Chapter Text
Things you said when I was crying
“I've been sending out a message. A distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere. To the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. ‘The Doctor is dying. Please, please help.’”
For just a moment, his eyebrows lifted and the corner of his mouth turned up. It was a shame, really, that she couldn’t enjoy him being impressed with her. A second later his eyes screwed shut as he seemed to physically shake himself out of it.
“River! River, this is ridiculous. Listen to me: this has to happen. You can’t—” he stopped abruptly, glancing nervously aside as Amy and Rory appeared from the staircase.
“We barricaded the door,” Amy said. “We've got a few minutes. Just tell him. Just tell him, River.”
He looked back to her, tense and expectant.
“Those reports of the sunspots and the solar flares,” River hurried to explain, “they're wrong. There aren't any. It's not the sun, it's you. The sky is full of a million, million voices, saying yes, of course we'll help! You've touched so many lives, saved so many people. Did you think when your time came, you'd really have to do more than just ask? You've decided that the universe is better off without you, but the universe doesn't agree!”
“River, no one else can help me. Time is disintegrating, and we have to stop it.”
“I can’t let you die.”
“But I have to die!”
“Shut up!” River snapped. “I can't let you die without knowing you are loved. By so many, and so much. And by no one more than me.” She scarcely managed to choke out the words, her voice wavering as tears spilled over her cheeks. For half a second, she thought the Doctor was close to tears too.
“River, you and I, we know what this means,” he said, truly pleading with her now. “We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions on billions will suffer and die!”
“I'll suffer, if I have to kill you.”
“More than every living thing in the universe?!”
Maybe she was selfish. Maybe, if she were better, she would have lied; put on a show of strength she didn’t feel, and let him go to his death without this weight on his conscience. Maybe that’s what he expected of her. Maybe they were both selfish.
Instead, she whispered, “Yes.”
For a moment the Doctor gaped at her, anguished and wide-eyed. Then he let out a growl of frustration, pacing round the beacon that stood between them, clearly struggling without the use of his arms to aid his tantrum. “River, River! Why? Why do you have to be so—” He slowed to a stop, the air visibly going out of him as his eyes fell shut. “So young.” He shook his head. “River, listen, you have to understand—”
“No,” she said, hastily dashing the tears from her cheeks. “No, I understand perfectly. But you just tell me one thing, Doctor. Could you do this?” He froze, and she fancied she could see his blood run cold. Maybe it was cruel to ask, and neither answer was really one she wanted to know. But at least he was finally listening. “To save the universe, all of existence? You look me in the eye and tell me you could kill me— could pull the trigger with your own hands.”
“I destroyed my own people to save the universe, River,” he said quietly. “All of them.”
“That isn’t an answer, sweetie.”
The Doctor opened his mouth, but said nothing. It was all too clear from the muted horror in his eyes when his last excuse crumbled. He shook his head slightly, helplessly: not quite an admission of ‘no,’ but it surely wasn’t ‘yes.’ So, he finally knew where she was: trapped beneath the crushing weight of all existence.
“Well, then,” she sighed. “I think now we understand each other.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, looking down at the stone beneath them. “River, I really am so sorry— after all you’ve been through already. All because of me. To ask this of you… You have to know I’d try everything to find another way.”
“Yes, I do. So you’ll forgive me for doing the same.”
He nodded, resigned, a pained smile on his lips. “Always.”
And as they locked gazes again over the beacon, his cheek briefly twitched up in what River almost thought was a wink. It was so quick she was nearly sure she’d imagined it, but the way he was staring at her, as if begging her to understand…
A bloom of hope flooded through her chest, the blood pounding in her ears. Could he possibly have done it? Why then wouldn’t he just tell her? The Doctor glanced nervously toward her parents again, stood against the wall, watching them in wide-eyed silence. So, whatever this was, they had to be kept in the dark?
“There are stories about us, you know,” she began, as if she were only stretching the time with conversation, and not carefully feeling out the limits of what he could say.
“Idle gossip,” he replied dismissively. Playing along.
“Archaeology,” she corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Either I’m the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you.”
“Well, gossip only ever gets it half right.”
“Pity,” River said softly, “that we don’t get to pick the half.”
