AN: I finally got up the nerve to watch The Angels Take Manhattan. It hurt. It was beautiful. This was written. As always, my love and care goes to the lovely Miss Becs, who waited an age to co-rant about this and then put up with my sudden need to vent. Thank you for the beta, and more.
Pair: 11/River
Set: Post Angels Take Manhattan, spoilers accordingly.
Summary: Tonight is one of few times in their lives they have devoid of banter, of flirtation, of at least one moment of pure desire; tonight they are a couple that has endured an unexpected and enormous loss, a couple who can take comfort only from the reassuring presence of their other halves.
The title is from the L.P. song 'Cling To Me.' "When you are hurt, I bleed, cling to me. Before you slip hopelessly, cling to me." It seemed fitting.
I give you...
Cling To Me
Neither of them is in a good place, mentally. The Doctor considers this fact as he watches the outline of his wife, clad in an appealingly swishy black dress, disappear through a doorway within the TARDIS, her fingers brushing along the jamb tenderly. He is at a loss for words, unable to think what he can say to her to lessen her burden, and all too aware that there is nothing; for nothing she could say to him would help. He massages his temples, trying fervently to not replay the day and failing miserably. With frustration, he hits something on the console, causing the time machine to lurch violent.
"Sorry," mumbles the Time Lord, patting the console in apology. "I'm sorry, Sexy. Rough day." An audible exhale, and a repetition of the words 'rough day' follow.
At a soft creak of metal, he turns to look over his shoulder and watches his wife re-enter the room. She is, surprisingly, wearing clothes that are more comfortable - functional - than they are aesthetically pleasing. This is not something usual to his wife; she does not look hugely different to her days back in Stormcage.
"Are you cold?" Asks the Doctor, taking in the loose-knit cream jumper draped over her frame, a grey singlet visible beneath it.
His query garners a forced smile from the woman. She wants to say 'only on the inside'. Instead she shakes her head. "How are bearing up?" She asks him, and this moment, this question in this situation, is one of the reasons he loves this woman.
"They were your parents, River."
"I'm all too aware."
"No, I mean," a ragged breath, for although he knows she has more of a right to be upset than he does, he is still devastated. "I mean how can you bear to ask me that?"
"Because, my love, my suffering is worse when you suffer too." His face softens, and she blinks hard to combat tears. She wins.
"Besides," a breath to gather herself together more tightly. "They were together. They lived out their entire lives together, which is what they wanted and is far more important than my selfishly wanting my parents." Her voice wavers and her tears threaten to breach their confines again.
"I wanted to keep her." Confesses the Doctor, ashamed at his lack of altruism.
"And you think I didn't?" She challenges, the sharpness of her tone subtle, but apparent to the man who knows her so well.
"But you chose what was best for her. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to choose what was best for me."
River takes in and releases a deep breath, concentrating on making the flow of air as even as possible. "I don't blame you for that." She tells him, eyes confirming her words before falling away from his. "I just don't think you understand, that's all."
"Understand what, River?" He asks, expressive face crumpling into a frown.
The Professor pulls her hair out of its scrunchie, mad blonde curls falling about her shoulders as she crosses to the console and rights the lever he knocked out of place earlier.
"What it's like." She replies in that faraway voice she uses when she's concentrating on the controls. She isn't concentrating, though, really; she is merely using this as a device to lessen the impact of her words.
"River..." He intones beseechingly, the one word managing to convey 'my best friends have died and I am mentally exhausted and please don't play games with me right now, River, I can't cope.'
"What it's like to love someone the way they love each other. To need someone that way. To wait thousands of years and be willing to give each other up because they love each other so much. I couldn't even imagine keeping people apart when they love each other like that."
He is silent, staring at her profile with unfocussed eyes. In his periphery, he sees her chest rise and fall as she attempts to control a body which is subtly betraying her.
"You're my wife." He says finally, his voice delicate. She turns her head to him, catlike green eyes glistening.
"And for that I am very, very grateful," replies the woman tinkering with his TARDIS. The depth of emotion in her voice, combined with the purity of love in her eyes, is something he wishes he never found there for reasons surprisingly selfless.
