Fic: Dreamings of meetings (DW-BFA)
Title: Dreamings of meetings
Author: aces
Fandom: Doctor Who BF audios
Characters: Hex, Ace, the Doctor, OC
Rating: all ages
Warnings: None
Word count: approx. 4,000 words
A/N: Only directly mentions “The Settling”; title borrowed from Neil Gaiman. I...don’t really know where this story came from, other than it was inspired by the quoted line below. Most of this was written well over a year ago; I finally was able to finish it this weekend.
Hex, in “The Settling”: I thought I saw lemon trees in the library…or maybe I dreamt them.
The first time he saw her, she sat curled up in a large, comfortable armchair in a study. Walls made of bookshelves, and an oversize desk, and everything was some rich, dark wood, mahogany or something. The far wall, behind her armchair and the desk, was all floor-to-ceiling windows, heavily draped. But the drapes were tied back, and light-sunset, with red tinting the gold-fell through, so she could read.
She was petite, elfin; and Hex didn’t quite know where those adjectives were coming from. Pale skin and black hair, she had both legs tucked up on the seat under her, and she was reading a thick, heavy book. A teenager, maybe, late teens. She looked up, maybe at some noise Hex made-he didn’t know how, or when, he had entered the room-and she smiled at him. A friendly smile, warm, but it didn’t invite him to sit down and have a chat, so Hex just smiled back and wandered around the room, looking at book titles while she went back to her book.
*
“Good morning, Hex!” the Doctor trilled as he swept out of the kitchen. “Bread on the table, tea in the pot, help yourself!”
Hex twisted around to look at the Doctor’s speedily retreating back. “’Bye?” he said and turned back. Ace grinned blearily at the table.
“He doesn’t sleep,” she explained. “Therefore, somehow, he is always cheerful. Except when he’s yelling at someone or something.” She sat back in her chair, gnawing on a piece of toast, oversized mug of tea on the table in front of her. “How’d you sleep?”
“Okay,” Hex said, slicing himself a couple pieces of bread. He moved to the counter to put them in the toaster. “Usually it takes me a couple nights to get used to a new place, you know? But I just fell right to sleep.”
“Good,” Ace said, draining her tea. Hex leant back against the counter, thinking about his dream from the night before. He didn’t really remember much, something about a girl reading in a study. It’d been really boring, he thought.
“McShane-” he started, and she looked up at him.
“Yeah?”
What was he going to say? Hey, ever had any odd dreams about an odd sort of girl reading in the TARDIS? Ace had only known him for a few weeks; he didn’t want her thinking he was a complete nutter. Anyway, he wasn’t even sure that room had been in the TARDIS. He hadn’t seen any windows so far in the time machine.
“Forget about it,” Hex said. “Where do you keep the jam around here?”
*
When he saw her next, she was an old woman sitting in a rocking chair in some sort of massive parlour or sitting room. Or maybe some sort of furniture show place, as all it held were chairs and little occasional tables, and Hex could easily have missed her if he hadn’t heard the creak of her rocking.
Wrinkled skin and grey-white hair; she wore a shawl and had bare feet and rocked to a steady, internal rhythm. She didn’t look at all like the petite, dark-haired waif-this woman was much taller and gaunter-but somehow Hex knew she was the same person.
He started picking his way toward her, edging between round or rectangular tables and bumping into loveseats and wing-backed chairs. “Hello?” he called. “Hello, can you hear me?”
She looked up at him and smiled; the same warm, friendly-but-remote smile. This time, though, Hex did not want to leave without some kind of answers. “Who are you?” he asked. “Please, just-what’s going on?”
She continued rocking, and she kept smiling at him, and she never said a word.
*
“Hex? What are you up to?” Ace asked.
“Just exploring,” Hex said. He was methodically opening doors all along the corridor. “This place is massive.”
“I know,” Ace nodded. “I’ve lived here with the Doctor for years and still find new rooms and places. Doesn’t help that she rearranges things sometimes.”
“She?”
“The TARDIS.” Hex raised his eyebrows, clicking shut another door (greenhouse, all roses-the second greenhouse he had found in the past hour, and he wondered how many more there were). Ace shrugged. “The Doctor always calls her ‘old girl’ and stuff. I’m just…following his lead, I guess.”
“You don’t always follow his lead,” Hex pointed out and opened another door. “Oh my god!”
“What?” Ace ducked under his arm for a peek. “It’s just a study, Hex.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hex said. “But I’ve been in here before.”
“So?” she said. “Like I said, the TARDIS moves stuff around sometimes. I think she gets bored. Or she likes playing with us.”
“No, I mean-” He started and then stopped. What did it matter? How could he explain it? Again-she didn’t need to think of him as completely mad. “Yeah,” he said instead. “I guess you’re right. It’s a bit…freaky, isn’t it?”
“Well, maybe,” Ace admitted. “Mostly, it’s just annoying sometimes. Especially when you’ve just woken up and really need to use the loo.”
Hex nodded and gently closed the door. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s find the Doctor. I can explore more later.”
*
The woman was a little girl next, long brown braids and inquiring blue eyes, skipping rope down one of the long, long aisles in the library. She jumped right past Hex, and he turned around to jog after her.
“Wait! Wait, please!” he called. “Who are you? Just tell me what’s going on!”
She stopped, and turned around, and Hex threw himself to a halt before he could run her over. There were lemon trees nearby; Hex could smell them, tangy and sharp. She looked up at him, pulled on his trouser leg with one hand, her rope clutched in the other. He knelt down, and she put a finger to her lips. And then she smiled.
*
“Well, Mister Hex!” The Doctor hopped onto a stool next to Hex’s, and Hex watched this maneuver with a suppressed grin. “Are you having fun this evening?”
“Very much, Doctor,” Hex told him politely and wondered when the Doctor would once and for all get around to dropping the “mister” from his name. “And yourself?”
“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said with relish, waving down one of the barmen. “I always enjoy a good pub quiz. Ace usually doesn’t have my enthusiasm for this sort of thing, but I think tonight she’s getting into the spirit of things.”
“I think she’s just getting into the spirits,” Hex grinned, looking to the other end of the bar where their friend seemed to be in the midst of a drinking contest. He thought she was winning.
“Yes, you could be right,” said the Doctor, also glancing over. He turned back to Hex. “And how are you doing? Are you settling down into your new life with us?”
Hex blinked; the Doctor didn’t ask that sort of question, he thought. “I’m fine; great, in fact,” he said. “You two certainly know how to keep busy, I have to say. I prefer the décor and company here to some of the places you’ve taken me…” He hesitated, frowning.
“But?” the Doctor asked.
But has anyone else who’s travelled with you had strange dreams in the TARDIS? Hex couldn’t ask. Only in the TARDIS, only when they’re sleeping; never while on a planet or out and about?
He couldn’t ask.
“Nah,” Hex said with an easy grin. “Forget it. My round, I think?”
*
“Look,” Hex said. She was a young woman now, his age maybe, tanned and blonde and sunning herself in the butterfly room, butterflies of all colors and sizes swirling around her and landing on her. “I just want to talk. Okay? Please? Why do you always-change? Who are you? Why do I keep dreaming about you?”
She opened her eyes-she always had blue eyes, Hex suddenly realized; everything else about her appearance might change, but she always had blue eyes and bare feet-and looked up at him and patted the ground next to her blanket. She smiled.
Hex sat down where she had indicated. “Does this mean we’re getting somewhere?” he asked. “Will you talk to me now?”
She put a hand on his cheek, and she smiled again, and she shook her head.
*
“Isn’t this great?!” Ace yelled over the crashing waves. “I love this place!”
“I think I’m going to be sick!” Hex called back, struggling to stay upright. He and Ace were “surfing,” or the local equivalent, which involved manipulating an invisible body shield over the water. Ace had gotten the hang of it almost immediately. Hex had not.
He wobbled into the beach and collapsed onto his knees, his fingers sinking and digging into the sand. Ace landed next to him gracefully, flushed and laughing.
“I am not going out into that again,” Hex declared.
“Landlubber,” Ace teased.
“So what if I prefer steady ground under my feet?” he retorted. “At least I don’t look like a-a startled mermaid.”
“Oh, I look like a mermaid, do I?” Ace said, and Hex groaned, flopping full-length into the beach. Ace laughed and scooped a handful of sand over his back.
“Leave off,” Hex muttered, spitting sand out of his mouth and flipping himself around. He stared up at the sky, a bright and startling pinkish-yellow, and then he glanced over at Ace, sprawled out next to him and sunning herself. He frowned, a stray memory tugging at him of a young blonde woman. “Ace?” he asked.
“Mm?” She sounded drowsy, and her eyes were closed. He thought about telling her she’d burn if she stayed like that, but he didn’t actually know if this planet had UV radiation or not. He should ask the Doctor.
“Never mind,” Hex sighed, but she was already asleep.
*
Hex had never been here, he was sure; he had seen a room of statues, while waking, and another set of rooms of paintings, but this room contained only pencil drawings. She stood in front of one, studying it, skin the color of plums and dress the color of twilight.
He joined her by the drawing and also looked at it. A forest, maybe, or maybe it was people who looked like trees; Hex couldn’t really tell. “Can you talk?” he asked, not even looking over at her. “Do you even know how to?”
She slipped her hand into his and turned him to face her. Her eyes were still that vivid blue, and her smile was warm and friendly. Not with any words you could understand, she seemed to say, and Hex involuntarily shivered.
*
“Dammit, Hex, answer me!” Hex heard Ace’s voice crackling over the radio lying next to him, and he grabbed it and flipped it to send before his conscious brain caught up with him.
“Here,” he gasped. “Sorry about that. Stunned.”
“Christ,” he heard her breathe out. “Okay, stay put, I’ll come to you.”
“Where’s the Doctor?” Hex sat up, looking around at the bombed-out wasteland around him. There had been people here before, people and buildings and life. “Ace, where’s the Doctor?”
“Here,” the little Time Lord said over Hex’s shoulder, and Hex jumped and turned and sagged with relief, and then Ace was there too, hugging the Doctor and punching Hex on the shoulder, and Hex grinned at them both and then possibly passed out again.
