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“You’re a public menace.”
This, River mused, usually happened the other way around. It was usually her calling the Doctor asking for a booty call – which he usually turned down, with his sense of honour – and, like this particular time, doing so drunk and in the middle of the streets of London. It hadn’t been particularly easy to come get him but River had been able to call in a favour, who had called in a favour, who had ‘borrowed’ a vortex manipulator and lent it to River.
She’d promised that said favour of a favour would get the manipulator back tonight, but she supposed that whether or not she could follow through with that promise depended on how drunk the Doctor was and whether or not he’d let her drive the TARDIS. Right now, in the state that the Doctor was in, she was pretty certain he would let her drive an airplane into Leonardo Da Vinci’s back garden which as much gusto as he might ask her to boil the kettle.
They reached another corner, another blue police box with St John’s ambulance painted along the side, and – River cursed, not even bothering to restrain her language right now – yet another little box left behind as a tourist attraction. Honestly, why he didn’t just fix the chameleon circuit and turn the TARDIS into something a little less common she didn’t know, especially since he insisted on returning to Earth as regular as clockwork.
He just had to get drunk in a city full of police boxes, didn’t he? They’d been at this for an hour; at this rate, they weren’t going to find the TARDIS unless that big blue box uprooted itself and found them instead. River found herself hoping that it would.
“I told you.”
“Told me what?”
In answer, The Doctor nuzzled River’s neck, walking even more like a newborn giraffe than was usual. River wasn’t sure if she wanted him to get drunk more often, or never again. On the one hand it was an interesting sight, and certainly opened up a whole well of opportunities for someone who, like River, didn’t care too much about the moral implications of the matter, but on the other hand it was much like looking after a child.
When Amy had told her not to let him drink and to have him home by sunset – and not bothered to say the former to the Doctor, though she had told him to have River home by ten – she’d laughed. She’d figured that after months travelling with the Doctor, Amy had picked up the gift of hyperbole. Apparently not.
The Doctor shrugged, and tried to point dramatically, apparently dictating where another police box might be that might be the TARDIS. River bit her tongue and hefted him properly onto her shoulder, dodging his feet in the hops that he wouldn’t trample hers again. This was hellish to do in high heels, but he’d called her at… Well not a bad time, per se.
“I’m worse than everybody’s aunt.”
“You never told me that.”
He had nearly a thousand years of memories to sift through. River forgave him a lot, and she wasn’t about to chastise him for his memory. After all, she’d done a lot – well, no, she hadn’t. But River liked to think that she’d done a lot worse, because that way she didn’t have to feel guilty for falling in love with the Doctor. Which she wasn’t about to go and do any second soon, no matter how drunk and stupid he got.
River sighed, and stroked the back of his neck with a soothing noise. She hadn’t realised how much she liked this fond closeness between them. Usually, whenever he came to visit River was the first to break out the handcuffs and the rope. When the Doctor actually purred like a kitten and turned his neck so she could stroke it some more, nearly toppling them both into a hydrangea bush, she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.
“Oh.” He frowned, and River nearly melted. “Must’ve been a different Pond.”
“Clearly.”
“That’s it!”
River’s thoughts disappeared for a moment as the Doctor wrapped his arms around her waist for balance, gripping her like a koala, and begun to insist that he be taken to the next police box that they’d managed to find. For once it turned out he was right, and as they both tumbled through the door of the TARDIS, the time machine dimmed the lights with a playful hum, so that the two of them were both lit up with a soft, red glow.
River would have glared at the TARDIS for encouraging him but her knee had landed between the Doctor’s legs, and his longest companion seemed to have had some kind of effect on his sobriety. That or he’d been cheating all along, and was nowhere near as drunk as he’d made out to be. Both of the possibilities were equally likely, so far as she was concerned. But the knee was bare, and River couldn’t help but sigh and drop her head to the crook of the Doctor’s neck, the TARDIS door swinging shut behind the two lover birds as the Doctor put his hands on her hip.
“But not my favourite Pond.”