"Doctor?" She wasn't quite awake yet, but she knew something was wrong. She knew he wasn't beside her. Sitting up, she blinked into the darkness. "Doctor!"
"I'm here, Charley."
His voice was reassuring - low and hypnotic, as if he had everything under control. It calmed her instantly, even before she could tell precisely where it was coming from. It was somewhere nearby; she knew that much.
"Where are you? I can't see you."
"Look up."
The clearing was dark, much darker than it had been when she'd fallen asleep, anyway. Tipping her head back, she squinted into the darkness as she saw the shadows move overhead. He was in the tree, lounging against the trunk with his legs hanging down on either side of one of the thicker limbs. She laughed at the sight of him - half naked and in a tree, like a little boy at play.
"What on earth are you doing up there?"
"Just surveying our surroundings a bit. Look what I found."
Holding out a hand, he dropped a lightweight, round object down to her. She might not have caught it if he hadn't deposited it right into her hands. It was too dark to see the palm-sized ball until she was holding it.
"What is it?"
"Crack it open against the tree. It should break fairly easy."
"It's food?"
"Some kind of fruit, yes. It's quite good."
The fruit made a mushy crack as she hit it against the trunk of the tree and the sticky juice spilled out onto her fingers. She didn't mind too much; she could still hear the spring water flowing behind her. Pausing just long enough to smell the fruit, she took a big bite of it.
"It is good," she agreed. "Tastes sort of like a very sweet apple. But with the consistency of a banana."
He chuckled. "Yes, if you like."
She moved back as he climbed down from the tree, and offered him a piece of the fruit. "How are you feeling?" he asked as he took it.
"Much better, thanks. Though I didn't mean to sleep so long. Why didn't you wake me?"
"It hasn't been terribly long. Only about an hour."
"An hour?" she asked, alarmed. "But it's so dark!"
"Yes, but listen."
She paused, listening to the layers of sound - the trickle of the spring, the hiss of the leaves overhead brushing against each other, and beyond that... "Is that rain?"
"Yes. A storm, in fact. It came up so quickly, I didn't even notice until I heard the rumbling overhead."
As if on cue, the sky thundered above them. She frowned. "Well, that's no good."
"Why not?"
"Well, we certainly can't swim back in the middle of a storm!"
"No, of course not. But we weren't ready to go back anyway. We still have plenty to see, to explore. Shall we?"
He offered a hand down to her and she finished the last of the fruit before rinsing her hands quickly and allowing him to pull her to her feet. "It seems even warmer than it was," she noticed as he walked along the narrow bank, deeper into the cove.
"Yes, it's a bit odd. On most planets, the rain tends to cool things down. Basic rule of precipitation. Water vapor cools, gets heavy, and falls to the ground."
Her eyes had fully adjusted to the dim light, but if it got much darker, she was going to have trouble seeing where they were going.
"And of course, in places where the atmospheric temperature never hits freezing, the water just gathers around dust particles until it's heavy enough to -"
"Doctor, look."
She was a few paces ahead of him, and he quickened his pace to catch up. She was standing at the edge of a large, rocky clearing, hand out to catch the thick drops of water spilling down. "The sky," she said as he paused beside her. "It's so... red."
"So it is, Charley."
"It's rather pretty, actually."
He lingered for a moment at the edge of the clearing as she stepped forward, into the rain. Tipping her head back, she let it fall on her face, her neck, her shoulders. "It feels like bathwater. Warm."
"Yes, and heavily oxygenated. You can't smell it, but I'm pretty sure there's an extra oxygen atom in this water. Well, two, I suppose, since otherwise it would be raining hydrogen peroxide."
"And you can smell it?"
"No, not as such, but I can feel it. When I breathe deep." He drew in a full breath to demonstrate before he continued. "That's very interesting. I don't think I've been to many planets where trioxidane forms naturally during a thunderstorm."
Distracted by the rain, Charley stretched out her arms and let it soak through her. The thick, heavy drops were falling straight down, plopping into the pools that were forming in the grass, where the ground couldn't soak in the water fast enough.
She hadn't played in mud puddles since she was a child, and the experience was more joyful as an adult than she ever remembered it being before. Covered in mud and bits of the gold grass, soaked to the bone, the two of them ran and rolled and wrestled from one end of the clearing to the other. Charley was scarcely aware of how much time had passed until she realized her stomach was growling. More importantly, the raindrops were turning sharper, pelting her face and shoulders in a way that made her realize the light, annoying sting she'd been feeling was, in fact, sunburn. The warmth of the water and the needle-like jabs of the drops were getting more and more uncomfortable as the burn settled in.
The Doctor found more of the unusual fruit in the trees at the edge of the clearing and she tried not to be too obvious about the way she was trying to keep the rain off of her shoulders and back as they ate. But by the time they finally made it back to the cool spring, it was obvious she wasn't having much fun anymore. She wasn't complaining - no good would come of that when there was nothing either of them could do to change the situation, and she'd only make herself more miserable - but she certainly was thinking about how nice it would feel to be back in her own room in the Tardis, lying in front of a cool fan while the heat radiated off of her skin.
"Looks like it's getting dark." The Doctor's voice was serious, but hardly concerned. "And the rain still hasn't stopped. I think we'd better plan on staying here tonight."
"Part of me was hoping you'd say that," Charley muttered, trying to find a way to twist her hair into a knot so that it didn't brush her shoulders. Stretching her arms to do it was agonizing, but the payoff would be worth it. "The other part of me was longing for a soft bed and a cool fan."
He chuckled quietly as he came closer and shook the water from his hair. The rain was still hissing through the trees, but they were sheltered from it in the cove. "It's not too bad here. We've slept in far worse."
"Yes, but I didn't have a sunburn then."
"Do you?" He frowned. "Have a burn? It's too dark for me to tell, really."
"Yes. And it's rather unpleasant."
"Hmm... You know, I may have seen something that can help. Wait here a moment. I'll be right back."
"Wait! Doctor!"
But he was already gone, into the shadows. Finally giving up on her hair, Charley heaved a frustrated sigh and folded her arms over her chest. Pouting did about as much good as complaining, she knew. But just now, she was too irritable to care.
