A dreadful collection of.
memoranda
mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)
The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The last thing she says to him, from his perspective, is 'Don't forget to take the brakes off.'
He prefers it infinitely to the dreaded 'spoilers' that had been her last words from her perspective. It is so ordinary, so domestic, that he can almost believe that it isn't over. Surely, the last words breathed between two people of the greatest love story the universe will ever know aren't about the TARDIS brakes.
He clings to that for a while. There must be something else. Some conversation either wildly flirtatious or dreadfully heart-breaking. And until River shows up and exchanges these words with him, it isn't over.
It takes him almost two months to admit to himself that sometimes, the end isn't neatly final and tied up in a bow of perfect words and last sentiments. Sometimes the end is abrupt and unknown and messy.
Sometimes there are no right words to make it hurt less.
When acceptance comes, he honors her last request and leaves the brakes off.
He doesn't love the noise anymore anyway.
-
Her diary is perched on the jump seat in the control room, ancient and blue and so very well loved. It taunts him; calls to him like a siren song. Sometimes he answers the call and reaches for the book, hands shaking.
He never manages to even crack the spine.
-
He doesn't sleep in their bedroom for a while. At first, the memories contained within are too painful. Her scent lingers in the air - the vortex and plasma bursts and French perfume and honey. For a long time, he holds his breath whenever he needs to go inside the room, too afraid he might break.
Her gun lies on the bedside table, charged and ready for her to slip it into her holster again. It is waiting for her next adventure.
Her books and a stack of papers that still needed grading are perched on their dresser, along with all of the hair products he always teased her about. As much as you like to blame my hair on the vortex, sweetie, she'd said, it does still need maintaining. He would lie on their bed and watch her put all manner of strange things in her hair and pull her to him the moment she finished, burying his face in her curls.
In their room, just as everywhere else, her absence is a constant ache that will not abate. He doesn't ever want it to. The more the pain lessens, the more he will forget. And forgetting one precious moment of his time spent with River Song is unthinkable. He thinks of forgetting her face or her smile or the way she rolled her eyes and it terrifies him.
So he stops avoiding their bedroom and curls around the pillow that no longer smells like her. He stares at her dress still pooled at the foot of the bed that he refuses to move, and lets the memories wash over him. The pain is better than forgetting.
-
The first morning he can bring himself to get up and face the world - every beat of his hearts still a painful reminder that his wife is gone and she won't ever be back again but River would slap him silly for letting himself waste away - he climbs out of bed as if in slow motion. He acts on autopilot, dressing mechanically - buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his trousers, fastening his braces, tugging on his coat and adjusting the collar.
He picks up his bowtie next - his last piece of armor - and pauses as silk caresses his fingers. He is assaulted with memories of a dying universe and the unbridled love in River's eyes, before she learned how to hide it from him. He remembers his fingers wrapped tightly in silk, his hand brushing River's as they swayed toward each other, binding themselves together at every moment in time. The Doctor and his bride.
Slowly, eyes burning, he puts down the bowtie. And never picks it up again.
-
The TARDIS is a cesspool of memories.
It's his home, but it had been River's too and reminders of her lurk in every room, lying in wait for him to stumble across them. Sometimes it's just little things, like finding a strand of her curly hair on one of his shirts, shoved into the back of his closet or a dog-eared, worn book on his desk in his study - the margins covered in River's hand-writing and full of her wonderfully snarky commentary. Except for one sentence. She'd underlined Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?
In the margin, River had scrawled only Yes.
The Doctor had shut the book and gone back to bed for two days. He still hasn't ventured into the study again, too afraid of what else he might find.
-
Tinkering beneath the TARDIS to distract himself is no longer an option. He sprawls out on his swing, dons his goggles and remembers.
River, sleepy-eyed and talkative as she stretched out on her stomach and talked to him through the floor as he worked. River, sauntering into the room with a filthy smirk and no knickers as she walked over the glass floor in a skirt just to see him drop his spanner and send sparks flying as he gaped.
It's impossible to fiddle with the TARDIS like he used to when he's constantly glancing up, expecting to see her there. He connects the wires wrong on purpose sometimes, sending a shower of sparks into the air in hopes that he'll hear her giggle again.
Somewhere out there, somewhere in time, River is laughing. She will always be laughing.
