FIC progress: Substitute
23 Jul 2010 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
promethia_tenkAU WIP fic in which Amy wakes up and discovers the Doctor and River have become her parents. Previous parts here, here, and here.
Just a little scene for anyone who was disappointed with the lack of Eleven/River banter in the last update ;-)
Rory was over for dinner, and Amy’s mother was telling stories.
“We met in a hotel bar in Istanbul--there was a conference going on he was attending, and I was on a dig outside of town--quite the charmer, he was. And very hard to forget.”
“Excuse me. You met me in a hotel bar in Istanbul. I met you about two weeks later in the University library.” Amy smirked, knowing what was coming.
“You, wait what?” Rory interrupted. “How can he have met you two weeks later than you met him?”
River laughed. “He was that drunk. The man cannot hold his booze.”
“I’m still not convinced you weren’t paying off the bartender to top off my drink when I wasn’t looking--it’s all a horrible blur." And then in a lower register: "Were you trying to take advantage of me Doctor Song?”
“Only until you started telling me about building a robot dog in boarding school,” her mother responded, “by then it just seemed mean.”
Rory looked over at Doctor Pond with some concern, but he was smiling along with his wife, evidently quite comfortable with the joke. She continued:
“So two weeks later I run into him in the stacks. He’s carrying this enormous pile of books and looking like an absolute fixture of the institution, as you can well imagine” she gestured at his tweedy get-up. “And I recognize him straight away and start to chat, except he has no idea who I am and does a fairly terrible job of pretending to for about twenty minutes. In the meantime I’m rambling on and wondering if this man is incapable of holding a decent conversation unless he’s completely schnockered. And he’s standing there with his stack of literature, going increasingly red in the face, and fumbling all his words while he tries to remember who I am. Come to think of it, sweetie, were you all flushed because you were embarrassed or because you refused to set down thirty pounds worth of reading material?”
“I couldn’t even tell you. I think I had a vague notion of defending myself with them, if worse came to worst.”
Just a little scene for anyone who was disappointed with the lack of Eleven/River banter in the last update ;-)
Rory was over for dinner, and Amy’s mother was telling stories.
“We met in a hotel bar in Istanbul--there was a conference going on he was attending, and I was on a dig outside of town--quite the charmer, he was. And very hard to forget.”
“Excuse me. You met me in a hotel bar in Istanbul. I met you about two weeks later in the University library.” Amy smirked, knowing what was coming.
“You, wait what?” Rory interrupted. “How can he have met you two weeks later than you met him?”
River laughed. “He was that drunk. The man cannot hold his booze.”
“I’m still not convinced you weren’t paying off the bartender to top off my drink when I wasn’t looking--it’s all a horrible blur." And then in a lower register: "Were you trying to take advantage of me Doctor Song?”
“Only until you started telling me about building a robot dog in boarding school,” her mother responded, “by then it just seemed mean.”
Rory looked over at Doctor Pond with some concern, but he was smiling along with his wife, evidently quite comfortable with the joke. She continued:
“So two weeks later I run into him in the stacks. He’s carrying this enormous pile of books and looking like an absolute fixture of the institution, as you can well imagine” she gestured at his tweedy get-up. “And I recognize him straight away and start to chat, except he has no idea who I am and does a fairly terrible job of pretending to for about twenty minutes. In the meantime I’m rambling on and wondering if this man is incapable of holding a decent conversation unless he’s completely schnockered. And he’s standing there with his stack of literature, going increasingly red in the face, and fumbling all his words while he tries to remember who I am. Come to think of it, sweetie, were you all flushed because you were embarrassed or because you refused to set down thirty pounds worth of reading material?”
“I couldn’t even tell you. I think I had a vague notion of defending myself with them, if worse came to worst.”
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(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 05:01 am (UTC)“I couldn’t even tell you. I think I had a vague notion of defending myself with them, if worse came to worse.”
LO(very)L.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:02 pm (UTC)Especially how you managed to work in the timey-wimeyness of their relationship
Had to, didn't I?
