AN: Onwards, said the rabbit. ;)
Enjoy
Of provocative behaviour and interstellar interrogation
In which the 24th doctor is send to interrogate River about her involvement in an uprising of the fifth regiment of al'Dastas.
Chumming with the Judoon and acting as their law-enforcing errand Time Boy would probably be among the stranger things the Doctor had ever done. It might even be among the things he would never do, if one applied logic to it but when have logic ever done anything good – to anyone? - certainly not to the illogical. But then again logic and illogic never really got along; a blood feud dating back all the way to the days of common sense and independent sense who never really got along either.
By why is the Doctor clapping his matey-Judoon on the back and sharing his infamous jokes about the lizard, wizard and dandelion when obviously that would be something fairly far-fetched and rather irksome, you ask? I am not entirely sure myself but it has something to do with either a drunken wager gone horribly wrong or a sort of community service for the countless intergalactic offenses the Doctor seems to have collected over the years. The latter seems the most plausible doesn't it? The Shadow Proclamation do deem his rogue semantics and infatuation with saving the universe as outrageously over-eager and downright unlawful. Actually – if one thinks about it the most far-fetched thing about the whole story is that they never managed to submit him to their division before now.
As absurdly as it seems though and even the Doctor seems to think so, he is indisputably the not-so-proud owner of a job – and the reason for his chumminess with the Judoon is really just a by-product of proof-reading countless stacks of protocol reports. You wouldn't believe the absurd punctuation errors the Judoon is capable of and the grammar – why it is mindboggling wrong. But then again the Judoon have gone to great lengths to disguise the fact that they're suffering from a severe case of sunny-side-up-dyslexia – it's one of those secret wonders of the universe. Consequently if you ever need to confuse a Judoon long enough to make a hasty escape, simply ask for the genitive form of rha'calibeaucaflorfex – it gets them every time.
Now, courtesy of the Wi'tri who is rather like the flipside of their cousin tribe the Tri'wi, the whole battalion of Judoon-soldiers was called away on a peace-mission and that left the Doctor holding down the forts – so to speak. And it was this contributory warmongering Wi'tri event that lead to an altogether different one – of course the first event was caused by an altogether different thing as well. In the end the product of everything squared equalled the Doctor opening the door into interrogation room trillion.2 ready to commence his ruthless persona as interrogator and extract information about the recent rally demonstration of the fifth regiment of al'Dastas.
Unfortunately or fortunately dependent on the perspective, the Doctor found himself once again in the company of his favourite troublesome-misdemeanoring-sometime-lover-sometime-stranger; River Song.
"Miss Song"
As if destiny had sneaked a preview of what was to come and begged kismet to do her a favour, fate would have it that River was once again in handcuffs tied to the metal table in the middle of the interrogation room, a choker around her neck connecting her to the metal chair and making escape impossible. Though most likely it was the doing of a future Doctor who'd always had a fetish for handcuffs and chokers but never mind that, it's rather inconsequential to this story and involves a rather long story about sciency-stuff.
"Tsk, tsk – caught inflicting violence on the chapel of the sacred"
"I plead the fifth"
This was a phrase the Doctor was incredible familiar with seeing as a future River always uttered these words to his younger self whenever something troublesome or irksome came up in conversation – such as why the Doctor found River Song underlined as 'dangerous' in the achieves of DRushi or why she was highlighted as 'explosive' in dalekian records.
"On what grounds"
"On the chapel's sacred grounds"
"Ah – that is a very obsolete parley – it was deleted in the 51th century"
"Exactly"
"Whatever do you mean 'exactly'?"
"It's still in effect. It won't actually be deleted until next month"
This seemed to be an occurring theme in the Doctor's life; losing track of time and events and never getting them in the correct order. Something which proves a quite bothersome factor when one is supposed to be a Lord of Time but you would be astounded by the many inaccuracies of the universe, let alone the universe in all the possible timeframes of its existence so it's really no small wonder a Time Lord sometimes thinks it's the Novembian month when its actually the month presiding it.
