Ficlet: Yes/No/Perhaps

[bagheera_san]

Title: Yes/No/Perhaps
Rating: all ages
Characters: Three, Jo, Delgado!Master/Three
Prompt: #6 Farming
Summary: A while ago there was a macro on ihasatardis that inspired this.



Sometimes humans baffled him. This was a good thing, because the Doctor would hate to be stranded among boring people. "I didn't know you had an interest in agriculture, Jo."

She rolled her eyes and mock-punched him in the arm with her tiny fist. "Crop circles, Doctor. I bet you know exactly what I'm talking about. They're made by aliens, aren't they? Look, I've read an article about them here."

Jo brandished a brightly-coloured and not very respectable looking glossy magazine at him. The Doctor decided to humour her, but couldn't help his amused smile. "There are many strange things out there, Jo, but have you asked yourself why anyone would travel all the way to Earth just to destroy some poor farmer's hard work? Most likely they're some kind of prank."

"Well, they might want to communicate with us," Jo pointed out, undeterred. "Perhaps for once they're friendly aliens!"

"Perhaps."

The Doctor had found the article in question and peeked closely at the photographs of vandalised wheat fields. He blinked, straightened the paper and looked again. His brows rose. The penmanship was very neat. Someone had gone to a great effort to ask a very simple and slightly silly question. 'Yes/ no/ perhaps' indeed. He put down the magazine, suppressing a laugh.

"Jo, we're going on a trip to Hampshire."

"I knew it! They're real!"

"Not quite. They are a prank, I suspect, but definitely not a human one." Under his breath, he added, "He can't possibly be serious."

"Well, what are we going to do? Shouldn't we tell the Brigadier?"

He shook his head and steered Jo out of the lab. "Not this time, Jo. We're going to do something not quite legal – we're going to reply to the message."

"Oh!" Her eyes sparkled with excitement and mischief. "Well, we shouldn't tell the Brigadier that, you're right."

"No, I doubt he would approve."

"What are we going to write, then?"

"Oh, something very simple. 'No, absolutely not.'"

The fact that the Doctor had answered at all would speak for itself.

Comments

[bagheera-san.livejournal.com]

The Master has tried weirder things to ask him out on a date :P

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a refreshingly different approach. I LOVE Jo having the mag and babbling about it and Three going "oh dear"--that's such perfect characterisation.