#drfic

[queenhawke]

updated A Time Lord's Guide To Misusing Social Media after uhhhhhhhhhh 5 years. so. have fun with that

#doctor who #drfic #is that still a tag people use lmao #anyway #i promise the last chapter won't take 5 years #but i also can't say how soon it will come so uh #yeah #but have fun??? #jo writes stuff

[sonickedtrowel]

4: Stories

The thing about River Song was that she just turned up, in places, all the time.  Well, to be more precise, he turned up where she was at least as often, but it was almost never on purpose.  After all, he was trying to stay far away from her.  All of time and space couldn’t reasonably be that small.  It had to be the Old Girl meddling.  Or after nine hundred years, the Doctor was going to have to re-evaluate his stance on the concept of destiny.

So when he took a little side trip to the Luna University library somewhere about the 51st century to track down a particular knitting compendium, he wasn’t even really surprised to spot her unmistakable curls protruding over the top of a heavy leather volume.  No, the strange thrill tingling through his veins was something else entirely.  He had no desire at the moment to work out what.

He could run.  He could slip out before she saw him.  That would be better.  He was meant to be staying away.

“River?” he found himself saying instead.

She barely glanced over the top of her book, waving distractedly in greeting.  “Just need a minute, sweetie.  Did you make a booking?”

“A-a booking?”

“Yeah, it was your turn to pick.”  She jabbed her pen into her loosely pulled-up hair, where it immediately vanished.  “Or did you get your weeks crossed again?”

“Um.  Yeah.  Think I might have uh.  Crossed… something.”

She finally looked up at him properly, her lips parting to speak, and froze.  “Oh my god.  You’re not him.”  He must have visibly bristled at that, because she amended, “No, obviously— but you’re young.  Just look at that baby face!”

“I’m older than… than most people in the universe, River Song,” the Doctor retorted, a bit weakly, as he realised he didn’t actually know.  He was certainly older than her, right?  He hadn’t really dared consider the possibility that she lived on a remotely comparable timescale.  Almost no one did.  If she were the exception… no, he did not need another reason to be tempted.  He had to stay away from her, regardless.

“Oh, I could get into so much trouble with you,” she said, smiling wickedly as she laid down her book and leaned toward him, spreading her hands over the table.  “I’ve been very explicitly warned off you.  I’m not to come anywhere near you this young.”

“Says who?”

“Who d’you think?”

He didn’t know why, but that was even more irritating.  Being ordered to stay away— which he was trying to do anyway!— by the older him who’d been apparently coming round and taking River to dinners as a weekly routine?  How dare he?  “And do you always do what future me tells you?” he grumbled.

River blinked at him, then burst into derisive laughter.  It carried on for just long enough for him to become extremely uncomfortable, but then she stood and gathered her books.  “Come on,” she said, bustling past him.  “Just need to stop by my room.  We’ll go somewhere on campus.”

“Wait,” he said, stumbling after her, “that’s not— actually, we shouldn’t—”

“We’re both young tonight.  No better time to do something we shouldn’t.  If I’m really lucky, you’ll give me a scolding for it later.”

The Doctor tripped over his own feet and just managed to avoid sprawling headlong over the floor.  River laughed, and didn’t stop walking, so he scrambled to follow her.

——

The other thing about River Song was that she always knew, even however relatively young she currently was, just how to push his buttons.  It was maddening.  All she had to do was not bother to hide her obviously intimate familiarity with him, and laugh as he squirmed.  As if daring him to keep up the ridiculous charade that he didn’t know exactly what they were to each other.  Even without Amy here to point it out, it was never not glaringly obvious.  It was just that he didn’t do that.  That was something no one would ever be to him again.  But she was, and the more he sulked about the fact, the more she delighted in showing him how much he was going to enjoy it.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of others he’d been close to in his life.  Extremely close and intense relationships, mostly with humans, were sort of his thing.  All of them were better people than him; beautiful, magical individuals to whom he’d simply provided the opportunity to make a mark on the universe with their shining goodness in their short human lives.  And some— too many— had paid the price for it.  Most of them had probably thought they knew him like no one else, too.  

But that was just it: River really did.  There was no denying it.  He hated it, and he loved it.  It was terrifying, tantalising, dangerous and sweet and so, so tempting.  There was one other person in the universe who knew him like that, and things hadn’t exactly gone well with them.  But River was different.  She understood him in a way no human ever could, and loved him in a way people who lived thousands of years, himself very much included, seldom had much taste for.  But to say she made him see the appeal was putting it… politely.  

The fact that he was currently marvelling that he didn’t technically know her species at the same time as he was wrestling down a barrage of very foreign impulses was fairly typical of the absolute mess she made of him just by existing in his proximity.

“I have my viva in a few weeks,” she was saying when he surfaced from his thoughts enough to decipher the sounds, “so I’m just doing preparations.  I was offered a position in the department, but I don’t think I’m going to take it now.  There’s a lot of universe to see, and I’ve already been at Luna almost a year— they had to let me design an accelerated program, or we’d all have been wasting our time.  And yes, sweetie, I know you’re just waiting for an opening to get in your dig at my choice of archaeology.”

“Hah.  Dig,” the Doctor said, in spite of himself.

“Told you I’m clever.”

“Well, that much I already knew,” he admitted, as they stopped in front of what was evidently her door.  She piled her notebooks into his arms without asking and fished out her room key.

“What else do you know about me?”  River opened the door and proceeded into the room without a backwards glance.  “Not much, right?  It’s so strange, I’m used to you knowing everything.  You and your spoilers.”

“My spoilers!” the Doctor sputtered, indignation overcoming his hesitance to follow her into a bedroom the size of a broom cupboard.  “You’re the one with all the spoilers!”

“I suppose I am today, aren’t I?  A bit more than you, at any rate.  That’s a fun change.  Should we do diaries?  Where are we in yours?”

“Um,” he hesitated, glancing around the tiny room and shuffling the pile of books onto her desk.  It was comfortable but utilitarian; fairly standard student accommodations.  “You’ve got the diary.”

“Yes, I have mine,” River laughed as she rummaged through a drawer.  “Where’s yours?”

“Mine?”

“You—” she turned around and gaped at him.  “You haven’t got one yet?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh.  You… really are young.”  She looked crestfallen for a moment, and the Doctor’s throat tightened.  He’d disappointed her.  And she— she was taking her shirt off.

He whirled around, his face burning hot, and directed his wide eyes at her bedspread (a deep blue, he half-noticed with a vague sense of approval.)  What was the matter with him, anyway?  It’s not as if he had any qualms about nudity, that was just a silly human… His gaze drifted unwittingly over her bedpost, around which was knotted a dark purple bow tie that looked like it had seen some uncommonly rigorous use.

He needed to get out of here, immediately.

“Don’t you just hate him, sometimes?”  River suddenly asked, leaving him frozen in place as he was about to bolt for the door.  “The older you.  The one who has all the answers.”

You have no idea.   He glanced back at her, and thankfully, she’d put another top on.

“I hate her sometimes,” she said, smiling wistfully.  “Hate that I’m her, but I’m not her yet.  She’s this shadow over the future that I’m meant to live up to, but what if I’m just… not good enough?”

The Doctor swallowed through his dry throat, willing himself to speak.  He hated him.  He really did.  “It’s… pretty rubbish he’s made you feel that way.”

She looked up at him sharply, surprised.  “No, it’s— it’s not his fault.  He’s… you’re good about that, actually.”

“About what?”

“About making me feel…”  She trailed off and glanced down at her hands, pursing her lips slightly to cover a smile, and was it possible that she was actually blushing?   He could hardly believe his eyes.  It was painfully endearing, and warmth swelled up like a wave in his chest no matter how he tried to swallow it down.  What else could she have been about to say?  Enough.  Understood.  Loved.   He… made River Song happy.  

Not those times.  Not one line.  Don’t you dare.

“Maybe I didn’t want you coming near me this young because I’d scare you off,” he muttered.  “See what little you have to look forward to.”

River laughed.  “I don’t scare easy, sweetie.  You’re the one who was just about to run.”

He didn’t bother denying it.  “Didn’t, though.”

“No.  I’m glad you stayed.”

“Me too.”  

They’d drifted closer without the Doctor noticing, and he let himself really look at River for the first time that day.  There was nothing but patience and understanding in her smile, and it really was rubbish, wasn’t it, that with him she never knew what she was going to get.  Even young like this, though she had her fun at his expense, she was just good to him.  And it was clear she was younger, though her face was much the same.  There was just something a little less careful, less guarded.  Or was that because she was used to him being the one to keep their secrets?  Used to putting her trust in him and letting him care for her?  He thought of the last time he’d seen her, at the Byzantium.  She’d laughed and joked when he asked if he could trust her.  Maybe she hadn’t really found it funny at all that he wasn’t sure.

“I do hate him,” the Doctor confessed.  “Even more than the rest of me, which is saying something.  I’ve hated him since the day…”  He exhaled, scrubbing the heel of his palm up over his face and through his hair.  His eyes half-focussed on a scuff mark on his shoe through the painful haze of the memory.  He vaguely realised he was just talking to himself at her, because she obviously couldn’t know what he was on about, which was probably very annoying.  “I thought he was so… so unbelievably selfish,” he choked out at last.  “But it’s me.  I’m the one being selfish.”

