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The small house on Luna is nearly eclipsed by vegetation, ivy and lavender and towering trees hiding it from view. He only finds it because he knows it’s there, pushing aside falling tendrils of wisteria to step onto the narrow stone path, past the wildflowers and up the creaking porch steps with the peeling white paint. This is the home of one who is never here long enough to properly look after it. It’s wild and neglected but always warm and welcoming – much like the owner herself.
The Doctor doesn’t bother knocking, using his key to let himself in. The small mudroom is cluttered with muddy boots and clothes River no doubt stripped out of the moment she arrived home from a dig and he tuts to himself, picking everything up in a big messy bundle and carting it to the utility room. He navigates the house with ease, noting the picture frames on the mantle – Amy and Rory, Rory and River, Amy and River, River and her fresh-faced gangly husband. He pauses at that one, frowning at himself – grinning like an idiot at the camera while River hangs off his arm, smiling widely up at his ridiculous face like she can’t see anything else.
He huffs at his own negligence. “Pay attention, numpty.”
Turning on his heel, he marches through River’s cozy living room and through the kitchen to the utility room, dropping his burden on the floor where all the other yet to be laundered items rest. He can’t quite remember how the washing up works so he leaves the room lest he attempt a go and turn all of River’s knickers pink.
He steps into the kitchen again, finally realizing how quiet the house is. He can’t hear anything – not the television, not the radio or River’s scratchy gramophone, not the sound of the shower running. Nothing.
But she’s here. He knows she’s here. He can sense River’s presence like he can sense a good adventure or a life-threatening situation – usually one and the same. Deciding she must be sleeping, he potters about her kitchen and makes tea, trying to be quiet and actually managing to succeed. Where his former self would have dropped the kettle or broken a mug or spilled the tea bags all over the floor and alerted River to his presence with the general racket that preludes his appearances, he actually manages to sneak up on her.
He carries the tea mug to her bedroom down the hall and happens to be lucky enough to find the door unlatched. He nudges it open with his hip and steps into the room, finding his wife sprawled across her bed, wearing one of his old button down shirts and a pair of cotton knickers, fast asleep clutching what looks suspiciously like Amy’s old bathrobe, pink and fuzzy and likely rife with her soft scent.
Hearts clenching, the Doctor approaches the bed carefully and settles the hot mug of tea on River’s bedside table. He settles onto the edge of her mattress with just enough force to jar her awake and she scrambles to sit up, hair wild and eyes rimmed red.
He holds up his hands with a patient sigh before she can reach for the gun she keeps stashed beneath her pillow. “Don’t shoot. It’s just me.”
She rubs at her eyes tiredly and squints at him, looking absurdly fetching half-asleep. “Of course it is. Who else would it be?”
He blinks at her. “You’ve seen this face before?”
River yawns widely. “No.”
“Funny, I think I have.” His frown deepens. “How did you -”
“I should hope I would know my own husband when I see him, sweetie.” As if it isn’t out of the ordinary to have one’s husband arrive home with an entirely different face than the one he left with. River lounges back against her pillow and tugs Amy’s robe closer, using it as a small blanket, nose buried in the collar.
The Doctor eyes her with no small amount of regret. “Am I too late?”
“For what?”
“To tell my wife how sorry I am for losing her parents.”
River glances away immediately, reluctant to meet the weight of his gaze. “They’re not lost. I know exactly where they are.”
“You’ll never see them again, love,” he says gently. “That sounds like loss to me.”
She shrugs as if it doesn’t matter even as she clutches her last piece of her mother to her chest like a precious commodity. “To be fair, I never really had them.”
“That’s my fault too.”
She finally raises her eyes to his, full of disapproval. “Stop taking credit for everything. No one likes an overachiever, my love.”
He scratches at the back of his neck with a wry smile, casting his gaze over her bedroom. Her black dress still lays in the middle of the floor where she’d stripped it off when she arrived and as much as he’d loved the sight of her in it then, he can barely stand to look at it now. He tears his eyes away from it, skimming over the room – more pictures, some of his own clothes hanging in the half open wardrobe, books and class lecture notes and papers to be graded stacked precariously wherever she could find an empty space – and finally lands on the bedside table.
