Here it is! My very first solely River/11 AU fic! There aren't enough of these on Fanfiction, in my opinion, so I decided to write one. I really like it so far, but I'm not sure if it's too early to tell...
"Mangled, ripped, coffee stains, mangled, acceptable, acceptable, cover missing. Next." River moved on to the next box of used books. "Acceptable, acceptable, remarkably good condition—"
Vastra groaned good-naturedly and took the box of books off of her friend's desk. "River, we need more used books than that. We shall lose a lot of business if we don't make the deadline, and we don't yet have enough money to order any more new books."
River laughed ruefully. "You're probably right. Can you go see if there are any customers who need helping?"
"That happens to be Jenny's job today," explained Vastra. "And Jenny's working the cash register at the same time, so I'm back here with you."
River grinned. "Lovely. Can I have my books back?"
"You can't be so meticulous, though, River," Vastra reprimanded gently, picking up the box and passing it to her with a little smile. "We need all the books that we can get."
River picked up a book. "Ripped, cover missing, ripped, acceptable—"
Vastra snorted. "You need to stop sorting books for a little while. Tell you what, I shall pick some of the romance novels you dismissed that are only slightly damaged, and you take a break and see if you can find a nice book to read—you could use a day off." She slid off of River's desk and took the catalogue back. "Have fun."
"Isn't it my job to assign the days off?" River teased lightly.
"Yes, but it's my job to tidy up the place, and now Strax is here, so he does that. I'll be taking his original job soon, but right now, Jenny's doing an excellent job of helping customers," said Vastra. "I can take over your job for a little bit; I feel like I should be doing something instead of sitting in the mystery section and reading detective novels."
"Fair enough," said River with a grin. "I could use a break. You're a darling, Vastra," she added with a little wink.
"Married!" Vastra reminded River with a laugh, pointedly waving her left hand so that her wedding ring glittered.
"Oh, like that's going to stop me," River teased, sashaying out of the small office and into the book shop.
Paternoster Books (seeing as the bookstore was located on Paternoster Row) was a fairly large bookstore, with an abundance of both used and new books. It was always very sunny, due to the horrendously bright colors that the previous owner had painted it with. River hated those colors, but Charlotte and Ella adored them. Then again, Charlotte, Josh, and Ella adored everything about Paternoster Books—it was a constant source of delight to Charlotte that her mother owned a bookshop. River could see her curled in a beanbag chair, reading a book to Josh and Ella. River made a silly face in her daughter's direction (she heard Josh giggle) before heading over to the cash register. "Jenny, any new finds for me?"
"I think there's some new YA lit that just came in, a couple sci-fi novels someone donated, and a really good horror story if that's the way you want to go," Jenny replied.
"Thanks," River said with a grin. "I'll just-"
"Mummy!" Josh barreled up to her, wrapping his arms around her knees. River had to grab the side of Jenny's desk to keep from falling over. "Ella says there's a monster in the books that eats you if you touch it!"
Jenny laughed wryly. "May have a bit of a crisis on your hands first."
River sighed, scooping her son into her arms. "How would Ella know that, Joshy, hmm?"
"She—she—I dunno!" Josh wailed. "Is there a monster in the books, Mummy?"
"Tell you what," said River, "if there is a monster, we'll fight it off together."
"I don't wanna," Josh snuffled.
"So I'll fight it for you, with Mum," said Charlotte, hurrying up to River's side and reaching up to take Josh's small hand in her own. "And you can hide behind the sofa. We'll protect you, right, Mum?"
"Of course," River replied, giving her daughter a grateful smile. Charlotte beamed proudly.
"Sorry, Mummy," came Ella's sheepish voice, and River turned awkwardly (after all, she was holding a seven-year-old boy in her arms) to frown at her younger daughter. "I didn't mean to scare him." At River's skeptical look, she said hotly, "I didn't!"
"You know Josh doesn't like monsters," River reprimanded softly. "Can you try and be a bit nicer?"
