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"River’s not just his wife, she’s his widow. Somewhere in the terrible future, on a battlefield, the 45th Doctor dies in her arms and makes her the same promise she once made him – it’s not over for you, you’ll see me again. So River buries her husband and off she goes to have lots of adventures with his younger selves and confuse the hell out of them. Until, of course, she ends up in the data core of the Library Planet, and realizes she’ll never see him again. And then she starts to wonder why anyone would call a moon ‘Doctor’. Some version of that could still work. The Doctor worrying that she’ll get lonely in the library and popping his dying mind inside a moon.” - Steven Moffat
The Doctor is dying. He’d died once before, not so long ago for her in Berlin. River had given everything to save him – pushed all of her lives into the lanky body lying so still on those steps – and for the first time since it happened, she wishes she hadn’t. She should have held onto a bit, just in case she ever needed to save him again in the future. He’s the Doctor. Of course he would need saving again. And now she has nothing left.
The last time she’d seen the Doctor, he had dropped her off at her cell after Calderon Beta. More stars in one sky than at any other moment in history. Oh, how that baby face could blush. And now blood soaks the ground under her knees, wetting her trousers and seeping into her skin. Her hands shake as she cradles him to her, lifting his upper body out of the mud to let him lean against her instead. He grimaces, his face contorting with pain when she moves him, and she murmurs shaken apologies into his hair. His fingers curl weakly around her wrist and she feels her throat close up. He can’t die like this, lying in a muddy battlefield on a distant planet like some anonymous soldier.
Head lolling on her shoulder, he looks up at her through eyes clouded with pain. Green eyes this time, in an odd but handsome face. He always manages to be handsome. She wonders distantly if it’s a particular talent of his or if perhaps she is simply too in love to think him anything other than beautiful. She has never seen this regeneration before now and part of her hopes she never does again. How could she bear to look into the eyes of this face and know how it ends?
She strokes blood-stained fingers across his cheek, leaving red streaks behind. “What do I do?” She sniffles, unsuccessfully blinking back tears. “I’ll fix it. Just tell me how, sweetie, and I’ll-”
He tries to speak but only ends up coughing, blood flecking his lips and chin as he winces. River stares at him, feeling completely helpless in a way she hasn’t felt since she met him. Some days, she still feels more like Mels than River. This is one of those times. She is older than most but right now she is young and frightened and lost. Maybe River Song should know what to do now but she simply doesn’t. She still needs him. Her Doctor. He can’t leave her when she’s still figuring out how to be the woman he loves.
Fingers still wrapped around her wrist, the Doctor rasps, “Can’t – help.” He clears his throat and she can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he struggles. “Everybody dies, m-my River.”
She shakes her head, curls sticking to her sweaty cheek as she squeezes her eyes shut. The words come out strangled and small, like a child facing a nightmare. “Not you.”
A tired smile quirks his trembling lips and he stares at her through half-lidded eyes. “Even me.” His thumb strokes softly over the inside of her wrist, resting lightly over her double pulse. “S’OK. It’s not over for you.” His eyes trace over her face as though trying to memorize her – as though she is the one leaving and he wants to be sure he doesn’t forget her. “You’ll see me again.”
How? How can she possibly see him again after this? How can she look into that young face and not see this moment over and over again? She has only just found him and yet somehow, she has already lost him too. Tears burn her eyes and she grips his hand, slippery with blood. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t leave me.”
“N-never,” he breathes, still smiling faintly. “Bad penny, me. Always t-turn up.”
His eyes drift closed. Panic spreads through her chest like icy fingers and River rakes a hand through his matted hair, tugging gently. She wants to shake him but the idea of hurting him right now makes her recoil. “No, don’t-” She tightens her fingers in his dark hair, choking on the words. “Stay with me, sweetie. Look at me.”
He huffs a soft, broken laugh and whispers, “M’always looking at you.”
His eyes don’t open again. River sits there, her stomach full of rocks and her eyes swimming with tears, and watches helplessly as the man she gave up everything for slips out of her reach. With him still sprawled in her lap, she can feel every shudder that lances through him. Every trembling breath. And when it all stops, she feels that too.
For a moment, she holds onto hope that he might have some regeneration energy left. Breath caught in her throat, she stares at his lifeless body, searching for any sign of golden light. The battlefield stays dark and quiet, the Doctor just another dead man in a sea of bodies. Her hands shake as she shifts him, arranging him reverently on the muddy field. Heedless of the blood soaking into her clothes and hair, River stretches out beside him and curls up the way she had just a few days ago when they’d been sharing a plate of chips and gazing up at the stars. That was real. She knows that was real. So this cannot possibly be. Surely so much happiness cannot coexist beside so much grief.
She lays her head on the Doctor’s chest. There is no reassuring double beat of his hearts under her ear. Only silence. River squeezes her eyes shut and waits to wake up.
And waits. And waits.
She carries the burden of the Doctor’s final moments with her throughout the rest of their centuries-long marriage. Every time she looks at him, that dark day on the battlefield lurks in the recesses of her mind. Each time he reaches for her hand, she remembers the way his blood had dried and flaked in the creases of her palms. Each time he smiles, she remembers how hard he had tried to be brave for her until the very end. It takes time before she learns to bury it and stop letting his death color every interaction. It takes even longer to realize she hadn’t been the only one weighed down by such a heavy secret. Naïve of her, really. River had seen his end at her beginning so it only stood to reason the Doctor had seen her end at his.
