Disclaimer: I do not own 'Doctor Who' or any of the characters in it. All rights belong to the BBC, though I would love to own it myself. Sigh.
A/N: This Chapter is dedicated to 'MayFairy', who wanted the review count to 300 so she could get the next chapter, so she reviewed other chapters of my story :') Thank you! :D
I'm sure you're all thankful to her too for getting the next chapter so quickly. I don't know why…but I'm on a whim at the moment. I love writing this storyline…and a small part of me loves Drama and Angst, teehee!
Thank you to everyone else for their reviews as well. You know I love you all. I hope my gratitude shows in this chapter!
"I just had the strangest dream." Amy found herself saying as she woke up in the cottage. When she saw the Doctor's irritated face, she groaned and said, "You just had it too, didn't you?"
He nodded and climbed to his feet, holding out his hands for Amy to take, but she batted them away. "I'm not an invalid!" She reminded him as she struggled to her feet without his help.
"I know you aren't." The Doctor said smoothly, allowing himself a smile. "And because you're not an invalid, you can help me figure out what's going on."
"Fat lot of good that will do." Amy replied gloomily, resting her hands on her bump. "I'm so confused. I was hoping you would know what was going on."
"All I know is that we're in a dream, or we're in reality. But I can't tell which is which!" He told her, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
"Well, this must be reality. I can remember the five years we've been together perfectly." Amy said, wandering into the kitchen to pick up a bowl of raw cookie mixture.
"So can I. But in a dream, your whole life is fabricated!" The Doctor exclaimed, following after her. "Maybe this is the dream…but the other one could be too…I just don't know." He sighed and hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter. "I can barely remember what just happened in the TARDIS!"
"Just like a dream." Amy replied through a mouthful of mixture. She offered the Doctor some, which he declined, before whacking his leg with the spoon, leaving cookie batter on his trousers. "Off of the counter you. You know I don't like it when you sit where I cook!"
Knowing that Amy was prone to snapping at him if he didn't comply, he quickly jumped off. "Sorry." He apologised hastily, rubbing the mixture off of his trousers.
Amy smiled at him for listening to her and returned to eating the batter. The Doctor studied her calm face, the complete opposite of how he was feeling, and wondered why she looked like that. Surely she should have been worried like him.
"You know, it's rude to stare." Amy giggled, dipping her finger into the bowl and smearing batter on his cheek. "What's up Mr Grumpy face?"
"Your attitude is what's up." The Doctor muttered, leaning forward to peer deeply into her eyes. "You were worried a few moments ago, and now you're perfectly fine."
"Doctor, I'm pregnant. I can't help my mood changes." Amy shrugged, laughing it off.
"You can't trust this World Amy. We could be dreaming this. You might not be carrying a real baby." He warned, resting his hand on her pregnant stomach.
Amy's smile faded, and she nodded. "I know that. But this feels so real!"
"Dreams always feel real." The Doctor stated flatly. "That's why I don't like this at all."
"What I don't understand is why this is happening." Amy commented, and the Doctor was relieved to see her worried again. "Who is the Dream Lord and why does he want to confuse us like this? I'm meant to be giving birth today for goodness sake! Does he want me to go into labour now or something?"
Suddenly the doorbell rang, and Amy and the Doctor exchanged confused glances. "You didn't invite anyone over, did you?" He asked her as they both headed for the door.
"No. I would have told you if I had." She replied, opening the front door to see the Dream Lord on their doorstep.
"Amy!" The Dream Lord cried. "Look at you! You've swallowed a planet!"
Amy and the Doctor both tensed, and the Doctor reached out for his wife's hand, squeezing it tightly. "What do you want?" He hissed.
"Don't take that tone with me Mister." The Dream Lord told him sternly, shaking his finger at him. "I only popped in to tell you something else…but if you don't want to know then—"
"We want to know." Amy interrupted impatiently.
"Thank you Amy. Nice to see you can keep your temper. Well, occasionally." He paused to laugh at Amy's furious expression. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes! I forgot to mention that if you die in reality, you die."
"We worked that one out already genius!" Amy snapped, her pregnancy hormones getting the better of her as she slammed the door in the Dream Lord's face.
The Doctor was proud of her spirit, and he beamed with pride.
Though when Amy glanced at him, she thought he was smirking at her. "And you can take that smile right off your face." She growled, storming into the living room as angrily as her bump would allow her to move.
But as the Doctor followed her into the Living Room, the Dream Lord appeared right in front of Amy, causing her to shriek and clutch her stomach.
The Doctor panicked and rushed over to her, ensuring that she was okay. He ignored Amy trying to push him away and looked her over, breathing a sigh of relief when he realised that she was completely fine.
"Get out of my house!" She yelled at the Dream Lord, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him defiantly.
The Dream Lord licked his lips, unnerving both the Doctor and Amy, before bursting into laughter. "Red head's feisty, bet you enjoy that Doctor!"
The Doctor gritted his teeth, but didn't reply.
"Loves a redhead our naughty Doctor." The Dream Lord continued, winking at them. "And you two really have been naughty. Baby on the way and all that. Hey, I have an idea…can I be the baby's godfather? Unless this is the dream, of course."
Then Amy lost it. "Get out!" She screamed, causing the Doctor to panic about her blood pressure.
The Dream Lord raised in hands in mock surrender. "Don't worry, I'm out of here! But so are you…tweet tweet!"
Loud bird chirping filled the cottage, and Amy latched onto the Doctor as they drifted down onto the floor.
~I~
"That man is so infuriating!" Amy yelled as she pulled herself to her feet in the console room. "I could kill him for what he's doing to us!"
"Shame that he's just a hallucination." The Doctor added, scanning the TARDIS controls with his screwdriver.
As Amy watched him work, she began to shiver. The TARDIS was a lot colder than it was before.
"Doctor, it's really cold!" She complained, folding her arms across her chest to rub her arms. "Do you have any warm clothing?"
The Doctor's head shot up and he glared at her. "Does it matter if we're cold?"
At Amy's hurt gaze, he groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. "Right. Sorry. There should be some stuff…" He trailed off to gesture wildly behind her, "…down there. Have a look."
Amy thanked him quietly, which made the Doctor feel guilty for snapping at her, and she disappeared under the stairs to gather some clothes from an old trunk of the Doctor's.
"Now, if you're not going to work the automatic way, I'm going to have to generate some energy the manual way." The Doctor muttered to the console. "I hope you're happy!"
He ran down the stairs to gather some tools, and underneath the TARDIS console, it was even colder. Shivering, he reached into a white compartment and pulled out a rusty wind-up generator. "Three hundred years old, but you'll do." He remarked, slamming the compartment shut. "Now, I just need to hook you up."
He ran back up the stairs and plugged the generator into the console just as Amy emerged with two blankets, that she'd managed to make into ponchos.
"Here, poncho boy!" She called to the Doctor, tossing him the green tartan blanket. "Put that on!"
The Doctor admired the poncho before pulling it over his head; embracing the warmth it gave him. He kissed Amy on top of the head in gratitude before turning his attention to the generator.
"Hey Doctor, I had a thought." Amy told him after she'd put her own poncho on. "The TARDIS is sort of like a car, yeah? Well, when a car breaks down, and while the driver waits for their service to pick them up, they look through the car manual to see if they can fix the problem themselves. So is there a TARDIS manual we could look at?"
"There was." The Doctor replied, picking up the generator and winding it up. "But I threw it into a supernova."
Amy smacked his arm. "Why did you do that for?"
"Because I disagreed with it! Nothing can tell me how to run my TARDIS except me."
"That is so you." Amy said, unable to resist teasing him. "Now, seeing as we have no manual and the TARDIS is dead, what do we do?"
"I'm doing something now, if you haven't already noticed." The Doctor muttered.
"I just thought you were wasting time." Amy chuckled, sitting down on a console chair and watching him. "What are you doing then?"
"Generating some power so we can see what's outside. Only a few more winds will have the scanner working again."
"If you keep winding that thing up, will the TARDIS power come back on?" Amy asked hopefully.
"It would take me about six years to get the TARDIS working with this generator." The Doctor sighed. "And anyway, we can't ju—aha! We have a picture!"
Amy stood up to stare at the scanner with the Doctor. "Is that a star?" She asked curiously. "It's very pretty."
"Not pretty." The Doctor corrected. "Scary. Very scary."
"It's just a star. Where's the danger in that?"
"It's a cold star, and we're drifting straight towards it!" The Doctor cried, racing down the TARDIS stairs to the doors.
"That explains the temperature." Amy commented, still not aware of the danger. "And now what are you doing?"
"Just need to make sure!" He called to her, yanking open the TARDIS doors.
The sudden bright light blinded Amy, and she covered her face with her hands. The Doctor squinted through the light, and when he saw how close they were to the star, he quickly slammed the door shut.
"My calculations are that we have about fifty minutes before we crash into it!" The Doctor announced, heading back to the console. "But that's not a problem, because we'll have frozen to death before we'd have reached it!"
"Oh whoop-de-do!" Amy cheered sarcastically. "So what do we do?"
"Stay calm. Don't panic. Try to figure out which world is real."
"Well this feels very real!" Amy shivered, drawing her poncho tighter around her.
"You thought that in the cottage too." The Doctor reminded her. "This is going to be a tricky one to figure out."
"Well, if you can't choose, let's turn to Amy!" The Dream Lord suddenly piped up, and Amy and the Doctor spun around to confront him. "Which one's real Amy? You decide. It is Amy's choice after all."
"Leave her alone!" The Doctor growled protectively.
Amy placed a reassuring hand on the Doctor's arm. "Don't worry, I can handle him. This World's real. Right Doctor?"
The Dream Lord vanished before reappearing right next to her. "Are you sure about that? I've seen your dreams Amy. Some of them twice." He leered. "I'd cry with happiness at the family picture, if I had a heart."
Now it was the Doctor who got angry first. "Where did you pick up this cheap cabaret act?" He demanded, towering over the Dream Lord.
"Me?" The Dream Lord asked, pretending to look surprised. "Oh you're on shaky ground."
"Am I?"
"If you had any more tawdry quirks, you could open up a tawdry quirk shop!" The Dream Lord announced, moving closer to the Doctor. "The madcap vehicle, the cockamamie hair, the clothes designed by a first year fashion student...I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog, just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are!"
Those words stung the Doctor more than they should, and for once, he couldn't think of a comeback. Amy could see that he was hurt by the Dream Lord's comment, and she stepped closer to him to slip her arms around his waist. She couldn't think of a comeback either.
The Dream Lord eyed their embrace before grinning wickedly. "I've given you your challenge. Tweet tweet!"
The Dream Lord kicks arse. Just saying. I love his character in the show, and I didn't want to change him too much, so I kept most of his lines. -Don't sue me for Plagiarism haha-
Hayley x