When she is young - fresh from their wedding and just beginning her prison sentence - River cures herself. She marches into the TARDIS pool with a grim determination and immediately submerges herself, telling the Doctor not to fuss.
He fusses anyway. And she stays under for so long that he wrings his hands and nearly jumps in after her, no matter what she said.
River comes up sputtering and gasping and shaking, and the Doctor leaps into the pool to drag her back out with him.
River huffs, "I'm fine," against his chest, but her hands clutch at his sodden shirt and her body trembles in his arms.
The Doctor rubs his hands quickly over her back and arms, trying to warm her, though her chill has nothing to do with temperature. This young, it's probably the only comfort she'll let him give. So he holds her close and chastises himself for never realizing and tries to make it better in any way he can. Any way she needs.
Of course, River doesn't want his regret or his clumsy attempts to comfort her. She wants to forget, to chase away the fear with something else altogether.
Her hands are still shaking as she undoes his bowtie and the buttons to his waistcoat, shoving the latter off. The Doctor makes to pull back but doesn't actually succeed because he doesn't want to let her go. Instead, his hands still hers as he protests, "River-"
"Shut up, sweetie," and she kisses him. She's young enough that he can see her desperation, even carefully veiled. He sighs and opens his mouth to her; if this is what she needs...
The Doctor sinks into her kiss, mouths warm where their bodies are chilled, trying not to taste the bitter tang of fear on River's tongue.
But he catches her hands when they edge toward his trousers; he doesn't want a repeat of the last-next time. He doesn't want their time together to always be like this - rushed and haunted by their past mistakes.
The Doctor disentangles himself from River with some difficulty, skidding backwards to avoid her capable hands. She glances up at him with something that looks like betrayal, and he swallows hard as he offers her his hand. "Let's have a lie-down, River. Get you all warmed up."
The disappointment fades from her expression, relief quickly masked by an arched eyebrow. "Are you taking me to bed already, Doctor?"
"Getting you out of your swimming costume." River smirks, so he amends, "You're all wet." Her smirk only grows.
He shakes his head and keeps his mouth firmly shut as River takes his hand.
This River is too young to have been to their room. But even this young, she knows she must have one. Honestly, everyone has a room on the TARDIS, Doctor. Of course I have one - I'm her favorite.
He's made it something of a ritual to tease her, taking her to various rooms and claiming that surely, this time, really, River, this one must be hers. He shows her all his favorite corners of the TARDIS - all the special places he wants to share with her, all the forgotten corners only he knows exist, and to any room he thinks might catch her fancy.
He leads her to bedrooms fit for emperors and bedrooms little more than cupboards under stairs, to ballrooms and throne rooms and the hall of mirrors. She always scrunches up her nose and whacks his arm in faux-annoyance, but her giggles give her away. When he showed her the star room (this one must be yours) it will be her favorite. A whole galaxy dripping across the curved room - so many stars that even he's forgotten the exact number. River made him promise one day they'd come back and count them all and he doesn't dare without her.
They walk in silence, hand in hand, through the TARDIS halls. If the Doctor didn't already know something was wrong, River's silence would be a dead giveaway. He glances at her from under his fringe as often as he dares, which is quite often, actually, but River is lost in her memories.
Today, the Doctor needs a special room. Not just the sugary bliss of the gumdrop factory or the bright sunshine of the rainbow music room. He pauses with his hand hovering over the door housing the architectural reconfiguration system, wondering if River might like to delete the pool altogether. Or build herself a room that she will never need.
River squeezes his hand gently before he can open the door and, when he glances back at her, she is biting her lip nervously, even as she boldly meets his eyes. "Where's your room?"
The Doctor matches her gaze steadily, wondering if she knows what she is asking. If she's ready. His room is undeniably their room. And he wasn't ready the first time he succeeded in following River to where she went when she disappeared into the TARDIS for a change of clothing or a lie-down. He thought he'd been so sneaky, congratulating himself on discovering one of River Song's mysteries, but she'd been waiting for him, just inside the door. Inside a room full of her archaeology journals and dusty artifacts interspersed with half-finished thingamabobs and doohickeys. Bowties on the dresser and a gun on the nightstand.
