"Clocks slay time. Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels. Only when the clock stops does time come to life." William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
The first thing he does is upgrade the security system, which, to her credit, is already quite impressive. But that's no surprise, really. When one indulges in the type of activities River is prone to, the appropriate precautions have to be taken. He does what he can though, and after he's satisfied the house is secure, he sets to examining the communicator he relieved from the guard.
He attempts to sonic the device the way he had before, to fish through the files and see what or who was after River, but his efforts prove useless while out of range from the master device. No matter how he fiddles with the settings, the word "Offline" remains, flashing lamely on the screen. It's not all bad news, though. As long as they remain out of range, they can't be tracked. With some clever jiggery pokery, he even manages to cut off the transmitters, turning the device into a one way communicator, which, in theory would allow him to detect any other devices in range while simultaneously leaving his own communicator invisible. But it's a far cry from what he hoped to gain from his only real lead.
He takes to more basic means of gaining insight by running his fingers carefully over the cool surface, reading each chip and scrape like braille in an attempt to decipher its secrets. He holds it up to his face, inhaling deeply and processing its sharp, metallic, and vaguely acrid smell. He even employs his tongue, taste his most trustworthy sense. As he drags his tongue across the surface, his taste buds burst with the overridding flavor of metal. But there's something else too, a salty tang he identifies as human sweat. The guard must have been nervous when he held it, which is fair enough seeing as he was rendered unconscious by the very woman they sought to capture. The Doctor licks it a few more times for careful measure, but apart from the residue all 51st century humans leave behind, there's no telling evidence. No outstanding tastes or smells that might originate from a particular planet. No identifying markers he could trace back to a distributor. Whoever these people were, they knew how to cover their tracks.
Tucking the device back in his pocket, he sighs, eyes scanning uselessly around the room, quite unsure what to do with himself now that he's spent of helpful tasks. It's oddly quiet. No humming ship to fill background noise. No curious companions poking in rooms they really ought to steer clear of. All he has for company is the slow and steady ticking of the clock. With a defeated sigh, the Doctor stretches his long body out across the settee, hoping to steal a few hours sleep. His gangly limbs are too long for it though, and he finds himself shifting, legs dangling off the armrest and brain too full of stuff to achieve any rest.
Who were these people? And for what point and purpose did they need River? Perhaps it was nothing, a misunderstanding. Half the Galaxy was after River for one reason or another. She was a distinguished professor, an admired adventurer, and a notorious trouble maker. People always wanted something from her, be it her autograph, her help, or her head on a platter. Although, to his great discomfort, something deep in his bones had him leaning toward the latter.
He shifts again, an eye peaking open to glance at the clock, and groans to discover only four minutes have passed. He buries his face into a cushion, pleasantly surprised as traces of her perfume delight his senses. Only then does he find himself relaxing, mind floating in and out of old memories. His thoughts flitter through the countless occasions they'd come tumbling through her front door, kissing and touching and tossing clothes about the room until they collapsed upon this very settee, lacking willpower to make it to the bedroom. There were quieter times, too, when they would talk for hours, curled up together innocently, her head on his lap and his fingers tangled in her curls. And one dreadful night in particular stands out above the rest. They fought, she stormed out, and he kicked the couch in anger, succeeding in nothing but hurting his own toe. For the life of him, he can't remember why they were fighting. But he remembers her face like it was yesterday, flushed with anger and tears building behind those green eyes.
The ticking clock leads other images, unbidden and unwanted into his thoughts. Back to a time when her eyes shine, glossy and green. She looks like an angel, all in white and a crown of thorns atop golden hair. A pulsing screen counts down her seconds and loving eyes swim with tears that she cries, not for her death or for herself, never for herself, but for him. It's all for him. Ninety seconds. "This means you've always known how I was going to die." She spins him a tale of towers that sing and nights worth dying for. Twelve seconds. "You have all of that to come." She comforts him in her final moments, this guardian who knows his name. Three seconds. "Hush now." She even spares him a smile. "Spoilers."
He has to open his eyes then, cutting off the vision lurking just behind his lids, a terrible scene that's burned into his memory and has haunted his nightmares for hundreds of years. He doesn't want to dwell on it now, not when she is in the next room, alive and sleeping and the ticking clock sounds more like a heart monitor, beeping its steady, even pace. Amy and Rory stand with him by her bedside, and "She is going to be amazing." The monitor ticks again and now he's accompanied by an angry nurse and guards and she's right there and yet he cannot touch her and "River please tell me you know who I am." And the clock won't stop ticking!
