Spoilers for the River Song storyline, and 'Let's Kill Hitler'. Don't read if you haven't seen

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"Why am I handcuffed? Why do you even have handcuffs?"

–The Tenth Doctor; Forest of the Dead.

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When he gave them to her she'd laughed.

A nice laugh—a simple, breezy, relaxed laugh—that a woman who had been trained to kill by followers of the Silence and locked up for murder wasn't supposed be capable of.

It wasn't time yet—not time to say goodbye. He hadn't wanted to arouse suspicion, and by giving them to her early she could be suspicious maybe—but she wouldn't have to realize that he knew what was coming. (Well, she did know, but more often than not, they fought to ignore it.) When the time did come, he would make sure that she wouldn't know—that it would be the last time she saw him (him, him not old him). He'd done all the things she'd said he would (creating yet another paradox that would probably come back to bite him one day) and it was time to say goodbye (even if she only thought it was just a goodbye, not a goodbye, goodbye).

So he'd held it out to her. The handcuffs and the sonic screwdriver, following the instructions that she hadn't given him yet, but were burned into his brain. Something else to haunt him, he supposed.

"Sweetie…"

Her voice was low and shocked, seeing the screwdriver. No one had one—she knew very well. Mostly because she could talk to him and for some infinitely confusing reason he could talk to her and she knew all about Rose and about Martha and about Jack and Mickey and Donna and all the other people he'd screwed up.

He knew she would figure it out. Smart and witty—enough to outsmart him if he thought to kiss that had almost killed him, and stolen her regenerations—so he'd decided that gifting the two together might lessen her focus on the items themselves.

He'd been right. (Duh).

"It's just uh… something I thought I'd give you…" he rambles, suddenly feeling heat swell at the back of his neck. He reaches to rub at the area and gives her a nervous look. "…I've, uh… I've been planning on giving one to your mum and dad, but I ran into you first so you get your first!" He finishes off with an exuberant hand gesture that means something like 'Tada!' and smiles.

Certainly not his best lie. You'd have thought that after nine-hundred years he'd be quite adept at something even as complex as a lie.

Because only fools still believed that telling a lie was simple.

He was good at lying, most occasions. Daleks and Cybermen were easy. Angry, foolish, idiotic humans could be swayed with a falsehood of the tongue and a charming smile and the Doctor had been around the block enough to know the weaknesses of the other species.

But he'd never been terribly good at lying to his friends. Which was funny, when you consider how little he trusted anyone. It wasn't just the Ponds. It had been everyone and anyone who'd ever let him in. He couldn't tell them everything, of course—he wouldn't give them his burdens to bear—but he could tell them some things. He could share enough of himself to let them know him—the him he wanted to be. Not the him he actually was.

But this lie? Instantly, his brain is calculating the results of the harsh, unsteady falsehood he'd told. Of course, he'd now have to give a sonic to Amy and Rory—and the idea of either of them in permanent control of a sonic screwdriver was enough to give him goose bumps. He'd tried, at a stage, to slowly wean Amy onto one—slowly let her borrow his, for more minutes every time, until she could be trusted with one.

He hadn't tried anything like that with River. But, surely, he wouldn't have given her one anyway if he hadn't known the risks and he'd met her with one and if he didn't give her one now then there was a very good chance that he wouldn't be able to give her the life he had actually given her when she died all those years ago and—

She laughs again and he stops his internal ramblings. She's twirling the sonic in her fingers as though it belonged there, and now she's devoting her attention to the handcuffs. As he'd predicted, the combined gifting had managed to distract her from both of the gifts.

"Are these what I think they are?"

For a moment he stares down at the handcuffs. Of course, they're a little more individual than your average, run of the mill, restraining gear (and there's padding because he knew who's wrists they'd be holding) but they suit her. She's not the type to walk around with average, run of the mill handcuffs.

He clears his throat, because he knows that's now what she's asking.

"Uh," his hand finds its way back to its nervous place on the back of his neck, "yes. Well, not yes in the sense that you're thinking because essentially that would be—I just—yes. They are what you… think they are." He finishes lamely and frowns at the awkwardness of the sentence.

He was a Timelord, for time's sake. He was the 'Oncoming Storm'.

By rights, no woman should have been able to get him this flustered.

She presses the handcuffs against his chest with one hand, pocketing the screwdriver with the other. It's so natural that the Doctor has to question if he'd just released a monster on the world (because a sonic screwdriver was no laughing matter). It's only because of his infinitely large mind that he has time to consider this, because it works so much faster than an average brain. An average brain wouldn't have been able to consider anything the second that River presses her body against his, squishing the handcuffs between them, and pushing until the backs of his legs are pressed against the railing of the TARDIS control room.

The Doctor only holds onto his though process for an extra second, and then all is lost for him too.

"Would you like to tell me why you've given me handcuffs, sweetie?" River coos, pressing and whispering in just the right way and almost compelling the Doctor to do the same—

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

"Well," he stammers to distract himself. "They're a metaphorical representation of the set path that you and I are on and have been on. They're a surprisingly effective reminder of the omni-physical and physical relationship that you and I have shared—"

His voice goes high, and ends abruptly as she leans closer to him and presses right there.