Ella shrugged grudgingly.
"Mum!" gasped Charlotte, who hadn't been paying attention to the conversation after her helpful contribution. "Mum, look!" Ella caught sight of whatever had Charlotte so excited as well, letting out a squeal, and River peered over Josh's head to see a man carrying boxes into the building across from them.
"Yes?" said River gently.
"They're boxes!" Charlotte squealed. "It's a new shop! There's a new shop across the street! And that shop's not had anything in it since before I was born, you said—Mum, we've got to go see it!"
River laughed softly. "Call me if anything comes up, okay, Jenny?"
"No problem," Jenny replied cheerfully.
She left the store and walked her kids across the not-that-busy Saturday afternoon street, Josh and Ella holding her hands while Charlotte sprinted ahead. Her daughter absolutely adored exploring places, a trait that River both possessed and approved of.
"Is the shop going to have any dolls?" Ella asked.
"Or cookies?" Josh added.
"Why would a shop have cookies? It doesn't look like a bakery," Charlotte called, turning neatly around as she ran, and running straight backwards into the man who'd been unpacking the moving van (thankfully, he wasn't holding anything). The man let out a startled yelp and fell over backward, Charlotte falling down to the side.
River gasped, pulling her children along as she ran to help Charlotte and the unfortunate young man she'd knocked over. "Charlotte!" she reprimanded sharply as soon as she reached the man's side. "Are you all right?" she added belatedly to the man. "I know my daughter is; she's like a cat. Nine lives and all."
Charlotte giggled, jumping up and brushing herself off.
"Yeah, yeah, fine, sorry!" said the man hastily, standing up and running a hand through his dark brown hair before squatting on his heels in front of River's children. "Just a bruise. Or two. Or ten. And that wasn't a joke, I fall down a lot, and I fell down the stairs this morning anyway, but I wasn't hurt. I landed on my sister. She wasn't hurt either!" he added hurriedly. "She's used to it. I'm a bit clumsy. Refreshing to have it not be my fault for once." Charlotte was grinning broadly, and when River glanced at Ella and Josh, she saw that they were smiling too. "Anyway," he concluded, "I'm Doctor John Oswald, but you can call me the Doctor. I hate the name John. And I'm guessing you saw me unpacking and dragged your poor mum over to check things out?"
"Pretty much," said Ella. "But Mummy likes new stores too."
"Does she?" said the Doctor delightedly, looking up at River and smiling broadly. She observed his bow tie with a small grin; it was extremely crooked from his fall. "Hello! Lovely to meet you."
River smiled warmly. On an impulse, she reached forward and straightened his bow tie. His smile widened slightly. "Pleasure," she said. "I'm River Song. These are my children, Josh, Ella, and Charlotte. Charlotte's the one who bowled you over, Ella's the one with the absolutely marvelous red hair, and Josh is the boy."
"No kidding," said Charlotte, rolling her eyes. "I'm fairly certain that he guessed that Josh was the boy."
"Well, you never know," said the Doctor with a grin. "I knew a horse named Susan once, and he was a boy, so you can never be too careful."
Ella and Charlotte both giggled, and Josh's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. "You know a horse?" he said in absolute awe. Josh adored horses. "A real horse?"
"Maybe he's not real at all," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "I'll have to ask him next time I see him. Goodness," he said suddenly, "where are my manners? Come in! A toy shop isn't a toy shop unless there are kids in it, in my opinion—I'm going to be opening a toy shop, in case you didn't know. D'you think, if I ask really nicely, your mum would let me steal her and her lovely children for a bit?"
Ella pondered the question with adorable seriousness before finally deciding, "Yes."
"Lovely!" said the Doctor with a grin, before turning back to River. "Mrs. Song?"
"Oh, it's just Miss, actually," said River. "I'm not—I've never been married."
