Author's note: Hello! I've written this in two sections because I always love seeing things from multiple perspectives. The first part is from River's point of view and the second part is from the Doctor's.
I do not own Doctor who. However, I take full responsibility for any and all mistakes.
The rain falls in huge droplets, slicking the pavement into black pitch and rebounding off the moving sidewalks with an audible ping. It seems to fall in slow motion, each droplet hanging in the air before you for a split second before tumbling to the pavement and shattering like glass. The drops glitter like diamonds, reflecting the glow of the floating street lights and turning the whole cityscape into a sort of glistening wonderland. You turn to look at him in the semi-darkness, breaking into an involuntary smile at the pure wonder in his expression, even though he's seen this all before.
"It's beautiful," you breathe, hearing the awe in your own voice as you turn back to look at the scene laid out before you. The towering skyscrapers, the color-coded moving sidewalks, the winged vehicles hovering over rain-slicked streets, somehow all of it made even more impressive by the shimmering, slow-motion rain.
"Pocket atmosphere," he explains, stepping up beside you and you can see him watching you from the corner of your eye, "This planet is full of them. They create incredibly stable weather conditions in the area they cover. It's always raining here; day or night, summer or winter, it never stops raining."
In another context, the idea of never-ending rain may have sounded depressing, but standing here amidst the giant, glittering water droplets, it seems like the most beautiful thing you've ever heard of.
"But only here. Only in this city," he continues, although you're only half listening, "Thirty kilometers to the North the atmosphere shifts again and there's constant sunshine. It's hot all the time, always bright and clear, which sounds lovely until the first time you get a third-degree sunburn. Drought is a real problem too; they have to import water from here. It's mutually beneficial, of course, with the potential for flooding, it's important that they siphon off some of the precipitation, and they've developed quite a complicated irrigation system."
"Sweetie," you interrupt him when he finally stops for breath, "You're rambling."
"Just explaining darling," he replies in his own defense, shutting up immediately when you raise one perfectly-plucked eyebrow in a half-amused half-annoyed expression that he is all too familiar with. He grins at you, and you roll your eyes, not bothering to hide your smile as he pinches two fingers together and drags them across his closed lips like an imaginary zipper.
You stretch one hand out, away from the shelter of the umbrella he's holding above the two of you, and catch one of the giant sparkling drops. It stays there for a moment, poised on your fingertips like a shard of glass, temporarily suspended in time, before melting completely and running in rivulets down your hand.
"Taste it," he suggests, and you turn around to stare at him, not entirely sure that you've heard him correctly.
"Taste it," he insists again, stretching out his own hand and catching a few iridescent drops in his palm, cupping them in his hand and holding it up in front of your mouth. Not sure whether to be suspicious or entertained, you obey the command and sip the liquid from his hand.
It's as sweet as sugar and as warm and smooth as honey, and the taste lingers on your lips for a long moment after the liquid itself disappears. He's watching you, waiting for your reaction, and you feel yourself grin in response.
"It's the result of a chemical reaction," he begins, "initiated by the combination of…" but you cut him off with a kiss before he can launch into another rambling explanation. He smiles against your lips where the taste of the rain still lingers, snaking an arm around your waist to pull you closer and abandoning the umbrella to clatter against the pavement in the process. You're both soaked to the skin in seconds, and you should be irritated, knowing that the moisture will destroy your carefully-cared-for curls, but at the moment you can't bring yourself to care.
"It's beautiful," you repeat, pulling away to stare again at the mesmerizing rain, "Thank you for bringing me."
You start to detangle yourself from him, but the arm he's slipped around you waist tightens, holding you in place. With a mischievous grin he bends his head toward you, shaking his now soaking hair in your face and drenching you with water. Your jaw drops open, shocked by the childish gesture, but he doesn't give you time to pull away before he's kissing you again.
His hand that isn't holding your waist finds its way to your hair, as it always does, tangling among the soft, dripping curls. You respond by stroking his cheek lightly, and deepening the kiss as a plan for revenge hits you.
