Work Text:
Married at Last
One of the most difficult things he had ever done was wait. Waiting wasn't something he was overly familiar with. Normally, he jumped ahead in time and eliminated the delay, but this time he chose not to.
There were weeks between the time of his “murder” to the time of River's incarceration in Stormcage. During that time, security made it impractical to try to see her. He could have done, but it would have been difficult to do so without revealing himself. There was no point in negating her sacrifice by showing himself alive. He elected to wait the time out with her; it seemed only fair. He had other things to do and he did them, but a part of him wanted to see her.
When time had been collapsing around him, everything in him had been focused on correcting the situation. Part of that had been the sense of responsibility inbred to him as a Time Lord, and the rest had been personal guilt that he was alive when that life was destroying time. He would have been eager to repair time even if he hadn't been caused by his personal time line, but that added responsibility had made it imperative. Now that the universe was stable, he had nothing more important to do than to consider what had been said – both by River and himself – when emotions had been high.
He had been angry. No, he had been livid that she had done something so dangerous as alter a fixed historical point. He had said more than one thing he wished he could take back. He so rarely regretted what he said. Even when he spoke in haste, normally he was just bluntly honest and held no true regret afterwards. He might, in retrospect, prefer that he had been more kind. But this was different. He actively regretted the words he had chosen, because he knew in retrospect that they had been untrue.
He had called her stupid. He had said she embarrassed him. He had scoffed at what she said was love. He had taken that love and thrown it back in her face, and he had done so with no care for her feelings. As he thought of it now, he had been just short of hateful. Perhaps he hadn't fallen short. At the time, he had just wanted her to understand that what she had done was so wrong – unbearably wrong – but that time had now passed.
Then, then finally when he had told her he would marry her – something he knew he must have done at some point – he had instead allowed her to see his plan. She had caught on quickly. She hadn't hesitated in her agreement. She hadn't become angry. And she had played along. She had kissed him.
How she had kissed him! He had been kissed before – and often, if he said so himself – but she had offered him more than just the kiss. She had given him anything, everything he wanted. She had let him reset time, even though he knew it had to hurt her to become known as a murderer. She hadn't given away his secret, but had instead let herself be taken into custody. She had been tightly supervised since that time, subjected to psychological testing and confinement, and now she was going to be imprisoned in the highest security prison in the known universes for twelve-thousand consecutive life terms.
Given how hateful he had been, she had taken so much on faith.
So, he had waited. He had stayed away as she had been tried and convicted of a crime that she knew had never happened. And he had taught her without a doubt, in the cruelest way possible, the first rule of traveling with the Doctor: The Doctor lies.
He rarely felt guilty about it. Tonight, he did.
It took more skill than he had needed in a long while to ease the TARDIS into the small space outside her holding cell, or perhaps he just needed to make himself concentrate on something other than what was to come. He actually dreaded opening the door and seeing her, seeing her expression. He had no idea what she'd say, how she would handle this.
She was sitting on her cot, her head back against the wall and her eyes closed. His body relaxed at just the sight of her, whole and well. Why was that? Why did she matter so much? She didn't even bother to look at him. He wondered briefly if that was her answer, if he should just go.
“I wondered when you'd show up,” she said softly, finally looking at him.
He didn't have an explanation. Truthfully, he didn't have a clue what to say to her, even after weeks of waiting, and thinking, and deliberating. What did you say to someone you had utterly betrayed?
“You look so serious,” she said gently, standing and walking over to him. She wore the gray tanks that were prison issue, as well as the canvas trousers. It shouldn't have been attractive. It was. “We both knew how this had to turn out.”
“Did you?” he asked.
She smiled at that, and reached up to place her hand on his cheek. “I had a good idea,” she admitted. “The options were limited.” She caressed him briefly with her thumb, and then lowered her hand.
“I'm sorry,” he told her, and he really and truly was.
“So am I,” she admitted. “Although probably not for the same things you are.”
“I was... unkind.” It was a blatant understatement.
