Title: Never Enough Time
Author: Mary (
stillxmyxheart)
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst, Romance
Word Count: 533
Characters: Rose/Ten
Summary: There is a beach in their future.
A/N: For Challenge 17, Screencaps, at
then_theres_us, prompt is behind the cut, as always :D This also uses a poetry prompt from the previous challenge :D
007.
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.
There is a beach in their future. They don't know it yet, they can't see it, but it's there, waiting for them. Biding its time. The clues are there, if only they had the ability to see them.
It's in the sand on Surrexia 9, fanning out from under their feet as they run hand-in-hand back to the TARDIS, laughing wildly as they quickly outpace the planet's inhabitants. A spear flies to meet them in a last attempt to stop their escape but they deftly sweep around it and the tip embeds itself harmlessly into the ground as they tumble into the TARDIS, up the ramp and to the console and back off into space.
It's in the rocks that fall quite suddenly from the sky of an unfamiliar planet, an unpleasant and unfriendly grey world that he apologizes for bringing her to just as the rocks begin to fall. One smashes into her arm, breaking it with an audible and sickening crack and she cries out in a mix of shock and pain. Without thinking he sweeps her into his arms and runs with her back to the TARDIS, away from the rocks and this terrible planet. His fingers are gentle as he sets her arm and she smiles at him through her tears and they chalk this adventure up as just one bad trip amidst a thousand great ones.
It's in the water that showers down on Aqueous Major, where she is awed to see rainbows in the ocean and he can't seem to keep his eyes off of her and where they make love under the dripping branches of a large tree. The water is intoxicating and they spend many long hours licking the drops from each other's bodies and he finds several new ways to make her shiver. It is here that he almost tells her that he loves her, but the words don't come and he thinks there will be time later.
It's in the wind on the isolated little strip at Dårlig Ulv Stranden, so bitterly cold and he can feel it, even though he's not really there. The beach has caught up with them, and here they're together and at the same time they're not. Millions of miles lay between them, separated by an entire universe, and all he wants to do is reach out and wipe away the tears on her cheeks, to warm her hands between his and kiss her lips and show her the rest of the universe. All of that is gone now and their time is running out. She tells him that she loves him, mascara running down her cheeks in watery black trails, and he smiles because here he can say it, here is his chance. He opens his mouth, says her name one last time-
He can still feel the wind, cold on his nose and cheeks, but she is gone, and he closes his eyes, struggling to breathe through the tightness in his throat. Their time has run out on a beach of their making and he never told her what he wanted her to know, what she needed to hear, and there's never enough time to grieve.