Seven Reasons It's Time to Take a Bath

AN: Welcome, readers!
Thank you to everyone who read and favourited The First Cut – as of right now it has 210 views total so that basically blew my mind that two hundred and ten people took the time to read what I'd written – so thank you! Thank you especially to my dearest Queen of Fragile Hearts, whose Sherlolly fics make my heart sing and dance across the hills while wearing a nun's habit. (Okay so that's exaggerating SLIGHTLY but… if you are in the Sherlock fandom and you haven't read her stuff, you are missing out. It is wonderful.) Thank you also to the wonderfulMadMan-in-a-SnogBox for your kind words – you made my day! Thanks also to the rest of those who reviewed and/or added my story to their favourites list:daisella13, Guest, KarolynneWolfHeart, Shaydees, The Animanga Girl, treesofsilverleaves, and aintevenbovvered, to whom I apologize
for killing your soul. Um, oops?
This is a more lighthearted little collection of (obviously) seven quick vignette-type one-shots, although not all of them are happy... because pshhh happy endings? In Doctor Who? Surely you jest. ;)

I. Mud

To be perfectly honest, in retrospect the whole mud planet idea was not a good plan at all. And yet for some bizarre reason, here they were, and there was mud everywhere, and River was wondering why she had ever agreed to this.

Though it probably had something to do with the man currently trying to explain mud-skiing to her.

"It's easy, Rivah," he insisted, waving a pole around and nearly taking out one of his own eyes. "All you have to do is get pointed in the right direction and then you go sliding down the mountain! Easy, see! Well, there's some steering involved, but nobody cares if you get that wrong. Getting dirty is the fun part!"

"The fun part." She raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"Yes, the fun part! Oh, don't look at me like that, you can get dirtier digging around in your little archaeology sandboxes!"

"Excavations, Sweetie."

"Same difference!" With a huff, he turned and demonstrated how to run into a tree. "Okay, so, don't do that. That would hurt," he rubbed his nose gingerly, "so that's a bad idea, yes, very bad. Very, very bad. Come on then, I'll race you down to the bottom!"

"Are you completely –"

He pushed off, and suddenly she had a mouthful of mud. Actually, mud was pretty much everywhere. She spat, scowling after him.

"…mad. Yes. Yes he is," she sighed, and reluctantly shoved off to follow.

That was, after all, one reason why she loved him.

Watching him mud-ski was almost more amusing than actually doing it herself. He flailed and spun and narrowly missed a few people and flailed some more, and she wondered why he was slowing down, until the realization hit her that she was gaining speed and ohhh this was not good – "Bloody - Doctor!"

He twisted his head around to look at her just as one ski caught on a rock hidden in the mud, and then they were tumbling down the mountain in a tangle of limbs and skis and curly hair and pointy elbows and down and down they went, until they landed in a terrific mess, both covered in mud and squawking like a pair of panicked parrots while onlookers gaped and whispered hushed speculations to each other about what on earth could possibly be possessing these two obviously brain-damaged individuals and there was absolutely, positively, without a doubt, no way she was ever going to get all this mud out of her clothes.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded, struggling to disentangle himself from her and failing as the people around them began inching away.

"It's your fault! You didn't teach me how to stop!"

"My fault? How was that my fault? All I did was behave like a perfectly normal person and then you –"

"A perfectly normal person?" She snorted, kicking the skis off and standing, hands on her (slick and muddy) hips. "Oh, like you could ever be one of those."

"I'll have you know I once passed as a normal human being for a solid week! Ish!"

"You're such a liar." With a scowl, she started to try to wipe all the mud off of herself, but as her hands were also muddy, it was a waste of effort. "Can we get a decent shower here before we go back to the TARDIS and trek mud everywhere?"

He grinned maliciously and stood. "Oh, yes, there are places to shower here."

"Good, then let's –"

"But this is a mud planet. So you'll shower in mud." He laughed as she stared in disbelief, and when she made no move to follow him, he scooped her up in a fireman's lift and carried her kicking and shrieking all the way to the mud showers. "You can use the shower when we get back to the TARDIS!"

"Ohhh I hate you!"

"No you don't. Come on, it's culture! You're an archaeologist; you should try out lots of other cultures so you can study them, right? What sort of archaeologist are you? You don't want to get dirty, you don't want to try out new cultures..."

"But this isn't the same –"

He set her down, kissed her soundly, and told her, "You know you're going to come with me just because you love me, don't you?"

She hated it when he was right.

No you don't.

Shut up.