Chapter Text
When he finally turned to her, her hands unravelled from his back to meet as his hearts. His cold body, his blood beating, warmed by her palms, like fire or a baker’s oven mitt right after taking the cake out of the oven.
“If you keep coming back, how will I move on?”
“That’s your own cross bear.”
“But, River, you can’t come back when I’ve already let you go.”
“Can’t I?”
“Not like this. You are an echo, River. A ripple in the stream of time that won’t flow. I said my goodbyes, more times than I wished. I can’t drag you with me, you need to let go.”
“You said it yourself, ‘ how will you move on? ’” She touched his temple with her fingers, her palms gently taking his face. “I’m not here for me, you keep calling me back.” She pressed her own head to his and whispered, “Why?” His hands had followed hers, gripping unto them.
The air was still, each touch echoing. It could have stayed like that, quiet. Warm quiet, not like the winter or a dark library, but like the summer and a shower of a thousand stars. Not like a prison cell, but like a picnic on a grassy field. And not like the hands of a statue, but like the Bifrost. So welcoming, so sweet, they truly were the better reflections of one another. Her warm breath slightly fogged his frames as his head was angled down in what seemed like shame. The vibrations of her breathing could be felt in his nerves. And when she gently pulled his head to her and leaned in, kissing his brow bone, it felt like she could have been kissing away tears.
“If someone walked in on us, god knows what that would look like.” He laughed.
She only chuckled back.
The Doctor looked up at her through his brows, not in his regular dissatisfaction or annoyance, but guilt? He took one of her hands from his face and stood up, neck still turned down as he fidgeted with her palm of light. He massaged it with his thumbs and ran through each finger, finally pressing his lips on her open palm. She returned her hand to his cheek with a smile and a caressing thumb.
Sometimes silence lasts too long, but only when words aren’t spoken. As if they’re waiting in line to happen but the silence overstays its welcome at the counter.
“Sweetie,” Her voice was soft, worried. She leaned her head to the side like a mum, a kind mum. The kind that would buy you your favourite bandages so you wouldn’t feel bad about being so clumsy. The kind that’d tell you a good night story no matter how old you were. The kind that never does not watch you. But not the kind that hovers to instate order, the kind that lives in your head with the lessons of life. The kind that cares too much, and the kind that loves too much.
You could just fall asleep in her hands, their warmth encapsulated the meaning of comfort. They made you want to never open your eyes. Like you’d fallen into a field of wildflowers under the sun, your skin engulfed in not heat nor hives but something that was purely love, rather stardust and kisses. How pollen sprinkles on your nose.
It was hard to not want to stay. It was bliss in her touch. It hurts to move, physically. To think so poetically. Like your words would one day reside in the minds of scholars or the passageways of archives. Like your soul meant something. If that was love. If that meant you were in love. If the feeling of ghosts engulfing your heart in flames was love. Then love did not begin to explain what it was when she would say his name.
But it was flawless. Truly, utterly flawless.
If that would spark such wars as the scriptures say. If those words, if those sounds that came from her stolen lungs were as dangerous as the fear that created them foretold. Then beauty, then life was benign. Then the fabric of time and space was meant to wrangle. Then it was all meant to crumble. All to hear her words.
If the stars knew the sweet kisses of her melody. If the sky could hear her lyrics. If the gods could fall to her charm as I know they could. Then let her whisper, let her tell, let her soul arrange the heavens themselves.
If to think like that was love. If to fall to the gentile gaze of a burning sun was love. If the sound of the fall of the earth at her hand as he kissed her face, if that was love. If the cacophony of lambent spirits at his ears from her touch was love. If she was love. Then let the madman be damned.