Author: Anne Ellis

Rated G

Tegan sketches the Doctor in the rain room.

LEGAL STUFF: This story is fan fiction. All characters are copyright of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and are being used without permission and without profit to the author.

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She'd found the room where it always rained, and it fascinated her. "What's it for?" she'd asked. "What made you think of it? You made it."

"Why are you so certain I made it?" he'd said, annoyed. "For all you know, it might have been around since the beginning. It might have been one of the others that did it and forgot about it, centuries ago."

"No," Tegan said, with a little curling smile. "It was you that made it, I know. Rather romantic of you."

After that, if she wasn't to be found anywhere else he knew to look for her there. Usually she'd be on the long divan near the French windows, her hands folded on the scrolled back and her chin resting on her hands, watching the rain. Once or twice he'd sat next to her for a companionable hour or so of silence, after Nyssa had gone.

The walls were darker in here, the roundels only a faint suggestion in the paneling, the polished wood of the floor covered with an oriental rug glowing in soft jewel tones, all of it ripened to a sheen by years of sunlight in his imagination. Dark furniture upholstered in brocade, a few bookcases, one or two good paintings; "Lord So-and-so's study," she'd laughed, the first time he'd found her there. "Very toff. Do you think of England? You? That's odd. It'd be like me being homesick for Heathrow."

He'd shrugged. "I rather like the effect. I've thought more than once about redoing the old girl stem to stern, as it were. I've had a long spell of white, white and more white."

She'd opened the French doors to let in the soft sound, the soft smell of the rain as it dripped from the eaves onto the little flagstoned terrace, the scent of wet earth from the smooth misty grass beyond.

"What's out there?" She'd pointed, grinning mischievously. "A cricket pitch? You've got the weather about right for a test match, anyway."

It was never a downpour, never a drizzle; always the same even fine soft rain, the kind that was just visible to the eye and could drench you in seconds. Not cold but warm like summer rain, as though the sun might break the clouds at any moment and turn the soft grey and silver and green to gold.

He'd answered her question. "What's out there? Everything. Nothing. Whatever you want to be."

"No," she'd said. "Whatever you want to be."

One day he'd found her there sketching. She'd been sitting on the floor near the open French windows, tablet propped on her knees, charcoal moving slowly over the paper to make a grey and black mirror of the soft green and silver outside. He had bent, said in her ear through the sound of the rain, "Rather good."

"Pretty view," she'd answered. "In a depressing Pommy sort of Wordsworth way."

He'd knelt next to her, watching the rain. The soft scent of a wet day filled the quiet room, the sound of the rain mingling with the ticking of the clock and with the light sound of her breath and heartbeat, inaudible to her, clear to him; little regular sounds counterpointed by the fitful scratching of the charcoal.

After a time he'd glanced again at the pad. At the bottom of the landscape, its edges softened and blurred with the heel of her hand, was another sketch; his hand, as it rested on his knee.

He'd looked at her.

"Do you mind?" she'd asked. "It gets boring drawing wet trees, wet grass, wet everything. I haven't done a life study in ages."

He'd minded. It surprised him. He'd stayed silent for a moment, but then he'd turned to face her, sat with his back to the French doors. "Like this?" he had asked, almost shyly.

She'd smiled, then looked at him again with different eyes, closer and considering. "Not bunched up with your arms around your knees," she'd said, tugging at his sleeve. "Relax." He had moved a little awkwardly as her hands lightly guided him, as she touched at a shoulder, an arm, a knee. Finally he was arranged to her satisfaction on the silky rug near the open door, near the splashing mirrored pools the rain made on the terrace.

"Look to the light," she'd said, her face very near his. Her fingers were warm against his cheek and he tilted his head under the soft pressure. Her breath stirred his hair.

She sat back on her heels. "Comfortable?"

He'd nodded.

"Sit like that as long as you can, then. Move whenever you have to."

She'd turned the pad to a fresh sheet. The charcoal scratched slowly at first, then more steadily, her eyes traveling from him to the paper and back again. He'd watched the turn of her wrist, the angle of her shoulder, her face half in shadow in the silvery light as she'd looked at him and then away, intent on the effect of the curve of upper and lower leg, of back and side, on the perspective of throat and chin. The rain pattered softly near his hand, drops splashing against his skin. From beyond the open doors there was the smooth sweep of misty soft grass, the bend of the silvered sky, and underneath, strong and stirring, the dark wet scent of fertile earth.

He hadn't realized for minutes that he was holding his breath.