OOC &diams Beautiful morning, please don't wake me from my sleep
Fred was standing at a window, staring out at… blackness. Nothingness. It seemed to go on forever… or maybe it was only black in colour. With nothing but blackness there to give her a reference point, Fred couldn't tell one way or the other.
"Hello, my dear. How nice to see you again!" The voice was completely unfamiliar, but Fred found that she couldn't turn her head to see if she recognized the face of the man speaking to her. His voice was soft, and it quavered a little; the voice of an old man.
"You look troubled. Are you feeling alright? Ah! I know what you need… a cup of tea! Milk?"
"Er… yes, please." Fred spoke almost automatically.
There were clinking sounds as the man fussed with a pot and teacup, the sound of liquid being poured. "One lump or two?"
"Two, please."
"Sugar?"
"What?"
Instead of answering, the man held a cup of tea out to her-he was standing at such an angle that she still couldn't see his face even when he was standing so close. She could just see out of the corner of her eye that he had white, slightly wispy hair… and he had glasses, she could see the light winking off of them. She took the cup from his hand and sipped cautiously; it was very good. Better than any tea she had tasted in Edensphere, actually. "Mmm, thank you."
"Look." The man had moved to stand right next to her now. She still couldn't turn her head to see him properly, but she saw his hand again as he waved it at the window looking into blackness.
Storm's face appeared on the window in front of them. He looked puzzled, maybe even upset, and he let out a sigh before he spoke. "You're right. This is confusing. Hopefully it'll be explained though. I mean...we can't not know forever."
Fred nearly dropped her teacup. "That was-! But he's… Storm is…"
"You're dreamin', yanno." The voice of the man standing next to her had changed into one far more familiar. Fred, finally able to turn her head, looked over to see that Rabbit stood next to her. He was staring at the window/vid screen with a look of intense curiosity on his face.
There was a short silence in which Fred considered asking Rabbit just what he was doing there. Finally, she nodded silently and turned back to look at the window/vid screen. It had changed in the time she had been staring at Rabbit. She took another sip of tea…
Roswell stared at her, his eyes unusually sober, his face very serious. He held a silvery pentacle pendant on a necklace chain out to her, as if he were giving her something very important. "And I think you're the one that should have this."
Frowning, Fred reached out to take the necklace from him, but Roswell dissolved into meaningless colour before her fingers brushed against the smooth, cool material the vid screen was made of.
The screen soon settled into Youth. He looked much his usual self, energetic and smiling… well, youthfully. "There are people who make the rules of this place?" He looked around as if he'd be able to spot them. "Where…"
The screen changed again before Youth could finish his sentence. Fred kept her hand where it was, waiting for the image to settle.
Gene's back was to her on the screen; from the sheer amount of broken junk piled up all around him, he was in the Scavengers' Yard. He seemed to be trying to get at something in one of the piles, shoving broken radios and trashed toasters out of his way with careful ease that spoke of experience doing just that. He paused suddenly, looking up and giving the screen a wave before going back to what he was doing.
The screen swirled into meaningless colour as it changed. Fred was quickly getting tired of this thing, hearing and seeing her friends but unable to talk to them… even if this was 'just a dream.'
Genius' turn now. He waved his hands around wildly as he spoke. "What if the purpose of is place is to defy logic? What if they mean to drive us all insane to test the limits of the human mind?"
The image fractured into meaningless colour once more, then went black. For several moments nothing happened, and Fred raised her other hand to touch the vid screen as well. It was only then that she noticed her teacup had mysteriously vanished. She turned around, half-thinking that she would pour herself another cup of tea-only to discover that there wasn't anything like a kitchen behind her. The room she was standing in was white and very empty, with evenly-spaced circular shapes set into the walls. How very strange…
"Time ta go." Rabbit spoke up again. He was leaning against a wall with an unreadable look on his face, his arms crossed over his chest.
"What do you-" Fred started to ask, but she was cut off when the ground suddenly disappeared from beneath her feet, and she fell. Her eyes closed tightly, and she was unwilling or unable to open them again. She fell for a long time like that, the air whistling silently past her ears… she would almost have thought she was floating, if she hadn't been able to feel the slight tug of gravity pulling her body downwards.
Sound came then, as she fell through the strangely-silent air. Words that echoed in her ears… the voice was male and familiar, very familiar, but… she couldn't remember…
The voice rolled some of the R's it spoke luxuriously, as if the man was tasting them before he let them slip off his tongue. "Don't be so hasty to get yourself killed. Less haste is more speed, or something equally trrrrite. If you decide to follow the yellow brick rrrroad, be sure to look before you leap… and do try to rrrremember that there aren't always pleasant things at the bottom of rrrrabbit holes." The voice paused for a moment. "You should wake up now. There is much you should be doing…"
Her eyes opened slowly… and her breath caught in her throat at the sight she saw below her. A great tree, mostly encased in a glass globe… she was falling toward it, but slowly, so slowly…
She closed her eyes again, spoke the words in a whisper. "Ready or not, here I come…"
********
Ooc notes…
The man at the beginning was Salyaven, another Time Lord (and a criminal, hehe). The voice at the end was the 7th Doctor. She's standing in the TARDIS, and seeing the different scenes on its viewscreen. All the things she saw/heard her friends doing happened in logs, except for what she saw Gene doing.
Fred has forgotten:
-her first death/rebirth
-the fact that she and Roswell were 'siblings'
-what she and Roswell found in the Scavengers' Yard/Post Office (Free's ring, pentacle necklace, and everything else found there)
-the significance of a squirrel woman named 'Free'
-the significance of golden acorns
-who Spade might be/what Spade looks like
-her meeting with the unknown CPA (Praise).
The little notebook she wrote most of… well, all of that stuff down in has disappeared. How very mysterious!