Clara Oswald is going the long way round (alwaysbeenthere) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-11-30 08:01:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, !partner thread, clara oswald, river song |
Who: Clara and River.
What: River really needs a drink.
When: Right after she’s made her first network post.
Where: Some bar.
Rating/Warnings: Low/None; drinking and flirting, maybe?
Status: Partner Thread | Complete
River Song (or was she Melody Williams? Or Melody Pond? They all blurred together for her now) but whoever she was was desperately in need of at least six or seven drinks. Really, she should have called for an uber to ferret her to the bar, but driving was something that gave Melody more than a little bit of control. Oh, it wasn’t the blue box that she was the child of, but at least the car was hers rather than the Doctor who had sent her on a quest to save her parents.
Her parents, people whom had lost her when she was a baby because of who she happened to be. Someone called the Silence had taken her and raised her and now she couldn’t help but understand why when she was younger she was occasionally frightened of someone stealing her from their love. It must have been terrible, and now Melody could feel the orphanage fighting for purchase along with all of those happy memories.
Still, she was attempting to look at it pragmatically: surely some of those skills would come in a little bit handy if she ever needed them. Maybe the dreams had a muscle memory of her own that went along with those sorts of things. Melody made a note to check the next time she was on the network, but right now admitting that she didn’t quite known her proper name had been more than enough for one evening. Really, she couldn’t imagine how mad people would take her to be if she announced that she was raised by aliens no one could remember in order to kill someone.
Oh heavens she really needed that bloody drink.
Speeding into the parking lot and fighting most of her base instincts to park like an arse, River’s convertible managed to snag a space, and she hit the button to put the top up before heading inside to the bar. Normally after the night like she’d had, Melody wouldn’t have bothered to dress at all nicely, but given the company she was promised… it did no harm to be entirely ready for it. Still she looked casual as she moved towards the bar and ordered the largest vodka tonic they could legally make for her.
So. What did one wear to meet up with their random dream wife? Which weird, especially with River also being married to the Doctor in the dreams but Clara was so used to things being weird that she didn’t bat an eye at it. Was it even a necessary question? Did it even matter? Probably not but it was one of those situations that caused someone to take a beat and wonder. Then again, with the ever continuing ebb and flow of the days, of the increasing need to just...do something else beyond teaching, it was a nice change to worry about something so normal in a way.
Finally deciding on an outfit, Clara shook her head to focus. Honestly she wasn’t quite sure what to expect (and okay, that tended to be par the course where River Song was involved) but that was also part of the fun. Though usually when someone had dreams and then wanted drinks? Things weren’t all that great. Goodness knew Clara had gone through plenty of those before the end of her own dreams. And the confusion on who she was. Which had also led to a need to drink. Not that it would have any sort of effect on her now, but no need to share that bit of information.
Arriving at the bar, the petite young woman scanned the area until she noticed the familiar form. Well, here went nothing.
“Hiya.”
Melody had kept one eye on the door, and she’d not bothered to spend any time nursing the drink that had been set before her. It was the sort of drink that basically tonic water had been waived over once or twice and then set before the patron. The vodka burned all the way down when she’d sucked it through the tiny straw, and Melody vowed that it would only be the first one that she consumed like that. The world had frozen and fallen off it’s kilter, and she wanted just a little something in order to restore it.
Or perhaps two little somethings.
Yes, River’s eyes moved appraising over the girl who was speaking to her, the girl from the network and she was reminded of how the woman was younger than some of the students whom she advised. Really, she didn’t care, other than to make the observation in her own head, and to offer a smile to her, along with a wave of her hand. “Hello yourself.” It was simple enough, but River wasn’t interested in being eloquent and writing sonnets; this was just Melody wanting some company in the form of whoever had asked first.
Clara was good at providing company. It seemed to be what she did a lot of the time, just someone to offer an ear or chat with. Then people ended up being friends and really it all worked out in the end. Mostly. Some things were always kept close, even from those who understood the nature of the network and dreams and the things that came with that. River was new to it, she might have had dreams before even joining because it was River and she never did anything the expected way, but there was more to it so best to start that baseline now.
Or something.
Admittedly, Clara was going in blind but that was part of the adventure. So she just grinned in greeting before catching the bartender’s attention to place her order.
“So, what should I call you?” After all, she knew her as River but it might be a bit awkward to call her that having not gotten a name from the Network. “I’m Clara.” Because introductions were proper. Then it would just be making sure she stuck to whatever name she was given to not make it awkward. Though Clara was also pretty good at making things awkward as well.
“Melody.” It was a simple name, and one that both (all?) of her lives had in common. The Doctor had told her to find River, and she expected that she wasn’t there quite yet. The studious woman in her had done some reading over the network, and she’d known that no one had gotten all of their dreams all at once; it simply didn’t seem to be done. Even for herself, she’d not had all of the dreams come in one night. If she’d had that much, Melody doubted that she’d be able to handle it.
The orphanage was enough to leave her shaking for hours to think of it, and to know why there were such holes in her memory there.
“Clara.” There was a genuine smile, as if her showing up had just made things better. And Melody found that it was, that just being in person with someone who understood all of this was good for her, even if the two of them didn’t actually speak of it at all. Perhaps there was a safety in numbers there, even if Mel's didn’t know that Clara was actually from the sameworlduniverse that River Song had ran circles around. While Clara gave her drink order, River waved a hand over her own drink so that she could have a second one before she offered her hand to Clara. “It really is lovely to meet you.”
“Melody it is, then.” Grinning some, Clara noted that bit of information away. Of course she was aware of the different names, that had been the point of the initial post. However, it was going to be a bit complicated to keep up with that as Clara was far more familiar with calling her River. No matter. She was sure she wouldn’t slip and if she did, well… it wasn’t as if River - Melody- didn’t already know about the dreams so that was one way to bring up the fact that she knew the world at the very least.
It was nice to see that Melody did smile genuinely, because all she wanted was to help in this and why she had offered to take her up on that drink proposition. Sometimes being alone with the thoughts and questions the dreams could bring up was the worse thing ever. It had been over a year since her spiral into the confusion of alternate lives, of Oswin, Clara Oswin Oswald, all the echos.
Taking the offered hand, Clara shook it and nodded.
“As it is to meet you.”
What? Flirting was fun. And oh look, soon enough, there was her drink as well.
There would be a time when River came as more than a second nature to her, but Melody hadn’t met her yet. When there were other adventures, other notes of badassery that were closer to the own life that she’d lived there, it would be something that Melody Williams would embrace. For now, she was content to be this herself, holding close to the memories of not having all of those terrible things happening to her.
Really, she was having a hard time wondering if the people on the network all had that sort of issue: the terrible things in their other life. Maybe that was what bound them all together.
But for now flirting was fun and the two of them together promised to be if nothing else a good flirt to remember. Flirting was something that Melody had in common with her other selves, and that helped her feel more steady than she otherwise might, even if she had changed her entire body twice over before finding the one that currently she saw in the mirror.
“So tell me, sweetie, you’ve traveled a fair distance from home. What brought you to California. Of course you’re pretty enough to be in the pictures, but somehow that’s not really a vibe I get from you.” Melody had known a fair amount of actresses, but Clara simply doesn’t feel like them, if that made any sense.
Sometimes the confusion of the Time Winds and echo-selves could still mess with Clara. Not so much anymore, they were more figments than anything. Those issues could still somehow flare up and Clara had to find her way back to herself. To remembering she was Clara Oswald. She was human and that what she had dreamt, while another life, were dreams and memories. Nothing more.
There did seem to be a pattern though that Clara had noticed. Dreams that were far more dramatic and troubling, painful…. Or there were parallels between the lives they had lived before the dreams and what they saw. It was hard to tell, but that pattern did remain.
Drink arriving, Clara picked it up and took a sip before stirring it some with the miniature straw, grinning some at the actress comment.