She laughed. She actually laughed at him. “Oh, Doctor. No. You were very kind, given what I had done. It's just that... You see, it's so very easy to forget that our time lines are out of sync. I forget that you don't know where I've been, any more than I know where you've been. Aside from what you've told me, that is. And that is very limited, though you assure me that's for my own protection as much as for the stability of space and time.”
“I don't understand.” And he didn't. Wasn't she angry? Why wasn't she angry?
“I can't tell you any more than you usually tell me,” she said, leaning up against the TARDIS, where he was still standing just outside the doorway. “I don't want to interfere with our future. I don't know just what it is, but I have a feeling that I want to live it. At least, now that I know you're in it.”
“I'd say that's a certainty,” he told her. He needed to talk to her, but he didn't need to be seen. He couldn't do this in only a few moments. “Why don't you come with me? I don't want the TARDIS to be here long enough for them to find it.”
“Am I escaping?” she asked, her voice sounding merely curios.
“Not permanently. I'll have you back as soon as we leave. I just want...” He considered what to say. I want to apologize? I want to beg forgiveness? I want to explain?
She didn't demand an explanation, but instead stepped past him through the doorway. She walked directly to the console and trailed a hand over it, almost in a caress. “I've missed her,” she finally said.
His brow furrowed as he moved around her and began to adjust dials. He still didn't have the first idea what he wanted to say to her, but he knew he needed to say something. “Where would you like to go?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” she said. “Everywhere. Anywhere, as long as I'm with you.”
He didn't know entirely what she meant, but he took her at her word. He spent a few minutes to setting the TARDIS in orbit, stabilizing, and then he turned to talk to her. “That's what I'm having trouble with. I know what we become to one another – what we must become – but that isn't real yet. In my mind, you don't even know me.” He thought back over the times they had met, what had been said, and what had been done. “Not enough, in any case. It isn't real to me, yet.”
She smiled the saddest smile he'd ever seen. “Okay. You don't know me... yet.”
“I understand that you don't want to interfere with the future, but have you ever considered that the future may happen because of what you say now? I suppose I need to understand. You were ready to end the universe for me. You were willing to marry me, no questions asked. Maybe that isn't significant to you, but I take marriage very seriously. I’ve enjoyed our little trips – our dates. But that’s all they are. Dates.”
“We aren't married,” she said. “You got me close enough to see your plan. That was all. Whatever my mother may believe, we aren't married.”
“You didn't know that,” he reminded her. “There was no reason not to take me at my word.”
“You don't want to get married,” she said to him. “At the very least, you don't want to marry me.”
“It isn't personal,” he explained. “I've been married before, long ago and in another life. That's done now, and that part of me is... was done as well. Marriage ends, and families end, and that was with someone who should have lived as long as I have. You're human. I'm not; not even close.”
“You said I'm a child of the TARDIS,” she reminded him. “Not entirely human.”
“You are now. Any possibility otherwise you gave to...”
“You,” she finished for him with a shrug that looked a bit forced. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Why? I never asked why.”
She was silent a long while, and he thought at first she might not answer him. “You told me to give River Song a message. You said to find her and give her a message. I assumed that message would be undying love or some such nonsense. But what you said was, 'Tell her that I forgive her, ever and always.' Your dying breath, to give another peace. I didn't expect that.” She shook her head before she continued. “Love would have made sense, but forgiveness... that was so much more. Love is a word, but forgiveness – understanding that she would need... that I would need forgiveness – that is love.”
“It wasn't her fault. Your fault. You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Another small smile flashed.
None of it made sense. He understood as few would that their time lines were entwined, never matching up the way he expected. It was why he had given her the diary. At the time, he had known that she would write it – he had the finished product, didn't he, although he had never read it – and it had felt like the right thing to do. What memories did she have? What had he said, or done?
He watched her for a moment more, but she seemed content to just stand there and look at him. He sensed no impatience, nor anger. He didn't feel that she was humoring him. She was simply patient, waiting for whatever was to come. Finally, he took a step towards her and reached down to take her hand in his. He looked at their joined hands, then reached up and cupped her cheek in his hand the way she had done to him. He didn't miss the shudder that moved through her at his touch. “Are you ready for this?” he asked.
