Part of the rock near River's head exploded, and she didn't bother to hide her laugh of delight at the near-miss. This was what she'd been hoping to find when she'd gone looking for the Winchesters, and the TARDIS had delivered.

The Doctor, of course, was having the complete opposite reaction, grumbling under his breath about the Daleks, cursing the TARDIS for landing on Skaaro when he'd been trying to convince Dean to travel with them, and checking on her to make sure the near miss really had missed.

She waved him off immediately. "I'm fine," she said, though she did take his hand when he offered it to pull her to her feet.

"Anyone want to explain to me where we are?" Dean asked, annoyed, his back pressed against the rock wall as he reloaded his shotgun. It had been a good thing he'd been hunting a rugaru when they ran into him and his brother; he wasn't carrying salt rounds for that hunt.

"This is the Dalek homeworld," the Doctor explained.

"Shoot for the eyes," River said, and Dean pointed at her in thanks.

"I can do that," he said, already peeking around the edge of the wall to see what kind of angle he could get from where they were.

River smirked. That was why she considered Dean a friend. Put a problem in front of him and tell him what needed shooting and in what order. And when she looked to her left to see that the Doctor was frowning still, she shook her head and squeezed his hand.

"Why here, though?" the Doctor asked, mostly to himself. "Why take us here after getting away from Sam?"

"If the TARDIS was just setting a random course," River started to say, but the Doctor shook his head.

"No, not this time," he said. He ducked, and part of the wall where his head had been came away. The Dalek who had shot at them started to scream the Doctor's name in the unsettling, high-pitched whine of a voice that they all used, but before others could take up the call, Dean shot it through the eyestalk, and it went careening sideways, its head spinning as it screamed.

"Well, it's blind," Dean announced, then threw himself flat to the ground when the Dalek started to fire indiscriminately. "Anything more permanent?"

"Just keep going until it stops moving," River offered, though the Doctor was already at work on something with his sonic screwdriver, adjusting the settings until, all at once, the random shooting stopped, and he let out a "ha!" of triumph.

"Thanks, Doc," Dean said, dusting himself off before he extended a hand to both the Doctor and River to offer help to their feet.

Once everyone was upright, the Doctor once again turned toward the TARDIS and narrowed his eyes when he and River both saw, on the horizon, several Daleks flying their way. There was no way they hadn't noticed a TARDIS landing on their world; they'd be surrounded soon.

"Back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said.

"No arguments here," Dean muttered under his breath—though he did shoot the Dalek again just for good measure and wrinkled his nose when it started to scream at him. "These things are unnerving."

"Remind me to tell you more about them when we're out of here," the Doctor said.

"You like a good horror story, don't you?" River asked, and Dean chuckled dryly.

"Yeah, my day job's not gory enough."

"Thought so," she said.

He gave her a brilliant grin as they reached the TARDIS and reached for the door to hold it open for the two of them. She could see the quip on the tip of his tongue and was already grinning as she waited for it.

Except he didn't make it to the door. Instead, he reached for the TARDIS, and some kind of shield not only prevented him from touching the TARDIS but blew him back several meters. He skidded in the loose gravel around them and lay still, twitching at the very edges of his fingers.

River and the Doctor shared urgent glances before the Doctor rushed to Dean while River stood watch, narrowing her eyes at the steadily approaching Daleks. Everything about this screamed that they were in for a fight, and she was more than happy to give them what they were looking for. The real challenge would be doing that while keeping her husband and her friend safe.

The Daleks on the horizon were the most obvious threat to watch, but she saw something moving on the crest of a nearby hill. Without turning her head or her body, she noted the position of whoever was watching them, even as she called over her shoulder to the Doctor, "We okay back there?"

"Looks like a reverse time lock. The feedback would've been worse if he was a Time Lord," the Doctor said, kneeling down next to Dean and frowning to himself. "Could have been much worse. It looks like they threw this up remotely, so if we can find out which one of them is powering the field, we can get out of here."

"I might have an idea of where to look," River said, though she still didn't look toward the movement she'd spotted.

The Doctor glanced up at her, raised both eyebrows when he recognized her expression as she met his gaze, and then simply nodded. "We don't have much time," he said pointedly.

"Do we ever?" she shot back just for the look on his face—the look that was always on that particular face—when she flirted with him.

The Doctor smirked at her and went back to trying to get Dean to rouse—right up until the Daleks headed their way simply exploded.

Neither of them had seen it coming, and all either of them could do was duck for cover, with the Doctor shielding Dean's body as best he could from the shrapnel. All three of them were covered in smoke and blood (only some of which was theirs), and they all had parts of Daleks all over them, including in the bits of metal that cut lines along their skin.

But other than being bloody and shocked, they were all relatively okay. The Daleks, on the other hand, were in pieces. One single Dalek had managed to avoid the blast, but as River watched, a familiar sound echoed over the cliffs, and that Dalek exploded as well, though not as spectacularly.

And River couldn't hide her curiosity. She recognized the sound of that weapon. It was banned in several galaxies, and it was Dalek-made. Someone on those cliffs was on their side.

She wiped blood away from her eyes and looked toward where she'd seen movement before. And there, for just the smallest fraction of a second, she was sure that she saw Dean Winchester.