When he woke up later, in a makeshift hospital surrounded by other patients, Ace was sitting at his bedside while the Doctor whirled around looking at people and prescribing things. “I didn’t think he was a medical doctor,” Hex said, pushing himself up on his elbows and feeling guilty. He should be helping; he had the training.
Ace was giving him an odd look. “You always talk in your dreams, Schofield?”
Hex froze, his first thought going back to the woman in the TARDIS. “Why?” he stalled.
“You were talking about your game scores,” she said, and he slumped back and laughed in relief.
“Boring dreams, yeah?” he said with a shrug. “Hey now, what’d you do with my clothes? I can’t go around nursing people dressed in a blanket, can I?”
*
He cried in her arms one night, soon after Drogheda and Wexford and weeks spent in Oliver Cromwell’s company, thinking his friends were dead and he could never go home again. She was middle-aged this time, well-preserved and with prominent cheekbones, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, still barefoot. He had found her in somebody’s old bedroom, sitting cross-legged on a dusty sofa, and he had sat down next to her.
“I,” he had started and stopped. “Oh g-no. I.”
And then he had turned in to her, and she had pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around him, and he had cried.
*
“Ace,” Hex said as soon as the Doctor left the table to play with the pigeons by the fountain. 1983 New York City, outdoor café, scorching summer. Hex found the heat unnatural. Ace wore a pair of mirror shades and a tank top.
“Yeah, Hex?” she asked, relaxed in her seat, people-watching behind the shades. “What’s up?”
“This is going to sound really weird,” he started and Ace’s head turned to him, giving him her full attention. His face was already flushed from the heat, though, so she couldn’t see him blush, and he really wished he could just bloody well stop blushing every time she focused her attention so completely on him. “But, well, do you ever have any odd dreams in the TARDIS?”
“Odd dreams? What d’you mean?”
“I mean about being in the TARDIS. With…with a woman.”
Her eyebrows raised above her shades, and Hex had a feeling his face had somehow against all the odds managed to turn even redder.
“Just hanging about,” he went on desperately. “Around. I mean…oh, sod it.”
Ace was frowning. “No, Hex,” she said. “I have not had any strange dreams involving women hanging about the TARDIS. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” Hex sighed, defeated. “Forget it. Want to go extricate the Doctor from that fountain now before the police get involved?”
*
“I don’t get it,” he said as he walked along a grassy path in a formal English garden with her. She wore the body of an Asian woman in some Victorian dress, narrow-bustled and frilled and laced to the max, and she walked beside him, her arm nestled into his. “I just don’t understand how things can change so quickly.”
She tilted her head, a stray black curl falling out of its place under her hat. “I’m afraid,” Hex explained, and her hand squeezed in comfort and sympathy. “I’m so afraid,” he whispered.
They came to the end of the path, green topiary barring their way. She turned to him, put her hands on his shoulders, bracing. And then she smiled, warmly, confidently.
You can do it, her smile said.
“I really wish you could just talk to me,” Hex sighed.
*
Hex was being flirted with by a pretty, young Anatoscan, whether he realized it or not. He was laughing, in any case, and he’d been having a hard time of it of late, so Ace decided she could rescue him later. Besides which, she didn’t want him to overhear the conversation she was about to have.
“Professor,” she called as she strode up to her other friend on the alien boardwalk, slinging an arm around his shoulders as he haggled genteelly over the price of the local equivalent of a lemon ice.
“Ace! Would you care for a lemon ice?”
“They’re not lemon ices,” Ace said.
“Close enough.”
“They have tiny living organisms in them that made me sick for three days straight last time I had one.”
“Oh,” the Doctor frowned, as if recalling a particularly trying memory. “Oh yes. That wasn’t very pleasant for anybody concerned. Thank you,” he added with a disarming grin as the Anatoscan handed him his local equivalent of a lemon ice. He started licking at it as Ace led him away from the little cart.
“Was there something you wanted to talk about, Ace?”
“Yeah, actually, there was,” Ace tried not to look at the Doctor’s treat enviously. She knew what it would do to her insides if she got one. But it did look awfully good on this sunny, breezy day. “It’s about Hex.”
“What about him?”
“Has he said anything to you about any odd…dreams?”
“Noo,” answered the Doctor, frantically licking. His ice was melting already. “Why? He hasn’t been having nightmares, has he?”
“I don’t know,” Ace said. “Maybe. Wouldn’t surprise me. But he’s…well, I think he’s been having some odd dreams in the TARDIS.”
The Doctor took a moment to raise his eyebrows at her. “Only in the TARDIS?” he asked.
Ace nodded. “He mentioned something about a woman. And, well, I went to check on him a few nights ago-after that whole thing in France; I just wanted to make sure he was alright.” She tried not to sound defensive. “He was talking in his sleep. To somebody. Saying he wished they could talk.”
The Doctor frowned over his lemon ice. “What are you worried about, Ace?”
“What could be causing it? He said he only dreams like that on the TARDIS. She’s not-she’s not doing anything to him, is she?”
“Oh, really, Ace,” the Doctor laughed. “The TARDIS is not some malevolent force, you know she isn’t. She is a time machine with barely any consciousness at all.”
“It’s her subconscious I’m worried about,” Ace grumbled.
