Day 12
After a week or so of badgering the locals, the clerks, everyone that even listen to them rant about house listings they had finally set up to actually look at one. And as soon as they both stepped inside they knew they didn't want to look at a single other.
It was perfect. It was a light blue on the outside, not quite matching the Tardis but granted everything couldn't be that blue. Especially since the inside of the house alternated walls with dark blue and white. The kitchen was small, as neither of them did a lot of cooking. But the bedrooms were large. There were three.
River made a joke about kids, but the Doctor seemed very serious about the subject. River then mumbled about turning one into a library or something. The whole thing went by rather quickly, and by the end of the twentieth day, they had a house.
Day 26
The Doctor didn't enjoy shopping. He liked his choices, don't get him wrong, he loved being able to choose things like what shirt to wear or what breakfast to have, but he didn't necessarily always like making choices. Sometimes he wanted a big green arrow to just point to what he should pick.
So no wonder furniture shopping with River seemed so difficult. The first thing they were searching for was a bed. Not that either of them slept much, but when they did use it for other things, let's just say it wasn't something they would just pick out later. And the next was books.
The house came with an empty room that the last had been using as a storage room, but since both of them hadn't been the kind to keep a lot of useless stuff around, they decided to use it as a library. Shopping for books was fun though. For the both of them.
They both got to reaffirm the information they already knew about each other, but there was that little bit that they didn't know. The fact that the Doctor really wanted to own a copy of Death of a Salesman, and A Streetcar Named Desire, made her turn her head in question. Like why exactly would her husband want their library to look like the bottom of an eleventh grader's locker.
"Don't you just love tragic heroes." He said shaking his head back and forth, admiring the current copy of Catcher in the Rye in his hands. She turned her head slightly to smile at him, of course she did.
"I'm married to one." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, letting her hand sit longer on his face that her lips did, before turning to pick up an unsurprising romance novel from the shelves. He chuckles at the comment, a hollow one though, as he runs his hands over the cover before picking up A Separate Piece.
The woman at the checkout inquires about their large stack of books in the cart, calling it the biggest pile she'd seen since the end of school year burning in town square. The Doctor made a sound of offense at even the thought, but River pushed him further to the end of the line, small talking the woman.
"Oh you know, two travelers finally decided to settle down, so we wanted to keep the adventures going." River said, looking fondly in the Doctor's direction as he seemed to be distracted by a kids toy. The woman followed her eyes and chuckled a bit at the sight. The Doctor turned back, he had found a pair of slinky sunglasses.
"What do you think, love, better than the sonic ones?" The Doctor asked before River burst out laughing. He insisted on carry the most bags possible with the most childish grin on his face as she had paid for the children's toy, full to her hair with amusement at her husband.
They dropped the bags off at their new home, before setting back out to town. The little blue house was only about a five minute walk from the center of town. Cars, nor bicycles seemed necessary, but if they wanted the Doctor still had his old motorcycle.
"So, furniture next?" River asked with a smirk.
"We've just bought a bed and a bed full of books. What else do we need?" He said, raising one of his deadly eyebrows as if a child begging not to go to the dentist.
"Oh please. Picking out a couple of chairs and a table won't kill you." River rolled her eyes fondly, but the Doctor shook his head defiantly.
"You don't know that. What if it tried to, the sonic still doesn't do wood." The Doctor said, knowing very well his wife was going to get him to go into the furniture shop whether he liked it or not, but it would be a fault of his dignity if he didn't at least try to protest.
Sure enough, by the end of the day, they had all the furniture they could ever need. A telly with a stand, a couch, a dinner table with two chairs, various shelves for various little things they both own, and a ton of hangers for the closet inside their bedroom. They dropped them all off at the home, the next week was set aside for assembling it all, while they stayed at the hotel. The Doctor turned to lock their house when the pair heard a voice.
"Are you the new neighbors?" A male's voice caused them to turn around. Facing them was a young man, who has darker blonde hair and a pair of thin plastic glasses, and he had on a thick leather jacket with a black shoulder bag across his body.
"Yes, we are." The Doctor smiled, reaching his hand out to take his wife's hand.
"Rachel, darling the new neighbors are here." He called in towards the house.
"Daddy's home!" A small screechy voice said. The Doctor leaned over the flower bushes that separated the two houses, and a white picket fence. A little boy, no more than two or three, ran out into the yard, in nothing but a pair of trousers, with a young woman following after him.
"Car, your son won't listen to me." The young woman said.
"Daddy!" The boy said, climbing up into the man's outstretched arms. The Doctor tugged on his wife's arm as if to ask to go inside but she shook her head.
"Floyd, are you torching your mother again?" The man asked.
"No." The boy shook his head defiantly but something about the absolutely exhausted look on the boy's mother's face told them otherwise. The woman walked up to the fence, and smiled at the Doctor.
"Hello my name is Rachel, this is my husband Douglas, and our son Floyd." She said, reaching her hand over the fence. The boy seemed shocked at this, and the man whispered something in his ear as if to calm him.
"I'm River and this is my husband Doctor." She said, shaking the woman's hand. Normally upon hearing his name people asked a certain question but neither of the adults seemed too bothered that he technically didn't have a first name.
"Doctor Who?" But apparently Floyd did.
"That's just it, isn't it?" The Doctor said smiling as he did whenever someone asked the very same question. Douglas patted his son's head, and after offering to help them settle in to their new home, the young family went inside.
The Doctor and River went back to their hotel, in silence, and once they got dressed down and into bed, the two finally started to discuss their day. Neither wanted to sleep much, so River laid out against his lap as he read over one of the books they'd purchased that day.
"So, love, what did you think of our new neighbors?" River asked out loud. The Doctor lifted his reading glasses up on top of his head, closing his book because he knew this was his wife's way to start talking about what she really wanted to.
"I think they're very young." The Doctor chose his words carefully, as he was about to say naïve, when in reality he didn't really know them all that well to judge that.
"How old do you think they are?" River asked, lifting her hands to play with her nails.
"In Earth years?" He asked and his wife hummed in response. "20 maybe."
"And they have a child already?" She asked, huffing. The Doctor ran his hand through her curls once, contemplating the idea of children with River. Maybe they'd look like her, maybe they'd look like him. Maybe they'd have a sense of adventure, be a little bit stubborn, oh the possibilities of it.
"Have you ever thought about children?" The Doctor asked, unsure of what he wanted her response to be. Yes I have thought of children, or yes but not with you, or no it's never came to mind.
"Are you asking me whether I've thought about having children or having children with you?" She asked, looking up at him as if the matter they were talking about were as simple as what to have for breakfast this morning. He nodded, not really a response but she took it as both.
"Yes." She replied.