timedaughter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timedaughter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nysalogs2018-11-11 01:51 pm
timedaughter) wrote in nysalogs2018-11-11 01:51 pm
Entry tags:
It doesn't have to make sense, it's sci-fi
Who: Jenny (timedaughter) & River (retrorsum)
What: River attempts to come clean (maybe) while Jenny succeeds in being clever, whether or not any of it works out.
When: Continuing from this inbox thread.
Where: The stasis pods
Warning(s): n/a
[To any average person, the pile of wires and metal that Jenny tumbles onto the ground would look like nothing more than scrap. The fact that River can make such quick sense of the small start she's made of it is delightfully telling. It's not often than Jenny finds someone who can keep up with her.
She huffs good-naturedly.]
That's an understatement! I haven't even managed to tweak this bit [she points at a metal thingamabob that has a proper name, but not one Jenny knows or cares about; it's what it does that's important] to calibrate properly with bio-data rather than... well, it's meant to scan text, actually. It should work once I upload my DNA sequence, but I haven't been able to find a way to actually do that. Adding any data not already converted to text form is beyond the silly thing. [it's a receipt scanner, Jenny, of course that's all it can do] Which means converting a specific part of my DNA to GATC and scanning it all at once, then using the tracker. [she points to another bit, equally unimpressive] Which... yes, the parameters are way off, but it still needs to be calibrated.
timedaughter) & River (retrorsum) What: River attempts to come clean (maybe) while Jenny succeeds in being clever, whether or not any of it works out.
When: Continuing from this inbox thread.
Where: The stasis pods
Warning(s): n/a
[To any average person, the pile of wires and metal that Jenny tumbles onto the ground would look like nothing more than scrap. The fact that River can make such quick sense of the small start she's made of it is delightfully telling. It's not often than Jenny finds someone who can keep up with her.
She huffs good-naturedly.]
That's an understatement! I haven't even managed to tweak this bit [she points at a metal thingamabob that has a proper name, but not one Jenny knows or cares about; it's what it does that's important] to calibrate properly with bio-data rather than... well, it's meant to scan text, actually. It should work once I upload my DNA sequence, but I haven't been able to find a way to actually do that. Adding any data not already converted to text form is beyond the silly thing. [it's a receipt scanner, Jenny, of course that's all it can do] Which means converting a specific part of my DNA to GATC and scanning it all at once, then using the tracker. [she points to another bit, equally unimpressive] Which... yes, the parameters are way off, but it still needs to be calibrated.
no subject
On one hand, this is not a face her logical brain recognizes, something she'd been prepared for thanks to River's explanation. On the other, there is a very deeply ingrained instinct she hadn't previously been aware of that hits her full force -- the inexplicable and undeniable recognition of her father. It makes sense, she supposes, if Time Lords regenerate more or less consistently throughout their lives. How else would people recognize one another, if their physical appearance wasn't so much lesser than their presence?
Under other circumstances, would she even have noticed right away that her father had literally changed bodies? Had they stumbled into one another on the street, Jenny suspects she might have stupidly asked if he had changed his hair or something equally benign, before recognizing the regeneration for what it was.
And at the same time, there is a tickle of something inside her that tells her this is her father before Jenny was born, like some kind of paradox warning alarm. Does it matter here, if they are, as Jenny suspects, somewhere outside of normal time?]
He won't know me if he wakes up. He's too young.
[Outside of the disappointment and sad longing that takes her a little off guard, Jenny wonders if she ought to be afraid that she knows that information without having to ask. She's not.]
no subject
it breaks her hearts. river has met them all before, brief, meaningless glimpses, some in timelines that don't exist, but nothing lengthy. nothing like this, though river could never have expected this to occur.
her brain registers that jenny has said something but she doesn't respond, attention fixed on him, on his appearance, on the brief memory she has of him... on that silly scarf that truthfully she likes. her expression is sad, eyes closing for a few seconds before she pulls herself away from him, finally answering jenny )
He won't know me either.
( but, if they wanted to think of a plus side, at least they could console each other on that? )
no subject
There's something else. Come on Mum, let's go see.
[She tugs on the hand she's holding, already walking, still looking intently at the screen. River had in fact given away all that Jenny needed to know, without saying a word.]
no subject
if she weren't in the moment, letting her emotions claw their way through her hearts, river would have realised one important thing, the thing that the device is now telling them. his different lives. the doctor may all be the same man but these people had plucked them out of their timestreams -- why take him from this point when he'd lived a longer life (and lives)?
she lets jenny lead again, her brain slowly starting to catch up, starting to hope that perhaps the husband she knows is in another pod somewhere. river almost doesn't want to, not wanting to get hurt by the same disappointment twice, but wouldn't it be wonderful? )
no subject
She stops dead in front of a pod holding a very different version of the exact same Time Lord. She chokes on a breath, her hand tightening around River's.
...because it shouldn't be. This is dangerous, two of the same person from different points in time existing in the same point in time and potentially interacting. Something about it makes Jenny angry, even as she has completely different reasons to be upset about it.]
They shouldn't be able to do this...
no subject
jenny's right, they shouldn't be able to do this but at the same time-- )
He's crossed his own time stream before. ( encountered himself. river knew that he'd not been able to remember those events in clarity, it prevented the timeline from becoming altered, but at the same time... it had happened.
but that doesn't make this any better. it makes river angry too, the fire bursting through her shakes her sadness away. but then again... if they've seen two of him-- )
We need to boost the signal.
( she takes the scanner from her, using the sonic to try and refine what they're getting. this time multiple signals ping up at once )
no subject
...Sometimes...
...Every other Tuesday.
