Gift for sirvalkyrie
To: sirvalkyrie
From: tardiscrash
Title: The Honey Moon of Dr. Jonathan Song
Characters and/or Pairings: Eight, Eleven, Charley and River (Doctor/River)
Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor is just trying to have a nice holiday with his companion, both of him.
Word Count: 1842
“Doctor! Doctor, where have you run off to now, I’ve met the most amazing woman. She said that she is here on her honeymoon, isn’t that just too clever? Coming to a moon for your honeymoon? Oh Doctor, where are you?” Charley rushed down the hallway of the Pailax lunar hotel turning this way and that, looking for the man she called for, when suddenly she ran into a wall. Only it was less of a wall, and more of a tall man with gangly arms and legs, a tweed jacket and a bow tie. It still felt like a wall, though.
Charley held her hand to her forehead as she waited for the hallway to stop spinning.
“Whoops,” the bow tied man said, and then put a hand on her shoulder. “Hello there, you seem like a lady in a hurry and if there is one thing I-- Charley?”
Charley blinked, suddenly finding her senses, sobered by the sound of her own name.
“Yes, yes I am.” She looked him over again. There was something very peculiar about this young man, and something rather familiar. “And who might you be, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Haha, look at you!” The strange bow tied man barked out as he swept his hands out like a conductor, craned his neck looking past her in the hall and spun around on the spot looking beside himself. All this added up to look like a strange flailing sort of dance. Charley watched with a look of growing concern on her face. This man didn’t seem quite well in the head.
“Yes, look at me. And look at you, whoever you might be.”
“Right, me. Me? I’m the, actually, how about John Smi--” He looked a touch panicked for a moment. Charley could nearly hear the wheels spinning in his head as he aborted his previous statement and blurted out, “Song, Doctor Jonathan Song.”
“Oh,” Charley brightened instantly, “you’re River’s husband!”
“Depends on who you ask really.” The Doctor quirked his eyebrow and gave a funny little grin.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes yes, of course I am River’s husband, and I’m guessing that you two hit it off like a forest fire on a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere.”
“Oh, yes, she is the most charming woman.” Charley looked the young man over once more with a fair portion of judgment. He wasn’t exactly unattractive but he was clearly mad, and so young. She wondered what on earth he could be doing right to have landed a woman so glamorous and exciting as River. He didn’t look exceedingly wealthy but you couldn’t always tell and he was certainly eccentric enough to have had a very privileged upbringing. Better yet, maybe he won her heart with some daring display of heroics.
She looked him over again, eyes lingering on the bow tie. He was probably exceedingly wealthy.
--
Meanwhile, in the bar down stairs, one River Song dragged her finger around the rim of her empty wine glass, alternately watching the entrances and casually flirting with anyone who happened to sit near her. She waited patiently for the Doctor. He had promised to meet her in the lobby thirty minutes ago. Knowing the Doctor as she did, she didn't expect him for at least another thirty and, the Doctor being the Doctor, River knew that far more likely than showing up with a flower or/and apology for his tardiness, he would arrive with a catastrophe right on his heels.
She wouldn't have it any other way for all the credits in the Galaxy.
All that being the case, River would have been very surprised to see the Doctor any time soon, but surprise hardly covered her reaction at seeing this particular version of the Doctor walk into the room. She grinned as she looked him over and quickly flipped through her well loved diary to find her notes on this proto-version of her husband.
The velvet, cravat and long curls put the Doctor in his eighth body. She ran through a list of names: Grace, Charley, Fritz, Izzy, Mary, and on and on, this one liked his company. Other notes told stories of the Master, Cybermen, Daleks, Rassilon and fairytale nightmares manifesting in his mind. (Looking him over again, though, she thought the threat of ‘eating her while she was sleeping’ didn’t sound like all too bad of an idea). More importantly to River at the moment, it made no mention of run-ins with a to-be-betrothed in a hotel bar on the posh side of the galaxy.
Still, with that cravat, he was just asking to see his timeline contaminated.
“Hello stranger.” She sidled up with a grin and watched the Doctor as he was startled out of his thoughts.
“Hello.” The Doctor looked pleasantly surprised to be addressed and gave her a charming smile. “And who might you be? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do, but never mind that. What do you think of this place?” She shook her curls back and took a drink from her glass.
