Who: River & The Doctor (13) What: First in-person meeting. When: Following this. Where: Between the forest and the city. Status: Complete. Ratings/Warnings: Low.
River's life had been filled with things she hadn't thought to expect, some terrible and some wonderful, most of them impossible. Of course her death would be no different. By rights, she shouldn't even be here. She should be back in The Library, maybe even would have faded out of existence by now. But she had found herself here, in her own body, alive. Then her husband had arrived, battered and beaten, but still the man she’d had to walk away from on Darillium. It was a second chance, one she'd never thought possible, one they were never meant to get.
Now, here she was, standing in front of her wife. Her wife. That was a bit unexpected. Thrilling as well, though. Every new regeneration was a little bit terrifying and a little bit exciting, learning her way around all the similarities and differences, wondering if the Doctor still felt about her the way she always felt about the Doctor.
"Look at you, you're gorgeous." She was itching to go to her, touch her, but she held back, letting her make the first move.
This wasn’t the first time the Doctor found herself unwittingly transported somewhere. Or seemingly stuck without any sign of her TARDIS. She was always up for an adventure and this was shaping up to be an epic one.
She sat on a rock, somewhere between the edge of the city and the edge of the forest, examining the communication device she’d been given upon arrival. It connected her to other stranded denizens. It connected her to River. She had never thought she’d see River again, not after they parted ways on Darillium.
She heard River approach before she caught a glimpse of her in her peripheral. She stuffed the communication device into the pocket of her jacket and stood up from the rock.
“You like it?” She asked, looking down at herself. “It’s a bit different. I haven’t been blonde in a while.” She stood still for a moment, hesitant, before she finally walked over to River. Again she hesitated before wrapping her arms around River, pulling her into a warm hug.
“It suits you.” River stood, caught in place, for what felt like an eternity, waiting for the Doctor to close the last bit of distance between them. She didn’t even try to hide the relief that washed over her when she finally did, returning the hug with equal warmth and without hesitation. It had never mattered to her which face the Doctor wore, being with them always felt like coming home. “Your fashion sense certainly hasn’t improved.”
There was a note of laughter in her voice, and when she pulled back, just enough to look at her properly again, her expression was full of affection. “I absolutely approve.”
The Doctor scrunched her face and scoffed. “I thought this was a brilliant outfit!” She looked down at herself again, to the pant legs that don’t reach all the way down and the boots tied in the most haphazard fashion. “At least I don’t have a fez,” she remarked and then in a much quieter voice “with me.”
“You- you look good,” she said, her head ducked to avoid direct eye contact, hair slipping in front of her eyes. She didn’t want to address the elephant in the room: River’s return to existence.
Her need to avoid the topic led to an abrupt change in course of conversation. She stood up straight, hair falling away from her face, and looked around their surroundings, shrouded in the fading sunlight. “I reckon however we got here, must be able to take us back as well.” It didn’t occur to the Doctor that ‘back’ for River meant back to the Database. “I can’t get any good readings from my sonic, though.” She pulled the device from her pants pocket, looking at it as if it had betrayed her.
River laughed, low and genuine, shaking her head. “Small mercies.”
As much as she might complain, though, it was just another of the many things she couldn’t help but love about the Doctor. That ridiculous dress sense and the irrepressible love of equally ridiculous headwear. It seemed the more some things changed, the more others stayed the same.
She pretended not to notice the way the Doctor avoided looking at her, instead flashing her another brilliant smile, easily pulling the mask back into place, hiding the tangle of emotions that had been threatening to pull her under in recent weeks. “Well, I do try. It's so nice of you to notice for a change.”
Still smiling, she pulled out her own sonic. “Useful for many things. But not leaving the island, I’m afraid.” She knew her wife as well as she knew her husband, the way they got ahead of themselves, and how terrible they could be at sitting still. It was hard to hold it against her for failing to consider the reality of River's situation.
Sliding up her sleeve, she rotated her wrist to display the vortex manipulator she’d taken to wearing again since she’d found it in the flat next to her sonic. “This either.”
“I always notice. I notice everything.” She stuffs the sonic back into her pocket. “I just don’t usually say anything.”
The Doctor’s relieved that it’s not just her sonic that isn’t working. She doesn’t have the first idea where to get any tools to tinker with it if it was just hers on the fritz. She frowns at the vortex manipulator on River’s wrist.
“You still have that?” She can’t help but shake her head, roll her eyes. “What have I told you about those?” As if the Doctor’s negative opinion of vortex manipulators was supposed to influence River’s choice to use one. As if she wasn’t convinced that River often did things just to spite her. Although, if she was honest about it, if the vortex manipulator was working, she’d be more than happy to grab on to River to get off this mysterious island.
“We can’t truly be stuck here, can we? What’s the other me found? Anything yet?”
“Darling,” River started lightly, reaching up to gently brush her wife's hair back from her face, “Not all of your faces have been terribly observant in that department.”
She only smirked at the criticism of her vortex manipulator. “Cheap and nasty, I know. But one never knows when she might need a quick exit.” True, it wasn’t working quite as it should, but it was working well enough for that.
“If he has, he hasn’t shared it with me, Sweetie. But the general consensus seems to be that we’re stranded. I know how much you hate that.”
For the first time, the Doctor began to accept that maybe she truly was stranded on this mysterious island. There was a blank look in her eyes as the gears turned furiously in her brain. One could imagine complex mathematical equations drifting by as the Doctor thought things through from every theoretical angle.