Auto destruct in two minutes.
She’d told her father once that meeting the Doctor when he didn’t know her would kill her but she hadn’t meant it quite so literally. After having just spent 24 years living a linear life with him, the pain of having her husband look right through her had been staggering. And yet she would endure it over and over again to keep him from looking at her the way he is now. There is no amount of pain she would not withstand to save the Doctor from suffering.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
The Doctor freezes, though he still strains silently against the cuff around his wrist. His eyes – so, so young – are wide and terrified. Helpless. It’s like looking into the past, peering into her own face as she’d stared down at her dying husband on a muddy battlefield. Her own pain barely registers. All she wants is to comfort him.
“It’s not over for you,” she tells him, repeating his own words back to him. Just as he’ll repeat them back to her when the time comes. “You’ll see me again.”
He doesn’t say it but she can see the same quiet rage against the futility of it all – the same question echoing from her past self and reflected in his eyes. How? How will I ever look at you again and not see this moment? She wishes she could tell him it gets easier but it never really does. He’ll just get better at hiding it.
“There’s only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name.” He stares at her with sad resignation etched into the lines around his eyes and mouth, as though he already knows. Of course he knows. Just as she had at her beginning, even if she hadn’t been ready to admit it yet. “There’s only one time I could.”
How like him to spend their last moments together trying to discover her secrets. If she had the time, she could tell him about the day he told her his name. She could tell him every time she whispered it back to him in the dark, feeling him shudder in her arms to hear it spoken once more with so much love. She could reassure him that he’ll hear his name from her lips over and over again in the days to come. But there is only time for one last word. She makes it a good one.
“Spoilers.”
She understands now why he’d smiled as he was dying.
He knew she would always remember his face.
For a while, she grieves. She’d never expected to need to grieve for her own death; never expected to survive it at all. It isn’t really the event of her passing she’s grieving, of course, but rather the loss of a life. Hers was a life longer than most get but does anyone ever really feel as though they’ve had enough time? There are still places she’ll never go and people she’ll never meet. Songs she will never hear. A man she will never hold again. She has parents who will wonder what became of her when she doesn’t show up in New York for breakfast week after week, and a baby brother who will grow up with only stories of her instead of memories.
Coming to terms with her new existence isn’t easy but Charlotte and the other children make it easy to pretend. River has always been very good at putting on a brave face when she needs to; she did it for years with the Doctor until he finally snapped at her to stop hiding things from him. It’s simple enough to pick up the habit again, throwing it around her like a comfortable old jumper. The Doctor had uploaded her diary into the data core and despite her conflicting feelings surrounding her husband at the moment, her gratitude to him for that is unending. Without her diary and with eternity ahead, she fears she might have begun to forget. The only thing worse than losing everything she’d had to live for would have been to forget it ever happened in the first place.
She reads her adventures to Charlotte and the others, tactfully skipping over the ones that hadn’t exactly been child-friendly – anniversaries, that time she’d cloned herself for the Doctor’s birthday, and the nude beaches on Florana included. The kids enjoy the scariest stories the most, hiding their faces beneath the covers while listening eagerly to her tales of the Weeping Angels and the Cybermen. It’s both a balm to her hearts and a knife in them, recounting her timeline from beginning to end. A balm because reading them to her little audience is a reminder that it was real and wonderful; a knife because it’s over now, relegated to little more than bedtime stories.
“River, my boat keeps sinking!”
She looks up from the diary entry she’d been perusing, her mind still caught up in a narrow escape from becoming a human sacrifice on the planet of the rain gods, even as she stares at the child dangling a bedraggled paper boat in her face. She blinks away the memory and reaches up to swat at the boat gently, smiling. “Did you bring extra paper?” When Ella nods, River sighs. “Go and fetch it then. We’ll try again.”
As she scurries off, shouting at the others loud enough to be heard all the way across the park, River stifles a snort and snaps shut her diary. Last night, she’d told them about the time she and the Doctor had been marooned by space pirates and fashioned a raft out of driftwood and wine corks. The children had insisted on making their own. River had spent the morning helping them fold their miniature vessels, managing to turn it into a lesson about water currents in an effort to make it somewhat educational.
I don’t know how you do it, Anita had muttered, still half-asleep and clutching her coffee as River ushered all three children out the door. You’re like Indiana Jones and Mary Poppins combined.
River didn’t have the hearts to tell her it was either this or go mad.
Rushing back to the bench where River sits, waving bright yellow construction paper triumphantly, Ella halts to a stop just before she collides with River’s knees. “Got it,” she pants, eyes wide. “We’ve got to hurry. Josh is winning.”
“Oh dear, we simply can’t lose to a boy.” River scrunches her nose, stifling amusement when Ella nods sagely. “Come on then. Start folding.”
Despite River’s personal affinity for cheating to get her way as often as she needs to, she has her doubts about passing that particular trait on to a child – even if that child isn’t necessarily real. So she refuses to construct the boat for Ella, instructing her on how to do it herself instead – guiding her patiently through each step. When they’re both satisfied this one will withstand the gentle currents of the duck pond, Ella rushes off again, her red hair flying wildly behind her.
