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He doesn’t know.
After the initial shock of a strange woman appearing in the middle of the TARDIS in a crackle of electricity fades, it’s pretty obvious. Clara eyes her up and down with intrigue and more than a bit of interest in those wide brown eyes, and River smirks. The Doctor, however, remains oblivious. Not about to break it to him – at least not without having a bit of fun first – she fluffs her hair and allows herself to be blatantly ogled. It certainly isn’t the first time and at least Clara only has two hands. “Hello sweetie.”
“Hello,” Clara purrs, leaning across the console with a smile. “My, aren’t we friendly?”
“Oi, she was talking to me,” the Doctor blusters, scrambling out from beneath the console in his shirtsleeves, goggles shoved over his forehead and grease smeared on his cheeks.
River licks her lips. Oh, she does love when he tinkers with the Old Girl. “Actually,” she says, glancing away hurriedly. “I’m talking to whoever is willing to give me a kiss hello.”
The words prompt Clara to scramble around the console but much to her dismay, the Doctor beats her to it, smiling obliviously all the while. He bends his head and presses a welcoming kiss to the corner of her mouth, asking, “What have you got for me this time, dear?”
“Who says I have anything?” She raises an eyebrow as if to say can’t a wife drop in to say hello to her husband now and again?
The Doctor doesn’t have much to work with but she gets the distinct impression his returning eyebrow raise means not my wife.
She sighs. “I may have discovered a rogue Cyberman terrorizing an Aztec tribe in Mexico.”
“Aztecs!” The Doctor’s eyes light up. “Love the Aztecs.”
“I know, honey.” She smiles. “Thought you might like to come with – have a cup of chocolate while I save the day.”
“You always come up with the best dates,” he pouts.
“Not true,” she says, swaying toward him and momentarily forgetting about the third party still staring at her as she walks her fingers up his chest. “I had a lovely time during hurricane season on Anura. You’re delicious when you’re all wet.”
His eyes darken, lingering on her mouth. “So are you.”
River’s hearts flutter.
“Doctor?” Clara’s voice behind them startles them into releasing each other and they turn to see her watching them with interest. “Going to introduce me?”
“Oh, right!” The Doctor beams and gestures to River like a proud little boy during show and tell. “Clara Oswald, meet River Song.”
Clara sidles the rest of the way around the console and offers River a delicate hand. “Charmed.”
Taking the proffered hand, her smirk widening when the girl brushes her thumb over her knuckles in a light but deliberate caress, River murmurs, “Likewise.”
Oblivious, the Doctor claps his hands together and darts around them to the console, plotting their course. “Right! Cyberman, Mexico, Aztecs – lovely people, bit obsessed with chocolate. D’you know, I got engaged once over a cup of chocolate.”
“Yes, honey,” River says patiently. “You’ve mentioned it.”
He glances up, his gleeful gaze asking jealous?
She rolls her eyes.
Finally dropping her hand but not moving away, Clara says, “I heard they used to bathe in it.” She glances at River. “Ever been covered in chocolate before?”
“Once.”
“Care to repeat the experience?”
Still lost in reminiscence, River smiles. “The fun part was after.”
“After?”
“Cleaning up.” She licks her lips pointedly and Clara’s eyes flare with interest.
“I’ve suddenly got a craving.”
“For chocolate?”
“Among other things.” She eyes River with blatant hunger as the Doctor flips levers and switching behind them, the TARDIS hurtling through the vortex. “Would you like to help me satisfy it?”
“Oh honey,” River laughs. “If only you’d asked me that during my university days.”
Clara frowns. “I don’t mind that you’re a bit older. In fact, it’s part of the appeal. You’ve got the whole Mrs. Robinson thing going on.”
“I’m even older than I look,” she smirks. “But that isn’t what I meant. These days I’m more of a one man woman.”
“Oh?” Clara deflates. “Who’s the lucky bloke?”
The TARDIS jolts to a stop and the Doctor turns to them with a smile, obviously deaf to their conversation while he’d been occupied. “All acquainted then?”
“Intimately.”
“Not intimately enough,” Clara mutters, still looking disappointed.
The Doctor fails to hear her, digging into his coat pocket. “Shall we do diaries, dear?”
