabble, the three work together to energize River's manipulator and leave; at the last moment, however, the Sixth Doctor decides to stay behind, sacrificing himself to the Speravores to give time to the other two. Back at Golden Futures, the Seventh Doctor decides to use the company's technology to erase Isaac and Sarah from history, depriving the Speravores of their anchor in the real and thus, in effect, undoing the paradox. Realizing that the Doctor is hesitant to kill them, however, River asks him for time to try something else again.

Rematerializing in front of Isaac and Sarah, River dissolves the Speravore's psychic cover, allowing the two lovers to see them, and explains to them what has happened and what needs to be done to set the story straight. She even tells them her own story, so that they understand that she is giving them a choice, the choice to make a free decision, which she (and even they) have been denied up to that point. In the end, Isaac and Sarah decide of their own volition to walk into the storm, being swept away by the paradox and erased from history, saving the entire Earth.

River brings the weakened Sixth Doctor back to his TARDIS and sends him off with affection. He then attempts to make the Seventh Doctor lose his memory by making him eat cookies, drink tea, and then trying to kiss him with his lipstick, but he resists all advances, finally forcing River to knock him out and erase his memory the "old-fashioned way", with the help of the TARDIS. He then returns to London, where Defoe is writing about the storm, and dissuades him from mentioning Isaac and Sarah (whom Defoe remembers because he was in the centre of the paradox), inviting him to write made-up stories instead. To him she introduces herself as "Moll."

From another part of the cosmos, the Doctor is talking with Captain Maddie Bowers and Rachel Burrows, now adopted by the woman. Some shadow of what happened has remained in his memory, the memory of a "river" and a "song".

Cast

 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Sarah Dean/Speravore Queen - Jessie Buckley
 * Isaac George - Paul Keating
 * Daniel Defoe/Barkeep - Robert Hands
 * Robert Harley/Warder - Alan Cox
 * Maddie Bower - Anna Maxwell Martin
 * Ellen Byrne - Gemma Saunders
 * Rachel Burrows - Salome Haertel

Continuity

 * The Seventh Doctor handcuffs River. Once, when being taken away to prison, River asked the Eleventh Doctor if "must it always end this way?", referring to the fact that one of them usually end up being handcuffed on their encounters. (TV: Forest of the Dead, Flesh and Stone, Day of the Moon)
 * River has recently been pardoned of a crime. (TV: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, The Angels Take Manhattan)
 * River says she has about a dozen husbands at last count, referring to the Doctor's incarnations. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
 * River talks about hiding her emotional pain from the Doctor. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
 * The Eighth Doctor would later remember these events. (AUDIO: Songs of Love)