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He used to remember when he couldn’t stand time passing by slowly, one second after another. He would go mad thinking about how humans were able to survive such boredom. He was a Time Lord, for God’s sake. Time Lord, Lord of Time, someone who could control where and when and how. Funny thought, but thuth was the Doctor had no time for the time itself.
But in this moment, he was with her. The woman who made time disintegrate because didn’t want to harm him. She hasn’t much more patience as he has about time passing normally around her, but right now both of them could use something like that.
Actually, they kind of wish time would stop, and then go back just a couple of minutes, because it was almost painful that he got to call himself a Time Lord but was not able to give them more time.
The Doctor asked himself for so many years why Darillium? Why the singing towers? What’s so special about the place, why would I take her there in our last night together? He found out, eventually, after centuries avoiding the mention of this place, that one night in Darillium meant 8760 nights. And he was almost grateful for that. Almost.
Because everything ends, sooner or later. And nobody knows it like the Doctor.
“So, seven days.” Her voice woke him up from his thoughts.
“Yes! Seven days! In seven days we will be celebrating the day I found you again. Well, you found me. Nah, I found you, I definitely found you. Okay, what should we do this morning? I feel like I could use some breakfast. Do you think they’ll be serving that fi-”
“Doctor.” River cuts him off before he starts to ramble that much. She has spent her last almost 24 years just with him, she knew him, and she knew he was pretending to ignore the facts while all of them surrounded his head.
He sighed. Damn, River being the one who knows him the most could be annoying sometimes.
“Let’s not… Don’t. Just don’t.”
“You can’t just ignore that we’re running out of time, my love.”
“Well, you can’t just ignore that we still have time. Please, please, don’t think about that yet.”
And just like that she gave up, because he was right. They did not mention it again in the next day, or after. But he knew it was banging inside her head, just like it was inside of his.
So they pretended they had all the time in the world: staying in bed till late in the morning, sharing stories (yes, because even after years they still had a lot to tell) and adventures, just so later they could be at one of their own adventures. They would get the Tardis, fly somewhere, fight aliens, save lots of people, and after the action he would be a gentleman, hopeless romantic and take her to dinner, and parties, and balls in an old castle where the court thought River Song was their queen. Well, she actually was. Long story.
They were having the time of their lives, and it was coming to an end.
For years, he tried to hide that everytime they were back to Darillium in the Tardis, he would land minutes before the time they left. She did not noticed at first, too excited about those trips to care about anything else, but at that point he could tell she already knew.
After all this time, he was still trying to prove time was not the boss of him.
In this little game, minute by minute being added at the end of each day, he was proud to confirm they had a little more extra time. He could do it forever, but it was River, so at some point she was going to do the “don’t you dare” speech.
When they laid in bed on their last night in Darillium, the brave Doctor Song, who shot Sontarans for fun and made a Dalek beg for mercy (he LOVED that story, he made her tell him the whole thing over and over again for months) cried.
Not a silent cry like she was used to, after all her life hiding how she felt. She wasn’t hiding anything, not anymore. She let her fear go away along with the tears on her face, her fingers on his own, their lips so close but not touching yet. The Doctor looked at his wife with such love in both of his hearts he could feel the walls of the room melting around them. She finally returned the gaze and they just stayed that way, tangled in bed in the last planet they would ever be together as husband and wife. No need for an adventure that night; just them, looking at each other, exploring their own minds, was enough.
“I wish I could say something.” The Doctor murmured in her hair, the wonderful scent of her so strong that made his throat close. “Not really good putting feelings into words, this version of me.”
“Oh, sweetie…” She smirks. “There’s 13 versions of you and none of them were good with that.”
He pretends to be hurt.
“Hey! The bowtie one, the last one- he was good with words!”
“You have to be joking.”
“Wh-what?! The speeches, that was quite something. Remember the Pandorica one?”
“Yeah, right, because the bowtie one was better at talking about his feelings to a sky full of Daleks than to his wife.”
She had a point. They smiled to each other: his quietly saying sorry and hers saying it was ok.
“Still, I wanted to say something. Right here, right now. I wanted to be able to give you a last memory of me. At the same time, I know whatever I’m about to say won’t be enough.”
“We don’t have anything left to say to each other.” She climbed a little in her pillow to look at him properly. “I’ll miss you? Too vague. I’ll think about you everyday? I don’t want you to, don’t be a nostalgic idiot. I love you? Nah, too ordinary. We don’t have words to say to each other because words do not define us at all. We’re more than that, we’re legendary, we’re the couple old stories talk about. We are not humans, it doesn’t work like that to us.”
The Doctor listened to her, trying to understand how and when the River he met in Hitler’s office became this strong woman who was good enough to him.
He raised his always attacked eyebrows to her, trying not to drop the tears forming in his eyes.
“Well then, Professor River Song. Always your way. How is it going to be, then? Our last goodbye?”
She softly touched his hair, a new habit of hers that he seems to enjoy, and smiled a little. As usual, she was always the strong one.
“Let’s just not have one. It’s not like we’ve finished here.”
He then closed his eyes, that feeling of being completely powerless invading him, just like the other times before when he wasn’t able to save those who he loved. And of course she noticed, because she knew. River always knew.
“You’ve saved me already. In so many ways. So many times. Please, let the last one on me.” She managed to whisper through her own pain to heal his own.
And then just like the first time for him, he grabbed her face, and kissed her for dear life, surprisingly like that kiss they shared on Stormcage so many years ago. Like they were ending exactly the same way they started. His hand cupping her face and his lips on hers said more than words ever could.
Breaking for air, nose to nose, trying to ignore his head spinning and both hearts beating so loud she could hear (because yeah, of course after billions of years she still had that effect on him), he finally managed to say:
“I’ve never saved you from anything. You’ve saved yourself. Don’t give me the credit. And you’ll probably keep doing that. Forever.” She did not say a thing, and he took that as his chance to keep going. “Besides, you were right about one thing.”
“What?”
“It’s not like we’ve finished here.” His own words said a long time ago were loud in his head. You’re always here to me, and I always listen, and I can always see you. “I bet my life there is more.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Because that’s just who we are, River.” He said as she cuddled closer, putting her arms around him, her head on his neck.
She breathed in, and in that moment, it was like time was kind enough to freeze and make that last couple of minutes together sound like infinity.
“You and me.” She said, at last. “There’s never a last run.”