“You’re overreacting,” the Doctor said. “I promise if the TARDIS were doing any such thing, I would know about it. Alright? Now why don’t you go rescue Hex before he gets himself accidentally engaged to that lovely young lady over there?”
Ace looked over distractedly. “Have things moved along that far already? Oh, damn. Sorry, Professor, thanks for listening…”
The Doctor watched Ace run over to Hex and the young woman, watched Ace put her arm around Hex’s and smile sweetly and start tugging him away while the other girl looked disappointed and Hex looked confused. The Doctor frowned, his lemon ice melting forgotten in his hand.
*
Hex found himself making tea in the kitchen. “Why am I doing this again?” he asked her without turning around, knowing she would be seated at the table. “You don’t actually drink anything, do you?”
He set the sugar down and finally turned. She was small and brown this time, with long straight black hair and still those blue eyes, and she was resting her chin on her folded hands and grinning at him in amusement. He sat down across from her.
“It’s not nice to mock me, you know,” he told her. “I always get the feeling you’re laughing at me the way I would laugh at-a kitten or something. Aww, look at the poor little thing, doesn’t know what it’s got itself into! Is that what you’re doing?”
She dropped her hands and shook her head, but she was still grinning, and the kettle started boiling, and Hex jumped up to turn the stove off and brew the tea. “I wish I knew who you were,” he said. He stirred the sugar. “I wish I could tell Ace and the Doctor about you.”
She took his hand, and Hex dropped the spoon in surprise. He hadn’t heard her come up behind him. She swung his hand back and forth and looked at him.
Talk to the Doctor, she said, or seemed to say, the way she always did without ever actually speaking, and he wished that she would say more but she never did. He’ll understand. He usually does.
*
“Okay, Doctor.” Hex sat himself down in the chair across from the Doctor’s in the console room, bracing his hands on his legs. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay.”
“Yes, Hex?” The Doctor had been reading, a bowl of jelly babies on the little occasional table next to him, Ella Fitzgerald singing in the background. Ace was off in the swimming pool, and Hex knew she’d be there at least another twenty minutes and would then want a shower, so he was good on that score at least.
“I keep dreaming,” he said in a rush. He didn’t meet the Doctor’s eye. “Only in the TARDIS. It’s always the same woman, even if she looks different every time I meet her, with the same blue eyes and the same bare feet. We’re always in the TARDIS too. She talks to me without speaking, and am I going mad? Or does the TARDIS have a ghost?” He finally met the Doctor’s gaze. “Surely you know what-who-I’m talking about? Surely I’m not the only one who’s seen her?”
For a moment, the Doctor remained silent, thoughtful, one hand in his book so he wouldn’t lose his place. He looked-older, a little careworn but like he’d lived a good, filled life. Then he turned to the table and found a scrap of paper to act as a bookmark, setting the book on the table before turning back to Hex.
“You’re not the first, no, Mister Hex,” the Doctor said. “And you probably won’t be the last. You should feel honoured, though. You’re dreaming about the TARDIS herself.”
Hex blinked. Then he said, “Sorry?”
“The TARDIS, Hex!” The Doctor waved a hand around the console room, patted the arm of his comfortable chair. He smiled a little, fondly, then focused on Hex again. “She gets a little restless herself. And I think she likes you.”
Hex sat back in his chair. “She…gets inside my head?” he said. He didn’t like the sound of that. But-she’d always been nice. Nice in that creepy, in-your-head sort of way. Oh god. “Why?”
“Like I said,” the Doctor repeated, “I think she likes you. You can ask her to stop, if you like. She probably won’t take it amiss.”
“Probably? Oh great. And if she does?”
“Then you might have an extra-long search for the facilities,” the Doctor told him. “You don’t need to fear the old girl, Hex. She’s seen a lot of people come and go; some she likes to get to know a little more.”
“Ace didn’t know anything about it when I talked to her,” Hex said after a moment of trying to regroup his thoughts. “She’s never seen her, I guess.”
“Ace and the TARDIS communicate in…different ways.” The Doctor sounded a little amused and a little chagrined about that, but Hex was still too busy trying to wrap his head around his own worries to notice. “You really have nothing to worry about, Hex.” He patted the chair arm again. “She would never harm you.” He grinned. “As I say, it’s not everyone she’ll talk to.”
“Right.” Hex blew out a breath and sat up. “Okay. Thanks, Doc.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad you finally felt you could mention it.”
Hex tried not to flush, he really did. “Yeah, well,” he said, “I didn’t want you to think I was a nutter, did I?”
The Doctor nodded. Hex stood up. “I’m going to make a cup of tea,” he said. “You want a refill?”
“Yes, please,” the Doctor handed him his teacup and saucer. “And Hex? She really won’t take offence if you ask her to stop.”
“Right,” Hex said. “I’ll think about it.”
He went off to the kitchen to make the tea, and he thought about all the non-conversations he’d had with her over the past weeks and months. It was sort of like she was their fourth travelling companion, and he thought she liked hearing stories about what they did outside her walls.
He rested his hand on the counter, just for a moment, and felt it grow warm under his touch.
He smiled, and gave the counter a little surreptitious pat.
