Memories and Madness
By: Sweet Irony (Kimberly)
Rated: T (may change)
Prologue
Outside of Cardiff, Parallel Universe
May 25, 2011
As a warm breeze hit the face of a young woman in her twenties, she sighed contentedly. Her blonde hair blew easily around her peach face, her gray-brown eyes closed as the wind brought a smile to her face. In her mind, images danced in a mirage of distant memories, dreams she couldn't quite place.
"Rose!" Jackie called her daughter from the back doorway of a small red-brick house. Rose, sitting on a stool in the garden among her namesake, jolted from her meditation at her mother's voice and turned to the older blonde. "Come inside, darling. It's getting cold outside, and Grace is starting to fret."
"Jus' a moment, Mum," she replied with a sigh- this time out of frustration. She loved her mum, she really did, but there was only so much of her one could take at a time. It was a wonder her father was still around for all the screeching that could be heard from a mile away. Then again, Jackie never did seem to be a quite one, whether as a mother or a wife.
Turning back to the garden, Rose closed her eyes as she heard her mother huff and close the door behind her, causing a smile to pass over Rose's face. Behind her lids, a whole different world awaited, so real and yet so strange. Images of a little blue box she called a "TARDIS," with an immense interior, wafted through her senses. There, she met a man by the name of "Doctor."
Strange name, that was. Doctor. Not Doctor Smith or Doctor Claude or Doctor Henry, like her own doctors. No. Just the Doctor. He seemed to lack any other name, and he responded to "Doctor" when she called out to him in her dreams, as if he were a real man. As if he weren't simply a figment of her imagination, as her family and doctors insisted he was.
Figment or not, he was hers. He was her Doctor, and she loved him and her adventures with him. Whenever she closed her eyes and allowed herself the time, she imagined the most intense travels with him, through time and space. She encountered beings from other worlds- Slitheen, Sycorax, Cybermen, Dalek. With each new being came new adventures, new dangers, new excitement. Perhaps he was simply the product of an over-active imagination with months to create, but they still felt so real to her. Bugger off, she'd think if Mickey told her she was too old for imaginary friends. He was her Doctor, she was his Rose. And she was happy.
"Mum!" Once again, her eyes flew open at the sudden sound, a voice emitted from a young girl, only 5 years in age. She looked down into the brilliant brown orbs and smiled, once more, at her own daughter, her own flesh and blood. With a gorgeous mop of silky brown hair that flowed to her shoulders, and a peachy face that nearly matched her own, Jade Grace Tyler- better known as Grace- grinned up at her mother in excitement. "Guess what," she demanded.
"Gran said it's time for me to come inside?" Rose asked with a raised brow.
"No, silly," Grace responded. Then, she grimaced slightly, her eyes squinting slightly. "Well, yeah, that too. But that's not what I came out to tell you!"
"What, then?" Rose asked, her south British accent ever-evident, even after months spent in a coma.
A young genius, Grace never ceased to amuse- and amaze- her mother, and this was no exception. "I found something. I wanna show you!" Grabbing her hand in her little palms, Grace led her mother off the bench, beyond the garden, and into the field next to the house. Taking care to bend down enough so her daughter could drag her correctly, Rose followed Grace with all the deliberate speed she could muster after a long day at work.
"Grace, sweetie, slow down. S'all right to let us walk, isn't it?"
"No, mummy, you'll want to see this." She led Rose beyond the field and into the woods, darting around trees and skipping over low bushes, slowing down as she reached a clearing. Pointing a stubby, nail-bitten finger at a hunk of metal, she whispered, "Look what I found!"
Climbing over the bushes and bending over a fallen tree, Rose saw what Grace had been pointing at and nearly fainted. There, beneath the brush and a full moon, sat a metal body, nearly 3 feet in height, surrounded by little metal bulbs protruding from its somewhat spherical base and two tubes sticking out from its head. Rose was looking straight into the eye of a torment from her very dreams.
"Dalek," Grace whispered urgently, excitement coursing through her veins. "He's a Dalek. Isn't he beau'iful?"
Oi, there you have it. Chapter numero un. My first-ever multi-chapter fic. Since I still have school for three more weeks, it's unlikely I'll get around to updating this week or possibly the next, but I assure you I'll update soon. I know how annoying it is to read a story, want more, and never have another update from the author. Assuming of course, that you all like this story (I certainly hope so!). I love comments and critiques, though, so feel free to put your two cents in!
Quote of the day: "You can observe a lot just by watching."-- Yogi Berra