A/N: Still a work in progress and I will update this when it is complete. Welcome to this wonderful mess of time, angst, and how to find yourself before you find eachother again.
I give you GAPS.
*(UPDATE 4/29/21 AS OF TODAY PROLOGUE-CH.6 HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN AND RE-EDITED, CH.7-CURRENT ARE STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION)*
Once construction is finished a new chapter will be posted! Be aware the biggest thing being changed is the POV shifts in later chapters. All chapters will not be in 3rd person POV. So if you're new here and wondering whats going on... that's what lol. I've been working on this story since 2016, and as it's 5 year anniversary came around I decided it needed a little sprucing. (:

Prologue

Alone Again

Twenty four years passed in a blink when you'd already lived countless centuries. Spending those years with River was the least he could do for her. One very long night on Darillium before she...went to the Library. This body seemed to match her better in outward appearance, but she was still so young to him. Although he had never told her, and never would… The Doctor loved her. Unfortunately for both of them, it was never the same kind of love. It wasn't shared, wasn't mutual. It was a passing fancy to fill an empty hole they both had inside of them. Maybe, truly, River loved him in a romantic way, but the Doctor never felt that way.

It was really quite simple to him, he had always cared for her and he always would. However, the Doctor had seen first hand the effects of that word. Yes, he loved River, but he was not in love with her. And never could be.

It had been an impossible amount of time since he had been consumed by that sacred emotion. Yes, sacred. At least to him, the kind of love you can only find with soulmates, was truly a sacred thing. One of the old Time Lord fairy tales that still haunted him occasionally. Didn't matter how long he lived for, he still think of those wishful stories outside of matchmaking and looming where two people found each other, and fit so well. Even though he seemed doomed to continue his extremely long existence alone, for some reason he would always believe in-...

The Doctor was suddenly drawn out of his own sorrows, where he had been thinking about his life's dilemma with love from an outside perspective and trying to rationalize why he never returned River's feelings (even though things would have been so much easier if he could just feel that way). The reason he was pulled out of his deep thoughts, was the large flat surface right in front of him. The TARDIS, no doubt, had just put a wall right in his wandering path. He was only trying to depersonalize his own life, and had ended up walking the path straight to where he was the most sensitive, where things got the most personal.

Every time he thought about why he could never really love River his torturous mind would take the same thorny path to the closed mahogany door with the intricate golden pattern on it. The Doctor rested his head on the flat, doorless surface in front of him. A large sigh escaped him, his shoulders sagging with it, his eyes squeezing shut in a feeble attempt to fight back the emotions that were brewing just beneath the surface.

"This isn't really supposed to be a wall in front of me is it? You're protecting me again aren't you? Protecting me from myself…" There was no response in his mind to the question, so the Doctor took it as an affirmation. A mirthless laugh came out of him. "It's been… so long. Two regenerations. Not even counting all of the time I spent in my confession dial." The Doctor picked up his hand and placed it on the wall. Wishing he could feel the wood and trace his fingers over the flower engravings crusted in gold. "I got to spend 200 years on and off with Amy and Rory! Then there were those dark years before I met Clara again, and went off to find her. Then I got to run with Clara until Trenzalore. Oh Rassilon… Trenzalore. The slow path, for a thousand years, there I was, defending that town. Even though I was still the man who forgets, all I wanted, all I wished for, was to have had that chance at the slow path with her." At this point his hands curled into a fists at his side and against the wall.

"Please." He said through clenched teeth. "Please, old girl. I know I said to never let me do this to myself again- b- but I need… to..." The Doctor pleaded with the machine, like a junkie that was desperate for another hit. But the feeling was much more primal than that. The gap inside of him ran much deeper than a drug addict in remission. It didn't matter that he was supposedly a hundred or so years 'sober'. His palms gripped tighter on nothing in particular, that is, besides the reign he was trying to keep on his emotions. But his resolve was crumbling underneath the pressure. Then like a dam that sprung a leak a tear slipped out of the Doctor's eye as he straightened up and turned away from the wall. But as everyone knows, one crack leads to another, until the whole system bursts and breaks down, and he Doctor was a few steps away from collapsing in on himself once again. Suddenly, a logical and self deprecating thought hit him. Even if he could be with her again, did he deserve it? He was far more torn, frayed, and darkened at the edges. More than double the time had passed since he had first met her, he was much more than a broken man this time around. He wasn't even a good one anymore. With this thought his eyes opened and he dragged a palm down his face, taking the wetness away with it.

He was surprised at himself, he hadn't cried for her in over a millennia. It wasn't fair. How he was able to stretch his time with the Pond's and Clara for so long... and with River out of his life for the last time, he was just-... tired. All roads of thought led back to one little pink and yellow human. The Doctor took a few forceful steps forward until he heard a strange beeping coming from his jacket. A small, tiny sound. As if something had just finished baking. So, the Doctor reached into his jacket and pulled out the brand new screwdriver. Carefully, he opened it to read the message, the beeping continuing all the while. As he scanned the readings his face settled into horror, but this quickly changed to disbelief. The Doctor turned back, nearly giving himself whiplash from the speed, to look at the wall again. Hoping beyond all hope that he would see something to affirm this new information. As he spun the world around him seemed to tilt in slow motion and in the distance the cloister bell began its tone of doom.

He ignored it.

The old man had to grab the wall to steady himself, the sight before him filling him with a whirlwind of energy, nearly knocking him over. There before him was that mahogany door, the golden roses shining bright. It shocked him so thoroughly that he needed to grip the wall even harder because not only was her door back in it's rightful place for the first time in so many years but the door was open slightly and there was a golden light that swirled out from within.

Potential whispered at him and a soft, familiar singing started up in his mind. A song he hadn't heard for so long, but knew, by heart.