Fading stars

There is no one who deserves the Doctor's kindness like Professor River Song. Perhaps it is time to let her go.

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A/N: Honestly? I wanted to write a post-Library fix-it. But then, I sat down with a notepad, and realized I had more ideas for angst stories than romantic ones, and I wrote this, instead, because I also kind of wanted one canon-compliant story where the Doctor finally lets go of River.

(I mean, it is kind of implied that when River disappears in The Name of the Doctor, she finally faded away, but... I wanted a small wisp of consciousness to have remained. Enough for one last goodbye or, if a fix-it ever arose, for the Doctor to save her, at last.)

And, well, who is the Doctor most probable of saying goodbye to River? Thirteen. After all, she was born of a promise to be kind. Really. So, the Doctor is being kind to River for once, instead of trying to save herself the pain.

DISCLAIMER, as always, is that I don't own Doctor Who or the characters here inserted, and that I make no profit out of this.

Still, I hope you enjoy this angst-ridden story.

Additional tags: angst as fuck, not a fix-it, post-Library, canonical character death (who remains dead), one last goodbye, the Doctor is alone.

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She closes the door behind her with a soft sigh, resting her head against the familiar humming wood. Moments later, as her hearts-beat slows down to normal, she finds herself laughing, the latest risk to her life finally hitting her hard.

Damn. She really shouldn't travel alone, huh, she muses with a grin. If nothing else, so she'll have someone to stop her before she insults another monarch by proposing to them accidentally — again.

She huffs, shaking her head as she steps away from the doors to the TARDIS, waving a distracted hand to displace the hanging scarf that is almost dropping from up the… glowy-thingy it has managed to crawl upon… and hitting the Randomizer button as she passes through them. If she really wants to, she can go back to Earth and grab her friends to another adventure, but they have asked for a short reprieve, and the Doctor wants to test her own limits, a bit. She hasn't really traveled alone, not since she regenerated, and… well. She needs to know how she copes. How this she copes.

… Disastrously, of course, is the answer. It always is. But, still better than some of her past selves she could mention.

She huffs again, wryly amused despite herself, and pats the TARDIS as she hums soothingly at the Doctor. "Yeah, thanks Sexy," she murmurs back, settling down to wait by the biscuit dispenser. One drops to her hand immediately, much to her glee, and she starts chewing on it even as she continues. "Can you avoid any battle, this time around? Not really up to it, yet."

Her Sexy manages to sound highly unimpressed as she sings back to her this time, and the Doctor grins. "I know, I know," she soothes laughing. "You're flawless, old girl. Still, doesn't hurt to ask, does it?"

There's an impression of a huff, and the Doctor is sure her Sexy is ignoring her, but she doesn't care too much, because she still gives her another biscuit, and never stops singing in her mind, and the Doctor knows they aren't actually annoyed at each other, despite what it might sound like.

Except, just as she starts nibbling on her third biscuit, the TARDIS grinds to a hilt, breaks on and everything (she knows that sound is the right one!), and the Doctors stumbles from her almost face-plant to the doors springing open to a world she promised herself never to return to.

"I'm sorry, Sexy, I promise not to criticize your decisions ever again. Just, please." She begs, turning her back to the doors to stare up at the console pleadingly. "Not here."

The song in her mind grinds to a halt — and then returns, no breaks pulled, and she winces. Its sheer volume and force, coupled with the new tempo, make it very clear this is not up to discussion. The Doctor will step out there, and she will do whatever it is she needs to do here right now. Whether she likes it or not.

She glares at her TARDIS, teeth clenched at the pain of the mental assault, and yells out, "Okay, okay, shut up! I'll do it!"

Blessed silence falls for a second, and the Doctor looks longingly to the console — maybe, she could just… The sound returns with a vengeance, and she throws her hands up.

"I'm going!" She promises. Looks at the console one last time. Obeys Sexy before she gets a migraine.

She steps out and Sexy was probably smart to close the doors behind her so quickly, because the first thing the Doctor tries to do is return inside — but the doors don't open up to her, and she's stopped carrying keys with her a long time ago.

So. She's doing this.

She looks up, and swallows harshly. She is actually here, again, and she is doing this.

She'd prefer to keep running forever, really, but… she had made a promise. In the darkest hours, when there is no witness and no reward to be had, if she is to make a choice — she is to choose kindness.

And if there is one person in the entire universe the Doctor owes kindness to, it is River Song.