A voice close by mutters, “You’re good at that.”
River starts, head whipping to her right, and finds the place beside her on the bench occupied. Normally, no one would ever have gotten the chance to sneak up on her but it hardly seemed necessary to keep her guard up here. She’s dead – what else can an enemy possibly do to her? As a result, certain skills have slipped. Eyeing the man sitting beside her and smiling, she greets warily, “Doctor Moon.”
His smile dimples. “Please, call me Doctor.”
With a barely contained flinch, River glances away. She flexes her jaw, staring out at the pond for a long moment. “Good at what?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she detects Doctor Moon shrugging lightly. “Teaching. Talking to children. Building boats. Take your pick.”
There’s something fond in his voice and considering she’s only met him once before when she first arrived, it’s strange enough to make her shift uncomfortably. “Thank you.” She lifts a hand in acknowledgement and manages a tight smile for Ella dancing excitedly along the shore, pointing at her boat making its slow trek across the water.
“How are you feeling?”
She glances at him, frowning. “Sorry?”
Doctor Moon gazes out at the pond, watching the progress of the little paper boats with interest. “I imagine it hasn’t been an easy adjustment. I thought I should check in and see how you’re faring.”
River shrugs. “I’m fine.”
Turning his eyes from the boat race, Doctor Moon levels her with a skeptical look.
Instantly, she feels herself bristle. “I am.”
“Very well.” He pauses, still studying her behind his round-rimmed glasses. “Are you… happy?”
River stares at him, biting back the bizarre urge to laugh. “Why would I be happy?”
He blinks, seeming to flounder for a moment. “Well, you’re not dead.”
She sets her jaw. “I was never afraid of dying.”
“But you’ve got every book ever written at your fingertips,” he presses, and she can’t help wondering why he seems so invested in her well-being. Probably worried about the effect her after-death angst might have on the system. “You have whole worlds to explore.”
"Alone." It had never bothered her before. Her adventures were often entirely separate from the Doctor and there were times when she even preferred it that way. Not all of her escapades would have been Doctor-approved, after all. But even when they were apart, there was always the possibility of running into him. She'd known he was out there somewhere and one day, they'd meet again.
Doctor Moon points out softly, “You have your friends.”
“Coworkers,” she corrects him, offering a wry glance. “They’re lovely, of course, but would you want to spend eternity with your coworkers?”
He grimaces, his features contorting briefly at the idea. “Point taken,” he mutters. His brow furrows and his eyes are pained, though she can’t begin to understand why. “If you’re not happy… are you sad, River?”
A soft, tired smile tugs at her mouth. “I should be, shouldn’t I? That’s what someone normal would feel about being dead.”
She has no idea why she feels so comfortable spilling her hearts out to what basically amounts to a stranger. An acquaintance, at best. There is something about Doctor Moon that feels oddly familiar – as though she could tell him anything and it would be safe with him. It’s ridiculous, of course. He doesn’t even have a real medical degree.
His gaze is unwavering and intent. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Please.”
River sighs, her stomach twisting into knots as she admits out loud for the first time, “I’m… angry.”
His brows lift. “Well, that’s normal considering your circumstances. You’re going through the five stages of grief about your own death-”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not angry about my circumstances. I’m angry at him.”
“Him?”
River tips back her head, studying the blue sky above. A sky that isn’t real. There are no stars up there; no planets waiting to be discovered; no madman in a box who might drop in for a visit. Nothing exists in here but data code and books. Not even her. She breathes in, struggling to push those thoughts away before she drives herself mad. Exhaling, she confesses, “My husband.”
Beside her, she feels Doctor Moon go utterly still. “Why?”
She huffs a soft, humorless laugh. “For being selfish enough to put me in here just because he couldn’t face losing me. After everything, surely he knew how important it was to make my own choice. And he couldn’t possibly have believed I would choose another prison. It’s a pretty one, mind, but I’m still separate from him and from my parents.” She sighs, eyes burning. “I’m very good at escaping but not even I can break out of this one.”
Doctor Moon stares at her silently, a stricken expression on his face.
Regret washes over her instantly. He’d asked how she was doing to be polite – not to listen to her go on about her problems. “Sorry,” she says, forcing a smile. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all that.”
“No,” he says, just a touch fiercely. “I’m sorry, River. I – I’m sure your husband never meant to cage you. I imagine he must have thought he was giving you a gift.”
A shout nearby saves River from having to reply. She turns her head, spying Josh waving his arms about furiously and glaring into the pond – or rather, at the duck currently munching on his boat. Charlotte and Ella giggle madly together, clearly quite pleased fate had intervened before a boy could win their contest. Well, fate or Charlotte. River can’t be sure they aren’t the same thing in here.
Fuming, Josh stomps his foot and shouts, “Bad duck!”
River stifles a laugh. She doesn’t have much practice being around children but she’s fairly certain she isn’t supposed to laugh when they’re angry. Waving the leftover construction paper in the air, she calls out, “Who’s up for round two?”
As all three of them cheer, Doctor Moon stands with a soft, strained smile. “I’ll leave you to your afternoon.”
She arches a brow. “Sure you don’t want to stick around and make your own boat?”