It's absolutely maddening. Whose idea was it anyway, to put such an irritating noise on such a fruitless device? What did humans find so interesting about clocks? Did they really need some relentless ticking to prove that time was passing? It's silly really. Humans think they can own everything, that if they slap a label and regulations and rules on it it's theirs. But time doesn't care about the rules of man. It slips by with or without the hands of a clock.
And tonight, for the Doctor in particular, it seems to tick by mercilessly. The seconds feel like days and turning wheels have never sounded so ear shatteringly loud. He hates being still, when time passes so tediously and in the right order. The clock must sense his frustration and is actively taunting him, running in some alternate reality where time doesn't pass at all and he'll be stuck forever in this linear purgatory. He rearranges the furniture so he doesn't have to look at it, which only makes it tick louder and slower and sassier. But the Doctor has the last laugh, chucking it out the window and very nearly off the side of the cliff. What did River need a clock for anyway?
He lingers by the open window, scrutinizing the horizon for any sign of morning. But there are no hues of pink or pale blue creeping up from behind an endless sea. There is only the blanket of night and the sparkle of distant stars. The Doctor's eyes fall longingly on the TARDIS. It's tempting to leave, to pop ahead just a few hours. What harm could it do? With all the extra security, she'd be perfectly safe until morning.
"Will she be safer if I stay?" Rory asks him, voice as gentle as the eyes caressing over the prison preserving the love of his life. "Look me in the eye and tell me she wouldn't be safer?"
"Rory, you-"
"Answer me!" Rory silences him, resolve written in the way his jaw flexes and eyes burn.
"Yes. Obviously." The Doctor sighs.
Rory turns back to the Pandorica, eyes boring into the stone, trying to see the precious cargo suspended inside. "Then how could I leave her?"
The Doctor's own jaw sets, releasing a long sigh out through his nose. Rory always knew the right thing, mind never clouded with doubt or grey areas. There was only ever right and wrong and what must be done and what was unthinkable. The Doctor always found strength in his friends, but no one quite like he did with Rory, eternally loyal and honest and brave. The type of man the Doctor aspired to be. If Rory the Roman could wait two thousand years, the Doctor could wait a few more hours. He pulls the curtains closed, spinning around to face the room, determination settling into his bones.
The new found silence gives his mind permission to wander. Who wanted them together? What happens now? And where do they go from here if she can't remember where they've been? His mind is so full of what's and where's and how's that he barely has rooms for why. Or maybe he just doesn't want to think about that, about why she can't remember. If it's an incomplete download and the data really is lost, there's no way to get her memories back.
He holds onto hope that it's just an injury, that she just needs time to heal. With encouragement and the right stimuli, all her memories will come flooding back. The right touch or smell or corny joke will light up her face and she'll look at him with shinning eyes like she used to. One minute they'll be strangers and the next she will be in his arms, laughing at the idea that she ever called him John.
Then there's the darker thought that keeps poking in the back of his mind, the one he doesn't want to think about. "The brain tends to block out painful things. It's a defense mechanism." Did she mean to forget him? Did she choose this? After everything he put her through, had she finally decided she was better off without him? He wouldn't blame her if she did.
He buries the unpleasant thoughts, taking instead to passing the time like a reasonable adult. He's selfish, so until she orders him away, he's not going anywhere. His feet lead him to the kitchen, where he washes the dishes waiting in her sink. After that he upgrades the efficiency of her cabinets, putting the pans where the plates were and the plates where the bowls had been and the cups where bowls should be, and he doesn't know where the blender got off to. But it's not like the modifications he made were that dangerous.
He straightens the picture frames, dusts the shelves, and organizes her books. First by author then by century published, and finally in order of topics he found most interesting, which was difficult considering a large portion were archaeological. By the time he finishes, the sun has only just begun to kiss its way across the eastern sky. It's light streaming in through the window like an eager promise of morning.