The corridors around her are familiar as she walks — corridors full of books and so much knowledge and pain. A forest of dead, inhabited by the very things that stole her wife from her. She sees the place she first arrived, so long ago, with Donna, laughing at the idea of being in a world that is a Library. She sees paneled wood, and remembers the dark room where Miss Evangelista died, a lonely soul that only wanted some kindness and he couldn't even provide it to her. She sees faces around her, but the Library is still empty in her mind, filled with a hunger that can never be sated, and just one more handful of deaths to add to his count.

She sees The Room. The one with the elevator, the one he… she… had disabled to fall faster, to be able to just save her, just her, please, and stops.

This is it. She can't hear Sexy anymore, not as clearly, but she knows. There's just one thing she can be here for, and this is it.

Professor River Song, Archeologist. The Woman Who Killed the Doctor. Her wife.

She swallows dryly, and pushes the door open. The room is, thankfully, empty — and she wonders, briefly, if she even has the right to be here, if someone will come running to take her away, but she shakes that thought off. It doesn't really matter, does it? She has her psychic paper with her, if need be, anyway.

She steps further inside, wavering slightly as she reaches the elevator.

She still remembers it perfectly; the moment when she had seen the blinking light in River's (in his) sonic screwdriver, and had realized there was a chance… the moment when she had started to run and hope, hope this woman, this mystery, would survive just long enough to explain to him why she knew his name.

The moment she had "saved" River as she was right before her death, just to imprison her to a lifetime of even more lies, left to haunting the Doctor around.

She steps on the elevator, and activates it with a quick enough click on her sonic screwdriver.

The descent is smooth and too slow for her taste, but she bears with it. Instead, she reminds herself that this is just further proof of how much she has to make up for, to River. That thought shuts her up until she arrives at the heart of the CAL, along with the guilt that accompanies it.

The server room is just as she left it. Of course. She laughs wetly, and the interface spins around lazily, white form broken up only by the most familiar, most painful face of all as River, her River, stares her down.

"Hello." River murmurs, and it is her voice, and it is her face, and it is her eyes, but the Doctor would prefer to be hallucinating with River again, to be seeing her data ghost bleeding through all the worlds until it reaches her again, because this is much more painful. Seeing a white-thing with River's face is…

"Hello, Sweetie," she murmurs back, and don't try to disguise the tears in her voice.

River's face smiles, warm and slow, and the Doctor guesses it is now downloading River's memories, the last bit of River, to "best suit the user's preferences".

"Doctor," River greets back, charmingly. "You came."

It's not the same. It's not the same River, it's not the same as talking to her wife whole… but it still unmoors her, and she finds herself lost, for a moment, just staring at the woman she failed to save even when given two entire lifetimes to think about how to do that.

"And so pretty looking, this time around. You look good as a woman, dear." River adds, leery wink and everything, and the Doctor laughs despite herself. "Shame we can't test it out ourselves, mm?"

"I would have loved that," she whispers, and it is both a promise and a plea. Just come back to me, she wants to beg. I will do anything for you, she wants to vow. "A testdrive, just you and me."

River's eyes soften again, and the Doctor closes her own eyes not to see it. "You should do it anyway," River murmurs in the resounding silence.

When the moment passes, the Doctor opens her eyes again, and tries to force a smile upon her face, but finds that, once again, this new face thwarts her at that.

"I'm… I'm so sorry," she whispers, instead, and it is meant for so many things. I'm sorry for letting you die. I'm sorry for leaving you here. I'm sorry for never saying anything. I'm sorry for all the hurt I've made you go through. I'm sorry about all the times I wasn't there. I'm sorry about your parents. I'm sorry about us. I'm sorry for having screwed up your life. "I'm sorry." She repeats, when she can't muster enough courage to say all that.

"Whatever for?" River asks, but she is smiling, and the Doctor feels she has been forgiven, despite not having earned it.

"For never telling you how much I love you," she tells her, because she is sorry about that, too. She should have told River she loved her every single day. She should have spent years with River, promising her any and everything, and showing River her love. She should have never let River go one single day doubting how much the Doctor loved her. "For not being here with you."

She pauses and blinks the tears out of her eyes so she can see River's face, those eyes she loves so much, and whispers one of the things she means the most: "Because I haven't learned how to save you, yet."

River sighs, and it's explosive and achingly familiar — it's the sigh that tells her she thinks that the Doctor is being an idiot, and that she should be thankful that River puts up with her half as long as she does, really. But she smiles, too, and it is full of pain, and love, and it's so much them that she can't bear to watch it, and looks away.

