**Dedicated to the amazing Jordan who hand wrote the final draft of all our anthropology papers on our crazy India study abroad, and let me just write fan fiction in the corner**
What good is a Time Lord who loses control of time? What good is a husband who has no choice but to say goodbye? His hearts still raced each time he caught a glimpse of anything about her: a loose curl in the wind, perfectly manicured fingers on the TARDIS controls, or just the curve of her jumper clad thighs sittings beside him. It was those things that let him keep remembering the memories he wanted to. They were so different than the memories brought forward from the newer lines on her face and calluses on her hands. They came too quickly since the day she burst into the TARDIS declaring their date was interrupting her first lecture at the University. She laughed, brightly confidant, as she forced him to call her Professor River Song all night, and didn't notice how each time it stuck in his throat. He would have rather thrown up his dinner than say or hear it again. From that night on, time refused to be his.
She was three steps ahead, those curls tied back so they barely bounced as she kept laughing and teasing. To her, entering a past TARDIS was another story to tell, another farce of time travel. She didn't have to remember two versions of telling himself tonight was it, that they would never find a way to escape it. Time played cruel tricks like that on old men, making them share a first and last night.
But what a first night it had been. He had spent the hours before sneaking her out of Storm Cage going through the massive closets of the TARDIS to create a wardrobe just for her, he couldn't risk letting the TARDIS make one small mistake for someone so stunning. He picked that exact dress waiting for her in the console room after he held it in his hands, letting the fabric slide across his skins skin, and remembered so many times he saw her dressed up for someone else. Now finally it could be just them. In some way, it would always be just them, just a man and the saved echo he'll try everything to forget about but never will.
There was something about his River Song he could never put a finger on. He knew the archaeologist, the professor, Amy and Rory's daughter, and even the sides she still tried so desperately to hide within her that the Silence created. Every time he saw her, he just seemed to know less of the River Song that married him.
Yet, somehow she always seemed to know it all, always knowing when it was time, always three steps ahead. How could he continue to say no, continue to whisk her off to any place or time instead of the one she kept making him promise they would go? He couldn't, not when she walked into the console room wearing that first dress and just said, "Hello Sweetie" through that almost smirk she had every time she caught him looking at her like she was everything he had ever seen. He couldn't move as she entered the coordinates for Durilium.
Time was out, and only he knew the next time he wouldn't know any River Song at all.
In one night, could he learn everything he had yet to learn about this woman? Could he make up for all the wrongs he had done her?
Could he forgive himself for the wrongs he would never wish to undo, for the baby he never found and all the possibilities, the happiness, she could have had? His selfish hearts couldn't ever change anything that led her to him.
But all that would lead her to The Library too.
He had tried. He had promised after all and a man as old as him didn't have much left to live for but his promises, no matter the Doctor's lies.
And yet here he was, unable to keep that one vital promise he made so long ago when a broken TARDIS let him runaway. Why was it those that mattered most he never seemed to save?
"River," he said. Her name was almost lost in the wind of the hillside but he was hers as much as, if not more than, she was his. Her name from his lips could never be lost. She turned, with that twinkle in her eye reminding him no matter what came next, this one night was still so young, even if they had become so old. "Slow down."
"The face of a twelve year old is now an old man then?" She rolled her eyes and he wanted to pull that tie from her curls to let it all frame her face and let each bounce tease him as much as her mocking tone. "We used to run."
"We have all night." In three strides she was right in front of him, running a single finger down the buttons of his tuxedo vest.
"Oh you bet we do. And does the Doctor still have the stamina?" When she laughed, he gave in and pulled out her hair. Now she looked like his River Song, running through time and beating it.
Perhaps it was his unusual inability to tease her back, his choking up like he used to and fidgeting with his hands in his pockets that brought out that look of love and so much concern in her eyes that he'd never forget.
He remembers those same sad eyes from another night of a forgotten world. They stood atop a misplaced pyramid and she swore she'd suffer more than the universe if she had to kill him. Suddenly, he knew they were the most misplaced of all, in any world or time. In that moment he felt everything he'd ever thought about her come crashing through and every moment they had ever spend together made as much sense as the bow tie around his neck. Time was funny, a wobbly mess of possibilities, and somehow he ended up loving only one thing more than time itself, and a beloved bow tie bound him and her forever.
That was what he wanted, what he needed, to remember especially on this last night. So there on the Durilim hillside he ran a hand down her cheek before rolling his shoulders back and straightening his bow tie.
"Two hearts, Professor Song. Let see if you can keep up."
And they were off, running up the hillside and laughing into an endless nigh, just like the young and foolish lovers they never had a chance to be.
There had been so many things he meant to do, and they lost their chance on all of them. So many things he waited lifetimes to have the right person at his side for, and here she was, but just not enough time. He knew even twelve more lifetimes couldn't bring another River Song.
He had wanted to give her, well really all the Ponds, a big white wedding just like her parents had, where Amy would cry and hit him for it, where Rory would walk his daughter down an aisle, and where he'd dance like he'd never had a wedding before.
He let so much slip away when he lost the Ponds. Maybe he let River slip away just a bit too much too.
He had tried to hold on, hadn't he? If she had agreed to come with him that day, runaway and leave their pain behind in that graveyard, maybe they could have run forever. Maybe, just maybe, Durilium would have stayed a distant promise and the Library a forgotten memory belonging to a different face.
But River chose to go back to the life she led when he didn't whisk her away, she got older, and now he'd have to say goodbye. He should have kept her closer.
