Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all it contains belongs entirely to the BBC.

Hello, sweeties.

Of course, it's too early to know what the 12th Doctor is going to be like, aside from the fact that he doesn't like the colour of his kidneys and doesn't know how to fly the Tardis (nothing changes)… but it has to be said that he and River Song look like quite a wonderful couple. This is based on the reconciliation that would take place between them if River managed to somehow survive the Library and they found each other again (as well as Steven Moffat's comment that they would be "very sexy together". Elementary!).

The 12th Doctor has been described as "fierce" and "difficult", but perhaps if anyone's going to be an exception to all of that it's the woman he loved for centuries and lost for a millennium.

For those who also want River to return, and will dwell in fantasy until it happens. Enjoy!

Morning was intense, unadulterated bliss. The Doctor had allowed himself to fall into a peaceful sleep only when he was sure she was already there, when her soft breathing warmed his skin interspersed with those sleepy incoherent murmurs that always came from her when she was lost in dreams. He had carefully wriggled down so that their faces were level to gently stroke the damp linger of tears from her cheeks, and then he had pressed his forehead against hers tenderly and let sleep discover him for the first time in over a thousand years.

He awoke several hours later with both arms wrapped lazily around her waist and his nose buried in her hair, two bodies blended messily into a hot tangle of limbs. River was still asleep, eyes fluttering wildly behind closed eyelids, so he allowed himself countless minutes to let his gaze drift over every inch of her golden skin, dewy from last night to the point that it edged on shimmering.

She was still encased in dreams by the time he had finished memorising her this way, painting the image of her sleeping corpse across his mind. He shuffled close enough to press his face into her shoulder, curling up snugly against her hip. She was like a drug; the sweet taste of perfume and sweat and fire fizzed against his lips in a euphoric cocktail that made his eyes flutter closed with a contented sigh.

He spent minutes upon minutes lost in the feel of her, drinking in everything he had almost let himself forget and realising that there was not another moment in his life when the level of his happiness had even compared to this glorious morning.

"Sweetie…"

Her voice greeted him in a sleepy whisper, so hushed for fear of fragmenting the heavenly peace dipped in the sweet ecstasy of lingering afterglow. The Doctor forced his eyes to remain closed for just a moment as a smile crept bashfully across his face, thinking of all the days that had passed in which he had not been called that name and thanking every godforsaken star in the sky that the woman who had christened him with it was next to him, pressed so closely against his side that he could feel the quickening pulse of her beautiful heart.

He finally allowed himself the reward of letting his eyes snap open and fall into hers, shimmering pools of emerald that ignited on his gaze. The blend of constant rage and despondency he had discovered residing there for the last four months had vanished with the night, and he knew then that this had been all she'd desired, what she had been silently asking of him every time their eyes had met. She'd been looking for reassurance that she was still loved, still wanted. He hoped that last night had confirmed to her that she was so much more than just that; she was needed, desperately and with fierce intensity to the point that he seriously questioned in that moment whether he'd ever be strong enough to break away from her touch.

"Good morning, Professor River Song." He'd never tire of saying her name, the way it popped on his tongue like a melody should.

Her smile could have outshone the entire Cosmos. "It is, isn't it?"

They lost minutes gazing at each other. Her head dipped to become level with his, and with the new closeness he noticed the barely-there swell around her eyes, a flashing reminder of last night that made his hearts press up against his ribcage.

He loosened his grip around her waist to bring a hand above the silken covers, resting it with soothing tenderness on her warm cheek. Her eyes flickered closed, a lazy smile on her face as he dragged his thumb lightly across her eyelid, down the gentle slope of her nose, tracing the outline of her lips and remembering what it had felt like when they had pressed against his own after torturous years in the absence of them. Whispering an old Gallifreyan word for beauty, he tucked his thumb in the corner of her mouth to feel a smile curve into it.

"What now?" she asked in a husky murmur as he traced her jaw, feathery eyelashes framing the wicked gleam in her eyes as bad thoughts flitted between them.

He knew exactly what he wanted; he'd known from the moment she had fallen asleep in his arms. "Breakfast?" he suggested, knowing that after everything that being in love with each other had dragged them through, a bit of normality, only if for a little while, would be nothing short of perfection.

He didn't actually make it to the Tardis kitchen for another hour, being as reluctant to leave her as she was to let him go. Getting dressed was a rather difficult procedure when every few seconds with a protesting whine her arms would wrap around his shoulders and drag him back onto the pillows.

