#drfic

She barely glanced over the top of her book, waving distractedly in greeting.  “Just need a minute, sweetie.  Did you make a booking?”

“A-a booking?”

“Yeah, it was your turn to pick.”  She jabbed her pen into her loosely pulled-up hair, where it immediately vanished.  “Or did you get your weeks crossed again?”

“Um.  Yeah.  Think I might have uh.  Crossed… something.”

She finally looked up at him properly, her lips parting to speak, and froze.  “Oh my god.  You’re not him.”  He must have visibly bristled at that, because she amended, “No, obviously— but you’re young.  Just look at that baby face!”

“I’m older than… than most people in the universe, River Song,” the Doctor retorted, a bit weakly, as he realised he didn’t actually know.  He was certainly older than her, right?  He hadn’t really dared consider the possibility that she lived on a remotely comparable timescale.  Almost no one did.  If she were the exception… no, he did not need another reason to be tempted.  He had to stay away from her, regardless.

“Oh, I could get into so much trouble with you,” she said, smiling wickedly as she laid down her book and leaned toward him, spreading her hands over the table.  “I’ve been very explicitly warned off you.  I’m not to come anywhere near you this young.”

“Says who?”

“Who d’you think?”

He didn’t know why, but that was even more irritating.  Being ordered to stay away— which he was trying to do anyway!— by the older him who’d been apparently coming round and taking River to dinners as a weekly routine?  How dare he?  “And do you always do what future me tells you?” he grumbled.

River blinked at him, then burst into derisive laughter.  It carried on for just long enough for him to become extremely uncomfortable, but then she stood and gathered her books.  “Come on,” she said, bustling past him.  “Just need to stop by my room.  We’ll go somewhere on campus.”

“Wait,” he said, stumbling after her, “that’s not— actually, we shouldn’t—”

“We’re both young tonight.  No better time to do something we shouldn’t.  If I’m really lucky, you’ll give me a scolding for it later.”

The Doctor tripped over his own feet and just managed to avoid sprawling headlong over the floor.  River laughed, and didn’t stop walking, so he scrambled to follow her.

——

The other thing about River Song was that she always knew, even however relatively young she currently was, just how to push his buttons.  It was maddening.  All she had to do was not bother to hide her obviously intimate familiarity with him, and laugh as he squirmed.  As if daring him to keep up the ridiculous charade that he didn’t know exactly what they were to each other.  Even without Amy here to point it out, it was never not glaringly obvious.  It was just that he didn’t do that.  That was something no one would ever be to him again.  But she was, and the more he sulked about the fact, the more she delighted in showing him how much he was going to enjoy it.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of others he’d been close to in his life.  Extremely close and intense relationships, mostly with humans, were sort of his thing.  All of them were better people than him; beautiful, magical individuals to whom he’d simply provided the opportunity to make a mark on the universe with their shining goodness in their short human lives.  And some— too many— had paid the price for it.  Most of them had probably thought they knew him like no one else, too.  

But that was just it: River really did.  There was no denying it.  He hated it, and he loved it.  It was terrifying, tantalising, dangerous and sweet and so, so tempting.  There was one other person in the universe who knew him like that, and things hadn’t exactly gone well with them.  But River was different.  She understood him in a way no human ever could, and loved him in a way people who lived thousands of years, himself very much included, seldom had much taste for.  But to say she made him see the appeal was putting it… politely.  

The fact that he was currently marvelling that he didn’t technically know her species at the same time as he was wrestling down a barrage of very foreign impulses was fairly typical of the absolute mess she made of him just by existing in his proximity.

“I have my viva in a few weeks,” she was saying when he surfaced from his thoughts enough to decipher the sounds, “so I’m just doing preparations.  I was offered a position in the department, but I don’t think I’m going to take it now.  There’s a lot of universe to see, and I’ve already been at Luna almost a year— they had to let me design an accelerated program, or we’d all have been wasting our time.  And yes, sweetie, I know you’re just waiting for an opening to get in your dig at my choice of archaeology.”

“Hah.  Dig,” the Doctor said, in spite of himself.

“Told you I’m clever.”

