Imagine Wilf reading this to little Donna. It's cute that way.

Having seen the movie is not necessary to read the story, though obviously helps.


On the outskirts of Gallifrey lived a young man named John. Gangly, and too intelligent and eccentric for most people's tastes, he spent the majority of his time on his own reading on as many topics as he could find, and taking his horse to explore the countryside and pretend he was going off on grand adventures.

The only person other than his parents that John had any significant amount of interaction with was the farm girl, whose head of outrageously curly hair never ceased to fascinate him.

Her name was River, and he found no greater enjoyment than in tormenting her. The look of exasperation in her eyes when he asked her a silly question or for her to complete an inane task was so satisfying that he was sure to do it on a daily basis.

There was only one problem. No matter what he said, or asked, she only ever replied with, "As you wish."

At first, it had been spoken with reluctance and maybe just a bit of amusement. But as the exasperation in her faded over the years - much to his initial disappointment and confusion - it was replaced by a strange softness that didn't quite fit her otherwise headstrong personality and physicality.

Now, when she said those three words, it was quietly. Her low voice caressed the words in a way that did things to his brain (and if he was being honest, other places) and made his heart skip a beat.

The way her eyes held his as she spoke, warm and sharp and maybe just a little wistful, started freezing him where he stood and plaguing his dreams come nighttime.

He wondered if when she said that, she meant to say I love you. He wondered if maybe he loved her too.

"River," he said one day. He winced at what he might have already given away by not calling her 'farm girl', if the surprise on her face was anything to go by.

She paused in the doorway and looked at him expectantly.

"Er," was all that came out of his mouth as he floundered for something that would serve as a reason to detain her. "Fetch me that pitcher?"

River crossed the room slowly, before reaching up to grab the pitcher in question. John definitely did not notice how her shirt rode up just enough to bear a slither of smooth skin above her waistline.

"As you wish," she murmured as she handed him the pitcher.

He took it from her hands, hyper aware of the contact when his fingers brushed hers. But then her hands were back at her sides and he was just standing there holding the pitcher like the idiot that he was, unable to do anything but stare at her.

She was so beautiful. How had it taken him so long to notice?

"I, er, don't actually need this," he said lamely, awkwardly setting it aside on the nearest table.

River laughed, a throaty laugh that suited her immensely and warmed every inch of his body including a few places a little more south than he would like. "You don't say."

John blinked at her, more thrown than he should have been by her breaking her pattern. "Oh, so you do actually have more than three words in your vocabulary."

She shook her head at him, a grin curling her lips as she came closer. "With all due respect, do shut up."

He grinned back, helping her close the gap between them. "As you wish," he said right before her lips were on his and all thoughts of cleverness disappeared from his mind for a long time.


Since John's family had no notable money to their name, just their farm, and John was busy preparing to enter the university in the capital, it became apparent that River was going to have to be the one to go forth and seek fortune if they wanted a proper life together.

"That look on your face, with that chin, is truly unfortunate," she told him on the day they had to say goodbye. Despite the weight in his heart, he had to laugh a little.

"What if something happens to you?" He asked. "I should be coming with you, to protect you-"

"We all know that I'd be the one doing the protecting, John," she said, patting his tunic fondly, "You have an incredible brain, my love, but a tendency to panic in bad situations. And I'm not entirely sure you know which end of a sword to hold."

John made a face. "Fair point."

"Try not to worry," River whispered, leaning in to kiss him. "I'm not so easy to get rid of, you know. And this is true love. Someone important up there must be rooting for us if we were lucky enough to find each other in the first place."

"But-"

"Now, say goodbye like you know I'm going to come back."

John took her in; she was gorgeous even when dressed in plain travel clothes with a bag on her shoulder, hair confined into a ponytail with loose curls escaping everywhere. He did his best to give her a genuine smile.

"I'll see you soon, River Song."

"Until then, my love," she said, kissing him one last time before turning around and walking away.

In those moments, she had inspired hope and belief in him. And when he got the news that her ship had been attacked by the Dread Pirate Pond, who never left prisoners alive, he swore to never be so naive again.


Five years later, and John's life had markedly changed. He had finished his degree at the capital university, and in the last year of his studies caught the eye of the Queen of Gallifrey, who was an academic herself and frequented the large university library often.

Queen Melissa was beautiful in a cold and angular sort of way, and a little older than him, but had immediately been attracted to his intelligence and less conventional social tendencies. With the right to choose her husband from anyone in the land, when she proposed to him, he could do little but say yes.

Marrying Missy - as she asked him to call her - seemed as sensible a thing to do as any. He was never going to marry for love when his heart still belonged to a woman at the bottom of the sea, and marrying the queen would give him access to any resources he might want for the scientific experiments he was constantly getting ideas for.

Not to mention, Missy also struck him as a woman who could be extremely pleasant to one's face but would turn nasty the moment she was told no. One did not simply say no to the Queen of Gallifrey.

(If he was being honest, Missy could be quite good company, if only because she was in some ways as eccentric as him. No one else had been able to make him laugh in five years.)

So that was how he became Duke John of the Gallifreyan court, betrothed of the queen.

John's greatest pleasure still came from his daily ride. When the wind was streaming through his hair and he was galloping through the woods, he could for a few seconds pretend that he would soon be returning to his farm, to River's smile, and that teasing, loving, 'as you wish'.

Sometimes he dreamed about one day never turning around, about just riding on and on and never looking back.

A month before John was due to marry Missy, his ride brought him across a group of three strangers in the woods, all a similar age to him. The two women were beautiful opposites (one blonde with a spark in her eye and the other dark skinned with a sense of controlled serenity about her). The man they stood either side of had sandy hair and a smile that John found a little unnerving.