“Oh, certainly, everything the brochure said and more. The Pailax corporation made a perfect paradise. Pollution free skies full of glittering stars, crystal lakes that perfectly reflect the planet rise, and wall to wall five-star accommodations. And I do believe the Persian rugs are actually from Persia, which is of course rather impressive as the place hasn’t had the good manners to exist for quite some time.”
River watched him as he talked and was amused as it became clear that he was really only doing so for his own benefit. He had an air of melancholy to him but it was plain that he enjoyed it very much, wrapping it around himself comfortably like any of his other gothic hero accouterments.
“And you can’t stand it, can you?”
“Not a bit.” Again he was pleasantly surprised and looked her over with a bit more consideration. She knew better than to think he would remember her (and actually, as little consideration as she normally gave to timelines, it would be better that he didn’t) but was still pleased she had impressed at least for the moment. “It’s all so tourist-y. Clean and polished. No dirt, no intrigue, no fun. There is just no point to a place that doesn’t at least have some sort of seedy underbelly.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.” River smiled. He really never changed at all. She was just about to see if she could coax another little rant out of him when her Doctor strolled back into the room, accompanied by the charming little girl she had been talking to earlier. For all his poor taste in headgear, at least he had good taste in company.
“Hello, darling!” the Doctor called out and raised his hand in greeting, drawing the attention of the other Doctor. “I found a girl! Or rather she found me.”
“That is always the way with you, isn’t it. You’ll never guess who I found.” She grinned broadly and watched with no small amount of pleasure as the two Doctors recognised each other.
“Oh no.”
“Not again.”
“This never ends well.”
“You’ve no need to tell me.”
“So what horrible no-good holiday-ruining badness is it this time?”
“No idea, actually. We are simply here to take in the sights.”
“Well that’s funny, so are we...”
The two looked at each other for a tense moment that was soon broken by the near-deafening sound of of the far wall exploding, filling the room with smoke and debris.
“Well that would be that, then,” one of the Doctors said, a half-second before the room burst into panic at the sight of ten foot tall robots and hulking mutant solders, each wide as a door frame, pouring into the room.
“Sweetie, we said no work this time.” River pulled her gun out of her handbag.
“Well, yes,” her Doctor twirled out of the way of a laser blast from the party crashers, “but we didn’t actually mean it, did we?” The Doctor pulled out his sonic and started doing something that played merry hell with the operating systems of the invaders’ shiny and impressive-looking battle suits.
“Of course not; who do you think you married?” River spun as the Doctor ducked and brought her gun to where his head had been, firing off three shots and downing three of the unarmored targets with elegant precision.
--
Charley watched the whole display in amazement from the table she and the Doctor dove behind. “This must be something to do with you.” She turned to the Doctor. “Who is that man? And what are those things? They’re too big to be Cybermen, and I can’t even begin to guess at the other ones.”
“Sycari raiding party. A bit early, too.” The Doctor studied his watch, seeming unconcerned as the building shook from the fight. “They’ll be after the Null Waste Generators. Terribly polluted place, Sycar Prime; they would do well to take a page from the Pailax book. This, however,” the Doctor ducked as a bit of debris flew past his head, “is not the most polite way to go about getting it.”
“River,” the Doctor called and she turned from the gunfight for a moment, “do tell him, if he ever decides to stop playing cowboys and Sycari, that my friend any I are going to get the blue prints for the generator. See if we can’t negotiate a cease fire.”
“You’re just going to give them what they want?” River shouted back over her shoulder between gun blasts.
“Why not? Won’t do any harm. Probably. Maybe some fresh air will be good for their dispositions. Come along, Charley.”
---
Later, after the ceasefire had been called and something like a negotiation had been conducted (the Sycari apparently had never thought to simply ask for the technology. As there were no casualties on ether side, all four of the travelers had found that fact too amusing to be much bothered by the rest of it), River and Charley bid each other warm farewells while their companions stood about looking at each other with displeasure.
The two men parted with little more than a nod and grumble, and Charley watched as River and her husband walked with sure strides into the coat-check room. She expected to see them turn around and come back again, but was shocked to hear the too-familiar sound of a TARDIS grinding its way back into the Vortex.
“Doctor,” she turned to him with wide eyes as it all dawned on her, “but that was, he must have been... and she was, she was...”
“No, no, Charley, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“The web of time, right? You can’t have foreknowledge of things that are yet to come?” Charley felt rather pleased with her self for keeping in step with the Doctor’s temporal logic this time.
“No,” The Doctor groused and waved his had dismissively. “I just don’t want to hear about it.”
