If someone had asked River in advance what she thought would happen when the Doctor came to Stormcage to invite her on a picnic, her answer would have been trouble. She didn't even need to think about it. They did have normal dates – normal here having the meaning of not saving planets and having to run for their lives – but they usually didn't happen when he was this young and when he didn't know that they were married. And he had more or less complained about being bored. The TARDIS was likely to drop them off somewhere they would be in no danger of being bored. They might however be in danger.

It started with not ending up in the place the Doctor had meant for them to go. Not that that was anything out of the ordinary; considering his driving skills it was something of a miracle they had ended up on the right planet. No, it was more because she had a slight suspicion about what today could turn out to be, because of something older him had asked her not all that long ago. When they were doing diaries then, he'd inquired if she had done the Bone Meadows yet after he had asked her about the Pandorica. So he knew that sometime after the Pandorica for her she would have an adventure that centred around Bone Meadows. And then younger him had told her they were going to have a picnic on some famous meadows. River Song didn't have all that much faith in things like coincidence.

This Doctor however was still completely oblivious to the possibility of disaster, jabbering on almost poetically about the benefits of the northern meadows. 'It's nice, the north. The north is great, River. This grass is really soft, we won't even need that blanket. And they've got woods too, although not as great as the meadows. They have little villages and…'

She had been listening to him with a fond smile on her face, but when he stopped abruptly, she started paying attention. The Doctor had been overcome by a fit of enthusiasm – some things never really changed, no matter what his age – all but bouncing out of the TARDIS in his eagerness to go and explore, but he stopped in mid-motion, glancing down at his feet, expression on his face turning to horror when he realised what he was standing on.

'… Bones,' he finished.

River followed his gaze. She had not quite known what to expect when her Doctor had mentioned Bone Meadows, but she hadn't thought she would need to take it all that literally. But here they were and the Doctor was standing on bones that were definitely humanoid in origin, although too frail to be human.

'Doctor, what is that?' she asked. She was glad she'd had the presence of mind to add her scanner to the pile of things to take with them.

The Doctor beat her to it. He'd jumped off the bones as if he'd been stung by a wasp and brandished the sonic at them in the same motion. He had the habit of holding the screwdriver as if it was a weapon when really, what good did he think it was in a fight? Was he going to assemble a cabinet at them or something?

She'd scan for life signs except that it was painfully obvious that there were none. These bones were only the remains of something that had once been alive, probably one of the locals, but judging by the state of them, this person had been dead for a good long while already, and it had been a rather violent death by the look of it. The skull was lying a good few yards to the left, River spotted the arms to her right and the Doctor had just jumped off the legs.

'It's a native of this planet,' the Doctor declared when he took in the readings of the sonic. 'But it's just bones, nothing else on them.'

'Except the teeth marks,' River remarked. She bended down to get a closer look for herself. The bones looked like bones would look after you'd given them to a dog to chew on. 'If you're going to dabble as a coroner, sweetie, you've got some way to go yet.'

The Doctor started pacing and flapping his hands about in that way he did when he was a bit out of his depth, when he encountered something he had not expected and it was the wrong kind of surprise. And maybe this was not the best time to mention that he looked utterly adorable when he did it. 'River, it isn't right!'

'Some wild animal attacked one of the locals and ate him,' she pointed out. 'It happens, Doctor.' She studied the marks a bit closer. 'Could have been a wolf.'

'There aren't any,' the Doctor said, still doing the thing with his hands. 'There are no wolves in this system, not until the ninetieth century, when the humans finally discover it and bring their pets with them. Lots and lots of alien tourists on this planet, but not the humans, because they all think this planet is dull and they're just not interested. They're a bit late to the party. They only come here in about two thousand years with wolves to deal with an infestation of rabbits eating all the grass. Well, I say rabbits, but really they're nothing like rabbits at all. They're just very small and furry and they've got rather big ears…'

'Like a rabbit,' she concluded, smile tugging at her lips. No matter what age he was, he always had that ability to ramble about completely unrelated things in the face of an impending crisis.