She already knows exactly where they are, having encountered him and Clara numerous times since Manhattan, and despite Clara’s initial attraction to her, she ends up dating a lovely girl called Nina that Mels used to be quite friendly with. She also knows that at this point in his timestream, the Doctor has yet to mention he’s a married man – an oversight he has more than made up for in his future, but here and now, faced with the reality of his omission, River can’t help holding onto a bit of her displeasure. It might make her feel better to torment him – just a bit. “I’ve just done the waterfalls of Catrigan Nova.”
He flips through pages rapidly, frowning. “Haven’t got that one.”
Clara peers at the book but the Doctor snatches it away protectively. “Do you travel with the Doctor too?”
“In a way,” River hedges. “Not all the time and not always in the right order – time travel.”
Nodding in comprehension, Clara says, “Hence the book to keep track.” Her eyes light up. “Have you met me yet then? What am I like in the future? Do I ever convince you to leave your bloke and take that chocolate bath with me?”
The Doctor finally glances up from his diary with a grin. “Hang on, did you say chocolate bath? I’ve done that one!”
Eyeing him appreciatively and recalling the taste of dark chocolate in the dip of his hipbone, River murmurs, “I remember it well.”
He flushes.
Holding up a hand, Clara says, “Wait, you took a chocolate bath with the Doctor?”
The Doctor sniffs, glancing at her in offense. “I certainly hope she wasn’t licking chocolate off some other bloke.”
River stifles a smirk while Clara gapes. “You like girls too?!”
“What, of course I – wait, what do you mean too?”
She stares, speaking slowly, like she might to a particularly dim-witted child. “Doctor, I’m a lesbian.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know!” Clara throws up her hands. “Since girls started showering together after PE!”
He gapes at her and then whirls on River. “Did you know about this?”
River nods, smiling patiently. “Sweetie, she’s been trying to get into my knickers since I got here.”
“What? No she hasn’t!” He whirls on Clara again. “Have you?”
Clara doesn’t answer; too busy leering unashamedly at River.
Flailing, the Doctor insinuates himself between them, arms flapping like a great, gangly bird about to take flight. “No, no, absolutely not! My companion is not flirting with my wife. It just isn’t cricket! It’s – it’s -”
“Your wife?” Clara wrenches her gaze away from River to gape at the Doctor once more. “You’re married?!”
“Of course I’m married,” he scowls. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“To her?”
“Yes, who else?” He glances at River and looks so utterly smitten she almost blushes. “Silly question, really. Could only ever be her.”
Clara stares, mouth open.
The Doctor rocks back on his heels, thumbs hooking into his braces as he grins smugly. “Problem?”
“Just didn’t take you for the marrying kind,” Clara says faintly, and promptly snaps her mouth shut, recovering herself. “Is my being a lesbian a problem?”
“Of course not,” he scoffs, then amends, “Well, it wasn’t until you decided to hit on my wife.”
Clara shrugs. “What can I say? She’s my type.”
“Mine too,” he says, almost possessively as he blocks River from view like a child guarding his most beloved toy. River isn’t sure how she feels about essentially being his worn-in teddy he carries about with him everywhere but she says nothing for the moment, far too amused by exchange between the Doctor and his companion.
“Well then perhaps you should have said,” Clara snaps. “What sort of married man gallivants around the universe with another woman and doesn’t mention he’s got a wife? Blimey if that woman was my wife, I’d never shut up about it!”
“She’s got a point, sweetie.”
“Oh, not you too!” Fingers tangled in his braces from his nervous twisting, the Doctor fidgets and grumbles, “It’s complicated!”
Clara juts out her chin. “Not that complicated, Chin Boy.”
Clearing her throat, River gives her husband a gentle shove and steps around him. “Alright, enough.” She turns and carefully disentangles the Doctor’s fingers from his braces, ignoring the grateful look of adoration he bestows her with. “Aztecs, Cyberman? Ringing any bells?”
Suitably chastised, the Doctor nods once and reaches for her hand but to River’s amusement, Clara does first. She laces her fingers through River’s and with a huff of annoyance directed at the Doctor, begins to tug her excitedly toward the doors, leaving him to follow alone. Still clinging to a bit of her own resentment, River tightens her grip on Clara’s hand and the two of them march out of the TARDIS together.
They walk out into a sprawling village, half of which is on fire, screams echoing around them as smoke rises in the distance. Clara tenses next to her and River gives her hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go, sliding her hand beneath her skirt and up the inside of her thigh for the blaster strapped there.
