too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars;
Sometimes it is just them, alone in the quiet of the console room, after Amy and Rory have gone off to bed or off to not go to bed as the case may be. She likes these times, especially when it is post-adventure, when he is looking at her like she is a curiosity housed in one of his museums. When he is trying to distract himself from the let-down after the high of adventure-induced adrenaline.
"River?" His voice floats up from below and she smiles to herself as she moves around the console. She's opted to just stay up; since she is sure he will drop her off soon. She of course, has a room she could go to, but it doesn't feel quite like hers anymore – it never has since she stopped using it all those years ago, and having to re-use it once again just made it feel like she was stepping into a photograph from over a decade ago.
"Mmmm?" She responds softly, knowing he would hear her anyway and when she glances through the glass floor he is sitting in his repair swing, looking up at her with an expression she's never seen before on his face. She strokes the console once, before moving over to the stairs and sitting down on the bottom step and leaning against the railing.
"I've been wondering..." he trails off, glancing over at her and taking a moment to study her face contemplatively. He stands and moves closer until he is settled one step above her, and his legs look comical all folded up, his knee nudging her shoulder a bit. She turns so she can still properly see him.
"Wondering what, honey?" She knows there is an eighty percent chance that whatever he is about to ask will be unanswerable, and she takes a breath in preparation, lifting her shoulders up and in.
"You always say things to me. That you hate me, or you call me sweetie, or even ... even spoilers, sometimes, but when you say them, it's like – it's like you don't mean the words you're saying at all." He shifts a bit and his knee brushes against her again. He frowns a bit, glancing down at the stairs beneath them as he finishes his thought. "I know you probably won't answer this, or can't – but – I feel like it's a bit ridiculous to ask actually, given everything I've seen you do for me-"
She moves up a step and places her finger over his mouth, shaking her head. "Shh. You can't – I haven't done anything yet." His lips purse under her finger, just a bit and she can almost imagine it's like a kiss if she closes her eyes, so she drops her hand and lets a little shiver run through her. He licks his lips and she can see it out of the corner of her eye and the sight shoots straight through her.
"Okay, okay then. What I mean is – do you love me, River?" She stares at him, mouth open for a moment, because she honestly does not know what to do with this one. He'd made her promise – write everything down, he can't see the diary, no telling him about future events unless she knew for sure she'd already mentioned them. But nowhere in his impressive list of rules (seventy one to be precise, she'd copied them all in tiny print, gathered somewhere in the middle of her diary, because she knew if he ever looked, he'd go to the front or back first) did he say anything about spoilers of this nature.
To her, the answer seems obvious and surely he knows. But he can be oh so daft about things like this sometimes. Obvious things, staring him right in the face. She opens her mouth even though she doesn't know how to respond. What does she tell him? Yes? Absolutely? Since the day she met him? Forever? His hand reaches out, and takes hers and he is shaking his head. "No, it's alright. You can't – I shouldn't have asked. I'm just being a daft old man, I thought maybe, maybe you could tell me that, but of course you can't, can you?" This speech is meant to come out as self-depreciating with a touch of understanding, she is sure. But all she can hear is the hope in his voice and her heart constricts painfully in her chest. Her fingers tighten around his.
"It's – it's complicated." She begins slowly, turning to face him fully, and putting her other hand on his knee even while she still grips his cool hand in hers. "Love is... not a big enough word for it. So small and its meaning changes depending on who you're talking to or about when saying it. Doctor..." she wants him to understand this without her saying it, but he is looking at her with softness and this feels like a moment that she cannot pass up. "Four letters, an overly used word – it's never fit us." She swears for a moment she sees disappointment in his face, and the sight of it perversely lightens the weight she'd been carrying around in her heart. "What I feel for you is so much more than one simple, tiny word."
His hand tightens around hers and he nods. "That's not a spoiler?"
"Well, seeing as it's an ongoing condition, I could hardly call it that, don't you think?" His eyes meet hers and she looks at him, really looks at him without any regard for spoilers or their confusing timeline, or her worries and fears that she would somehow do something wrong and mess up her entire history. He watches her like he's seeing her face for the very first time, and he wants to imprint it on his mind, keep that image forever.
"Does it hurt?" His question is so soft, she almost misses it, but he's turned toward her and she catches the whisper as she closes her eyes.
"Sometimes." She answers him honestly, because in times like this, when it's just she and him and she can feel him so close that she could count the rhythm of his hearts if she concentrated hard enough, she finds it much more difficult to keep herself closed off. "It gets harder to say goodbye each time. I know the next time you see me, you'll know me less."
He leans over, his hands still folded over hers in her lap and he leans his head against hers. "I'm sorry." She tries to dredge up a smile, but even she can feel that what she manages is shaky and weak.
"I don't regret it. Not one minute, not one second. Not even the bad ones, Doctor. Not even the ones that hurt. Because it's you. And me." One of his hands releases hers, moves up to her neck and rests there as the tips of his fingers touch the underside of her hair lightly.
"Were you sad the first time you saw this face, this version of me, River? Was it like – was it like losing-" Her finger on his mouth shushes him once more.