But he'll never hear it again.
-
Wherever he goes, there is always something to remind him of her and of what he lost. Even things that shouldn't remind him of River are painful because his brilliant mind is always working to make a connection, grasping for memories of her on planets they've never even visited together.
He finds himself thinking of how much she would have loved the sunset of Deva Loka, or how she would have danced on Darbodia or stolen that bracelet at a market on Hyspero and pouted when he made her give it back. He thinks of her when he lands on a planet where emotion is banned, knowing she would have pulled him close and snogged him until his toes curled right in front of everyone just hear the shocked gasps.
He misses her lips.
-
It's their anniversary.
It isn't April 22nd - the date they'd agreed to always celebrate. But it is still their anniversary. Every day is their anniversary and he supposes that's the problem. Though they had decided on an annual date, they were never above proclaiming any day they felt like celebrating their marriage as their anniversary.
No matter when or where he lands the TARDIS, he is getting married. Their hands are tied together with silk and they're kissing the universe back into existence at every. single. moment.
There is no escaping their anniversary and he bears its weight like a beloved albatross around his neck.
-
Libraries - for the next few centuries at least - are off limits.
-
He doesn't wear hats anymore. Fezzes, Stetsons, top hats, bowlers, deerstalkers - things he once found undeniably cool are now glaring reminders that there is no longer anyone to shoot them off his head. There is no one to roll her eyes and steal it, perching it atop her wild curls and claiming it looks much better on her anyway as she kisses his pouting mouth.
They really did look better on her. He just wishes he'd told her that.
-
Once, entirely by accident, he lands in New Orleans in 1945. There isn't an alien invasion but he does rescue a kitten from a tree and buy a little boy an ice cream when he drops his lolly in the street. He'd been hoping for a bit more action than that, something hero-y and explodey to distract him for a few hours. Anything that will numb the hollow ache in his chest, just for a while.
The Doctor decides to reward himself for not falling to his next regeneration when he climbed that tree and also drown his sorrows - killing two birds with one stone - by stopping at a smoky club on Bourbon Street. He wends his way through the crowd, coughing at the cigarette smoke and wrinkling his nose when the bartender puts a whiskey in front of him.
He asks for grape juice, gets a murderous look, gulps, and settles for water instead. The atmosphere is boisterous and loud and so very human. He immerses himself in them and their remarkable ability to persevere, feeling the ache lessen, just a bit. He isn't halfway through his glass of water before the husky voice on stage registers and he glances up sharply as the crowd hoots and applauds.
Onstage, Billie Holiday croons into her microphone and the Doctor remembers.
He'd taken River to see her once, in her early days in Stormcage. They'd dressed for the occasion and she'd even managed to get him into period appropriate clothing. Her smile had been brilliant as their bodies intertwined on the dance floor, her head on his chest and her arms looped around his neck. He'd hummed into her ear, off-key but too full of contentment and love and her to care.
River had laughed, lips pressed against the hollow of his throat as she declared it their song. Even timey-wimey, star-crossed lovers needed a special song, she'd said. And this one would be theirs.
I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.
Around him, the world continues and the song plays on but his water rests oddly in his stomach and the hollowness returns, ever-widening in his chest, and as he remembers the way her eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, the Doctor knows that nothing will stop it from swallowing him whole.
-
He knows he has to do something when he's in the middle of a war-ravaged community on a dying planet, standing amongst the rubble and chaos as these terrified people look to him like he's their salvation, waiting for the great Doctor to lead them to a peaceful victory - and all he can think of is how the smell of gunpowder used to linger in River's hair.
He doesn't think of strategy or safety or ridiculous, impossible schemes that somehow manage to work for him anyway. As bullets rain down and people scream, he tugs at his hair and thinks of the way her curls tickled his cheek. The way she smelled and smiled and laughed and sang and made love and -
A child shrieks and he looks up, horrified as the babe sobs in its mother's arms. The people stare at him, waiting as hope and fear shine plainly on their faces.
He is lost, frozen. And for once in his stupidly long life, without a plan.
He doesn't ever want to let go. But maybe it's time to heal.
-
His hands tremble, his palms sweat, and his mind screams in protest.
No. It'll hurt. I'm not ready. Not yet.
The Doctor takes a deep breath. And opens her diary.