Title: You watch us
Characters/Pairing: Eleven, River, OCs (Eleven/River), mentions of past companions
Wordcount: 938
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
Summary: 'Teach advanced failsafe force field maintenance. I'm busy.'
Spoilers: for season 4's "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead", but incredibly vague.

A day that had threatened to become a little one (the Doctor had seriously –well, semi-seriously– contemplated sorting his zeus plugs) had been saved by a message via psychic paper: just a string of coordinates and the summon: Teach advanced failsafe force field maintenance. I'm busy. x

He had set the coordinates, materialised roughly where he was supposed to, and held an entirely spontaneous lecture. It had gone magnificently. People had applauded him when he was done. (Well, someone had complained that a schematic drawn in the dirt with a stick wasn't very useful, but the Doctor had pointed out the longstanding advantage of cameras and things had been all right.)

He sat on a bulky container of that unique ugliness typical for the 51st century. He lounged in the bleak sunlight. Dangled his legs. Waited for River. There was nothing else to do.

The edge of a desert rarely offered much in the way of entertainment (it didn't even have a proper blazing sun). There were some gnarled bushes, a lot of dirt, a bulky ship that for some reason needed its force field generator producing a scintillating multitransmitting/megaspectral failsafe shield rather than its basic one. There were also some snooty archaeologists in dreary beige clothes who didn't want to talk to him, and whom he didn't want to talk to (lecture finished and the schematics issue solved, they had simply brushed him off; listening in on their conversations and hearing ten faulty assumptions, two blatantly wrong theories presented as fact, and one allusion to time as a straight line, he had brushed them off).

The archaeologists must have successfully coded the shield, at least, because he hadn't heard any explosions, and no one had panicked and/or had a fit of rage.

River was forty-two feet away, in the middle of a group of colleagues, talking animatedly (and sadly wearing similarly dull clothes). If he thought on it, she had probably intended for him to find her before the lecture to go over the reason for it, but he had nodded to her when he arrived and she had smiled and he had taken that as a go-ahead to start talking.

He debated with himself whether or not to have a peek inside the ship, when River finally disengaged herself from the gaggle and approached him.

She sat down next to him on the container and released her hair from its ponytail; it was long and ginger, this time. "The glasses are overkill," she said.

The Doctor shrugged. He thought the glasses were brilliant. "I'm looking the part. Don't worry about your… colleagues. They'll think I'm an eccentric with an aversion to modern treatment."

River laughed; a rich, young laugh. "Oh, I hoped I'd get this body."

He smirked. "I am a good teacher."

"And you look the part."

He had made a bit of an effort. He'd raided (after hundreds and hundreds of years of never even entering) Ian and Barbara's rooms. The chunky reading glasses (Ian's) looked incredibly good on this face, and the fountain pen in his chest pocket (Barbara's lucky one) was probably the perfect accessory.

"Where's the TARDIS?" River asked, matter-of-factly.

The Doctor gestured to the right. "About a mile over there… The coordinates were incorrect."

"They weren't. You veered of course."

"I did not."

"You obviously did, sweetie… My coordinates would have taken the TARDIS to the stern of the ship." She raised an eyebrow. "You appeared on the horizon like a bespectacled mirage. On foot."

"Following the sound of arguing humans. As usual."

"They argued because you were late…"

The Archaeologist in Charge wanted River's attention, and pointed to her watch when she had it. River gave her a thumb up for an answer and then grinned at the Doctor. "Hold onto your glasses," she said, bent down, and redid her bootlaces, tightly. Her nails were painted with red varnish, if at the moment decidedly scuffed.

"What's happening?" asked the Doctor, trying to sound uninterested.

"Step two."

"There's a step two?"

"You'll like it." River moved on to the laces of the other boot. "It's a shame you couldn't have landed closer, but… it really is more fun this way."

The woman River had traded hand signals with made her way over to them. "Doctor Song," she said, "let me stay and help you. The crew can handle the shield on their own, and there'll be a seat in the ship free for the prof here." She glanced at the Doctor.

"Don't worry, Blu. You tend the field, Doctor Smith and I can handle things down here."

"What's step two?" the Doctor asked, not even bothering to hide his curiosity this time.

"Just another thing I need your help with."

Blu looked profoundly sceptical. She turned to the Doctor, and said, "We've located a sand mine. We'll poke it…"

"- oh, that's what you need a failsafe shield for –"

"… and you'll take some readings, and then you'll run. The mine's huge, and buried deep. The explosion will be massive."

The doctor grinned. Properly manically.

"You can leave now, Blu," said River. "We'll head to the Doctor's ship, it's not very far."

Blu swept her jet-black hair behind a shoulder. "Are you sure about that?"

"I'll catch you up later."

"No offence, doctor Song," said Blu, in a very poor stage whisper, "But are you sure he can outrun a sand cloud?" She looked the Doctor over, her gaze lingering first on the tight trousers, then the jacket, then the glasses...

The Doctor smiled and straightened his bowtie.

River rose, her grin feral. "Just watch us."