(no subject)

Alex Reagan didn't have a coffee problem! She didn't. Okay, maybe she had a little of a coffee problem. But then again most people would if they hadn't had a good night sleep in three years. And they lived in Seattle, which was the coffee center of the world. Still, Alex is remarkably good at both makeup and dealing with her lack of sleep after all this time. But even then she's phased when there's the sound of a crashing, and a blue box literally just... crashlands in front of her.

"Oh my god!" The woman's voice is radio ready and distinctive, and still laced with a bit of her Canadian accent.

The blue box, whatever it is, misses the Pacific Northwest Stories studio, thank goodness, and seems to also miss every building on the street, but it's still there directly in front of her. Directly in front of her and everyone else around on the busy downtown street seems to be ignoring it. Thankfully for whoever was inside anyway, Alex Reagan, tiny and annoyingly persistent reporter, was never quite good at ignoring things that she really rather should. Seriously, she'd spent the last nearly three years working on a podcast that was full of things that she should actually have avoided.

Too late now though, and Alex has never been very good at listening to anything close to common sense, so still holding onto her coffee (a girl has to have priorities, and it's early enough in the day that her first reflex isn't to reach for the audio recorder that's practically an appendage in and of itself). Running towards the box, Alex quickly pushed on the door shouting, "is anyone in there?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"My name is Alex," she said because whoever this River was, she definitely was not. Nope, just plain old Alex Reagan, possible end of the world causer and winner of one of the best podcasts of 2015. That was her claim to fame, and her face skewed up tightly at the mention of a gun. "I don't do guns." Guns were an American thing, and Alex Reagan was definitely not an American in this instance.

But she does take a look at the DVD list, reading it upside down and frowning. Well, okay. That was weird, because she's... "I've seen this before. It's got the weird bit in the middle, right?" And she's going to go very still for a second, the memory and the confusion on her quite expressive going into acceptance and realization. "Oh my god." She tends to say that a lot, actually. So, she says it once more for good measure.

"Oh my god, Nic made me watch that for when I was producing Tanis." Before demons ate her life a bit. "The English guy with the glasses and all of the spaces, right? He talked about 'the angels have the phonebox.' Nic wears that shirt all the time." But also focusing. Sort of, she's got to get in, "wibbly wobbly timey wimey? I say it when I need to drive Richard nuts." Richard Strand hates that. So she loves it when he's being annoying.

"Okay. I believe you." Alex was a believer, so of course she did. "Now what?"

"Ah good, saves me a bit of time then, yes. The phonebox would be my Tardis, and they did have it, but good for us they couldn't get in and there were four of them. Problem is, now there is only one and it is already in. The old girl's holding her at bay for now, but we need to bring her a bit of help. So! No mirrored sword, no tool, no... Oh that's a bit of nasty, what do you lot think would happen if the Angel touched one of the cubes, do you think?" he asked, but put a finger to Alex's lips. "Not you though you already know don't you? Taking all the fun out of the mystery, but we're still on it, don't worry. Ponds. Angels. Cubes. What do you think?"

"At a guess?" Amy asked dryly, "The Tardis would crash land a few years ahead and in America."

"Huh. Right. Well then. Maybe."

Alex is just going to cross her eyes to look at the finger on her mouth, something that many, many many people have probably wanted to do, but didn't. Yet anyway. Give Nic some time and he might try it. Or Richard. He'd probably cheer that someone did that to her. Instead, however, she's just going to pull her head away and frown at him. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about but you can't be the same guy because he definitely was not you."

After all, Alex may be slightly predisposed to tall men wearing glasses and suits. Just a little bit. The smallest bit.

"What happened to the mirrored helmet idea? I thought you came here to melt DVDs, actually, because they're malleable and mirrored too. It'd be easy to make a helmet out of them, right, Ponds?" A beat and she just looked between them, her expression a little shrewd as she was putting pieces together. They were married, there was no doubt of that, but the other man wasn't, even if he was in charge.

