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The TARDIS made the same familiar and, to the Doctor, comforting noise as she always did when he brought her to land in the curved corridor of Stormcage just outside River Song’s cell. So what if it was because he left the brakes on? He liked that noise, it was her noise, sexy thing as she was. He gave the console a pat before he skipped jovially to the door. He had been traveling alone for a time, the last time he had seen the Ponds was for Christmas. He had decided on a whim to drop in and see how River was doing, he’d been doing that a lot lately, he ruminated with a happy sigh. He made sure it was a date he’d not visited her on yet, the only participation he had made in choosing the parameters of this visit, letting the TARDIS surprise him, but he didn’t really pay a mind to what the exact date was, just that he’d never done it yet; wouldn’t want to cross himself, that usually caused weird situations. No matter when he came, she’d hear the TARDIS and his River would be ready to take off with him on some uncharted adventure.
“Hi, honey,” he started out chipper as soon as he swung the door open, “I’m home?” his statement ended in a confused question when River wasn’t standing there waiting for him.
River was sitting on her bunk, back turned to him. He could hear her breathing was shaky and interspersed with the occasional sniff. He knew she knew he was there so why didn’t she turn around? Why was she crying?
“What did I do?” he asked in a worried voice. He unlocked her cell door and went inside.
“Yesterday was my birthday,” she said in a soft, low tone after checking her chronometer. It was very early in the morning, still night by some people’s standards.
“I just got back from Demon’s Run. When are you?”
“Well past that. I’m sorry, River,” he moved toward her but still she didn’t budge.
“How far past?” she asked, her expression stoic, her gaze fixed on some point on the wall of the cell. The scene was made even more eerie by the tears still dripping down her cheeks.
“Past Lake Silencio and the Pyramid and a few…other things,” he said, a slight blush staining his cheeks. She looked at him then, saw the blush and smirked but the small smile didn’t erase the haunted look in her eyes. He saw the smile falter and her bottom lip quivered, her tears began to fall again, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
“Oh, River, I really am truly sorry,” he told her as he rushed to side, sitting on the bed beside her and took her in his arms. She turned into his embrace, welcoming it.
“I said some horrible things, terrible things to you today,” she told him as she rested her head on his chest.
“I know, I remember. It needed to be said, it was all a cold truth, and I knew it. It hurt but that was only because I knew it was true, feared it was true, and I’m sorry, River.”
“I know you never meant for this to happen. I shouldn’t have implied,” she said apologetically.
“It was something you had to get off your chest. How long have you been holding those thoughts in? Better out than in, eh?” he said with a wry grin.
“You found out who I am today.”
“Yes, and that’s when it all begins to change, you remember.”
“I do,” River stated then they remained silent for a while, both lost in their own turning thoughts.
“You left.”
“What?” he asked for clarification of her statement that broke the quiet.
“You left. You left and you left me to deal with a grieving mother and father who will never know their daughter in the way parent’s should. They will completely miss out on my infancy. You made Amy think you were going to find her Melody, her baby girl,” River told him, a familiar fierceness creeping into her voice.
“I told her I knew where to find her daughter and that she would be safe, I figured she’d understand when you told her the truth.”
“Oh, my love, sometimes you can be positively obtuse,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
“River?”
“It didn’t matter to Amy that I’m okay, I mean it does matter, but that’s not what she needed to know. She’s a new mother longing to hold her newborn child. Amy and Rory want their infant daughter safe in their arms to hold and to raise with love. You gave them the idea that you would find their baby. They wanted reassurances that you would find her and return her safely to them. They wanted that possibility to be a comfort and instead you left them with me to take them home.”
“Yes, I did. You’re their daughter, not the age they were hoping for, but still their daughter all the same. I thought if you told them who you are, which you did, that they would know you would at least be safe. They adjust, you remember.”
“I know that. I know, but tonight they needed their friend. They didn’t need a false hope.”
“They had you.”
“Precisely. Yes. They had me. A very real reminder that despite your words they knew that they would never see their baby girl again. They saw me and knew what I would become and that it would remain exactly the way the Silence intended. Their daughter raised by strangers. A daughter they don’t really know, not yet. Not from their perspective, they don’t know about Mels. They still have all of that to learn.”
“I didn’t know what else to do without giving away too much. Wasn’t my place.”
“It was your place. You’re their best friend.”
“Still didn’t know what to say, what to do,” he admitted sheepishly.
“And so,” she said not harshly or accusingly but the voice of the tired but understanding, “you did what you always do when all else fails.”
“I ran,” he sighed. They stayed silent for a few moments again. He toyed with River’s fascinatingly soft curls as she listened to his hearts beat steadily in his chest.
“Do you think this outcome was inevitable?” she asked almost rhetorically.
“No, it could be changed. Can still, to be honest. We both know they took you to Earth, to Florida, in the sixties. I could go back and save you, change the timeline. You could grow up with a happy childhood raised by your parents…”
“But I would cease to exist as I am today. Everything that I’ve done, all that I am…my entire life would be re-written.”
“Precisely,” he said and she lifted her head off his chest to look at him.
“No, you can’t. I’ve already thought about this so many times, considered it, rejected it. All those moments together, all those times… No, my love, you can’t go back and re-write this history, our history, don’t you dare.”
He watched one glittering teardrop leave her eyelashes and slide down her cheek. He tried not to let her echoing words from his past and her heartbreaking future tear at his own soul, but it did remind him just how precious every moment with his River was. He could still go back and return Melody to her parents, his best friends, but he knew he wouldn’t. He just couldn’t make that sacrifice. It was true all this pain, the terrible situation at Demon’s Run could have been prevented; River could have warned them, he could get Melody back, but at too high a cost for his own heart, and River would never forgive him. Oh, she wouldn’t even remember, but he’d know.
“What are you thinking?” River broke him from his thoughts.
“Not inevitable, we could have changed it, we both could have prevented this outcome, but at what cost? He pulled her closer, kissed her reverently. “Too high, much too high a cost. Oh, my River, I am so sorry.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “I can’t, you‘re right, I can’t,” he whispered and kissed her again.
“You could spare your best friends from the pain they are in right now,” she said. She was testing his resolve, he knew, and maybe her own as well.
“And so, my love, could you,” he replied with her words to him from those many days ago from his perspective, and at times seemed to be so recent in many ways. A statement of a possibility that would never be, the sacrifice they weren’t willing to make, not even for his best friends, her parents, Amy and Rory. The sad side was the pain being caused now for his friends and that caused a guilt this couple would carry for the other, choice made, no turning back the hands of time on this point.
The Doctor rubbed his thumb on his wife’s cheek, brushing away the moisture there from her tears. He could only imagine how hard it must have been for River to have dealt with a crying Amy and a distraught Rory and had the weight of all this on her mind. She had been so brave today, standing up to him even when faced with his anger, he had yelled at her with fury, he remembered, and he had left like she said. Oh, she would cry tonight, his River, and he would stay and just let her cry. He would hold her until her tears were dry. His beautiful, wonderful Ponds would be all right, it would just take time.
He kissed River again and pulled her into a tight embrace, burying his face in her lovely, fragrant curls. She returned to her position from before, head on his chest, arms around his middle. She cried quietly he wrapped his arms around her, one hand rubbing comfortingly on her back. He let out a shaky sigh and felt a sad tear slide down his own face soon followed by another as the ever present rain and thunder continued on outside. In the hallway the TARDIS hummed low and softly, offering her own form of comfort. Time and space could wait.