Clara watches with flatteringly covetous eyes. “Hiding anything else under there?”
She smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Oi! Husband present!” The Doctor hisses, flailing and waving his sonic behind them.
River turns, feigning surprise. “Oh. Forgot you were there, sweetie.”
Clara twirls a lock of her hair, impish grin in place. “I have that affect on people.”
“I just bet you do,” River says lowly, and the Doctor squeaks.
“River, Cyberman,” he snaps. “And Clara, stop undressing my wife with your eyes!”
Raising a challenging eyebrow, Clara says, “I will if you will.”
“She’s my wife,” he mutters petulantly, cheeks flushing adorably.
“Sweetie,” River says, steering them back to the task at hand with a barely concealed smirk. “Got a plan?”
“A thing,” he says, latching onto the subject change with enthusiasm. “Almost a plan. Still cooking.”
“Well,” she says, firing up her blaster. “You sit here and stew, honey. Clara, you’re coming with me.”
Clara shivers. “Yes, please.”
As they saunter off together, leaving a furiously sputtering Doctor behind them, River doesn’t even glance back to make sure he’s watching, dropping her hand and playfully swatting Clara’s bum just before they round the corner out of sight.
Clara yelps in delight, turning to her with a grin that quickly fades as she says, “Can’t believe he didn’t tell me he was married.” They quietly approach a hut a distance away from the others but closer to the fighting and she mutters under her breath, “What a sod.”
River snorts softly, pressing her back into the wall behind her and peering around the corner to eye the glint of silver in the distance. “He is most certainly that,” she murmurs, unable to keep the ever-present note of fondness out of her voice even now.
Clara eyes her speculatively as River raises her gun. “But he’s your sod.”
“That too.” She squints, tilting her head and mentally damning the tribesman in her line of fire. “God knows why.”
“I thought he was – I dunno – celibate. Like a space monk or something.” Clara wrinkles her nose. “Treats me like his bloody granddaughter and I’ve never seen him so much as glance at another woman. He doesn’t even seem to realize when they’re flirting with him.” She shakes her head, oblivious to the warm, giddy feeling that fills River’s chest at her words. “Now I know why. He’s not a monk – he’s getting shagged regularly by a sodding lioness with cleavage I could happily suffocate myself in.”
Kneeling as the screaming tribesman finally abandons his useless fight against the Cyberman with his now broken spear, River bites her lip against a smile. Oh, that man. Filled with the sudden overwhelming urge to find her husband and snog him until his respiratory bypass kicks in, she raises her gun, takes aim and fires.
Clara whistles lowly. “Does your trigger finger make him go all wibbly too?”
Enemy dispatched and the natives gaping between the empty metal shell and their savior, River listens to the sound of the Doctor shouting about thing/plans behind her and allows herself a grin. “Oh, yes.”
The resulting celebration honoring herself and Clara for defeating the Silver Man doesn’t leave a lot of time for talking to or snogging her husband. In fact, River loses sight of him entirely until Clara is whirling her around and laughing to the sound of tribal drums. He sits on his own, fiddling with his sonic and pretending he isn’t watching her. Though he sort of deserves it, River feels her hearts swell at the sight of him sulking.
“Will he be alright?” Clara asks, amusement in her voice. She clasps River’s hands tightly, and together, they spin around in circles around the roaring fire, laughing loudly until they’re too dizzy to continue.
Letting Clara lean against her for balance, River waits until her giggling is under control and says, “Just a bit jealous, bless. You blindsided the poor man.”
Clara snorts. “I thought he knew when he took me to meet the Queen of Sheba and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her chest.”
Laughing softly, River shakes her head. “Nothing involving sex is obvious to that man, dear. You have to spell it out for him.”
“God, how did you ever get him into bed?” Her eyes widen. “Have you? You have, right?”
“I definitely have.”
“And that gangly thing satisfies you?”
River smiles mysteriously and nods behind her. “The chief’s daughter is very pretty.”
Turning them in a circle, Clara glances over River’s shoulder. “She lacks your terrifying yet sexy sense of danger.”
“I don’t know about that – her father probably wouldn’t be very happy if he found you under that loincloth.”
Clara mulls this over for a moment. “Care to join in?”
She shakes her head in amusement. “Already taken, honey.”
