Day 8
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, Someone Very Unkind Gave To Me
Eight Phone Calls of Note
Sherlock
John
U
543 words
“Police,” John whispered urgently into his mobile. “Urgent. Tell Lestrade.”
Moriarty was out there somewhere, and even though John knew the police had already surrounded the area, he had no problem putting the note of anxiety into his voice. He couldn't be sure whether Moriarty was just going to jump him - though the man usually liked a good gloat first. He therefore wasn't surprised to hear a voice behind him.
“Hello, John.”
John held out his phone in front of him, almost like a shield. “I've called the police,” he said. “They're on the way. You probably heard my call.”
“Yes, I did.” Moriarty put his hand into his pocket and strolled nonchalently around in front of John.
“So...” said John through gritted teeth, wondering how soon the bloody police would actually enter the building, “You'd better run.”
Moriarty smiled. John hated his smile.
“The problem is,” Moriarty said gently, “that you know and I know that your mobile isn't working. I put a small magnet inside it some time ago, which - as I'm sure you found out with your aborted call to the police - means that it won't connect. Possibly, it won't even turn on.”
“Ah.” John looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, about that... The thing about living with Sherlock is that he's paranoid, and he's persuaded me to be paranoid too. Sometimes. And possibly not paranoid since you really have been fiddling with my phone...”
Moriarty's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
John took a second mobile out of his pocket, identical to the first. “This is the phone you magnetised. This” - he held up the phone on which he had called for help - “is a different phone. Which... well, hasn't had you poking its insides around. Which in turn means that...”
“You're under arrest,” announced Greg Lestrade from directly behind Moriarty.
Moriarty turned his head from side to side, finally realising that he was surrounded. To John's bewilderment, a small smile appeared on his face.
“Well, gentlemen - and Sherlock, because I'm sure he's around somewhere - instructive though this little adventure has been, it seems it's time for me to leave.” He snapped his fingers, and the burring helicopter whose noise had been vaguely irritating John all the time they had been talking appeared overhead, a rope ladder dangling from it. Almost lazily, Moriarty reached out an arm and grabbed it. “Au revoir boys; I'm sure we'll meet again,” he called as the helicopter flew away, Moriarty still clinging to the ladder.
“Shoot it down!” yelled Greg, madly. “Do something, you fucking idiots. Get him!”
“It's too late.” Sherlock's voice. He strolled over to John. “I see you have been entertaining yourself. And, for the record, I am not paranoid - nor did I give you that extra phone. So tell me, how did you manage to have it with you?”
And John, who had not wanted to admit to Moriarty, Lestrade OR Sherlock that he actually had two non-working phones thanks to an accidental bath the second mobile had decided to take, saw his opportunity. With the light of so many occasions flashing through his mind, he grinned and said: “Elementary, my dear Sherlock...”
Harry Potter
Ron/Hermione
PG
96 words
Harry looks Ron straight in the eyes.
“Well, if you won't ask her to marry you, I will.” He stretches his hand out to the telephone, picking it up as if about to phone Hermione on the spot.
Ron clenches his fists. “You bloody aren't. She's my girlfriend. She wouldn't want you and... and anyway, what about Ginny?”
Harry grins. “I'll ask her to marry You, you prat.
“Oh.” Ron flushes up to the ears. “Well, in that case. But anyway, I'm going to ask her today. Probably.”
And polyjuiced!Hermione smiles secretively to herself.
Harry Potter
Gregory Goyle (AU)
U
294 words
“Den's Dishwashers,” Gregory Goyle said, picking up the ringing telephone receiver. He still had a tendency to look at the gadget with suspicion - it was claimed that no magic at all was used in them, but Gregory couldn't see that they could work without it.
“Can I talk to my Hunny-bunny?”
Gregory frowned. “Uh... what?”
There was a long sigh. “”My. Hunny. Bunny. It's not that difficult a request.”
He looked around to see whether there was, conceivably, anyone who might be called 'hunny-bunny' and decided there wasn't. “I think you've got the wrong number,” he said at last.
The sigh this time was even longer. “Well,” said an indignant voice on the other end of the line, “if I've dialled the wrong number why on earth did you answer it?”