“Hardly,” Because really, her as an actress. That was a hilarious thought. “About two years ago I got an offer to teach AP English at one of the secondary schools here, decided I wanted a change so took it.”
“That seems like a long way to go to be a teacher,” River’s eyes moved over Clara’s above the lip of her glass, and it seemed that she was considering something. But Melody was a woman who had secrets in every version of herself, and as such she was good at sussing them out from others. More than that however, she was the sort of person who was going to allow the other person their secrets, even after giving them that ‘I am onto you’ look like she was now. It was probably just a customary letting someone know that she knows and could figure them out, but probably wouldn’t.
Melody and Clara didn’t know one another well enough to figure such things out anyway, not yet at least.
Taking a sip of her drink, she was glad that this one was less vodka-ful than the last. Yes, this evening (or rather evenings) had been quite a shock for her, but she no intention of being too intoxicated to be able to drive back to her flat afterwards. Or to drive the two of them back to her flat if Clara was so inclined… but to become so messily sauced that she was the one who would require assistance certainly wasn’t in Melody’s plans, at least not the ones that she was considering in the short term.
Long term goals when one was tucked firmly into their own bed? Well, that was entirely between herself, her bed and a bottle of gin.
“It’s funny you’re a teacher, Clara. I’m teaching as well at the University. Undergraduate and Graduate classes in Archeology and Ancient Egyptology. You should come in one day. I do actually have a surprise day when I come in fancy dress as Indiana Jones. Goodness, you should see how they react to me when I’m using a whip.” Melody sounds proud, amused, and more than a little smug as she smiles at Clara. All and all, it’s one of her favorite classes of the year.
“Well, I did want the change and what better an adventure than moving halfway around the world when an opportunity presented itself?” Admittedly the same reasoning she had given her dad when it had really been about running away from her pain, but that was hardly relevant at the moment. Clara was all too familiar with the look River gave her, which she merely answered with a quirk of a brow. It was almost reminiscent of their (or okay her) first meeting in the dreams, only in reverse with the exchanged look.
She really couldn’t even be shocked that they would meet in such a situation. As was the case, one of them already knew the other while the other was completely clueless. It was rather surreal, even if she had gone through it before in the dreams.
“Is that so? The world does have a fascinating way of working.” Understatement of the year, thank you very much. Or at least Orange County had that fascinating way of working. Though it wasn’t as if she wasn’t on the UC Irvine campus a lot already. “I think I might just have to show up and observe. Especially if it’s your Indiana Jones day and you have a whip.”
Yes the whip comment was said with a slight smirk of teasing. What? She had promised some flirtation after all.
And of course if one gives River a inch when it came to flirting, she was one who would take a mile. Or several of them all at once. That was the thought that was very much evident on her face when Clara mentioned that she might have to show up and observe. Her eyes sparkled with amusement and attention when she leaned closer to Clara, and she spoke in a manner that might be considered just teasing by the general population, and an invitation by anyone who happened to know her. Those who happened to know her well? Well, they probably knew it even more so. “I suppose I could make a private show of it if you like, sweetie.”
Same old River, no matter what. To remove her flirting would be to remove pieces of her emotional DNA, and not even what had created all of these odd lives for them seemed to want to bother with that. Besides, how boring would all of that be? No, this version of her was going to be much more fun.
Taking a sip of her drink, she sat back a little bit straighter. Once, there might have been a thought about this woman being too young for her, but those weren’t things that Melody worried about anymore. Of course there were none of her own students, and no teenagers, but as for the rest of the world: if Melody took a fancy to them then they were fair prey.
A River that didn’t flirt would just be far too foreign to Clara to grasp. Even with the transition between from Duncan to Doctor, Clara had always recognized certain characteristics between the two (once the Doctor had regenerated), just as Clara had always recognized aspects of herself (all of them really) between dreams and here. So she was well aware that her smirk would invite more flirtation and even invitation.
“There’s always that option as well.” Grinning, she looked down to stir her drink before looking back up, “Though seeing your students’ expressions also sounds entertaining.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, the brunette leaned back against the bar as she noted the environment. If anything, getting out for drinks with River was a good distraction from the thoughts about potentially leaving the school to do…. Well, she didn’t know. She’d handled the Boneless invasion at the school and Orange County was rife with strange things, she could do plenty just on that front without also juggling the teaching job. It was enough to make one a bit mad, so the break was definitely appreciated.
Melody laughed softly at the mention of the look on her student’s faces and she pictured them in her mind’s eye. Of course her costume couldn’t be too risky, but well… there had to be some risk there other than the whip or it wouldn’t be quite as fun as Mels wanted it to be. It was always at that point in the semester when she was going to strangle whichever student decided that they were smarter than the rest of history put together and acted like they were always the most important people in the room. They were always white boys who had never worked for a damn thing. A whip snap in their direction or on their notebooks could always work wonders.
“You should have seen my halloween costume,” Melody confided in a low tone as she leaned even closer to Clara with a smirk. “Lara Croft. I may just need to hit every famous archaeologist eventually, but well, that one certainly wouldn’t be decent for a classroom at any other time of year.” But there was something in River’s tone that certainly said that she wasn’t quite a stickler for that, strictly speaking. It wouldn’t be the first time she had done something that some people wouldn’t agree with in her classroom.
But in spite of (or perhaps because of that) Melody Williams was actually considered to be a good teacher, and she always did well on her end of semester reviews. Oh, and of course on ratemyprofessor which she happened to enthusiastically check every so often if only to affirm the hot pepper there in her status. Sometimes a girl just needed to be flattered a little.
Of course not. But if there was a whip, the expression on students’ faces would still definitely be worth it to see. Or Clara just enjoyed shocking students in general. It was a toss up. Though it wasn’t as if she hadn’t shown up to class dressed up in her swing dress from Orient Express for Halloween because why not. And even if she did end up leaving her teaching position, she did do it well and she did inspire her students which was why she had gone into it in the first place.
“Well that would have been something to see indeed.” Grinning, Clara bit the straw of her drink then nodded. “Well. You never know, especially now that you’ve found Valar. Or you could have turned into your costume...”
Okay. So first time really mentioning the network and the strange things that could happen. Like Buffy thinking she was Robin Hood and the bloke who had thought he was the Sheriff of Nottingham while Clara had been in her outfit from when they’d met Robin Hood. Good times, good times.
“Well, I suppose if I did turn into someone, Lara Croft does seem to be someone to pick. The arse on that woman, never mind her other assets.” Melody grinned as if she was considering it, complete with a glance down to her own rather wonderful chest. A subtle brush of her her upper arm was made to the cleavage in question, and of course they were judged quite favorably indeed. Perhaps they weren’t what they once were, but they certainly more than made up for that with experience and handling.
And of course how she handled them in return.
But now that the network had been brought up, River wasn’t likely to turn down the opportunity. “So, yes, it is in fact as completely bonkers as it seems to be then.” There was a little gesture and River watched the other woman’s face. Mentioning Valar had been something that River had been loathed to do, especially since she’d looked through it and to the responses that she’d already received to the post of her own.
“I don’t suppose there’s any predictability to it is there? How often we have the dreams, or how often things happen. Even how many of us there are.” Melody wants to ask about more; she wants to ask about the things that don’t quite make sense about what she had seen in her dreams, about how she could regenerate, but she doesn’t want to give away that much about what she’s seen. After all, in her dreams she’d been kidnapped as a little girl; who the hell knew what team someone might be playing for here.
Clara merely gave an appreciative look over of River as she mentioned the arse of Lara Croft and being fine with her own assets. Really, each person filled their own bodies as they were meant to. But instead, she simply smirked and nodded. Besides, more…. Well perhaps not pressing, but it was something that had been bound to come up even if it was mostly brief. The network was something which required some form of knowing about, just to be prepared.
“That would be an understatement.”
