Title: The Fortune Cookie
Author: betawho
Rating: PG
Characters: 11th Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond
Words: 629
Summary: Sometimes you get a really good fortune cookie.
The Doctor, Amy, and River were having Chinese food at a little hole in the wall restaurant in San Francisco.
The food was good, if weird looking. The waiters all spoke English (or, at least Amy thought they did, you could never tell with the Tardis translation circuits.) And the ambiance was full of colorful paper lanterns, and tiny cricket cages, and calligraphy on the walls, and lots of yelling from the kitchens.
It was great.
At the end of the meal their waiter brought them a salver with their bill, and three fortune cookies. Amy grinned and passed them out. She always loved the fortune cookies.
She broke hers open, pulled out the slip of paper, then barked a laugh as she read it.
"Be on the lookout for travel opportunities."
The Doctor grinned at her and picked at the crumbled remains of his crushed fortune cookie, eating each tiny little fragment off the tablecloth.
"What did yours say?" Amy asked.
He flipped the paper around to show her.
"A horse is like a member of the family."
"That is not a fortune!" Amy said.
"Sure it is." the Doctor protested absently. "I had a horse once. His name was Arthur. He was an indoors horse."
Amy stared at him in disbelief.
River cracked her cookie open and pulled out the slip of paper inside. She read it, then looked up at the Doctor across the table and gave him a truly terrifying grin.
She folded the fortune neatly in half and tucked it in her top pocket. She picked up the bill and slipped out of the booth to go pay.
"What did it say?" Amy called after her, as she scrambled to follow.
Of course River paid. The Doctor's money had a tendency to crawl off, or mutate.
He followed them to the till, walking backward, hands in prayer position as he rattled off a rapid fire conversation with the cook in Chinese, apparently thanking him for the meal. They bobbed several bows back and forth to each other and the Doctor backed right into River.
"Oop!" He turned, flailed and grabbed her before he could knock her over. "Sorry. Sorry," he said to the teller, waving his hands around in exaggerated apology.
River rolled her eyes and gave him a quick smooch on the nose. She turned and sauntered off.
Amy saw the Doctor straighten behind her, check to be sure she wasn't looking, then pull out the slip of the fortune he'd pickpocketed off her.
He read it quickly. Then looked up and gave a truly goopy smile at River's retreating back.
He trotted up beside them. "Thank you for a lovely dinner, River. I'd never have found that restaurant without you." He leaned over and pressed a smacking kiss to her cheek. His hand going to her hair on the other side.
If Amy hadn't been watching his hand, she'd never have noticed how smoothly he slipped the fortune back in River's pocket as his hand slid past it.
She bit her lip. Then grinned as the Doctor skipped along beside River, one arm waving dramatically as he extolled the virtues of the early San Fransisco architecture and regaled them with stories of the bridges that would soon be built, his hand brushing River's with every swing.
Amy leaned in and whispered to River, "What did your fortune say?"
River pulled the slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Amy, the sparkle in her eyes showing the Doctor hadn't fooled her. She caught his hand on the next swing, and he stopped his prattling and looked down at her. And grinned. Swinging hands.
Amy unfolded the slip of paper and read it.
"Marriage lets you annoy one special person for the rest of your life."
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