Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

69(M)

      Danger Is Her Middle Name

                       leiascully

One thing never changes: River loves danger. She loves it down to her bones, down to the very core of herself. She goes looking for any fight within a hundred-year radius, just for the rush of adrenaline. She absolutely craves the excitement, and it isn't limited to a heightened state of awareness, either. Nothing gets her hot and bothered faster than the imminent threat of mayhem and violence. Give her a battle and she'll be looking for a bunk afterwards. There's no greater aphrodisiac than triumph over peril.

When she comes across the half-incapacitated Nightmare Creature prowling the grounds of her dig site, she just can't resist. It will die eventually - there's plenty of sulfur on this planet, which will poison it slowly, but in the meantime it's a danger to her and her team. It's only kind that she puts it out of its misery quickly. Or moderately quickly, anyway, which is much more fun for her. She holsters her gun and picks up a long-handled shovel. It snaps and snarls, trying to change shape, but she can tell its system is already compromised.

"Oh, please, you're nowhere near my worst nightmare," she challenges it. "Come on, if you think you're hard enough."

It lunges, swiping at her with a tentacle with a hook on the end. She blocks the hook with the metal bit of the shovel and then chops at the tentacle. The creature starts bleeding, gouts of blood that immediately evaporate into smoke. River grins and takes up her ready stance, balanced for the next attack. Even wounded, it's still immensely powerful. It nearly wrests the shovel from her grasp more than once. She could end it quickly with a shot between the eyes, but she refuses - this way it's a fair fight, and one she's planning on winning. It isn't any fun at all if there's no chance she could lose.

The creature attacks and she whacks it again, so hard that the shovel's vibrations ring all the way up her arms. It's fast, but not fast enough, and though it's stronger than she is, it never had much of a chance of being as clever. Even so, dealing with it this way is a risk, and one she's enjoying. She revels in the smooth strong lines of her arms and the way her body absorbs the shock of impact when she hits the creature, or the rare moment it hits her. She relishes each potential bruise. She jumps over a pseudopod flung at her ankles and brings down the shovel with a nice resounding smack which makes her spine tingle.

She might go so far as to say she's getting off on it - certainly there's a sleek, heady pleasure at the way her body responds. Every move she makes is the right one. Her blood rushes through her veins, every part of her body alert. She feels preternaturally alive, as if she's on some other level of existence far above her everyday life. Each time the creature engages, she's there to counter it. She is invincible. She is River Song, destroyer of worlds. She will not be overcome.

It takes nearly half an hour by her reckoning, but finally the wounded creature makes its fatal mistake. She puts it out of the misery with one last blow from the shovel.

"Sweet dreams," she tells the corpse as it vanishes.

She's standing there catching her breath, grinning at her victory, when she hears the whoosh of the TARDIS. The Doctor peers out the door.

"River?"

"Hello, sweetie," she calls. Endorphins make her knees weak and her voice husky, or maybe that's her husband's presence. "I appreciate the effort, but I didn't really need backup. All taken care of now."

"I wasn't coming to be backup," he tells her, stepping out of the TARDIS. "I was on my way to Ganymede. The TARDIS brought me here instead."

"Clever girl," River says to the TARDIS. She's almost dizzy: the adrenaline of the fight is turning into desire.