Notes: I genuinely can't believe this chapter is actually done, considering that it's been mostly written (apart from the very last 1000ish words) for quite a while now and it was only the ending that was being stubborn. So here it is, exactly a month later! Or so it was on AO3, where I posted it two days ago; this really wasn't meant to end up posted on Christmas over here on FFN, haha. Updates to other stories coming soon too, hopefully; this one just got posting-ready first.

Mostly bonding between River and Thirteen; the rest is (silence) filth. Next chapter is finally from River's POV, as she's the one who'll probably enjoy the events of it the most. ;D
Hope you guys enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!


The Doctor had just started asking herself whether she should go and investigate by the time River and her past self came back into the control room. The tension still hadn't disappeared entirely despite the time they'd spent on their own in, she presumed, the wardrobe, but it wasn't as much of a problem as it could have been outside of her current perspective. It was the best possible outcome she could imagine by now, really - if this had been an altogether too elaborate plan leading to her destruction and not, in fact, her wife and the Doctor at all, she was afraid that the disappointment the realisation would have caused would have been much more powerful than whatever trap any enemy she had could have set up.

As it were, another source of relief came in the realisation that if not perfect, then things were definitely better now. The Doctor had let go of some of the caution he'd held for her before and River - who was doubtlessly the one responsible for the change - had arrived alongside him, wearing a new dress alongside with that sly, quietly careful and painfully familiar smile of someone with too many secrets to count and too many ways to let them slip if she didn't thread as gently as possible. It was understandable, considering their situation, but the Doctor still seemed affected by it the way he had been when she'd been ahead of him all the time - panicky and restless and just a little scared in the best possible way. She'd rarely thought that there was anything appealing about being afraid of the unknown until she'd met River.

"Right then," the Doctor said, his cheer exaggerated just enough for the Doctor to be able to catch on. He definitely wasn't against the situation he'd found himself in, even if he clearly hadn't managed to get any real answers out of his wife. "Where to now? Back to your TARDIS, Doctor? Or would you like me to leave the two of you alone for a while as well?"

"Oh, I don't think that that'll be necessary for now," River said. She was back to that wide-eyed, inconspicuous demeanour now, innocent enough for the Doctor to start suspecting that this had been something more than a dubiously happy coincidence. "What about you, Doctor?"

She'd directed her attention to the controls again and they looked at each other, the sudden uncertainty of who she was talking to odd enough to make a hysterical kind of laughter bubble up the Doctor's throat. There was genuine amusement in there as well, definitely, and she knew perfectly well that they were both aware of where River's seemingly unassuming questions were leading. Sure enough, when the Doctor spoke up again, he got straight to the point.

"I take it you've got plans for the evening, then?"

His voice was just as deceptively light and oh, she'd missed this far too much. It would have been rather unfair to expect any restraint from herself now that she'd already landed in this situation.

"Oh, don't even try." River's smile was as blinding as it was compromising; she'd seen straight through the mask of indifference and into the curiosity mixed with lurking desire that lay below the surface. Which surface precisely, the Doctor couldn't say, but some things never changed, did they? "We've talked about it before. I'm sure you both remember saying yes to the possibility."

"I do," they said, much to River's delight, and she turned to the Doctor, eyeing him carefully as if trying to decide what she was supposed to do with him. It was the sort of look the Doctor remembered feeling both thrilled and mildly intimidated by, especially in River's early days, when every time she'd neared him, he'd wondered if she'd go for an embrace or straight for his neck. The sensation brought on a distant twinge of guilt with itself (there was a difference between giving River the freedom to do with her what she liked and the danger of her acting on impulses rooted deep into her mind since the very start and the fact that they met somewhere in the middle had always been a secret she'd tried to keep locked as deep down as it could go), but the Doctor pushed it to the side as best as she could. Those weren't those times and perhaps, just perhaps—

"You were right before, I think," River said to the Doctor, and continued just as he'd started to frown, "we do need a moment alone. And as for you..."

