Ever since he looked at me and told me to run, it's all been a blur. A mixture of life and death, not knowing if the things I do are in my dreams or in reality, or if the Doctor was simply a dream. I'm sitting in my room on the Tardis, quietly writing in a little book while the machine purred quietly. She was probably reading everything I wrote, but I knew that she would keep a secret. She has hundreds of secrets, she told me, in lonely nights when the Doctor was busy, and I was supposed to be sleeping. An ear to a mouth, in the middle of the night, when silence fell and swallowed me in blackness. I eventually fell asleep.
I dreamed of amazing places, full of creatures that I never imagined would exist, but here it would be quite possible. We followed an icy asteroid as it tumbled aimlessly through the sky, and wherever it led us we would get out. This planet had a violet sky, with a moon that was large and gloaming. Snow covered the ground, but it was warm, and felt like a warm duvet. We walked through it, jokingly throwing snowballs at each-other. Laughing, I fell into his arms. Suddenly tired, we slept.
Waking up with a start, I looked around. I was in my room, full of pictures of the places we'd been and seen. There was no planet with a violet sky. Of course there wasn't, I scolded myself. It was a dream. But it was a good one, I lamented, before climbing out of bed. Above me I could see a supernova, captured from dreams and somehow placed in my ceiling. It put peace in my mind, and I smiled.
I wandered out into the hallway, dressing gown wrapped around my pink pajamas, feet shoved into fluffy slippers. The console room was in front of me, and in it I found a dozing Doctor. I had to laugh at him, and his "Superior Biology". The Tardis hushed me, and I complied. She told me that the Doctor had parked us in the vortex, and that he had been up for nights 'fixing' her. I asked her if anything was wrong with him, and she stopped communicating with me.
My stomach rumbled, and I headed back into the hallway looking for the kitchen. It popped up, and inside I found bread, jam and a toaster. The toast popped up eventually with a little ding, and I smiled, spreading appleberry jam over the piece, before sitting down at a little table and thinking everything over. If only I could get into the Doctors head. But I knew that even if I could, I wouldn't. He had secrets, and I didn't want to find them. I want to still be able to stay with him without feeling terrified.
The Doctor eventually woke up, and I knew because I heard him groan. I popped my head out the door to see him stumbling aimlessly down the hallway, his hands on the wall to keep him steady. "You okay, Doctor?" I asked, walking over to him. He looked at me with a fear in his eyes that I had never seen. "I'm... fi..." he started to say, before keeling over completely.
I refused to scream, although every cell in my body was begging me to do. He was lying on the ground, shaking occasionally but completely unconscious. Not knowing what to do, I called at the Tardis. "Help me! Help me! I don't know what to do!" I yelled at her, tears starting to pour down my face. She hummed, and eventually the medical bay door was behind me.
I covered him with my pink, fluffy dressing gown. I quickly suppressed a smile, knowing that it wasn't a time to laugh at what he was wearing. Walking into the medical bay, I felt completely overwhelmed. There were bags of multicolored liquid, and chrome machines that were whirring quietly, and beds with white sheets and strange, 42nd century medical tools that I had never seen before. I glanced around urgently, until my eyes rested on the one thing that I really needed at the moment- a stretcher.
I wheeled it out to the Doctor, who was lying on the ground, even more pale than the last time I looked at him. His skin felt colder than usual, almost frozen, in fact. The dressing gown wasn't doing its job. I found a lever on the base of the stretcher, and found that it dropped the bit he lies on right to the ground. I grinned, and gently dragged him onto it. He didn't stir.
We entered the medical bay. I didn't know where to put the stretcher, until I noticed a space that looked like it would fit. The Tardis hummed her agreement, and that was when I realized she was doing her best to help me. A stethoscope was draped around the end of the stretcher, so I put it on. Both hearts were working. That's a good thing, right? The Tardis hummed louder, almost impatiently. She was trying to catch my attention. I turned around, and noticed a bag of fluid that stood out from the rest. It was sort of shiny, and silvery. I walked over to it, looking a little bit lost as to what to do with it. Thank goodness for the instructions on it.
"Warning, only use this product in DIRE situations" was the first thing it said, in the Doctors handwriting. I looked over at the Doctor, and knew that this was a dire situation.
"Inject this into the patients arm" was the next thing. I found a cord hanging beside the bag, and next to it was an array of needles. I found one that had a small cylinder attached to it, and screwed it in.
"The patient will wake up after around four hours. The patient will probably dream vividly and hallucinate during these four hours."
I had never thought of the Doctor dreaming.
"And Rose, stay by my side. I'll be afraid. All I need from you is you to be there. I'll explain once I'm better"
I felt a tear slip down my cheek. What if he never got better?
I wheeled the bag of liquid towards him. He had left a mark on his skin, just a small blue dot on his arm. I carefully injected the needle into his arm. He let out a high pitched whine. I grabbed the stethoscope. His hearts were still working. Pulling up a chair beside him, I held his hand. This was going to be a long four hours.