“Yes,” the Doctor agreed, and let out a deep breath. “I think the best we can do is both.”
“... What?”
He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “If you’re up for it.”
“You’re serious,” she said incredulously.
“Deadly. —Sorry, bad choice.”
“Is this really the time?!” she sputtered.
“Well, to be fair, it is quite literally the only time. Why, you’ve got something better to do?”
She barked out a bitter laugh. “Than accept your consolation prize? I just might.”
“No, River, that’s not—” the Doctor shook his head sharply, walking around the beacon to face her, as close as she dared let him get. “That is not what this is."
“What is it, then?” she whispered.
“The trouble with spoilers... When you know what’s coming, sometimes you forget you have to make it happen.”
“Yes, well, you’re cutting it kind of fine,” she quipped tearfully.
“I know.” He smiled, tipping his head toward the beacon. “You wanted to show me this. That if I asked, the whole universe would answer. Not to seem ungrateful, dear, but I’m really only interested in yours.”
“Oh, I hate you,” she said thickly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“You definitely don’t,” he murmured, smiling that infuriating little smile at her. And she couldn’t even kiss it off of him.
River shook her head, breathing out a strangled laugh. “Well,” she said, sniffing and taking a deep breath, “how are we doing this?”
“That’s a yes?” the Doctor asked, his smile widening to a grin.
“Yes of course it is, you stupid idiot,” she snapped.
He swayed closer, and seemed to catch himself only when he was halfway to kissing her. “Amy!” he called, wobbling a bit precariously without the ability to flail his arms. “Uncuff me now!”
“What are you doing now, exactly?” Amy asked, looking sceptically to River for confirmation before she released him.
“Marrying your daughter, if that’s alright with you, Pond,” he said, rubbing his wrists and not waiting for an answer. “Okay, I need a strip of cloth about a foot long. Anything will do— never mind!”
His face lit up as he turned back to River, undid his bow tie, and slid it free from his collar.
“I’m not sure I completely understand,” Rory was saying.
“Um, we got married and had a kid and that’s her,” said Amy.
“Right. Okay.”
River couldn’t help a little burst of laughter at the absurdity of the entire situation, but there was no time to waste, it seemed.
“Here,” the Doctor said, extending the unravelled fabric to her, “take one end of this. Wrap it around your hand, and hold it out to me.”
“Bow tie handfasting?” she asked, glancing up at him with an arched brow as she reverently wrapped the silk around her fingers.
“I’m improvising.” He was fighting back a nervous smile, and losing. “We're in the middle of a combat zone, so we'll have to do the quick version. Captain Williams, say 'I consent and gladly give.'”
“Oh,” said Rory. “Really, this is— right now? Um, I consent and gladly give.”
“Need you to say it too,” said the Doctor, glancing back at Amy, “mother of the bride.”
She opened and closed her mouth silently at that, before sputtering out, “I consent and gladly give.” The poor dears.
“River—” the Doctor began.
“Is this an ‘I do’ situation?”
“Something like that.”
“Any fine print I should know about?”
“Just the ‘forever’ part, really.”
“Well, then,” she whispered. “I’m all yours, sweetie.”
The Doctor shifted another step closer, the length of bow tie between their hands falling slack. The way he was drinking her in, so intently, sent a shiver down her spine.
“I’d do it all again,” he said at last. “Every time.”
She was too busy choking back a sob to voice her agreement.
“Now, River, I'm about to whisper something in your ear, and you have to remember it very, very carefully, and tell no one what I said.” She nodded, and for just a moment, he came close enough that she felt her curls stir as they brushed his cheek. “Look into my eye.”
Oh, that absolutely ridiculous man.
He stepped back, glancing nervously at her parents again as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “I just told you my name. Now, there you go. River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me. And wife, I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way.”
“Then you may kiss the bride.”
“I'll make it a good one.”
“You'd better."
Things you said when you were crying
At first, there were flashes. Fleeting pieces of dreams that she couldn’t be sure were real. One of them was a good dream, mostly. The other filled her with sickening panic, even when the details eluded her. A glimpse of placid water; cruel, glaring sunlight. She was frozen, powerless to move or escape. Then nothing but growing dark as she was dragged down, down, down.