"Sorry, sir, but we're circus performers," he told John, stepping forward and spreading his hands. "Is there a village nearby? We seem to have taken a wrong turn."

"Just a bit," John said, eyebrow up, "There's nothing nearby, not for miles."

The unnerving smile grew wider. "Excellent. Then there will be no one to hear you scream."

The last thing John registered was being ungraciously pulled from his horse by the dark skinned woman, and then a dull pain to his head, before his world went black within seconds.


"What're you doing?" Rose Tyler asked Harry Saxon, who was busy ripping something and attaching it to the future prince's saddle. "Is that the Skaro coat of arms?"

"Got it in one, blondie," he said without looking up. They had been working together for over a year and he virtually never called her by her real name unless he was angry with her or mocking her. "When the horse reaches the castle, the queen will see this and think the Daleki people have stolen her love. When she finds his body dead on the Skaro frontier, her suspicions will be confirmed."

Martha frowned at him. "Hold on, you never said anything about killing anyone."

"I've hired you to help me start a war, Jones, did you think it was going to be all flowers and rainbows?" Saxon mocked, rolling his eyes at her as he hit the horse on the rump and sent it on its way. "It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition."

"I just think we could kill someone a bit more deserving of it," Martha said, glancing at the unconscious form of the young man she had knocked out and dragged aboard. "He's an innocent in this, surely."

"Am I hearing things, or did the word think just come out of you?" Saxon snapped, getting in her face and making her swallow. "You were hired for your freakish strength, not your insignificant little brain. If for some outlandish reason I ever want - or god forbid, need - your opinion, I'll ask for it, otherwise shut up and do as I say."

Rose pushed down the anger that rose in her at seeing her best friend spoken to like that, and did her best to keep her voice even when she spoke. "I agree with her."

"Oh, the little girl has spoken," Saxon said, rolling his eyes, "What happens to him is none of your concern, since I'll be the one killing him. And don't forget, never forget: when I found you, you were so penniless and drunk that you couldn't buy rum! And you!" He turned back to Martha. "An orphan just like her, helpless, hopeless, brainless. Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Japan?"

Martha stared resolutely at the floor and did not respond. As Saxon stormed off, Rose went to her friend's side and put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her.

"One day, he'll realise how wrong he was to think you aren't one of the smartest people in this whole kingdom," she said, kissing the side of her head for good measure. "No, this whole world."

"The longer he thinks it, the more I'll enjoy the look on his face when that day comes," Martha muttered.

"You and me both."


"At this rate, we'll reach the cliffs by dawn."

Martha saw no need to reply to Saxon's remark, and simply nodded when he glanced at her. Rose, however, wasn't looking at either of them. She was sitting at the back of the boat and kept peering over her shoulder.

"Why are you doing that?" Saxon asked her shortly.

"Making sure no one's following us."

"It would be practically inconceivable."

The future prince, who was called John if Martha remembered correctly from Saxon's earlier brief, was surprisingly calm as he eyed them all. His eyes were intelligent and a little too old for his face.

"You won't get away with this, you know," he said quietly, holding Saxon's gaze, "The queen will see you all hanged for this. Or beheaded. I hear she's fond of both."

"I'd worry about your own neck, Johnny boy, and not ours," the other man said with a smirk, before noticing Rose looking over her shoulder yet again and bristling, "Stop that, blondie, before I fix your neck in place there."

"Are you sure nobody's following us?" Rose asked slowly.

"Of course I am," he said, rolling his eyes. "Nobody from Gallifrey could have gotten here so fast, and nobody in Skaro has any idea what we've done." When Rose gave him an unconvinced look, he frowned at her. "Why?"

"Because, well… there is someone following us."

"There can't be," Saxon snapped, but moved to the back of the boat to look all the same and tensed when he saw that Rose was right. "...they might not be following us, they might have their own reason for being out here."

"Right, because eel infested waters at midnight are where I like to go for a pleasure cruise," Martha said sarcastically.

In the midst of their distraction, John hopped to his feet and tried to dive overboard, but Martha's hand whipped out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him back into the body of the boat and eliciting a yell of pain when his back collided with the corner of a step.

"You don't want to do that," she said without looking at him. "You wouldn't get twenty metres without becoming eel food."

Wincing, John sat up and gave her a wry smile. "I suppose I owe you a thank you, then."

Surprised, Martha's eyebrows lifted and her mouth curled with a hint of a smile. "You're welcome. But I'm still taking you to your death."

"Ah, yes," he said, sighing. "There is that."

"Stop getting chatty with the prisoner," Saxon told Martha darkly, before turning to John. "I suppose you think you're brave, trying that stunt."

John's eyes were cool and his eyebrows up. "Only compared to some."

Saxon's fingers twitched at his sides as he narrowed his eyes at the other man, and Martha knew that to be a sign of him wanting to strike the person he was talking to (having been the recipient of such assaults a few times).

"He's not worth it," Rose said quickly. "He'll be dead soon. Save your energy, Harry."

"Yeah," Saxon muttered, dropping back down to his seat. "Wake me up when we're almost there or when the sun starts to rise, whichever comes first."

As their leader dozed off, Martha moved to sit near Rose at the end of the boat, but not before fixing John with a look that warned him not to try anything. Wordlessly, Rose's hand sought out hers and gave it a squeeze.

"You should get some rest," Rose said to John, and he regarded her for a moment before nodding once and shutting his eyes. Then she looked at Martha, eyes softer. "You too."

"Wake me up in a few hours and I'll take over."

Rose nodded, and so Martha conceded and laid her head on Rose's shoulder, letting the comforting smell of her friend's hair and the sound of her breathing lull her to sleep.


Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought!