Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

115(G)

      Something has to make you run

                      riversdamsel

It came to him like a dream, or like how a lightning bolt hits its target on planet earth- suddenly, all at once, and like he should have been more prepared for it than he was.  The way to save his wife had been there all along, it just took him a thousand years to realize it.

He doesn’t pick up Clara, he doesn’t go on life-threatening, history-shattering adventures.  He just parks his TARDIS in the vortex and doesn’t worry about how long his mad scheme will take him to complete.  After all, he has a time machine- time doesn’t pass without him there to witness it.

He could explain his plan, he could, but he imagines that to the listener it would sound just as about outrageous as saying he’s going to save her with a paperclip and a piece of gum.  So he doesn’t explain, he only works.  Besides, no one’s around to show off to anyway.

After nothing but what seems like endless, relentless work, the Doctor gives a final, sharp twist to the wires of the data mainframe held in the console.  The TARDIS gives a hiss and rains a shower of sparks down upon him that causes a temporary blindness.  Muttering a few expletives under his breath, the Doctor blinks away the stars swimming in his eyes, his breathing suddenly coming to a halt as he gives a final blink and finally focuses on the figure now standing on the other side of the console room.

She stands there like a vision, clothed in a too-white gown, her brilliant green eyes wet and shining, and looking just about as shocked as he feels.  Snapping his mouth shut, the Doctor feels everything within him settle in a way that it hasn’t since he heard the towers sing.  The corner of his lips twitch ever so slightly upward.  “Not every day I get the opportunity to shock River Song.”

“Not every day I get to learn that I finally succeeded in slapping my husband into a new regeneration,” his wife retorts, as quick-witted as ever as she takes a step toward him, and him a step toward her.  If this body was his last one, he imagines that tears would be running down his cheeks just at the sound of her voice alone.  To say it’s been too long would be an injustice to them both, for it has been far longer than even that.

“Sorry, dear, the new face isn’t due to you or the rather magnificent sting that comes with one of your slaps.”

Her brow rises as she takes another step.  “Maybe it should have been, considering how long you left me in there.”

His expression sobers almost instantly.  She doesn’t specify where there is, but he knows.  “Yes, maybe it should have.”

And that’s it, that’s all they speak of it because in the next second she is in his arms, warm and soft and real against him.  As he buries his face in her mane of curls, the Doctor shuts his eyes tightly against the stinging of tears behind his eyes, but doesn’t quite manage to keep them from spilling over- perhaps this body isn’t as different from the last as he previously thought.

She seeks out his lips with her own, and while he never thought this body was going to be the kissing type, he quickly finds out that he was very, very wrong.  It seems that River Song is always his exception.