Still kissing him deeply, you slip your other hand beneath the back of his coat and toy with the back of his suspenders. He doesn't notice, too proud of his childish prank and too caught up in the kiss to worry about retaliation. You slide one finger beneath the taunt brace, and pull it back, distracting him by nipping at his bottom lip so that he doesn't catch on. You pull back slightly, breaking the kiss, and grin at him, eyes sparkling with mischief as you let go of his suspender, allowing it to snap against his back with a resounding slapping sound.
He jumps and lets out a yelp, more from surprise than pain, as you dance backwards, detangling yourself from his embrace before he has time to process what you've done. He tries to glare at you, but it's more of a pout than a glower as he rubs his lower back with one hand.
"You're going to pay for that one Doctor Song," he says warningly, and you smirk.
"Promise?" you ask daringly
"Oh, definitely," he counters, taking a slow step towards you.
You grin back expectantly and pretend that the shudder that runs through you is due entirely to the warm water now trickling down your skin and soaking your clothes and not at all to the sudden, unexpected, and almost-predatory look that flashes in his eyes as he steps toward you again.
"You'll have to catch me first," you warn, and before he has the chance to reply, you've turned around and are sprinting down the street, which is less difficult than it should be in your towering heels. Luckily, you've had more than a little experience running in inappropriate footwear. Without slowing down, you skip lightly onto the bright blue, automatic sidewalk and it whisks you away faster than you would have expected.
You glance backwards, and find that he's closer than you thought he'd be, laughing as he races to the edge of the sidewalk, determined to catch up. You wave cheekily at him as you slip out of your heels, scoop them up in one hand, and turn to run recklessly down the speeding sidewalk, knowing that eventually he'll catch you and looking forward to the moment he does.
You can't wait to see her reaction, and have to consciously resist the urge to push her out the door the moment the TARDIS lands. Instead, you press the door open slightly, blocking her view with your body as you open the umbrella, and step aside to let her out into the beautiful night. The rain is just as mesmerizing as you remember it being the last time you were here on a quick site seeing trip that, through no fault of yours, somehow turned into a frantic stop-the-bad-guys-and-save-the-planet mission. Funny how often that seemed to happen.
The reflections from the streetlights bounce off the glittering droplets, casting miniature rays of light across the cityscape and turning the darkness of midnight into a sort shimmering twilight. You tear your eyes away from the dazzling raindrops and focus on her face instead, eager to see her reaction. For a moment, her face is hard to read, nearly expressionless, and you're afraid that she's not as impressed as you had hoped. After a moment, her lips twitch up into an awed smile, and you grin back at her, rather pleased with yourself for choosing such a breathtaking destination.
"It's beautiful," she breathes finally, her eyes widening as she takes in the towering skyscrapers, the moving sidewalks that are color-coded according to direction, and the multitude of brightly-colored vehicles hovering above the rain-slicked streets.
"Pocket atmosphere," you explain as you step up beside her, keeping the umbrella resolutely positioned above her head. You'll never hear the end of it if you ruin her perfect curls. "This planet is full of them. They create incredibly stable weather conditions. It's always raining here; day or night, summer or winter, it never stops raining."
"But only here. Only in this city," you continue, explaining with ease concepts that lesser species would have difficulty even comprehending while trying to sound like a knowledgeable tour guide rather than an annoying know-it-all, "Thirty kilometers to the North the atmosphere shifts again, and there's constant sunshine. It's hot all the time, always bright and clear, which sounds lovely until the first time you get a third-degree sunburn. Drought is a real problem too; they have to import water from here. It's mutually beneficial, of course, with the potential for flooding, it's important that they siphon off some of the precipitation, and they've developed quite a complicated irrigation system."
"Sweetie," she interrupts just as you're about to elaborate on the beauty of 68th century geothermal water systems, "You're rambling."
"Just explaining darling," you reply, but you snap your lips together immediately when she raises one perfectly-plucked eyebrow in an expression that you know all too well. You pinch two fingers together and drag them across your lips as though closing an imaginary zipper, smiling widely when she fails to hide her amusement.
