This was inspiration of the story Heartbeats in Measures to a Familar Tune By krystinasky
I just wrote for what could of happened after the end of chapter 53
To what the Doctor could have felt being with his little family.
I hope you like it.
XXX
After River let herself surrender into a deep sleep, the Doctor found himself in a daze watching over the sleeping faces of his wife and son.
How could she think he wouldn't want this?
Having a second chance to be part of a family!
A family with her.
A family with Rory.
Her son.
Their son.
When he first held him in his arms, he knew he didn't stand a chance, his little hands wrapped round his hearts as soon as he laid eyes on him.
The Doctor couldn't help but lean in to gently kiss the little boy's hair and smooth his hair back as Rory slept.
He was perfect.
His little boy was ginger!
He made a little ginger!
And he also was part pond! the Doctor smiled proudly.
He moved his attention from his son to River and his smile weakened a little.
She may have looked physically different.
Younger.
Spoke differently too.
But her soul was always River.
He knew he felt something, even before he knew who she really was. Before as Mo.
She was different.
And it was always going to be her.
He reached out a hand without thinking, to brush back a loose strand over River's sleeping face, but as he got closer, he hesitated.
They weren't together anymore.
Against his will, he recalls her being swept in a kiss by another man lips and clenches his hand back to his side.
He remembered being stricken and sick to his stomach of her little family.
As he had no part in any of it as he had turned and ran back to his Tardis.
He bit his lip as he brought himself back to the present, conflicted and looking longingly at River.
She moved on.
She didn't want him.
Not anymore.
He wouldn't dare picture the alternative, if he never discovered River was alive, if he never knew about his son, he would of traveled across the stars like a fool, as the one person who believed he had no more future left with, moving on with her life with another man.
The man would love her without fear, and take the slow path because he'll be human and because he could.
The Doctor blinks back unshed tears behind his eyes and sniffs softly.
He smoothed his hand over the blanket space between her resting hand and his own, never meeting but just fingertips away from touching.
But. He loved her. He stills love her. He didn't stop, even as she was nothing but an echo.
And now the same woman whose hair once worn spirals of lovely wild gold curls now turned into a beautiful ginger.
His favourite. His River, no matter what the face.
Her soul always recognising his.
She could see him.
Always.
Always see him.
The Doctor knew this was it.
They were it. His final destination. His happy ending. They are it.
There was no question.
He can't afford to lose them now.
I guess its why he refuses to close his eyes.
If she wanted to disappear she could.
She could leave him, but he won't give her the chance too.
He wants it all.
Her.
Him.
Everything!
He's not leaving her and she's not leaving him.
Not when River has life in her veins and a full memory of their life's together in her head, and that little miracle who would make him just as whole as the mother.
"I'm not giving you up" he whispered.
Not now.
Not ever.
He just had to convince River to let him stay.