He's setting off down the hallway, about to make unnecessary improvements to her bathroom plumbing when he hears a soft shuffling coming from her bedroom. He pauses, ear pressed to the door, and hears it again, the soft rustling of sheets. Knocking softly, he whispers, "River?" When she doesn't answer, he cautiously opens the door just enough to peer inside. She's fast asleep, covers pushed down to her waist from restless tossing and turning and body curled in on itself. Light spills in through a crack in the curtains, illuminating the unique contours of her face: sharp cheek bones and round lips, shapely brow and subtle lines around her eyes. The sight of it makes his hearts ache. She looks like an angel, her mass of unruly curls fanning out across the pillow like a halo. He so rarely got the privilege of watching her sleep. Always on the move, they didn't take enough time to be still with each other last time. When all this is said and done, he'll change that. They'll find adventures in small things, like planting flowers in her garden and making fun of old movies. He'll surprise her at her university with lunch and he'll make her introduce him to all her colleagues. He'll fill her office with flowers and love notes and embarrass her in front of her students by showing off exactly how much of a love sick fool he is. A smitten smile creeps up his cheeks, plots and schemes already running rampant in his head.
He makes to leave when the sound of her shifting onto her back makes him pause. Her arms are spread out, brows knit together as she exhales a soft, "No."
"River." He breathes quietly, stepping into the room, gravitating toward her bedside before he even realizes he's doing it. "It's alright. You're just dreaming." He soothes in a low, passive tone. Nightmares weren't uncommon for River, especially in the early days. But they grew few and far between the older she was. Now it seemed she was still haunted. Nightmares would follow her everywhere, even when she had all but forgotten their cause.
She moans again, a sheen of sweat forming and the rise and fall of her chest quickening. He attempts to soothe her again, but she doesn't seem to hear him. "No." She moans again and he closes the remaining distance in an instant, dropping to his knees by her bedside.
"Wake up sweetheart. You're only dreaming." She still doesn't seem to hear him, shifting once again, eyes racing frantically behind her lids. He needs to comfort her, needs to be there for her, show her that she's not alone. Impulsively, the Doctor lifts a hand to her shoulder, the slightest bit of skin grazing hers and she bolts upright, arms swinging. "River it's me! It's okay!" He shouts, barely managing to dodge. River reaches for the light, giving him a quick once over before she swings at him again. This one he isn't quick enough to dodge. "Ouch! River, I said it's me!"
"I know it's you! Why are you in my bedroom?"
He rubs the sore spot on his arm, pouting. "You were having a nightmare."
"And you just came in? What if I slept in the nude?" He flushes up to his ears because that is something she's accustomed to do. Usually only when they pass out together, all tangled up in sheets and too exhausted to be bothered about things like clothing. They only get in the way, anyway. He flushes again at his own thoughts.
"But luckily you're not. Not that you being nude is a bad thing." Her brows shoot up her forehead and he rushes to correct himself. "Not that I was trying to- I mean, you're very- it's just, um." He swallows hard, loosening his collar. "I'll just stop talking, shall I?"
"Probably for the best."
"Right. Back to sleep you go." He makes an effort to cover her up and she waves at him dismissively.
"After all that? No, I'm awake now. Might as well get up."
"Wonderful!" He enthuses, clapping his hands together, over joyed at not having to find ways to kill yet another few hours. "I'll cook breakfast!"
River throws the covers off, making a half hearted noise of consent as she heads for the bathroom. "Do what you like. I need a shower."
The Doctor makes his way back into the kitchen, and if there's a slight skip to his step, well, no one is around to notice. He sets to work, gathering a pan, eggs, and various spices, intent on making her the perfect omelet. It's her favorite breakfast and it just happens to be his specialty. Well, by 'just happens' he means he spent about a week learning how to make them in sixteenth century Paris because she mentioned them once in passing. But who's splitting hairs?
The task is easy, a meal he's made many mornings, so his mind wanders. For as much as they loved adventure and spontaneity, they were also creatures of habit. Despite the back to frontness, they had a routine. On rare days when timelines permitted her to stay, cooking her breakfast was one of them. It was easier to fudge the rules on the TARDIS, when they could suspend themselves in the vortex and let hours bleed into days and days into weeks. There were no worlds to save or obligations to guilt them into parting, nothing to dampen their time together bar the looming knowledge that it couldn't last forever. When he would greet her in bed with her favorite breakfast and she would look up at him with sleepy, adoring eyes, it was easier to pretend, to ignore the nagging pull of time that wound around his hearts, tightening like a boa constrictor every time they parted.
