hell_in_highheels | [oom] Coming Home

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[oom] Coming Home

It's still dark when she wakes, but dawn is already lightning the sky. She dresses in long skirts, her favourite wool sweater, and her grey woollen shawl. And her field boots. The lakeside is rocky, and they're practical.

She makes her way down the stairs to the bar, not really surprised to see a others who are still awake from the previous evening's carousing. She doesn't pause to socialise. She makes her way out the back and down the path to the lakeside, her eyes on the tree line. She walks the shore, rubbing her arms against the chill, putting more and more distance between herself and the bar.

This time it is she who is searching for him in the mist.

He told her not to come after him when the moon was up. But it had set hours ago. The sun was almost over the ridge.

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"I never used the word 'burden', love." River sighs, studying his face, trying to discern his thoughts. "Whither thou goest, I will go."

"Unless, you don't want me to."

He arches an eyebrow at her.

"'Bearing' usually implies a burden to be beared." Then he frowns at himself with a slight head tilt because he didn't mean for that sentence to have quite so much alliteration. Also, he's not certain 'beared' is a word.

"But yes, I would much prefer you stayed out of the woods those nights."

"A burden to be born," she corrects with a gentle smile. "I've respected your wishes on that point, and I will continue to respect your wishes. But I wasn't speaking quite so literally."

She takes a breath, and almost decides not to say the words, but changes her mind.

"You never asked me how I died."

Richard's eyes widen slightly and he lifts his head off his arm to look at her more clearly.

"I had assumed it was natural," he admits. Someone's mind being uploaded to a computer sounds like the sort of thing someone has to plan for and she's never struck him as the suicidal type.

There's a small laugh at that. "No, not natural."

Her hand is resting on his chest and she stares at the back of her knuckles, like she can see the image in her mind.

"There were four thousand twenty two souls trapped mid-teleport. It was the only way that CAL could think to save them from the -- the threat. She held them, in her memory banks, for almost a century. The computer couldn't hold them any more. The extra cycles had begun to degrade normal operations, and a self-destruct sequence had been engaged."

"He --" A sharp ribbon of grief appears in her scent. "The Doctor was going to use his mind to augment the system, so that these people could be restored. And I couldn't let him do that."

That smell... He pulls her in close, comforting as much he can. Every time she mentions the Doctor her scent heads in that direction. He had thought, perhaps, that he hurt her, but that doesn't seem likely if she saved his life.

He thinks there's rather more to it than that.

"So you took his place," he surmises, holding her close.

She melts against him, tears springing unbidden to her eyes. There is great comfort in the strength of his embrace, and she nestles close, trying to get hold of her emotions. She's never had to tell this story to anyone before. After a minute, she continues.

"He hadn't met me yet. Time traveller, you know. For me, it was the end of our run. For him, it hadn't even happened yet. And if he had died there, rescuing those people, what we had -- never would have happened."

Grief, yes. But acceptance. She's had over a hundred years to come to terms with it.

She was a companion. And...is that all she was? Does he really want to know? She died for him.

Richard finds his jaw is clenched.

"I see. You did what had to be done," he observes, a glimmer of why she's telling him all this now showing through.

She nods, pressing close for another moment before pushing back to look into his face.

"I've seen things, Richard. Great and terrible things. Not just in the Library, but out in the Universe. And right now? Of all the things I know in this -- life for lack of a better term -- I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be."

He blinks, meeting her eyes.

"I'm glad to hear it." Then he frowns, looking half puzzled, half lost. "I never meant to imply otherwise." He's not certain when he did.

"I do want you here."

Her eyes close and she smiles. Relief. Joy. A renewed resolve. When she opens her eyes again, a bit of playful River returns.

"Good. Because you're not getting rid of me any time soon."

Not alone. Together now. Need you.

"Believe me when I say you'd know if I was trying," he promises.

Those are much better scents.

She laughs softly at that. "I rather thought that was your intent, with the whole 'humans smell tasty' speech."

His smile fades.

"I wasn't trying to scare you off. You deserved to know." What he is. What she's so curious about.

"And I thank you for telling me." She gives him a look that calls him back from that defensive place. Rising up on one elbow, she bends close to whisper fiercely against the corner of his mouth.

"Some day you're going to learn that I don't scare easily."

(icon is solely for the expression)

The corner twitches up.

"I think I'm coming to discover that," he says back, a hint of gratefulness threaded through his tone.

Her smile blossoms alongside his, and she nuzzles closer, rubbing her chin along his. "I like the scruff. It's damned sexy," she purrs.

"You think so, hmm? Perhaps I'll keep it, then," he rumbles right back, tilting his head to make it easier for her.

She hums her approval, kissing her way along his jaw to the hollow beneath his ear. He can feel her grin against his skin.

"Love you."

He can smell it on her, too, as he reciprocates. Who needs eyes, anyway?

"Love you muchly."

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[oom] Coming Home

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