Her heart, his hearts

Written by Loverly Souris

o0o o0o o0o

I. The Doctor

Days passed. Silent, motionless days.

She is not here, and she would never be, but her presence still lingers.

He can still feel the taste of their last kiss on his lips. The smoothness of her skin on the tips of his fingers. Her smell, her enticing, wonderful smell.

The sweet mixture of vanilla, old books and evening dew.

The love sparkling in her eyes was more beautiful than any of the galaxies in this vast universe. It attracted him more than anything he'd ever seen and touched. That passion was fiercely burning only for him and nobody else. It was perfect.

Until the fire was extinguished and faded away along with her smile. She left only one thing behind – longing.

He longs to touch her, he longs to kiss her, to have her by his side again.

He should have never let her go.

He is sitting on the stairs in his beloved ship and regrets letting her slip away from him. He should have taken care of her, properly, like a husband should take care of his wife, even if it wasn't entirely possible.

And now, she is gone. Forever.

Suddenly, his eyes are filled with tears. He has already lost count how many times he cried in the slow-motion of the last few days. He doesn't care, really. The salty drops fall onto the cold floor of the console room.

Even having two hearts is not enough to handle this much bitter longing.

For a long time, he is alone, but then he hears feather-light footsteps approaching him from behind. His companion. Cautiously, she sits down onto the stairs next to him. A tiny hand, much smaller and different, settles on his shoulder.

"Don't cry."

Of course, he only sobs harder at her voice, so she carefully wraps her arms around his torso. He buries his face into the crook of her neck. She feels so familiar, so comforting, like that peaceful, ordinary life he could never have. He embraces this feeling, he embraces her.

But they are so different.

If his wife was fire, then his companion is water, soothing, flowing gentleness that cools his mind and his hearts.

He clings onto her desperately, and it dawns to him that he loves both of them. This is why two hearts can't handle his feelings for his wife – because only one of his hearts was hers in the first place.

The other heart is beating for his companion, who is right here with him.

He reaches up to free her brown hair from the loose ponytail and rakes his fingers through the soft tresses. She shivers in his arms and he strokes the back of her neck in response. She tilts her head to glance up at him, her breath tickling his chin. Huge, ever-curious chocolate eyes, long eyelashes. They make her look like a doe, gazing from under the bushes.

These eyes are nothing like the all-knowing bluish orbs of his wife.

His fingers slowly travel down from her nape and unzip her dress. She freezes, but doesn't utter a word, her eyelids dropping. His hands slip under the fabric where it opened and touch the tender skin of her back. One more swift motion gets the bra out of the way, and soon his fingertips are tracing the hollow of her spine, caressing her up and down. Her breath is heavy.

He imagines ripples on the surface of a pond, running across the water in synch with the rapid thumping of her heart. He pulls her even closer and gingerly brushes his lips to her forehead. She leans into him willingly, which feels like fuel to his need.

Strange. She should put out the flames in him, not feeding them.

As he lays her back onto the floor of the console room, he wants more. His longing rises to unbearable levels and starts raging in his body, entirely taking control over him. He touches her face. He strokes her cheeks with the back of his hand, and once again, while two equally loving hearts collide in the depth of his chest, he compares her to his wife.

Her features are not so prominent. Her lips are not so full. Just like her neck which is slimmer and her shoulders which are narrower.

He peels the layers of clothing away from her chest. Her breasts are much smaller, but very sensitive, as she shudders when he leans to nuzzle against her delicate nipples. The pleasant sigh that escapes her throat echoes in his head for a long time.

She feels so different and it fills him with inexplicable melancholy.

Even though he can't deny that he loves her as well.

He runs his hands down on her still clothed waist and his fingers disappear under the skirt. His hearts clash again, the collision evoking a vicious thunder that turns his movements uncharacteristically rough and forceful. All the gentleness has evaporated in an instant. His nails scrape her thighs when he removes her underwear.

She obviously notices the sudden change, but he can't look at her face. He only catches a glimpse of her expression as he spreads her legs and situates himself between them. She is staring at him, and under the thin layer of similar kind of lust, she is utterly horrified.

But he doesn't care.

He can't stop – he wouldn't stop.

A lightning strikes him. He hastily unbuttons his trousers and pushes it down along with his pants.