'Well, a bit like a rabbit,' he admitted. 'But really nothing like them. But if you want to call it a rabbit…'

'I think you called it a rabbit, dear.' River shrugged and turned back to the matter at hand. 'So, not a wolf then.' There were more big predators to choose from that she knew of, and then some that she didn't know about. It wasn't all that big a deal.

'There aren't any big predators on Delnos Beta,' he lectured. 'None that could have caused this.' He made a gesture in the general direction of the arms. 'Not for at least two millennia. Whatever did this, River, it's way out of time.'

Bones were not something to smile over, but she did feel almost relieved to have something to investigate, because, truth be told, the Doctor had not been the only one to have been bored prior to the beginning of this adventure. She craved the running, the thrill of an adventure and she really wished she hadn't put her gun in the basket still dangling from the Doctor's wrist.

'Still only just the one victim,' she said. One that they knew of anyway.

But that was where she was wrong, and the Doctor was in the process of pointing it out to her when she saw it herself. The grass was almost knee-high in places, but here and there she could see bits of white if she really looked for it. More bones. She was standing in a meadow that was filled with lots and lots of bones. This wasn't a meadow as much as it was a graveyard.

'That's got to be more than one predator,' she concluded.

'That's a lot more than one predator,' the Doctor agreed.

'So, what are we going to do now?' she asked, letting him take the lead for once. It wasn't because she didn't have a single clue what to do about this herself. Not at all. And going back to the TARDIS and relocating to where they had wanted to go was most likely not on the agenda.

Right on cue she heard a low growling behind her. They'd wandered a bit away from the TARDIS in order to get a closer look at the skull. Well, when she said they, she meant the Doctor, who'd been waving the sonic about as if he was trying to get readings from all of the area at once. Now when she turned around she suddenly found a wolf standing between them and the TARDIS doors.

'Ah,' the Doctor said, as if this was only a very minor setback, something easily fixed with one flash of the sonic.

In River's opinion it might be a bit more serious than all that, especially considering the fact that this was not an ordinary wolf. Well, it looked like an ordinary wolf, it behaved like an ordinary wolf and it certainly sounded like an ordinary wolf, but River was convinced that an ordinary wolf was not usually the size of a full-grown horse. And her gun was still somewhere in that picnic basket that she currently couldn't reach without taking her eyes off the monster in front of her.

'Anytime you'd like to come up with a plan is fine by me, Doctor,' she told him.

As it turned out, his plan was rather predictable. 'Run!'

From the moment he had first stepped onto the remains of a Delnosian – and had broken aforementioned remains in the process – the Doctor had known that something was very wrong. Now that he found himself confronted with a wolf the size of a horse blocking their way to the TARDIS, he knew for sure.

'Run!' he yelled, grabbing River's hand and dragging her with him in a direction that was hopefully leading them as far away from the beast as possible. The fact that he was in danger didn't dampen the rush of excitement he felt at discovering a new life form, something that no one had ever seen before. Come to think of it, though, some people may have seen it, just before the wolf got to them and ended their lives. Now that realisation made him sort out his priorities.

'Do you know where we're going?' River asked, easily keeping up with him. He wondered how she did that; it wasn't as if she got a lot of physical exercise in her tiny cell in Stormcage. Just how many times did he break her out in his future?

'Of course I do,' he said, faking an indignant tone of voice, because really, he had no idea where they were going at all, except that it appeared that they were running west.

'You don't,' River concluded. She cast a glance over her shoulder to ascertain that the beast remained at a safe distance.

'I just told you I knew where we're going!' he reminded her, following her example and looking over his shoulder at their pursuer. The wolf was definitely following and it had definitely singled them out as its next meal. The saliva was dripping from its jaws, which was decidedly not a good sign.

'Rule One, Doctor,' River replied.

He had to admit that she may have a point with that. She clearly knew him much better than he knew her, which was all kinds of unfair. And he kept on wondering who she was and why on earth he would end up married to her in his future. That question always went hand in hand with the question of who she had killed. And it really wasn't a good time to ponder about either right now.