From: tardiscrash
Title: The Honey Moon of Dr. Jonathan Song
Characters and/or Pairings: Eight, Eleven, Charley and River (Doctor/River)
Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor is just trying to have a nice holiday with his companion, both of him.
Word Count: 1842
“Doctor! Doctor, where have you run off to now, I’ve met the most amazing woman. She said that she is here on her honeymoon, isn’t that just too clever? Coming to a moon for your honeymoon? Oh Doctor, where are you?” Charley rushed down the hallway of the Pailax lunar hotel turning this way and that, looking for the man she called for, when suddenly she ran into a wall. Only it was less of a wall, and more of a tall man with gangly arms and legs, a tweed jacket and a bow tie. It still felt like a wall, though.
Charley held her hand to her forehead as she waited for the hallway to stop spinning.
“Whoops,” the bow tied man said, and then put a hand on her shoulder. “Hello there, you seem like a lady in a hurry and if there is one thing I-- Charley?”
Charley blinked, suddenly finding her senses, sobered by the sound of her own name.
“Yes, yes I am.” She looked him over again. There was something very peculiar about this young man, and something rather familiar. “And who might you be, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Haha, look at you!” The strange bow tied man barked out as he swept his hands out like a conductor, craned his neck looking past her in the hall and spun around on the spot looking beside himself. All this added up to look like a strange flailing sort of dance. Charley watched with a look of growing concern on her face. This man didn’t seem quite well in the head.
“Yes, look at me. And look at you, whoever you might be.”
“Right, me. Me? I’m the, actually, how about John Smi--” He looked a touch panicked for a moment. Charley could nearly hear the wheels spinning in his head as he aborted his previous statement and blurted out, “Song, Doctor Jonathan Song.”
“Oh,” Charley brightened instantly, “you’re River’s husband!”
“Depends on who you ask really.” The Doctor quirked his eyebrow and gave a funny little grin.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes yes, of course I am River’s husband, and I’m guessing that you two hit it off like a forest fire on a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere.”
“Oh, yes, she is the most charming woman.” Charley looked the young man over once more with a fair portion of judgment. He wasn’t exactly unattractive but he was clearly mad, and so young. She wondered what on earth he could be doing right to have landed a woman so glamorous and exciting as River. He didn’t look exceedingly wealthy but you couldn’t always tell and he was certainly eccentric enough to have had a very privileged upbringing. Better yet, maybe he won her heart with some daring display of heroics.
She looked him over again, eyes lingering on the bow tie. He was probably exceedingly wealthy.
--
Meanwhile, in the bar down stairs, one River Song dragged her finger around the rim of her empty wine glass, alternately watching the entrances and casually flirting with anyone who happened to sit near her. She waited patiently for the Doctor. He had promised to meet her in the lobby thirty minutes ago. Knowing the Doctor as she did, she didn't expect him for at least another thirty and, the Doctor being the Doctor, River knew that far more likely than showing up with a flower or/and apology for his tardiness, he would arrive with a catastrophe right on his heels.
She wouldn't have it any other way for all the credits in the Galaxy.
All that being the case, River would have been very surprised to see the Doctor any time soon, but surprise hardly covered her reaction at seeing this particular version of the Doctor walk into the room. She grinned as she looked him over and quickly flipped through her well loved diary to find her notes on this proto-version of her husband.
The velvet, cravat and long curls put the Doctor in his eighth body. She ran through a list of names: Grace, Charley, Fritz, Izzy, Mary, and on and on, this one liked his company. Other notes told stories of the Master, Cybermen, Daleks, Rassilon and fairytale nightmares manifesting in his mind. (Looking him over again, though, she thought the threat of ‘eating her while she was sleeping’ didn’t sound like all too bad of an idea). More importantly to River at the moment, it made no mention of run-ins with a to-be-betrothed in a hotel bar on the posh side of the galaxy.
Still, with that cravat, he was just asking to see his timeline contaminated.
“Hello stranger.” She sidled up with a grin and watched the Doctor as he was startled out of his thoughts.
“Hello.” The Doctor looked pleasantly surprised to be addressed and gave her a charming smile. “And who might you be? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do, but never mind that. What do you think of this place?” She shook her curls back and took a drink from her glass.