“Well, that much I already knew,” he admitted, as they stopped in front of what was evidently her door.  She piled her notebooks into his arms without asking and fished out her room key.

“What else do you know about me?”  River opened the door and proceeded into the room without a backwards glance.  “Not much, right?  It’s so strange, I’m used to you knowing everything.  You and your spoilers.”

“My spoilers!” the Doctor sputtered, indignation overcoming his hesitance to follow her into a bedroom the size of a broom cupboard.  “You’re the one with all the spoilers!”

“I suppose I am today, aren’t I?  A bit more than you, at any rate.  That’s a fun change.  Should we do diaries?  Where are we in yours?”

“Um,” he hesitated, glancing around the tiny room and shuffling the pile of books onto her desk.  It was comfortable but utilitarian; fairly standard student accommodations.  “You’ve got the diary.”

“Yes, I have mine,” River laughed as she rummaged through a drawer.  “Where’s yours?”

“Mine?”

“You—” she turned around and gaped at him.  “You haven’t got one yet?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh.  You… really are young.”  She looked crestfallen for a moment, and the Doctor’s throat tightened.  He’d disappointed her.  And she— she was taking her shirt off.

He whirled around, his face burning hot, and directed his wide eyes at her bedspread (a deep blue, he half-noticed with a vague sense of approval.)  What was the matter with him, anyway?  It’s not as if he had any qualms about nudity, that was just a silly human… His gaze drifted unwittingly over her bedpost, around which was knotted a dark purple bow tie that looked like it had seen some uncommonly rigorous use.

He needed to get out of here, immediately.

“Don’t you just hate him, sometimes?”  River suddenly asked, leaving him frozen in place as he was about to bolt for the door.  “The older you.  The one who has all the answers.”

You have no idea.   He glanced back at her, and thankfully, she’d put another top on.

“I hate her sometimes,” she said, smiling wistfully.  “Hate that I’m her, but I’m not her yet.  She’s this shadow over the future that I’m meant to live up to, but what if I’m just… not good enough?”

The Doctor swallowed through his dry throat, willing himself to speak.  He hated him.  He really did.  “It’s… pretty rubbish he’s made you feel that way.”

She looked up at him sharply, surprised.  “No, it’s— it’s not his fault.  He’s… you’re good about that, actually.”

“About what?”

“About making me feel…”  She trailed off and glanced down at her hands, pursing her lips slightly to cover a smile, and was it possible that she was actually blushing?   He could hardly believe his eyes.  It was painfully endearing, and warmth swelled up like a wave in his chest no matter how he tried to swallow it down.  What else could she have been about to say?  Enough.  Understood.  Loved.   He… made River Song happy.  

Not those times.  Not one line.  Don’t you dare.

“Maybe I didn’t want you coming near me this young because I’d scare you off,” he muttered.  “See what little you have to look forward to.”

River laughed.  “I don’t scare easy, sweetie.  You’re the one who was just about to run.”

He didn’t bother denying it.  “Didn’t, though.”

“No.  I’m glad you stayed.”

“Me too.”  

They’d drifted closer without the Doctor noticing, and he let himself really look at River for the first time that day.  There was nothing but patience and understanding in her smile, and it really was rubbish, wasn’t it, that with him she never knew what she was going to get.  Even young like this, though she had her fun at his expense, she was just good to him.  And it was clear she was younger, though her face was much the same.  There was just something a little less careful, less guarded.  Or was that because she was used to him being the one to keep their secrets?  Used to putting her trust in him and letting him care for her?  He thought of the last time he’d seen her, at the Byzantium.  She’d laughed and joked when he asked if he could trust her.  Maybe she hadn’t really found it funny at all that he wasn’t sure.

“I do hate him,” the Doctor confessed.  “Even more than the rest of me, which is saying something.  I’ve hated him since the day…”  He exhaled, scrubbing the heel of his palm up over his face and through his hair.  His eyes half-focussed on a scuff mark on his shoe through the painful haze of the memory.  He vaguely realised he was just talking to himself at her, because she obviously couldn’t know what he was on about, which was probably very annoying.  “I thought he was so… so unbelievably selfish,” he choked out at last.  “But it’s me.  I’m the one being selfish.”

“Careful, there,” River said, reaching up to brush some invisible fuzz from his shoulder.  “That’s my Doctor you’re talking about.”  Oh, he hated how he loved the sound of that.  Maybe he didn’t actually hate it, so much.  Maybe he just loved it.  His stupid brain, ever the pedant, began to open his mouth to ask which version of him she was feigning offence for, when she interrupted with, “You, sweetie.  Always, all of you.  Whenever you want.”

Could it be that simple?  Could he know that she’d pay for it with her life (and suspect that perhaps he’d pay for it with his, which was an intriguing theory that bothered him considerably less,) and just… let them both have this, anyway?  Let them be happy together, for however long it could last?  That was what she wanted.  She’d told him so in no uncertain terms.  He could give in at any time and admit that it was what he wanted, too.

“River, I…”  He clenched and unclenched his fists nervously at his sides; his hands wanted to do things he wasn’t sure he could allow.  

“Anyway,” she said, breaking the tense moment and slinging her bag over her shoulder, “dinner?  I happen to know that Luna’s campus is home to your favourite fish and chips in the universe.”

That was absurd enough to distract him.  “River,” he said, patiently, but she lifted her eyebrows in a way that reminded him strikingly of Amy when she’d recently pronounced that he was Doctorsplaining.  It was too late to stop now, though.  “You are a time-travelling archaeologist.”

“Good to know,” she supplied patronisingly.

He winced, though he was fairly sure no part of that was a spoiler.  “And as such, you should definitely know that the likelihood of the best version of any dish being this far temporally or spatially removed from its point of origin is extremely small—”

“Well, don’t come then, if you’re so sure.”

“H-hang on, I didn’t, I mean—  Oh, is it— is it custard?  Do they do it with custard?”  She shrugged, and he followed her out the door.  “River, is that it?”

__

The Doctor had to admit, (at least to himself, which was a hurdle to cross in its own right,) that River was exceptionally lovely.  It wasn’t what she looked like, although he had certainly come to appreciate that as well: the hair was the obvious starting point.  The way she walked like she owned the place, wherever she was.  The strong angle of her nose and the soft curl of her smile.  But it was just… everything.  The way she affectionately ordered him about, with the sort of ease that made it clear she was accustomed to his cooperation, and before he could even remember to be annoyed he found himself obliging her.  How she grinned at him over the table as she took a chip from his greasy paper plate, even though she had plenty of her own.  There was just an extra little spark in everything they shared; a different sort of delight in the fantastic and the mundane alike, because she was there with him.  It was so obvious how easily he could become addicted to the feeling.  He was starting to run out of reasons why that was a problem.

“Well?” she said, once he’d finally stopped having a mouthful of fried food.

“Why is it so good?”  For once he was properly dumbfounded.  There seemed to be no particular reason.  It wasn’t custard; standard salt and vinegar.  The shop appeared very unassuming.  Grease level high.  

“Maybe they’re just good at what they do?  Doesn’t always have to be a reason.”

“Does everyone know?   Have they been given some sort of award?”

“Well, they’ve got a five on their food hygiene rating,” River said, gesturing with a chip to a sign on the wall, “so that’s encouraging for a place that mostly feeds hungover students.”

“Speaking from experience?”

She laughed.  “Please, sweetie.  There is, regrettably, very little to drink on this moon that will even register for me.”  Her eyes widened just the tiniest bit, so briefly he would almost have thought he’d imagined it, if not for her words landing in his brain at the same moment, sparking an instant storm of firing synapses.  That was something, and she knew she’d slipped.  Oh, it was dangerous to hope, but…  “Well,” she smoothly amended before he could even open his mouth, “apart from when Jack came to visit.”

The Doctor nearly choked on his fish.  “No,” he said, between wheezing sputters.  “Tell me you’re joking.”  She was clearly trying to distract him, and she’d succeeded.  He couldn’t just let that go.

“We do have a mutual acquaintance, after all,” River said, tossing her curls and flashing him a too-bright smile.

