FIC: Six Weeks in Time and Space
Oct. 29th, 2011 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zaubraFandoms: UK Politics, Doctor Who (2005)
Title: Six Weeks in Time and Space
Ship(s): Yvette Cooper/Ed Balls, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Yvette Cooper/River Song
Word Count: 3,658
Rating: NC-17
Content: Explicit sex.
Summary: Adventures in time and space, warmth and laughter and love, and a lot of running. For this prompt at the meme.
Background: Crossover between Doctor Who and UK Politics RPF. Spoilers for all aired episodes of Doctor Who. Background knowledge of either fandom not required - Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls are a married couple who also happen to be senior Labour politicians, and the Doctor and River have a blue box that travels in time and space.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Six Weeks in Time and Space
David has fangs.
Also bright purple eyes, and two extra arms, but the fangs are what Yvette notices first. Perhaps because they glisten. Or perhaps because their owner is baring them and stalking toward her.
“Ed,” Yvette says, backing away slowly, “your brother has fangs.”
Ed looks at her limpidly, then smiles, toothily. “So do I.”
Yvette stares at him in horror, then snatches up her chair and holds it in front of her.
“Do you seriously suppose that you can survive?” David says, sibilantly. Ed throws his head back and laughs.
It is then that Yvette first hears the strange noise that will change her life forever.
A bright blue police box appears in her office, and a man throws open the door. He looks a bit like an absent-minded professor – not that Yvette notices this at the time.
The man bounds over to her and extends his hand. “Hello, Athneri…” he begins, buoyantly, then trails off. “You’re not Athernian!”
“I’m Yvette,” Yvette says, shortly, keeping an eye on the fanged brothers. They look confused for the moment, but she has the feeling that won’t last long. “And you’re about to get eaten.”
He looks over his shoulder, and his eyes widen. “Right.”
“Any suggestions?” Yvette asks, brandishing the chair at David, who looks like he’s about to spring.
“Yes,” the man says. He pulls out what looks vaguely like a screwdriver and brandishes it at David. The screwdriver makes a whining noise, and David wrinkles his nose. “Run!”
~//~
After it’s all over – after the Kegrcbebs have been returned to their natural forms and sent back to their planet, and the real brothers Miliband have been rescued from the broom cupboard to which they were consigned – Yvette slumps against the wall of her office and stares at the man in front of her. “Who are you, anyway?”
The Doctor leans nonchalantly against his blue box. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Uh-huh,” Yvette says, pushing her mouth into a sceptical frown. “I can see that you look a lot like Matt Smith, but the Doctor is a fictional character in a children’s television show.”
“Based on me,” the Doctor says, rather smugly.
“I don’t believe it,” Yvette says, bringing her brows down.
The Doctor smiles, and snaps his fingers. The door of the blue box swings open. “See for yourself.”
The invitation is all Yvette has been waiting for. She springs forward, and steps into the TARDIS.
It’s as beautiful as she always imagined. She goes to the console and sinks on her knees in front of it. Slowly, reverently, she leans her cheek against it; against her skin, the TARDIS begins to hum.
“She likes you,” the Doctor says, from by the door.
“I love her,” Yvette says, reaching a hand out, as if to a skittish horse. Gently, ever so gently, she rests it on the console. It is warm to the touch.
“You believed me already,” the Doctor says, faintly accusing, as if he’s just made the connection.
Yvette bites back a smile. “From the first moment.”
Underneath her hand, the TARDIS purrs.
~//~
“There’s something I need to tell you,” the Doctor says.
“What?” Yvette asks. Nothing could disturb her now, not here on the TARDIS.
“I’m afraid,” the Doctor says, “that the Kegrcbebian mind control induces amnesia. Your friends think they’re teenagers.”
She turns to look at him, without withdrawing her hand from the console. “You’re saying that the Labour Leader thinks he’s a teenager?”
“Yes,” the Doctor says, having the decency to look sorry.
“Is it reversible?”
“The memories should return eventually.” At her enquiring look, he clarifies, “Usually in about a year.”
Yvette sighs, and leans her forehead on the console. The TARDIS hums soothingly at her. “Great. Just great. There’ll have to be a leadership election…and just when we were starting to gain some traction against Cameron.”
“Perhaps,” the Doctor says, “you’ll want to say that it was stress, and not mind-controlling Kegrcbebians with fangs.”
Yvette raises her eyebrows at him, and he holds his hands up. “It was just a thought.”
“Of course there will have to be a cover story,” Yvette says, and strokes the TARDIS’s console one last time. “I wish I didn’t have to go back out there,” she murmurs to her. “I wish I could stay with you.”
The Doctor must have excellent hearing. “Well, you can,” he says.
She glares at him. It is a particularly good glare, having been honed by years of living with Ed, and the Doctor quails. “It’s not fair to say things like that,” she says. “You know I have to go back out there and clean things up. I’ll probably have to be Leader now. I can’t go flying through space and time with you.”
The Doctor seems to have recovered from the effects of her glare. He smiles. “You’re forgetting something, Yvette Cooper,” he says.
“And what is that?” Yvette says.
His smile grows. “I can take you across the universe, and bring you back in time for tea.”
“Ah,” Yvette says. “Is that an invitation?”
