Fanfic: Lost in a waking world (Donna, Doctor)
Title: Lost in a waking world
Author: beyondthepen // posted at quadrupled (join or watch)
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Donna, Doctor(ish), Wilf, Sylvia
Spoilers: Season 4
Summary: 9 drabbles with a collective theme: Donna's dreams post-Journey's End. For my scifiland bingo card. ( Join Team Sidekick!) See the bingo card here.
A pair
Donna dreams now, more than ever before. Before what? the voice in the back of her mind asks, the voice that is not so different from her own, but it’s not her exactly.
In her dreams she feels like she’s part of something. Again, says the voice, though she’s never truly been part of something, not like this. She wakes with adrenaline pumping, a fleeting feeling of…wholeness.
“She walks around here like she thinks she’s lost something,” her mother gripes from the kitchen as Donna side-steps the doorway, listening to them from the hall.
“Well, she has,” her gramps replies, like it should be obvious. His voice is sad, distant.
She sinks down against the wall in the hallway and tries to figure out what she’s lost.
Villain
He’s a mixture of faces, of people, of things. He begins as a man and transforms. That’s what scares her most, that she doesn’t know what he is, if he’s anything at all. There’s a smile, a face, and then it’s gone, and there’s a stone man, a monster, a giant wasp, an alien…things she’d have woken up and laughed about, if they didn’t seem so real.
There’s some kind of evil in the world that she knows nothing about, until she dreams. And out of this world, the voice says as she takes sleeping pills and drifts again into restless dreams.
Green
It’s all color sometimes. There are no faces, just color and feeling. She can only see her feet and endless, endless green, for miles. In the distance, someone calls her name, a man, the man, but his voice makes her head ache. She can follow it, but it never gets any closer. She’ll walk until the shoes fall off her feet, and she can feel the blades of grass between her toes. Some nights she tells herself she'll walk until she finds the voice, or until she walks so far that the green just swallows her whole, but it never does. She awakes breathless and more tired than she was before she slept.
Hair
“Would you have picked me, if I hadn’t just popped up in here?” she asks the man in front of her. She’s a by-stander in her own dream, watching herself and this man converse. Almost like it’s--say it--a memory. The room glows; it’s a blur of lights and sound, but the figures are clear.
“Of course,” the man says.
“Oh really?”
“You know I have a thing for gingers,” he says, and she, the dream-Donna, laughs and swats him on the arm. For a moment she’s happy. The man laughs along with the dream-Donna and pushes a lever forward, and she wakes up smiling.
My Choice
She feels the ghost of him, the dream-him. A warm body beside her in bed, barely touching. Not intimate, but…there. Like-like what?-it used to be, when he would have bad dreams. She slides her hand to the other side of the bed, lost somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, until she realizes no one is there. She wakes with a start, wondering where he’s gone. But there is no he, not really, because he's only in her dreams, which are not real.
Really?
She’s grown to ignore the voice. It always seems to know more than she does, and no one likes a know-it-all. You said that to him a lot, didn’t you?
Repeat
There are children in her dreams, the same ones, over and over. It’s like she’s lost them too. As they run by, she reaches out to touch them, but they’re just out of her grasp. But they continue, in a line. An endless loop of one boy and one girl. She feels like their names are at the tip of her tongue. She feels like they’re hers.
And then you remembered. It’s a different voice, and she sees another man there. The image flickers, replaced with the other man, the skinny one in a suit, and he shouts, Donna! and he’s gone too.
And then you remembered, the voice, her voice repeats, as if willing her to do something she can never do, like trying to remember a dream but all the pieces keep falling away. Like trying to remember the names of her own children.
Cold
Most often, she dreams of snow, of whiteness, of a wedding gown she doesn’t remember wearing. She’s staring up at the sky. When she tries to look away, she can’t. Her eyes are fixed to the sky, and she’s so cold. Why is she wearing a wedding dress in the snow?
Only when the man asks her something does she realize he’s there, but she can’t look at him. She’s stuck blinking the snowflakes out of her eyes, and even though she can’t make out what he’s asking, she wants to say yes. Her frozen lips won’t form the word, and she wakes up whispering, “I can’t.”
I love you like pancakes
She dreams of pancakes, because on “mental health” days, when she’d decided she couldn’t go anywhere that day-go where?-he would make them. She walks a hallway that never ends, following the smell and his humming. He always hummed, just to make some kind of noise, just like he always bounced because he couldn’t stay still.
But that wasn’t true, because he wasn’t real. Are you sure?
No. And that’s what scares her.
She never makes it to the end of the hallway, and when she wakes, she can smell maple syrup from the kitchen downstairs. Lately, every day seems like a mental health day.
Smarter than
She sits on the hill with her gramps until she’s too tired to hold her head up, but she doesn’t want to sleep. She doesn’t want to know what she’ll dream of tonight. Sometimes she thinks to ask her gramps what he meant in the kitchen that day, but she feels such dread in the pit of her stomach, she almost doesn’t want to know what she’s lost.
“You see those stars there?” he says, pointing into the distance. “That big one in the middle there, the orange lookin’ one. That’s mars. Tonight’s supposed to be best night to see it.”
She focuses on the orange star that's not really a star, and there’s something she misses. “I just don’t know how you know all this stuff, Gramps.”
“I watch the news!” He laughs, and she gives him a sideways glare. “You mean about stars and space and stuff, yeah. You probably know more than I do, my girl!”
She starts, almost remembering...something. She tries to rub away the chill bumps on her arms. “What do you mean?”
For a moment, she thinks she sees tears brimming in his eyes, but he presses his face to the telescope. “I just make it up as a go, I mean,” he jokes, but she's thinks she's heard that before.