“Tea’s up, Doctor!” he yelled as he left the kitchen.
Author: aces
Fandom: Doctor Who BF audios
Characters: Hex, Ace, the Doctor, OC
Rating: all ages
Warnings: None
Word count: approx. 4,000 words
A/N: Only directly mentions “The Settling”; title borrowed from Neil Gaiman. I...don’t really know where this story came from, other than it was inspired by the quoted line below. Most of this was written well over a year ago; I finally was able to finish it this weekend.
Hex, in “The Settling”: I thought I saw lemon trees in the library…or maybe I dreamt them.
The first time he saw her, she sat curled up in a large, comfortable armchair in a study. Walls made of bookshelves, and an oversize desk, and everything was some rich, dark wood, mahogany or something. The far wall, behind her armchair and the desk, was all floor-to-ceiling windows, heavily draped. But the drapes were tied back, and light-sunset, with red tinting the gold-fell through, so she could read.
She was petite, elfin; and Hex didn’t quite know where those adjectives were coming from. Pale skin and black hair, she had both legs tucked up on the seat under her, and she was reading a thick, heavy book. A teenager, maybe, late teens. She looked up, maybe at some noise Hex made-he didn’t know how, or when, he had entered the room-and she smiled at him. A friendly smile, warm, but it didn’t invite him to sit down and have a chat, so Hex just smiled back and wandered around the room, looking at book titles while she went back to her book.
*
“Good morning, Hex!” the Doctor trilled as he swept out of the kitchen. “Bread on the table, tea in the pot, help yourself!”
Hex twisted around to look at the Doctor’s speedily retreating back. “’Bye?” he said and turned back. Ace grinned blearily at the table.
“He doesn’t sleep,” she explained. “Therefore, somehow, he is always cheerful. Except when he’s yelling at someone or something.” She sat back in her chair, gnawing on a piece of toast, oversized mug of tea on the table in front of her. “How’d you sleep?”
“Okay,” Hex said, slicing himself a couple pieces of bread. He moved to the counter to put them in the toaster. “Usually it takes me a couple nights to get used to a new place, you know? But I just fell right to sleep.”
“Good,” Ace said, draining her tea. Hex leant back against the counter, thinking about his dream from the night before. He didn’t really remember much, something about a girl reading in a study. It’d been really boring, he thought.
“McShane-” he started, and she looked up at him.
“Yeah?”
What was he going to say? Hey, ever had any odd dreams about an odd sort of girl reading in the TARDIS? Ace had only known him for a few weeks; he didn’t want her thinking he was a complete nutter. Anyway, he wasn’t even sure that room had been in the TARDIS. He hadn’t seen any windows so far in the time machine.
“Forget about it,” Hex said. “Where do you keep the jam around here?”
*
When he saw her next, she was an old woman sitting in a rocking chair in some sort of massive parlour or sitting room. Or maybe some sort of furniture show place, as all it held were chairs and little occasional tables, and Hex could easily have missed her if he hadn’t heard the creak of her rocking.
Wrinkled skin and grey-white hair; she wore a shawl and had bare feet and rocked to a steady, internal rhythm. She didn’t look at all like the petite, dark-haired waif-this woman was much taller and gaunter-but somehow Hex knew she was the same person.
He started picking his way toward her, edging between round or rectangular tables and bumping into loveseats and wing-backed chairs. “Hello?” he called. “Hello, can you hear me?”
She looked up at him and smiled; the same warm, friendly-but-remote smile. This time, though, Hex did not want to leave without some kind of answers. “Who are you?” he asked. “Please, just-what’s going on?”
She continued rocking, and she kept smiling at him, and she never said a word.
*
“Hex? What are you up to?” Ace asked.
“Just exploring,” Hex said. He was methodically opening doors all along the corridor. “This place is massive.”
“I know,” Ace nodded. “I’ve lived here with the Doctor for years and still find new rooms and places. Doesn’t help that she rearranges things sometimes.”
“She?”
“The TARDIS.” Hex raised his eyebrows, clicking shut another door (greenhouse, all roses-the second greenhouse he had found in the past hour, and he wondered how many more there were). Ace shrugged. “The Doctor always calls her ‘old girl’ and stuff. I’m just…following his lead, I guess.”
“You don’t always follow his lead,” Hex pointed out and opened another door. “Oh my god!”
“What?” Ace ducked under his arm for a peek. “It’s just a study, Hex.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hex said. “But I’ve been in here before.”
“So?” she said. “Like I said, the TARDIS moves stuff around sometimes. I think she gets bored. Or she likes playing with us.”
“No, I mean-” He started and then stopped. What did it matter? How could he explain it? Again-she didn’t need to think of him as completely mad. “Yeah,” he said instead. “I guess you’re right. It’s a bit…freaky, isn’t it?”
“Well, maybe,” Ace admitted. “Mostly, it’s just annoying sometimes. Especially when you’ve just woken up and really need to use the loo.”
Hex nodded and gently closed the door. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s find the Doctor. I can explore more later.”
*
The woman was a little girl next, long brown braids and inquiring blue eyes, skipping rope down one of the long, long aisles in the library. She jumped right past Hex, and he turned around to jog after her.
