Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

14(G)

Et dès que je l’aperçois

She leaned against the railing with a sigh, glancing along the length of the Seine and watching the night lights reflect off the water stretched out before her. It was fast becoming a familiar sight – far more familiar than she was used to, but then he’d never ever beenquite this late before.

Three weeks ago she’d received an invitation, thick blue stationary, with a date, coordinates and his scrawled initial at the bottom, trailed by a tiny x. She’d smiled at the sight of it – as fun as breaking out to leave him outrageous messages was, she did enjoy the nights when he sought her out, because they were always special.

The Doctor wasn’t the most romantic of creatures, but somehow he’d turned him sending her invitations into a tradition – his own ineffectual clumsy way of asking her on a date. It was always the same stationary, the same TARDIS blue, carefully printed. She kept them all. Scads of blue envelopes with nonsensical silver Gallifreyan words inked on the outside. At first she’d thought they were just random words, but one night in her cell she’d been bored and had assembled them in his order, more or less, fitting them together like a puzzle. And she’d been oh so wrong – not nonsensical at all; they were a love letter, crossing hundreds of years.

How typical of him.

Now she would fit each envelope into its place according to his timeline, and it felt a bit like she was reliving it through his eyes. This envelope, she thought was more toward his middle. Almost linear, she mused with a smile.  She still didn’t have the very first – presuming of course, the Doctor would be so common as to start a love letter with her name. The Gallifreyan on the outside of this envelope spoke of happiness and joy. She slipped a hand into her coat pocket and let her fingers brush against the paper there.

A date. A map reference. And of course she’d escaped and shown up. Paris in the 22nd century, in late Spring. The weather was gorgeous, the atmosphere was gorgeous, and she’d waited for him to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

Three weeks later and she was still waiting. Her Doctor had a ridiculous sense of time, considering he was a Timelord, and of course she could have sought him out. But who knows which him she’d find? And she could go back – but she knew her Doctor and he would arrive eventually, all bluster and tripping limbs and his ship with its brakes left on, and she didn’t want him to find she’d been and gone.

Besides, she’d kept herself busy. Wandering the Louvre, visiting some of her favourite monuments to pass the time – she’d even gotten a job at a small antiquities shop to make some money while she was there. After all, staying and waiting involved things like rent and food, and she’d had to provide both for herself. Mostly though, she loved to watch the people. Tourists and Parisians alike, she loved the atmosphere of the entire city, which never seemed to change, be it the 19th, 21st or 35th century.

None of which meant, of course, that he wouldn’t be getting a good telling off once he finally arrived.

“I said February on the invitation River, and do you know how difficult it is to track you down when things like that happen? I mean, why on Earth would I have invited you to Paris on April 14th?” She grinned at the sound of his voice, before dropping the smile and spinning around to glare at him affectionately. He was in his top hat and tails – her favourite – and he was clutching a handful of flowers as he looked at her in exasperation.

“Hello to you too, sweetie.”She arched a brow at him and pulled the envelope out of her pocket. “I honestly don’t know – I thought maybe it had to do with the 22nd and you were just planning ahead, but you wrote April, honey. See for yourself.” She handed him the invitation, keeping the envelope in her hand and he frowned down at the item in his hand before he shook his head. “You’re three weeks late, Doctor.”