I Dream of Rain

------(0)------

Prologue

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams before your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats, Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

------(0)------

---(0)---

Life makes the most interesting twists in its tapestry.

The threads keep on coming, often plain and insignificant in their tone, dull and continuing seemingly forever. These are the threads of most living creatures, beings of habit and routine trapped in greys and browns and cocooned in much vaster things they are little aware of. And that is the way the rest of the tapestry goes for most of them, until the thread runs out. But, every now and then, Life rummages in the basket and finds a brilliantly coloured twist and decides to weave it in, just for fun. The lure is incredible and the desire to touch it insatiable for those that are blessed with colour, particularly when the monotones of previous existence make the living one question what Life thinks it's playing at.

And Rose Tyler had questioned this game all too often within her nineteen grey years trapped inside a department store and her mother's "it was good enough for me, so it's good enough for you."

Only, the colour that had entered her life so unexpectedly was sometimes so brilliant it was blinding. But she loved it. The buzz, the fear, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she sprinted for her life, hand entwined with his and heart higher than the stars, ridiculous grins cracking both of their faces like splits in sanity. Nothing quite like fleeing for your life to make you happy.

And there was him. The one responsible for the fear and the running and the manic grins. The enigmatic centre of Time and Space himself, a swirling myriad of colours and life in its rawest form, the epicentre of everyone else's universe and hers all at once. He was not just one brilliant twist, he was many. The wonder and excitement of him was like a flickering candle on a windowsill in the dark, with Rose Tyler forever entranced and always close, just what the flame needed to keep burning … someone to burn for, someone to witness the fire and care if it got too hot, because flames do not tend to themselves in such a way. He did get too hot sometimes. She was the only one able to pull him back from the brink and quell the rage.

He did not burn all the time, though. The hyperactive energy that buzzed around him fell every now and again, and Rose had been there to glimpse its lapse and see what was hidden underneath, always when he thought she was not there to see. These lapses were few and far between, and the barriers were thrown up again in seconds as soon as he sensed her eyes. He would turn to her, and the grin would be there again, but the light would be missing, just for a while. He would never talk about it, preferring to burry himself under the troubles of entire worlds as he pulled her across the galaxies to rescue the universe in the TARDIS. She wondered how someone so fond of chatting about anything and everything could be so afraid of talking.

The wonder of worlds engulfed her, new people, new lands, new enemies. The Doctor, she found, had many of the latter, and always managed to make more: "Just in case the others ever felt a bit lonely," he had once joked flatly to her as they stood panting in the TARDIS. What had they been that time? She couldn't remember their name – she did remember that they had been pink and raw-looking and rather scary, and more than a bit tetchy … particularly when the Doctor made a fly-away comment about sunburn. His enemies threatened their peace, but at the same time created it. They had, after all, found each other through them… That fantastic quirk of fate, that changing of the thread in the basement of Henrick's when the manikins attacked her. And he had grabbed her hand, his own large and rough and warm, encircling hers not too tightly. "Run!"

And she was still running with him. The entire universe, she often thought before sleep, he has the entire universe, and he chose me. Those were the nights when she smiled into her pillows, the nights when she thanked that day nearly two years ago when he had asked her to come with him, promising her the stars and - unlike all the other men she had ever met - delivering them, laying them at her feet and guiding her in her walk through dreams. And she knew he fed on her wonder, her complete innocence and awe. Every time he took her somewhere where he had been before, he found himself forced to look at it through her new and inexperienced eyes and rediscovered the beauty that had waited years for him to see again.

But his hand was different now. His face, his shape. He was different. Gone as though it had all been smoke, blown away on a cruel wind and leaving her with a stranger: a somewhat manic stranger who had frightened her with his unfamiliarity and crazed operation of the TARDIS. That entire Christmas had been a true test of their relationship, even if he had been unconscious for most of it. She had never questioned him before, never, yet during that day, Rose realised that she had no idea who he really was. She felt just as separate from him as the rest of the universe. All of those times when people questioned his identity, demanding more than "the Doctor," and she had stood there, smiling quietly to herself as though she was in on the secret. No. And it hurt her when she realised the full truth that he would never tell her everything.

When he extended his hand to hers that night, new and untouched by her, awkwardness and uncertainty shivered between them in her hesitation. His eyes had pleaded with her to accept him, to go with him. Please. Don't leave me, not now, I couldn't bare it. Rose did not think she could bare it either, and the difference still scared her … but when she slipped her hand into his, despite the difference in the bone structure and new smoothness of the skin, it felt so familiar. The grip was the same, the exact gentle and reassuring warmth enveloped her skin as it had always done. This was him, this was the Doctor, and she felt safe with him, even sorry for doubting him as she leaned companionably into his side.

He needed her more than he would ever be willing to express, but he knew she knew. And that was enough, for now. It had to be.