“Wait! Wait, please!” he called. “Who are you? Just tell me what’s going on!”
She stopped, and turned around, and Hex threw himself to a halt before he could run her over. There were lemon trees nearby; Hex could smell them, tangy and sharp. She looked up at him, pulled on his trouser leg with one hand, her rope clutched in the other. He knelt down, and she put a finger to her lips. And then she smiled.
*
“Well, Mister Hex!” The Doctor hopped onto a stool next to Hex’s, and Hex watched this maneuver with a suppressed grin. “Are you having fun this evening?”
“Very much, Doctor,” Hex told him politely and wondered when the Doctor would once and for all get around to dropping the “mister” from his name. “And yourself?”
“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said with relish, waving down one of the barmen. “I always enjoy a good pub quiz. Ace usually doesn’t have my enthusiasm for this sort of thing, but I think tonight she’s getting into the spirit of things.”
“I think she’s just getting into the spirits,” Hex grinned, looking to the other end of the bar where their friend seemed to be in the midst of a drinking contest. He thought she was winning.
“Yes, you could be right,” said the Doctor, also glancing over. He turned back to Hex. “And how are you doing? Are you settling down into your new life with us?”
Hex blinked; the Doctor didn’t ask that sort of question, he thought. “I’m fine; great, in fact,” he said. “You two certainly know how to keep busy, I have to say. I prefer the décor and company here to some of the places you’ve taken me…” He hesitated, frowning.
“But?” the Doctor asked.
But has anyone else who’s travelled with you had strange dreams in the TARDIS? Hex couldn’t ask. Only in the TARDIS, only when they’re sleeping; never while on a planet or out and about?
He couldn’t ask.
“Nah,” Hex said with an easy grin. “Forget it. My round, I think?”
*
“Look,” Hex said. She was a young woman now, his age maybe, tanned and blonde and sunning herself in the butterfly room, butterflies of all colors and sizes swirling around her and landing on her. “I just want to talk. Okay? Please? Why do you always-change? Who are you? Why do I keep dreaming about you?”
She opened her eyes-she always had blue eyes, Hex suddenly realized; everything else about her appearance might change, but she always had blue eyes and bare feet-and looked up at him and patted the ground next to her blanket. She smiled.
Hex sat down where she had indicated. “Does this mean we’re getting somewhere?” he asked. “Will you talk to me now?”
She put a hand on his cheek, and she smiled again, and she shook her head.
*
“Isn’t this great?!” Ace yelled over the crashing waves. “I love this place!”
“I think I’m going to be sick!” Hex called back, struggling to stay upright. He and Ace were “surfing,” or the local equivalent, which involved manipulating an invisible body shield over the water. Ace had gotten the hang of it almost immediately. Hex had not.
He wobbled into the beach and collapsed onto his knees, his fingers sinking and digging into the sand. Ace landed next to him gracefully, flushed and laughing.
“I am not going out into that again,” Hex declared.
“Landlubber,” Ace teased.
“So what if I prefer steady ground under my feet?” he retorted. “At least I don’t look like a-a startled mermaid.”
“Oh, I look like a mermaid, do I?” Ace said, and Hex groaned, flopping full-length into the beach. Ace laughed and scooped a handful of sand over his back.
“Leave off,” Hex muttered, spitting sand out of his mouth and flipping himself around. He stared up at the sky, a bright and startling pinkish-yellow, and then he glanced over at Ace, sprawled out next to him and sunning herself. He frowned, a stray memory tugging at him of a young blonde woman. “Ace?” he asked.
“Mm?” She sounded drowsy, and her eyes were closed. He thought about telling her she’d burn if she stayed like that, but he didn’t actually know if this planet had UV radiation or not. He should ask the Doctor.
“Never mind,” Hex sighed, but she was already asleep.
*
Hex had never been here, he was sure; he had seen a room of statues, while waking, and another set of rooms of paintings, but this room contained only pencil drawings. She stood in front of one, studying it, skin the color of plums and dress the color of twilight.
He joined her by the drawing and also looked at it. A forest, maybe, or maybe it was people who looked like trees; Hex couldn’t really tell. “Can you talk?” he asked, not even looking over at her. “Do you even know how to?”
She slipped her hand into his and turned him to face her. Her eyes were still that vivid blue, and her smile was warm and friendly. Not with any words you could understand, she seemed to say, and Hex involuntarily shivered.
*
“Dammit, Hex, answer me!” Hex heard Ace’s voice crackling over the radio lying next to him, and he grabbed it and flipped it to send before his conscious brain caught up with him.
“Here,” he gasped. “Sorry about that. Stunned.”
“Christ,” he heard her breathe out. “Okay, stay put, I’ll come to you.”
“Where’s the Doctor?” Hex sat up, looking around at the bombed-out wasteland around him. There had been people here before, people and buildings and life. “Ace, where’s the Doctor?”
“Here,” the little Time Lord said over Hex’s shoulder, and Hex jumped and turned and sagged with relief, and then Ace was there too, hugging the Doctor and punching Hex on the shoulder, and Hex grinned at them both and then possibly passed out again.