For a moment, she thinks he might accept. His eyes brighten behind his glasses and a grin tugs at his mouth but just as quickly, the expression fades. He squares his shoulders and clasps his hands. “Ah. No. I’d better not.” He clears his throat, glancing between her and the approaching children with something like regret. “Thank you though.”
“Right.” She musters a smile because it seems like the polite thing to do after someone sits beside you on a park bench and listens to you unload your problems. “I suppose I’ll see you around.”
“Oh, I should think so.” His expression warms and the smile returns. “I’m like a bad penny – I always turn up.”
Curled up in an armchair in the manor’s library, River tries desperately to tune out the sound of Proper Dave and Other Dave organizing a trip into Palahniuk’s Fight Club on the other side of the room. They’re currently bickering over who gets to attend which group therapy sessions, making it impossible to focus on the words of her diary. She can tell they’re doing their best to keep quiet but it’s a big room and their voices carry.
“Dude, come on. You know how I feel about Marla.”
She holds in a sigh, fingers flexing impatiently around the fragile spine of her diary. At first, it had seemed so unnecessary to get a place of her own when this house is so terribly big. As the days drag on, however, she’s beginning to see the merits of having a bit of privacy. Having spent most of her life alone – aside from the occasional extended stay on the TARDIS with her husband and those twenty-four years on Darillium – River has grown used to having her own space. Or her own cell.
At last, the two Daves disappear into their book and the library falls silent once more. River breathes out a relieved sigh, attention returning to her diary. She’d been reading about the time she and the Doctor had attended that fertility festival on Magnus. Of course, she couldn’t conceive but they’d had ever so much fun practicing. She can still remember the heady taste of the ceremonial wine on his tongue…
From downstairs, the sounds of Anita and Evangelista attempting a baking lesson with the children drift into the room – and their shrieks every time Josh gets bored and throws flour at them. River pauses in her reading again, jarred from her memories by the clatter of mixing bowls and an exasperated “if you throw that one more time…”
River rubs at her temple. A headache is beginning to form over her right eye.
When the door creaks, she lifts her head – fully prepared to see Charlotte running to her for reinforcements. Instead, Doctor Moon stands there, his brown eyes knowing and his smile commiserating. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Not at all,” she says wryly, refusing to admit just how grateful she is to see a relatively new face. “Just Thursday.”
“Ah,” he says, leaning in the doorway. “I’ve always hated those.”
River snaps her diary shut, giving up on reminiscing for now. Perhaps tonight, when she can curl up alone in her empty bed – the bed that will always be empty now – and read when she’ll be free to cry herself to sleep afterward. She can even open a bottle of wine and make a wholly maudlin and indulgent self-care evening out of it. “What are you doing here?”
As if he’d been reading her mind, Doctor Moon studies her closely and explains, “After our last conversation, I thought I should check in and see how you’re adjusting.”
River almost laughs. Somehow, she feels far worse than she had that day at the duck pond. The realization has finally begun to sink in that she will never see her husband again. She’d known that instantly, of course she had, but it has started to feel more real now. This isn’t a brief parting before they’re reunited. The Doctor isn’t coming to save her – he already did. This is it. No more running. No more reaching for his hand. No more feeling him smile against her mouth or listening to the beat of his hearts. No more adjusting his bowtie for him or stealing his hoodie. It’s nearly all she can think about. It’s difficult to keep a tight grip on her anger when she misses him so much it feels like a physical malady. She misses that anger. It kept her sane and carried her out of bed every morning. Without it, she fears she might just wither away.
“I’m fine.”
She can taste the lie on her tongue and Doctor Moon must be able to see it in her face as well because he simply looks at her. “I think I have something that might help.” He holds out a hand to her, brows lifted hopefully. “If you’ll accompany me, of course.”
Curious despite herself, River rises from her chair and tucks her diary under her arm. There are so few surprises these days. She can’t afford to turn any away. “Are we going into the Palahniuk book as well? I’m beginning to think hitting a few people would cheer me up.”
“I’m sure it would,” he mutters, watching her slip her hand into his. His hands are rougher than she’d imagined a doctor’s hands would be but he’s gentle as he clasps her fingers in his own. “That isn’t quite what I had in mind but if this idea doesn’t work, we can certainly try it.”
“Very well,” she says with a sigh, smirking faintly. “We’ll try it your way.”
Doctor Moon lifts his free hand and snaps his fingers. The world abruptly dissolves around them, or perhaps they’re the ones who dissolve. When they reappear, they’re not in the manor library anymore. They’re standing beside a sparkling lake and a short distance away sits a house with a blue door.
River sways in place, breath catching painfully. It looks exactly like the house on Darillium where she’d lived for 24 years. It is the house on Darillium, right down to the wind chime made of beach glass hanging from the porch and the yellow roses climbing the garden wall. Tears well up in her eyes and she struggles in vain to blink them away. She bites her lip to stifle a cry but doesn’t quite manage it, garnering an alarmed glance from Doctor Moon.
“River?” He takes a halting step toward her, arm outstretched and eyes wide. “Are you – no, of course you’re not. I’m sorry. I can change it.”