“Careful, there,” River said, reaching up to brush some invisible fuzz from his shoulder.  “That’s my Doctor you’re talking about.”  Oh, he hated how he loved the sound of that.  Maybe he didn’t actually hate it, so much.  Maybe he just loved it.  His stupid brain, ever the pedant, began to open his mouth to ask which version of him she was feigning offence for, when she interrupted with, “You, sweetie.  Always, all of you.  Whenever you want.”

Could it be that simple?  Could he know that she’d pay for it with her life (and suspect that perhaps he’d pay for it with his, which was an intriguing theory that bothered him considerably less,) and just… let them both have this, anyway?  Let them be happy together, for however long it could last?  That was what she wanted.  She’d told him so in no uncertain terms.  He could give in at any time and admit that it was what he wanted, too.

“River, I…”  He clenched and unclenched his fists nervously at his sides; his hands wanted to do things he wasn’t sure he could allow.  

“Anyway,” she said, breaking the tense moment and slinging her bag over her shoulder, “dinner?  I happen to know that Luna’s campus is home to your favourite fish and chips in the universe.”

That was absurd enough to distract him.  “River,” he said, patiently, but she lifted her eyebrows in a way that reminded him strikingly of Amy when she’d recently pronounced that he was Doctorsplaining.  It was too late to stop now, though.  “You are a time-travelling archaeologist.”

“Good to know,” she supplied patronisingly.

He winced, though he was fairly sure no part of that was a spoiler.  “And as such, you should definitely know that the likelihood of the best version of any dish being this far temporally or spatially removed from its point of origin is extremely small—”

“Well, don’t come then, if you’re so sure.”

“H-hang on, I didn’t, I mean—  Oh, is it— is it custard?  Do they do it with custard?”  She shrugged, and he followed her out the door.  “River, is that it?”

__

The Doctor had to admit, (at least to himself, which was a hurdle to cross in its own right,) that River was exceptionally lovely.  It wasn’t what she looked like, although he had certainly come to appreciate that as well: the hair was the obvious starting point.  The way she walked like she owned the place, wherever she was.  The strong angle of her nose and the soft curl of her smile.  But it was just… everything.  The way she affectionately ordered him about, with the sort of ease that made it clear she was accustomed to his cooperation, and before he could even remember to be annoyed he found himself obliging her.  How she grinned at him over the table as she took a chip from his greasy paper plate, even though she had plenty of her own.  There was just an extra little spark in everything they shared; a different sort of delight in the fantastic and the mundane alike, because she was there with him.  It was so obvious how easily he could become addicted to the feeling.  He was starting to run out of reasons why that was a problem.

“Well?” she said, once he’d finally stopped having a mouthful of fried food.

“Why is it so good?”  For once he was properly dumbfounded.  There seemed to be no particular reason.  It wasn’t custard; standard salt and vinegar.  The shop appeared very unassuming.  Grease level high.  

“Maybe they’re just good at what they do?  Doesn’t always have to be a reason.”

“Does everyone know?   Have they been given some sort of award?”

“Well, they’ve got a five on their food hygiene rating,” River said, gesturing with a chip to a sign on the wall, “so that’s encouraging for a place that mostly feeds hungover students.”

“Speaking from experience?”

She laughed.  “Please, sweetie.  There is, regrettably, very little to drink on this moon that will even register for me.”  Her eyes widened just the tiniest bit, so briefly he would almost have thought he’d imagined it, if not for her words landing in his brain at the same moment, sparking an instant storm of firing synapses.  That was something, and she knew she’d slipped.  Oh, it was dangerous to hope, but…  “Well,” she smoothly amended before he could even open his mouth, “apart from when Jack came to visit.”

The Doctor nearly choked on his fish.  “No,” he said, between wheezing sputters.  “Tell me you’re joking.”  She was clearly trying to distract him, and she’d succeeded.  He couldn’t just let that go.

“We do have a mutual acquaintance, after all,” River said, tossing her curls and flashing him a too-bright smile.

“There is no way I would introduce you.”

“Why ever not?”

If she was trying to make him jealous, she was just slightly off the mark.  “Because I don’t think I’d survive the two of you together,” he groaned, to her delighted laughter.  

Well, if it meant hearing more of that, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.

The gold light of sunset blazed low behind her silhouette.  She wiped her fingers with a paper napkin and took a sip of her fizzy drink.  

There wasn’t any logical catalyst; no sudden lightning strike or burst of epiphany.  Sat across the table from River, the Doctor felt a slow, sparkling warmth settling over him as he realised he was already in love with her.  

___

They made it nearly the whole way back to River’s hall of residence chatting comfortably about nothing, to avoid having to dance around spoilers.  The sun had set, and the dim glow of Earthlight shone through Luna’s artificial atmosphere.  Antique-style streetlamps flickered on along the footpaths through the university campus, dotting the violet dusk with splashes of gold.  In each new light, she looked more breathtaking than the last.  

To distract himself from feeling things about that, he decided to be annoying.

“River.  Of all the billions of choices in the universe.  Why archaeology?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Well, I won’t lie— at the start, it was at least a tiny bit because I thought it might be useful in tracking you down.  Of course, then Fancy Dress turned up the night I enrolled and I haven’t been able to get rid of you.”  He pulled a grumpy face as she laughed, and filed that nickname away to ponder later, perhaps in the TARDIS wardrobe.  “But I guess it was… fact-checking.”

The Doctor blinked.  “Fact-checking what?”

“Everything.  The universe.  The… narrative.  I suppose I’m interested in stories.  They’re always coloured by the one telling them, and everyone has an agenda.  History is just the story told by the victor, the conqueror; whichever faction becomes the establishment.  Whichever cult becomes the Church.  But somewhere out there is the real thing, the true thing.  And it doesn’t even matter if it’s full of anachronisms and embellishments and flights of fancy—you know, sometimes those are the truest parts.  Sometimes there’s a dozen versions and all of them are true.  And those are the stories that deserve to be told.  If I can find the real pieces, I can put together stories that are true in the way that matters.  Scrape off all the layers of propaganda and manipulation and control and show the real people beneath, good and bad.  We all deserve that, in the end: to have our own voice in our own story.  And not let anyone else dictate who we are.”

Oh.

The Doctor swallowed, his throat dry; speechless and foundering in the gulf of silence between them.  But if he opened his mouth, he was afraid he might just kiss her.  

He was already in love with her over fish and chips.  What the hell was he meant to do with all of this?

Finally, as her building came into view and the night breeze tousled her spectacular hair in a way that he was sure was magic, he found himself wondering aloud, almost reverently.  “Where did you come from, River Song?”

She stopped short and turned to him.  “Why are you asking me that?”

“You know everything about me, it seems.  I… sort of feel like a fool knowing nothing about you.”

“I’m sure you know the important things.”

“You might be surprised.”

She was quiet for a moment, then glanced up at the crescent of Earth growing ever brighter in the sky.  “Your favourite planet.  Well… I sort of came from there.  More or less.”

“Human?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

She hesitated even longer on that, her brows knitting together as she studied his face.  He was sure she was going to say spoilers, or— possibly worse— yes.  

Instead, she quietly repeated, “More or less.”

Hearts thundering loudly and his brain reeling with a thousand possibilities of what that might mean, the Doctor followed as she turned and walked rather more briskly than before toward her building.  “I’m sorry,” he called after her, “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine, sweetie,” she said, though she barely glanced back at him.  “I’m just… not sure what I can tell you.  I’m not really used to that.”

“Can… can you tell me how we met?  For you?”

“Um,” she said, and there was something unmistakably tense in her voice now, “no, I don’t think so.”

“Or, how long ago it was for you?”

“It… it was just before I came to Luna.  A little over a year.”

She clearly didn’t want to answer these questions anymore, and he certainly didn’t want to upset her, or to do anything to disturb the delicate balance of their timelines with an out-of-turn spoiler.  But the desperation to understand was burning in him now, and the closer he got to the answers, the less he could resist.

“River,” he began as she reached for the door to the building, and he was alarmed to notice a slight tremor in her outstretched hand—

The heavy steel door slammed open, and in the split-second of frenetic chaos as the Doctor gasped in a shocked breath, he saw River’s arm crumple into her side at an angle that made him wince.  The impact of the door threw her back, and a flailing, shouting mass of two idiots came toppling out, reeking of alcohol and human testosterone, obliviously throwing fists at each other as they went.  A bottle dropped and shattered on the pavement.  A fraction of a second later, the Doctor registered that River had been thrown directly into him.

Miraculously, he kept his feet under him and staggered to a stop, steadying her as he blurted, “Are you okay?”

The drunks were already brawling off down the footpath and not worth his bother.  He didn’t think River was likely to have broken anything from the impact, but it still hadn’t been pretty.  But when she didn’t answer him immediately, he noticed she was trembling.

“River?” he asked, hurriedly turning her to face him, visually scanning for injuries.  He didn’t get far before their eyes met, and he was frozen by the look of sheer terror on her face.

