A River Through Wildthymes

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"So then the sands…" River asked as she walked along the boardwalk with the Doctor, arms locked at the elbows.

"Dealt with…probably." The Doctor said, as he stared up into the bluish purple sky. "With the transmitter beacon shut down the nanite storm will just be sand…"

"Well, I suppose then." River said as she saw the TARDIS's blue paneling edge into view from behind one of the confectionary kiosks. "Back to the cage…"

"Maybe-"The Doctor replied as he slowly pulled away from her leaning forward with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Maybe?" River asked as she looked at him.

There was a loud shuffling sound, a harsh violin-esque screech and then the sounds of transmission gears grinding before a vortex opened in front of the TARDIS. A giant double-decker bus belched out of the vortex and skittered across the boardwalk. The Doctor leapt and pushed River out of the way as the bus careened past before abruptly and inartfully stopping inside of one of the kiosks. People were screaming, a crowd was gathering. River looked up to see the Doctor standing, his quaffed hair mussed, his tweed jacket torn on the left sleeve cuff.

"Impossible-" the Doctor said as there was a hydraulic hiss of bus doors opening.

"You never check!" Groused a gravelly voice.

"I checked, I checked, there was a time space whatsit; it bumped us off course!" A woman's voice returned.

"River, stay back-"the Doctor said sharply without looking back to her.

"Doctor what's-"River started as the two speakers came around the bus. She was in a tight black dress, with a huge black sunhat on. Her face and hair were reminiscent of Jane Fonda when Jane was at the top of her game. The second speaker looked like one of those old 'Peter the Panda' toys that were ever so popular in the 51st century.

"Ah, so it was a TARDIS!" The woman sniped pointing angrily at the Doctor and looked back at the panda. "I told you!"

"Yeah, it was…" The Doctor said, in an uneasy tone. "I see you still haven't mastered a proper landing."

"No, she hasn't…she won't apply the brake-"the panda said.

"I applied the brake! His TARDIS was in the way, protocol systems overrode the braking system!" The woman said looking up at the Doctor. "He was parked in my spot!"

"Your spot!" The Doctor almost laughed. "I didn't realize you had a spot!"

"Well I do, Doctor!" The woman retorted. "And your TARDIS was in it! Now look at this…you realize you're paying the compensation on this one."

"Me? Me? One cursory look at our driving records will see that you are the one at fault here; you were never good at stopping-"The Doctor said as he reached up and straightened his lapels

"Do you know this woman?" River asked.

"Hmm?" The Doctor turned and looked down at River. "Oh, right…well…River…this is…"

"Iris Wildthyme, adventuress of time and space, time lady, obverse survivor," She said looking to River Song; she stopped in the break to glare at the Doctor. "-and historically ADEQUATE TARDIS PARKER!"

"Adequate….ha!" The Doctor said turning his back to the woman and inspecting the thoroughly destroyed kiosk.

"Time…lady…TARDIS?" River said looking at the Doctor. "Is-"

"It's complicated…" the Doctor said waving his hand. "She's only vaguely Gallifreyan…or not…do you remember, Iris?"

"Currently, going with not, considering that if I were…" Iris said as she sliced a finger across her neck and stuck out her tongue. She gave the Doctor a long look up and down. "But I'm open to a change my mind if you are…thinking about restarting the ol' House Lungbarrow?"

"I-err…" The Doctor blushed slightly as gave River a sidelong, 'I apologize' look.

"Now look here, Ms. Wildthyme…" River said jumping to her feet and dusting herself off.

"She's awfully feisty!" Iris said as she looked at River stomping towards her. "Which one of your companions is she?"

"Companion!?" River growled. "I'll have you know…I'm Professor River Song, the Doctor's WIFE!"

A small smile formed on Iris's lips. She choked up slightly, her lips thinning trying to hold back what it couldn't and she guffawed slightly.

"WIFE!? WIFE!?" Iris laughed as she turned and looked at the panda and pointed. "Did you hear that, Panda? She's his…wi-wi-wa-ahahaha I can't I can't…I just…" She doubled over and even slapped her knee. She straightened herself up and wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh my, Doctor, this one…this one is funny…woo….wife…ha…she looks old enough to be your mother…no, aunt…"

"Old? I'll have you know I'm not that old!" River retorted.