She wants to say yes. She wants to demand he change it right now – make it a tiny cottage for one, make it a shed for all she cares but don’t leave it like this. How can she possibly live alone in that house filled with memories of him? And yet the thought of changing it is just as reprehensible to her. Where else would she live but home? The only other thing she has left of the Doctor is a book she keeps with her constantly. She’ll take whatever she can get. Even if it hurts.
“No,” she says, clutching her diary and taking a trembling step forward. “Don’t you dare.”
As she approaches the house, her eyes drink in every detail. Everything is so familiar, so seamlessly integrated – the swing where they used to sit in the evenings, curled up beneath a blanket and sharing a drink as they exchanged stories of the time they’d spent apart; that perfect square of dead grass in the middle of the yard where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS; the askew knocker on the door, lopsided from how often they’d shoved each other against it after a night out and snogged like teenagers.
If she didn’t know exactly where she was, she might have assumed it was the real thing. Any moment now, she expects her husband to walk out the front door and sit on the steps with his guitar. He’d always liked to play for her while she tended the garden. What song always depended on his mood. “Landslide” for days when time felt like it was slipping through their fingers; “Just Like Heaven” for those days they were so happy it was nearly unbearable; and “Day Tripper” for when he was cross. If he was feeling cheeky, it was “I Touch Myself”.
River swallows the lump in her throat, forcing away the vivid memories. “Where – how did you-”
“CAL extracted it from your memories,” Doctor Moon says, staring at the front door like he also expects someone to walk out at any moment. He doesn’t meet her eyes. “She thought you might like a place of your own.”
Approaching the porch steps, River gives the wind chime a little nudge and listens to the gentle tinkling of sea glass. “She was right.”
He watches her intently, seeming to catalogue and file away her every move. “You’re… happy with it then?”
She strokes a fingertip over the chipping blue paint on the door and smiles. “It’s perfect.”
Doctor Moon smiles back and the relief in his expression is palpable as he murmurs, “I’m glad.”
She’d feared losing herself to her memories in the house but to her relief, she doesn’t spend all of her days alone. Anita drops by with Josh and Ella when they’re about to drive her and everyone else mad, setting them loose in River’s house with an unapologetic grin. Charlotte visits on her own, always bringing a book with her for the two of them to explore together. Other Dave acquires a bad habit of raiding her refrigerator for cheese. And sometimes, Doctor Moon pops in for tea.
Sitting in the armchair the Doctor always favored – furthest from the fireplace but closest to the bookshelves – Doctor Moon drops four sugars into his cup and helps himself to a Jammie Dodger. “I think you’re wrong,” he says, dunking his biscuit in his tea. “And I’ll tell you why.”
River rolls her eyes good-naturedly, sinking back into her chair and curling her legs beneath her. “Here we go,” she teases. “Go on then. Have your say before I eviscerate you. As usual.”
Every time Doctor Moon shows up for tea, they always end up bickering about something. The last time, they’d argued about the Kennedys and the time before that, whether Dickens was actually any good or just terribly verbose. Doctor Moon had argued the former and River the latter, citing her own husband as an example of saying too much while not actually saying a damn thing.
“Hamlet should have been a comedy,” Doctor Moon insists, acknowledging her arrogance with only a tilt of his eyebrow. “It’s delightfully funny nearly all the way through. Hamlet practically had a standup act about his mother and his uncle. And I think you’re forgetting the scene with the gravediggers.”
“Yes but-”
“Polonius,” he interrupts, nearly upending his tea in his haste to point a finger at her. “’Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief’. The entirety of that speech alone is enough reason to justify why Hamlet should have been a comedy.”
River eyes him over the rim of her mug. “Are you quite finished?”
Doctor Moon helps himself to another Jammie Dodger and waves a hand at her. “Your turn.”
“Romeo and Juliet,” she insists, watching in amusement as he tries to surreptitiously add another cube of sugar to his tea. “All of Shakespeare’s other tragedies featured people of rank or important social position. Those two were just a couple of unremarkable teenagers. And the first two acts are structured exactly like one of his comedies – the lovers being kept apart by misguided authority figures and misunderstandings.”
“Yes, but Polonius-”
“Mercutio,” she retorts, eyes narrowed in challenge. “And the Nurse.”
Doctor Moon seems to wilt against the cushions, frowning. “Yes, I suppose you might have a point,” he admits grudgingly. “Agree to disagree?”
“Again,” she sighs, shaking her head. “One day, we’ll find something we agree on.”
“Oh, I hope not.” He looks troubled by the very idea, pausing with a biscuit halfway to his mouth. “That would be very boring of us.”
River laughs, curling her hands around the warm ceramic of her mug. While she always appreciates the company whenever any of her friends drop by, she finds herself always most looking forward to the days when Doctor Moon visits. She… likes him. She enjoys his company and admires his quick wit. He has no trouble matching her when they bicker. She likes that he never forgets that she takes honey in her tea. She likes that sitting beside him feels familiar and comforting, the same way holding her diary does.
“Charlotte paid a visit this morning.”
“Oh?” He stirs his tea with the soggy half of his biscuit and pouts when it suddenly and inevitably crumbles. It reminds her so sharply of the Doctor that it catches her breath. “And what sort of trouble did the two of you find?”
River turns her gaze back to her fingers wrapped tight around her cup, clearing her throat. “She decided she was old enough to visit Coraline. We had a rather nasty run in with the Other Mother.”
