Dream a little dream
Who: Rose Tyler, open to anyone with access to Ten's TARDIS
What: Swapping the Doctor out and back again doesn't erase everything.
When: Some time during the early hours of the 20th
Where: Ten's TARDIS
Rating: PG? There are some nightmareish elements.
Rose wasn't the best liar in the world, but she did her best to keep certain aspects of her relationship with the Doctor to herself, even from the Doctor himself. It was one thing to live with a Doctor who'd admitted (in his own way) his feelings for her on his own. She couldn't imagine it'd be anything the same just telling the Doctor he had. Besides that, it looped back to what she kept most to herself. The memories he'd given her in the process of refusing to admit something he knew she knew.
She felt she did a decent job controlling those memories and processing them. They weren't so many, in the scheme of things. Only a few years, just a glimpse of his sadness and loneliness, a look at the memories she'd lost, and the secure knowledge that even if he couldn't say it the feelings were still there.
Most of the time, she dealt with it fine.
Most of the time she found reasons to be awake or to research and ignore the memories were there.
Unfortunately, she was still only human, and even the best stimulation could only keep her awake so long. She'd been keeping to herself until she was sure the dreams were under control--they used to be, with the Doctor before. Now they seemed worse and uncontrollable, and she found herself avoiding people she'd rather not more and more to make sure they wouldn't notice anything and ask questions she couldn't answer.
Tonight she'd dropped off reading something in front of a very inviting fire in the TARDIS. Maybe it was the similarity of the comfort she'd felt sitting in the console room reading poetry, or maybe the TARDIS influenced it somehow, but her dream at least started out peaceful and plain, and the sort that she could never remember after waking up.
Eventually, though, the crackling of the fire became raging flames. Fireplace became a molten city, full of anguished faces she shouldn't know but did. Screams drowned out the sounds of the fire, as the faces of the dead--Sky and Lynda and, oh, Steffi! She knew their names and their faces. She knew them by heart. And she knew their screams, as the fire burned and the water crashed through the streets she stood in.
Faces whirled by, River and Luke and Adelaide, so many burned and suffered and were swept away, and still she stood. She couldn't move, no, but even so those who reached out, clawed through the destruction reaching for her fell short. The fire and the water all swirled around her, but they never touched where she stood. The one island in the city where she stood remained untouched.
She couldn't help them, and she couldn't join them. Everything burned, and everyone died and she could do nothing.
Why? Why?
She fought to scream, but if she managed it, it couldn't be heard.
Something charred and old reached out and snatched her arm, and she snapped awake with a powerful start.
The book she'd been reading was splayed across the floor, and the fire had all but died out. She smacked a hand to her chest, forcing her breath to steady, though her heart still raced painfully fast. Not every dream was exactly the same, but it seemed every time his memories overrode her own in the decision making, they turned out at least similar.
It was only a dream. And yet, she could remember most of those faces still. She knew them, as he had.
It wasn't just a dream at all.
What: Swapping the Doctor out and back again doesn't erase everything.
When: Some time during the early hours of the 20th
Where: Ten's TARDIS
Rating: PG? There are some nightmareish elements.
Rose wasn't the best liar in the world, but she did her best to keep certain aspects of her relationship with the Doctor to herself, even from the Doctor himself. It was one thing to live with a Doctor who'd admitted (in his own way) his feelings for her on his own. She couldn't imagine it'd be anything the same just telling the Doctor he had. Besides that, it looped back to what she kept most to herself. The memories he'd given her in the process of refusing to admit something he knew she knew.
She felt she did a decent job controlling those memories and processing them. They weren't so many, in the scheme of things. Only a few years, just a glimpse of his sadness and loneliness, a look at the memories she'd lost, and the secure knowledge that even if he couldn't say it the feelings were still there.
Most of the time, she dealt with it fine.
Most of the time she found reasons to be awake or to research and ignore the memories were there.
Unfortunately, she was still only human, and even the best stimulation could only keep her awake so long. She'd been keeping to herself until she was sure the dreams were under control--they used to be, with the Doctor before. Now they seemed worse and uncontrollable, and she found herself avoiding people she'd rather not more and more to make sure they wouldn't notice anything and ask questions she couldn't answer.
Tonight she'd dropped off reading something in front of a very inviting fire in the TARDIS. Maybe it was the similarity of the comfort she'd felt sitting in the console room reading poetry, or maybe the TARDIS influenced it somehow, but her dream at least started out peaceful and plain, and the sort that she could never remember after waking up.
Eventually, though, the crackling of the fire became raging flames. Fireplace became a molten city, full of anguished faces she shouldn't know but did. Screams drowned out the sounds of the fire, as the faces of the dead--Sky and Lynda and, oh, Steffi! She knew their names and their faces. She knew them by heart. And she knew their screams, as the fire burned and the water crashed through the streets she stood in.
Faces whirled by, River and Luke and Adelaide, so many burned and suffered and were swept away, and still she stood. She couldn't move, no, but even so those who reached out, clawed through the destruction reaching for her fell short. The fire and the water all swirled around her, but they never touched where she stood. The one island in the city where she stood remained untouched.
She couldn't help them, and she couldn't join them. Everything burned, and everyone died and she could do nothing.
Why? Why?
She fought to scream, but if she managed it, it couldn't be heard.
Something charred and old reached out and snatched her arm, and she snapped awake with a powerful start.
The book she'd been reading was splayed across the floor, and the fire had all but died out. She smacked a hand to her chest, forcing her breath to steady, though her heart still raced painfully fast. Not every dream was exactly the same, but it seemed every time his memories overrode her own in the decision making, they turned out at least similar.
It was only a dream. And yet, she could remember most of those faces still. She knew them, as he had.
It wasn't just a dream at all.