“River?”

“Doctor,” she whispered, her voice thin and wavering.  “Run.”

“What?  River, what are you talking about?  Are you hur—”

The air went out of him all at once, and before he had the faintest idea of what was happening, the Doctor landed heavily on the pavement.  He winced as a spike of pain shot through his hip and up his side.  Well, there it was, nine hundred years and old age had got to him at last.  He’d forgotten how to fall on his behind without breaking something.  

But it seemed he wasn’t going to have to worry about that long, because River was advancing on him with deadly calm, the panic in her eyes vanished entirely.  In her hand, mysteriously, there had appeared a gun, which she had pointed straight at his left heart.  He felt quite sure she had similar plans for the right one.  

Well.  Okay.  Unexpected development.  

All in all, this was really not how he thought it would go, but maybe it beat the alternative.  Maybe it was better if—

In the space of his two rapid heartbeats River snapped her gun away from him, aiming it at the still-open doorway, when the unmistakable whirr of a sonic screwdriver sent it spiralling out of her hand, skittering across the pavement.  For a split second she looked infuriated and was reaching for another weapon, but then a figure stepped over him, standing between them and—

And it was him.  Fancy Dress.  He was in a Victorian suit and dark purple frock coat, and if there’d been any question before as to the providence of the purple bow tie on her bedpost, well, it appeared he had a spare.  And his hair — how had he worked that out with his hair?  It was much less chaotic, more intentional about the quiff.  Looked a bit shorter.  If he lived, he needed to make some notes.

“River,” Fancy Dress was saying, low and steady, as he stepped right into her personal space like she hadn’t just been brandishing a deadly weapon at him.  “It’s me, dear.  It’s your Doctor.  You’re safe.”

She hesitated, poised to whip something probably sharp and unpleasant out of a pocket on her outer thigh, but didn’t move any further.

“It’s alright,” the future him soothed, resting his hands on her upper arms, despite how lethally unwise such a gesture appeared from the Doctor’s vantage point.  “Look at me.  You’re okay.  I’ve got you.”

She didn’t move, still coiled like a spring and poised to snap, and then he leant in, touching his forehead to hers.

Something in her hard expression flickered, then shattered entirely, and she gasped, the knife she’d had gripped in her fist clattering to the ground.  She stumbled half a step back from the future Doctor, looking down in horror at him sprawled on the pavement, and covered her mouth with her hand.  

“Oh, no,” she breathed, and the Doctor felt a sharp pang of sympathy for the absolute brokenness in that sound.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.  It’s been ages since— I never thought— I’d have sent you off straight away if I ever thought I could—”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” the older him soothed, stroking her hair and tipping her chin up until she met his eyes again.  “He’s fine, I’m fine.  No harm done.”

“This is why you told me to stay away, isn’t it?  I’ve scared you off now.  I-I’ve ruined it.”  Seeing River overcome by some mysterious force that made her homicidal toward him was one thing.  Seeing her this openly vulnerable with him was something else altogether.  The Doctor held his breath, not daring to speak; even his presence felt like an intrusion on this intimate exchange between them.

“Come now, dear,” said Fancy Dress.  “You think a little death threat will stop me coming back to you?  You won’t get rid of me nearly that easily.”  She took a shuddering breath, and when he pressed a kiss to her forehead, her eyes closed and tears spilled over.  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed both tear-streaked cheeks.  River choked down a sob, and then their lips met.

The Doctor’s face felt roughly the temperature of a supernova as he watched them, wide-eyed.  His insides were a knot of envy and dread and longing and sympathy and terror and other things he couldn’t possibly put a name to.  The older him pulled back, nuzzled into her hair, whispered something in her ear.  River nodded, smiled, sniffled, kissed him again.

Swallowing hard around the lump in his throat, the Doctor scrambled to his feet as quietly as he could, rounded the corner of the building, and made a slightly humiliating retreat from his future.

___

Some time later, the Purple Menace found him sat on the ground, his back to the outer wall of the far side of the hall of residence.  The crescent Earth hung high overhead now, glowing a brilliant marbled white.  The quarrelling drunks had ambled off long ago, leaving the Doctor to brood in the relative peace of the university at night: the distant din of cheers and laughter over fuzzy, persistent booming bass.  A cool breeze stirring the lunar elms and rustling through the tendrils of ivy dripping down the brick facade of the building.

“Seeing as I’m you,” Purple said at last, reclining against the wall beside him, “I think we can skip the part where you pretend to be surprised.”

“Well,” the Doctor mumbled, perhaps a tad defensively, “the gun was surprising, a bit.”

“But only a bit.”

“She did say she killed someone.  The best man she ever knew.”

The other him scoffed, his mouth curling into a wry smile as he shook his head.  “Yeah, she did say that, huh?  Rubbish,” he declared fondly.  “And I know her father— it’s not even close.  But charitable characterisations aside, that never bothered you, did it?  That she might have murdered us.”

“You tell me, since you know everything,” he retorted sullenly.

The future him huffed appreciatively.  “Ah, well, we love a bad girl, don’t we?  Works out particularly well if we know whoever they’ve been bad to deserved it.  No question there, if it’s us.  No guilt.  But that’s not all.  It’s not just a bit sexy and convenient for our self-loathing.  You want it to be us.  You’re hoping it is.”

Well, he wasn’t beating about the bush.  The Doctor exhaled heavily.  “Maybe it’s… the only way this is fair,” he said at last, half in a whisper.  “The only way I can even think I might deserve to…”  He couldn’t choke out the words, his throat too tight.

“Yes, and?” Purple prompted, unmoved by his self-pity.  “No use holding out on me; I know it all.”

“And… and if she kills me,” the Doctor forced out bitterly, “I won’t have to be around, when she’s… gone.  I won’t be there for it to hurt.”

The older Doctor shuffled down the wall to sit beside him, apparently satisfied in having forced him into the sort of excruciating honesty he rarely shared even with himself.  “We really are completely selfish in the end, eh?” he said, mirroring his position on the floor, arms resting over his bent knees.  Rhetorical question, obviously.

“Well, and so?  How does it happen?” the Doctor demanded, though he knew he’d never answer himself with the truth.  “Did she kill us?”

“How should I know?  I’m still alive, aren’t I?”  

He knew.  He could see it.  But he wasn’t giving any more spoilers.  

“You won’t remember much of this,” said the older him, “after crossing our own timestream.  But I think you should remember it’s about time you started a diary.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor laughed bitterly, “Might have a few notes.  Is this going to be on the exam?”

“And, just for the record,” said his older self, once again ignoring his own petulance.  “The sooner you stop taking it out on her, the less you’ll have to hate yourself for the rest of your life, however long that may be.  So.”

Fancy Dress stood to go.  

“Hey, just… tell me,” the Doctor called hoarsely up to him.  “Is it worth it?”

His lips turned up briefly at the corners, though it was hard to discern the heaviness behind his own, older eyes.  “What do you think?”

Fancy Dress strode off down the path and around the corner, and was gone.  Probably back to River; to care for her, to show up and be good to her; even if he was scared, even if it hurt.  The Doctor didn’t know his future self, but from these glimpsed little fragments, he could piece together that he’d be the sort.  Good.  River deserved that.  

It was a good story.  Even if he already knew the ending.  Even if he couldn’t change one line.

#the doctor/river song #doctor/river #11river #11/river #drfic #how tf do people format short fics on tumblr lmao i have COMPLETELY forgotten #what year is it what century is it #idk #i have been very sick and have insomnia and this happened #yeet #please love me #unless it's trash #visit ao3 if you'd like the version of this including my rampant abuse of italics #i was too lazy to make that transfer #also i seem to have forgotten how to make it link the the specific chapter #but i remember struggling with that before too so #WHATEVER

[jadethe2nd]

Title: Forgetting Chapter 1

Rating: M

Words: 4532

Summary: Various incarnations of River and the Doctor are stranded on an ice planet for 24 hours each after their younger selves make a temporal mess.

#drfic #I just realised it took me over a year to write this #oh well #featuring River and Doctors 10 11 12 13 and 15 #I know we're still arguing about if he's 14 or 15 but just to be clear #something for everyone I hope #my fic

[melodypond-thewomanwhomarriedme]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, River Song Additional Tags: 13 saves her wife from the Library, river refers to 13 as her husband because that's what she is dammit, Reunions Series: Part 1 of fic commissions Summary:

Enough time had passed, she felt, to be able to do this. Not for her - never for her. But for River. Always River. 

#drfic #doctor x river #spacewives #space wives #thirteenth doctor #river song #13 x river #river x 13 #thirteen x river #river x thirteen #dwfic

[xhellnhighheelsx]

Chapters: 23/30 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song Characters: River Song, Eleventh Doctor, Jack Harkness, Original Characters Additional Tags: timebabies, post library, Canon divergent past season 7 Series: Part 2 of And the rest is rust and stardust Summary:

Against her better judgment, River lets herself be seduced by hope.

#river song #drfic #river x 11 #river x doctor #river x eleven #doctor who

[cdyssey]

Summary:

Shortly after losing Donna, the Doctor receives a distress call from Orion XI, a space station that surely contains a mystery somewhere in its hundred floors.