And then she's just going to ask: "is Doctor like a title or something?" Alex can be slightly bad about staying on task. Occasionally.

"Regenerations, tricky business that. That was me when I was a bit younger." He considered, "and a good deal older."

"Wait... you're on a DVD?" Amy asked, distracted "As a previous regeneration? Can I see?"

"Later, Pond, priorities." He straightened his bow tie. Ht then turned to Alex. "Melting DVDs. Good idea, brilliant either. But won't work. Angels are Quantum Locked. They can't move when any living thing can see them, if something can look at them, then they're stone. Can't help it any more than you can help having one heart and weird taste in clothes."

"This? From the man in a bowtie," Amy said crossing her arms.

"Right, Rory, remind me to get a fez while we're shopping."

"I like remaining married, thanks all the same, Doctor," Rory said, dryly.

"Now, problem with melting down DVDs is that they're not reflective enough, too much distortion, melt them down and you just have a big datay mess. A soup of files and images. Mirrored helm is still our best bet, but you lot, you humans, you take so long to make anything, so we need something faster, another idea. What we need is a plan, a brilliant wonderful stunning plan that will stop the Angel short."

"A...fez? Really?" Okay, Alex is going to make a face at that because honestly: who in the heck wears a fez. Even if (or maybe especially if) he was a very old (or young? it was confusing) time traveller. Person. If he was a person. She didn't think that he felt very much like one at the moment.

The hope is evident in her voice when she asks: "do you happen to have a brilliant, wonderful stunning plan that will stop the Angel short like trapping it in a funhouse or something?" Because honestly if she was the only person who noticed the crashing TARDIS, then she didn't want to think how many people wouldn't notice the Angel on the loose.

Or how many people would video it to send it into her podcast for Strand's million dollar reward. That seemed like it would be very bad indeed.

"A fun house! See, this is why I love you humans, always thinking, always brilliant. Forget the helmet, what about a box of mirrors. Mirrors on all sides all closed in, great mirrored doors we close up once it is in. Then we can drop it on any uninhabited planet that doesn't have much for tectonic motion.Buy us a few thousand years that way at least." He kissed her on the forehead, grinning like the lunatic he seemed to be.

Alex is used to coming up with ideas and having people in her life immediately tell her how far-fetched or insane that they were. To be fair, they were about conspiracies and demons before the whole conspiracies and demons actually came up, but the point was that it was pretty constant in her life so validation is really nice. She beams with it, even if she looks a bit confused at the forehead kiss from someone who 1. isn't human, and 2. she doesn't really know. But right now she's going with it.

"Okay, so do you know where we can find a box like that? I mean maybe the Georgetown carnival, but how would we get it there?"

"Oh, I'd hardly think they'd let us borrow it if they had it. But this we could build." Or... nah, calling Unit was too easy. Too safe. Sure they'd come with tools and people to do the building, but then they'd have questions, which were fine, but they'd want to keep the Angel, which was not.

"So! Lumber, mirrors, Nails. Ni. Scratch that. Metal. No wood, can't do wood." He saw Amy open her mouth, "Not a word, Pond. So. What we need...." he looked around all the shops then grinned. "Junkyard."

Building something like this didn't seem like it was exactly doable to her, but she wasn't going to do much arguing with it. Instead she's just going to tuck her recorder under her chin and pull out her phone. Given Richard's assistant's penchant for reclaimed and recycled things, she shot a quick test. Thankfully, Ruby responded quickly, and Alex relayed the information. "There's a reclaimed lot like ten minutes away. Probably more useful than a junkyard considering how much we recycle here. But I honestly have no idea how we're going to get the thing back to your TARDIS."

There's a beat before Alex added, "I drive a subaru."