Moments spent in her home were more rare. It hurt him to see the sun rising and setting, ticking off their time together like days of a calendar. But they had their routine here, too, smaller moments, but every bit as precious.
From where he stands in the kitchen, he can hear the roar of running water. The pipes hum and groan as she blasts the water, waiting for it to warm. "That is the last time I let you take me anywhere near somewhere with 'Sludge' in the title." River complains, trying to drag her fingers through what was once a lovely head of hair. Now it more closely resembles an angry, gel soaked tumbleweed. And he's no better off than she is, trousers so saturated not even his braces would keep them up. They were so covered in the thick mucus, even his ship barred them access to every room but the console, refusing to let them track slime through her corridors or contaminate the showers. Instead they were forced to use River's house, leaving a trail of sludge all the way from the TARDIS to her bathroom.
"Would it help if I told you that wasn't the moon system I was aiming for?"
"No," River huffs, tossing her clothes straight in the waste bin. "It really wouldn't."
"Oh. I won't tell you then." The Doctor catches River's smirk in the mirror before going back to pealing off his ruined suit. Although, where the slime lacked with fabric, it did wonders for his hair. The first product he's found that can tame his floppy fringe. He thinks he likes it pushed back like this, makes him look more serious. Maybe it would be enough to get people to listen when he told them not to wander off.
"Oh quit primping." River teases, and he startles, eyes meeting River's through the mirror to find her smirking.
"I'm not primping!" He squeaks, averting his eyes and continuing to fumble with his shirt buttons. River rolls her eyes, swatting his hands away to finish the task for him. "I think I like it pushed back." He says, watching her clever fingers rid him of his shirt. "Makes me look older."
"I like your baby face." She admits, slinking up next to him and running her hands over his exposed chest. "Makes me feel naughty."
His hands find her hips, a grin curling his cheeks. "Forever my bad girl."
"Oh honey," she purrs, eyes alight with mischief. "You don't know the half of it."
"Is something burning?" River's voice floats to his ears, pulling him out of his daydream.
Burning? Please. He was trained by the finest chefs in- actually, there is a slight hint of smoke tickling his senses and- "The toast!" He leaps into action, barely managing to salvage the charred slices of bread and tossing it back and forth like a hot potato before depositing it safely onto her plate. He lathers a generous amount of marmite on hers, but spares his own because, honestly, the stuff is vile and offensive to his taste buds and he finds its very existence to be an atrocity. But they agreed to disagree.
"I see you made yourself at home." She comments and he turns to find her striding toward him, eyeing the rearranged furniture. She's wearing those jeans that should be outlawed, the denim hugging her curves somewhere between criminal and an art form. She looks much more like herself, with a gun hung around to her thigh and vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.
"Quite. I may also owe you a new clock." He finishes dishing up the last of the food just as she makes her way up to the breakfast bar, her face suddenly blank as she stares down at her plate.
"You made me breakfast."
"Is that alight?"
"Yeah... It's my favorite, actually." But she doesn't sound pleased.
"Funny that." He mutters, watching her carefully.
"I'm sorry." She says abruptly, the tenderness in her voice cutting straight through him and settling in his gut. "I noticed you didn't need me to tell you the coordinates to my house, so I figured we knew each other pretty well." She purposefully avoids his eyes, gesturing to her breakfast. "But not this well."
He blinks at her in confusion for a moment before it dawns on him. He looks at this breakfast and sees cooking on Sunday mornings, Rory fighting to keep the oven shut against an angry, billowing, bubbling white blob. "Oh, God, Rory !" Amy shouts rushing to assist him.
"I may have accidentally used some kind of alien flour." He sheepishly admits, all his weight pressed against the oven door.
River's wary eyes meet the Doctor's before turning back to her father. "Did it say self rising?" Rory nods and River sighs, "I'll get the swords."
"Swords?" Amy shouts. "Doctor what's going on?"
The Doctor gulps. "That wasn't flour."
When presented with freshly buttered toast and the smell of hot coffee, he remembers Amy resting her forehead on the dinning room table, groaning about the brightness of the sun at such an ungodly hour. He hears River and Rory dueling over the last of the bacon."I get the last piece because I'm the head of the house!" Rory argues. Behind him Amy snorts, so he changes tactics. "Alright, because I'm the oldest."
River hums, "For the sake of simplicity, I think it's best we only take into account this version reality."