River follows his gaze, nudging him gently. “Is that for me?”
“Oh, yes.” Latching onto the tea mug, he pushes it into her hands, wrapping her small fingers around the warm ceramic. “Enough sugar?” He couldn’t remember how exactly how many she took so he guessed – one for each of his hearts. He’s almost positive he remembers her teasing him about just that.
She takes a tentative sip and smiles. “Perfect. Thank you, sweetie.”
He dips his head, wondering how that name can possibly still make a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth even in a different body. From one regeneration to the next, how long will it take before hello sweetie stops making his hearts sing? The small, selfish part of him unwilling to let go hopes it never does.
River takes another sip of her tea, studying him in silence. “You dropped me off yesterday. Said you’d be right back.”
“So I did.” He raises his head, attempting a smile. “And here I am.”
“Yes, how many centuries later?”
Dropping the smile, he allows the tense line of his shoulders to fall. “As long as it took to be what you needed. I wasn’t then.”
“And now?”
“I couldn’t stay away any longer.”
He wants to reach for her, wants to gather her into his arms and hold her until they both stop aching, but he hesitates, watching her with longing but unable to reach out. It’s River who makes the first move, as always. She slowly sets aside her mug of tea and crawls across the distance between them, settling herself right into his lap like she belongs there even now, even when he looks nothing like the man she married. She tucks her head under his chin, Amy’s robe draped over both of them, and the Doctor forces his arms to move, wrapping them tightly around her.
River melts into his chest and he feels something unknot in his stomach in silent relief. He clings to her, burying his face in her hair. She smells like a combination of his former self, Amelia, and her own unique scent – tweed and jammie dodgers; sunflowers and face powder; ancient dust and Chanel. She smells like the only true home he has never known.
Wrapped up in her, he almost misses River’s quiet, “I suppose I should be grateful they’re together. They’d never be whole without the other.”
He rests his chin atop her head. “Sounds familiar.”
“Liar.”
“Quite right.” He smiles. “You’re just fine without me. I’m the one who flounders aimlessly in your absence.”
She slaps tiredly at his chest but he knows she’s stifling a grin. “Oh, stop it.”
This is where he used to say make me.
It doesn’t feel right anymore.
He tightens his arms around her and drops a kiss into her hair instead.
“I’m glad they’re together.” He waits patiently for her to finish. “But I can’t seem to get rid of little Melody’s voice in my head.”
“What does she say?”
River draws in a quiet breath, radiating reluctance. “’She chose to leave you.’”
At once, his hearts leap into his throat and lodge there. “Oh, River.” He slips a hand into her hair, tilting her face up to his. She lifts her chin but doesn’t quite meet his eyes, staring at his shirt collar instead. “You must know the decision to leave you behind was the hardest Amy ever made.”
“I know.” She still doesn’t look at him, seemingly fascinated with his new throat. “Of course I know.”
He traces his thumb over the delicate shell of her ear, at once grateful that she’s letting him see her this way and grieved that she never did before. “They never forgot you. Amy looked for you everywhere, her whole life. Searching for her lost little girl.” River’s eyes fill up against her will and when she blinks, he catches the tear that slips down her cheek with the soft pad of his thumb. “You were always with her, River.”
River buries her face against his chest, clinging to his coat, and the Doctor hums against her ear, cradling her to him and easing both of them down onto the mattress. Nestled amongst her pillows and rumpled sheets, she curls into his side like a child and the Doctor draws the soft, fuzzy pink robe over both of them. The scent of Amy lingers and for a brief moment when he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine her arms around him – one of those all encompassing Pond hugs.
His eyes sting and he turns to look at River, slipping old fingers over the soft skin of her cheek. She opens her eyes and watches him quietly, lacing her fingers through his other hand. “She told me to look after you and look at you – you’ve gone and regenerated.”
