The Rebound Wife
"I don't wanna kill you."
"I don't wanna marry you."
She was blond, yes, but not the right kind of blond. She made him smile, but not the kind of smile. She made him feel things, but that didn't lead to a marriage - to a bed, yes, but not to committing yourself fully, to surrender completely, to want to live with that person every day of every life you had - that was what marriage meant for a Time Lord. And River was a Time Lady, and she was right in so many ways, but his heart ached when he thought of marrying someone that wasn't Rose Tyler.
Yet, that could never be - he would never have married her, for he knew he would have to see her wither and die. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't, he wouldn't, so he turned his back and allowed her to be happily married - to the only man she would ever marry, her Doctor.
And as he said the words, and as he pleaded himself against his better judgment, as he became a married man, he thought of the other marriage he hadn't witnessed.
"I'll try to make it a good one", he says, full of guilt for he could never love River as he had loved before loosing Rose.
And yet, as he kissed her and time came back into place, his thoughts were still in brown eyes and the smile that could have undone time itself.
The Mrs Doctor would always be a rebound wife.