But to his surprise and to his horror, to his devastation and compulsive intrigue, someone from his past is there too.

"'Professor River Song,' he says stiffly, taking a step back to breathe air that isn’t wreathed with her, choked, nauseatingly undone. (That perfume she wears—it’s floral and half-unearthly. He thinks roses and second guesses himself. Ionized lavender? Extractic vanilla? Chrynocian blooms from Atraxas? Parma violets? The inexorable, omniscient fragrance of Time?) She’s too much—overwhelming. Alive. He deconstructs complex quantum-astrotechnical equations in his head in mere seconds and can’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that this is in her past. She’s dead and she doesn’t even know it. Can’t know it. It’s his little secret. Hush now—spoilers."

Excerpt:

“Ah, early days,” she surmises correctly, searching his eyes and nodding to herself, as though she’s confirmed something just by looks alone. She’d said something maddeningly similar in the Library, flipping through a ragged diary that apparently was full of their shared adventures, touching his face like she’s held it so many times before. “You’ve met me before, and I must have made a reasonably unpleasant impression.”

“I wouldn’t say it was unpleasant!” He splutters immediately, failing to see how his bluntness couldn’t be construed as anything but disdain. “But—“

River places a slender finger against her lips and says that word he’s starting to hate, especially coming from her.

“Spoilers.”

She laughs pleasantly, like their shared time and space is all a clever game, though the gesture still doesn’t quite reach her eyes, which are faintly lined near the bridge of her nose. She looks older than the last time he saw her, but somehow, the Doctor can tell that she’s quite a bit younger, that she’s been hurt by the world and hasn’t yet mastered how not to entirely show it.

“Now run off to your saucer, kitten, and do whatever it is that you do when Mummy isn’t around.” She pats him on the cheek like he’s a naughty schoolchild in a boarding school. “I’ve got a mystery to solve.”

#doctor who #tenth doctor #river song #tenriver #drfic #s: doctor who #reginianwrites #this project is called I'm completely in love with river song <33

[mygalfriday]

Pairing: River Song/Eleventh Doctor

Rating: E

A/N: Enemies to Lovers AU.

Summary: She’s in her bedroom in the palace. The ocean roars outside her window. At her bedside, Theta sits slumped in a chair with his hand wrapped tight around hers. He smiles tiredly at her, looking half-dead. He’s pale and rumpled, the shadows under his eyes prominent. “Hello sweetie.”

#drfic #river song #eleventh doctor #river x eleven #eleven x river #doctor x river #doctor who #my fic

[amillionmillionvoices]

River/Doctor #7

river/12, kissing scars a bruise

It’s been over a day by the time he notices. A day of skirting around one another, of half-conversations, almost-apologies, broken declarations. She almost tells him what she’s been through, since Manhattan. He almost asks. She almost touches him, fingers ghosting across his arm before they fall away, and she turns her attention to something else. He almost stops her. 

They’re still in the TARDIS, parked near the Towers now, and he thinks perhaps they’re both too scared to mention all the time laid out before them. He thinks maybe she doesn’t want it. Maybe she doesn’t trust him. He wouldn’t blame her, but it knots in his chest, every time she looks at him, like she’s just waiting for him to leave. 

They’ve spent time together and argued about little things—the TARDIS’ bulb, where to put the swimming pool, whether Akorax V is better before or after the Fall of the Emperor. But everything they need to talk about—Amy and Rory, Manhattan, Darillium, Hydroflax, Ramone, the Doctor does not, and has never, loved me—they keep tucked away on their tongues. 

He doesn’t know if it’s the weight of the unsaid, or just the last six months, but they’re bickering over where to order in from when he looks up, looks at her, and for the first time sees how exhausted she looks—there are circles under her eyes he swears weren’t there before, a heaviness to her shoulders, her smile wane. 

He trails off, stares, and River arches an eyebrow. “What?”

He blinks, and frowns. “You look tired.”

“Thank you,” she says with a huff, rolling her eyes, but her hands drop from the menu they’ve been holding together, and she tries to stand straighter. For the first time, he notices her wince. 

“When was the last time you slept?” 

River glares. “When was the last time you slept?”

He can’t remember. He doesn’t feel tired—too anxious to be tired, too afraid, of losing her again before he’s had a chance to make things right. To do better by her, be better for her. 

He doesn’t answer. 

River shrugs him off, and he doesn’t press. They order food and sit in the kitchen and he doesn’t feel like eating. River barely touches her plate. He wants to call her on it, but knows she’d simply turn it back around on him. They pack most of it away in the fridge. 

River disappears to shower, and he wants to follow her. Wants to run his hands over her skin and reassure himself that she’s alive and safe and really here, not a ghost, not a haunting. But she doesn’t invite him and he can’t summon the courage to ask, so he tinkers with the controls and folds and unfolds a newspaper he picked up, full of real estate ads. 

There’s a little bungalow not far from the town nearest the towers. It has bay windows and a garden, or so the ad says. He should ask her about it. If she wants it. If she still wants him. 

He supposes it’s a conversation they should have sooner rather than later. 

Tucking the newspaper into his pocket, he takes his time moving toward their bedroom. Runs over in his mind what to say and how to say it. Practices under his breath being gentle. Being open. His voice still sounds too gruff, too irritated. He doesn’t want to sound like he doesn’t care. Not here, not now. Not with her. Not this time. 

Their bedroom door is cracked open, and he can hear the shower running. Slips inside and stares at the bed they haven’t slept in together for years, still made up. Her clothes are in a pile on top of the comforter, her trowel on the desk in the corner. Her diary’s on the nightstand, her new screwdriver on top of it, and his stomach knots. He looks away, takes a seat on the edge of the bed facing the en-suite door, and fiddles with his ring. 

He hasn’t told her why he wears it, that he wears it for her. Hasn’t told her he keeps his bow tie in his pocket at all times. Hasn’t told her how much he’s missed her, longed for her. Hasn’t told her how badly he wants to bury his face in her hair, how he wants to hold her and never let go. 

He thinks of the aftermath of Manhattan, of the way she’d tried so hard to be strong for him. The way she wouldn’t break. The way he pushed and pushed until she left, taking the rest of his hearts with her. 

The way he hadn’t gone after her, like she should have done. 

He’s made so many mistakes, they make his chest ache, and he knows he doesn’t deserve this, deserve her, but he’s selfish and needs her and he’s so busy trying to come up with the right thing to say to make her realize he isn’t lying that he doesn’t notice the shower turn off, doesn’t hear her moving until the door opens and she’s standing there, hair wet against her neck, towel around her waist, staring at him. 

“Doctor?”

Not sweetie, not darling. 

He swallows. “We need to talk.”

It isn’t what he means to say, isn’t how he means to say it, and River tightens her grip on her towel. She looks down for a brief moment, and he hears her inhale; then she looks up, jaw tight, steeling herself. 

“Talk, then,” she says, as if it doesn’t matter. 

She crosses to the closet and picks out clothes and the Doctor stares at her legs, her back, her shoulders.

“I—“ he starts, and falters. There’s something on her neck that he can’t quite see. “Come here.”

River turns, frowning, clothes in her arms. He gestures, and she rolls her eyes, but comes closer, almost cautiously, eying him with too much suspicion. When she’s close enough, he reaches for her arm, nudging gently. 

“Turn around.”

She huffs. “What are you—“

“Just turn.”

She glares, but does as he says, and he reaches a trembling hand out to move her hair aside. Her shoulder is purple, almost black in some places, worse up close, now that he can see the faint outline of large fingerprints. He hesitates, fingers ghosting over the outline of the bruise, and River flinches. 

“Hydroflax?” he asks, remembers when they tried to escape, the way the robot dangled her off the floor by her shoulder. He hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t known—he supposes her spray is to thank for that, the longer sleeves she’s been wearing since. 

“It’s fine,” River says, and makes to turn but he stills her. 

“Stay here.”

He disappears into the en-suite, comes back with a bottle, a healing salve from some planet or other, he can’t remember. Knows only that it will help her pain. 

“Sit.”

“I’m not a dog,” River snaps, finally, a hint of anger in her eyes, and it relieves him just a little, to see her spark. 

He holds up the bottle. “Sit, please?”

River glowers, but sets down her clothes and perches on the edge of the bed, her back to him as he uncaps the bottle and pours a generous amount of salve into his hands. 

“This might hurt,” he warns, but she merely nods, flinches slightly at the first, barely-there touch of his fingers on the bruise. 

It’s wide and discolored and he hates that he didn’t notice, hates that she didn’t tell him, hates that he let it happen in the first place. That she was harmed. That anyone dared harm her. He clenches his jaw, but it doesn’t stop his words from spilling out, a muttered, 

“Should have put him down the garbage disposal when I had the chance.”

River snorts. 

“I’m serious.”

“Yes,” she says, too casually, “But then I’d never have known who you were.”

He stills a moment. “You think I wouldn’t have told you?”

She shrugs, and winces again. “You certainly took your time.” 

