Author: Regency
Title: The Moon & the Sky
Pairing: River Song/The Eleventh Doctor
Contains: River being River and the Doctor being flustered yet charmed. Pining-filled banter. The cold vacuum of space and the splendor of body heat through space suits.
Summary: AU. It's all fun and games until you find yourself stranded on a distant moon with the woman of your dreams-who can't stand to look at you. Astronauts River Song and the Doctor have only sometimes gotten along, but a near-fatal incident during a moon landing forces them to reconsider whether they're happy as chilly compatriots after all.
Author's Notes: Written very late for the 2016 River Doctor Ficathon. I chose the following delightful prompt (by cmartlover): Astronauts AU- we're stranded in space or on some planet, separated from the rest of our crew and have to survive with only each other and I might have a bit of a crush on you since we've been traveling together for months, but you can't stand me, so I don't know how this is going to work out (11/River) (rated T, no smut)
AN II: If this is weird characterization-wise, put that down to my indecision as to how human I wanted the Time Lords to be in this AU. I was going to make everyone a member of a TARDIS crew but then I thought that might be diverging too far from the prompt, so this dizzying amalgam of a human astronaut AU and a Time Lord astronaut AU is what we got.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, settings, or plot elements recognizable as being from Doctor Who (2005). They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. Title from "The Moon & the Sky" by Sade. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
It was a truth universally acknowledged—or at least known throughout the Kasterborous Constellation and its attendant space agency—that Captain Theta Sigma (better known by all as The Doctor) was embarrassingly besotted with Lieutenant Colonel River Song. She was Dr. Song to civilians and 'sir' or 'ma'am' to the terrified junior ranks at the Academy, second-in-command and XO of the Gallifreyan flagship exploration vessel Moment, and first-billed star of every one of the Doctor's daydreams. She also hated him.
Brilliant.
The Doctor sighed his disappointment at the state of things and slurped molasses thick coffee from his TARDIS blue squeeze bottle. Eight weeks into their journey to the farthest reaches of known space and he already hated their mandatory staff meetings. Here they strapped themselves down to talk shop and sort out duty rosters for the fortnight. It was dead boring. All there was to do really was keep his head down and listen…and watch.
A golden curl had slipped from Colonel Song's high ponytail to dance before her eyes. She'd made several abortive huffs at it but was unwilling to pause her status report long enough to try wrangling her hair into submission. Her hair was legendary, large and buoyant; terribly distracting to the easily distractible. The Doctor clung to the conference table and his coffee—how he wanted to touch her impossible hair.
"Captain Sigma, are you planning to do your job in the near future or can I expect another full shift of you floating past my work station with that ridiculous grin on your face?"
The Doctor's ears burned as the other members of the crew tittered into their coffee. They loved to see him dressed down. Not nearly in the way I'd like, he thought mournfully.
"Work, of course. I work! I work a lot, ma'am."
She cocked a meaningful brow in his direction, high enough that he wondered whether it was aided by their zero-gravity environment or if she was just that good.
"I'll be keeping to my own station, ma'am. I've a backlog of test results to transmit to Mission Control on Gallifrey."
"Good, see that you have that done by end of shift tomorrow. I'll be expecting a report on your findings."
"Aye aye, Colonel, ma'am."
The Doctor slumped into his seat as much as his restraints allowed and tried to blend into the upholstery. Why can't I do anything right around her? I'm cleverer than this. The Doctor was brilliant, actually. A regular screaming genius—everybody said so. The problem wasn't his intellect, rather how thoroughly that intellect deserted him when River Song spoke a word in his direction. It was mortifying. So much so his ears burned in remembered humiliation dating back to their very first meeting. The Doctor was accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, an honor the lieutenant colonel had relieved him of at once. Younger he might have been, but oh River Song wore her years well. He had been smitten the instant she offered a mathematical alternative to his equation for deriving the force of gravity on Ponterus' moon. What other woman could hope to compare?
Regrettably, it was all too obvious that the colonel didn't feel the same. What made the entire business doubly horrid was that the XO could be so polite to him when she wasn't raking his work ethic, his manner, his habits, himself entire over the coals. It wasn't his work she hated. He wasn't entirely sure he rated hatred in her book. He might not have even rated annoyance if he could keep himself from trying to count the coils of her hair. He feared that she put so much distance between them personally because she knew how he felt and she abhorred his attachment to her. Even the notion caused his stomach to turn. He knew how to return her cordiality, her admiration for his brilliance and what all he could do with it. He had little idea how to combat abrupt dismissal that frequently bordered on hostility.
The Doctor could deal with mean. Rose Tyler, his ex-girlfriend, her mum had been mean often enough, especially after he'd gone quiet on Rose for very good reasons that turned out not to be very good at all. Donna, the flight trainer who'd recommended him for this mission, had been furious at him more times than he could count. Mean was Donna's default; she used it to cover how deeply she cared. There was a part of the Doctor that wondered if the colonel didn't operate under a similar principle. Colonel Song, at her most devastating, did it to keep him at arm's length. He couldn't help wondering if that was her version of letting him down easily. Alas, he didn't see anything easy about coming down from her.
Colonel Song finally brought this interminable meeting in for a landing just as the Doctor's patience and his priceless, high-tech sonic pen were at the end of their tether. He'd been doodling a Type 40 TARDIS, Gallifrey's first space-faring vessel, on the margins of his meeting agenda, wishing he were someplace else. He'd grown up marveling at the retired ships on permanent exhibit in the Agency museum. He'd even tried, unsuccessfully, to steal one the first time he failed to graduate the Academy. The second time, he'd succeeded in both endeavors. He still visited that particular ship, his ship when his training allowed. A sexy old girl if there ever was one. He missed her weathered face, cast the bluest ever blue by a busted Chameleon Circuit no one thought warranted repair. She's to be retired, they'd said. She hardly matters. She mattered to the Doctor. Only within her seemingly endless halls did he feel safe. Her advanced psychic-drive AI, still a wonder for their modern age, crooned to him all the while in words that weren't quite words, 'You are not strange, my almost-thief, you are home.' Had his hearts not pined so longingly for the stars, he would not ever have left her side.
"If that's all…" the colonel continued, diverting him from his glum musings. Silence reigned a moment. "Well, then. Doctor, with me. Lieutenant Oswald, Lieutenant Pond, I want you to report to Mickey Smith in the Engine Room. I'm not best pleased with our engine output and fuel consumption, nor is the commander. I'd like some good news to hand him before our briefing this evening."
"Aye, ma'am," the two women chorused, unstrapping themselves from the conference table to push off for the shuttle's hindmost compartment along with crew members from Medical and Supply.
"Mummy has spoken," Amy murmured to Clara, who giggled then hurried to comply at River Song's skewering glare. The Doctor smiled at their retreating figures swanning through the compartment set aside for administrative business toward the ship's engineering quarter. Amy was the only airmen in the whole of the Agency who dared to be cheeky with their mission XO—save for their erstwhile mission commander, Colonel John Smith, he of the perpetually cross eyebrows and quartz grey hair. Smith was himself perpetually cross (which might explain the eyebrows), a pitiless perfectionist whose only notable soft spots were River Song and Clara Oswald, his latest protégé supreme. The Doctor wasn't lucky enough to count himself as such an exception. Smith's feelings about the Doctor's inclusion on the Moment's maiden voyage were at best ambivalent. The Doctor hadn't the faintest idea what he'd done to be so readily disapproved of by the command team when his instructors had held him in such high esteem.
He swept his fringe back from his eyes. He'd be due for a trim soon or he could expect to receive another unimpressed missive from Colonel Smith.
"I hope it's the mission objectives that have you so thoroughly preoccupied, Doctor, because I'll need you fully present this time; away in your head won't suffice, I'm afraid."
The Doctor jumped—rather, he attempted to jump up from his seat at speed, only to encounter industrial-grade bungee cord strong enough to simulate the force of Gallifrey's generous natural gravity. Swearing, he fell backward into his seat. His ribs, his diaphragm, and several of his internal organs complained at the rough handling.
The XO quirked a brow. "Bless." She released her own restraints and let the zero-g atmosphere take hold, gliding toward the nearest bulkhead and then rebounding gracefully in his direction. He didn't need to pretend to fumble with this bonds this time. He tended to go a bit starry-eyed when River Song drew near. She was one of the few people at Gallifrey's Space Agency who wasn't intimidated by his out-of-the-box thinking. She could also match his leap for logical leap. Her mind was only the first thing about her he adored, but even with that sole factor to consider—who else was he going to fall in love with?
With a mechanical clang the Doctor was released from his friendly prison to whirl into mid-air. He did so love this aspect of space travel.
"Thanks ever so for the assist, ma'am." He flashed her a cheeky grin.
"Always happy to rescue a damsel in distress. Comes with uniform. Now, we'd best get on. I'll need a hand with away prep and then we'll strap-in for touchdown at our lunar destination." She grabbed the nearest secure handhold to push off toward Logistics and Supply on the storage deck.
The Doctor popped off a smart salute that she absolutely did not see. "Aye aye, Colonel."
The Doctor's least favorite hawk-eyed superior was holding court in the supply hold when he arrived. The Doctor inched past the man hoping to avoid an unwanted confrontation. Don't notice me. Do not notice me.
"If it isn't the Doctor, my favorite junior officer," said the man himself entirely sans sarcasm. Which the Doctor didn't buy for a second.
Bollocks.
"Sir, what brings you to Supply?" The Doctor ceased his forward motion by grabbing onto one of the vertical bars attached to a nearby bulkhead. The Moment's commander had done the same, tethering himself to the wall by a woven strap.
"Double checking the gear for today's landing operations. A poorly organized pack can be disastrous." Colonel Smith had been part of the Space Agency for longer than the Doctor had lived. He had piloted ships that went into freefall upon reaching Gallifrey's thermosphere, had been forced to bug out of vessels that all but disintegrated under the immense gravitational forces resulting from takeoff. He had once when he was very young landed an exploding Type-40 TARDIS without casualties. John Smith was a legend.
"Of course. No disasters happening today. Colonel Song won't hear of it."
The woman in question raised her head at hearing her name mentioned from across the deck. Colonel Smith wiggled his fingers at her jovially, prompting her to roll her eyes and resume her inspection of the away teams' environmental suits. There'd be three two-person teams going to the ground and every item had to be accounted for to the letter. Smith levied impossible standards and there was no crewmember more determined than Colonel Song to meet them. Their relationship went back a long way. The Doctor often wondered just how far.
"Speaking of the inestimable Colonel Song, how are you and she getting on these days? That is, if you can be arsed to pull yourself away a moment."
The Doctor realized at once that he'd gotten distracted watching the same errant curl hover lazily above the apple of Colonel Song's cheek. She was smiling to herself. When had she started to do that?
The Doctor swung his gaze back to his boss and then away to a holding container of foodstuffs. There were MRE's to count; even physicists had to carry their own weight. "All's well, sir. Why do you ask?"
The mission commander hummed, contemplative as he bobbed in place. "Because I wanted to know if I can expect you to stop drooling onto your jumpsuit before we make landfall at Luna Pontera or if I should assign a minder. I hear Captain Pink could do with a surface partner."
There it is. He knew Smith couldn't contain himself for long.