Goyle's thought-processes weren't the speediest at the best of times. Which this was not. Leaving the Wizard world for the Muggle one had seemed sensible when he first did it: he had never been any good at magic, but at least he was cleverer than any Muggle could be. But then this. Telephones. Also weird gadgets that people carried around with them and which dinged at odd moments. There was, however, one trick which (whilst it would never have worked in Slytherin) usually worked.
“Sorry,” he said, in the hopeful tone of an obedient dog which knows it has done wrong but is doing its best to make up for it.
The sigher sighed once more, and disconnected, leaving Gregory looking with some bewilderment at the object of most of his confusion. He'd known there would be difficulties in the Muggle world, but if he'd known there was something so awful as phones, he'd never have made the change.
*
Chalet School
Tom/Rosalie
U
231 words
“...and so the upshot of it all is that I'm leaving the Chalet School,” Tom said.
Rosalie gasped, looking at the phone receiver in her hand as if it had bitten her. “Tom, you're not! When?”
“As of now, pretty much. I'm not coming back next term.” Tom was trying to keep her voice steady, but Rosalie knew that she would miss her school, and her friends - though perhaps not as much as they'd miss her.
“But Tom, you can't!” It was almost a wail.
“Sorry, Ros, but what the Pater says goes. I... I'm sorry about it. Let them all know for me, will you?”
“I will,” Rosalie promised, tears in her eyes that she was glad that Tom couldn't see. “Of course I will.”
There was a pause, and then Tom said awkwardly, “Look, Ros, I'll miss you.”
“We'll write, all of us. We all know how much you care for the school.”
Another pause. A breath. Then: “No Ros - I'll miss you. You. I - I wish...” She stopped suddenly. “I have to go. Anyway” - a deliberate lightening of her tone, “ta-ta. Write to me sometimes, won't you?”
“I will. Tom” - but the phone had already been cut off, and Rosalie could only look mournfully at the receiver. “Tom,” she said quietly, to herself, “I love you.”
Dr Who
Doctor 2/Jamie
229 words
U
“What is it?” The Doctor looked at Jamie in bewilderment. “It's a phone. It's, um...” The bewilderment was reflected in Jamie's face, and the Doctor had learned by now that long explanations didn't tend to change that expression on his companion's visage. “Look,” he said, “I'll show you.”
“Oh aye.” Jamie was doing his usual bad impression of someone who knew what was going on.
“Well. You stand here, and I'll just nip into the house over there, and...”
“Don't you need me with you, Doctor?” Jamie asked.
“No! No, of course I don't, I...” The Doctor sighed. “No, you just stay here, and when the phone rings -”
“When it whats?”
The Doctor took a deep breath. “When you hear the telephone making a noise.... um, a bit like 'bring-bring' - 'bring-bring'...”
“What am I supposed to bring?”
“That is the noise the telephone makes, you ignorant Scottish savage!” said the Doctor crossly. “Anyway, when it does that, you pick up the receiver - this bit” (he demonstrated) “ -and say 'Hello'.”
“And what does it say?”
“It's an inanimate object, it doesn't... It will be me who... Oh, never mind, Jamie. I'm sure you will catch up with modern Earth technology at some point.” He turned away. “It just looks unlikely to be in this life time...”
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan/Maddy
U
138 words
Jonathan sat on the pavement surrounded by a load of his belongings, looking slightly bewildered. Maddy, hands on hips, stood above him.
“...And if you never phone me again, it will be too soon!” she yelled, at the end of a long tirade in which the entire neighbourhood got to know more than enough about Jonathan's real and imaginary sins.
Jonathan didn't mind that so much - he'd never been that keep on telephones anyway - but he felt a pang of guilt as he gathered up his stuff and, after she had slammed the door, he could hear Maddy crying. He hadn't meant to suggest she had about as much sex appeal as a hippo; it had just come out of his mouth wrong. But for some reason she hadn't been prepared to let him explain...
Malory Towers
The girls
PG
153 words
The dorm was full of rumours. Miss Grayling had called the police. No, the police had called Miss Grayling. Sally was going to be expelled - or maybe it was Darrell, and she was going to be arrested as well, and charged. Gwendoline liked that story best, though she couldn't say so. Mary-Lou was adamant, in her own timid way, that neither of these things would happen. Alicia was showing a prurient interest in the details, and inclined towards anything with a good sense of drama. Scottish Jean just wanted them all to go to sleep, but none of them would listen.