She'd leant in too close for him, whispering so quietly that it was impossible for the Doctor to pick up anything apart from her past self's raised eyebrows and self-satisfied smile as she gently pushed him in the general direction of their bedroom.

When she pulled away, River's smile was back. "How about that?"

"Clever," the Doctor said, clearly impressed with whatever direction his wife's already developing plan had taken. "That's very clever, I'll give you that, considering that we can't—"

"Don't ruin it," River scolded him. Oh, so it was meant to be a surprise, then, the Doctor thought, the Doctor's excitement suddenly reaching her a few centuries into the future as well. Surprises from River, especially ones of this nature, had never disappointed her. There was no way they would start to now. "We're right behind you."

River redirected her attention to her as soon as the Doctor was out of sight, obviously not intent on following him just yet. She came closer instead, her shoes clicking on the glass surface with every slow step until they were face to face again.

"So I've been meaning to ask," River said, examining her face as if it was a particularly fascinating artefact that she'd just dug up. "Where are we?"

"That is an excellent question," the Doctor said. Now that she was lucid, being around River felt a whole lot more complicated – this new body had its rules and systems that she wasn't entirely familiar with yet, but it remembered her wife better than it did most other things. In fact, it remembered her perfectly, down to the map of places in the back of her mind of every place on River's body that she enjoyed exploring; every little gesture that made her twist and laugh and gasp in the Doctor's arms as if she wanted nothing more but to spend the rest of eternity with her. All those moments had been dream-like in a way, with the Doctor riding the high of River's love, finding it more and more addictive each time. Now was no different, it would seem.

"Good enough that you can't give me an answer?" River asked, voice weighed down by enough scepticism mixed with apprehension to pull her out of her thoughts. "I suspected that that might be the case."

"But you still wanted me to stay."

"I'll always want you to stay."

"Always?"

She doesn't know, a part of her was saying, not really, everybody knows that everybody dies, but it's not her time yet. She doesn't know whose fault it was. It had never failed to be a good enough reason to not stray too far from River - she couldn't not forgive her for something that hadn't happened to her yet. The Doctor had hidden away the guilt and the grief and had pushed them in the farthest corner of her mind possible in exchange of some stolen time with the woman she loved and in the end, this was what it had always amounted to: the doubt, heavy and bottomless and all-consuming, that River could turn her back on her at any point because she'd decided that she'd had enough. She wouldn't even blame her, not after everything that had happened to her already, but it had all turned into another one of River's miracles: somehow, she'd never got tired of inviting her in.

"Always."

And now she just had to ask, "I reckon you're safer to kiss now?"

"Just a little," River laughed, but it was all the confirmation the Doctor could need - the strange opaque glow that the lipstick always brought with itself was gone and plus, she was sure she'd seen some of it - the regular kind that River still happened to love - smeared on her past self's lips when they'd come back from the wardrobe together. He'd been as coordinated as he ever got around River, so it was more than likely harmless. Plus, the look in her wife's eyes was far from dangerous now, leaning more towards the kind of appreciative glance that she'd seemed to earn for herself no matter what body she was currently inhabiting.

With this last assessment, the Doctor surged up from her seat and wrapped her arms around River's neck, her hold just strong enough to both make her lean down and press their bodies as close to one another as they could get.

It was strange, she decided, new, but definitely not unwelcome. River's hold was as steady as it had been during their first kiss when she'd stepped out of the TARDIS this morning, but there was a gentler note to it now; something less frantic that could more easily fit with the sudden lack of deadly make-up. It was nothing more than a quick press of lips, tentative exploration morphing into unbearable curiosity and the need for more, here, now. The Doctor slid one of her hands down to River's cheek just in order to bring her even closer than before, her other hand suddenly free to roam down her wife's arm and side, the smooth material of the dress and the promise of everything hidden underneath making her shiver, much to her own embarrassment. It didn't go unnoticed, but it didn't seem to matter too much either - the only response she was given was a quiet laugh against her lips, warm and affectionate and full of everything she'd been missing for so long.

