Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

91(M)

       Raise Our Cups To The Stars

                          leiascully

"You don't have to have any if you don't like it," River said, that amused little smile playing around her lips. They were sitting in the restaurant under the great glass dome that let in the light of three moons. Two champagne flutes sat on a silver tray in the middle of their table. "I'll drink yours, if it comes to that. It'd be a shame to waste it."

"I want to!" the Doctor insisted. He reached for his glass. "It isn't grapes, anyway."

"Well," River said, "after a fashion. Moon grapes, they call them, but as far as I understand it, they're more like storage than fruit. When they press them, it's only the light that collects."

"Champagne distilled from moonlight," the Doctor said, gazing at the enormous primary moon through the shimmering bubbly liquid in his glass. The champagne glowed; through it, the moon was doubly bright. "Now there's a beverage worthy of a thousandth anniversary."

"They say it's a fairly potent aphrodisiac," River warned, raising her own flute to examine the contents.

The Doctor blushed furiously. "We'll just deal with that as it comes, shall we?"

River smirked.

"Oh, yes, yes, it's all terribly funny," the Doctor said. "You know, I wasn't exactly a virgin when we met. I'm certainly not now."

"And yet you're positively crimson," River said.

"This planet's warm," the Doctor said defensively, tugging at his bowtie with his free hand. "And the cummerbund isn't helping."

"You didn't have to wear it," she told him. "It doesn't have to be our anniversary every night."

"It absolutely does," he told her in a low voice. "I'm not finished celebrating you."

"Well," she said in a voice like a promise, "in that case, chin chin."

They clinked their glasses together and gazed into each other's eyes as they lifted the flutes to their lips. The Doctor sipped. The champagne was incredible, like nothing he'd ever tasted; it was warm and cool at once, the bubbles pearls of light on his tongue, the flavor crisp and clean and sweet. He took another sip and another, letting it wash through his mouth. Already his blood felt fizzy.

"Slowly, sweetie," River said, laughing. "Not like the gums, then?"

"Not at all like the gums," he said. "Which one's supposed to be champagne, anyway?"

"I haven't the faintest," she told him.

"Nobody does," he grumbled, taking another sip of champagne and leaning back in his chair. "In the whole of human history, I've never found anyone who knew which gums were supposed to be which flavors, or even if they were supposed to taste like wine in the first place."

"One of life's little mysteries," she said, smiling at him. She reached down to adjust the skirt of her dress. Starlight from the galaxy cloth gleamed golden on her collarbones and the moon silvered her hair and caught in her eyelashes. He couldn't stop gazing at her. He wanted to soak her in. It wasn't just the champagne that made him think she was the loveliest thing in the universe. He'd been drunk on River far more often than he'd had champagne; she was more potent than any intoxicant. His wife - and the thought still astounded him, that she'd bound her life to his after everything that had happened. That she'd've torn the universe to pieces for love of him. That he'd rewrite all of history to save her if he could.

"Tipsy already, sweetie?" she asked with a deliciously wicked grin.

"Not even close," he told her. "Just rather ridiculously in love, I'm afraid."