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“Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
River Song is in love with the Doctor.
It is simple, her love for him. There is no need for dramatic poetry or extravagant romance - it simply is . She has spent her entire life being lied to and she can no longer stomach lying to herself - she is in love with the Doctor.
The time she spends with the Doctor is rare and precious to her, even after they’re married. Maybe especially after they’re married. It might have slipped her notice, or her own mind had tricked herself into ignoring it and pushing it to the back of her mind - but the Doctor rarely stays.
And by rarely, of course, she means never.
He’s there - he always is in the end, when she needs him - but he never stays. Never spends time with her just for the heck of it.
No, her clumsy, idiotic husband is always in the middle of some insane conflict when he spends time with her, and they save the world together, hand in hand. And she loves it, she really, really does.
But she wants more . She wants more so desperately but she isn’t brave enough to tell him. She would rather have their little adventures together than nothing at all.
And she knows what all of that means. She knows that her love is an everlasting cloud of rain, showering feelings upon the Doctor. She knows that her cloud holds so much more water than the Doctor is able to give back to her.
Because where she is a cloud of rain, the Doctor is a well. His love is in the recesses of it, hidden deeply and given to people little by little, one bucket each. He is a bottomless well, holding so much love inside himself - but he has so many people to love that it would be stupid and foolish for River to assume that she would get more than one bucket from him just because she happens to be his wife.
So she doesn’t expect it from him. And he doesn’t offer it up either.
She sees shadows of it sometimes - an extra cup from the well. It presents itself when she’s hurt or in real danger - not very often. But she sees shadows of it in his eyes, when he transforms from her baby-faced husband to the Oncoming Storm. When he has the attention of fleets and armies and spaceships. When he commands them with his amazing presence, his cockiness and his restrained anger.
Sometimes it overwhelms her - that he would go to such lengths to protect her. Sometimes she can hardly believe he could ever think of her as someone worthy enough to save. She has spent her life alone - trusting no one, having no one to turn to; no one to help her out of corners when she’s stuck - and now here the Doctor is, brilliant and kind and intelligent and everything she wants but doesn’t deserve.
She doesn’t deserve him.
“I love you,” he whispers.
It’s always a whisper. Always in the dark, in the privacy of their bedroom, like an ugly secret to be ashamed of. He always says it into her skin, his lips pressed to some part of her, like no one else should ever be allowed to bear that knowledge.
She almost believes it, sometimes. He touches her so carefully she trembles, his hands turning her into fragile glass. He kisses her with such desperation and the sensation tickles her bones. He moves his hips against hers, and she knows it’s love - hopeless love, timeless love, because if she could keep living in this moment until the universe turns into dust, she would be happy.
But he won’t , a voice inside her head reminds her, he won’t be happy living the rest of his life with you.
And she knows it’s true when he leaves after Manhattan. She knows when he doesn’t return. River Song doesn’t wait for anyone unless it’s him. Her stupid husband.
The intensity with which she misses him only makes her feel even more foolish. She’d been an idiot to ever allow herself to believe for even a moment that he could care more for her than he did for her parents and his companions. She was an absolute moron to think that words exchanged in the darkness held any weight for him at all.
Why hadn’t she learnt from Rule One?
The weight that had been hanging on her shoulders - the question of whether or not he loved her as much as she did him; the persistent nagging at the back of her mind; the maybe yes maybe no, the maybe of it all - it lifts from her and makes her lighter.
It almost makes it easier for her to live without him.
Almost.
In time, she makes her peace with it. The Doctor doesn’t love anyone the way she loves him. It’s a small, selfish comfort but it works. The Doctor can’t be held to the same human standard as everyone else - he’s too good for that, too kind, too great to ever love anyone the way she loves him.
He is a sunset; she is but one lowly admirer from afar.
*
“Twenty-four years,” he says.
It’s a whisper, the same kind of whisper he used to breathe into the air of their bedroom. She feels a laugh catch in her throat as she tries to quell her sobs, shaking her head at him.
“I hate you,” she whispers.
“No, you don’t,” he whispers back.
The weeks go by on Darillium and she finds it difficult to process everything. That a thousand years has passed for him; that he hadn’t lied on those nights they made love; that he had loved her for so long but she was utterly blind and never noticed.
