Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

55(G)

to witness the remains of love exhumed

She spends her life counting down.

She doesn’t remember when she starts – maybe at some infinitely large number only she, and perhaps the Doctor, could comprehend. Maybe each new life, each new face, each regeneration is a restart. Resets the counter, but she never resets it such a way that she doesn’t count down. She doesn’t think it’s possible, really.

It starts as a countdown of days to escape. And then a countdown of days to death. She counts and counts and counts until she is heartily sick of numbers.

And then there is the Doctor. And the count is set so high it seems unending but nothing lasts forever and she feels like every number removed is an added weight on her hearts. She was raised to hate him and loves him so much more because of it.

The first time she meets her parents though – she knows the count is so much smaller with them. She can see the time; see things that only a Timelord can. And their stream is so painfully stretched thin and intersects with hers so little.

She sighs, and the TARDIS seems to sigh with her, a soft buzz of sympathy under her bare feet as she swings under the console. She likes it here, for the same reason the Doctor does. She can feel the energy wrapped around the TARDIS’ heart and it is so thick and tangled with her own time stream that they are almost indistinguishable. The TARDIS really does feel like forever in a way that even her and the Doctor’s time streams do not.

She has a pad of paper in her lap and a pencil held loosely in her hand, and she is mapping the isometry of their latest jump in long hand. It’s not necessary, and is something she can do in her head easily, but it is calming. Numbers that can be added up instead of subtracted away. She senses him enter the room long before she hears him, because the TARDIS’ heart glows much warmer when he is near.

“River?” He pops his head over the railing, upside down, before seeing her and flipping himself back up. She smiles, because his hair looks ridiculous when it defies gravity and she finds herself idly wondering if there’s an anti-grav room anywhere on board. He clambers down the stairs like an over-active child – as loudly as possible – and her smile is in full bloom despite the melancholy of her thoughts when he reaches the bottom. “What’re you doing down here?”

She holds up the paper and pencil and shrugs, causing the swing set to sway left to right slightly. “Just clearing my head.” He lifts the pad from her lap and looks down at it his mouth twisting into a small grin as he climbs to the side of the swing seat and settles down on the floor next to it. His legs stick out at awkward angles and he looks up at her with an expression that could not be labelled as anything but adorable.

“This is what you do to clear your head?” He waves the pad under her nose and she nods with a smile. His gaze is intense and she can read everything within it – awe, kinship, a smouldering love and a spark of lust and she knows it all as if he’s said each of those things out loud.

“I like the numbers.” She says simply instead, her shoulders lifting and he drops the pad next to him and reaches forward, giving the side of the swing a gentle push and she sways a little more.

“Yes, but why here?” He presses, and she inwardly curses his astuteness. She shouldn’t be surprised by it – not anymore, but she had been hoping just this once he was too early in his own time stream to tell. He was young, but she secretly doubted he’d ever be young enough that he couldn’t see right through her.

“I like it here.” She answers him and he looks up at her, his gaze sharp as he searches her face for minute details only he could possibly distinguish.