AN: I own nothing.
Kinda of a ranty babbley drabbley thing. Warning: I wrote this while really sick and feverish. Random angst and nonsensical-ness may occur.
***Spoilers through the Wedding of River Song***
It scares him sometimes, how scared he gets. Which wouldn't make sense in any other context but this one.
Not fear for himself, no. He's had a long life, and it's been nothing short of full. Full of people, friends and enemies, good times, and bad times too, he supposes, but somehow, in retrospect, they were always worth it. Dying now would not be a tragedy in his view.
It's not fear for them, either. It was at one point. Amy and Rory. Even Rose. Donna. The many, many more that had accompanied him. Who he had loved, and who, at one point, each had loved him and changed him in their own way. He didn't fear for them anymore. He had worried, spent long nights in front of the console, wondering if his self loathing was going to overthrow his need for companionship and he would let them go, or if he would have to see their ends be, even in the most roundabout ways, his fault. But not anymore. They were safe now. As safe as they could ever be.
He doesn't even fear for the one who has been with him the longest. The TARDIS is the one constant in his life. He takes it for granted that her end will be his final one as well. Or at least that his end will precede hers.
But such is not the case for her. She was the only one. The one he has never kept safe. Technically, he has already seen her die. And she has seen his death, as well. But his "death" doesn't worry him at all. He's already survived it.
From his point in time, she hasn't survived hers. Supposedly that should mean she's safe for now. However, the Doctor has seen too much time to let that relieve him.
His "death" is a fixed point in time. Hers isn't.
Time can be rewritten. And so far he's kept his promise. He hasn't tried to change anything. And he's worried that he will. After seeing how willing she is to risk all of time for him, how can he say that in a few years he wouldn't be willing to change one tiny point in time so that he can have her for that much longer?
Or worse. What if he accidently changes something, adjusts their time line so that she dies at a different time in a different place? Would he have to watch her die again, this time knowing and loving her?
And what would he do if faced with a choice like that? What would he do to save her, to save their timeline? At one point in his long life, his answer would have come quickly, though not lacking in grief or emotion. One person, however important to him, was not worth an entire planet of people, or even the universe. It kills him to admit it, but it's true, and he figures it probably will kill him one day, for real this time, but again, he doesn't fear that day at all.
In the heat of the moment, though, would he be able to make the same choice when it comes to her? He has no trouble sacrificing himself. But her? She's different. He's seen her make the choice herself years ago, but could he allow her to do that now, knowing what he does?
There's love driving his fear, because he can't deny that he loves her any longer. He married her, maybe in alternate time stream, but he remembers it and so does she, and therefore it happened. Maybe not to anyone else, but no one else matters. Not anymore.
There's guilt driving his fear too. He lets her sit in prison throughout her days, coming as often as he can to save her from the nights, but he can't keep those days away from her. If faced with the choice of her and the universe, how could choose anything less than what she did for him?
So on every adventure they have, every place they visit, he is scared. He hides it as best as he can, but she knows him too well. Mostly he makes up a horrible excuse that she sees through immediately but pretends not to; she knew that if he could he'd tell her. And it isn't such an abnormal thing if he holds her a little tighter and keeps her closer after the bad days; she knows he worries more than he should, and tries to understand his fears as best she can.
For now, they're more linear in their timelines than they've ever been. Sure, sometimes he overshoots by a few weeks or months, but for the most part he's there at night to take her away to some faraway place. And even if their timeline isn't changed at all, he knows that there will come a day when he will walk into her cell as she will ask him about the wonderful Library and a possible expedition there. She'll have been pardoned by the next time she sees him, having lived out a life sentence (Not her life, of course. Her life was much too long to measure a prison sentence by) and living in a tiny house on the outskirts of some town in 51st century Earth with an old friend from her college days.
And he'll visit her there for a while, until she reminds him about the Library and that she's been chosen to go as one of the only people to be there in years to try and discover the cause of the lack of disappearances there. And he'll have to choose. . . he can keep their timeline unchanged and let her go, or stop her in any way he can. . .
In the end, he takes her out to Darillium, and when he cries, she holds him and calls him a sentimental old man, in the teasing way that he knows means she's trying to understand and knows that he can't tell her. And then he hands her his screwdriver and shrugs at her and tells her he knows she'll give it back someday.
And then he's alone.
And perhaps that was his greatest fear all along.