Derillium Night
24 years. It doesn't seem like a long time, not when you've got all of time and space at your fingertips. But then, she and he are both wanderers, travelers and adventurers at heart. 24 years in one place with one person is a fair long time for them.
24 years. It's longer than a lot of couples get together.
The dining suite he's claimed has all the amenities, the comforts of home. Food is provided as requested, literally anything one could ask for. A bed, a couch...it's a little space of paradise and solitude. There's access to the formal dining hall when they want it, and privacy and a terrace by the Singing Towers when they don't. It's a prefect place for a honeymoon, and she can't bring herself to mind that it's a bit late.
It's also a 24 year honeymoon, and that more than makes up for it.
The first year is spent just...being together. They eat together, and talk about all the things they've done in the times they weren't together. They laugh and share stories. They dance, awkwardly in his case. They listen to the Singing Towers and make up songs with the melodies of the wind. They enjoy loving and knowing each other, in a way they've never really had a chance to before. They've always been too busy with their various adventures before to really have time to get to know each other.
She doesn't ask about the occasional melancholy in his eyes, the way he goes far away sometimes. She doesn't ask about the odd silences he falls into, sometimes in mid sentence. When they sleep, which is rarely given his Time Lord physique, she doesn't ask about the nightmares that disturb his rest. It isn't time for that.
The first year is a time for building their relationship and finding each other.
The second year, he seems sadder. She catches him gazing out at the stars, a troubled frown on his face. By now, they're comfortable enough with each other that she steps up to him and links an arm through his and murmurs "Tell me what's wrong, sweetie."
He blinks, and she thinks he'll refuse, but then he answers, his words soft and hesitant as if he's not sure he should be speaking them at all. "I've...I've lost Clara. And I wanted to find her, but...I think I'll fail. I don't know why, I just have this...this feeling."
She knows why. She knows what happened to the Impossible Girl in the end. She's encountered the undying girls once or twice. Clara's told her how the story ends. She also knows why he doesn't know, and why he should never know.
It's too late to hide the knowledge, because he's already looking into her eyes. "You know something about Clara."
She doesn't lie. She knows better. "I do. But I can't tell you."
He doesn't like it, but he accepts it. He knows the rules of time and space, that some things are not to be known.
The second year becomes a sort of memorial. A remembrance of all the Companions he's had. Martha Jones. Rose Tyler. Donna Noble. Clara Oswald. Amy and Rory Pond, the two closest to her heart. All the others. They remember and share stories and look at old pictures. They share fond memories and soothe old wounds, and over time, she sees him make peace with the losses the universe has dealt him. The losses and the loves.
It's while they're reminiscing about Donna Noble that he goes silent and still. She can see him putting the pieces together. He stands, pacing in agitation. "Memory Block...Memory Block. Of course. That's why I can't remember Clara's face and her voice..."
She stands and takes his face in her hands. "You remember why you chose that for Donna, don't you lovey?"
"Of course. I had to protect her."
"Then you understand."
He blinks. "You're saying someone made me forget Clara to protect me?"
"You and all of time and space, sweetie." She brushes his face with tender fingers, soothing him as best she can. "And if you're half as smart as you say you are, then you know who did it. The only person who'd ever dare to come between you and her."
"My Impossible Girl." He breathes the words. "Clara..." Sorrow fills his eyes.
She pulls him into an embrace, glad she's had over a year to get past his dislike of hugs. He doesn't cry, not audibly at least, but he does lean against her, soft mourning in his posture. She pets him and comforts him, easing his sorrow with gentle touches.
She doesn't know how long it takes, but eventually he rises and offers her a tremulous smile. Later he plays his guitar, soft songs of memory and loss and love, his way of accepting what has come to pass, and what it means for him.
Things are different between them after that. He's more open, more relaxed. No longer hiding behind his masks of arrogance and temper and sarcasm. His heart has been exposed, and he's no longer trying to hide it.
It's because of that, in the beginning of their third year together, that she takes his hands and sits him down. "I want you to tell me."
"Tell you...what?" He blinks at her, guarded but willing to listen to her request.
"Please. I've heard your nightmares my love." She brushes his face with a gentle hand, keeping him in place when he looks like he wants to flee. "You've seen a lot, my Doctor, but I want to know what's hurt you so. You weren't this bad before."
"I...it wasn't anything. Just a bit...I was imprisoned for a while. Wasn't pleasant. Got out. That's all." He's equivocating, but he hasn't actually shut her down, or shut himself down, so she presses on.
