The Doctor had neglected to recognize the weather of his perfect first-date spot. While the stars shone so brightly a person could read by it, River stood in her tank top, goosebumps alight on her skin and a shiver on her lips. The Doctor, clad in a tuxedo, wasn't the warmest he'd ever been, but perhaps he'd been short-sighted. Who would have guessed that on top of a 400 foot tree, on the tip-top of the North-side of a mountain, in the middle of the planet's own Atlantic Ocean, that it would be so cold?
River was looking rather blue, now that he thought about it.
"You were right. It is magic."
Her bouncy curls were a bit deflated in the new atmosphere, which added an unsightly two and a half extra pounds, the Doctor mused as he messed with his tie and pursed his lips. Gravity, always just a tiny bit different than one was expecting.
"Are you cold, River?"
"No. Of course not."
"You're lying," he said, and reacting to his cheesy grin, River laughed, throwing her head back. Her skin was white in the light of the stars, the blood rushing to her hearts and inner organs, conserving heat as she edged closer and closer to hypothermia.
The Doctor took a step closer to her, and she leaned into his shoulder and heat in response. He supposed he could get her a shawl. He would get her a shawl. She needed a shawl. A good husband would get his hypothermic wife a shawl.
"Would you like a shawl, River?"
"Now, why would you want to do that when you could warm me up yourself?"
Flustered and rambling, the Doctor made numerous f-sounds and motorboated his lips has he snapped his fingers and slipped into the TARDIS. River turned back and looked at the sky, before looking down at the water. A light blue that was slowly darkening as time passed, the sky turning into night in only a few seconds as the planet turned on its axis.
"Oh bugger, I missed the finale."
River turned around to see the Doctor standing with a fuzzy jumper, scarf, and winter jacket in his hands. He handed them to her and smiled, waiting for her to express her pleasure like a puppy who just got a new toy.
"You're quite excited, aren't you?" River smiled, pushing her thumbs into the plush yarn of the knitted sweater, bunching it in her hands.
"I made it myself. Knitted it and everything," the Doctor grinned from ear-to-ear, all but bouncing up and down. River could only laugh and roll her eyes as she slid the sweater on. Too big in the bust area, too small in the waist area, typical of men. But she wouldn't ruin his fun, not this early in the date. Wrapping the scarf around her neck and slipping the jacket onto her shoulders, she felt her skin sting as blood rose back to the surface.
Dipping her nose into the scarf to warm her face, her blue eyes looked up from under her lashes and twinkled. Her nose went from the sickly pale color it has been turning to a bright pink as blood began circulating. The Doctor smiled softly and took a step closer.
One hand on her shoulder, leaning in just enough to brush the tips of their nose together in an Eskimo-kiss.
"It's much too cold to kiss normally. Our lips would freeze together," the mist of his breath was stark white against the dark sky. River fluttered her eyes closed.
"It's rather dark out, wouldn't you say?"
Her eyes snapped open, as the Doctor strode to the other end of the viewing balcony.
"It's night time, Doctor."
"Ah, you see," the Doctor hissed against his teeth, pointing at her with pistol-hands, "I rather don't like you calling me that. Too formal."
Her hands went to her hips, her mouth open in shock, "Excuse me, sir? I'm not even allowed to call you by your name anymore?"
"No," the Doctor clapped his hands together, took two long strides toward her, "You may call me 'Sweetie.'" Then he kissed her forehead. "Now, why is it so dark?"
"Because it's nighttime."
"Oh River, how long do I have to wait until you're clever?"
She scoffed as the Doctor paced back and forth, undoing his bowtie before pursing his lips, "It's getting warmer, isn't it?"
"No. It's freezing out."
"No, River, it was freezing out. But now it's not."
"You're going mad, sweetie."
The Doctor made an ah-ha at her term of endearment before thinking back and pacing, "I'm nearly sweating. How are you not sweating?"
River placed her hand to her forehead, wanting to shake it as his stupidity, but instead finding her forehead beginning to dampen. Now that she thought about it, the scarf around her neck was awfully much. As was the jacket. And perhaps the jumper.