She is happier than she has ever let herself be. Her cloud of love has only grown larger since he has returned to her and the Doctor, bless him, has curated a special everlasting cloud for her as well, from the water in his well. It is bliss.
He’d stolen her diary at the start of their time together, promising to weave in extra pages since the binding on it was already severely cracked.
“You’ll have enough pages for Darillium too,” he promised her when she first found him tinkering with it in the Tardis.
Since then, he’s taken to teasing her about things she’d written about him. He would repeat random phrases he found particularly romantic or sappy while they talked and she would throw whatever she was holding at him. He would tease her about being a lovesick sap and she would pretend to glower at him, but really it gave her comfort that they could act like a properly married couple.
But she walks into the Tardis one day to find him solemn and sober, his eyebrows even more pronounced when drawn into a frown. She tilts her head, wondering what brought that expression on - and her eyes land on a blue book.
Her diary.
“Sweetie?” she asks, slowing her pace as she approaches him.
His eyes are red when he looks up at her. She is by his side in an instant, quickening her pace and dropping down beside him, pushing herself into his space. He looks at her with eyes so gaunt and she doesn’t understand how her diary could’ve made him so unbearably depressed.
“Doctor -”
“I read Manhattan,” he interrupts, looking up at her with red-rimmed eyes and she looks back, suddenly understanding. She looks back at the diary and swallows.
“I never -”
“I didn’t know,” he says softly, turning back to the diary and stroking his fingers over the words she’d written so very long ago. “I didn’t know that you didn’t believe me when I told you I loved you.”
“I didn’t tell you,” she replies. “But it was different then, darling, I -”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly and he is close to tears - closer than she’s ever seen him.
She takes a moment to answer, hesitating. She debates lying to him - that she’d been melodramatic after losing her parents and was going through a momentary blip in evaluating her relationships - but she knows the Doctor will see through that lie now. And she knows that this time, the Doctor won’t be afraid to call her out on it.
“I was afraid I was right,” she breathes out slowly, and watches as his face crumples even more at her answer. She reaches for him immediately, holding his face in her hands and going on her knees to move closer towards him. “Manhattan was a terrible time for me. I lost my parents, and then I lost you, and the longer I waited the more I thought that you didn’t - that you preferred to be alone.”
“River,” he whispers, and the sound of his voice is so devastating she can hardly stand it. His bottom lip is quivering and his eyes are filling with tears, clutching the diary in his hands so tightly that they begin to shake. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t, I -” she starts, shaking her head vehemently as she presses a kiss to his face.
“I am ,” he insists, eyes wide. “I don’t know what I could’ve done but I know that Bow Tie loved you - he loved you, and he never spent a moment on Trenzalore without thinking about you.”
River leans further into him, letting out a small breath as she feels her eyes burning with tears. She shuts them tightly, holding onto him.
“It’s alright, Doctor,” she whispers, her breath trembling. “I don’t need you to explain.”
“ I need to explain,” he tells her. “I need you to know that Bow Tie was a stupid, selfish, horrible, blind husband but he thought the universe of you. He loved you so much he hid in a cloud for a hundred years after he lost you.”
“I know,” she says, sitting back on her knees. “I know, darling. I just… I don’t know. I’m terribly insecure at the worst of times. And that was the worst of times.”
"Bow Tie didn't love you the way you needed," the Doctor whispers.
"No," River replies, shaking her head. The Doctor reaches out to wipe her tears away. "But you loved me the only way you knew how."
"It wasn't enough, was it?" he asks.
River looks down and it becomes apparent to the Doctor just how afraid she was. It feels like his eyes have opened to everything she must have felt with his previous self - how she desperately needed more , more of everything he could give. She would never have admitted to Bow Tie that it wasn't enough for fear that she would lose him altogether - but she has no idea how much Bow Tie had loved her. How devoted he was to her, even when she wasn't around.
"He loved you," the Doctor tells her again, his voice hoarse. "At the end of it all, he loved you so much he could hardly stand the weight of living without you."
“Doctor,” she whispers, her voice quivering. She reaches for him, presses her lips to his and he kisses back fervently, barely letting her take a breath. “It’s okay.”