“There is no way I would introduce you.”

“Why ever not?”

If she was trying to make him jealous, she was just slightly off the mark.  “Because I don’t think I’d survive the two of you together,” he groaned, to her delighted laughter.  

Well, if it meant hearing more of that, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.

The gold light of sunset blazed low behind her silhouette.  She wiped her fingers with a paper napkin and took a sip of her fizzy drink.  

There wasn’t any logical catalyst; no sudden lightning strike or burst of epiphany.  Sat across the table from River, the Doctor felt a slow, sparkling warmth settling over him as he realised he was already in love with her.  

___

They made it nearly the whole way back to River’s hall of residence chatting comfortably about nothing, to avoid having to dance around spoilers.  The sun had set, and the dim glow of Earthlight shone through Luna’s artificial atmosphere.  Antique-style streetlamps flickered on along the footpaths through the university campus, dotting the violet dusk with splashes of gold.  In each new light, she looked more breathtaking than the last.  

To distract himself from feeling things about that, he decided to be annoying.

“River.  Of all the billions of choices in the universe.  Why archaeology?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Well, I won’t lie— at the start, it was at least a tiny bit because I thought it might be useful in tracking you down.  Of course, then Fancy Dress turned up the night I enrolled and I haven’t been able to get rid of you.”  He pulled a grumpy face as she laughed, and filed that nickname away to ponder later, perhaps in the TARDIS wardrobe.  “But I guess it was… fact-checking.”

The Doctor blinked.  “Fact-checking what?”

“Everything.  The universe.  The… narrative.  I suppose I’m interested in stories.  They’re always coloured by the one telling them, and everyone has an agenda.  History is just the story told by the victor, the conqueror; whichever faction becomes the establishment.  Whichever cult becomes the Church.  But somewhere out there is the real thing, the true thing.  And it doesn’t even matter if it’s full of anachronisms and embellishments and flights of fancy—you know, sometimes those are the truest parts.  Sometimes there’s a dozen versions and all of them are true.  And those are the stories that deserve to be told.  If I can find the real pieces, I can put together stories that are true in the way that matters.  Scrape off all the layers of propaganda and manipulation and control and show the real people beneath, good and bad.  We all deserve that, in the end: to have our own voice in our own story.  And not let anyone else dictate who we are.”

Oh.

The Doctor swallowed, his throat dry; speechless and foundering in the gulf of silence between them.  But if he opened his mouth, he was afraid he might just kiss her.  

He was already in love with her over fish and chips.  What the hell was he meant to do with all of this?

Finally, as her building came into view and the night breeze tousled her spectacular hair in a way that he was sure was magic, he found himself wondering aloud, almost reverently.  “Where did you come from, River Song?”

She stopped short and turned to him.  “Why are you asking me that?”

“You know everything about me, it seems.  I… sort of feel like a fool knowing nothing about you.”

“I’m sure you know the important things.”

“You might be surprised.”

She was quiet for a moment, then glanced up at the crescent of Earth growing ever brighter in the sky.  “Your favourite planet.  Well… I sort of came from there.  More or less.”

“Human?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

She hesitated even longer on that, her brows knitting together as she studied his face.  He was sure she was going to say spoilers, or— possibly worse— yes.  

Instead, she quietly repeated, “More or less.”

Hearts thundering loudly and his brain reeling with a thousand possibilities of what that might mean, the Doctor followed as she turned and walked rather more briskly than before toward her building.  “I’m sorry,” he called after her, “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine, sweetie,” she said, though she barely glanced back at him.  “I’m just… not sure what I can tell you.  I’m not really used to that.”

“Can… can you tell me how we met?  For you?”

“Um,” she said, and there was something unmistakably tense in her voice now, “no, I don’t think so.”

“Or, how long ago it was for you?”

“It… it was just before I came to Luna.  A little over a year.”

She clearly didn’t want to answer these questions anymore, and he certainly didn’t want to upset her, or to do anything to disturb the delicate balance of their timelines with an out-of-turn spoiler.  But the desperation to understand was burning in him now, and the closer he got to the answers, the less he could resist.