"Why is it so hot?"
"Now you're feeling it! A shame it took you so long. We'll have to work on that?"
River was in the process of stripping from her winter clothes as the heat front came upon them in waves and waves. It had jumped from well below freezing to at least 29.5C. River's ringlets were beginning to stick to her forehead, while the Doctor's cowlick was beginning to stick out at random directions.
"Doctor, what's happening?"
"We'll have to see, won't we?" Then he started to walk to the TARDIS, holding open the door for her as she ran in with her pile of winter clothing in her arms. The cool, comfortable air of the TARDIS was so welcome; she nearly collapsed to the ground in relief.
"I keep forgetting, you know, that you're not the River Song I'm used to. You're so young!"
"I'm not too, young, sweetie."
The Doctor ducked his head down to look at the controls while he grinned and blushed. A little less experienced, but definitely the River he'd been falling head-over-heels for. The blond curls and the red mouth. Bringing about the end of time itself for nothing but the love she could hold in her little chest.
And it was with great pride he took to be the fact that she was already far gone to loving him.
And great pride that they would take their first adventure together, with her as his only companion.
A life companion. A wife.
"Now, River, tell me. Why was the sky getting so dark, so quickly?"
"The ocean was evaporating."
"Clever girl! Clever girl!" He ruffled her curls and she pulled back with a scowl. But he laughed anyway. "Now, who would want to evaporate an entire ocean?"
"Is there anything living in there?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes, "Oh, River, of course there's things living in an ocean. My girl, you have so much to learn and-"
He cut off. She was so close to him it was like the air was on fire. His breath caught as he looked pointedly at her nose, instead of her eyes, or her mouth, or her cleavage.
"I," she murmured, grabbing one of his hands, "am not," she grabbed the other one, "a child." And then, she threw both his hands down on the console before stepping back, obviously tiffed. She began running an environmental check on the planet, letting the TARDIS fill her in while the Doctor pouted on the other side.
"All this planet is known for is some good chips. What could they possibly want with the ocean? Sea salt? Sea potatoes? Is there a such thing as sea potatoes?"
River poked her head out from the other side of the console, "Just chips? No fish?"
The Doctor had his mouth gaping open for a second before breaking into a smile. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, "Yes. No fish."
She tried to shake away from him, thinking he was mocking her, but all she got was more kisses until her forehead had a big wet spot on it.
"Oh, you. I always thought you'd be the kind of person who loves kissies."
"Doctor!"
"Sweetie," he corrected her.
"We have more important things to do."
"Funny, how the roles switch the more romantic I try to be."
River smiled, "You're an awful romantic. You're lucky I'm already in love with you."
The Doctor smirked and then turned on his heel, pointing at a screen, "Now, see, the humans, or humanoids, or whatever they're called on this planet, I can't keep track of them all, they fail to notice that they're committing actual genocide in their own waters. They're looking for cod. What they'll find are the Paravores. Nasty, smart, demon looking fish-people who will be quite unhappy to realize that they've been targeted for dinner."
River Song looked almost completely uninterested, but he caught the flush of excitement highlighting her cheeks.
"Might as well stop a war before it starts, eh River?"
"You're feeling a bit daring with time today, aren't you?"
"Only at night," The Doctor looked her over, from toes to the tips of her curls and back down again, "I'm feeling daring about a lot of things tonight."
"Oh stop, Doctor, you're going to make me blush."
"How far do you blush, River? Just your cheeks? Just your ears? Or right down to your-"
Their flirtation was cut off as the TARDIS shifted back and forth. River stumbled and grabbed the railing in a vice grip. The Doctor jerked forward, pulling down a lever in his haste. Cursing, he shoved it back to its original place and looked around to see if anyone had noticed.
"Doctor, what was that?"
"It seems the tree we're on is shifting back and forth. Or perhaps the mountain. Come, River. It seems we have some investigating to do outside."
Her combat boots stomped after his leather-soled shoes as they looked outside. The air was hot and humid, frizzing River's hair out like a pom-pom. The Doctor took careful steps and looked over the edge of the balcony. He tsk'd, and looked back at River.