Rory sighs, then takes a calculated step back. "Well you're also forgetting the very important fact that I," he lunges for the butter knife on the counter, "am armed!"
When he spins back around he drops the weapon instantly, eyes wide and hands raised at the sight of River pointing her blaster at him. Smirking, she reaches for the last piece of bacon. "Father dear, never bring a knife to a gun fight."
The Doctor looks at marmite on toast and thinks only of her. It makes his chest ache to ponder the moments she must see, eclipsing a life she can't remember. Rather than a room bursting with laughter, she now sees cooking for one and eating alone in a big house. Brunch with colleagues and campfires with her students on a dig sites fill in for family. Looking at that omelet now, it's plain to see her vision is clouded by all the moments she wouldn't know to miss if it weren't for him standing before her. The breakfast in front of her is a reminder of mornings she can't remember and conversations she didn't have, a manifestation of all the little holes in her life.
He wants to fill that void for her. To tell her about everything they've done and everywhere they've been and people they saved. But he remembers how scared he was in that library. How looking at her was like seeing all his choices had already been made for him, how he ran and lashed out and tried to push her away. Now the tables are turned and she doesn't lash out, she thinks only of others. A courtesy he never gave her.
"You have nothing to be sorry about." He confesses, guilty and humbled because she's so much more gracious than he ever was.
"Still," she offers easily, and the vulnerable woman is gone, buried deep like she never existed at all. "It must be difficult, for a friend to not know you."
Friend. His heart sinks at the ordinary title, but it's better than nothing. It's more than he gave her in the beginning.
It's the way she looks at him, or doesn't look at him as the case may be, that unsettles him. He's seen her flirt and smile and quip with friends and enemies and even strangers. But he's more than a stranger; he's an absence. He represents everything she's lost and just looking at him makes her feel incomplete. He feels incomplete too. Her eyes don't shine when they look into his. They don't reassure him that he's good. Without her enduring faith, he doesn't feel like he can conquer the world or save the universe. Without her, he isn't even sure he wants to. She saw him for what he was and everything he wasn't. She saw him and now she sees nothing but a gaping hole. Who is he without her? He used to know. But nothing seems simple anymore.
"Am I married?" She says suddenly and his hearts leap into his throat.
"Why do you ask?" He clears his throat, trying to sound casual. "Do you remember something?"
She's quite for a long moment, pushing eggs around her plate absentmindedly, "No. No, I don't remember anyone. It's just," she pushes a stray curl behind her ear, eyes flirting with the idea of making contact with his. "There are two sets of towels. Why would I need two sets of towels if I was here alone?"
His lips part, but words fail him, wholly unprepared to answer her question. Such a seemingly trivial thing, towels. He didn't make a habit of leaving personal items at her home. He never stuck around long enough to need to, and even so, the TARDIS was right out front. The towels were something she had bought for him. His own set, extra soft and extra long to account for his lanky body. She was always doing little gestures like that, taking notice and providing him with things he didn't even know he needed. River always thought of everything.
At his failure to answer, she forces another self deprecating laugh, shaking her head and looking back to her plate. "I'm just grasping at straws."
"No" he rushes to speak, wanting to cling to the life line she's throwing him. He wants to tell her everything, that those are his towels and this is their breakfast and these hearts beating in his chest belong to her. But words all seem elementary, unworthy. How would he even being to explain everything they were to each other? They weren't just married. They didn't just say a few vows and get a mortgage. They saved all reality, brought the universe back with a kiss. They changed a fixed event. They rewrote the laws of the physics. Against reason, against all the odds, against their better judgment, they chose each other. They lived more in twenty minutes than most people did in decades. And they loved more in half truths and stolen kisses than other couples did their whole lives. They made a promise to trust and love, knowing it would one day break their hearts.
It wouldn't be fair to expect that from her again, not now when she knew nothing about him. Even if he did confess everything, all the scenarios he's played out in his head end badly. Her disappointed or laughing in his face because she is sexy and strong and glorious, and he is awkward and clumsy and miles less than she deserves. He imagines her angry, hurling books and shouting. And worst of all, he foresees her quiet contemplation. Obligation etched in the tightness around her eyes and written across her face like an obituary, crushed under the weight of emotions she doesn't feel.
