Thanks again for all the great feedback! I'm always open to adventure ideas.
"As promised: the Imperial Statuary," the Doctor said, motioning to the wide expanse of carved rocks before them.
River, ever the archaeologist, immediately took out her scanner to gather background information on each individual piece. "I thought you said Darillium was a democracy," she noted while meticulously checking her results. "So why is there an 'imperial' anything?"
The Doctor spent his time admiring the works of art, rather than evaluating them. "No, I said Darillium is a plutocracy. Ever since we brought the diamond here, it's been that way. The people with money hold the power. But it hasn't always been that way. What you see here are just remnants of a recently-forgotten empirical era."
River took a moment to glance up at him from her scanner. "And you do realize that we're not only the cause of the change, but judging by our house, I'd say we also hold a good amount of power."
"I try not to think about it," he answered, disgust dripping from his voice.
For the next few minutes, the Statuary was silent as they took in the beauty and history of the statues. Eventually, the two of them found themselves separated by several rows of sculptures, each moving away to look at different pieces they found interesting.
However, a noise soon caught the Doctor's attention. River's scanner had begun to beep; the sound was soft at first, but then became more and more frantic as it was ignored.
"Doctor?" River called. "You might want to take a look at this."
The Doctor—in a state of both confusion and mild anxiousness—jogged over to where she stood clutching her scanner.
"What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"See for yourself," she answered, showing him her device.
The screen showed a proximity radar with a single blinking red dot, a single enemy hidden somewhere near them. Alone, that would not have worried the Doctor. One opponent was easy enough to avoid, especially when the two of them were armed with a sonic screwdriver and River's Alpha Meson gun. But then he checked the rest of the readings, and he could almost feel his hearts stop. The screen read:
SPECIES: WEEPING ANGEL
There was no mistaking that, and there was no avoiding it either. The good news was that there was only one. The bad news—which, frankly, seemed to far outweigh the good—was that they were in a statuary. Any one of the works that they had walked past could have been a living, breathing creature. Any one of them could be potentially lethal.
"River," the Doctor began, speaking with exaggerated calmness, "how close would you say we are to the angel?"
"Close enough for it to be within our field of vision," she stated. "Every so often, it stops. If we couldn't see it, I'm sure it would still be on the move."
"Good point. Next question: is it closer to us than we are to the exit?"
At this, they both looked back in the direction from which they had come. "It's hard to say…" River began, but as she looked back at the scanner, her tone became more panicked. "No, no, it's definitely closer to us now. And it's not in the direction of the exit. As soon as we looked that way, it moved closer. Our best bet is to find out which statue is the angel. Then, we can work backwards from there."
The Doctor considered this, speaking aloud as he had a tendency to do in life-threatening situations. "Find the angel before it finds us, using our sight as a defense mechanism. It's dangerous, but it's the best we've got."
"It's moved again," River cut in, never taking her eyes from the scanner.
Meanwhile, the Doctor had already begun making deductions about the location of the angel. "So we know that it's not in the direction I was just looking. And it can't be in the direction of the exit…. Okay, I'm going to turn in a circle without blinking. We can narrow down its proximity by monitoring when it moves."
River nodded, keeping her attention concentrated on the scanner, so as not to interfere with the Doctor's results. He began to turn slowly, and the angel moved. However, in the next instant, it stopped.
"Stop!" River called, indicating that he was facing the right direction. "It's somewhere over there. Don't blink."
She moved to stand beside him, following his line of vision. A quick glance at the scanner told her that the angel had not moved.
"River." The Doctor's voice was low and serious, almost solemn, as he spoke. "I'm going to do something now, and I need you to trust me."
She looked at him with uncertainty, as she knew that anytime he said those words, nothing good would happen. "What are you going to do?"
"Just trust me," he repeated.
And as much as River hated to admit it, she did trust him. "Fine," she answered. "Just don't do anything too dangerous."
"No promises," the Doctor whispered under his breath. "Now, I need you to keep your eyes fixed on the scanner. Whatever you do, keep looking at the scanner. I'm going to blink."
