Manhattan Medicine

A/N: It's really just a one shot that came out of nowhere and I'm hoping will act as a temporary form of remedy towards those inflicted with post-Angels-Take-Manhattan-syndrome because the fandom needs to start getting its shit together now because, come Saturday, tumblr will be down for half the day AND IF WE CAN'T BLOG OUR FEELS THEN LORD KNOWS WHAT WE'LL END UP DOING WITH THEM – I fear for Moffat's well being.

Ahem.

Anyway, I haven't written a fanfiction in a long time and this is my first Doctor Who one and it was only written down in a couple hours so I apologize in advance for any crap stuff~ I'll most likely realize stupid mistakes by tomorrow morning and waste an entire school day fixing it.

Dancing

She found him sitting on the bottom of one of the many flights of stairs that entered the control room. He was hunched forward, tweed covered elbows on his knees, and hands threaded together in a position that both covered his mouth and allowed him to rest that chin on his thumbs. His glazed expression suggested to any average person that he was deep in thought. But she knew better. Oh, she knew so much better than to think he was just casually going over a solution for a national crisis on what ever planet. No. He was dwelling on the past events. Not just on what happened to her parents, but she would bet anything that he was going over this incredibly detailed list of how he had lost his previous companions and was blaming himself for every single one of them. In the back of her mind, a thought fluttered to life; suggesting that he had created this list a long time ago and would, in times of grief, routinely add a new section to it with a vivid, heart breaking image to match.

As quick as it formed, she shook the thought back down. This simply would not do. It was her job to take care of him when he was down, so she'll be damned if he was going to dwell himself decades, if not centuries, further into his guilt-ridden pool of sorrow and make the job more difficult for her. Even if the phase of grief was still raw and relatively fresh, experiencing moments of cheerfulness – no matter how quick or fleeting they were – would make it easier to recover later on. Besides, there were worst ways for her parents to left. Personally, she really could not think of much better ways-despite a few details, of course, like her being able to see them again or perhaps being able to have said a good bye to her fath-

Her breath hitched in her throat as she placed a hand on a nearby TARDIS wall, hoping the touch of something solid would help her head stop swimming in the sudden whiplash of grief. No. Nope. Uh uh. Not here. Not now. She was not going to make herself sad while in the process of hyping herself up to make the man across the room happy. She had already allowed herself a time of solitude to grieve and if it seemed like she required more, she would give herself more later on. But now was a time to be focused on him.

After mentally taking a deep breath and psychically explaining her plan to the TARDIS, to which she received an encouraging hum of approval, she made her way over to the man with a gentle smile on her face. Once in front of him, she reached down and took a soft but firm grip over his calloused hands. His response wasn't one of surprise, so he must've known she was there for a while now. Without moving his distant gaze, he squeezed her hands and sighed heavily.

Part of him did wonder exactly what she was thinking about when she was standing back there for so long, but he already had a general idea and how she took his hands only made him casually assume it was just her pondering over ways to comfort him. He kissed both her hands tenderly as both his hearts shattered at the thought of how strong she was. He knew what she had and will be put through and could not fathom the strength it took for her to continue to smile as regularly as she did. And then there was the additional emotional abuse he continued to put her through, despite how much she consistently showed her undying love for him.

A/N: Before you read any further, I highly suggest you start playing "Sing Sing Sing" by Benny Goodman in another tab or something because when I wrote the rest of this fic I was listening to that song purposefully and it really tends to help set the intended mood~

He made a mental note to figure out a way to get someone to punch him later and let out a heavy sigh. But it wasn't until one of his favorite songs started playing through out the whole of the TARDIS that he realized she had pulled him up into a standing position with her. He finally looked her in the face and felt the warmth of her smile begin to spread through him, starting from the tip of his toes and slowly but surely making its way up to his hearts.

When he realized that his mood was starting to improve, his inner child took control. He frowned at her because A-he was enjoying a perfectly good moment of sadness just previously, damn it and B- smiling in return meant that she would win. And he refused to let her win.

Such a cute little pout of resistance he had dawned. Even if it was resistance, it meant that his mood was improving because this immaturity was much better than stone cold grief. And she was all too familiar with how to deal with his child like behavior.

Her smile transformed from comforting to playful as she began to move her arms (and his, since she still kept a firm grip on his hands) in a type of goofy and silly way of dancing that would normally be expected from him, rather than her. This earned a roll of the eyes and a "tch" of resignation from him. Really? And he thought he was supposed to be the foolish one in the relationship.

But she knew he was not as much of a lost cause as he portrayed himself to be, even if his arms were just limp and only moved because of her, he could have just as easily locked them into position or even pull them away from her grip completely.

He resorted to just looking away from the contagious smile and in a whole other direction but he realized that his favorite part of the song was approaching. He risked a quick glance and witnessed, with a look of horror, her doing some type of lazy, self twirl with her eyes closed, now more seemingly focused on enjoying herself. Her still consistent hold on his hands during this move was what made it physically awkward. This caused him to frown. He had always had his own personal and favorite way of dancing to his favorite part. What made the scene so horrifying to him was that she was obviously trying to imitate this dance of his and she was just. Not. Doing it. Right.

