Love and thanks (again) for Sarah Blackwood for the beta.

And a huge thank you to everyone taking this little trip into my fancy with me. Hope everyone has enjoyed…

(note: Amor fati = latin for 'love of [one's own] fate'. Literally: accepting the events that occur… when one sees everything in life -including suffering and loss- as good; destiny's way of reaching its ultimate purpose.)

Epilogue: amor fati

She wishes that she could tell them as she stands with her husband and Amy Pond in the graveyard. Not spoilers -and oh, she hates the word more now that it is not just his, but hers, too- and not lies. She wishes she could say the soothing words, the placating words to make this all better. They are on the tip of her tongue but unutterable. It'll be ok. We'll all be happy in the end. Amy and Rory will be reunited, and she'll have her parents, and even the Doctor will eventually be fine…

But for now, it's not alright. Because Rory has vanished, and Amy makes her choice and disappears, and River is left with a sobbing husband whom she leads -walking backwards, testing each footstep and carefully keeping her eyes on the angel- gently back into his ship. And once they're inside, she waits. He's young today, and she's old; and as much as he knew her in the past, she knows him ten times better now. And she knows its coming. The anger of a child, all stamping feet and indignant protestations. His other faces - oh, they express rage in different ways; violent, clever, evasive ways- but this face, this much beloved, youthful face… for him it is sulks and bitter, righteous words coupled with carefully maintained anger to hide his anguish.

But she waits in vain. Because the words never come… and far, far worse than his hysterical tears is the silence he sinks into. She smiles and flirts anyway, masking her affection and concern for his well-being beneath flippant comments and nonchalant shrugs until his grief begins to drive her a bit mad and she can see the walls coming up, the sadness and the loneliness and the pain pain pain in his eyes.

Twice she has promised to look after him: in the past when she was too young to understand all it entailed, and once again in the present, now that she knows first hand how difficult her mother's task really is. Some days it is the hardest job in the world, looking after her Doctor, and she thinks he must have felt the same about her on many occasions.

But she wouldn't have him be any other way… and River Song always lives up to her promises. So she throws the TARDIS into flight, making the most noise she can turning to the monitor, trying to rouse him from his apathy. She even -with a mental apology, brushing her fingertips over the console and knowing that his old girl will understand- leaves on the handbrake as they take off.

And it works. He looks up finally, grief etched on every inch of his face.

"River. They were your parents. Sorry. I didn't even think."

"Doesn't matter." She says it as though it really doesn't matter, and she hopes that he'll understand those two little words. Will think about them, will understand her obvious lack of grief, and what all that could mean.

"Of course it matters."

And she sighs, inwardly. Because he's so young right now, so caught in his own loss. She can hardly blame him -she'd been the same way after all, when she'd found out- but she does rather wish she could shake him and tell him to be rational and get that expression off his face. It's the look Amy had spoken of. The sad, grieving, nothing-left-to-lose face that tears her up inside, and makes her wish that he could just understand the truth.

Because despite everything, the finality of Amy's gesture earlier and fixed points being created and paradoxes, she knows that the Loss of the Ponds -as she's sure he's capitalising it in his head- isn't really goodbye. Not for them, and not for many years to come.

It's a change. The Ponds have left, but the Williams' survive; and River isn't sure that the Doctor wouldn't love them just as much. She knows that she does… and one day, when his pain isn't so immediate, she knows that she will succeed in persuading the Doctor to leave the TARDIS behind and take a trip with her relying only on her manipulator.

Because here is the truth that she has always known: in the top floor apartment of a squat white building in 20th century New York City, overlooking Riverside Drive, live a doctor and his wife. They are staunchly English despite their surroundings, despite how long they've been there. He is known as a remarkably modern man in speech and attitude, with a long nose and wry smile; and she for her take charge attitude and cheerful bossiness, as much as for her long red hair. And they are beloved, very much beloved, by everyone whose lives they touch.

Doctor Williams kisses his wife before going to work each day, saving lives at the hospital and being extra-ordinary in his ordinariness. And when Mrs. Williams is alone in their fancy, grand apartment, she writes mystery novels. These books have turned A. J. Williams into an author whose works will live far beyond her time, and her feisty heroine Melody into legend; and they are full of suspense, of magical awful creatures and a dash of the improbable and the incredible and the just plain amazing.

They've got a grown-up daughter with wild curls and clothes in unfamiliar styles and colours, who drops in on them nearly every week. She greets them with hugs and smiles, bearing boxes of English tea and biscuits from a home far away; as well as curiosities from foreign times and lands that they laugh off to visitors, telling them that Mrs. Williams uses those things for research. She shops and promenades the New York streets arm in arm with her mother; hikes up her skirts to play football with her dad in Central Park… and when they go home together, breathless and laughing, she regales them with stories of her unbelievable life, made all the more incredible by comparison to these stolen family moments in a time away from time.

And then, even after all that is one last truth that Mrs. Williams has let slip (then sighed and blushed with shame for releasing yet another spoiler): that every so often on Christmases and birthdays and Thursday luncheons of fish and chips and custard, they've been known to receive another visitor to their home. He arrives with their daughter -clinging tightly to her arm, grumbling under his breath about what her mode of transport does to his hair- and even though their curious New York neighbours might find him a bit odd as he fiddles with his bowtie, bouncing on his toes and beaming self-consciously before hugging them all… he is as adored and welcomed as their daughter, whenever he shows up.

River glances at the Doctor, wishing she could tell him in a way that he will understand; but truth will come to everyone in their own time, when they're ready to accept it. She already know what the next chapter will bring from her family… and she knows that today wasn't goodbye, after all.

Not for them.