Nightmares
Screaming echoed through the TARDIS corridors. The Doctor leapt from his seat and sprinted down the hall towards the master bedroom. He found his wife sitting rigidly upright in their bed shaking, her face wet with both tears and sweat. Nightmares. River looked up at his as he entered.
"I'm fine," she said. "Just a dream." But her voice shuddered as she spoke. She rubbed her eyes with the heals of her palms, as though physically trying to erase the images from her mind.
"No," he said, walking quietly over to her. "You're not." She shook her head silently, her whole body still shivering. He climbed onto the bed next to her and wrapped his long arms around her, pulling her into his embrace.
He knew she would never tell him exactly what it was she dreamed of, but whatever it was that Kovarian had done to her, it had scarred her. Badly. The very thought of it made his insides quiver with rage; the idea of his wife being damaged thus made his hearts scream and cry as they broke for her.
But she would never tell him. She'd never let him see the full extent of the damage.
So he simply cradled her in his arms as she shivered, hiding her face in his shoulder like a child as he gently stroked his fingers through her curls.
"You should try to go back to sleep," he said after a while. She shook her head.
"I don't want to," she whispered.
"I'll be right here," he said. "I wont leave you I promise." She gave a tiny nod and let him guide them down to the pillow. She snuggled in close to him and he pulled the duvet up around them and kissed her softly on the forehead.
It was these moments, when she lay encased protectively in his arms after waking screaming in the middle of the night, that he realised just how fragile she was. For all her games, her strength and her icy coolness, she was, underneath all that, damaged.