To her surprise, the Doctor didn't question this. In fact, he didn't even seem fazed by it, which was to his credit; most people assumed that River was a divorced mother. "Miss Song, then," he said. "Would you and your children spare a few minutes to look in my toy shop?"
"Gladly," River replied. She rather liked this odd young man.
The building was a large one, much too large for a toy shop. It was painted a hideous shade of pink that looked like someone had vomited a strawberry smoothie onto the walls, and boxes were stacked neatly against a wall.
"Yeah, I'm against the color myself," said the Doctor with a little wince. "Apparently, whoever owned the building before me ran a lingerie store."
"Was that person color-blind?" said River with distaste. "The colors are absolutely disgusting."
"That person was a friend of mine," said the Doctor, "and she was very much color-blind. But don't tell her I said that," he whispered. Charlotte, Ella, and Josh all giggled. "Hang on," he said suspiciously, "did I just pick a random family off the street, or did you actually come to see the toy shop? You must find me really weird if I just picked you randomly; I swear this isn't a regular thing."
"I already think you're really weird," said Ella cheerfully, "but Mummy owns the bookshop across the street, and I saw you moving in."
"I did!" said Charlotte huffily. "I saw him first, I have dibs!"
"Dibs on what?" asked Josh.
"I…I dunno, but I've got dibs on it!" Charlotte said, leading her siblings over to the boxes on the other side of the room.
"You own Paternoster Books?" the Doctor asked River curiously. "That's brilliant! I'll have to drop by your bookshop some time. D'you have any good romance novels?"
River glanced over at Charlotte, Ella, and Josh to make sure that they weren't bored (they'd started playing with some of the stuffed animals sitting on top of the boxes) and replied, "I'm a bit of a harsh critic. I honestly prefer a good sci-fi novel."
"Actually," the Doctor confessed in a whisper, "me too. I just figured that romance novels are generally the most popular at bookstores, so you might be interested in those; you know, trying to carry on a conversation with a random woman I've never met."
River laughed. "Oh, I like a good romance, but I find them frustrating sometimes—they're so predictable. Do you read any romance novels?"
"Some," said the Doctor with a shrug, and then, "A few," and finally, "Voraciously."
River laughed again, the sort of laugh that caught one by surprise simply because one hadn't been thinking of laughing.
"Ooh, I own a toy store now," the Doctor said with a silly grin, glancing around the books. "I mean, I haven't ordered the toys yet; I've got to get moved in first. But still, this is absolutely wonderful."
"I know what you mean," said River softly. "First time I was unpacking books and shelving them, I couldn't stop smiling. I remember I'd just adopted Charlotte—she was in a papoose while I shelved, and she kept on knocking books out of my hands."
"So how long have you owned Paternoster Books?"
"Charlotte's nine now, so I've owned the bookshop for about the same time," River replied, smiling reminiscently.
"No offense," said the Doctor, cocking his head, "but you look a bit young to have owned a bookshop for nine years."
"You're too kind," River laughed. "The building belonged to my granddad. When he died, he left it to me. I was twenty-one, and I'd been off adventuring for a few years, so I came back and pulled together my bookshop with my parents. I adopted Charlotte that year as well, actually."
"Adventuring," the Doctor repeated with impressed incredulity.
"Mummy went all over!" said Josh excitedly, skipping over to the adults. "She went to Paris and Egypt and one of those places with the long names! Sometimes I go with her too. She's an ar-ky-oll-o-jist," he added, completely mangling the word in his meticulous attempt to get it right. "Doctor River Song."
"Archaeologist, love," said River with ill-disguised amusement.
"Yeah, that!" Josh agreed, missing River's little smile. "And she dug up dinosaur bones!"
"That's a paleontologist," said River. "An archaeologist is a bit different."
"Okay," replied Josh, and skipped back over to his sisters, who were tossing an unfortunate Beanie Baby across the room.
"How old are they?" the Doctor asked.
"Ella and Josh are twins," River replied. "They're both seven."