Just when I started to doze off, his first nightmare began. He moved his head side to side, nothing else. "No no no no no no no" he was muttering. "Shhh, Doctor, it's only a dream" I told him reassuringly, rubbing my thumb in circles around his hand. He didn't seem to notice, but kept repeating the word "No" over and over. Eventually I asked him. "What's wrong, Doctor" I murmured steadily. He stopped moving, and said "Rose just left me. She left me, and I won't get her back." A little tear seemed to drip out from his eyes. "I'm here" I told him, squeezing his hand. He fell silent, and stopped moving. I wasn't sure whether to smile or cry. "I'll always be here for you, Doctor. Forever".
A few minutes later, he started to have another dream. His arms kept rising up, as if to meet someone for a hug. I tried to hold them down, but he freaked out when I did, so I let him. I felt his forehead. It was a little warmer then last time, so I guessed the silver stuff was working. Suddenly he grasped my head between his hands. I gasped, but not too loudly, as to not alarm him. I felt the world going, and suddenly I was in his mind.
His mind was a rainbow of colours that I never knew existed. I could hear his voice all around me, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. I tried to escape, I really did, but I didn't know how, and every time I tried to wake up he would bring me back in. So instead of escaping, I tried to shut my eyes. I didn't want to know his secrets, because I guessed that they would hurt and scare me. But something pried my eyes open, and held them. I looked down. I wasn't a body. There was a mirror in front of me, but when I looked at it I couldn't see a reflection. I had disappeared in the Doctor's mind.
I sort of floated around in it, occasionally being knocked around by a stray passing thought. occasionally I heard a passing thought. "Allon-sy. What a strange term. Allon-sy. I quite like it. Allon-sy!". "I wonder if I accidentally invented bananas. That would be why I love them so much." "Roses are pink, Roses are yellow, and my rose is the best, that's why I say hello" If I had a body, I would have blushed.
I kept on floating. The thoughts seemed to get deeper, and a little bit darker. I felt afraid, but knew the Doctor wouldn't try to hurt me while I was in his mind. He wouldn't try to hurt me at all. "If only had been able to show Rose Gallifrey" I sigh a little, wondering if I should go deeper. Ahead of me, I saw a golden light. I can't seem to remember it, but I know it's special. "Just a bit further" I murmured.
The tendrils of light grabbed my bodiless mass. They pulled me towards it. I didn't resist, I knew the Doctor had left this for me. I relaxed, feeling the warmth like a comforting hug. I was glowing, a beautiful gold colour that would be unimaginable to anyone who hadn't seen it. I entered the glowing orb, at peace and relaxed.
Light was completely surrounding me. It filled every crack in my body, ever scar in my heart. The Doctor, or the version of him in his mind, was sitting face to face with me. Tears were streaming freely down his face, and I tried to walk towards him. I couldn't, and he held his hand out to me, to tell me to stop trying. I stopped, and watched him. His eyes weren't brown, they were glowing. "This is the story of my life" he told me. That was the one thing I didn't want to find- but maybe he wanted me to find it. "Don't speak" he told me as I opened my mouth to protest.
" My mother and father died when their Tardis crashed while they were having some down time. I was eleven, my younger sister Tash seven and my older brother Starfyre was thirteen. My name was Zephyr. Only my parents called me that, everybody else called me Zac. When they died, we were moved to an orphanage. It wasn't a bad one, like on Earth sometimes. They fed us well, and they taught us how to be a Time Lord. It was sort of like boarding school. A boy named Brian used to chase me with is gang. I was the smallest child there, a little scrawny kid with strange sticky-up hair and grazed knees, so of course they would pick on me. But it made me scared, not brave. And people didn't really care, apart from Tash and Starfyre. They used to hold me while I cried."
Rose watched his face, tears streaming down it. She started to say something, but he shushed her. "When Starfyre was eighteen, he moved into a little hut near the orphanage. Tash and I went with him, but we still had to go to school there. Starfyre wanted to grow a Tardis for us, so we could run away in it forever, and see the stars. But he didn't really know how. None of us did, not really. He locked himself in a little room in the hut, drowning himself in books. He didn't eat, and he didn't sleep. He said he didn't need to sleep, but I think that he did. His eyes grew bloodshot and older than his time. He started to slip away, slowly but surely. Tash was twelve at the time. We moved her back to the orphanage, while I tried to help Starfyre. But he wasn't really there anymore. In fact, he never was himself after our parents death. None of us were, but especially not Starfyre. He drowned himself in drink, and eventually died. It wasn't of poisoning, or of starvation, but I think it was because he simply wanted to. "
The Doctors voice shuddered a little as he spoke, but he was determined to tell Rose everything. "I was sixteen, with a twelve year old sister and nobody to turn to. We clung to each-other through the rest of our time at the orphanage. I eventually moved to the hut, but stayed close. She was young and pretty, raven black hair down to her waist, with eyes that glowed a magnificent green. People liked her, and she got on fine in life. At the age of sixteen, she ran away with a boy she met over the fence. He was eighteen, and handsome. He promised me he would look after her. I was twenty, and trying to find myself. I still had strange, sticky up hair, but was taller, although still scrawny. I worked in a little shop, making enough money to buy food and look after myself. I was happy to see her out of the orphanage. I never saw her again, nor did I expect to. She was in love, and she would eventually run away in a ship with him. I don't even know what happened to her..."