When he woke up later, in a makeshift hospital surrounded by other patients, Ace was sitting at his bedside while the Doctor whirled around looking at people and prescribing things. “I didn’t think he was a medical doctor,” Hex said, pushing himself up on his elbows and feeling guilty. He should be helping; he had the training.
Ace was giving him an odd look. “You always talk in your dreams, Schofield?”
Hex froze, his first thought going back to the woman in the TARDIS. “Why?” he stalled.
“You were talking about your game scores,” she said, and he slumped back and laughed in relief.
“Boring dreams, yeah?” he said with a shrug. “Hey now, what’d you do with my clothes? I can’t go around nursing people dressed in a blanket, can I?”
*
He cried in her arms one night, soon after Drogheda and Wexford and weeks spent in Oliver Cromwell’s company, thinking his friends were dead and he could never go home again. She was middle-aged this time, well-preserved and with prominent cheekbones, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, still barefoot. He had found her in somebody’s old bedroom, sitting cross-legged on a dusty sofa, and he had sat down next to her.
“I,” he had started and stopped. “Oh g-no. I.”
And then he had turned in to her, and she had pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around him, and he had cried.
*
“Ace,” Hex said as soon as the Doctor left the table to play with the pigeons by the fountain. 1983 New York City, outdoor café, scorching summer. Hex found the heat unnatural. Ace wore a pair of mirror shades and a tank top.
“Yeah, Hex?” she asked, relaxed in her seat, people-watching behind the shades. “What’s up?”
“This is going to sound really weird,” he started and Ace’s head turned to him, giving him her full attention. His face was already flushed from the heat, though, so she couldn’t see him blush, and he really wished he could just bloody well stop blushing every time she focused her attention so completely on him. “But, well, do you ever have any odd dreams in the TARDIS?”
“Odd dreams? What d’you mean?”
“I mean about being in the TARDIS. With…with a woman.”
Her eyebrows raised above her shades, and Hex had a feeling his face had somehow against all the odds managed to turn even redder.
“Just hanging about,” he went on desperately. “Around. I mean…oh, sod it.”
Ace was frowning. “No, Hex,” she said. “I have not had any strange dreams involving women hanging about the TARDIS. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” Hex sighed, defeated. “Forget it. Want to go extricate the Doctor from that fountain now before the police get involved?”
*
“I don’t get it,” he said as he walked along a grassy path in a formal English garden with her. She wore the body of an Asian woman in some Victorian dress, narrow-bustled and frilled and laced to the max, and she walked beside him, her arm nestled into his. “I just don’t understand how things can change so quickly.”
She tilted her head, a stray black curl falling out of its place under her hat. “I’m afraid,” Hex explained, and her hand squeezed in comfort and sympathy. “I’m so afraid,” he whispered.
They came to the end of the path, green topiary barring their way. She turned to him, put her hands on his shoulders, bracing. And then she smiled, warmly, confidently.
You can do it, her smile said.
“I really wish you could just talk to me,” Hex sighed.
*
Hex was being flirted with by a pretty, young Anatoscan, whether he realized it or not. He was laughing, in any case, and he’d been having a hard time of it of late, so Ace decided she could rescue him later. Besides which, she didn’t want him to overhear the conversation she was about to have.
“Professor,” she called as she strode up to her other friend on the alien boardwalk, slinging an arm around his shoulders as he haggled genteelly over the price of the local equivalent of a lemon ice.
“Ace! Would you care for a lemon ice?”
“They’re not lemon ices,” Ace said.
“Close enough.”
“They have tiny living organisms in them that made me sick for three days straight last time I had one.”
“Oh,” the Doctor frowned, as if recalling a particularly trying memory. “Oh yes. That wasn’t very pleasant for anybody concerned. Thank you,” he added with a disarming grin as the Anatoscan handed him his local equivalent of a lemon ice. He started licking at it as Ace led him away from the little cart.
“Was there something you wanted to talk about, Ace?”
“Yeah, actually, there was,” Ace tried not to look at the Doctor’s treat enviously. She knew what it would do to her insides if she got one. But it did look awfully good on this sunny, breezy day. “It’s about Hex.”
“What about him?”
“Has he said anything to you about any odd…dreams?”
“Noo,” answered the Doctor, frantically licking. His ice was melting already. “Why? He hasn’t been having nightmares, has he?”
“I don’t know,” Ace said. “Maybe. Wouldn’t surprise me. But he’s…well, I think he’s been having some odd dreams in the TARDIS.”
The Doctor took a moment to raise his eyebrows at her. “Only in the TARDIS?” he asked.
Ace nodded. “He mentioned something about a woman. And, well, I went to check on him a few nights ago-after that whole thing in France; I just wanted to make sure he was alright.” She tried not to sound defensive. “He was talking in his sleep. To somebody. Saying he wished they could talk.”
The Doctor frowned over his lemon ice. “What are you worried about, Ace?”
“What could be causing it? He said he only dreams like that on the TARDIS. She’s not-she’s not doing anything to him, is she?”
“Oh, really, Ace,” the Doctor laughed. “The TARDIS is not some malevolent force, you know she isn’t. She is a time machine with barely any consciousness at all.”
“It’s her subconscious I’m worried about,” Ace grumbled.