It's not tender. It's not passionate. It's neither water, nor fire. It's something new, something terrible and painful, because one of his hearts is already broken and he is about to destroy the other as well.

Metal, it is like metal, cold and hard. Sheer force. Unyielding, like Gallifreyan red gold – cruel, like his worst faces.

He enters her and she cries out. Her hips start to wriggle under him, but he leans onto her and holds her down. He shoves into her to the hilt, not listening to her panicked whimpers mixed with occasional sighs of delight. Although in the depth of his mind, he is vaguely aware that he is hurting her, the fog is too thick in his head and the thunder is still raging.

She is tight, extremely tight. He briefly wonders how long it has been since she was with a man – or if she has ever been with anyone at all – but soon he realises it doesn't matter, because her muscles coil around his length perfectly and it's amazing.

Her warmth is almost the same. Wet and suffocating and full of love. He lets himself drown in her, like he drowned in his wife so many times.

He hugs her as he starts to move. His thrusts are needy and fast from the beginning. He doesn't order himself to take it easy, to slow down for the sake of the trembling woman beneath him – he knows it'd be in vain. He wouldn't gain satisfaction by conquering her patiently.

Not only could he feel that she is trying her best to follow his frantic movements, she is also suppressing her pain and fighting to give in to the pleasure entirely. He reaches to her chest and gently cups one of her breasts in his hand, a gesture in stark contrast with his violent pushes. He fondles the pebbled nipple lovingly while he keeps slamming into her in an almost animalistic way.

The intimate familiarity of their situation renews his passion. She used to love this.

He has no idea how it is possible, but their pace is gradually increasing. Blinded by his own bliss, he doesn't notice that she can't keep up with him anymore. He twists the small bud between his fingers to encourage her, a spasm of pain rushes through her body which clenches around him even more. He smiles, not his usual childish, goofy smile, and with a few more erratic pushes, he is flying towards those well-known heights, those summits he has climbed so many times and he welcomes the feeling like an old lover.

In the delirium of his completion, he utters her name almost inaudibly, "River."

And he comes, especially hard inside her. Senseless, deliciously out of his mind. Empty – it's been such a long time since he was so wonderfully empty. His groans continue to linger in the air, mixing with her soft pants.

Her hands find their way to his hair, brushing away the wet bangs from his forehead. He clings to her waist, resting his head on her chest, contentedly listening to her calming heartbeat. However, there is a bad feeling prodding at the back of his brain that something is missing, but he can still barely see anything from the fog, so he ignores it and runs his fingertips down on her arm instead.

For long minutes, they stay like this, with him still deep in her, basking in the afterglow of his soaring. Then, it is her who breaks the silence by whispering a last request. "Kiss me. Please."

Her voice, her sweet, caring, loving voice has a devastating impact on his serenity, since he finally realises what was missing, what was different, and he finds himself unable to do the only thing she asks.

She wasn't flying with him.

Again, he can't even look into her eyes as he pulls out of her and releases her from his embrace. She stands up and slips her arms back into the straps of her bra and the sleeves of her dress.

He has no right to touch her, and the thunder subsides, the fog clears up to reveal his other heart full of tiny cracks. Her name tumbles out of his mouth. It feels blasphemous. An atheist's prayer. "Clara..."

"It's alright."

He finally glances at her and meets her eyes. She is smiling. How can she do that, always smiling even when she is scared or hurt? It takes him a moment to notice it is fake – the rest of her radiates dark sorrow.

"It's alright, really," she repeats, punctuating her sentence with a teary chuckle. "No big deal."

And then, she turns away from him, quickly descending the stairs – that's when he sees the thin streak of blood. It's slowly trickling down on the inside of her left thigh, mingled with his seed, as a terrifying memento.

The sight burns into his mind and it drives him insane.

He wants to go after her. He wants to wrap his arms around her tiny frame and whisper into her ear, tell her that he is sorry, that he didn't mean to ravish her and he loves her so much. But he is sitting in the debris of his remaining heart and he can't move.

He watches her slip through his fingers.

o0o o0o o0o

Thank you for reading! :)

This is a two-shot, and the second part is coming very-very soon. I promise some actual stuff is going to happen, not just smut. :D Not that I don't like smut – I just suck at it. :D

As always, you are free to share your opinion. :)