“But...what do I do if I’m really stuck here? Settle down? Build a life?” Her brow furrowed into confusion and she began to pace, hands stuffed into the pockets of her trousers. “Without my fam? Without my TARDIS?” She stopped by the rock she’d been sitting on and stared down at it, as if it held the answers to her conundrum. She breathed out a heavy sigh and reached up to tuck errant strands of hair behind her ear.
“I guess I have done it before. Trapped on earth, worked for UNIT. It wasn’t that bad.” She turned around to look at River again. “Maybe...maybe I’ll get a job and a flat and a sofa. Someone has to need me for something.”
River watched her calmly and patiently, waiting.
She’d loved the Doctor for so long now she couldn’t even remember how long it had been. Decades, certainly. Centuries, probably. And she had loved her through so many faces, more even than the Doctor herself could realize. Because she couldn’t help but love all of them. Some of them, of course, she had a greater fondness for than others. But she liked to believe she had a certain understanding of the individual at the heart of each of them, enough to know it was best to let her reach some conclusions on her own.
Even with the younger Doctor back in her flat, her wife's questions stung. As much as she loved the adventure, the running, a part of River had ached for exactly that, settling down, building a life. And for two all too brief decades, she’d nearly had it. She wondered idly how long it had been since Darillium for this incarnation of her spouse.
“Of course, someone needs you.” There was something soft and fond in her voice, a silent, I need you, you idiot, left unspoken. “The offer still stands, you know? There's a spare room.” She shrugged. “We have a sofa, but you’re welcome to pick out a new one.”
The temptation of keeping both her husband and her wife nearby? Could you blame a girl for trying?
“You've always been able to find a place for yourself, Sweetie. This isn’t going to be any different.”
The Doctor averted her gaze again. “You know I never get on well with myself,” she replied simply. It’s obvious in her posture and her averted gaze that there is much more to it than that. The Doctor remained cagey, however, not willing just yet to divulge her feelings. She’s not even entirely sure what those feelings are. Jealousy? Sort of. She’s not convinced that would be the correct word for it. It was a deep-seated, complicated feeling. A rare thing in this world that the Doctor had not yet experienced.
“I’ll be fine on my own,” she added after a moment of silence. “I always am, after all.”
River made a noise caught somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. While she’d used a fair enough excuse, and she expected her husband would have made much the same argument in a similar situation, any of her husbands, they both knew she’d never done well on her own either. No matter what she occasionally liked to believe.
There was more to it, that much River could see. She still knew her well enough for that, she thought. And it was hard, not to go to her, try to coax it out of her the way she would have before. But she didn’t know yet if she was allowed, if it would be welcomed. This face was the oldest she’d ever seen. She always knew. But it was still new, certainly new to her.
In the end, she settled for holding out her hand, giving the Doctor the chance to close the distance. “I hope you don’t think you’re getting rid of me that easily.” She tried to catch her eye. “Doctor, talk to me.”
The Doctor smiled and lifted her eyes to look at River. “I could never get rid of you. I would never want to.” Again she hesitated before closing the distance between them, but she just rested a hand briefly on River’s elbow. “Maybe I’ll stay with you for a few days. Just until the TARDIS shows up.” She dropped her hand back to her side. “If Yaz, Ryan, and Graham show up we can’t all be living in one flat.” It’s another excuse, the Doctor being well aware that her fam would want their own places.
Well, that was something at least, the smallest of victories. This time, River did reach for her, her fingers closing gently around her arm. “Sweetie, have your space if you like. I won’t force you into anything.”
River stepped in just slightly closer, releasing her arm so she could cup her cheek. “But I would like you to stay, and you always have a place with me.” If there was one thing she wanted to be sure her wife still knew, it was that.
“Now, why don’t you tell me about these new companions? Yaz, Ryan, and Graham, was it?”
The tenderness of River’s hand against her cheek almost tore down the Doctor’s walls completely. She smiled more broadly and, for a brief moment, rested her hand against River’s.
“Oh they’re all brilliant, my fam. I think Graham’s older, but I forget sometimes how humans age. He’s grumpy sometimes and always hungry but he’s one of the most caring people I’ve ever met. He lost his wife, though-” She trailed off, falling quiet as she stared into the distance thinking about Grace. She still carried the blame for her death in her heart.
The Doctor blinked a few times before coming back to the present. “Yaz is just brilliant. Absolutely clever. A cop and a very good one at that. Ryan is sweet and earnest. I think he’s getting tired of travelling with me, though. He’s started to realise how normal life is passing him by. They do that sometimes. Miss normal life, I mean. It’s funny to think that sometimes I just can’t compete with the mundane. I just want him-all of them-to be happy, though.”
That was more like it. With a little time, River hoped those walls would disappear. Above all, she hoped the Doctor knew she still loved her, couldn’t help but love her, for who she was and would always be. Her beautiful idiot. She didn’t need to wear a bow tie or have cross eyebrows. And there was something especially sweet about this regeneration, something warm.
She couldn’t help smiling as her wife described her eclectic little band of companions. Three of them, this time. She searched her memory. It had been a while since the TARDIS had been so occupied. “They sound like just your type.”
River wished she could explain the appeal of the mundane to her often larger-than-life spouse, but it wouldn’t have made her feel better anyway. Instead, she reached for her hand. “I’m sure they miss you, too.” Then, before they could drift too far into sentimentality, “Now, how about we go find you a sofa, wherever you’ve decided to park it.”