Because that wolf was fast, and if they continued as they were, they would end up wolf's dinner in less than five seconds. Time for a different approach.

He let go of River's hand, stopped abruptly and turned around, taking the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and holding it out like it was a shield, using the setting that produced a high noise that was almost too high to hear for him, but that was distinctly unpleasant for the big wolf thingy chasing them.

True to expectations the wolf skidded to a stop and let out a whining that sounded almost pitiful. At least it had stopped making attempts on their lives, which the Doctor considered progress.

It also gave him the time to study the creature in front of him. And now that he was not forced to run for his life, he could properly admire it. 'Look at you,' he said appreciatively. 'You are beautiful!'

'Not this again,' he heard River mutter under her breath. 'Doctor, it's a wolf! You can't reason with it!'

It's a carnivorous swarm in a suit, you can't reason with it! The memory of the Library was rather strong all of a sudden, and very unwelcome. Strange how the farther away he got from that event, the more he began to dread it and the more it began to hurt. 'Yes, I can,' he disagreed, loudly, to drown out the thoughts he didn't want to be thinking. The wolf was more important now. Well, he wasn't sure how receptive the wolf would be to reason after having been subjected to that noise, but he had to give it a chance at least.

He could almost hear River rolling her eyes behind him. 'Doctor, you do not speak wolf.'

'Yes, I do,' he said. He turned back to the animal. 'Well then, who are you? Where are you from? You're not native to this planet, not even to this system. What are you doing here of all places?'

He definitely had the beast's attention now.

'Doctor, now is not the time to chat. Let's go!' River urged.

The Doctor was still listening to the animal and took a little while answering her. 'I am not chatting, River,' he said. 'I'm having a very diplomatic conversation about the fate of the planet right here.'

He could hear her gritting her teeth in frustration. 'What's it saying then?' He could tell she was just humouring him. She didn't really believe that he was conversing with the animal that had been chasing them until about two minutes ago. It was probably a good thing her gun was still in the basket, otherwise this creature may have been reduced to a rug already, or it would be when River was finished.

'She's not an it,' he chided. 'She's a she, and her name is Silver. She says she's from here, that she was born here, which really should not be possible.' He threw up his hands in defeat when Silver objected. 'No, I'm not saying that you are lying. I am merely saying that you shouldn't be here for another two thousand years.' He studied her. 'And in a smaller form quite probably.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake,' River exclaimed. 'I could swear you're making this up.'

The Doctor ignored her for the time being. 'Yes, I understand that you were born here, but your kind is not from here. What planet are you from, what star system?' He waited a few seconds. 'You don't know. Well, that's bad, but you can't go around eating people. At the rate you're going, you'll work your way through the entire population within the century… Yes, I know that you're hungry, but you can't eat the people! They're blue, they're amazing. They've still got to invent those really nice custard-flavoured sweets that are going to be very popular all over the galaxy. You can't go eating them!'

'Priorities, dear,' he could hear River remind him. 'Only you, Doctor, could be thinking about sweets when you yourself have ended up on someone's menu.'

The Doctor would have loved to respond to that, but a turn in the conversation had him direct his attention back to the wolf instead. 'No, no, no, you can't go eating us either. There's rabbits here, lots of rabbits. Or there will be in two thousand years or so. You can eat them. You can't eat us.'

That announcement wasn't met with the most enthusiastic of responses.

'Yes, you're hungry, you said that already.' This definitely wasn't going according to plan. Not that there actually was much of a plan. That was still a work in progress. Making it up as he went along was how Amy defined it, which wasn't actually true, not entirely true. He was thinking some steps ahead at the very least. 'But you see, I can't allow you to eat any more people… You could always try the grass. The natives of this planets do and they've thrived for centuries and centuries… Not as tasty? Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with these plains, apart from the bones lying in it, of course.'

The wolf growled at him.

'Ehm, River?' he said.