He remembers the utter impossibility of it all. Their room. He was too young then, tugging awkwardly at his bowtie to keep from fainting while River smiled kindly and arched a knowing eyebrow at him. Before that day he'd never had a room, not really. The whole ship was his - why did he need a room just for sleeping? He never wasted much time on sleep anyway, usually just nodding off in random places: the jelly baby forest, the lilac meadow, his workshop, or (most often) the TARDIS swing.
No, he wasn't ready then to face a room where his and River's lives were so absolutely intertwined. And he didn't understand why her smile wobbled as she invited him in, even as he hastily backed out.
He understands now, and he is absolutely not ready to face her first time in their room. To face the last time he'll ever share it with her.
The Doctor's smile only wobbles a little as he asks, "Would you like me to show you?"
River offers him a hesitant but firm nod, and they turn down the hall as one, the Doctor leading with his hearts in his throat.
When he opens the door to their room and steps aside so River can see, he refuses to let go of her hand. Selfish, when he'd run away from her in the same moment, but he needs her not to run. He needs her to be better than him, braver than him.
River takes in their room with wide eyes before they soften at the edges. "Oh," her grip on his hand is steady. "I live here, then, with you. In the future?"
It's a question and not and oh, how the Doctor wants to lie to her and tell her that she does. He wants to whisper spoilers in her ear and watch the timelines stretch with possibilities. He wants to make it true.
But the timelines are fragile and pocked with paradoxes, collapsing before they've even truly formed. His words are set in the sands of time, bound by his past and her future interwoven amongst one another. Not one line. "Sometimes," it chokes him to say it - to be the one who made the rule he has hated the most. "But not for always and never for too long. We're back to front, River. That's the price."
"But sometimes," River echoes, finally stepping fully into their room and drawing him in beside her.
Somehow, River Song always leaves his hearts fluttering in his chest, even when they want to break open. She makes him hope, even now, even so old and so close to the end. "Sometimes," he agrees, and the smile on River's face is breathtaking.
They stand there, grinning at each other like idiots, until the Doctor remembers that they're both still wet and cold, and they have a rather exceptionally warm bed just behind them.
River sways into him, their hands still clasped. "Aren't there spoilers in here, Doctor?"
"Loads," he promises, watching her eyes light up.
Her free hand tugs at his undone bowtie, a wicked smirk on her lips. "You had best distract me then."
He hardly needs to ask before the TARDIS provides music. He settles his other hand at River's bare waist and waltzes them through their room, whirling her too fast for her eyes to linger on anything in particular. River giggles as he dips her back over their bed before diving after her.
Their bed is as soft as promised, no worse for its recent disuse, and the Doctor tries to focus on the softness of River's curves and their covers, damp as they roll about, scrambling away from greedy hands. He tickles her to hear that breathless giggle again - so rare when she's older - and River retaliates by pinning him back against the bed, hands above his head as she straddles him.
His trousers are soaking and uncomfortable between them, his boots making a mess of their bedding, but the Doctor merely relaxes his hands in her grip and lets her take her time. It's not their first time - no, there are a handful more of these quiet moments waiting for him - but their relationship is still new from her perspective, and he doesn't want to pressure her here - her long married husband in the room they've spent centuries in together. "I'm all yours," he acknowledges, and an older River would accuse him of getting soppy in his old age.
This River just grins at the prospect of being in charge, lip between her teeth and the shadows momentarily absent from behind her eyes. "You're wearing far too much clothing then."
The Doctor rakes his gaze pointedly over all the bare skin her swimming costume has left blatantly on display, and River's eyes have darkened when he meets them again. "You're not wearing enough," not that he's complaining.