Her voice is even, but he knows better now. Knows it isn’t a joke, and he swallows tightly. 

“I tried,” he says, but they both know he didn’t try hard enough. “Not my fault you’re slow on the uptake.”

He regrets the words immediately, for the way River sighs quietly, says, “No, I suppose it isn’t.” It sounds too much like defeat, coming from her. 

“River…”

“Just say it, Doctor.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you think I don’t want to hear.”

She sounds exhausted, sounds wrung out, and he stares at her shoulder, wishes he could see her face, but he isn’t brave enough. And it helps, almost, to stare at the bruise when he says, 

“I...don’t know…” he trails off, hesitates, reaches out and touches her spine, so gently. “...how to say it.”

There’s silence, long and dreadful, and River doesn’t turn, doesn’t move, barely looks like she’s breathing. 

“Most people just say ‘goodbye.’”

The Doctor flinches. “Is that what you think I want?”

River shakes her head, but still refuses to look at him. “I don’t know what you want.”

Her words hit his chest, and he feels something inside him crack. 

His River. 

His wife. 

And he’s done this to her, made her so uncertain, she won’t even face him. He’s made her so sure that his absence is the only thing she can count on. It forces the air from his lungs, makes him shudder. He closes his eyes against the rotating guilt, the grief he’s created for them both. 

There’s so much he wants—needs—to tell her and he doesn’t know where or how to start. She’s stiff beneath his hand, waiting, he knows, for a dismissal. An excuse. A trite line or a lie. 

He wants to ask her what she wants. What she needs. But he thinks, staring at the bruise he could so easily heal, that it isn’t good enough. Puts too much onus on her, to pretend the hurt never happened. That it’s easily fixed. 

Swallowing down his nausea, his fear, he slides his hand over her skin to her arm, cradles her bicep gently, fingers whispering in Gallifreyan. 

I’m sorry, he says. 

River shudders, sighs, and moves to turn, away or toward he isn’t sure, but he doesn’t want her forgiveness, not yet. 

Bending forward, he places a soft kiss to the bruise on her shoulder. 

“Just you,” he whispers, and gathers his courage. 

River doesn’t move, for a long moment, his lips pressed to her skin, his fingers drawing symbols on her arm for want and need and hope. 

When she turns, finally, her eyes are bright with tears, and he lets his hand fall to hers, lifts her wrist to his lips and kisses that, too, the scar he’s never forgotten. 

River stares at him, her eyes blown and he waits, brushes his thumb over the pulse in her wrist. 

“Always you.”

River blinks and a tear falls and he catches it, cradles her cheek, relieved beyond all measure when she tilts into his touch. 

“Sweetie—”

He kisses her quiet, so softly, and tastes salt.

#river song #river x twelve #river x doctor #drfic #catherine writes fic #THANK YOU BABE! #have some angst #mygalfriday

[goddessdel]

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: River / Eleven

Rating: G

Words: 2,649 

Teaser: "Really, it's bad enough that you didn't trust me to mind Stormageddon." The Doctor hissed, glancing between Craig and Sophie, "But did you have to call my wife?"

#otp: really important flirting #drfic #sometimes I write fluff #or mostly fluff #I did my best #my fic #dwfic #at least I wrote something? #this year y'all #may the mostly-fluff see you through

[terapsina]

5 Times The Doctor Talked About River Song With Graham (+1 Time The Fam Finally Met Her)

---          ao3 ---  1 ---

Graham finds it on the floor of the TARDIS control room.

Everyone else is asleep, emotionally wrung out from their latest trip, he thinks even the Doctor might have gone off for a nap and he’s never actually seen that happen before now.

But Graham can’t sleep. His mind is still painfully stuck on Grace. On having held her in his arms not even a few hours ago, on having lost her all over again. Logically he knows it wasn’t really Grace. Now that it’s over and he’s looking back he even realizes a part of him knew all along.

It doesn’t make the hurt of it lessen.

And it’s not because the illusion was flawed, if anything it’s because it was too perfect. She looked like Grace, sounded like her, fit in his arms like her. She even smelled like Grace, like Shea butter and vanilla, because all the products Grace liked to buy had those ingredients in them. Everything about her was as warm as he remembers, from her smile to the soft touch of her hand. Even her mischief twinkled like the fire from a candle in her eyes.

It was like a dream come alive, a dream he never would have been willing to wake from if not for Ryan.

He’s so angry at himself for almost having abandoned his grandson for an imitation of the woman who was the love of his life. However flawless of an imitation it was.

He’s pacing from one side of the console to the other, mind lost to self-recriminations, when he feels his foot step on something small, kicking it across the room with a light tinkle.

His eyes follow the small golden object as its slide down the floor stops in the middle of TARDIS, and finally focuses on the last thing he’d have ever expected to find here if he’d ever thought to consider it.

It’s a ring.

He walks toward it, bending to pick it up. It turns out to be a simple gold band, moving it to catch better light he notices a small inscription on the inside that he can’t read. The TARDIS isn’t translating it. It’s written in the same circular pattern that he’s seen all over the ship since the start of this strange adventure into time and space.

It’s also, unmistakably, a wedding ring.

Breath catches in Graham’s chest, because in a moment between one heartbeat and the next, he knows. And his heart breaks for his alien friend.

The Doctor was married.

He stands frozen, uncertain if he should go looking for the Doctor now or to wait until later. Picturing her face the last time he saw her, those tight and drawn eyebrows and the dropping shoulders, he comes to a decision. He pockets the ring and goes back to his room. 

The Doctor deserves some sleep too, he’ll find her tomorrow morning and return it then.

-

Tomorrow morning turns into afternoon and then evening before Graham gets his chance. By the time he woke up, both Ryan and Yaz were awake too, and the Doctor was already busy with finding their next adventure.

And he knows if someone had found Grace’s ring he’d want them to return it in private.

He loves his grandson and Yaz. But they are so young, their curiosity would have gotten the best of them and Graham doesn’t want to put Doc on the spot like that.

So he waits until Yaz and Ryan have gone off exploring the dizzying number of rooms of Doc’s ship, or whatever else it is they like to do when they’re not running toward death defying adventures with grins on their faces, before he pulls the Doctor away from tinkering with the mechanisms of her time machine.

“You have a moment?”

She slides out from underneath the opening into the console, her sonic screwdriver between her teeth. The humming of the TARDIS engines grows softer as if in response.

“What’s up Graham?” She asks, after taking the screwdriver out of her mouth and as she’s pushing her goggles up to her hairline, making her hair go in all kinds of interesting directions. She looks like the mad scientist he might have found on the screen of one of Grace’s science fiction shows.

In a way he supposes that’s a pretty accurate picture of the Doctor, and any other time Graham might have smiled in amusement at his thought. Today he flinches at the smile she sends him, knowing he’d be taking it away with his next words.

“I found something yesterday. I think it’s yours, Doc.” He says, and pulls out the object that’s been burning in his pocket the whole day.

The Doctor’s eyes slide to his arm and once they narrow in on the ring laying in the palm of his hand, her face transforms from the carefree adventurer he’s gotten to know in the past few months, to something painful and lost and hurting. It’s a look that’s far too old for that face. And so very familiar Graham can’t help but look away.

“Where did you find it?” the Doctor asks, voice a breathless whisper, her hand hovering over the ring, seeming unable to cross that final little bit of air to touch it.

“It was here on the ground. I don’t know how it got there.” He says with a nervous shrug.

“I do.” The Doctor says, eyes momentarily glaring toward the center of the room. She doesn’t explain, instead finally taking the ring from him in one quick movement and pulling it to her chest, squeezing it in a fist against her.

“I’m very sorry Doc.” Graham says. The words are inadequate but sometimes they really are the only ones available.

“I know.” She says, eyes looking to a point in empty air behind him.

He nods and pats her lightly on her shoulder, before turning around to leave her to whatever memories have washed over her with the return of that wedding band.

“Her name was River Song.” She says once he’s already taken a few steps. He stops, turning around, giving her the opportunity to continue or not as she needs. “She was an archaeologist. And a professor. And a criminal. And she was brilliant and absolutely mad.”

“She must have been. Married you didn’t she?” Graham jokes before he can help himself.

But Doc just grins like she agrees and laughs to herself. 

Something uncoils in Graham’s chest at seeing Doc’s face regaining its natural brightness, however tinged with grief. The grief isn’t new either, he’s seen shadows of it in her all along but this is the first moment she doesn’t seem to be trying to hide it. Or maybe the first time she’s not trying to hide from it.

“She did do that. Married me at every point in history happening all at the same time. And a few times after.” The Doctor tells him, leaning forward like she’s revealing a secret instead of saying something that makes no sense at all.

“Sounds like quite a woman.” 

“She was.” The Doctor says, eyes now down on the hand hiding the precious metal band within its hold.

There’s an extended moment of silence and then; “Graham?”

“Yeah, Doc?”

“Thank you.” She says, a serious and infinitely grateful look overtaking her face.

He nods at her and turns around, knows the conversation has come to a close and he should leave his friend to a moment that’s something meant between her and the specter of her wife.

