Chapter Text
Night in: The Tardis ~
Clara’s feet ground to a halt on the top step.
“Oh, this is my favourite part.”
The Doctor and River sat curled up on the seat in the console room, pyjama-clad with a faded tartan blanket draped around them. River had her legs swung over her husband’s and a battered book cradled in her lap from which they were apparently both reading. The Doctor’s chin was propped on River’s shoulder and her mass of unruly curls must have been tickling his nose, but by the looks of things he wasn’t going to complain anytime soon.
“Really? It’s so depressing,” the Doctor remarked, brow furrowing as his eyes scanned the pages.
“That’s why I like it,” River whispered softly, as if loathe to disturb the tranquillity that was settled like morning mist in the console room.
“How very human of you.”
“Don’t start that on me. I know you love this book just as much as I do.”
Clara squinted to focus on the book in question, and seeing The Time Traveller’s Wife sprawled across the cover put the Doctor’s next comment into perspective. “Well I have to, don’t I? I’m living it.”
River lifted her head from where it was pillowed on her husband’s chest to throw him the briefest, sweetest of smiles, and sudden tears welled in Clara’s eyes.
She’d turned on her heel with a bowed head, intending to run straight to her room and very probably cry into her pillow, when a sharp Scottish voice halted her tracks.
“It’s past your bedtime, Clara.”
She reluctantly wandered back to the top step, hugging her ribs bashfully. “I’m twenty-seven, Doctor. I don’t have a bedtime.”
Her voice sounded choked even to her, and a little worried crease appeared along the Doctor’s brow. But the question came from River. “Clara, are you ok?” When she didn’t – couldn’t – answer, the soothing voice of the Doctor’s wife was comforting enough to make a painful lump rise in her throat. “Want to come and talk to us? You’re welcome to.”
Clara’s breath shook as she drew it in, telling herself to raise her head and forcing a thin smile. “Could I have some hot chocolate?”
River threw the blanket to one side, swinging her legs off the Doctor’s lap and chasing away his indignant frown with a sharp glare that was enough to make him rise to his feet after her.
If ever there was a sight to cheer Clara up, this was it; her ever-so-serious stick insect of a best friend, dressed in dark pinstripe pyjamas and slippers with a soft navy dressing gown, one cheek flushed from its resting place against River’s head.
***
The Doctor sat opposite Clara at the kitchen bench, studying her with owlish eyes as the sound of River, humming to herself while mixing hot chocolate into three mugs behind them, kept the silence at bay.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
His eyebrows curled into a frown at Clara’s remark. “How could you possibly-”
“You’re going to say I’m being a sentimental idiot. That I’m being so – so human and that it’s been long enough that I should get over it,” Clara muttered, picking at her pyjama sleeve.
“Then you don’t know what I was going to say at all.” The Doctor checked over his shoulder, seemingly to confirm that River wasn’t listening, before leaning closer to Clara with his hands clasped on the table between them. “Clara, I lost River a thousand years ago, and every day of that, every single day, right up until the day she came back, I missed her so much that it burned,” he told her in a hushed, uncharacteristically soft voice. “I would never wish that on anyone, and I certainly wouldn’t trivialise it. I know you like to think I’m heartless, but as hard as this may be for you to believe I do know what it is you’re feeling.”
“I should think so, husband.”
River winked at her husband as she tiptoed over to the bench, balancing three steaming mugs in her hands. He sighed a little. “I forgot how good your hearing was.”
Clara’s hands curled around the mug that River gave her, clutching it tightly as her best friend and his wife watched her anxiously from across the table. “How am I supposed to move on? Every time I think I’m doing ok, something switches and it’s like he died yesterday all over again…”
“It’ll do that for a long time,” the Doctor told her quietly. “Forever, to an extent; but eventually the gaps between those relapses becomes longer, and longer, until the pain they bring with them fades. It becomes dull, like toothache; always there, but you learn to live with it.”
“And how long did it take you, a century? I don’t have that sort of time.”
“You won’t need it. Human relationships aren’t like Time Lord ones.”
“Don’t patronise me.”
“I’m not; it’s fact. River and I were married for a good two centuries before I lost her; as you said, you lot don’t have that sort of time. Relationships are a far bigger commitment when you’re a race who lives for millennia; you fall further. So the loss is more painful.”
