A/N: EEE so I saw the first ep. of the new series today. I am totally fangirling Eleven right now (WHO DA MAN??) but not so much Amy. She seems like a weird Scottish crossbreed of Rose and Donna. Nothing about her makes me particularly like her, but she's not bad, either...so I'll see where the series goes and decide if I like it.
Other than that, today I was feeling uber angsty. Enjoy~
She can't quite remember how she came to be here. 'Here' of course, is perhaps not quite a suitable term, for Rose knows she isn't really walking through grasslands in nineteenth century Scotland. Rather, she assumes that she is merely asleep, dreaming. Rose is not bothered by the fact that Here isn't real. This is one of those lucky nights where she isn't plagued by nightmares. Here is a rare occasion where she can relax and relish in the temporary peace she is allowed.
So Rose walks. And walks. And walks.
"Rather boring dream, innit?" the Doctor says, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Rose isn't surprised to see him. He often visits her in her dreams, appearing out of nowhere.
"Bett'r nightmares," she answers. "I think it's kinda peaceful, actually."
He appears to consider this. "Perhaps," he allows, and they walk on. After a while, she notices that he's vanished. Without really meaning to, she slips away, too, back into her dreary reality.
0000
The sky spreads before her like a blank sheet of paper; white, harsh, imposing. Rose has a hard time locating the sun with all the white. It was enormous, the white – it seemed to drip off the sky, splatter her skin, and cloud her vision. Even with all of this, Rose can still recognize her surroundings as those grasslands she had traveled the night before.
She doesn't give the idea much thought before she starts walking again. As she walks, the white consumes the world around her. Everything from the grass to her very own hands becomes whitewashed. The absolute absence of color gives her headache. Some irrational fear of getting lost in the white enters her head, so she sits upon the white grass.
Seamlessly, the Doctor appears next to her.
"'Ello," Rose says. "'Bout time you got here. I was just beginning to miss ya." Her tone is bitter. It is absolutely cruel of him, after all, to be invading her dreams willy-nilly, when all she wanted to do was to forget the pain she was in.
He says nothing, but seizes her hand that had been previously been lying on the grass. He clasps it like it's the only sure thing he knows.
"I've missed you, though," he says, morosely.
Rose is surprised at his emotion. Usually the Doctor is unaware of their separation in her dreams. It's unbearable to see him so sad.
"You were not this sad the last time you saw me." It's not the consoling nothing she had been planning to say, but after all – this was dream; why should she feel the need to console her subconscious?
"I was in denial. I thought…" He trails off. She's about to say something else, but he picks up where he left off before she can open her mouth. "I tried to convince myself that you were just like any other companion. I would miss you for sure, I thought, but it wouldn't be a big deal."
That stung. She stares at the whiteness around her, refusing to look at him.
"I was wrong. A day can't go by…before I think of you. I met this girl…she's a doctor too, innit that funny? She's a nice girl – Martha – but she's not…"
Rose can't quite bring herself to be shocked. It was very like her to try to pretend the Doctor loved and admired her to such an extent that when he looked at any other girl, he could only remember her own face. "Me?" she utters, unable to keep the self-hatred out of her voice.
He's unable to acknowledge it aloud. Instead, the Doctor nods.
"I love you, you know."
This declaration shatters her composure. The world blooms in color around her as she turns to look at him.
"No you don't! You can't! You never said--"
He is gone, a strange breeze making the grass sway where he once sat.
0000
This time where she arrives in the now familiar grasslands, dissatisfaction brews deep with in her. Her once peaceful was now a place burdened with the knowledge of how pathetic she truly was: imagining a cutesy, false version of the Doctor that would go to the ends of the earth for her.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
She urges herself to open her eyes and leave this place, but something unseen keeps her rooted to this nightmare. Against her will, she begins walking. Giving up, she complies, and walks. And walks. And walks.
Rose can only hope that she won't see him again.
And for a while, it seems like this is the case. Hours seem to tick by, and all she knows is herself and the grass and sky and right left right left repeat.
A slow smile spreads across her face. She is safe once again. With this knowledge, Rose allows herself to drift, unafraid of anything or anyone she might meet in her land of slumber.
0000
She's falling.
The downward sensation is unmistakable. Soon, Rose knows, she will hit the ground. The thought of it makes her whole body ache. Really, Rose didn't might falling one bit --- it was fast and exciting and everything that staying in one place wasn't. One might even say that she loved it. However, hitting the ground brought all kinds of grief. If only – if only, she could have the falling without the landing.
Magically, there is ground beneath her, only darkness. If she were awake, she knew that she would be petrified. But somehow, here, in her dreams – Rose is at peace. It feels wonderful.
