DOCTOR WHO: Love Me Just Enough
Title: Love Me Just Enough
Characters/Pairing: Tenth Doctor/River, mention of Rose, Martha, Donna
Word Count: 291
Rating: PG
Summary: As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love.
Notes: Written for sunday_reveries.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.
As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love. It's one thing to have a friend along for the ride (a hand to hold), but love... Love complicates things. Love is messy, sticky, sharp-edged, explosive, confusing, terrifying, and something he let go of long ago.
It's too hot on Cerdin this time of year, too hot in the narrow bed, too hot with River's bare skin pressed against his, furnace-hot. Even so, the Doctor doesn't get up, doesn't pull away. There's something comforting in human heat, the weight of a body beside him, just the presence of someone there. It's too hot, but still he presses closer, forehead to her shoulder, loose curls tickling his nose.
The Doctor doesn't sleep often, doesn't need to, and certainly doesn't need to be here, in bed, on an alien planet in the sixty-third century, when there are a hundred other things he could be doing. But River murmurs in her sleep, and rolls over restlessly, and tucks her face into the space between his shoulder and his neck, and he can't even imagine moving from this spot just now.
The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but even so, even without that, he ends up in the same place every time, crying alone in the TARDIS orbiting a dying star, or standing there watching her walk away with a dull ache in his chest, or walking back to the TARDIS in the rain with an empty goodbye ringing in his head, or watching helplessly in a small, red-lit room in a massive library, handcuffs biting into his wrist.
The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but rules were made to be broken, and usually by him.
Characters/Pairing: Tenth Doctor/River, mention of Rose, Martha, Donna
Word Count: 291
Rating: PG
Summary: As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love.
Notes: Written for sunday_reveries.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.
As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love. It's one thing to have a friend along for the ride (a hand to hold), but love... Love complicates things. Love is messy, sticky, sharp-edged, explosive, confusing, terrifying, and something he let go of long ago.
It's too hot on Cerdin this time of year, too hot in the narrow bed, too hot with River's bare skin pressed against his, furnace-hot. Even so, the Doctor doesn't get up, doesn't pull away. There's something comforting in human heat, the weight of a body beside him, just the presence of someone there. It's too hot, but still he presses closer, forehead to her shoulder, loose curls tickling his nose.
The Doctor doesn't sleep often, doesn't need to, and certainly doesn't need to be here, in bed, on an alien planet in the sixty-third century, when there are a hundred other things he could be doing. But River murmurs in her sleep, and rolls over restlessly, and tucks her face into the space between his shoulder and his neck, and he can't even imagine moving from this spot just now.
The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but even so, even without that, he ends up in the same place every time, crying alone in the TARDIS orbiting a dying star, or standing there watching her walk away with a dull ache in his chest, or walking back to the TARDIS in the rain with an empty goodbye ringing in his head, or watching helplessly in a small, red-lit room in a massive library, handcuffs biting into his wrist.
The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but rules were made to be broken, and usually by him.