She smiles at him (time, he loves her smile—she has a lot. She has her Melody smile that could be described as a grin when she's happy to be with her parents who're also her best friends. She has her Mels smiles—that's what he calls her 'I want to kill you a lot, a lot' phase which is lovely but also kind of evil so he tends to avoid that one and then there's her River smile—the smile she smiles when they're alone, or when he says something that only they understand).

"Would you like to give me a more obvious reminder of the physical relationship you and I have shared?"

He lets out an unattractive, surprisingly human noise. Amy would have laughed and called it a whimper (not that he'd be telling Amy about this at any point soon, because this was, well, his daughter).

He couldn't be doing—no, wait, shouldn't be doing this with her. It was a separation, masochistic sort of thing. Here he was, giving her the tools she would need to stop him, and to help him save her life and he still wanted to kiss her? It was deplorable of him—inconceivable, disgustable—He pauses, is that a word? Don't care—and then a bump from the depths of the TARDIS jolts him.

Here he is. Pressed between the cold, harsh safety bars of the TARDIS and the soft, effulgent body of River Song and her lips are suddenly looking very soft and his mind is reminding him that he's quickly running out of time to do anything about her remarkably soft looking lips and he knows how much he'll miss doing those things to her lips once she's gone and she's pouting a bit now, and her leg is moving and—

And her parents are only about a room away, he's reminded with about bump in the background of the TARDIS.

And when angry and defensive about his daughter who grew up too quickly, Rory Pond becomes uncharacteristically terrifying.

"Right," the Doctor says, regaining his cowardly sense that obviously ran off when the going got tough. "River, we should—"

There's a click of a lock and his exceptionally brilliant mind instantly knows what she's done.

And it breaks his heart.

He can feel it. The soft padding around his wrist—the padding that cut into his skin when he had tried to save her (after only knowing her for hours)—and the tight firmness that he knew he couldn't open it. Inches away from the sonic, he thinks. Maybe he'll…. But he won't. Because, in a way, he's already made the decision. And he supposed to let her go.

But he doesn't only feel the padding of the cuffs, stuck to the bar of the TARDIS and giving him a feeling of such claustrophobia he isn't really sure what to do. He can feel it. Everything. The knowledge that someone as strong and trustworthy enough to know his name was dying—and even if he hadn't known her then it had stabbed like a thousand knives (and he wouldn't know). It got worse with every meeting, the memories evolving from a dull painful throb to a keening, screaming agony that he thought he was too old to experience.

"What shall we do with these, then?" She proposes.

He can't help it. He can feel the brace around his arm—and in a larger sense—the brace around the decision he was being forced to make. He's leaning forward (and his latest generation seems to have a brilliant 'reaching' capacity when restrainer) and he's kissing her and he never wants to stop.

She responds like she always has (when she's saying goodbye, or when she's kissing him for the last time, or when she's poisoning him or when she's saving his life) and she kisses him like she needs him (which she does) and words fly through his head like 'love,' and 'passion' and 'true' and other human things mixing with other more timelord-y words like 'irresponsible' and 'cradle-robber' and 'for-time's-sake-you're-nine-hundred-years-old!'.

He ignores it.

He just lifts his free hand and threads his hand into her soft, wild hair and pulls her closer to him, drinking her in and savoring her essence and distantly thinking about how long he could do this without suffocating her because while there was something to be said for pausing for air, he can also not see any particularly important reason to pull his lips from hers.

So he kisses her, as long as he can and he forgets time (which, in his case, is a very difficult thing to do) and he (oh god, there's a tongue) and he (she really has to stop leaning on him like that) and he (no, seriously, because there's also something to be said about Time Lords and their staying power and that was a little too inappropriate) and—oh time, he's just got to stop thinking.

When they do break apart (she's somehow managed to actually do something about their need for air, while he could have continued until they fainted) she smiles at him. She slips out of his reach swiftly, even despite his reaching power, and smiles brighter still as he lets her go (because really, it's all a big game to her).

"Thank you," she whispers, giving him her River smile. "For the gifts."

He smiles at her, and she quickly unlocks him (he's not the only one who's opposed to this kind of behavior too close to her parents) and she steps back.

She holds his gifts close to her, unconsciously. Like their presence makes her feel reassured for some reason.

He smiles at her.

She kisses him again (this time quick and she doesn't let him have to time to hold her to him because they both know they'll be lost and she really must be getting back to jail before they begin to really miss her.)

"I'll miss you," she says as she steps away.

He smiles back at her, feeling the goofy grin of his eleventh incarnation slip effortlessly onto his face.

"I'll miss you too," he says.

Thank Time for double meanings. She thinks he means he'll miss her until she breaks out again and inevitably gets into trouble. He knows he means he'll miss her when she's gone, when she's not gone, and whenever she's around.

As the TARDIS door closes behind her, the Doctor takes a heavy breath. He can still feel the shadow her lips on his and there's a chance that Amy (being a kissogram) will be able to very quickly tell what he's been up to, so he should rectify that soon.

But he stays still for a moment, thinking about the cuffs. He's considered a thousand times how his past might change if he changes his future. He's considered how he might not even meet Amy, and how he might have done something stupid and he might have even made River something less amazing than she was and he couldn't risk that.

In the long run (and it had been, was, and always would be a long, long run) he needed to give her the cuffs. Because if she hadn't handcuffed him, past or present, there was no way he'd ever let her go.

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G.