"Aren't you hungry?" he'd asked eventually when he felt her pulling him back yet again, not entirely caring about the answer as he spun around in her arms and the vision of her wrapped up in the golden sheets with her abundant curls spilling about her shoulders made the breath in his lungs burn.

A playful smirk had crawled across her lips as she knelt up to pull idly at the buttons on his shirt. "Not for food…"

"Stop it."

Her teeth closed over her bottom lip coyly. "Make me."

He shook his head at her pleading eyes; the ones that made him feel like agreeing to anything.

Make her he did, compensating for all the times she had uttered those two words in the presence of others and he had had to restrain himself from making her against the nearest wall.

Being alone with River was paradise. His hands matted easily in her dishevelled hair as he tilted her head back to claim her lips, feeling her melt against him in an instant and smiling against her on realising she was just as liable to give in to him as he was to her, just as hopelessly enamoured. Their kiss became an exchanged thank-you, for last night, for surrendering to each other after far too long of resisting. A noise that sounded like a bubbly little laugh came from her throat as she angled her head to let her nose slide past his, her palms pressed against his chest that made him aware of his own staccato pulses. There was that beautifully familiar taste of longing and audacity in her that felt like being set free.

When he pulled away with some reluctance, he took her breath with him. She whispered to unseen deities as she flopped back limply onto the pillows, a smug smile on her face and a satisfied hum in the back of her throat.

Knowing full well that he was expected to follow her, he chuckled to himself, dug his hands casually in his trouser pockets and sauntered out of the bedroom without another word.

He heard her gasp dramatically. "Where do you think you're going? You can't kiss me like that and then leave!"

He grinned, turning on his heel and popping his head around the doorframe. "Then come with me."

He was bustling around the kitchen collecting pancake ingredients into a mixing bowl and whistling an improvised tune under his breath when the soft pad of footsteps brought an impish smile to his face.

Before long, there was a soft gasp next to his ear. "Pancakes?" she cried, snaking around him and hopping up onto the bench with a giggle. "My favourite!"
The whisk was poised in mid-air as he took her in, his very own goddess dressed only in a navy blue shirt that reached halfway to her knees. She had washed the remainder of makeup from her eyes and dragged a brush through her hair so that she was all fluffy and fresh and gorgeous. "That's my shirt," he stated slowly, glinting eyes trailing up the buttons.

She shrugged lightly, fiddling with the hem of the shirt and biting back a smile. "I couldn't find my clothes."

He frowned incredulously. "They're on the floor, where you left them."

"You mean where you left them." Her comment brought a light red tinge to his cheeks. "Oh sweetie, I do believe you're blushing!"

"It's one of the many effects that you have on me."

It took quite a lot of effort not to let the other effects take hold as he attempted to finish the pancake-making procedure, a difficult task to say the least when she couldn't seem to stop touching him; running her hands through his hair and curling her ankles around his hips whenever he passed her bench.

More time than it rightly should have been later, they sat opposite each other at the little dining table with intertwined feet as they tucked into their breakfast.

"So…" She caught a trickle of syrup on her tongue when it dripped from the pancake poised on her fork. "Is this what you feed all your one-night stands?"

He almost choked. "I'm sorry?"

She eyed him across the table, and he felt as if he was being challenged. "You've never made me breakfast before."

"Well, you'd never let me," he reminded her. "You hardly ever stayed until breakfast time in the first place; when you did, you always had other ideas…"

She smirked at the memory. "How did you know I loved pancakes?"

"You told me once."

She raised her eyebrows sceptically. "And you remembered?" He answered her with a no more than a smug smile. "You're lying," she decided shortly. "Lucky guess; everyone loves pancakes."

He hummed, a knowing smile written mysteriously across his face. "And I assume everyone also loves Rosso Corsa red, dresses made from Twilworm silk, Caliberry tea, Crepitus Violetta flowers… and I suppose everybody has habits of falling asleep in the bath on a shockingly regular basis, sleeping with their head at the wrong end of the bed and naming all the stars that used to make up the Kasterborous Constellation when they have writer's block."

Her laugh was breathless with surprise. "I can't even remember telling you that! How on earth do you still remember all those little things?"

He smiled fondly. "I couldn't possibly forget anything about you, River. And excuse me, all your one-night stands?"

She shrugged, putting on a façade of nonchalance. "I don't know what you did in those thousand years."

"I certainly didn't do that."

"Oh come on," she snorted. "Never?"

"Never," he insisted.

There was a little silence as she pushed her pancake in circles around her plate. "I don't… mind, you know… if you did. If there were others, that's ok."

"What an enormous lie you just told, River Song," he laughed.

