Disclaimer: Recognizable characters are not my own - I just borrow them.
Pairing: River/Doctor, River/Twelve, River/Eleven
Summary: Towards the end, their relationship begins to feel like a carefully choreographed play - a proper Shakespearean tragedy.
Rated: T
Notes: Written: 3/31/13-9/20/15
Title: "The man who never lied" - Maroon 5
Thanks to Beverly and Bree for their support.
Like a tragedy, like a dark comedy
They're sat on River's back porch, watching the people racing by, going about their daily little lives, to avoid looking at one another.
There's nothing to say. Nothing they can say. Old jokes long since forgotten. Memories, dulled by time. All that remain are spoilers and lies. All that remains is an itchy feeling that tells him to run from long ago losses.
"Perhaps this is why we're always back to front. We're meant to be. Otherwise, we'd never last."
It's River who breaks the tense silence, her words steady and casual, as though she were musing on the weather or a new weapons theft. When the Doctor dares to glance at her out of the corner of his eye, she's still staring resolutely forward.
When he'd been younger, he'd foolishly thought it would be easier if only they were linear. But it's not. When they were both young it was like navigating a minefield - every topic littered with explosive spoilers. They ran from each other as quickly as possible, lest they accidentally rewrite time. Their respective deaths weighed too heavily on them then, and neither quite knew how to hide it from their eyes - their usual playful banter sharp and awkward.
In the middle, there was never enough time. One of them was always rushing toward a key moment with a different version of the other - spoilers lurking and time waiting. They could never linger the way they wanted to - needed elsewhere in their timelines.
It's the worst when they're both older. They are afraid to meet one another's eyes, to touch. They know each other too well now - they can see through each other's lies, spot the spoilers before it can be uttered.
Still spoilers - always - and the only ones left are those tucked close, stabbing at their hearts. The ones they've spent lifetimes - a whole marriage - hiding.
The lies grate on them, pulling like frayed edges at their carefully constructed marriage.
Bleeding through.
The Doctor grits his teeth and turns toward his wife, willing her to look at him.
"You're wrong, River."
Willing this one thing to not be a lie.
...
Their relationship was based on lies. It was a necessity, really. That was the real reason they could never stay together longer than a few weeks at a time. Sure, they both had to dash off and meet other versions, but they were time travelers. Those meetings would still be there after they had their time between.
But after they'd been married so long they could read one anther too well. See the lies before they formed. And they were never little white lies. No. These secrets could not be shared.
More than a few weeks and the lies piled up behind their eyes.
River grits her teeth against it, against the lies she can see traipsing like shadows across the Doctor's eyes. Against Rule 1. She can see it in the set of his shoulders and the way he doesn't quite look at her.
"Whatever you're about to say - don't bother - I can see you're lying already. Save the excuse."
The Doctor sighs heavily, but doesn't deny it.
After that, there's not much to say at all.
...
When the Doctor was younger, River's spoilers enticed him as much as they irritated him. She was a mystery, and he wanted to unravel her as much as he wanted to run from her. From someone who knew his personal future.
It takes him a pathetically long time to realize she hides behind that simple word when she wants to hide from him.
They're so used to lying to one another that it's easy to avoid inconvenient truths. Not that River has ever shied away from calling him out when he's deserved it - not those big truths. No, it's all the little things they never discuss. All the white lies that pile up behind spoilers and Rule 1.
"Don't you dare say spoilers." He spits out the word, the one he taught her accidentally when she was all new and everything seemed possible, their future spread out large in front of them. "At least have the courtesy to be honest when you can, rather than try to cover your tracks."
It's River who looks away first. She doesn't say spoilers, but then, she doesn't say anything at all.
...
Towards the end, their relationship begins to feel like a carefully choreographed play - a proper Shakespearean tragedy.
Were those words his, really, or just hers parroted back at her? One day she would make a joke - echoing something he had said a thousand times, something they had always shared - to the wrong version of him, and she could see it brand new in his eyes - know that he'd always be echoing that joke back to her.
They're stuck in a loop that they can't quite seem to escape. Caught between beginnings that are endings and penned in by the lies necessary to bind them.
