'She's got a tomb, of course she's got a tomb.' the Doctor answered Clara's question hastily.
'Obviously not at Trenzalore.' she frowned.
'No, not at Trenzalore.' he answered rapidly 'No. A much more silent place.' he explained.
'Where?' she asked curiously. He stopped pulling arms, and leaned on the console sighing.
'On a planet where no one can bother her.
'Do you go there often?' To visit her, I mean.'
'She's dead.' the Doctor threw at Clara.
'Why?' she asked, and he knew she didn't ask about her death. He sighed wearily and lifted his head, staring in the distance, his eyes lost in the void.
'You know... I like to believe she's out there somewhere – as she is, she's always out there somewhere, whole and alive, as she should be. If I go there... It remembers me that she's... a ghost.' he smiled sorrowful, like he always did when he spoke about River Song.
'”The only mystery worth solving.”' Clara smiled comforting. The Doctor looked at her, to meet her eyes.
'What?' he asked.
'You told me, when you took me over Earth's history in five minutes. I said...'
'...you should seem ghosts to me. Yees... I remember.' he wondered.
'You said we do not – but she does, doesn't she? Professor Song, the ghost who doesn't let you go.' she gestured. The Doctor frowned at her half angry, half hurt.
'She is not a ghost!' he warned her, but then his face changed as he sighed wearily. 'She's always there, yes, she doesn't ever let me go - I do not let her go.' he added hurriedly. 'She's...' his voice wasn't more than a whisper '...the only one who's out there for me. Everyone goes, they leave me, they are left behind, but she's... just there. Doesn't matter when or where I call her, she's there in a minute, always... Like she's be my... other half.'
'She should be, if you married her.' Clara let go the fence and winged her arms. She paced next to the Doctor, who was still leaning to the console.
'You should tell her.' she told quietly.
'Tell her what?' the Doctor caught up his head, frowning hard at the girl.
'What you told me. I bet she'd like to hear it.' she said cagily. He frowned harder, like he'd thinking, but then hurriedly spinned around and started to pilot the TARDIS while saying
'Nnooo, you don't know her. She's... fluffy and sudden and surprising... She blows up things if she doesn't like them... She's... amazing... and she knows...' he added quietly, stopping gesturing and leaning on the console. 'She knows, yes.'
Clara paced to his side.
'It doesn't mean she doesn't want to hear it.'
'Nno.' he shook his head. 'She's different.'
'I know, Doctor.' she stepped closer. 'I know she is. But she want to hear you say.'
Suddenly he got angry.
'How would you know?! You don't know her, you just met her once, when she was dead, you don't even know her name!' he threw at her shouting, but she did not backed.
'Melody Pond, daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams. She was is my head, Doctor; do you remember?' she asked preachingly, and it changed his expression. He calmed, and said quietly
'Yes, I remember.' He meant it, but meant more than she remembered: his last conversation with her, their last kiss... and the spoiler, which he thought he found out, but he could never know when it was about River. He frowned hard, confused by the feelings he felt so often, but could never name them: sorrow, anger, bitterness, love...
Clara woke him from his thoughts.
'Bring me there. Bring me to her tomb. Maybe you don't want to visit her, but I do. As I visit my mum in the graveyard. I always do, I talk to her, I imagine what she'd say, and I feel like she'd be there. And I believe she is. She is, because she's my mum and she'd never let me alone, never. As River would never let you alone.' she said, and she knew she bet his will, that he'll bring her there – and go there himself, too. She wanted to bring him, to confront him with his grief: because he needed to confront it, to let it go. As she did with the death of her mother.
He sighed wearily, not facing his companion, but he decided already. He slowly straightened and tiped in the coordinates. For this time only, for her, he pushed the stabilizer and let the brakes out. The TARDIS hummed sadly – she knew where they were going, she knew when he drove her properly. The Doctor smiled and touched her console and whispered
'Good girl. It's alright.'
Clara smiled sadly on the scene – she knew he got no one else when she left, only his oldest friend. She knew and wasn't jealous. First she did not understand the machine, she did not trust her, but after Trenzalor they got to be friends, she felt it. She touched the console, and mouthed 'thank you', when they landed. The Doctor stepped to the door, and held it to the girl. She stepped out and found herself on the most beautiful planet she'd ever seen.
'It has no name, there are no inhabitants. Only the animals and plants.' he told.
