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I am a coward, have been and always will be. Sitting here, in my cold and empty ship because you are not around to hold my hand and mend my hearts, I can feel nothing but numb sadness and perforating regret.
I’ve never told you what I truly felt, and now it’s too late, you’re dead and gone. But I loved you River, I swear I did. I do. This love sits in my mind and my hearts, heavy and breathtaking, strong and unbearable. I failed with you, my love, letting you go without knowing it.
But I was weak. When I started falling in love with you, it was all too sudden and scary; I didn’t know what to do. The last time it had happened… It hasn’t turned out well. I’ve told you about her, how Rose helped me out my misery and self-hatred, and how she got stuck in an another universe, with a version of me who wasn’t exactly me. And I was left in this universe, alone, with a broken heart which took too long to fix up.
When I first met you, I admit, I was still lost and broken by this love. The second time, I was finally a new and whole man, and I was convinced that I wouldn’t let it happen with me again. Amelia was a lovely girl, but I didn’t feel like that about her, and she had a fiancée. I would be safe.
How wrong I was. You were too perfect to me, too bespoke. It’s not about the answers, but the right questions. After a long time without being around someone who could thought like me, and see things like I do (including see time like I do), meeting you was like meeting a long lost friend, a haven. We were, we are, the perfect partners in action.
Slowly and yet too fast, I was looking forward to each time I would bump into you and your sharp tongue, wild curls, and easy smile. I was eager for the next time I would wrap my hand around your soft one, and we would run together.
And so I did. Scary and weak, I run away from you. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this again; I knew the results if I made this choice. And worse, I had seen you die already, and more than known that you someday would die, I knew where, when, how and why you would die. You would die to me survive, and, eventually, I would be alone again.
I chose loneliness from the beginning because, this way, I wouldn’t have to mourn you death more than I had back then. I was cruel and cold and heartless. You, although hurt, didn’t let it stop you.
I fought against the feeling for too long, slipping every once in a while: you were always too much for me. I thought flirting a little would be alright, just fun, but your eyes were full of love and affection. I stepped away.
Then… Well, then. I finally found out how amazing and utterly incredible you are, how meant to be we are. Melody Pond, you are a piece of heaven, the expression of one of the most strong unwavering love I’ve ever seen, and you are mine. Carrying the baby Melody in my arms and seeing what she would become… It was when I noticed that loving you wasn’t a choice to be made: I couldn’t avoid it, you were already sealed in my hearts.
It didn’t matter that you tried to kill me in the next time: I was too in love to care.
Some would say that our marriage was a lie, an overthrow to manipulate you. You didn’t felt this way, right? Because I was sincere, my love, I am still. Maybe I have taken part of a great number of marriages through my life, but few of them were real ones for me, and ours was definitely one of them. I married you that night, and I would marry you any night you want. Doesn't matter if it really turned out to save our lives, that fact is just another good part of it.
This is the phase in our relationship that I like to call “honeymoon”. The middle of everything, where we know enough about each other, but not all yet. The important things, at least. I knew how you take your tea and that you hate to sleep wearing socks, while you know that I still can’t stand pears and always take the left side of the bed. You didn’t mind sleeping on the right.
It lasted for a while, and for that I am glad. For some years, I could enjoy the happiness of being a married man and travel around the universe with my beautiful wife, seeing wonders and having adventures. And when you started to become too young and too wild… Well, I managed. In some way, it was still you, still my River, just a little untamed and rough on the corners.
Things were only bad when there was no you to be by my side.
River, I failed with you. I swore on you deathbed that I wouldn’t change one single line of our time together, but I did. I never took you at Darillirium, and you’ve never seen the towers singing. You had told me, while your little hands held that cables too close together, almost touching each other, that I showed up at your doorstep with a new haircut and a suit.
It never happened, my love, because once more I was too weak. I am sorry, River, I am so sorry. Could you forgive me? I almost can hear you whispering “always and forever”, but, somehow, I don’t feel that way.
I know you will never be able to read these last pages of my diary, because, once more, you are dead. I wish you could. I wish I could make it up for you. I wish you weren’t dead because of me. My wild, glorious, marvelous River: you were meant to be alive and spread your magnificence around the whole universe. I teared up your childhood, and I teared up your adulthood… What more could I destroy? Was there something left?
I loved you River. I love you River. I will love you River. In all tense, I love you. I’ve never told you this, but it’s true. I hope I had, at least, let it show, and you hadn't died without knowing.
That’s why I could even use the past tense with you: it’s not like I could think of you like something in the past since you are so much my present. In my heart, you are brighter than anything, and it’s burning me down.
There is a blank page left in my diary, the next one. It is an eternal reminder that what we could have been: forever. And we are, River. Somewhere, in the whole universe, time and space, there is a young me meeting you and a young you meeting me. Somewhere, instead of curled up alone on our bed, I am holding you, you head resting on my shoulder, and we are happy.
Happy. You were the last time I felt this way.
Oh, please, forgive me.
Sincerely yours,
The Doctor.
***
Once, I was told to be the kind of man who knows exactly how many pages a diary would need to contain the whole story. Well, maybe I am. Maybe I do know, even if it is unconscious.
The last page is neither a metaphor nor a mistake. It’s a chance.
I use these last lines to leave a message to myself. There is hope. Even when we last expect, there is hope.
She forgave us. She still loves us. She is sitting here, just by my side, and suddenly I don’t feel so miserable anymore. Holding her small hands between my big and old ones, I’m not alone, and I missed this, more than I can admit.
Someday, she’ll be gone once again, but this time, we’ve got a chance to make it right, to erase our mistakes. If endings are necessary, it’s our opportunity to make it happy. A happy ending, can you believe that? The towers sang beautifully and I feel complete.
Don’t waste it. And I repeat it to myself: don’t waste it.
And don’t be afraid.