"The waterline has gone down. By a lot."
"Of the entire ocean? Sweetie, that's impossible."
"Oh nothing's impossible. But it's not what happened. They've blocked off a perimeter over the surrounding, oh," The Doctor waved his sonic in the air, "Twenty miles. A twenty mile radius, actually, sorry. Still quite a bit of water. And I'm willing to bet there's a whole host of angry fish down there that are-"
The mountain shook again, and the balcony's railing crashed away, falling into the ocean.
"Rearing to make themselves known," the Doctor mused.
"Can we go under the water? Or at least, in the spaceship that's evaporating it all?"
"Sure we can! Back in the TARDIS, my girl."
The deck of the Bajoran spaceship, Chips Galore © was quite nice. Filled with pleasant aromas and chittering people, they were quite friendly when the Doctor and River popped their heads out.
"Hello. Would you like some chips?"
The welcoming crew had buckets of fries in their hands, holding them out.
"No thank you. It was much too hard to get to this dress size," River said, smiling. The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"River, you are much too shallow. Perhaps I like the larger variety of women."
"Is that why you chose my mother? The little stringbean that she is?" River grinned and the
Doctor mirrored it. They looked into each other's eyes.
The welcoming crew cleared their throats.
"Yes, yes. Back to business, shall we? Where is your captain? Captain Adami, is it?"
"Yes, Captain Adami! Nice to finally meet you. You ruined my honeymoon!" Despite the words, the Doctor hugged the man close to him, taking a few sniffs. "You've been eating a lot of fish. Why have you been doing that? You just started evaporating the ocean." The Doctor sniffed around a while more, looking at all of the crew, "You all reek of deep fried fish. Beer batter. Rather low quality, to be perfectly honest."
River looked around, finding a window and looking down. She made a gasp, turning to the captain, "Captain, what day is it?"
The captain looked surprised, "Why, it's October 7th, 2360."
The Doctor swallowed, turning pale as he turned around to a seething, mad River. "Now River, this isn't my fault. You're rubbish with the TARDIS."
"Rubbish?" she screeched, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him back and forth, "You arrived two weeks late. All those people down there, dead. All because you won't let me, for some unknown reason, drive the TARDIS. We could've saved them."
"Saved who?" Captain Adami interrupted, his brows furrowed. "There weren't any people down there. Just some cod."
"Cod fish?" the Doctor blinked, "Why, their migratory patterns branch a bit further than I realized. What do you mean you didn't see any people? Well, they look more like merpeople, but without the seduction and death."
"The only things we found was a large school of cod. And is our beer batter really that low of quality?"
"Yes. Awful. But I felt them hitting the mountain," the Doctor mused pacing back and forth,
"River, we need to get back on the TARDIS and do a scan of the mountain. Find whatever we can." And with that, he took off in a brisk walk, River right on his heels.
"I'm going to be doing the scanning. I don't trust you with that old girl."
"Oh they're clever. Clever, clever, clever fish," River mused, doing a few more scans. "There must be five hundred of Paravores in the mountain. They've hollowed it out and filled it with enough water to survive until the ship stopped evaporating in order to net the cod." Her fingers clicked on the keyboard while the Doctor stood by the railing, making sure she could see his reflection in the screen. Then he pouted.
"Stop it."
"Stop what?"
"Stop pouting. You're doing it on purpose."
"I can't help it. I'm usually the clever one. I'm usually the one that does all of this fun, quirky stuff while everyone looks at me like I'm some sort of-"
"Alien?"
"I was going for super hero," the Doctor grinned, brushing his hair back and trying to look as dashing as possible when River looked over her shoulder and smiled. She shook her head and laughed, going back to her work.
"Do you want me to set up communications with them? They seem to have a transmitter in the mountain. Doctor, are these the only Paravores left, or is it simply a colony?"
