Her sweetie was below her in the engine room of the starship, he was on all four knees in front of the main control panel, sonicing it open and yelling instructions to all the scrambling engineers, pointing and gesticulating.

River grinned and leaned back in the maintenance tunnel thirty feet overhead. She propped her feet on the opposite carved wall and ate her banana, appreciating the nice view of his bum she had from here.

They had arrived separately, he had no idea that the "villain" he was working against on this occasion was her.

She'd come to steal the ship's spare drive crystals, they were worth a fortune on the black market, and, after all, she did have expenses.

But she'd arrived to discover someone had beaten her to it. There were only the main crystals left, the "spares" had been replaced by duds that had crumbled away to charcoal when she'd touched them.

Sighing in annoyance, she'd stolen one of the three remaining crystals, the other two could take the the load, for a while. It wasn't like she was stranding the ship, they were in a main trade lane. Someone would stop and give them a tow if they needed it.

But then there had been the asteroid, then the invading troop of rogue Judoon...

And two crystals weren't enough anymore. Not that she was giving hers back.

Then her sweetie had arrived. She'd shushed the Tardis when it touched her mind in cheerful hello. Then she'd watched, delighted, to see her hubby work.

The Judoon were routed, the asteroid damage was repaired (mostly) and he was now busy bypassing all the safety protocols so they could suck all the actually available energy out of the remaining crystals.

And his bum wiggled nicely as he busily buried himself shoulder-deep in the starship controls. His voice shouted out hollowly as he gave orders and asked questions, and briefly electrocuted himself before waving a hand at his commandeered "Companion of the Day" who quickly slapped a tool in it before he buried himself deeper.

River grinned and bit her lip. She really was going to have to pop into the Tardis later and "congratulate" him on all his hard work.

That pleasant rumination was interrupted when she noticed a lone engineer below her, sneaking along the sides of the wall, overlarge spanner in hand, eyes intent on her defenseless hubby.

She never had bothered to locate the original thief.

The Doctor pulled himself out of the workings to say something to his current assistant who was working on the other side.

The suspicious engineer darted toward him, spanner raised.

River raised an eyebrow, and dropped her banana peel.

The engineer yelled, slipped, and landed with a crash, smacking his head on the metal floor. His spanner landed with a clatter and a ring.

The Doctor whipped around, saw the spanner, and picked it up with an "Ah hah!" sound.

He inserted himself back into the controls. Thumping sounds ensued.

River dusted off her hands and blew him a kiss.

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