Who: River & The Doctor (13) What: Exploring the TARDIS & feelings. When: Following this. Where: The TARDIS. Status: Complete. Ratings/Warnings: Low. Discussions of death and touching upon River's less than ideal upbringing. The destruction of Gallifrey also gets a mention.
Her vortex manipulator didn't especially like being used as short-range teleportation. It was designed for time travel. But River was impatient, and she'd always been a fan of pushing its limits.
She gave it a quick tap. Oh, never mind, she could tinker with it later.
Now then, where was that wife of hers? She hadn't lost her touch, she thought, catching a familiar glimpse of blue just up ahead. And she hadn't realized quite how much she'd missed that blue box until she was standing in front of it, nearly as much as she'd missed the Doctor.
River rested a hand on the door, a private hello, before pulling out her key and sliding it into the lock.
She was greeted by the warm glow of the crystals as she stepped inside. "Well, you're gorgeous, aren't you?"
The TARDIS hummed happily in the back of her mind, and yes, she'd missed this.
She ran a hand lovingly over the console, quietly familiarizing herself with the new layout.
When she realized she wasn't still alone, she smiled but didn't look up from what she was doing. "I love it, Sweetie."
The Doctor emerged from somewhere in the depths of the TARDIS into the console room to find River standing there. She paused for a moment, admiring how River looked bathed in the orange glow of the crystals. She cleared her throat and continued walking until she was at River’s side at the console.
“You like it, then?” The Doctor pressed her foot against a lever under the console, dispensing a custard cream. She grabbed the biscuit and offered it to River. “Custard cream?” She smiled warmly and leaned her back against the console, crossing her ankles.
“Feels good to have her here. Even if I can’t leave. I feel more...at ease, if that makes sense.” The Doctor herself was mildly surprised by how candid she was. It was just her and River and the TARDIS and sometimes, it was okay to let her walls down just a little. Nobody had ever been as devoted as River was, after all.
“You want the grand tour or should I just let you wander about as you like?” Something she would never let anyone else do. She trusted River. She wasn’t some hapless, bumbling human who might break something after all.
“I do,” River answered as she reached for the offered custard cream and gave the Doctor a shameless once over as she took a bite.
Turning to lean against the console beside her while she finished her biscuit, she said, “The TARDIS is your home, but she’s more than that, too.”
She was a companion. And River wouldn’t pretend to understand the bond the Doctor shared with the ship any more than she would expect the Doctor to understand the intricacies of the bond she shared with it.
If she wanted, she knew the TARDIS would show her what she needed to see, her own personal tour, guided by instinct. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She held out her hand for her wife to take. “I'll wander. You keep me company.”
A warm smile spread across The Doctor’s face and she took River’s hand in hers. It felt like an eternity since the last time she held her wife’s hand. Even though it was familiar, it was different at the same time. The first time this hand ever held River’s.
“The rainforest is lovely right now.” She gave River’s hand a gentle squeeze and led her through the corridor to the rest of the TARDIS. It was familiar, but different. The contents of the TARDIS were largely the same, with a different aesthetic and a different location for some rooms. They walk passed the various bedrooms, the room that served as an oversized walk-in closet, the pool, the library.
“I remember when I regenerated once...oh, which one was it? I was blond, wore decorative celery. You know how disorientating it is when I’ve just regenerated. I had to leave myself a trail back to the console room so I wouldn’t get lost in my own TARDIS.” She let out a small laugh at the mere thought of it. She knows this very well could be a story she told River before. She certainly can’t keep track at this rate.
“It’s hard to imagine now. Not being able to find my way around the TARDIS.” She stopped by the door leading into a large, lush rainforest. Even from the corridor, they could hear the chatter of birds.
“What do you think?”
River’s own smile softened with affection. It was lovely to see some of those walls coming down, to know not everything had changed. Loving The Doctor always had a price. Some might say River had paid it twice over, once with her upbringing and once with her death. But for her, it had always been knowing there would be a day when The Doctor would no longer know her, no longer love her. Every time The Doctor changed, that fear returned.
