Title: Always, Always
Universe: Doctor Who
Characters:/strong the 11th Doctor, River Song, Clara Oswald

Authors Note: Well, hello there! This is my first foray back into the world of fanfiction. Hopefully, it isn't too horrible. I would appreciate any feedback you have and also, sidenote, it's not that I don't like Clara. I just didn't like her anywhere near as much as I loved River Song. So, no hate, please. We're all allowed our favourites after all.

"She was cute," Clara commented offhandedly, purposefully casual in her approach.

In the whole time that she had known the Doctor, he hadn't seemed interested in anyone. Not towards women, not towards men and not towards aliens. Oh, sure, he'd been married to the woman with the space hair, Professor River Song. But he never talked about his marriage and somehow, it had gotten into her head, that it was because it had been a marriage of convenience. He hadn't loved the woman he'd married, not according to the idle chatter she'd overheard or the brief passages she'd read on their relationship in the TARDIS library.

"Was she?" The Doctor asked absentmindedly, fingers rubbing at the metal of his sonic screwdriver while he was lost in thought. "I didn't notice."

Clara glanced in the direction of the young woman who had flirted with the Doctor before in the middle of a firefight. "Yeah, definitely pretty."

The Doctor glanced up for a moment to look at the girl who Clara was talking about for barely a second. His old eyes took in the girls' slim figure, dark hair and wide smile before he looked back down at his screwdriver. "Don't see it," He uttered finally.

"Well, take it from me," Clara said, "She is." She paused for a moment before she added, "And, she was flirting with you."

"No, she wasn't," The Doctor said, scoffing at the thought.

"Oh, come on, Doctor! She was all 'yes, Doctor' this and 'please, Doctor' that. It was almost sickening," Clara said, lips twisting at the memory.

The Doctor offered no comment to rebut his companion's statement.

"You should ask her out," Clara suggested, careful in her delivery.

"Ask her out?" The Doctor asked as he looked up at Clara, a frown etched into his young forward.

"Yeah," Clara continued, feeling a little more confident and a little more hopeful that maybe the Doctor was interested in women that way, "You know, like for drinks and dancing. Movies and popcorn. You know, fun."

The Doctor shook his head, saying, "No, I couldn't. Wouldn't."

"Why not?" Clara asked.

"Because," the Doctor said, "I made a promise once at the end of the world and I intend to keep it."

"What promise?" Clara asked, confused. She thought hard for a moment before she remembered something the Doctor had mentioned months ago, only a few short weeks after they had visited Trenzalore. "Oh, Doctor," She said, "You don't mean-"

The Doctor knew exactly what she was about to say. "Yes, I do," He interrupted with a kind of hardness she hadn't heard in his voice before as he spoke those three, small words. It was the kind of hardness that Clara didn't like, not one bit.

"But, Doctor," Clara began, "You don't need to keep that promise anymore. You said so yourself." She added in a gentle voice, "Professor Song is dead."

The Doctor looked at Clara with ice in his eyes. "She isn't dead to me," He told her.

A long silence followed, eating the air and chewing on any hope that Clara had that one day the Doctor might care for her in that way.

The Doctor's eyes were unfocused, looking at something that only he could see. "I can still see her, you know," He told Clara, "I can still see that smirk on her lips. I remember the way that her hair always seemed to defy the very laws of gravity itself. I can still hear her telling me I'm flying the TARDIS wrong or whispering flirty little innuendos in my ear."

Silence fell before he added, "She is always here to me. Always watching, always helping, always offering her opinion, always listening and always, always being my wife, the woman I married in the eye of a storm. My River Song." His last words were little more than a whisper and Clara had to strain to hear them.

Clara stayed silent. She had been wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. His marriage to River Song had not been one of convenience. He'd married that mad, intelligent woman because he had loved her, more than he'd ever been willing to admit to anyone.

"I know that she died, Clara," The Doctor said, "I know that River died because I was there when she did. It was the first time I'd ever met her and the look on her face when she realised how young I was, when she realised that I had no idea who she was, haunted me throughout our shared timeline. And it still does. River died for a man that she loved, a man who sent her to the Library knowing full well what would befall her there. She died for a man who didn't even know her and well… How could I ever be with another after what she gave up for me? River had already sacrificed so much of her life at that point. River had given up her future, her past and her heart." He paused again before he added, "I owe her this and so much more."

Minutes passed before the Doctor stood up, finally, gesturing for Clara to follow him. "C'mon," He told her, "We should figure a way out of this tunnel before the rest of it collapses on top of us."

Clara followed along behind him, remaining silent as she thought over everything the Doctor had said.

Just as she thought that their conversation had finally been put to bed, the Doctor turned so quickly and abruptly that she almost ran into him.

"Clara," He said, "Whether or not she's drawing breath, River Song will always, always be my wife."

Hopefully, that wasn't too bad? Anyway, please feel free to leave feedback or any suggestions. I promise I'll answer any question or signed in feedback.