Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

38(G)

i'll place the sky within your eyes

"I'm all for adventures Doctor, but I think we just finished a rather massive one. Maybe in the morning?" Amy spoke in a soft voice, Rory nodding behind her, his hand laced tightly through hers. The Doctor tore his eyes from the screen and nodded absently.

Rory and Amy called goodnight, and he waved them off, his eyes focussed on the image on the screen. Postivenegative. But what did it mean? Amy had thought she was pregnant but she wasn't - but according to his TARDIS maybe she was. And that little girl...

He remembered River's face when he'd said he had the funniest hunch she'd find them - he knew that face. She knew more than she was letting on. "Doesn't she always though?" he muttered the question to himself, shifting left to right and back again as a painful sensation burned in his chest.

Not always.

Not always - he's seen true, genuine surprise on her face twice now. Only twice. When she'd looked into his eyes in the Library and he had asked who she was. And tonight. As she stuttered out 'we haven't?'. Oh he'd been an idiot. An absolute idiot. "That was nice, really? Nine hundred years and that's the best you can come up with? Blimey," he dragged a nervous hand over his face, but all he could see behind closed lids was her face.

The TARDIS whirred impatiently and he huffed, glaring at the time rotor. "I know, okay? I know! I feel like we're just... hurtling along to some great discovery - she said in Amy's garden, I'd know soon. But what if I'm not ready to know? What if I'm - I'm buggering it all up without even knowing it? What if I do it all wrong?" He sighed heavily, slouching against the console as his fingers idly traced the designs in the glass. "What if I'm doing it wrong now?" It certainly felt wrong. Nothing had ever felt more wrong than leaving her there - with that look on her face. With that look in her eyes. Oh he could still see the love - just like he had in the Library, but it was the same sort of sad love, and it made his hearts ache and his eyes sting. He sniffled slightly, rubbing at his sternum absent-mindedly.

He doesn't like that look on her face. He doesn't like leaving her to go forward and him to go back with that face. The end for her - oh not the end of everything of course, but the end of that love he didn't feel or return. Not yet. He was... he was intrigued, yes. She was mad and clever and so quick and of course she was beautiful too. But that was secondary for him - her wits, her brain, her knowledge was so much more fascinating to him than mere genetics.

She'd been genuinely shocked that the kissing was new for him. Which meant that the next time he saw her - did he fake it? Was it a thing he pretended they did? He didn't like pretending - didn't like the idea of it being so because he felt it should be so for her. He didn't want to hurt her, but he wanted to feel like it was something he wanted to do.

It wasn't difficult to picture, he thought as he turned back to the console with a flourish, tapping in already familiar coordinates. He could imagine it quite clearly - all that intrigue and flirting and care for her morphing into deep genuine love.

But she's human.

He closed his eyes against the thought - against the tight ache in his chest that bloomed at the unfairness of her short life span. "All the more reason to cheat a little then, eh sexy?" His ship's lights flared as if she agreed and he pulled the parking brake down as she landed, the familiar scraping noise echoing.

He all but flew down the stairs, a grin on his face as he pulled open the doors. There she was - just as she had been - just as he'd left her, that sad love in her eyes and dismay on her face along with fresh tear tracks. His hearts clenched at the sight and he stepped out. "See the thing is, if you were surprised that that was the first time for me, that means we're fairly familiar next time, yes?"