He grins down at her, "Come on then! I didn't return just for old time's sake! Let's have some fun!"
"Come on Doctor, we're almost there!" Pants Rose from ahead
"I'd be faster if I hadn't been carrying Wolfe for half the trip!" The Doctor calls back, winded slightly "Not that I mind." He adds over his shoulder at me
"Thank you." I smile at him
"Oh look!" Rose gasps as she comes to a halt up ahead.
The Doctor and I follow, stopping next to her in awe.
We hiked up most of the mountain to look for this waterfall the Doctor mentioned making the last time he was here. Buried under acres of forest, and cascading down from the top of the mountain into the canyon below was a huge, thick waterfall.
"Oh wow." I gasp
The sun glints off the spray of the waterfall becoming rainbow colors. The small lake below changes into a stream a little further away from the fall, and I can guess empties into the sea later.
"We can either hike down and have a picnic down by the bottom, or we could hike to the top and eat at the pond up there." The Doctor informs us
"Let's eat down at the bottom of the falls. We can swim in the lake when we're done." Rose offers
"That sounds Fantastic." I nod, grinning
We start down the steep incline carefully, and finally reach the small, green grass meadow at the bottom of the granite cliff face.
The Doctor lets me slide off his back, and I take his hand as we walk to the edge of the lake, where it looks like a steep drop off into the water, as if a huge hole had been gauged out, and the thunder of the falls echoes around us.
"Let's eat here." Rose says, standing about ten feet behind us, in the middle of the small meadow.
She places the picnic basket, which the captain gave us on the ground, and opens it, laying the blue and white blanket on the grass.
The Doctor and I walk over to her and I sit next to Rose, and the Doctor sits on her other side.
Rose hands us our sandwiches and bottles of water.
After a few moments of silence, Rose says, "Why don't we play a game?"
"Like what?" I ask, after swallowing my bite of sandwich
"I don't know. We could do never have I ever, but you'd win…" She looks at me
I laugh "Probably."
"Or we could play Truth or Dare. That's a common human game right?" The Doctor suggests
"That's easier to play with more people." Rose says, shaking her head.
"How about charades?" I suggest.
Rose and the Doctor look at each other "Brilliant!"
"Okay, so why don't we do two people act out an animal or story and the third person guess." I suggest
"Great! I have some paper and pens in here somewhere." The Doctor digs into his pocket "How about we each write two themes, two books and two animals, put it in the picnic basket, and each pair picks one."
He finally tugs a small pad of paper and three pens from his pocket. He tears off a sheet for Rose and another for me, hands both of us a pen.
I rip the paper into six pieces and write Titanic, Owl, English Colonies, Australia, Mouse, and Pride and Prejudice.
"Ready?" asks Rose as she pours her six sheets into the basket.
"Yep." I get up and dump mine into the basket too.
The Doctor follows.
"Who should go first?" I ask
"Why don't you and the Doctor go first?" Rose smiles
"Okay." I swirl my hand around the papers before pulling out one.
The Doctor and I walk a little ways away from the picnic blanket.
I open it as he bends over to get a good view.
Old West
I laugh and the Doctor groans, "I have no idea!"
"I do. Get on your hands and knees." I order
"What?"
"I'm gonna be a cow girl and you're gonna be my horse."
"Come on! I'm in my suit."
"You know as well as I you have at least three pairs of the same suit back in the hotel. Giddy Up!"
He gets on his hands and knees and I clamber on, my legs straddling his back, and I grip his collar like reins.
"Ready?" he asks
"Yep!"
He starts moving at a surprisingly fast pace over to Rose, who is laughing already. The Doctor "rears" back and I tug on his collar with one hand, waving my other hand around my head in the air, to mimic a lasso.
"Horse! Cowboy! West! The Old West!" Rose guesses
"Yes!" I laugh, and the Doctor starts to get up, and I slide off his back.
"Good job. Alright. Wolfe, you and me." Rose grabs a paper from the basket and walks over to where the Doctor and I were earlier to look at it.
The Doctor sits down on the picnic blanket, resuming eating his sandwich.
Rose opens the paper and it reads Dog
"Oh my god!" laughs Rose
"Come on!"
I walk over to the Doctor, before getting on my hands and knees. I roll about in the grass, and chase after Rose, who's also on her hands and knees as the Doctor yells
"Horse? Pig? Cat?"
I let my tongue hang out of my mouth as I pant
"Dog!" He guesses
"Good job!"
"That took you forever Doctor!" laughs Rose
"Oi! You guessed horse when Wolfe was on my back! What was it, a horse riding a horse?"
"Come on Doctor, our turn!" Rose grabs a piece of paper from the basket and drags the Doctor away from the picnic blanket
They walk back and The Doctor takes Rose's left hand and they mime helping her step up onto something.