"Do you think, sir? I say, Clara'd love that."
Colonel Smith scowled—not that the Doctor could see much change from one storm of an expression to the next. "You leave Lieutenant Oswald to me. I'm here to get the best work possible out of you lot and Colonel Song doesn't seem to be the incentive for you."
"We get along fine."
"Oh, well, that's me told, then, isn't it?" The colonel rolled his eyes. "In the name of all that's holy, man, just don't trip over anything important. She'll never get over it if you blow yourself to Kingdom Come on her watch." With a grunt, he continued, "She'll probably never forgive me, either. Look, just keep your wits about you."
"My wits're always about me, sir. Will that be all?"
"I'm not sure you and I can afford to have any more words today. Yes, that's all. As you were."
"Sir," the Doctor acknowledged from his locked jaw. He focused his attention on the thankless, thankfully mindless task of counting out rations for the day as the colonel unhooked himself to see to the others. Each crew member assigned to ground exploration must be equipped with four packs of MRE's, four granola bars, two liters (or 68 ounces) of potable drinking water, and three iodine tablets. Fuel tablets were to be reserved for missions in oxygen-rich atmosphere, something Luna Pontera lacked. The Doctor could organize supplies in his sleep.
Passing Commander Smith with a bright, familiar smile, Clara shimmered to the Doctor's side, automatically fastening her harness to an anchor to avoid drifting off.
"Don't take it so personally, he's only winding you up."
"But why?"
"Why's that one do anything? Nobody knows."
"I wish he'd give it a rest. It doesn't help my concentration and you know how I like to think."
Clara tutted consolingly. "Chin up, clever boy. I'm sure he loves you just as much as the rest of us."
The Doctor jutted said chin out resentfully. "Not as much as you."
"He's protective. He was my mentor and trainer at the Academy. He doesn't want to see me fail on his watch, that's all." She made that face, that terrible face that furry woodland creatures would likely agree was a bit much.
"Whatever you say, Oswald. And cut it out, the thing with your eyes. They're taking over your face."
Clara's expression shifted from one of sympathy to annoyance in a blink of her feathery eyelashes. "Watch it, I don't say anything about your chin trying for world domination."
"Low blow, Lieutenant!"
"You wish!"
"Not in a million years!" he contested, voice cracking far too high for the truth. The ensuing mockery was really no less than he deserved, he supposed. He'd only had the thought once before deciding it was too unnerving to contemplate. Same as Amy and Rory. The Doctor had eyes; he could see how attractive his friends were, he could even appreciate it to some degree, but he didn't want them. Not like he wanted River Song. What a most hated love that was, and he the most unlucky of men.
Major Mickey Smith at the helm announced their landing over the tannoy. "Attention, crew. This is helm control. Moment to touchdown on Luna Pontera in fifteen minutes. All personnel report to secure locations. I repeat, ETA is fifteen minutes. All personnel report to secure locations. Control out."
Colonel Song was already sweeping past on her way to the corridor. "You heard the man. Secure your materials and head to your departments. Let's not have a repeat of the unfortunate floating squash in the Engine Room incident."
Amy floated behind her, grumbling, "It was one time! I said I was sorry."
"Engines don't run on squash puree no matter how sorry you are, Amy dear."
"It'd be better if they ran on fish fingers and custard, if you ask me."
"Hear, hear," the Doctor agreed, tumbling in their wake.
"Heaven help us all if the two of you should ever land a command of your own."
"Och, River, they can't do any worse than the time we nearly crashed into the Singing Towers with our improvised escape pod."
"That was a brilliant plan."
"You were a brilliant junior officer; that plan, however, was rubbish."
"Saved our lives, didn't it?"
"That it did," Smith conceded. They shared another of their conspiratorial grins from the front. "Oi, what are you all pissing about for? This isn't a matinee. Move it along, children, we've got ourselves a meeting with a moon."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
The landing on Luna Pontera was a smooth one by their standards. Nothing important broke off the shuttle, not a guarantee with the High Council's hell for leather budget cuts. The ground supported the weight of shuttle without buckling, aided no doubt by the limited natural gravity on the moon in question. Helm control had noted a negative gravity anomaly and asked Ground Ops to investigate further, another task tacked onto their heavy docket. Colonel Song had agreed without complaint.
The away team members suited up in the disembarkation room near the docking port. There was a lift that would take them down to the ground, the same one they'd used when initially boarding the shuttle at Cruciform Station on Gallifrey.
The Doctor inspected what remained of his equipment for the trip. The bulk of it had been loaded onto his assigned Rover shortly after their landing and was waiting on the new ground below. All that remained were the tools he'd be carrying on his person.
Clara and the Doctor took turns fitting each other's sealant cuffs and collars for size. They were hard to see for one's self.
"Shouldn't your soldier be handling this? I thought Danny was coming with."
Clara pulled a face. "He swapped with Mickey since Mickey's more familiar with the electrical signals we've been picking up and Danny has more time on the engines. Song approved it." Her voice was muffled from inside her spacesuit. Even tailored for size, it dwarfed her.
"Not Smith?" he offered, cheekily.
"Don't start."
"I wouldn't dream of it." His smirk belied his conciliatory words. Clara ignored him in retaliation.
Across the room, Dr. Martha Jones made disgruntled sounds about getting her braids to fit comfortably inside her helmet, to which Colonel Song tutted in sympathy and offered a suggestion. They brainstormed on it with Mickey putting in the odd thought that the women immediately disregarded. Clara popped over to help, because this was evidently a three-woman operation.
The final solution? French braids all around.
Not a look the Doctor had ever considered, but if it would get River Song's hands in his hair he was beginning to see the appeal. This hair of mine must be good for something, ey?
