obsessed. about what? ...yes.

200g lamb minced meat

Whatever oil or butter you prefer to cook with, I use butter

1-2 shallots or a small yellow onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

Salt and pepper

1 can of canned tomatoes (roughly 500 mL i think)

Spring onion is a nice touch to add, but totally optional

Also rice, but that is boiled seperately

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1. Mince the garlic and chop the shallots into small pieces

2. Cook the minced meat

3. When the minced meat is mostly lightly brown, but still umcooked in some places, add the shallots and garlic

(note: if there's a lot of liquid at this stage, that's good, because it softens the vegetables)

4. Add the canned tomatoes when the mince meat is cooked, add more salt and pepper

5. Let everything simmer for a bit, reducing the tomato sauce until it's your preferred consistency

6. Add some chopped spring onions (before the sauce reaches the right consistency) for extra greens if you want:)

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Thank you so much! Really interesting question - I've never thought about this before.

I think in season 5 River is very invested in the idea that he's doing okay, actually. He's working out and doing Normal Person Things like organising an office party. He's fine! So anything that contradicts that narrative - flinching and so on - would get suppressed pretty hard, at least when anyone else is watching.

He's also afraid of letting any emotion out in case he loses control completely. He's terrified that if he starts crying, he'll never stop.

But all that trauma is going to get out somewhere, so I think he's got some kind of self-destructive coping mechanism that he uses to make his brain shut up. Personally I think it's over-exercise, like running until he throws up, because he can tell himself it's healthy. But I've seen fics where it's something like cutting or bulimia and that works as well.

Ok, there is still nothing written, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of details you're looking for, so you're getting landed with Vibes.

So the part where I said River reacts violently to things - he straight disassociates and it's again a time warp for him. He remembers Before the Thing and he is with it Now, but DURING? Not so much. So he'll snap back to himself and have no idea what he's doing or where he is for a hot minute.

And it's not predictable, either. It's not like he figures out he doesn't like small spaces, or he's suddenly afraid of the dark, and can avoid them. And because he 'goes away' for whatever period of time, he doesn't even know what it was.

He actually does okay at first, because he's a little too wired and confused to pay attention to a lot of details. When he's arrested by the Dogs and they won't let Louisa go with him, and they're in the city, not a whole lot looks different, and his brain can sort of skip over things that Aren't Right. He's too busy trying to listen to Taverner and Lamb when he's being interviewed to really notice his reflection in the observation glass, but when he does, that's what really convinces him that he's been gone as long as they say. His hair is longer - like season 1/2 length. His face isn't rounded anymore, but all sharp and angled. His nose isn't quite straight anymore, and one of his eyes isn't blue anymore from some long healed injury, and when they take him to the infirmary (or hospital, haven't made up my mind yet), as he's being looked over, they're finding more and more evidence of long term torture, but nothing that seems recent. The injuries are more than a year old.

One of the biggest issues River has is that he has no idea if Frank is dead or alive. He has no idea what he was doing in London, he has no idea why he had a gun, nothing. The Park wants to know what Frank is planning, and River has absolutely no clue. They don't know if he was released as a strategy, or escaped, or was part of the Plot and is just playing them for fools, and all River knows is it's definitely not the last one.

As months go by, and River is slowly starting to navigate this new world of his, he does somehow get into a fight with Marcus. Not on purpose, it's an accident. Like someone says or does the wrong thing, and River Goes Away, and when he comes back to himself, he has Marcus on the ground, hands up in surrender, his face bloodied and bruised and looking like he's gone ten rounds with Rhonda Rousey and the first words out of his mouth are "What happened to you?"

And it turns out that not only is River's memory just gone from his time with Frank, it appears that he has new skills. Ones he didn't even know about.

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).