Fanfic: Pirate's Gold 1

(This has already been posted at FanFiction.net, but I want it here as well for complete archiving...)

(Timeline: Series 4, sometime after the Library episodes with River Song)

The Doctor and Donna sat on comfy camp chairs pulled up to the open doors of the TARDIS. Between them, a small folding table carried the remains of afternoon tea: mismatched mugs, a nearly-empty self-heating teapot from the planet Vrangipanius, and a plate of crumbs where once half a dozen scones with jam had resided.

"Mmm, did I not tell you that back-alley bakery in Inverness was an eternal treasure of the ages?" The Doctor kissed his fingertips and considered again. "Well, at least in 1895 it was. I tell you, I dread the day when I go back there and find I've already eaten everything they ever made."

Donna turned her glare on him. "Honestly, you men are all alike. You bring me to see the Pillars of Creation and all you can think about is your stomach." She resumed her absorption of the Eagle Nebula, where coloured gas swirled in rivers across the blackness of space. Even from five hundred light years away the structure dwarfed everything around it.

"You've been staring at that thing for hours. Shall we go and do something dangerous?"

"Did you have something in mind?"

The Doctor grinned. "Now that you ask, actually...I've been wanting to visit the fire beings of Antares. Their art is said to be stunning. You just have to stay out of reach or you might burn up." He took a sip from his mug and made a face, then chucked the cold remains out the door.

"Tut tut, Doctor. Now some spacefaring scientist is going to come across molecules of tea with milk and sugar, hundreds of years from now."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Ohhh...so that's what that was..."

"What?"

"Never mind."

Donna stood, shut the doors after one last look into the heart of the nebula, and folded her chair. "Well then, let's get going. Fire art, eh?"

The Doctor lifted a trapdoor in the floor, dumped the tea tray into the chute, pondered a moment, then sent the table and his chair after it. Donna shrugged and dropped hers in too. Somehow, the TARDIS would put things back where they belonged.

"It's not really called Antares, you know." The Doctor leaped to the console and began twiddling with levers, dials and pumps. "That was just for your benefit. The locals call it Frimidianaricum."

"Aha." Donna wasn't sure where Antares was in relation to Earth anyway, but she wasn't about to say so. "Say, Doctor..."

He froze and gave her his full attention."Yes?"

"That professor. River Song. Did you figure out how she knew you?"

The smile melted off the Doctor's face as he gripped a handle until his knuckles whitened. "Yeah. Yeah I did." He flung the lever down.

The TARDIS jolted violently and Donna staggered across the floor until she found a railing to hang onto. "Typical. Don't wanna talk, send us spinning into the vortex..."