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Don't worry, he'll get his chance to be awesome mrgreen .

ninja
“But Professor . . .” began Sally.
“Don’t argue, there’s no time,” said River. “Our biggest priority is keeping the Daleks from using the Lupine to leave the planet. Next is warning the rest of the galaxy. After that is slagging the dig site. Personal survival runs a late fourth. I’m sorry, but keeping these Daleks contained is more important than any of us.”
“Understood, Professor,” said RayQuan, his face an ashen gray behind his visor. “Come on, gang. You heard the lady.” He motioned for the team to follow him.

River set off to follow the Doctor.
“I’d try to talk you out of coming with me,” the Doctor said, “but I’m painfully aware of how stubborn you can get.”
“Almost as stubborn as you, I’d guess,” said River, jogging along behind him, gun cradled in her arms.
“More so, I’d say,” said the Doctor. “If that’s possible.”
“You notice I didn’t try to talk you into staying with the group,” said River.
The Doctor merely grunted in reply.
After they’d spent a few minutes in what River felt must have been a truly awkward silence for the Doctor, he spoke: “River, you know, we haven’t known each other all that long, but I have to tell you, you really are amazing. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever been involved with. You’re clever, and competent, and brave, and, well, you’re mature. You can handle yourself. You aren’t just hanging on my coattails waiting for me to rescue you. And . . . and when I’m with you, I feel safe. Like I don’t have to be a god, or a legend, or larger-than-life. I can just be a man. Well, an odd man with very cold hands, but you get what I’m saying. And River, for all my gabbing, I’m really rubbish at putting my feelings into words, but . . .”
“Whoa, hold on a minute!” put in River. “If you’re trying to screw up your courage to tell me you love me, please don’t strain yourself! At least not now. This is hardly the time. If we manage to live through this mess, we can go back to my apartment, I’ll make you a nice curry, and we can have the big relationship talk. Right now, shouldn’t you be telling me your big plan for defeating the Daleks?”
“Plan? What plan? I haven’t got one,” said the Doctor. “Foolish to try and make a plan, with so little data to go on. I’ll take a look round, see what we’re up against, and improvise. Plans just limit your options. I like to keep things flexible.”
“You do know you’re quite mad, right?” said River.
“Oh, absolutely,” said the Doctor. “You know, that comment you made earlier, about finding a girl in a shopping mall, that really did hit a little too close for comfort. I have a rather messy history of getting involved with young girls with no real direction or purpose in their lives. Makes sense, I suppose–if they knew who they were and what they were doing, they wouldn’t have the time to go gadding off through time and space with a loopy old codger in a police box. The problem is, generally, once they get their heads together, so to speak, once they decide who they are and what they want . . . well, they don’t need me to tell them when to jump any more. They outgrow me. And I’m left crushed and broken-hearted to start the vicious cycle all over again. Now you, you’re different. I’m mean, not to say that our relationship won’t go South eventually because, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m practically immortal and you’re human, but . . .”
“You’re trying to distract me,” said River. “So I won’t be afraid.”
“No,” said the Doctor, “I’m trying to distract myself.”
ninja

Ah, it is a good week.
Rich is pouring out pages of the Ten Doctors, and we got another installment of this story. biggrin

And now that you've met me IRL, you know why I can do the Doctor "running on at the mouth" so well . . . rofl rofl rofl

So, are you stuck as a zombie since Halloween? I'm stuck as a vampire, but I'm cool with it, because now my avatar can match my doll mrgreen
Did I tell you what happened at the dolly meet? I asked if anyone had a pen (someone asked for info on ethnic dolls, and I have this beautiful cocoa-skinned one, oops, I'm digressing again . . .) Anyway, I asked for a pen, and someone handed me a Sonic Screwdriver! Squee! He'd got it on eBay. now I have to have one, or several . . .

Warning: Incredibly Shmexy Time-Lord Awesomeness ahead!

“No,” said the Doctor, “I’m trying to distract myself. Of course, it really isn’t working. So if you have any Dalek-related questions, you might as well ask now.” The Doctor paused to help River over a pile of rubble. She looked up at the buildings they’d passed earlier.
“Doctor, look,” she said. “It seems some of our little friends have left their perches.”
“Seems like a lot of them have,” agreed the Doctor, scanning the ruins. “I wonder–are they just getting under cover before nightfall, or are they off preparing us a welcome committee?”
“Let’s just hope they aren’t all getting dressed,” said River. “Let’s hurry.”
“Indeed,” said the Doctor. “Although I haven’t much doubt that a naked Dalek could find ways of inflicting serious harm on a body if it came to that.”
“So why are they all naked?” River asked. “And why haven’t they attacked us sooner? Why didn’t they attack us on the first dig?”
“I’ve been wondering about both those questions,” said the Doctor. “To answer the first, probably a lack of facilities and materials to build new armor. They’ve probably got to cobble together whatever casings they can out of the bits and pieces in the wreckage, and take turns using them. Those shells aren’t just armor–they’re life support, too. Handle most of what we’d consider basic body functions. You have to understand, the Daleks were designed and engineered by a deranged cripple who’d lost both legs, both eyes, one arm, and the function of most of his organ systems during the wars on their homeworld.”
“Wait–you’re saying someone actually incorporated disabilities into the Daleks?”
“He considered it ‘weeding out non-essentials.’ He was probably the second maddest lunatic I’ve ever known.”
“Only the second?” scoffed River. “Who was the first?”
“Oh, we haven’t got nearly enough time for that story,” said the Doctor evasively. “To answer your second question: the Daleks, being, as you put it, disabled, have a long history of using sturdier, more agile life-forms as a slave labor force. They were probably waiting to see what you could uncover in the ruins, and then, once the heavy lifting was done, come out and take the artifacts and your ship.”
“Makes sense,” said River. “So they only attacked Bob Reynolds because he got too close to them?”
“He probably startled a patrol,” said the Doctor. “Wait–look there!”
He pointed ahead to the opening to the underground transit system where they’d found Bob’s corpse. Several shapeless masses were slipping into the opening, a tentacle or two whipping the air as they vanished.
“Well, what do we do now?” asked River, unshouldering her gun and taking off the safety.
“Wait, wait,” said the Doctor. “Don’t go waving that thing around. If they perceive you as more of a threat than an asset, they’ll kill you on sight. Our best bet is to get them curious about us. The one real gift their creator gave them was his sense of scientific inquiry–all twisted towards military objectives, of course. Still, they aren’t stupid, and they’re desperate for anything that can help them survive. I want to try and talk to them.”
“You’re going in to parlay?” River asked, incredulous.
“I’m going in to learn. Then we’ll see.” The Doctor followed the slime-trails left by the crawling Daleks down into the dark tunnel. River shook her head and followed him.
They switched on their headlamps as they descended. When they reached the bottom, dozens of pale, greenish blobs, nested among writhing tentacles, slithered out of the beams of light. River caught glimpses of rheumy eyes blinking at her and shuddered. “What were they like before they were like this?” she whispered.
“Like us,” said the Doctor, following the creatures down the transit tube.
River swallowed back the bile rising in her throat and fought the urge to start shooting.
As they turned a corner, the sea of pulsing green flesh parted before them. Shadows loomed against the far wall. The Doctor stood perfectly still, hands outstretched, empty palms up.
Even through her helmet, River could hear the voices: grating, mechanical, unnatural.
“HALT! HALT OR YOU WILL BE EX-TER-MIN-A-TED!”
River found herself wondering if the strangely enuciated words were actually coming from the creatures, or if they were mute outside their shells, even as her legs trembled and she wanted nothing more than to run and hide. Share office space with one of these buggers for a year, and you think they can’t scare you. Then you see them moving . . . She knew they weren’t any bigger than Dilbert, but somehow, in the dim light and cramped space of the tunnel, the three armored forms gliding towards her seemed huge, blotting out everything else. She bit her lip.
“Ah,” said the Doctor, “just the chaps I’ve been looking for. Take me to your leader.”
The Dalek scouts paused, but only for a moment. “YOU WILL COME WITH US!” grated the first one. “YOU WILL BE QUESTIONED!”
“Oh, absolutely,” said the Doctor. “I’ll answer anything you ask, though I expect you won’t be too happy about what I’ve got to tell you. You don’t get out much, do you? And I’ll bet you haven’t had any newsreels from the front in a while.”
“SILENCE!” ordered the lead Dalek.
“No need to shout,” said the Doctor, slipping past the scouts and heading down the corridor from which they’d come, causing them to have to stop short and turn to follow him. River darted after the Doctor, giving the Dalek scouts a wide berth.
“Oh, wait, I’m sorry,” the Doctor continued. “I guess you do have to shout. No ability to modulate your vocalizers. Non-essential,” he said to River with a knowing nod. “They don’t have actual vocal chords. In fact, I’m not sure if they even have mouths.”
“Hmm. I was wondering,” said River.
“We live through this, you’ll be the recognized expert on the subject, you know.”
“Wonderful. Tenured at twenty-seven.”
“You’re only twenty-seven?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes. How old did you think I was?” asked River.
“I dunno. Somewhere between twenty and forty, I supposed. Human age is hard for me to judge sometimes.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!” said River, rolling her eyes.
“SILENCE!” screeched the Dalek rolling up behind them.
“oh, sod off,” muttered the Doctor under his breath.

