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If you ever loved me,
“The Doctor does not and has never loved me.”
say it like you’re going to come back.
The Doctor had started to worry about the dreams— or really, the memories. “If you ever loved me” haunted his every thought. It had been one painful thing to hear it from his River when he could still make it right. But how could she still have wondered, after all of this? After their twenty-four years together? He was only too happy to tell her and show her in every way he could think of, as often as he possibly could. Was it really not enough? Did she really not know?
He’d thought that scene was replaying in his mind every night only to torture him, until he realised it was giving him a hint of when he needed to find her. But still it kept coming back. She kept coming back.
He tossed restlessly in his sleep.
If you ever loved me…
“You're always here to me. And I always listen. And I can always see you.”
[I had more dreams that were really you, didn’t I?]
[Maybe.]
“If she’s really dead, then how can I still be here?”
“Okay. How?”
“Spoilers.”
...say it like you’re going to come back.
Oh. Oh. OH.
She was very good.
“River!” he screamed in his dream, in a hoarse voice that was no longer his own, scrambling forward and throwing once-familiar gangly arms out toward her, trying to catch her before she could fade. “River, I’m here! I came back!”
Her sparkling eyes met his and crinkled up at the corners; her lips spread into a knowing smile, his River’s smile, one full of secrets and spoilers yet to come, not fading away or saying goodbye.
“Hello, darling,” she purred, and his hands caught around her arms, solid and warm.
The Doctor shot straight up in bed, gasping for breath, hearts hammering violently in his chest. She was real. She wasn’t just a memory - she had never just been talking to him at Trenzalore— she was talking to him, now! She was telling him to come back! She knew! She knew because, oh, she must have seen him. He was going to see her!
He hadn’t left her waiting for a thousand years. Oh, thank god, he knew he wouldn’t leave her waiting. She was reaching out to him. It wasn’t over, it was never going to be over. She still had spoilers for him. He was going to save her.
He realised that he was laughing and crying at once, and his River, very much in the present and in the flesh, was sitting up and rubbing at her eyes beside him while he acted an absolute nutter.
“Honey?” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder, concern laced through the drowsiness in her voice.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he gasped, grinning deliriously through his tears at her beautiful, confused face. He threw his arms around her and fell back to the bed, rolling her on top of him and squeezing her tight as he pressed quick, soft kisses all over her cheeks and her eyelids and her nose and her chin. She laughed in bemused pleasure and caught his lips with hers, and he kissed her like his life depended on it.
When they finally broke apart he was panting and still grinning like a fool.
“Had a good dream,” he said breathlessly, by way of explanation.
River snorted but she looked dazzled and flushed. “Must have been very good. Was it about me?”
“Always,” the Doctor said, and then his mouth was on hers again.
___
When he slept next, the Doctor was back in his tomb. It was playing out in the same echoes and layers of memories, voices and touch repeating, until he focussed on her, trying to cut through the haze. As he pulled back from kissing her, flooded with the sensation and choked with emotion as he had been then, he was really looking out from his old eyes again, and she saw him. She knew him.
“River,” he gasped, in the wrong voice again— young, English, not nearly so gruff,— clinging to her. “You’re here. You mad, clever, wonderful—” she laughed warmly and he felt dizzy.
“Always have been here, my love. I kept the line open. Just needed you to pick it up.”
“Oh, oh, River— how long? All these thousand years, waiting for your fool husband to see you? But, but, I have done, haven’t I? I will have done, already- right?”
“Yes, honey,” she said, stroking the fringe back from his face. “I haven’t been alone, not always. What’s a few billion years between us, anyway?”
The Doctor’s stomach dropped. “B-billion,” he choked, horror washing over him in a cold wave. “Oh, River, oh no, no—"
“I showed you a different face, but I was there.” She smiled a little sadly. "Thought if you saw me it would... hurt."
“That... that was you in the dial," he breathed. "In my head, the writing— of course, you were really…” She nodded. He dragged a hand over his face. “Oh, god, River, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad I was with you. And we protected her.”
“Ashildr? I was right, then, the Hybrid really is her? How did you know?”
She studied him carefully, her face betraying no hint of her thoughts. “Questions for another time, darling. Think. What do you need to know now?”
“Right, I… I must have told you what to say, I, I couldn’t stop thinking that I’d abandoned you, and you didn’t know, River, I was so afraid you didn’t know—”
“I know,” she said softly, “of course I do. You told me you’d never be able to let it go, and it would bring you back here to me.” She pursed her lips against a smile, brushing her thumb across his cheek. “Sentimental idiot.”
He laughed breathlessly, still disbelieving of his good fortune. “So, so, how do I find you, before this? What do I do next? I don't even know where to start.”
“Oh, my love. I’m sorry about this one,” she said, with a smile that really didn’t look all that sorry.
“What?”
“You’ll have to do some digging. Don’t forget the trowel.”