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They were laughing as they stepped out of the TARDIS, and the sound of their voices was still ringing in the air around them as Rose stilled, her mouth falling open in a delighted 'o'. Next to her, the Doctor had crossed his arms across his chest, surveying the landscape around them with a pleased grin, as if he was personally responsible for arranging it all, just for them. Jack stopped just short of bumping into her, and when she glanced at him she found him craning his neck to take in their surroundings. Rose felt a small thrill at knowing that this was a new sight even for their well-travelled companion -- he wasn't often this impressed by something as difficult to flirt with as a view. They shared the silence for a few heartbeats, the solid presence of the TARDIS at their backs, the promise of a new world surrounding them. There was a warm wind and a blue sky, with a yellow sun bathing them all in its light, but there was nothing familiar about this place, nothing earthly.
The Doctor spoke first, already taking a long-legged stride up the nearest hill - a direction that could just as well be picked by random as by design. "Well, come on then!"
Thrumming with energy from this moment of first discoveries, Rose bounded after him. "Coming!" And she was, until the big, brown blanket she was holding in her arms starting to unravel from its neat folds, interrupting her progress by attempting to trail various parts of itself under her feet. She grumbled, and shifted it around until it was back to behaving like a proper inanimate object.
"Hang on a sec," she called at the Doctor, who hadn't pause to wait for her.
"What's taking you lot so long?" he challenged, still walking. "We haven't got all day."
Rose glanced at Jack beside her, dressed for the weather in jeans and a blue tee shirt, hauling a big wicker basket -- a solid, old-fashioned picnic basket that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Victorian outing. He didn't seem at all bothered by the weight, but catching her eye, he flashed her a grin, and stuck his jaw out at the Doctor, "If you weren't too lazy to do some of your own carrying, this would go much faster, you know."
The Doctor shot a look at them over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows. "My carrying? You're the ones who wanted to go on a picnic, of all things! Always thinking about food, you humans are. And what's wrong with sitting on the ground?"
"Ants," Rose replied primly, striding ahead with the blanket bundled against her chest. "On a proper blanket you can at least see 'em coming, get some warning."
Jack nodded. "Besides, you just don't want to take your chances with sentient plant-life. There's nowhere those vines won't go if you don't have the proper protection."
The Doctor rolled his eyes at them, and lengthened his stride. "I make it a point not to sit on any tentacles, thank you very much."
"Not tentacles; vines," Jack corrected helpfully.
"And this planet doesn't have ants," the Doctor continued, without acknowledging Jack's attempts to side-track the discussion. "Doesn't have any bugs at all, actually - it's a completely different kind of biosphere." He was nearing the top of the rise they were climbing, and his words carried genuine delight as he peered at some kind of twirly, blue plant in front of him.
His tone struck a cord in Rose, letting her attention wander to look again over the whole spectacular vista round them. "Completely different, yeah? I can see that," she said with a slight hitch to her breath as she did a full turn, careful to keep her balance on the slope. She'd seen many things already, many beautiful and wondrous things, but it hadn't made her less susceptible to this kind of striking vision.
The colours were like nothing she had ever seen before. There were colours there she hadn't even imagined, all spread out before her like some kind of crazy painting. Maybe in their most secret dreams, some artists could dream a landscapes like this -- dazzling mountain spires on the horizon, glittering like crystal, stabbing the sky with their towering peaks, gentling themselves to rolling hills all around Rose and her friends. The only ordinary thing about the hills were their silhouettes against the horizon. Bare of any trees, the hills were all covered in an impossible riot of colours, mixing and blending and contrasting sharply from one curving slope to the next. It was like a living patchwork, the coiled alien grass and flowers billowing in a breeze that smelled of warm quartz and Christmas trees with glittering decorations and the spice rack in her grandfather's old house -- a smell Rose hadn't thought of for years and years, but that brought back memories of her mother laughing, and big, strong hands holding her safe. It smelled of air no human lungs had breathed, of sunshine after a storm, and, very faintly, of something like sparklers.
Rose drew in a deep breath, and lifted her eyes from the compelling spectacle on the ground to the sky above. It was plain blue, just like that old sky back home, but here the sun wasn't alone. Looming huge on a horizon free of any clouds was a great big moon, taking up a large chunk of sky. It's surface was a maze of shadows and light, enormous craters and vast plains. It made the sky feel almost frail, the only thing between them and the rest of the universe. She thought about how the Doctor had told her once that he could feel the earth moving through space, and she imagined she could feel the same thing now. Hurtling forward, so small in the hugeness of it all -- exhilarating but dizzying, and she was just about to close her eyes to it for a moment, when a strong arm closed around her shoulders.
Jack smiled at her, the gesture of support easily familiar. "Hey, careful there. The air's pretty thin up here." His hand stayed resting lightly on her shoulder while she blinked, feeling her feet firmly planted on solid, unmoving ground through the springy, colourful vegetation. It was a nice feeling. Safe.
"Thanks," she smiled, shifting her grip on the blanket to scrabble up the steepening slope. "And what d'you mean, 'up here'?"
"We're at least half a mile above planetary sea surface," Jack answered, looking at the Doctor for confirmation.
"Something like that," came the offhand remark, the Doctor busy surveying the area ahead from the top of the hill, his leather-clad back to them, the moon looming pale and huge in the blue sky behind him. A moment later, he turned, grinning hugely. "Never mind that, we're here now! Much better than the sea, this is." He rocked back on his heels, looked down at something behind him, and then back at Rose and Jack.
Rose could feel the belligerent bundle in her arms start slipping again, the steep angle was making it awkward to hold on to. She hadn't done more than shift her balance this time, and then the Doctor was at her side, twisting the blanket under his own arm, and taking hold of her hand in his.
"Come on, you'll see!" She met his eyes, and smiled at his enthusiasm. She was fit to burst with curiosity about what could be special enough that they had to hurry through this kind of beautiful landscape without a second glance just to get there, and they steadied each other in a final rush up the hill.
A gust of wind as they made it to her top sent her long hair whipping across her face, and for a moment she couldn't see anything at all. She brushed it off, looked around -- and lost her breath, again.
On the other side, the hill continued down much further than they'd climbed up the other side, dipping steeply down to form the inside of a bowl -- white and shining, forming a lake a couple of miles or so across. The white stood out, impossibly void of colour in itself, but full of life and reflections from the hills around it. It couldn't possibly be a lake of water, because water didn't have that milky, silver surface, and didn't cast back reflected light like facets of a diamond dancing on the gently undulating fields of the surrounding hills. It was a bit like standing in the middle of a kaleidoscope, and all of the impressions made her almost giddy with delight.
Rose tore her eyes away from the lovely spectacle in front of her to reach out to Jack, catching his free hand in hers, and tugged him the last short distance to her side. He seemed almost startled for a second when their eyes met, but followed her lead with an easy smile, leaving her standing between him and the Doctor, holding on to them both.
They stood there on the top of the hill, under an alien sky, with crystalline mountains towering in the distance, and a lake of liquid jewels below, the wind in their face carrying smells both strange and familiar. The only sound was that of wind rustling through the vivid fields, twisting the coiled grasses in its way.
Rose remembered the first time she looked out at something so strange, so far away from everything she knew, and remembered how overwhelming it had been. Beautiful and wonderful, but -- frightening. Making her miss the familiar and the safe. Now, right here, right now, she had both. The amazing thrill of fantastic discoveries, and somewhere she felt completely safe. She was smiling -- couldn't have stopped smiling if she wanted to, not with all of these impressions bubbling through her, a sensation that was almost physical.
A quick glance to her left showed her the Doctor, observing their reactions with a look of quiet satisfaction. He noticed her attention had shifted away from the view, and as his blue eyes met hers with a smile. "So. You wanted a picnic." He leaned forward a little, catching Jack's eye. "How about it - good spot?"
"Perfect." Jack spoke the word with a certain reverence. Rose nodded. "Very!" It seemed the understatement of the year, but the Doctor seemed pleased by their response.
"It gets better," he confided with a smug grin, but refused to say anything more on the subject as he headed a little bit down the slope (to get out of the wind, he said), and passed the bulb of his sonic screwdriver back and forth over a patch of blue and yellow and green before spreading the blanket over it. Rose helped him get it even over the thick vegetation. Jack set the basket down next to him, and started piling various food containers beside it. He hadn't gotten around to the china or the wine bottle yet when the Doctor flopped down on the side of the blanket, dark-clad legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on one elbow. He reached out with his free arm, catching Rose's hand in his, encouraging her to sit down next to him. She did, crossing her jeans-clad legs under her, throwing her head back to soak up some of the warming sunlight with a pleased sigh.
The Doctor let go of her hand to gesture at Jack to join them. "Come on, Captain, hurry up! It's supposed to be starting now. Get the basket on the blanket, and get on board."
"On board?" Jack raised a questioning eyebrow, but did as the Doctor had asked, and Rose shifted closer to the Doctor, making room for Jack and the basket to her right.
"What's starting? What's this we've been rushing to?" She tilted her head quizzically, looking at the Doctor, but he just grinned from ear to ear and made a vague gesture at the lake with his chin.
"What? The lake?" Rose exchanged a look with Jack, who simply shrugged. She waited a moment, her eyes picking out a pattern of mauve and dark purple and silver on the other side of the glittering white bowl of water. It was beautiful, and the sun was nice and warm, and the blanket was soft underneath her, and she didn't mind the waiting, not at all. But she couldn't resist the opportunity to smile sweetly, her tongue poking out between her teeth, and ask, "Doctor, are you sure we're... on time?"