“River,” he began as she reached for the door to the building, and he was alarmed to notice a slight tremor in her outstretched hand—

The heavy steel door slammed open, and in the split-second of frenetic chaos as the Doctor gasped in a shocked breath, he saw River’s arm crumple into her side at an angle that made him wince.  The impact of the door threw her back, and a flailing, shouting mass of two idiots came toppling out, reeking of alcohol and human testosterone, obliviously throwing fists at each other as they went.  A bottle dropped and shattered on the pavement.  A fraction of a second later, the Doctor registered that River had been thrown directly into him.

Miraculously, he kept his feet under him and staggered to a stop, steadying her as he blurted, “Are you okay?”

The drunks were already brawling off down the footpath and not worth his bother.  He didn’t think River was likely to have broken anything from the impact, but it still hadn’t been pretty.  But when she didn’t answer him immediately, he noticed she was trembling.

“River?” he asked, hurriedly turning her to face him, visually scanning for injuries.  He didn’t get far before their eyes met, and he was frozen by the look of sheer terror on her face.

“River?”

“Doctor,” she whispered, her voice thin and wavering.  “Run.”

“What?  River, what are you talking about?  Are you hur—”

The air went out of him all at once, and before he had the faintest idea of what was happening, the Doctor landed heavily on the pavement.  He winced as a spike of pain shot through his hip and up his side.  Well, there it was, nine hundred years and old age had got to him at last.  He’d forgotten how to fall on his behind without breaking something.  

But it seemed he wasn’t going to have to worry about that long, because River was advancing on him with deadly calm, the panic in her eyes vanished entirely.  In her hand, mysteriously, there had appeared a gun, which she had pointed straight at his left heart.  He felt quite sure she had similar plans for the right one.  

Well.  Okay.  Unexpected development.  

All in all, this was really not how he thought it would go, but maybe it beat the alternative.  Maybe it was better if—

In the space of his two rapid heartbeats River snapped her gun away from him, aiming it at the still-open doorway, when the unmistakable whirr of a sonic screwdriver sent it spiralling out of her hand, skittering across the pavement.  For a split second she looked infuriated and was reaching for another weapon, but then a figure stepped over him, standing between them and—

And it was him.  Fancy Dress.  He was in a Victorian suit and dark purple frock coat, and if there’d been any question before as to the providence of the purple bow tie on her bedpost, well, it appeared he had a spare.  And his hair — how had he worked that out with his hair?  It was much less chaotic, more intentional about the quiff.  Looked a bit shorter.  If he lived, he needed to make some notes.

“River,” Fancy Dress was saying, low and steady, as he stepped right into her personal space like she hadn’t just been brandishing a deadly weapon at him.  “It’s me, dear.  It’s your Doctor.  You’re safe.”

She hesitated, poised to whip something probably sharp and unpleasant out of a pocket on her outer thigh, but didn’t move any further.

“It’s alright,” the future him soothed, resting his hands on her upper arms, despite how lethally unwise such a gesture appeared from the Doctor’s vantage point.  “Look at me.  You’re okay.  I’ve got you.”

She didn’t move, still coiled like a spring and poised to snap, and then he leant in, touching his forehead to hers.

Something in her hard expression flickered, then shattered entirely, and she gasped, the knife she’d had gripped in her fist clattering to the ground.  She stumbled half a step back from the future Doctor, looking down in horror at him sprawled on the pavement, and covered her mouth with her hand.  

“Oh, no,” she breathed, and the Doctor felt a sharp pang of sympathy for the absolute brokenness in that sound.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.  It’s been ages since— I never thought— I’d have sent you off straight away if I ever thought I could—”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” the older him soothed, stroking her hair and tipping her chin up until she met his eyes again.  “He’s fine, I’m fine.  No harm done.”

“This is why you told me to stay away, isn’t it?  I’ve scared you off now.  I-I’ve ruined it.”  Seeing River overcome by some mysterious force that made her homicidal toward him was one thing.  Seeing her this openly vulnerable with him was something else altogether.  The Doctor held his breath, not daring to speak; even his presence felt like an intrusion on this intimate exchange between them.