The Doctor looks a little shy. “It is if you want it to be.”
“I do,” Yvette says.
They smile at each other for a moment, with the TARDIS warm under Yvette’s fingertips.
Then the Doctor winces. “There is something I should mention.”
“What’s that?” Yvette says, with foreboding.
“I…” he trails off, then soldiers on, looking both embarrassed and a little proud. “I have a wife. She…tends to go where she pleases and visit without prior notice.”
“Good for her,” Yvette says.
“Yes, it is, rather,” the Doctor says, and his eyes are soft.
“Well,” Yvette says. “If you’re going to have a wife on board, I think I should get to bring my husband.”
The Doctor laughs.
~//~
“When you talked me into coming on this adventure,” Ed wheezes, “you never told me there was going to be this much running.”
Yvette laughs, leaning against the alley wall, trying to catch her breath. “It’s good for you.”
“Maybe,” Ed says, darkly, holding his side.
Yvette leans over and kisses him, stealing what little breath he has left.
A splash of foul-smelling liquid nearby breaks them apart a minute or two later. “Get a room!” a woman calls down cheerfully, shaking the drops out of her chamber pot.
Yvette wrinkles her nose. One problem about travelling in time and space is the wide range of cleanliness standards.
“We’ve lost him again, haven’t we,” Ed says. It’s not a question.
Yvette shrugs. “We’ll do what we always do.”
Ed grins. “Look for the shouting.”
~//~
“That’s nonsense,” the Doctor says, cheerfully. “I sent all the Weeping Angels into a crack in the skin of the universe. Totally gone.”
“Was that before or after Amy reimagined the universe and put everything back the way it was?” Yvette asks, mildly.
The Doctor’s eyes widen.
“Oh, fuck,” Ed says.
~//~
“Yvette!” That’s the Doctor’s voice. “Ed?”
They freeze. “Be very quiet,” Yvette breathes in Ed’s ear.
They hold very still.
The lights go on. “Yvette? Ed? Are you in...” The Doctor trails off, staring at them.
“Sorry,” Yvette says, tightening her ankles around Ed’s back. The movement disturbs the water, and there’s little splashing sounds.
The Doctor turns on his heel with great dignity and stomps out of the swimming pool. “You have a BEDROOM!” he says, over his shoulder.
“Boring,” Ed says, under his breath, and resumes what he was doing.
Yvette gasps, and rests her head on the edge of the pool.
~//~
“It’s nice to meet you,” Amy says, offering her a glass of wine. “Is he behaving?”
“Spoken like a true mother-in-law,” Yvette says.
Amy laughs, and leans in conspiratorially. “Pretend that we’re talking about them.”
Yvette eyes the boys, sitting on the other side of the room. “Yes, that’ll worry them.”
“Exactly,” Amy says, waggling her eyebrows.
Yvette puts a shocked expression on her face, then dissolves into giggles.
“Good work,” Amy says, patting her on the knee. “They look terrified.”
~//~
“Your sonic screwdriver can’t break!”
“Well, it can, and it has,” the Doctor says, looking a bit harried. “Any ideas?”
Yvette and Ed look at each other. “Run!”
~//~
In retrospect, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea for Ed to challenge the Xapriwatomo to a jergen match. While jergen looked like football, biting was allowed, and the Xapriwatomo had razor-sharp teeth that could shear off appendages. Ed…did not.
And, facing facts, Ed wasn’t terrifically good at football in the first place.
Luckily, Yvette was there to save the day, spinning a very convincing story as to why Ed suddenly looked like a different person. The psychic paper helped. As did the TARDIS, who locked her door and kept Ed inside, no matter how much he whinged at her.
The Doctor, meanwhile, turned out to be a Beckham at jergen.
Like many of their adventures, however, it did end in running – this time when the Xapriwatomo took a fancy to the Doctor, and tried to press his suit with a kiss. The Doctor ducked the teeth, Yvette threw a handy jergenball at the Xapriwatomo’s head to distract him, and they both ran.
Ed was sulky for days.
~//~
“Right there,” Yvette says, panting, “right there,” and that’s the moment the door opens.
“I’m back!” the Doctor says, and then sees what they’re doing. “BEDROOM!”
“We thought you were going to be gone for hours!” Yvette says, outraged.
“It was boring,” he says, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “Are your knickers back on yet?”
“No,” Yvette says. “You go to your bedroom for a bit.”
“It’s my TARDIS!” the Doctor says indignantly.
“And she’s busy right now,” Yvette says.
“You are not,” the Doctor says, forgetting himself enough to look down, then snapping his eyes upward again.
Yvette feels a smug smile on her face. “She’s humming. She likes it. Now either get down and help Ed, or go to your room.”
The Doctor flees.
~//~
The first time Yvette sees a Dalek, she almost claps.
Then she remembers just how terrified she should be, and runs.
~//~
“It’s not funny,” the Doctor says, sternly.
They keep laughing.
“It’s not funny,” the Doctor says, pitifully.
They laugh harder.
“My wife will kill me if I get married to someone else,” the Doctor pleads. “She’s already had a dress rehearsal.”
“Oh, all right,” Ed says, between snorts. “What exactly did this accidental-betrothal ceremony look like?”