"Oh, getting it to the Tardis isn't going to be so hard, though it will be uncomfortable unless we build ourselves a platform under...." Oh! Oh! Yes, that was the way then. "I might have managed a little something as we were leaving, so getting back is no problem so long as the Angel hasn't started feasting on the old girl. Lead on, then!"

"And if the Angel has started 'feasting on the old girl?'" One can actually hear the quotes in her voice as she says them, but she does start leading them back towards her car, typing out a message to Nic while she is. Oh, she's not telling him what she's doing, she's just saying she's not going to be in today. Just in case. He assumes she's getting some sleep.

Everyone always assumes she's getting some sleep.

But she looks to Rory and Amy, "is it always like this?" Because she thought her life was difficult with the not sleeping and the demons and the possible end of the world and the whole arch nemesis thing.

"Just be glad he's calling her that. It's when he calls her other things that it starts getting embarrassing," Rory said.

Amy sighed. "This is him trying to behave."

"Oi, actually listening here," he said, mock offended. Mostly he was horrified at the idea of the Angel being able to eat the Tardis, for wide spread as well as very personal reasons. Which meant he was not answering that question.

"...Okay." And she was moving on as she lead the way to her car at a brisk walk. When they reached a slightly older blue subaru, Alex stopped and pulled out her keys, clicking the alarm on it. "This is me." There's a beat before she added quickly, "but I'm driving. No one drives my car but me." After all, Alex is well aware they drive on the wrong side of the road over there in the UK, and she's the one who knows where they're going.

However, she is going to add, "I don't suppose you can Harry Potter the car into being able to fly or anything?"

"This is you? I thought it was a car, symbiosis then?"

Rory rolled his eyes and held the door open for Amy, who scooted in. Before Rory could follow 11 ducked in to take the middle. Scowling Rory considered the front seat a moment, then climbed in next to the Doctor, mildly irritated.

"No, no Harry Potter here, not in quite some time. I mean, sure I could make the car fly, but wouldn't be much left of the car by then, and I might just turn it into a fish."

Alex is on the same level with Rory, and she's going to roll her eyes too, because yeah seriously that is the biggest dad joke ever. And then her eyebrows go up to her hairline and she's not going to comment about the fact that she feels a little bit like a chauffler right now. Because honestly, why would adults do that? She doesn't get it.

But then again, she is the person who would call shotgun if she needed to.

"Seat Belts." The words come as she clicks her own on, and then pulls into traffic at a speed that would probably earn her a ticket if someone stops her. She got hope no one well. "I'd prefer it if you don't turn it into a fish, I've got to go to Vancouver this weekend."

The Doctor reached to do up both Ponds' belts at the same time, and got both his hands slapped at the same time. He managed to look like a puppy who has been whacked on the nose with a rolled up paper.

"Sorry. The Doctor's not much for manners, or acting like an adult. Can't we go any faster?" Amy asked, grabbing the back of the passenger seat to pull forward.

The Doctor grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her back down into her seat. "Just because we've got a nurse here is no reason to crack your head open."

"Yeah, I'm..." She considered for a second before she added, "getting that." There, that seemed a pretty mild way of responding, especially given who Alex was. But at least he wasn't being intentionally an asshole. That would have earned him an entirely more sarcastic response. Of course, no one in her life had ever directed Alex Reagan to go faster, so there was a little smirk on her face as she depressed the gas pedal even more and began engaging in some maneuvers that her cop father had taught her for Canadian backroads and trouble rather than in city speed, but they had the same sort of daredevilry involved.

"Siri, show me the traffic report for the I-5." She announced quickly, before weaving between three lanes and the cars inside of them. Without taking her eyes off the road, she added, "I really hope that you can get me out of a ticket if I need to, Doc. The last thing I need is something else for my producer to yell at me about."

"What, oh yes sure, tickets right, just let me do the talking, then."

"Yeah, how about we get there safely instead?" Rory asked, a little pale. "Just as well not to have a tour of American Emergency rooms, thanks. Dying isn't as much fun as you seem to think."