The truth was rather more mundane, and Alicia and Gwendoline, in their separate ways, were disappointed when it came out. Darrell's mother had died, suddenly; and Sally was there to help and support her.
It would have been so much more interesting if even half of the rumours had been true...
Dr Who
Amy/Rory
323 words
U
Amy came back from the telephone looking white, her face set in lines of fear and determination. And Rory wished he didn't know what that expression meant - wished he'd not seen his wife looking like that more times than he cared to think.
“It's River,” she said. “She's in trouble.” She swallowed. “She needs me.” She brushed a hand through her hair and started hunting madly around the floor.
“What's the matter?”
“I've lost my shoes. I know they were here somewhere.”
“Not that,” Rory said, though he started to help look, “what's the matter with River?”
Amy shrugged elegantly. She was the only person Rory knew who could look elegant whilst crouching on the floor looking for an elusive pair of high-heels. But then Amy was beautiful whatever she did.
“The usual,” she said. “Prison, accusations of murder, trial and electric chair happening if I don't get her out.”
“Out of where?” Rory asked, then “Here they are,” holding out the shoes.
“High security prison.”
“Doesn't the Doctor usually come through for that?”
Amy snatched the shoes from his hand and glared at him. “Maybe he does. But she's my daughter, and I can look after her myself, understand?”
Rory nodded. “She asked you to call the Doctor.”
Amy's face crumpled a little. “Why can she never need me, Rory? Why is it always the Doctor?”
Rory bit his lip, hard. He'd had the exact same thoughts about Amy and the Doctor in the past, and it hurt - it hurt to be second best.
“I'll tell you what,” he said, pulling Amy and her shoes towards him and putting his arms around her, “we'll both go. After all, I'm her Dad.”
Amy's eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Rory. I hope you know that.” She shivered suddenly, but then relaxed. “Now, where's the phone? I need to call the Doctor.”
Eight Phone Calls of Note
Sherlock
John
U
543 words
“Police,” John whispered urgently into his mobile. “Urgent. Tell Lestrade.”
Moriarty was out there somewhere, and even though John knew the police had already surrounded the area, he had no problem putting the note of anxiety into his voice. He couldn't be sure whether Moriarty was just going to jump him - though the man usually liked a good gloat first. He therefore wasn't surprised to hear a voice behind him.
“Hello, John.”
John held out his phone in front of him, almost like a shield. “I've called the police,” he said. “They're on the way. You probably heard my call.”
“Yes, I did.” Moriarty put his hand into his pocket and strolled nonchalently around in front of John.
“So...” said John through gritted teeth, wondering how soon the bloody police would actually enter the building, “You'd better run.”
Moriarty smiled. John hated his smile.
“The problem is,” Moriarty said gently, “that you know and I know that your mobile isn't working. I put a small magnet inside it some time ago, which - as I'm sure you found out with your aborted call to the police - means that it won't connect. Possibly, it won't even turn on.”
“Ah.” John looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, about that... The thing about living with Sherlock is that he's paranoid, and he's persuaded me to be paranoid too. Sometimes. And possibly not paranoid since you really have been fiddling with my phone...”
Moriarty's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
John took a second mobile out of his pocket, identical to the first. “This is the phone you magnetised. This” - he held up the phone on which he had called for help - “is a different phone. Which... well, hasn't had you poking its insides around. Which in turn means that...”
“You're under arrest,” announced Greg Lestrade from directly behind Moriarty.
Moriarty turned his head from side to side, finally realising that he was surrounded. To John's bewilderment, a small smile appeared on his face.
“Well, gentlemen - and Sherlock, because I'm sure he's around somewhere - instructive though this little adventure has been, it seems it's time for me to leave.” He snapped his fingers, and the burring helicopter whose noise had been vaguely irritating John all the time they had been talking appeared overhead, a rope ladder dangling from it. Almost lazily, Moriarty reached out an arm and grabbed it. “Au revoir boys; I'm sure we'll meet again,” he called as the helicopter flew away, Moriarty still clinging to the ladder.