River began to protest, but he spoke up. "Please, I need you to trust me."
After this, she didn't say anything. She knew that he was being overly reckless, but she also knew how stubborn he was. If he wanted to play the hero, there was no stopping him. And although it might kill her to see him constantly throwing himself in harm's way, sometimes she had to concede that it was just one of the occupational hazards of being a time traveler. So she focused her eyes on the scanner, took a deep breath, and simply said, "Okay."
At that, the Doctor closed his eyes for just a split second.
Everything that happened in that instant raced through his mind at a million miles an hour. He recalled the action of blinking, of feeling his hearts beating out a panicked rhythm in his chest. He recalled hearing the sound of shuffling in the half-moment that his eyes were closed. He recalled opening his eyes to see a weeping angel clutching the lapel of his jacket. Finally, he recalled a sense of total dread washing over him at that moment, as he felt the creature's stony grip.
In contrast, the next second was pure confusion. The weeping angel had touched him, but nothing had happened. If it needed to feed, he would have been sent to the past by now. If it needed his body, it was by well within range to have killed him already. But he wasn't dead, and neither was River…. River!
Upon realizing that he had not yet checked on her current state, he looked over at her. But her reaction was the furthest thing from what he had expected. Not only did she appear to be completely unscathed and unafraid, but she seemed to be… laughing?
And as he realized that he should be watching the angel, he looked back to find that it too was laughing. In a confused panic, the Doctor looked from River to the angel again and again until he grasped what had just happened, his face reddening as he realized he'd been tricked.
The "angel" released its grasp, and the Doctor smoothed his lapels in annoyance. River, who was practically in tears from laughing by this point, pulled a folded bill from her pocket and handed it to the man dressed to look like stone.
"Thanks again, Francisco. That was perfect!"
Angel Francisco pocketed the money and walked away, amused and triumphant.
"And what exactly was all that about?" the Doctor asked in frustration, his pride having taken a hit.
As soon as River had stopped laughing, she wiped the tears from her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Well you see, I met Francisco that day we went to the Market. He's a member of the local acting talent, and when we spoke, he said he'd do just about anything for the right price. How could I refuse?"
"So you decided to dress him as a weeping angel and program your scanner to assign him a different species?"
"There were a lot of complexities involved, yes. But I did have quite a lot of time to plan while waiting for you in the library yesterday. You can't blame me for going a little overboard."
"So you faked your reaction, as well as the readings on your scanner, but there's still one thing that doesn't add up." River waited amusedly for him to explain. "As soon as I blinked, Francisco was there. Humans aren't that fast."
"You're right," she shrugged. "They're not. But he didn't need to be fast, just close. He was right in front of you the whole time. You only assumed he was farther because that's what I told you. And didn't we already conclude that my scanner readings were false?"
The Doctor clamored around for some other argument that might save his pride, but he eventually found that his attempts were useless. River Song had outsmarted him again, and he would be better off just accepting that fact.
"Fine," he sighed, scowling. "You got me. Are you happy now?"
"Immensely," she smirked. "But I think we've seen enough statues for one day, don't you?"
The Doctor gave a slight nod of agreement. "More than enough, I'd say."
"In that case, let's return to our Palace of Plutocracy," she smiled, knowing how much this would annoy him.
Sure enough, he winced. "We're not calling it that."
"Come along, Your Highness."
"And you're not calling me that! 'Mr. President' was bad enough." However, as soon as the words had left his mouth, he knew that they would have been better off unsaid.
"'Mr. President?' I didn't know you were called that, but I'm certainly using it now." With a wink, she turned to lead the way out of the Statuary.
The Doctor was at least glad that she was in front of him and therefore could not see him blushing. But as much as she toyed with him and created plots for her own amusement at his expense, he couldn't help but be impressed. Not everyone could outsmart him, but River Song could do so every day of the week and still have the time and energy to flirt relentlessly after the dust had settled. If he was to spend the next 24 years falling in love with her all over again, he silently noted that he was making extraordinary progress so far.