"Of course I am," the Doctor retorted, but he did sit up a bit straighter, and cast a quick glance at the sun overhead, and the moon climbing the horizon.
Rose laughed, and leaned her head on his shoulder in a fond gesture, the black leather sun-warm under her cheek. "Right, then." She started to say something else, but Jack's voice drew her attention.
"Hey, did you just hear that?" He was sitting up very straight, his brows slightly furrowed as he cast around for the source of some sound Rose hadn't noticed at all.
"Hear what?" Rose wondered, listening to the strange world around them without hearing anything louder than the rustle of wind in the yellow-beyond-yellow stalks of asymmetrical grass next to them.
Jack shook his head, vaguely. "I don't know, maybe it's nothing. I just thought..."
A noise interrupted him. It wasn't loud, but in the immense stillness of this uninhabited planet, you could probably have heard the proverbial pin drop -- and it was louder than a dropping pin, though not by much. It was a sort of -- popping sound. Like that first popcorn, or a tight cork being pulled out of a bottle. And it sounded as if it was close. Rose and Jack both twisted to look for the sound's source. The Doctor, Rose noticed, was leaning back on his arms, his focus not on any noise, but on the two of them. Full of anticipation. It made her heart beat a bit faster -- that Christmas feeling, again, of something wonderful waiting just ahead.
There was another pop, and another -- coming from all over, and it really did sound a lot like popcorn. And just like with popcorns cooking, there was a new kind of smell spreading -- sharp and tangy, a little bit like hot spices, and a little bit like the air before a thunderstorm. It tickled her nose, and the breeze against her face felt like it was crackling with energy, making her laugh. "What is this?", she asked.
"Captain, Rose Tyler," the Doctor announced gravely, turning to both of them with a smile shining through his serious comportment. "Welcome to the Blooming." At the last part he had to raise his voice, and he spread his arms as if to encompass everything around them.
The noise was rising, something like rain pattering on the window, but it was coming from the grass. It had to be. There was a sudden flare of colour from across the lake, a shining grey more colourful than any rainbow (impossible colours, Rose marvelled, because how could grey be that bright and beautiful?) exploding from the ground in a cloud. A second later, something moved in the corner of her eye, and a geyser of gold and red streamed towards the sky, accompanied by a chorus of sounds like latches opening and catches releasing and clear notes being picked out on a silver-stringed harp.
It was so close and intense that Rose's instincts made her hunch a bit against the noise, her eyes wide with wonder. Without a word, she smiled a brilliant smile at the Doctor, who reached out a hand to her. She held on tight as the plants around them exploded in colours and noise, and Jack moved closer to her, a welcome, solid presence against her shoulder. She took his hand too, holding on to both of them as the world around them disappeared in a flurry of glittering dust and petals cascading from the ground, lifted on the winds and whirling away towards the sky. The colours were mixing and parting, moving and soaring ever higher, living fireworks exploding from the ground. Unlike fireworks they didn't flicker out and die, they just climbed on the winds until they were scattered clouds of every possible and impossible colour trailing through the air like a fairytale princess' veils.
Rose remembered how to breathe when she noticed the familiar buzz from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver next to her, and tore her eyes away from the Blooming to see that he was holding the tool in his free hand, poised very much like the handle of an invisible umbrella. Its blue light reflected eerily on the colourful particles that flickered past them -- past and over, leaving them sitting in a safe bubble out of the petal storm. It didn't seem to take much effort on the Doctor's part, as he met her look with an easy smile. She stared at him for a moment, then squeezed his hand. "It's beautiful", she breathed, and he nodded, obviously pleased with her delight.
The worst of the noise had passed, occasional snapping sounds still sending thin streams of Blooming stuff spiralling up in the blue sky, and the lake was once again visible. It wasn't really white any more, though, its surface peppered with fallen petals, and reflecting all of the rainbow-coloured fireworks in the sky.
"The Blooming," the Doctor explained, as they sat together, shoulder to shoulder, leaning back to watch the colours fill the sky, "happens about once every thousand of this planet's days -- but only if the weather is right." He lowered the sonic screwdriver, holding out a hand as if to feel for rain. Obviously satisfied with the resulting single red petal landing on his palm, he put the screwdriver away inside his jacked. "They don't have any bugs here, or birds, or anything like that. Nice thermal winds, though. So this is how the plants spread around." He gestured at the brightly-coloured streams high up above them, layers and layers of thin bands of colour darking out the sun in places. "It'll fall down sooner or later, somewhere a hundreds or thousands of miles away. And then it'll start growing, waiting for the next Blooming."
