Brushing at your fingers pleaseeeee
This is so roughly even an idea, I don't even know if it's fair to call it a WIP. But considering how often I come back to it, I think I can count it.
This is an experiment on my end as a writer. It's an alternate season 4 ending, but like....River gets kidnapped by Frank and Patrice, and disappears for months, but rather than us following him on that journey, River completely blacks it out.
So from River's perspective, he goes from being taken from the convoy by Patrice, to instantly at the bridge where Louisa is screaming at the Dogs to lower their weapons, that River is one of them, and he has no idea how he got there, but everyone seems very mad about the fact that he's there at all, and he's trying to figure out what he's done this time, and as he starts to lower his hands, he realizes he's actually holding a gun, and he doesn't know where it came from, and why is it so warm, and where are the Christmas lights, and how are the leaves suddenly out on all the trees, and where the fuck is the guy who kidnapped him in the first place, etc, and like...he has no idea what is going on.
And as Louisa convinces him to drop the weapon (which he's like fine, take it, I don't want it) he gets arrested by the Dogs almost immediately, and is dragged to the Park where Taverner and Lamb are there, which is already fucking surreal as fuck and River now 100% believes he's having a fever dream, because there's no way they would be sitting in the same room next to each other both looking actually concerned, and the more they try to question him, the weirder it gets for everyone because River is borderline hyperventilating trying to figure out a way to snap himself out of whatever the hell is going on here when finally Lamb asks him point blank if he knows what day it is, and when he says January something (or whatever the month is in season 4 when he meets Frank face to face), Taverner tells him "It's June." and River is already freaked out thinking that it's been 6 months, and then Taverner tells him the year, and it's next year. It's been 18 months.
And it's a plot line where River never really remembers in detail what happens, it's just a blank. He's basically time traveled a year and change into the future as far as he's concerned. But while he doesn't remember in detail he does get the odd flashback of something he doesn't understand, or nightmares that clearly aren't memories but like...Horror Version of an event, there are feelings of absolute dread with things but he doesn't know what causes them, or what he needs to do to get rid of them, etc, so his life becomes a minefield that he doesn't know how to interact with. He has scars he can't explain, he has to be told by the Slow Horses what Patrice's name is and what they think happened while he was gone, but it's just guesses. He has violent reactions to things - and not like, cowers but he meets it with violence.
So it's a recovery fic of "what do you do to heal a hurt you can't see" type thing, that is almost 100% psychological. Marcus is alive because Patrice doesn't go back to finish off David, Patrice is alive and makes an appearance much later (which is fun to poke at because Patrice is surprised River doesn't remember him at all).
Whew. Lots of words. But no snippets yet - just trying to hammer out details of what exactly would be happening in this story. Thanks for playing!