River laughed once more and the Doctor couldn't stop grinning at the sight of her wrinkling nose. Her smile outshone every quasar he'd ever studied, each and every sun of record. Her laugh could be the birth of everything, a new universe, the big bang made magnificently in her image.
She was River when she was his, distant and beautiful, diaphanous and aglow as starlight. She was Colonel Song all the rest of time.
"Oi, you're so bad at this. Just ask her to go steady, ya numpty."
The Doctor started at being jabbed in his sore ribs by the miraculous, spectacular Amelia Pond, his best friend and a human being formed almost entirely of sharp angles."Watch where you're pointing yourself, you great big ginge."
"Rude."
"You started it!"
"Well, at least I'm not helpless with girls."
The Doctor wiggled his rather faint eyebrows. "Something you'd like to share with the class, Pond?" Amy turned red. Redder than usual, which the Doctor had to admit made for an alarming sight. "Was it Clara? Was it? Ooh, I'm telling Rory." Her lips turned white.
"He wouldn't care."
"Of course not, he's Rory. I just like giving you grief."
She shoved him so hard he came an inch from launching his helmet at the pressurized airlock that separated them all from the vast, deadly vacuum of space. I wouldn't live long enough to have my head bitten off by my bespoke commanding officer.
"And this is why I never let you work together," Colonel Song interjected before they could start pointing fingers. "Pond, Sigma, back to your corners."
"Yes, Colonel, ma'am."
Amy stuck her tongue out at him as she shuffled back to Clara where she was comparing notes with Mickey and Martha on the aberrant electrical readings they'd be investigating on the moon's surface. According to Martha Jones, the ship's doctor, there was some similarity between the readings and sentient brain wave patterns. The mission commander had made a passing joke about the moon being an egg to some higher life form, and Clara had convinced just about everyone in shouting distance that her mentor might have the right of it. That was Martha's entire reason for suiting up to come along despite preferring her laboratory and medical bay to the uncertainty of away missions. The Doctor was always happy to see more of Martha.
"I want final comm checks." The colonel toggled her suit-mounted receiver. " This is Song, do you read? Click once for yes, twice for no." Single clicks sounded throughout the hold. "Lovely. Six for six; we're right on target. Into the gravity car, you lot."
The trundled into the cylindrical lift car en masse, their magnetized boots thumping on each step while they shuffled to make room for all.
Colonel Song signaled for Amy to do her part.
"Environmental suit check, going once. Hypergloves secure? Magnetized boots sealed and secure? Suits pressure-sealed? Are we a-go? Sound-off." The growly inflection the Doctor often teased Amy for was roundly effective at getting them all in line.
Colonel Smith's distinctive brogue broke through the away teams' last-minute gear inspection right as were to begin their final descent in the gravity lift.
"Ground Ops, this is Control," he announced via comm-link. "Do you read? Over."
"Control," River replied, "is this Ground Operations. Away teams are ready to depart. Requesting permission to disembark, over."
"Not just yet, Ground Team. Run me through mission specs one more time and give me a brief rundown of supply on-board for Ground Ops, over."
The colonel closed her eyes, the lines across her brow deepening as she rattled off the information requested from memory.
"Mission brief: (1) Investigate potential manmade structures six klicks due east of landing site. (2) Collect soil and geological samples from moon's surface at multiple locations in a six-klick radius of landing site. Investigate topographic features that may signify intervention by intelligent species. (3) Search for natural water sources. Collect samples of local flora and record descriptions of any local fauna observed. Initiate first contact only in event of extreme scenario. Teams Alpha, Bravo, and Delta have each been requisitioned a single Moon Rover utility vehicle fully stocked with three days' rations of MRE's and potable water, medical kit, emergency blanket, distress beacon; specimen collection and survey equipment, plus a technical repair kit."
"Environmental suit payloads?"
"Twelve hours of O2 with a three-hour auxiliary supply in case of suit rupture."
"Well covered, Ground Team. Permission to disembark granted. Check-in expected every hour on the hour. Do you read?"
"Roger that. We read loud and clear, Control. Alpha, Bravo, and Delta Teams disembarking Moment at 0745 hours Gallifrey Standard Time."
"Happy landings, Ground Team."
"Aye aye, Control." The colonel pinned each team member with a searching look. "This is it, boys and girls. Luna Pontera awaits. Everyone ready?" No one spoke. "There's no shame in being afraid. Just remember you've been preparing for this your whole life. There's everything to fear, but you aren't alone. We're all in this together, and for us to succeed, we need to communicate. I ask again, is everyone ready?"
"Yes, ma'am!" they chorused. Even the Doctor managed to shout past the lump of dread in his throat. What if he screwed up and somebody got hurt? What if River got hurt?
Colonel Song beamed. "Excellent. Helmets sealed, visors up. The reflection off the nearest sun will be intense. Keep transparency level at nil until proper cover is attained. Sunburn at this proximity is not only possible, it's likely, and it will not be pretty. Hope you've all put on adequate sunscreen."
The Doctor gulped. He didn't remember if he had or not. He didn't usually bother at home; a little peeling never bothered him much. This was Luna Pontera, an entirely separate, sunnier matter.
"You each know your brief. Check-ins at regular intervals. On the hour to Control, more as needed to me. Do not play at bravery; you're sent out in teams to help each other. We've been sent out at once not merely to cover more ground but to have each other's backs. We are your backup. If you are distressed, if you have concerns, check in. Am I understood?"
"Ma'am, yes ma'am!"
"Well done. Make me proud. Let's move out."
Upon being admitted to the moon's surface, the crew stood together in slack-jawed wonder of their temporary berth. The sky stretched farther than the eye could perceive in every direction, the blackest velvet black, pinpricks of light those at home called stars like silver floaters in their vision, so dazzling the Doctor had no choice but to avert his gaze lest his balance suffer and he float away.
