Hello!

This chapter explores how despite having said goodbye to her ghost, River still haunts the Doctor and as time passes he begins to hope for another encounter after running into her fresh from Berlin. Their past is also delved into, showing the Eleventh Doctor's emotional turmoil over having to soon face losing his wife.

*Disclaimer: there are references and dialogue from previous Who episodes (Series four, five, seven and eight), and I do not own the original quotes from these which are cited in the chapter. A warning for very minor spoilers for episodes five, six and seven of the current series, for those who haven't yet seen it.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it!

He clung to that last encounter more than he probably should have allowed himself to.

"I hope I'll see you again."

"Oh, you will. But not always looking like this."

"So you'll be younger again? And you won't have done all of this… that's going to be weird."

"You'll get used to it, believe me. Be sure not to give anything away."

"Oh… that can be dangerous, can't it? Paradoxes and… things like that." She had nodded slowly; endearing confusion on her face as something he'd so rarely had the privilege of seeing. "Well, I'm sure I'll manage. I'll have you know I'm rather good at keeping secrets. And I knew to expect this in Berlin… you knew so much about me, even then. You knew everything I'll become…"

"Spoilers," he'd reminded her with a smile. He enjoyed using that word far too much for his own good.

She'd stopped in the Tardis doorway, hair swishing vivaciously as she turned to him in confusion. "How will I find you? How am I ever supposed to track you down, when you travel through the whole of time and space?"

He'd drawn the brand new diary from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. "There is a certain profession you can enter into that would put you at an advantage there."

He'd left the rest to her; she was more than capable. Now she was out there in time, in his past and perhaps his future, learning to become herself. And he was left floating between the stars, remembering and ever so slightly hoping.

He accidentally-on-purpose overheard Clara telling Danny.

"The Doctor's got a wife?"

"Yes."

"The Doctor? As in, the same grumpy- insane, old alien Doctor?"

"...Yeah."

"I got the impression that he was a bit of a loner."

"He is- was. Well. It's a long story, and- complicated, but- she was dead. Technically, uh, still is. They meet in the wrong order, you know, time travel and stuff."

"What's she like? Is she as mad as him?"

"Oh yeah, completely bonkers. But she's lovely. You should meet her, actually; I think you'd get along. Can't be worse than when you met the Doctor, anyway."

"What's she called?"

"Uhm. River Song."

"River. Song? Are you joking?"

"She's the Doctor's wife; were you really expecting her to have a normal name?"

Later on, she'd asked what the hell he was grinning at. By a distant miracle, enveloped as it was in the darkness of his soul, the hope began to grow.

And then he remembered.

A terrible dream, composed of the past and soon to be reality.

~ Spoilers

Spoilers

Hush now

Spoilers

Spoilers

Spoilers

Stop it

Stop it.

You and me

Stop-

Time and Space

-It-

You watch us run

Please stop this get this out

Of your head she's here she isn't dead you can find a way

Not those times

You're going to change this you have to you can't be without her

You will turn to dust

Everything will

Change this rewrite it rewrite everything if it means she will be by your side

Not one line

You could save her. Dare you to save her

Don't you dare

Have to try. Have to do something

There's nothing you can do

Not

Acceptable.

Hoper of far flung hopes. Dreamer of impossible dreams. Was.

You turned up on my doorstep

With a new haircut and a suit

No. I'm not ready

The towers sang and you cried

River

Oh, River.

Hello Sweetie

Not yet.

Just this once

Let me make a bargain

My life for hers

Anyone's life for hers

The whole Universe for her

Please

You know it doesn't work like that you sentimental idiot she's dead because of you

She's still here

Not for long.

When one's in love

With an ageless God

Who insists on the face

Of a twelve-year-old

One does one's best

To hide the damage

I can never find the words

She trusted, trusts me

And I killed, am going to kill her

I led her, will lead her by the hand to her death just like I

Always

Do. ~

The Doctor awakes with a start from rare yet troubled sleep and quickly scrubs the tears away from his face, left trembling from the broken fragments of memories more terrifying than nightmares that find him in slumber.

He is growing tired of this; the continuous battle that takes place constantly inside his head every time sleep eventually finds him like plagues find civilisations.

River.

River.

She asked it yesterday, before she left. Again. She practically insisted on it. And not only is he fast running out of excuses not to go, but he is so very tired of lying to her.

She keeps telling him that it will be good for him, for them. He needs to get out, to move on, she says, insists that a trip to somewhere as beautiful as the Singing Towers will work wonders for him and she doesn't understand-

The screaming of his own thoughts makes his ears ring day after miserable day. Even awake, he could never push thoughts of Darillium away and now it's bloody impossible because it's here, never again to be postponed or looked upon with dread as a far-off event. Very, very soon now, it will be a memory.

He can't even begin to come to terms with that. Not so soon after Manhattan, the day that marked the end of all hope he used to cling to. He almost laughs out loud out of bitterness towards his own thoughts. So soon after. It's hardly soon. It's been months, maybe even years- he doesn't keep count, not now. All he knows is that impossible River, his wife, flickers effervescently in and out of his broken time. But not for much longer. No longer.

He panics, battling against his own mutilated mind. He has a right to that; insanity is long overdue.

She has to die. That's fixed.

But he doesn't have to say goodbye.

He could just leave her. It would be easy enough, just to never go back for her. It would kill him, yes, but compared to having to face Darillium it would be a piece of cake. Selfish, yes, but he's an awful man. Manhattan had showed him that. It probably wouldn't even surprise her.

