milliways_bar | (no subject)

Ray knows from prodding. Ray is all about the prodding of odd-looking devices.

Although not the one that's following him just at the moment. That one gets scritches behind the place where its ears ought to be.

"Hi, Ace," Ray says, and the robot dog sits down next to him.

"Hullo Ray." Ace grins... and then catches sight of the... thing. "Hullo... um. Robot?" Forgive her, the last one she met was a talking car, for pete's sake. The one before that was candy and tried to kill her.

"His name's Francis," Ray says. The dog gives a synthesized bark and wags its butt, as it wasn't built with a tail. "He's from John Preston's world. Used to be a hunter-seeker device used by John's government to chase down dissidents who were too smart to get into gun battles with the Clerics. I had him reprogrammed, and I took out the tranq injector and razor-blade claws. He's about the same intelligence and personality as a German Shepherd dog now."

He grins. "He's no K9, not by a long shot, but he'll do."

Ace grins, and pets the big robotic dog.
"Less of an attitude, anyway. Maybe he can play with Magic sometime, wear her out some. I swear, she's the energizer pup. She never stops."

Ray grins as the dog pushes its head against Ace's hand and makes a contented noise that the charitable might consider a 'whurf'. "As long as she doesn't try to bite him. Not that he'll bite back, but he's all metal and I don't want her hurting her teeth just because she's playing, you know?"

He pauses, thinking; he's got stuff he needs to say, but Ray is pretty much the patron saint of bad segues and isn't sure how to get there from here.

"She's pretty good about that - once she learned the coat was off-limits, she's left everything pretty much alone. Lunch meat is still up for grabs, evidently." Duh, Ace. She has been taught enough, however, by various stressed-out professors, to not pounce on his odd pause.

It's a very near thing. He might not want to take his time about it.

Ray nods. "Okay, then. I think she'll figure out pretty quickly that Francis carries his own penalties for inappropriate bitey."

Think, think, think-

"Oh, hey, look over there! It's a bright shiny change of subject! I proposed to Romana the other day and she said yes."

Ace laughs.

"Ray, that's got t'be the..."

And then there was blinking.

"... the who and the what now?" She's fairly sure she didn't hear that right. Or something.

"Worst possible conversational connectivity device in existence, I know," Ray says. "But, uh, yeah. I asked Romana to marry me, and, uh, she said yes."

"She did?" There is more blinking.

And then there is mad grinning.

"Good on you, Ray! Set a date yet? Paris is lovely most of the time, steer clear of the 1700's though."

Phew!

Ray beams. "No, we haven't. We got as far as 'are you sure you want to marry somebody quite so old' on her part and 'old doesn't count when you're dealing with the most impressive Time Lord you've ever met' and 'yes I will' and the mandatory squealing noises of glee, and that's about it so far. We can get the rest in order next time. And we've already been to revolutionary Paris, so I don't think she's gonna wanna repeat the experience for an occasion like this."

"Um." Suddenly she looks rather a bit more cautious. "Did y'have a chat about what might happen if she regenerates?"

Oh look, her most favorite topic ever.

Except for the part where it isn't.

"Not yet," Ray says. "I thought that was probably the most important thing to cover the next time we talked, though. Ceremonies and residences and stuff like that are kind of less-than-relevant compared to the possible consequences there, really."

"No, not quite. Just s'long as you do talk about it, is all." After all, there's nothing quite like the pain of expecting a long-time friend and practical family and being confronted with some tall bloke with a memory crystal.

Ray nods. "I plan to," he says. "I'm probably going to need to get together some kind of a list of other important questions to go through first, just to be on the safe side. Although I don't think there's really a whole lot of reference material available for me to consult about what questions apply to the whole interplanetary thing..."

"The Time Lords are, on the whole, the most inbred, elitist, snobbish subspecies alive. Gallifreyans are only, and only a shade of a hair only, a little better. I'm afraid you and Romana will be sommat of an anomaly, like me and m'class. Welcome to the club."

Ace may respect them, but she doesn't see why that's any reason to stop mocking them from time to time.

That provokes a wry smile. "Considering that Romana's never taken me to Gallifrey because the entire population of the planet apparently gets up her nose, including her own relatives, I can believe it. I asked her if Gallifreyans even practiced marriage at all to start with, and she told me, and then she made this little 'hah' noise and said she didn't particularly let what the rest of them did have an impact on what she did with her life... so I think we're good on that front, at least."

"Good t'know she learned sommat when travellin' with the Doctor." Would Ray even believe how Romana behaved her first few days on board the TARDIS? A question that will never be answered, hopefully.

Ray has no idea. He's got a fistful of ideas of what her time with the Doctor was like, but no real specifics. It didn't particularly occur to him to ask.

"Speaking of whom, you should've seen the look on his face when I told him," Ray says. "Both Four and Nine lit up like Christmas trees at the prospect. I think Four was looking forward to teasing her about it in his time, actually- the last time I saw that look on anyone's face it was Peter Venkman, back in my New York."

"Him? Oh Lord, you prolly gave him the best Christmas present of all his regenerations. He does so love being mysterious." Now that the little snafu has been cleared up, she can say that without sounding wistful. This is both Good and Helpful, yes?
"S'go on, I want details."

Ray grins. "About which? Telling Nine, telling Four, or the actual asking?"

Ray does not get dopeslapped.

It is a very, very near thing.

Lucky Ray.

"The asking, of course! C'mon, the whole story, as finding Romana is more of a task than I'm up for.'

It wouldn't be the first time.

Ray laughs. "Sorry. Okay. Well, first of all I should probably mention that I'd been considering it for- oh, gosh, I don't even know how long. I never really could get up the nerve to pull it off. I was reading, and she came in and surprised me- she always does. She said she'd been visiting her relatives, who were 'old and disappointed by everything', and that she wanted to meet my sister and her sons instead..."

"How'd that go over? She didn't manage to sweep them off on a whirl-wind tour of the universe, did she?" Gotta keep an eye on these younger Time Lords. Who knows what the can get up to.

Ray would like to laugh, but he's not going to be able to pull it off. "It hasn't happened yet, unfortunately. I've been stuck here. I can't go home until something else is settled... I'm not Bound," he hastily reassures her. "I almost wish it were that simple. My friend Danny's in a bad way and I've got him under guard upstairs so he doesn't go bugnuts and kill everyone in the Bar before we can get him put right."