Plus, she can think of a few ways right off the top of her head to deal with crossing her own timestream safely. Well, relatively safely. For some definition of "safe." And to be fair, she doesn't know the circumstances around any of her father's little timeline indiscretions, and she really does trust he probably knows a thing or two more about it than she does anyway.
Shaking it off, she concentrates on being rather seriously pissed off that it may be something they all have to deal with again, and not because one of them miscalculated with a vortex manipulator. This is just blatant, irresponsible interference by a third party.
She watches intently as River works, her hearts sinking when the screen lights up with half a dozen more dots.
She looks up and meets River's eyes with an uncharacteristic seriousness.]
no subject
river squeezes jenny's hand, trying to offer some comfort to the girl, even if it is weak )
I had it scan for your DNA. Outside of you the only person it would be picking up would be him. ( and apparently every version of him that they'd gotten their hands on. river knew that she'd come back later, perhaps working on the scanner more to isolate some more of his signs to a specific version, but she wasn't going to drag jenny into that now. the girl didn't need it.
slowly river hands the scanner back to her, letting go of her hand to reach into her jacket. from it she removes her diary, something that really shouldn't fit into her inner jacket pocket but somehow has.
wordlessly she starts opening the pages, stopping at one before turning it around to jenny, pulling out a line of photographs )
This is your father -- every face that he's ever had.
( his past, the one that jenny knows, and the ones that river married )
no subject
She will, as always, make the most of it and seize fate by the throat.
Jenny looks at the photographs with some reverence, examining each one carefully. She knows that this must be a precious keepsake to River. But as Jenny looks at them, memorizing their features, she's struck by how unfamiliar they seem.]
It's weird. In these photographs, I only recognize Dad as I know him-- [she points to the picture of her father in his tenth regeneration] --but not any of the others. But when I look at him in person...
[She looks up at the pod, at a version of her father she's never met but knows perfectly well.]
I know it's him. It's like there's no difference at all, even though my rational mind knows there's a physical change. It's more obvious in the photos, somehow.
no subject
( whilst river is normally incredibly secretive about her diary, and won't let jenny actually read it, she leaves the pictures out longer than she usually would, letting jenny familiarise herself with them, to learn something more about her father.
and herself. river had had to work incredibly hard in her later years to prevent her husband from being able to realise who she was -- that he knew her (when he was younger), that she was part-time lord. though it had ended up backfiring on her -- somehow she hadn't recognised him. deep down river had, something about him had been so familiar but she hadn't believed that he could have another face. that belief, and perhaps the limitations of her psionic abilities, made that failing )
It's an intuitive sense. Your telepathic abilities allow you to be able to recognise him no matter how he looks.
( which is why it doesn't work with a photograph )
no subject
But River fills that hole rather neatly, to Jenny's delight. She wonders if it's at all the same for her father, but suspects her father's grief for his home is a much different beast.]
Makes sense. So much sense.
Now what? I don't see there's any use in tracking down every one of his regenerations.
[She looks at the screen, shaking her head.]
It looks like they probably have one of each, at a minimum.
no subject
river nods at jenny's assessment, believing her right that there's likely each of his regenerations here. there isn't use in tracking them down but river knows that she will -- to make sure she knows where he is, that he is always, always safe, and on the occasional time for sentimentality. just to see him, to hope. to remember herself )
But we know that he's here. ( just not which version of him that they may meet if and when he woke up.
she folds the pictures away, closing her diary but not yet putting it away. she wants to do something for jenny, something that river hopes will help. so far she's told her more about herself, about what being gallifreyan and time lord is, but there's something else that river keenly knows )
I could tell you about him. It won't be much, not like having him here, but it doesn't seem like you got to know him before.
no subject
Jenny has been on her own more or less from the get-go, and requires little from her father aside from, eventually, an enthusiastic hello I'm not dead and a happy exchange of adventures. A way to keep in touch. Maybe defeating an evil creature together. Familial love at its most basic and uncomplicated. She believes that he'd be proud of her so far and has never relied on his presence for that kind of reassurance. Although she's grown, she still mostly trusts in the broadest aspects of life as children do, with unwavering faith in their innate simplicity.
She trusts River to keep her father safe, because River loves him. Any baggage either of them might have is inconsequential in the face of that obvious devotion.
So Jenny won't come by to make sure her father's safe, or for sentimentality. She'll come by because she's curious, and because she's beginning to get the sense that his evolving fashion choices are pretty interesting. She definitely wants a better look at that scarf.]
Sounds brilliant. Want to go somewhere else we could pull up a chair?
no subject
( river would have taken them to the sort-of cafe that morrison had taken her, to eat and get a drink but this isn't a conversation that river wants to have in public. it isn't a secret, even if the finer details of her life are something that she'd rather keep private, but she can't help the almost secretive nature to herself, the urge to keep this conversation just between them.
old habits are hard to break. it's why, as river starts to lead them back towards the transport, that she decides to take jenny to the place that she'd been given. she doesn't particularly call it home, even her home on luna has taken effort for river to consider it that, but it's somewhere. it's private and mostly comfortable )
And perhaps you can tell me what happened to you after you left him.
( less the details of the adventure and more an effort to get to know the girl. for now river was all that jenny had and regardless of that this girl was someone in her life, someone that was (scarily) quickly feeling important. she needed to know her and later river would realise that she also had the need to make sure she was protected )
no subject
Love to! I can tell you all about how I met Noah too, even if that was a fairly recent development. Funny story, though. There was this toad person named Garundel-- insisted he was a salamander person, but he looked like a toad to me. A Urodelian. Anyway, I ran into him literally, as I was trying to avoid crashing into this moon--
[And she's off, well before they've even gotten to their destination. There's plenty enough to tell though, and plenty enough for River to talk about in return, and between them they can easily make a day of it. And then some.]