Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

7

                  Aurora Borealis

                         clare009

She liked to watch the Aurora Borealis from space. She'd suspend the TARDIS near the northern pole and fling the front doors wide. I'd find her sitting with her bare feet dangling over the ship's edge, her skin cast in shades of green and red from the play of lights below.

"Have you ever seen anything quite like it?" she'd say, the wonder still in her voice even after the thousandth time.

"A lot of planets have a magnetic field, River," I'd say. "It's a fairly common phenomenon."

But she would shake her head. "It's different here. It's like magic the way it dances and sings." Then she'd look at me. "Can't you hear it sing?"

I'd hush my voice because it would be boorish to do otherwise. "What does it sound like?"

River would give me a look as if to say don't mock me, and I'd quickly shake my head. But then she'd beckon me closer until I was seated beside her, my own ungainly legs hanging into nothing and the stillness of space surrounding us.

We'd sit in silence, our bodies not quite touching. I would feel the warmth from the infra-red heat generated by our proximity as we watched the dancing electrons. The lights would snake and twist and flare, like that musical fountain in Vegas when got married again, except with no music. But River would be listening.

Suddenly, she'd say, "It sounds like the whales, you know, when they call to each other. A little bit heart breaking. Haunting. But also, but also..." Her eyes would narrow and her lips purse and she searched for the correct comparison. "But also like a virtuoso playing a violin solo, stark and lonely and breathtakingly beautiful." She'd look at me and smile. "And a little bit like the TARDIS when she sings. Innocent."

I'd lean in and whisper in her ear. "How can you hear electrons and atoms?"

"How do you sense time, my love?"

"I see it," I'd say, with complete confidence. "In my mind's eye I can see the strands and ribbons that connect each dot and point all rolled up in a wibbly wobbly ball of timey whimey stuff. Except it's not at all like that. It's bigger. And more... just more."

River would nod. "Exactly. Just that."

"You sense the Northern Lights in your mind's ear... you hear it."

"Not just the lights. Everything. The planet below. The moon behind us. Even you." She'd look at me and her lips would curve up into that smile that was part smug, part tease and all very kissable.

"You sense the universe like I sense time. Space and Time. River and the Doctor." Something would come to me then, a fleeting thought, but I had to make it known. "What did it sound like when whole worlds were being destroyed for my sake, when you stopped time?"

"Like agony."

"Yet you did it anyway."

"You know why." Her voice would turn low and husky. It would pull at something in my gut.

I knew because I had seen time unravel, shredded and tattered. But through it all I had seen her, a bright ribbon of temporal energy. That ribbon was braided intricately with my own, so much so that I could hardly tell where one began and the other left off. And I never knew, was never able to physically see it, until she had destroyed space and time to save me.

That was when I would tilt her head to the perfect angle so that I could kiss her, just so. Our feet would dangle and twine with each other as the light from the Aurora Borealis danced and sang below.