Clara’s jaw clenched. “Don’t you-”
“Sweetie, you may want to stop talking now.” River’s gentle voice broke the glaring standoff between them, slicing through the tension. “Clara, he’s right; we have more years, more hearts – psychic abilities. We feel things more intensely; it’s just in our biology. But that doesn’t mean for a second that what you feel is any less valid than what we do. I know that, because I watched my parents, both humans, fall in love – I watched them die for each other – and nothing in this Universe could make me believe that that wasn’t real.”
She saw the pain flicker across the Doctor’s face, just as River’s hand ghosted over his without so much as glancing in his direction and erased it. Moments like that, however brief, made Clara see what they were getting at.
“I feel like I’m not allowed to move on. Like… I can’t let myself do that. I just keep thinking what he’d… River, if…” Clara’s tired eyes fluttered shut as tendrils of steam from the hot chocolate drifted up her nostrils. “If you’d still been in the Library Universe… data thing, if you had known that the Doctor was moving on, how would you have felt?”
“If he was happy, and if forgetting about me a little was something he had to do to make him that, then I’d be happy too.”
“You wouldn’t be upset?”
River sighed softly, taking a pensive sip of her hot chocolate. “Clara… I saw the Doctor with you on Trenzalore; I saw him vow to risk his life to save you, I learned that he’d never told you about me-”
The Doctor’s indignant scoff cut across her. “I did!”
“Not mentioning that I’m a woman, sweetie, doesn’t count. All of that, of course it hurt. Thinking that he was living his life without me broke my heart. But before that, I watched him sit on a cloud for one hundred years and mourn me; going nowhere, speaking to no-one - until you. That was unbearable. I was so glad when you came along, because believe me, nothing is worse than watching someone you love dying because of you.”
“I can vouch for that,” the Doctor chipped in quietly, outstretching his little finger from his mug handle to brush over the back of River’s hand.
“I’m sure Danny would think the same. Of course he wouldn’t have been thrilled about you moving on, Clara – won’t be, if he’s up there watching somewhere – but to him, if he really loved you- which I’m sure he did – it’ll be far better than the other option.”
“I know. I just – I feel like I owe him, never to be with anybody else.” She shot the Doctor a sharp look to warn him against any scathing comments, though for once he appeared to have no intention of making any. “I suppose you think that’s stupid.”
“You shouldn’t make assumptions about what I think, Clara,” he answered quietly. “Why do you think I chose this face? Why do you think this body is against flirting, and hugging, and all of that romantic paraphernalia?”
“Is it?” River asked, amusement glittering in her eyes.
“With one exception,” he affirmed, throwing his wife a brief glance. “And that’s my point.”
Clara frowned. “What is?”
“The way I am now wasn’t accidental. When you met me, I was a man who’d been shaped by one woman; running after her, being with her, losing her, all of that made me who I was. No-one had had that sort of influence on me since Gallifrey. And I had a millennium on Trenzalore, watching generation after generation die in front of me, to realise that no-one else ever could again. That was when I decided that… I wanted River to be the last. The last person I ever loved; in that way, at least.”
Clara blinked aggressively to dismiss the pools in the rims of her eyes. River only smiled softly, pressing her nose against her husband’s shoulder; she’d clearly heard it from him when they’d been alone. The Doctor carried on, sounding slightly confused as he caught notice of Clara’s crumpled expression. “I found it difficult to make that resolve in my last body, when I had over three hundred years of love and companionship in it. But I took the new regeneration cycle as an opportunity. Briefly forgot when I changed, but then…” He held up his left hand, drawing Clara’s eyes to the thick gold band on his ring finger that shimmered in the low amber light. “I remembered; made the vow a part of me and kept it. And your eyes have inflated again,” he muttered crossly. “I’ve warned you about that.”
“I asked you if that was a wedding ring, you told me it wasn’t!”
“Well I lied, obviously. Your eyes are massive enough as it is; and I couldn’t let you go thinking I had feelings.”
She pressed her lips together, pushing down a smile and the urge to dive across the table and envelop him in a lung-crushing hug. “But if River hadn’t come back… would you just have kept that promise forever?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but River beat him to it. “No!”
He turned to her sharply. “What do you mean no? Why not?”
“Honey, you like people too much. You like women too much. And another regeneration cycle – that’s an awfully long time to be alone. And celibate,” she added in a pointedly loud whisper.
Clara watched the Doctor roll his eyes. “That’s not important.”
“That’s not what you were saying a couple of hours ago.”
