Of all the conversations she'd had with the Doctor, this one was by far the hardest. It wasn't just the fact she was breaking pretty much every rule of time travel by telling the Doctor, but also the fact she knew she was breaking a piece of him. River knew how important Time Lords were to the Doctor, how much he longed to have another of his kind again. And here she was telling him she had that piece in her, but then she'd surrendered it to keep him alive.
She'd traveled the universe with him, seen so many places and times. But Gallifrey was perhaps the only one she didn't get to see. Oh she'd heard all the stories, even heard the Doctor speak of it. But hearing about it was far different from actually going there. There were times when she could swear she could see the citadel through his eyes.
There was no Gallifrey. She'd sacrificed for him. The Doctor undoubtedly hated that fact. He didn't like to be saved, and sometimes River thought he didn't want to be saved. But as long as she had breath in her body, she would save him now that she was free from the conditioning she'd endured as a child. She wouldn't hesitate to give her life for his, a fact she knew her parents would be proud of.
"No," she replied simply. The dark expression on his face troubled her. She should stop telling him things in his future. At least for now, anyway. The last thing she wanted was to give him even more reason to carry guilt and pain. Which was exactly what she was doing. But they had destinies that they had to live out. River had lived hers as the perfect weapon. The Doctor, if he ever returned to their universe, would live out his as a would-be saviour. Despite wanting him to change her past, she knew as well as he that they couldn't always change things. It was hard to say whether River herself was a fixed point in time or not, but the Doctor did know better than to start messing with timelines.
"It wasn't your fault," she said, finally stepping close to him. She reached out and set her hand on his arm. "You did everything you could. You pulled out all the stops, and my parents were right there helping you." Because the Ponds were extremely protective of each other. "I also think you know better than anyone how hard you would try. And you also understand that some things must always happen no matter how much we wish to change them. It may not make the situation better, but you know the woman I turned out to be. I am who I am because of you and my parents." She realized she sounded a bit like the Doctor as she was talking, but that was a side-effect of traveling with him. River really hoped to ease his mind a bit, give him that glimpse of hope that she would be all right one day.