“Come now, dear,” said Fancy Dress.  “You think a little death threat will stop me coming back to you?  You won’t get rid of me nearly that easily.”  She took a shuddering breath, and when he pressed a kiss to her forehead, her eyes closed and tears spilled over.  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed both tear-streaked cheeks.  River choked down a sob, and then their lips met.

The Doctor’s face felt roughly the temperature of a supernova as he watched them, wide-eyed.  His insides were a knot of envy and dread and longing and sympathy and terror and other things he couldn’t possibly put a name to.  The older him pulled back, nuzzled into her hair, whispered something in her ear.  River nodded, smiled, sniffled, kissed him again.

Swallowing hard around the lump in his throat, the Doctor scrambled to his feet as quietly as he could, rounded the corner of the building, and made a slightly humiliating retreat from his future.

___

Some time later, the Purple Menace found him sat on the ground, his back to the outer wall of the far side of the hall of residence.  The crescent Earth hung high overhead now, glowing a brilliant marbled white.  The quarrelling drunks had ambled off long ago, leaving the Doctor to brood in the relative peace of the university at night: the distant din of cheers and laughter over fuzzy, persistent booming bass.  A cool breeze stirring the lunar elms and rustling through the tendrils of ivy dripping down the brick facade of the building.

“Seeing as I’m you,” Purple said at last, reclining against the wall beside him, “I think we can skip the part where you pretend to be surprised.”

“Well,” the Doctor mumbled, perhaps a tad defensively, “the gun was surprising, a bit.”

“But only a bit.”

“She did say she killed someone.  The best man she ever knew.”

The other him scoffed, his mouth curling into a wry smile as he shook his head.  “Yeah, she did say that, huh?  Rubbish,” he declared fondly.  “And I know her father— it’s not even close.  But charitable characterisations aside, that never bothered you, did it?  That she might have murdered us.”

“You tell me, since you know everything,” he retorted sullenly.

The future him huffed appreciatively.  “Ah, well, we love a bad girl, don’t we?  Works out particularly well if we know whoever they’ve been bad to deserved it.  No question there, if it’s us.  No guilt.  But that’s not all.  It’s not just a bit sexy and convenient for our self-loathing.  You want it to be us.  You’re hoping it is.”

Well, he wasn’t beating about the bush.  The Doctor exhaled heavily.  “Maybe it’s… the only way this is fair,” he said at last, half in a whisper.  “The only way I can even think I might deserve to…”  He couldn’t choke out the words, his throat too tight.

“Yes, and?” Purple prompted, unmoved by his self-pity.  “No use holding out on me; I know it all.”

“And… and if she kills me,” the Doctor forced out bitterly, “I won’t have to be around, when she’s… gone.  I won’t be there for it to hurt.”

The older Doctor shuffled down the wall to sit beside him, apparently satisfied in having forced him into the sort of excruciating honesty he rarely shared even with himself.  “We really are completely selfish in the end, eh?” he said, mirroring his position on the floor, arms resting over his bent knees.  Rhetorical question, obviously.

“Well, and so?  How does it happen?” the Doctor demanded, though he knew he’d never answer himself with the truth.  “Did she kill us?”

“How should I know?  I’m still alive, aren’t I?”  

He knew.  He could see it.  But he wasn’t giving any more spoilers.  

“You won’t remember much of this,” said the older him, “after crossing our own timestream.  But I think you should remember it’s about time you started a diary.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor laughed bitterly, “Might have a few notes.  Is this going to be on the exam?”

“And, just for the record,” said his older self, once again ignoring his own petulance.  “The sooner you stop taking it out on her, the less you’ll have to hate yourself for the rest of your life, however long that may be.  So.”

Fancy Dress stood to go.  

“Hey, just… tell me,” the Doctor called hoarsely up to him.  “Is it worth it?”

His lips turned up briefly at the corners, though it was hard to discern the heaviness behind his own, older eyes.  “What do you think?”