There had been so many he should have kept closer. Donna never should have been in the TARDIS alone. He could have let Martha closer in. He never should have walked even three steps in front of Amy and Rory in the graveyard. He should have pulled Amy into the TARDIS before she could choose to go.
He should have found another way for Rose to hold on and never let her reach for that lever.
That previous face had watched two of the most spectacular women he ever knew give everything for him. He had watched unable to do anything at all.
At least, in the end, he gave Rose something to hold onto, someone to make a new life with. What was he giving River but a fake version of survival? How had he run out of time to come up with something better?
The TARDIS knew too, giving him that screwdriver a few mornings back. It had been easier then he liked to fix it up like he remembered. It was too real, but too distant, to hold it again with different hands.
He could feel it jammed into his pocket with his own screwdriver, digging into his ribcage every time he breathed. It was only made bearable in comparison to the double pain of his hearts that threatened he might just collapse, catch her wrist, and tell her all the spoilers in an effort to make her promise not to go. They'd just keep running and find their own secret space within all of time.
There was a planet went to, not long after he stole the old girl and raced away, where the inhabitants lived in glass pods underwater, just two people for life completely into cubed by the world. He ran from there and just kept running. What he'd give now to run back there with River, find their own little pocket of time, and stand still.
Then again, that wasn't his River Song. She wasn't a lovestruck girl to daydream and agree on plans they both knew to be impossible. She had spent so much time remembering moments he couldn't. She had to spend their limited precious seconds pretending they were nothing, catching him state without knowing anything. He had to always pretend they'd last forever.
It was as though they finally caught up with each other, like life was in the right order, but she'd still have to spend her last hours with a different Doctor, a man who couldn't even dare to dream just what she might one day be to him.
He hated that Doctor for not doing enough, not being willing to consider who she might be, why she knew so much. Most of all, he hated him for not guessing what she might do. That Doctor was soft.
He would have known, he had seen her try to sacrifice the entire universe for him after all. He never would have let her near the database, would have never let his guard down. This Doctor would never have let her die.
River stopped running, and he realized she had grabbed her hand, keeping him close the entire way up. River Song was beautiful, but never more so then when she believed no one was looking. Not staring- he couldn't take his wife anywhere without men, women, or anything else staring at her. But few people ever really looked at River Song, not like he did, not like Melody Pond was in there too.
Even River never looked at River that way. Or maybe she did and just failed to see. Maybe it hurt too much. She had Amy's temper for sure, but most days he saw more of that fierce Centurion loyalty. She had watched them grow up, brought them together, and yet she could never stop and see how much of a Pond she was.
Right now, on the crest of the hill with the Songs of Durilium timing through the air, he found himself privileged to one of those rare moments.
He had seen the towers before. A very different face has stood on this hill and let the crystal clear Towers burn their image of golden light into his mind forever. He had stood still and opened his hearts to the music, not even trying to figure out how the songs came to be. There were few things anymore that the sheer wonder of crushed his curiosity. Too many miracles proved to have simple explanations, but not the Singing Towers of Durilum. Those he never asked about and never forgot. Somethings were best left unexplained.
And now it was River's turn to stand in the light of the Towers and let their songs seep into her entire essence. She could watch Durilium and he could watch her.
Yet for the first time watching her wasn't enough. He wanted to hold her tight, breathe in all of her being. There were other days for towers and music. Nothing was as stunning as River Song, and the days for that were in short supply.
He put his top hat on the ground and smiled when River didn't even acknowledge the movement. Few things could distract her distaste for his headwear. Bringing her here, he awed her soul.
The Doctor stepped up right behind her, wrapping his arms around her waisted, and breathed into her hair.
She whipped around, shoving away his touch. "Aren't you going to apologize?"
If it wasn't for his desperate confusion, he would have laughed at how she could embody Amy in moment.
"Do you really think I haven't noticed? You've stared at me all night like you can't bear. You think I don't see how old I'm getting too? Don't start treating me like some flimsy companion you kick out without saying goodbye. Don't you dare."
Could she really know their time was up, could she feel it as deeply as he did every moment? He could feel that extra screwdriver in his pocket, and decided there was another time for endings. This was the beginning of a younger night. Morning always broke, and his long day would begin, but now he let it all fall to the back of his mind and took his wife's hands.
"River, my amazing and fantastic River Song. Here we are, a man who loves a woman he won't ever be able to say goodbye to, and the woman he hopes is honored to be that person, standing together. Do we have to fight?"
She met his gaze though her voice was still somber. "We always fight."
He smiled, laughing out loud because, like always, she was completely right. "Like an old married couple."
"Yes sweetie, like an old married couple." She shook her head and he knew he had somehow managed to be forgiven. "Race to the bottom? Last one there makes breakfast."
She had wanted to see the star candles that the natives of Durilim lit for those they lost ever since she had read about it in a book while in University.
Maybe that was love for them, travelling and making memories of the universe, creating moments a book could never capture, and pretending they had all of space and time.
He stood up straight, adjusted his bow tie, and stuck out a hand. The moment she grabbed it, moving her feet to be exactly in line with his, he knew this wasn't his last visit to Durilium. He'd come back and light three star candles: for Amy, for Rory, and for River. Always something for River.
She was staring down the hill, ready to run and ready to drag him along. He couldn't look away.
"River," she looked at him, eyes bright and hair bouncing in the wind. He would never forget that perfect site. "Geronimo."
And they ran.