At last the tunnel widened out into what must once have been a large transit hub-station, though to River’s eyes it looked like a cross between a laboratory and a scrap heap. Wires and thick snaky conduits hung from the ceilings. Banks of instruments flashed on every wall. Naked Daleks crawled, writhed, and slunk in and out of the detritus, leaving ropes of whitish mucus everywhere they passed. Two more armored Daleks stood in the center of a mass of instrumentation. River blinked, realizing that one of the casings was actually open and empty; its occupant was cradled in a nest of wiring suspended from the ceiling and apparently linked into a bank of video monitors. As she watched, it released its hold on the wiring, dropped down into its casing, closed it with two tentacles, and rolled forward.
“RE-PORT?” it barked at the scouts.
“ALIENS DISCOVERED PENETRATING SECTOR BETA,” said the lead scout. “WE HAVE BROUGHT THEM FOR QUESTIONING AND EXAMINATION.”
I don’t like the sound of that, River thought.
The Doctor stepped forward, drew hinself to his full height, and made a brief gesture towards his breast. River actually smiled as she realized he’d been trying to reach his eyeglasses, which were sealed inside his spacesuit. Gonna put on the teacher specs and give ‘em a good stern talking to? she thought.
“I am the Doctor,” he began. His voice, amplified by the speaker in his helmet, rang around the room. “By the authority invested in me by Lord Rassilon, first and last President of the High Council of Time Lords, and in accordance with the statutes of the Shadow Proclamation, I order your immediate surrender!”

Indeed o:

And the Daleks never do get their "SILENCE" from the Doctor, do they? xD

Sorry I haven't been commenting, but I have lurked through here each time you've updated ;D

<3

The Doctor is made of AWESOME on a sub-molecular level:

