A Page of Your History
a page of your history
a flash of golden hair and a silver gun. a multi-media representation of a very unconventional friendship. leverage | doctor who. eliot spencer, river song. 820 words. pg. for my darling bff catherine, whom i love more than words can say.
a page of your history
The first time he sees her, it’s from the corner of his eye, a rushed moment in the middle of a scam, a flash of golden hair and a silver gun, but before he can turn around, she has disappeared. He’s busy enough as it is, trying to keep the con together, so he doesn’t give much thought to it; and yet she’s lodged herself in the back of his mind. He’s not the type to forget quickly.
The second time she sees him, he doesn’t even notice her. They’re in Belgrade, she’s in a prison cell (again!), and he’s a cell block over, being broken out by what must be his… friends? family? She can’t quite tell. She has half a mind to ask them for assistance, but she’s River Song, and River Song doesn’t need help escaping a cheap cell like this one. She quietly goes to work on the lock, and slips out before her presence even registers with anyone.
Their third meeting is actually before their first and second, at least in River’s timeline, so when he sees her (and his memory instantly makes the connection), there’s no trace of recognition in her eyes. Instead, she threatens him with a gun bigger than the one he saw in her hands a year ago, and it takes him surprisingly long to get his hands on it to break it down. The second his back is turned, she’s gone, but he swears he saw a grin in her eyes when he took the weapon from her.
Seven encounters (by his count-nine by hers) later, they’ve come to a weird sort of understanding. A partnership, if you will. They only meet up when he’s not running scams with his crew, and she’s not on the road with the Doctor, so really, it doesn’t happen all too often, but when it does, there’s usually a border skirmish involved, or a major explosion, or a helicopter crash (or three-not that he’s been counting). Either way, it works, somehow, and together, they’re better than he could ever be alone. Well, most of the time, anyway. There was that incident with the banana and the apple that she has forbidden him-under threat of slow and painful death-to ever bring up again.
It still irritates him when, twenty-two times later, she still occasionally looks at him from confused eyes and a forced smile, and picks up that little blue book of hers. He tried to explain, meetings nine, twelve, and fourteen, but she shushed him, and by now he’s learned to let her read a few pages here and another chapter there, and then her face relaxes, and they keep going. Like that time when he’s not even fully out of character yet from the latest game they ran, the one that almost completely fell apart around them, and suddenly, she’s there, no idea who he is, and something weird happens inside him. He doesn’t bother trying to figure out what it is. Instead, he puts his hand on her shoulder before she leaves, and that’s enough.
They work quickly, efficiently. She shoots, he disables, and when things get really bad, he picks up a weapon, too. Hates it, but anything to get the job done, is what he told her once. She didn’t understand at the time. Now she does.
Their friendship, as far as it can be called that, never comes up with his team, or with her little family. It works the same the other way around, and while they know more about each other than they realise, it’s not something they ever talk about. Don’t need to. Except when, once in a while, something slips through the walls, through the façade. One day (encounter thirty for him, four for her), he finds her in handcuffs, rambling on about her Doctor and what he did this time, and he laughs for a whole half hour until he’s calmed down enough to free her from the metal confines, all the while ignoring her pointed glare.
When he doesn’t hear from her for a whole year, he begins getting worried, and then, three nights after he seriously starts considering looking for her, she’s there, just there, in front of him in the middle of the street in some European city, but something is different.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, and can’t quite keep the anger out of his voice. They’re friends, partners, she’s not supposed to just disappear on him like that.
“I got married,” she smiles that mysterious, huge smile of hers, and he rolls his eyes a little bit, pulls her to him, and mutters a “dammit, River!” into her hair, when he really means “congratulations”, and “it’s good to see you again”. She wraps her arms around him, then, and they stand for a while, and the sun sets over the hills.
every day of your life is a page of your history.