He steps behind her, his hands tightly gripping her waist, hers arms going out, perpendicular from her body.
I know what it is. It's the iconic scene from Titanic, but they look so sweet doing it I stay silent. They're too wrapped up in each other to wonder why I'm not saying anything.
He presses his cheek into her hair and she turns her head slightly to lean into him.
"Titanic." I giggle after I have watched it long enough.
They step apart, somewhat awkwardly "Well, did we do a good job?" Rose asks
"You did a fantastic job." I respond, finishing the last of my sandwich. "Can we go swimming now?"
"Sure. I'm going to go change. I'll be right back." The Doctor informs us, marching off into the forest.
I glance at Rose who looks slightly bashful, and is still staring after the Doctor.
I let he continue to do so for a minute.
"Rose?"
"Yes?" She answers, looking back at me.
I just look at her, and her face turns pink.
"What?"
"Nothing." I say as I tug off my shorts and top.
"What?"
"I said, nothing!" I giggle
Rose opens her mouth to respond when suddenly we hear aloud whoop and charging out of the forest comes the Doctor, dressed in a Tardis blue bathing suit, carrying his suit in a ball in his arms.
He dumps his clothes on the picnic blanket, stops only long enough to scoop me up, and takes a flying leap into the lake as I shriek.
We plunge under the clear, cool water, and seconds later pop out of the surface, soaking wet, shrieking, laughing, and very cold.
"Rose! Come in!" Calls the Doctor, swimming towards the shore.
He bobs right at the shoreline, where the pool is deep enough that he can be right on the side of the grass and still be in deep enough to have to tread.
"Hold on a minute." She tugs off her clothes and walks over to the shore.
She dips her foot in
"It's cold!" She gasps "That's too cold."
"Come on!" He calls her again, swimming until he's right in front of her.
"No." whines Rose
Suddenly the Doctor leaps out of the water, grabs her around the waist, and falls back towards the water. She comes up spluttering and splashing and absolutely furious.
She scrambles out of the water, before turning and glaring at the Doctor.
I paddle over as she cannonballs back in, practically on his head.
He splashes the back of her head when she comes up, and then Rose whirls around and splashes him back.
They continue to splash each other until they're both coughing between their laughter.
"Truce?" pants Rose
"Truce." Nods the Doctor, grinning
I start to swim near the waterfall, and it becomes very loud.
"Be careful Wolfe!" the Doctor calls as I take a deep breath and swim under the waterfall.
I come up in an almost cavernous crevice in the rock, where painting which look old and almost tribal line the walls. The filtered sunlight trickles in through the water, sending ripples across every surface. It's a very beautiful sight. Behind me, Rose pops out of the water and proceeds to gasp at our surroundings.
"This was a holy place for the indigenous people back before the volcano erupted" Explains the Doctor when he enters.
"Its beautiful." I whisper
"I think so too." He smiles down at me
We swim for only a couple minutes more, because the water is freezing and our limbs are getting numb. Rose's lips are blue.
"C-come on Doctor lets hike b-back and go snorkeling!" Chatters Rose
"Good Idea."
The Doctor climbs out of the water and turns around to help Rose and I out of the water.
Rose is shivering pretty badly. I feel mostly fine.
"Here." The Doctor says, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to his chest. "Timelords are able to regulate their body temperatures better. That's why Wolfe and I are warmer. Let me use my body heat to warm you."
Rose nods, hugging him back tightly, and pressing her head into his shoulder.
After a few minutes, he pulls away, rubbing her shoulders.
"Better?"
The color had returned to her cheeks, whether that was from heat or closeness to the Doctor's shirtless body I don't know.
"Yeah. Thank you." She whispers, breathlessly
More likely the latter.
"Why don't we clean up and hike back to the shore. Then we can go snorkeling." Suggests the Doctor walking back to the picnic blanket.
"Oh! It looks like the captain's wife made us cupcakes." Rose says as she pulls three cupcakes in a little tin from the picnic basket.
"I want the one with the blue frosting!" I call, hurrying over to her.
She opens the container and hands me the vanilla cupcake with blue frosting.
"Doctor! Do you want a cupcake?" Rose asks him as he comes over, ruffling his hair with a towel.
"Of course!" He tugs the towel away and his hair, which was usually stickity- uppity, now was standing up in all directions.
Rose hands him the green frosted vanilla cupcake and takes the purple one for herself.
I start to lick the frosting off the way I usually do, blue frosting getting all over my face, dying my lips, teeth and tongue.
"Wolfe!" laughs the Doctor, a mouthful of cupcake.
"Come here." Chuckles Rose, who puts the end of a napkin in her mouth and uses it to wipe some of the blue off my face.
I tug away, pouting "I'm saving that for later!"