“You’re overreacting,” the Doctor said. “I promise if the TARDIS were doing any such thing, I would know about it. Alright? Now why don’t you go rescue Hex before he gets himself accidentally engaged to that lovely young lady over there?”
Ace looked over distractedly. “Have things moved along that far already? Oh, damn. Sorry, Professor, thanks for listening…”
The Doctor watched Ace run over to Hex and the young woman, watched Ace put her arm around Hex’s and smile sweetly and start tugging him away while the other girl looked disappointed and Hex looked confused. The Doctor frowned, his lemon ice melting forgotten in his hand.
*
Hex found himself making tea in the kitchen. “Why am I doing this again?” he asked her without turning around, knowing she would be seated at the table. “You don’t actually drink anything, do you?”
He set the sugar down and finally turned. She was small and brown this time, with long straight black hair and still those blue eyes, and she was resting her chin on her folded hands and grinning at him in amusement. He sat down across from her.
“It’s not nice to mock me, you know,” he told her. “I always get the feeling you’re laughing at me the way I would laugh at-a kitten or something. Aww, look at the poor little thing, doesn’t know what it’s got itself into! Is that what you’re doing?”
She dropped her hands and shook her head, but she was still grinning, and the kettle started boiling, and Hex jumped up to turn the stove off and brew the tea. “I wish I knew who you were,” he said. He stirred the sugar. “I wish I could tell Ace and the Doctor about you.”
She took his hand, and Hex dropped the spoon in surprise. He hadn’t heard her come up behind him. She swung his hand back and forth and looked at him.
Talk to the Doctor, she said, or seemed to say, the way she always did without ever actually speaking, and he wished that she would say more but she never did. He’ll understand. He usually does.
*
“Okay, Doctor.” Hex sat himself down in the chair across from the Doctor’s in the console room, bracing his hands on his legs. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay.”
“Yes, Hex?” The Doctor had been reading, a bowl of jelly babies on the little occasional table next to him, Ella Fitzgerald singing in the background. Ace was off in the swimming pool, and Hex knew she’d be there at least another twenty minutes and would then want a shower, so he was good on that score at least.
“I keep dreaming,” he said in a rush. He didn’t meet the Doctor’s eye. “Only in the TARDIS. It’s always the same woman, even if she looks different every time I meet her, with the same blue eyes and the same bare feet. We’re always in the TARDIS too. She talks to me without speaking, and am I going mad? Or does the TARDIS have a ghost?” He finally met the Doctor’s gaze. “Surely you know what-who-I’m talking about? Surely I’m not the only one who’s seen her?”
For a moment, the Doctor remained silent, thoughtful, one hand in his book so he wouldn’t lose his place. He looked-older, a little careworn but like he’d lived a good, filled life. Then he turned to the table and found a scrap of paper to act as a bookmark, setting the book on the table before turning back to Hex.
“You’re not the first, no, Mister Hex,” the Doctor said. “And you probably won’t be the last. You should feel honoured, though. You’re dreaming about the TARDIS herself.”
Hex blinked. Then he said, “Sorry?”
“The TARDIS, Hex!” The Doctor waved a hand around the console room, patted the arm of his comfortable chair. He smiled a little, fondly, then focused on Hex again. “She gets a little restless herself. And I think she likes you.”
Hex sat back in his chair. “She…gets inside my head?” he said. He didn’t like the sound of that. But-she’d always been nice. Nice in that creepy, in-your-head sort of way. Oh god. “Why?”
“Like I said,” the Doctor repeated, “I think she likes you. You can ask her to stop, if you like. She probably won’t take it amiss.”
“Probably? Oh great. And if she does?”
“Then you might have an extra-long search for the facilities,” the Doctor told him. “You don’t need to fear the old girl, Hex. She’s seen a lot of people come and go; some she likes to get to know a little more.”
“Ace didn’t know anything about it when I talked to her,” Hex said after a moment of trying to regroup his thoughts. “She’s never seen her, I guess.”
“Ace and the TARDIS communicate in…different ways.” The Doctor sounded a little amused and a little chagrined about that, but Hex was still too busy trying to wrap his head around his own worries to notice. “You really have nothing to worry about, Hex.” He patted the chair arm again. “She would never harm you.” He grinned. “As I say, it’s not everyone she’ll talk to.”
“Right.” Hex blew out a breath and sat up. “Okay. Thanks, Doc.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad you finally felt you could mention it.”
Hex tried not to flush, he really did. “Yeah, well,” he said, “I didn’t want you to think I was a nutter, did I?”
The Doctor nodded. Hex stood up. “I’m going to make a cup of tea,” he said. “You want a refill?”
“Yes, please,” the Doctor handed him his teacup and saucer. “And Hex? She really won’t take offence if you ask her to stop.”
“Right,” Hex said. “I’ll think about it.”
He went off to the kitchen to make the tea, and he thought about all the non-conversations he’d had with her over the past weeks and months. It was sort of like she was their fourth travelling companion, and he thought she liked hearing stories about what they did outside her walls.
He rested his hand on the counter, just for a moment, and felt it grow warm under his touch.
He smiled, and gave the counter a little surreptitious pat.
“Tea’s up, Doctor!” he yelled as he left the kitchen.