In the privacy of his own mind he wonders why the Solitract never took on the form of this River Song. Whatever the reason, he finds himself grateful, he wouldn’t wish that cruelty on his worst enemy. And he certainly wouldn’t wish it on Doc.

---  2 ---

“She used to leave me coordinates and jump out of the most impossible places, waiting for me to catch her. I always did.” The Doctor says out of nowhere, both of them chained to the stone wall of the dungeons of the Victorian castle, waiting to get executed, or getting saved by Yaz and Ryan. Whichever comes first.

Personally, Graham’s hoping for the second one.

“What?” He asks, lost.

“River,” the Doctor explains. “She once defaced the oldest cliff-face in the universe. And before that she left me a recording inside a Home Box so I’d come catch her jumping out of a space ship into vacuum. It was the day her mother met her. Well, that face anyway.”

“That must have been frightening.” Graham says, uncertain. He’s not sure he wants to touch the bit about the mother. Sometimes he thinks she likes to confuse them on purpose.

"Oh no, she was absolutely fearless. Hell in high heels and it's the devils who ran." The Doctor says either misinterpreting his words or choosing to misunderstand on purpose, her voice full of spousal pride and a face painted with smitten adoration. It’s so unexpected, so unlike the Doctor’s usual disposition, that Graham needs to clear his throat to get past the sudden awkwardness of it.

"Sounds like she was made for you, Doc." He finally says, trying to picture this impossible woman who married the Doctor, and falling short. The only impression he can summon up is someone dangerous and larger than life.

He’s so busy with his mental portrait it takes him a moment to notice the Doctor has fallen silent, once he looks at her though his breath stutters. Her face is so pained it’s as if he’d landed a physical hit with his last words. She looks almost... ashamed.

He curses himself for whatever it was he said that put that expression there.

“You okay, Doc?” He asks, voice as gentle as he can make it, trying not to startle her into pulling back into herself.

The Doctor flinches and blinks rapidly like waking from a bad dream, then her face transforms into her usual bright but slightly removed facade, and she’s back to trying to reassure him.

“I’m always alright.” She lies and changes the subject. “I wonder what’s keeping Yaz and Ryan, they should really have gotten past the sleeping guards by now.”

He doesn’t call her on it and moves his mind back to the problem at hand. The problem at hand of course being; the part where they’re chained to a prison wall for trying to assassinate Queen Victoria. The fact Queen Victoria has been replaced by a homicidal alien copy asks for some worrying too and Graham is more than willing to oblige.

In the end it turns out there’s no need for either worry, Yaz and his grandson find them twenty minutes later and they’re away from 1882, London within an hour.

The real Queen back on her rightful throne, though still yelling threats to the Doctor’s back even as they’re being whisked away by the little blue box.

---  3 ---

They’ve split into pairs again. Usually he prefers to watch his grandson’s back when that happens but today is March 18 - or would have been if they weren’t jumping all over time and space, - and Ryan had been snapping at him since morning.

He knows Ryan well enough to know that if he doesn’t give him some space before trying to talk to him about it, they won’t talk at all.

“Everything okay with Ryan?” The Doctor asks as they’re traveling through the apparently semi-sentient crystal tunnels of the newest planet she’s brought them to, trying to find and stop whoever it is that’s been attempting to mine it.

Grace would have loved it here. The sapphire-like stone itself is the familiar blue of what he’s pretty sure is Doc’s favorite color but it’s mixed with golden strands that run through the fault-lines and leave the strange impression of blood vessels, veins running through the body of the living crystal.

“It would have been Grace’s birthday today.” Graham says, heart clenching in his chest at saying it aloud. In a perfect universe he would be home right now, standing over her favorite cake - red velvet with cherry frosting, - and singing a ‘Happy Birthday’ with their grandson.

In a perfect universe she would be here beside him, just as in awe of their surroundings as he is.

“Oh.” The Doctor says and grows quiet.

“It’ll be alright tomorrow. It’s just… today is hard. For both of us.” He hopes he’s not lying. Hopes Ryan will let Graham find him once they’re back in the TARDIS so they can spend the evening talking and laughing and crying about Grace. So they can pick themselves up tomorrow and continue living in her honor like she’d have wanted them to.

They spend a few minutes just walking when the silence finally becomes too much for Graham. 

“How long were you married?” It’s the first time he’s initiated the subject of the Doctor’s wife himself, the two previous times it was her who opened up first, so he’s not entirely sure how she’ll respond. But he’s ready to fall back into silence and not press if it looks like she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I don’t know.” She says, still steps ahead and with her back to him.

“How can you not know?” Graham asks, mind heavy with confusion.

“If I count only all the days we were together; then two, maybe three centuries. If I count all my days from our first wedding to the last time I saw her, then almost half my life.” She says with a forcefully easy tone. 

Graham stops in his tracks as the implication hits. “Centuries?” 

She turns around and looks at him like she’s measuring the words she’s planning to say, or if she’ll say them at all. After a moment her face clears and she seems to come to some sort of decision.

“I’m more than two thousand years old, Graham. I’ve loved River Song through four of my faces and had more than twice as many before that, most of them male. I’m not human.”

Graham had known that, that the Doc wasn’t human, that she had two hearts and enough lives to make a cat jealous. In an abstract way that they were a man before they were a woman, because she’s dropped enough comments to that effect by now. But he hadn’t realized the differences between them were quite so vast as two millennia.

“Was she?” He asks and immediately thinks better. “Wait, no, you said three centuries, she couldn’t have been.”

“What?”

“Your wife.” He doesn’t know why he’s asking that, except maybe because he knows Grace would have, and so especially today of all days he has to in her place. Or maybe it’s just that pesky human curiosity.

“She wasn’t. And she was.” She says after a moment and turns back around to continue walking. “She was the daughter of my two best friends. And the daughter of TARDIS.”

She doesn’t explain further than that, so he’s left puzzling over the new contradiction on his own for the rest of the way through the alien tunnels with his strange alien friend as his company, a silent one now.

He turns his head back toward the faintly glowing walls and once he looks more carefully notices the slightly irregular pulsing of the golden veins. Fascinated he again thinks about how much Grace would have loved to see this.

‘Happy birthday!’ He thinks toward her, hoping she’s seeing this from wherever it is she’s watching over him and Ryan.

---  4 ---

They’re back in Sheffield the next time the subject of River Song comes up.

Yaz is off spending some time with her family and Ryan is meeting his father for dinner. Graham is trying really hard not to stress himself into growing ulcers over that last one.

It’s not that he thinks he’s going to lose to Aaron the bond he’s finally building with his grandson. He understands Ryan’s wish to repair the relationship between him and his father. It’s just that despite Graham’s belief in Aaron’s genuine regret, he can’t help worry that Ryan will get his heart broken again.

He doesn’t think he could stand seeing Ryan disappointed like that again.

Which leaves him at home. Worrying. With the Doctor as company.

“He’ll be fine, Graham.” The Doctor says, not for the first time this hour.

“I know that.” Graham says back, eyes still on the door.

“Oh, do frowns and scrunched up foreheads not mean what they used to mean in you humans?” The Doctor’s voice sounds amused so he can’t help but glare at her a bit.

“Hilarious.” He mutters under his breath.

“I am, aren’t I?” She says. 

He huffs loudly and goes back to staring at the door. Waiting for Ryan to come home.

“Do you want to talk about something else then?” She offers. “Might distract you.”

“Be my guest.”

“The first time River met me she shot the TARDIS, tried to kill Hitler and poisoned me with a kiss.” The Doctor drops, and to give credit where it’s due, distracts Graham absolutely.

“What?” He doesn’t even know which part to touch first.

“Poisoned lipstick. So glad she switched to hallucinogenic ones later.” She almost sounds dreamy. Graham feels his brain beginning to hurt.

“She poisoned you?” Honestly, he doesn’t even know why he’s shocked, it’s the Doc after all. But still, how do you marry someone who poisoned you in their first interaction?

“Only a little bit. And she saved me right after.”

“And that makes it okay?” Graham says, furious on her behalf.

“There were... reasons. She didn’t know me yet but she knew about me and- well, there were reasons.” The Doctor explains. Even though Graham doesn’t really think it explains all that much at all. Something about her expression though tells him to leave it alone, there’s that guilty, haunted look in her eyes again and Graham isn’t sure he wants to know what’s behind it.

So maybe it’s a good thing that before he has a chance to put his foot in his mouth there comes the sound of a key turning in the lock and the front door slamming open.

“Hey, gramps.” Ryan says walking in, a wide smile on his young face.

Graham exhales, the knot of worry loosening for now and smiles back, hiding the stress he’d been struggling with for the past few hours. “Hello, son. How did it go?”

“Good.” Ryan says, a slightly shy happiness dancing like starlight in his eyes.

---  5 ---

It’s almost three months since Graham found the ring and gave it back to the Doctor before a moment comes where he feels like it might finally be the right time to touch on the one thing that’s been implied but never addressed in their conversations about the Doctor’s wife.

The day isn’t particularly different from any of the previous ones.

It’s late and Graham can’t sleep so he walks to the kitchen for a cup of tea when he finds the Doctor already there, eating custard cream biscuits.

