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Dawn. Every planet has one, even if it takes longer to get to some then others. On some it takes hours, on others it takes months, and on one it takes an entire twenty four years.
An orangey, yellow, pink-tinted sky, like something straight out of a fairytale used to fill the Doctor with a sense of wonder. In a life pieced together with highs and lows, the light of morning would fill his aching bones with hope. Hope that, for once, he may be able to allow the ghosts of days past to fall off his ancient shoulders like rain from the clouds. Leaving him feeling cleansed of his sins. A new day used to mean new adventures, new possibilities, maybe a new friend or two. A new day to the Doctor, meant another chance to start again.
Until those years of darkness. He never knew quite how beautiful the night could be until he spent so long in it with her. The lady with the funny name and the space hair. His wife. His River Song. He got to spend almost two and a half decades bathed in the dark of night with her. The natives of Darillium lived for the end of the nighttime, when dawn would come and the sun would shine down upon them again. River and the Doctor would be happy if the morning never came. Then their tiny, perfect bubble of domestic bliss would never have to end.
They had a lovely little house. It had two bedrooms, a library, and a small garden they would tend to together on weekends in the artificial light that simulated daytime. One day, the Doctor knew, the whole of River’s life would be a simulation. Her life would be in a computer, made up of lines and lines of code. In the end it was all he could give her. The hope that one day he would find a way to really save her, so her hearts could beat for real again, and they could have their life together back. The hope that he used to feel when the morning would finally come.
Their first few years together were spent in perpetual happiness. When all they could both see was each other and the years they had ahead by each other’s side. He didn’t really know when that began to fade, when the love he felt for her began to become clouded with grief for all the years he would spend without her. Grief for the young Time Lord with the pinstripe suit who was about to meet the most intoxicating woman he had ever known, and begin a love story that would exist throughout time and space. Grief for the woman who he would watch burn herself up for him. For them. For this life. Their happily ever after.
But while it was theirs it was not, could not, be his. Because dawn was fast approaching and the darkness was fading with each passing day. There were times when he wished the love would fade with it, to save his battered hearts from the moment that would surely break them. But then he knew a life without this love, even without her by his side, would be a life not worth living. He had felt the intense love of Professor River Song, and loved her in return with the same passion, for so long he didn’t quite know who he would be without it. He would surely be left with a hole just too big for anything to fill. He would never be ready. Unfortunately, like with most things the universe doesn’t really care if you are ready.
Dawn had come. River had got the call about an interesting expedition to the biggest library in the known universe just days before, and her bags were packed by the front door awaiting her departure. They both knew this was the end.
The darkness had gone. They held each other tight as they said their goodbyes, neither wanting to let go. But like everything with them it was over all too soon, and River had used her old vortex manipulator to disappear in a crackling noise and a cloud of grey smoke. It was over.
At first all the Doctor could do was stare. Twenty four years and the love of his lives gone in a instant. His gaze was drawn to the window where families had walked out of their houses to soak up their first sun in over two decades, it’s return symbolised a new beginning for them, and the end of life as he knew it for him. Suddenly filled with rage and disgust and pain he began to tear their little house apart. Cushions were thrown, plates and mugs smashed, and the coffee table overturned before he saw it. A photo, taken on a random Sunday of them both having a picnic in the park near their home. A mother taking pictures of her children had seen them, noticed the look of complete adoration in each of their eyes and was unable to resist capturing the moment. She had later come up and asked if they would like her to send them a copy, which River quickly said yes too. Later that night the picture found a home on their mantelpiece, and had remained there ever since.
Seeing his wife looking so happy, so alive, made all of the anger leave his body leaving only an all-consuming feeling of despair. He collapsed to the floor and sobbed. He cried and cried until he was sure there were no tears left in his body, and once he had stopped he just sat there.
For the first time in a very long time, the Doctor had no idea what he was going to do next. So in the end he chose to do what he had always done, right up until the night he finally found River again and spent so long being happy in one place with her. The Doctor ran.
After packing up a few personal items to store on board the TARDIS, he took one last look at the golden sun rising just beyond the horizon. A beacon of hope and life for the people of Darillium, now something he wished to never see again.
With only one more tear silently sliding down his cheek, he entered the TARDIS and used her controls to enter the vortex. As he stared at the monitor he realised he had never wished for the nighttime and its accompanying darkness before, but now he would give anything for it back. Would give anything to have her back.
The Doctor hates what the morning took from him.
The Doctor hates the dawn.