Luna Pontera was a moon distantly orbiting the uninhabitable planet Ponterus. Luna boasted no breathable atmosphere, variable gravity from pole to magnetic pole, and had so far yielded only trace amounts of surface water, though preliminary topographic imaging seemed to indicate the presence of moving water at intervals in the moon's billion-year history. Its surface was cast pearl grey and bone white. And for all that, the Doctor second impression of Ponterus' reigning satellite was that it was terribly dusty.
The six-man Ground Ops crew took one small step for Gallifrey and whipped up a cloud of oddly shimmering moon dust so thick and pervasive their stain-resistant visors were instantly coated in the stuff, and their temperature regulation systems went into overdrive attempting to cool their spacesuits despite the disturbance.
"There's our first unforeseen hazard. Self-cleaning mechanisms on."
That done, the lot of them convened at the stable of Rovers for final orders.
"Alpha—Pond and Oswald, you're to investigate potential manmade structures six klicks due east of zero station. Keep an eye out for those readings. Bravo Team—Doctor Jones, Major Smith—you'll head out due south to begin a survey for local flora and fauna within a six-klick radius of home. Surface scans have revealed no indications of indigenous fauna, but keep your eyes peeled. We haven't been able to penetrate the ground to assess subterranean conditions; we haven't the first idea what or who we might encounter. There might be hostiles out there."
"Or friends," the Doctor rushed to interject. "Can't ever have too many pals, can we?"
"If we're very lucky, Doctor. I should hope not." Her expression was unreadable through her visor. The Doctor found reason to shift in his magnetic boots anyway.
It was Martha who got them back on track. "Should we meet up with Alpha Team when we come round their way? We'd both have better cover together and safety in numbers."
"I'm all for it, but I'll leave it to the individual teams to decide if your objectives are better served as a unit. Delta, consisting of myself and the Doctor, we'll proceed westward to begin soil and shale sample collection. We'll move first with comm lines closed to save on power, and then hail on all channels should something arise. Any questions?"
There weren't any. Redundancy after redundancy had been built in mission specs to ensure that everyone understood their role, their backup, and all necessary bug-out procedures. They were the best of the best and led by the best. They wouldn't be caught unawares.
An hour out, Delta Team had collected half a dozen soil, shale, and sediment samples and were en route to their next checkpoint when the colonel slowed the Rover to a stop wearing a prize frown.
"Doctor, if you'll take the wheel and follow the satnav to our next destination, I'll calibrate our survey equipment in back."
"Aye aye, Colonel." He rounded the Rover to get in the driver seat while River Song hopped aboard the equipment cab to make some fine adjustments. The Doctor's driving, never spectacular, got off to a shaky start when he mistook the brake for the gas and sent their vehicle stuttering forward in starts and stops.
"Those are the brakes, sweetie. Try again but with the gas this time."
The Doctor's face colored in his helmet. I can drive this vehicle. I can. Gas, not brakes. Simple recall. How thick can I be? "Right. Just testing your reflexes, Colonel."
His superior hummed in tickled acknowledgement. He could picture the look on her face, the same one there always was when he made an idiot of himself in front of the maddest, bravest, baddest (in the best way) women he knew.
Things proceeded peacefully from there. The Doctor directed their Rover along the path projected on the vehicle's Heads-Up Display, or HUD, navigating carefully through a landscape of craters of varying widths and depths. Luna Pontera was a pristine dessert land, the sort the desolate and enterprising fell in love with. He was already up to his waist in it.
"Doctor," the colonel called, her voice oddly hushed in the trundling Rover, "is it just me or is it awfully light out there?"
The Doctor let his eyes fall on the landscape with more awareness. The pearlescent dust that clouded dogged their trek was stained almost gold in the falling rays.
"It is. More so than I expected at this point in the moon's orbital cycle." The Doctor resisted the impulse to look back to see what River Song was getting up to behind him. Having her all to himself was a novel experience. "Are you hot?"
Now that she mentioned it he realized that he was sweating profusely, so much so his fingers were slipping in his hypergloves. "I'm steaming in this suit."
"Likewise. I think we may be overdressed for the weather."
"These suits are built to withstand thousand-degree heat exposure."
"That's an optimistic estimate and you know it. The goal was to beat the heat to the moon and be gone before Luna's rendition of a heat wave arrived. Our timing must have been off."
"That isn't like the Commander."
"Not at all." River tapped her gloved fingers on the back of his seat, inadvertently rapped his shoulder. He jerked the wheel of the Rover and nearly drove into what must have once been a ravine. For once, the colonel held her tongue. Or maybe she didn't notice. "Someone noted the magnitude of Luna's sun exposure. I'm sure of it. We discussed UV intensity just an hour ago."
"Was it Captain Pink? Could it have been Captain Pink? Clara said he was good at that sort of thing, did it more as a side gig than his core engineering function."
"I think it must have been. I'm going to kill that meddling old fool. We need Pink."
The Doctor knew better than to co-sign the epithet. River might curse the commander roundly but there was no question that their mutual affection ran old and deep.
"Ha, I knew it. Commander Smith can't bear to see the two of them together."
"Yes and no. It's not what you think." Her tone warned him to tread lightly on the topic.
"You've not got the first idea what I think," he snapped, slightly stung.
"I'll just bet I do." She shifted on the tow cab. "Concentrate, Theta. Use those remarkable senses of yours and calculate. How long till surface sun exposure is at 100+%?"
"I don't recall. It wasn't in the brief, was it? We discussed maximal sun exposure, not being cooked alive in a Ponteran Dutch oven!"
"Did we even pack fire protection blankets?"
