Donna Noble woke up in a cold sweat.
It was something that had been happening more and more over the past few nights. A dream that she couldn't quite remember just at the corner of her mind, almost like something was trying to claw its way out back to the fore. Yet all she could ever remember was darkness. Darkness and a woman's voice begging her to remember.
Pushing her hair back from her face, Donna sat up and scowled down at her hands that were still trembling against her floral quilt. Her bedroom was dark except for the shadows cast against the wall from the street light across the road, and she had to blink several times before her eyes had adjusted to the gloom.
"You're just being silly." Donna admonished herself as she pushed back the bedclothes and stepped onto the threadbare carpet.
Luckily it seemed that she wasn't the only one in the Noble household that couldn't sleep. The light was on in both the hallway and the sitting room, and Donna could hear the tinny sound of the television with the volume on low.
"Heya sweetheart." Her Grandfather was seated on the lounge, wearing his favourite tartan pajamas (unfortunately the ones that matched the ones that Donna was wearing). "Can't sleep?"
"Funny dreams." She took the mug of tea that he handed her and warmed her hands against the sides.
"Clowns again?" He half turned to look at her, a smile on his weathered face.
Donna shuddered at his words. There was nothing she hated more than clowns, and as a child she had used to have the most horrific dreams about them hiding under her bed and in her wardrobe. They hadn't turned up for a very long time now. "No." She took a sip of the tea, as usual it wasn't sweet enough for her but she would never say a word of that to Grandad. "Not clowns."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"It's a woman." Donna placed the mug on the coffee table and curled her legs beneath herself. "She's talking to me out of the darkness."
"What's she saying?" asked Grandad.
"I can't really remember." Pressing a fist against her temple, Donna tapped several times and the squeezed her eyes shut. She knew that the memory had to be in there somewhere, after all everyone always said she wasn't too smart so there couldn't be too much in there to sift through. "She keeps asking me for help."
"Help with what?" Grandad's face was suddenly very grim, and Donna felt something cold drop into her stomach at the scared and sad look in his pale eyes.
"I don't …" She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Doesn't mention any names now does she?" There was an undercurrent to his voice and it took her a moment to place it. Fear, complete and utter fear the type that she hadn't heard in a very long time.
"What?" Donna leaned forwards. "What's going on Grandad?"
"Nothing." He stood up quickly and started pacing in front of the television, scrubbing a hand over his heavily stubbled chin as he did so.
"Well somethings got you upset." She watched him pace for several more moments. "Sit down Grandad you're making me dizzy."
He let out a grunt and seated himself on the edge of the coffee table, moving the mug of tea aside as he did so. "It's just that a lot of strange stuff has happened to you lately."
She couldn't help but agree with that, it seemed like unusual events followed her around all over the place. Which was a nice change from the last few years in which she had missed every single major event due to one reason or another. It was all quite annoying really. "I know, but that can't mean anything can it?"
Grandad looked up at her so quickly that his beanie nearly fell off the back of his head. "Like what?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm just being silly … as usual."
"Yeah." He smiled at her finally, reaching over he grasped her hand tightly. "We both are."
Donna gave a soft laugh and stood up. "Now I'm going to make another cuppa, one that's drinkable this time."
There was a man. He was watching her from across the road, just standing there and staring at her through wild eyes. Yet there was something strange, as though he was seeing someone else in her skin, it was disconcerting. Donna would normally keep her distance from such a man, would keep her head down and one hand on her mobile phone in case she needed to call 999.
However something was drawing her to this man. Making her freeze on the footpath as they stared at each other, she could tell that he wanted to come to her just as much as she wanted to go to him. Something deep inside of her felt like it was waking up in his presence, almost like arousal deep inside her very body. Her mind. Her soul. Which was strange in itself because he wasn't her type in the slightest.
Too skinny by far, he actually looked sickly. With skin so pale it was almost translucent except for the dark bruises beneath his brown eyes. He had to only be in his mid to late thirties but his hair was white, well either that or it was peroxided which was a strange look on a man his age anyway. There was also something about the way he was dressed all in black, a man in mourning.
"Hello." Donna called across to him.
Not that he answered her, though the corner of his mouth twisted up into a smile that would seem cruel if it wasn't for the infinite sadness in his eyes. As she watched his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and she felt hers doing the same as a strange voice whispered in the back of her mind to reach for him. To bring this odd man into her arms, to drink in his scent and never let him go.
Before she knew what was happening, her feet were taking her across the road as if they had a mind of their own. A move that nearly had her being run over by a black cab, a narrow escape thanks to the quick reflexes of the cabbie who proceeded to yell out of the window in Hindi at her. Not that Donna paid him any mind, no instead she had drawn close to the man. Without a word his right hand come out, fingertips grazing the skin of her forearm as his face fell into a deep scowl.
"You're a woman now?" His voice was hoarse, as though he had been screaming for so long and so hard that his vocal cords had been damaged. "And a red head at that."
Despite these strange circumstances Donna raised her free hand to her hair defensively. "I've always been a woman thank you very much."
At her words his head tilted to one side as his dark eyes narrowed. "No." With lightning fast speed he gripped her chin with his hand and tilted her head up so that they were eye to eye. "You are him." It was then that one surprisingly strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her into him, just as he pressed his face into the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply. "And not him at the same time."
"What are you talking about?" Suddenly back in control of herself, Donna jerked out of his grasp and took two steps backwards so that she was teetering on the curb. "Who are you?"
His face twisted back into the cruel smile again, except this time his eyes were hollow. "Oh you'll remember soon enough." With that he ducked forwards quickly and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Soon enough."
Then with a laugh that seemed to cut straight through her, the man turned and ran with incredible speed down the alley. The moment he disappeared from sight, a pain unlike anything she had felt before sliced through her chest leaving her doubled over and gasping for breath, tears running down her face as a sense of emptiness gripped her in its cold grasp.