Sometimes I Wish I Could Save You
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and the song belong to other people.
*A/N* so this is just a little one-shot because every time I hear this song I want to curl up into a ball and sob for hours because hello, these lyrics!
You might want to listen to the song while you read. There's even a Doctor Who fanvid with it with got me hooked on the song in the first place.
Part one takes place during "The Time of Angels", the second early in series 7.
I had to take the lyrics out due to some copyright issues. I really liked it better with them in, but well... I left the last line, though, I suppose I won't be killed for that.
He desperately tried to tell himself he was running away from the woman herself, from her innuendos and all those things she knew and maybe even from the fact she could fly the TARDIS better than he could. He wanted so much to hang on to the giddy, childish light-heartedness Amy had brought to him.
And at the sight of River Song, he could feel it slip away. His first reaction had been disbelief, then for a second he could relish the happiness of seeing her alive, but the guilt had put a stop to that all too soon.
The way she looked at him was still the same. There was so much love in her eyes even when she pretended to be cross with him all the time, and it made him feel disgusting and worthless.
How could she love him when it was his fault she was dead? How was he supposed to act like he didn't know she was going to die in his stead? He felt like crying whenever she smiled at him, because the last time he'd seen her smile a computer voice had been counting down to her last breath.
If only he could say something. Casually mention this place where she might go sometime in the future and advise her to stay well clear of it. Fall to her feet and beg her not to go.
He could not do any of it, because four thousand people would be stuck in a computer forever if River didn't die there. And (even though he would never ever admit that the awfully selfish thought even occurred to him) he would have never met her.
While he had watched her waltz around the console, it had taken all of his strength to counter her snarky remarks and to not melt into a puddle of salt water and tweed and bow tie, sobbing he was so very, very sorry.
In the end, it was curiosity that led him out through the TARDIS doors just as much as his promise to Amy.
And the vague hope that if he stuck around her, he would at some point, somehow find a way to save her without breaking the universe, his own time stream and the life of all these people into tiny little pieces.
She said something and he found her words didn't reach him. Not a miracle, with all these voices whispering in his ear. It's your fault she never had a proper childhood. It's your fault she never got the freedom to spend her life the way she wanted. It's your fault her "home" is a prison cell. It's your fault she's scared every morning that you might have faded from her the next time she meets you. It's your fault she's going to die far too young. Your fault, your fault, your fault.
It was odd. On the one hand, this woman made him the happiest he'd been in a few hundred years, and on the other, she was taking his self-hatred to a new extreme. It seemed that whatever he did and however much he tried to keep her save and, for once, make her happy, he just made it worse. He tried to save her as a baby - she was abducted, drilled and tried to kill him. He let her kill him to not risk her life - she sacrificed all her regenerations to bring him back.
And he could see the sadness in her eyes even though she thought he didn't, the way she was sick of being locked up and the fear of losing him the worst way possible. He made a complete fool of himself all the time, trying to make her laugh, took her to the most astonishing places he could think of to take these things off her mind for an hour or two.
But a hint of her sadness always stayed.
He tried not to think about it too much, because it was killing him to realize there was no way in the universe he could give his beloved wife the life he would have wanted for her.
When she had lost consciousness in his arms on the marble steps in Berlin, he had carried her back to the TARDIS and he hadn't let go of her until the Sisters of the Infinite Schism had told him to do so for the third time. For some reason he liked to remember this. He wanted to prove to himself he was trying to protect her, he was doing his best - even if it was not enough.
She had been confused after Berlin and when he'd left her without an explanation, she had been angry. She had run through half the Universe, looking everywhere for a way to find him and if only to slap him as hard as she could.
It had been hard to watch her like that, but he had to make her do that. Because, while she fought with people who wouldn't listen to her, hitchhiked through the galaxies and broke a few hundred laws in the process, she found a bit of herself along the way.
And he was so scared one day all those things he tried to do wouldn't be enough anymore. The woman he'd met in the Library had seemed content enough, and there hadn't been hate in her eyes, just this love he wasn't worthy of. But who knew whether she had really been, because back then he hadn't known her and even now she knew all too well how to lie to him. If River broke, that would mean he had ruined her life for good and he could never forgive himself. So he was always watching her back, distracting her and being deliberately stupid so she could patronize and teach him. He'd do anything to keep her from falling, and that knowledge was all he had to stop the guilt from driving him crazy.
He'd be there for her whatever it took. And he would never stop hoping that there would be an opportunity, a chance, just the tiniest possibility that he could somehow make it up to her.
The most ridiculous little hope that he could still save her.
I want you to know
I wish I could save you
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