The Doctor looked at his nails, "They're the only ones. Only just recently evolved to this high of a lifeform, within the last five hundred years or so. Amphibians evolve so fast," the Doctor bit at a hangnail, "They breed quickly, though. In a hundred years, they'll have enough forces to start sinking the Bajoran fishing and commerce ships. Followed by the Bajoran Navy. Setting up a nice little civil war, that ends with, oh, I'll take you to the parade someday." The Doctor grinned, "Or, perhaps, the final battle. I'd hate to give you too much of a head-start. Wars are so much better when you don't know who's going to win."
River frowned, "I thought you didn't like wars."
The Doctor shrugged, looking directly into her eyes, "Wars are very important for the furthering of civilizations. Heroes rise up and lead their sides to glory and advancements that take too long under peaceful conditions. Wars are the worst, and best, part of self-awareness."
River gave a weak smile, "I would think that the best and worst part of self-awareness is love."
The Doctor didn't have time to answer when Captain Adami entered the TARDIS through the open doors. "Doctor? You said to come in after half an hour."
"Yes, sit down," the Doctor said, "We have a bit of damage control to do."
The leader of the Paravores, Fredigcha, or Fred for convenience, was a disgusting and vile creature. Barely evolved up from a cross between a salamander and a swordfish, he had horns all around his scalp and small black eyes with red pupils. The Doctor had been charming enough to convince Fred to talk to Captain Adami, while River walked out of view and shuddered. Ugly and with an awful, croaking voice, perhaps a mountain was where they ought to stay. But she wouldn't say anything so worthy of the Doctor's disapproval.
"River, are you alright?" he whispered, walking out of view of the telescreen while the two leaders began to work out what had happened. It was going quite swimmingly, if he did say so himself. Calderon Beta had several large oceans, being four times the size of Earth. There were plenty more places for the Bajorans to fish. This was going to be a piece of cake.
"I've never seen anything like that before. It's so unlike a human, I can't even really-"
"Comprehend it. Yes, I understand. Travelling across space and time gets a little weird. Things that don't resemble humans in the slightest, crawling around on three legs with eight tongues that can see ultraviolet light and-"
"I get it!" River gave a small smile, pink coloring her cheeks, "It's just very new to me, is all."
"We have a while to work on that, my dear. Don't worry about it too much," and he kissed the top of her head.
"Yes. I suppose we have forever, don't we?"
The Doctor's smile faltered just a second, but long enough for River's eyes to see it. Her own smile fell as she searched his face. He cleared his throat and walked out of her reach, back to where Adami and Fred were speaking.
"Have we come to an agreement, sirs?"
Fred nodded, slime coming off of his face in sheets of gel, "The Bajorans will leave the Northern Ocean and fish where the haddock are."
"Haddock? The haddock migrated all the way over here as well? Well, life certainly finds a way, am I right?" The Doctor slapped his hand on Captain Adami's back, a large smile on his face as he looked back and forth between the two men. "Now, off you go, I have a wife to entertain."
"That was so easy, I'm almost disappointed," the Doctor said, wiping his hands off. River was in the wardrobe, looking through a plethora of clothing, occasionally making a squeal or a, "Yes, I'll have to try this."
"River, are you nearly done down there?" the Doctor leaned over the railing, watching her shadow as it grew larger while she walked up the corridor. Her footsteps clacked, and he pursed his lips. She was wearing heels. Why would she be wearing heels?
A nicely tanned leg, probably from so many years of archaeology work, peeked out from around the corner of the doorway. Red heels made them go on forever, and he could practically see her smiling through the wall.
"Oh dear, perhaps it was a bit more dangerous than I remember. All that's left is your leg!"
Her laugh filled the control room and send shivers up his spine. She walked out from behind the wall, twirling around carefully, to make sure and not twist her ankle.
"Happy honeymoon, sweetie."
For someone who had known him for such a short time, after all, they'd just gotten married, she hadn't even written anything in her diary yet!, she certainly knew how to press his buttons. Just a shirt that was a long enough to cover up most of her panties, and just thin enough that he could make out the shade difference where she was wearing, he assumed, a black bra.
Oh, the TARDIS and River were in cahoots.
