Hide the Damage
He made her laugh, that daft old man. He twisted and turned and rocketed his way through all of time and space. Saving civilisations and laughing as he did so. Joking around, flirting, making friends. She wondered if he really thought people fell for it. Probably not, but still, he did his best to hide the damage and that's where she'd learnt from, from the best.
She'd watched his transformation in other people's eyes, from a kind, wise old doctor to a warrior who should be feared. She'd watched him rise and warned him to disappear before the fall. Because if he carried on like that, he would fall.
And so, he became a nobody, her ageless God. But he knew and so did she - the Doctor was a ruin, littered with scars and painful memories. She knew him almost better than anyone, she knew the way things weighed him down. He would blame himself, always. And so she hid the damage. The tears, the pain that life with him brought, she hid it away. Occasionally she got angry and it slipped through, occasionally he needed to hear it, but mostly he didn't. Mostly she hid the pain and did what was best for him, best for them, despite her instinct.
She broke her wrist, and lied.
She shouted at him for healing her, because the idiot was damaging himself.
She watched her parents disappear forever and made herself hold it together.
She refused to fly with him all of the time, even though she would love to, because she knew somehow that was the right thing to do.
River Song laughed and smiled and flirted her way across time and space with ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips, because that was how you hid the damage, and that was the way he liked it - the way he needed it to be.
Sometimes she wished she could crawl into his arms and just cry, but not today, because oh she'd sacrifice anything for her Doctor. Anything at all.
A/N Well. It's not very long, but I haven't written anything in ages so it feels good to just have this! I have a longer version of this ongoing at the moment, it's basically just this with with added sections but for now I just wanted to get something up and I'm quite attached to it in this short form anyway, so yeah. Reviews? :)