“Ready for what?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He smiled, and leaned forward to join his lips gently with hers. She didn't back away. He meant for the kiss to be reassuring, light, and almost friendly. He wanted to put them back on a level he could understand, but it didn't work that way. The energy that stretched between them was almost electrical, and he was reminded of the sensation just before regeneration occurred. He had felt it when she had given her lives to him to save his life. He had noticed it when they had kissed on the tower, but he had thought it was part of the universe righting itself. Now, he wasn't so sure.
She kissed softly, carefully, as though she wasn't quite sure what he was doing. He realized then that she likely wasn't. She must understand that her time line was inconsistent with his, or even the reverse of his, so he hadn't touched her yet... at least not willingly. She had poisoned him with a quick kiss, and she had kissed him to give him his life back – that electricity again – but that had been all. He had never really kissed her before. It had been a very long time since had had romantically kissed anyone, come to that.
He kissed her now, and after a very long moment she kissed him back.
He had always assumed that her death, and even the few isolated meetings they'd had, were aberrations. He had expected a most of their time line to be consistent, with a few outlying hiccups. He moved through time so frequently, it made sense that they would occasionally be out of order, but he had thought the important parts were yet to come. There was a level of consistency in Galifreyan time – a reference point they could always return to – and some part of him had thought that she must, as a time traveler, adhere to that as well.
Releasing her hand, he grasped her wrist and turned her towards him, then gradually moved his hands up. Upper arms... shoulders... her hair. One hand tangled in the infinite curls as he brought the other down her back.
And she did kiss him back. With a quick jolt, he finally placed this feeling. It had been after he'd dropped her at Stormcage, before he'd understood why she was really there. It had been before he had known who she really was. They had just left nineteen sixty-nine, finished dealing with Nixon, and it had been long before he had realized she was the child they had been looking for. She had kissed him goodbye – really kissed him goodbye. How had he forgotten it? He supposed the sensations had been lost in the confusion and embarrassment, but this was it. This... energy. Her hands on his face, her arms around his body, and this... just this.
It was she who finally ended the kiss, moving her lips away, but she did so gently. She lay her head on his chest and held him tightly. He was fine with that. He moved his arms around her, holding her back. He so rarely thought about feelings like this, not in centuries. It simply wasn't a part of him anymore. He had believed that this part of him had been lost when his planet had been destroyed. Now, all those lost feelings rushed back in a river of sensation and trepidation. Could he go through it again? He knew he would lose her; he had already lost her. Could he survive this a second time?
It was her past. When she had kissed him that first time, it hadn't been her first time. Suddenly the sadness on her face at the time made sense. She had been used to this, expected this. He had just thought she was being her usual, flirting self. The realization that their time lines were so very opposite finally reached him. He had intended to get to know her, to make her imprisonment more bearable if not actually pleasant. And if he did that, if he came to love her as he knew he must, wouldn't he be tempted to go back further in her life? To get to know her before her time in prison?
Of course. She had been right not to tell him, because before this moment he wouldn't have entirely believed it. He suddenly realized that he was going to be breaking some rules along the way to this relationship with her. She did love him, because she already knew him completely. She might have known him for years and years, and from what she had said along the way it was very, very likely.
So very much fell into place. He reached down to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead, the only apology he could think of. Words simply didn't begin to say what he needed to. He saw the trails of tears on her cheeks, and he knew that she understood. He also knew that he was forgiven for his harsh words, and harsher actions. He might not have seen his own ignorance at the time, but she had. She hadn't been able to help herself. In the library, for just a moment he had considered sacrificing four thousand lives and his own companion if it would have convinced her not to give her own life. He had certainly been willing to give his own life. Why then would she do any less to save him?
Understanding made all the difference. The smile he gave her was wide and genuine, and it left her looking slightly confused. He preferred confusion to her unhappiness.