She stretches out a hand, beyond the extent of the umbrella, and watches with wonder as the droplets catch on her fingertips, glistening solidly for a moment before dissolving.
"Taste it," you suggest, remembering the sugar-sweet honey-smooth taste of the slow-motion rain and wondering momentarily what it would taste like kissed from her lips or licked from her skin. She turns to stare at you and you immediately fight back a blush, even though she couldn't have known what you'd been thinking.
"Taste it," you say again, and when she doesn't move to do so you stretch out a hand and catch the water yourself, holding it up to her lips. With a look that manages to be both cautious and amused, she obeys and sips the liquid from your hand.
She closes her eyes as she sips, as though savoring the unique flavor and you can feel both of your heartbeats accelerate when she opens them again and grins at you.
"It's the result of a chemical reaction," you begin, shifting your gaze away from her and attempting to ignore the thought of that taste on her lips, her neck, the delicate skin just below her collar bone "initiated by the combination of…" but before you can finish your explanation of sucrose-triggered ionization properties, your fleeting fantasy from a moment before has become a reality and she's kissing you.
You can't help but smile as you drink in the remaining traces of sweetness that still cling to her lips. Without even realizing what you're doing, you let the umbrella clatter to the ground, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her closer, needing to feel as much of her as possible pressed against you. You're both soaked to the skin in seconds, but you can't bring yourself to care.
"It's beautiful," she echoes her initial reaction, her voice soft as she breaks the kiss, "Thank you for bringing me."
You open your mouth to reply, to tell her that you've been meaning to bring her for a while, but the words never make it past your lips because you're suddenly distracted by the fact that water is running down your face in streams. Her face, however, pressed against yours and sheltered by her mass of hair, is still completely dry.
She moves to pull away, but you have a better idea, and with a mischievous smile you tighten your hold on her. Before she can do anything more than raise a suspicious eyebrow, you've leaned toward her and shook your sopping hair in her face, soaking her.
You so rarely catch her by surprise, and the look of utter shock on her now-dripping face is so hilariously endearing that you're kissing her again before you even have time to consciously decide to do so, chuckling against her lips.
Your hand that isn't holding her waist slips upwards into her dripping hair, anchoring itself among her curls and you feel her stroke your cheek. Her other hand has slipped beneath your coat and is tugging lightly at your suspenders. You think fleetingly about stopping her, but she nips lightly at your bottom lip, shattering the thought completely.
You're briefly confused when she breaks the kiss, not ready to stop savoring the taste of her, but then she grins at you and you realize instantly that you're in trouble. You've seen that sparkle in her eyes too many times to count and it never bodes well for you. Before you have time to do anything more than stare back at her, there is a sharp pain against your back and a loud slapping sound as your suspender snaps painfully back into place.
You yelp in shock and rub your lower back, trying to ease the stinging. By the time you look up to glare at her, she has detangled herself from your embrace and stepped backward, her eyes alight with laughter and her mouth turned up into a mischievous grin.
"You're going to pay for that one Doctor Song," you say warningly. She smirks.
"Promise?" she asks daringly, and you force yourself to ignore the shiver that dances along your spine at the purr in her voice.
"Oh, definitely," you counter, taking a slow step towards her.
"You'll have to catch me first," she warns with a grin, and with that, she's off, sprinting down the street much faster than she should be possible in those ridiculous heels of hers. Without missing a step, she hops gracefully onto the blue sidewalk, and you race to catch up as she's whisked away. She glances back; cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling, and sends you a mocking little wave.
Before you can do more than blink back at her, she slips out of her shoes, scoops them up in one hand, and takes off recklessly down the speeding sidewalk. Less graceful than she is, you stumble as you hit the sidewalk, extending considerable effort not to fall flat on your face, and you can hear the ring of her laughter from up ahead. You know that eventually she'll let you catch her, and you're already entertaining some very delightful ideas of exactly what will happen when you do.
I'd love to hear what you thought, good or bad, so drop me a review and let me know.
Thanks so much for reading,
Shailee =)