So long. It had already been years and after tonight, they would have to be separated again; there was no other way. She'd wordlessly agreed to stay, had patiently waited for River and the Doctor to bicker over it until they, too, had decided that it was safe, and she'd convinced herself that she didn't mind being here just for now.

This could only happen once, she'd been dimly aware of that already. She had no memories left intact from this meeting and if she kept going, she'd start suspecting something eventually and they definitely couldn't have that. River was juggling too many of her as it were; if she started trying to accommodate her whims too, she'd have at least two Doctors too many to deal with. Not that she had ever minded that - not that she hadn't organised this entire evening almost single-handedly along with her past self's idea of something between a good time and a scientific experiment. Now that she was here and knew where he was, the memories had slowly started fitting into place right as they happened - he was in the bedroom again, exactly where he'd thought he'd spend the night, except they hadn't been expecting company and now he'd had an idea

Whatever his train of thought had been, it went promptly off its rails as soon as River broke their kiss to take a look at her, everything about her glowing with enough intensity that the Doctor had to wonder if maybe there had been some leftover lipstick for her to be affected by, after all.

But no, it was just River; an oxymoron all on its own. There had never been anything just about River. It was especially obvious in her eyes now; in the worry clouding some of the many, many directions in which the night could go that had already been floating through her mind.

"Anything wrong?"

"Nothing." She caught River's hand just as her wife brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face (maybe she could ask about a way to keep it back somehow, a distant fraction of her mind supplied; River still had so much more hair than her and there had to be something for her to do that kept it out of her eyes with all the running she did), pulling it close until she could press a kiss into the back of her hand. "Just glad to be here is all."

"It's more than that," River insisted. She hadn't done anything to keep her at a distance and the Doctor willed her to drop that particular line of thought before it had done too much harm. She wouldn't do anything of the sort, of course; when had River ever cared about wreaking havoc on whatever inner peace she had left? "Isn't it? Doctor, if there's anything I need to know—"

"It really is nothing." It was a lie, emptier than the majority of her reassurances so far had been, but she'd hidden it away well enough for it to be unrecognisable. "We are where we are, right here, right now. That's what you told me, isn't it? Back in the wardrobe?"

River's widened eyes held too much betrayal for someone who had tried to pacify two versions of the same person in this very ship in the span of an hour at most. "You're not supposed to remember any of this."

"But I do, now that I'm here. I remember it as it's happening, really, but it's still—"

"Oh?" Only River would be able to find something to tinker with when it came to paradoxes waiting to happen. Well, River and her, the Doctor supposed. "Can you see what you're doing now?"

"River."

"This has never actually happened before, you know – or, well, I suppose it has, for you." River's eyes were shining with too much mirth for it to mean anything but trouble. "So I was wondering— how enhanced is this going to be for you?"

"Oh, there's a this now?" Of course there was – she hadn't doubted it in the slightest, once she'd seen River's calculating glances between her and the Doctor. It was easier to pretend that she was oblivious when she was avoiding something that she didn't want to deal with, but things were a little different now. "I'm not sure anyone informed me about that."

Her wife didn't deign her with a response; just as well, considering that she hadn't needed one in the first place. There was only a vague hmm of acknowledgment, accompanied with a kiss to the side of her neck and River's hair tickling her cheek. She hadn't meant to make a big deal of it, but there was a reason she'd wanted to be alone with her – trying to get to know her even a little had been a priority. She hadn't beat around the bush, as if she'd known that the Doctor was already remembering this from the first time she'd done it; as if they were as much of an inevitability as everything that surrounded their story. They were quite a few years into Darillium, then, and with a quick, careful nudge against her mind, the Doctor discovered that she was very deliberately not thinking about the future. Give it to River to lose herself in physical affection when there was an entire universe of things she wanted to say.