“And what are our assets?” Yvette asks, beginning to rummage through her handbag. Hard to hold onto while running, handbags, but genuinely useful.
“Why does this always happen to me?” the Doctor asks.
It sounds like an existential question, so Yvette doesn’t bother to answer.
~//~
When he finds them in the library, the Doctor doesn’t even act surprised. “Bedroom,” he says, wearily, turning on his heel.
“We aren’t even doing anything!” Yvette says.
“She dropped her book!” Ed says.
“I’ll just be working on the chameleon circuit,” the Doctor says, then shuts the door behind him.
Yvette and Ed look at each other.
“He really should stop using that line,” Ed says. “It never gets fixed.”
“You know what I think?” Yvette says, and slides out of her chair. “Seize the moment.”
~//~
“So what did you find at the docks?” the Doctor asks them, cheerily, as they huddle together in the back of a hansom cab. The Doctor is half on Ed’s lap.
“Nothing much,” Ed says, gloomily, holding on to the Doctor’s hip to steady him as the hansom cab lurches over the cobbles.
Yvette frowns. “There was something. I think we were being followed.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure?”
“Well, not sure,” Yvette says. “But I’m getting used to this, you know, and I just had this feeling, right down the back of my neck…”
“Are we supposed to be stopping?” Ed says, suddenly.
Indeed, the hansom cab has stopped.
They hear the driver jumping down from the back and coming around.
“Is there something wrong?” the Doctor calls.
“Not at all,” says a voice, and a grinning face peers up at them.
Yvette isn’t sure, but she thinks she’d remember if there had been female hansom cab drivers in Victorian England.
The Doctor’s smile gives the game away. “Were you stalking my friends? Not nice, River, not nice at all.”
“Hello, sweetie,” the woman says, laughing.
~//~
They find the Zibjrm and defeat them. River’s hallucinogenic lipstick is an excellent resource, and Yvette demands a supply for the Handbag of Doom (Ed’s christening).
River shows her how it works. Unfortunately, she forgets to mention that it lingers even after being wiped off, and that occasionally after being used there can still be functioning traces.
As a result, thanks to some unwary kisses, their husbands end up having to be half-carried, half-dragged back to the TARDIS, waving their arms at unseen butterflies.
They put the boys to bed – not together – and stay up late telling stories. River seems to be some sort of combination of an archaeologist, a pirate, a femme fatale, a gunslinger, an academic, and a Time Agent. But her best stories come from her year of working undercover as a comedian in late-21st century London, and Yvette finds herself laughing until her stomach hurts.
Yvette thinks she might be developing a little bit of a crush on River.
But then, she doubts anyone could avoid developing a little bit of a crush on River Song.
~//~
“Do you think you’ll ever have children?” she asks River, the next morning, fixing up a hangover tray to take to Ed. She doesn’t quite know what the aftereffects of hallucinogenic lipstick will be, but she knows exactly what Ed needs to recover from a hangover, so that’s a start.
River purses her lips. “I don’t know if I can. Not with him, at any rate. There could be timey-wimey problems.” She rummages in the fridge and freezer, and emerges with what looks like fish fingers and custard. Yvette smiles.
“Are you going to try?” she asks.
River doesn’t answer at first.
“I’m prying, sorry,” Yvette says, in a rush.
“No, it’s all right,” River says, slowly spooning custard into a bowl. “I don’t…I had a difficult childhood, and I don’t know if I’d be a good mother. Besides,” she says, and Yvette sees her face twist, “what sort of life do I lead, to keep a child with me? And its father would be wanted on nearly every planet.”
Yvette doesn’t know what to say, but she puts a hand on River’s elbow, and River covers it with one of her own.
“Do you miss your own?” River asks, after a long moment.
“Yes,” Yvette says, simply. “It may be only minutes for them, but it’s been weeks for us. I think we’ll be going home soon.”
~//~
The boys still aren’t quite themselves, even after the hangover trays, so they take a nice quiet trip to twelfth-century Brazil to have a nice quiet wander around a rainforest.
As Yvette should have anticipated, the nice quiet day turns into a lot of running.
Ed is getting rather fast.
~//~
That night, Yvette is riding Ed when they hear a feminine scream.
Ed would have leapt out of bed, had not Yvette’s weight been holding him down. “Are we being invaded? Oh God, where’s the Handbag of Doom?”
Yvette giggles, and leans down to kiss him. “I rather think that’s just River,” she says.
“But if she’s in trouble, we should go…” He trails off.
“And the penny drops,” she says, against his mouth. “Honestly, Ed, sometimes you are too innocent.”
He rocks his hips up, to show her just how innocent he is. “It’s the Doctor,” he says, disbelief still lacing his voice. “It seems – wrong – somehow, to think of him having…”
“Having sex?” Yvette finishes for him. She rubs at her nipple, closing her eyes to savour the spiralling of desire in her belly. “I think the Doctor may be a more sexual being than you give him credit for.”
“Enough talk of the Doctor, woman,” Ed says, and pulls her down to kiss her again. “You’re in my bed now.”
“Very caveman,” Yvette says, and shows him just who’s boss of the cave.
~//~
“Have you met a Krynoid yet?” River asks, a few days later.
“There’s one behind me, isn’t there?” Yvette asks.
Ed nods.
