River woke with a sore neck. The Doctor was still passed out beside her and the child was asleep in the bed. She delicately got up, careful not to rouse her sleeping husband. She stretched. She smiled at the sleeping pair and quietly snuck out.

She eventually found the console room, where Amy and Rory were enjoying coffee.

"Morning Mum. Morning Dad."

"Morning River." They chorused.

"Coffee?" Inquired Rory.

"Please."

He went and returned with a mug inscribed with Gallifreyan. She read it. "Drink… Well, that's… literal."

"Trust the Doctor to be Captain Obvious."

She sipped it; a rich creamy vat of heaven. They didn't have coffee in the Storm Cage and she had grown quite accustomed to the human stimulant. It lit up her insides as only coffee could. She sighed.

"I am so stiff right now." She rubbed her neck.

"Did you sleep last night?"

"Yes, the Doctor and I fell asleep in an armchair."

Amy laughed, looking at her skeptically. "No mother… Not yet." Rory smirked, awkwardly.

"So, what do you make of all this? You handled it really well, I'm impressed."

"My mind has gone everywhere in the universe. When the Doctor first told me, I was upset. He's scared of her. And when she was asking for help, I literally had to shove him out of the cell and interrupt what would have probably been a very good kiss. But then I was excited. So, I broke out of the cell, set up a date and landed here on Churno. He wouldn't talk about her, but I couldn't stop thinking about her. Well… from what I know, she's nothing like I imagined, but I'll stay. Between you and me, I think I've already fallen in love." She thought about the little girl she had spent the night with and both glowed inside and cringed with the circumstances they had met.

"That was really weird. We were talking with the Doctor last night. He was just as stunned as we are. She won't warm up to us at all."

"You do know what it is, right? She wants someone to love her. The Doctor hasn't been very good at it, and she doesn't know you yet."

"What, so you're an expert now?"

"On trying to warm up to parents that don't know who you are? I wrote the book."

"You have a point."

River sat against the rails of the console. I should sneak out more often she thought. Between the coffee, the Doctor, the girl, and her parents, there was no place she would rather be. Except that the Tardis was in desperate need of a tune-up. She wondered if her husband would ever learn to take care of his sexy properly –it had been ten regenerations, eleven faces and over twelve hundred years and he still hadn't managed to put the instruction manual to good use.

"I'm guessing that armchair is in the room we took the girl?" Amy asked.

"Yes." River placed her coffee down on the ground beside her and started tinkering with the console. "Honestly! How hard is it to keep the rudders at medium?"

"Apparently very hard."

"Thank you Dad."

Rory shrugged. "Did he come in just to cuddle last night? Because he couldn't stop moving." "Was he going through River withdrawal already?"

"I'm not quite sure. What can I say? I've got the man wrapped around my finger."

"Did he say it?"

"A lady doesn't kiss and tell, mother." River smiled.

"Wait, what?" Rory's masculine genes were puzzled, but Amy erupted. "Congratulations!" She enveloped her daughter in a giant hug. "Oh!" exclaimed Rory, catching on. "That's awesome. So proud, Mels. It seems like it was less than a year ago that you could fit in my arm."

"And now my baby's up to my shoulders. Doesn't time fly when you're the parents of a Time Lady."

Fighting off the consciousness that was vying for prevalence, the child kept the image of River in her mind. She relished the compassion the woman had shown her. Her arms warms and her embrace sweet. The little girl was surprised at how naturally she let her façade down. She had tried to do so with the Doctor, but only met a cold response. With the woman she knew as her mother, it had been so much different. Here was a woman who was glad to stay up with her and just watch over her like a parent should. The male and the female humans travelling with the Doctor were compassionate, the child knew, but her prime directive was to gain the love and trust of her family. River had shown a natural, almost overwhelming maternal instinct, whereas the Doctor hadn't shown her an ounce of respect. Grievously, she admitted to herself that one out of two wasn't bad.

When she finally let the consciousness take her, she found, ironically, she was unexpectedly pleased to see the man she desperately wanted to know as Daddy slumped out on the chair across from her. She blinked twice, and noticing he was still there just leaned against the wall and grinned to herself. But where was Dr. River Song? Her chest erupted in panic.