She's all he has left. How could he possibly leave her?

She's going to die anyway.

He needs her.

She would be better off without him. They all would.

But she wouldn't. Because either way the Library still looms and it will come, one day in the horribly near future for the Professor who he dropped off yesterday with a kiss and a promise, the promise that he would no longer postpone that oh so wonderful trip she'd been insisting upon.

Every day since Manhattan the same process flickers through his head, switching back and forth until he aches. Telling himself that he's going to drop her off and never come back, because he can't do it anymore, he can't pretend that every day isn't just a deferral of sending her to her death.

But every day, when he looks into those brilliant, fiery eyes of hers, he can't quite bring himself to do it. He feels foolish, for being led so easily, for being so- human. It's so unlike him. But this is his River Song. River Song has always been the exception to everything. Had.

Doesn't matter anyway. Whatever he feels about what is now today, nothing in this Universe or the next is going to change it. And it's damn well unfair.

He turns up that day. Because he promised. He turns up on her doorstep with a new haircut and a suit.

He shivers. He'll spend a long time shivering, taking shelter among the rainclouds of Earth, as he's already resolved to do after the Towers sing their final song. He'll shiver, because River will not be there to keep him warm. Never again.

The memories, though still painful, did little to deter him. At first it rendered him wary, loath to disturb what had been a life broken yet perfect in its own way.

But along with the worst of memories came the best of ones, nostalgic flickers of mad days spent leading their merry dance across time. And he would allow embedded arrogance to momentarily eclipse him.

Why?

Why did things have to be the way they were? He was a Time Lord. A lord of actual time. Nothing and no-one was to dictate to him when he was allowed to see his wife.

Then his determined hands would grip the console, ready to pull the handbrake and hurtle across the stars to find her when-

Doctor, please tell me you know who I am

This means you've always known how I was going to die

My time

Time to come to the Library

How are you even doing that? I'm not really here

If you ever loved me

Say it like you're going to come back

Goodbye, sweetie.

-all at once, a crescendo screaming in his head that would leave him shaking just like the days when it was yet to come.

Admittedly, the Doctor had grown a bit uncharacteristically eager after her last visit. He had this mild infatuation with believing every second of every day that she would burst through the doors trailing smoke with a Cheshire-cat grin on her face.

Not that he would dream of telling Clara- or anyone for that matter- but there may have been a list residing in his jacket pocket that he had spent several days working on. The paper had creased under the time and effort it bore, crammed full to the corners of scrawled names; each one a place they could go together, a place she'd love, if their timelines were to coalesce again.

Optimism. Schoolboy error.

Still, even when the list curled at the edges he kept seeing her, in every godforsaken place he ended up drifting to.

A mere bounce of wild curls out of the corner of his eye, a swish of elegant hips, a tap of crimson heels, and his mind would be off with his feet.

"Doctor! Where the hell did you wander off to?" Clara had panted, finally after god only knows how long having caught up with him in a crowded Frenko Bazaar halfway across the galaxy. He'd hastily conjured up a vague lie, eyes dropping with ill-concealed disappointment from the woman with the right manic hair but, when she'd eventually turned, the wrong face.

He was a slave to his own memoirs.

"Doctor, we're going to crash if you don't do something! Doesn't it have some sort of, I don't know, stabilisers?!"

Use the stabilisers!

"No!"

"Are you lying? Oh my god, you are! Doctor!"

The blue switches!

"DOCTOR!"

"They're BORING!"

Yes, they're blue! They're the blue stabilisers!

"Shut up, shut, shut, shut up!"

"What?"

"Nothing!"

It happened on a shockingly regular basis; though to be fair, it hadn't just started since the night of tea and bad dreams. At first, once he'd shaken off the hopeful possibility that her data ghost still lingered to whisper to him every now and then, he believed that he had finally gone certifiably insane. But when time crawled on and he could still hear her thoughts in his head-

She's on a date, my love. Let her grow up. They all have to one day.

If I had a vault in that bank, I'd keep you in it.

Sweetie, you're far too much of an exhibitionist to go undercover.

You can't leave her on the moon, you stupid man!

-he drew the conclusion that this regeneration's conscience had acquired quite a voice, and one unquestionably familiar at that.

Memories came flickering through, too, and thinking about her came with consequences that he couldn't quite control.

"River and I, we had this big fight..."

I should damn well hope you're sorry. What's that god awful smell? It's like wet fur. You're not coming near me until you've had a bath.

"Do you want to see the Thames frozen over?"

Are you sure about this? Ice skating with your coordination skills?

"Oh, those frost fairs!"

Sweetie… is that Stevie Wonder?

The problem was he'd been enticed into the concept that he may have been able to make things better. He'd believed that maybe, just maybe, seeing her at her start was the beginning of a blessed second chance, a chance to do things as properly as he could afford to given their unsynchronised lives.

His mind did dangerous things. When alone he developed a rather morbid habit of calculating for how many days she must have been alone- at Luna, in Stormcage, and stuck wandering faraway planets she'd chosen at random out of sheer boredom- and familiar guilt would curdle in his stomach. He'd dream up the things they could have done, the wonderful things he could have shown her instead of leaving her on her own for months on end, as he knew he had only by memories of her passing comments.

He could never quite let it go; which was probably just as well, given what one lonely evening in the near future turned into.

And that one lonely evening in the near future will be coming soon! If you'd be kind enough to let me know what you thought of this chapter, your feedback means the world x