“Well, that was predictable,” Yvette says.
The Doctor opens his mouth.
“Run!” they all chorus.
~//~
“It’s really quite annoying that you’re so well known,” the Doctor grumbles, as they hide behind some construction barriers. “Whenever we come anywhere near Westminster in this time period, there are potential paradoxes everywhere. I should leave you two in the TARDIS.”
“She’d let us out,” Yvette says.
The Doctor glares at her. “You’ve seduced my TARDIS.”
“She seduced me,” Yvette says sweetly.
“Isn’t the TARDIS a bit like River’s mum?” Ed asks. “Should we be talking about this?”
River sighs. “The Nnhidq could arrive at any moment. Can we concentrate on the task at hand?”
“Is that a Nnhidq?” Ed asks, pointing. “Tell me that’s a Nnhidq. I’ll punch his face.”
Yvette takes a look. “That’s John Major. You can’t punch his face.”
“Maybe it’s Tony,” Ed says. “That would explain a lot, if Tony was a Nnhidq.”
“You can’t punch his face either,” Yvette says.
“I can,” River volunteers. “They don’t know me. Who do you want me to punch?”
“No one is punching anyone,” the Doctor says. “It’s ineffective and brutal.”
“Such a sweet-talker, my husband,” River says.
~//~
“We’ve been talking,” Yvette says.
The Doctor and River look up from the TARDIS console, to where Yvette and Ed have just emerged from their bedroom, standing close together.
“Is it goodbye, then?” River asks.
“I think so,” Yvette says. “We’ve had a lovely six weeks, Doctor, but we have a life at home, and it’s time we went back to it.”
The Doctor looks a bit sad, Yvette thinks, but he smiles nonetheless. “All good things must come to an end. Will tomorrow morning be soon enough? The old girl’s a bit tired tonight, I think.”
“Wotcher,” Ed says. “They don’t like being called old girls.”
“I don’t mind,” River says, with a wicked smile.
~//~
Perhaps it’s not a surprise, that there at the end of things, River puts a hand on Yvette’s arm; or that Yvette turns and kisses her; or that the Doctor does indeed turn out to be a more sexual being than Ed was giving him credit for.
River’s breasts are things of wonder, and Yvette worships them, kissing them until River shudders, curls bouncing and cascading over her shoulders, and breathes Yvette’s name.
The boys kiss each other when prompted, and very pretty it is too, but for the most part they are happy to just sit and watch, elbow to elbow, as River maps the curves of Yvette’s body, and Yvette learns how to make River scream.
“This is something I learned in Ancient Atlantis,” River says, and does something impossible with her tongue.
“This is something I learned at Harvard,” Yvette says, and does something divine with her fingers.
The TARDIS hums around them, song and warmth and colour.
“Ohhh,” River says, voice rippling with the accents of a thousand different languages.
“Please,” Yvette says, throwing back her head, shattering.
Beauty and curves and softness, gasps and laughter and sobs, immediacy and eternity; the slip of sweat and the smell of skin, the touch of fingers and the sound of desire.
Time and space – what of them? All that Yvette knows is here and now, on the TARDIS, with her Ed and her Doctor and her River, in the wonder that is her life.
She is soaring.
~//~
Yvette and Ed stand at the door. The Doctor and River stand at the console.
“Goodbye,” Yvette says, one more time.
“Goodbye,” River says.
The Doctor nods.
Yvette slips her hand into Ed’s, opens the door of the TARDIS, and steps out into her office.
It is five minutes after they left. The Miliband brothers – the real Miliband brothers – are no doubt still slumped in Ed Miliband’s office, suffering the after-effects of nervous breakdowns (otherwise known as Kegrcbebian amnesia). Any moment now, a hysterical staffer could come rushing into Yvette’s office, to begin what may be the most difficult period of Yvette’s political career.
She will run for the leadership, and she will win. She will bring down Cameron, and she will bring the Labour Party to national ascendance once again. She will be Prime Minister, and she will be one to remember.
She will do this, because she has faced down a Dalek. She has run from a Krynoid, and learned how to defeat it. She has used hallucinogenic lipstick on three planets, and still has a spare in her handbag (for emergencies only). She has stood by the Doctor, and run with the Doctor, and travelled with the Doctor. She has made love to her husband in every room in the TARDIS, except the Doctor’s bedroom, and fallen in love with the Doctor’s wife.
She has faced the terrors of the universe, side by side with the best man in the world.
The Doctor and his wife were there too.
“Shall we?” she asks, and there may perhaps be tears in her voice.
“I love you,” Ed says, quietly.
“I know,” she says, laughing through a sudden sob, and pulls his face down into a kiss, as the TARDIS creaks and sighs and disappears, leaving the room just that little bit darker.
And that is where the staffer finds them, two minutes later, standing in Yvette’s office kissing, their arms around each other. If their cheeks are wet, if their kiss is fierce, the staffer doesn’t notice, for he is hysterically yelping about heart attacks and strokes and ambulances.
They break apart and listen to him, then link their hands and begin the next part of their adventure together.
They run.
~//~
Title: Six Weeks in Time and Space
Ship(s): Yvette Cooper/Ed Balls, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Yvette Cooper/River Song
Word Count: 3,658
Rating: NC-17
Content: Explicit sex.