"It's more than that. I know. I've seen you after a prison term, and I've been in prison myself, you know that."
It takes some work, but finally he tells her. And as the tale unfolds, she understands why he avoided it so.
Four-and-a-half billion years, held prisoner by his own people. Hunted and haunted and tortured. Broken and burned and then remade in a vicious cycle of pain until he made his way out. Loneliness and despair and agony his constant companions.
It's a pity she swore off killing Time Lords when she married him. She rather thinks she'd like to test out her old training on some of those Lords and Ladies who have tormented him so. But that's a thought for another time and place, and she sets it aside.
For now, she has him, and he is raw from the telling, wounds still bleeding in his soul. She cannot take away the scars that will linger from such cruelty, but she can perform some healing, and so she will.
She settles him on the bed, shushes him when he starts to ask a question. It isn't a time for words.
She kisses the knuckles that were bruised and bloodied and broken on an unforgiving wall of diamond, broken countless times until the wall became a tunnel. Then she turns his hand over and kisses the palms, where blunted nails gouged crescent wounds in his anguish, over and over again.
She cradles his face and touches his mind, asking to see. He gives her the image, a picture of his tortured self, and she fights back tears. She would weep, but she knows that will do nothing but hurt him. He is not one to endure the sorrow of others any better than he can endure his own.
So she holds back her tears, and brushes gentle touches and light kisses across his brow, his cheeks and his nose, all the places where the creature of the castle touched him and left behind wounds and agony.
She pushes him back onto the bed and begins to unfasten his clothing, her mind full of bloodied wounds on places currently covered.
He yelps and tries to stop her. She knows he is shy, awkward and uncertain in this body that is so much older in appearance than the one she married. But...well, she's always had a thing for older men, and he looks dashing and distinguished in this form. Yes, he's skinny and awkward, but he always has been, and she's always found it endearing.
She perseveres, and eventually he surrenders, and lets her undress him. He lays still and quiet, and lets her hands wander as they will.
She gives him gentle kisses and tender touches, touching all those places once marked by his ordeal, trying to rewrite the memories of his suffering with memories of love.
It takes time, but he surrenders in this as well, and fear gives way to passion. She returns to kiss his jaw again, and this time he reaches for her, kisses her back.
In her arms, in this bed guarded by Singing Towers, he burns once more, in a fire far different from the one that destroyed and remade his body so many times.
She burns with him, and in their shared passion offers the strength to heal his soul.
It takes time. Half of Derillium's night passes while they dance together in a complicated pattern of healing and discovery and renewal.
Another might be discouraged. She's not. She knows him, this fierce and complicated man who calls himself the Doctor and travels space and time. She knows his walls are high and his wounds are deep. Besides, she is the daughter of Amy and Rory Pond, the Girl Who Waited and the Centurion who stood guard for 2000 years to be reunited with his love. If there's anything she understands, it's patience.
Besides, whether you call it one night or twelve years, it's not a bad job, mending four-and-a-half billion years worth of pain in that amount of time.
And it's worth every moment, watching the light return to his eyes, watching him open himself up to her. He's still sarcastic and snarky and jumpy, but that's just who he is, and she can see the difference between sarcasm born of pain and sarcasm born of humor. It's enough to see him laugh more, and talk, not just with his words but with his hands and his posture and his expression. She's never loved him more than when his whole being is alive with energy like this, and knowing that she's the one to bring him to life like this is wonderful.
He plays guitar for her again, not sad songs this time, but fast-paced energetic songs. Songs that they dance to, with all the energy and abandon of years gone by and younger incarnations.
When they are spent, he orders food and digs out books from the depths of – somewhere – and they read together and argue different stories and interpretations and whether or not either of them have ever met the author. They listen to music that is not meant for guitars, all his favorites and all of hers, dragged from different points in space and time.
He teaches her more of his language, teaches her how to say her own name along with his. Both her names, River Song and Melody Pond, similar yet different. He teaches her how to say 'I love you' (by accident, they're in the middle of a language lesson when he lets it slip, silly man), and how to say 'the Doctor' and the other names he is known by.
They talk of the names of stars and the shapes of constellations from a thousand different worlds, the legends of a million different cultures.
The stories of uncounted peoples, across all the universe, each one wonderful and unique.
She's always known that he was a fierce protector of the universe, that he hates war and feels the loss of every life he touches keenly. But it's only here, in this endless night where the songs of the wind meld together with his words, that she understands why. Understands him.