He nods tiredly in her direction, grabbing two blue cups from a shelf and going through the motions of making both of them the peppermint tea he finds on the counter-top - he’s pretty sure it wasn’t there a moment ago but he’s also gotten used to not questioning things like that while aboard the TARDIS.

“Sugar?” He asks, because he’s noticed she never puts the same amount in any of her cups. He thinks it might depend on her mood.

“Two and a half teaspoons, please.” She tells him and he tries not to grimace as he follows her instructions.

“Here.” He says and passes her the cup once he’s done. Pulling his own cup - no sugar - with him to the other side of the table. 

She gives him a few biscuits in exchange and for a few minutes they share their midnight snack in peace. And then the thought that has been ruminating unvoiced for a long time now surfaces in his mind again, and for the first time he doesn’t push it back down.

“How did you lose her?” He asks.

The biscuit halts halfway to her mouth and then lands heavily back on the plate. For a long time she just stares into her tea and Graham thinks she’ll choose not to answer.

But then she looks up into his eyes and breathes out very slowly.

“She died the day I met her.” She says.

“I thought you said you were the one who almost died when you met.” Graham says, confused again.

“When she met me. This was before that- well, from my point of view at least. We never met in the right order. She was a time traveler too, had a vortex manipulator, I think she might have stolen it from an old friend of mine actually, not that she ever actually admitted where she got it.” She says, growing more animate as she switches gears mid-tangent. “Our timelines went in opposite directions. Not entirely of course, there were loops and twists and exceptions but for the most part the older I got, the more often the River I ran into was a younger and younger version of her.”

“So the day you met her...” He says not finishing the thought, horrified as he realizes what she’s saying.

“She died saving four thousand and twenty-two people.” She finishes for him with a shrug that belies the pain he knows she must be feeling at saying it.

“That couldn’t have been easy, knowing the entire time what would happen to her.”

“I spent centuries running away from the last date we’d have before she went to the Library.” She snaps. “So, no, not easy.”

“Did you ever try to-”

“What? Change it? Save her? Go back and make sure she never died there? Take her place?” She glares at him and for a fraction of a moment she looks her age, millennia old and furious and terrifying beyond reason, and for that one moment Graham is almost scared of her. And then she blinks, her gaze losing it’s terrible intensity, and he’s not even sure that he didn’t imagine it. “She would never have forgiven me. And- and her timeline is complicated, even if I tried to- there’s a very good chance if I did it that I’d be erasing her from the universe entirely.”

He stares at her, heart full of grief for the pain she must have lived through. He tries to imagine having known the entire time about the day he’d lose Grace to that fall and almost breaks with it. He doesn’t think he could have survived that.

“You’re like a Greek tragedy, Doc.” He breathes past the knot in his throat.

“Always preferred the Romans.” She says and goes back to eating her biscuits, eyes skittering away from meeting his.

He knows the conversation is over and by the way she’s starting to fidget with that chain around her neck, - the one that wasn’t there three months ago but which she hasn’t taken off since, - and by the way she is decisively avoiding his gaze. He knows she wants to be left alone.

Respecting her wish for privacy he finishes the last of his tea and gets up to leave. “Goodnight, Doctor.”

She doesn’t answer but by the time he’s reached the door he does hear her say something. Something he’s pretty certain isn’t addressed at him. Both because he doesn’t understand it and because he’s pretty sure she’s already forgotten that he’s still in the room at all.

“Not those times, not one line. I promise.”

--- +1 ---

It ends the way it began. With Graham noticing something small in the control room of the TARDIS. Though this time it’s not the middle of the night and he’s not there all by himself.

It’s mid-afternoon and the Doctor is laying on her stomach, playing with the insides of the ship, sparks flying around her whenever she touches a wire with her sonic and once in a while being interrupted by what sounds like the irritated humming of the TARDIS itself. Yaz and Ryan are on either side of her trying to figure out exactly what she’s doing, though Graham is not at all sure even Doc knows what that is.

And then something catches his eye.

“There’s a blinking button, Doctor.” He says and goes over to it for a closer look.

“Red or green?” She asks, not moving from her place halfway into the console.

“Blue.”

“Oh, someone’s left a voicemail. Put it on speaker, will you?” She says louder, in answer to the sudden shudder that runs through the ship and makes Graham catch the console for balance.

“Sure. How do I do that?” He asks, eyes running over the large number of doodads in front of him.

“Flip the first switch to the right down, and then press the blinking button.”

He follows her instructions and as soon as he’s done so, a low female voice with a Southern British accent rings across the room, a playful lilt to her tone.

“Hello Sweetie, be a dear and come pick me up, please?” There’s the sound of an explosion from the other side of the call echoed by the unmistakable clang of someone hitting their head against metal from under the TARDIS console. Before Graham can do more than lean over to check that they’re all okay, the Doctor is already up and pushing him out of her way. “I’ve sent you the coordinates.”

“Who was that?” Yaz asks with obvious concern as soon as she and Ryan join them. 

Graham has a feeling he already knows.

“River.” The Doctor exhales more than says, Graham notices her hands shaking as she pulls up the mentioned coordinates.

“Doctor?” Ryan asks, looking just as worried as Yaz.

“My wife.” The Doctor says and starts running around them, flicking switches all around the control table even quicker than Graham’s already used to seeing from her.

“Your what?” Yaz exclaims in tandem with Ryan’s: “What?”

The Doctor ignores them both, halting with her hand atop the lever that will make them take off and turns her head to face Graham. She’s paler than normal, eyes blown wide from terror and tears starting to visibly gather in the corners. Graham has never seen her scared, not truly, but right now she looks on the edge of breaking.

“I can’t go through this again. I’ve already lost her three times I can’t- not again.”

Graham stands frozen, for a moment absolutely uncertain about what he could possibly say to help her. And then the answer hits him and it is so very simple.

“It sounds like she’s in trouble, Doc.” He says, remembering one of the things she’d told him.”You said you always showed up to catch her.”

The Doctor lets out a shuddering breath and seems to steel herself. She pulls the lever and they all grab for the nearest steady surface to stay on their feet as TARDIS takes off with an almost exhilarated sounding wheeze.

“Is someone going to explain what is going on? Where are we going?” Yaz yells again, this time directing the question at Graham.

“It’s not my place to say.” He says, holding on to the table for dear life but upon noticing Yaz’s frustrated expression expands on his words. “But I’m pretty sure you’re about to find out.”

When they come to a halt a moment later the Doctor is already running toward the Police Box door, flinging it open with a snap of her fingers before she’s even halfway there and then crashing to the ground as a woman lands sprawling on top of her.

“Well hello there,” River Song purrs for all of them to hear. “That’s new.”

“River!” The Doctor says, like all the breath has been knocked out of her. To be fair, Graham’s pretty sure that’s literally the case.

“Yes, Sweetie?”

“What were you doing breaking onto the Museum Planet. They execute their thieves.” The Doctor says from underneath her wife, looking all too happy to stay where she is even as her voice turns chiding. “Also it’s boring down there.”

“Yes, well, it’s not my fault that I’m so infamous that when I’m presumed dead all my personal possessions suddenly turn into priceless artifacts they want to put on display. They were practically begging me to steal them back.” The Doctor’s wife says with a smirk Graham can hear even without seeing her face.

“Presumed dead?” The Doctor asks, voice turning small again.

“Oh, honestly, Doctor! Did you expect me to spend all of my eternity in that data core? It took me a while, I’ll give you that, but at the end of the day it was just another Stormcage.”

Graham is starting to feel like he might not have gotten anywhere near the entire story himself here. But he’s also beginning to get the feeling that the Doctor might be getting her wife back from the dead after all.

“You’ve been to the Library.” The Doctor says, starting to struggle to be let up and Graham finally catches a glimpse of her face. She looks overwhelmed, but where just minutes ago it was with fear of having to say goodbye again, right now there’s a dawning realization of something akin to bliss.

Graham feels his own heart tremble in his chest. It hurts. River Song is alive and Grace is still dead and no matter how happy he is for the Doctor, there’s sudden gnawing envy trying to swallow the heart that he’d only barely started to mend.

He has just enough time to see the Doctor pull River into her arms, crushing her mouth against her wife’s, before his eyes turn away and land on the shocked faces of Ryan and Yaz.

He walks over to the two of them and turns them around by their shoulders to steer them out of the control room and into the deeper hallways of the TARDIS.

“Come on son, Yasmin, we should give them some privacy to catch up. I think they haven’t seen each other for a very long time.”

#drfic #space wives #thirteenth doctor #graham o'brien #river song #the doctor #river x 13 #13 x river #river x doctor #thirteen x river #river x thirteen #doctor who #dw fic #space wives fic #fanfic #otp: hello sweetie

[beware-my-sting]

“I don’t know anyone else who can make me feel this way.” doctor/river

“Are you afraid of me, River?”  The Doctor walks forward with a swaggering gait, his eyes flashing as he crowds River Song against the wall, his body hovering just centimeters away from hers. The heat from his body flows into her, and his anger is a tangible thing, rages to take up every bit of space, tries to consume all the air around them.