“Couldn’t be helped, dear.” He traces his fingertip over her jaw as if she is the one with the new face to be memorized, his new old eyes drinking her in. “But I promise you’ll get a phone call before it happens.”
River leans into his touch. “Was it painful?”
“Like a sneeze.”
She rolls her eyes and his hearts are buoyed by the sight. “What do you think?” He tilts his head to the side for her careful study, ignoring the sudden racing of his pulse. “Old enough for you?”
She laughs shortly, brow furrowed. “What?”
“’An ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve year old,’” he quotes with a raised brow. Funny how he can’t remember names or past adventures but those words have been stuck to his hearts like glue since the moment she said them. “Insists on.” River looks away and he sighs. “I forget at times that you always know, even the things I’m not ready to admit.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yes, you should have. If you aren’t going to tell me when I’m being an old bampot, who will?” He snorts, hand trailing lightly down her arm. “I never meant to cause you pain trying to be accepted by everyone else.”
River shakes her head, warm fingers closing tightly over his own, stilling his light caress. “It wasn’t your fault. I was angry when I said it but I never really blamed you. How could I?” She kisses his knuckles. “My lonely old man. Of course you wanted to be loved and accepted by your companions. I understood that.”
"But I don't need the young face anymore. I never did."
“Ah, so the old man can still learn something, hm?” She laughs softly, relinquishing his hand to press her soft palm against his cheek.
“Don’t.” He leans away from her touch, frowning. “My last face hurt you.”
Her smile stills, frozen and breakable. “Not by looking young.”
He flinches. “River -”
“Don’t,” she parrots, eyes suddenly serious. “He was the best man he knew how to be at the time. He loved me as fiercely as I did him and more often than not, I was happy. I won’t have you apologizing for him like he wasn’t good enough.”
He nods, swallowing the lump in his throat.
River softens, curling a little closer to him, pillowing her cheek on her palm. “Besides, I loved that face. I loved your cheekbones and all that boyish hair and those stick-outy ears.”
“Even the chin?”
“Especially the chin.”
“You couldn’t possibly have loved the eyebrows.”
“What eyebrows?”
“Too far, wife.”
She laughs brightly.
Feeling a little thrill at the sound, the Doctor leans in and kisses her. River doesn’t even hesitate, opening up under him like a flower leaning toward the sun. She threads small fingers through his gray hair and sighs, lips parting. She tastes exactly the same as she always does, much to his relief, except newer and brighter somehow. Like being able to read your favorite book for the first time all over again.
When they part, he presses his forehead against hers and blinks. “Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“Baby face.”
River smiles. “The face has never mattered, my love. It’s the man underneath I gave my hearts to.”
He sighs, letting her nuzzle her nose against his cheek. “Must you always be so dreadfully understanding?”
“I’m your wife. It’s my job.” She huddles closer, head pillowed on his chest, curves pressed against his side. She tilts her face up to look up at, as though she can’t keep her eyes off him for long or he’ll disappear. “I do like this one though.” She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, eyeing him with clear interest.
He suddenly feels a little too warm for the pink fuzzy robe as he clears his throat. “Do you?”
River presses a hand to his cheek, light fingertips tracing over the lines on his face with loving curiosity, as if she is cartographer mapping new land. “Very distinguished. I like the eyes.” She smiles, brushing a soft thumb over his eyelid. “Though I suddenly feel like less of a bad girl, having a husband who looks legal…”
He huffs grumpily at her teasing, capturing her wrist and pressing a biting kiss to the delicate skin there. “Look at it from my perspective. If Gallifrey was still in power, I would be a social outcast for marrying you – you’re far too young for me.”
“Really?” She looks delighted, of course.
He stifles a grin. “Rest assured, my heart, you are just as bad as you’ve always been.”
“That’s certainly a relief.” She grins. “How long are you staying?”
He kisses her again, because he wants to and he can, both of them warm and snug in her bed, huddled beneath Amelia Pond’s fluffy dressing gown. “As long as you like.”
“Nowhere to be?”
“Just coffee in Glasgow." He smiles. "It’ll keep.”