AN: Thank you to all my reviewers! Please don't hate me after this one...

At first you remembered.

He came to see her. He told her that he was regenerating somewhere out in the real world, that out there the Doctor would live on, but at least this face could be happy because he could spend the rest of forever with her and she wouldn't be here alone. She cried, of course, and then he did too.

Charlotte had a headache from saving a mind so vast, but she hugged them both and laughed anyway and took them to go live the stories with her, because she had heard so many tales of how well adventure and the Doctor are inseparable and wanted to have her own place in River's diary-storybook-memories-life-love-world -

Sometimes River thinks the child is the strongest person she has ever known. The little girl likes to hear stories about Peter Pan, about the Doctor, people so old with such young faces.

She thinks perhaps it's therapeutic to know there are others like her whose minds outgrew their bodies.

Dr. Moon agrees with her in her sessions with him.

But she hasn't gone to see him since her Doctor came for her, and curled up together on her couch (their couch now because he is here and he is hers and what she has is his too forbetterorforworseinsicknessandinhealth and death will never do them part when they're already dead) she likes that they can talk now, together, like they used to do (when she was alive but she can't say that because he doesn't like endings so she'll go on believing it's not over not over not over not over).

"Do you... like it here?" he asks, playing with her hair, his long, strong fingers winding curls round and round and round.

With a funny look on her face, she tilts her head. "I... don't know. I did at first, I suppose, but it's better with you here since they've all paired off..."

He kisses her temple. "Don't worry," he murmurs, and that ridiculous fringe flops down into his eyes. "I am here." He tries to hide a yawn, but doesn't quite manage it.

"Hold onto that," she smiles. "The physical feelings, I mean. Hunger. Itches. The dirty feeling you get when you haven't had a bath in a few days. The sharp little pain from a paper cut... Those sorts of things..."

"I won't," he crosses both hearts, and he takes her hands in his. "Come on. Bath and then bed?" He smiles when she does, as if her sheer joy at having him again is all he needs to make him happy.

"And smells, too." She pauses, and when she speaks again, it's a confidential whisper, like a secret she's almost afraid to share. "Sometimes I forget how... Then Charlotte lets me use the guidebooks until I can feel it raining and smell it in the air and the grass feels real again."

The words spill out, and yes, she is afraid to tell him, afraid he'll tell her that he has to leave because he never wants that to happen to him too (and of course he doesn't, and she wouldn't ever wish it on him) but she can't tell Charlotte and the others have each other now, and he's here, and there's finally someone to listen when she talks to herself so she doesn't have to be alone, not really, and it's him...

So she holds onto him a little tighter as he gently slides the white dress away from her skin and lifts her into the water, because she can feel his heavy warmth and breathe in the vanilla scent that will always be his, and she whispers vaguely to herself that perhaps it's just her, after all; only Professor Song who forgets how to be real.

It might be old age.

Or perhaps, she reflects, she's always been pretending, and now she can't even lie to herself anymore.

She doesn't realize all this has come out, that he's been listening to her prattling on to herself, until he wraps her in his arms and his warm breath tickles the skin of her neck and he brushes a curl dark with wet back behind her ear and then he's whispering and it's all she can do to stop herself from continuing on -

"You are real," he tells her. "You are more real than I could ever hope to be."

But they are the same now, he is an echo too, and for one frightening moment she is drowning and his words mean nothing.

oOo

She doesn't like to sleep anymore. The nightmares are fuzzy because they are a dream within a dream but she will never wake up from this one, not anymore, because out where he is real, he thinks he has made her happy at last and he will never come to check on her because it will hurt too much (I believe I could cope like always like when Amy and Rory were suddenly gonegonegone and he cried and let her lead him back to the TARDIS like when she woke up in a strange room and he wasn't there and all she had was an empty blue book and rule one he lies like when she told him to run and he said she embarrassed him when all she wanted to do was save him and he made her watch and she bit her tongue until she tasted blood no, it would have hurt me he says, and who is she to hurt when he is hurting because he is alive and real and breathing and she is not?) and he is

never

coming

back

She doesn't like to sleep anymore because in her nightmares he kisses her goodbye and tells her he will only cause her more pain by being here and being so sad. The wanderlust is too strong for him, and he has run out of stories. "I love you," he kisses her again, and he deletes himself.

She screams and tries to follow, but he has locked the file that is everything left of Professor River Song, archaeologist, to keep her safe. But she does not want to be safe, if safe means being alone and knowing he was here and couldn't stand losing his touch and taste and smell and time like she is.

So she goes mad instead. She talks to herself more often, pretending he's there to listen, hacking into whatever she can because maybe he is not really gone and she can bring him back because he won't come to the Library on his own, building copies of him from her memory and watching the binary waltz into the shape of her husband. She has gotten so adept at shaping him out of the air that she conjures him sometimes when the bathroom mirror is fogged over with steam and the warm water enfolds her like his arms won't anymore and the bathtub he picked out is far too big because of all the times of day here, bathtime and bedtime are the loneliest of all.

She spends a long time in the bath with her imaginary echo of his echo, and if she pretends hard enough it's like he's real and she can ignore the flickering glitches he makes when her concentration slips.

The Nutty Professor and the Madman in the Box.

They made a nice couple, she tells Dr. Moon, when they were alive.

Dr. Moon smiles and assures her that he knows. He's read her ragged little blue book too, of course.

And so she tells him all these things because he's promised he can help her find a way to bring her Doctor back (nothing is ever completely deleted, Dr. Moon promises in that soothing voice of his that makes her want to trust him, and of course it will be easy once they find the right file). Her gestures are animated and her eyes are bright and even her voice is lighter and while she talks about him, her madness is sharpened to a fine focus, clear as quick little lines etched across a page.

"Thank you," Dr. Moon says with his calming smile. He leans forward and touches her forehead. "Now, I want you to close your eyes and think of every detail you can from when he was here. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes," she tells him, eyes shut tight as she concentrates. All of it is seared into her mind. She has been branded by the time he spent here with her in her echo-dream-fading-story. He loves me, she thinks to herself; I must find him again.

And then you forgot.