Never Fade From Me (The Life & Times of River Song & The Doctor)

Tell Me

With a heavy heart River pushed the creaky blue door open and took a deep, shuddery breath, she could have sworn the Doctor was standing in the exactly the same spot from when she had last left him, next to the TARDIS console with his hand resting on the handbrake. For all she knew, he might have dropped her off a minute ago, sometimes he couldn't wait to see her again...

"So where to next wife of mine? I do believe the stars in the constellation of Lucien are in alignment today in the skies of the Eye of Orion which means two psychopaths' can share a TARDIS..." The Doctor began limbering up, ready to enter the coordinates into his time machine. "So anywhere, all of time and space, where do you want to get me into trouble today?" The Doctor began dancing round the console, clapping his hands as he awaited River's request.

Sometimes the Doctor was such a child, River watched him carefully as she glided across the control room, with growing incredulity, even though deep down she wasn't surprised that he hadn't noticed yet and was utterly oblivious to her grief and the terrible sadness that clung about her person. But that was about to change.

"Nowhere... Just here is fine." River's hand instinctively stroked the console, the child of the TARDIS, needed her other mother more than anything in that moment and needed to feel safe and secure.

River didn't look up from the console straight away but she knew instinctively that the Doctor's face had darkened, when she finally glanced up he was frozen and had turned away from her, she'd hoped the Doctor would be brave enough to ask her what was wrong because he now knew something terrible had happened but then River wasn't prepared to wait a moment longer as she said it out loud.

"Mum's just died. Amy's dead."

River waited for a response, there was only silence, as she clutched the star engraved locket her mother had given her on a rainy day in New York and waited awkwardly on the spot like a child but the Doctor still had his back to her and it made her sad because there was that sliver of ice in his heart, the man who doesn't want to know about endings, never daring to look back and always moving on to the next thing but it wasn't as if River didn't understand. But in that moment she had wanted more from him, expected more from him but more than anything River wanted them both to comfort each other as she began to move towards him, more aware of his grief in that moment than her own, the Doctor suddenly turned away and began randomly flicking switches on the console controls, his bony shoulders raised and his long face evasive, suddenly there was a wall between them. River's mum had just died. Amy Pond, the girl who had waited and one of the Doctor's best companions. River wanted the Doctor to hold her tightly in his arms and comfort her but he didn't move, his face was like a stature. River grew angry at herself and the Doctor even though she had understood why the Doctor never wanted to see Amy again, that's why she never said anything about it, but now she wished she had, believing she was little better than the Doctor and had scarcely kept in touch over the years. So River lashed out.

"Did you know it was coming Doctor?"

"I don't spy on you, you do know that don't you River?" The Doctor's whole tone was defensive, his voice suddenly precise and clinical. "I don't spy on any of you..."

River would not be intimidated, as she continued to push at the boundaries and stray into the Doctor's dark side.

"You should have seen Amy one last time...Just for one last time..."

Then came the moment when the Doctor looked up at River, it could have gone either way but then his face suddenly softened with his compassion and his eyes aching with hundreds of untold years of sadness, the loneliness of the time traveller there to see as he revealed himself again to the woman he loved.