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“River, I need to tell you something,” came an impatient Scottish tone from below.
She’d been consciously ignoring his mindless fiddling for the 48 minutes she’d been in her spot on the upper deck of the console room, reading. He was constant. Pacing around, obviously preoccupied by whatever ‘something’ was.
“Yes, dear,” she replied, not raising her head.
“Did you hear me? I have something important to tell you.” He paused, and she could practically feel his tension. “It’s… important.”
River sighed. She was sure she knew exactly what was bothering him. She could always tell, even in his prior version. But this far along it was more and more often, to the point that she was concerned for his wellbeing. To the point that visiting this incarnation was starting to be a bad idea.
She looked over her book and down to him, his pained expression raised to her, hands splayed and supporting his weight against the console. She gave him a sympathetic smile and closing her book, made her way down the stairs to join him.
“Yes, what is it you want to tell me.” She blew a stray curl out of her face. Hopefully this would be quick and not drawn out so she could finish her chapter. She never really knew, each time was different.
He sat down in the chair with his hands between his knees, brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t know how to say this, it’s been bothering me for years. And I’m not sure why I haven’t told you before. I’m an idiot and frightened, and being here with you… I need to break a promise I made to myself.”
She stood with her arms crossed, expectant. “Go on.”
He met her eyes and shot up to pace across the console platform. “And it’s also a promise I made to you, in your future.”
“No. Stop. Spoilers.” She didn’t even pretend to act surprised; he was too involved in his own emotions to hear her any way.
“River, I can’t live like this another day,” he exclaimed, his fingers pulling his grey waves. “I’m living a lie and the only one who suffers is you. Insurmountable suffering, before my very eyes!” He crossed to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to tell you something, and it may irrevocably alter our timelines forever.”
“Please dear, tell me.” She wasn’t even trying. She’d already won her Oscar, had a very engaging chapter to finish, and was phoning this one in.
He turned from her and leaned against the console, head bowed. “You died. Before my very eyes. The day I met you.”
Frowning, she sympathized with him. His periodic, now more frequent revelations had been sweet and endearing at first, but now in this incarnation the guilt was so severe, almost encompassing. When she saw his hand move to wipe his nose with a sniff she audibly gasped. He was becoming more and more emotional, and that was significant coming from his typically avoidant Scottish sensibility.
She moved to lay a hand on his back. “Sweetie, It’s okay.”
“Okay?! It’s not okay, it was never okay!”
“Can I tell you a secret? I have a spoiler too.”
“Oh, can we just stop with the damn spoilers for once?” He met her eyes and she saw them watered a little.
She about died and was on the brink of tears herself. This was a tough one. One of the toughest. She couldn’t let him go through this anymore. She pulled his arm toward her, and he halfheartedly resisted, and she tugged again, bringing him into a hug.
He wrapped his arms around her snugly, and they held each other. He whispered into her hair. “You wore a crown, like the queen on a throne. And I was too stupid to realize it was completely fitting. I was so stupid. I was so stupid not to tell you right away, at Asgard. Maybe we could have fixed it.”
She choffed into his shoulder, because he was only right about being stupid. But he must have thought it was a cough because he continued. “I should have fixed it. But I was so fixated on fulfilling your timeline because that’s what you wanted.”
“Why would you possibly think I want to die?” She questioned, muffled into his jacket.
“What?”
She looked up at him with a teary, sideways smile. “Why would you think I want to die, when I would give absolutely anything to spend the remainder of the universe right here?”
He just looked down at her because he understood. Because he felt the same way.
“And you’re wrong.”
“Wrong?” He scowled.
“About everything.”
“Everything.” More scowly scowl.
“Yes.” She smiled.
An eyebrow lifted, scarcely daring to hope. “Spoilers?”
“I can tell you, but I’ll have to erase your memory.” Again, she added in thought.
“Well, you have to tell me now. It’s the rules.” His brows were furrowed but his mouth was slightly upturned, voice dropped an octave.
“Whose rules?” She smirked.
He turned her around and pressed her against the console. “My rules. Don’t play with my hopes, or your death, Dr. Song. It was the worst day of my life.”
“It was the best day of mine.”
He lifted her up onto the console to bring her eye to eye. “The day you died was the best day of your life.”
She took the sides of his face in her hands and beamed him a huge smile. “The day the Teselecta died, yes.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“River!”
“Yes.”
“Where are we?”
“Where we’re supposed to be.” And smiling, she took his mouth with her own.