Chapter Text
“I make inventions, inventions are cool”, were written in a bold black font on a whole wave of posters displayed in the middle of the town by the side of the old plant covered clocktower. River Song snorted at that, ‘No one even says anything like that’ she thought, and walked back to her flat, and any thought of who put the posters up was diminished.
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River’s flat was full of old artifacts, half of which she didn’t need, so it would look like she was a hoarder to anyone who didn’t know her, but all the things had sentimental value to her.
“That is something a hoarder would do, keep all their stuff because it has ‘sentimental value’ to them”, River jumped and gasped, eyebrows raised, mouth wide, and turned around to see a man smiling at her window, she changed her previous shocked facial expressions in a flash to suit a more calm, relaxed manner, and folded her arms to have her body language match her facial language. “How did you know what I was thinking?” She said with a raised eyebrow, “John Smith, new neighbour”. “River Song, Professor.”
John reached out his hand after climbing into her house in a very strange and uncomfortable way. River shook his hand and smiled without smiling and said “You didn’t answer my question”, “oh- yeah- did you not know you were saying all that out loud, you were saying it like you were a narrator in a show or something”, John chuckled, she gave a piercing cat like glare at him, John fumbled his hands about, giving a sort of reassuring gesture “I’m not judging you, everyone has their own thing they do when they are alone.” “And what do you do when you are alone?” River smirked. “I make inventions, inventions are cool!”, he boasted.
“Oh” River thought, hes who put up the posters. “Makes sense, with an outfit like that...bowtie and steampunk-ish goggles” she deliberately coughed out, John was not amused. “Now sweetie, it is quite rude to climb through someones window uninvited”, “sorry, next time I’ll ask...” he murmured as he scratched his head with a newly formed tomato blush on his cheeks from the ‘sweetie’.
“I live next to the dilapidated clocktower, I was just popping around people’s houses and knocking on doors to understand what kind of people live ‘round here. There was a ginger woman and her husband who even gave me some food!” He thought on that experience for a few seconds, “What kind of person are you?”
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“Fucks sake!” River’s watch smashed as she was leaving her house, she had replaced her watch for keys and dropped it in the process. “Ugh” she said in defeat.
“Do inventors fix things?” River thought and shrugged, if she was going to have a question like that she’d at least want an answer. The town was full of old buildings, River never liked the look of modern houses, they were too boring for her, she hated boring things, which is why she decided to move to this town, a change. River then walked to the clocktower, and paused. Two houses next to the in your face clocktower. “Which house is it...” she saw an unusual pile of junk outside one of the houses. “....that house.” River knocked three times, but not four as she didn’t want to seem desperate to see someone. She heard some footsteps rushing down the stairs, “well someones desperate to see me” she whispered.
“Oh thank god its just you,” John sighed, “what do you mean ‘just me’?”, “Uh Amy, oh- my next door neighbour, shes been furious lately because of all the noise I’ve made, apparently.” “I need you to fix my watch”, “uh that isn’t my job yo-“. But John was cut off by River saying “Please sweetie”. John then grabbed her wrist gently and looked at the broken watch, “it just needs a new glass cover, thats all. Yeah I can do that.”
River smiled and John noticed how bright her hair and smile was with the morning sun. And smiled because of this.
He’d finished repairing the watch, it only took him 5 minutes. “Done, dear”, which was Johns way of getting back at River’s ‘sweetie’, but instead of blushing like him, she smirked, lustfully, proceeding to make John blush yet again. He handed back the watch and River thanked him. “So, what have you invented?”, she looked around as she said this, there was loads of tacky stuff River couldn’t identify, but she couldn’t see any inventions “seems I’m not the hoarder after all, John.” John paused and tried to think of a response, to no avail. “Fish fingers and custard dispenser”, John claimed out of nowhere, that was the last thing River would expect he would be inventing, she’d think he’d make mini vehicles or a horoscope, not a fish finger and custard dispenser. River looked at John he was clasping and unclasping his hands, he was going to ask her something personal. “Uh, well, um....You remind me of someone, someone I knew, someone who died...”, “who?” “This girl, a old friend of mine...” He smiled sadly, River knew that smile. It was a smile she did herself, a sad, nostalgic smile.