The Doctor had bad dreams. The Doctor had always had bad dreams. Ever since he was a little boy on Gallifrey, he'd been haunted by nightmares. Nightmares of loss. Nightmares of emptiness. Nightmares of burning.
None of them made sense at first. Then there was a button- a big red button that must never ever be pressed- and he pressed it.
(That's the kind of man he always is- never can resist a big red button.)
Now it all makes too much sense, and if he never had to sleep, he wouldn't. But even Time Lords must rest.
It never seems to help.
He stands on a plain. The red grass ripples in the wind as he gazes upon the Citadel. Everything is so beautiful and perfect- untouched.
It will not remain so. He knows this dream.
Sure enough, the button appears. A voice- one he hears every time and recognizes but can never quite place- whispers, "Choose."
He presses the button, and the burning begins.
Everything is fire. The dome, the trees, the mountains, the grass- the planet itself is aflame, and he can do nothing. Nothing but watch. (He's done enough.) The ground beneath his feet catches fire, but he will not burn. He is the only thing that does not burn here.
"So this is how it happens."
What?
The Doctor spins around in shock.
Behind him sits the jump seat from his TARDIS control room, and positioned there is Rose Tyler.
This isn't how the dream goes.
"You're very calm," Rose observes. "It's almost like you're numb to it... But we both know that's not it. Right, Doctor?"
"You're... You're not supposed to be here," the Doctor manages.
Rose shrugs. "Too bad. I've never been good at doing what I was supposed to do. Always wandering off... I never liked people telling me what to do."
"But this is my dream," the Doctor protests, "and it's not the one of you. That one will come later."
Rose tuts and shakes her head in an almost pitying fashion. "Oh Doctor," she whispers. "All your dreams are of the same thing."
The Doctor blinks in confusion. "Er... No, they aren't."
"My brilliant, fantastic Doctor," she says, voice weighed down with sadness. "Can't you see it?"
And suddenly, they aren't on his burning planet. Instead, she is gone, and he is left staring at a wall in blank white room.
"Loss, Doctor." Rose's voice floats through the air, disembodied and faint. "You dream of what you've lost, and why you must lose all the things you care about."
The Doctor steps forward, placing a cold, shuddering hand against the colder surface. "Please let me wake up," he whispers. "I don't want to do this. Make it stop! Please!" He tears his hand away as the whole room begins to quake. He can feel the fires approaching fast, his blazing trail of death and destruction spreading across the cosmos. The Oncoming Storm. "I don't want to go through this again!"
"But you have to understand," Rose insists, and the wall is gone and she is there, standing in front of him. Nothing else is there but them. "You need to understand why you can't ever love anything. Not again. Not anymore."
The Doctor stares at her in shock and disbelief. "What are you saying? Of course I can love! It's the only thing no one can take away from me! You can't... Why can't I love?"
Rose frowns in confusion. "Don't you know?" she asks, beautiful eyes dark and wide and earnest. "Everything you touch... Everything you love..." She pulls down the the collar of her shirt, revealing the gaping, blackened, dripping hole where her heart once was. "It all breaks."
His own hearts want to jump out of his chest. "No," he whimpers. "No, you can't."
"But they do," Rose continues. "There are few constants in the universe. Everything must come to dust... And what you love must break. Your friends. Your planet. Your lovers." A tear runs from the corner of her eyes, but it's red and smells of iron and it's not a tear at all. "Me. All that you love must break."
"But you aren't broken!" he cries desperately, hoping to find some solace against this onslaught. "You have a me that loves you and can be with you. You're happy!"
"Am I?" she demands harshly, gaze sharpening into a glare. It is the first time this dream Rose has looked even remotely angry, and it is terrifying. "Who are you to say if I'm happy? How would you know?"
The Doctor falters. "He- He's me, only human. He needs someone to be there for him, to stop him. And he can love you better than I ever will.
Rose smiles, and there is blood staining her teeth. Tiny rivulets of the stuff carve their way down her face. "And isn't it strange," she whispers, voice carrying in the unnatural silence surrounding them, "that you send the one person you love above all the others away with a human you- a man who committed genocide, despite having the memories of destroying Gallifrey, and showed hardly any remorse and would probably do it again if he had to- instead of keeping her by your side? Because even you don't trust yourself to love Rose Tyler without ripping her to shreds."
The Doctor stares at this macabre image of the woman he loves, shaking his head in denial of her cutting words. "You aren't Rose," he manages, pushing the words out of his throat. "A-and you aren't me, either. Who... What are you?"
Her lip curls in a predatory grin. "Isn't it obvious, Doctor?" the Rose-that-isn't-really-Rose hisses out of a mouth painted with blood. Her eyes flash a brilliant gold. "I am the Bad Wolf."
The Doctor wakes up shivering. He always does.
It's worse this time, though. He can't stop shaking. His hands quiver, and his arms refuse to support him when he tries to sit up. He lies in bed, staring at the blue canopy above him embroidered with intricate gold designs. Circular Gallifreyan, the dead language of a lost species. In the spiraling letters, he sees the Time Vortex being drawn out of her- out of Rose- and inside him. He let it all back into the TARDIS... but maybe there was a little bit that remained. Bad Wolf stuck around and managed to sneak into his subconscious, playing on his worst fears and creating the ultimate nightmare. Why? He didn't know. Maybe because it still felt a connection to Rose, and that was what Rose wanted him to know- that she wasn't truly happy. As if he could do a thing about it now.
You need to understand... All that you love must break.
"If I can't love," the Doctor whispers aloud to no one, "what else is there?"