Do not read if you haven't seen the Return of Doctor Mysterio!
Everything seems to remind him of her these days.
It may have something to do with them not having any more time saved away for a rainy day. That ache in his chest is stronger now because he's lost all hope that he'll ever see her again. His beautifully, brilliantly mad River Song.
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The time disruption machine was what started it all.
He had felt guilty. So, so guilty. Because his time with River had reminded him of the other part of his family that he would never get to see again - his in-laws.
His Ponds - little Amelia and the Last Centurion.
But then again - time can be rewritten. And that was his plan, to rewrite time. To fix the breach in the time-space continuum, so that he could travel back to New York, probably in the mid forties - that seemed like as good a time as any - and visit the rest of his family. Some of the only companions who not only traveled with him, but seared themselves onto his hearts. They all made him better in their own ways, but Amy and Rory reminded him what it was like to have a family again. He owed it to them to at least let them know what had happened to their daughter.
And then everything went wibbly-wobbly.
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Nardole.
He had brought Nardole along after taking him out of the killer robot suit. He might have done the same thing for Ramone. But to be completely honest, he was still rather jealous over the whole 'marriage' thing. So in his mind, the Doctor saw it as karma for messing about with his wife. But Nardole had done nothing to deserve that - being stuck in that suit with a pretty boy for so long was punishment enough.
In fact, it had been River's idea for him to take Nardole on as a companion. Which was probably why he had done it in the end, really. It had been an excellent idea, though. Nardole was exactly what he needed in a companion.
Even better, Nardole had loved River as well - more as a sister or a close friend, but it was still love. As such, he refused to let the Doctor be miserable - or at least not that miserable. He owed the other man a lot for that.
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Twenty-four years.
That's how long Grant and Lucy have known each other for now. Twenty-four years. He nearly starts cursing with all the ability that this Scottish body of his has at the news, because of course it's been that long. The universe could never make things easy on him. Instead, he gets to be the universe's punching bag.
Twenty-four years - the length of a night on Darillium. The longest amount of time that they had been linear. That they had both known who the other was, and were able to appreciate each other properly.
But there was one thing that was not equal to twenty-four years. Twenty-four years was not how long it would take him to forget her, to get over the pain of losing her once again.
He didn't think that he would ever be able to do that.
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Grant.
It was almost reassuring, meeting someone who was worse at the whole relationship thing than he was. Like the universe was saying, 'look, here's someone who's even more screwed up than you are, Doctor!'
Not that the younger man was doing that much worse, after all. On one hand, you had a man that had loved a woman for almost as long as he had known her, but didn't tell her for twenty-four years. On the other you had a man who had loved a woman for almost as long as he had known her… but didn't tell her for two hundred and twenty-four years.
The only thing they were missing was the other man's baby.
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Crashing.
They had crashed on Darillium, that first night. But that had only been the latest in a long series of crashes that had come before it, and many more had come after, as well. And if they weren't crashing, then they were falling - it had almost become their thing, over the centuries.
She would fall - or more likely, jump - and he would catch her.
He would lose it all, and she would pick up the pieces and fix him. He would have crashed long ago and have never gotten back up again if it wasn't for his bespoke psychopath.
They hadn't even fallen in love - not really. That would indicate that it had been slow and gentle, or hard and fast. But it had been neither,
They had crashed - two unstoppable forces colliding, forming something far greater than either one could possibly be on their own. They had crashed in love, and it was perfect.
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24 years… what a night
It had been the best twenty-four years of his life, as far as he could remember. The best single night that he had ever had, without a doubt. But that was to be expected.
After all, his nights had belonged to River Song for a long time now. It was his fault that he had been too much of a stubborn idiot to see that. So it was only fitting that his longest night was hers as well.
He had spent so long being afraid of happiness that once he had it in his grasp, he became so terrified of losing it that he almost forgot to cherish it. To cherish her.
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So after watching this year's Christmas special, I felt a familiar muse returning. It's been ages since I've posted anything for this series, and I don't know how long it will be before I post anything to it again, to be honest.
Thanks to densitivacaskett, fouroften, doctor712, and rcfan77 for their reviews!