They don’t say anything more after that.
Their tearful coupling lasts hours, days, weeks - River can’t be sure. The only thing she knows is that the Doctor manages to make up for everything in the way he touches her. He whispers into her ear and she knows this time that it isn’t because his love for her is a shameful secret - but because she’s the only one who needs to know it.
When they finally fall asleep in a mess of tangled limbs and sweaty skin, River dreams. She dreams of her husband, the face he has now and the one before, and in her dreams she so longs to tell him that she knows now, that he doesn’t need to regret the way he left things with her.
In her dreams, she waits alone on Calderon Beta, not a soul in sight. The magical moment has passed but she’s alone and it doesn’t feel as magical without him. Even in her dreams, she can’t get what she wants.
“River,” a voice reaches her ears from behind her. The sound of it makes her heart leap and she swivels around, eyes wide as she catches sight of her husband wearing the face she married. “River, is that you?”
“Sweetie,” she says, and she can’t help the smile on her face. He looks like he can’t believe he’s seeing her. “Sweetie, I’m so happy to-”
But he breaks into a run and grabs her around the waist, bending down to kiss her with such desperation that it takes her by surprise. She pulls away to take a breath but he barely allows her to move an inch away before claiming her lips again, holding her tightly to him.
When he finally pulls away, he remains close, hugging her tightly to him and whispering into her hair.
“I love you,” he says, and River feels tears fall as she hugs him back. “I love you so much, River.”
He pulls away from the hug and looks at her, hands reaching up to trace the delicate lines on her face. He remains close, his nose merely inches away from hers, and she sees a tear fall as his lips tremble.
“I wish you were here,” he whispers, his voice shaking. He looks at her like he can’t bear to look away, even for a second for fear that she might disappear into thin air. “I wish you were really here.”
“I’m here, Doctor,” she whispers, eyes wide as a hand reaches up to hold him. “I’m - look at me, I’m right here.”
“You’re not real,” he whispers, but even as he says the words, he drops his forehead on hers and more tears fall, splashing on her own cheek. “You’re here because I can’t stop thinking of you. You’re here because I want you to be and my mind can’t survive without letting me see you. You’re in my imagination, River, but I don’t care - I don’t. I will take whatever I can get, even if it’s from my own old, rusty, delusional mind - even if it’s just a dream.”
“Doctor,” she whispers back. “This is my dream. I’m here - you’re not real. You’re here because I need to tell you that you can’t regret how you left me - you made it right, darling.”
He pulls back in confusion, frowning down at her. “It can’t be your dream. I’m dreaming. I’ve been in this dream before, River, and you’re wasting time because I’m going to wake up in a few hours and there’s not enough time for me to tell you everything.”
“But I’m here,” she says, stepping back a little to look up at him. “Doctor, I’m here, I’ve - where are you sleeping?”
“What?”
“Which planet, Doctor?” she asks impatiently, a thought suddenly occurring to her.
“Trenzalore,” he whispers, and River remembers the Doctor telling her of a thousand years spent there and the Time Lords giving him an unlimited cycle of regenerations - but this Doctor doesn’t know that yet. “River, I - you must have kept it open for me.”
“What?” she asks, not understanding.
But the Doctor smiles down at her, teary-eyed, as he remembers their last kiss before he jumped into his time stream. That had been a few decades ago for him.
“Spoilers,” he tells her, and then he leans forward to kiss her again.
“Doctor,” she says breathlessly as she manages to pull apart from him for a few seconds. “How is this possible? How is it possible that we’re both dreaming - that we’ve met each other here?”
“There was a myth about the Time Lords,” he whispers, hands rising to caress her face softly as he talks. “That the lovers of the truly loved would be able to find themselves anywhere, as long as the connection between them was mutual, as long as their longing for each other never waned over decades and centuries. Their love existed in every plane of existence; it transcended space and time in a way no living thing could comprehend.”
“But that’s a myth, sweetie,” she replies softly, arms remaining around his torso and securing him against her.
“Myths always have a grain of truth in them,” he smiles, a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t know what this is, River. I don’t know how this happened. But I know that I have been thinking of you for close to a century. I know that this is a wonderful, beautiful miracle and I don’t intend to question whatever powers that have given me the gift of seeing you again, even if it’s only in my dreams.”