-arabic proverb
a/n: happy late birfday, bff! i love you so muchhhh! this whole thing prolly makes no sense whatsoever, but i hope it still makes you happyyyyy, because if that's all i could do in my life, make you happy, i wouuuuld. ♥♥♥
thank you, teamgrifter, for the help with this. <3
a flash of golden hair and a silver gun. a multi-media representation of a very unconventional friendship. leverage | doctor who. eliot spencer, river song. 820 words. pg. for my darling bff catherine, whom i love more than words can say.
a page of your history
The first time he sees her, it’s from the corner of his eye, a rushed moment in the middle of a scam, a flash of golden hair and a silver gun, but before he can turn around, she has disappeared. He’s busy enough as it is, trying to keep the con together, so he doesn’t give much thought to it; and yet she’s lodged herself in the back of his mind. He’s not the type to forget quickly.
The second time she sees him, he doesn’t even notice her. They’re in Belgrade, she’s in a prison cell (again!), and he’s a cell block over, being broken out by what must be his… friends? family? She can’t quite tell. She has half a mind to ask them for assistance, but she’s River Song, and River Song doesn’t need help escaping a cheap cell like this one. She quietly goes to work on the lock, and slips out before her presence even registers with anyone.
Their third meeting is actually before their first and second, at least in River’s timeline, so when he sees her (and his memory instantly makes the connection), there’s no trace of recognition in her eyes. Instead, she threatens him with a gun bigger than the one he saw in her hands a year ago, and it takes him surprisingly long to get his hands on it to break it down. The second his back is turned, she’s gone, but he swears he saw a grin in her eyes when he took the weapon from her.
Seven encounters (by his count-nine by hers) later, they’ve come to a weird sort of understanding. A partnership, if you will. They only meet up when he’s not running scams with his crew, and she’s not on the road with the Doctor, so really, it doesn’t happen all too often, but when it does, there’s usually a border skirmish involved, or a major explosion, or a helicopter crash (or three-not that he’s been counting). Either way, it works, somehow, and together, they’re better than he could ever be alone. Well, most of the time, anyway. There was that incident with the banana and the apple that she has forbidden him-under threat of slow and painful death-to ever bring up again.
It still irritates him when, twenty-two times later, she still occasionally looks at him from confused eyes and a forced smile, and picks up that little blue book of hers. He tried to explain, meetings nine, twelve, and fourteen, but she shushed him, and by now he’s learned to let her read a few pages here and another chapter there, and then her face relaxes, and they keep going. Like that time when he’s not even fully out of character yet from the latest game they ran, the one that almost completely fell apart around them, and suddenly, she’s there, no idea who he is, and something weird happens inside him. He doesn’t bother trying to figure out what it is. Instead, he puts his hand on her shoulder before she leaves, and that’s enough.
They work quickly, efficiently. She shoots, he disables, and when things get really bad, he picks up a weapon, too. Hates it, but anything to get the job done, is what he told her once. She didn’t understand at the time. Now she does.
Their friendship, as far as it can be called that, never comes up with his team, or with her little family. It works the same the other way around, and while they know more about each other than they realise, it’s not something they ever talk about. Don’t need to. Except when, once in a while, something slips through the walls, through the façade. One day (encounter thirty for him, four for her), he finds her in handcuffs, rambling on about her Doctor and what he did this time, and he laughs for a whole half hour until he’s calmed down enough to free her from the metal confines, all the while ignoring her pointed glare.
When he doesn’t hear from her for a whole year, he begins getting worried, and then, three nights after he seriously starts considering looking for her, she’s there, just there, in front of him in the middle of the street in some European city, but something is different.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, and can’t quite keep the anger out of his voice. They’re friends, partners, she’s not supposed to just disappear on him like that.
“I got married,” she smiles that mysterious, huge smile of hers, and he rolls his eyes a little bit, pulls her to him, and mutters a “dammit, River!” into her hair, when he really means “congratulations”, and “it’s good to see you again”. She wraps her arms around him, then, and they stand for a while, and the sun sets over the hills.
every day of your life is a page of your history.
-arabic proverb
a/n: happy late birfday, bff! i love you so muchhhh! this whole thing prolly makes no sense whatsoever, but i hope it still makes you happyyyyy, because if that's all i could do in my life, make you happy, i wouuuuld. ♥♥♥
thank you, teamgrifter, for the help with this. <3