“Oh, certainly, everything the brochure said and more. The Pailax corporation made a perfect paradise. Pollution free skies full of glittering stars, crystal lakes that perfectly reflect the planet rise, and wall to wall five-star accommodations. And I do believe the Persian rugs are actually from Persia, which is of course rather impressive as the place hasn’t had the good manners to exist for quite some time.”
River watched him as he talked and was amused as it became clear that he was really only doing so for his own benefit. He had an air of melancholy to him but it was plain that he enjoyed it very much, wrapping it around himself comfortably like any of his other gothic hero accouterments.
“And you can’t stand it, can you?”
“Not a bit.” Again he was pleasantly surprised and looked her over with a bit more consideration. She knew better than to think he would remember her (and actually, as little consideration as she normally gave to timelines, it would be better that he didn’t) but was still pleased she had impressed at least for the moment. “It’s all so tourist-y. Clean and polished. No dirt, no intrigue, no fun. There is just no point to a place that doesn’t at least have some sort of seedy underbelly.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.” River smiled. He really never changed at all. She was just about to see if she could coax another little rant out of him when her Doctor strolled back into the room, accompanied by the charming little girl she had been talking to earlier. For all his poor taste in headgear, at least he had good taste in company.
“Hello, darling!” the Doctor called out and raised his hand in greeting, drawing the attention of the other Doctor. “I found a girl! Or rather she found me.”
“That is always the way with you, isn’t it. You’ll never guess who I found.” She grinned broadly and watched with no small amount of pleasure as the two Doctors recognised each other.
“Oh no.”
“Not again.”
“This never ends well.”
“You’ve no need to tell me.”
“So what horrible no-good holiday-ruining badness is it this time?”
“No idea, actually. We are simply here to take in the sights.”
“Well that’s funny, so are we...”
The two looked at each other for a tense moment that was soon broken by the near-deafening sound of of the far wall exploding, filling the room with smoke and debris.
“Well that would be that, then,” one of the Doctors said, a half-second before the room burst into panic at the sight of ten foot tall robots and hulking mutant solders, each wide as a door frame, pouring into the room.
“Sweetie, we said no work this time.” River pulled her gun out of her handbag.
“Well, yes,” her Doctor twirled out of the way of a laser blast from the party crashers, “but we didn’t actually mean it, did we?” The Doctor pulled out his sonic and started doing something that played merry hell with the operating systems of the invaders’ shiny and impressive-looking battle suits.
“Of course not; who do you think you married?” River spun as the Doctor ducked and brought her gun to where his head had been, firing off three shots and downing three of the unarmored targets with elegant precision.
--
Charley watched the whole display in amazement from the table she and the Doctor dove behind. “This must be something to do with you.” She turned to the Doctor. “Who is that man? And what are those things? They’re too big to be Cybermen, and I can’t even begin to guess at the other ones.”
“Sycari raiding party. A bit early, too.” The Doctor studied his watch, seeming unconcerned as the building shook from the fight. “They’ll be after the Null Waste Generators. Terribly polluted place, Sycar Prime; they would do well to take a page from the Pailax book. This, however,” the Doctor ducked as a bit of debris flew past his head, “is not the most polite way to go about getting it.”
“River,” the Doctor called and she turned from the gunfight for a moment, “do tell him, if he ever decides to stop playing cowboys and Sycari, that my friend any I are going to get the blue prints for the generator. See if we can’t negotiate a cease fire.”
“You’re just going to give them what they want?” River shouted back over her shoulder between gun blasts.
“Why not? Won’t do any harm. Probably. Maybe some fresh air will be good for their dispositions. Come along, Charley.”
---
Later, after the ceasefire had been called and something like a negotiation had been conducted (the Sycari apparently had never thought to simply ask for the technology. As there were no casualties on ether side, all four of the travelers had found that fact too amusing to be much bothered by the rest of it), River and Charley bid each other warm farewells while their companions stood about looking at each other with displeasure.
The two men parted with little more than a nod and grumble, and Charley watched as River and her husband walked with sure strides into the coat-check room. She expected to see them turn around and come back again, but was shocked to hear the too-familiar sound of a TARDIS grinding its way back into the Vortex.
“Doctor,” she turned to him with wide eyes as it all dawned on her, “but that was, he must have been... and she was, she was...”
“No, no, Charley, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“The web of time, right? You can’t have foreknowledge of things that are yet to come?” Charley felt rather pleased with her self for keeping in step with the Doctor’s temporal logic this time.
“No,” The Doctor groused and waved his had dismissively. “I just don’t want to hear about it.”