Lie Every Time

Character/Pairing: Eleven/River
Rating: PG-13 (a bit of sexiness)
Disclaimer: The BBC owns my soul and this.

He knows. She knows he knows.

It’s one of those perfect moments, “Hello, River.”

There’s an awful lot of glaring and a slowly falling grin. She slaps him square across the face.

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since you’ve had any idea who I am? You don’t even have the decency to call when you know I’ll have to see you stare at me like you’re expecting a second head to sprout from my neck…”

He knows. She knows he knows. The smug understanding of his ignorance is invalid. This River is in no uncertain terms the most livid, passionate, gorgeous one he’s met to date.

“… do you know last week you thought I was going to…”

He muffles the rest of her tirade with a kiss, their first to him.

*~*~*

The sight of her waiting for him just outside the TARDIS was unnerving; her knowledge of his need for a cup of tea was downright nerve wracking.

His elbow clashes clumsily with hers on the tiny café table which is crowded to capacity by two cups of tea, his screwdriver, her diary, and the inexplicable ache to hold her hand. Instead he simply drums his fingers beside hers and waits.

*~*~*

He isn’t entirely certain whether the slowness of the kiss in comparison to the speed of his thoughts is making him dizzy or if this is the first time in a long while he’s been seriously properly and utterly snogged.

*~*~*

She squeezes his hand and picks up her journal, skimming through it like a novel. He surprises himself by wondering what they must look like from afar, a pair having tea, silence comfortable between them like a hearth. He finds it enthralling, mesmerizing, and the slightest bit disturbing- this peace.

When he finally decides to speak she folds her hands neatly below her chin and smiles.

“River, was it your idea or mine?”

“What idea?”

“This,” he says roughly, nearly upsetting his cup of tea, “On what sort of sane universe do I allow myself to barge in and out of your life, to interrupt your existence, to…”

She laughs again and this time it’s clear who she’s laughing at, “Who said anything about sanity, Sweetie?”

*~*~*

He thinks he hears the door behind her click open, he thinks they stumble into the flat, but like all his other thoughts these are blurred by the scent of tea, lemon, and ancient dust.

*~*~*

He sighs and pushes away from the table, finally upsetting his cuppa and nearly drenching his screwdriver, “I don’t understand you. You know everything about me. Why? How? When?”

She is serious now, a crackle of slow burning fire behind her eyes.

“They aren’t my rules,” she tells him, “if you’re wondering. If you had even the slightest doubt I’ll clarify it for you, I wish I could tell you right now who I am, what we are, and when we came to be. I wish I could tell you every single time I see you and you look at me like a puzzle with a missing piece. I wish you knew all of me,” she takes a breath and tries to grasp at her composure, “just as I know all of you.”

*~*~*

There are words that have no place between them, pieces that don’t fit like ‘I missed you’ and ‘I’m sorry’. They could waste their lives away in those words.

*~*~*

“Then tell me,” he pleads in a whisper, “just say it.”

Now that her mask is in place he can see right through it, knows now that the chilling smugness was always a ruse, “I swore to you.”

“I release you of your promise.”

“Well,” she says slowly, crushing lemon slices in her tea, “I don’t release you of yours. You swore so many things to me that night.”

*~*~*

A steady beat of four and the chill of his body beside hers wake her that day, she smiles when she looks up at him, his fringe half over his eyes which try to read her.

“What were you muttering last night? You know, Old High Gallifreyan is much easier to write than to understand.”

*~*~*

That afternoon in the evening air of a corner café he caught her in a lie.

“Why are you crying? Please, River, don’t cry. Are you afraid to tell me who you are?”

“No sweetie,” she laughs again, and this time he thinks he knows what the laugh is about, “I’ve just got lemon in my eye.”

*~*~*
They lay still for minute after minute, and she knows he’s thinking of what to say to her without telling her where they’ll end up some day.

“You crush the lemon in your tea when you’re upset,” he whispers, brushing away the curls of her hair, touching his lips to the hollow of her neck, “And you lie to me when you cry, River, you lie every time.”