Fic: Phenomenon (1/1)
Title: Phenomenon
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eleven/River Song
Word Count: 779
Summary: He sees now, what he couldn’t then. For ozmissage, who requested “The Doctor/River Song” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Series Spoilers Through Series Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I used to be rather lukewarm about this pairing, but you’re slowly swaying me; I hope this is to your liking!
Phenomenon
He calls out the problem they’re dealing with as soon as the doors open and he tastes the air on his tongue.
“Rastorgrapians,” he deduces, sticking said tongue out past his lips quick, just for good measure, to be sure; he nods, satisfied, and sucks it back in. “Yep, bet my life on it.”
Amy gives him a quirked eyebrow. “Well,” he back tracks, “one of my lives. Maybe two, I’m that sure.”
She rolls her eyes in his direction, and leaves it to Rory to be civilized and polite about the whole mess. “So, how do we stop them from terrorizing the student population of a futuristic university with,” and his jaw drops, and it’s in slow-motion, really, the way the Doctor manages to lose him, too, as soon as the disbelieving word is out of his mouth, “jetpacks?”
“Oh, please,” the Doctor chides distastefully, “it’s not that absurd, even from your time. We’ve only jumped a century or two. Not to mention it’s a wildly inefficient means of transportation, but that’s beside the point.”
“Jetpacks?!” Rory repeats, still a little dazed, and the Doctor has to roll his eyes.
“You Earthlings and your toys,” he shakes his head and leaves them to it. He’s got people to talk to about solving a Rastorgrapian infestation for the record books.
__________________________
There’s an extra spring in his step as he traverses the campus a good three standard hours later, having organized a mass distribution of gaseous cavilidorium to drive out the unwelcome pests from most of the university’s main sites in record time, with instructions to repeat the process as necessary until the Rastorgrapians got the hint and initiated the appropriate bio-spatial shift to get back to their appropriate planet of origin. He’s off to track down Rory and Amy, who he last saw flailing in midair with some well-meaning first-years who were willing to let some novices borrow their ‘packs in exchange for some mid-morning entertainment; he can’t even grouse at their fascination, has to smile at it, because, well, all in all? It’s been a good day.
He doesn’t see the woman he runs into until it’s too late, and they’re sprawling on the imitation lawn spread out as far as the eye can see in any direction from the center of the main quad.
“Sorry,” he says, automatically, because the truth is he’s not the most graceful man alive, and never has been -- and that’s second only to never being a ginger in his complaints on the regeneration front, really -- so he reaches out, rote, to helps her up, gets his hands on her arms before he sees her face.
When he does, he stares for an extra moment before it all falls into place.
She’s thicker ‘round the middle, just a bit, and her cheeks are a little rosier; someone who didn’t know any better -- and the truth is that no one now would ever see it, only someone like her; no one would notice the way her clothes were cut a little different from the norm of the times, a little too loose, hemmed differently, made of different fibers -- obvious only to the trained eye: she’s not from this time.
He wonders, for a moment, if he’s ever going to find where she does come from, really.
“Apologies for that,” he mutters, bending to pick up her things where they’re scattered about, handing them back and extending his hand with a bright kind of smile that he hopes she remembers -- thinks that she probably did. Remember.
“I’m the Doctor,” he says, and she grins a little, like she thinks he’s mad, and he generally takes that as a good sign, eight-and-a-half times out of ten.
“River,” she says, and they both blink, lose track of each other for an instant at the very same time. She looks small, almost -- bright, but timid, like she’s still growing into her skin.
She’s kind of extraordinary, he thinks. She’s kind of exquisite.
“A pleasure, Miss River,” he says, bows at the waist and kisses her hand, grins wide at the flush it sparks in her, and he sees now in a way he hadn’t before how they might have grown together, how he might have gotten himself caught in more than a web of bravado and carefully-crafted deceit.
