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Some days it paralyzes him.
After his first wife, the death of Susan’s mother and the rest of his kids, (and he can’t remember her face or her name anymore, her smile only a vague memory, much less the rest of his family,) he promised himself he would never marry again. He would’ve liked it if he could keep the promise of never falling in love again, but that was too unrealistic for him.
After he left, after he ran away, he started clinging to humanity. A not nothing part of that is because they look so much like galifreyans, with only a few very minor differences in anatomy to speak of. And he fell in love with them, because, historically, they spread out across time and across planets, traveling and changing and alive and constant from almost the moment they left their first planet. And he fell in love, again, with individual humans. Rose, Martha, (He feels a twinge of regret. he’s been meaning to apologize to her ever since Lindy Pepper Bean,) Donna, Amy and Rory, Clara, Bill.. But he had managed to not marry again.
But then he went to the library, and his fate was already set.
She swooped in, her hair bouncing and leaving a kiss on his psychic paper. And he was so confused. That version of him.. wasn’t his best. And still, he knew that there was something about her. She swept him off his feet, and when he doubted her, she showed him irrevocable truth in Old High Gallifreyan.
And then she died, talking about Darrilium, which he’d never bothered to go to before because it seems too touristy, and apparently he cared about her enough that that didn’t matter.
And so, they went galavanting. They traveled, and they flirted, and they fucked, and it was the most alive he’d felt in a long time.
There was no distinct start or end to their relationship. If he let the TARDIS put the shields down, she would probably go galavanting right back in here, her hair bouncing, leaning on the console and smirking again. But she had to make him go and promise. And he could never break it. He could never undermine her that way.
he stared at her body for so long, trapped in those godforsaken cuffs, just staring desolately at the charred remains of her body-
And then, sooner rather than later, he had got the haircut and dressed in the suit, and they were crashing on darrilium.
Even sooner after that, shit hit the fan, and the ring didn’t fit him anymore.
For a while, he had tried to move on. He had kept her ring in a box next to his bed in the new room, because he had to move out of their room, and he dusted himself off, and he ignored it. He flirted with Yaz, and had decent fun, although it always left him feeling empty afterwards.
And then his old body came back, and he stayed stationary.
Donna had tried asking him about it a couple of times. He’d managed to tell her a little bit, but because his next regeneration had took the ring with him, he couldn’t really bring himself to think about her at all. He was just extremely lucky she doesn’t hang around the 2000’s since Amy and Rory got displaced in time. (He always felt guilty for even thinking that.)
But nothing can stay the same forever, and after a while, he had to move on. And he took the ring from his now younger self, and flew off.
He decided to put the ring on a chain after a particularly difficult night when he was forced to purposely hide from her. He tries not to think about that day. He decided to take the ring as a cheap and feeble attempt at bringing her along with him.
He met Ruby. He.. moved on. Kind of.
He thought he was okay. Having the ring with him helped. But they landed in 1813, and a mysterious stranger (who he tries to pretend doesn’t remind him of Jack) swept him off his feet.
And things escalated, as they have a tendency to do for him, and they had to make themselves appealing to cosplaying Chuldur, and the only thing the supposed DnD player could think of under stress was proposing to him.
He froze. To say the least. He managed to stop himself from bolting away.
As soon as he gets back into the TARDIS, he finds his room and cries.
And he still has bigger things to worry about. He still has no idea who the woman who’s been following him is, and the rogue is expecting him to find him. But he can’t help himself.
He makes a beeline for one of the corridors, and the TARDIS must know, because his room is the first one he opens. He vaguely registers Ruby calling to him, asking what’s wrong. But he can’t hear anything over his heaving sobs.
He misses her so much.
One of his arms is covering his eyes, and the other is gently holding the ring that he was wearing under his get-up, and it feels like there’s a hole in his chest where River is supposed to be. He sobs, and it shakes the his body violently. He can vaguely register Ruby sitting next to him, sitting with him while he cries for who knows what reason to her, god he’s so glad she isn’t dead, but he can’t think.
And at this point, he’s been without her longer than he had her in the first place, but that doesn’t stop his entire soul from aching.
He can’t help but imagine throwing caution to the wind. Lowering the shields or going to the Luna University in 5238 while she’s getting her doctorate there and just hold her. Run his hands through her curls and sobbing until his hearts finally go back to beating correctly after being a thousand years out of sync. Hold her and watch the color flood back into the universe.
That will never happen again. And he thinks it’s the most agonizing thing he has ever experienced.