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The Doctor inspects the orange between her hands by tossing it from side to side, debating if she should let her nails dig into the skin. It’s an orange, she tries to remind herself, but everything feels like a failure if done carelessly enough.
The ‘Hello sweetie’ message from the TARDIS screen stares at her like a threat. You haven’t met River in this body yet and you’re going to mess it up.
The orange is supposed to be a gift for whatever date River has planned for them, but this body can’t handle it.
She can’t keep failing River. Not when her love is the only one she’s been able to keep.
She’s given her more and she’s given her less than an orange before. She’s given River galaxies and she’s given River a daisy she found while on her way to her. What is it about this regeneration that can’t handle a fruit?
Her fingers tremble in a way that’s all too familiar and she has to put the fruit down to deal with it. She instead goes to pluck at the ends of her coat so her hands can’t do anything destructive. Her body itches and cries and craves contact as punishment and she knows what it means.
There is a wound that goes deeper than muscle and bone that the Doctor has never been able to get rid of. Ever since her tenth regeneration (or is it her eleventh? It’s terrifying how she can’t keep track anymore), she’s felt it; this worry pulled up from deep in her heart and spread through her body like an infection.
One day River Song might not like one of her regenerations.
There must be preferences surely, even the Doctor can agree she likes some of her regenerations more than others, but ever since she’s met River, she can’t help but feel unnerved that a version of her won’t be enough anymore. It is terrifying to enter a body that a woman you love hasn’t loved yet. What if the next body disappointed River? What if the next body failed her?
A woman, River would like, but this one? This loud, adrenaline-filled, mess she’s become? Destruction follows the Doctor like a lost puppy and River is forever entangled in the debris. Who is she to let herself hope this time it’ll be different when the only common thread between her regenerations is failure and loneliness?
Case and point: Oranges.
She can peel an orange for River Song, can’t she?
‘Hello, Sweetie’ flashes on the screen again, a sign of impatience from the TARDIS’ part, and the Doctor tries to concentrate on the fruit in front of her. She picks it up again and with her left hand slowly starts to pick at the skin and tear it open. Minutes feel like an eternity as she trains hands used to kill to do something far more gentle.
Then the TARDIS gets too impatient, and before the Doctor can notice it entered River’s coordinates on its own, they’re flying again.
“Hey! What was that for? I was getting there!”
The TARDIS doesn’t pay her the slightest bit of attention. It rumbles and groans as it steers against all of the Doctor’s instructions, thrashing about in time and space in what the Doctor can only assume is an attempt to drive itself calmly.
She quickly forgets about it all though, because when she looks down, her hand has gripped onto the orange for dear life and splattered the juice all over her clothes.
A task so simple and yet the fact remains: The Doctor will always ruin everything she touches.
The TARDIS screeches the entire ride towards River and the Doctor holds back tears, her fingers sinking into the orange, destroying something already long broken.
Maybe that is all she is destined to do.
━━━━━━━━
She doesn’t notice River arrive and that’s perhaps more embarrassing than crying with orange juice spilled all over her hands. All she could do was… sit there. Sit in her mess and accept the prickly itch of her skin as punishment for being herself.
“Oh, sweetie, what happened?” River’s voice says from behind her, calm yet unsure as she finds a seat next to her.
When she reaches out to take the orange from her hands, the Doctor flinches and slides away. “No I’m– Did I make you wait long?”
River doesn’t answer the question and it shakes the Doctor to her core. Like mother like daughter, wait for the alien no matter how many times they break your heart.
“River,” comes out as more of a sob than an actual name, but River seems to recognize it all the same, “I’m so sorry. Oh River, I’m so sorry. I wanted to give you a gift. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“An orange?”
“I wanted to peel an orange for you. That’s a thing on Earth. They like it so I thought you’d also–”
River’s face falls into something between pity and forgiveness and the Doctor hates both so she looks away and shuts her eyes. It doesn’t even do much, she’s spent lifetimes laying on her back in the TARDIS and tracing out every wrinkle on River’s face. Her eyes are closed but she still has a perfect image of the woman next to her and her look of utter disappointment.
It’s an orange, the Doctor reminds herself, except it isn’t. Is she so full of fury that she’ll never be able to hold anything delicately anymore? When she reaches out to hold River's hand will her nails turn into claws.
