Summary: He holes up on a cloud...
Notes: Angsty introspection for the Doctor, based on his interactions with River in The Name of the Doctor. Originally posted on Tumblr. Just a brief drabble for my feels.
Rated: G
Pairing: Eleven/River
He holes up on a cloud... Spends his days and nights sitting in silence next to the ghost of his wife. She follows him everywhere and he can always see her - hear her quick jibes and longer silences. He wants to turn to her, to take her into his arms to cry in hers - but all the words he never said while she was alive crowd and flood his throat until they are a hard lump that he cannot swallow.
How can he bear to tell her ghost the words she never got to hear? How can mere words convey how he aches with missing her down to the weary marrow of his too-old bones?
And so he sits.
Night after night after night. In silence. Next to her. Afraid to reach out to her and find himself grasping only empty air where his wife should be.
Tracks of tears follow well-worn grooves as he sits. The echo of his wife's pained, "Oh, sweetie," clouding his ears with agony.
He bows his head, hands clenched in fists to keep from reaching for her anyway.
The pain of it is staggering.
He is alone. And so very afraid. Afraid to live with her ghost. Afraid to lose the last piece of her that he has left. So he sits. And he listens; clinging to the memories of her he is afraid to acknowledge but cannot bear to hide.
Just a mad man and his dead wife in a blue box, floating on a cloud over a city as desolate and hearts-broken as he is.