Beyond the Roundels

The first four bits of resulting nonsense from the meme. As predicted, there was very little shippiness. I mean, have you got time for that sort of thing when you're doing the housework? ;-)


1. Doctor Who - Five/Tegan: mowing the lawn From eve11 (170 words)



“There’s no other way, Doctor,” said Tegan, folding her arms.

“I suppose not.”

She pushed the old-fashioned, unmotorised lawn-mower towards him. “If you don’t cut the grass, you can’t play cricket, can you?”

“We could have new rules,” he said, and tried his best smile. “Jungle cricket?”

Tegan grinned back. “I don’t think the rest of the team’d appreciate it.”

“True.” He examined the machine, clearly considering adapting it for improved performance and possibly additional tea-making facilities.

Tegan looked down at him. “Look, the sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.” Then she smiled. “Come on, Doctor. I’ll help with trimming the edges.”

*

Somewhere, further down the large garden, Nyssa and Adric were sitting at a wooden table, drinking fruit juice.

“What are they doing now?” asked Nyssa.

Adric shrugged. “The Doctor’s pushing an antiquated contraption up and down the grassed area.”

They both looked at each other.

“I suppose it amuses them,” said Nyssa, with a quick smile, and then they returned, respectively, to their formulae and equations.

***


4. B7 - Avon/Servalan: changing the light-bulb From lolmac (112 words)



“I suggest you help,” said Avon, who had found a torch and was now climbing on to the laboratory’s work surface. “A novel concept for you, I realise, but I trust you can manage it in this instance.”

“Yes, I suppose I could…”

“If you don’t, Servalan, we shall both remain equally in the dark.”

“Oh, Avon,” she said, and she sounded further away now, as if she’d moved to the exit. “How very simple of you. Who do you think arranged for the light-bulb to fail in the first place?”

Avon paused. “True. That was unaccountably naïve of me,” he said, and then turned to find he was talking to himself.

***


13. The West Wing - Sam Seaborn/Ainsley Hayes: washing the car - From astrogirl2 (213 words)


“Sam. I thought you’d be gone by now. Don’t you have cars to wash?”

“There was a thing,” said Sam, grabbing his jacket as he stood. “A complicated thing. I think I just averted a national disaster.”

“My hero,” drawled Ainsley, who was leaning against his office doorway, blocking the exit. “And now you can go and show everyone how public spirited this administration truly is –” She put her hands to her heart in a gesture of mockery.

“We can go and be public spirited,” he corrected her.

“It sounds to me like a shamelessly cynical attempt to – We? Sam!”

“I believe you… volunteered.”

“Sam.” She gave him an imploring look.

“Okay, strictly speaking, I may have volunteered you, but I knew you’d want to encourage a healthy spirit of bi-partisanship around here. You never know. People might even start to like you.”

“I have work to do! Why would you do this to me?”

“They have food,” said Sam, meeting her at the office door. “For the volunteers. Cupcakes may be involved. Possibly even doughnuts. And I’m pretty sure someone said there’d be a buffet at the end.”

Ainsley moved ahead of him out of the door before he had finished. “I’m washing cars with you, Sam.”

“I knew you would.”

***


Sapphire & Steel - Silver/Steel: alphabetising their CD collection From pitry (515 words).

Just imagining Steel and Silver having a shared CD collection to sort amused me muchly, because they really, really wouldn’t. And if they did, Steel’s would be tiny to non-existent, consisting of select instrumental pieces that he felt were not a potential threat to reality (taking a moment of time, physically recording it, and playing it over and over? That’s just asking for the end of the world, people). Silver would have by far the larger part of the collection, and it would be almost entirely made up of music he bought to annoy Steel (and a few things he thought were pretty). And in any case, he’d probably get bored with them and turn all the discs into something else.

So I wrote this:

*

“And this will work?”

“Yes,” said Silver, without looking up from where he was sitting amid several piles of carefully positioned CD cases. Behind him were a set of shelves that covered most of the wall, with a large number of CDs already positioned on them.

“It could be the recordings themselves. It must be. This seems too… easy.”

“Some things are, you know. I’m not sure this is one of them, though. They don’t seem to like making it clear as to which is the title and which the artist, but,” said Silver, finally looking over with a quick smile, “of course, I worked it out.”

“Time is short, Silver.”

Silver picked up an armful of CDs and slotted them carefully in place on the nearest shelf. “I know. So, I suggest you stop standing over me in that disconcerting manner of yours, and let me finish.”

“I’m still not convinced –”

“These had been kept in careful order for years. Something broke that, and it’s –” Silver threw up his hands. “I can feel it; I can’t quite explain it.”

“There’s a shift in time. The former owner can see the present disorder. There’s a disproportionate anger, presumably caused by something else, which Time is using.”

Silver glanced upwards again. “Yes,” he said, with a lift of surprise in his voice. “Yes, that’s it.”

“You said something like that earlier.” Steel turned away. “It doesn’t seem enough to me.”

“Small things,” said Silver, gathering up the final lot of them. “It often is, especially in my line of work.”

Steel paused to pick something up, even as Silver placed the last few CDs onto the shelves. “Silver –”

“There!” Silver replaced the last case, and beamed.

As Steel turned again, one final, mislaid CD in his hand, the rest flung themselves off the shelves again, temporarily burying Silver.

Steel moved forward, careful not to tread on any of the troublesome objects. Silver?

Silver sat up, and scowled at the offending bits of plastic, polycarbonate plastic and aluminium surrounding him. “But –”

Steel handed him the escaped CD.

“Oh,” said Silver, looking crestfallen for a moment, before giving a rueful smile. “I see. Of course. I knew I’d got it right.”

Of course. There was only the faintest trace of mockery in Steel’s thought.

Silver shot him a look. “Well… It’s very frustrating. Like battling an over-pedantic poltergeist.”

Steel held out a hand, and hauled the technician back to his feet. “Do you need my help now, Silver?”

“Yes, “ said Silver, and then gave him a sidelong glance. “But, Steel –”

“What?”

“As I told you before, you don’t alphabetise things that begin with ‘The’ under ‘T’.”

“Yes, I have grasped the concept.”

But you still don’t think it’s ‘logical’, do you, Steel?

Steel merely looked at Silver.

“Well. Yes. Then let’s finish this.”

“Yes,” said Steel, at last in complete agreement with the other. “It’s –”

Tedious?

Yes. There was an emphatic weight behind the thought.

“I could certainly think of better things to do,” said Silver, and grinned at Steel.

***


(I've only used 9 out of 20 pairings, if anyone wants to assign any more tasks to the remaining people - the original post is here.)