Because really, how does one describe the network? It was a conversation that definitely required some drinks, not that Clara could even feel any effects of alcohol anymore. Oh well, it was fun to use that against some people (Jim) but sometimes she did wish she could feel the effects.
“And no, no predictability. I think it just depends on the particular dream worlds that people have, though they can be shared. What I have seen though is that the dreams only seem to affect someone in Orange County once on the network and not elsewhere. And the strange things that happen in the area tend to be ignored by those not on the network, though the strange things often can cross over from someone’s dreams..”
Yeah. There were certain things that Clara really hoped would never show up here. The Boneless? They had been easy enough to handle on her own. Even the Ice Governess and psychic snowmen… but other things? Not so much.
The idea of things crossing over from her dreams made her frown, and she remembered there was something about the orphanage. Something wrong, maybe, but she couldn’t think of who it was or why it was other than the doctor would repeat strange things sometimes, and there was the way that the walls always seemed to have writing on them, and Melody had known that at least some of the writing had belonged to her, even if she didn’t remember doing it. Or why her hand was coated in red paint.
Again.
Shivering a bit, River drained her drink and then quickly waved the bartender over once more, making the universal sign for two of their drinks. Maybe Clara couldn’t feel it, but Melody definitely didn’t want to be sitting here and drinking on her own, especially when she felt like she should be looking over her shoulder to see if there was something there. It was an itch that had happened more than a few times since she remembered that dream and that damn orphanage in Florida.
Like she ever could have been raised in Florida.
Assembling her face back on took longer than Melody would have liked, a sure sign that despite how blase she’d been about things on the network, she was only human after all. (Or human/timelord/tardis) depending upon how one managed to break down the specifics of her DNA in the dreams. When it was on one more, Mels could only work on lightening the mood by adding, “well, people always ignore things that are strange and unusual, don’t they?” Sure, it was borrowed logic, but right now it was a quote that seemed to most apt.
Always one to be tactile, Clara just reached over and squeezed River’s arm reassuringly as she noticed both the shiver as well as the fact it took her longer to compose herself after ordering the next round of drinks. After all, it wasn’t like there was anything that could be done about it. And given the world they dreamed of? There were some very nasty things that could bleed over at some point. God help them all if the Time Lords showed up. She knew for certain her dad would be more than unimpressed and after what had happened in the dreams, she honestly didn’t know how he’d respond.
Her either if she were being honest with herself. She was on borrowed time. She always knew that. Time Lords showing up would undoubtedly just speed up that borrowed time.
“That they most certainly do. But I figured it was best to be warned about it instead of being caught off guard if something did come through.”
If there was one thing that she was glad about, it was that they had a warning system. They needed one for everyone’s lives, let alone theirs. River didn’t even know about the Time Lords being more than one; as far as she was concerned that was only the Doctor, and she didn’t even have pictures of all of his faces yet. There was only the one, and he didn’t look like anyone who happened to be here at the moment. No, there was no way to miss that head, hair and bowtie.
Hello that bowtie. Melody remembered, and she nodded a bit before she placed her hand gently over Clara’s as a sign of reassurance for both of them. She’d be fine, that little gesture said, because she was Melody Williams and she always was fine. And right now she was also Melody Pond, named for being a superhero and she carried all of that to go along with that as well.
Eventually, when more dreams came and she remembered becoming River, she’d be more certain and even more set in her ways if it was possible. No matter where or when or what she was, Melody Williams was the sort of woman who created herself despite what Madame Kovarian had attempted to do. Yes, she was a bespoke psychopath, but she was also bespoke for who she was as well. “So how often do you dream?” It’s an intimate question, but Clara is the first person Melody is on an intimate sort of level with.
Clara knew what River was trying to convey and so she nodded some. Good. There wasn’t all that much she could do about the dreams River would have, but she could lend her support however it was needed. She’d been through all of this before, had helped friends as well. And then the question. There was that one bit of information that Clara kept to herself, the dying, her dad using his regeneration energy to bring her back but not quite. Honestly, she didn’t even know if he knew that he had really only acted as the extraction chamber, that she wasn’t really alive anymore.