He is the Doctor. Beautiful and wonderful in his complexity, a soul like the heart of a galaxy, burning bright. Creation and chaos all in one. Ferocious love like the fire of a star, strength like the pull of a black hole, or perhaps a white hole, a creation engine, clinging on and letting go in a dance that is elegant and simple and yet unfathomable all at once.
He is her husband. Billions upon billions upon billions of life-forms, multiple Companions, and she was chosen to be his wife. His lover. His love. Not his first, and perhaps not his last, but she can't be sorry about that, no more than a planet ought to envy the other planets in its galaxy. Hearts as large and wonderful as his can't be constrained to one person, one place. Nor should they be.
Time passes in glorious abandon, the two of them together, and she loves and cherishes every moment of it.
The long night draws slowly to an end, and they stand and watch the first sliver of sunlight on the horizon. There's still time, before the night is truly over, but she knows it's time to ask the question that's haunted her, off and on, since they arrived.
She leans against his elbow, and murmurs it softly into the silence. "How does it happen?"
He tenses. "How does what happen? There are a million things always happening, you know that..." He stops when she puts a finger to his lips.
"You know what, my love." She knows he does. It's a fixed point in time, that the last time they're together in his timeline is here and now.
He blinks at her, sorrow curling through his ageless eyes. "You don't...you can't ask me that...please don't ask me that."
"I'm not going to break the rules. And neither are you, love. I just..." She swallows. "I want to be prepared. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Besides...my journal is almost full. I know it's almost time sweetie." She offers him a sad smile.
He caves with a sigh, wrapping gentle hands around her own. "I...there's a library. Surrounded by shadows. You'll meet me there, but not...not this face…." He waves a hand at himself. "It was...for me it was before. Before I met Amelia Pond."
Before she had a chance to exist. He swallows again. "I...I won't know you. You'll have to tell me something only you and I would know. Tell me my name."
"All right." She nods, understanding why that would be the key to his trust. She takes a deep breath. "Was it...is it bad?"
He shakes his head. "No. It was...you do something good. Something wonderful and amazing. And it's...it won't hurt you, I don't think."
Hard to say if he's lying or not, but she appreciates the reassurance.
She doesn't ask him anything else, just pulls him into a gentle embrace and a kiss.
They eat together, savoring every bite, and then she takes his hand and leads him back to the bedroom, pulls him down and pulls him close.
She loves him with the sunrise, passion burning and rising up around them in a slow wave like the sun outside, and falls asleep in his arms under a veiled golden sky.
She half expects him to be gone when she wakes, knowing how he hates endings and goodbyes. But he's there, though he's gotten up and gotten dressed while she slept. He's in the formal outfit he first arrived in, and her dress is laid out.
The illusion of a single night. Of course. She rises and dresses, then joins him for breakfast. Then walks out on his arm. They stop to give their compliments to the host, then step out into the cool sunlight. His TARDIS and her ship are waiting.
She turns to him with a smile that only hurts a little. "I guess it's time for us to go our separate ways."
He doesn't answer, but there's a world of sadness in his eyes. She reaches up and strokes back his wild hair. "Don't make this difficult, my love." It's hard enough as it is. "We both know it's time. I've worlds to explore and studies to do and books to write. You've got places to go, people to save, a new Companion to find. Lives to change and worlds to leave your mark on."
"I know." The words are soft and sad, but he's not fighting her.
She leans up and gives him a kiss. "See you round the universe, sweetie."
"Yes. I'll...see you." He swallows hard. Then he bends and gives her a kiss that says everything he can't put into words. He leaves her gasping, then darts for the TARDIS, dodging inside.
She could go to him. She could stand there and stare at the doors like a love-struck idiot. She doesn't do either of these things. Instead she turns and makes her way to her own ship and forces herself to walk inside with a confident tread and without looking back.
She knows he's watching, and she's determined to be strong for him. She knows if she hesitates, he'll break both their promises and come after her, beg her to stay with him. And she might just let him, regardless of the consequences.
But it would only make it harder in the end, so she doesn't. She types in a destination at random and flies away, and waits until the TARDIS signal fades before she resets the flight computer.
She does have places to go and things to explore and books to write.
But first...first she has some very foolish Time Lords and Ladies to give a bit of a lesson to. A lesson about not hurting her man.
Author's Note: River made me. That's all I'm gonna say.
Might write an afterward for River and the Doctor...if they agree. Thus far the Doctor's been avoiding it, and River is too busy plotting...