"Well…" The hint of sulkiness in her voice made his hearts drop into his feet. "I have to be alright with it, don't I? I can hardly expect you to wait a thousand years for me."

He relished lifting her head and putting the spark back into her eyes with his words. "But I did."

She couldn't stop herself from smiling. "Why?"

It pained him that she still had to ask such a question, before it occurred to him that she may very well be asking simply to hear the answer she already knew.

Either way, he didn't really care about her motives. He just wanted to say it to her, over and over again until he had made up for all the times he'd left it unspoken.

"Because I love you."

It was the second time in their entire lives he had uttered those words, the first not being lost in the warm glow of last night, but they felt so very right, so calming when he was looking at her, when it was just the two of them floating between the stars.

Her eyes sparkled intensely the way they had last night, solemnity overtaking the smile on her face to the point where she looked suddenly close to tears. A pang of old shyness made him look away for a moment, a slightly nervous laugh dispelling the silence. "Sorry."

"What for, sweetie?" she asked quietly, her eyes lost in his even though he had his head bowed, tracing the pattern the syrup had left on his plate with his eyes.

"I never told you with my old face, did I?"

He was so wrapped up in his own guilt that he didn't notice River slipping off her chair and tiptoeing towards him. He started at the feel of her arms around him, relaxing against her to find comfort that he never seemed to stop needing.

"I knew." She kissed his cheek and flashed him a reassuring smile before running her finger through the syrup on his plate, licking it off with a hum. "I'll always know. But you can still tell me as many times as you like."

"I just might."

She climbed into his lap, and he rested his forehead in the curve of her nose affectionately. "I know how to say it in over a billion languages."

"Oh god," she groaned playfully. "You're going to tell me them, aren't you?"

"I'll save them for a rainy afternoon."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I have other ideas, thank you very much. Saying that, we could do both at the same time…"

He'd never wished for rain until that morning.

"River…?"

"What?"

"You're not wearing any bottoms."

Her grin was positively wicked. "I know."

It was delightfully shameful how much of the next few days they spent in bed, lost in the warm haze of the idyllic honeymoon period they had never had.

Her habits fell into his life without him being entirely conscious of them. The most intriguing was that she took to wearing his clothes, with exceptional stubbornness; despite the amount of times he told her that her own clothes were all still occupying their own rails and shelves on the wardrobe floor. The first time he'd admitted he'd kept all her things, it had made her look at him in that way she did that seemed as if she was just realising that he loved her for the first time; but after a few days she would just smirk and slip on one of his shirts, usually the one he had selected to wear so that he had to go and find another one. To her delight his trousers fitted her too, if she rolled the legs up and wore a belt, which she did. He wasn't entirely sure what this obsession was with his clothes given how much she'd used to mock them rather viciously, but of course he was never going to complain. Especially when the result was that after a week every single item in his wardrobe smelled irrepressibly like her.

She was so lazy. And so was he. When they did drag themselves downstairs, dishevelled and full of giggles, they would drape themselves in comfy chairs and read books. When what passed for day in their little bubble dawdled into evening they'd attempt to cook, not always with success or indeed clothes; they'd take a bubble bath or a hot shower before bed and then what had become their very own little married-couple routine would start all over again. It was the first time they had ever done absolutely nothing with themselves. And they adored it.

Nine days into their dreamy retreat, he heard this: "Sweetie, can I ask you something?"

He clambered onto the mattress, handing her a warm cup of tea and crossing his legs underneath him. That particular morning they had got dressed just to settle right back into bed again, far too carefree to do little else. "Of course you can, darling."

She raised an eyebrow at him over her mug. "I'm darling now?"

"Apparently… is that a problem?"

"It isn't."

"Good." He grinned. "What did you want to ask?"

She edged closer to him, chewing her lip restlessly the way she always did when she was nervous. "Are you bored?"

The question tumbled from her lips so quickly that he thought he'd misheard her.

"I'm sorry?"

When all she did was gaze up at him anxiously, he plucked the tea from her and placed it on the bedside table so that he could cradle her hands in his. "How could I ever be bored? River, I waited a thousand years for you; every single minute is one minute more than I ever thought I'd have. Being able to see you, speak to you, touch you every day will never cease to amaze me; you're my miracle, and I am never in a million lifetimes going to get bored of you."

Rather proud of himself for managing to say such a thing while maintaining eye contact without stuttering hopelessly, the huge smile that had flooded his face was wiped off with a sudden thought. "Oh. Are you bored? Is that why you asked?"

