Hey Guys! So, sorry it's been taking a while from me to update, my brain kind of fried after the last 10,000ish word chapter and I just haven't had the brain cells left to write. This next chapter is kind of short, as it was originally the first half of another chapter but it kinda started feeling like an information dump so I thought it would be better on it's own.

Responses to Comments:

That's Balderdash : Yeah, I've been reading up on stuff that suggested the Doctor had/has PTSD (I even bought a book The Psychology of Doctor Who that went into that, among other things). I just always thought it was an interesting factor that most people don't consider or really pay attention to and it doesn't help that the Doctor usually tries to hide when he's hurting, so I think it's probably a lot worse than the show lets on (cause I don't think you can come away from one of the biggest wars in the universe without backlash). But either way, its something that I plan on getting into in this story. :)

Isabelnecessaryonabicycle and GhostlySights: Lol thanks I like reading and writing fluff and I'm gad ya'll are enjoying it too XD

time-twilight: Eh, the feelings thing it kinda up for interpretation, but personally I kinda think the Doctor at this point isn't thinking 'romantic attraction' yet as much as 'lonely and ready to latch on to whoever will let him' like he did with Rose in series one. As for Buffy's relationship with Rose, well... spoilers ;)

IAmMurphy'sLaw : I'm really happy you like them. I find them sort of difficult to write and it's encouraging to know you're enjoying it.

ronnieangell: Thank you! Realism is the goal!

Emzy2k11 : Lol writing as fast as my last two remaining brain cells will allow! thanks for reading!

Weisse-Lilie : I've been doing my best to limit grammar and spelling errors though i know there are plenty I don't catch XD I'm glad they aren't annoying though. Make sure you keep me posted on my characterization of the Doctor because I keep catching myself warping the way he talks. :)

Chapter Warnings: None


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Chapter Nine: The Remembrance

The tribesmen cheered and roared.

Crazy dances that blurred their limbs into a single, pulsing mess. Morphing into one giant creature. Wild and untamed.

And the stench.

God, the stench.

Blood and sweat and dirt and… burning metal?

The tall tribesmen shoved me and the two anthropologists to the center of the room. At the base of the mound. The altar. The highrise…

One of the anthropologists cried out fearfully and we all exchanged frightened looks. Their wide, stormy grey eyes glittered in the moonlight, reflecting the terror that I felt.

The other anthropologist, the one that hadn't cried out, turned and snarled at our captors before doing the same to the audience, but they only laughed and jeered.

The tribe leader flanked by the two elders, stood before us, chanting in a language that I couldn't understand. The rest of the tribe took up the cry, making the chieftain's words resonate in the huge clay dome so loud that my teeth rattled in their sockets. Except I didn't care. I only had eyes for the shadows stretching on the walls. They streaked high above the heads of the men, converging on the mound, leaving the air shivering in their wake.

I turned to look at the anthropologists, to see if they saw the shadows too.

They didn't.

They only had eyes for the chieftain.

They couldn't see the monsters between the air.

They couldn't see them.

Something hard rammed into my back and nearly sent me sprawling. I looked back to see the guards, shoving us along.

One of the anthropologists stumbled against me and I grabbed her arm to help keep her upright. I held her hand as we were ushered up the altar, up so we were standing on the small platform on the top. Side by side, facing the ancient woman, who was something of nightmares dressed in her ceremonial clothes, skull mask and blood-dyed fabrics.

The ancient woman took out a knife that shone bright silver in the light. Gleaming and sharp. She sliced it horizontally in the space before our faces.

I winced, dreading the next swing that would surely bite into my flesh.

But it didn't come.

The gash wasn't in my skin.

It was in the air.

Suspended in midair, less than a foot from our faces, a tear opened up. It split the moonlight in the way of a dark, jagged scar. From the gash, the surrounding room peeled away as the darkness in it widened, eating at the skin of this world to make room for another.

A gasp caught in my throat, cold deep-seated dread trickled through my bones.

In the darkness… was the ghost of the room we were in now. I struggled to make sense of it. Dark light illuminated the other side of the room visible through the crack, showing… the people that were in it now… except instead of grey and covered in scarlet war paint, baring their teeth and shouting… the people on the other side were blank. Faceless, translucent silhouettes dancing without the slightest sign of life or emotion, echoes of each individual's past and the ghosts of their future stretching out on either side of them, every move that had ever been made in this room and every movement that would ever be made in it's days to come, the people that attended the ceremonies of a thousand suns ago mixed with those who wouldn't enter the room for a thousand more, mixing and pulsating into a living fog.

The fog.

I could feel it tingling against my skin.

In my mind.

And the noise.

Deafeningly loud and stifling quiet.

At the same time.

Laughter of the long dead and the cries of those not yet born.

The roar of the abyss.

The silence of the void.

And…

Screaming…

...The screaming….

Who was screaming?

It wasn't from the echoes.

It wasn't from in front of me.

I turned my head to find the source of the screams.

One of the anthropologists stared into the other side, screaming in agony as her mind burned. She screamed and screamed until she collapsed on the ground, silent with her hands curled into her hair, poised to pull it out if she wasn't stone-still.

My other hand jerked in the grip of the other anthropologist. I turned to see her. We were closer to the tear than the other woman had been, standing in the mouth of the gap in space while the other woman had been slightly behind us, her mind far too preoccupied with shattering to be able to orchestrate the few steps forward.

The other woman continued to stare into the gash. Her mind was in tact, but her body was coming apart.

She was dying.

I could feel it.

Atom by atom.

She came apart.

She seemed to know what was happening too.

But all she could do was mouth, "Help me!"

I didn't let go of her hand.

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I sat bolt upright, gasping and drenched in sweat. The semi-familiar sight of my room in the Tardis greeted me, but did nothing to calm me down.

I threw the soft tangle of blankets and stumbled out of bed, not bothering to change out of my pajamas or even put on shoes in my rush to get out of the room.

Fluffy red carpet squished between my toes until the hallway changed into the freezing metal corridors as I hurried down the corridors toward the console room, my feet slapping against the floor and baggy pajama pants fluttering around my ankles.

The Doctor was in the space under the Tardis grating. He looked up from whatever he was doing when I appeared at the mouth of the dark corridor.

"You're up late," he commented. "Trouble sleeping?" He must've noticed the look on my face, because he straightened up and focused on me with a serious expression. "What's wrong?"

"The girl," I said, cold horror spreading out from my spine to my fingertips so that I shivered. "She died. I felt it. I felt her come apart. I held her hand."

The Doctor pulled himself up out of the grating and paced over to me softly, his eyes gentle but laser-focused. "What girl?"

"The one in the dome, with the tribe on that planet," I continued urgently, "She dissolved. That's why she didn't come back to the cage."

Understanding flooded across the Doctor's face. "Y'mean Fealrig? The other anthropologist?"

I nodded eagerly, glad he understood what I was trying to tell him. I was still disoriented from sleep, so I wasn't sure how much sense I was making.

"You remember what happened?" The Doctor pressed. "The memory came back?"

"Yeah." I looked down at my bare feet. "She just… dissolved. Came apart. She was too close to the opening. I should've pulled her back, but I didn't."

"It's not your fault," the Doctor reassured, resting one of his large hands on my shoulder. "I figured that's what happened. I know it's horrible, I'm sorry."

"And I didn't see it happen, I felt it." I gave my head a shake, finally starting to get my bearings. "I felt her come apart, atom by atom... it .. it…" I gave my head another shake, still deeply unsettled.

The Doctor nodded. "You're probably more sensitive to the stuff on the edge. More aware of what's goin' on. What else d'you remember?"

"The other one… what was it? Plumb…?"

"Plumkig."

"Yeah. She wasn't as close to the tear as Fealrig and me were, but she just… started screaming…"

The Doctor murmured sadly, indicating that he'd already guessed that too. "An' what abou' the tear?"

"They… uh… the old lady, the elder… she had a knife… a silver blade. And she just…. I dunno… cut through the air with it, right in front of us." I waved my hand in front of my face to demonstrate. "And it just sort of opened up and… the... the air… the space around it just sort of split away from it until it was big enough for me to walk through, if I wanted…. It was…" I rubbed my face tiredly. "I don't know."

The Doctor rubbed my shoulder again. "What else did you see? Through the tear, I mean. Only a few people have ever seen it."

"Weird, just, really weird. Very 'upside-down'-ish, but even weirder."

"'Upside-down', you've mentioned that before." He frowned. "Another tv show, you said?"

I nodded. It might sound silly, but it was the closest I could liken to what I had seen. "Yeah, Stranger Things, it was really popular in my universe. I don't know if it exists here, though."

"Might be worth a look," the Doctor admitted. "I'll take a look through the Tardis files. What else can you tell me?"

"I could see the people on the other side," I added. "The ones that were in the room at the same time as me. They were… almost solid… but blank…. Like… just their shape. They didn't have faces or anything. And at the same time I could see every movement they made in the room, before were they were and after. It was less solid… just… just fog. I don't know… it was… was…" I gave up trying to explain, throwing my hands down in defeat. "Chaos."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, chewing on my explanation deliberately. Then he seemed to brush it off.

"Come on, then. Nice cup o' tea, that's what you need." He steered me back down the corridor, hand still on my shoulder. "An' then it's back to bed with ya'. I need you fresh for tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?" I asked uncertainly.

"Just stuff. I need you sharp. Plus, I could use a cuppa anyway." He ushered me past the corridor that would take us to the hallway of bedrooms and to the right, where we entered a very large, very impressive kitchen. "Been workin' on those circuits for ages. Just can't seem to get 'em workin' properly."

"Is that what you usually do when I'm asleep?" I inquired, leaning against the white tile counter while he fished out blue teapot and started filling it with water. "Work on the Tardis?"

"Sometimes," he admitted, his voice soft enough to almost be lost in the sounds of water ringing off the bottom of the metal pot. "Alright, most of the time. But I do other stuff around the Tardis, too, projects an' stuff."

It was interesting, watching him make tea. Not that there was anything particularly strange about the task, it was just strange seeing his large, bulky, leather-clad form doing anything other than exploring alien worlds. Maybe it was because this Doctor was so keen on avoiding 'domestics'.

"How much do you sleep?" I asked curiously, finally feeling comfortable enough to start asking some more personal questions.

He stiffened. Sore subject? Why would that be a sore subject?

"A lot less than you," he sniffed, neatly sidestepping the question. "Humans sleep an average of eight to ten hours. Eight hours is absolute ages, an' you go for about ten."

I let the change in subject slide. I'd thought that had been a pretty safe question, but apparently not. Oh well, I wasn't about to press. "You time my sleep cycles?"

"No. It's an approximation. If you're gone for about fourteen hours, and leave two for gettin' dressed and groomin' or whatever, that leaves somewhere around ten. How you lot get anythin' done is beyond me." He huffed and started to pour the tea. "Sugar is in the cabinet above your head, milk is in the fridge to your left."

I went about gathering the milk and sugar while he finished pouring. Both the milk and sugar were very plainly not from Earth, judging by the packaging. Though it pretty much tasted the same.

I stirred my tea and waited for it to cool a bit while the Doctor did the same with his. We sat for a minute or two in a kind of comfortable silence before he piped up again.

"An' you're from the southern part of the United States," he realized, peering at me from over the rim of his mug with curious blue eyes. "You don't usually 'ave hot tea, do ya?"

"Well, I did live in London for a year," I sniffed, "But no, most of the tea I had growing up was iced and heavily sweetened."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "I like my tea hot, thanks."

"Guess it's an acquired taste," I smirked. "Better on a hot day though." Another question popped in my head as my mind went back to all the food items I'd seen in the cabinet and fridge. "Does the Tardis like… restock itself with food or do you, you know, have to go grocery shopping every now and then?"

He snorted. "Me. Grocery shoppin'. That's an idea." He shook his head. "Nah, Tardis does the basics. Food's no different than anythin' else 'round here. It's all just atoms."

I took a thoughtful swig from my cup. "Like on Star Trek? Matter-energy conversion replicator kinda thing?"

The Doctor's eyes lit up and he launched into a spiel about converting atoms into energy and vice versa. Apparently Star Trek had been on the right track, because what the Doctor described sounded very much like the concept behind the fictional science.

Before long, our cups were drained and I found myself being shooed off back to bed while the Doctor vanished back into the depths of his beloved ship to do whatever it was he did while I wasn't around to see.

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Author's Note: Also, if you guys are interested, I made a couple of fanart edits of the story (because I wanted to work on something relating to the story but didn't have it in me to write) on my tumblr so I'm lordmotherofcats. tumblr. com