"Is this what you did?" She asked as soon as River looked up again, eyes challenging in that way they always were when the Doctor was trying too hard to get into her head. "Every time you vanished off-world on some assignment, you just wandered into another me and you—"

"This is only the third time I've done it, if you'd like to know," River informed her. As usual, she had somehow mustered the audacity to sound indignant despite being guilty of what she'd been accused of. "The Universe doesn't actually revolve around you. Some of us have obligations and I have an actual job."

They'd had this conversation a million times before – it doesn't count as an obligation if you can avoid it whenever you want, River, you're a time traveller – and the Doctor didn't have the intention of picking it up again. She was well-familiar with River's frequent (and rather successful) attempts to bait her away from whatever was going on in her head, but just this once, she was willing to let it go. It was difficult not to when she already had an inkling of how tonight would go and just how much her wife wanted to drown in the present in spite of everything else going on around her.

Not that it was anything horrible, of course, apart from their usual timeline struggle. At the end of the night, she would go home and be happy with her (other) Doctor once more and chances were, they'd never see each other again – neither of them had been particularly good at proper goodbyes. A part of her must have seen that as clearly as the Doctor herself did; as her past self never had. She was more jealous of herself now than she ever had been before, she realised; jealous of the fact that he still had so much more left to come and so much to look forward to. In a way, she'd been haunted by River's ghost for as long as she'd known her, but she had been so much more real back then, solid and firm in her arms, willing to stay for as long as she liked because they had all the time in the world, or so it had felt. She'd started forgetting how much it had hurt at the start, the pain and grief slowly making way for love so overwhelming that she hadn't known what to do with all of it and it had taken her just far enough for her to start pretending that it would never have to end. River was owed something better even if she didn't believe it, the Doctor had always been aware of that, but she'd never been able to bring herself to do anything about it. They had been happy. In the end, nothing else had mattered until it had been over.

Some things, she supposed, never changed.

"The Universe clearly does not revolve around me if you were marrying someone else again."

"It's not very graceful to be jealous of yourself."

"That's not what I was talking about and you know it." Her hands – when had they ended up on River's waist, by the way? She didn't remember authorising this – slid down to her wife's hips, bunching up the gentle material over the silk-soft skin she'd been aiming for. Especially perched in her lap as she was, River appeared significantly taller than she had been before, but it didn't make much of a difference – the look she gave her was intrigued as well as inviting, as if she'd been waiting for such a reaction. She might have been – with a pang of something between desire and nostalgia, the Doctor recalled all the times she'd coaxed out similar reactions entirely on purpose. "Do I look like a graceful person to begin with?"

"Not at all," River informed her cheerfully. She couldn't fool her, though – her pulse had increased, the flutter of her hearts under the Doctor's touch when she traced her fingers up her stomach and chest had grown quicker; impatient, almost. "We can do something about that, if you'd like."

"Why would you need to?" While she wasn't particularly graceful in character either – or at least didn't choose to show herself as it in front of the majority of the world – River had always had plenty of the quality in looks. Even now, in the safety of the TARDIS, she'd opted for another one of those flowing dresses and the absurdly elaborate shoes underneath, currently brushing against the Doctor's calves every now and again. "You're doing something enough for both of us."

"Flattery will get you everywhere." River had got to her feet again, clearly only half-occupied with the conversation as she held a hand out to pull the Doctor up as well. "And by everywhere I actually mean your own bedroom from about, what, three hundred years ago, but—"

"Good enough for me."

It was still a little odd to see River fret over her presence as much as she was, as if unsure what to make of her just yet and burying it all under the usual layers of self-confidence that had never failed to impress any incarnation that she happened to stumble upon. It was that very same note that led their kiss now, with River leaning back against the console and pulling her close, steadying herself on the column behind her with one hand while the other tugged lightly on her hair. That had always been a bit of a thing and the Doctor shuddered at the reminder, her own hands straying back to River's thighs to pull one of them up around her waist.