Author: beyondthepen // posted at quadrupled (join or watch)
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Donna, Doctor(ish), Wilf, Sylvia
Spoilers: Season 4
Summary: 9 drabbles with a collective theme: Donna's dreams post-Journey's End. For my scifiland bingo card. ( Join Team Sidekick!) See the bingo card here.
A pair
Donna dreams now, more than ever before. Before what? the voice in the back of her mind asks, the voice that is not so different from her own, but it’s not her exactly.
In her dreams she feels like she’s part of something. Again, says the voice, though she’s never truly been part of something, not like this. She wakes with adrenaline pumping, a fleeting feeling of…wholeness.
“She walks around here like she thinks she’s lost something,” her mother gripes from the kitchen as Donna side-steps the doorway, listening to them from the hall.
“Well, she has,” her gramps replies, like it should be obvious. His voice is sad, distant.
She sinks down against the wall in the hallway and tries to figure out what she’s lost.
Villain
He’s a mixture of faces, of people, of things. He begins as a man and transforms. That’s what scares her most, that she doesn’t know what he is, if he’s anything at all. There’s a smile, a face, and then it’s gone, and there’s a stone man, a monster, a giant wasp, an alien…things she’d have woken up and laughed about, if they didn’t seem so real.
There’s some kind of evil in the world that she knows nothing about, until she dreams. And out of this world, the voice says as she takes sleeping pills and drifts again into restless dreams.
Green
It’s all color sometimes. There are no faces, just color and feeling. She can only see her feet and endless, endless green, for miles. In the distance, someone calls her name, a man, the man, but his voice makes her head ache. She can follow it, but it never gets any closer. She’ll walk until the shoes fall off her feet, and she can feel the blades of grass between her toes. Some nights she tells herself she'll walk until she finds the voice, or until she walks so far that the green just swallows her whole, but it never does. She awakes breathless and more tired than she was before she slept.
Hair
“Would you have picked me, if I hadn’t just popped up in here?” she asks the man in front of her. She’s a by-stander in her own dream, watching herself and this man converse. Almost like it’s--say it--a memory. The room glows; it’s a blur of lights and sound, but the figures are clear.
“Of course,” the man says.
“Oh really?”
“You know I have a thing for gingers,” he says, and she, the dream-Donna, laughs and swats him on the arm. For a moment she’s happy. The man laughs along with the dream-Donna and pushes a lever forward, and she wakes up smiling.
My Choice
She feels the ghost of him, the dream-him. A warm body beside her in bed, barely touching. Not intimate, but…there. Like-like what?-it used to be, when he would have bad dreams. She slides her hand to the other side of the bed, lost somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, until she realizes no one is there. She wakes with a start, wondering where he’s gone. But there is no he, not really, because he's only in her dreams, which are not real.
Really?
She’s grown to ignore the voice. It always seems to know more than she does, and no one likes a know-it-all. You said that to him a lot, didn’t you?
Repeat
There are children in her dreams, the same ones, over and over. It’s like she’s lost them too. As they run by, she reaches out to touch them, but they’re just out of her grasp. But they continue, in a line. An endless loop of one boy and one girl. She feels like their names are at the tip of her tongue. She feels like they’re hers.
And then you remembered. It’s a different voice, and she sees another man there. The image flickers, replaced with the other man, the skinny one in a suit, and he shouts, Donna! and he’s gone too.
And then you remembered, the voice, her voice repeats, as if willing her to do something she can never do, like trying to remember a dream but all the pieces keep falling away. Like trying to remember the names of her own children.
Cold
Most often, she dreams of snow, of whiteness, of a wedding gown she doesn’t remember wearing. She’s staring up at the sky. When she tries to look away, she can’t. Her eyes are fixed to the sky, and she’s so cold. Why is she wearing a wedding dress in the snow?
Only when the man asks her something does she realize he’s there, but she can’t look at him. She’s stuck blinking the snowflakes out of her eyes, and even though she can’t make out what he’s asking, she wants to say yes. Her frozen lips won’t form the word, and she wakes up whispering, “I can’t.”
I love you like pancakes
She dreams of pancakes, because on “mental health” days, when she’d decided she couldn’t go anywhere that day-go where?-he would make them. She walks a hallway that never ends, following the smell and his humming. He always hummed, just to make some kind of noise, just like he always bounced because he couldn’t stay still.
But that wasn’t true, because he wasn’t real. Are you sure?
No. And that’s what scares her.
She never makes it to the end of the hallway, and when she wakes, she can smell maple syrup from the kitchen downstairs. Lately, every day seems like a mental health day.
Smarter than
She sits on the hill with her gramps until she’s too tired to hold her head up, but she doesn’t want to sleep. She doesn’t want to know what she’ll dream of tonight. Sometimes she thinks to ask her gramps what he meant in the kitchen that day, but she feels such dread in the pit of her stomach, she almost doesn’t want to know what she’s lost.
“You see those stars there?” he says, pointing into the distance. “That big one in the middle there, the orange lookin’ one. That’s mars. Tonight’s supposed to be best night to see it.”
She focuses on the orange star that's not really a star, and there’s something she misses. “I just don’t know how you know all this stuff, Gramps.”
“I watch the news!” He laughs, and she gives him a sideways glare. “You mean about stars and space and stuff, yeah. You probably know more than I do, my girl!”
She starts, almost remembering...something. She tries to rub away the chill bumps on her arms. “What do you mean?”
For a moment, she thinks she sees tears brimming in his eyes, but he presses his face to the telescope. “I just make it up as a go, I mean,” he jokes, but she's thinks she's heard that before.