"I'd rather be wearing nothing at all," River counters, releasing him in favor of slipping out of her bikini top and tossing the wet scrap of material carelessly over her shoulder.
The Doctor's eyes are drawn to her breasts, her nipples hard and peaked from the cold. He aches to reach forward and take one in his mouth, but he holds himself still with difficulty. "On second thought, clothes are rubbish."
Nodding and sparing him a wicked look, River slips from the bed to shimmy off her bottoms. She stands there, starkers, gorgeous despite her wet hair slipping out of its bun and the gooseflesh shivering across her skin. River arches one expectant eyebrow. "Your turn."
Taking that as permission, the Doctor hurriedly undoes his shirt and trousers before she gets too curious about the odds and ends of their life scattered about their bedroom. The shirt comes off easily enough, but his trousers prove to be prohibitively tight when waterlogged, and he probably looks utterly ridiculous attempting to wiggle out of them and his boots. He finally struggles free of his clothing with a huff, shoving the wet material to the floor to deal with later and sprawling back across the bed, hands gripping the wrought iron bars of their headboard.
River watches him with a faint, disbelieving smile, clearly stifling another of those delicious giggles. "Points for enthusiasm, I suppose."
"What can I say?" he can't even pretend to be cross when River's eyes are full of laughter rather than shadows. "You leave me feeling very... enthused."
"Enthused, hmm?" River crawls back across him, hovering just so their skin doesn't quite touch, her hands resting by his shoulders and her knees near his hips. "What else are you?"
He's getting too sentimental for her, as he grows older and she younger, where she doesn't want his pretty words or feeble comfort. So he cloaks his words in playful teasing. "Enthralled. Enraptured. Enamored."
Enchantingly, River blushes, ever so slightly, her cheeks tinging with color and her eyes dancing merrily. "Stop it."
There's only ever one possible answer. The Doctor licks his lips. "Make me."
River's mouth closes hungrily over his almost before he finishes speaking. She leans into him as she kisses him, her breasts cool and heavy and a welcome weight pressing against his bare chest, and leaving him the one with gooseflesh tripping across his skin.
The Doctor is tempted to drag her down against him, his fingers tightening around the metal bars as her tongue takes ownership of his mouth, exploring and teasing in equal measure.
He makes a mewling sound of protest when River pulls back, their lips and bodies separating slowly against the damp sealing them together. When she's older, her mercy can be quite capricious, her teasing equal parts pain and pleasure.
But with the edge of fear and adrenaline still lingering, this River doesn't quite have the patience. She pulls back only long enough to meet his eyes as she slides her body down his and back up again, settling across his chest, her wetness dripping onto his skin as she brings her hands to her breasts, flicking fingers across the tight, sensitive skin of her nipples.
River makes a needy sound as she works her hands over her body, eyes on the Doctor's face while he wets his lips helplessly and rakes his gaze across her.
She favors him with a mischievous look, even as her lips part on a soft, ecstatic sigh and she smears herself over him with subtle, needy undulations. "Someone certainly looks... eager..."
"Come up here and I'll show you just how eager I am."
His voice ends up low and scratchy: desperate, already.
River's eyes flutter when he speaks, her hands moving quite eagerly indeed over her nipples as she lifts her warm sex from his skin, quickly climbing forward until the warm, wet, pink core of her is hovering over his lips.
Inhaling her scent with a strangled groan, the Doctor dutifully waits for River's breathless nod before lifting his head and devouring her. It's overwhelming, the scent and taste and feel of River, dripping down his chin and smothering him as he opens her to his greedy tongue.
River makes a helpless noise as he licks her, her hands gripping the bar as she grinds down onto his face. He wishes he had the use of his hands, but the Doctor is nothing if not creative under pressure. Nose bumping her clit entirely purposefully, the Doctor thrusts his tongue inside River, curling and flicking against all the soft, swollen, sensitive flesh he can reach.