"Pity, you look it…" Iris said as she turned to the Doctor. "I knew you liked sentient tigers, Doctor, not cougars. Had I, I'd have stayed looking like Beryl Reid a bit more, or considering this one…" Iris said looking back to River, "maybe Bea Arthur…"

"Excuse me?" River narrowed her eyes and lifted her hand to ear. "Hello, yes," River mimicked answering a phone call. "Right, I'll tell her…" River seemingly hung up her 'hand'. "The 1970s called, they'd like their actress back!"

"I at least can pull it off…" Iris said, smirking. "You just look, like you've spent the last three years in the Amazon…I mean, dear, use some conditioner at least."

"Oh, I see…" River growled as her hand slid down to the holster at her waist.

"Ah…well…yes…now," The Doctor said uncomfortably, pushing between the two of them. He looked to Iris. "Iris, be nice."

"You see I just can't believe you when you say you're his wife. You can't possibly be his wife…" Iris said quietly, looking at River. "I'm his wife."

The Doctor winced.

River blinked, stopped trying to unholstered her gun and looked to the Doctor. She tilted her head slightly to the left, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Really?"

"Did I mention Iris is complicated?" The Doctor said meekly.

"Oh it was a beautiful ceremony." Iris said. "In Venice, the place you proposed…"

The Doctor started to rub the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

"Did he tell you his name?" River asked archly.

"Name? Honey, I met his whole family, I learned Irving's real name…" Iris said, she leaned over and put her hand to one side of her mouth. "Spoiler alert, it's not Irving or Braxiatel…It's Bellafusadonnalolungbarrow…." Iris winked egregiously, "But that's just a secret between us girls…"

"It wasn't Venice…" The Doctor sighed. "It was on Daranius…after the fall of the officious Cantoids…before the invasion of the undead Skullbotic Army…."

"Was it?" Iris asked.

"Yes…" The Doctor replied in an exasperated tone.

"Are you sure?" Iris asked. "I remember it being Venice…."

"Check the journal if you think you're right!" The Doctor said angrily as he looked up.

"Right!" Iris said as she reached into her handbag and pulled out a blue journal. "Let's see that was what…five or six regenerations back…" Iris licked her finger as she flicked through the journal. "Ah, that explains it….you proposed at Venice…you know when you were just getting started. Took you long enough, quite the fiancé period…we didn't get married till…aww…I'd forgotten, you were that young vet, with a vegan fashion sense…oh I did love him…we went to that cricket tournament on ReNew Dehli during our honeymoon…"

"Doctor…" River growled as she looked at Iris flipping through her journal. River walked over to the Doctor, reached up and grabbed the Doctor by his bowtie. "Is that…My diary?"

"No, of course not…" The Doctor said immediately.

"It looks like my diary!" River growled.

"Oh, you two keep track of your incongruous life together, too. That's sweet!" Iris said smiling.

River glared at the Doctor. "I see..."

"River…IRIS!" The Doctor pulled away from River. "I have lived a long, complicated life. There is a bus-shaped pseudo-TARDIS, smashed into a double-dough pachyderm kiosk overlooking a beach made of deactivated military nanites on a planet made of re-combined dreams filtered through a reality matrix and now there's a toy panda eating a discarded funnel cake out of the garbage…come on, Panda…it's been in the bin…" The Doctor stopped and looked at the panda and the panda simply shrugged its shoulders and continued to eat the pastry. The Doctor shook his head and looked at River. "I don't think I need to explain myself…not least of which about my peri-continuitous, speciously canonical life when the universe isn't looking…" He glared at Iris. "OR have to listen to you insult my current existence that I'm fairly certain is actually real!" The Doctor nodded sharply largely to himself. He took a deep breath and started walking away. "So now, I'm going to find some grotzits in the TARDIS and attempt to pay off the owner of the kiosk before the authorities arrive!"

The Doctor stormed off, and in doing so snatched the funnel cake out of the panda's hands, righted the garbage can and threw the cake into the can, turned and shook a finger disapprovingly at the panda, before marching back to the TARDIS.

"Well, I see he still has that repressed anger issue…" Iris said quietly.

"Tell me about it." River said. "Also, don't worry; if we measured your driving against his…it'd probably come out even…he still leaves the parking brake on…and he still can't get where he wants to go."

"Oh for crying - him the Master, the Rani, his whole class, it's like they never read the directions…" Iris shook her head.

"I don't think they did." River smirked. "So, you met his whole family huh?"

"Don't get jealous, outside of him and Irving…they're all dull as dishwater…" Iris said waving her hand holding the journal. She caught sight of it and laughed. "Also, I bought this journal myself. Like, I don't know, a millennium ago. I had it before I met the Doctor…he probably just went to the same shop I went to…you get into certain centuries of this universe and they absolutely idolize the Doctor…it's quite unhealthy…"

"Yeah-" River said.

