A/N: Wow. Over 400 views in around 2 days since I published the last chapter. I can't believe this story is so popular, thank you guys and gals!

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the series/book/story (whatever you want to call it) as well as your criticism. I might be getting some facts wrong, so I'd love knowing that to avoid embarrassment.

So, this is the last original chapter before "Dalek." I originally planned on doing "Dalek" straight away, but I realized I needed a bit of a filler between Jessica's return to the TARDIS and their first official adventure. I also remember Rose wearing different clothes between "World War Three" and "Dalek," so this felt like the logical step. Don't worry, I'm planning on having a lot of episodes done, though not really in the right order. Hehehehe.

Enjoy and don't forget to leave a review!

Nightmare

"So this thing sent you back in time?"

I shrugged as Rose jabbed at the unresponsive Manipulator yet again. There were only so many times I could explain it to her without giving anything away. Why she expected my answers to change baffled me. "Yup. The Doctor's even said that it's deadlocked, so he can't make any more sense of it than we can."

Rose mock-shuddered with a little smile. "Tell me about it. I've never seen him so … cranky." Her eyes flicked across the room to where said Time Lord had his head stuck underneath the console.

A fire-cozy, glowing taste washed all through my mouth at that look. I might not have been good at keeping my emotions under control, but the timing of it screamed that it belonged to Rose. Whatever that taste meant, it made me shift a little further to the edge of the bench. Away from her. "I wouldn't say he's cranky, just … I don't think he likes not knowing everything." Worried I'd get caught looking, I glued my eyes to the floor.

Bad enough that I hunted him down through time and space – while not on purpose—what would he think if he saw me staring like I knew all his darkest secrets.

Which, I reassured myself with a twitch of my head, I absolutely did not. I barely understood the basics: a nine-hundred year old Time Lord who traveled through time and space; he flew in the TARDIS (which I could swear had some sort of conscience); and that his mind possessed some of the craziest powers ever. Jack hadn't told me much beyond that, either.

Another mental note to smack his head about if we ever met in the right order again.

"Ah, he just likes showing off," Rose grinned, kicking her feet a little. "Like a big kid trying to show everybody just how cool his toys are."

That startled a laugh out of me, one I quickly stifled in my arm. I hadn't even known the Doctor for that long, and already Rose – who seemed oblivious to a lot of what went on in the Time Lord's head—had summed him up just as I had. Well, not exactly like me. The show-off felt like a thin layer of goody-goody over such a mess of a man.

Rose giggled, staring at the Doctor until that warm taste flowed from her in a tidal wave. "I can't believe he hasn't taken us anywhere yet. He took me to see the end of the Earth first time out. With two of us, I could've sworn he'd be trying to top that."

"I'm not complaining. Being yanked away at the end of a very … long night kind of takes the wind out of you for a bit."

"Ha. He's probably trying to get used to the idea that he's got two humans on his precious TARDIS now." That fire-place feeling drifted away, followed by something that just tasted … off. Rose frowned a little, an unfocused look entering her eyes. "Has he told you why he's alone yet?"

I all but snapped to attention, remembering to make my sudden jerk look casual before I got suspicious. A reason behind the Doctor's troubled personality became just as tempting as offering someone to travel in time and space. I rested an arm on the back of the chair, turning all my attention to Rose. "Told me what?"

Rose's brown eyes fixed on me for several moments. A look entered them that I'd seen in the Doctor all too often. She didn't trust me enough to just answer. After a while, she shook her head, blonde threads of hair flying into her face. "Go ask him yourself. Not my place to tell you anyway, I don't think. Well," she added with a stunning change to a normal voice. "I'm off to bed."

"How do you know it's nighttime?" My mouth felt as if it moved of its own accord. My brain still spun over her words and what they could possibly mean. Nothing good from the weight to what I could feel coming from her. Serious emotions always felt … heavier than normal ones. "Is there some sort of TARDIS clock I don't know about?"

"Well, since the Doctor doesn't seem to sleep, I just grab whatever I can," Rose chuckled before drifting over to the Doctor. "Takes a while to get used to."

I didn't hear what passed between them. The whole console room seemed to become fuzzy as I focused more on my thoughts. Did the Doctor trust me enough to tell me something that seemed so personal Rose wouldn't? He already didn't like the fact that I could read and understand the emotions he kept from everybody else. I didn't need to talk to him to know that.