"Mummy…?" She whispered into the quiet.

The child got up, quietly tiptoed past the Doctor and left the room. She looked to her left and to her right. A small voice in the back of her head guided her until she eventually found the Tardis console room. There were the humans… and River. She slunk in quietly until she was only in the shadow of the woman she admired. "Mummy?" River turned around and lit up.

"Hello sweetie."

River's face was warm with compassion. The child smiled.

The Doctor sauntered in, took one look at the party and erupted with glee. "Good morning River!" He slid to her side and stole a quick kiss. She grinned at him. He stepped back cockily. He glanced at the mug in her hand. "What's that?" She held it away from him.

"Nothing that you would like."

"What is it?"

"Coffee."

He danced around her, trying to get a look inside the mug, but she stepped back.

"Coffee." He annunciated. He glimpsed at the Ponds. "Do I like coffee? Have I even had coffee?" Amy pouted and shook her head, unsure.

The Doctor reached for the mug in River's hand; she danced around him again. "My coffee."

"Gimme." He reached for it once again.

"You won't like it."

"Try me."

River handed over the mug warily. The Doctor took it, sniffed it, and deciding it was safe, took a giant swig. Mouth full to bursting point, he coughed and spluttered. He spit it back into the mug and desperately wiped the taste off of his tongue. "That is disgusting! Are you trying to poison me? Oh, yuck." He shoved the mug back into his wife's hands.

"I told you so."

"No."

The little girl at River's side giggled. The Doctor spun around and faced her. "Morning… you." The child tried to conceal a small smile. He stared her straight in the eye and said with earnest "Don't drink coffee. Ever. It's disgusting." He pivoted once again and strode over to the Ponds. He kissed Amy on the forehead and gave Rory a giant hug. "Morning Amy. Good morning Rory."

"Warning Doctor, I'm armed with coffee." Goaded Amy. She and River stole a glance and laughed.

"Would you rather have something else Doctor? Tea or cider or hot cocoa, perhaps?"

"Yes. Yes I would." Agreed he, in mock insult. He observed his smirking wife and the child at her side. "Two hot cocoas, Rory. Would you be so kind?" Rory nodded and returned momentarily with another set of drinks.

The Doctor took his, wafted the scent and took a more cautious sip. The child waited pensively for his approval. After assessing the flavour quality of the beverage and deciding it well, he downed the rest in a matter of seconds. Now that's a drink worth drinking. The Ponds pointed out to him that he had a brown milk mustache. He wiped it away with his sleeve. The child, following his example, sipped at the drink and decided it, as he did, delicious. However, with more elegance, did not finish the entire mug in five seconds.

"So, where do you wanna go? What do you wanna see? There are six of us here and all of the universe in all eternity."

"Six?"

"One. Two. Three, four, five –" The Doctor counted each of them and spread his arms wide "—and the Tardis! Hello sexy. That makes six."

"The asteroid system around the Altair star."

"The Evion Belt. Brilliant. Well… what are we waiting for?"

Rory, the perpetual caretaker, inspected his wife's leg. She insisted she was fine. He insisted they let the Tardis make sure. The party agreed. They walked her to the nearby medical room and did an X-ray and a muscle scan. She was slightly bruised, but otherwise, the Tardis gave her a bill of clean health. The Doctor, seizing the opportunity, raced back to the console room and threw the leavers and switches. The sense of impeding adventure coursed throughout everyone's veins once again.

They found a large carbon based asteroid in the Evion Belt. There was so much diamond on the planet that the gem was reduced to almost no value whatsoever. The bulk of the terrestrial body was uninhabitable for the most part, but it had been colonized by an exploratory group of cosmonauts a few centuries prior. The Doctor took special care to make sure he parked the Tardis under one of the colonized domes. River took special care to make sure he parked properly.

The domes were about twenty kilometers wide each and were formed out of Kevlar for efficiency and thin panes of diamond for aesthetics. The diamond amplified the light from Altair, a blue giant, and it radiated off the graphite like ground. There was no atmosphere on the rock, so the insulating domes vented outside for air conditioning. The Doctor read a label at the top of the dome. "M19U7V," its designation, most likely. "I bet you like that, eh Amy? All those pretty jewels." She wore that awed fish face that she had when she had discovered that the Tardis was bigger on the insides. Rory muttered something that sounded like "materialism" to the Doctor, but was clearly impressed by the diamonds as well.

The party wandered until River found a local flea market. Her eagle eyes spotted a large necklace with a glimmering garnet stone in the center. She flocked to it, threw it around her neck and modeled for the group. "Please, husband?" The Doctor turned out his pockets, displaying that he had no money to spend on the party.

"Well, there's no point in being at a flea market, than is there?"

The Doctor shook his head, bewildered. Amy signalled to another booth where they were selling equally feminine fashion. She and River stormed off to the colourful display. Soon enough Rory had engaged a local salesman in a discussion about the herbal medicines that he was claiming responsible for curing almost every disease in his family from the flu to leukemia. The place smelled of a various array of scents that ranged from metal to a sort of strange meat to some kind of overpowering floral perfume. Hagglers, businessmen and housewives were being jostled to and fro in the activity and vendors were yelling advertisements for their products everywhere –some even managed to have walking talking holograms to advertise their goods.

"Anything catch your eye?" The Doctor asked the child.

She looked around. "No."

"There has to be something –what do you like?" He found and modeled a large hat with a feather on top that looked like it had come from the Victorian Era. "Hats. Do you like hats?" The feather fell into his face. He blew it off. "No. No hats." She giggled. "What about bowties? Bowties are cool." He spun around, saw no bowties and grew disappointed. He found a vendor that was selling used eye patches. After modelling the eye patch and sparking no interest in the child, he moved on, looking for other various assorted paraphernalia. He knocked over a tray of "Genuine Maple Syrup Barack Obama Models from Earth" and many of the vendors started scolding him. He quickly put his arm around the child and they hurried away.

The child broke from his grasp when she spotted a large telescope inscribed with the name "Hubble". She runs to look into it. A hooded man approached her from the side of the table. "Have you got money for that?" He whispered down her neck with a cold, gruff voice. The child froze and turned to look at him in fright which immediately turned to her indifferent gaze. "No…?" He straightened up. "Then leave the merchandise alone, you worthless little shit!" The Doctor sidestepped and then ran to her side.

"Hey! Don't talk to her like that!"

The hooded man uncloaked himself to reveal a face to match his voice. "She yours?" He nodded towards the little girl. River's words the previous night echoed in his mind. He fixed his bowtie. "Yes. Yes she is."

The man smirked. "Are you going to pay for the telescope? Built upon Edwin Hubble's personal schematics. Genuine 21st century gold."

"We're just browsing today."

The salesman rolled his eyes. "You're just as bad as she is. Move it, scum."

The Doctor and the child hurried away. "Sorry." The Doctor apologized.

They turned a corner and saw River, now adorned with the necklace she had eyed previously, bargaining fervently with a shoddy looking saleswoman about what appeared to be a lepton gun. The confused Doctor swept to her side. "What's that?"

"V-19 model of the Ornyn Lepton Gun."

"I mean around your neck, Dr. River Song."

"Oh, just something I picked up."

She turned from the table to face her husband. "One learns plenty about bargaining when one spends their days in the Atraxe Storm Cage." She smirked and he scratched his cheek.

"Where're the Ponds?"

"Not sure. Last I saw, Amy found a table selling 23rd century literature. Don't know where dear old Dad disappeared to." The Doctor looked around. Usually his ginger companion was easy to spot in a crowd and Rory was generally with her. He asked the child who claimed not to know.

"Have you seen a ginger anywhere?" He asked the saleswoman. "She's got a husband with a funny nose…" The woman shook her head, and then leaned in.

"You're not from 'round here are you?" The woman spoke with a thick accent that sounded almost Irish.

"No. Legitimate aliens, right here!"

"I'd watch your backs if I were you. Strange goings on in these here parts. Don't want to get mixed up in the wrong business."

The Doctor leaned in towards her so that they were a handbreadth apart. "What do you mean: wrong business?" he whispered, intrigue spiking.

"Let's just say that those diamonds out there aren't all they seem to be." A girl, a few apparent years older than the child between the Time Lord and Lady, and with pin straight brown hair approached her. The two smiled at each other and exchanged a small bag of merchandise for something akin to a USB stick. They exchanged in amicable small talk for a minute than the girl left again. The saleswoman looked shiftily between the Doctor, River and the child. "Find your friends and find them fast." She looked behind her to see the girl and what appeared to be a father or guardian of some sort and then smirked.

"Well, if you aren't here to purchase anything, than you best be moving on."

The Doctor straightened up and turned to face the two curly headed blondes in front of him. They look too alike. He thought. They chorused in a query of "Doctor?" and "Daddy?" He stood to attention. "I don't know. Looks like we're going on a Pond hunt." He smiled and set off at a jog. They followed behind him.

"Amy?" He whispered, looking under a table. River took a more practical route. She and the once again silenced child asked around, describing the Ponds with more accuracy to anyone willing to lend an ear. An elderly couple indicated to a booth around a corner. River called to the Doctor and they head towards the stall that was leaning against an old rundown looking building. No one had been manning this stand. It stood out from many of the other's with its elaborate violet table cloth and intricate diamond and silver patterns. The Doctor looked around for someone to help; he found no one. River entered the stand and pushed her way through the purple curtains.

"Doctor? I think you should see this."

The Doctor and the child followed after her. Past the sea of purple and silver was the interior of the building. Old and rundown though it was, there was advanced Earth technology everywhere. The trio surveyed the room. The Doctor called quietly into the vastness again.

With no response, they chose to look down the first hallway. They searched room after derelict, technological room. They eventually came across an elevator, which they cautiously entered. It took them to a floor much like the first, but down the hall was a man clad in arms standing guard. They approached him.

"ID?" He asked.

The Doctor flashed his psychic paper. "They're here with me on my business."

The guard skeptically nodded, whispered into an earpiece, and opened a door to let them pass. In the center of the room was an antique mahogany desk. Sat at this mahogany desk was a man adorned in diamonds from head to toe. Even his eyes, shining blue like Altair, had a diamond cut out pupil. When he lifted his right hand to put it to his face, the party noticed that, it too, was diamond with liquid carbon blood pulsing through it in visible veins.

"How can I be of assistance?"

The Doctor analyzed the man's demeanor. He was clearly dangerous. Perhaps the head of whatever taboo operation they were running. He was intelligent, it radiated off of him, and sly –definitely crafty. The Doctor tried to assess what was the best way to deal with him. There was a plaque on the desk that read Adamas Argent. Alias, but if this was what he wanted to be known by, at least the Doctor had a standing ground.

"Good day, Mr. Argent. My in-laws have gone missing. I think you know where they are."

The man grinned. "Do I, now?"

"Yes. Yes you do."

The Doctor could feel River behind him itching to get into the thick of things. The man took sudden notice of her and the child.

"The Mrs." clarified River.

"You're child?" The girl observed the three adults. After a furtive warning glance from the Doctor, she adjusted her disposition to mimic that of River's. Strong, confident and aware.

"Yes."

"Pretty. She's got your eyes." He nodded to the Doctor. "Blue eyes sell well."

The Doctor shifted, ill at ease. "The in-laws. Have you seen them? Tall, human female with ginger hair. Husband, got that Roman centurion look about him."

The Mr. Argent rolled his eyes and lit a synthetic cigar. "You're not one for formalities, are you?" He chuckled, reclined and blew a blue puff of holographic smoke into the air. He put his feet up on the desk in front of him. "Ginger? A looker? Yeah. I've seen them." He took another drag and then blew out once more. "Wandered in the hallway. Mr. Charcoal out there …how shall I say it … redirected them. They haven't been harmed in any way shape or form, don't worry." He reassured as he read the concern spreading like wildfire across the Gallifreyan's face. "We just dealt with them as we deal with everyone else who gets lost."