By the time John finally reached the bottom of the hill, his body had now surely picked up a dozen new bruises and twice as many scratches from the sparse but rough foliage on the way down.

River - her mask gone with the fall - had meanwhile recovered enough to immediately climb over him.

"You idiot, what did you do that for?" she asked with exasperation.

"Five years and that's the first thing you say to me?" John said weakly. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

She shook her head but there was fondness in her eyes. "Can you move at all?"

"Move?" John let out an utterly giddy laugh. "You're alive. If you wanted, I could fly to the moon, easy."

River brushed his hair out of his eyes affectionately. "I told you that I'd always come back for you. Why didn't you wait for me? If it had been someone nice I wouldn't have minded, but that queen-"

He swallowed. "Well, I mean - you were dead."

"Death can't stop True Love," she said, smiling at him, "it can only delay it for a while."

John knew he should have some clever retort for that, and maybe a second ago one had been on his tongue, but now he could only stare up at her with amazement. She was alive. Alive and so achingly beautiful he couldn't resist the urge to touch her any longer.

His fingers lost themselves in her hair as he pulled her mouth to his, kissing her like he needed her to breathe, because he did. She kissed him back eagerly, and more sweetly than she usually had in the past.

It would have been so easy to get completely lost in each other and lose all sense of time, but soon River was pulling John to his feet.

"Come on, we should be able to find a way back to my ship from here-"

"There's no time," John said, seeing the Gallifreyan soldiers on the horizon, "Missy's too close, we'd never make it."

"Well it's either that, or the fire swamp," she said impatiently. When he glanced at the entrance to the swamp only a few hundred metres away, he pulled a face.

"Well, they wouldn't follow us," he pointed out.

River looked at him as if he had gone mad. "You can't be serious. I like a bit of danger as much as the next girl, but I didn't come all this way to rescue you, just to end up dead half an hour later."

"Whatever's in there won't be as bad as whatever Missy will do to you if she catches you," John said grimly. "She's not a particularly forgiving person."

"You really think we can get through there alive?"

"Well, it's supposed to be impossible, but given that it's you and me, I'd take that down to almost impossible."

River grinned at him. "I'm loving the 'almost'."

By the time the Queen and her entourage reached the hilltop, it briefly looked as though they had closed in the duke and whoever now had him in custody, but their hopes were soon dashed.

"They disappeared," Thascalos remarked to an irritated Missy. "They must have seen us closing in-"

"Which would explain the obvious panic and subsequent error, since they seem to be headed into the fire swamp," she said, arching one of her finely sculpted eyebrows. "How tedious. Their chances of getting out alive are less than I'd like." She sighed. "Still, this day has been full of surprises, holding out for another doesn't seem like an unrealistic hope. Come on, Emil, we'd better hurry around if we're going to catch them on the other side."

"Yes, your majesty."

"You've always wanted adventure, I suppose you're getting your wish," River said to John, sighing and grabbing his hand so she could tug him towards the fire swamp.

"I mean, my dreams also involved surviving said adventures. This is a bit close for a first time out, traversing a place that is supposed to be impossible to survive."

River snorted as they entered the shadowy place that was the home of many tales told to scare young children. "You're only saying that because no one ever has. Besides, don't forget your 'almost'."

He sighed. "I know, I know. But I only just got you back, running into somewhere this deadly with you isn't quite the reunion I had in mind."

"Oh, I don't know, it's rather bracing," River said with a grin. "Gets the heart going. Which could be fun later." She winked at him, making him blush, and she laughed with satisfaction. "Look, sweetie, beating the odds is what I do. Given enough time, you'll be the same. Better, even, if you learn to keep that clever head of yours under panic."

"I thought you thought this was a bad idea."

"It is a bad idea, but I'm warming to it all the same. Being able to say I've survived the Fire Swamp would be excellent for my reputation. And general bragging rights. Besides, it's not so bad in here after all."

John gave her a look.

She shrugged. "Well, I'm not saying I'd want to build a summer home here, but the trees are actually quite lovely."

John chuckled and shook his head, ignoring the fact that she was right about the trees. "You're unbelievable. Are you going to explain how you're apparently the Dread Pirate Pond? Or were you just going along with what I was saying?"

"Oh, no, that was all true-" River started to say, but was distracted when her trousers caught fire from a flame spurt, a few seconds after an odd clicking noise filled the air. "Ah!"

John took off his waistcoat and quickly used it to smother the flames. "It's alright, I've got you."

"My hero," River joked. Once they were both upright and John's singed waistcoat was back on his body, they set off once more. "Well, this place certainly does keep you on your toes. My kind of place."

They walked awhile in silence, more concerned with being ready for another of the Fire Swamp's dangers or traps than with conversation. But eventually, John couldn't keep his curiosity in any longer.

"Alright, out with it, explain how you can be the Dread Pirate Pond," he insisted, "Because she's been marauding for twenty years, and you only left me five years ago. I can count, you know."

River grinned, looking immensely pleased with herself. "The world can be a funny place." She hacked at a vine with her sword. "Because all that stuff about saying 'please' was true. It intrigued and impressed Pond, as did my talk of you. And thank god for that, because making myself say 'please' was easily the worst thing I've ever had to do. If you ever needed proof that I love you, that, my dear, is it."

John grinned at her. He'd suspected as much.

A flame spurt made a clicking noise, and he dodged it just in time, flicking his hair out of his face afterwards and patting himself down on reflex to ensure everything was intact. Once sure he was safe, River continued her story.

"So, anyway, Pond tells me 'alright River, I've never had a valet, give it a go but I'll probably kill you in the morning'. She said it for three years, every night. 'Good work today River, goodnight and sweet dreams, I'll probably kill you in the morning'."

"How did you ever get a good night's sleep?"

"It's gotten to the point where I almost struggle to sleep without vague death threats, to be honest," River admitted. "But it wasn't a bad time in my life, quite the opposite. I was surrounded by people who could teach me all sorts of things. Fencing, fighting, sailing, cartography, you name it. And Pond and I eventually became friends. And then..."

John stared at her. "And then what? Come on, River, you can't just leave it there!"

"Well," River said slowly, "Pond had grown so rich that she wanted to retire. She'd fallen in love with her first mate, you see, and they wanted to run off together to Florana. So she took me to her cabin, and told me her secret. 'I'm not the Dread Pirate Pond', she said. 'My name is Amelia, or Amy for short. I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Pond, just as you will inherit it from me. The woman I inherited it from was not the real Dread Pirate Pond either. She was called Tabitha. The real Dread Pirate Pond has been retired fifteen years and living like a queen in Akhaten."

"Oh," John said, unable to think of anything else to say. It was a bit much to take in.

"She explained it was the name that was important. For inspiring the fear necessary to be a successful pirate, that is. No one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Song. So once we were ashore we took on an entirely new crew - her future husband Rory excepted - and she stayed on for a while as first mate, but all that time calling me Pond. Once the crew believed, she and Rory were able to leave and I've been Pond ever since."

"River Pond?" John asked wryly.

River hit him on the arm. "Shut up. If anyone asks, my name is Melody Pond."

"Ah. Clever."

"I thought so." Their faces had gotten a bit close together, as their flirting tended to do, but the Fire Swamp was not the place for getting distracted by each other. River turned back to the path ahead. "Except now that I've found you again, I'll retire and give the name to someone else."

"Sounds like a good plan," John said honestly, "You have to give the original Pond some real credit for the idea."

"Oh, I know, positively inspired."

They stopped to smile at each other, but naturally thanks to their luck John was sucked into a pit of lightning sand the moment he took another step.

"John!" River was quick to grab a vine, tie it around her waist, and jump in after him. They crawled their way out, River's upper body strength hauling them up the vine doing most of the work. After gasping for air and getting their breath back they shared a quick embrace before continuing on their way.

"That was quite unpleasant," John said after about a minute.

"Yes, but now we know how to avoid them, like with the flame spurts. When you think about it, with that worked out, we could survive in here for rather a long time if we had to," River pointed out.

"But what about the Rodents of Unusual Size?"

"I really don't think they exist - oh for fuck's sake," she cursed, right before the huge rodent she'd just spotted lunged for them. Her sword wasn't drawn and the rodent's teeth closed around her right shoulder, tearing at the dark fabric and sinking into the skin. She yelled with pain.

John, trying to keep his panic at bay, looked around for something he could use to help, and grabbed a large tree branch before whacking the creature over the head with it. It let go of River and turned on him, giving her enough time to lift her sword and run the creature through.

That didn't entirely disable the horrifically stubborn thing, and River impaled it multiple times before the clicking of the flame spurts let her kick its highly weakened body right into the path of the flame. It burned to death with a miserable screech and John winced.

Even when it was ugly creatures trying to kill him, death was never going to be something he was comfortable with witnessing.

A few hours later, they managed to emerge out of the other side of the fire swamp, into light woods where autumn had filled the trees and ground with beautiful orange and brown leaves.

"We did it," John said, amazed even though it had been his own - albeit incredibly stupid - idea.

"Of course we did," River replied, pulling him in with obvious intent to kiss him out of joyous celebration. Unfortunately, they never quite got that far, due to the group on horseback that immediately approached them.

John's heart sank when he recognised Missy, and her adviser Thascalos.

So much for sneaking off to River's ship undiscovered. His own words - that Missy would always find them - had come back to bite him in the arse.

Thanks for reading, please let me know what you thought!