A/N: I've been loving the Thirteenth Doctor's difficulty with names, and it set me to thinking how a certain scene from the classic show would have gone with a different Doctor. Before you lies the result.
Of course she'd been warned about the Doctor. When she'd received the assignment from the Lord President, she had done her research. Everything she had read about the Doctor suggested they would be eccentric and undisciplined, but she had expected a basic ability to concentrate.
Right now the Doctor had her face turned skyward, her eyes shut tight and her tongue sticking out to catch the falling snowflakes. Then she closed her mouth and made smacking noises. "It's all right. We shouldn't get more than an inch of accumulation."
She refused to give the Doctor the satisfaction of asking her how she could tell the size of a snowfall by tasting the flakes. Or for that matter, what an "inch" was. "If we could get on with looking for the first segment…" she began.
The Doctor whirled round and looked at her. "There is one more thing." She furrowed her brow. "What was your name again?"
"Romanadvoratrelundar," she said impatiently.
"…Right. It's too long."
"It's what?"
"Too long," the Doctor repeated. "By the time I've called out 'Look out …'" Her mouth hung open and a slight pleading look came into her eyes as she left the sentence unfinished.
"Romanadvoratrelundar," she repeated with a sigh.
The Doctor snapped her fingers. "That's the one. By the time I call all that out, you could be dead. How about I call you 'Romana?'"
"I don't like 'Romana.'"
The Doctor seemed momentarily baffled by this response. "It's either Romana or – " Her face screwed up in concentration for several seconds. " – or Fred?" she offered tentatively.
"All right. Call me 'Fred,'" she said.
For the first time since they met, the Doctor's face blossomed in a broad grin filled with genuine warmth and pleasure. "All right, then. Come on, Fred." She turned on her heal and started off through the stone arch into the city.
Shaking her head, a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, Fred set off after her.