The two Daleks before them actually rolled back a few centimeters. A Dalek double-take? River wondered. Then the leader spoke:
“IRRELEVANT. DALEKS DO NOT SURRENDER. YOU ARE OUR PRISONERS. YOU WILL COMPLY, OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!”
“Excuse me?” replied the Doctor, voice squeaking a tiny bit, in the tone River knew meant he was just getting warmed up. “Did you hear what I said, or do you have sand in your aural processors? I am THE DOCTOR. The oldest, most feared enemy of the Dalek race! Ka Faraq Gatri, “The Oncoming Storm”! Ring any bells? Because it should. I’ve been fighting your kind since they were first spawned, and I have never been defeated! I could destroy you armed with nothing more than my shoelaces and a wad of chewed bubblegum, and I’ve got a ship out there full of guns and bombs ready to blast you to hell and gone! I’m giving you a choice. Surrender now. Let the crew of the Lupine leave. And I’ll give you this planet, on the condition you never leave.”
“UNACCEPTABLE,” said the Dalek leader. “A SINGLE PLANET IS INSUFFICIENT FOR THE MIGHTY DALEK EMPIRE!”
“Wha?” The Doctor scoffed audibly. “What ‘mighty Dalek empire’? You lot? You’re no empire! You’re the mighty Dalek scrap-heap! The Dalek jumble sale! You’ve got what, half a dozen functional armor casings? And in case you haven’t noticed, there are no reinforcements coming to Ghehenna. There are no other Daleks. They’re all dead. I killed them!”
“RECORDS INDICATE KILLING IS DISTATEFUL TO THE DOCTOR,” said the Dalek leader.
“Yes it is,” said the Doctor. “But I’m very good at it. Do you know what your creator Davros called me? ‘The Destroyer of Worlds.’ Right before I killed him. You should take my offer. I’m giving you a world where you can survive, thrive even. You don’t surrender, I’ll take my TARDIS into the heart of this system’s sun and send it supernova. Should have done it a thousand years ago, but I thought it would be overkill. Guess I was mistaken. Won’t happen again.”
The second Dalek leveled his gun-arm at the Doctor. “IF HE IS THE DOCTOR, HE IS TOO DANGEROUS TO LIVE. EXTERMINATE . . .”
River winced and closed her eyes, but the first Dalek intervened. “NO, HE IS TO BE KEPT ALIVE. IF HE IS THE DOCTOR, WE WILL USE HIM TO UTILIZE THE TIME LORD ARTIFACTS.”
“THE DOCTOR CAN NOT BE CONTROLLED,” said the second Dalek. “KILL HIM, AND WE WILL ANALYZE THE ARTIFACTS OURSELVES.”
“NEGATIVE,” answered the first Dalek. “RECORDS INDICATE TIME LORD TECHNOLOGY CAN ONLY BE HARNESSED THROUGH TIME LORD PHYSIOLOGY. WE NEED HIM ALIVE.”
“KILL HIM, AND RE-ANIMATE THE RELEVANT PORTIONS OF HIS CORPSE,” suggested the second Dalek. River glanced over at the Doctor, to see how he reacted to this grizzly proposition, but he seemed to be barely listening to the Daleks’ argument. Instead, he seemed to be tracing out the wiring patterns of the room with his eyes. He spared a glance for River, grinned, and winked at her. She gasped. He’s actually enjoying this! she thought. It’s like a game to him–keep them squabbling long enough for him to figure out how to blow up the room with a sonic pulse to the right circuit. My goddess, what a man! If we survive, I won’t just make him a curry, I’ll have his babies!
“HIS BRAIN WAVES WILL BE NECESSARY,” the first Dalek was saying.
“EXTRACT HIS BRAIN AND KILL HIS BODY,” said the second Dalek. “HE CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO ESCAPE.”
“HE WILL NOT ATTEMPT ESCAPE,” said the first Dalek. “RECORDS INDICATE THE DOCTOR CAN BE CONTROLLED.” He swivelled to face River. “ARE YOU A FE-MALE HU-MAN?”
Oh, great day for my ego! River thought. First my lover thinks I’m nearly forty, then this Dalek can’t even tell if I’m a girl! “I can’t see how that would matter to you,” she said to the blinking eyestalk hovering before her visor.
“PRISONER’S GENDER IRRELEVANT,” agreed the second Dalek. “EXTERMINATE IT.”
“NO,” said the first Dalek. “GENDER RELEVANT TO THE DOCTOR. RECORDS STATE HIS GREATEST WEAKNESS IS AN ADDICTION TO THE BIOCHEMICAL STATE CALLED ‘LOVE’. A HUMAN FEMALE IS NECESSARY TO INDUCE THIS CONDITION. IF THE HUMAN IS FEMALE, NINTEY-FIVE PERCENT PROBABILITY THAT SHE IS A COM-PAN-ION, A HUMAN KEPT BY THE DOCTOR TO INDUCE ‘LOVE’. THREATEN THE FEMALE, AND THE DOCTOR BECOMES IMPOTENT.”
Romantic little b*****d, aren’t you? thought River. “Listen, you overgrown saltcellar, you can’t get to him through me. We human females are easily replaced. There’s at least two girls back on the Lupine who’d be happy to keep the Doctor’s bed warm at night. Shoot me if you want.”
The second Dalek swivelled his gun towards her, as the Doctor blurted out, “River, no!”
“HYPOTHESIS CONFIRMED,” said the first Dalek. “HUMAN IS COMPANION. YOU WILL COMPLY, DOCTOR, OR YOUR FEMALE DIES.”
The Doctor’s jaw dropped, ever so slightly. Then he regained his composure. “You know, it doesn’t really matter, whether we live or die. We’ve given orders to our subordinates, you see. They’ll leave Ghehenna without us, and then they’ll send the human’s Starfleet to destroy you.”
“NEGATIVE,” said the Dalek leader. “WE WILL EXTERMINATE THE HUMAN CREW AND USE TIME LORD TECHNOLOGY TO CONQUER THE UNIVERSE.”
Sudden movement at the far side of the room caught River’s attention. A dozen armored Daleks glided into the chamber. Floating between them was a nul-grav sled. On the sled stood the TARDIS.