Assuming she even believed him. It's not like he has any evidence, no identification, no wedding certificate or photographs. He barely has her trust, precariously riding on the fact that they share in a few photographed moments. All he has for proof are memories, the pounding of his hearts when she speaks, and the dizzy giddy feeling he gets when her eyes lock onto his.
This wasn't like the first time, when days had already happened, when his future was all but laid out before of him. For the first time, the book is blank. And if she wants to fill her pages with him again, that's a choice she has to make all on her own. It feels like she's fresh from Berlin all over again and anything he says or does will shape her. He doesn't want to trap her with the weight of their complicated past. He wants her to choose him as she always has. He won't pressure her with preconceived titles or promises made by a woman she can't remember. This is a choice she has to make alone. So he bites back the torrent of explanations threatening to spill from his mouth. He swallows hard against his own need and exhales the words, "There was someone. Once."
Her eyes finally find the courage to meet his as she asks, "What happened?"
Loss. Loneliness. One too many bad days. Or maybe it wasn't what happened so much as what stopped happening. After the loss of his family, after River and the Ponds, he stopped feeling like he belonged. Eventually he patched himself back together with scar tissue. He had Vastra, Jenny, and Strax and eventually Clara, and they were enough to keep him functioning on autopilot. But he stopped having Christmas in Leadworth. He no longer found joy in ice skating or little picnics. He retired the habit of keeping score in museums and he certainly didn't dance at weddings. He stopped being her Doctor.
"He's gone." He breathes carefully.
River's eyes widen in surprise, suddenly sad. She assumes he means he's dead. And in a way it's true. The floppy haired, light hearted man is gone. The golden days are over. For all his flaws, he was a better man then, with her. She made him better. Now he's old and jaded and so very tired. He wants to be that man again. He could learn. Perhaps she could teach him. Perhaps they could remember together. He still looks to her to save him. She is his beacon of hope. She is phosphenes, the colors bursting behind his eyes, the guiding light in the darkness.
"What was he like?" River asks, and he's the one to break eye contact. He considers her question, trying to see himself through her eyes, to best describe the man he was, the man she loved with a silk scarf draped lazily around his neck and a top hat doing little to keep his floppy hair from falling in his face.
"Did you dance?" Her voice feels like velvet and he turns to see her, soft curls swaying in the cool night air. "Well, you always dance at weddings, don't you?"
"You tell me." He smirks, finally getting the hang of this flirting business. But oh, she's much better.
"Spoilers." She purrs, all scandal and invitation.
Their fingers brush as he hands over her diary. Even in these fleeting moments her touch feels like static electricity, crackling across his skin, swimming through his veins, and fluttering in his stomach. "The writings all back, but I didn't peak."
"Thank you." She breathes, but it feels like more. It feels like sentiment of a different kind entirely. A ghost of an emotion he refuses to name skirts across her features, her face a map he can't quite read and written in a language he doesn't understand. But he's learning; she's opening his eyes to so many things.
"Are you married, River?"
"He was a bit of git, really." He admits, and River lets out a laugh in spite of herself, the mood in the room brightening at the rich sound. "Far more confident than he had any right to be, and a hopeless, hopeless romantic. But he was a dreamer, an optimist at heart." His voice lowers, eyes fixed on her, "And he loved you, more than anything. He didn't say it often enough or with as much flair as you did, but he meant it just as much."
The corners of her mouth tug into the beginning of a smile at the description. It's nostalgia and longing and it isn't a smile at all. It's a question. One that even now, after all these years, he doesn't have an answer for. He wonders if it's possible to miss something you can't remember. Can you miss the idea of love, feel the absence of it festering inside you, a gaping hole begging to be filled?
The rest of breakfast is finished in mutual quiet contemplation. By the time they clear up and set out to leave, the sun has started its ascent into the sky. The sea air whips at his face, salty and inviting, as they step into the early morning light. The atmosphere of this planet is thinner than that of Earth and it orbits a red dwarf star, the light of which casts a burnt orange glow in the early morning hours. Everything is amber, dipped in honey, and beyond the cliffs the angry water is caramel, waves sticking and clinging to the shore before they recede and crash and recede and crash from the pull of twin moons. The burnt sky always reminds him of Gallifrey, which is probably why she chose it. A way to feel connected to the one place they could never go, the home world she would never see.
