A/N: I wrote this a while ago and decided to finally post it. Read, enjoy, and review!
It was 1990's America, and there sat River Song and the Doctor. They had just fought off a fabulous hoard of aliens that could burn people to death by spitting on them. Though River called them "space llamas", the Doctor insisted that they were actually alpatsi, a rare and relatively harmless species once you've been vaccinated.
The Doctor had managed to round up the relatively stupid creatures and give the few humans who had been infected with the spit treatment in time so they didn't burn to death. It was a thrilling run-for-your-life then save-everyone-around you sort of adventure, and those were the kind that River liked the best.
Instead of returning to the TARDIS right away, River demanded that they should stay the night, since she had spent so much time running recently. They had found a crappy motel and settled in for the night. Just as River was getting ready for bed, she heard the Doctor in the other room playing with the television.
"What is this? This is an outrage!" he was yelling. River came into the room, toothbrush still in her hand, to see what was so upsetting. She observed that the Doctor was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television watching the Magic School Bus.
"There is no way that device can travel through the special dimensions like that!" he snorted. River began laughing and the Doctor looked over at her.
"Doctor, it's a kid's show," she explained. Sometimes she forgot that, no matter how many places and times the Doctor had been, he really hadn't seen it all. Especially not when it came to television programs designed for kids.
"But why would they want to teach children these lies? There is no way a bus can shrink its surface area and all around mass to be able to enter a living human's body! Even if it was a plausible scenario, why, any life form would either be killed or reduced to minimal functioning," the Doctor said, clearly distraught.
"Look, Doctor, most people think that your TARDIS is impossible too. Just think of the bus as a TARDIS," River explained, trying to calm him down.
"Compare that useless thing to a TARDIS? I think not! The physics behind this bus are not even adapted well enough for traveling complex space parallels, not to mention time continuums! No, this so-called 'Magic School Bus' is nothing like a TARDIS," the Doctor scoffed. River sighed, deciding that there was only one thing left to try. She threw some peanuts at him.
"Oh, peanuts!" the Doctor exclaimed with excitement. As he caught them, River grabbed the remote and threw it out the window. Distraction, River thought, worked every time. The Doctor hastily shoved the peanuts in his mouth, chewing them for a few seconds, only to run to the bathroom to spit the peanuts back out.
"Peanuts. Stupid little things, they aren't even nuts. They're legumes, fabaceae. And they certainly aren't peas either," the Doctor muttered, sticking his tongue out. He looked around, suddenly remembering what he had been doing. "Hey, where's the remote?"
"I took care of that. Sweetie, why don't we go back to the TARDIS after all?" River suggested. The Doctor shrugged, and they left the room, paying at the front desk. River left an extra couple dollars. "Trust me, you'll need it," River said, not wanting to spend the time explaining about throwing the motel's remote out the window.
After so long of traveling with him, River had learned the importance of distraction and guns. The guns were for other situations, more grave situations. Situations involving hats.