Fic > Matt/Karen > dance me to the end of love
Title: Dance Me to the End of Love
Rating: G
Word Count: 1241
Warnings: Slight angst, particularly if you're having as many "NOOOOO THE TARDIS CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT AMY POND" feelings as I am.
Summary: The ending turns out to be a beginning.
Disclaimer: No money, no truth, no problem.
Blather, blather, blather: Pardon me while I work through my issues of no more "we shun personal space" Mattkastrophe. Title from the Leonard Cohen song/Civil Wars cover.
They wander around set aimlessly, and she unknowingly repeats everything he did the first time he was introduced to the TARDIS: she touches everything, but there’s a wistfulness on her face and he has to look away lest it shatter his heart, because he’s determined not to let this break him.
She sits in the captain’s chair on the bridge and crosses one long leg over the other, cupping her chin in her hand and just looking - remembering - and he reads her as clearly as the glass through which she’s staring. He crouches in front of her, hands on her knees and on an inclination he’s not sure isn’t more an instinct, tucks a lock of hair behind her hair. It’s barely a strand, but it’s not really about what he’s touching, it’s why. He cups her cheek in the palm of his hand, thumb caressing her cheekbone. She gives him an unsure smile but turns and kisses the center of his lifeline.
(It’s fitting because she’s been his heart, his north star, his everything for so very long, and knows the same is true for her.
The fact they’ve never said it doesn’t mean it’s not fully accepted as impenetrable truth; not a possibility but a promise.
Sometimes there just are no words.)
***
He has to try to find them when he’s asked to speak at the unofficial official wrap party on set, a champagne flute in his hand and his heart in his throat. He tastes the history and the regret mix with the bubbles, feels them unsteadily linger on his lips like so much left unsaid for so long, and steadfastly stares at his feet as he talks about how they’re not co-stars or even friends; they’re best friends - family - and that their presence in his life hasn’t just made a television show, it’s made him a better person, and there aren’t - will never be - any words weighted enough with which to say a proper thank-you.
(His knees threaten to buckle when he realizes this is actually happening; that when they say that’s a wrap, it won’t just be on a block or an episode and he can’t figure out which is faster: the speed of their departure or the way the air rushes from his lungs when it truly, finally sinks in.
Irony or pun be damned, he wants an eleventh hour redemption; wants someone to rush in and save him from this terrible fate, because he’s questioning whether or not he can do this without her. After all, The Doctor rescues everybody.
If only it were that simple for Matt as a man.)
Tears sting the back of his eyes and he blinks them away, and when he finally finds the strength to look up, his eyes find Karen’s immediately. Even from the distance, of which he’s now terrified because it could actually get bigger, he sees her nose matches her hair and she’s not even trying to wipe away the emotion as it cascades down her face and pierces his heart.
He has to fix it for her, take care of and look out for her, just as he always has.
Just as he always will.
The spark he’s felt beneath his feet since her first read-through, the one that feels like life and reasons for his existence, spins him forward and with a smile that doesn’t even remotely reach his eyes, he winks in her direction and raises his glass after noticing she visibly relaxes at the gesture. “To Arthur, who we’ll be able to one day say we knew him way back when, and Karen, whose only job prospect at this point is to fill in for the Man in the Moon: the TARDIS won’t be the same without you. Cheers.”
(She mouths ‘thank you’ over the ‘to Arthur and Karen’s and ‘cheers’es and it’s all he can do not to mouth ‘I love you’ back.
Most of him is quite certain she already knows.)
***
He’s by her side as she says goodbye to the crew, holding tissues in his right hand and left hovering at the small of her back.
(It feels just as it’s always felt: at her side is where he’s supposed to be.
It feels like inevitability embodied; feels like happiness, even amongst all the sadness.
It feels like home.)
As they approach the end of the line, she leans against it more and more for support, and by the time she’s said her final farewell to one of the second ADs, his arm is completely around her waist, and her hand’s come up to link their fingers together as they rest on her hip.
For the first time, the ending feels like a beginning.
***
He takes her hand as soon as they enter the car.
Her grip has always been firm, but in this moment even as she threatens to break his fingers with how hard she’s holding on, somehow it still feels like she’s slipping away.
He lifts his arm and drapes it around her shoulders, and fans and paparazzi cameras be damned, leans over and kisses behind her ear before whispering, “It’s almost over.”
She turns her head slightly and their noses bump; their breath mingles and he inhales not only her sense but everything that makes her her - everything that makes him love her.
(Everything that makes him want her to be his.)
But the thought screeches to a halt alongside his heart when one of her tears hits his chin. “That’s the problem,” she whispers, glancing down and swiping at her eyes.
He tilts her face up with his index finger, heart and face open as he’s ever let them be, and tries with a hesitancy that leaves him as breathless as her proximity used to, “Amy may have left, but you’re far from gone, Kaz.”
She searches his face for a long moment before replying, and he knows she’s looking for truths, not consequences. “And what about you?”
There is no hesitation or uncertainty in his answer. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here as long as you need me.”
She clears her throat and in the corner of his mind he realizes her hand is now on his thigh.
(There’s nothing subconscious about it this time.)
“That could be a very long time,” she says slowly, and he expects his heartbeat to double. When it doesn’t, he knows it’s because there’s no anxiety or even exhilaration as the moment he’d envisioned for them from the moment Beth had said, “There’s a girl called Karen Gillan coming to read, and she’s the one” knocks politely at their souls.
There is only acceptance that those words had been a harbinger of things to come, far truer than anyone had anticipated.
“I was pretty much thinking forever,” he admits.
(It’s a leap and yet it’s completely not, because not only did they jump in tandem, they fell a long time ago.
It’s just time, and the symbiosis in that is as perfect as any script could ever strive to be.)
By the time they reach the official wrap-party, it’s her lips that are red (from two years’ worth of deferred kisses) and his eyes are sparkling not from tears but hope and a place to call home.
(They take her first step off the TARDIS and turn it into their first step toward always.
It’s the best journey they’ll ever take.)
fin