Summary: They are a love story in reverse.
A/N: Inspired by Vienna Teng's Recessional
Dark curtains drawn by the passage of time
They are a love story in reverse.
Backwards, sideways, diagonal, every which way one could imagine but forward. There are some days, very special days, when they almost meet in the middle and they cling to those days like starving children, grateful for even one morsel to satiate the gnawing hunger.
It is never enough.
They run.
For two hundred years, he runs hand in hand with her. And then he marries her, on top of a pyramid at every point in time. They make a habit of getting married after that – like a game to see who can come up with the wildest idea and they collect marriage certificates from different galaxies like humans collect baseball cards but it is always special, always perfect and so very them.
His favorite part will forever be the kiss. Well, and the honeymoon. They are particularly good at honeymooning.
The River he sees varies from bright-eyed and young studying at Luna University to the naughty Doctor Song breaking out of her cell to spend her nights with him to the slightly more respectable but just as mad Professor but she is always and without fail his River.
He never has to look at her and see her staring right through him. He never has to hear sweetie fall from her lips like a word empty of meaning. He is glad – so, so grateful that her first meeting was in his middle and there is still so much more – but sometimes the guilt is enough to eat him alive. Because River is slowly losing him, seeing his love for her fade from his eyes with every new encounter, and why must she always be the one paying the price for their love? Why is it always so much easier for him? Sometimes he lays awake watching her sleep and he whispers apologies into her hair for things that haven't happened for her yet, for things he can't fix.
And then one day he realizes what he has been missing all along. He has been slowly losing her too. Little by little, so quietly he didn't even notice she was trickling through his fingers like her namesake until the day she came to him beaming and talking animatedly of her upcoming trip to the Library, stealing all the breath from his lungs in one horrifying instant.
It's time.
She fits perfectly in the circle of his arms – just the way she always has, his bespoke love – as they sway together. The Towers sing and River murmurs into his neck about the preparations that are still to be made for her expedition. He barely listens, all the places he still wants to take her flashing through his mind like a life unfulfilled. He thinks of all the things he never did with her, never said to her, always thinking they had more time while knowing full well every second the universe had to offer would never be enough.
"I was thinking, sweetie…" River suddenly lifts her head from his chest and squints up at him, eyes dancing, and the Doctor doesn't even try to stop himself from brushing his lips across the bridge of her nose, smiling hollowly when she wrinkles it and laughs. Tracing her fingers over his bowtie, she looks suddenly shy. "When I get back, maybe I could travel with you for a while."
His hearts stutter in his chest.
"Just a bit of a linear vacation. We could get married again." Her smile brightens, eager and heartbreaking. "How does another honeymoon sound?"
The words catch in his throat and he thinks he'll choke on them – on bile and regret and guilt and the anger bubbling under his skin because it just isn't fair. The sound of despair he can't quite muffle tumbles from his mouth like a sob and River's eyes widen, her hands reaching out to cup his face tenderly. He shuts his eyes at the feel of her fingers on his skin and hot tears slip from beneath his lashes.
"Oh, my love," she sighs, her thumb brushing away a tear. "Please, tell me what's bothering you."
He pulls her close, clinging to her like a child as he buries his face in her wild hair and breathes her in, breath hitching. "Had we but world enough and time," he quotes, whispering brokenly, and River's hands slide beneath his jacket to run over his back as she hums soothingly.
Determined not to spoil their last moments together – his wife, his love, his everything will be gone and oh god what will he do? – the Doctor searches out her mouth with his own and kisses her furiously. And bless her, River responds in that enthusiastic way she has that makes him tremble all over, and she doesn't ask any more questions.
They fumble with clothes and shaking hands and he makes love to her one last time as the final note rings out from the Towers. If River detects the underlying desperation in his movements, the way his eyes scan her face frantically in the dark as if to imprint her every feature permanently into his mind like a brand, if she tastes the goodbye like ash on her tongue, she doesn't mention it.
Instead, she whispers her love into his ear and clenches fistfuls of grass beneath her as her body arches to meet his, her scent and the sound of her voice all around him, like a living memory. Afterward, he buries his face in her neck and blinks away tears as he tries to catch his breath, feeling her fingers ghost over the naked skin of his back for the last time.
In a few moments, they will dress and she will kiss him goodbye for now, unaware that it is goodbye for good.
She will go to the Library and their story will be over.
No, he thinks suddenly, holding his wife close and inhaling the damp grass and the smell of sweat clinging to their skin. He remembers the scent of old books and the swirling confusion and absolute fear he felt when he looked at the mysterious woman who knew his name, the woman he felt so compelled to save, and knows she will write the first chapter in the never-ending circle that is their story.
They are beginning.
River Song scares him.
With her spoilers and her hair and that all-knowing gleam in her eyes, she is a gorgeous, lethal glimpse into a future that he does not want. He's a Time Lord, and naturally the thought of not being in control of his own destiny is a sore point – one that River pokes like a child with a stick at the zoo whenever she's around.
Every time he looks at her, he wants to run and this time is no different. He tries, of course. Except, this time he ends up running with her instead of from her. He almost leaves her there on that beach but there are Weeping Angels and one-headed statues that should be two-headed and people are dying and suddenly it's a lot easier to be around River.
He's so busy trying to save everyone that he can look at her without remembering her face when she sacrificed herself in his stead – right up until the moment she offers herself up in his place again. He scoffs at her, barely restraining himself from snapping at her again in his anger – a fury that is wholly justified. How often would this woman die for him, if given the chance? What does he do to earn such blind loyalty?
He doesn't want it.
And then they're literally holding on for their lives, for their very existence, as the Angels fall through the cracks of time. Wind whips around them and their grip on the ship is white-knuckled and desperate, but when he looks at River, she beams at him – a breathless, impressed grin that douses his righteous anger and leaves him with a strange, warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. She is just as thrilled by the danger as he is and he knows with startling clarity: they are going to be magnificent.
So on the beach, when he sees her flirtatious grin and that sparkle in her eyes that tells him she knows so much more than she will ever reveal, he smiles. She is still infuriating, but somehow, instead of wanting to run far and fast in the opposite direction, he finds himself looking forward to the next time she drives him mad.
Even Time Lords know when to stop fighting fate.
She stands outside her cell, smiling up at him and pulling him toward her for a quick kiss goodbye as if it's nothing, as if she does it all the time. Maybe she does. But it's a first for him, and the moment her lips meet his, he feels his whole world turn on its head – the stars at his feet and his head in the sand.
River Song still scares him just as much as she always has, and kissing her is no different. Everything turns fuzzy and he flails wildly, at a loss for what to do in this new body that isn't nearly as experienced as the last one had been. Why is it suddenly so warm? Prisons should be chilly, shouldn't they? And why did he ever decide to wear tweed? It's so bloody itchy and – oh.
Well.
He finally settles for resting his hands on her upper arms, fingers curling tightly as he opens his mouth to her rather insistent tongue, the Doctor realizes that it's actually quite nice – this whole kissing River Song business. He could get used to this.
He is in the middle of trying to sneak his hands into her hair – he has always been insanely curious about all those riotous curls and if they feel as soft and springy as they look – when River slides her arms around his waist and pulls him into her, letting him feel the warmth of her body against his, the fullness of her breasts brushing against his chest. Startled by the blatant familiarity of the action, the Doctor flails again, senses on overload and suddenly unsure once again about where his hands should go. There are just so many places. Soft, curvy, inviting places.
River pulls away and while he's relieved that he can stop acting like the Time Lord equivalent of a windmill, part of him mourns the loss of all that heat and the sweep of her tongue in his mouth, the taste of time, the metal of a gun and River.
"What's wrong?" She frowns up at him, green eyes searching his face. "You're acting like we've never done that before."
He scratches his cheek nervously, still a bit tongue-tied. "We haven't."
Her face falls instantly, and the expression is so familiar – please tell me you know who I am – that he feels the need to flee instantly lest the guilt consume him.
Hurting people is what he does best.
She isn't human. She is Melody Pond, child of the TARDIS and his beloved Ponds. She is beautiful and perfect.
She is amazing.
She hates him.
He ruined her life and she is hell-bent on killing him, but he still can't keep from pursing his lips against her mouth when she leans in and kills him with a kiss. River Song is his weakness and his strength, and while he knows this woman is not River, his hearts can't seem to differentiate.
Sweetie, she says, and usually the word is laced with innuendo and love and secrets and so much affection it used to scare the hell out of him. But this time, she says it as though it means nothing – as though she calls even strangers on the street by the name and it opens a gaping hole in his chest, more than any gun pointed in his direction, more than her blatant desire to see him dead. She is not his River, and sweetie means nothing to her. But it will.
She looks right through him, standing at the window and ready to leap out onto the street with an absent smile on her face, as though she finds his pain amusing in some distant way that doesn't really touch her.
She is not his River. Not yet.
Someday.
She jumps.
The rest is a blur of top hats and tiny cross people and don't you touch her and the kidneys are always the first to quit and help me.
And then there is golden light flooding his veins and finally, finally, his River smiling down at him, tears in her eyes.
They are beginning.
She looks at him like she knows him – knows every dark thought, every failure, every triumph, every secret he has ever kept hidden from the universe and the Doctor has never seen anything more terrifying than the understanding in her eyes.
He wants to run as far and fast as he can to get away from this, away from what she so obviously is. His future.
And then she dies. His future dies right in front of him, tears on her cheeks and a smile curling her mouth, like she knows her face is going to haunt him for centuries and she wants him to remember she was happy – even in death. Not one line, she'd said.
She is still his future. He just isn't hers anymore.
He doesn't know her yet, but he knows already how the story is going to go. She'll get under his skin, claw her way into his hearts, nestle there and refuse to leave. And maybe he tries to stop her, maybe he fights tooth and nail to keep her at arm's length but there is no fighting what is already done. And something about River Song says she wouldn't take no for an answer anyway. This woman, whoever she is, is important. Maybe not yet, but in the future, to some other incarnation of himself, this woman is everything.
So he saves her in the best way he can, the only way he knows how. When he gets back to the TARDIS where Donna is waiting, he feels lighter – like he has finally done something right today. Provided some consolation for his future self, and salvation for River, this mystifying woman who knows more about him than any human should.
And he'd swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.
It doesn't work like that, he'd said. Growled, more like.
It does for the Doctor. So loving, so reverent, like she'd been speaking of someone long dead rather than the man standing right in front of her and glaring.
Chest tight, the Doctor holds out his hand and snaps his fingers, waiting. The doors to his beloved ship creak open and flood the Library with light, bathing him in warmth and the reassurance of a future.
Next stop: everywhere.
He smiles.