"You daft old man." She smiles indulgently and turns her head so she can look into his ageless eyes. "I've known more than this face, but this face – your face – that's my Doctor. Honestly, what a terribly roundabout way to ask if you should be jealous of yourself." She teases him a bit and he chuckles weakly. His hand tightens on the nape of her neck and she smiles at him softly. She is surprised when he shifts toward her nervously, pulling her into his angular frame, his other hand sliding into her hair gently. He licks his lips once more – still nervous and she smiles just before he presses his mouth to hers. It's not the most passionate kiss they've ever shared, but it is soft and sweet and she can tell by its hesitancy that it is one of the first he's initiated. She wraps her arms around him, one arm around his ribcage and her hand resting between his shoulder blades, while the other one slides between them to touch his neck and face. She runs her tongue along his bottom lip and he opens his mouth in surprise. She can feel the rise and fall of his back as he takes a startled breath. She doesn't do anything else, other than that – just soft, sweet open mouthed kisses, but after a moment she feels his tongue against the corner of her mouth, sneaking in to touch her own hesitantly.
He tastes like he always does, sweet and savoury, like time itself, she imagines. She moans and moves closer to him, her hip pressed next to his and their thighs against each others. She fits into him, and always loved the simple feel of him next to her. She finally drags her mouth away, her hand sliding down to his chest as she breathes deeply trying to catch her breath. "Sorry," he is mumbling and she shakes her head, turning back to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek, his nose, his forehead.
"No, no, just not all of us can go without breathing as long as you." She is smiling against the skin of his neck, her mouth resting there while his hand sweeps from the back of her neck down her back, and up again. His touch is warm and welcome and she hums in response. "So that's new?" She is questioning him, because she isn't sure and his chuckle reverberates through his chest and he pulls back slightly to look down at her with a slight grin.
"Spoilers." He manages to keep a straight face for about a minute and a half before he squeezes her against his side in apparent delight.
"I suppose you've just been waiting forever to say that back to me then, have you?" She is smiling though, because his voice, warm and teasing and wrapped around that word remind her of her youth. He nods, reaching down and taking her hand in his again, as his palms flattens on her back and pulls her even closer. There was literally nowhere left to go other than clambering into his lap should he press her closer still once more. His fingers laced through hers and she watches him examining her hand in his.
"Does all of this bother you River? Our timelines are at best complicated and at worst tragic. I just don't see why you would-"
"There is nothing I wouldn't do. And it's not so bad, really. The middle – well the middle was fantastic. Will be fantastic. At least I'd hope you'll think so." She shakes her head and laughs softly. "Even when you don't know me much at all, you still seem to make me lose sense of the rules. I shouldn't have said that."
"Did you ever wonder if we're just a paradox? That it started because it'd already begun – you do things because I will do them and I did them because you're doing them?" He sighs heavily, his fingers tightening around hers, and they're so long he can almost reach her wrist with the tips. "Sometimes I feel like there's this sense of pressure – I have to keep the timeline intact. No choice, really." His voice is low and strained as he speaks to her and she is split in two by his words. Half of her is elated that he feels already that he can talk to her like this, trust her with these thoughts. The other half feels rubbed raw and bleeding, like half her heart had just been ground against asphalt. Bits of his words seemed to embed themselves in the open wound. She's always loved him. Always. She understood his fear, recognized it, but never had she ever felt she'd loved him out of duty. Fate maybe. Destiny. She's not sure what her face is saying but he looks up at her and blinks, his hand tightening painfully around hers. "Oh God, I'm sorry River, I should never have... I didn't meant to-"
"No, it's alright." Her voice is a whisper, and a shaky one at that and she clears her throat in an effort to dispel some of the raw ache lodged within it. "I'm glad you feel you can talk to me about this – and I understand exactly how you feel. I do." She closes her eyes for a moment, remembering the absolute fear that had filled her when she first met him. A man who knew everything about her, and loved her absolutely when she barely even knew him. That love had been healing, transformative and terrifying all at once. It had felt like a lot to live up to at the time.
"How long did it take you? To not feel like that anymore?" His question is quiet in her ear and she tilts her head toward him instinctively.
"I can't tell you that." She sighs the words out and he nods as she lays her head against his shoulder. Can't. It is a literal interpretation, because she never felt that way – like she was pushed, pulled, dragged into a relationship with the impossible man next to her. What had scared her as a young woman had been the fact that she couldn't seem to not love him. His hand slides up her back and wraps around her shoulders, pulling her against him tightly. "I wish I could."
These words are even softer and he releases her upon hearing them, turning toward her and wrapping his arms around her in a fierce hug. He presses kisses she can barely feel to the top of her head and she sighs again, but with content this time. He'll understand someday, and he's trying to now, and that's a good sign. His arms tighten around her and she slips hers around him, palms flat on his back, over his hearts so she can feel them resonating against her.
Moments out of time are few and far between for them. So she simply holds him, turns her head and presses two kisses over his hearts and when his arms tighten around her and he holds his breath, she knows he understands what she isn't saying. I love you. I'm yours. That these small moments are what wrap them up and bind them to each other. It isn't just love.
It's everything.