“We have company,” he reminded her in a low voice.
Clara smirked weakly. “River’s right, Doctor; you couldn’t do it.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, what about you? Can you do it? Why don’t you go out with that handsome teacher at your school, the one who wears the bow ties?”
“Doctor, I’ve told you, I’m not going out with Adrian.”
“Sweetie, shut up. Clara, you don’t have to be with anyone,” River reminded her gently. “And you’re allowed to miss Danny. It doesn’t make you weak.”
“I just, I don’t know. I feel… silly, doing this day after day.”
“There’s nothing silly about mourning the ones you love,” the Doctor reminded her. “And you’re living in a box that’s floating among millions of miles of darkness. You’re in the perfect place to mope.”
River’s bad day at work: River’s flat ~
“What the hell sort of time do you call this?”
The Doctor winced uncomfortably on his wife’s doorstep, recognising that her tone was far from the one usually reserved for those flirtatious, old-married-couple greetings she so loved. There was no trace of affection in her this evening; fists propped on hips, eyes set in a steely glare that made him wish he hadn’t parked the Tardis quite so far away. The way things were going, he thought he might soon be needing a quick escape. Or a hiding place.
“Uh…” He raked a hand through his curls, pushing through her into the hallway before she could slam the door in his face. “Sorry. Got side-tracked trying to disable an uprising in the Rithan Colony. But, hello! I’m here now-”
“The Rithan Colony?” River echoed, in an especially slow tone that so often preceded very loud shouting that the Doctor had the good sense to flinch.
“Yeah…”
Her furious voice was hot on his heels as he scurried into the living room. “As in, the Rithan Colony that I studied in depth for my Professorship, you mean? The Rithan Colony that I’ve taught to my first-year students for the past what, sixteen years?” she yelled.
He scratched his head, watching his feet as they scuffed at the floor. “Yeah, uh, that one,” he mumbled sheepishly.
“And you didn’t think to call me? It didn’t cross your mind that I could have been there to help you? Honestly, do I have to hunt you down to spend time with you now?”
“Of course not,” he argued gently. “I call you up all of the time; don’t be unfair.”
“I’m being unfair?”
“River, it was one trip. I can’t take you everywhere – because, at your request, we don’t live together. Anyway, things were hectic there; there wasn’t much thinking time – Clara was-”
“Oh, Clara was there!” She clapped her hands together in a mockery of glee. “Well! That just explains everything. I’m sure I’m the last thing on your mind whenever your nice bit of skirt pops in-!”
“River!”
“What? You’re only going on the defensive because it’s true!”
He took a deep breath. “Ok. I’m guessing – hoping – that this isn’t all about me.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Honey, come on. There’s obviously something the matter.”
“You know full well what happens when you call me pet names during arguments, sweetie,” she warned through gritted teeth.
His eyebrows quirked up his forehead. “This is an argument? Over what – me going somewhere without you?” he asked incredulously. “You’re not serious.”
“I just – it’s – you could have asked!” Her voice cracked, eyes welling with sudden tears that made his hearts plummet into his stomach. “You could have thought of me, at least. Do you know how it feels to be forgotten about as soon as someone – younger, and prettier, and smarter comes along?”
“Don’t make this into that. You know full well how I feel about Clara and it’s nothing close to what I feel about you. You know that.” She ripped her gaze away from him abruptly to hide her tears, and the hard edge to his voice melted away as quickly as it had risen. “Hey. I did think of you. I’m always thinking of you. You studied the colony – you know what it’s like there. It’s dangerous and corrupt, and no place for my wife.”
Her nostrils flared. “What? Don’t be so bloody sexist!”
“It’s nothing to do with gender, River. It’s about protecting those you love because you’ll do anything to avoid losing them again.”
“You took Clara there.”
“She travels with me; she knows the risks. They’re in the job description.”
“Well, I know the risks too. You don’t get to decide what’s too dangerous for me, Doctor. And if you’d had the decency to invite me, I could have been with you instead of having a terrible day at work!”
“Oh, River… is there anything I can do?” He wrung his hands, looking so forlorn that she almost laughed. “I’m sorry. I… you should have called me.”
“Why? You couldn’t have done anything.”
“I could have picked you up from work.”
“I thought you’d be too busy elsewhere. Correctly.”
“I’m never too busy.”
“Don’t be a sentimental idiot.”
