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“Then you may kiss the bride...”
“I’ll make it a good one,” he said, and his tongue darted out over his lips. He swallowed hard.
“You’d better.” And then he was kissing her or she was kissing him or they were kissing each other, and it didn’t matter which because it restarted time and space and oh! she was so sweet and ardent and younger than she had been the last time they had kissed. She sighed into his mouth and their free hands crept up each other's arms and their bound hands clasped as though they would never let go.
And elsewherewhen in time and space his Doctor-Suit died... (You are forgiven, always and completely forgiven)... but the Doctor inside was alive and waiting for his River Song.
He didn’t go to the trial; the flaw in this timey-wimey plan was that the Tesselecta was gone and a disguise would be difficult. A murder victim appearing at the trial of his killer? That just wasn’t done. But he made sure that there would be people there that he trusted. Some of them he even liked, though River didn’t/wouldn’t. He knew the Bishop would treat her fairly, if not actually kindly, and it was all he could do for her until she was in Stormcage.
Then they would have the nights.
Earlier for both of them:
“She will be amazing.”
She didn’t think he knew she was still awake, and she was so very tired. But that phrase, that one sentence coming from him, well, she knew everything would be alright eventually, and she thrilled down to her toes with that knowledge.
Mels had been forced to kill him, and River had saved him by choice. But he had begun to love her much earlier in his own timeline and he knew it even then, though he fought against it. He wasn’t actually sure when it had started... but the first time he had acknowledged the attraction even to himself... (River Song, I could kiss you!)... was when she had fixed the teleport and saved Amy from the Angels. It wasn’t just saving Amy that did it. It was that she could keep up, she was as clever as he, and venting his frustrated anger at her didn’t feel like kicking a defenceless puppy as it did when he shouted at a human. Maybe it was then that some spark in the back of his mind clued in that she wasn’t fully human, that she was more, and that was when he could let himself fall, knowing she would catch him.
He should have figured it out before of course, and maybe he had... (There’s only one time I could)... on some level. But the first time he was aware of it consciously was there in the crashed Byzantium with no hope in sight. And now, as he lounged in the doorway of the room and suggested that he had lied about knowing River would use up all her regenerations for him, it was perfectly clear that they were meant to be together. She wasn’t an adolescent human with a crush, his River, and he wasn’t the angry man who needed that kind of innocent love anymore. She was a peer, an equal, and a fitting match for him, in all senses of the word. He should have realised after Demon’s Run, but he was... thick where his relationship with River Song was concerned. She did things to his mind and his body that he couldn’t explain, even to himself.
Still earlier for him and quite a bit later for her:
River Song watched the blue box dematerialise and tried without success to swallow the lump in her throat. He was gone, she had frightened him away, and it was all over. Oh, she knew that there would be other times they met, but he barely knew her, didn’t trust her and oh bless she was alone again. She stood in the open door of her cell in Stormcage, staring at the space where the TARDIS had been, tears in her eyes and that damn lump in her throat, and eventually one of the older guards came by and startled River by being... well, kind to her. He didn’t berate her, didn’t even ask why her door was unlocked, just took a look at her face and took her gently by the elbow, steering her into the cell and settling her in her one chair.
“Can I call anyone for you, Doctor Song?” he said softly.
“No thank you.” Her voice sounded faint, as though it was very far away. “I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t look - or sound - fine to him, but he just patted her hand. “I’ll check on you in a couple of hours, Doctor,” he said and watched her get even paler. She closed her eyes as if in pain, but then she took a deep breath, opened them, and smiled at him. The smile did not reach her eyes, which were bleakly anguished, and he patted her hand again and left, locking her door carefully behind him.
When the next pass of his rounds came about two hours later, River Song was gone.
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“River, get them all safely home!”
It was enough to make a cynical old man like the Doctor believe in fate. River Song was human plus. Human plus Time Lord. So he went to find her, told Sexy to take him to her when and where she felt best. He hadn’t expected this time and place. River, I am so sorry, he thought, oh my River how could I do this to you?
He sonicked the cell door open and she looked up, slowly as though the energy required was too much for her. Her face was swollen and splotchy and her eyes were red from crying and he wanted to cry himself at the sight of her. His River Song, weeping because of him, because he’d run from her and yet... and yet she forgave him. Always and completely. Certainly she had forgiven him this by the time the Pandorica had opened, and he felt humbled by the very thought.
So he went to her, lifted her right off the chair into a tight hug and murmured apologies for running away, for leaving her alone, and if she knew he cried a few tears into the wild halo of her hair, she never mentioned it. Eventually he loosened his grip on her and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair and laying little kisses down to the delicate curve of her ear. “River,” he said hoarsely into it, emotion still threatening to overcome him, “Will you come with me? Please?” She pulled away to look at his face. “Please River, I’ve just realised... I came here from Demon’s Run and I...”
“I’m so sorry,” she said simply, and the expression on her face was one of true regret. “I said terrible things to you there, I...” But the last word was muffled by the press of his lips on hers and she sighed into his mouth as he swept her up and into the blue box he - they - called home.