Storm: Storm is Brewing

Brief Interlude 1

"No!" Terry exclaimed, and the Doctor pleaded: "Please, angel?"

"You can't!" Terry squeaked. "I'm, er, changing!"

She winced – was that really the best lie she'd been able to come up with? – while the Doctor sighed from behind the door.

"Well, then, will you just listen to me from here?" The Doctor questioned, and Terry panicked.

"Um..." She floundered, unable to think of a reason she couldn't, and the Doctor asked quietly: "Please, Terry."

Terry sighed, wanting to kill him for using that pitiful voice and kill herself for being so weak as to not be able to refuse him when he sounded so sad.

"Yes." She answered at great length, softer than she'd been intending, but he heard her anyway.

"Terry," the Doctor began, shifting on his feet nervously, "I'm sorry if I surprised you back there. And, truth be told, that wasn't how I wanted to tell you either."

She didn't reply, her hearts hammering at his words, and the Doctor continued: "But I don't regret it. Because, I meant what I said. "

Terry's eyes widened again, and her hands clutched the sides of her dress tightly, her knuckles going white, as the Doctor murmured gently: "I love you."

There, he'd said it again. Those three little words that he'd never, ever said aloud in the show – not to Rose, not to anyone.

Terry trembled again, while the Doctor continued firmly: "And I was so tired of pretending otherwise."

As she remained silent, the Doctor rambled: "Though, maybe I should have waited; made it more romantic. I was planning to, you know... I was thinking of maybe taking you to Ephemery – it's a wonderful planet with a colourful sky that would put the Northern Lights to shame. It's lovely this time of year – well, the time of year I was going to take you – and I know you would have loved it. You know, now that I think about it, I do sort of regret confessing to you earlier; I really should have waited. But you know me."

He laughed nervously. "I'm not good at waiting; never really had to, what with the Tardis..."

The Doctor trailed off as he continued to speak to the wooden door with no sound coming from inside Terry's room, and he finally sighed.

"Terry, please open the door." The Doctor requested softly. "I would at least like to be able to see your face."

Terry hesitated, her hand drifting to touch her doorknob hesitantly. She stood there, hand on the bedroom door, as her feelings warred in her hearts.

"Terry?"

Her hearts clenched at the soft tone in the Doctor's voice, so sad and filled with a loneliness she couldn't bear. Terry knew that when the Doctor asked her for anything in that tone, she'd comply. No matter what.

Terry opened the door slowly, stepping out to stand before the Doctor and she slowly lifted her eyes up to meet his, swallowing as she met those warm, brown eyes, almost startlingly old in his relatively young face. He was staring down at her with a soft expression she wasn't sure she wanted to identify, and a hint of regret that she wasn't sure she wanted to see.

'Of course you don't.' The dark voice in her mind told her. 'You don't want him to be in love with you, do you? What about Rose? What about River?'

"Terry."

Terry blinked, startled from her dark thoughts as she refocused on the Doctor's gentle gaze.

"I'm sorry." He apologized quietly. "It seems I shocked you even more than I thought with my confession."

Terry blushed at his admission, but she said quickly: "No, well, yes," she amended when he raised a skeptical brow, "you surprised me. Not that it was a bad surprise necessarily," Terry began to speak faster and faster in her agitation, " but it was a surprise because I honestly didn't think you... not that I don't think you don't, you know, feel romantically, it's just I certainly didn't think... I mean, there was Rose, and stuff... so I never thought... not with me at least... Bloody hell."