Fancy Dress strode off down the path and around the corner, and was gone.  Probably back to River; to care for her, to show up and be good to her; even if he was scared, even if it hurt.  The Doctor didn’t know his future self, but from these glimpsed little fragments, he could piece together that he’d be the sort.  Good.  River deserved that.  

“I wouldn’t say it was unpleasant!” He splutters immediately, failing to see how his bluntness couldn’t be construed as anything but disdain. “But—“

River places a slender finger against her lips and says that word he’s starting to hate, especially coming from her.

“Spoilers.”

She laughs pleasantly, like their shared time and space is all a clever game, though the gesture still doesn’t quite reach her eyes, which are faintly lined near the bridge of her nose. She looks older than the last time he saw her, but somehow, the Doctor can tell that she’s quite a bit younger, that she’s been hurt by the world and hasn’t yet mastered how not to entirely show it.

River shrugs him off, and he doesn’t press. They order food and sit in the kitchen and he doesn’t feel like eating. River barely touches her plate. He wants to call her on it, but knows she’d simply turn it back around on him. They pack most of it away in the fridge. 

River disappears to shower, and he wants to follow her. Wants to run his hands over her skin and reassure himself that she’s alive and safe and really here, not a ghost, not a haunting. But she doesn’t invite him and he can’t summon the courage to ask, so he tinkers with the controls and folds and unfolds a newspaper he picked up, full of real estate ads. 

There’s a little bungalow not far from the town nearest the towers. It has bay windows and a garden, or so the ad says. He should ask her about it. If she wants it. If she still wants him. 

He supposes it’s a conversation they should have sooner rather than later. 

Tucking the newspaper into his pocket, he takes his time moving toward their bedroom. Runs over in his mind what to say and how to say it. Practices under his breath being gentle. Being open. His voice still sounds too gruff, too irritated. He doesn’t want to sound like he doesn’t care. Not here, not now. Not with her. Not this time. 

Their bedroom door is cracked open, and he can hear the shower running. Slips inside and stares at the bed they haven’t slept in together for years, still made up. Her clothes are in a pile on top of the comforter, her trowel on the desk in the corner. Her diary’s on the nightstand, her new screwdriver on top of it, and his stomach knots. He looks away, takes a seat on the edge of the bed facing the en-suite door, and fiddles with his ring. 

He hasn’t told her why he wears it, that he wears it for her. Hasn’t told her he keeps his bow tie in his pocket at all times. Hasn’t told her how much he’s missed her, longed for her. Hasn’t told her how badly he wants to bury his face in her hair, how he wants to hold her and never let go. 

He thinks of the aftermath of Manhattan, of the way she’d tried so hard to be strong for him. The way she wouldn’t break. The way he pushed and pushed until she left, taking the rest of his hearts with her. 

The way he hadn’t gone after her, like she should have done. 

He’s made so many mistakes, they make his chest ache, and he knows he doesn’t deserve this, deserve her, but he’s selfish and needs her and he’s so busy trying to come up with the right thing to say to make her realize he isn’t lying that he doesn’t notice the shower turn off, doesn’t hear her moving until the door opens and she’s standing there, hair wet against her neck, towel around her waist, staring at him. 

“Doctor?”

Not sweetie, not darling. 

He swallows. “We need to talk.”

It isn’t what he means to say, isn’t how he means to say it, and River tightens her grip on her towel. She looks down for a brief moment, and he hears her inhale; then she looks up, jaw tight, steeling herself. 

“Talk, then,” she says, as if it doesn’t matter. 

She crosses to the closet and picks out clothes and the Doctor stares at her legs, her back, her shoulders.

“I—“ he starts, and falters. There’s something on her neck that he can’t quite see. “Come here.”

River turns, frowning, clothes in her arms. He gestures, and she rolls her eyes, but comes closer, almost cautiously, eying him with too much suspicion. When she’s close enough, he reaches for her arm, nudging gently. 

“Turn around.”

She huffs. “What are you—“

“Just turn.”

She glares, but does as he says, and he reaches a trembling hand out to move her hair aside. Her shoulder is purple, almost black in some places, worse up close, now that he can see the faint outline of large fingerprints. He hesitates, fingers ghosting over the outline of the bruise, and River flinches. 

