Hello, Goodbye for rude-not-ginger
((Requested by rude_not_ginger , who wanted Sally/Ten, "Goodbye kiss"))
They never say hello as well as they say goodbye.
Hellos always come with trepidation, hope, plans and fears and so much unknown that could stretch out behind them once they pass. A hello is a beginning, and beginnings scare her sometimes because she doesn't know where they might leave her, or where she might find herself if she follows them. Goodbyes, on the other hand, are simple, final, and beautifully painful. No one writes songs about hellos, but they've written thousands about goodbye.
It was just three hours. Three hours for her, while he recalibrated the engines and took the TARDIS for a quick spin around to galaxy. Three hours for her, much longer for him. Time enough to watch a people burn.
But three hours later and it's still spring in London, late in the lazy afternoon when the trees in the park cast their long shadows, and she's waiting. Legs swinging gently off the edge of the bench, attention wrapped and rapt in the book she's cradling in her lap, reading by the dappling light from the trees. Somehow she doesn't hear the engines land in the soft grass to her left, doesn't look up until she spots a pair of cream chucks trot into her vision. She gets as far up as the set of his jaw and knows something's wrong. More than should have gone wrong in three hours.
She's wearing a light summer dress without trousers underneath and it occurs to him that that girl who ran out to him in the street one day in 2007 had grown up when he wasn't looking. Eyes always on the screen and the stars of the universe and never beside him in the console room.
She sets down her book, Charlotte Bronte can wait, and stands, searching his face to give up what she knew it never would. And the closer he steps the more it sinks in.
"Sally..." He begins.
"It's alright, I understand", she ends.
He reaches one hand forward, threading fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. It was shorter than it used to be, brushing the tops of her shoulders, (she'd cut it months ago, he'd never seemed to notice and she didn't think it was worth pointing out) There's nothing left to say.
The kiss he presses to the curve of her cheek lingers too close to the corner of her mouth, long enough for the two elderly woman on the next bench to notice, prompting sweetly nostalgic chatter. Words like how sweet, and look at that, a real gentleman, and reminds me of James and I, float in more than audible whispers through the heavy spring air.
They only stop when he pulls back, and without a word, turns and walks away.
They never say hello as well as they say goodbye.
Hellos always come with trepidation, hope, plans and fears and so much unknown that could stretch out behind them once they pass. A hello is a beginning, and beginnings scare her sometimes because she doesn't know where they might leave her, or where she might find herself if she follows them. Goodbyes, on the other hand, are simple, final, and beautifully painful. No one writes songs about hellos, but they've written thousands about goodbye.
It was just three hours. Three hours for her, while he recalibrated the engines and took the TARDIS for a quick spin around to galaxy. Three hours for her, much longer for him. Time enough to watch a people burn.
But three hours later and it's still spring in London, late in the lazy afternoon when the trees in the park cast their long shadows, and she's waiting. Legs swinging gently off the edge of the bench, attention wrapped and rapt in the book she's cradling in her lap, reading by the dappling light from the trees. Somehow she doesn't hear the engines land in the soft grass to her left, doesn't look up until she spots a pair of cream chucks trot into her vision. She gets as far up as the set of his jaw and knows something's wrong. More than should have gone wrong in three hours.
She's wearing a light summer dress without trousers underneath and it occurs to him that that girl who ran out to him in the street one day in 2007 had grown up when he wasn't looking. Eyes always on the screen and the stars of the universe and never beside him in the console room.
She sets down her book, Charlotte Bronte can wait, and stands, searching his face to give up what she knew it never would. And the closer he steps the more it sinks in.
"Sally..." He begins.
"It's alright, I understand", she ends.
He reaches one hand forward, threading fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. It was shorter than it used to be, brushing the tops of her shoulders, (she'd cut it months ago, he'd never seemed to notice and she didn't think it was worth pointing out) There's nothing left to say.
The kiss he presses to the curve of her cheek lingers too close to the corner of her mouth, long enough for the two elderly woman on the next bench to notice, prompting sweetly nostalgic chatter. Words like how sweet, and look at that, a real gentleman, and reminds me of James and I, float in more than audible whispers through the heavy spring air.
They only stop when he pulls back, and without a word, turns and walks away.