"No, I think you forgot to add that bit to the supply list."
"Of course I did." She muttered, "If we survive this I'm going to need a bath filled with aloe vera, a stiff drink, and a stick to thwap that man across the eyebrows with, ruddy child that he is."
"I'll bring the stick."
"Knowing you, you'd trip over it and give yourself a black eye. Check the HUD. What's maximal exposure for the day? Is it 100%?"
The Doctor accessed the Delta Rover's on-board mission tracker for Luna's environmental particulars.
"No 100% exposure predicted. It's just going to get very, very hot and uncomfortable shortly."
"Right." The colonel exhaled in happy relief. "Time for check-in." She toggled her communicator. "Alpha Team and Bravo, sound-off."
Clara responded first. "Alpha Team, right as rain and making good time to destination, over."
Then Mickey.
"Bravo checking in. We could use some of that rain hereabouts. The sun's rays have got us sweating. I'm not expecting to find much in the way of plant or intelligent life in these conditions. We'll have to request another round of scans to complete an underground evaluation. According to Dr. Jones, nothing's surviving this degree of direct UV exposure on the regular. Our best chance of locating persistent vegetation or sentient life will probably be on the dark side of the moon where conditions are milder."
"Understood. That'll have to be another day for another mission. Do the best you can on your current objective and rendezvous with Alpha Team at the supposed ruins. We'll need to make a case for a second moon mission to the High Council and I'll need details to do it. Make a thorough job of it."
"Aye aye, Colonel. Bravo out."
"Alpha, do you copy?"
"Alpha copies. Over and out."
The colonel sighed, her muffled voice heavy with exasperation, "Well, that's one catastrophe averted."
"Hear, hear."
"Ground Team, this is Control."
The Doctor and Colonel Song shifted in simultaneous dread.
"Ground Ops here. We read you, Control."
"We have signs of a heretofore unforeseen meteor shower heading your way. We're battening down the hatches. Get to cover. I repeat, make for cover and desert the surface A.S.A.P. The smallest pieces of debris may burn up on re-entry but there are some as big as a Lords-damned TARDIS that could turn your bodies into craters on Luna's face. Take shelter."
The Doctor drew a blank on hearing the advisory. Shelter where?! There's nothing here.
"Wait, what. No, no, no. That's not supposed to happen."
Colonel Song was equally aghast. "You're telling me. Shit. Shit. Shit." She tapped quickly at her hand-held seeing something the Doctor wasn't in a position to examine. He still had navigational control to consider and no orders to stop.
"What is happening?" The Doctor's brain whirled frantically in search of a solution. "Where are we going to go? We need access to the subterranean cave systems Mickey and Clara have been joking about." All mission data was accessible by authorized Rovers. He could probably pick something up from the Delta Rover's computer navigation system.
"There's no time. If the meteor shower is visible from Control at zero station, it's bearing down on us fast. Activate the zircon shield."
"Wha—"
The colonel lunged over his shoulder to slam a gloved hand on the Rover's emergency brake.
"Put in your security code. Do it! There isn't time to waste."
The Doctor did as he was bid, muttering about daft women with daft hair and daft expectations as he instinctively input his access code to execute the command.
The Rover rocked suddenly as the ground beneath yielded with a great thud and crack as the drill-anchored external stabilizer secured their vehicle to the ground. Reflective panels of resistant shatter proof zircon fanned from the exterior of the vehicle and unfurled to form a hemisphere that surrounded the Rover on all sides.
"That's new."
"Not terribly new. If you spent less time staring at my hair and more time paying attention during mission briefings you'd have been aware of the upgrades Captain Pink's been making to all of the utility vehicles."
The Doctor goggled, grasping uselessly at the locked steering wheel. "Hey, I read all the briefings. Ask me anything."
River angled back in her cumbersome suit to stare up through the sunroof of the Rover to the yellow-tinted view offered by the zircon shield. "Are we going to survive this?"
Large chunks of space rock rained down on the surface Luna Pontera, pelting Delta Team's embattled Rover in space junk the size of wiffle balls and cricket bats. A meteor fragment as big as the Doctor's favorite top hat left a splintering crack in their shield that spread with each new impact. Once the shield was compromised, there was nothing to stand between them , variable gravity, thousand-plus-degree metallic projectiles falling at terminal velocity. Their suits were not meant to withstand those sorts of threats.
"I don't know," he said, not wanting to lie to her even when it offered comfort. "Gallifreyan engineering is unlike any the universe has seen. It's possible." He swore at the next sizeable impact, unconsciously hunkering down in his suit to put distance between himself and danger.
The colonel was not far behind his example, swearing and reading the impact force measurements populating the HUD at turns from the floor of the equipment cab. With each subsequent hit, their collective curses became that much more colorful.
Colonel Song attempted to re-establish contact with the other ground teams without success.
"It's the meteor shower. We won't be able to raise them until the geo-magnetic interference dissipates."
"I can't raise Control again, either. We're on our own out here."
"Not how we planned it."
"Not nearly."
The meteorites struck in a drumbeat rhythm akin to the beat of the Doctor's twin hearts. Were it not so dangerous he might be lulled to sleep.
The Doctor's hearts nearly gave out when he heard the hiss-click of River Song releasing the seal of her environmental helmet and lifting the visor.
He cast about for a deity that could make the woman see sense. "What are you doing? Put that back down! Put it back."
The colonel raised a hand to quell his rising hysteria. "We're good, Doctor. We're good. The shield's holding, the Rover is secure with internal environmental settings unchanged. I need a minute to breath is all."
The Doctor looked left and right, partly for the dour, disapproving mission commander he had come to avoid, partly for verification that he wasn't going to witness the death of the woman he…he held in much too much esteem. Better that it be less than it could have been. Better that than prepare for the worst and get it.
