"Doctor River Song."

She glanced up from her diary through the bars of her cage, hiding her surprise at the sound of his voice behind her most dazzling smile. He was slouched back against the TARDIS, hands buried deep in his coat pockets, studying her with an intensity which belied his otherwise casual appearance. "Hello, Sweetie." He must have – for once – bothered to disengage the poor old thing's brakes.

As answering grin lit his face. "Doctor River Song," he repeated.

She slipped off her cot and moved to the bars as she asked,"Yes?"

"That's your name," he stated as though it were the solution to some complicated equation he'd been working out for years.

She couldn't help but laugh. "I know it's my name, dear..."

"No," he said. He stepped to join her at the bars, one hand slipping out of it's restraining pocket to dance in front of him as he explained, "I mean, it's really your name. Your whole name. You never went to university, did you?"

She looked at him standing there before her, so happy and sure in his newly found knowledge. His new found certainty. His new...

Her smile slipped.

Desperate, she fought to maintain it. He more than anyone else in the universe deserved this moment of happiness. "It's like you always said... will always say," she quickly corrected herself. "Back to front, right?"

Only until that moment she'd never fully realized... never let herself fully realize... just exactly what that meant. Because she suddenly saw with absolute clarity that one day he would call her Doctor Song and, to him, it would be nothing more than a title and a name. The spark as he said them – the heated glance which turned mere words into verbal caress – would be gone. He would have no knowledge of what he was really saying or who she really was. At least not to him, and that was the her that mattered most.

Despite her effort, he must have read the truth in the moisture threatening to spill from her eyes. This Doctor – her Doctor still if barely – at least knew her that well. His face grew suddenly serious, his fingers wrapping gently around hers where they gripped the bars. His voice a low murmur, he began, "Oh... River. I didn't... I mean, I'm so..." Words for once failing him, he trailed off into silence.

For long moments they stood there, gazing into each others eyes, two travelers at a station bound for opposite directions. Smiling through the single tear that had escaped, she finally broke the silence. "But we still have now." She wished it hadn't come out quite so much like a plea.

His quick answering smile would probably have been believable to anyone who knew him less, but she knew how much hid behind his flippancy. "And after I just went through all the trouble of working out how to marry you at the same time you married me – and believe me, that's a sentence I never imagined anyone would ever say let alone me and I can imagine quite a lot and you know how much I speak– anyway, it'd be a shame to waste this opportunity..." He cocked one eyebrow in a gesture she knew only too well but which he probably felt to be terribly original.

Still, despite herself... despite the entire situation... she couldn't help but laugh. "Impossible man," she muttered, shaking her head in defeat.

"Yes," he answered, his old smug smile now firmly back in place. Then, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, he asked with a flourish, "Shall we? I hear the twin rings of Atriva IV are expected to be especially lovely... sometime. And I'm sure we can scrounge up some tea from... somewhere."

She returned his smile with a laugh of her own. "Then by all means, lets."

Though a moment later, as she stepped through her opened cell door and into his waiting arms, she couldn't quite suppress the small voice which wondered, deep down inside where no one but her could hear, just how many more times they might.