"Rose."
Her eyelids fly opens, and her head swivels left in shock to see a very familiar face. However, the Doctor is just as surprised as she is -- usually, usually, he seems to expect her presence.
"You…I know you!"
"Go away! Stop –"
They shout at each other simultaneously. Rose stops herself, though, and bites her lip. Why would the Doctor say that? She looks at him, and notices he's not wearing pinstripes.
"Where are your pinstripes?
"Pinstripes?" He looks affronted. "No, miss. Not my style, you could say."
"Not your style?" Rose is incredulous. "Wh—"
"Never mind that!" The Doctor interrupts, though Rose is now beginning to become suspicious whether he truly is the Doctor. "Pardon me, but the more pressing question is why I know who you are, and yet I've never seen you before."
Now she is wholly confused. "D—"
She is once more interrupted by the not-Doctor's lips on her mouth. It was clear now that this man was not-the-Doctor, because the Doctor would never kiss her, not even it her dreams.
Rose pulls away from the not-Doctor. He lets her go, but grabs her wrist.
"Please, don't go. I can't lose you now that I've just found you again."
Rose can't imagine why, of all the questions that are so eager to fall from her tongue, she chooses this: "How can you have found me again when you've never seen me before?"
He looks at her, deep into her eyes. She wants nothing more to break eye contact and drift away from him and the confusion and mystery that surrounds, but she can't. It's no unseen alien force that binds her to him, Rose knows, but her own will. No matter what shape or form or face or attitude the Doctor adopts, Rose knows she will never be able to leave him.
"I don't know how or why, but I know that I can't, I just can't let you go. I don't know why I remember your face or why you're here in my dreams, but I know that I can't let you go. Stay with me, please."
Rose hasn't anything to say to that. His answer has along unlocked dozens of new questions.
"Who are you?"
Their fingers slip apart, unbidden. "John Smith," he utters before he is lost in the black.
A tear slips out and slides slowly down her cheek. So lost, the both of them…
0000
The sound of the waves crashing against the shore are not comforting to Rose. However, the sky seems such a pretty blue and the sand such a pristine white she's can't quite bring herself to try to will herself to dream of something else.
She's walking again, and the action doesn't seem odd anymore.
Eventually, a hand slips into her own. The other's hand is too large, and hers is too small, and even though they shouldn't fit so nicely together, they do.
"Sometimes I like to think that you're real. That by some incredibly twist of the universe, we are actually talking to each other." The Doctor doesn't sound in denial, or sad, or confused…He sounds resigned. Rose finds it rather depressing that even her dream-Doctor has accepted the fact their romance isn't meant to be.
"Me too."
"I mean," he goes on, "This is an awfully vivid dream. Really vivid, actually. Awfully awfully vivid, in fact. Suspiciously vivid, now I come to think of it." He steps away from her, as sudden as anything. She's mildly irritated, as he has upset their pattern of right left right left repeat, and she feels a bit off-balance. It's a silly thing to be mad at him for (she has much more valid things to be mad at him for) but it captures her attention all the same.
"What are you? Better yet, are you messin' with my head? Messin' with memories? Is that why these dreams are so vivid?"
That's funny. Rose has never supposed these dreams weren't hers. Is he the one dreaming? She dismisses the thought. Even for the Doctor, that seems a bit ridiculous.
So if it's not that, then it has to be something else. Something occurs to her, and as quick as flipping a switch, hope courses though her at pace that makes her giddy.
"Doctor. It's you. It's really you." It's a stupid thing to say, especially if your best mate thinks you're a hostile telepathic alien invading his mind, but Rose can't help herself. "I'm real. Really real. And you're real. And while this—" She gestures to the scenery around them. "—probably isn't real, but we are! We're actually talking to each other, across the universes. Right?"
His expression is guarded, defensive.
Please, please let it be so.
Then he laughs, his whole form relaxing as he leans towards her. It's the most beautiful sound in the world. The world itself seems so much brighter than it has in a long time, and something swells within Rose that she recognizes all too well.
Happiness.
And then, as dreams do, it drifts away.
She opens her eyes.
0000
Rose can barely contain her excited as she recognizes the grasslands once more. She knows eventually he'll come to her, all she needs to do is start walking.
So she walks. And walks. And walks.
He doesn't come.
0000
Nor does he the next night—
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or the next.
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He doesn't appear for the next five nights.
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All too soon, she stops dreaming of the grasslands.
0000
All too soon, she stops dreaming of the white.
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She stops dreaming of falling.
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She stops dreaming of the beach.
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Within two weeks she stops dreaming of anything of all.
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But if you can still dream
Close your eyes and it will seem
That you can see me now and then…