Songs for a scribbled-out name

by Kit

Summary:

River/Doctor (mostly...) ficlets for various challenge responses, this first one for hihoplastic at watch_them_run: Falling's not the problem, when I'm falling I'm at peace; it's only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief. - Falling by Florence + The Machine River knows it was a cheap trick to aim for the swimming pool.

Chapter 1: Falling

It was a little bit cheap to aim for the swimming pool. River knows this, even as her back arches and the muscles in her hands and arms and thighs tighten and align. A gaudy trick to startle her Ponds, and to wash away the slickness of Nixon’s America against her skin, coating tally marks.

And she knows, too, that as he comes for her—as the Tardis takes her up in an embrace and her body completes this one, simple, minuscule task—her hair shall be stream-sodden and the all the water might distract him from her face. Her face, which, she is sure, has been made-up and sloughed away too many times now to hide its fear, its rage, and its ache of hope from both her hearts.

In the air, she is swift and sure, and she cries while grinning with all her teeth, into a future her Doctor used to know and now, somehow, can barely understand.