look up and touch the skies

AN: Yes, yes, I know I should finish everything else off first... but this was calling to me. Particularly with the weather in England. :P The Doctor's fascination with snow... or it could just be that he's really a kid inside.

What d'you mean, you already knew that?

He loves Earth. He really does. It's one of his favourite planets, out of all the billions upon billions out there... there are so many to choose from, so many beautiful places... but this is always the one he comes back to, drawing him like a magnet as only one other's ever done before [gone now].

It's beautiful, he thinks.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, they call back memories.

Some days the skies are gloomy grey, storm-coloured with promises [chips and a date on Blackpool beach] or baby blue, a colour so clear and bright like the sound of a bell [on her wedding days, both of them], the emerald flash on the horizon one sometimes sees at sunset [grass, the wrong colour].

Then there are the nights, never truly dark and sometimes so star-studded on a bitterly frosted winter's night, a reminder of all the life out there and not-quite-infinity-but-close-enough stretching out in all directions, saddle-shaped. The stars seem almost close enough to touch, although he knows that the closest constellation is much further away than that.

"D'you ever look up at the skies and just... you know... wonder?"

Some days the dawn is pale, lonely moon hanging in the sky as the sun rises, burning away mists more slowly than he remembers.

And some days there's no true night at all, with the streetlights in sodium yellow lighting up the sky while it snows. Orange light reflects off ice crystals, and the sky looks as if the world is burning and freezing all at once...

And then he can make believe, pretend for just a little longer, stand outside in the snow, and think; I'm home.