We're all Mad Here - Time Will Crawl (3x7)
((Because I'm bloody in love with Ashes to Ashes right now and wanted to do a slightly different spin on this verse.))
Alex Drake is a bloody good copper. That's one thing no one within the halls of CID would refute. She might be a borderline functional alcoholic who had hushed onesided conversations with radios and tellies but she still did her job, and she did it well. Some might call that eccentric...if eccentric was a nice way of saying 'slightly over the edge of crazy'.
But Sally Sparrow wasn't like that. She was the sane one, the grounded one, the rational dreamer trapped in the asylum with the lunatics. She got up in the morning, peeled her hungover flatmate off the couch more days than not, and went to work. And she did her job, boring, menial and occasionally gruesome as it was, she made the best of a fairly bad situation.
But she didn't lose her grip on reality, didn't forget that there was a very real technical explanation behind her current predicament. Didn't forget that that it was just one little time rift that had dumped her here. Didn't forget that there was a certain Time Lord no doubt trying to track her back down at this very moment. That was what happened, that was why she was here.
Because she's not like Alex, she's not lost and in the dark, she has an explanation for all of this. She's not crazy.
Four months pass, she starts to doubt her own memories. Doubt the increasingly vague recollection of that day.
Five months pass. Alex takes a bullet. Alex is in a coma. The fantasy starts to bleed into reality and Sally starts to doubt everything.
Eight months. Alex wakes up, Sally doesn't know how to tell her about the dreams, about looking up at that almost circular shaft of light and waking up screaming. She's forced to soon enough.
Nine months. Shaz likes her new haircut, she doesn't tell anyone the shorter manageable style is less for fashion and more so she never has to look in a mirror if she can help it. Anything to avoid the ghastly smile that's starting to lurk in the corners of every reflective surface.
She stops developing her own photos, hiding from the voices in the shadows of the darkroom and the impossible things she sometimes sees in the developing film. There and gone, blink and it's over. The department plod who takes over the job botches it half the time and she doesn't care.
The dreams don't stop.
And there comes a time when this rational dreamer can't stop denying the fact that it feels like she's losing her mind. But she can't be, can't be the one that's slipping. Can't be, isn't. Can't shake the feeling that the asylum is crumbling around her and she'll go with it.
But she can't be, because there's an explanation behind all of this. Because she remembers what really happened even if she dreams about falling.
She can't be, because she's not like Alex. Her logic is her anchor, but day by day doubt gnaws away at the moorings and Sally begins to understand what it feels like to be lost.
Alex Drake is a bloody good copper. That's one thing no one within the halls of CID would refute. She might be a borderline functional alcoholic who had hushed onesided conversations with radios and tellies but she still did her job, and she did it well. Some might call that eccentric...if eccentric was a nice way of saying 'slightly over the edge of crazy'.
But Sally Sparrow wasn't like that. She was the sane one, the grounded one, the rational dreamer trapped in the asylum with the lunatics. She got up in the morning, peeled her hungover flatmate off the couch more days than not, and went to work. And she did her job, boring, menial and occasionally gruesome as it was, she made the best of a fairly bad situation.
But she didn't lose her grip on reality, didn't forget that there was a very real technical explanation behind her current predicament. Didn't forget that that it was just one little time rift that had dumped her here. Didn't forget that there was a certain Time Lord no doubt trying to track her back down at this very moment. That was what happened, that was why she was here.
Because she's not like Alex, she's not lost and in the dark, she has an explanation for all of this. She's not crazy.
Four months pass, she starts to doubt her own memories. Doubt the increasingly vague recollection of that day.
Five months pass. Alex takes a bullet. Alex is in a coma. The fantasy starts to bleed into reality and Sally starts to doubt everything.
Eight months. Alex wakes up, Sally doesn't know how to tell her about the dreams, about looking up at that almost circular shaft of light and waking up screaming. She's forced to soon enough.
Nine months. Shaz likes her new haircut, she doesn't tell anyone the shorter manageable style is less for fashion and more so she never has to look in a mirror if she can help it. Anything to avoid the ghastly smile that's starting to lurk in the corners of every reflective surface.
She stops developing her own photos, hiding from the voices in the shadows of the darkroom and the impossible things she sometimes sees in the developing film. There and gone, blink and it's over. The department plod who takes over the job botches it half the time and she doesn't care.
The dreams don't stop.
And there comes a time when this rational dreamer can't stop denying the fact that it feels like she's losing her mind. But she can't be, can't be the one that's slipping. Can't be, isn't. Can't shake the feeling that the asylum is crumbling around her and she'll go with it.
But she can't be, because there's an explanation behind all of this. Because she remembers what really happened even if she dreams about falling.
She can't be, because she's not like Alex. Her logic is her anchor, but day by day doubt gnaws away at the moorings and Sally begins to understand what it feels like to be lost.