Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

47(G)

Press your space face close to mine, love

      mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)

It’s been three months since she lost her parents and her dreams have been strange ever since, memories of her childhood – both of them – haunting her every night in a way that it hasn’t since her first year in Stormcage. Tonight, she dreams of little Melody, alone in a drafty children’s home with no one but half-remembered friends and an addled caretaker for company. That little girl clung to her books for solace. She read fiction voraciously and though she had no way of knowing it at the time, far above the usual reading level for her age.

Shakespeare was her favorite and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the play she read again and again, holding the book to her chest and imagining beautiful, mischievous fairies with their yellow ringlets and their nighttime revelries. She dreams of those same fairies now, but they’re not the blonde imps from her childhood imaginings. They’re pale and elegant, graceful and long-limbed, with shining ginger hair.

Amy.

River wakes to the wheezing sound of the TARDIS and bolts upright in bed, her thin bed sheet dropping to the floor as she glances around frantically, heart pounding and skin chilled by the soft breeze left by the fading ship at the foot of her bed. Heart sinking, she stares at the spot where her husband had been and wonders why he hadn’t stayed. Holding back a deep sigh of disappointment, River reaches for her blanket on the floor blindly but instead of cool cotton, her fingers brush a cardboard box. She squints in the dark, swinging her legs over the side of her bed and crouching to inspect it.

There’s a note pinned to the top and the sight of the Doctor’s scrawl makes her smile despite herself – a midnight surprise? That ridiculous man.

Found these, thought you make like to have them back. Might look good on your new bookshelves. Enjoy, dear.

Pressing the note to her lips and biting back a smile more befitting of a blushing schoolgirl, River lifts the lid on the box and peers inside. At the sight of her childhood books, looking exactly as they had the day she’d left them behind, she laughs in delight and blows a kiss where the TARDIS used to be, diving into her treasures to look for her favorite.

She pulls out the slender copy of Midsummer Night’s Dream with a hum of triumph, fully intent on curling up on her bed and reading through it to pass the rest of the night, but she pauses and raises an eyebrow at the sight of brightly colored notes sticking out at various pages. Flipping through them, she finds more of the Doctor’s handwriting and she grins, settling back into her pillow to flick through his notes.

The notes vary from surprisingly insightful comments on certain passages to merely idle conversation such as Puck is a brilliant name, don’t you think so, River? She devours every word, oddly touched that he’d gone through her favorite book and wrote her little messages on sticky notes. To anyone else, the gesture might be simple enough, but to River, every little thing he does is cherished proof that she isn’t in this marriage alone – he wants to be her husband and no amount of collapsing universes had pushed him into it.

Or so she tells herself.

She reaches the last page just before dawn and reads the final note: