Sleepyhead
"River?" The Doctor sputtered. "Also OW!"
"How did you get in here?" the Dream Lord asked, standing up behind the desk. He looked furious, and his image flickered between that of the Doctor's own face, and the façade of the fat CEO.
"You're starting to wake up," River smiled sweetly at the Doctor, who blinked at her. He desperately wanted to stay lucid, to stay in the moment.
"What is this?" John spoke instead, glaring at the stranger in front of him. She was still holding an empty cup, and his suit was ruined.
"Honestly, how stubborn can you be?" the woman's smile faded. "You know there's something wrong with this world. You've been trying to wake up. I'm not even really here, I'm just the part of your brain that's desperately trying to save you. Save Clara."
"Mr. Cunningham," John said, wiping at his face with a handkerchief he had drawn out of his breast pocket. "If this is some sort of prank, some sort of sick and humiliating game you've devised, please listen very carefully to my following words."
The financial expert stood up.
"Fuck you – I quit, you sick, fat fuck."
John stalked out, ignoring the enraged look on the other man's face and the triumphant smile on the woman's.
"You're not going to win this," she said to him. "You can't hope to control him."
"Shut up. You're not even real," the Dream Lord growled.
"From one figment to another, that's rich." She laughed at him.
Outside, a strong wind began to tear through the streets of the city, while overhead, clouds gathered rapidly, marring what had been a perfect summer sky.
"You really should come in, stay for dinner even," Clara said, sitting in the passenger seat of Trisa's blue car, which was almost the same shade as the woman's dress. Clearly, her friend's taste ran in a certain shade.
"I really can't." Trisa looked overhead. "A storm is coming."
"Isn't that what windshield wipers are for?" Clara joked, looking at her friend fondly. She hadn't met a lot of people in the short time she'd been in Toronto. It was nice to have someone she could talk to.
"Not sure those will be enough to do the trick for this one," Trisa turned to Clara. "Off you go, tell John I send my love."
"I'm serious. We need to get together sometime. All of us in the same room." Clara admonished.
Trisa's smile turned sad as she looked at the former schoolteacher.
"Some day, maybe."
Opening the door, Clara had one foot out on the pavement when Trisa stopped her with a cool hand to her arm.
"It's going to be a very bad storm. Promise me you'll be careful." She said very gravely.
How bad do storms in Toronto get, Clara wondered worriedly.
"I promise." She nodded, before fully exiting the car.
By the time Clara reached her front door, fat drops of rain were already started to splatter down on her, and the sky was ominously dark.
Once indoors, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and turned to hang her purse up on the hooks they had installed along the wall. In the silence of the empty house, all she could hear was the sound of rain pattering against the glass windows, and the howling of a gale that was picking up strength by the second.
The moment she took a step away from the door, a loud knocking disrupted the tranquility of the house.
Clara looked up the stairway, rooted in place.
She hadn't thought of the bizarre knocking coming from the attic in weeks. The terror of that afternoon however, all came rushing back, as something thumped insistently from somewhere above. Trying desperately to push that sick feeling of fear aside that seeped through like bile in her belly, Clara wished John were home with her.
Outside, the storm picked up speed. Inside, something unseen demanded an answer from her.
The cab driver –named Mickey Smith according to the ID on his dashboard – seemed incapable of navigating through the city streets.
"Don't you have GPS or something?" John demanded from the backseat.
"It's not working," was the response. "I think this storm is interfering with my signal."
John was still irritated at how the morning had progressed, at the coffee still drying in his hair and most of all, he was incredibly irritated that he was sure he recognized the taxi driver.
Which was utterly ridiculous. Completely and utterly. Perhaps he should be going to see a doctor instead, to make sure he wasn't having a stroke.
"Don't I know you?" the man in the driver's seat asked, turning to look at him.
Oh bugger all.
"I don't think so, no." John muttered.
"You remind me of a guy my friend dated. Her name was Rose."
The taxi took another turn down a side street John couldn't hope to recognize.
"She was crazy about this guy. Would have done anything for him," the driver continued, stopping at a traffic light.
"I put out a sun to say goodbye to her – that has to count for something." John found the words flowing out of his mouth. Images of a blonde girl crying on a beach flashed through his mind.
"Lord of Time and Space – you could have tried harder is what I think. If you had wanted to badly enough, anyways." The traffic lights blinking through the rain-splattered windows seemed to take on a different frequency. The world around John wavered between the deck of an ancient ship, and the grimy interior of a city cab.
"Must have been easy standing outside looking in, eh Ricky?" he asked sharply.
"The name's Mickey," the other man retorted.
John closed his eyes in the backseat and asked in a shaky voice, "What's happening to me?"
"Your consciousness is fighting back." Mickey said cheerfully, starting to drive again as the lights turned green.
"I need to find Clara," John said.
"You need a good therapist as well if that helps." Mickey said helpfully. "You sir, have got some massive issues."
"Please…" The Doctor's head fell backwards.
"You're ruining it for yourself." The Dream Lord growled, still squatting like a malignant tumour in front of him.
"You heard me earlier," The Doctor mustered all of his energy to grin a nasty smile of his own. "Fuck. You."
The world spun on its axis, or so it seemed.
He was sitting in a taxi, and then somehow, he was on the floor of his living room, holding the shaking body of his wife.
"J…John," she hiccupped. "How did…I didn't…how did you get in?"
There was a loud series of knock coming from somewhere above.
"What happened?" he demanded, squeezing her shoulders as he looked up.
"I…" she was trying to catch her breath, trying not to cry. "Trisa dropped me off, and when I came in…"
"Who's Trisa?" John asked, looking down at Clara, who stared wild-eyed back at him.
"Your friend, Trisa. Trisa D,"
Shaking his head, he watched as her confusion intensified.
"You have to know her." Clara insisted. "She helped me get my new job. I told you. She told me she helped you get this contract"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" he said, trying to ignore the thumping that hadn't stopped. It was starting to get to him.
A window broke somewhere in the house, forced in by the strength of the storm.
Clara seemed momentarily annoyed enough to forget that she was frightened. Pulling out of his arms, she stood up and retrieved her purse. After a few seconds of digging through it, she handed him a small business card.
Taking it with shaking fingers, John read the card.
Then he read it again.
Bowing his head, he let the card slip from his fingers, and watched as it fluttered to the ground.
"Great." He said. "Just…brilliant."
"What is it?" Trisa asked. "What's wrong?"
"Me." He said. "I'm wrong."
"I don't understand…"
The Doctor allowed himself to pull Clara into his arms, allowed himself to breathe her in, to hold her close to his hearts. One last time, a little voice said at the back of his head; he wanted to hold on to this moment for the rest of time.
"You're scaring me," she said, muffled against his chest. "What's going on?"
"Clara, I need you to focus," he said, drawing away to look her in the eye. "I need you to remember that none of this is real."
"What?" she sounded more worried than ever. "John please, this is crazy…I think we have an intruder…"
"Is it?" He demanded, ignoring the frantic knocking from upstairs, ignoring the fact that more windows were shattering all around the house as the storm began ripping the house apart.
More accurately, reality was falling apart around them.
The Doctor shook Clara gently when she threatened to become distracted by the chaos. "There has to be a part of you that knows this isn't right."
"I…" she stared at him.
"The children you teach, where do they live?" he demanded, deciding to try a different approach.
"Downtown."
"Downtown where," he pressed on.
"Downtown somewhere, I don't know, I need to find their address in my phone!" her eyes were wide. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."
Something like shadows fluttered, gathered and re-formed in the middle of the stairs.
"Don't bother – you've created a perfect reality," the Dream Lord chuckled from where he stood. "Her weak human brain cannot comprehend this world for what it is."
Clara looked up and shrieked in unadulterated terror, falling against the man she thought of as her husband.
"Ignore him," The Doctor ground out between gritted teeth. "He's not real."
"I am real. I am as real as you John, or Doctor, or however you're looking to call yourself," The Dream Lord took a step down towards them.
"I don't understand," Clara whispered, looking between the two figures standing before her. Her sanity seemed on the verge of finally fraying. "That's…John, he's you!"
"I'm thousands of years old, with an extremely well-developed psyche and a metric ton of baggage to go along with it," the Doctor muttered. "I'm surprised we don't have episodes like this more often."
Grabbing her hand firmly, he turned and faced his alter-ego.
"You're finished here. You've made your point."
The Dream Lord opened his mouth to argue, but the Time Lord simply walked forwards and up, attempting to push past the other figure.
It resulted in him sprawling backwards onto the ground, holding the right side of his face. That iron taste in his mouth, he realized, was the taste of his own blood.
"John!" Clara cried out. She looked up at the Dream Lord, fire in her eyes. Picking up a heavy statuette sitting nearby, she stood protectively over the Doctor. "Leave him alone. Leave us alone! Or I swear to god, I will fucking kill you."
"She's so pretty when she's angry," the Dream Lord crooned, obsidian eyes widening in delight. "I can see why you like to push her so,"
"Ugh." The Doctor groaned, pushing himself up. "That pain feels real enough."
"Are you ok?" Clara asked, not budging from her position in front of him or taking her eyes off the man on the stairs.