A spark of something shoots up her spine at the darkness that somehow seems at once foreign and at home in his gaze, and it will take decades for her to name it, that thing sparking through her blood. Even then, she will be reluctant to label it fear for more reasons than one.

River Song isn’t afraid, she doesn’t clutch fear to her chest like it’s the only thing that could save her, protect her – as though if she’s careful enough, cautious enough, she will remain safe. She knows it isn’t true – has seen enough in this universe to know that there is no such thing as protection, that safety is a lie creatures construct for themselves and she is long past the days of relying on creature comforts. Long past hoping for a safety she knows is not her own, will never be her own.

Still, she has felt it. With him. Safe. Only, this him doesn’t know it yet, and it’s not all the time.

“No,” she stares him down, holds his gaze, and her refusal in this moment seems to feed whatever fire is in his belly, seems to stoke his anger because he cocks his head to the side and clucks his tongue.

“No?” he hisses out a breath, “You should be.”

River’s seen him like this before, of course, very nearly unhinged. Desperate to crawl out of the skin he’s in because he isn’t sure he even deserves that any more, and maybe he’s right about one thing or the other – or maybe both. Maybe she should be scared of him. Of the things he’s seen, the things he’s done, the things he will do – to her, for her, because of her.

River narrows her eyes, ignoring the uneasiness in her stomach as she looks at him, wild and broken – there is no other word for what this man standing before her is, she realizes – “And why is that?”

The Doctor stares at her, hard, his eyes squinting, examining her as his gaze slides slowly, unforgivingly over her face. It’s cool, impersonal, and so much the opposite of everything they are to one another that River’s hearts clench in her chest.

“You’re seriously asking me why?” the condescension drips from every word in the short sentence, and it trips River’s ire.

“Oh, I see,” she widens her eyes, mocking him, “I should be scared of you because – what? Because – why? Because you hold the future in the palm of your hand and don’t fall apart when you watch it turn to dust? I’ve got news for you, sweetie. You do fall apart – we all do, in the end.” She smirks at him, her lips twisting in a cruel approximation of a smile, “Or is it because you hold lives in the palm of your hand and don’t fall apart when the people you love die?”

He flinches at that, raw pain flashing over his face as he shifts away from her, the change nearly imperceptible but it feels like a distance the size of bravery, and River Song is nothing if not brave.

“Newsflash,” she whispers, “you do fall apart, no matter how you try to hide it. And in the end, you’re just a servant to time, same as the rest of us.” She eyes him appraisingly, sizing him up, watching as discomfort spreads through his body at the way she’s turned the tables on this situation, the way she sees through him always, “Centuries under your belt, and you still don’t get it, do you?”

His voice is quiet, but still measured, even, but River’s ears are well trained in the Doctor’s nuances and she can hear the slight tremor when he speaks, “Get what?”

She shakes her head, like she’s explaining a simple task to a child that should have known better – three parts patience, two parts frustration, “We’re all here because we want to be.”

The Doctor’s mouth falls open, but he slams it shut – it would be so easy to willfully misunderstand her words, heavens knows he’s done it enough. It would be easy to pretend she’s talking in the general and not the specific, that she’s not telling him what she’s actually telling him.

But he knows what she’s saying, hears what she doesn’t: with you.

And just like that, the anger falls out of his face, seeps out of his body and into the wind of whatever planet he’s stumbled upon River Song on this time.

Something tentative slips into his gaze now as he stares at her, something hopeful and blooming, and he shakes his head. It dawns, then, what’s seeped into his eyes, replacing the blackness – a perfect blend of awe and affection, “I don’t know anyone else who can make me feel this way.” It’s barely a whisper, but for the way her blood thrums through her body, he may as well have shouted it from the highest mountain range on this gods-forsaken planet.

“Ah,” River says, a slight smile spreading across her face, her anger floating away on a light breeze the way it so often does when it comes to no one but him, “So it would seem that maybe you are afraid of me.”

The Doctor stills, freezes and tenses as he looks at her, considering her words and weighing them. She doesn’t miss the sadness that flickers in his eyes, but it’s gone in an instant, replaced by amusement as the corners of his lips pull up into a grin.

“Maybe I am,” he agrees.

River laughs, trailing her hand up his torso and over his bowtie before curving along the side of his jaw, “I’m not so scary,” she winks as her index finger trails lightly over his bottom lip.

The Doctor laughs, then nips at her finger, “Oh, but you are, Doctor Song,” he leans down and presses his lips to hers, his tongue darting out to dance across her lips; his eyes darken with desire as he pulls back to look at her, his gaze flickering between her mouth and her striking eyes, so filled with secrets and yet an unbreakable honestly, “You are.”

#drfic #dr fic #River Song #Eleventh Doctor #River Song/Eleventh Doctor #natalie writes #prompt #thank you #wishrealfreedom

[thespacehairandthespaceidiot]

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Alex Kingston/Matt Smith, Alex Kingston/River Song, Eleventh Doctor/Alex Kingston, Matt Smith/River Song, Matt Smith/Eleventh Doctor, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Eleventh Doctor/River Song/Alex Kingston/Matt Smith Characters: Alex Kingston, Matt Smith, River Song, Eleventh Doctor Summary:

"Gonna be honest," Matt said, his arm still covering his face, "I don’t know that I can think of a whole hell of a lot that can top that."

At his words, a series of flashes raced through Alex’s mind, all serving as proof that she certainly could think of a number of things which could still beat what’s already happened. And the very first one of them involved the woman whose head was still between her legs.

"Well, I think I can." She was done playing the passive participant tonight. She had certainly spent enough time on her back this evening to warrant a bit of reshuffling. "I believe it’s my turn now.

#mattex #mattexfic #drfic #cassie's fic #hey look i updated

[sonickedtrowel]

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Mature Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Eleventh Doctor/River Song Characters: River Song, Eleventh Doctor Ch5 Tags: team 11 says i love you, i know i wrote a fic on this premise years ago but oh well yeet, did not reread to see if i'm copying myself so i probably am, but damn we deserved to see more of this time in their relationship, oops i accidentally another chapter, no matter if i try to make unrelated chapter fic or related unchapter fic i'm still doing it wrong Summary:

For tumblr prompts and short ficlets, should I ever manage to write something under 10k again.

Ch 5: Stories Pt. 2 It wasn’t entirely fair, honestly, the way he’d swept her off her feet.  She didn’t have the slightest chance of resisting his charms, and he seemed to have no remorse whatsoever about putting every one of them to use.  Well, she had rather gone all-in already when she’d burnt up her remaining regenerations in one go to save him.  So it was really only fitting that he didn’t waste any time making it worth her while.

#the doctor/river song #river song #11river #drfic #I think I got this to link directly to the chapter this time?! who tf knows #this is a sequel to chapter 4 #i'm sorry #i didn't put the text in the post bc it's smutty lol #please love me #no i checked the chapter link still isn't working idek sorry

[jadethe2nd]

Title: Forgetting, Chapter Five

Rating: M

Word Count: 3920

Summary: River whirls to face the Doctor – maybe the youngest Doctor she’s ever seen. “Sweetie,” she gapes, surprised, and nearly loses her footing again.

#drfic #river/ten #my fic

[melodypond-thewomanwhomarriedme]

Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song Characters: River Song, Eleventh Doctor, Missy (Doctor Who), Clara Oswin Oswald, Nardole (Doctor Who), Madame Vastra (Doctor Who), Craig Owens Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, river runs an escort service, the doctor is a prince and the ponds are his parents, Fairytale-ish?, slight missy/clara, repost, sort of a twist on Pretty Woman where the woman is older than the guy, and also the guy is a royal, and also other significant changes so i guess it's not really like Pretty Woman at all Summary:

She looks towards the invitation sitting on her vanity - the one that states ’attendance is mandatory for all unwed maidens’ - and pulls a face. Everyone knows the King and Queen - though well-loved and respected by everyone in the kingdom and far beyond that - had hit a wall in trying to find a consort for their only son and heir to the throne, John. Though the many princesses from faraway lands that have presented themselves were more than suitable for the role of the future King’s wife, rumours have circulated that John has insisted on ruling the kingdom without a woman by his side.

#drfic #dwfic #river song #eleventh doctor #river x eleven #eleven x river #11 x river #river x 11

[xhellnhighheelsx]

Chapters: 19/? Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song Characters: River Song, Eleventh Doctor, Jack Harkness, Original Characters Additional Tags: timebabies, post library, Canon divergent past season 7 Series: Part 2 of And the rest is rust and stardust Summary:

It’s almost embarrassing that it’s come to this, being caged in her own home, kept safe even though she's the one who specializes in finding people who don’t want to be found. She digs up lost civilizations for a living. She raids tombs that are designed to keep people out. She has located lost ruins, sold them to the highest bidder and stolen them back. She’s outwitted queens and would-be gods. She’s escaped inescapable prisons and shattered time itself. And yet here she is, doing a crossword puzzle, feet propped up on a pillow, and eating a bowl of fresh fruit while the Doctor does dishes.

On second thought, she could get used to this.

#river song #river x doctor #doctor who #drfic #river x 11 #doctor who fic #my fic