But The Doctor’s hand was familiar around hers as she let her lead the way through the TARDIS corridors, making quiet note of relevant doors as they passed. It was beautiful, well-suited to her wife, she thought; and they both seemed pleased with the change.
“You know she hates it when you do that.” She couldn’t bring herself to sound anything other than amused, despite the light reprimand.
With a smile, she added, “I liked that face. But, I think, not as much as I like this one.”
As she stepped into the rainforest, she squeezed The Doctor’s hand. There were sounds of life all around them, but it was peaceful as well. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that until now. “I think she’s outdone herself. Would you mind if we stayed here a little while longer?”
“We can stay here as long as you like.” The Doctor smiled broadly and pulled River deeper into the rainforest. She found them a clearing and sat herself down on a log. “I’ve spent a lot of time in here.” She looked up at the canopy of trees overhead, watched a flash of colour as a bird flew by.
“Gallifrey is gone again.” She said it so matter-of-factly, but the pain on her face was unmistakable. “I’ve visited it again and again. The smoldering ruins, the dead planet…” She trailed off and cast her gaze down at the ground below her boots.
“I come in here after seeing that destruction. It’s soothing. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but…” she shifted her gaze from the ground to her wife’s face. “I guess it helps calm the rage. I don’t want to stoop to The Master’s level.” Her blood turned cold in her veins at the mere mention of The Master and what he did. There was that rage, lingering just below the surface. The rage that could make The Doctor the most dangerous person alive.
Following her gaze upward, River sighed, feeling the tension of the past weeks ease. But The Doctor’s next words snapped her attention squarely back to her wife, everything else forgotten. None of it mattered nearly as much as the pain she could see so clearly written on her wife’s face. She’d spent so many years with The Doctor believing Gallifrey was lost, and years more after he’d known it had been saved. There was something different this time, more than the grief and the guilt.
She had so many questions about how it had happened and why. Something to do with The Master, she could assume. And why wasn’t she surprised? Or why The Doctor would subject herself to seeing it over and over, though perhaps she already knew the answer to that one. But her questions would wait.
Sitting next to her wife, she slid an arm around her, giving it a moment to see if the contact was welcome. “I’m sorry, my love.”
The Doctor leaned into River’s embrace and sighed. “I don’t deserve you, you know.” She pulled back only enough so that she could look River in the eye. “I haven’t always been good to you and yet here you’ve been, devoted to me. You deserve better.” She exhaled another sigh and dropped her gaze to the ground, watching bugs crawl under blades of grass.
This is not a conversation The Doctor would ordinarily broach and she isn’t sure why now was the time to bring it up. But there it was, out in the open, laid bare between them. She slipped her hand into River’s and laced their fingers together. Intimacy, tenderness, were never her strong suits. It always felt so much easier to keep everyone at an arm’s length. That seemed like the only way to protect herself. She was aware, though, about how that emotional distance affected others. Even if she often pretended not to be.
River studied their joined hands, even as she pulled her wife closer. There really was something sweet about this one, something kind and soft, and her guilt seemed so much closer to the surface this time around.
And even after all this time, when The Doctor showed her love for her, spoke about her like that, it still felt like being loved by the stars.
“Doctor,” she said finally, softly, “I only ever wanted you.” Of course, she’d made mistakes along the way. They both had. River was still trying to come to terms with some of them. But she’d only ever wanted to be with The Doctor, would have spent her entire life with her if she could have.
“I don’t understand, but I guess I don’t need to.” She gave River’s hand a small squeeze before standing up. “Come on, you want to wander about some more? I think there’s some other new rooms you haven’t seen before.” For once, she wasn’t trying to avoid the conversation. She just didn’t feel the need to say anything more on the matter. She certainly wasn’t going to argue with River for loving her.
“I hope you know you’re welcome here anytime. I know things have been a bit uncertain, me having regenerated and all. You’re always welcome, though, no matter what face I have.” She smiled, a faint, soft smile and the softness extended into her eyes.
