Title: The Approaching Storm
Authors: Gillian Taylor
Rating: PG
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose
Summary: A storm was coming.
Spoilers: The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Just like playing with them...a lot.
Archive: Sure, just let me know.

A/N: Thanks, as always, to my fabulous beta WMR. This is actually two vignettes strung together under the overall title 'The Approaching Storm'.

The Approaching Storm
by Gillian Taylor

I. Falling

He fell into the Pit, drawn deeper and deeper, falling farther and farther, with no sense of time. He fell and trusted his faith in the truths of the universe to keep him safe. Life, death, good would win the day – especially when he was at the bat, and evil never, ever succeeded. Sometimes these truths seemed impossible, improbable, and unlikely. Sometimes, he feared that nothing could be further from fact.

Those times, he looked at Rose and believed. Truth could be stranger and more improbable than fiction. But it worked. Worked because of them, worked because of Rose, worked because he could see the results of his actions in her eyes.

Yet he continued to fall.

Faster than before, he knew he had reached critical velocity. No stopping. Just falling. He was committed from the moment he'd disengaged the grappling hooks. Only now he found himself wondering, after all his talk about the need to fall, if there was something deeper than that. Something far more fundamental.

It wasn't the need to fall. It was the need to know. What was beyond the next hill, the next planet, the next star, the next universe. To know everything and realize that he knew nothing all along.

When he looked at Rose, he knew the truth. He was a tiny, insignificant soul in the wide expanse of the universe, but he made an impact. On a person, on a planet, on history. The smallest action or inaction on his part could change the world.

And now, now he fell. Deeper, farther, onward. Into the Pit. Something was down there, something that he couldn't explain, something that knew too much.

The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon...

No. He refused to give credence to such words. It couldn't happen, mustn't happen. They were stuck, captured, caught. On a planet that couldn't exist orbiting a black hole without the TARDIS. There was no other battle save the one for existence.

He fell.

She'd be fine. Always fine. Because he believed in her, believed in them, believed in the fundamentals of the universe. He'd win because he had to. Good would triumph because it always did. Rose would be safe because he couldn't fathom any other way. However, he felt a small pang of doubt. What could be certain in an uncertain universe? He was on an impossible planet.

What if some truths were only transitory? What if the impossible could be possible? What if he was wrong?

A storm was approaching. He could feel it as gravity continued to tug him downward. Falling, ever falling, into darkness.

He couldn't fight gravity, much as he couldn't fight the future. Time would pass. Seconds would turn to minutes would turn to hours would turn to days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia. He couldn't fight the oncoming storm.

He couldn't fight himself.

One day, perhaps soon, she'd be gone. Death would claim her as it claimed all her kind. He'd be alone. So, so alone. If he didn't have her, what did he have to believe in?

The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon...

No. No. He refused to listen. Refused to believe. The Beast, whatever it was, was using his greatest fear against him.

There was something greater than fear. Greater than the need to fall, or even the need to know. There was something stronger than the Beast and he knew it.

Knew it intimately, knew it with every breath he took, with every beat of his hearts. He could feel it in the TARDIS, as she hummed her way through the Vortex. He felt it whenever he stepped foot on a new planet, met someone new, saw something he'd never seen before. He could see it in Rose's eyes and in the eyes of every companion he'd ever had.

He fell and trusted in the greatest truth of the universe to keep him safe.

He trusted in love. He believed in Rose.

A storm might be approaching. Someday he'd lose her. But the future wasn't important, was never important. What was important was now, right now, this moment, this instant.

What was important was that he was going to find the TARDIS, save the day, and save Rose.

And still he fell.

II. The Approaching Storm

She could hear the words play in her mind over and over again. A macabre soundtrack to her life. Everything she did, everything she could ever do, was tainted because of one infallible truth.

A storm was approaching.

She could sense it at the edge of her perceptions, coloured faintly gold. Nothing lasts forever. Everything dies.

The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon...

Maybe the Beast was right. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe her destiny was to die peacefully in bed, surrounded by her friends and family. Maybe her destiny would be to die in agony in the midst of a war. But those were could be's and might be's.

Not fact. Never fact. Not yet.

Nothing lasts forever. She'd seen it in Sarah Jane's eyes. Knew it was coming from the instant she'd seen him crash through the mirror to rescue Reinette. Now she had confirmation from what might be an all-knowing source.

The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon...

Death frightened her. Terrified her. She knew that all things die. The Doctor, her first Doctor, had died. Oh, he was still with her in a way. But it wasn't him. New new Doctor, but she still loved him, loved being with him, loved travelling with him. That hadn't changed, could never change. But an end was coming.

Maybe she should fear the future. But she couldn't live like that. She'd never leave the TARDIS, never see the universe, never travel with him. If she feared death, let that terror paralyse her, she couldn't do it. She would've been better off living at the Powell Estates and never leaving her mum's flat again.

However, she didn't believe that, couldn't believe that. This life, even if she died, was worth it. It was always worth it.

A storm might be coming, but she could withstand it. With him at her side, with the Doctor, she could face it. She trusted him to protect her because he always had, always would. As long as she had him, she'd be safe.

What mattered was now, always now. 'Then' would eventually find her. 'Then' would become now and she'd find herself in the midst of the storm.

The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon...

No matter. This life was worth it. The Doctor was worth it.

She wouldn't've missed it for the world. Despite the approaching storm.

THE END