Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

37(G)4

                 CHAPTER - 4

to make an end is to make a beginning

He sounds awful – the rub of it all is, that he meant it. He was awful. A bloody useless husband who’d filled far too much of their time dawdling, trying to decide if he trusted her or not, trying to decide if he’d loved her or not – trying, trying, trying and never doing much of fucking anything, really.

Hindsight is twenty/twenty and all that but oh, he just wanted to stride into his own past, grab Bowtie by the tweed and shake him until he suffered brain damage and regenerated early. Well, except he wouldn’t have then – but that’s beside the point.

Her face haunts him all night – her hands stroking the cover of that so full diary, the soft smile curling the edges of her mouth, like paper burning – slow and deliberate and sad. That smile is ashes around her mouth and he wants to take the whole diary and chuck it in a super nova. He’d not known – she was wrong about that. He’d not known when he’d given her the diary how big it would be – how could he? He had no fucking control over how much she wrote in it – brief notes, cryptic dates or stories that read like Tolkien novels – every detail, painstakingly recorded. He hadn’t known – it was total rubbish to think he had.

But she feels like it’s an end, and he wants to take her hands, shout at her that how could she be so stupid and didn’t she know it was never a gift from him anyway? It had been a gift from the TARDIS – her old Mum, and of course it’s bloody bigger on the inside. It would never run out of pages, would it?

Had it?

He can’t remember – it was centuries ago for him now. And he’d never gone back for it – in the Library. Not even when everything ended and he’d taken her to what he’d thought would be their last night and said goodbye to her. Christ – how many times did he have to say goodbye to this woman, cutting himself open again and again while his hearts bleed out yet he still goes on?

He couldn’t read their story from her perspective – he was too much of a fucking coward to ever do that. It would hurt to see all that love written down on paper, weathered with tears and centuries of handling, aged with tenderness and care. Hurt to read her words as she met stupid, useless fucking ignorant versions of himself who cut her to the quick with careless words. He’d been so thick. So wrapped up in his own bloody feelings he’d steamrolled over hers.

He doesn’t want her to have nothing to fill those blank pages but his own young stubborn stupidity as she marches toward their end. It hardly seems fair when he has been granted this gift – this time with her that is so unexpected and so treasured.

So when he finds it in a shop – a bloody little gift shop on the starliner as he’s waiting for River to change, again. Infuriating woman and her need to make him have a fucking heart attack with her cleavage – not a difficult task, really. The book is not blue – it is black. Black leather so buttery soft – with a golden clasp and when he opens it the covers are lined in red satin. It is perfect – even wide ruled, something River had bemoaned the loss of while at university – forcing him several times to pop her back to 21st century London so she could stock up on notebooks while muttering about the digital age and all it’s inadequacies.

He buys it – not really knowing why. He likes the smell of the fresh leather – the crisp pages. He likes how thick it is – at least a thousand pages, new and pressed seamlessly together. He likes the idea of a diary that doesn’t make her sad to look at, a diary that feels full of possibility again – knowing that none of it will hurt. He has begun again – a whole new set of lives, and he wants a fresh start with her as well. He can do it right this time, value every laugh, every smile, every frown, even every slap – every second he can wring out of their time together, he will. His rings bite into his hand as he grips the blank book tightly and he grins, tucking it in to his coat pocket and patting it gently. He’ll give it to her once everything is taken care of. Once Hydrofax is hopefully stewing in a wee cell somewhere, once he and his wife are once again absconding with the spoils. As they always do.