For want of another course, he did as she had and unsealed his helmet. Just for a moment, he swore to himself, panting in the recycled air. It was stale and carried an unsettling chemical aftertaste he'd never get used to, but it was good. It was cooler than he'd been since departing Moment.
After a protracted silence punctuated by the odd disheartening splinter of their zircon shield, River Song let out a humorous laugh. "All that preparation and the first thing that could possibly go wrong does."
The Doctor sniffed, morose.
"It's just typical is what it is. This is just typical."
He knew that tone. "This is not my fault."
"Well, it certainly isn't mine. If only you wouldn't try to collect samples of every rock and geode on the moon's surface, we might have been aboard in time to avoid the meteor shower!"
"I was exploring! I'm an explorer! We explore. Blimey, isn't that what this trip was supposed to be about: visiting exciting new places and making discoveries no one ever has, meeting new people if they're out here and making friends?"
"Did your friend the geode enjoy you trying to sniff it through your visor? That's a bit invasive for me, but perhaps for others it might be a sign of admiration."
He sniffed, in offense this time rather than the spirit of discovery. "Are you quite finished?"
"Not a chance, dear."
The Doctor felt a pathetic thrill at the endearment and moved to shake off his thrall at once. It was getting ridiculous. He was ridiculous. "Look, I get that you don't like me, but this'll go a lot smoother if we talk each other through this mess without the insults."
"Oh, please."
"What's 'oh please' about? I'm trying to be agreeable."
"You're hardly that. You fret the minute you don't feel listened to. Well, I can't hold your hand through every mishap, Doctor. You need to be less emotional right now! I need you to stand on your own to help me salvage this operation and get our people back to the shuttle. You're capable of that much."
He swung round on his bucket seat as much as his suit allowed. "I'm more than capable of that! I do it every day. Every misstep, each mistake I make, I own up. I'm trying to do that now. I want to make amends for my limbs and being is bandy as a drunk newborn giraffe. I wasn't even clumsy this time. Not especially clumsy, anyway." The Doctor sighed and ruffled his sweat-soaked fringe. "I wish you'd just talk to me. I know you'd rather be trapped with a family of otters on a world covered in water and forest than with me, but I'm what you've got. We're both clever enough, surely we can make our way out of this."
The only sound to come from the rear of the Rover was bellyful of husky laughter. Charming though it was, laughter was not the response the Doctor had been looking for.
"Why are you laughing? Colonel—River, this is no laughing matter. We could be killed! The bleeding sun could fry us alive. We could be crushed in an undetected gravity well or turned to astronaut-flavored jam on moon toast by a sodding meteorite!"
She actually laughed harder. Incorrigible woman.
"We can be killed at anytime by the Daleks, entirely at random yet with extreme malice. The vast expanse of space is without prejudice or bias, Doctor. It doesn't care what we do. It goes on, with or without us." She clumsily brushed moisture from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hypergloved hands.
"As for me, I'd much like to see it go on. I didn't sign up to die, that wasn't why I left home. There's so much to see. Ways of life our poets have only dreamt of in the heat of madness, divine sights best left to prophet for their heavenliness. I want to see those sights with mine own eyes and experience whole new worlds, breathe their air if it's compatible with us."
"Pulmonary bypass could come in handy for a gasp."
"I could never settle for a single breath when I could have them all."
"The mind of a scientist and the soul of a poet. Just what it says on the tin." She sighed what sounded to him a wistful sigh. How could she make him so bloody happy and hearts-sick all at once?
"Was that a joke at my expense? Why do you do that? What have I done to keep you from taking me seriously?"
Her laughter ceased abruptly. "I take you perfectly seriously. You're a member of my crew."
"Yes, good, lovely, yet you take every opportunity to remind me of my mission as though I'm an absentminded child. Have I ever, up to this very event, failed to do as I'm bid? Have I been a disruption to good order and discipline among the crew? Have I insulted you in some unforeseen manner, because I'm very sorry if I have. I am trying. Why isn't that good enough?"
River's troubled expression was visible through her retracted visor. "Is that truly your question?"
"Yes!" He had her at his disposal between a rock and a hot place, he supposed it was time to ask what he had never been brave enough to ask. "No. No, strike that. My question is…it's—why is it that you don't like me? Me, personally, I mean. Me, as in Theta Sigma. Not the captain or the crewmember, the person. What fault do you find with me that isn't in anybody else?"
Her expression grew bewildered, puzzlement giving way rapidly to alarm. "Where'd you get the absurd idea that I don't like you?"
"It's hardly absurd! The way you talk down to me, for instance."
"Reminders."
"The insults to me intelligence."
"Friendly teasing." She shifted in her environmental suit, arguably a shrug it could not properly convey. "I like watching you blush. You do it a lot."
Which…yes, all right, he blushed the color of the Gallifrey sky when she poked fun at him.
"You get angry with me as you don't anybody else."
At that, she sobered once more.
"I know your capabilities. I've seen your test scores, your student projects and presentations. Your doctoral work was masterful and has yet to be bested by your successors. I expect the best of you and I ream you out when you fail to meet my standards as I know you can." Her cheeks were in a flush and her nostrils flared in irritation. The encroaching sunlight illuminated her profile within the shadowed dome of her helmet. She was anything but willfully indifferent. "You're an excellent scientist, you know. You could be even better at command if you so chose. But you must make that choice. You can't coast on sheer brilliance, and there's more to advancement than your capacity to think circles around your superiors. I admit I want to see you excel and perhaps in my eagerness, I may have come across as cruel. That was not my intention. You're perfectly decent chap, genial even." She reached out a hypergloved hand to grasp his, contact so minute in the thick material it was seen more than felt. "Doctor, you're…lovely. You really are."
