Disclaimer: All the characters I borrow belong to someone else. Anything not from Doctor Who is mine.
Pairing: River/Twelve
Rated: G
Written: 9/18/14 all in one go.
Notes: Thanks to Becs for looking it over!
You probably need to have seen "Listen" for this to make the most sense, though there are no spoilers.
What's that in the mirror?
In the corner of your eye?
What's that footstep following?
But never passing by?
Perhaps the lot is waiting,
Perhaps when we're all dead.
Out they'll come a slithering,
From underneath your bed.
-Listen
To see the stars in the dark
The Doctor is not very touchy-feely this go around. That's something rather a bit too human that he picked up in his last few regenerations, and he's glad to be rid of it.
Of course, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions. The same ones, in fact.
River Song is humming softly when he enters the room, her back to him. The Doctor wraps his arms around her and rests his chin over her shoulder. River relaxes back into him with a drowsy sigh, and he thinks that he will never be tired of having River in his arms no matter the regeneration.
He finds himself humming along with her as though he recognizes the tune, but he can't quite make out the words.
"I blame you for this," River muses, more sleepy than angry.
"Naturally," the Doctor agrees easily, even though this regeneration is not usually so agreeable. It's hard to muster his Scottish contrariness when River's curls are tickling his face. Bloody menace, those curls, and he wouldn't have it any other way. "And what have I done this time?"
"Too much Time Lord DNA. She's convinced she doesn't need to sleep until she falls over from exhaustion."
Staring up at them, wide awake, is their daughter.
The Doctor smiles softly and is glad that River can't see him because surely she'd never let him hear the end of it. "Ah. Why don't you leave her to me then, and get some sleep, dear?"
River shifts carefully to face him, the baby cradled delicately between them. His girls. "What are you going to do?"
"Dad skills." When River merely arches one suspicious eyebrow, the Doctor huffs and elaborates. "I'll walk her around the bloody moon if I need to. Better she keeps me up than you."
He reaches for their daughter eagerly, peering down at this tiny little almost impossible creature that is really, properly theirs. Star Song blinks wide green eyes up at him and coos her special baby coo for Daddy.
Pressing a kiss to their daughter's forehead, River cautions, "Keep your daddy out of trouble, Star." She kisses the Doctor's cheek to soothe his immediate frown at her words. "No leaving the house, sweetie."
"Yes, yes. Go to bed, you maddening woman. We can manage just fine without you."
River harrumphs a sound that is not entirely confident as she makes her way out of the room, her soft footsteps padding down the hall.
"You shouldn't keep your mother up," the Doctor chastises gently, starting to pace a wide circuit of the room as he rocks Star in a soothing, repeating rhythm. "Yes, I know there's a whole exciting universe to see, but not until you're bigger and older. Much bigger and older - you're still just wee, yet."
Star does not agree, continuing to fuss. She gets all her stubbornness from her mother, he is certain, inherited right along with those mysterious green eyes and smile that stops his hearts. The Doctor finds himself humming the same tune as River earlier, though not with nearly such a nice voice. The words come back to him slowly and he's recited nearly the whole nursery rhyme in its soft, lilting cadence before he catches on, distracted by Star.
He cuts himself off abruptly, crossing the room to the baby cot. "Here then, love, will these stars be enough for now? Oh, the sights these stars have seen and the stories they could tell." He settles her gently; achingly careful as he tucks her blankets around her and sets the mobile spinning with his sonic, the simple stars reflecting a whole universe onto the blue walls. "Once upon a time..." he brushes his hand over her smooth forehead and watches her eyes flutter immediately shut, caught in a dream of her mobile and all the stars in the universe. "The end."
He trails his fingers over the wood and lingers, listening to Star's even, happy breathing. Three names are etched into the ancient wood, the Gallifreyan overlapping and entwined.
Shaking himself from his reverie, the Doctor checks that the monitors are set, sweeps his sonic across the room and under the cot, and hurries to find River. Something is nagging at him.
River is already in bed, her dressing gown abandoned haphazardly at her vanity. "Mmm, that was quick."
"I told you, Dad skills." The Doctor checks the monitors again, just to be sure. "River, you were singing a nursery rhyme. Why that one?"
Pushing herself into a sitting position, the sheets falling to her waist, River blinks sleepily at him, her brow furrowed. "It's just a nursery rhyme, Doctor."
"Yes, but why that one?" He spins and sweeps his sonic around the room, dropping to his knees and scanning under their bed. "Have you ever had that dream, River?"
"I suppose," River is eyeing him warily when he manages to push himself off the floor, resting his elbows on the bed and regretting the impulsive panic that drove him to his knees in the first place. He's not as young as he used to be, anymore. "Hasn't everyone? Isn't that the point of the rhyme?"
"Lately?"
River settles back down into the blankets, twisting on her side to face him. "No." Her eyes close, but she continues before he can say anything else. "You want to know where the nursery rhyme came from. Well, go investigate then, Doctor, if you can't sleep."
The Doctor reaches out and brushes River's hair out of her face. "Come with me?"
"Star's asleep, my love. Probably for the night, since you cheated - oh, don't even try to deny it. Which means I need to sleep as well." River reaches under her pillow and whips out her gun with deadly accuracy, pointing it at the floor, eyes still closed. "If anything slithers out from under the bed, I'll shoot it, so do try to be careful where you park."
"Of that, I'm quite certain," he waits until River replaces the gun under her pillow before leaning forward to catch her lips in an all too brief kiss. "Sweet dreams."
...
He parks the TARDIS by the entryway just to be safe. He checks on Star first, still sleeping peacefully and dreaming her namesake dreams.
It's still dark, but he navigates the house from memory, glad that he's shed his clumsier habits with his last body. River might very well shoot him if he wakes her, tromping through the house like a burglar, and he's really only just broken in this body.
The Doctor is properly exhausted himself - beyond standing catnaps, certainly - and he's relieved to see River still curled in their bed, her breathing smooth with sleep.
He undresses quickly, folding his clothes neatly over his chair and hanging his coat on the back before slipping quietly into bed.
River rolls into him instantly, all soft curves as she drapes one leg and arm across him and snuggles her head over his chest. "Did you solve the mystery?"
Wrapping one arm tightly around her, the Doctor breathes in River's unique, calming sent: dusty Earth and fiery Gallifrey and the infinite void of time and space, all at once. His future and his past, all wrapped up in one woman that has come to mean so much. "No," he admits, shaky, timelines snaking and twisting around in his mind, "and yes."
"Oh sweetie," River murmurs soothingly, pressing a kiss over one of his hearts, "just go to sleep."
River Song always knows.
And he always listens.
End Notes: I know Star is kinda a silly name but: 1) Let's be real - River and The Doctor picking names must be utterly mad hat. 2) I really liked the symmetry of "Star Song". 3) It just felt right with the line from the episode that you need darkness to see the stars, and Into The Dalek's references to a star being born being some magical, beautiful event. I just made it all a bit more literal.