“I suppose I’ll have to get a job or something. I don’t think I’ll ever actually get the TARDIS to leave here. She’s not broken, so I know there’s not really anything I can fix. It can be like Darillium again.” Her smile broadened a little more, with the slightest hint of sadness in her eyes at the unspoken reality that leaving here, like Darillium, could very well lead to River’s death.
River smiled, standing with her. Funny how they could love one another so much and both think they didn't deserve it. “Lead the way, darling.”
It was a good sign, she thought, that The Doctor hadn't been pulling away from her. Not as uncomfortable with touch this time around either, it seemed. She wouldn't flatter herself into thinking it was a response particular to her. But her words only bolstered River’s confidence, and she slipped her arm casually back around The Doctor as they walked.
She leaned in slightly as she replied, “And you know it’s never mattered to me. You're always…you.” But she did worry, just a little, every time The Doctor changed, if they would still love her, if any of it still mattered. She smiled warmly as she brushed her thumb lightly over her wife’s hip. “Thank you for the reminder.”
River thought she could have kissed her then. So reluctant to be stranded only a few weeks ago, and now she's trying to make the best of it, see the bigger picture, and comparing it to the happiest years of River’s life. Of course there was no escaping the ever present reality of her death, just as there hadn't been then, but River wasn't a stranger to living her life on stolen time. She couldn't quite find the words to voice any of that, however, so instead, she gave her a gentle squeeze. “I’ve a job here, you know, but I've a feeling you wouldn't approve.”
The Doctor led them through the forest and toward the door back out to the corridor.
“You have a job?” She lifted her eyebrows, somewhat surprised. River had been an archaeologist and a professor, but she seemed to work as much as The Doctor did when UNIT was still around. The fact that she felt The Doctor might not approve made her even more curious about what it was River was doing.
“Please, do tell,” she encouraged as they emerged from the forest into what The Doctor now felt was much more aggressive lighting. She squinted and, as if sensing her discomfort, the TARDIS dimmed the lights through the long, winding stretch of corridor that still lay out ahead of them.
“One of us had to,” she murmured. And, if she were being honest, she had worried she would get bored without something to occupy her days. While their 24 years on Darillium had been beautiful, and a part of her had never wanted anything more than to settle down and have a proper life, River was used to a little more…excitement. Not to mention she’d been dead for, well, she’d lost track a bit.
“I'm on one of the defense teams.” Her team wasn’t on patrol today, though, or on call, and she'd left her blaster back in her flat. She’d stopped carrying it regularly a long time ago, and she hadn’t felt the need to start again. “I assume you still prefer talking to fighting.”
“I do. I still hate guns, too.” She kept River’s hand in hers as they walked through the TARDIS. “I am, however, capable of admitting that sometimes it’s necessary. Not guns. I’m not convinced those are ever necessary. Fighting can be, though. Especially if it’s in defense.”
The Doctor knew River was aware that there was a time when The Doctor felt differently. When she was young, before she’d seen the death and destruction of the Time War. Before she caused death and destruction. She didn’t want to see that ever again and if she could find ways to avoid it, she would do just that.
“I won’t hold it against you. You protect people, right?” She glanced over at River briefly, then paused and turned her attention back to River, and focused on her for longer. She rarely did that. The Doctor was a master of avoiding, well, everything.
She stopped abruptly, wanting now to study her wife’s face. There was a time when she wasn’t good at picking up on the nuances of facial expressions. Sometimes she still wasn’t, but 24 years with River gave her ample time to learn how to read her wife. She liked to think she was pretty good at it now.
“There’s something you’re avoiding, isn’t there?”
Before she could quite help herself, River smirked, “I thought you used to like my gun.”
And though she had always liked to go her own way, stubbornly independent, the part of her that always wanted to please The Doctor, to make them proud, hoped her wife noticed she wasn’t carrying that gun today. One downside no one bothered to mention about falling in love with an ageless God(ess), even when you were in your 200s (probably), they could still make you feel like a child.
That feeling only intensified as The Doctor turned the full force of all that attention on her, and she did her best not to fidget, not to give anything away. She failed, of course. But she’d already had this conversation once, tried to have it.