“Hello,” he said brightly.
Her confusion appeared to deepen. “Hello?”
He smiled more widely. “Well, then,” he told her briskly. “We need to get this done.”
“Get what done?” she asked, her expression baffled.
“What we should have already done,” he explained, leaving her just as confused looking as she had been before. “What your parents think we have done, and you thought we were going to do. I already have your mother's permission,” he told her, releasing her to take a step back. “And your father's, although I don't think he knew he was your father when he gave it. Just as well. Now, we'll do this the right way.”
“Do what?” she asked, finally leaking a bit of exasperation in to her voice.
“Get married,” he told her simply.
“You don't want to marry me,” she reminded him, letting him know that while she might have forgiven, she had certainly not forgotten.
“Untrue,” he clarified. “I didn't want to marry you. Different thing entirely. I would have, if I'd understood, but I didn't. I do now, so we need to do this.”
“What?”
“River... River...” He reached up to cradle her face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away what was left of her tears. Thankfully they had stopped, as he had little idea of what to do with them. He didn't imagine she cried often, but a girl could only take so much and he had been a bit dense. “Marry me,” he asked, leaning forward to give her a quick, hard kiss. “Be my wife.”
“Why?”
“Because it's who you are, and who you're supposed to be. It's who we are, and what we're supposed to be. I knew that... I truly did, but I wasn't thinking clearly. I wasn't... here yet.”
She just stood there, looking at him and looking very lost. He searched her eyes, but he didn't see any anger, any condemnation. He reached up and removed his bow tie while she stood and watched, not moving. The Galifreyan ceremony was more a hand-fasting than a traditional wedding, and simpler, but there were still rites he could observe.
“Give me your hand,” he asked softly, holding his hand out to her. She paused for just a moment, and then trustingly laid her hand in his. He would honor that trust, he promised himself. “We weren't able to do this correctly, so let's try again.” He handed her one end of the tie, and took the other himself. He watched her wrap the cloth around her right hand even as he did the same around his left. “Important difference, though. When we get to the middle...” He threaded his fingers through hers, clasping tightly, and placed his right hand on her cheek. “Now you look in my eyes,” he told her softly.
“What am I looking for?” she asked him as another tear began to fall.
“Just me this time,” he told her with a smile. “No tessalator, and no lies. I want you to be my wife. The rites are actually very simple. We've already taken care of your parents' consent, so now you just give yourself to me. Whisper your name in my ear.”
“I won't live an eternity,” she said, her voice shaky. “I can't regenerate.”
“Not anymore,” he admitted, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “That's my fault. But then, neither can I. This will be my last life.” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Share it with me?”
She looked into his eyes a very long time, and then she finally smiled. “Yes,” she said simply.
“Give me your name,” he requested.
“Why? You know my name. You gave me my name. At least, you told me what it was going to be, who I was going to be. You told me to find River Song, so I did.”
“You don't exactly tell it to me,” he corrected. “You give it to me, give yourself to me. Whisper your name in my ear.”
She did. He smiled as her breath tickled his ear. “Melody Pond. Your River Song.”
He felt a wave of relief as he leaned forward and whispered softly into her ear. This time, there was no secret message. There was only his name, given to her as he gave himself. Withdrawing, he met her eyes again. “You are the only living being in this universe or any other who knows my name. Never repeat it. Remember?”
“Always,” she replied.
“Melody Pond,” he said softly. He kissed her gently on the lips. “River Song, you are my wife.”
When she smiled, her face lit up. “Do I get a ring?” she asked.
He smiled at that. “No ring, but you carry a piece of my soul,” he told her. “And I carry a piece of yours.”
“You always have,” she replied. “Whether you knew it or not.”
He kissed her again, long and sweet. He hadn't expected it to feel so natural. “So, Wife, where do you want to go for your honeymoon?”
“Your choice,” she allowed. “Take me to your favorite place, your favorite time.”
“There are so many,” he admitted.
“Then take me to all of them,” she requested.