Summary: Adventures in time and space, warmth and laughter and love, and a lot of running. For this prompt at the meme.
Background: Crossover between Doctor Who and UK Politics RPF. Spoilers for all aired episodes of Doctor Who. Background knowledge of either fandom not required - Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls are a married couple who also happen to be senior Labour politicians, and the Doctor and River have a blue box that travels in time and space.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Six Weeks in Time and Space
David has fangs.
Also bright purple eyes, and two extra arms, but the fangs are what Yvette notices first. Perhaps because they glisten. Or perhaps because their owner is baring them and stalking toward her.
“Ed,” Yvette says, backing away slowly, “your brother has fangs.”
Ed looks at her limpidly, then smiles, toothily. “So do I.”
Yvette stares at him in horror, then snatches up her chair and holds it in front of her.
“Do you seriously suppose that you can survive?” David says, sibilantly. Ed throws his head back and laughs.
It is then that Yvette first hears the strange noise that will change her life forever.
A bright blue police box appears in her office, and a man throws open the door. He looks a bit like an absent-minded professor – not that Yvette notices this at the time.
The man bounds over to her and extends his hand. “Hello, Athneri…” he begins, buoyantly, then trails off. “You’re not Athernian!”
“I’m Yvette,” Yvette says, shortly, keeping an eye on the fanged brothers. They look confused for the moment, but she has the feeling that won’t last long. “And you’re about to get eaten.”
He looks over his shoulder, and his eyes widen. “Right.”
“Any suggestions?” Yvette asks, brandishing the chair at David, who looks like he’s about to spring.
“Yes,” the man says. He pulls out what looks vaguely like a screwdriver and brandishes it at David. The screwdriver makes a whining noise, and David wrinkles his nose. “Run!”
~//~
After it’s all over – after the Kegrcbebs have been returned to their natural forms and sent back to their planet, and the real brothers Miliband have been rescued from the broom cupboard to which they were consigned – Yvette slumps against the wall of her office and stares at the man in front of her. “Who are you, anyway?”
The Doctor leans nonchalantly against his blue box. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Uh-huh,” Yvette says, pushing her mouth into a sceptical frown. “I can see that you look a lot like Matt Smith, but the Doctor is a fictional character in a children’s television show.”
“Based on me,” the Doctor says, rather smugly.
“I don’t believe it,” Yvette says, bringing her brows down.
The Doctor smiles, and snaps his fingers. The door of the blue box swings open. “See for yourself.”
The invitation is all Yvette has been waiting for. She springs forward, and steps into the TARDIS.
It’s as beautiful as she always imagined. She goes to the console and sinks on her knees in front of it. Slowly, reverently, she leans her cheek against it; against her skin, the TARDIS begins to hum.
“She likes you,” the Doctor says, from by the door.
“I love her,” Yvette says, reaching a hand out, as if to a skittish horse. Gently, ever so gently, she rests it on the console. It is warm to the touch.
“You believed me already,” the Doctor says, faintly accusing, as if he’s just made the connection.
Yvette bites back a smile. “From the first moment.”
Underneath her hand, the TARDIS purrs.
~//~
“There’s something I need to tell you,” the Doctor says.
“What?” Yvette asks. Nothing could disturb her now, not here on the TARDIS.
“I’m afraid,” the Doctor says, “that the Kegrcbebian mind control induces amnesia. Your friends think they’re teenagers.”
She turns to look at him, without withdrawing her hand from the console. “You’re saying that the Labour Leader thinks he’s a teenager?”
“Yes,” the Doctor says, having the decency to look sorry.
“Is it reversible?”
“The memories should return eventually.” At her enquiring look, he clarifies, “Usually in about a year.”
Yvette sighs, and leans her forehead on the console. The TARDIS hums soothingly at her. “Great. Just great. There’ll have to be a leadership election…and just when we were starting to gain some traction against Cameron.”
“Perhaps,” the Doctor says, “you’ll want to say that it was stress, and not mind-controlling Kegrcbebians with fangs.”
Yvette raises her eyebrows at him, and he holds his hands up. “It was just a thought.”
“Of course there will have to be a cover story,” Yvette says, and strokes the TARDIS’s console one last time. “I wish I didn’t have to go back out there,” she murmurs to her. “I wish I could stay with you.”
The Doctor must have excellent hearing. “Well, you can,” he says.
She glares at him. It is a particularly good glare, having been honed by years of living with Ed, and the Doctor quails. “It’s not fair to say things like that,” she says. “You know I have to go back out there and clean things up. I’ll probably have to be Leader now. I can’t go flying through space and time with you.”
The Doctor seems to have recovered from the effects of her glare. He smiles. “You’re forgetting something, Yvette Cooper,” he says.
“And what is that?” Yvette says.
His smile grows. “I can take you across the universe, and bring you back in time for tea.”
“Ah,” Yvette says. “Is that an invitation?”
The Doctor looks a little shy. “It is if you want it to be.”
“I do,” Yvette says.
They smile at each other for a moment, with the TARDIS warm under Yvette’s fingertips.
Then the Doctor winces. “There is something I should mention.”
“What’s that?” Yvette says, with foreboding.
“I…” he trails off, then soldiers on, looking both embarrassed and a little proud. “I have a wife. She…tends to go where she pleases and visit without prior notice.”