“I’ve been thinking of you too, sweetie,” she tells him, and she cannot keep the grin off her face as she presses herself against him. She raises a hand to cup his cheek lovingly, thumb stroking his cheekbone. “I know you think you’ve made a mistake with me. I’m here to tell you that you’re forgiven. Always and completely forgiven, Doctor.”
“I know. You always forgive me, no matter what I’ve done,” his eyes are so unbearably sad as he looks at her that she feels fresh tears well up in her eyes too. “No matter how badly I’ve treated you.”
“You -”
“Don’t deny it,” he shakes his head. “Don’t give me a pass on this.”
“We hurt each other, Doctor,” she whispers shakily, standing up on the tips of her toes to push her face into his, speaking so closely that their noses are almost touching. “We hurt each other because we have to, because we don’t have a choice, because we’re idiots and we love each other despite all the odds stacked against us. Despite our timelines, despite our past - despite our future.”
“Do you think,” the Doctor pauses and licks his lips, tear tracks still visible on his cheeks. “Do you think we’d be able to survive being normal? Like your parents - going to parties and celebrating anniversaries.”
River lets out a tearful chuckle. “Doctor, I don’t think you’d survive that.”
“I think I’d survive anything if I knew I’d have you for the rest of my life,” he says, and it is quite possibly the most sincere thing this version of her husband has ever said to her. “No backwards timelines to keep us apart, no spoilers for either of us - none of that. Living like Amy and Rory did.”
River’s smile softens as she thinks of her parents. “They were always the goal, weren’t they? To have what they have; to live as they did.”
“Together, or not at all,” he recalls that fateful day that cracks started to show in their marriage. “River, I love you.”
She smiles up at him, eyes glistening even as tears splash onto her cheeks. “I know, sweetie.”
“I don’t say it often - I know that it weighs on you sometimes. But I do. I do .” he insists, and she looks down at their feet, closing her eyes as she tries to process this moment between them. “I love you. It hurts to be stuck here without you. Sometimes I yearn for you so much I imagine you here with me - I make an extra plate of fish fingers and custard and an extra cup of tea. It always goes cold.”
“Doctor,” she shakes her head again, fresh tears pouring out of her eyes. “I’m here - I’m here right now, sweetie.”
“I know,” he whispers. “And I have so much to tell you. But that’s the most important one - I love you in time and in space, in fleeting moments and in centuries that drag on, in the corners of galaxies and in universes not yet discovered. In every time and every space, I love you, wife.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she sighs shakily, laying her head down on his chest. “I love you too.”
*
She wakes in the Doctor’s arms - his blue eyes are staring curiously at her as she stretches and yawns. She looks at him blearily, still half-asleep.
“Had a good dream, then?” he asks, and there’s a half-smirk on his face that tells her he knows exactly what type of dream she’d just had.
“Definitely,” she replies, her voice low. “Would you like me to show you what happened?”
He grasps her hips as she turns him onto his back, her hair draping over her shoulders as she smiles down at him with a little naughty grin.
“I definitely wouldn’t mind a preview,” he says.
She giggles as she leans down and kisses him languidly. This regeneration is particularly bony, but that doesn’t bother her. He’s still the Doctor, and he still makes love to her the same way he always did - the only difference is that he doesn’t blush quite as hard or as easily as the face before. It quite delights her that his only answer to her whispers in his ear is a suggestively raised eyebrow.
At night, she falls asleep in the arms of the older Doctor and wakes, in her dreams, in the arms of the face that she married.
Hardly believing that it could be real yet again, she moves his hair away from his face and whispers his name. When he opens his eyes and sees her, she knows that it’s real. It’s him, yet again, another miracle from whatever mysterious powers.
“I have so much to tell you,” he whispers, as if afraid to disturb some unseen force in their surroundings.
“We have time, darling.” she whispers back.
*
The Doctor is in love with River Song.
It is simple, his love for her. There is no need for dramatic poetry or extravagant romance - it simply is. It exists in every time and every space. It transcends boundaries beyond our comprehension; it travels different worlds and universes and galaxies in every time possible. It is unwaning; eternal - much like her love for him.
And River Song knows it.