“Shoot it down!” yelled Greg, madly. “Do something, you fucking idiots. Get him!”
“It's too late.” Sherlock's voice. He strolled over to John. “I see you have been entertaining yourself. And, for the record, I am not paranoid - nor did I give you that extra phone. So tell me, how did you manage to have it with you?”
And John, who had not wanted to admit to Moriarty, Lestrade OR Sherlock that he actually had two non-working phones thanks to an accidental bath the second mobile had decided to take, saw his opportunity. With the light of so many occasions flashing through his mind, he grinned and said: “Elementary, my dear Sherlock...”
Harry Potter
Ron/Hermione
PG
96 words
Harry looks Ron straight in the eyes.
“Well, if you won't ask her to marry you, I will.” He stretches his hand out to the telephone, picking it up as if about to phone Hermione on the spot.
Ron clenches his fists. “You bloody aren't. She's my girlfriend. She wouldn't want you and... and anyway, what about Ginny?”
Harry grins. “I'll ask her to marry You, you prat.
“Oh.” Ron flushes up to the ears. “Well, in that case. But anyway, I'm going to ask her today. Probably.”
And polyjuiced!Hermione smiles secretively to herself.
Harry Potter
Gregory Goyle (AU)
U
294 words
“Den's Dishwashers,” Gregory Goyle said, picking up the ringing telephone receiver. He still had a tendency to look at the gadget with suspicion - it was claimed that no magic at all was used in them, but Gregory couldn't see that they could work without it.
“Can I talk to my Hunny-bunny?”
Gregory frowned. “Uh... what?”
There was a long sigh. “”My. Hunny. Bunny. It's not that difficult a request.”
He looked around to see whether there was, conceivably, anyone who might be called 'hunny-bunny' and decided there wasn't. “I think you've got the wrong number,” he said at last.
The sigh this time was even longer. “Well,” said an indignant voice on the other end of the line, “if I've dialled the wrong number why on earth did you answer it?”
Goyle's thought-processes weren't the speediest at the best of times. Which this was not. Leaving the Wizard world for the Muggle one had seemed sensible when he first did it: he had never been any good at magic, but at least he was cleverer than any Muggle could be. But then this. Telephones. Also weird gadgets that people carried around with them and which dinged at odd moments. There was, however, one trick which (whilst it would never have worked in Slytherin) usually worked.
“Sorry,” he said, in the hopeful tone of an obedient dog which knows it has done wrong but is doing its best to make up for it.
The sigher sighed once more, and disconnected, leaving Gregory looking with some bewilderment at the object of most of his confusion. He'd known there would be difficulties in the Muggle world, but if he'd known there was something so awful as phones, he'd never have made the change.
*
Chalet School
Tom/Rosalie
U
231 words
“...and so the upshot of it all is that I'm leaving the Chalet School,” Tom said.
Rosalie gasped, looking at the phone receiver in her hand as if it had bitten her. “Tom, you're not! When?”
“As of now, pretty much. I'm not coming back next term.” Tom was trying to keep her voice steady, but Rosalie knew that she would miss her school, and her friends - though perhaps not as much as they'd miss her.
“But Tom, you can't!” It was almost a wail.
“Sorry, Ros, but what the Pater says goes. I... I'm sorry about it. Let them all know for me, will you?”
“I will,” Rosalie promised, tears in her eyes that she was glad that Tom couldn't see. “Of course I will.”
There was a pause, and then Tom said awkwardly, “Look, Ros, I'll miss you.”
“We'll write, all of us. We all know how much you care for the school.”
Another pause. A breath. Then: “No Ros - I'll miss you. You. I - I wish...” She stopped suddenly. “I have to go. Anyway” - a deliberate lightening of her tone, “ta-ta. Write to me sometimes, won't you?”
“I will. Tom” - but the phone had already been cut off, and Rosalie could only look mournfully at the receiver. “Tom,” she said quietly, to herself, “I love you.”