'Yes?' Judging by the tone of voice she knew exactly where this was heading.

'It would seem that Silver is not very receptive to reason,' he admitted, knowing that she was never going to let him hear the end of this if they ever got out of this with their lives. And that wasn't even taking into consideration the last thing he had been told. As it happened, his screwdriver had not been a deterrent only, but also a clear sign of Life Forms Right Here, Free Food For All.

Fortunately he didn't need to tell River that. The downside was that the only reason he didn't need to tell her was because at least half a dozen other wolves were already coming into view.

'And the nasty thing about wolves, sweetie, is that they travel in packs,' she said. 'Did you have a plan?'

Well, he had tried. That had to count for something. 'Just the one,' he informed her, raising the sonic and producing the noise again. It wasn't the best of plans, but it was something and why try to think of something new when the tried and tested way would do just as well? 'Run!'

She growled. 'I hate you.'

He managed to conjure up something of a grin. 'No, you don't.' He was fairly certain about that at least.

This time they had at least something of a head start and every time it looked like they would lose it, he only had to sweep the screwdriver in the general direction of the wolves again to ensure that they were left alone for a very short while. What the sonic did do was to make the wolves distinctly displeased. He was for all intents and purposes torturing their ears, but it beat being torn limb from limb anytime.

River was still easily keeping up with him, but he could see her fingers clenching and unclenching, as if she was wishing for a gun in her hand. They were currently standing still, trying to get their bearings while the Doctor waved the screwdriver, picnic basket still in the other hand, at the wolves. Getting to some form of civilisation would be nice, especially since the wolves were still standing between them and the TARDIS. Either way, even if he could get back to his ship he wouldn't leave until he had set to rights whatever it was that had gone wrong here.

'We should go south,' River said, reading her scanner. 'It indicates life signs in that direction.'

Under the given circumstances that could be either good or bad. The Doctor was loath to run into any more of these beasties. 'What sort of life signs?'

'Probably humanoid,' River answered. 'It's worth a try.' She glanced at the wolves, circling around them now, wary of the screwdriver, but obviously contemplating the risks of damage to their hearing if they were to ignore the noise and get to them regardless. He really didn't like those looks. 'Doctor, give me the basket.' Her voice left no room for any arguments.

He would have stared at her in shock if he hadn't been too preoccupied keeping an eye on the wolves. 'You can't go shooting them! They're a brand-new life form, River.' There was only one item in that basket that she would be interested in right now, after all.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'They're a brand-new life form, about to eat us alive. Basket. Now.'

It was rather hard to argue with that and so he reluctantly did as she commanded him to.

River didn't waste any time. She all but tore the lid off, reaching for her weapon, and she didn't even look at the wolves as she did so. Clearly she trusted him to keep them away from her, leaving the Doctor to marvel at the level of trust she must have in him to take her eyes off the danger.

'Be ready to run when I say so,' she informed him.

The Doctor frowned. 'Aren't you going to…?'

River didn't let him finish. 'You'd better hope this works,' she said. 'If not, rest assured, I will kill you.' That was an empty threat, though. He could see a twinkle in her eyes and that well-known wicked grin on her face. She was loving every single second of this.

But she had a plan, and he didn't have much of one, so maybe it was his turn to trust her for a change. 'Okay…' It sounded a bit more hesitant than he meant, but it would have to do.

'Ready?' she asked.

He managed a nod that looked more like his usual confident self. 'Yes.'

Her grin widened. 'Run!' The next second she literally threw a handful of Jammie Dodgers to the wolves.

'What?'

'Run!' River repeated. She had already broken into a run, throwing another couple of Jammie Dodgers at the animals, that descended on them like they hadn't eaten for weeks, or months even. They were actually eating the cookies, even though it was obvious from the many bones they were running past that those weren't usually part of the diet.

The Doctor had done many absurd things, but running with River Song from a pack of hungry wolves that were currently devouring his Jammie Dodgers had to be worthy of a place in the top ten.