"No! No. I'm not." She smiled as her fingers wound around his, clutching him tightly. "These have been the best days of my life," she admitted coyly. "I just thought- well, you're the Doctor. I fell in love with you because you travel the stars; that's who you are."

"There's nothing wrong with taking a holiday, is there?" he asked kindly, leaning forwards so his nose bopped hers.

"No. But I know this must all be very… normal, for you, and I don't want you to feel trapped. I want you to know that… if you want to get back to the Universe then that's ok. Any time," she told him, her voice tight with trying to sound sincere.

The Doctor knew full well that she was just absorbed in their blissful pocket of time as he was, and just as aware that it couldn't last forever. But he didn't mind like she did, didn't carry the fears that seemed to be plaguing her because he had formed a very simple solution in his head the day he had found her.

He held up a finger between them, feeling that it was the right time. "I have one condition."

She threw him a wan smile, despite the glimmer in her eyes. "What's that?"

"When I go back to the stars," he said steadily, savouring his words as he cradled her jaw in his hands. "You come with me."

He watched her pupils dilate as the warm feel of a breath leaving her hit his skin. "Do you want me to?" she whispered, biting her lip in an almost self-conscious motion.

"Oh, no, I can't stand you." He winked, letting his head fall into the crook of her shoulder and inhaling her lingering morning smell, bed and honey and warmth. "Whenever and wherever you want, Missus; you'll always, always be welcome in my life. And that's all I'm going to say, because that's all you need to know."

She didn't speak, only snuggling closer to him with a little sigh. "Honestly. What are you like? I don't feel trapped, you silly woman." He smiled, pressing his lips to her neck. "And that's saying a lot, for being married to someone with a handcuff fetish."

Her shoulders shook with laughter beneath his forehead. "God, I love you."

The Doctor pulled back just enough to see her, admiring the little creases that formed around her eyes when she laughed. He found himself tracing them with the tip of his finger, and she dipped out of the way shyly. "Do you want to know something?" he asked quietly, tilting her head back up and persisting with outlining every single feature of her face. She hummed, sleepy eyes darting between his. "I always regretted not staying still with you." He smiled softly, gesturing at the dishevelled golden sheets they were wrapped up in, their cups of tea on the bedside table alongside their empty plates from breakfast in bed. "We never let ourselves do this; we never let ourselves just… be."

"We couldn't," she reminded him gently. "Not with our timelines; and it wasn't really who we were back then anyway." She wound a strand of his hair around her little finger, brushing it back fondly. "I loved being us when we were young. I'll always love those days; they were still perfect to me, in their own way. You shouldn't have regrets about them, sweetie."

"Oh, I regretted so many things when I lost you."

She shuffled closer to him, playing with the buttons on his shirt- she had a thing about buttons- as concern clouded her features, something he both loved and loathed. He could barely stand it when she worried, so much so that it had been the reason why he'd become as skilled as she at hiding the damage in the bow tie days. "Like what?" she prompted softly, searching his eyes as if trying to discover the answers there.

"The little ordinary things; never making you breakfast, not buying you flowers for no good reason, not spending hours upon hours just looking at you and realising how exceptionally beautiful you are…" He broke into a shy grin. "Not smelling you enough! Have I ever told you how delightful you smell?"

"Several times over the last nine days," she giggled.

"Good." He smoothed out the crinkles of his shirt that was wrapped around her. "That was another thing. Not saying what I thought every time I looked at you; not saying how brave, and gorgeous, and mad I think you are. And especially never telling you… how much I love you."

It had become a compulsion to meet her eyes when he spoke these words, just to see the way they softened. It was a rare look; one only evoked through expressions of love. He made a point of telling her with his new Scottish voice at every given opportunity, and wondered how he could ever have left it unsaid.

"Well, I think you've more than made up for all of that. But you didn't need to." She couldn't seem to stop playing with his shirt, and he wasn't about to stop her. "Why didn't you tell me any of this when we first found each other again?" she questioned absent-mindedly, turning up his collars and folding them down once more.

"I thought it would be too late. And honestly, when I was younger I watched how much you suffered to be with me… and I didn't want you to go through that all over again; I put you in so much danger."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." She smiled, running her hands down to his wrists to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt cuff. "You were worth all of it, you know. And I'll never regret a single second." She reached up to catch him in a kiss, rewarding him with the salty sweet taste of bacon sandwiches and hot tea haunting her lips. "There's no me without you. And that's the only rule I need."

Hope you enjoyed it; there will hopefully be more to follow. Reviews and suggestions/requests are of course welcome! x