As Rose's footsteps faded away, I rolled to my feet, refocusing on the Doctor. Now sitting cross-legged on the floor with bits of wire and his sonic screwdriver, he didn't even seem to notice that someone shared the room. He kept muttering so much techno-babble that what I did manage to hear sounded like nonsense.

Well, with him pretty much pinned until he untangled himself, I had to take the chance. And risk being thrown out, of course, but … I just had to know. To understand why he wouldn't let anyone past that armor.

"Having trouble finding your room?" The Doctor grumbled, giving me a start. Not once did his eyes rise to look at me, though.

Note to self: never assume the Doctor's oblivious all the time.

I crouched down next to him, putting enough distance between us so he wouldn't feel crowded. Too much pressure and he would shut down on me permanently. "Actually, I don't think my room's ready yet. The TARDIS kept sending me back here, so I gave up after a few hours." Or she had a sneaky streak and wanted me in the room for some reason. The whole time I kept trying to take a different route only to end up back where I started, I could've sworn the whole ship tingled with mischief.

A frown creased his brow even more. "She's not usually that bad. You were right; she let you teleport inside, so that means she knows something about you that I don't." A sharp rap of the screwdriver on the console voice the annoyance that flavored his words. "Keep trying. She'll let you in eventually."

There. No more prying questions. None of the half-way serious insults. He had no interest in talking to me anymore.

Well, too bad. I didn't … couldn't fall for that dismissiveness without a fight. "Well, it just so happens that I have a question for you." I didn't try to keep my tone light and oblivious. That would be false and I wanted to be as open to the Doctor as I could.

The Doctor sprang to his feet, making a face. "Oh, always with the bloody questions. Can't you humans just stop being so nosy all the time?" A heavy sigh and the Doctor spun around to face me, arms crossed with a long-suffering scowl. "Fine, but just the one then you're off to do whatever it is you do when you're not awake."

"Well," the words I'd planned on using dried up as I stood. They just didn't seem right any longer. I ran my fingers along the edge of the console, ignoring the look they got from him. "I understand that you and Rose have already seen things I can't even imagine and that means you might trust her more than you trust me right now."

"Is there a question in there somewhere?"

That one brought out a scowl to match his own. "I was trying to be nice about it you know, but I can get to the point if you want me to." When the Doctor didn't say anything, I shook my head. "Fine. Rose said … or hinted, anyway, that there's something you haven't told me yet. About why you were alone. My question: what happened?" Even though I kept my voice as soft as I could, the words still made me flinch.

He'd wanted a question, after all.

From the way his emotions and even the expression on his face shut down, I'd hit a sensitive subject with the grace of a sledgehammer.

I swallowed with a throat that had grown too tight. The dull, bleak look in his eyes haunted me, ridiculing me for even thinking to ask that. "Sorry," I muttered, stuffing my hands in my pockets and shuffling back a step. "Don't answer that. It's none of my business. I had no right." Right, not awkward at all. "I'll … I'll leave you alone."

Violently kicking myself to death over and over again in my head, I trudged back to where I'd left my bag. Now he'd never get to trust me. How could I have been that insensitive? That blunt? Couldn't I have waited another day or five? Maybe knowing what caused him to be alone happened to be a privilege after an adventure or two.

"It was a war."

Those few words sounded like they were pulled from him. Spoken so low that they didn't even echo in the room. They still had the power to root me in place, pull me around to stare at a man who'd seen too much. Lost too much. More than the glimpse I saw in Downing Street.

The Doctor didn't quite look at me. "The Time War. Between my people and the Daleks. We lost." Even with half a room between us, I could still see him swallow hard past whatever almost choked him up.

My breath had frozen. I couldn't move or look away. A crack had opened in that armor. One that the Doctor tried to smother before I could read too much, but it still remained. It bled enough to tell me more about him than I felt ready to handle. The loss, the anger, his need to tell someone and the regret that he'd actually told me after I'd thrown him for a loop.

Tears burned in my eyes. I couldn't be reassuring even if I wanted to. Instead, I peeled open my own armor in an attempt to project what I felt would help him. Understanding why he never offered that information right on the spot. Gratefulness that he'd trusted me just enough to tell me that much. Even acceptance that he would tell me things in his own time. When he felt ready, not before.

Our gazes met. My heart faltered and almost stopped. The uncertainty struck me almost as much as the tumult of emotions he'd let me glimpse. He didn't know what I'd do with that much information. If I'd pelt him with more questions or leave him alone like he wished.

Finally, my lips managed to work their way into something like a smile. Whether it came across like I intended remained to be seen. "Thank you, Doctor. Good night."

All around me, the TARDIS hummed as I … retreated out of the room. Yes, retreat before I could get too overwhelmed. A door greeted me right away, an old, wooden one like a log cabin. Whatever the reason behind such a strange door, I plunged blindly inside and collapsed on the bed that waited for me. The room could be all sorts of horrid, but I'd become blind to it all.

Tears finally wove their way down my face and soaked into the blankets. I wouldn't be sleeping very much. Not when I could think of nothing else but how broken and damaged the Doctor had become over nine-hundred years. What he had lost. Who he'd lost. Why he'd trusted me with that admission.

If I could possibly help him return to normal. Whatever normal happened to be for Time Lords.

A shout woke me from a light sleep. Such panic burst from it that I nearly fell out of the bed. The lights were out in my room, not that I knew where a light-switch was, anyway. I waited, gripping onto bedposts that loomed like darker shadows around me. Could it have been just my imagination?

The second, more agonizing cry jolted me to my feet and out the door before it registered that it had been a man's voice. "Doctor?" My voice didn't even echo in the dimly lit hallway, falling flat at my feet. No alarms had gone off. Would the TARDIS have even let something happen to the Doctor?

Another shout from just up ahead sent me racing towards a door just a few feet down from mine. I frowned; that hadn't been there earlier. What had the ship done to my room this time? Whatever she'd done, the door opened before I even touched it. I swallowed past my nervousness at entering a new room in the dark and slipped inside.

Only one light glimmered inside. A globe or something like that sort with the same flickering effect of a candle. I didn't have time to look elsewhere; the thrashing figure on the bed drew every bit of my attention.

So the Doctor did sleep … and have nightmares.

Running over a floor that felt like it had been covered with thick carpet, I reached the side of his bed only to have to dodge a violent jab of his arm. My mouth dried up from the strength of his fear. Even in his sleep, there were barriers around his thoughts, but what I could sense came through a hundred times stronger. For a minute, I couldn't do more than stare at him as he thrashed his way through whatever mental hell he fought through. What could I possibly do to help him that wouldn't get me injured in the process?

The TARDIS thrummed around me strong enough to vibrate through my feet and into the rest of me. An urgency that didn't come from my own worry took hold in the back of my mind. Like a tickle that I couldn't scratch away. I had to trust my instincts. Didn't he call me an empath? So what if I ended up with a few bruises? The TARDIS had to have an infirmary for that.

Biting my lip, I took the opportunity to perch on the edge of the bed in a break from his violent spasms. Sweat gleamed down his face and his bare chest. Though he didn't try and kick or swing, he still twitched almost non-stop, muttering into his pillow. He looked so vulnerable. So … scared.

All right, girl. Time to be bold for once.

With a shaking hand, I reached out and dared to brush his forehead with it, barely grazing the skin. Even that light contact caused him to jerk, almost shoving me off the bed. I took a deep breath and opened my barriers as much as I felt confident in doing. Every ounce of calm and reassurance I could muster poured out of me. My hand brushed his forehead again, the reaction a little less violent this time. As the seconds passed into minutes and nothing visibly changed, I began to wonder if I hadn't projected the right feelings.

Then, when I briefly pulled my hand away, the Doctor's head turned towards the empty space. My heart took up permanent residence in my mouth. Did that actually happen or did I overreact? With a little bit of hope rising inside me, I placed my hand on his arm. The twitching and muttering slowed down. A grin exploded onto my face. I actually did help him. I didn't have to force the calm and reassurance any longer as I took his hand. Nothing more than that. Just enough to let him know he wasn't alone.

It took a long time for the Doctor to settle down enough for me to believe he slept normally again. It took a bit of work to free my hand. Even then, I just stood there, staring at him with my heart twisting itself into knots. He looked so vulnerable. So lonely. I couldn't leave him alone. Even though the thought of not seeing my Jack ever again ate at me, I knew with a fierce certainty that it would tear at me even more if I just left the Doctor. Rose definitely cheered him up, but she could be oblivious to a fault.

No, I'd stay as long as I could with the Doctor. He'd helped me regain my sanity. The least I could do would be to return the favor.

Slipping outside, I let the door close with a faint click. Now that I had more light, I recognized the hue of the blue in front of me. I smiled. Of course that would be his door. I pressed my hand against it. "I won't tell him if you won't, girl," I murmured. The wood warmed under my skin and an intense satisfaction rolled through me with the flavor that I'd begun associating with the TARDIS.

We'd look after the Doctor together.