Chapter Text
It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t known who she was.
Last weekend she’d come to see him by herself, and he hadn’t a clue who she was. River had said he wasn’t feeling very well. She knew it was an excuse. Thought he knew she knew it was an excuse. But it had been hard, the last few visits — David was more confused now, the lucid moments shorter; he was more emotional, more tearful.
She’d seen River fold back into himself — first just during the visits, and lately with her too. She wasn’t sure what to do about it, and the nervous knot in her stomach was back.
He was here now, but not here. Checked out — there in body only, not unlike his grandad. David kept smiling at him; she could tell the old man was troubled by his grandson’s lack of interaction. He talked more to compensate, but just kept getting muddled, and River’s jaw clamped tighter each time, eyes fixed somewhere above his shoulder.
So Annie talked instead. She rattled on, lurching from one topic to another — about some old cipher she’d worked on this week that someone had dragged out of an archive, about a new café that had opened round the corner from the Park, about her dad’s allotment, and how her niece Evelyn had learned to pull herself up to stand.
That didn’t make it any easier.
It went on like that for an hour. Annie doing the talking, keeping the threads of a conversation that kept slipping loose. He didn’t really follow, but he nodded, pleased to be included.
Every so often, David would turn to River.
“You’re quiet, River. Still at that London job, are you?”
River would manage a small, polite “Yeah,” before his eyes dropped to the floor.
Annie tried not to look at him, but she felt the weight of his silence like a draft.
When they left, David patted River’s arm, and River leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
The drive back was quiet. The kind of quiet that had its own pulse.
Annie kept her eyes on the road ahead, the lights flicking across her reflection in the window.
“I think I might’ve told him about Evelyn standing up last week,” she said lightly.
River’s hands were tight on the wheel. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t remember anyway.”
“Maybe not,” she said softly. “Perhaps I’ll bring some photos of the kids next time?”
He gave a small shrug. “Yeah, maybe.”
She opened her mouth to say she’d give it a try anyway, but he cut her off.
“Can we just talk about something else for a bit?” And he turned up the radio.
So — not talking then.
The rest of the drive back was silent. Rain on the windscreen, the soft slap of wipers.
Annie had half a dozen soft starts in her head. None of them made it to her lips.
When they got back to his flat, she hung up her coat and tried to sound normal.
“I could make us something?”
He shook his head. “Not hungry.”
“What about a film? Or—”
“I just want to watch the match, if that’s okay.”
It wasn’t unkind, just… empty.
She swallowed whatever reply she had and nodded. “Okay.”
He opened a beer. She sat beside him for a while, watching the football and pretending to care who scored. The sound filled the flat, but not the silence between them.
When the match ended, he stayed on the sofa, scrolling absently on his phone. Annie stood in the doorway, arms folded, unsure what to do with herself.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” she said quietly. “Long day.”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes still on his screen. “Night.”
She waited a beat. “You coming?”
“Later.”
She left him there, the blue light flickering across his face.
In bed, she lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds of him moving about — the fridge door, the low pour of whisky, the creak of the sofa. Normally she could read him better than anyone. But tonight she couldn’t get close enough to even try. She didn’t know what he needed — or if he wanted her near at all.
She felt sad. For him. And for herself.
When she drifted off, the living-room light was still on.