Their every interaction hurts now. Firsts and lasts, and she's caught between two versions of her husband. The one that's known her so long he can't lie to her no matter how he tries, and the one who is so young that he doesn't trust her enough to bother. At any rate, it's impossible to get along with either, and she has to hurry to leave him, lest one of them say something else that can never be unsaid.
River might laugh, if she weren't afraid she'd cry instead.
She does the only thing she can: hides away the damage behind a wall of lies, and wonders if there's really any them left to save.
Not one line.
Else their entire marriage might crumble to dust.
...
They love each other, of course. No one would endure the pain for anything less.
The Doctor's hearts ache with missing her in the long years when she's not with him. In the longer silences when she is.
It hurts to see her younger, flirting and carefree and so careless with his old hearts, something she takes for granted will always be there.
It hurts more to see her older, hearts as battered as his. Entirely his fault, of course. He was callous and cruel when he was younger, trusting that he could hurt her and she would always be there, to kill him or save him or marry him.
In the end, she managed them all. Only it doesn't matter, when time leaves them constantly at odds. Never enough time. Never the right time.
There are days when their fights echo through the TARDIS to the tune of slammed doors and raised voices. Too many fights, and too seldom that they can resolve them before one of them has to leave. Time steals them away and the wounds to their marriage scab and scar, but never quite heal.
"Okay. I'm assuming that's for something I haven't done yet."
"Yes it is."
"Good. Looking forward to it."
Oh, they promise to forgive one another: always and completely. But that's no way to have a marriage. If that's what they even have. Some days, the Doctor wonders, and hates himself for wondering.
...
When they're together, River can be confident in their love, in their marriage. Even at their worst, together, even when the Doctor says trust you, seriously?, River believes in them.
Because he's right. The man who invented Rule 1 and taught her spoilers can always trust her, but he never should.
Almost everything they've ever said to one another was a lie.
Oh, they were as honest as they could be. But it was never enough.
And, in the long days and weeks and months where she doesn't see him, when they're not together, it's hard to believe in a marriage built on a foundation pocked with holes and omissions.
It's the things they've never said. The I love you's they've never exchanged. They're liars, the both of them, and saying the words would almost guarantee their deceit.
River's always fancied that she can read the Doctor well enough not to need the words, not when she can look into his eyes and see the truth he tries so valiantly to hide. Only she doesn't dare to meet his eyes anymore, when the truths lurking there don't bear dwelling on. She wonders if that's another one, another casualty of a life lived backwards: deception by rote.
And now he's sitting next to her, begging her to meet his eyes and believe that it was all worth it, - them, somehow - and she wonders what she'll find there.
She's already seen his death, and she doesn't doubt he's seen hers. It must be closer now, the way he carefully avoids looking at her directly. She wonders if he knows when, or if one day she'll see him and it'll be the last time - no warning, just the unexpected loop back to his beginning. And her end.
There's so much between them now - bodies and lives and broken promises - and she wonders if always and completely is another.
But still, he says you're wrong, and River turns.
She lifts her eyes to her husband's and doesn't bother trying to hide. They have so few scattered days left - what does it matter if they could have managed longer without hating one another? They'll never have the chance. "I'm never wrong, my love," the term she saves to soften the blow of truths he'd rather not hear. The words that aren't quite the same as the three they never say.
The Doctor meets her eyes steadily - light irises that are still so dark with the weight of lifetimes of loss. Lifetimes lost. He drops to his knees and shuffles forward, closing the space between them, lifting her hands to be cradled in his. He meets her eyes. "Just this once."
The honesty of his words is reflected in his eyes - that foolish man, still ridiculously, impossibly in love with her, when he should have run so long ago.
River squeezes his hands and stares into his eyes and thinks that perhaps, just this once, neither of them will need to run away and hide. Perhaps there won't be any more lies. Perhaps, they really will last.
"Just this once."
End A/N: In case I didn't make it clear - the POV alternates every paragraph between the Doctor and River, and skips about in time a bit. It's all timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly. Sorry/not sorry. I don't like to think that this is how their relationship felt, but it seemed worth exploring, especially after some of River's comments. It's still meant to be hopeful in the end.