Her curls were tied up loosely in a bun and she had applied a new layer of red lipstick that matched the shade of her shoes. Where had he seen those shoes before? The Byzantium?
She didn't give him enough time to sort out his thoughts or get too sad over their second meeting, because she was too close, too fast. Crowding up his space until he felt himself hit the console, she grinned, "Hello, Benjamin."
He flushed red and jerked away to the side, hitting random levers and buttons as he went. He regretted it instantly when he saw her eyes look down, her expression changing from seductive to rejected, and her cheeks flush red with embarrassment.
Oh God, he was so rubbish at this.
"You look wonderful. I'd hate to think you're dressing like this for the guards at Stormcage. Or else, well, I'll have to think about making a career change."
River looked up, surprised as the Doctor took a couple more steps to her, running his hands along her arms. He bit his lower lip and grinned as her arms rose up with goosebumps. Her eyes looked right into his and he felt that embarrassing blush light up his cheeks, so he ducked his head down, letting his hair block her view of his face.
"Doctor, you're acting like you're seventeen."
The Doctor exhaled slowly, leaning in and kissing the curve of her neck. River felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart rate picking up, her hands gripping his shirt as he kissed the same spot over and over, before trailing up her neck to below her ear.
A little curl tickled his nose and he sneezed.
Oh God, he really was rubbish at this.
Like she was answering his question, River began to giggle. And then chuckle. And then laugh. Loud and joyous, she laughed until she was out of breath. The Doctor joined in after a few seconds, until they were wrapped up in each other's arms, giggling and panting.
"Oh Doctor, maybe not tonight," River kissed the collar of his shirt, leaving a red lip-print before kissing his neck. She mused how long it would be before he noticed that she'd marked him up.
The Doctor clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, pulling River down on the floor with him, where she laid by his side, a hand on his chest, listening to half of his heartbeat. "That's a shame, I'm quite good, from what I hear."
"Well, you'll get to rock my world some over time," River murmured, and kissed his cheek, leaving another lip print. The Doctor turned his head to the side and smiled encouragingly at her. His cheeks were just a little pink, he couldn't help it. Too much emotion and blood flow at once. He also couldn't wait too much longer.
So he kissed her first. Despite their clothing and rather compromising position, it was just a simple kiss. No wandering hands, well, maybe hers were wandering a bit too much, but he didn't expect any different from River.
They laid there for a while, just long, slow kisses, until the TARDIS began to make a low humming, an alarm that the Doctor had set up for when either Rory or Amy were about to wake up.
"Your parents are awake. I need to get you back to your cage," the Doctor mimicked River's pout before standing up, fixing his bowtie and running a hand through his ruffled hair.
He looked rather ridiculous with so much lipstick smudged on his lips, cheeks, forehead, and neck. But River wasn't going to tell. Instead she threw his jacket over her shoulders as she watched her husband throw random levers and press buttons. Perhaps she should help him before they landed up two weeks in the future, again, and she'd be in a large amount of trouble.
But the TARDIS began to wheeze as it landed and River studied the read-outs on the screen. It looked right. She was at the right place. What a miracle!
"I'll come back, tomorrow," the Doctor said, leaning against the TARDIS and smiling. River was making the goofiest grin every time she caught a glance at his face, and it made him smile ear-to-ear.
"Make sure. I'll be oh so disappointed if you're not here on time. I'm not like my mother, I don't wait very well. If you aren't here by at least midnight, I'll be out of here, looking for you myself."
The Doctor winked, "I'll wear your parents out. Maybe a hike in the Sahara Desert and fight a giant scorpion. They'll be asleep by nine o'clock, and I'll come and get you."
"Don't disappoint me, sweetie," River walked up to him, her arms wrapped around his neck as she smiled. He mirrored the smile.
"I won't. I promise. Now, make sure you write down everything in your diary. We'll synch them up when I get back."
"But I'll only have one entry."
"Yes, but I'll have many, many more."
Her eyebrows lowered and she pursed her lips together, "How often have you seen me, already?"
"Spoilers."
River smiled and gave him a short kiss on the lips, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow."