This little thing was fresh from the finale, all swelling with feels. MY OTP. MY LOVES. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too. Set right after River's disappearance and before the Doctor steps into his time stream. Title is a line from the song Message by Syntax, which fits the moment in a SURREAL way. Actually, I'd kill to have someone do a Name of the Doctor vid for that song. IT WORKS TOO WELL. (And for the record, "her" can refer to either River or Clara, up to interpretation.)
It is sad when it ends.
Hearts loaded with ice, the Doctor managed to turn away. Inch after painful inch.
To the light. To almost-certain death. To Clara.
(Goodbye, sweetie, she'd said.)
How far they'd come. From Demon's Run to Trenzalore—to each other, from every moment in history. He could see her face under his hands with crystal clarity that wouldn't let him rest for many nights and days ahead, feel the exact texture of skin that hadn't even been there, taste her kiss like the sweetest poison. And he could still stand, turn, and think, and save Clara. And he would do it, no questions asked.
His greatest chance, and his greatest burden.
He survived them all.
Goodbye, River. He'd never wanted to say it. And still he'd found words, to tell her what she meant to him. (She must have known. She always knew.)
The echo of her was tangible as a cool mist, glass in his throat. It would not be dismissed. He carried his wife under his skin, shifting with his every breath, ethereal and ever so there.
He'd told her how long it'd been since he had let anyone that close. He'd told her that love was dangerous. She had laughed, and agreed, and kissed him like nothing else mattered.
Hard enough to bruise.
(They were never the careful kind.)
He paid the price.