Neither of them had ever been especially good at sharing what they really felt, and her death and resurrection was an emotional minefield she didn’t know if either of them was ready to walk into yet. She still didn’t even know how long it had been for this Doctor. Perhaps it didn’t matter. She was here, wasn’t she, asking?
She reached out to brush a stray strand of hair out of The Doctor's face, gently tucking it behind her ear. “I died, Sweetie.” It wasn’t anything either of them didn’t know, but perhaps a more direct approach this time, if she could. “I know you meant well, but you should have let me go.”
The Doctor’s eyes darted to the floor, but she forced herself to look back at River. “I really do always have to be the hero.” She breathed a sigh. There was a hint of guilt in her eyes, but it wasn’t the only feeling welling up inside of her. “I didn’t-I guess I thought that life was better than no life. I didn’t think it through. I never do, though, do I?” She fought the urge to drop River’s hand, to shove her own into her pocket, to pull into herself physically and mentally.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She, too, reached out to briefly caress her wife’s cheek and then, once her hand had dropped back to her side, she closed her eyes and breathed. She tapped into the psychic connection between them, long ago established during their time on Darillium.
I know that doesn’t change anything, but I really am sorry. I won’t make excuses. You know I have a hard time losing anyone. I let myself believe that was a win. I didn’t-I didn’t think about how it would feel for you. She opened her eyes to look at River, the connection still open between them.
River gently pulled her closer, though it made little difference to the connection between them. She wanted her to know it mattered to her. There was a sense of relief underneath the tangle of emotions she didn’t bother to hide: sadness, worry, longing, bitterness, anger, joy, fear, love. If being with The Doctor felt like coming home, using their psychic link was like two halves of a whole coming together.
I expected you to come back. She'd thought that if, if they left her there in that library, there must have been some bigger plan. They wouldn’t have put her in another cage, another prison. I waited.
Her thumbs made absent circles on The Doctor's wrists, and she had to fight the urge to look down at them, wanting to avoid her wife's gaze. It still hurt, and she hated that it did, hated that she could be angry with them for loving her when she’d spent so long believing they couldn’t.
The Doctor’s hearts sank when the flood of River’s various emotions hit her. This is why The Doctor always tried to avoid...everything. She was all too aware of how many people she’d hurt over the course of her impossibly long life and it was easier to forget it than to face the reality.
I should’ve come back. I had no plan beyond uploading your consciousness. If I had known you then, known everything you’d been through, I think I would’ve done things differently. I thought I was doing what was best, because I didn’t know better. Because I didn’t know you. That was really the crux of it, wasn’t it? The Doctor never wanted to admit to it, but sometimes, some people were expendable. Sure, it was a victory when everyone lived, but that happened so rarely and, when it came down to it, saving the people she loved mattered more than saving strangers. If anything happened to River now, The Doctor would move mountains, destroy planets to save her. Because now The Doctor loved River, more than she’d loved anyone since…she’d didn’t think the name, but the feeling of love and sadness and loss and failure that surrounded how she thought of Rose whenever she allowed herself to think of her filled her mind and her hearts. She’d done the same thing to Rose. Trapped her without respecting her choice. Because saving someone, no matter how, was always the most important thing to a hero.
And that hurt, too, remembering the way he’d looked at her, without any hint of recognition. Still, she'd loved him. But this Doctor knew her, every moment of their lives together, and her love was warm and present.
She knew, too, how certain losses haunted her, the guilt she always carried. River was reluctant to add to those feelings.
You were so young, so sure of yourself. I never would have let you take my place. Determination and a fierce sense of protectiveness accompanied the last. She would give her life for The Doctor’s a thousand times over and never regret that choice, even knowing it isn't what she'd want. But you, Sweetie, all that time… Even here, it's hard to find the words. How could she tell her the others had gone, and only she'd been stubbornly clinging, hoping her wayward husband might still come back for her? Maybe the loneliness wrapping her words said it for her, I missed you.
I missed you too. The Doctor brushed back River’s hair from her face. I would go back and change it, I’d save you properly if I could. There wasn’t any guilt here, just an immense love and a hint of sadness. I’d tell my younger self to think it through instead of always being the impulsive hero.