Doctor Moon shudders visibly. “And?”
She winces in sympathy. “And I don’t believe anyone at the manor will be getting any sleep any time soon.”
With a grin, Doctor Moon says, “A bit of fear can be healthy for children.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll mention that when Anita stops by to kill me.”
“Unfortunately for her,” he says, eyes twinkling mischievously. “You’re already dead.”
River snorts. There’s a lull in the conversation after that, both of them finishing their tea and listening in contented silence to the wind playing with the chimes on the porch outside. It’s River who breaks it, settling her mug on the table beside her chair and shifting in her seat. Doctor Moon glances at her instantly, as though sensing she has something to say. “I told Charlotte today how much I appreciated the house and how grateful I was,” she says, watching closely as he stiffens. “She had no idea what I was talking about.”
Doctor Moon says nothing, staring fixedly into his empty cup.
“It wasn’t Charlotte’s idea, was it?” She asks, and Doctor Moon swallows. “It was yours.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, looking weary in the way an old god might – exhausted from carrying the weight of an entire world on his shoulders. “Does it matter whose idea it was?”
“I suppose not,” she admits, still studying him. There is so much tension in his frame and the line of his jaw, reminding her so intensely of her husband on his bad days that she wants to cross the distance between them and wrap him in her arms. He had approached her that day at the duck pond; he had made this house for her and keeps showing up for tea with a smile. She has to know. “Why do you care so much?”
Doctor Moon drops his hand from his face and finally lifts his head, smiling tiredly. “It’s my job,” he whispers, meeting her gaze. “Ensuring your happiness.”
It would be easy to misinterpret his meaning. River is now a part of this world he was created to protect. Making sure she’s content is just another of his duties. But the way he looks at her is unmistakable. He didn’t give her a house because it’s his job. And he doesn’t keep visiting because he feels like he has to. The urge to reach out to him becomes irrepressible and River perches on the edge of her chair, stretching her hand across the space between them and clasping his fingers. He laces their hands together instantly, his palm calloused against hers but his brown eyes soft and fond in a way that makes her ache between her hearts. “Doctor,” she whispers.
And recoils.
She drops his hand and leaps from her chair, putting as much distance between them as she can. She retreats to the fireplace, turning her back on him and bracing her hands against the mantel. Her heart pounds in her ears and her throat feels too tight to breathe. Doctor. She’d called him – Her stomach heaves and she bites down hard on her tongue, fighting the urge to retch.
Behind her, she hears the soft sound of footsteps and then feels a hesitant, warm presence at her back. “River-”
She unlocks her jaw only long enough to snap, “I need you to go now.” Squeezing her eyes shut against the sudden swell of tears, she adds softly, “Please.”
“Of course,” he says, sounding pained. “I’ll leave you.”
She doesn’t breathe until she feels him move away, listening intently to the sound of his retreating footsteps. Her knees tremble, on the verge of giving out beneath her, but she grips the mantel in white-knuckled fingers and waits. The moment the door clicks shut behind him, River lets herself sink to the floor and cry.
After that, she avoids Doctor Moon. And once she figures out how to project herself into the real world, she avoids the Library entirely. It’s clear her feelings for Doctor Moon have gotten all muddled up in her grief over losing the Doctor. She’d latched on to the first person to show her kindness, someone who exhibited a few familiar traits she could see her husband in. But it isn’t real. And it certainly isn’t fair to poor Doctor Moon. It isn’t fair to her own battered hearts either.
When she isn’t taking tea with Vastra and Jenny, River begins to spend her days where her hearts truly lie – haunting the Doctor’s footsteps. He never notices her tagging along on his adventures with his companion; never so much as twitches when she brushes a hand over his cheek while he sleeps. It hurts – oh, does it ever hurt to be forgotten. Every time his eyes slide right over her is like a knife twisting cruelly in her gut. And yet she would choose this fresh agony a hundred times over before she would ever choose to be without him.
She craves a reaction from him but more than that, she craves a proper goodbye. She’d gotten that with his next regeneration – they’d had 24 years to say everything they needed to say to one another. But this version of her husband had left after Manhattan and never looked back. This is the face she fell in love with first. This is the face she married; the face that broke her hearts and mended them and broke them again. This is the face that showed her the stars and danced her across the frozen Thames and ran with her through the universe. And the last thing she remembers is this face looking at her with disappointment and anger. She needs to see love in his eyes again. Maybe then she’ll have the strength to let him go.
So she follows one step behind him as he trails through the stars, waiting for him to look up and see her. And then one day, he does.
The moment he truly looks at her, she realizes at once none of that anger and disappointment she’d remembered so clearly had ever been real. It had been a mere blip. The way he grips her wrist and looks at her like Orpheus must have looked at Eurydice when he failed her – this is real. This is true. She wants to tell him Eurydice would never blame her husband when his only crime had been loving her enough to want her safe but he kisses her first. Every single thing she’d ever hoped to tell him when he finally saw her slips away. There is only his tender hands cupping her face and his soft mouth devouring hers with the frantic intensity of a man who knows he will never get another chance. This is real, she tells herself, clinging to his coat and trying desperately to memorize the way he feels pressed against her.
