A/N~ Thank you all for such wonderful feedback on the previous one-shots in this series! It is truly fantastic to know just how much people are loving these! As always, I do not own Doctor Who. Please review!

Number Six: Soldiers

12/River

He hated soldiers. Hated them like he had never hated anything in any of his lives - even more than his 10th self had hated pears.

Yes, he knew that they weren't all bad. Some of them were okay, but never better than that.

Danny Pink - he was okay. Barely even okay, if he was being honest.

There was only ever one soldier that he was ever completely fine with.

Not himself, no. He hated himself too much for that to be the case. But a different soldier, yes. That soldier he was fine with.

One that had been forced into being a soldier.

A little girl, who had no childhood.

A wild child, raised by parents who were her age.

And an archeologist, serving time in prison for a crime she didn't commit.

His River - his soldier.

The woman who always fought for what she believed in, even if she knew she would be fighting innumerable enemies. Who never backed down from a fight, and was more often than not the one who started them. The woman who had fought her way into his hearts.

That was why he hated soldiers most. Because of the clerics - the ones who took her from Amy and Rory in the first place to turn her into the perfect weapon to kill the Doctor.

And the ones who then made her serve time in prison for said murder, while carrying out missions for the Church to earn her pardon.

Yes, he hated soldiers.