Rose and the Doctor laugh as I start eating the bread part of the cupcake.
"Come on. Hurry up you two. I want to have enough time to snorkel before we leave." The Doctor gets up, wiping his hands of any crumbs and putting the cupcake wrapper in the basket.
"I'm done!" I swallow my last bite, and toss the wrapper in the basket.
"Me too!" Rose puts her wrapper in the basket and stands up.
We clean up our food and pack the basket up again. The Doctor pulls on his shirt and puts the rest of his suit in Rose's bag.
I tug on my shorts and climb onto the Doctor's back. We start back up the ravine and then back down the mountainside.
When we arrive at the beach again, the captain is sunning on the shores.
"Hey Captain!" Rose greets him, kindly
"Hello! You ready for your snorkeling gear?" He hops up and leads us back to the boat where he pulls out three different colored sets.
Mine is small and purple, Rose's is large and pink, and the Doctor's is large and blue.
"So, you put the goggles on, and attach the breathing tube to the goggles. Then, put the mouth piece of the tube in your mouth and make sure you don't swim deeper than the top of the tube! And here are the flippers." Explains the captain, handing us matching flippers. "and have fun!"
"Thank you!" we chorus, before walking to the shore of the water. I fix my goggles and the breathing pipe on my head.
"Does it look okay, Doctor?" I ask, and he comes over, adjusting it a little bit.
"There you go." He smiles at me. "Do you want help with your flippers?"
I nod.
He kneels down and splashes some water on my feet before wriggling my feet into the flippers.
I stand, and waddle around with my new feet.
"I feel like a duck!" I laugh, before making duck noises "Quack! Quack!"
"Quack! Quack!" Mimics the Doctor, waddling after me, having pulled on his flippers.
"Come on my ducklings! Let's go!" Rose calls us to her as she wades into the water.
I waddle to the water and start to wade into the sea, the Doctor following close behind.
Once I get in deep enough, I start to swim on my stomach, cautiously submerging my mouth in the water, breathing through the tube. I kick strongly, and suddenly the sand drops off into a beautiful coral reef.
I look over at Rose and the Doctor, who are a couple feet behind me, and wave my arms to get their attention. They swim up next to me and the Doctor gives me a thumbs up as they catch sight of the coral.
We swim over it, as hundreds of colorful fish chase each other in schools. I see a yellow eel-looking creature and small creatures, which look like dinosaur fish. The coral are all different shapes and sizes, some stretch all the way up to us. I reach my hand out to touch one, when the Doctor slaps it away.
I look at him, in surprise. He shakes his head and mimes hurting his hand on the coral. I nod, and continue swimming.
Time passes and soon I am bursting with things I need to tell the Doctor and Rose.
I tread water, getting my head above the surface and take my breathing tube out of my mouth.
They follow moments later
"Its so pretty!" I gasp "The coral is so cool! What does it do to you when you touch it? Did you see the pink fish? What are those dinosaur looking fish? Are there any sharks or the equivalent of them in the water? Are you having fun? Did you see the-"
"Slow down!" Laughs Rose
"Yes it is. It stings you badly, like a jelly fish, yes I did, they're called Veterins, and they are a type of boned fish, Yes there are but they don't live around here, and yes I am." The Doctor responds to all of my questions at once
"This is so cool." I pant, now getting tired from treading water
"Do you want to see a cool trick?" offers the Doctor
"Yes!"
We put our breathing tubes back in our mouths and go underwater again to watch him swim far below the surface, his tube filling with water, and chase some of the fish around. He catches a small one and gives it a kiss, or the best he can manage with his breathing tube in, and sets it free, before coming back up and blowing all the water out of his tube like a whale.
I laugh, bubbles rising around me from where my laughter has jostled the breathing tube allowing my air into the water.
Popping back out of the water again, still giggling I say to the Doctor "That poor fish! You probably scared it half to death!"
"Probably!" He chuckles. "Let's stay out a couple more minutes, and then we'll head back to shore and dry off before we ride back."
"Okay." I put my breathing tube in and duck underwater again.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen, did you have a fun time today?" asks the captain as he starts the engine.
"Yes!" we chorus
"Thank you!" Rose smiles at him
"No problem!"
As we start away, the waves grow taller, and the water darker and choppy. I frown as I realize that the island doesn't want us to go.
Water sloshes over the bow of the boat, soaking me in the water, from where I'm sitting on the deck.
The Doctor is on his feet seconds later walking to the back of the ship, looking out at the island we're pulling away from.
I see his mouth moving but I can't hear him over the sound of the engine and the waves.
When he turns back around and comes to sit next to Rose again, the waves slow and the water returns to its brighter color.
I smile over at him, and catch his almost wistful gaze back at the island, before he settles down next to Rose, looking at the horizon.