River asks him for only one thing. To be given the goodbye she hadn’t gotten after Manhattan. The Doctor looks at her for a moment like he might refuse – not because she doesn’t deserve a goodbye but because he knows it will mean losing her all over again. But then he puts on a brave face, slipping out of her arms and managing a broken smile for her. His eyes are already lost and haunted, like the ghost of her will linger even after she fades away.
“See you around, Professor River Song.”
He loves her – and that is the realest thing of all.
The house is waiting for her when she returns. She reappears in the kitchen where they so often used to cook dinner together. Well, the Doctor cooked and River stirred things at his direction. She can still remember the way he would press himself against her back and peer over her shoulder, his hand curled around her hip as he waited for a taste. Now, River wavers in place and stares at the empty kitchen.
It’s over. What is she supposed to do now?
“River?”
She turns slowly and blinks at Doctor Moon standing in the doorway.
He takes a cautious step forward, eyes creased with concern. “Are you alright?”
The urge to laugh wars with the urge to sink to her knees and sob. Unsure which would win out in the end, River presses her lips tightly together and shakes her head, eyes bright with tears. Doctor Moon softens, crossing the distance between them and grasping her gently by the elbow.
“Sit,” he murmurs, directing her to the kitchen table. “I’ll make tea.”
On autopilot, River sits. Her chest feels hollow, as though someone had reached in and scooped out her hearts. She wonders how it can still ache so thoroughly. Her mind keeps returning to the look on his face as they said goodbye and the way his hand had slipped from hers so reluctantly. She’ll never see him again. All she has left is an old diary and a house filled with memories. She stares blankly at the black and white kitchen tile but not even something so innocuous is safe. They’d christened this floor once, after a row. And the Doctor always used to complain about how cold the tile was against his bare feet in the mornings. River had bought him socks for his birthday that year – fuzzy ones and striped ones, socks printed with colorful swears and socks with dancing bananas. She’d even gotten him a pair with her face on them. He’d worn a different pair every morning, always choosing the more ridiculous ones to make her laugh.
Her eyes sting and she shuts them, listening to Doctor Moon fill the kettle and stick it on the hob. He pulls mugs out of the cabinet and rummages through her tea selection in silence. After he pulls out a jar of honey and a spoon, he gathers it all together and settles it on the table in front of her. With a soft sigh, he looks down at her and says fondly, “You’re usually so clever.”
River finally opens her eyes, frowning. “What?”
“I suppose it can be blamed on the shock of dying,” he says, bracing one hand against the table and peering down at her. “But really, I thought you’d have asked by now.”
Not bothering to bite back her annoyance, she snaps, “Asked what?”
His brows lift and a gentle smirk tugs at his mouth. “Why would anyone call a moon Doctor?”
She stares at him, unable to account for the sudden wild pounding of her hearts. For the first time since she’s known him, she forces herself to really and truly look at him. He’s really rather pretty behind those spectacles. The tailored navy suit and pressed white shirt are a lovely complement to his dark skin and there are soft smile lines around his mouth, though she can’t remember ever seeing him smile wide enough to cause them. His eyes are a warm, chocolate brown but they give him away at once – so old and sad and kind. She breathes in sharply, feeling the world give way beneath her feet.
He smiles. “Hello sweetie.”
A lump rises in her throat. “You-” She shakes her head numbly. “It can’t be. I’ve never seen this face before.”
“I had forty-five of them, dear,” he chides, still smiling. “You can’t be expected to have met them all.” When she continues to gape at him wordlessly, he sighs. “Perhaps this will help.”
Before she can blink, he transforms before her very eyes – the tall, broad body growing a few inches shorter and slimmer, becoming slender and lanky. The face thins out until the cheekbones look as though they could cut glass. Floppy brown hair droops into his eyes. The suit is the last to go, morphing into the worn tweed she remembers so well. Finding herself staring at the man who had just kissed her goodbye, River shoots to her feet but stands frozen, rooted in place before him.
“I can choose whichever of my faces I like in here,” he explains, fidgeting with his bowtie and shying away from her bewildered stare. “Of course, I had to pick one you’d never met until after Trenzalore. If you knew I was here, it would have disrupted the timeline.”
Her hand trembles as she reaches out to him and when her fingertips brush against a warm, smooth cheek she chokes on a cry. “Impossible.”
“Improbable.” He smiles, tapping her on the nose in a gesture so achingly familiar she feels tears spring to her eyes. “There’s a difference, dear.”
A laugh bubbles in her throat but she stifles it, still unwilling to believe what’s right in front of her. This can’t be real. He can’t be standing in front of her when she thought him lost forever. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought you might get lonely,” he says with a shrug, as casual as though he’d merely decided to pop round for tea. “So I waited until my final regeneration and uploaded my dying mind into the data core.”
She shakes her head. “No, I was with you when you-” She swallows tightly, shutting her eyes against the memory of that day. “You died on a battlefield.”
“Yes, with a neural relay in my pocket linked to the data core,” he adds, leaning into the palm she still has pressed to his cheek. “I’ve been waiting for you ever since.”
“You mean you’ve been here the whole time?” She asks, voice catching. “Since the Library was built?”
He nods, turning his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Thought it was time I did the waiting.”
“But… why?”
“Because you’re worth waiting for.”