“Good for her,” Yvette says.
“Yes, it is, rather,” the Doctor says, and his eyes are soft.
“Well,” Yvette says. “If you’re going to have a wife on board, I think I should get to bring my husband.”
The Doctor laughs.
~//~
“When you talked me into coming on this adventure,” Ed wheezes, “you never told me there was going to be this much running.”
Yvette laughs, leaning against the alley wall, trying to catch her breath. “It’s good for you.”
“Maybe,” Ed says, darkly, holding his side.
Yvette leans over and kisses him, stealing what little breath he has left.
A splash of foul-smelling liquid nearby breaks them apart a minute or two later. “Get a room!” a woman calls down cheerfully, shaking the drops out of her chamber pot.
Yvette wrinkles her nose. One problem about travelling in time and space is the wide range of cleanliness standards.
“We’ve lost him again, haven’t we,” Ed says. It’s not a question.
Yvette shrugs. “We’ll do what we always do.”
Ed grins. “Look for the shouting.”
~//~
“That’s nonsense,” the Doctor says, cheerfully. “I sent all the Weeping Angels into a crack in the skin of the universe. Totally gone.”
“Was that before or after Amy reimagined the universe and put everything back the way it was?” Yvette asks, mildly.
The Doctor’s eyes widen.
“Oh, fuck,” Ed says.
~//~
“Yvette!” That’s the Doctor’s voice. “Ed?”
They freeze. “Be very quiet,” Yvette breathes in Ed’s ear.
They hold very still.
The lights go on. “Yvette? Ed? Are you in...” The Doctor trails off, staring at them.
“Sorry,” Yvette says, tightening her ankles around Ed’s back. The movement disturbs the water, and there’s little splashing sounds.
The Doctor turns on his heel with great dignity and stomps out of the swimming pool. “You have a BEDROOM!” he says, over his shoulder.
“Boring,” Ed says, under his breath, and resumes what he was doing.
Yvette gasps, and rests her head on the edge of the pool.
~//~
“It’s nice to meet you,” Amy says, offering her a glass of wine. “Is he behaving?”
“Spoken like a true mother-in-law,” Yvette says.
Amy laughs, and leans in conspiratorially. “Pretend that we’re talking about them.”
Yvette eyes the boys, sitting on the other side of the room. “Yes, that’ll worry them.”
“Exactly,” Amy says, waggling her eyebrows.
Yvette puts a shocked expression on her face, then dissolves into giggles.
“Good work,” Amy says, patting her on the knee. “They look terrified.”
~//~
“Your sonic screwdriver can’t break!”
“Well, it can, and it has,” the Doctor says, looking a bit harried. “Any ideas?”
Yvette and Ed look at each other. “Run!”
~//~
In retrospect, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea for Ed to challenge the Xapriwatomo to a jergen match. While jergen looked like football, biting was allowed, and the Xapriwatomo had razor-sharp teeth that could shear off appendages. Ed…did not.
And, facing facts, Ed wasn’t terrifically good at football in the first place.
Luckily, Yvette was there to save the day, spinning a very convincing story as to why Ed suddenly looked like a different person. The psychic paper helped. As did the TARDIS, who locked her door and kept Ed inside, no matter how much he whinged at her.
The Doctor, meanwhile, turned out to be a Beckham at jergen.
Like many of their adventures, however, it did end in running – this time when the Xapriwatomo took a fancy to the Doctor, and tried to press his suit with a kiss. The Doctor ducked the teeth, Yvette threw a handy jergenball at the Xapriwatomo’s head to distract him, and they both ran.
Ed was sulky for days.
~//~
“Right there,” Yvette says, panting, “right there,” and that’s the moment the door opens.
“I’m back!” the Doctor says, and then sees what they’re doing. “BEDROOM!”
“We thought you were going to be gone for hours!” Yvette says, outraged.
“It was boring,” he says, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “Are your knickers back on yet?”
“No,” Yvette says. “You go to your bedroom for a bit.”
“It’s my TARDIS!” the Doctor says indignantly.
“And she’s busy right now,” Yvette says.
“You are not,” the Doctor says, forgetting himself enough to look down, then snapping his eyes upward again.
Yvette feels a smug smile on her face. “She’s humming. She likes it. Now either get down and help Ed, or go to your room.”
The Doctor flees.
~//~
The first time Yvette sees a Dalek, she almost claps.
Then she remembers just how terrified she should be, and runs.
~//~
“It’s not funny,” the Doctor says, sternly.
They keep laughing.
“It’s not funny,” the Doctor says, pitifully.
They laugh harder.
“My wife will kill me if I get married to someone else,” the Doctor pleads. “She’s already had a dress rehearsal.”
“Oh, all right,” Ed says, between snorts. “What exactly did this accidental-betrothal ceremony look like?”
“And what are our assets?” Yvette asks, beginning to rummage through her handbag. Hard to hold onto while running, handbags, but genuinely useful.
“Why does this always happen to me?” the Doctor asks.
It sounds like an existential question, so Yvette doesn’t bother to answer.
~//~
When he finds them in the library, the Doctor doesn’t even act surprised. “Bedroom,” he says, wearily, turning on his heel.