'It is beautiful.' she whispered amazed.
'Yes. She thought it too. She said she'd like to stay here forever. Well, now she is.'
'But... She's in a databank, in the Library, isn't she?' Clara turned to him frowning.
'I programmed the databank to recreate the planet for her. Her body is here, in the Library is her soul, and the two meet in a program.'
'Nice from you.' Clara nodded. The Doctor didn't answer, just walked away towards the trees, and Clara followed him in a distance. It was almost weird, how much she couldn't feel the silent peace of the place – she felt anxious, stressed and sad at the same time. She knew the Doctor felt the same.
'It's the strong telepathic field of the planet.' she heard him saying after a while. 'Don't worry. It will stop if we go back to the TARDIS.'
She didn't react, she knew it would make it worse. If she make him feel more uncomfortable, she will feel uncomfortable, and that's she didn't want to at the moment. It was enough to sense his pain.
It took fifteen minutes walking to reach the glade, where he finally stopped. No word was heard after that last one, and Clara was grateful for that – and so was the Doctor, she could feel. But now – now something changed. With the sorrow, angst and stress there mixed something else: excitement, and some childish nervosity, when the class waits for the teacher to choose the next one to make reply. It wasn't her nervosity. It was the Doctor's.
'Are we here?' she asked quietly, and the positive answer came as quiet as the question was.
'The grave of River Song, the most incredible woman in history.' he told, and she didn't argue. He took a deep breath, and walked to the cliff at the other end of the glade, right towards the tingling waterfall, which's sound was like a hundred fairies' laughing. For the moment all the nervosity, all the sorrow left her, and the magic of the place grabbed her from reality. And then her gaze found the Doctor, and saw his guilty face, a drop of tear falling from his eye, and the magic softened to a quiet sympathy. She stepped to the Time Lord, and put her hand on his shoulder.
'Talk to her. Tell her what you've never told. Tell her what she deserves to hear.'
'I did. I did it right now.' he wiped his nose. 'The telepathic field is strong enough to transmit words, and she's strong enough to grab them. She is...'
'...a Time Lady?' her voice told with him suddenly. Not Clara's, hers. The Doctor spinned around, and those blond locks where in front of him, staying next to the Impossible Girl.
'River...' he mouthed thunderstricken.
'Doctor.' she replied with small smile playing on her lips.
'How...'
'Telepathic field. Strong enough to project anything. A program, for example.'
'Are you...'
'In the Library, yes. And here. Just because of you.'
'I...'
'I know. You sorry.' she nodded, smiling sadly. 'But you don't have to.' she stepped closer, and tried to touch him, but her hand slurred over his face. His tears came back to his eyes.
'But I need to tell you. That I'm sorry. That I'm stupid. Stupid, stupid old man...' he grabbed her hand, but it slurred over his palm. He gazed at his hand, and quietly told 'The hardest part's not being able to hold you...'
'You hold me. In your hearts.' she told, and fondled his face again, and he closed his eyes at the can't-sense touch.
'It is different.' he said.
'It is enough.' she answered, and the image reeled. 'Time to go, Time Lord.'
'Not yet.' he caught up his head, and reached towards her. 'There's something what I have to say yet.'
'Say it, then.' she smiled.
'I know there were words you would've liked to hear, and I didn't ever say, and I know they hurt as bad as those I did, but you need to know that you are the only one I told all my secrets, all my fears, and you are the only one, who knows me. And if I could turn back time, I would, but not even a Time Lord can do that, and you'll be here, whatever I do. And that's why I want to show you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, River...' his voice faded, and tears were in his eyes.
'You did.' she told, and the image disappeared with a reel.
'I'm sorry...' he whispered again, and a tear dropped from his eye.
They stood there for a time, the Doctor staring in the direction where his wife stood some minutes ago, and Clara staring at the Doctor, waiting him to stir, to show that he's alright. But he wasn't. He never was.
Later, back in the TARDIS, Clara gazed out of the door, still on the planet with no name, where the last Time Lady was buried by her husband, where not a soul could disturb her, rounded by chirping birds and running water, just as she should be. And she felt she would never-ever understand this love, however hard she tried, however much she will love someone. And she will never-ever understand this pain, whatever loss she will suffer, whoever she will leave behind. Because these wounds he carried ripped all the time, and he never knew how far the next time was. And she understood now what it meant, «all thing heal with time». And she understood how untrue it was.