Candlelight

Vous pouvez trouver une traduction francaise de cette histoire sur la page de Enelye sous le titre "Premières et dernières fois".

Disclaimer: Just in case anyone thinks I own these characters, I do not. My name's not Steven Moffat. (Mind you, that would be a stupid name for a girl)

*Author's note* Inspired by hannahncakes'lovely little stories, I came up with this. I think I'll do some more chapters if people are interested. As I'm concentrating on bothof their first times, prepare for some time-jumps. The first part is early for River (right after TWoRS), but reasonably late for the Doctor. I imagine River has been in prison for about a year in the second part, the doctor has just "died".

She sat on the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, and stared at the wall opposite. Well, it could have been worse. The cell didn't provide any luxuries and the view certainly wasn't spectacular, but at least it was clean and it wasn't cold.

Trouble only was, she was bored already. Well, if she was going to spend the rest of her life in here, she would have to find something to keep her busy.

River closed her eyes and sighed. She'd been in her new cell but a couple of hours, but she already missed him. The man for whom she had went into prison. The man she'd killed (right, she hadn't really, but it had felt like it either way). The man she'd married. The doctor. Her doctor.

Her fingers fingered the blue diary, flickering through the pages. She had filled so few of them with stories…

"Anything I can get you, Doctor Song?"

"No, I'm fine, thank -" She broke off when she realized (quite late) that she knew that voice all too well. She leapt off the bed and smiled disbelievingly at the man who stood on the other side of the bars. There he was, wearing that smug grin, casually leaning against the TARDIS as if he'd just entered a public building instead of a high security prison.

"Hi honey. I'm home."

"And what sort of time do you call this?", she asked, echoing their very words from a couple of hours ago.

"The perfect time to, you know, come around and check on you." He walked over to the door and opened it in a matter of seconds. So much for high security.

The doctor examined her closely for a while and then asked, very quietly and lacking all that self-confidence he was usually sporting: "You didn't really think I'd let you rot in here, did you?"

She opened her mouth to answer with no idea what to say.

"No, don't answer that. Stupid question. Forget it," he cut her off, his giddy mood back in his voice as if it had never been gone. "So...how do you like your cell? Feel like spending some hours of your time here for a few years?"

"A few more, I guess," she replied with half a smile. "But I think I'm ready to make myself at home."

"No, you're not. Not yet." He produced a candle from his pocket, placed it on the bedside table and lit it. Then he stood still for a minute, admiring the shadows of the pair of them the candlelight cast on the wall.

"There, that's better, wouldn't you say?" He grinned at her. "Well, it's no candlelight dinner, but it's something. I'll see to that. Dinner, I mean. Not now, of course. Too early. I'll drop by later."

"You'll really come by to see me?" she asked and cursed herself for the childish fear in her voice. "Every now and then?"

"In good times and in bad, isn't that it? Well, we didn't get to say it, but it's part of the deal. I guess prison counts as bad times…" He bent down slightly so they were on eye level. "See that candle? Take it as a promise. I won't leave you in here, River. I mean, you'll still have to spend a lot of time in this cell, but I'll come and get you out of here as often as I can.

"Okay," she whispered. "I'll remind you of that.

"Good." He leaned in a bit closer to kiss her.

Their laughter still echoed through his head when they sneaked through the dimly lit corridor and back into her cell. Oh, what a night. The doctor grinned. He could get used to this, and according to River, there was a lot more to come.

"They didn't even notice I was gone this time," River said, casting a quick glance through the bars.

"Do they ever notice?" he asked, wondering whether his future self had gotten her into trouble.

"Usually, but as I always come back, they're not too resentful." She gave him that mischievous smile of hers and started rummaging through her drawers. "There you go…" she muttered and threw him a box of matches, then turned away again and started looking for something else.

He turned the matches in his hands, trying to find something unusual about them, before he dared to ask: "Erm...what exactly do you want me to do with those?"

She stopped dead in whatever she was doing and looked at him for a long moment as if trying to figure out whether he was joking. Then her features grew softer, but he didn't miss the hint of sadness and pain in her eyes. "This is early for you, sweetie, isn't it?" she whispered.

"Yeah. Never been here. At night, I mean. Like, in here, in this cell, with you," he stuttered, unsure what to make of her reaction. He'd seen her like this only once - and he really didn't want to be reminded of it. Because thinking about the library hurt, in quite a different way than thinking about other people he'd lost.

He hated losing people.

"You always light the candle," she explained, waving a hand towards a blue candle on her bedside table.

"Do I? What for?"

"Well, once you said you'd do it to remind me you'd come back." That sad smile flickered over her face again. "And once you said you just liked the smell of candles."

"I do. It's a brilliant smell. It smells of cosiness." He lit one of the matches and tried for a smile. "You could need some of that in here."

The small flame sprang to life and he blew out the match, put it in his pocket and turned to leave. "See ya, River," he said quietly as he opened her barred door once more, not sure if she'd even hear him.

"Thank you, doctor," she called after him.

"For what? Putting you into prison?"

She shook her head and smiled, for real, this time. "For tonight. And the nights before...in advance."

"Talk about pressure." He grinned and closed the TARDIS's doors before she could say anything near "goodbye".

He wasn't ever going to allow her to say that.

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