They Say We Only Live Once
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
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She hates the rain.
It's different here, all oddly warm no matter what the time of year – like some sort of uneven, lukewarm, fully clothed bath that leaves you shivering the second it's over.
It rained that first night here, just hours after she'd lost him, water pouring down the window in individual streams as though even the universe had been weeping for them.
She's grown up so much since those days, but there's still something about him that brings out sparkles of who she used to be – the beaming smiles, the delight in anything and everything the universe has to offer, the all-pervading happiness he'd always found so infectious.
The first time it clouds over when he's here, then, all blue-suited and a little bit shy, she is determined to make better memories of the rain.
Laughing, she drags him outside in it despite his protests of human immunity and inferior defence systems and but Rose, my hair will get wet. She throws herself up on tip-toes and kisses his eyelids, getting the bridge of his nose in her excitement. "You haven't seen it yet," she reminds him softly, fingers twining through his, "Not with these eyes." And she spins off into the distance, sheets of rain falling all around her like white muslin curtains.
He's missing out, she informs him when he tells her he's never jumped in puddles or left his umbrella at home on purpose. She shows him how to lean his head back and catch the water in his mouth, presses her slippery fingers to his rain-soaked lips when he tries to analyse the chemical composition for safety before trying it (he tries very hard not to think about how much clingier her dress is now it's wet through), and he jumps in a puddle so unexpectedly deep that he gets wet up to the knees.
Exhausted, breathless, laughing, they stand hand-in-hand below the branches of a singular, lonely tree. She watches the world go by as she leans into his arm, a contented smile playing across her lips, but he has eyes only for her. She looks like some sort of drowned animal (possibly a panda, he thinks, noting her smudgy mascara) and he probably looks worse, but somehow her back is against the bark of the tree and her arms are looped over his shoulders and she's never, never been so beautiful.
He can taste the rain on her tongue.
--
She drags him back to her bed by the damp knot of his tie, discards his see-through shirt and leaves it by the door. He kisses the rain from her skin, traces a path down between her breasts to catch the rogue drops that had evaded her dress, their rhythmic cries and gasps lost to the sound of the storm.
--
Next time it rains, they're standing at the top of the stairs in the Tyler mansion, sneaking some small measure of peace and private conversation away from the press and public milling around what is, essentially, Jackie Tyler's living room.
How times have changed.
The red velvet curtains are open behind them, water running down the floor-to-ceiling windows in sheets and rivers. His hand presses into the small of her back, steering her away from the crowd, fingers threading a little too insistently through the ties of her corseted dress.
"There's a time and a place, Doctor," Rose laughs, turning around to press her back into a marble pillar, teasingly out of his reach and just out of sight of the people downstairs. She sneaks her fingers through his belt loops, tugging him closer, and tip-toes up in an attempt to whisper something in his ear, but his lips turn her head and seize her words several times before she succeeds.
Finally, she pulls away from him, grinning, and moves her mouth to his ear. "You didn't get any for five hundred years before you met me," she mumbles, voice low, suppressed giggles in her tone. "I reckon you can keep it in your trousers for another half an hour."
She leans forward and kisses him quickly, smiling into his speechless mouth before disentangling herself from him and heading back down the stairs towards the guests with only half a backwards-glance.
Later, they slow-dance a little too close together in the corridor to the kitchens as the guests leave and the band packs up, her head on his shoulder and her shoes lying forgotten in the corner.
Behind them, the sky rains on.