She dropped her hand to rest on River’s shoulder. “You’re angry,” she stated matter-of-factly, no sadness, no defensiveness. “You should be. Be as angry with me as you need to be. I don’t know about younger me, but the me standing right in front of you can handle it.”
To The Doctor, this had happened several lifetimes ago, but connected the way she was with River, she could feel how very recent it was for her wife. That helped to ground The Doctor, since she was, at times, prone to dismiss things that happened so long ago. She couldn’t cross into her own timeline and alter a fixed point in history, but if she could, she would do it in a heartbeat for River.
“I don’t want to be angry, Sweetie.” But she didn’t deny that she was. She couldn’t. And at the moment, she couldn’t have hidden the truth from her if she’d wanted. She didn’t have the will or the energy to keep her emotions to herself.
River stepped closer instinctively, expression softening. She hated feeling like this. She hated adding her own pain to The Doctor's. But her wife was a steadying presence, and she could see her strength as much as she could feel it. “I’ve loved you since Berlin. Sometimes that feels like the only thing in my life I ever chose for myself.” And on her darker days, she wasn’t even always sure about that. “I was created for you, taken away from my parents, turned into a weapon to destroy you. I went to prison to protect you. Over half of my life in a cage for you, Sweetie.” She made certain to look her in the eye, even though she didn’t need to. “And I’d do it all again, my love, but I never wanted to be left in another one.”
“I know, my love. That must have been very hard on you.” Aside from what The Doctor picked up from their psychic connection, she truly couldn’t imagine what that had been like for River. Not just imprisoned again, but essentially abandoned by the one person she loved most in this world.
She took River’s hand in hers again, lacing their fingers together. “Come along. I’ve something to show you. It’s even better than the rainforest.” She took a right down another corridor and then a quick left into a large, dark room. Overhead was something of a sunroof, although it was closed at the moment. There was a box of switches and buttons by the door and The Doctor relinquished her hold on River’s hand so that she could fiddle with the controls. Instantly, the room was alight with outer space. Constellations, planets, distant galaxies surrounded them. The projections weren’t just on the ceilings and walls, but in the space around them.
“I know you miss the stars. I thought you might like this.” The Doctor was unsure what she could do to make amends with River, but she hoped showing how much she cared, and how she actually did pay attention, would at least help somewhat.
Sometimes it was enough to feel heard, and River knew this wasn’t The Doctor avoiding something she didn’t want to discuss or trying to placate her. There wasn’t anything she could say to change what River felt, to fix it. But for once, she didn’t seem to be running away from it either.
She followed her easily, giving her hand a small, grateful squeeze. Wherever her wife was leading her, she trusted her judgment. She was still watching The Doctor when the room came alive; and she stepped back with a slight, pleased gasp, instantly reaching for her hand again. The Doctor would always be her true home, but the stars were a close second. She’d never known whether it was simply because she had spent so much time traveling among them or just one more thing that came with being a child of the TARDIS.
“It's beautiful, Sweetie.” Her eyes were damp, much to her embarrassment. “I love you, you know.”
They didn’t say it often enough, not the actual words. But all of her time was stolen now, and it could be gone in a moment. If she could share her anger, she could certainly share her love.
I know I can’t change the past and there’s nothing I can do to fix the hurt you’re feeling. “But know I love you.” The Doctor tugged gently at River’s hand, pulling her closer. She tucked a bit of River’s hair behind her ear and leaned in to bring their lips together in a chaste but loving kiss, her finger light against River’s chin.
“I mourned you for so long. I hope this can be a second chance. For both of us.” There was an earnest if unsure look in her eyes as she gazed at River, hand still resting lightly on River’s face.
It was funny, River thought, how one could know something was about to happen and still be surprised when it did. Her hearts swelled with all the love she felt, smiling as The Doctor pulled back, her eyes still shining with unshed tears. “I’d like that.”
She pulled her in for another gentle kiss before stepping away and reaching for her hand. “Stay and watch the stars with me.”