"Then I shall just have to expunge the sacred grounds plead a month earlier"
"Why that's a time crime!"
"So – sue me"
And the Doctor managed to vex the young troublesome River and rewrite time all in a manner of seconds. Now do not fret – it actually happens quite frequently what with the time streams being in an irrevocably schizophrenic mindset about the nature of things in flux and those fixed. You see, time doesn't always know whether it's fixed or fluxed, whether when it's in flux if this is an influxed or an infixed flux. And time fixed just gets depressed after a while and decides to change the scenery.
"Then I plead the tenth"
"The scared grounds have nothing to do with primordial time-fizz"
"Prove it"
River what with being River was shamefully snarky and a little bit very obnoxious this young, and as the Doctor had come to learn it didn't really disappear or even falter the older she got. Like a fine wine it only got better with age – which in this allegory meant snarkiness was bound to happen no matter which age River happened to adorn or which time line she appeared in.
"Why, of all the flower-tower loving beings in the universe, why the al'Dastas?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Interrogating River was never really a special favourite of the Doctors, for he never seemed to get it right. The very temperament of almost every conversation with the illusive secretive woman always bore some resemblance to him interrogating her as he tried to figure out the nature of their relationship, and who the bloody time River Song was. If the Doctor had known just how bothersome the word 'spoiler' would become to him, he wouldn't have invented the damn thing in the first place. But, sneaky as was the Doctor's nature when he was in head wind, he figured young River was not accustomed to their verbal 'spoiler' foreplay. Younger River should from a logical and plausible standpoint be easy to manipulate. So the Doctor set out to manipulate – with teeth and claws.
"So, River – may I call you River – do you spend a lot of time on Dastas-shur?"
"No"
"No I may not call you River or no to not spending a lot of time on Dastas-shur?"
"No, I don't spend a lot of time on Dastas-shur"
Pause.
"How old are you, River?"
"I'd imagine that would be in your records."
"Yeah, well – computer's down"
The truth was that the Judoon safeguarded their records as if it were biohazard material and the Doctor had yet to figure out where it was situated let alone how to get past security. He was the meddlesome Time Lord and the Judoon only trusted him as far as they could throw him – which was incidentally one inch and three quarters.
"Electronics huh"
"Always the instigator – now how old are you?"
"Do you want Kastonian, Martian or old-fashioned Earthian years?"
"That depends – are you from Kastonia?"
"No"
"Then why would I want your age in Kastonian years?"
"Oh you know, some people have the weirdest sense of time"
"I know and worse yet, some people don't even recognize time"
"Oh the horror"
Sarcasm had always been River's forte and whenever in need of insulting his enemies the Doctor merely sent River along to infuriate them with her bark – which surprisingly never seemed to fail. But being on the receiving end of her snarky snark was quite disconcerting for the Doctor. He couldn't very well respond as he did to the older River whenever she became all feisty and snarky – that would most likely result in quite the opposite of what usually happened. The Doctor was quite right in his contemplation, you see, for amorous displays of affection never seemed to have the same effect when your companion wasn't clued in to the amorous aspect of a non-existing relationship.
"Yes, yes, we've established you're tongue in cheek – now how old?"
"Would you believe me if I told you I was so anciently old I've actually forgotten the number?"
"No"
"I'm so anciently old I've forgotten the exact number, pretty boy"
Yes, River was a force of nature. And nature aced interrogation 101.
"Right… River, how about telling me about the fifth regiment"
"I thought you would never ask"
"I'm asking"
"Yes"
"What"
"My answer is yes"
Of all the words in the entire history of the universe it was always yes that came back to haunt him.
"To everything? You plead guilty, you mean?"
"No"
Pause.
"River, have you ever been to Planet Theca Major?"
"No"
And that was really the start of River's troubles with the time-travelling alien who she would later on come to acknowledge as 'sweetie'. For the Doctor it was the end of his stint as errand Time Boy for the Shadow Proclamation or at least he assumed it was the end seeing as it was usually frowned upon when employees sneaked off with high-calibre prisoners.
-o-
=)