One Less Distraction (Doctor Who classic)

[estirose]

Summary: Bambera would like to get rid of some of her distractions. That may mean marrying one of them. Bambera/Ancelyn. PG/8+.

Note: If I have an OTP in Doctor Who, it’s the one-serial pairing of Brigadier Winifred Bambera and the knight Ancelyn from the episode “Battlefield”. (Though I also have a huge weakness for Chris Cwej/Dep from the novel “The Also People”.) So it’s probably not unexpected that if I write Doctor Who het, that it’ll be those two.

One Less Distraction
by Estirose
c 2011

To say that Winifred Bambera was slightly exasperated might have been a little bit of an understatement. The captives that the Doctor had left in her charge – Mordred and his mother Morgana – had simply disappeared a few days after the man had left, leaving her with a bunch of reports that had to be written, and a knight from another dimension to figure out what to do with. However the other two had left, they obviously hadn’t felt the need to take Ancelyn with them, which meant that he became a sort of headache. Not that he didn’t understand discipline and rank, but he was more than a little over-enthusiastic, and he seemed to have attached himself to her.

Not that she didn’t like him, but she didn’t have time for him. Dealing with him, anyway. There was little UNIT could do when the Doctor showed up but hope he was helpful and didn’t cause too much destruction on their end. He certainly caused enough paperwork, because there was nothing in the procedures about dealing with over-enthusiastic knights from other dimensions that couldn’t go home. At least Ancelyn was fairly benevolent, if far too enthusiastic about his swordplay.

And her, she hated to admit. Women were respected in leadership roles in his world, apparently, but he’d just as apparently met way too many maidens that enjoyed embroidery over guns as she had with people assuming that because she was black and female, that she wasn’t a brigadier in UNIT. Ancelyn was doing his best to support her, as a knight to a lady, and to some extent she didn’t mind. He often came to her office, offering his version of being helpful, by offering advice (“Maybe if milady did this,” which wasn’t often helpful because UNIT functioned much differently than the organizations in his own world), or stories (“In the battle of Archos, we found ourselves facing a host of pixies….”, and other long stories where he apologized for not having a bard’s talent), or just being there (“Milady seems troubled. Perhaps you would like to talk, or maybe a servant could bring us some lunch….”).

She was, in a way, enjoying his company. But the problem still remained on what to do with him, because there were no signs that he was leaving, and he had no place in their own world. He himself had mentioned more than once that he wouldn’t mind marrying his way into a place in her world, mostly by marrying her, in his own fanciful words. Ancelyn was straightforward in battle, but he preferred flowery words when courting her, even when she protested she wasn’t some swooning maiden and would he please cut it out. She supposed that it could be worse, and at least Ancelyn had some sense, if not much. And she reminded herself on multiple occasions that she did like him, and what was normal in courting a woman of her apparent status in his world might seem odd to her, but it seemed to make him happy. Which kept him out her hair.

Bambera could use a few less distractions in her personal and professional life. At least he meant well, she supposed. She could marry him, and then he would settle down more, intent on doing whatever knights did on their world when they married ladies. She didn’t much care, as long as he settled down. He reminded her of a kitten in some ways, always having to be fished out of a fishbowl.

Not an image one should think of their future husband, but then again, Bambera hadn’t ever thought of marriage, either. Being a soldier didn’t prevent one from marrying, but it had never been on her priority list. Obviously the hurricane that was the Doctor did things to one’s life that one never expected, bringing pains and changes and potential husbands from other worlds.

Sighing, she got up, and hoped she wouldn’t shock Ancelyn too much when she asked him to marry her. Because there was going to be one less distraction in her life, if it killed her.

Crossposted from Ramblings Yet Once More here.