She wasn't sure she'd been balanced enough to carry her on their way to the bedroom this go around and it was such a pity to miss out on the opportunity - which was, she supposed, why River disentangled them from one another for all of an instant before she apparently decided that she could just as easily do the job herself. The Doctor yelped when she felt her already considerable grip around her tighten even more just as the ground disappeared from under her feet, but didn't have the heart to actually break their kiss, pulling away by just a fraction to whisper, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Please," River scoffed and the Doctor redirected her attention to leaving a trail of kisses down her neck and shoulder, momentarily distracted by the obvious tension in her wife's arms as she brought them both closer to the corridor she had in mind. "I've carried vases heavier than you just this week."

"I wasn't," the Doctor was cut off by a sharp intake of breath when one of River's arms loosened its hold around her as she did her best to take her coat off, leaving her to cling to her on her own instead, "actually talking about my weight."

"Oh." River had pressed her against the nearest wall to give her at least some leverage, brushing a quick, reassuring caress over her cheek in acknowledgment. "I'm sorry, Sweetie, I didn't— Well, neither of you said anything and then you said you already remember it and we've discussed it before, so I assumed—"

"I meant for you, River." Give it to her to feel as if she hadn't been thorough enough with assuring that everyone else felt comfortable enough. "Is it a good idea for you? He doesn't know anything about where you are yet," she said with a quick nod towards the bedroom door, "but I do. If it's too much— I know you wouldn't send me away, but I doubt you need any more future complications."

"It's not a complication if I asked for you to come." River had actually let go of her now, leaving the Doctor to choose between relying almost entirely on the wall behind them or her wife. She could always get to her feet, of course, but putting that sort of distance between them seemed unthinkable.

"You didn't ask for me, though."

"I was looking for the Doctor." It sounded so simple when she put it like that; the easiest truth in the world. "That's the message I sent. Two of you showing up was just an added bonus, really. It must be my birthday somewhere."

"Well, for as long as we float in the Vortex, that's an easy thing to say."

It had been a feeble attempt at distraction and River bought it for all of a second, her lips curling into the smallest of smiles.

"If you'd like to talk some more, I can always tell you to wait," she suggested, but the Doctor was already shaking her head. "There's no rush."

"New body, new rules," she said. River had finally managed to wrestle the coat off and was now toying with her braces; a distant echo of what she would do to her past self in about ten minutes. "And it hasn't really been explored yet, so to speak, so I wouldn't mind a bit more of me in the room."

It dawned on her that the admission had simultaneously been the perfect and the most disastrously wrong thing to say as soon as her wife's face lit up in response.

"Oh, that's magnificent. I have so much to show you." River was outright grinning now. "Think you can't handle me on your own?"

"You do usually require an extra pair of hands, Doctor Song." It had slipped out before she'd been able to stop it and it was just a title, really, it shouldn't have mattered, but the Doctor made sure to steamroll right over it as soon as she could. River couldn't be allowed to know how long it had been; how much time she'd had to miss her to the point where it had mutated back into the distant, resigned, unspoken pain that it had been in the very beginning. It was always so lonely; seeing her wife living and laughing and running around like the hurricane that she was and not being able to say a word about what was to come. It had always been far preferable to just follow her example and live in the moment that the Universe had granted them, but— but nothing. Even if she could say something, it wasn't like River would be all too heartbroken at the thought of her own future demise. In the end, it wouldn't change anything. It was better to stick to pretending that she'd made her peace with it, the Doctor reassured herself for what had to be the thousandth time in their shared life. "Especially with anything that you think is magnificent."

She kissed her again before River could make another comment, too determined to see this through to have any of them ruining it with more discussions than strictly necessary. There were so many things that she wanted to do, so many things she wanted to experience again and the Doctor would understand, she was sure - one day, he'd have to be the one to go through it. In a way, he'd been able to understand right from the very beginning.

River could recognise desperation when it was pressed right against her lips, she knew, but it would be a little easier to ignore when she knew that the Doctor didn't want her to push it. They'd reached a manageable enough balance with this – the questions about the future sometimes had to take a second place to enjoying what they had found in one another – and River pulled her away from the wall once again, her long nails pressing into her skin with just enough pressure for the Doctor to be sure that she was leaving marks through the thin t-shirt. It was just as well, really, as she might have embarrassed herself by outright asking for it otherwise.

The thrill was more than visible once she'd let it loose, however, and River had always been rather intuitive about those things.

"Bedroom, then, I take it?" She asked, biting lightly at the Doctor's lower lip and worrying it with her teeth until her eyes fluttered shut, pleasure and pressure mixing into an intoxicating mix. She nodded.

"Bedroom."

Once they'd gone past the door, the interior was exactly what she'd expected it to be - brightly lit to the point of being eye-watering and pitch black with the scattering of stars once the lights went off. The bed was larger than the one she had back in her own TARDIS - not too noticeable, but enough for her to realise that this would be nowhere near as comfortable if it had been happening there. The Doctor's bed here could hold all three of them rather easily and, for all she could remember, both he and River had been acutely aware of that. Her wife had mentioned it with all the subtlety of a supernova quite a few times before, but she didn't think that either of them had ever imagined anything like this.

Thinking of which...

"Where am I?" The Doctor asked as soon as she was deposited onto the bed. River's impatience had taken the better of her and the fall wasn't too gentle, but she didn't have the breath – or the willpower – left to complain.

"He'll be back in a minute." The Doctor had managed to sit up and pull her closer, once again drawn to her hair as she realised that the dress's countless mechanisms were far too elaborate for her to manage them blindly. Muscle memory was enough to help her along, usually, but River's just as familiar ability to press all the right buttons had unleashed itself on a body with buttons that hadn't been pressed before to begin with. It was all very distracting; her hearts's frantic beat in her chest prompted by sensations that she had somehow managed to miss out on for thousands of years making her mind wander in all too recognisable directions with distinctly new outcomes.

"I know that, but where— Oh." The memories were muddy, but slowly falling into place like the pieces of an already half-solved puzzle. She could remember herself standing in an entirely different position, seeing his future version and River once he came in, but it was even foggier from there on. It made sense as the past was currently being written, she supposed, but the point of view was still fascinating; the appreciation that she'd felt back then (right now) along with the oddity of the concept of existing in the future at all, let alone in this shape and form. He'd been enormously relieved that River was still there, but slightly tense all the same, a part of him itching to draw his wife's attention away from himself. He'd done just that a moment later, but—

"Oh?" River had already pulled her shirt out of her trousers, redirecting her efforts to the braces next until she could toss them away and lean down for another kiss. There was something about the way she was looking at her; curious and hungry and just a little wild. "That sounds promising."

"Oh, it will be." Finally deciding to give in to the temptation to let River do as she pleased, the Doctor allowed herself to be undressed the rest of the way. It was a far quicker affair than it had ever been when it came to her wife, much to her relief – River liked to dress in the sort of things that the Doctor had deemed nearly impossible to manage once she'd tried them on after her most recent body change. They'd been complicated enough to nearly drive her to another regeneration, really, and although it would have been an unfortunate way to go, it was also fitting in a way she had no desire to entertain for now.

For now, it was easier to follow River's short, impatient prompts to move this way and that until she'd got rid of all her layers while divesting none of her own and it was really rather unfair, the Doctor thought, mostly in a desperate attempt to distract herself from the heat building low in her stomach and the sudden, stark realisation that she had no clear idea of what she was doing. Not that her wife had the intention of requiring much of her, it seemed. She'd just pushed her to sit up and lean back against the bed frame, her short, breathy laugh full of the kind of promise that the Doctor's body had never not responded to.

She was being deliberately gentle; it was easy to detect even if the Doctor did her absolute best to take it all in stride. She'd rarely opted for that before and had never done it in the time they'd been linear, aware that her husband neither needed nor wanted such treatment. She'd done it before, when he hadn't known quite as much about her yet but had definitely wanted to learn more, and for her to resort to it now when the Doctor had been supposed to have the upper hand once again was far from the way she'd imagined this would go. River had always been fond of being the one to deliver any kind of new developments they would have to face and she allowed it now, but that wasn't what it felt like – it didn't really count as a permission if she hadn't even thought of reversing their positions in any way.

Any other contemplation she might have had about their situation evaporated an instant later when River kissed her again, the sharp little edges of her nails scratching down the Doctor's collarbones as she let her hands slide lower. The first tentative touch to her chest was as careful as it could get, but it was still enough to make the Doctor gasp against her wife's lips, eyes fluttering open when River moved smoothly to settle between her legs. They'd barely even started and it would have been embarrassing if it had been someone else, but of course River would be perfect about this too; of course she'd understand. Hadn't she always?

"Careful." The purr that laced the amused warning softened the edge of it just a bit, but the Doctor tried to squirm closer all the same in the vague hopes of getting her to do more - or anything, really, considering how easy River apparently intended on taking it. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

"Hurt myself h— Oh!" River had wandered lower still, bracing herself against the ridiculously soft surface of the bed, the fingers of her free hand ghosting down the Doctor's side and then, finally, brushed the side of one of her breasts. It was another breath's time before the stark red edge of a nail flicked over her nipple and the gasp of disbelief (and a little pain, perhaps; the pleasurable kind that her wife's ideas never failed to coax out) that followed hardly felt like something coming out of her mouth, but it had to be, if her sudden breathlessness was anything to go by. It wasn't that they hadn't done anything of the sort before - they had - but it had felt nowhere near this good.

River, who had clearly expected a response of this level, was still grinning up at her with eyes alight with mischief and it was quite the sight, the Doctor thought fleetingly before her wife bent her head and she was deprived of seeing her lips follow her hands's example, the sight obscured by her cloud of golden hair just enough for it to be yet another surprise when River made for the unexpectedly soft skin on the underside of her breasts and she hadn't thought to pay attention to that before today and she wouldn't be able to put it out of her mind now and did River really have to always do this, ruin her for everything else with even the smallest things she did—

"Oh, sweetie." It was more a sigh than anything else, River's warm breath sending another shiver down the Doctor's spine. "You're nowhere close to being ruined."

Had they managed to establish a connection already? She'd been reaching out despite her better judgement, the Doctor noticed, but River had kept her at bay so far, which left her only with the rather startling prospect of having spoken out loud. It wasn't as surprising as she would have liked - her wife had always been excellent at making her forget herself.

The Doctor reached up with a trembling hand, fingers sliding over River's jawline in a blatant caress before she forced her to look up.

"Show me."

It was the best direction she could have given, she decided a moment later when her wife returned to the task at hand - mouth, really - and rose to her knees just enough to gain some leverage. The hand that had been pressed against the Doctor's side disappeared only to slide down her stomach a moment later (the Doctor tried to stifle a giggle at the sensation and it must have looked like a typical reaction for this body with the amount of attention River specifically didn't pay to it for now), lingering on her hipbones and making her buck up slightly into the touch before her hand finally found its way between her legs.

For all the delicacy that she put into her every movement, the touch was still blunt enough for the Doctor to clench around the tips of her fingers on instinct more than anything else, her thighs following the surge of motion and closing around River's waist as if pressing her even closer would be any help at all when she was surrounded by this much sensation as it were.

It was indescribable. Not entirely foreign, not with the vague imitation of it that she'd felt coming from River's direction through their psychic link before, but close enough that she had to close her eyes and try to take it all in; the heat blossoming somewhere low in her belly that rose higher with River's every stroke spreading from her core towards the very essence of her being. It was intrusive in the best possible way, to have her map her path over places she herself hadn't paid any attention to whatsoever this far, and the Doctor found that she welcomed it with open arms. She hadn't even done much yet, just testing the waters, really - and oh, she couldn't have been more apt with her choice of words, the Doctor thought as their lips met for another messy kiss while her wife's touch flickered over her clit for the briefest of moments. There was so much to test and River had always been such an eager scholar once presented with the right subject.

It couldn't be novel for her - there was a certain kind of confidence in her touch that the Doctor could have also applied, just not to a body that happened to be her own - but she could have fooled her nonetheless. When their eyes met again, the awe in River's bright green ones was almost more than she thought that she could take, the impression only intensified once two of her fingers slipped between her folds, setting up a rhythm that felt far too purposeful to have anything but one specific goal in mind.

She'd show her more later, the Doctor could already see, she had plans for her but it wasn't the time just yet and for now, what she really wanted was to get her off. It sounded so crass when put like that and there was no way it had come from her own head and, "River," she said, only to have it come out more like a whine as her wife picked up her pace. She kissed her again, fleeting and breathless and in need of any kind of distraction from the pleasure curling ever tighter somewhere deep inside her with every movement she made. "River, please—"

"Too much?"

"Yes and no," she nodded frantically at the delighted understanding in River's eyes. Her thoughts felt heavy and uncooperative and she could barely bring herself to move enough to cup River's face in her hands, desperate to be surrounded by her in every way possible. Desperation, that was what it was; something chaotic and untamed, like chasing an elusive high that she could never quite define. "More."

"Always." The pressure increased just by a fraction; just enough to dance on the verge of unbearable without actually being so. It was the sweetest kind of torture, to feel River around her and inside her and in control in a way she'd rarely been before and the Doctor felt one of her legs tighten its grip around her wife's waist in a futile effort to make her hurry. The stimulation felt different, too; the usual effort to hold back as long as possible in the hopes of a stronger release replaced with the helplessness of a build-up she couldn't help but embrace, the thin string of thought that connected reduced to a line of please please please until River took pity of her, curling her fingers in a way that made something inside her tighten and twist and unfurl and she could understand, suddenly, why her wife tended to be so loud.

"River," she gasped again, reduced to a name morphed into a prayer as she pulled her closer, forehead pressed against her shoulder to earn her as much contact as physically possible as the unbearable tension inside her finally reached its peak. She was shaking, the Doctor noted distantly, and it was as much with the surprise of it as it was from the aftershocks chasing one another down her spine. "River."

"I know," she soothed, the reassurance laced with far too much smugness to slip under the Doctor's admittedly shaky radar. "I've got you, darling."

It was easy to let it all fit into place like this, with River's presence surrounding her from everywhere exactly in the way she'd yearned for so many times. It was almost good enough to lull her to sleep, even, and River picked up on it almost as quickly as she herself had.

"Not dropping off on me already, are you?"

"Farthest thing from my mind." Now that the urgency to explore was out of the way for the time being, she felt ready to make another valiant attempt at the laces and buttons at River's back, tugging at them mostly ineffectually until she could get the corset to loosen somewhat. "Trust me, I'm—"

"I've heard this line before, darling, and it never ends well." River pushed her hands away, reaching to the back with the confidence of someone who had done this altogether too many times, only to freeze a moment later. The Doctor blinked the bliss away from her eyes – or tried to, as much as she needed to determine what the issue was.

As it turned out, it was nonexistent – River had just let someone else take over, it appeared, as all too familiar fingers got to work with dexterity rarely applied to anything else. The Doctor's grin, directed straight at her over River's shoulder, was about as calculating and yet eager as she'd expected it to be.

"I think I can take it from here."