Back on the ground, the vegetation that was left was a lot plainer -- more regular, less twisty, and much of it was a variation on gold or green or milky white. It still shimmered and billowed in the wind, but it looked almost normal now, with no more colors than an idyllic summer field back on earth.
"Once every thousand days, huh?" Jack mused. "And there's no... pollinating or anything going on between cycles?"
The Doctor snorted. "No sentient vines, if you were planning on picking up a date later."
"Hey!" Jack faked a wounded look. "I was just showing a bit of interest in the local biosphere." Then he reached for the wicker basket. "You never know who's going to be interested in sharing your... picnic, you know." With a flourish, he pulled a clear bottle with a ruby-red liquid out of the basket, presenting it to them like a waiter at some posh restaurant. "Speaking of which -- who's for some wine?"
Rose energetically raised her hand, "Oh, me!" Jack nodded courteously at her, his smile edged with that flirtatious energy that was second nature to him as he fished a delicate wine glass from the basket. He offered her the glass, his fingers lingering a few moments on hers before letting go, opening the bottle and filling her glass in a swift and elegant gesture. The deep red wine seemed to have honey-gold reflections in the sunlight, and when Rose sniffed it, her senses were filled with a rich, sweet fragrance.
She saw the Doctor shift, obviously intrigued by Jack's offering despite himself. "What've you got there, then?"
Pulling out a second glass, Jack nodded at the bottle. "Calieu d'Ombrey," he said with a distant smile. "From before the Expulsion."
The Doctor's eyes widened a fraction. "From before...?" Then he laughed. "Well, come on then. I can't very well say no to that, now can I?"
Jack's smile grew warmer, and he leaned forward to wrap the Doctor's fingers around the delicate stem of the glass. "You've got excellent taste," he murmured, laughing at the sarcastic eye-roll the comment earned him before filling the Doctor's glass.
Rose grinned at them both, waiting to taste her wine until they could have a proper toast. A passing white petal, tinted with pink, floated down into her glass, and she was busy fishing it out when she heard something -- different. Not any kind of popping sound. More like a... howl. She held up a hand for silence, interrupting Jack from pouring a final glass of wine for himself.
"What was that?" she asked, looking curiously at the Doctor. "Is there another... wave of Blooming, or something?"
He shrugged in answer. "No, there shouldn't be. Just once every thousand cycles, and all the plants go at once. Fantastic place for a picnic!"
There was another howl. Not just a whimper or groan or some weird sound carried on the wind. A howl. Jack put the bottle down slowly, looking at the hills around them. "So - that's just the sound of very aggressively falling petals?"
The Doctor looked a bit pained. "Don't be daft, man."
"But if it isn't part of the Blooming," Rose said slowly, "maybe it's someone else visiting?" That wouldn't be so bad -- they didn't exactly need alien encounters to make this picnic interesting, but a spot of alien encountering was nothing new.
"I didn't detect any signs of other transports," Jack answered, his fingers flying over the controls of his wristcomp before stopping, dead still. He looked up at her, an urgent undertone to his voice. "But there does seem to be half a dozen medium-sized quadrupeds native to this planet out there, closing in on us."
"Oh," the Doctor said. Jack and Rose both turned to look at him.
"'Oh' what?" Jack asked. Rose took one look at the Doctor's face, and didn't wait for an answer. She jumped to her feet with her heart pounding rapidly, her throat dry and the wine spilled at her feet, forgotten. Now, this was a familiar situation, and she couldn't keep a smile from splitting her face, letting out a shaky laugh.
"Oh, run," she answered Jack's question, already flanked by him and the Doctor both as she turned to dash up the pale golden grass of the hill -- away from the howls, toward the safety of the TARDIS.
"What she said!" the Doctor cried, grabbing her hand and casting a wild-eyed, far too happy look around him. "I think those are Terror Dogs!"
Jack was running shoulder to shoulder with her, and didn't even have to raise his voice to direct an incredulous "What?" at the Doctor.
"They shouldn't actually be here until later," the reply came, in a rush, closely followed by another howl from somewhere close. "We should have arrived too early for them -- oh, I've never seen Terror Dogs from around here!"
"We can all have a nice long look at them when we're in the TARDIS, yeah?" Rose panted, tugging quite insistently at the Doctor's hand to make sure he wasn't planning on stopping to stare. He smiled brightly at her.
"Yeah," he answered.
"And next time I get to pick where we go for our picnic!" Rose decided, sure now that she had spent too much time with the Doctor, because she couldn't stop grinning, even with those chilling howls coming ever closer. The rush of blood in her ears, the sound of three pairs of feet running for their lives over an alien planet, under clouds of flowers and a looming moon -- even just one day like this was worth all the Terror Dogs on the planet.