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[spacepeterpan]

Hello, you've reached the Doctor, not at the TARDIS, well, maybe at the TARDIS, won't know until I answer, leave me a message after the TARDIS engine sound if you've got one, just a "please help" is fine although more details would probably be good, whatever you can manage, and I'll get back to you, and maybe save your planet, ta!

[Followed right after by about a second of the sound of TARDIS engines, followed by the thump of its landing.

Feel free to leave a message for the (eleventh) Doctor here!]

Comments

[spacepeterpan]

Ahh, no, don't believe so, I'll be right over.

[And he starts off to join her at her office. Even if he's not sure where it is off the top of his head, he can always find her if he really needs to.]

[polyandrist]

[River's office is at the university in Attleton, and she's got her feet up on the desk with one cup of tea in her hands and his set out in front of him. Her office is full of interesting things that she's found, including a large, antique Earth map on the wall behind her. She appears to be deep in thought for the moment, because she's tired.

Cleaning up after the Doctor or her parents were one thing. Cleaning up after ruddy Rose Tyler is another. ]

Sorry for the change in format, but phone tagging

[spacepeterpan]

The Doctor arrives in short order (although knowing the usual pace he sets, he probably got turned around twice on his way there), opening her door as he knocks on it, given that he sometimes has trouble with the notion of personal space even when he's not already been invited. He pauses a second, then smiles sort of sheepishly and waves before stepping into the room, clasping his hands together.

"Ah, hello, there you are, ooh, that for me, then?"

He didn't really wait for an answer, of course, immediately stepping closer with his usual long strides to take a seat in front of the extra tea setting, picking up the cup to take a deep breath of it's vapor. ...had River ever actually made tea for him before?

...besides to deploy a memory inhibitor against his younger selves, that is.

no worries.

[polyandrist]

She probably has. Or she probably hasn't but this is the sort of discussion that one should have over tea so there's tea. It's the sort of thing that her mother would have done so River did it now. She was under no illusions that this was going to be the sort of conversation that definitely required tea. If she was having it with his later self, what would be there in front of him would have been brandy, but right now River wanted to focus on him. Yes, he cared about Rose, but somehow he was more separate from her than his other selves were, something that River was counting on.

"Of course it's for you, sweetie. I'm not planning on meeting any other husbands today. And don't worry, your tea is definitely not drugged or tampered with in any way other than the way that you normally take it." Whether Amy got his taste preferences from one mother or another was up in the air, but the unopened package of jammie dodgers next to it were definitely something that she'd gotten from the TARDIS as well. Because honestly, what was tea without a proper biscuit.

River took a sip of her tea and then she stretched again before she prodded at the red cookie package, clearly wanting him to open them.

[spacepeterpan]

...he can't help feeling like he's being buttered up in preparation for something, either to soften a blow or to make him more cooperative. Of course, being the Chaotic Good peace-anarchist he is, even the possibility of being handled kind of makes him want to be uncooperative to make a point. They've already been down that road a couple of times, though--and frankly, he still feels some regret about how hard he'd been on her, even if he'd had his reasons, back then--so he quietly files all that away for the moment, letting himself be enthusiastic about the treats she's set out for his enjoyment. He beams as he takes the package, opening it gingerly and taking a whiff of the contents, plainly savoring it.

"Ohhh... blimey, we should do tea more often..."

He takes a cookie out, pausing just a tick, and raises his eyebrows flirtatiously, leaning forward to offer it to her.

"...you know I once held a Dalek ship at bay with one of these?"

...sure, it was kind of a wreck and only had three Daleks on it and it was only for a few minutes, but they were still Daleks, and it was still a fruit cookie.

[polyandrist]

"We should. It's nice and quiet here most of the time. At least when I'm not giving a test that people really should have studied for in advance." Sometimes River forgot this part of teaching, and that annoyed her. But it was what it was, at least it meant that she was doing something other than just being driven mental by the lack of adventures to be had. At least off-world ones, she was still known to get more than a few in here and there where she could.