“I couldn’t even tell you. I think I had a vague notion of defending myself with them, if worse came to worse.”
I'm divided over whether I should go on at this point with a bit more of how they met and some other material I want to work in somehow, or if I should just let this stand as a funny little interlude. It was going to be longer last night and then I got to that beat and it felt like a natural place to stop. *shrug*
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:28 pm (UTC)It's hard for me to tell because, despite my best attempts, I am still not telepathic. -_-
*nods sagely* That must be hard for you.
Anyway, like I said, thanks for your thoughts!
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:29 pm (UTC)It is very heartbreaking, but I manage.
no problem. :)
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 09:02 am (UTC)And this:
And then in a lower register: "Were you trying to take advantage of me Doctor Song?”
Is so *them* I can only flail! :)
Just one minor niggle (and this probably just a 'language' difference), but I'm pretty sure it's 'if the worst came to the worst'.
Oh and I love you forever for sneaking in a reference to K-9! :)
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:09 pm (UTC)I now desperately want to see this on screen.
Me too. Fortunately it's fairly vivid in my head already.
Is so *them* I can only flail! :)
Is it? That's good to hear. I debated for awhile if the Doctor would say that, but of course he'd be more relaxed about such things if he'd been married for 20+ years.
I'm pretty sure it's 'if the worst came to the worst'.
I spent about twenty minutes trying every possible variation of that idiom, to the point where nothing sounded right. Naturally everybody slurs it, it being a set phrase and all, which means our hero would slur it twice as badly, but you can't fall back on that crutch in writing. After a bit of sleep and a bit of research, I think I'm going with "if worse came to worst," unless that sounds particularly un-British?
Oh and I love you forever for sneaking in a reference to K-9! :)
Then let's pretend I did it just for you.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 01:00 pm (UTC)Incidentally, Brits don't really say 'liquor' much, possibly apart from liquor cabinet. 'Man cannot hold his booze' would be about as Brit as it gets.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:18 pm (UTC)=) Thanks!
they had to get pseudo-timey-wimey in there somewhere
NGL, I was quite smugly pleased with myself when I figured out how to do that.
Oh, man, gives me terrible flashbacks to a time where . . .
Muah hahaha!
Incidentally, Brits don't really say 'liquor' much, possibly apart from liquor cabinet. 'Man cannot hold his booze' would be about as Brit as it gets.
Cheers! Will change. (Although: by "about as Brit as it gets" do you mean "man cannot hold his booze" is a particularly British thing to say, or have I chosen a very American turn of phrase and that's just as British as you can make it?)
(no subject)
Date: 26 Jul 2010 08:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 02:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:18 pm (UTC)THE PEOPLE HAD SPOKEN, AND THEY WERE RIGHT. MORE BANTER!
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jul 2010 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 26 Jul 2010 05:32 pm (UTC)LOL! I love it, as always. Especially how you don't change the 'meeting in the wrong order' but rather turn it into something almost ordinary.
(no subject)
Date: 26 Jul 2010 09:39 pm (UTC)Especially how you don't change the 'meeting in the wrong order' but rather turn it into something almost ordinary.
It's really fun to think up how their normal life can echo their real life.
You know, I think I rather love you for this
Date: 29 Jul 2010 12:10 am (UTC)Re: You know, I think I rather love you for this
Date: 30 Jul 2010 12:17 am (UTC)Oh, my: publicity! That's very exciting.
(no subject)
Date: 2 Aug 2010 03:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Aug 2010 07:00 am (UTC)I can think of so many little things that I can't wait to see what twist you use to get them into the story.
You wouldn't mind sharing some of them with me, would you? I've been thinking of putting out a request to my flist for the sorts of things people want to know about their lives in this AU. Things like is Amy still Scottish? Is such-and-such an aspect of their canon lives echoed in the AU? Those sorts of questions have really helped me come up with material and figure out how this whole thing is going to resolve itself. And then, of course, some of them are just fun :-)