Dr Who
Doctor 2/Jamie
229 words
U
“What is it?” The Doctor looked at Jamie in bewilderment. “It's a phone. It's, um...” The bewilderment was reflected in Jamie's face, and the Doctor had learned by now that long explanations didn't tend to change that expression on his companion's visage. “Look,” he said, “I'll show you.”
“Oh aye.” Jamie was doing his usual bad impression of someone who knew what was going on.
“Well. You stand here, and I'll just nip into the house over there, and...”
“Don't you need me with you, Doctor?” Jamie asked.
“No! No, of course I don't, I...” The Doctor sighed. “No, you just stay here, and when the phone rings -”
“When it whats?”
The Doctor took a deep breath. “When you hear the telephone making a noise.... um, a bit like 'bring-bring' - 'bring-bring'...”
“What am I supposed to bring?”
“That is the noise the telephone makes, you ignorant Scottish savage!” said the Doctor crossly. “Anyway, when it does that, you pick up the receiver - this bit” (he demonstrated) “ -and say 'Hello'.”
“And what does it say?”
“It's an inanimate object, it doesn't... It will be me who... Oh, never mind, Jamie. I'm sure you will catch up with modern Earth technology at some point.” He turned away. “It just looks unlikely to be in this life time...”
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan/Maddy
U
138 words
Jonathan sat on the pavement surrounded by a load of his belongings, looking slightly bewildered. Maddy, hands on hips, stood above him.
“...And if you never phone me again, it will be too soon!” she yelled, at the end of a long tirade in which the entire neighbourhood got to know more than enough about Jonathan's real and imaginary sins.
Jonathan didn't mind that so much - he'd never been that keep on telephones anyway - but he felt a pang of guilt as he gathered up his stuff and, after she had slammed the door, he could hear Maddy crying. He hadn't meant to suggest she had about as much sex appeal as a hippo; it had just come out of his mouth wrong. But for some reason she hadn't been prepared to let him explain...
Malory Towers
The girls
PG
153 words
The dorm was full of rumours. Miss Grayling had called the police. No, the police had called Miss Grayling. Sally was going to be expelled - or maybe it was Darrell, and she was going to be arrested as well, and charged. Gwendoline liked that story best, though she couldn't say so. Mary-Lou was adamant, in her own timid way, that neither of these things would happen. Alicia was showing a prurient interest in the details, and inclined towards anything with a good sense of drama. Scottish Jean just wanted them all to go to sleep, but none of them would listen.
The truth was rather more mundane, and Alicia and Gwendoline, in their separate ways, were disappointed when it came out. Darrell's mother had died, suddenly; and Sally was there to help and support her.
It would have been so much more interesting if even half of the rumours had been true...
Dr Who
Amy/Rory
323 words
U
Amy came back from the telephone looking white, her face set in lines of fear and determination. And Rory wished he didn't know what that expression meant - wished he'd not seen his wife looking like that more times than he cared to think.
“It's River,” she said. “She's in trouble.” She swallowed. “She needs me.” She brushed a hand through her hair and started hunting madly around the floor.
“What's the matter?”
“I've lost my shoes. I know they were here somewhere.”
“Not that,” Rory said, though he started to help look, “what's the matter with River?”
Amy shrugged elegantly. She was the only person Rory knew who could look elegant whilst crouching on the floor looking for an elusive pair of high-heels. But then Amy was beautiful whatever she did.
“The usual,” she said. “Prison, accusations of murder, trial and electric chair happening if I don't get her out.”
“Out of where?” Rory asked, then “Here they are,” holding out the shoes.
“High security prison.”
“Doesn't the Doctor usually come through for that?”
Amy snatched the shoes from his hand and glared at him. “Maybe he does. But she's my daughter, and I can look after her myself, understand?”
Rory nodded. “She asked you to call the Doctor.”
Amy's face crumpled a little. “Why can she never need me, Rory? Why is it always the Doctor?”
Rory bit his lip, hard. He'd had the exact same thoughts about Amy and the Doctor in the past, and it hurt - it hurt to be second best.
“I'll tell you what,” he said, pulling Amy and her shoes towards him and putting his arms around her, “we'll both go. After all, I'm her Dad.”
Amy's eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Rory. I hope you know that.” She shivered suddenly, but then relaxed. “Now, where's the phone? I need to call the Doctor.”