“We aren’t even doing anything!” Yvette says.
“She dropped her book!” Ed says.
“I’ll just be working on the chameleon circuit,” the Doctor says, then shuts the door behind him.
Yvette and Ed look at each other.
“He really should stop using that line,” Ed says. “It never gets fixed.”
“You know what I think?” Yvette says, and slides out of her chair. “Seize the moment.”
~//~
“So what did you find at the docks?” the Doctor asks them, cheerily, as they huddle together in the back of a hansom cab. The Doctor is half on Ed’s lap.
“Nothing much,” Ed says, gloomily, holding on to the Doctor’s hip to steady him as the hansom cab lurches over the cobbles.
Yvette frowns. “There was something. I think we were being followed.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure?”
“Well, not sure,” Yvette says. “But I’m getting used to this, you know, and I just had this feeling, right down the back of my neck…”
“Are we supposed to be stopping?” Ed says, suddenly.
Indeed, the hansom cab has stopped.
They hear the driver jumping down from the back and coming around.
“Is there something wrong?” the Doctor calls.
“Not at all,” says a voice, and a grinning face peers up at them.
Yvette isn’t sure, but she thinks she’d remember if there had been female hansom cab drivers in Victorian England.
The Doctor’s smile gives the game away. “Were you stalking my friends? Not nice, River, not nice at all.”
“Hello, sweetie,” the woman says, laughing.
~//~
They find the Zibjrm and defeat them. River’s hallucinogenic lipstick is an excellent resource, and Yvette demands a supply for the Handbag of Doom (Ed’s christening).
River shows her how it works. Unfortunately, she forgets to mention that it lingers even after being wiped off, and that occasionally after being used there can still be functioning traces.
As a result, thanks to some unwary kisses, their husbands end up having to be half-carried, half-dragged back to the TARDIS, waving their arms at unseen butterflies.
They put the boys to bed – not together – and stay up late telling stories. River seems to be some sort of combination of an archaeologist, a pirate, a femme fatale, a gunslinger, an academic, and a Time Agent. But her best stories come from her year of working undercover as a comedian in late-21st century London, and Yvette finds herself laughing until her stomach hurts.
Yvette thinks she might be developing a little bit of a crush on River.
But then, she doubts anyone could avoid developing a little bit of a crush on River Song.
~//~
“Do you think you’ll ever have children?” she asks River, the next morning, fixing up a hangover tray to take to Ed. She doesn’t quite know what the aftereffects of hallucinogenic lipstick will be, but she knows exactly what Ed needs to recover from a hangover, so that’s a start.
River purses her lips. “I don’t know if I can. Not with him, at any rate. There could be timey-wimey problems.” She rummages in the fridge and freezer, and emerges with what looks like fish fingers and custard. Yvette smiles.
“Are you going to try?” she asks.
River doesn’t answer at first.
“I’m prying, sorry,” Yvette says, in a rush.
“No, it’s all right,” River says, slowly spooning custard into a bowl. “I don’t…I had a difficult childhood, and I don’t know if I’d be a good mother. Besides,” she says, and Yvette sees her face twist, “what sort of life do I lead, to keep a child with me? And its father would be wanted on nearly every planet.”
Yvette doesn’t know what to say, but she puts a hand on River’s elbow, and River covers it with one of her own.
“Do you miss your own?” River asks, after a long moment.
“Yes,” Yvette says, simply. “It may be only minutes for them, but it’s been weeks for us. I think we’ll be going home soon.”
~//~
The boys still aren’t quite themselves, even after the hangover trays, so they take a nice quiet trip to twelfth-century Brazil to have a nice quiet wander around a rainforest.
As Yvette should have anticipated, the nice quiet day turns into a lot of running.
Ed is getting rather fast.
~//~
That night, Yvette is riding Ed when they hear a feminine scream.
Ed would have leapt out of bed, had not Yvette’s weight been holding him down. “Are we being invaded? Oh God, where’s the Handbag of Doom?”
Yvette giggles, and leans down to kiss him. “I rather think that’s just River,” she says.
“But if she’s in trouble, we should go…” He trails off.
“And the penny drops,” she says, against his mouth. “Honestly, Ed, sometimes you are too innocent.”
He rocks his hips up, to show her just how innocent he is. “It’s the Doctor,” he says, disbelief still lacing his voice. “It seems – wrong – somehow, to think of him having…”
“Having sex?” Yvette finishes for him. She rubs at her nipple, closing her eyes to savour the spiralling of desire in her belly. “I think the Doctor may be a more sexual being than you give him credit for.”
“Enough talk of the Doctor, woman,” Ed says, and pulls her down to kiss her again. “You’re in my bed now.”
“Very caveman,” Yvette says, and shows him just who’s boss of the cave.
~//~
“Have you met a Krynoid yet?” River asks, a few days later.
“There’s one behind me, isn’t there?” Yvette asks.
Ed nods.
“Well, that was predictable,” Yvette says.
The Doctor opens his mouth.
“Run!” they all chorus.
~//~
“It’s really quite annoying that you’re so well known,” the Doctor grumbles, as they hide behind some construction barriers. “Whenever we come anywhere near Westminster in this time period, there are potential paradoxes everywhere. I should leave you two in the TARDIS.”
