I'm so sorry for the slow update! I hope that this chapter makes up for my horrible slowness, and I should have another one up soon.
"So-um-would you like me to go?" Matt asked. " 'Cause if you would, I will, and if you don't want me to, I'll stay, I just don't want to overstay my welcome or-"
"You can go now, if you like," River replied. "This-this was nice. I'm looking forward to Thursday."
"Are you quite sure that you don't want to jump off a building again?" Matt asked with a grin. "I don't mind catching you."
River laughed softly, and opened the door for him, but just before she closed it she said ever so softly, "This may seem a bit silly, Matt, but I had a strange feeling that you were going to be there to catch me."
Matt stood in the hallway for about five minutes until he remembered that he should probably get back to his house.
"You've got this silly little grin on your face," Clara commented, looking up from where she was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "Anything interesting happen?"
"The thing with the buildings and the frappucinos and Jammie Dodgers and Yowzah she looks good in black," Matt mumbled indistinctly. "Also she said that she trusted me. Not directly, but still. She trusted me."
Clara giggled. "Sorry, what?"
Matt blinked. "Nothing. Never mind."
Clara smirked a bit. "It's some girl you met, isn't it?" she asked in her All-Knowing-Voice that irritated the hell out of Matt. She'd invented it when he was eight and she was four and she had decided that the sky was blue because it had been painted that way. Nothing that Matt could say (including citing sources from numerous science textbooks) could convince her otherwise. And then, as if to rub salt into the wound, little Rose had informed her that the sky was blue because it just was, and Clara had decided that that was the reason. Matt had sulked.
"Not quite," Matt replied dreamily. "Clara, can you distract me? I need to do something productive, and if I'm in a haze-"
"Ooh!" Clara clapped her hands together. "Check your email!"
"…email?"
"Yes email, the one I set up for you last month! Amy even got her sister to send you a 'Hey, welcome to the modern world' email, and I got all our friends to write you a little something too. You don't even have a Facebook, Matt, so go and check your email. That should keep you occupied."
"Right. Email. Cool! Thanks." Matt gave his sister a slightly less spacey smile and hurried over to his laptop, which was lying on the coffee table. He knelt down awkwardly next to it, opened it up, went to his email-
"Claraaa?"
"Yeah?" Clara called from the kitchen.
"What's the username?" Matt shouted reluctantly.
"BowtiedGiraffe."
"Wha-Hey!"
"Oh, don't be like that, you can change it if you want!" Clara laughed.
Matt typed in BowtiedGiraffe and glared at the screen-
"Claraaa?"
"Yeah?" Now she sounded a trifle annoyed.
"…what's the password?"
"Bowtiesarentcool, no capitals, no apostrophe, no spaces."
"Yes they are! You're just doing this to annoy me."
"No, I'm doing this so that you'll stop telling me about technology that should exist and start using the technology that we normal humans have."
"Fine," Matt grumbled, typing in his password.
He ignored the new emails, instead changing his username to bowtiesarecool and his password to YestheyareClarashutup before deciding that that was too long and changing it to River. Not because she was really special, just because he figured that it would be a hard password to guess.
And also because when he typed her name and saw it there it made him think of her.
(Oh dear I have it bad.)
He clicked on the month-old emails one by one. There was a silly little note from rosieposie first, and attached pictures of her and John in Venezuela. John was wearing an enormous floppy hat with a pink ribbon and looking extremely disgruntled.
Then there was one from itotallyinventedthebananadaiquiri (Matt made a mental note to ask John about his username) telling him not to look at any of Rose's attached pictures and explaining that he'd lost a bet. Matt had to laugh softly at this.
A short "hi" from toosexyformyshirt (here Matt had to roll his eyes), who had never really liked email, mostly because according to him "it made seduction one hell of a lot harder."
A long story from supertemp about how she was writing this right after yoga class and she'd nearly spilled her mango smoothie on a really pretty paisley dress that she'd been wearing and she was going on another date with Shaun tonight-maybe he might finally pop the question? This made Matt smile broadly, because about a month ago Shaun had popped the question to Donna.
A note from rorywilliams saying that he thought Matt might like to see some of the pictures from one of their trips. They'd all gone to Hollywood, Rory and Amy and Clara and him, and a lot of the pictures consisted of him wearing flashy sunglasses, Amy wearing those short skirts that Rory got distracted by, and Clara looking rather amused at all of them. There was one Amy had snapped of him walking into a pole. Matt decided to stop looking after that.
A bit of a rant from ameliapond about how he really should have gotten email earlier because she had lots of links to send him. Then one from her with lots of links. What a surprise.
A bored "hello" from oswin. (Oswald for the Win; something that Clara had come up with when she was twelve.) Matt wasn't quite surprised; Clara did see him every day. What could she really say in an email?
The last email made Matt pause, because he didn't recognize the username. "pondm"?
He clicked it hesitantly.
Hello.
I'm not one to write emails to people I don't know, but apparently you've recently joined the modern world. It doesn't particularly matter whether or not you do read this, because I have no intention of meeting you. Amy's been pushing me to meet you for ages. If I met you and liked you and fell in love with you (as she is so adamant about making happen) then she would be right, which I'm reluctant of allowing.
Seeing as we've never met, I feel I should introduce myself. My name is Melody Pond, and I'm Amy's little sister. As I mentioned, Amy's been trying to get me to agree to meet you, but I never have, mostly because-well, if you want the real reason, you're going to be sadly disappointed, because the only person who knows that reason is Amy-suffice it to say that I'm a bit antisocial and leave it at that.
Anyway…welcome to the modern world! Yay! God, I hate the word "yay", it makes one sound like a fifteen-year-old girl with a gift card to some designer store, but Amy wanted me to put something of the sort into the email. It was that or "woohoo!" so you take your pick.
What else can I put in here, seeing as you probably want an interesting email? Oh yes. I'm the "clever Pond" if you haven't heard of me, the one with the reputation of being a good little genius, and it's really very boring, because as Amy's the flirty party girl I should by rights be the one who's not. It's what my family expects of me. Not my parents, but my extended family… I really shouldn't be writing any of this, much less sending it to you, but seeing as all I know of you is your username (BowtiedGiraffe? I can tell that you didn't set it up yourself. At least I hope you didn't.), you seem less like a real person and more like a cyberghost of the internet.
Drop me a note if you get this and you aren't a cyberghost. Or don't. I don't mind either way.
Sincerely,
Melody Pond
(Interested in archaeology. Amy mentioned that you don't much like archaeologists, so I'll put that in and see if that hinders your response time.)
Matt was intrigued. Melody Pond? Amy had mentioned her in passing a few times, but he'd never actually met her. Now he thought he saw why. And from what he read in her email, he liked her.
He typed up a response.
Hello.
Sorry that it took me so long to write you back, I only just got onto email. I'm a month late, I know, but stuff happened that I don't care to share with a practically-a-stranger. You seem nice, though.
My name's Matt Smith, actually, not just BowtiedGiraffe. I blame my sister Clara for that awful username. I'm BowtiesAreCool now, because they are, and suspenders too. Don't you dare tell me otherwise. I wear them every day. Clara says I look like a uni professor, but Clara doesn't know anything at all. Sisters…
I'm horrifyingly romantic (taking my one-night stand out on multiple dates, everyone says that I'm ridiculous but she's really quite amazing) and I hope that doesn't bother you. I swear I won't make any moves on you if I meet you, though, mostly because I fancy said one-night stand who is hopefully going to become more.
Also, I don't like the word "yay" either. Could that be considered as something we have in common?
I hope you'll write back.
Sincerely,
Doctor Matt Smith
(Of everything but archaeology. Amy's right. I'm sorry, but I much prefer time travel over archaeology. And don't tell me that it doesn't exist because IT WILL.)
Matt hit Send and surfed the internet for a few hours, bookmarking some available jobs (including a job at a university) before clicking back to his email and seeing if Melody had sent anything. By this time Clara had left for a date with some new teacher she'd met at her workplace, and he was alone in the flat. It was boring.
Melody had responded two minutes ago.
Hello.
I'd nearly forgotten about writing to you. To be honest, I'd thought that you didn't exist.
You fancy your one-night stand? What's she like?
Melody
The strangely concise email didn't quite fit with the other one. Matt checked both of them, then responded with a bit of bewilderment. Why would Melody care about River?
Hello again.
Her name's River Song and she's utterly wonderful-not just because she's beautiful, but because she's an excellent conversationalist, a good listener, and extremely fun to be around. Also she's a bit mad, which I like. Love a bad girl, me, but don't tell her that if you run into her.
Why the sudden interest in her?
Matt (are we dispensing with formalities?)
She wrote back with another quick email in five minutes.
Hello.
I just found it curious that you would go out with your one-night stand. Isn't the point of a one-night stand that it's one night? (Matt let out an indignant huff at this. Honestly, did everyone have to tell him that? He knew about stuff like that; he wasn't five! …Okay, so he did have a Christmas list and an interest in toys and at times a short attention span, but still.) Still, it's endearing and intriguing, so I'll continue writing to you.
I know I'm rather standoffish, but the truth of the matter is that the people in this world are generally all the same. It's rather a rarity to find someone interesting and sweet and kind who's willing to put up with all sorts of nonsense-and I'm a bit of a nonsensical person at times.
Melody
Matt rolled his eyes and instant messaged her instead.
That's not true. Most people are different from each other. The people who are all the same are the ones who think that people are all the same.
Her response was surprisingly prompt. He wondered if she'd been waiting for him to write back.
All right, I'll concede ungracefully to that one.
So what are you like, Melody Pond? Matt typed. All I've got to go on is that you're into archaeology and that you're a clever goody-two-shoes. According to you, anyway.
I resent the goody-two-shoes bit. I'm not exactly a goody-two-shoes all the time.
I don't know anyone who's a goody-two-shoes all the time.
Yes, but with me it's a bit more complex.
Oh, so everything is more complex with you than it is with the rest of the world? You seem to be putting yourself a bit higher than most of us.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.
Matt felt a little bit guilty at that. It's fine. I think that emails and instant messages and texts should have a little note saying what tone of voice they were sent in.
Ha! Exactly. That would save me about two hours of agonizing over what the other person thinks of me…So you were joking when you typed that?
I could have put a smiley face in, but they're sort of overused nowadays.
You sound like my granddad. "In my day, we didn't have these newfangled electric toilets!" Or something like that.
Are there actually electric toilets?
Not the point.
No, no, really! Are there actually electric toilets? That would be so cool.
"Matt?"
Matt jumped. Clara was staring at his screen and looking half-puzzled and half-amused.
Yes, there are. Some electric toilets, I think in Japan. I really love Google.
"Can this wait?" Matt asked. Clara nodded amusedly, retreating back into her bedroom (had she left the kitchen? He hadn't noticed.)
I know! I remember being a kid and my mum telling me "You'd better go research it Matt" and I always did, and it was always fun.
Researching and fun in the same sentence? Now I'm certain I like you.
Anyway, it's so much easier with Google, even if I like books better.
Books are lovely. I could spend the rest of my life in a library. Have you ever smelled that book smell? It's lovely.
I know what you mean.
Oh! Sorry, sweetie, I have to get off the computer-Amy wants to see if she can find an available church to get married in.
Maybe we can chat again sometime?
I hope so.
Something nagged at the back of Matt's mind, something that bothered him all through his dinner, something more than failed job-hunting (which one didn't normally do during the summer, but seeing as during the school year it might be a bit more difficult and Matt really wanted to be a teacher), something puzzling.
It only occurred to him when he was falling asleep exactly what that something was.
Sweetie?
Next chapter: Rose and John run into some unexpected shipmates.
-The Eclectic Bookworm
