Because we're all stories in the end...
Set after The Angels Take Manhattan.
They send two things to her parents. The first is a story book, with blank pages to be filled with an afterword and a cover that she doesn't approve of.
The second is given anonymously. They both agree it's best.
It's stupidly funny, in hindsight, how long it takes them to notice what it is that's wrong.
"Maybe you caught something in Paris."
He's sort of right. Paris; they've been having a lot of those lately, comfort trips. Trips to cheer them up and pull them an inch at a time out of the darkness. Given how the vast majority of them end, it's little wonder that this happens.
"Maybe. Do you have any jam tarts? I've got a massive craving for them."
River blames the weight gain on comfort eating and a lack of running. It's been roughly half a year since Manhattan; she's stayed with him more than originally intended, largely because she doesn't really have anywhere else she feels like being.
"I'm getting fat."
"That might be the jam tarts."
A cushion hits the Doctor square in the face. "You're not supposed to agree with me!"
He shuts her up with a kiss. "Honey, you're not fat."
"I am. My dress barely fits."
The Doctor shakes his head, dismissing her comment. She eats another three jam tarts and forgets.
The next morning she opens her eyes to find his, comically huge and shining, staring back.
"Sweetie, what's the matter?"
She watched his throat bob with a heavy swallow. "River."
His eyes drop to her stomach, and in an instant it all makes so much sense it's sickening.
"Oh."
A numbness tingles through her bones. His forehead rests gently in the curve of her nose, and for a few minutes there's nothing more than silence until he shimmies carefully down her front to press his ear to the bump she now knows was not caused by jam tarts.
Her hand winds through his mop of chocolate hair. "I… I thought we couldn't."
"Me too." His soft, empty sigh warms her skin, and the next thing she feels is his hand placing itself reverently on the tiny swell of her stomach. "Oh… what a shame."
And she doesn't have to ask what he means.
He tears his head away from the bump and then her face is being cradled in his hands, kisses are being peppered along her cheeks, her name whispered like a prayer.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs against her cheek. The countdown begins.
Detaching themselves is more difficult than anticipated when a shockingly human kidney bean creature appears on the monitor. Her breath hitches, gives her away, and it only takes a moment to feel his hand clutch hers.
"One heart," she notices.
"One heart."
Their eyes meet. There's a silent shared belief in their comparatively short future that it was decided in that moment.
"How?"
"1930s New York isn't the problem; they are. We can never interact with them – it would rip the world apart – but we can visit. We'll have to be quick; find the right agency, and… drop it off."
River nods slowly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. "Ok."
Her palm unconsciously rubs her swollen stomach.
"There's something we have to do first. If we want it to have a normal life."
"We do."
"Is it done?"
He draws his hands away, the weak shimmering glow fading to nothingness, and nods. "No regeneration energy left. Human."
"Perfect."
Months flit by like seconds; she grows with their child, while he watches.
"It's a boy."
There's an eternity of silence as they gaze at the monitor; when she can speak, her voice is shaking. "Amy always wanted a boy."
She decides not to mention that she did, too.
Strangely, in those nine months they're closer than ever. She informs him of each flutter and kick, and if he's not busy he'll come to feel it. When she falls asleep he's always behind her, arm wrapped around her waist so that his fingers instinctively splay out across her stomach.
There are some tiny moments when she forgets it's all going to end, and she thinks he does the same.
"You know," he murmurs one morning, when she's still half-asleep and aching from the extra weight. "It's the right thing to do. It was my fault they couldn't have this… it's only right that I give them the chance again."
"Don' say that," she whispers, eyes closed and words slurring. "'S the right thing for th' baby…"
His fingers dance along her stomach, and she's too tired to notice that he's writing Gallifreyan. She's asleep again by the time he's whispering to the sleeping creature inside it, as he always makes sure she is.
She worries, of course. Mother's instinct; a sad side-effect.
"What if he doesn't end up with them?"
The Doctor scratches his head pensively. "We could leave a note. Saying who we want him to go to."
"Sweetie, it doesn't work like that."
"No, but it'll mean their names will be in their heads. Sometimes all you need to do is plant an idea."
She trusts him. She always does.
"I think it's starting."
The words feel wrong in her mouth, because it's quite the opposite of starting. When her eyes well with tears, it's not for the pain.
She gives birth to their son in a little white room somewhere in the depths of the Tardis, to be erased after it has served its purpose. She almost wishes it to go slower, because time does not grind to a lazy halt the way it does in fairy tales when a weak cry swells through the room.
God, he's perfect; they both marvel that they are capable of making such a creature. She kisses his tiny feet and tells him how beautiful he is, and with just the three of them in a hazy pocket of time she feels it's safe to weep.
He is forever in the arms of one of them; they can't seem to let him go. The Doctor listens to the gentle strum of his single heart, believing that his son's greatest trait is being nothing like his father.
They keep him for two nights.
River argues, but there's little strength in it. He tells her that she needs to rest, that she can't possibly go out; she needs to recover, he insists, without looking up for a single fleeting moment from the little bundle in his arms.
She loses count of how many times she calls his name before giving up. When she wakes in the morning, it's as if he hasn't moved.
He digs out the cot, the cot that was his and hers, but it's barely used in those two days. When tiredness overcomes them both they lie with intertwined feet and their new-born son snuggled between them in his white blanket, the only thing they conceded to buy.
They say shockingly little.
"He has your eyes."
"Doctor." It's a warning, because she's been incredibly careful in preparing herself for avoiding the danger of growing too close. She realises as she watches her husband rock their child in his arms that she forgot to prepare him. "At least he doesn't have your chin."
They have to joke about it. Soon, too soon, it'll be all they've got.
"We'll be a story to him."
Their voices are serene, loath to disturb the tiny creature that's his and hers. "We're all stories in the end, dear."
They approach the orphanage like history's smallest funeral procession.
"Definitely 1946?"
"Yes." If his voice sounds thicker, he can blame it on the cold. A beat passes between them; the baby wriggles in River's arms. "It's been eight years for them."
"Yes." Her son grasps her little finger as if his life depends on it, and she can't resist kissing his tiny hand. "Maybe he's just what they need. Come on."
He's never been so particular about getting the date and place right. They leave him on the doorstep of the best adoption agency in New York; best to avoid an awkward conversation, as neither of them have the strength to lie.
They are careful to keep the goodbye brief, but it is by no means easier. River just about makes it through the Tardis doors; the floor leaves bruises on her knees when they give in. The Doctor scoops her up and then she's being tucked into bed and cradled so close that she can barely breathe.
She's apologised to until her ears ring, and although his body trembles against hers his hold never for a moment relinquishes. He tells her that they did the right thing, that he will be loved and cared for and protected, that he will make her parents so happy and have a far better life than they could ever have given him. That all is going to be ok.
She knows he's right.
Her howls could break bones.
When morning comes they get dressed and drink coffee and hold hands across the breakfast table, saying nothing. Her fingers brush her empty stomach as she wonders, and she knows from the glazed eyes of her husband that he's doing the same.
Eventually he asks for her help fixing something on the console that doesn't really need fixing and the rest of their day is occupied not talking about it.
She scours the newspapers from the time, despite herself. It's only a matter of time before she finds him, and peace.
"They called him Anthony."
"Anthony," the Doctor repeats softly. He mulls it over for a moment before nodding his head in approval, nibbling on his buttered toast as River folds up the paper and gets started on another cup of tea.
It's the first and last time they speak their son's name.
Across the web of broken timelines, Anthony Williams is told of the superhero with the space hair and the madman in a box who married her; it's his favourite fairy tale.
Hope you enjoyed this. There'll be one more chapter. x