The Doctor floundered. "Well…you don't talk to me." He sputtered onward at her confounded look. "You don't! I've tried to talk to you on a dozen separate occasions only for you to dash off like I've not said a word."
"Is it my fault your idea of small talk involves bananas and atrocious haberdashery? I can only discuss the proper care and maintenance of fezzes for so long before I want to set any and all aflame to save my sanity."
He pouted and tried to cross his arms, but environmental suits weren't made with such displays of petulance in mind—he couldn't reach.
"You're a sweet, intelligent young man. You drive me a little mad. You drive me to distraction, being honest, and I can't afford a distraction in this job. Doctor, Theta, people could die if I'm too busy staring at you cow-eyed to watch the environmental readings, if I'm not there to inspect the engine data during landing or takeoff. This is my duty and anybody that distracts from it is dangerous to all of us. That's why I give you a hard time beyond all the rest. I'm not sorry for keeping us both out of harm's way."
"Then, you don't actually hate me?"
"That'd be like hating a baby giraffe and who could stand the moral quandary?"
His solicitous gaze narrowed to a glare at her ensuing giggle. "Just what is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, dear. Friendly teasing, nothing more." She squeezed his hand until he felt it. "You're a good man. I cannot wait to see you become a great one." She let him go and set about putting her helmet to rights. "Now, let's see about outrunning this shower and getting our people back aboard Moment. What do you say?"
"Colonel?"
She turned bodily toward him. Their spacesuits weren't much good for simple head tilts.
"Once we get home—after the mission, I mean, should we not die here—could I take you out for coffee or something?"
"As a bonding exercise?" The Doctor allowed his foolish hearts to perk up at the fondness bleeding through her voice. He raised his chin in challenge and he hoped a show of confidence, wary but willing to listen. To really hear her answer as he never quite was.
"As a date."
He thought he could see the reflection of Gallifrey's distant colors in her eyes, even through the tinted visor. "I'll do you one better, Doctor. You can have me over for breakfast. I hear the sunrise from your balcony is beautiful."
"Not as beautiful as you." He flinched. "That was terrible, wasn't it?"
"I'll forgive you for it this once," she admonished, only for her laughter to make a liar of her. He would be tripping over the memory of it for dawns and dusks for eons hence.
"Hear that," he said softly, taking in the beautiful, determined, vital whole of her at work.
She glanced at him. "I don't hear anything."
"Exactly. I think we've made it."
She inspected the view through the sunlight again. No more meteorites. "So we have."
They shared a companionable smile—well, companionable on her end perhaps. He remained dazzled.
"Shall I raise the others?"
"After I raise Control. This day might not be a total wash."
"Yes, ma'am."
Alpha and Bravo Team had taken cover at the ruins they'd found and were unharmed. They seemed to be manmade. ("Finally some good news," the colonel had muttered.) The Moment had suffered moderate damage, though not enough for Colonel Smith recall the away teams. Barring another shower, they were clear to resume carrying out their mission objectives.
"You heard him, contact every half-hour. Finish sample collection and reconnaissance; we'll make an early day of it." She rang off after getting confirmation from all comers. "That's that done. Now for you and I."
"Ma'am." The Doctor shifted in the driver's seat, unaccustomed to being caught in River Song's pleasant crosshairs.
"You and I have some misunderstandings to clear up and I think we should start at the next checkpoint. What do you say to a little walk on the moon's surface under the stars and a picnic of reconstituted beef stroganoff with flat boxed wine between soil samples? Who could resist?"
"Not me, ma'am."
"Oh, Benjamin." She wiggled her gorgeous brows.
He scratched his jaw, only then remembering to re-secure his helmet and visor for the duration.
"I'm the Doctor. Who's Benjamin?"
"Darling," she sighed. "A pop culture reference well before your time, I'm afraid. Don't concern yourself. Now, my proposition: Lunch?"
"A thousand times yes." That Doctor watched avidly as River dug into the storage compartment of their Rover to retrieve what could only be a modified picnic basket. "Where in the name of Omega did you get that?"
"Friends at Cruciform Station owed me a favor. Well, I say a favor—it was my birthday. That Smith bloke is dead brilliant with space-worthy gadgetry."
"Mission Commander Smith?" The Doctor scowled on instinct.
"No, you daft man. The physicist at home. The civilian."
"Ah." He wasn't actually comforted by the correction. That John Smith was Rose's new beau. "He isn't that good."
"Is that professional jealousy I sense?"
The Doctor sniffed. " 'Course not. Anything he can do I can do just as well." Better, he was quite sure.
"Naturally. Come along, then. Geological surveys to conduct, soil samples to collect. And then we lunch."
The Doctor disengaged the zircon shield and revved up the Rover to begin the next leg of their journey.
"Y'know, if I didn't know better I'd swear you were trying to make peace with me."
"I'm a lover more often than a fighter these days. It's what I do." Rumor had it River hadn't always been so peace-loving. Those days were clearly behind her.
"Well, I can't wait to get on with making peace with you."
She scoffed at him in good humor. "You do love those euphemisms, don't you, sweetie?"
"I love TARDISes," he amended, hands beating out a merry tune on the controls. "They're my favorite space-faring vessel. I also love fezzes. You may have known this."
"I had some idea." She followed his tangent sans judgment.
"There are other things I love more."
"Such as?"
He stared sideways at her, her curls limp in the sweltering heat of her suit, cheeks pink in the aftermath of laughter, bluish-green eye sparkling under the glare of the sun's rays reflecting off the moon's cratered surface. Still the most arresting sight in all the Kasterborous Constellation.
"Oh, I don't know. I think you'll figure it out."