Title: Transparency

Author: Angel Leviathan

Summary: "Trying to atone for what none of us can change will wear us all thin."

Notes: Follows 'The Husbands of River Song'.

In the middle of that first night that isn't a Darillium night, but a mere handful of hours in comparison, she slips from their bed and makes her way to the control room, driven both by the need for a moment and more of her own space and a desire to seek out the heart of the comforting presence that she simultaneously leans into and believes she doesn't deserve.

She feels a little too giddy for her liking, and no amount of reminding herself of all that she knows and has learnt over the years is quite doing the trick of restoring what equilibrium she can ever maintain. Her mood could easily spill in too many different directions right now, and when she's just about sure that she's going to dissolve into a minor fit of uncontrollable laughter, she feels the tears that are sure to follow creeping up on her. The tears, if she lets them free, might be beyond her control for an embarrassingly long duration, and she's not going to have him look back on the time that followed the sunset and the towers as one when she broke down and sobbed without being able to articulate exactly why.

Drawing the fluffy fabric of her dressing gown more tightly around her, River descends the stairs only so far, then sits down and lets her focus slip away for the span of a breath or so before she draws her attention back to the present.

"...He likes to pretend, sometimes, that you make mistakes. He has to tell himself these things. But we know better, don't we? For all our bias. What child wouldn't want to believe in an indulgent mother's purpose for everything?"

She ducks her head, as if she could hide her wry smile.

"You've let me get away with a lot. I know you could have stopped me if you really wanted to, but what we've done, we've done together. I am grateful, you know. But... I'm not blind."

River pushes up from the stairs and approaches the main console, fingers dancing lightly over dials as she begins a slow, sure circuit.

"Guilt is a powerful motivator. People exploit it. I exploit it."

Her steps halt, fingers curling at the console's edge.

"You don't owe me anything," she insists, low-voiced. "Nor does he. Trying to atone for what none of us can change will wear us all thin." She looks down and takes a deep breath, preparing to speak the words that the more selfish parts of her don't want to surrender. "...What I'm saying is... I can hope for loopholes and twenty-four years stretched into hundreds in a night, but if twenty-four years should become a matter of ill-feeling and guilt and time owed... you take yourselves away. You take him away." Her watery smile is a touch too on the side of not okay for her to be comfortable with. "I'll survive. Be here, with me, because you want to be, not because you ought to be. Both of you."

The lighting flickers and takes on a harsher edge that she knows is a moment's denial and refusal to adhere to her wishes.

River tries out the idea of a laugh. "Who knows? I might feel smothered and run off." Her attempt at humour falls flat, even to her, especially when they both know that it's a very real possibility. It brings back the lighting's warmer hue and the TARDIS' presence at the edge of her senses grows softer, a gentle embrace where chastisement was so recently found.

"Let me have what you want to give and not a minute more. Don't let me become just an obligation." She tips her head back to look up at the central column. "Can you pretend that this is the last time you'll ever let me have my way? We may have to teach him a lesson every now and then, after all. I—"

"There you are." The Doctor blinks blearily at her from the top of the stairs. "You and your cold feet."

River shoots a sudden, long look back towards where the heart of the TARDIS lies, yet it takes less than a second after her stab of fear has spiked to know that she has not been betrayed.

"If there's not a pair of ice blocks in the bed, it's a pretty sure thing you're not there."

She breathes out a shaky ripple of laughter and pushes away from the console to advance up the stairs. "Just something else you'll have to learn to live with, my love."

As she steps around him and catches a grip on one of his wrists to draw him away, he gives the control room a seemingly cursory once over.

"...Yes. I know."

Fin