Chapter Text
The Doctor and River had always met in reverse.
This time, though, the Fifteenth Doctor was the younger one—and River was the one who had already lost him.
She had regenerated more than once since she last saw the Doctor. Since Jane. Her second wife. Time had layered itself over her life so thoroughly that the name River Song felt like something borrowed, something she’d once worn and set aside.
This body was a him now.
He went by Rogue.
It fit.
The Doctor was long gone, actually gone and there was no bringing them back.
So Rogue made his living the way he always had when things fell apart—by moving, by hunting, by refusing to stay still long enough for grief to catch up. A bounty hunter, drifting from system to system. A person had to make a living somehow.
It was just Rogue and his ship now. One that they had flown together once. They still used the TARDIS of course, but when Jane was in a pinch, River swooped along to save her and neither of them had to argue about controls.
He was lonely. There was no point pretending otherwise.
Rogue dragged a hand through sandy-blond curls and exhaled slowly.
This face had never met the Doctor. This face would never meet the Doctor. That was the rule. It blurred things, made his memories of the Time Lord soft around the edges, like an old photograph left too long in the sun.
So when a striking man began flirting with him at a Regency-era party he was scouting—smiling too brightly, talking too fast, and introducing himself as the Doctor—Rogue had to stop and really look at him.
As if someone were playing an elaborate practical joke.
Rogue didn’t know about the bi-generation. This face was unfamiliar. New. Impossible.
River had made that mistake once before—hadn’t recognised the Doctor in his twelfth incarnation until it was nearly too late. And let’s be honest, Jane had fooled her too.
So could this really be him? Or was it just these cosplaying aliens?