"Oh you did, did you?" River has heard the story from her father, of course but it was in a more 'can you believe what the Doctor did' sort of way rather than a gloating way. She grinned at him for a moment, leaning forward to take the cookie from him. For a second she considered literally eating directly out of his hand, but thought that might derail the conversation a bit. So, instead she dunked it in her tea.

"I imagine that's not something they're likely to add to their Oncoming Storm lexicon."

[spacepeterpan]

"Ha, well, no, probably not, footnotes at best."

...not least of all because those Daleks lasted about two minutes before some More Pure More Superior Daleks obliterated them, but there's what you get for trying to help a Dalek. Anyway, the Doctor smiles to himself, plainly amused at the thought of how embarrassing the Daleks' records of him would be, if the body text were that thorough. He sips at his tea, then takes a cookie for himself, as well, nibbling at it... and raises his eyebrows.

River's move. She's said she wanted to talk. ...not that he was going to complain if she'd decided she'd rather avoid the subject and just have tea together, instead.

[polyandrist]

"As much as I'd like to sit here and flirt with you my love, and listen to old stories, right now we do have a more pressing issue." River takes a bite of the jammie dodger, and then she washes it down with nondrugged tea (both of them are perfectly fine) before she settles back in her desk chair, holding her tea cup and watching him, looking very much like her mother in this moment. Clearly she didn't get it all from the silence.

But her eyes are locked onto his for the moment, and she just sighed, because this wasn't a conversation that she wanted to be having. Honestly, it would have been far better for them to be flirting or having an adventure or basically anything other than thinking about how to solve a problem like Rose Tyler. They'd talked about her before, but River had been furious then. Now the anger in her had settled down a bit to an intense dislike and a distinct lack of trust.

"Well, my love, I don't know if it's my influence or not but I definitely am glad that you aren't losing your mind over her." River doesn't sound jealous at all, because she's not. She's exasperated that the other two are letting Rose run mental sports with them. "How do we stop her from breaking the other yous? Again?"

[spacepeterpan]

Well, he could wish, at any rate... he makes a bit of a face at her sticking to her guns (figuratively) about the conversation, looking just a bit awkward as the silence drags on. He raises his eyebrows at her opening line, though, smiling to himself, wryly amused. How much of it was her influence? He's generally disinclined to give anyone too much credit for who he is, but frankly, it's a bit hard to disentangle her from the last couple hundred years or so... and there's no question that some of the people he's been close to have made a substantial mark, River certainly not being the least of them. He's also a bit amused at her being so protective of him, even if she's mainly concerned about his other selves.

"...well, I've got a feeling Eyebrows can take care of himself." A brief pause. "......more or less, at any rate, I'm keeping an eye on him, anyhow, because of... something else."

In other words, something private. After all, it is himself, Mr. Envelope #1.

"...as for Sandshoes..."

He raises his eyebrows and glances off to the side, there.

"...maybe I'll take her temperature again, see if she's calmed down a little. Last I checked, he was just at a low simmer, pretty calm, as he goes, no catastrophe on the horizon just yet."

[polyandrist]

If he had been so wrapped up in Rose, this probably would have been a different conversation with an actually more jealous River. But there was something about him that was always going to be hers, and a large part of herself that was always going to be his. River didn't expect him to love her back, of course, but she had staked her claim on a piece of his life even if she couldn't claim a piece of his hearts, and she had given her own to him gladly, piece by piece and time over time. And now she knew when the last bit had been given, and to whom it had been. Sandshoes, and somehow that made her more likely to defend him, if only to protect the future investment of that last piece of her hearts.

But she stared at him quizzingly over her cuppa, one brow raised about him helping Eyebrows, but she didn't press on what that something else was. Not now at any rate. Maybe if something happened in the future, but for now she just nodded, accepting that, even if she really disliked how Rose could play with the strings of his heart as easily as he played his violin.

"Was she always so mercurial? I can't imagine her lasting very long if she was as bad and possessive as she is now. I mean she practically makes me look like I don't care for you." And River had broken time itself to let him know he was loved.