"So he got remarried…" Iris said as she appraised River.

"Yeah." River said. "I forced him into it at gunpoint…"

"Ha, me too, sorta…Daranius has weird laws about mixed gender company…" Iris said laughing. "It was right after that terribly shrill Australian left…just him and the ginger. Sweet boy, but don't trust him with a rock behind your back. It was either marry the ginger or the Doctor and well…I do like a blonde with a bit of celery on his lapel…" Iris smiled at River. "I knew it couldn't last, we're too much alike…we both burn too brightly…"

"I tried to murder him…" River said, the Doctor had reemerged from the TARDIS with a bag in his hand, he was grumbling as he marched past, "and of course that immediately meant I had to marry him…"

"That's the Doctor…" Iris said as she watched him walk to a rather rotund green man. The two seemed to have a very terse conversation, and then the Doctor shoved the bag into the man's hand. The Doctor beckoned to the Panda and the pair of them walked out of sight behind the bus. "kill 'em with love."

"Always-" River said as the sound of the bus's engines revved. "Do you still love him?"

"Honey, you don't ever stop loving him, but I think in some ways he stops loving you, because he has to." Iris took a deep breath. "And it's perfectly understandable - nothing lasts forever - except apparently him." Iris shook her head. "Foolish thing for me to say; caught up in the moment I suppose."

"No, I do sometimes see that look in his eyes…" River said; she could hear the Doctor barking orders to the Panda in the bus. "Like I'm not quite there - like I'm just a shadow to him."

"Does he still do that thing when he thinks he's alone in the console room?" Iris asked. She and River took several steps back as the bus lurched backwards extracting itself from the dough kiosk.

"Whispering sweet nothings to the rotor? And rubbing the console?" River asked as the bus grunted and grumbled, reversing back down the boardwalk.

"Yeah!" Iris said, smirking.

"Constantly, sometimes I wonder if he isn't having an affair with the TARDIS…" River said.

"More likely, he's having an affair with you inside the TARDIS…" Iris said as she watched the bus park alongside the Doctor's TARDIS.

"Oo, I didn't realize the Doctor was so…" River smiled a mischievous smile.

"It's why we love him." Iris said with a playful grin. She shook her head. "He's always been a gear head. The doors hissed and the Doctor and the panda got out, the Doctor opened a hatch at the front of the bus and fussed a bit before closing it. "Even when he was young, with his granddaughter, he'd fuss ever so much over that old console…"

The Doctor was walking back towards them. "Iris, you need to get your Zeiton-7 crystals re-latticed, you keep driving around with them in that condition you'll blow a hole in the universe the size of…"

"Belgium…" River and Iris said together. The two looked at each other and started to laugh.

"Well….yes….I suppose it would be." The Doctor furrowed his brow. "It's not funny, it's very serious…"

The two only laughed even more as he fumed slightly.

"Oh, honey, don't worry…" Iris said as she walked up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll get them re-latticed as soon as I can. Come on, Panda, we gotta find a time-space Jiffy Lube…I think the nearest one is just outside of the Poodle's space…"

The Doctor blushed and watched Iris and Panda walk to the bus. The Doctor sidled towards River as Iris and the panda got onto the bus.

"I should've…said…something." The Doctor said quietly.

"About what?" River asked, as she looked up at the Doctor who was looking as much like a boy who'd got his hands caught in the cookie jar as it was possible for a 900 plus year old Time Lord to look.

"Iris…it's just she's very complicated, I'm not entirely sure our history is entirely…real…most of the time." The Doctor said.

"Oh, who's to say I'm not some version of Iris Wildthyme in cognito!" River said, smirking and winking.

"Err…" the Doctor fumbled slightly.

"You can't disprove it…" River said as she started to walk away. She stopped and turned. "But then again….it'd be very silly if it were true."

"The thing is…Iris is very silly…" The Doctor whispered to himself.

"What?" River asked.

"Nothing, nothing…" The Doctor said as he walked behind River towards the TARDIS.

"Oh, my, look at the time." River said as she looked at the watch on her wrist. "We best be getting back to the Storm Cage, they'll be ever so annoyed if we're late."

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AN: This was just stupid fun…I'm not even sure it's good…And NO…River Song is not an in cognito version of Iris Wildthyme….I hate myself for maybe birthing that 'theory' into the universe….