Title: Eventide
Author: Angel Leviathan
Summary: Is twenty-four years as it seems on the surface? Or is it several dozen exploratory trips, three heists and a long holiday? In year one.
Notes: Follows 'The Husbands of River Song'.
She watches him as he moves through the simple mechanics of relocating the TARDIS from the innards of the restaurant to... somewhere else. She can't be sure if he's chosen a spot or planned it out, but what decisions he's made so far have not been taken lightly, and even something so seemingly insignificant as moving from one spot on Darillium to another will inevitably have some reasoning behind it. Even if that reasoning turns out to be entirely specious or just a little bit pedantic. It's him.
They won't stay in the same spot forever. Neither of them could manage it. Right now, twenty-four years feels like forever and she's a little bit afraid to ask for the clarification that she knows she'll only ever get in a roundabout way; in fragments that he expects her to piece together to form a conclusion that may or may not be the same as his. Is twenty-four years as it seems on the surface? Or is it several dozen exploratory trips, three heists and a long holiday? In year one.
Questions can wait, River decides. To ask for more now would be ungrateful and greedy and all the things she tries to tell herself that she isn't right when she's revelling in being so for all the universe to see (as far as said universe is concerned). He doesn't need that from her at this moment. She doesn't need that from her.
There's barely a shiver of motion as they shift from one place to the next, and she hears him mutter something that ends in, "...show-off," under his breath.
"What?" she asks, leaning back against the railings.
"Her, showing off now that her girl's home," he utters in the dry, disparaging way that she's beginning to learn is this new him's version of showing affection. His last self was always so quick to jump to agitation and crossness, as if he couldn't bear the feelings he couldn't put into proper words.
"We've been through a lot together, she and I."
"Mostly behind my back!"
"Sometimes, there are things that it's just better that we sort out without your more... colourful suggestions," she says slowly, her manner one that she knows will rile him. "And I know you wouldn't begrudge us the chance to catch up and have some quality time together."
She waits, curious to see whether he'll cling to the principle of the thing and the outrage she knows is half for show, or soften.
"...If I have to trust either of you to someone other than yourselves..." the Doctor supposes, darkly.
Interesting.
He turns from the main console and does some leaning of his own as he moves to face her, something in his gaze that is so completely fixed on her that his other selves have tried to fight. The distance is gone. She learns, in those moments, more than she has in the past few hours, with the sunset and the wine and the food to distract them. The weight of how she must have made him feel in times gone past slams into her under the press of his intense focus. He knows more of her than she knows of him. This him, anyway. She's no longer the unpredictable element. He is. For now.
She swallows hard and dares a question that she's been avoiding. "...How long has it been for you? Since we last met."
"A long time," he answers roughly, evasively.
"Doctor—"
"A long, long time."
It's more than clear that it's all she's going to get tonight. Now. She's going to have to start thinking in different terminology when a night lasts twenty-four years.
In turn, he makes an enquiry of his own that she knows he's been biting back.
"Is it true? Manhattan."
She inclines her head the slightest bit.
"You vanished."
"I never vanish," she argues.
"Semantics."
She forces back the sigh that wants to escape. "I left to let you do what you needed to do. And to do what I needed to do. Those things... weren't alike and we couldn't accomplish them together. You can say you're sorry if you like, but I'm not. We... grieve differently, you and I. I'm not going to apologise for having the sense to realise that. And you shouldn't apologise for not chasing after me."
His lips twitch, but he doesn't speak.
"Because I would have kicked you right back in here and told her to take you away, anyway."
"You always do side together," he mutters.
The hand that reaches for one of hers is sure and steady and doesn't tremble as his fingers curl tight. For moment after moment, he just holds on and looks at her, and she's sure she doesn't want to know what makes his grip a near painful one.
When he lazily shifts away from the console and slides his hands to her hips in a manner so sure of his welcome that it makes her smile before she remembers herself, she leans into him and lifts her gaze to meet his with a certainty that matches that of his hands.
"Just how attached are you to that suit?"
"Not at all."
"I was hoping you'd say that."
Fin