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[Darillium]
The first two years ended in disappointment. River had always harboured the secret fear that the Silence had made sure that she, like her mother, wouldn’t be creating any more Time Lords. But she hadn’t been under their control since she’d regenerated… except for Lake Silencio. She didn’t think they’d taken her anywhere but directly into the lake, but it was all a blur. There was really no way of knowing for sure.
And then there was the question of how genetically compatible she and the Doctor even were. All things considered, she did seem more Time Lord than human in most physical aspects. She’d never had a human woman’s sort of cycle, but that could potentially be down to Kovarian’s work as well. And after all, she was part human, and she was over two hundred years old. Maybe it was already far too late, simply because of her own biology.
They didn’t have any precedent for what the interval of fertility for a human/Time Lord hybrid might be, either, so they just had to maximise their chances by trying very frequently. And her Doctor was dedicated to going above and beyond when it came to fulfilling his important new duties.
So, it definitely wasn’t all bad.
But, River thought bitterly as the TARDIS scans left them disappointed yet again, it seemed like she’d wasted her time getting a birth control implant back in the 51st century.
Her nerves would’ve been absolutely shot from their repeated failures, if the Doctor weren’t so damn wonderful about it all. He looked back from the monitor to her with that untroubled, easy smile, and she knew. He’d seen it, somehow. It was already written: it would happen for them someday. So in spite of the heavy ticking of the countdown of their final years and all the “what ifs” whirling round in her head, she smiled back at him.
“Not to worry, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled her close. He kissed her temple and one of his arms travelled down her back. “I’m on the job.”
River laughed in delight as he scooped her up and carried her bridal-style out of the control room and toward the bedroom.
“Back to work already?” she teased.
“Putting in overtime,” he replied as he kicked the door shut behind them. “Want to get in good with the boss,” he added with a crooked grin.
River groaned. “That was terrible.”
“You love it,” he muttered as he laid her down on the bed.
She didn’t bother replying, wrapping her arms around his neck instead. He kissed her until her head was swimming with him; with love and desire and the joyful comfort of being wrapped up in each other, pushing away all of her fears. He moved his lips to her cheek and her neck, travelling slowly down her body, pausing to help her out of her clothes as he went. When he parted her legs and pressed a warm, wet kiss to her inner thigh, River shuddered.
“You won’t get the job done like that, darling,” she teased breathlessly.
The Doctor glanced up and arched an eyebrow at her, one corner of his mouth curling up slightly. “I’ve got more than one job,” he said, before he lowered his head again and she lost the ability to think or say anything but oh, yes.
_
River rolled onto her side as the Doctor collapsed back on the pillow beside her, breathing heavily. His eyes were closed, his hair wildly mussed, and there was a soft, satisfied smile on his lips. She probably looked much the same, dazed and blissful, her heart still pounding in her ears. She reached out for his hand, and his eyes opened as he turned toward her and laced his fingers through hers.
“Hi,” she said hoarsely.
“Hi,” he replied, and that soft, loving smile that spread across his face made her insides melt a little more.
“I love you.”
“Good thing,” he rumbled, leaning in close and kissing the bridge of her nose, “’cause I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
River smiled wistfully. “Not as much as I’d like to be.”
“It won’t be forever,” he said gently. “We both know a thing or two about waiting. We’ll get through it.”
“I know. I’m just suddenly wishing I’d slept less for the past nineteen years. Or worked less. Or did anything that wasn’t this less,” she moved in closer to rest her head on his shoulder and bury her face in his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her.
“We’ll have time, sweetheart,” he said softly, by her ear. “I’ll make sure of it.”
She nodded, breathing him in and squeezing him tight.
___
It happened on a Sunday morning. The Doctor was doing a fry-up for breakfast, with Vincent draped lazily over his shoulders, no doubt biding his time for a chance at a bit of bacon. River was sat at the worktop reading, and Nardole was digging through the pantry for something neither of them had cared to inquire after, when a ding sounded from somewhere in the kitchen.
“What’s that?” Nardole asked, his head popping out from behind the door.
“Not mine,” River mumbled absently, looking back down at her book.
