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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]

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.