Someone Alex wasn't at all sure that the Doctor could talk her out of a ticket. Alex probably could, at least if they hadn't listened to the show or been involved with the Maddie Franks/Hochman investigation. But she was hoping that right now she didn't need to. Honestly, she didn't want to explain that particular part of it to Nic and Strand. At all.

She was probably going to get locked up in an psych ward for this, but she'd deal with that later.

"Hey, I know what I'm doing!" She protested quickly, and passed another car, because honestly of course Alex was going to double down on this.

"Not saying you don't, just saying I don't want to die," Rory said, then muttered "again."

"Sorry Ponds, no dying today, not this today, anyway. Or any other todays."

"Doctor, you're making even less sense than usual," Amy said, considered, then softer. "You're really worried about her, aren't you?"

"What? Me, worried? Got that in a comic once, quite like it, think I'll borrow it, Maybe I'll even find the writer and say it to him when he's a kid, there's a laugh."

"Yep," amy said, popping the P. "Worried."

"For the record, also worried," Rory said.

Alex was watching the road, of course because she had absolutely no interest in dying today. She had stuff to do, and it didn't involve dying, the world ending or anything like it. Well, it also hadn't included the whole crashing box weeping angel thing, but well, she was already involved now. So, she had no choice but to go with it. However, that didn't mean that she wasn't listening and taking in all of the information that they were talking about.

"Okay," she started, before passing another three cars. "A couple of things. One: dying again? Two: are you worried about me because you don't need to be. I'm fine. And three, don't worry, I do this sort of thing all the time, the driving I mean. I've got it, you don't have to worry, I'm not going to kill you." Besides, Alex was convinced that her death was coming in an entirely different place and set of circumstances. If it happened, it was still nebulous. But it definitely wasn't here.

"Yeah, kind of losing track there, never gets any more pleasant," Rory said, dryly.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Like you're the worst driver in the car? Please, the Doctor flies a time machine... and is late to everything."

"Oi, you try flying a sentient car with her own idea of where you should be and see how well you do! Not that I'm going to let you of course."

Amy huffed.

"Seriously," Rory told Alex, "Never let Amy drive your car."

"Don't worry, I won't. Not even Richard or Nic drives my car." Even though both offered when she was tired. But she was always tired and had been for two years at this point, so she just shrugged and drove or let Richard drive. She didn't let Nic drive, and from what it sounded like, she probably would be gripping the handles if she drove with the Doctor. If the Doctor had handles inside his box anyway. Alex was already assuming it was bigger on the inside just by virtue of the whole TARDIS/Tanis thing.

But she was ignoring the Rory dying a lot thing; some things were impossible even for her.

"Why is he worried about me, Amy?" Because if the Doctor won't admit it, maybe Amy would?

"He worries about everyone, even if he'll never admit it. It's kind of cute when he eavesdrops, too."

"Cute?" Rory asked, flatly.

Amy grinned. "I was talking to River."

"Oh. Well then..." Rory muttered.

She so was not going to tell him WHEN this had happened, though. How very long before Demon's Run. Nope.

"But the her the Doctor is worried about most is his Tardis."

"River?" Okay, she just frowned quickly at that, because honestly what was up with these people not calling her by the right name? "Didn't he just say I wasn't River because I don't have a gun?" The last bit was quietly spoken, almost more to herself and the recorder rather than the three of them who were currently in the backseat. Alex was pretty sure that the Doctor had, and she didn't know why on earth they were still talking to her like she was.

"Oh, yeah I'd probably be worried about 'her' too if there was an angel on the inside." One could hear the quotation marks around that 'her' in Alex's voice, but she didn't mention it otherwise. However, a chime alerted her to look at the GPS and Alex just called back. "Hold on, this is our exit." And holding on was an apt warning, considering how she cut off two cars in order to make the exit from the far lane.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Meh. No Doctor in this post, but too lazy to hop to Amy's journal;.

no subject