A/N: This second vignette is inspired by a Radio Times teaser that was released on Monday and one of the recent spoiler pics from the episode. I'll be posting the last vignette tomorrow.
Running With It
Watch Us Run
"Hello, Sweetie."
Ice. That was what he stood on: a river of black ice. He knew that if he moved he'd slip right into her embrace, his resolve would crack and give way, and he would be consumed so completely that he'd never be able to find his way out again.
River curled her right hand around the curve of his cheek while using the other to tinker with his bowtie. She rose on her tiptoes, her red lips taking on the shape of a smoke ring. "You seem so tense. Relax, Sweetie." Her hand caressed his chest, hovering over one heart and then the next. Soon it drifted beneath the flap of his coat and began to push the fabric off his shoulder.
The touches of her fingers burned like the raw kiss of dry ice, but the more painful, the more The Doctor craved it. For everything he'd done to River Song—Melody Pond—and her parents and every companion he'd ever had, he deserved it. He felt like a doll as she guided his arms out of his jacket and shrugged it to the ground in a half-halo around them.
River tangled her fingers into his hair and bowed The Doctor's head towards her mouth. She kissed him roughly, nipping and biting and tender lips.
The Doctor groaned against the icicle pricks of her mouth. He tasted blood on his teeth, his tongue, then he felt her lips on his ear, whispering straight into ocean depths of his mind.
"Tell me how much you love me..."
The words came as a shock to his system, like jumping naked into a lake during the dead of winter. He suddenly grabbed her by the wrists and raked them down his chest, forcing River to the flats of her sandals so that he could stare down at her. He noticed a fine trail of white breath just beyond her crimson lips. "Who are you?"
"Sweetie, you know who I am."
"Don't play games with me! Who are you?!"
River clamped her mouth shut and her fists went rigid in his hands. "I'm your wife!"
"My wife is dead."
"You saved me, remember?" Her muscles relaxed and she rolled onto her toes. "You preserved everything. Every line."
The cuffs that his fingers had formed around her wrists fell apart, releasing her. Something hot riddled his chest. Not icy hot, but searing hot, like steam unable to escape a hooded pot. The Doctor pressed his hands to his hearts.
"It's been so long," River whispered. "Your feelings haven't changed, have they?"
The Doctor held River's gaze. "No. No, my feelings haven't changed. They'll always feel this way."
"And what way is that?" River asked, her breath coming out in faint white puffs.
"I love River…"
She smiled and pitched towards him.
"…but You're. Not. Her!" The Doctor gripped River by the throat and squeezed until a puff of frozen air popped between her lips and her face transformed into something ghost colored and faceless aside from its red mouth and spindly teeth. The Whisperman dissolved into haze of frozen air in his hand and The Doctor realized he was surrounded.
The room turned arctic. He could see the trails of breath freezing as they left his nose and mouth, and suddenly there was whiteness. Everywhere. The Whispermen blurred into the falling snowflakes and in the place where River had stood, there was now an aged stone that contained two words. The Doctor slipped and was soon on his knees, face-to-text with the words: River Song.
He faintly brushed the words with his fingers and soon snow began to fall across them too, burying her. The Doctor scrambled to brush the flurries away, but the snow transformed into a blizzard and his wife was lost to him. His tears didn't even have a chance to fall, for they froze while in his eyes.
"Run."
The Doctor dropped his head to the top of the snow sheeted gravestone. He shook it until his skin hurt from the stone scraping against it.
"Run!"
It was another of the Whispermen's tricks, he knew. It was her voice, but it wasn't her. He didn't have the will to fight it again though, so he chose not to look at her.
"Doctor, My Doctor…this once – just this once, run! Please, you have to run!"
My Doctor.
The Doctor lifted his head and saw her standing in front of the TARDIS, his wife. Not sinister and seductive like before, but genuine and pleading. "River?"
"Skyped in you might say," River smiled. "The TARDIS was desperate, she said you needed a little help."
"She – she interfaced you," he realized, projecting River in hologram form from The Library's data core. "Oh, that's brilliant!"
"Not if you don't get your Gallifreyan rear into the TARDIS! You're surrounded by Whispermen and you still have companions to save." River turned towards the door and snapped her fingers. The doors opened, outwards.
The Doctor wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab her hand, but he knew he couldn't. "Run with us."
River stepped backwards through the doors, motioning for him to follow.
The Doctor suddenly toppled over as the gravestone vanished along with the snow. The Whispermen remained, but they were howling and moving away from him and the TARDIS. "You can't whisper your bittersweet nothings in my ear if I already have them," he announced. The Doctor pushed off the ground and ran into the TARDIS, the doors clanging behind him.
River was already at the console, pulling and pressing at gears as she always did when she took the wheel. This time, she wasn't actually driving, the TARDIS was, but she was happy to go through the motions anyway, and The Doctor reveled in seeing her do it.
"One last run, you and me."
River glanced up as the TARDIS's breaks began to grind into the time vortex. "Watch us run!"
