The Weather Girl
Melissa looked out over Talacre beach. She brushed a strand of wet, damp brown hair out of her blue eyes and surveyed the scene. There was a perfectly good beach just sitting there but it was never in use thanks to the almost constant rain and biting wind. God she hated Wales. She shrugged to herself and rubbed her arms with her hands, wishing she was someplace else. She placed her hands inside her soaking pink hoodie and turned, the movement made a squishing noise as her tight leather jeans squelched in their drowning state. With each foot step her white and red trainers made a similar noise. The weird thing was that only two minutes ago there hadn't been a single cloud in the sky.
It was a rare thing around there, so naturally Melissa decided to head to the beach. Within seconds of arriving the downpour had started with no warning. She shook her head and drops of water fell from her hair. As she continued to walk she thanked some sort of God, she didn't know which she believed in just yet, that the rain had stopped. She felt the sun on her face and was instantly warmed by its touch. She looked up and saw the clear blue sky, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud around for miles. But she could still hear rain.
She spun on her heel and saw the downpour behind her, she looked up and saw that a layer of pitch black clouds stopped completely a few centimetres from where she was standing. She looked around and saw that nobody else was reacting to the strange phenomenon. But what baffled her the most was the fact that, inside the storm, an old woman was pushing a baby in a pram through the downpour. Neither of them were wet. The rain was clearly bouncing off their clothes but seemed to be having no effect. Perfect, she was only twenty three and she was already having a mid-life crisis!
Suddenly a loud whirring noise filled her ears. The noise erupted from somewhere behind her and she spun round to see a blue police public phone box behind her. Weren't they all taken down years ago? The door swung open and a man stepped out. The first thing she noticed was the chin. He stood by her side, not really seeing her and commenting to himself. He was looking up at the storm clouds above them. He reached out a hand and pulled it free of the downpour, noticing it was covered in water. "Isn't that marvellous," he murmured.
"What are you doing?" she asked, slightly concerned about the man's mental health. It was only rain, even if it was two centimetres away from dry sunny land. He spun on his heel and saw her, he smiled and clapped his hands together.
"Nothing much, just doing stuff you can't see." He turned back to storm and continued to reach out and wave his hand through the rain. Suddenly a look of realisation appeared on his face. "You're wet," he whispered to himself.
"Yes..."
"You're wet." The tone of his voice was becoming exaggerated and was getting louder each time he said it.
"Yes."
"You're wet!"He grabbed her and ushered her inside the phone box shouting that 'there was no time to explain'. She let out a squeal and tried to fight against his push.
"Get off me!"
"No time, got to get in TARDIS." She was through the doors quicker than she had expected and found herself surrounded by a vast control room, built in an odd dome shaped design. She wrestled free of the man's grasp and ran back out through the doors. She looked back at the box and began to speak when he grabbed her by the arm. "Yes! It's bigger on the inside, wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. I'll explain later!" he shouted as he dragged her back inside.
He took her past the control room and pulled her through a maze of corridors until they reached a large room with the biggest swimming pool she'd ever seen. He let go of her arm and waved his hands about in front of her. "Now, listen to me. You are in danger, lots and lots of nasty, evil danger."
"What?"
"This pool will make you better, just jump in. Its heated!" he said, smiling.
"Right," she began to move towards the pool. If she was in danger then this was a very wise move to make, if not then at least she'd be drenched in warm water rather than cold.
"Wait!" she stopped and looked at him. "You need to be...naked."
"What! Seriously, if this is your idea of pulling some kind of sick joke!"
"No no no. Honestly, it won't work otherwise." She stared at him. "Oh right," he murmured, before disappearing from the room. She poked her head out of the doorway and checked the corridor to make sure he was gone. She headed back inside and looked at the pool and then the door. She rolled her eyes and began to strip down to her birthday suit.
The Doctor paced up and down next to the TARDIS console, biting the nail of his thumb. It certainly wasn't the best of introductions but he'd never had to drag a woman inside the TARDIS and order her to take her clothes off before. He stopped pacing. Don't you dare think like that! He thought to himself, smiling. The girl walked through the door and into the TARDIS control room, fully clothed and rubbing her hair with a white fluffy towel. "And what exactly was that all about?" she asked.
"The rain out there, you could see it?"
"Well, yeah."
"That isn't good." He paused and rubbed his chin. "How long were you exposed?"
"I don't know. I hadn't been there long."
"An hour?"
"I'd say fifteen minutes."
"Good, that means you weren't fully assimilated."
"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down. Assimilated?"
"Erm...yes."
"You're going to start explaining right now."
"I am? Okay, yes. I am. Hello there my name's The Doctor, pleasure to meet you!" he said warmly, extending a hand. Melissa shook it and observed the control room. She was amazed by the size of it. "Anyway, yes. I offered you an explanation so here it is. That raincloud out there is...dangerous. But only to certain people. People not from Earth. People not you. So why could you see it? Why could you touch it?!" he seemed to be becoming a little infuriated with the situation and was waving his hands around in the air and studying her closely.
"Well I definitely used my eyes at one point." He stared at her closely and a little angrily. She was beginning to annoy him but he'd never say it out loud.
"You're a weather girl."
"No I'm an accountant."
"No you don't understand. You are a weather girl!"
"No. I. Am. An. Accountant."
"No, not your job!" he raised his hands in the air and paced back and forth in front of her, before finally turning and staring deep into her eyes.
"Can we go back to the assimilating bit please?"
"No, this is more important."
"But I was being assimilated by rain."
"Popo dust actually."
"Popo dust?"
"Yes, engineered by a man, well he wasn't really a man, called Popo to kill of a parasitic breed called the Raxokonki. Anyway it assimilates and takes over the host and forces them to commit suicide. Genius really, if it weren't so medieval."
"So, I'm infected with a virus?"
"Yes, but you shouldn't be. Humans developed an immunity to it in the Jurassic period when they first came to Earth."
"But, we weren't around then."
"Well you weren't, but what you came from was. Now this means one of either two possibilities. You are either an alien or a something."
"A something?"
"Yes, a something." He produced a small pointed object from his inside pocket and flicked a switch on the handle. A piercing buzzing noise emanated from the object and a green light began to probe her. She stood and waited for him to finish. "That can't be," he concluded.
"What?"
"You're not an alien or a something."
"So, I'm human then idiot."
"No."
"What?" He ran over to the console and began flicking multiple switches and dials and the machine in the centre began to whir into action. A mechanism inside a glass tube began to pulse and the noise she had heard earlier echoed through the room. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going somewhere I haven't been for a long time."
"But we aren't moving."
"Yes we are." The whirring noise stopped and was followed by a low banging sound like the chime of a grandfather clock. Slowly he moved towards the double doors and pulled them open. Melissa walked over to him and saw the night sky. There was pitch black everywhere and it was covered in dots of tiny twinkling lights. In the centre of it all was a huge planet that was erupting with fire and gas on its surface. The Doctor stood beside her and pointed at it. "Do you recognise it?" he asked.
She studied it, trying to focus instead of being drawn into all the marvels around them. "No," she whispered. He folded his arms and looked down at her with a pained expression.
"You should. It's your home. Gallifrey."