milliways_bar | (no subject)

Sharpe is looking rather askance at the laptop - he's still not really used to high technology.

The boy with him, however, is fascinated by the shiny.

April, being April, notices the kiddo first, and she smiles brightly at him.

"Hey there!" she says cheerfully, closing the laptop and waggling her fingers at him, not yet having looked up to see his daddy.

He waves back, shyly, and Sharpe grins at her.

"Morning, April."

April glances up and her smile brightens into familiarity. "Hello, Richard!" she says, bouncing up to hug him briefly, as she's rather wont to do. "Is this handsome little boy yours?"

He blinks at the hug, as usual, but smiles.

"He is. This is Patrick."

April crouches down and smiles hopefully at Patrick. "Hey there, Patrick. It's nice to meet you."

For the time being, Patrick's still young enough for his father's word and opinions to be law. His father likes this woman, therefore she's a friend.

He smiles back.

"'lo."

"morning, April," Ray says around a mouthful of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. He looks like he came in last in an arm-wrestling match with the sandman.

Smiling, though.

Such a cutie. April smiles. "You like my laptop, doncha?" she asks, patting the computer.

She's not going to let him touch it unattended, but she might let him "write" something. If, of course, his Daddy doesn't mind.

"G'morning, Ray." She stifles a giggle at his appearance. "You look..." she hesitates and settles for, "...alive."

He nods mutely, peering at it.

"Don't have anything like it at home", Sharpe puts in.

"Well, I'd wager not." She says with a grin up at Richard. She turns back to Patrick with a conspiratorial little smile.

"Do you want to see how it works?"

"In point of fact I'm feeling way better than I look." He makes a vague attempt at fixing his hair, but this does not work. "I think I got about half an REM cycle's worth of sleep last night, which is more than I expected."

The little boy nods eagerly.

"Geesh, what've you been doing?" April asked with a low whistle.

Although she should be used to the fact that he's often doing weird things like... y'know, not sleeping.

"Okay!" April gets up and sits back down, patting her lap. "Wanna come up here and I'll show you?"

He looks up at Sharpe, who settles the doubt by scooping him up and depositing him on April's lap.

"I can't remember if I ever told you I've been engaged since the early part of this year," Ray says. "Regardless, the important part is- Romana got stuck in her universe for months on end and she turned up again last night. We had a lot of catching up to do."

See the icon? Like that.

April fairly beams, and takes a second to cuddle the little boy before opening the laptop again and starting to show him how things work.

Not that she knows how to do much other than type and screw around on Photoshop, but still. It's fun.

She even lets him keyboard mash a little.

April fairly beams at him. "Oh, god, Ray, that's great! I'm so happy for you two!"

...she's a die-hard romantic, what do you want?

Keyboard mashing is fun, as he quickly discovers.

He might need to be prised away from the laptop when she wants it back.

Ray grins. "I didn't think she was ever coming back, but it was just a series of mechanical issues on the TARDIS, and when you're dealing with temporal technology that's been in use in one form or another for eight million Terran standard years you're talking about a system of truly epic complexity. It's no wonder it took her forever to get it to obey. But she's back now, and there was all her stuff to discuss, and there was-" He holds up one ink-stained hand. "The theoretical math I've had to develop here for some of my projects, and all the other things that've been happening, and there was just no room for sleep at all."

April lets him have at, so long as he's not pounding too hard.

"So, Richard, he's adorable." she says with a grin.

She likes bebehs, can you tell?

April laughs and shakes her head. "Ray, I have only two things to say. I didn't understand a word of that, I'm glad she's back, and only you would discuss theoretical math with your fiancee after not seeing her for months." April paused. "Okay, that was three things."

"So his mother and I think", he says with a grin. "He is my only son, and all."

"Well, of course. Proud Papa and all that." she says with a teasing smile.

"So how are you? I haven't seen you in a while."

"Oh, I'm fine", he says with a smile. "Been one thing after another, but it always is in this place."

Ray stops, forcibly retuning his mental radio to Planet The Rest Of Humanity. "Okay. Um. Romana isn't human. She's from a civilization that travels through time. The TARDIS is her time machine. As for the math, that was sort of by mutual agreement."

"Isn't it just." April smiles, absently kissing the top of Patrick's head. "I heard you helped save our asses with the whole clock-armeggeddon deal."

Oldish news, maybe, but she hasn't gotten to thank him yet.

April grins. "Hey, look, you're trainable! An actual decipherable explanation!"

Yes, she likes teasing him. "So the math was in lieu of anything a little more... physical?"

Yes, Ray, she means sex.

"I were one of the team, aye. Lot of good people went, though."

And almost all of them came back.

"I never said that."

April smiled a little. "So I hear. Just wanted to say thanks, I guess. I mean, I didn't really get to thank anybody, I didn't know who went, other than you."

And even then, she only knew because she'd seen him sleeping by Danny's bed.

"Oh, well, good to know you're somewhat human at least."

And that is a hair-ruffle.

"You're welcome. But it's no more than another man in my place would've done."

"One of these days I have to drop that admission in front of one of the Egons," Ray muses. "The one from the animated continuum developed this really funky facial tic when I told him I wasn't unicorn bait. Apparently his world's local value of me is a bit less inclined towards pursuits of that nature, despite being my age."

April snorts. "Not really. I've known plenty of men who would've run the other way."

A quick kiss to Patrick's cheek. "Not so hard, sweetpea, don't want to break it."

April's eyebrows go up. "You have an animated continuum?"

Well, that's... interesting.

"I signed on to keep the bar safe." He shrugs. "Just took a bit more work this time. Easy, son."

"Yeah, I've been there a couple of times by accident," Ray says. "It's weird. It's like the whole place was visually two dimensional and tactilely three dimensional. If you ever saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, I think it must be sort of like what Toontown is like, except without the wacko cartoon physics. The local Ray is a redhead, although I've never met him."

April just smiled. He was a rare breed, at least in her time and world, and it was... well, rather refreshing.

It almost made her wish he wasn't married. Almost. Then again, if he weren't, she wouldn't have this adorable squirt in her lap...

"Hey, Patrick, you want to make a picture?"

Oh, look, there's Photoshop.

"Just do this, see?" The combination of touchpad and clicking should be enough to keep him occupied for quite a while.

The giggles of delight from her lap prove that.

"Having fun, Patrick?" Sharpe asks, amused, and the boy nods.

"Of course he's having fun!" April said in a mock "duh, you should know that!" tone. "It's a computer. Computers are just... y'know... fun!"

She's still rather entertained by them, truth be told.

"Only contact I've had with them was with my sword", he informs her. "Favour for a friend, in his world."

"Ah." April nods. "Yeah, well. My time, they're a lot bigger and clunkier and can't do as many cool things. But Mark got me this one from Bar, so..." She shrugs and smiles a little.

"It's handy for writing and stuff. I still prefer to write longhand, but... well, typing is more legible."

"And you're writing your book on it?"

"Well, eventually." she grins sheepishly. "Once I stop playing with all the other cool things it does."

"Nothing wrong with that", he says with a grin.