“She’d let us out,” Yvette says.
The Doctor glares at her. “You’ve seduced my TARDIS.”
“She seduced me,” Yvette says sweetly.
“Isn’t the TARDIS a bit like River’s mum?” Ed asks. “Should we be talking about this?”
River sighs. “The Nnhidq could arrive at any moment. Can we concentrate on the task at hand?”
“Is that a Nnhidq?” Ed asks, pointing. “Tell me that’s a Nnhidq. I’ll punch his face.”
Yvette takes a look. “That’s John Major. You can’t punch his face.”
“Maybe it’s Tony,” Ed says. “That would explain a lot, if Tony was a Nnhidq.”
“You can’t punch his face either,” Yvette says.
“I can,” River volunteers. “They don’t know me. Who do you want me to punch?”
“No one is punching anyone,” the Doctor says. “It’s ineffective and brutal.”
“Such a sweet-talker, my husband,” River says.
~//~
“We’ve been talking,” Yvette says.
The Doctor and River look up from the TARDIS console, to where Yvette and Ed have just emerged from their bedroom, standing close together.
“Is it goodbye, then?” River asks.
“I think so,” Yvette says. “We’ve had a lovely six weeks, Doctor, but we have a life at home, and it’s time we went back to it.”
The Doctor looks a bit sad, Yvette thinks, but he smiles nonetheless. “All good things must come to an end. Will tomorrow morning be soon enough? The old girl’s a bit tired tonight, I think.”
“Wotcher,” Ed says. “They don’t like being called old girls.”
“I don’t mind,” River says, with a wicked smile.
~//~
Perhaps it’s not a surprise, that there at the end of things, River puts a hand on Yvette’s arm; or that Yvette turns and kisses her; or that the Doctor does indeed turn out to be a more sexual being than Ed was giving him credit for.
River’s breasts are things of wonder, and Yvette worships them, kissing them until River shudders, curls bouncing and cascading over her shoulders, and breathes Yvette’s name.
The boys kiss each other when prompted, and very pretty it is too, but for the most part they are happy to just sit and watch, elbow to elbow, as River maps the curves of Yvette’s body, and Yvette learns how to make River scream.
“This is something I learned in Ancient Atlantis,” River says, and does something impossible with her tongue.
“This is something I learned at Harvard,” Yvette says, and does something divine with her fingers.
The TARDIS hums around them, song and warmth and colour.
“Ohhh,” River says, voice rippling with the accents of a thousand different languages.
“Please,” Yvette says, throwing back her head, shattering.
Beauty and curves and softness, gasps and laughter and sobs, immediacy and eternity; the slip of sweat and the smell of skin, the touch of fingers and the sound of desire.
Time and space – what of them? All that Yvette knows is here and now, on the TARDIS, with her Ed and her Doctor and her River, in the wonder that is her life.
She is soaring.
~//~
Yvette and Ed stand at the door. The Doctor and River stand at the console.
“Goodbye,” Yvette says, one more time.
“Goodbye,” River says.
The Doctor nods.
Yvette slips her hand into Ed’s, opens the door of the TARDIS, and steps out into her office.
It is five minutes after they left. The Miliband brothers – the real Miliband brothers – are no doubt still slumped in Ed Miliband’s office, suffering the after-effects of nervous breakdowns (otherwise known as Kegrcbebian amnesia). Any moment now, a hysterical staffer could come rushing into Yvette’s office, to begin what may be the most difficult period of Yvette’s political career.
She will run for the leadership, and she will win. She will bring down Cameron, and she will bring the Labour Party to national ascendance once again. She will be Prime Minister, and she will be one to remember.
She will do this, because she has faced down a Dalek. She has run from a Krynoid, and learned how to defeat it. She has used hallucinogenic lipstick on three planets, and still has a spare in her handbag (for emergencies only). She has stood by the Doctor, and run with the Doctor, and travelled with the Doctor. She has made love to her husband in every room in the TARDIS, except the Doctor’s bedroom, and fallen in love with the Doctor’s wife.
She has faced the terrors of the universe, side by side with the best man in the world.
The Doctor and his wife were there too.
“Shall we?” she asks, and there may perhaps be tears in her voice.
“I love you,” Ed says, quietly.
“I know,” she says, laughing through a sudden sob, and pulls his face down into a kiss, as the TARDIS creaks and sighs and disappears, leaving the room just that little bit darker.
And that is where the staffer finds them, two minutes later, standing in Yvette’s office kissing, their arms around each other. If their cheeks are wet, if their kiss is fierce, the staffer doesn’t notice, for he is hysterically yelping about heart attacks and strokes and ambulances.
They break apart and listen to him, then link their hands and begin the next part of their adventure together.
They run.
~//~
Tags:
- british politics,
- content: explicit sex (femslash),
- doctor who,
- fic,
- genre: action,
- genre: drama,
- genre: fantasy,
- genre: fluff,
- genre: gen,
- genre: romance,
- length: 01-05k,
- pairing: cooper/balls,
- pairing: river/eleven,
- person: ed balls,
- person: eleven,
- person: river song,
- person: yvette cooper,
- rating: nc-17,
- theme: first time,
- theme: one-night stand,
- theme: open marriages,
- theme: powerful women
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:26 pm (UTC)