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As far as holidays go, this may be one of their best yet. They spent the day sunbathing on the Voldrian beaches, and as night began to fall, taking it's warmth with it, her husband whisked her off to the mountains to dance under a blanket of stars. It's well into the evening, the sun long set. There isn't another living soul in sight, no sky scrapers or street lamps to pollute their view with artificial light. And yet, she can see her husband before her as clear as day. The planet's six moons set the mountain alight with a pale glow, and this close to sky, River swears she could reach out and touch the stars beyond if her hands could ever bare the absence of her husband's touch.
His usually manic grin is soft in that way it only ever is when he looks at her. His wild eyes have been tamed by a besotted warmth, and River's hearts flutter even now. After all this time, he still manages to make her feel like a school girl with a crush. She runs her fingers through his mop of hair that’s even more unmanageable than hers, smiling at the way eager starlight rushes to caress his newly exposed skin.
"You've never looked lovelier," she sighs, the words pulled from her lungs like love for him is laced within the very oxygen she breathes.
It must be mutual because his smile broadens, the sound of her voice tugging at his heart strings. "If I am lovely, then you, my dear, are a sensation."
"Flirt," River accuses, her smirk betrayed by the blatant adoration in her eyes.
The Doctor hums knowingly, twirling her outward only to pull her back in. Her back is pressed into his chest as his arms fold tightly around her. But it's the low voice in her ear that keeps her warm as he whispers, "Don't lie. You love it."
And oh, she does. She loves it and him above all else, and she wonders sometimes, if this is how it feels for everyone. Do others live and die by the smiles on their spouse's face? Do they feel the connection down in their soul, in the very marrow of their bones and the atoms within? Does time fold around everyone else like a promise? Do their lives intertwine like a fixed thing, two parallel lines headed in the same direction, always, forever, until the end of their days?
The man behind her reads her thoughts as he always has, wrapping his scarf around them both as if he can merge them into one being, as if he can keep her there, tied to him forever. River smiles to herself, melting into him, into the warmth radiating off his chest and the smell of time and wool. She stares up at the stars, lost to the infinite nature of space. She reckons there are as many lights in the sky as there are realities. It's hard to imagine one in which she would ever try and escape, in which she could be anywhere but her husband's waiting arms.
Just the thought of not having him by her side makes her feel cold for reasons that have nothing to do with night air. The Doctor must feel her shiver because he pulls her closer as they sway beneath the night sky. "What troubles you, my darling?"
River turns in his arms, unable to keep her eyes off him for too long. He's giving her a curious look, trying to read her thoughts by the lines around her eyes. It's impossible to fathom a reality in which they don't know every last thing about one another, where she hasn't known him since his very first face, where they didn't sneak into the Capitol like teenagers out after curfew. It's difficult to think that, somewhere out there in the boundless universe, she hasn't called every one of his faces hers.
In the distance, the chime of church bells rings out over a nearly deserted mountain top. River shakes away the maudlin feeling that’s settled over her like a blanket of snow, smiling up at her husband, her eyes bright with a newfound scheme. "Let's get married."
"We're already married," he counters, and River gives a coy shrug.
"Never hurts to be thorough."
"Whenever and wherever you like, River Song," he hums down at her knowingly. "But you didn't answer my question."
River frowns, hiding her face in his chest. He never lets her off that easily. "I was just thinking," she starts, breathing in the scent of him, reminding herself that he's here, that her words are nothing more than a dark fiction standing in contrast to their fairytale romance. "It's a big universe, Doctor, full of possibilities."
"Yes," he encourages, though he doesn't understand the melancholy lurking in her eyes. Usually, the vastness of it all sparks excitement in her bones. Usually, the stars in the night sky make her smile, every planet an invitation. River Song and the Doctor, in their TARDIS, off to explore the cosmos. But tonight the silence around them rings like an echo, an absence. Sadness washes through her, not for herself, but for every timeline that didn't lead her here, that didn't allow her to witness this version of her husband's smitten smile.
"Do you think we found each other in all of them? Other realities, I mean.” she asks softly, and she sees it, the moment his hearts shatter at the very thought. River places her hand on his chest, willing the organs back together. They beat steadily beneath her palm, the cadence of them echoing in her own chest. It's only when her husband reaches for his scarf, bringing the fabric to dab at her cheeks that River realizes tears have slipped from her eyes.
Without her permission, she imagines a world in which he wouldn't, in which tears are kept from each other like secrets. Another drop spills from her eyes in an act of defiance, and her husband catches that one too, wiping it away. "I do hope so. I couldn't bear it if we didn’t."
“No, neither could I.” River takes a deep, shuddering breath, wrapping her arms around her husband like he’s her lifeline. She holds the oxygen inside her till it hurts, till the fullness burns a fraction of what a life without him might. And when she finally lets the breath go, lets relief wash over her like the cure to a sickness she'll never have, River thanks her lucky stars that being without him isn't something she'll ever have to endure.