Chapter Text
“That most certainly is the Doctor,” said the old man. “And he most certainly is dead.” He set the gas can beside the corpse. “He said you’d need this.”
River’s face was tragic as she told Amy and Rory what they had to do. “We’re his friends,” she said. “We do what the Doctor’s friends always do.” She glanced at the old man before making her next statement to Rory. “As we’re told.”
It was River and Rory who lifted the inert body onto the boat, but it was River and the old man who lay the gasoline, while Rory held Amy tightly. She couldn’t bear the smell in her condition, and had to stand far back. The old man gazed at River over the boat. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I know what you were to each other.”
River smiled at him bravely. “There’s a time for everything,” she said evenly. “You know that as well as I do. I always knew this had to happen.” She was much calmer than he’d thought she’d be, given the circumstances. But her next words made perfect sense to him. “ It was time to let him go.”
“I’m proud of you,” he whispered. “I always have been. You’re about to meet me for the first time,” he added. “I’ll have no idea who you are.”
“That’s pretty common with me,” River said with a smile. “I can handle it.”
“Oh, you will,” Canton chuckled. He glanced over at Amy and Rory. “I guess they can’t know, can they.”
River shook her head. “Not yet. Not anything.”
“Am I right in thinking she’s pregnant?” Canton asked.
River nodded.
“Beginning and the end,” he mused. “Birth and death. They always mingle with you, don’t they.”
“It was always hardest on you,” River said gently.
He glanced over at Amy and Rory, finding comfort in each other. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I had Stephen, after all. Who do you have?”
River touched the Doctor’s pale face, her fingertips lingering over his eyes. “Him still,” she said with a smile. “Time is subjective. Particularly between him and me. I’ll see him again. Even you might.”
The old man shook his head. “No,” he said. “This is where it begins, and this is where it ends. He’s told me when it was time for a few other things, too.” He tapped at his chest where his heart still beat. “Counting the minutes.”
River blanched, and she sucked in a breath. “I know,” she said quietly. “But I didn’t know you did. It was cruel of him to tell you.”
He shook his head, a sad smile on his face. “I got to see you one last time,” he said. “There’s nothing cruel about that.”
“Yes there is.”
“You know him. All his greatest gifts are tinged with pain. That’s what makes them precious. Would you have had him any other way?”
River shook her head almost imperceptively.
“Shame he had to die to come full circle.”
“It’s the way it has to be,” River said. “You know how that works.”
“Yes,” he said. “I guess we all do.”