“Sweetie…” She shakes her head firmly when she feels herself beginning to waver, softening in the face of that wide-eyed, earnest devotion. She’d forgotten how easily he used to be able to distract her. “No, stop that. Stop flirting with me.”
His lips part in shock. “You’ve never said those words before.”
River musters a glare, refusing to cave. “Why are you here?”
“Where else would I go?” He frowns, tugging uneasily at his bowtie. “Spouses are traditionally buried together in most cultures, aren’t they?”
Her eyes narrow. “And you’re so traditional.”
“Oi,” he complains, huffing. “I was trying to be romantic. What’s the matter? Are you angry? No, you’re not angry. Are you? Is it the face?” He lifts a hand and pats his cheek tentatively. “I thought you liked this one but-” He changes again – shifting from her young, gangly husband to a familiar, older face. The floppy hair turns gray and wild, curling gently at the ends. The hazel eyes become piercing blue and expressive eyebrows appear. The tweed vanishes and in its place is a red velvet coat. “Would you rather have granddad?”
River slaps him gently on the chest but her hand lingers, pressing over his hearts to feel them beat under her palm. “Stop that.”
“What?” He waggles his brows at her, smirking. “I thought you’d be pleased to have so many choices to play with.”
“It’s not – of course I’m-” She sighs, struggling to make him understand why she can’t seem to rid herself of the knot in her stomach. She can barely understand it herself. “You shouldn’t be in here. You should be out there.”
The Doctor softens, his hands curling around her hips as he draws her close. He dips his head and her breath catches in her throat, eyes fluttering shut as he brushes his nose gently against hers. “Everybody dies, River.”
She shakes her head, blinking back tears as her mind strays to that dark, mud-slicked battlefield. She can still feel the blood seeping into the knees of her trousers as she knelt beside his broken body. “Not you.”
His hands press against the small of her back, tugging her into his chest. She goes willingly, falling into his embrace and resting her head on his shoulder. The velvet is soft against her cheek and she squeezes her eyes shut, breathing him in. “Even me,” he whispers. “I got so old, River. So tired. It was time.”
Her grip on him tightens even as she draws back, meeting his gaze. Hardly able to believe the words even as they come out of her mouth, she asks, “You’re here for good?”
“For good,” he promises, his eyes soft. “Think of it as Darillium II.”
“You won’t get to fly off in your TARDIS after 24 years this time, Doctor,” she whispers. “This is forever.”
“Forever with you,” he adds, and the way he positively glows as he says it, wonder dripping from every word, is enough to make a girl swoon. “As far as an afterlife goes, it’s not a bad way to spend it.”
“Flatterer,” she murmurs, curling her fingers into the lapel of his coat. “You’ll get bored.”
The Doctor huffs, mouth quirking in amusement at her reticence. “We’ve got every book ever written at our fingertips. All of history, all of literature. Whole worlds. If we get bored, we’ll hop into a new one.”
River gazes up at him, caught in that adoring stare, and it feels wonderfully familiar. She could be standing on the balcony of a restaurant all over again, listening to the Towers sing while her husband promises her a lifetime together. It had taken her a while to believe him then; she remembers waking up every morning for the first few months, bracing herself for an empty bed and an empty house. He’d never left. And now he never will again.
Her eyes fill up and when she blinks, a tear slips down her cheek. “You’re really here.”
“Of course I’m here. I was always coming here.” The Doctor presses his forehead to hers. “Are you still angry with me for putting you in another prison?”
“You idiot,” she breathes, the unsettling realization sinking in that she’d once again spilled a painful secret to a man she thought was a stranger only to find out it had been her husband all along. “Even hell would be heaven with you. And the Library is hardly that.”
“I was hoping you’d change your mind.” He lifts a heavy brow, looking smug. “You were always asking for conjugal visits before. Think of this as an extended one.”
Vision blurred and a lump in her throat, River rises up on her toes and kisses him. He sinks into her with a sigh, his hands pressing against the small of her back to keep her snug against his chest. His tongue flicks impatiently at the seam of her lips and she opens for him with a pleased little sigh. This is real. He still tastes like coffee and crisps and this is real. As if hearing her, the Doctor snakes an arm around her waist and his kiss turns hungry as he plunders her mouth. His teeth scrape over her bottom lip and one hand lifts to cradle her face, his thumb stroking reassuringly over her skin. I’m here, he seems to be trying to say. I’m your Doctor and I’m here and this is real. And full of faith in him, River finally believes it.
When they part, cheeks flushed and panting breath mingling between them, River feels dizzy. She nuzzles her nose against his cheek and when his stubble tickles, she doesn’t bother hiding a smile. “You’ve really got all of your faces here?”
“Hmm.” The Doctor watches her through half-lidded eyes. “Any requests?”
“Not just yet,” she murmurs, drawing him back to her and already missing the taste of his mouth. She sifts a hand through his wild hair and beams. “For once, we’ve got plenty of time.”
“You like this face,” he teases, laughter in his voice. “I knew it was your favorite.”
She tugs at his hair in gentle warning, brushing her lips softly over his. “Shut up before I make you wear the celery.”
He grins her favorite smile – the one that creases his eyes and scrunches his nose. “Yes, dear.”
Once upon a time, she’d told him that happily ever after meant time. With eternity unfurling before them, River can’t think of a happier beginning, middle, or end.