"They're amazing," he said with a soft little smile. "I love kids. Never had any myself. I'd sort of want someone to raise them with."
"I'm not one to wait around for true love," said River with a shrug. "They're all adopted. I've yet to find someone to spend the rest of my life with who they approve of."
"Who they—you take your kids seriously, don't you?" said the Doctor, sounding absolutely awestruck. "I love that. Too many people don't take kids seriously."
"It's why you own a toy shop?" River guessed.
"Too right, Doctor River Song!" said the Doctor enthusiastically. "Ooh, Doctor and Doctor—we should be a detective team or something. I worked at a primary school in London for five years, actually. Me and my sister, we're both teachers, but I got sick of watching all the parents pressure these little kids—barely six or seven—into getting good grades, so I decided that teaching wasn't for me."
River smiled. "I know what you mean. When I was in school, some of the girls in my class were pushed much too much by their parents. It's really dreadful; we were nine years old. I feel like they should have had some degree of freedom—"
"—but that doesn't mean that they should slack off either," the Doctor finished. "Find a happy medium."
"Exactly!" said River in absolute delight.
"Can we open one of the boxes, Mister Doctor John Oswald?" Josh asked, tugging at the Doctor's sleeve. "I wanna play with the toys."
River opened her mouth to say no, but the Doctor grinned broadly. "I don't see an issue," he said cheerfully. "Hey, I'll play with you too! I think there's one box with toys in it. Just one thing—" He leaned down and whispered into Josh's ear (in a whisper that was completely audible), "Can you promise not to tell anyone? I don't know if I'm supposed to open the boxes; we'll only open one, is that okay?" Josh grinned and nodded, running off to pick out one to open.
"Toys?" River repeated. "You said you hadn't ordered any toys."
"I haven't," said the Doctor, blushing slightly. "I brought my action figures with me."
She grinned. "I already like you," she said, and the Doctor's blush deepened.
"And then he took out the superheroes, and he had girl superheroes too!" Ella said excitedly, carefully pouring milk into the mixing bowl. "And we played crime fighters, and he was the bad guy, but we won. It was really fun, Gran! Maybe you should come with us sometime!"
Amy smiled warmly as she picked up the bowl and mixed the cookie batter. "I might just have to. This Doctor fellow sounds lovely, doesn't he, Melody?"
Amelia Pond, River's mother, continued to call her daughter "Melody" even after River had decided to change her name. She said that it was because she liked the name, and she'd been the one who'd given it, so she felt that she and Rory still had the right to use it. River didn't mind; the only reason that she'd changed her name was because she'd been going off to Egypt on her first archaeological dig and she wanted to do something monumental to commemorate the occasion.
"He's wonderful," said River cheerfully, taking the cookie tray out of one of her mother's upper cupboards. "Charlotte, can you cut some waxed paper for the tray?"
Charlotte grinned broadly and stood on her tiptoes to reach the roll of waxed paper. "What kind of cookies are we making, Gran?" she asked, taking out a pair of scissors from one of the kitchen drawers.
"I'm thinking chocolate chip," said Amy thoughtfully. "What say you, Joshy?"
"Can I have a chocolate chip?" Josh asked from his perch on the counter. "I like them. They're yummy. Not the cookie, the—the little bitty chocolate piece."
Amy glanced at River (who nodded her assent) and handed Josh a chocolate chip. The boy's eyes lit up and he popped it into his mouth, sucking on it with a patience that not many seven-year-olds possessed.
"What d'you say, love?" River reprimanded gently, taking the freshly cut sheet of waxed paper from Charlotte.
"Can I have another one?" Josh asked, the chocolate chip visible in his mouth as he spoke.
"Just the one," River told him, "and that isn't what you need to say. Gran just gave you something, what do you do?"
"I ask for more?" Josh said hesitantly.