“Mine stopped at Christmas, so good news, they do stop. You tend to just… have a feeling. Like how you can tell when the dreams are the type specific to here? Sometimes they recycle through, but beyond that? Mine are done, though it really depended. Sometimes it was nightly, other times it was spread out.”
Never a simple answer because it was a far too complex a situation. If only there were a more simple answer, but alas, that wasn’t life.
Melody just nodded; hers had come in a series of nights, but since then there hadn’t been anything but casual replays of things that she’d already known as if her subconscious was somehow worried that she might miss something important when it came to the earlier days of her other life. It was stupid really; those dreams were seared in her head and at some moments she worried that they might take over her dreams of London with her parents and parks and trips to museums and the like. That was something else she wanted to ask, but as of yet she’d not figured out how to do it without sounding mad.
Everyone always sounded so terrible when it came to their dreams, like something was out to get them and Melody didn’t want to have this River person become a phantom who made her fear sleep. Sleeping for Melody was important, just as important to her as flirting was and she had the thought that the Melody in her dream probably didn’t sleep very much for very good reasons. Taking another big sip of her drink, Mels was already deciding that she was going to be taking an uber home because one question kept leading her to wanting to ask another, and that was going to require more alcohol in return.
However, this time when the bartender returns, Melody orders the brown liquor that the other Melody seemed to prefer, and she looked to Clara again. “You remind me of someone, but I can’t think of who,” Melody admitted, and the words sounded more than a little bit amused.
Clara never could quite figure out how to describe the dreams. Because really, there was pain because it was life. But there were also adventures, and figuring things out. There was just life that came. Of course, Clara also was the type to run away from the pain, it was why she had ended up in California in the first place. And there were dreams that were forever seared into her brain, the trauma that haunted her. The raven that was waiting for her. But her dreams were done, nothing new to come and so she didn’t have that apprehension she knew others tended to get.
“Oh?” From what River had said, their paths had yet to cross in her dreams and given the whole inverse timeline thing, who knew when that would happen. “That’s not too surprising actually. It’s rather common that people end up sharing the same dream space. No rhyme or reason behind it.”
River was also the type to run from pain, simply because she had no other option than to do so. If she stayed in one place, like a shark then she was dead. Of course running forward didn’t have the same meaning it would have later when she was running towards something that was running away from her in an ever-widening arc. There was something about meeting the Doctor out of order that would always mean that the two of them never really would end up meeting. Melody had less of an inclination to do it, but it still happened, especially when it came to some relationships in her life that she would realize drew parallels to ones that she had in her dreams. Well, one anyway.
Still, she just watched Clara with a look that very much was similar to one that she might have worn when telling someone that she happened to be onto them. There was something odd about that phrasing there, and Melody wasn’t so intoxicated enough that she was able to ignore it for what it was. At least not yet, though she was beginning to feel how many drinks that she’d ingested in what was a relatively short period of time; even for her.
“Now sweetie,” Melody began softly because even though she wasn’t quite certain how things would shake out given well, everything that happened in their dreams, and to everyone around them who dreamed as well. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t be surprised if you did manage to come up in one of my little old dreams? I’ve not gotten to you yet, but given what I do know about things, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a fair amount of time to be living in them.” A long time or a short time; Melody Williams didn’t think that Time Lords (or Children of the TARDIS anyway) had much in the way of middle ground.
“That is exactly what I’m saying.” It wasn’t like there was any reason to outright pretend that they wouldn’t end up crossing paths in the dreams. While Clara had no idea just how long that would take as one could never guess when the dreams would come or what was to come, she also knew that it was going to happen. And while she might be a brilliant liar, there was no need to lie about that.
Shaking her head some, Clara picked up the new drink and took a sip. “Though I think that’s enough dream talk for the night.” Because it wasn’t like it would do any good and while it had come up, River had wanted to be distracted, “So, why don’t we find something else to discuss?” After all, there was still flirtation to be had and the night was still young.