But his feelings of agitation were quickly and unwillingly pushed aside when he noticed exactly how close this woman was dancing next to him. Such a small proximity caused him to also take notice of exactly how the folds of her dress – which were strangely more 1920's era than he usually expected from her – would shift and change along her shoulders, which led him to examine them along her arms, then to those on her hips, and now his gaze was being led towards the rest of her curves and what the bloody hell was that.

Why was there a holographic couple swing dancing in his TARDIS? His head then snapped towards another pair that just appeared. And then towards another two that decided to join in on this sudden soirée.

Before he knew it, the two of them were surround by their 1920's, holographic counter-parts. Sometime between him snapping his head about in every other direction at each new addition, he heard her let out a small laugh of approval. When it dawned on him, he narrowed his eyes at her.

Oh, he should have known. This woman was in cahoots with his own bloody spaceship! He'd bet that the two even planned out this song suddenly playing, because, even though he was distracted, he knew that she had not moved away from him to press the play button on the control panel.

He scoffed as one of the couples performed a move complex enough that they "unintentionally" swung so close to them so that some blurred part of their anatomy passed through his shoulders. It was her turn to roll her eyes, this time. Oh, please. Like he wasn't enjoying himself only moments ago. Of course, that was for different reasons entirely but still. She smirked to herself; as if she had no idea of how he was previously looking at her like she was Christmas diner. But her smirk soon faded away as she noticed his expression had gone from immature to serious.

Her little eye roll was enough but then she had to smirk. Oh, what that simple little smirk of hers did to him... Out of the corner of his eye, though, he caught that same couple from before attempting and – even though he'd never admit it – succeeding at his own move amazingly. His gaze jerked back to her.

At first she thought she had over done it. She thought he was going to start lecturing her on disrupting his thoughts with such ridiculous things. But his expression had changed into something different. This look she very well; and she responded with nothing more than a suggestive quirk of her eyebrow.

He was done. Her smirk from before was last straw. However, that was until that pompous couple over yonder did his move. This was his ship, damn it, and he was not going to be pushed around by her or shown up by some snooty and quite literally glitchy couple who thought they were better than him at dancing, even though they were most likely his own ship taking a jab at him.

So, with a look of stone cold determination, he straightened up, relinquished one his hands and twirled her about and around and then back into him; one hand still holding one of hers and the other briefly placed along the back of her waist. And he continued to use that remaining hand grip between them to keep them connected while they sling-shot their way across the floor. Once he had acquired the desired attention, he focused solely on his dance partner as they spun and twisted and jumped and used each others momentum to lift the other into the air before he finally landed his move with sheer perfection.

He looked over towards the other pair only to find that they were still dancing as they were before, inattentive to him and therefore unable to be jealous of his amazing dance moves because they were still computer programs and held no emotion other than the ones designated and so he was really dancing to impress a computer oh yeah whoops.

The sound of laughter caused him to glance towards his partner. River held a huge grin on her face that was letting a small giggle slip out here and there. He smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows at her, wondering what was so amusing. This only caused her to burst into more giggles as she was reminded of how he hardly had any eyebrows in the first place. When he gave her a more innocent look of questioning this time, she just shook her head, grabbed his other hand and started leading him into another dance. However, this time it was less choreographed and professional – much like her original attempts to get him to cheer up.

Once the Doctor finally resolved that this – whatever this was – was actually rather fun, his face grew to mirror hers with that innocent grin that made her heart feel like it was doing its own type of swing dance.

River was brought out of her lovesick thoughts when he placed a random top hat on her head, which he apparently plucked from a coat rack as they danced passed it. The hat was too big for her and slumped over her forehead – the only place not consumed with her intense curls – but it was the Doctor's amused and childish smile at her that caused her to start giggling once more. She had no idea why he had done that or why it was so funny to her, but River only chose to continue doing what ever it was she had ended up doing with this man.

At some various points, the two actually performed professional swing dancing moves. But this stopped after the TARDIS got tired of choreographing several pairs of dancers – even though the two time travelers had yet to even realize they were alone again. Eventually, she did but chose not to bring it up as he was in such a joyous mood that she didn't want to risk ruining it for him. So, instead, the Doctor continued about twirling and spinning his wife in their uncoordinated but care free dance around the control panel, as if he was setting them off onto another adventure.

A/N: That was such a crack fic oh my god.

Anyway, wow where the hell did that fic even come from I mean it was originally just a 325 worded headcanon/rant of fluffy cuteness that I shared with a friend but then I realized writing it was causing my emotions to not kick my ass so much and then I tried to turn it into a fic and then this and now rambling and wow Alissa shut up no one cares.

So, there's most likely going to be another chapter but it will contain the original, shorter version of this that is more fluffy and doesn't have the Doctor getting himself into dance battles but there's still dancing and WOW I FORGOT DIALOGUE WAY TO GO.

Also, I just think that Eleven and River/Matt and Alex would be such badasses as swing dancing. Ten would be too since he's so damn skinny.

P.S.S.S.S.S.S there's a metaphorical reason as to why I didn't write out their names until the end and notice how they never stopped holding hands #it'ssofluffyimgonnadie

IF YOU'RE CURIOUS ABOUT RIVER AND THE DOCTOR'S FLY AS HELL DANCE MOVES THAT I WAS UNABLE TO TRULLY DESCRIBE IN WORDS:

/watch?v=myJj0mNNe1Y place this after the youtube url and skip to 1:26 to see the couple I based it on.

Because you can't get any more badass when it comes to swing dancing.