eve11 | Fic: SCRUPLES (Doctor Who; Sixth Doctor, Mel)

Hey, I wrote something! A whole 1000 words, even, in less than a day! This is for the Day O'Classic volume 4: The Sara Kingdom of the Crystal Kroll celebration. I figured I'd take on a Doctor and Companion who usually get short shrift in fandom. So, with that introduction:

Title: SCRUPLES
Author:

eve11
Characters: Six, Melanie Bush (I implore you to read it anyway, though of course I'm biased)
Rating: G, Humor
Word Count: ~1000

Notes: It's important to stick to your principles.

ETA: Now with a lovely podfic version courtesy of

aralias!

SCRUPLES
--------

"Come on, Mel, hurry up!"

"No, Doctor! I need to think this through."

"Sometime this century . . ." the Doctor murmured urgently under his breath. He fussed around his patchwork coat for a fob watch but came up with only a spare cat pin.

Melanie Bush just frowned at him. There was a short, tense silence in which she concentrated on the task at hand, and then sighed. "We're really running out of options."

"Speak for yourself," the Doctor said in what he surely imagined was a sly tone. "It's all in the end game."

Mel, having known him for long enough, recognized a bluff when she heard it. He was hurrying her on purpose. "I just need a moment, let me . . . there."

As the Doctor looked on impatiently, she took five tiles from the small wooden rack in front of her and arranged them precisely. "Leading off EAR, AN, and ROD, I've got . . ."

C 
R
Y E
P A N 
T R O D

"CRYPT, YE, PAN, and TROD." Mel finished, satisfied. "Forty-four points."

"Forty-four?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow as Mel recorded the score.

"The T's on a double word score," she answered.

"Hmpf. What kind of words are those, anyway? Sounds like a poorly translated Cornish folk song, if you ask me."

"It doesn't matter what it sounds like," Mel said, fishing five new tiles out of the small cloth bag next to the game board. She racked her letters, and gave the bag a shake in the Doctor's direction. "One tile left. All yours, unless you're going to pass."

"Oh no, not at all." The Doctor sat back, brushing imaginary lint off of his clashing lapels, and then looked down at his rack of letters.

A E I O U Y L

If only Webster had included definitions for 24th century Official Anglicanized versions of the Quenouille Replicants' third gender pronoun, he would have had a fantastic seven-letter word. Instead he eyed the game board, then plucked a single tile off his rack, lighting it on a triple letter score.

U T

"Oot?" Mel asked.

"'Uht'. Four points."

"Dare I ask?"

The Doctor fished the last tile out of the bag. "First note in the French system of musical scale solmization, still used by a few theorists in the more strict Jesuit seminaries, but generally abandoned in favor of Solfeggio's do."

"'Ut, a deer', eh?"

"Why, thank you."

Mel looked up from her tiles. The Doctor smiled smugly.

"No one should be proud of that pun, it's awful," Mel said. She changed tack, pointing to the newly opened 'C' at the top of the board. "You had to have something you could've put on that triple word score."

"Nothing interesting."

Mel pushed an errant red curl off her forehead and rubbed at her temple, wondering again why she'd thought Scrabble was a good idea. "You don't get extra points the more obscure your words are, you know."

"Hm? What?" The Doctor rearranged and un-rearranged the letters on his rack, distracted.

"You should be playing each turn to maximize your score," Mel addressed the top of his head as he set at his tiles again. "It's not a perfect solution, but I think greedy algorithms work best for this game."

He didn't look up. "Write all the plebeian phonemes you like. You can't fault me for preferring to play with a certain panache."

Mel rolled her eyes. "I'll consider it a handicap."

"I'll have you know, I can extrapolate any number of moves ahead in full sets of possibilities and probabilities with exponentially increasing complexity and maximization of any cost function I care to choose."

"I'll wager you can," she said. "But I'll also wager you don't."

The Doctor stopped his reflexive tile-arranging and examined his letter rack.

A E I O Y L L

"I have a plan," he said.

Now that, Mel recognized as controlled panic.

"You're down by--"

"Just," he waved a hand airily, "take your turn."

Mel shook her head, and after a quick study of the board, wrote MAGNET along the top row, three spaces from the leftmost column (where the Doctor had written GLIOMA downwise on the corner triple word space, seven turns earlier), two spaces to the left of her 'C' from CRYPT, landing the 'E' on the center triple word space.

"Thirty-six," she said. "You had better make your move now-- I only have two tiles left."

"Oh." The Doctor looked positively crestfallen for a split second, then raised his eyebrows and looked up at her. "Oh!"

"Doctor?"

He sat back, mouth still rounded in surprise, and then erupted in glee. "Haha!" he cried, and then very dramatically placed each of his seven tiles on the board to spell:

G E O M A G N E T I C A L L Y

across the entire top of the board. He flicked his empty tile rack over with the tip of a finger. "Now that, my dear, is an exit strategy!"

Mel looked at the board, then at the Doctor, then back at the board. "You wrote a fifteen-letter word."

"Mm-hm."

"In Scrabble."

"Ah, yes. Twenty-five, tripled, plus fifty for the bonus-- One hundred and twenty-five points, if you please."

She picked up the pen, and put it down again. "I don't believe it."

The Doctor was happier than a fox in the chicken coop. "I told you I had a plan."

"That wasn't a plan, it was unadulterated hope and luck!"

"Oh, I include those in all my plans."

Mel just shook her head, taking up the pen again. "Now let's see, subtracting two points for my 'O' and 'T', and tallying the final scores gives us . . . three hundred and seventeen for you--"

"Ha!" The Doctor interjected, standing triumphantly.

"--and three hundred and thirty-two for me."

"Ha-- what?"

Mel shrugged her shoulders, but couldn't stop from grinning. "Sorry, Doctor. I guess slow and steady plebeian phonemes win the race."

He sat down again, pouting momentarily before gaining his composure.

"Well, the moral victory belongs to me. That will have to do, until next time."

Mel looked dubious. "Next time?"

"Indeed." He rubbed his hands together, evilly. "Care to play again?"

--