It's hard to breathe, but then, he is rather good at holding his breath. River rocks against him with needy, filthy little sounds, her skin hot and wet under his mouth as he drowns in her tantalizing flavor.
He drags his mouth up to suck at her clit, tongue wrapping around the swollen little bundle of nerve and letting River rut against his chin.
A flick of his tongue just so and River comes hard, a ragged sound torn from her lips as she drenches him all over again and he quickly slides down to lap at her ravenously, gulping down the heady taste of her pleasure coating his lips.
When River finally pulls back on shaky knees, her eyes are glazed and her breasts are heaving.
The Doctor can't resist a bit of a self-satisfied smirk, which quickly turns into a groan as River slides down his body to brush her slippery, wet sex over the head of his cock and his eyes roll back in his head.
"Such a clever mouth," she praises, sinking down on his cock agonizingly slowly, while he grips the bars to keep from digging his fingers into her hips and yanking her down over him. "When put to the right use."
River plants her hands against his chest as she finally takes him completely inside, starting up a fast rhythm without pause that leaves her bouncing over him and the Doctor struggling to form words.
"The rest of me is pretty clever, too," the Doctor promises, bending his knees and leveraging his white-knuckled grip on the headboard to rock his hips hard up in counterpoint with River's, leaving them both gasping.
Her thighs are quivering already, her neglected breasts swaying heavily, teasingly in front of him. For a moment, the Doctor thinks she's going to make him beg. Older, she would have done, knowing how desperate he is to touch her.
But River merely leans forward to taste herself on his lips, the change in angle driving him deeper inside her with every thrust. "Prove it," she challenges, one of her hands closing around his fist.
The permission is enough: his hands are on her as soon as the words leave her mouth, cupping her breast and sliding across her ribs to her back, down across the curve of her waist to clutch her hips, fingers digging into her skin.
He's rolls them until he can cover every inch of River's body with his own, and River moans gloriously, eyes wide and dazed and surprised under him as her short nails dig into his neck and her legs lock around his waist.
They move together in a fast, desperate rhythm, bodies sliding slick with sweat against one another. River is close again, he can tell by the flutter of her muscles and the pitch of her moans, escalating until it's impossible to tell if they're meant to be words or just mindless sounds of pleasure.
The Doctor hitches her thighs higher, thumbs stroking across sensitive skin, until the angle is just how River prefers as he pistons his hips and keeps his eyes pinned to hers.
River whimpers, nearly undone, and he is not above using every trick he knows about her body to drive her right over the edge again. Eyes wide, River unleashes a delicious scream as she shatters underneath him, clutching at him in a way that sends him tumbling right after her with a few last shaky thrusts and a low, ragged moan of her name.
He collapses, utterly spent, any water long evaporated from their skin as River slowly lowers her legs and the Doctor trails his fingertips up her sides.
He shifts them before River can protest, slipping from River to gather a corner of their blanket and tuck it around them, though neither of them are cold any longer, pressing River to his chest and wrapping her in blankets and his arms, as though he can chase away the chill forever.
She relaxes into his arms and the Doctor releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding. River may have conquered her fear of water, but the Doctor never stops being afraid of losing her.
One of her fingertips trails across the sticky mess she made of his chest, her face scrunched up adorably. "We should tidy up."
"But we just dried off," the Doctor protests, grip tightening around her in concern, one hand buried in her curls and the other languidly sweeping across her vertebrae.
River lifts her head until her eyes meet his, green and shining and so impossibly young that their brilliance almost hurts. "It's all right, Doctor. I'm not afraid."
She's always been the better of them, the stronger one. The Doctor stares into those fearless young eyes and feels his own hearts lighten at her confidence. "Of course you aren't." He bops her nose with the hand that had been trailing her spine. "You're River Song."
She laughs, and then looks uncertain. "You say that like I'm a superhero."
He takes a deep breath, tucks her closer, and refuses to be afraid.
"Spoilers."