“And you’re absolutely sure he isn’t into sharing?”
River glances at the Doctor, still pouting, and grins. “Very sure.”
“Pity. I suppose I’ll have to make do with Pocahontas over there. One for the road?” She puckers her lips and sensing the Doctor’s eyes on her, River leans in and presses a swift, sweet kiss to the girl’s mouth. When she pulls away, Clara smiles dreamily but asks, “No tongue?”
“Got to save something for the old man.”
Looking over her shoulder at the dark-haired girl watching them with wide eyes, Clara winks and says, “Wish me luck then.”
“You don’t need it darling.” River shoos her away with another cheeky swat on the bum and watches only a moment as the girl slink up to the chief’s daughter with an alarmingly innocent smile considering her intentions, and shakes her head, turning to look for her husband. He’s still right where her eyes left him last, seated amongst the tribe elders, cradling a cup of chocolate and frowning deeply as he traces his index finger in the dirt.
Abandoning the dancing revelry around her, River smoothes a hand over her dress and makes her way to him. He doesn’t look up as she sinks to sit next to him on the ground and she contemplates nicking his cup before ultimately deciding he’s a bit too fragile just now to gracefully handle chocolate theft on top of everything else.
“You love dancing,” she says, nudging him gently. “I kept expecting you to cut in.”
“You looked a bit busy,” he mutters, and she sighs at his petulant tone.
“Never too busy for you, sweetie.”
Ignoring her, he says slowly, “You didn’t need my help to take out a lone Cyberman.”
“No,” she admits quietly. “It was a one woman job.”
“Then why did you come find me?”
“You’d be surprised the excuses a girl will come up with just to see her fella.”
He snorts softly. “Could’ve fooled me.” He still doesn’t look at her, glaring at the stick figures he’d drawn in the dirt, lower lip sticking out ever so slightly, and he is honest to god sulking,
The only time she’s ever seen him quite this bad was the day he introduced her to Jack Harkness, back in her university days. He hadn’t wanted to introduce them – had, in fact, done everything within his power to keep them from ever meeting. He’d stammered and flailed and done his fair share of glaring whenever Jack so much as breathed in her direction. As a young woman newly in love, River had found the whole thing rather endearing, but now, as his long-suffering wife and years of this jealousy bit under her belt, it’s just exasperating.
And only a little endearing. Really.
She sighs. “Are you upset because Clara didn’t tell you she liked women or because she hit on me and I let her?”
“You encouraged her,” he snaps, finally glancing up at her with hazel eyes that speak of the depths of pouting to which he has sunk.
“You didn’t tell her you were married,” she points out, and watches his gaze drop. “So if anyone has a reason to sulk, my love, it’s me.”
“It never came up,” he protests, but when she levels him with a dubious look, he has the grace to look sheepish. “You know I didn’t do it deliberately, don’t you, dear? I mean, I wasn’t trying to -”
“I know, honey.” She sighs and rests her head on his shoulder. “You’re just a thoughtless idiot.”
“Oi!”
She laughs softly, turning her head to press a kiss to the side of his neck. “Did I say that out loud? Oops.” She pulls his chocolate from his hand and takes a slow sip under his watchful gaze.
“Did you actually want to see me?” He grumbles, winding his arm around her waist. “Or did you come just to show off, feel up my companion and steal my chocolate?”
“Well, those were certainly very nice bonuses.” She presses a chocolaty kiss to the corner of his mouth and smiles to herself when, despite his annoyance, he can’t help but purse his lips and kiss her back. “But seeing you is always my first and foremost motivation, my love.”
“Sure you wouldn’t rather see Clara?” He asks snarkily, pushing the toe of his boot into the dirt.
“Silly Time Lord,” she murmurs, putting the cup aside to crawl into his lap. He wraps his arms around her automatically and she kisses him again softly, sighing when his mouth opens beneath hers, rich, dark chocolate on his tongue as it twines with hers. “You know you’re the only adorable brunette who gets into my knickers.”
His answering smile is all at once shy and proud. “Well, yeah.”
And it isn’t until much, much later that he thinks to ask, “Hang on, why did you say brunette? Not gingers either, right? Or blondes? Or any other hair color? Right, River? River, what -”
As Clara hides a smirk and pointedly looks away, River shuts her jealous idiot up with a kiss.