“I meant because I have a time machine. It’s sort of literally impossible for me to be too busy.”
“Oh.”
“River… I’m not going to run scared the moment you stop hiding the damage. As it happens, that’s the only thing I’ve ever disliked about you. I married you for everything you are; there’s no sense in us being together if you’re going to hide half of that from me.”
“But… well, it’s hardly attractive for me to be bitching and whining about how upset or angry I am, is it?”
“It’s not attractive if you lie to me, either. I’m not a young idiot anymore; the fake smile doesn’t work. It only makes me wonder how little you must think of me to keep up that pretence.”
“I think everything of you. And I want… I want to be…”
“Perfect?”
“Yeah.”
“Job done.” He smiled timidly, sinking onto the sofa and patting the space next to him. “Now, tell me about this bad day.”
River sighed heavily, flopping down next to him and proceeding to twirl her thumbs with frantic speed. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing, it’s… it’s this woman at work.” She scoffed. “She’s a new Professor in my department, and I have it on good authority that she’s trying to take my position. She hasn’t exactly been subtle about it; badmouthing me to other Professors – to my students – over the last few weeks, chipping away at my reputation piece by piece. It’s fine, I can take it, I have a good century of experience on her… but today she went to the Board and made a case for a “shake-up” in the archaeology department. Which translates as them getting rid of me, because I’m “outdated” and, well, I don’t exactly follow the curriculum, and bringing her in as a replacement. The worst thing is, they all love her. She’s evil, but those old men on the board don’t care about that; they care that she’s young, and beautiful, and laughs at their disgusting jokes. And they all look at her like… the way you look at Clara.”
His brow furrowed. “Like they can’t believe how wide her face is?”
She glared at him half-heartedly. “Drop it. She’s beautiful; I know you know that.” She sighed. “You know I adore her; just after today, forgive me for being paranoid that I’m going to be replaced by a younger model in all areas of my life.”
“You’re not being replaced anywhere. You’re the greatest archaeologist in all the known Universe; if they’re too stupid to see that, then they certainly don’t deserve you.As for Clara… she’s my best friend, River.”
“Do you love her?”
“Of course, but not in that way,” he answered serenely.
“Did you, before? I know you kissed in your last body.”
“How do you know that?”
“Honey, I was there. I was always there, until Trenzalore. I was a data ghost; I had nowhere else to go.”
He paled at her confession. “River… I’m so sorry. I mean, she kissed me, but… I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I was dead. Can I ask… did my coming back interrupt something, between you two?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well… what were you before you found out I was alive? How did you feel about Clara before that?”
“The same way I feel now. She’s a wonderful person, she’s incredibly important to me. I don’t know what I’d do without her; but it isn’t… romantic.”
“But it was. In your last body, the one… the one that married me,” she mumbled. “The way you were with her…”
“I think that was more a side-effect of that body. It was such a flirt.”
“A side-effect?”
“Not with you. I think you started it, actually, and then after you were gone I found it difficult to stop being the way I was with you with everyone. I was used to being a certain way with someone close; I needed to be attached to someone. I always have.”
“Ok.”
“What?”
“So you’ll just latch onto anyone because you can’t be alone.”
“You could say that. But I won’t marry anyone.” He grinned shyly.
“You didn’t even want to marry me,” she huffed.
“No. I didn’t want anything to do with you. I spent years trying to run away. That’s what makes you different.”
“Well, you know how to make a girl feel special, sweetie.”
“You’re not like the people I travel with, not to me. You aren’t like your parents, you aren’t like Clara; you’re just… you. I don’t lump you in with the rest of the people I’ve met over the years. You’re separate, in my head. And you’re very special to me.” He scooted closer to her, murmuring into her hair. “More so than anyone else.” He pulled back, peering at her anxiously when she continued to stare petulantly at the coffee table. “Do you believe me?”
Her nod was barely noticeable, and he nudged at her waist insistently. “River?”
“What?”
He sighed softly. “What can I do to fix this?”
“There’s nothing you’ve done that needs fixing. It’s just me.”
“But if I did my job properly then you wouldn’t feel this way.”
“Don’t.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “I’ve just had a bad day, sweetie. It doesn’t mean you’re not an amazing husband.”
“Amazing?”
River managed a thin smile. “Yeah. And I really, I don’t… deserve-”
“Don’t you dare.” He left a kiss on the corner of her lips. “I love you. And I hate having to tell you that.”