It wasn't River's preferred way of dealing with the situation, that was for sure, and it wasn't for the first time that she found herself cursing the Doctor's unorthodox solutions to dangerous situations either. Not that this Doctor knew that the stunt with the Jammie Dodgers was actually his idea, although it was debatable how much claim he could lay to it since his older self had clearly remembered it happening this way. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, he'd call it, which summed their relationship up to perfection.

Good for feeding the local wildlife, he'd said, grinning that special grin of his when she'd seen him last and he had asked her whether or not she'd been to the Bone Meadows already. Then he'd told her to bring her lipstick, a piece of rope and Jammie Dodgers. When she had wondered whether or not that were spoilers, he asked her how else she'd know how to bring all the necessities. That impossible man! He'd ensured that she would know what to do, even when his younger self was blundering about without a clue as to what to do.

This Doctor was looking at her with a mixture of incredulity and admiration that succeeded in making her smile at him while they ran in the direction of where her scanner had detected life signs. She loved the running, loved that there were no bars limiting her freedom of movement. This was what she had been born to do.

Sounds like our kind of adventure, she had said when the older Doctor had asked her about the Bone Meadows, and he'd said that it was. At first she doubted it; he was so young, had no clue who she was and who she would be to him in the future, but he'd been right. It was the face she loved so well and they were doing all the things they normally did on adventures, minus some of the physical aspects, but that wasn't what they were all about to begin with anyway, even if she did enjoy those physical aspects very much.

'How did you even know they were going to eat the Jammie Dodgers?' the Doctor asked.

'Spoilers, my love,' she told him and left him to ponder on that. He would work it out eventually. He'd told her in his future after all.

'They were my Jammie Dodgers, River.' Even though they were running, he was practically pouting now. 'My Jammie Dodgers and you just threw them to the dogs. Rude!'

'It was either that or the gun.'

And he didn't like that option. She had been tempted to use it, though, even in spite of his "instructions." Those monsters were going to eat them and she was not going to be accommodating. But her husband was made of different stuff entirely, enthralled by new life forms and with almost just as much compassion for monsters as he had for other people, always insisting on giving them a chance. And River admired him for that. It made him what he was.

And she could not afford to alienate him at this point in their relationship, when he was drawing her near as much as he was pushing her away. Once it had been up to him to make a younger her save him and love him. Back then it had been his job to preserve their time lines, their relationship as he knew it. Deep down she had always known that one day the time would come when that would be her job. But dear God, he was hard work young at times. There were moments that she honestly didn't know how she was supposed to ever make him fall in love with her. Turned out that throwing his cookies to the wolves and running at top speed was actually the way to go about it. She should have known.

'Still rude,' he chided.

'You love me that way,' she returned.

The fact that this statement wasn't met by some form of denial made her hearts soar.

A look over her shoulder taught her that the wolves had worked their way through the Jammie Dodgers and were now again chasing them. She reached inside the basket and threw the last of them behind her. It wouldn't hold them up indefinitely, but it might buy them just enough time to make it to that palisade she could see in the distance. It looked old and beaten, but it would help a little in keeping the wolves out.

The Doctor had seen it, too. He'd put the sonic back in his pocket again in favour of grabbing her hand. River would almost be fooled into thinking that this really was one of their adventures, the ones they had when he was older and they were married from both their perspectives. It was giving her hope that he was slowly getting there.

The wolves were still a good distance behind them when River banged on the gate in order to be let in. She could probably blast the door open if she dug up her gun, but that would damage it beyond repair, which was not what she wanted right now. And the Doctor's screwdriver didn't do wood – too low-tech – which was quite frankly ridiculous given the fact that it was a screwdriver.

In the end it didn't take long for the gate to be opened, even if River inwardly cringed at how fragile it looked.

But then the Doctor took over, at his most Doctorish, flashing his widest smile at the Delnosian guard. 'Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is River. Would you mind letting us in before the overgrown wolf thingies eat us whole?'

Thanks for taking the time to read. If you've got a minute, please review?