Essay Delivery or How I First Met River Song

Disclaimer: I own Doctor Who… seriously, who am I kidding. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.

Nervously, Dave straightened his tie and stared at the beautifully carved oak door. Everyone who talked of Doctor Song seemed to be deeply impressed by her, intimidated, even. He'd been told she was a very attractive woman, but that was only a small part of why he was so worried.

It was not a miracle he had never seen her before in his life, though. She only dropped by occasionally, he wasn't even sure if she held a position at the University at all. Rumour had it she travelled the galaxies, others simply guessed she lived on a different planet. The wildest things he'd heard so far was that she was a time traveller and that she was actually in prison.

He raised a hand and knocked reluctantly.

"Come in," came a muffled voice from inside and he stepped into the office.

The room was lined with bookshelves bending under the weight of the heavy, leather-bound books they carried. The polished wooden floor looked just as expensive as the door had. He was rather surprised to find the desks deserted and it took him a while until he noticed the two people sitting on a huge sofa in the corner.

A young man with a badly cut mess of brown hair was reading one of the old books. He was wearing a bow tie and a pair of black-rimmed glasses. His long legs were outstretched, his jacket (for he doubted Doctor Song would wear a tweed jacket) hung over a nearby chair and he looked altogether very comfortable and at home.

On his lap sat who Dave guessed had to be River Song. One of her legs dangled from the couch.

The others had not been lying, she was attractive. A wild mane of blonde curls softened the mature impression she made on him, but the deeply cut neckline of her shirt made up for it in a lot of ways.

She looked a good bit older than the man, he might have even passed as her son, but the nature of their relationship was pretty obvious. One of her legs was stretched out possessively over his and her head leaned against his neck while she listened to him.

The man shoved his glasses up his nose and laughed about something she'd said. The glasses looked odd on him, they were too narrow for his face. Dave thought they looked like they belonged to someone else.

Doctor Song gave him a friendly smile, but Dave still felt like he was invading a private moment. He couldn't exactly tell why, they did not seem to be awfully occupied, but there was something about the way she leaned against the man's chest and made absolutely no attempt to put a bit of distance between them that made him feel almost as embarrassed as he would have had he caught them kissing.

"Er… Professor Lindner told me to bring you those," he nodded at the documents in his hand, "he said you should give them a read."

"Sure. What are they about?"

"Oh, they're just some student's essays, Doctor Song."

She grinned and sat up a bit. "Yours?"

Damn, he had sworn himself not to blush. "Amongst others, yes. Professor Lindner said I should add mine, but I study Engineering, so I don't really understand why..."

"Oh, I understand my fair share of that. Maybe he just didn't want to read them himself. Could you just put them on the desk?"

He did as he was told, then returned to standing around indecisively.

"What's your name? Just so I know which one's yours."

"Dave Sutton," he muttered and the man suddenly looked up from his book. He seemed to recognize him, but Dave had definitely never seen him before in his life. He also couldn't make anything of the look of regret the stranger gave him.

"I'll just… go then, shall I?" he asked finally.

"See you around, Dave. I'll look into it."

He muttered a thanks and retreated. Out of the corner of his eye he saw how she leaned back into the man's arms with a very satisfied smile.

Dave never met the stranger again and forgot all about him. But then, ten years later, once again in the company of River Song, who was now a Professor herself, he encountered someone called the Doctor.

And something about those reading glasses was oddly familiar.

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*A/N* Lately, I stumbled upon a couple of photos of Matt Smith wearing glasses pretty similar to Ten's, which led me to the question how he would look like with these exact glasses which then led me to write this. Yeah, my head works in wondrous ways… but I just bet those glasses are still lying around somewhere in the TARDIS, next to the celery and the scarf, probably. I can just picture him finding them and putting them on for fun.

To anyone wondering: I meant this to be Other Dave, I really liked him and felt like giving him more "screen time".