Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

32(G)

Although our undivided loves are one:

He spins around the console, wondering where she will take him. He told her wherever they needed to go, and she’d set off with purpose. He pushes levers that don’t need to be pushed, because this flight seems to be all hers. His old girl. He grins at the time rotor, stroking the console gently.

They’d not been landed more than a minute when the doors open and he turns to them in surprise. His hearts thud heavily in his chest as he stares at her. Of course. Where they needed to go – and hadn’t the old girl’s last living words been about her? “River.”

She smiles up at him softly, her diary in hand as she mounts the stairs, her hair bouncing lightly as she moves up toward him. The movement of her curls distracts him for a moment and he smiles back at her. “Doctor. When are we for you?” Her diary is faded and she leafs through the pages quickly. “Have you done Easter Island?”

“No.” He shakes his head and moves toward her, his steps slow and hesitant. He hasn’t seen her since Stormcage. Since she... kissed him. He feels the strangest fluttering in his chest as he remembers it. Her hands on his waist and her mouth under his. How she’d tasted. “We just did Utah. 1969.”

“Which time?” She asks seriously and he frowns.

“There’s more than one?” He tilts his head in question and she laughs softly.

“A lot more happens in 1969 than anyone remembers.” Her voice is soft and she fidgets, shutting her diary. “So I’ll assume you mean the first time, for you. Where are-” She hesitates, shooting an unreadable glance in his direction, “Amy and Rory?”

“Asleep. I was just doing repairs.” He waves to indicate the tool belt sitting on the jump seat and she looks him over, a strange expression on her face. She moves over to the console, pressing her palm flat against the etched glass there and his ship seems to shudder under her touch. “Why am I here, River?”

River smiles, her nose crinkling up in a manner he finds rather adorable, even though he’s trying not to. “Why would I know?”

“Because you always know. Everything.” He responds promptly and she laughs softly.

“Maybe she thought you could use a hand?” River offers and he nods in consideration.

“Maybe. I do have to reroute the thermo couplings, and it is easier with a spare set of hands. I don’t suppose you know how to...” She rolls her eyes and drops her diary into the jump seat before moving past him, her shoulder brushing against his as she goes. He feels his body flush and go cold at the contact, and he inhales sharply. He can smell that clean, fresh scent he always associates with her – like fresh snowfall or spring rain. It is almost biting, but crisp.

She moves down the stairs and he follows as if he has no other choice. If he’s honest, he doesn’t – something about this woman fascinates and intrigues him. From just how her hair works to the tilt of her smile to the light in her eyes as she says ‘spoilers’ she has always fascinated him. Even in his last incarnation when he’d still been rubbed raw from loss after loss. When he gets below the glass floor she is pulling wires from the panelling, seemingly at random but he can tell she knows just what she is doing. And how does she know that? How does she know how to fly his ship, and repair it, and sometimes he swears she can communicate with his TARDIS.

He suddenly wishes she had been with them for this adventure. If only so he could see what his old girl would have had to say to her. Clearly something, because she’d asked and asked Rory for her in the end. Though Rory hadn’t known that of course – and neither had he until Rory had told him the TARDIS’ final words.