He is too proud and too independent and too afraid to tell her he does understand it - he understands it in relation to her and how he loves her in this mad and confused way of theirs - but how he also knows how much she loves her mother. He wanted to keep Amy not just for himself, but for her daughter, too.
"You terrify me, River Song. Do you know that? Terrify me."
"Why is that, sweetie?" Asks River, leaning her hip against the edge of the console.
"Because even if I don't... say it. Even if I can't, if you don't... I do love you that way. I just... try not to." His gaze is steady against hers as he gives his confession, and she believes each word. Silently she closes the short distance between them and winds her arms around his ribcage. Her closeness comforts him, and for a minute they are completely still. The entire cosmos feels completely still, actually; nothing seems to exist beyond their two bodies, the beating of their hearts an irreplicable rhythm, unheard in any music of any world. Sometimes, at times like this, he feels she is a homing point, as if he were a missile and she were a target; as if he were a pull-string withdrawing back into a toy. He is drawn to her, to her presence and her life and her arms in a way that is beyond even his comprehension, beyond the ability of his admitted genius to explain. Her clothes emit the pleasant and familiar smell of the TARDIS' wardrobe, her skin smells of the day they've endured. This was the point at which he expected them both to crumble again, to weep into each other's arms, yet somehow they seem to be silently piecing each other back together as if with regenerative energy. For him, this is perhaps something to do with being reminded of love and how important it is, no matter how he tries to deny this fact. He brushes his face against her curls, which are almost as wibbly wobbly as time itself, before mumbling "Come on, Mrs Song, let's get you to bed."
She laughs shortly through her nose and allows herself to be led to the bedroom, comfortable in the knowledge that she has left the TARDIS correctly programmed to get them through the night with minimal interruptions.
The Time Lord sheds merely his shoes, jacket and bowtie before gently directing his wife onto the ageing police-box-blue bed and its soft cream sheets. Tonight is one of few times in their lives they have devoid of banter, of flirtation, of at least one moment of pure desire; tonight they are a couple that has endured an unexpected and enormous loss, a couple who can take comfort only from the reassuring presence of their other halves.
River curls into a loose ball, suddenly seeming like a much younger iteration of herself than he knows she is. Her husband matches his shape to hers, wrapping his arms around her body and taking in the softness of her jumper, the warmth of her body. The Doctor nuzzles into her mane of curls, hazel eyes trailing over what little of her face he can see from this angle.
The Doctor runs his hand from her waist to her right hand, tenderly caressing her erstwhile broken wrist. Gently he directs the hand back in order for him to trail his lips over it, mumbling between kisses:
"In future, I'd appreciate if you don't attempt to hide the damage from me," another kiss, the returning of her hand to its earlier position, a reverent moment of inhaling her mad curls. "You see, Song, I want your damage as much as I want your ability to take out eight of The Silence without so much a losing an eyelash."
The ghost of a smile forms on her lips, part appreciative of his words, part amused that he actually believes them.
"And why in the name of any creature in any universe would you want that?" Counters his wife, scepticism lacing each word.
The Doctor smiles a genuine smile, despite the day, which only lasts as long as it takes him to parrot her own words back to her. "It's called marriage, honey." In response he feels her tighten grip on him, and he knows she will at least consider his request. This is enough for now.
With incomparable reverence, he then touches a kiss to the curve of her ear and whispers "I love you, River."
The woman in his arms releases a breath she doesn't realise she's been holding and tells him she loves him too, before doing something more intimate and private than anything else in the world:
She uses his name.
And from then on they are nothing more than a grieving couple; a man holding his wife too tightly in an overlarge bed, inside a little blue box that is spinning through space and time towards a day that will be less painful than this one. In the morning, no matter how wounded they were by this day, up to four suns will rise in their sky, depending on where she has sent them; when he first wakes he will invariably panic that his face is being eaten by a Nurgaphorian aesea sponge, only to realise this is his wife's hair. No matter how acutely they feel that their entire universe has been crushed and destroyed and distorted a thousand times over, the world will spin madly on. The madman and his even madder wife will go on, and in a different time and place, so will their lost loved ones. One day each of them will take comfort in this fact. Tonight they will simply hold each other.
AN2: 'Irreplicable' is not officially a word. I for one think we need a direct antonym for replicable.