There was movement again, and in each flash of awareness she was being pulled along, a dead weight against the sudden, brutal onset of gravity. Everything felt muffled, distant, heavy.
When she next emerged into semi-consciousness, she had fallen still again. There was a low, whirring hum that seemed very familiar, but it was muffled like everything else. She was briefly rocked about by something, but could barely feel whatever it was through the paralysing weight all around her. Then there was a sharp sound, like something very thick and heavy being torn. Though she still couldn’t move, she was jolted and tugged by it, the sound growing louder with each wrenching rip. Then there was a rush of cool air on her face, and the sudden, crisp sound of wind. She was lifted, limp as a sleeping child, into someone’s arms.
When River’s eyes fluttered open at last, there was just the faintest hint of a glow still lingering over the distant horizon. All the rest was deep night, filling her vision; the sky sprinkled with thousands upon thousands of brilliant stars. Looking up into the endless expanse, she almost felt she was drifting, weightless among them. Like the phantom feeling of swaying waves after a day in the water.
“Hey,” said a voice, beautifully familiar and so very close. As River came back down to Earth, she managed to place him.
“Hello, sweetie,” she said, a slow smile curling her lips.
She flexed her fingers experimentally, and felt them slip against something hard and cold— his wristwatch. His skin was damp, and there was grit beneath her fingertips. Sand. Up, a little farther, to the rolled-up cuff of his sleeve: it was soaking wet, and a piece was missing, leaving a ragged edge. Strangely, she seemed to feel mostly dry, apart from where he’d started to soak through. Cold sand below them, and then his legs beneath her, his arms around her.
“What’s happened to you?”
“To me?” he laughed, but it sounded scratchy. “Burnt-up robot, that’s all.”
“You’re all wet.”
“Felt like a swim.” Even in the very slow and abstract state her mind seemed to be operating in, River knew that was nonsense.
“You’re… crying?”
The Doctor didn’t answer, but bent down close to her, his damp hair falling over his face. It was too dark to see clearly, but she was fairly sure he had been.
“Do you mind if...?” he trailed off as he hesitated just a breath away from her lips.
It took River a moment to sort out what he was asking her, because he certainly already knew he didn’t need to. She had to be in worse shape than she’d thought. “’Course not,” she mumbled, and tried to reach for him, but her arms were too heavy to lift.
She hadn’t noticed quite how cold she was until the shocking heat of his mouth on hers jolted her senses. She was vaguely aware that she was not processing anything normally, but was in no state to puzzle out the hows and whys with her head spinning and shivers juddering down her spine. She whimpered as he slowly pulled away, melting back into his arms.
The Doctor frowned down at her and touched two fingertips to his lips, a worried crease in his brow.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer at first. He swallowed visibly, and his hand shook a little as he brushed her hair back from her face. “You were drugged,” he said tightly. “Rigged in the suit, probably.” The fury beneath the words was palpable, however carefully he was speaking to her.
Very little of that was making sense, but she had enough presence of mind to ask, “Bad?”
He hesitated just a moment too long before flashing her a reassuring smile. “Just need to sleep it off. Let’s get you home.” He shifted an arm beneath her knees, and the world lurched alarmingly as the ground fell away.
“Home?” River asked, the motion and the soft sound of his footfalls sinking into the sand lulling her back into drowsy abstraction.
“The TARDIS,” the Doctor said gently.
Oh, yes. Home. That was good. If it was worse than he was letting on, she could take care of it if anyone could. River’s head settled against the Doctor’s chest, and though cold seeped through his damp shirt, she could hear his hearts thundering beneath. “Good luck, isn’t it?” she mumbled.
“What is?”
“... over the threshold.”
She felt his lips pressed to her forehead. “Yeah. Very important, those wedding things,” he said, with a sincerity she might not have believed, if he were anyone else. “Wouldn’t want to miss one.”
“Think we may have skipped a few, actually,” she murmured sleepily.
“Ah, don’t worry, dear. Plenty of time to catch up. I may have had some ideas for our honeymoon. Well, I say ‘some.’ Takes a while to burn a robot, as it turns out. Might take us a few years to work through the list, but who’s counting?”
River smiled as the soothing sound of his voice faded away.