Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

8

so wild flowers will come up where you are

         mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)

The thing the Doctor loves most about the universe is that it is never the same from one moment to the next. There is always something new to see – a planet to explore, a star to watch come into being, another food waiting to be drowned in custard. But as much as he likes the impossibility of ever being bored, it’s nice to have a few constants. 

There are exactly four things the Doctor can count on in an always-changing universe. One is the TARDIS. The second is the inherent goodness of humans. The third is Daleks. And the last is that River Song will always greet him with a sexy little smirk and a hello sweetie that makes his hearts flip-flop. This constant – not that he’ll ever tell anyone – is his favorite. No matter what, the moment he arrives, his wife is there to give him her full attention and perhaps a nice hello snog. When he is with her, he feels like he is the center of her universe and there is something rather nice about being so equally important to the woman who has been the center of his admittedly vast universe since the moment she strolled in with a knowing smile.

Which is why it’s so disconcerting when he swaggers expectantly out of the TARDIS, slicking his hair like a proud peacock, only to find River sitting in the middle of a trench and frowning up at him, squinting against the desert sun. “What are you doing here?” She asks, looking distracted and not nearly pleased enough to see him.

He frowns right back at her, frozen in place and utterly lost. She’s supposed to beam at him. Her whole face is supposed to light up at the mere sight of him. She should be rising to her feet and climbing out of that hole in the ground, dusting the dirt off her hands, and striding forward to kiss him until his toes curl. Instead, she peers at him from beneath the brim of her pith hat and doesn’t move.

Taking in his surroundings at glance – young people in khaki carrying tool belts much like River’s (archaeologists, he thinks savagely), miles and miles of desert sand stretching in every direction, tents set up along the horizon – and surmises he has landed in the middle of one of his wife’s dusty boring digs. This is only confirmed when a young man hurries past carrying a musty old bit of rock and looking pathetically excited. River glares after him until he’s out of sight but aboveground and with a better view, the Doctor keeps watching him, curious. The young man runs up to an older gentleman who marches up and down the rows of students sitting in the dirt, observing like some sort of general – the professor in charge, he deduces.

Feeling ignored, the Doctor huffs and waves his arms about. “Oi, no hello snog?”

River chips away at the wall in front of her, mouth set in an adorably determined pout as she mutters a distracted, “Hello sweetie.”

“Once more with feeling,” he sniffs, pouting a bit.

She gazes at him over her shoulder with an apologetic smile and there’s a softness in her eyes that makes him feel a little less insulted until she says, “I’m a little busy right now.”

“Busy?” He gapes at her incredulously. “But River, it’s me!”

“Yes, I can see that,” she mutters, preoccupied with her silly digging tools.

He very nearly stamps his foot. “I’m your -” He stops, eyeing her for a moment, and decides she is most definitely still in university and not married yet. “Your Doctor,” he amends weakly.