He had drifted off, fallen asleep right where he was sitting. His whole body was supported by the railing on the stairs and his long dark hair had fallen messily over his eyes.
River stood at the TARDIS console, leaning against it and smiling sadly at the Doctor – her Doctor. Subconsciously she rubbed her right wrist where she had forcibly broken it earlier. Where her Doctor had sued up his regeneration energy – somewhere between ten months and ten years of his life, she didn't know exactly how such things worked – just to heal her.
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears at the thought of her wonderfully brilliant idiot. Despite what she had shouted at him about being embarrassed because of his sentiment, she really was touched by the fact he cared enough about her to do such a thing. She hadn't had many people in her life who cared enough to do something even close to that. It was just that she worried he would keep doing it, would fix her every little ache or pain, as she knew he would if she hadn't objected so strongly. As sweet as the gesture was, he couldn't go all about throwing away years of his life to heal simple cuts and bruises.
He shifted in his sleep, brown hair falling away from his eyes, his mouth opening slightly. River chuckled quietly, releasing her wrist and taking a few steps toward where he was laying.
She reached him and crouched down, raising her hands to straighten his bow-tie fondly. Shaking her head she sat next to him, leaning back against the other side of the staircase. He must have been very exhausted to have fallen asleep in the console room. She knew that he often (always, she corrected herself) pushed his limits as far as he could before he would let himself succumb to sleep, but to actually drop off outside of his personal room was something she had never seen him do before.
Not that she could blame him, especially after the emotional roller coaster of the past twenty-four hours. River bit back a sob as she abruptly recalled the sight of mother disappearing from the graveyard, zapped to the past by the solitary angel right in front of her. And it had been her own choice. Just to be with Rory again.
Her mind drifted back to a few hours earlier – after they had discussed writing that fateful book, after he had rushed out of the TARDIS to find the last page – the afterword Amy had written, or rather would write. Time travel was confusing, wasn't it? Her Doctor had simply stared into space for a long few hours, face blank and his eyes sad. So very, very sad at the loss of her parents.
River allowed herself a few tears at the memory of her mother and father – The-Girl-Who-Waited and The Last Centurion. The sparkling beads ran down her cheeks silently and she quickly wiped them away, reminding herself of her own rules, the most important ones. The two she had shared with her mother only earlier that day. Don't let him see the damage and never let him see you age. He doesn't like endings.
River wasn't nearly as old as he was – not even close – but she had been through enough to know exactly why he hated endings so much. It was the same reason she couldn't bring herself to kill him that first time around at Lake Silencio, the same reason she usually left unannounced. Goodbyes were difficult enough for the average person, let alone a time-traveller who didn't know when he would see the person who was leaving again – or, sometimes, if he ever would.
Proper, drawn-out goodbyes like those the rest of the universe tended to favor were like a slow torture to the soul – being forced to suffer through the uncertainty of their future meetings and the rest of the feelings associated with saying farewells. On the other hand, a simple leave – just disappearing – was like ripping off a band-aid, getting the worst over with and leaving the sting to fade.
Even the seemingly-short conversation with Amy had been a little too long for him, she could tell. It was very nearly too long for her. To discuss whether she would be with Rory or not had been bad enough, but she had told River to look after him – and then her words, so grown-up and so childish at the same time. They were just like Amy.
Raggedy Man, goodbye.
It was too much, remembering. River sobbed silently, her shoulders shaking and more tears coursing down her face. It had been decades of knowing her mother for River – and it had been long enough after Demon's Run to have a relatively stable mother-daughter relationship (or at least as stable as it could get with the timey-wimey mess thay had been left with after Kovarian and time-travel and meetings in reverse). But for the Doctor it had been nearly two-hundred years since he first laid eyes on that young Amy Pond – the first face his eleventh regeneration had seen. How much worse it had to have been for him.
And, she reminded herself, there's a definite chance I will be able to see them again while he can't. The Doctor and the TARDIS returning to Manhattan would be nigh impossible without creating a very destructive time disruption, but River would be able to "slip in" with her vortex manipulator. After all, she'd already been in New York in the time after they had gone back – when she'd been searching for records of the Silence through America's history. Yes, there was a more-than-likely chance she would be able to take a trip or two to the past.
Her sobs died down as her own, slightly-lessened but still present, pain was obscured by pity for her husband, and her tears gradually slowed, drying on her face as she held her Doctor's hand and laced her fingers through his as if attempting to send him reassuring thoughts through touch alone.
After a while, when her cheeks were dry and her legs were starting to hurt, she let go of his hand and used her sleeve to wipe the tear tracks off her face. She didn't know how long she had been sitting on the steps, absorbed in her own thoughts, but it felt like quite a long time.
She contemplated the thought of moving the man next to her – waking him and taking him to his bed in his room on the TARDIS. But as she thought about how best to wake him, the TARDIS sent a chilly wave of thought toward her mind.
"So you don't want me to get him up?" she asked out loud.
The confirmation was a warming up of the air around her.
"Alright then," she said, looking at the time rotor in the center of the console room. "Have it your way."
Pursing her lips slightly and brushing a stray curl behind her ear River leaned close to the Doctor, kissing his forehead gently to avoid waking him, as the TARDIS was obviously so against her doing.
"Sleep well, my love," she whispered into his ear. Then she stood up and climbed the rest of the stairs to the landing, sparing one last fond glance for the man asleep on the steps before continuing on her way – hoping for two things.
First that the TARDIS wouldn't make her walk too far to reach her room and, second, that the TARDIS's presence in her mind would chase away any nightmares seeking to torment her in the land of dreams that night.
Hope I didn't make you cry too much... Even though I did while writing it... And I bawled for a bout an hour after watching this episode... *sobs*
Please leave a review to tell me what you thought!
As always, thanks for reading. :)