[spacepeterpan]

The Doctor sighs a little at the not-entirely-inappropriate but definitely rather pejorative description, and glances off to the side, making an exasperated face. He could just imagine Jackie shouting River down for daring to say that sort of thing about her daughter and then turning around and scolding Rose on basically the same points in her own Jackie Taylor sort of way, something about chasing after a married man so much older than her, is she trying to get on Jeremy Kyle or something, etc, etc.

"No, sort of, yes, I don't know. She's always been a bit... intense, all jumbled up with feelings, first friend I had after the Time War, you know. Clever, adventurous, always means well... ...better than I sometimes did, back then."

He smiled to himself wryly at how damaged he'd been, back then, just a mess of emotional scabbing, numb and festering. He still had the scars, of course, but at least they'd healed... and if he was really going to somehow regenerate again, it really might be a clean slate.

...which raised a lot of questions about Eyebrows, but that was quite another conversation, and he shook his head to nudge himself back onto the topic at hand.

"...things changed when I regenerated, I--that's Sandshoes--well, we got... attached. And then separated, accidents in time, and she'd been living with that for, oh... what, two years? ...y'know how it is when you're trying to find something for a long time, the search becomes something you can't just drop, and then if you find it... ...not sure she rightly knows exactly what she wants, just now. If I thought she did, might have a better idea how to help."

[polyandrist]

River just nodded about his post-time war self. She had met him, but not in the normal way, just a person passing through and she'd not needed to intervene with him. It was something that River was grateful for; after all she knew how important Rose had been to him surviving until he was this Doctor, and she wasn't going to do anything to jeopardize that.

River also knew, too, how it could be to chase him for years. She had. She'd chased him for more than that, spending all the time as Mels with her family and waiting for him to show up and sweep her mum and dad away. She understood how waiting could feel, how it did feel. But for a second she just takes a sip of her tea.

"I think she knows what she wants, but she wants it in her own way and on her own terms. I think that unless she can grow up and accept that things don't always need to happen on her own terms, then we're going to need to go through this again and again." And then River let out a soft sigh. "It's not fair to everyone who isn't you and her that she keeps doing this. Mum, Martha, Jack...They just keep getting dragged into it again and if I were Jack and Martha trying to do this balancing act, I'd eventually go mental."

[spacepeterpan]

"...nothing to underestimate, any of them."

The Doctor smiles to himself at that, obviously as proud of them as ever, even if that pride's tainted by knowing full well that it's hard on them. At the same time, they can handle one of their friends being melodramatic. They're grownups, by and large, as much as he might not want to admit it... but then again, it's part of why he's made a point to not keep barging into their lives--to give them room to grow up, to do their own things.

In short, he's got some powerfully mixed feelings on the subject, and can't help worrying that maybe his sticking his nose in Rose's life is part of the current, persistent problem.

"......still, yeah, 'course, not much fun for anyone, I know."

[polyandrist]

"They are. And so is she. But she is the one who is acting like she isn't." For a long moment River just sighed and then she took a sip of her re and studied him. This was the Doctor she knew best at this point in time of course so she could see the mixed emotions that were swirling inside of him.

"How long do I keep staying out of it for, Doctor? How long do we let her play this melodramatic yoyo game?" It's an honest question and one that River herself doesn't even know the proper answer too.

If there even is one at this point. She doesn't know that either.

[spacepeterpan]

"And what've you got in mind to do, exactly?"

The Doctor tilts his head, giving River a curious look, pretty sure she's getting fired up and letting herself get carried away with the frustration.

"What's the plan, box her ears? Bring her on the telly and give her a public scolding?"

By his tone, he obviously doesn't consider those remotely feasible. In part because he knew better than to think that would be an effective approach to Rose, but very likely in part because he couldn't help blaming himself, on some level.

"Unless you've got a good idea just what she's trying to find..."

Usually, he's all for poking a problem with a stick, but this is an awfully thorny one, involving several of his friends, which gives it a bit of a different character. More like when Amy's upset and he prefers to rely on Rory to get things back in order.