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It was the ringing in her mind that came first. That nagging, blaring noise spreading into every last corner of her consciousness. She wished it would have felt new, painful even, but everything that she could muster up to think was routine.
Routine... ha!
A laugh would’ve crept up her throat wouldn’t it be for the sound that’s currently piercing her eardrums with the force of a thousand supernovas. Maybe two thousand, three thousand, she made a mental note to check later because for now she was neither sure nor in the condition to give those details too much attention. She knew just how long the ringing would empty her mind, she knew how many more seconds she’d have to stand here, hunched over the Tardis console, incapable of moving.
She knew.
Of course, she knew, wasn’t it obvious? Only she could have a routine for losing loved ones over and over and over again.
Another hollow laugh trying to force its way out of her, but she stayed quiet. Just a few more moments, just a few more painful moments.
And the ringing subsided and the silence exploded around her. The quiet hum of the engines, that peaceful touch of her old girl reaching out to her mind, but she pushed it away and pushed herself off the console.
She spun around, almost lifeless. Her coat dragging behind her faintly animated motion.
There was a breath of air on her skin and then nothing. Just silence, just the screaming, antagonising silence she’d been running from all her life. And with the empty void that once again arrived at her feet, also came the tears. Or so she thought.
“That’s new, hadn’t had that in a while.”, she whispered, her hands settling on her hips and then in her pockets.
This time the smile was unavoidable, but it never dared to reach her eyes.
“Always in for a surprise then, are we Doctor?”, another whisper, another bunch of words, meaningless. But she needed to keep talking, she needed to drown the silence around her.
She spun on her heels, facing the console again, her eyes fixed on the never resting time rotor. She allowed herself to have this moment, to lay her fingers on cold metal, forged out of the silver mountains of Gallifrey. She allowed herself the sentiment, just for now, even though she knew she was far from deserving of it.
“I’ve done it again, old girl.”
Her voice was hoarse, reminiscent of the battle she had fought and won. She always won, therein lies the problem.
“I thought they’d be different, you know.”
She looked up now, as if she’d find her answers just like that. Her fingers were still stroking bits of the console, following buttons and levers.
“I told them I couldn’t keep them safe; it was their choice, not mine.”
Oh, bitterness doesn’t suit you, Doctor. She thought. And neither does the anger.
And her eyes dropped back down to where her fingers were resting now.
“It wasn’t their choice. It never is. Show a child an endless field of every dream come true, of every wish granted and tell them not to walk in it, to stay put. I know what they choose, it’s what they always choose.”
The memories came back to her now, the graves, the broken, burning bodies, the tears filling oceans and skies. Every time she tells herself not this time, not them, never them, she’s going to keep them safe, not going to take the risk, not going to turn them into bombs ticking away at their own certain demise.
And there she was again, alone. It always ends here, always starts here.
“How many more times, Doctor?” she said, straining her voice, forcing the sound of it to echo through the console room.
It was now that she missed the tears. At least they would’ve given her a feeling of regret, of honest grief but all that she could feel was time. Time weighing on her soul, on her hearts, both of them so very broken.
How many more times? She felt like a fraud.
Maybe it’s because she never let them take the lead, let them take a piece of her, so that when they leave, the tears would surely follow. But she knew it wasn’t true. She knew that however far she keeps them all away, however loud she raged and burnt, they always kept a piece of her; they always mean something.
So why no tears now then? What could be possibly different this time around?
But there was no answer, just silence, always silence.
“I’m tired.”, she said, almost demanding. “I am so, so tired.”
The sound of her breath and the hammering of her hearts was everything she heard for a while then. The Tardis has gone quiet, maybe she will do the grieving the Doctor couldn’t bear to feel.
But then after seconds, minutes, it might’ve been hours, the scraping of a key caught her attention, a key in a lock, turning and then the clicking and then-
The Tardis doors swung open, drowning the dark and quiet console room in bright white light.
A figure emerged, a shadow, framed by brisk sunbeams, (or was it starlight?) as footsteps, loud and self-assured came closer and closer. With an urgency, the Doctor didn’t know she still had in her, she moved around the console, trying to make out exactly who it was that just dared to burst through her doors unannounced.
But it wasn’t the appearance that gave them away, it was the voice, just as bright and demanding as the light still pouring into the room.
“You’ve done yourself up old girl, how exciting.”
And with that the Doctor almost ran the last view steps, emerging from the shadows she’s been hiding in and finding herself face to face with River Song.
Her River Song.
She froze where she stood. The Doctor felt like lightning and heartbreak, so much heartbreak.
“River?”, she said. Thought? She wasn’t sure, but as River turned into her direction, her head of curls following her in chaotic wonder, she knew her voice didn’t betray her.
The smile on her wife's lips then, oh that beaming, wistful smile that could topple gods (will topple gods, if she liked), it brought life back into her muscles as she closed the gap between them and pulled her wife into a hug so tight, so lasting, that her breath caught in her lungs.
“Sweetie, is that you?” And she laughed, the sound of it reaching right into the Doctor’s chest, right into her hearts.
It felt like healing, it felt like relief.
“My love, I am happy to see you too and I wouldn’t mind all the hugging but I’m in need of a bit more oxygen than I’m currently breathing.” And as if she woke from a dream, the Doctor pulled away from the hug and stepped back, giving River time to adjust. On any other day, in any other moment, she would have been embarrassed, might have looked away just so that she wouldn’t need to give the emotions too much room, too much acknowledgment. But it was River, her River, so alive, so real, there was no force left in the universe that could possibly drag her attention away from her wife’s smile.
“Well hello Sweetie.”, River breathed, her eyes raking up and down the Doctor’s new body.
“Seems like the Tardis isn’t the only one that has done herself up, eh?”
The glint in her eyes grew bigger, almost burning with every naughty thought River would have come up with by now. And knowing River, and oh how the Doctor knew River, there was not a single thought left in that gorgeous head that’d be suitable for children’s ears. But as River caught the look in her (now) wife’s eyes, the glint vanished. They stared at each other, asking how and why and when without ever uttering a single word.
And just like that, River understood.
“I am sorry, my love.”, she whispered, her hands reaching out then, grabbing her wife by her tiny waist, and pulling her back into her embrace. This time though, River knew what she had to do, what she had to say and mustn’t say, as her arms circled around the Doctor’s frame and her chin came to rest on her head.
“I am so, so, so, sorry.”
River kept repeating it like a mantra, kept saying it to her as if she sang a lullaby. As if she sang the universe itself into a dreamless slumber.
The Doctor had no idea just how long they would stand there, how long her head would be pressed against River’s chest; her ears drowned in the soothing sound of River’s twin hearts beating. But as they stood there, as the memories of the last horrifying days fell into an empty void, she could feel it.
The tears. Enough to fill oceans and the skies.
And it was a River that held her, as she finally cried.