Even the sunflowers delight in the orange rays, growing towards the light like they were made for it. On the other hand, the TARDIS stands out like a sore thumb, brilliant, blue, and defiant as it waits for them at the end of the path.
"So, Mr. Time and Space," River chimes, footfalls in sync with his. "You mentioned before about a diary being important. Is that what we're doing, trying to find it?"
He shakes his head. "It's not something you want just lying around. But if we can get your memories back, it may be easier to find."
"Why is it important? What's it in?"
"Dunno. Never read it." Which is technically true. "But you're a time traveler and an archaeologist, which by the way is dreadfully contradictory, but that's beside the point." They reach the doors and he pauses, pushing it open to let her in first. "If I know you, and I do, you have all kinds of secrets in there that would be best kept hidden."
River glances up at him before stepping passed him and into the ship. "So that's your plan, get my memories then the diary?"
"Yup." He chirps, following quickly after and bounding up the stairs.
She trails behind, contemplative as she states, "The doctors at the hospital said there's no way to know if I'll get them back."
"Well," he gives an enthusiastic twirl, arms shrugging. "Doctors are idiots."
"You're a doctor." River deadpans.
"Exactly." He rebuttals, flashing her a grin across the console, and she crosses her arms.
"You really think it's that simple?"
"Only one way to find out." The Doctor answers, flipping levers and grabbing the monitor. Curiosity lures her to his side, watching as he types. "A while back I forged a connection between the TARDIS interface and the Library mainframe." He answers her unspoken question. "I'm doing a system wide search for any and all information relating to River Song."
"Why?"
"I think there was a transcription error and if we can locate the missing data we can finish the download."
"But why do you even have a connection to the data core?"
The Doctor shrugs, "Biggest library in the universe. Comes in handy now and then."
It's pathetic really, how he keeps the connection open, an addict hoping for a fix. But that's what she is, his drug, and he'll have to wean himself off her slowly if he wishes to maintain any grasp on sanity. He still needs her, even if she is only a ghost. He welcomes being haunted.
"Where are we going today, my love?" She chimes, and never has raw computer code looked and sounded so sweet.
He leaps into action like he wasn't pining at all. Never let her see the damage. "How about Bestiola?" He asks his ship, voice more enthusiastic than he feels. It's good putting on a show. But that's all it is, acting, pretending to be the man she wants to see.
"Oh you can't go there. Think what the termites would do to the wood."
He pauses, "Actually. They do have a bit of a bug problem, don't they, Old Girl?"
"What about Esculentus?" River offers, playing along even though she thinks he can't hear her. "Bit touristy but one of the moons is actually made of cheese."
The Doctor's face lights up. "I know, Esculentus!" He flips a lever dramatically, "I fancy a quiche."
River smiles fondly at his antics. It's almost like she's really here, like they're off to see the stars, another adventure knocking on their door. But the harsh truth is she isn't, and he balls his hands into fists to fight temptation of bopping her nose.
She keeps a calculated distance between them, effortlessly gliding away as he twirls around the console. She dances away from him like polarized magnets, and he wonders if it's because she can't touch him or because she won't.
There's space between them now, too. Six inches and eight centimeters between shoulders that once would have brushed. Where once she would have leaned in to take a closer look and hot breath would have crawled across his neck, now there is only cold air.
She barely flirts with him now. There is no secret twinkle in her eye, like she knows the answer to some secret riddle while he hasn't even figured out the question. Now she practically looks right through him, unfazed. It reminds him of the early days, when she'd look at him and he could practically feel her shrug, like he wasn't just right, wasn't enough. The look in her eyes has always been able to build him up or tear him down. Even back then he wanted her approval, would strive to be better. He wanted to be the man she knew, the man she wanted. He wanted her to want him, even if he didn't know what he wanted from her. He wanted to be enough. He misses the days when she would look at him like he was magnificent. He almost believed it himself when it came from her shinning eyes, a woman capable of stopping time and changing fixed events and, well, anything.
In the here and now, the screen before them beeps, and oh, that's not good. That's very not good. "There doesn't seem to be any record of you in the data core." He breathes, a bit uneasy.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," he tries again, a counterfeit brightness he hopes she doesn't notice in his voice. "Anything concerning you must have already been downloaded." Or deleted. But he refuses to accept that possibility. "So that means everything we need is in here." He turns to face her, tapping her forehead before spinning away. "We just need to find the password. And I know just the person to ask."