She can feel River’s hand hover above her wrist and shoots up terrified. No, not this time. She won’t let River get hurt this time. She wants to reach out and take her hand but her nails turn into claws and the beast inside her rumbles for contact. It begs for a body to ruin. No, she can't let herself hurt her anymore.
She opens her eyes to see River on the floor, a tear falling down her cheek, and she's hurt anyway.
There is no world that River Song can live in where the Doctor doesn’t let her down.
Orange juice has dried against her skin, so when the Doctor moves her hands to gesture, her fingers are stiff with her failures, and she lets it be a reminder that she needs to learn to keep River at arm’s length. She’s had her glory days, those last two regenerations with her wife, maybe it’s time to let go.
“Doctor–”
“No, you don’t get to talk me out of it this time. We’re not good for each other.”
“I’m in love with you, as I always have been, as I always will be,” River tells her. Her eyes are kind and her hair is beautiful and the Doctor hadn’t even noticed the dress she was wearing but now it’s all she can think about. How could she hurt this woman? How could she let herself be selfish and hurt her if it meant keeping her?
“You are not in love with me.”
River scoffs. It’s playful, and she’s trying to lighten the mood and give the Doctor an easy escape but she won’t take it this time. She deserves to be held responsible for once. River, however, doesn’t seem to care for her wishes, “Yes I am, I’ve been in love with you all my life.”
“No you’re not I– I made you fall in love with me, when we got married we didn’t have a choice! You are so much more than me. I can’t peel some stupid orange for you!”
When River laughs it’s full of sadness and fear and the Doctor wishes she didn’t know that, but the sound is too familiar. She knows what River’s fright sounds like, and it’s always gentle. No matter how much of a monster the Doctor has been, she remains soft. “Sweetie, it’s just an orange.”
“If I can’t do this for you, who am I?”
“You’re my Doctor.”
“No, I’m not. Your Doctor saved the world because he loved you, I can barely give you this.”
Orange juice stings the cuts in her fingers but the Doctor keeps squeezing the fruit in her left hand anyway, as if holding it tight enough will bring it back. It’s an orange (so many companions dead) and the juice is running down her fingers (Gallifrey’s blood is on her hands and she will never be clean of them) and the skin is getting stuck under her nails (and River has taken care of her for so long and all she has to repay her is a rotten fruit and a rotten heart).
She doesn’t notice River get up and go into one of the TARDIS rooms and come back holding some napkins. She doesn’t notice she’s crying until River wipes away her tears and then wipes away the juice from her hands. River holds her hands while they’re dirty, holds them until they’re clean, and doesn’t stop holding them even after. She gives one-two-three soft squeezes on her left palm and the Doctor forces herself to look up.
“You’re my Doctor, whether you like it or not,” River says, and she’s beautiful, and the Doctor isn’t, “and you might not know it, but I know you are destined for more than destruction. You are love and life itself. You are my shining sun. You are my wife and my savior and a sore loser and too inside your head.”
“I disappoint you,” the Doctor admits. Her voice is barely above a whisper, a silent confession towards the only person she’ll ever worship and whose forgiveness she doesn’t deserve.
“You scare me,” River clarifies, “it hurts to know that this is what you think of yourself when I’m not around.”
“You can’t take care of me forever.”
“I can try, my dear. And so I shall.”
River helps her get a new shirt to replace the one she stained, and she helps the Doctor put her coat back on, and once she goes into the TARDIS kitchen she comes back with an orange much like the one the Doctor had before.
River peels it perfectly and splits it into two pieces with her hands. Unlike the Doctor, those hands have always been destined to love. When her hand brushes against the Doctor, River holds it a little longer than she should, so they can share the contact of having done something together.
“I’m sorry I freaked out,” the Doctor tries. She inspects the orange in her hand like a foreign concept, and watches how it goes from a perfect semi-circle to distorted and less colorful once it’s in her hand.
“I love you anyways.”
The Doctor knows it’s true, but she doesn’t mind River repeating it one more time, just so she can be sure.
With an idea, the Doctor bites into her half of the orange, juice squirting everywhere and staining the shoulder of River’s dress, and opens her mouth to show her the wide grin of orange against her teeth.
River doesn’t mention anything about the stain of her dress. She simply smiles.
The Doctor decides she doesn't want to learn how to peel oranges if River will do it for her.