“Not mine,” the Doctor echoed from over by the cooker.
“Are you sure, sir?” Nardole asked suspiciously. “You’ve always got something going in one or another of the cabinets.”
“Well, I haven’t now,” the Doctor said.
Ding.
“There it is again!” said Nardole.
“You’ve got ears, well done Nardole.”
“Sir,” he went on in a scolding tone, “what if you’ve left a levain in the speedy cabinet and it’s exploded the bucket again?”
“That was one time!” the Doctor sputtered.
River smirked in amusement but kept her eyes on her reading.
“What if the sous vide is still going and all the water’s run out?”
Ding.
“Go and bloody check, then!” the Doctor grumbled. “I’m not having the bacon burn.”
River saw Nardole out of the corner of her eye, making his way round the perimeter of the absurdly engorged kitchen and investigating every cupboard and bit of equipment.
Ding.
Finally, she looked up and closed her book. “It doesn’t even sound like it’s coming from the cabinets. It’s all over. Is it the phone?”
“Well it’s not ringing, and you know we haven’t got an answerphone,” the Doctor said. “I’m against answerphones.”
Ding.
“I can’t find anything,” Nardole called from the far end of the kitchen.
“Maybe she wants something?” the Doctor asked, glancing over his shoulder at River.
The dinging ceased and the cloister bell chimed, once.
“Ah,” he said. “All yours, then, honey.”
River sighed and closed her eyes, reaching out to the TARDIS. Through the strange, wordless communication she shared with her ‘mother,’ she discerned a message that the humanoid part of her mind roughly equated to Console room. Bring our thief.
“Well, we’ve been summoned,” she said, rising from her stool. “Console room.”
“This ought to be interesting,” the Doctor replied as he turned to face her. “Nardole, on the hob, please!”
“Yes, sir,” Nardole muttered sullenly as he made his way over to take the Doctor’s place cooking breakfast. Vincent stretched and jumped down from the Doctor’s shoulders to continue observing the preparations from the worktop.
The Doctor took River’s hand and they walked through the lounge to the linen cupboard that led to the console room. Inside, the monitor was flashing above the console and emitting the same repetitious ding they’d heard in the kitchen.
It was the now-very-familiar testing screen. It said ‘positive.’
“What?” River sputtered, frozen in disbelief. “We didn’t even run a scan, what is she talking about?”
She dared a glance over at the Doctor just in time to see his face, eyebrows furrowed and mouth slack with shock, slowly transform into a grin.
“She must have been scanning you on her own,” he said, turning to face her, the excitement in his expression and voice building by the second. “How often does a TARDIS get to be a grandmother?”
The time rotor vwoorped twice, cheerfully.
“You think this is real?” River whispered, trying to push down her bubbling excitement as she stared into her husband’s elated face. She couldn’t get ahead of herself. Nothing was certain yet.
“Let’s check it again!” he said, quickly mashing a series of buttons on the console.
The screen reset. Positive.
He laughed, grabbing her hands and beaming. “River, we did it!”
It was all sort of in slow motion, her brain processing each bit of input at half-speed. Gradually she realised she was smiling, and also that her vision had gone all blurry, and the blur that was the Doctor’s face was approaching hers. Then he was holding her and kissing her and hot tears were running down her cheeks and she was smiling against his mouth, and slowly it started to feel like something that could possibly be real. That they really were making a life and a family together, and even if she had to die, she’d come back to him, to them.
“River, honey, are you happy?” the Doctor asked when their lips parted.
“Oh, sweetie, yes,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “But it’s still really early, I just don’t want to get too…”
The Doctor shook his head vehemently. “Don’t you worry about anything. I’ll take care of both of you, and look, the Old Girl’s already keeping an eye on things. Remember, I’ve probably got way more regeneration energy than I’ll ever need now, so if you so much as have a back-ache, River, I swear, I don’t care if you slap me—”
She grabbed his stupid, wonderful face and kissed him to shut him up, and he responded eagerly. She could feel his mind buzzing with nervous, overjoyed energy, melting into her own chaotic swirl of emotion. She let herself get completely lost in the soft, passionate heat of his kiss, in the firm comfort of their tight embrace. She was home.