"It appears I have some real mental problems I need to work on," the Doctor responded with a half smile. "Clara, please forgive me, I'm about to have a serious discussion with our guest."
Standing up, the Doctor ignored the throbbing pain and calmly ascended the stairs. The Dream Lord descended a few more steps to greet him.
"You really are a…"
The Doctor didn't let him finish his sentence. Instead, his drew his fist back and punched the other man square in the nose, sending him crumpling to the ground.
"I am sick of you controlling my life. I've let you hurt people I care about, over and over," The Doctor didn't stop beating down on the Dream Lord. "I am finished with you!"
The Dream Lord lay on the ground, bleeding and visibly bruised. He was no longer moving, and his breathe came in short, shallow spurts. The Doctor, crouched over him, had one hand gripping the downed man's shirt, and the other poised to rain down more blows. Red stained his knuckles.
"John?" Clara asked softly to the side.
Outside, the storm seemed to have abated; the thumping overhead had ceased.
"Are we safe now?" she asked, looking at him as if afraid of the answer.
He stared at the man he had battered.
"No. Not with me, never with me." He breathed.
The Doctor gladly opened his fist to accept Clara's small hand in his.
"Should we call the police?" she inquired, eyes wide.
For a moment, he considered saying 'yes'.
The police, who would come and take care of the – creature – lying on the stairs.
John and Clara could continue living in this house, him with a regular job, a mortgage, maybe even a car; she could keep on tutoring, nurturing children in the city. He could come home every night to the welcoming arms of his wife, tell her he loved her, and let her tell him the same…in a few years, they could adopt a child, start a real family.
John and Clara could have a life together.
If only it were real, and if only her actual body wouldn't simply waste away from hunger and deprivation on the cold floor of his ship. It was the futile fantasies of an old man.
The Doctor sighed, squeezing his companion's hand.
"Not yet. I do think its time though, that we see what's in our attic. Don't you?" he asked. She looked like she was going to argue, but for some reason, she kept silent. Instead, she nodded at him resignedly.
"For what it's worth," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
After they gingerly stepped past the body of the unconscious man on the stairs, the Doctor and Clara's climb to the second floor was mostly uneventful.
Under the entrance to the attic, The Doctor didn't hesitate. Almost with cruel force, he yanked the cord down.
"After you," he said gently to Clara. It wasn't quite a request.
"Hang on," she said, looking at him with all the steely determination she could muster. "I think we should talk about what's happening. Or what's already happened."
"We can talk about it," he hedged. "After we get into the attic."
"No, we need to talk. Now." She breathed in. "What's going on? Who was that man? Why don't you know Trisa? Most importantly, why are you acting completely insane?"
"Those are all extremely loaded questions. Climb up." His patience was wearing a little thin.
"Answer them. Try."
The pounding in his head was only a little worse than the sting in his cheek.
"Fine. That man was an embodiment of my guilt and self-loathing, Trisa D. is an anagram for the name of my spaceship, and I'm acting completely insane because after a few thousand years of life and loss, you can't bloody expect me to function like a regular Time Lord, much less a human. There. That about sums up the situation."
Clara blinked at him.
"John…darling…" she said carefully. "Perhaps we should call for a Doctor."
"Right, I did. That's me." The Doctor said, exasperated.
"What?" she looked even more worried now.
"Clara…" he sighed. "Let's say I'm having a fever dream, and I've gotten myself mixed up in some…crazy…things. Let's say there's nothing in that attic."
"Um. Ok?" she didn't sound comforted.
"I promise you, cross my hearts, I will get all the help I need." he paused. "In fact, I'm quite sure I will need to be seeking some sort of help either way."
Clara put a hand on his chest, looking as if she were about to start crying at last.
"But right now, I need you to trust me," He continued, trying to ignore the way his hearts were shattering. "Please."
"I love you." She stood on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. "And yes…I trust you."
"Good," he murmured, eyes closed. "I…you are the most important thing in the universe to me. The whole universe."
Clara pulled away and looked up at the dark entrance. Carefully, she stepped onto the shaky ladder. He followed a step or two behind.
"What's that?" she asked at the top, pointing at the big blue Police Box sitting in the middle of the small, gabled room.
"It's our mutual friend." He smiled fondly. "She's never really left us,"
"I don't…" she shook her head.
"Trisa D. Re-arrange the letters and you get her true name - TARDIS." He reached for the door handle. "She obviously does like you, by the way."
"Is this what's been scaring me?" she asked suspiciously.
"She doesn't always understand human nuances. You'll have to forgive her, she was doing all she could to get your attention." He held a hand out to Clara. "Trust me still?"
In response, she nodded once. Twice.
Hand in hand, they stepped through the front doors of the big blue box.