I was dreaming of him again.

I found myself looking forward to going to sleep every night, and not just because I was exhausted all the time.

Before I came to Pete's World, which we had come to refer to the parallel universe that my mother, Mickey, and I ended up in as, I never really dreamed much. Not since I was a small kid, anyway. And still, it didn't happen every night. But when I did dream, he was there. The Doctor. My Doctor.

It wasn't like before. When he'd been trying to direct me to go to Bad Wolf Bay so that we could say goodbye, he'd always been speaking. Or at least, trying to. The communication in the dreams was shaky. It had been hard to differentiate between what my head was coming up with and what was a message from him. A lot of the time, he'd be somewhere in my peripheral vision just mouthing words, and no sound would come out. As time progressed, he seemed to master the speaking part. But it was still difficult to direct myself in the dream in order to focus on him, which is why it had taken so long for me to understand his message.

But this. This was nothing like before. It started about a week after we'd said goodbye on what was the absolute worst day of my life. These new dreams were a mixture of inexplicable scenes - me on a beach, which always left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, or somewhere in a forest where the trees were a shimmery silver that glittered in the suns' light. Always such fantastic locations. I could never have imagined them on my own. That was my first indicator that it wasn't a dream of my own mind's design.

But he never spoke. He was just a looming presence, watching me. I couldn't interact with him. But it wasn't like before, when he seemed to be unable to speak. It was just that he no longer seemed to have anything to say. He just watched me. You'd think that it would make me uncomfortable, but it didn't. It was just the Doctor, after all.

Every morning after a dream, I woke feeling more tired than when I'd gone to sleep. That was the downside to the wonderful dreams - they weren't very restful.

-oOo-

"I'm still dreaming of him," I confessed to Mickey rather abruptly one night.

"You weren't listening to me," he retorted.

"I was!"

Mickey's expression darkened, and I immediately felt guilty. Mickey had that effect on me, lately. Here in this new universe, it was obvious he had thought we would try to work on repairing our relationship. I don't think he realized that I wasn't ready for that. I didn't really believe we could ever go back to the way we were - easy, and comfortable. Still, what was my other option? To continue to moon over some man in another universe who I would never see again? And so Mickey and I fell into a strange, new kind of relationship. He'd changed from the dopey boy I'd left behind when I'd jumped into the TARDIS all those years back. He'd grown up. He deserved better than me. He always had. Because Mickey was the good sort - the kind of person who wouldn't think of being with a person who cared about him as 'settling'. The sort who wouldn't stay with someone when he was in love with someone else.

"Well, alright. You're dreaming of 'im, then. Is it like before? Has he got some kind of map to give you, or something?" Mickey asked. "Some way to get you back?"

"I don't think I can ever go back, " I admitted. It was painful to say outloud. "But he's there. I think he's real. S'not just in my head. He's really there, he's just not speaking."

"Well, maybe he just wants to check up on you. Make sure you're not dead."

"That doesn't sound like him."

"Yeah, well, I don't know how his alien-brain functions. Seriously, though, Rose. How do you know it's not just a dream this time? I mean, since when has the Doctor done something for no reason? Why would he just chill in your dreams if he had no purpose in being there?"

He was right, of course. But a small part of me liked to think that maybe the Doctor was doing this solely because he missed me. A far-fetched notion, for sure. But I clung to the idea of it...The possibilities of what that would mean.

"I don't know. Just - just go on with what you were sayin'. It's not important. And don't tell mum. She's stressed enough as it is, what with the baby 'n all."

"I wouldn't, anyway. That's the last thing Jackie wants to hear. I think she'd be happy to imagine that her life had always been this way," Mickey said with a chuckle. And it was true. My mum had taken to this new life better than any of us. She seemed to be born for being the wealthy wife of a businessman.

But as it turned out, Mickey didn't have to tell mum, after all.

A/N. I'm actually planning on this being a full-length fic. Though, I'm not entirely sure which direction I'm taking it, so updates may be infrequent. Please review if you liked it (or even if you didn't)! Thank you!