Charlotte giggled and took out Amy's bucket of cookie cutters. Amy's cookie cutter collection had been around since River was growing up, and when River had adopted her children, she and Amy had started adding to it again. It had become a Pond family tradition to make cookies; Amy had made cookies herself with her mother when she was a little girl. "Can we make cookies for the Doctor next time?" she asked, pulling out a cutter in the shape of a heart and examining it carefully. She screwed up her face and tossed it back in, evidently deciding against it. "I bet he'd like cookies."
"Hang on," said River. "I need to see if Josh can figure out what he needs to say to Gran."
Josh bit his lip, evidently seriously mulling over the issue, and finally burst out, "Can I have another chocolate chip, please?"
"That's what you need to say after you say the thing you were supposed to say," River told him.
"Umm…umm…thank you for the chocolate chip, Gran…?" Josh tried hesitantly, looking extremely confused. River had a feeling that he had just thrown out a random guess; she'd probably confused him. This was unsurprising, as the sentence she'd spoken had confused her as well.
"There we go," said River in amusement. "Yes, you can have another chocolate chip, but remember to say thank you." Then she turned to Charlotte. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Charlotte. What sort of cookie do you think he would like?"
"Obviously we should make cookies that we like, Mummy, so we can eat them with him," said Josh sagely from where he was licking Amy's wooden spoon, swinging his legs so that his feet drummed against the cabinets. "He seems like he'd love to share his cookies."
"You can never tell with people, though," commented Ella, sorting through the bucket of cookie cutters. "Some people don't like sharing their cookies, but they're really nice about everything else. Ooh, Gran, a flower! That's a new one. Can I use it for the Doctor's cookie?"
"I don't get cookie cutters just to take up space, do I?" Amy teased. "Go ahead."
"The Doctor won't want a flower cookie!" said Charlotte, as if the very idea was absolutely ridiculous. "He's a boy."
"I would want a flower cookie," stated Josh through a mouthful of batter. River decided that he'd had enough and gently extricated the spoon from her son's sticky fingers.
"Yeah, but you're my brother, aren't you?" said Charlotte. "You aren't really a boy."
"So what is he, then?" Amy asked in amusement.
Charlotte furrowed her brow, and finally came up with, "He's a cyborg."
Josh grinned. "Cool! Can I shoot lasers from my eyes, Charlotte?"
Charlotte shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. If you can figure out how. Just as long as you don't burn up my Kindle Fire, you can do whatever you want."
River poured out the cookie batter onto the baking tray and picked a large star for her cookie cutter. She'd always liked stars, and when she was exploring the world (with her children, now; she didn't go anywhere without them) she had always brought a pocket telescope so that she could look up at the night sky.
"That looks delicious, Mummy," said Ella, peering over the top of the counter at River's cookie. "Can I have it?"
"What about me, hmm?" River gasped in mock indignation. "I won't have a cookie then!"
"I'll make you a cookie, then," Ella informed her proudly. "And it'll be the prettiest cookie in the world."
"I bet it will be," said River with a delighted smile. "What shape is it going to be?"
"How about an airplane?" Ella asked. "Or a cat?"
"Spaceship!" Josh suggested, holding up a cookie cutter in the shape of a UFO.
"I love spaceships, Ella," said River cheerfully. "Can you frost it for me after lunch? I bet Gran and I can make some frosting for the cookies while you're all eating your lunch."
"Can we watch cartoons?" Charlotte asked as Ella hastily cut her cookie.
"You know how to turn it on, right?" Amy replied. "Go crazy."
River lifted Josh off of the counter. "Wash your hands, okay?" she told him, and he nodded obediently. "There's lemonade on the dining room table," she informed Charlotte, "and your sandwiches are in my bag."
"Okay, Mum," Charlotte replied, exiting the kitchen. Josh and Ella trotted after her, the former licking his fingers to make sure he got all of the cookie dough before washing his hands. River had to smile.
As always, reviews are appreciated.
-The Eclectic Bookworm