He insisted on carrying her back to bed again, both of them giggling and grinning and stunned.
“Oh, River,” the Doctor sighed, leaning over her. “My brilliant wife.” He had the most beautiful smile on his face as he looked down at her and brushed a curl out of her eyes. “I love you so much.”
He cupped her cheeks in his hands, covering her face with light kisses, in between softly muttered promises and words of love. His lips landed on hers and lingered there, and she deepened the kiss, pulling him roughly down to her so they were pressed completely together.
River was still realising over and over again, moment after moment, that it was actually real. The gravity of it pulled her outside of her present self, outside of their time on Darillium, until she was looking in from afar. Here was her Doctor, after nearly two full linear decades spent together, laughing and crying and promising lifetimes together for their new little family of three. And it wasn’t some bittersweet dream that she’d soon wake from alone. It was truly theirs. It was the start of a future that was theirs.
They ended up forgetting all about breakfast.
Poor Nardole had learned already not to come knocking.
___
Two months in, River had no major complaints about pregnancy. The Doctor told her that while pregnant human women might be said to “glow,” Gallifreyan women, in a sense, did so literally. Thanks to the artron and regeneration energy being created in the new little Time Lord, she received some rejuvenating benefits as well. Of course, he had to follow with River-specific examples, which resulted in him showering her in poetic compliments whilst doing a hands-on exploration. Who said she needed to be feeling sick to spend most of the day in bed?
The Doctor also theorised that living in the TARDIS was another advantage for her and the baby. All Time Lords had a symbiotic relationship of psychic and artron energy with their TARDISes to some extent, which helped them through regeneration when it occurred onboard. But River’s unique kinship with the TARDIS went far deeper, and he guessed that it could only help.
The fact that she felt perfectly fine, if a bit tired, did not stop the Doctor from constantly doting on her either, though that wasn’t exactly a recent thing. It was hard to remember they were nearing the end of their time here, when everything was so wonderful, when a huge new adventure was just beginning.
___
One day, the TARDIS phone rang while River was in the shower.
“I’ll get it!” the Doctor shouted from the bedroom. A minute later, the chiming ceased.
River had finished her shower, dried and dressed, and was doing her hair by the time he returned to the bedroom, shaking his head and looking dazed.
“Darling?” she asked, her chest tightening with dread as she caught his reflection in the vanity mirror. “What is it?”
His eyes finally focussed on her as she turned around in her chair. “Oh, nothing’s wrong, dear,” he said quickly, crossing the room to her and reaching for her hand.
River instantly deflated in relief as he squeezed her fingers reassuringly.
“Sorry. Just… surprised.” He shook his head again, laughing softly to himself.
“What is it?” she asked again, as he released her hand to sit across from her on the edge of the bed.
“Well,” he said, glancing down at the floor, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head again— he couldn't seem to stop doing that— “spoilers, but… you know I knew. That this would happen for us someday. A, um, baby." He met her eyes and smiled, the word still sounding novel and mad and wonderful on their tongues.
“You were pretty obvious,” River teased, trying to subdue her nervousness. Deciding she was too far away, she rose from her seat at the vanity and joined the Doctor on the edge of the bed.
“Pot, kettle,” he replied, smiling and wrapping an arm around her. “But, it turns out...” he let out another little breath of disbelieving laughter, and laid his other hand on River’s stomach, not quite yet beginning to show. “She’s not the one I knew about.”
“You what?” River responded abruptly, before her brain and her mouth had conferred.
The Doctor met her eyes and smiled. “It’s a girl, and she’s not going to be our last.” He laughed again. “Well, I guess I did say I hoped there would be surprises for both of us.”
“How— how do you know?” she asked, feeling a smile spread across her face even as she tried to get a handle on what she was hearing. “Who phoned?”
The Doctor stared at her for a long moment, his blue eyes soft and bright, before he seemed to come to a decision. He reached up to brush his hand over her cheek before twining his fingers into her hair.
Finally, he replied, “Amelia.”