He sees, for a moment, how he might have fallen in love; how he might still manage it, at that.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eleven/River Song
Word Count: 779
Summary: He sees now, what he couldn’t then. For ozmissage, who requested “The Doctor/River Song” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Series Spoilers Through Series Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I used to be rather lukewarm about this pairing, but you’re slowly swaying me; I hope this is to your liking!
Phenomenon
He calls out the problem they’re dealing with as soon as the doors open and he tastes the air on his tongue.
“Rastorgrapians,” he deduces, sticking said tongue out past his lips quick, just for good measure, to be sure; he nods, satisfied, and sucks it back in. “Yep, bet my life on it.”
Amy gives him a quirked eyebrow. “Well,” he back tracks, “one of my lives. Maybe two, I’m that sure.”
She rolls her eyes in his direction, and leaves it to Rory to be civilized and polite about the whole mess. “So, how do we stop them from terrorizing the student population of a futuristic university with,” and his jaw drops, and it’s in slow-motion, really, the way the Doctor manages to lose him, too, as soon as the disbelieving word is out of his mouth, “jetpacks?”
“Oh, please,” the Doctor chides distastefully, “it’s not that absurd, even from your time. We’ve only jumped a century or two. Not to mention it’s a wildly inefficient means of transportation, but that’s beside the point.”
“Jetpacks?!” Rory repeats, still a little dazed, and the Doctor has to roll his eyes.
“You Earthlings and your toys,” he shakes his head and leaves them to it. He’s got people to talk to about solving a Rastorgrapian infestation for the record books.
__________________________
There’s an extra spring in his step as he traverses the campus a good three standard hours later, having organized a mass distribution of gaseous cavilidorium to drive out the unwelcome pests from most of the university’s main sites in record time, with instructions to repeat the process as necessary until the Rastorgrapians got the hint and initiated the appropriate bio-spatial shift to get back to their appropriate planet of origin. He’s off to track down Rory and Amy, who he last saw flailing in midair with some well-meaning first-years who were willing to let some novices borrow their ‘packs in exchange for some mid-morning entertainment; he can’t even grouse at their fascination, has to smile at it, because, well, all in all? It’s been a good day.
He doesn’t see the woman he runs into until it’s too late, and they’re sprawling on the imitation lawn spread out as far as the eye can see in any direction from the center of the main quad.
“Sorry,” he says, automatically, because the truth is he’s not the most graceful man alive, and never has been -- and that’s second only to never being a ginger in his complaints on the regeneration front, really -- so he reaches out, rote, to helps her up, gets his hands on her arms before he sees her face.
When he does, he stares for an extra moment before it all falls into place.
She’s thicker ‘round the middle, just a bit, and her cheeks are a little rosier; someone who didn’t know any better -- and the truth is that no one now would ever see it, only someone like her; no one would notice the way her clothes were cut a little different from the norm of the times, a little too loose, hemmed differently, made of different fibers -- obvious only to the trained eye: she’s not from this time.
He wonders, for a moment, if he’s ever going to find where she does come from, really.
“Apologies for that,” he mutters, bending to pick up her things where they’re scattered about, handing them back and extending his hand with a bright kind of smile that he hopes she remembers -- thinks that she probably did. Remember.
“I’m the Doctor,” he says, and she grins a little, like she thinks he’s mad, and he generally takes that as a good sign, eight-and-a-half times out of ten.
“River,” she says, and they both blink, lose track of each other for an instant at the very same time. She looks small, almost -- bright, but timid, like she’s still growing into her skin.
She’s kind of extraordinary, he thinks. She’s kind of exquisite.
“A pleasure, Miss River,” he says, bows at the waist and kisses her hand, grins wide at the flush it sparks in her, and he sees now in a way he hadn’t before how they might have grown together, how he might have gotten himself caught in more than a web of bravado and carefully-crafted deceit.
He sees, for a moment, how he might have fallen in love; how he might still manage it, at that.