Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

40(G)

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand

Once upon a time—

No. She hates stories that start that way. They always end in the same boring fashion, cut and fade to black and happily ever afters. None of that is real.

And nobody knows that better than she does.

there was a girl –

She remembers the first time she ever saw him. Not met him, but saw him – and she doesn’t even realize it all until one evening when they are curled around each other in bed, her diary laid out between them and photos and miniatures and pencil sketches scattered around the bed like confetti. She is bent over her diary, studiously copying each picture while he picks each one up, laughing with remembrance and telling her story after story that she files away for future reference – she’ll write those down later.

Her fingers are smudged with the graphite from her pencil and she only throws a few disparaging remarks at him every now and again.

“Celery? Are you serious?”

“Well that scarf probably came in handy whenever you needed a rope.”

“I like this one.”

“Leather – an improvement at least.”

“Bowties – honestly sweetie, have you ever regenerated with good fashion sense?” He tackles her then, his hands reaching for her sides as he tickles her mercilessly and she laughs with delight, trying to push him off.

“Believe it or not, but I always quite thought he was your favourite.” His voice is laced with laughter and she takes his face in her hands.

“Not possible.” But this is the only face she’s known, and when he kisses her, she flashes back to a moment in her childhood – during the war - the one time the city’s shielding had failed.  She’d been caught out during an attack, scrambling across the streets that were slick with rain and trying to make her way back to the home, fear and deep lungfuls of smoke the only things spurring her small legs on. There’d been a man – all the way down the street, running frantically, his hair flopping about around him as he waved something with a light on the end in a circle. He’d pulled wires out of a panel, sparks had flown and suddenly silence had reigned, replaced by the gentle hum of the shields. He’d looked at her – just once, but he hadn’t seen her, not really –she was one of a hundred people scrambling through the streets that day. He’d had a bowtie.

She doesn’t say any of this to him, because she doubts he remembers her, doubts he knows that he saved her life before he’d even met her. Or perhaps after he’d met her – she wonders about that. Had he known her then? He pulls away with a smile, his hands at her waist and he grins ruefully down at her. “You just don’t know any better yet, River. You will.”

“Not today.” She insists fiercely, and he smiles more happily and agrees.

“No, not today.”

who lived alone. Sad and alone, she longed for adventure.

Three in the morning sometime, she is standing in a box that’s bigger on the inside, staring around her with an incredulous expression. It’s unbelievable. Not the box, and not the fact that it is a time-travelling spaceship – but there’s a man who is watching her react and she can read love in every nuance of his expression. That’s the unbelievable part.