“Hydroflax?” he asks, remembers when they tried to escape, the way the robot dangled her off the floor by her shoulder. He hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t known—he supposes her spray is to thank for that, the longer sleeves she’s been wearing since. 

“It’s fine,” River says, and makes to turn but he stills her. 

“Stay here.”

He disappears into the en-suite, comes back with a bottle, a healing salve from some planet or other, he can’t remember. Knows only that it will help her pain. 

“Sit.”

“I’m not a dog,” River snaps, finally, a hint of anger in her eyes, and it relieves him just a little, to see her spark. 

He holds up the bottle. “Sit, please?”

River glowers, but sets down her clothes and perches on the edge of the bed, her back to him as he uncaps the bottle and pours a generous amount of salve into his hands. 

“This might hurt,” he warns, but she merely nods, flinches slightly at the first, barely-there touch of his fingers on the bruise. 

It’s wide and discolored and he hates that he didn’t notice, hates that she didn’t tell him, hates that he let it happen in the first place. That she was harmed. That anyone dared harm her. He clenches his jaw, but it doesn’t stop his words from spilling out, a muttered, 

“Should have put him down the garbage disposal when I had the chance.”

River snorts. 

“I’m serious.”

“Yes,” she says, too casually, “But then I’d never have known who you were.”

He stills a moment. “You think I wouldn’t have told you?”

She shrugs, and winces again. “You certainly took your time.” 

Her voice is even, but he knows better now. Knows it isn’t a joke, and he swallows tightly. 

“I tried,” he says, but they both know he didn’t try hard enough. “Not my fault you’re slow on the uptake.”

He regrets the words immediately, for the way River sighs quietly, says, “No, I suppose it isn’t.” It sounds too much like defeat, coming from her. 

“River…”

“Just say it, Doctor.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you think I don’t want to hear.”

She sounds exhausted, sounds wrung out, and he stares at her shoulder, wishes he could see her face, but he isn’t brave enough. And it helps, almost, to stare at the bruise when he says, 

“I...don’t know…” he trails off, hesitates, reaches out and touches her spine, so gently. “...how to say it.”

There’s silence, long and dreadful, and River doesn’t turn, doesn’t move, barely looks like she’s breathing. 

“Most people just say ‘goodbye.’”

The Doctor flinches. “Is that what you think I want?”

River shakes her head, but still refuses to look at him. “I don’t know what you want.”

Her words hit his chest, and he feels something inside him crack. 

His River. 

His wife. 

And he’s done this to her, made her so uncertain, she won’t even face him. He’s made her so sure that his absence is the only thing she can count on. It forces the air from his lungs, makes him shudder. He closes his eyes against the rotating guilt, the grief he’s created for them both. 

There’s so much he wants—needs—to tell her and he doesn’t know where or how to start. She’s stiff beneath his hand, waiting, he knows, for a dismissal. An excuse. A trite line or a lie. 

He wants to ask her what she wants. What she needs. But he thinks, staring at the bruise he could so easily heal, that it isn’t good enough. Puts too much onus on her, to pretend the hurt never happened. That it’s easily fixed. 

Swallowing down his nausea, his fear, he slides his hand over her skin to her arm, cradles her bicep gently, fingers whispering in Gallifreyan. 

I’m sorry, he says. 

River shudders, sighs, and moves to turn, away or toward he isn’t sure, but he doesn’t want her forgiveness, not yet. 

Bending forward, he places a soft kiss to the bruise on her shoulder. 

“Just you,” he whispers, and gathers his courage. 

River doesn’t move, for a long moment, his lips pressed to her skin, his fingers drawing symbols on her arm for want and need and hope. 

When she turns, finally, her eyes are bright with tears, and he lets his hand fall to hers, lifts her wrist to his lips and kisses that, too, the scar he’s never forgotten. 

River stares at him, her eyes blown and he waits, brushes his thumb over the pulse in her wrist. 

“Always you.”

River blinks and a tear falls and he catches it, cradles her cheek, relieved beyond all measure when she tilts into his touch. 

“Sweetie—”