-1Rose has a feeling. One of those almost ominous intuitions that makes your hair stand on end because you just know something is going to happen. She hates those feeling. Electricity in the air. The feeling of every one of her nerves standing at attention because work is bound to be exciting tonight. Run for your life, save pedestrians from aliens and try to convince them that they didn't see it, exciting.
"A storm's approaching." That's how it was put to her once and it's how she describes it now. Her co-workers think she's gloomy for the phrase, but they also know to trust her gut. Once those words are uttered by Rose Tyler, you better be on your guard.
The problem with gut feelings is that you never know exactly what it is you're about to end up with. She's far from psychic, but it hasn't stopped her from trying. Focusing on the sensation to get something from it. Anything. She thought she'd done it once, leading her team to an abandoned building, fully armed and ready for trouble. They were in the middle sweeping the third story when they got a call on an attack. It was on the other side of town.
She gave up trying to pinpoint things then. She knew someone once, a long time ago, who could truly sense when and where things were going to happen, or at least how they were supposed to. She'd never questioned it or given it much thought until a summer night when she heard him speak the words that would become, at the time, ominous, and once it had come to pass, an affirmation; a lifeline to her past.
"Something
in the air. Something coming." She remembers being more
confused than usual by his cryptic message. When she questioned him
he simply answered, "a storms approaching." For
three days he ignored her questions while they hung around enjoying
the 2012 Olympics. It wasn't that he simply wasn't hearing her. No.
Every time she asked he would grow silent, look at her with that
dark, sad look in his eyes, then prattle on about shot putts and
ancient Greece. Finally one night when she'd nearly given up
on asking what he'd meant and why he wouldn't tell her, he sighed and
looked at her solemnly. "Because I don't know." "Well
you know something, how can you not know what?" It was a foolish
question to ask. Everyone knows what it's like to get a sense of
something without knowing the full of it. She just wanted him to
continue and he didn't seemed inclined to without her pushing
further. "You know how I can tell when things are off? I
know how history is supposed to take place. Like you said when you'd
absorbed the vortex: All that is, all that was, all that ever could
be. The timelines of entire planets are engrained in me, but I don't
know my own." "Why not?" "Well, two
reasons really. One, is that my people existed outside of the
standard concepts of time. Bit complicated really. Second, is that
it's far too dangerous. Imagine if you knew everything that was going
to happen in your life. How many things would you change? And think
of how many other lives that would change. Entire timelines would
unravel." "So why are you worried about me? And
don't tell me you're not, because it's pretty obvious." "All
I know is that, if something is going to happen to me, and it's so
bad that I can feel it, then it must have something to do with you."
They'd stared at each other for a while, the Doctor's feeling as bare as she had ever seen, but that was the last they spoke of it. Spent the next week or two larking about, acting as if they didn't have a care in the world until it all ended and she wound up here.
It was foolish of both of them, and at times she regrets it but she knows deep down that focusing on it wouldn't have done them any good. There are some things you just can't change, and if she's in a good mood she can say it worked out for the best. It would all end one day, and at least this way he knows she's okay. Better separation by void than death.
Rose blinks once or twice to clear her mind, staring out over the Thames while her co-workers chat idly, waiting for the inevitable call to duty. She takes a deep breath, feels it fill her lungs with a cool burn. There's a slightly foul odor coming off the water and she remembers hearing something on the news about high phosphorus levels affecting the plants.
She frowns a little, feeling a slight twitch somewhere in the muscles of her body. The feeling tonight is different. Less sinister. More filled with anticipation. Her mind slips back into the past. Something's coming. She feels a strong wind whip up, blowing her hair in her face. There's familiar sound echoing right near by yet seeming in the distance and she understands what's happening. She knows what it is she felt.
She turns to her team as the sound grows stronger and they look to her for an answer as to what's happening. She gives them a good solid smile. After all, it could be the last time they see her and she wants to leave a good impression.
"A storms approaching."
It's time to go.