"Sweetie, I knew what I was getting into when I first married you." River promises, and it is meant to be soothing, the Doctor knows, but instead it's just another reminder of her failures. River had married The Doctor, the man she was programmed to kill, the one responsible for her kidnapping and torture. The man who made entire armies turn away and run at the mention of his name.

"I know." She answers, hating herself just that much more.

I never denied I love the Doctor, but that doesn't mean he loves me!

"Still." She swallows. "You deserved more. You deserved so much more. You always offered me so much, and I…" I acted like an ageless god who tries to pretend to be a 12-year old boy. I acted like a coward. "I should have given you more."

River stares at her, for a moment, face soft and hurt and so full of love, and the Doctor wants to touch her, wants to kiss her, wants to embrace her and sooth her and promise her that everything will be alright — but she can't, because it won't be, it'll never be again, because River is dead. River looks like she is crying, and the Doctor can't even offer her comfort. Her own wife.

"I… I should have let you go." The Doctor adds, thinking of a Christmas that happened twice, and a ring she can't wear anymore. "I stuck you here, like the stupid, selfish person I always was, and now you can't even rest, and it's all my fault, but…" She looks up, and sees River, just there, in her eyes, and admits. "But I didn't want to let you go. I didn't want to lose you. Never you."

And, for the first time, she says out loud the title she always thought suited her perfectly, but always feared her reaction to. "My last Pond." She murmurs, a confession in the silent room, for River's ears only. "Melody Pond, the child of the TARDIS."

River smiles, beautiful, and the Doctor knew it was done. When she first said her goodbyes to the ghost haunting her, River had smiled in a similar way before disappearing. Now… now it would be final.

"I'm sorry for making you wait," she says, in place of the many pleas she has to make River stay.

"You are always worth it, Sweetie." River promises, sweet and perfect, and the Doctor's hands ache with the need to touch, but there is nothing but coldness in her reach.

"Even if I were to make you wait centuries more for something that might never happen? Even if I asked you to keep waiting, when I might never find us a solution?" She asks, desperate and she shouldn't have done this, she had just said she wouldn't do this, why.

"Sweetie, I would wait forever for you." River laughs — and the Doctor reaches accordingly, hands brushing curls that aren't really there, trying to find the right mix of time and space and stars and hurt that always made River up. The energy just isn't there, and it just hurts all that much more. "But you must live on. You should not keep waiting for me. You shouldn't keep hung up on a ghost, sweetheart," she says, soft, and those eyes are River, but there is no time vortex swirling inside of them, no flecks of gold that are so much River as they've always been any other Time Lord. "I will wait, if you want me to; but you must promise me you will live."

There are tears running down her face, and she can't blink her away this time, though she tries. "I'm sorry," she begs again, and grips at River's face, even if it's not the same thing, even if there is no time energy burning beneath her fingers.

The tears make it easy to pretend it is River, to pretend the white-thing isn't there, and the Doctor leans in, breathes in (and there is no burning wood, no space dust, no lingering perfume and deadly poison in her scent, and it hurts), and they touch. There is no connection beneath her touch, this time, but the lips that meet hers are just as soft, just as chapped, just as warm, just as achingly familiar, and the Doctor weeps throughout this one kiss, and holds on for dear life even as she feels that life will never have meaning again.

When they part, there is a smile upon River's face, and the Doctor can pretend this is just one more of their adventures coming to a part.

"Take my diary, Sweetie," River asks — and the Doctor breaks apart inside, but manages to keep the sob from coming out. "It's yours."

"I will." She promises. She'll do anything River asks her to.

River closes her eyes, and her eyelids tremble minutely, and the Doctor adds, hurriedly, before it's too late, before River is dead and she won't ever know it, again, and this can't be happening again, it can't…

"I love you, Melody Pond." The woman who killed me. "I love you, River Song." The woman who married me. "I love you, Sweetie." My bespoke psychopath.

There's a soft laugh — then, the eyes that open up are just different enough that the Doctor knows the memory has run out.

Professor River Song, Archeologist, is gone.

She swallows hard, and turns her back to the AI that stares at her — she has a diary to gather, and an android to find. River's diary might be hers, right now, but she knows someone who needs it more, and if it is still here, she supposes it falls to her to get it there.

Still… there is nothing stopping her from reading it, from having one last glance at River, before taking it to Nardole to save herself (himself?) again, is there?