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Chapter Twenty Five
There were many less than pleasant aspects of bearing a child. The nausea, the aches, the fogginess in her head, and the need for more sleep. It wasn't actually the need for sleep that bothered Anna, it was what happened during her slumber. She'd been having nightmares.
Her usual dreams were a chaotic mixture of past, present and future, as her mind relaxed its barriers and her natural abilities came to the fore. Anyone else would have found such vague and bizarre dreams confusing, even alarming, but Anna was soothed by them. These nightmares were different. They were much more vivid, as if she were experiencing the horrors all over again, and they were all based on events that had either happened and then never happened, or happened in a different way altogether.
At first, she had dismissed them as the result of stress. They couldn't harm her, after all, and she could always tell the Doctor if they continued. For a while after she had decided on this course of action, the nightmares stopped; or so she thought.
Then one day, Anna awoke from a terrifying nightmare about the Year That Never Was, her hearts pounding, her skin crawling. She tore off the stifling covers and groped for the light switch, grounding herself in the sight of her as always cluttered bedroom. Anna could still feel the constricting metal cage closing in around her, trapping her helplessly in the depths of a red, roaring, soulless waste of a machine.
But the worst part of the nightmare wasn't being cannibalised, or being forced to tear apart time itself; the most horrible thing was that instead of the Master subjecting her to such torture, it had been her beloved Doctor.
"He would never do that" she told herself, breathing hard. "It was just a nightmare, just stress. I'm six months pregnant, after all" she sighed, rubbing her stomach. Remembering her promise to herself, Anna gingerly got out of bed and pulled on a fluffy, TARDIS blue dressing gown. It was time to tell the Doctor.
Anna didn't expect the Doctor himself to be asleep when she came into the console room, but there he was, curled up on the jump seat. She chuckled softly when she saw that he grasped the circuit board he'd been working on like a favourite toy, clutching it close to his chest. Anna moved towards him.
Suddenly, the Doctor jerked as if he had been hit, and Anna jumped as well. "Yes…it's ready! It's finally ready!" he laughed, flinging his arms out to his sides as if he were celebrating, but there was something in his voice and his movements that told her this was not a happy dream. Anna had seen more than enough. She strode over in determination and seized the Doctor's flailing wrists, pinning them down. "Thief, wake up. You're having a nightmare!" she told him urgently.
The Doctor only snarled and struggled against her, but Anna did not release her grasp. If he kept thrashing about like this he could hurt her, or worse, hurt himself. At last he fell limp, a sinister smile plastered over his face. Anna felt shaken, because she'd seen that cruel smirk before. "Hush, my love…my Doctor…it's time to wake up now. That's it, wake up" she murmured encouragingly, stroking his hair.
He opened his eyes with a sigh. "Anna?" he murmured in confusion, looking up at her relieved, but nervous face. "I'm here, it's okay" she said comfortingly, standing back to let him sit up. "I...something was holding me down…What happened? Did I fall asleep?" he asked, disoriented.
"I'm afraid you did more than fall asleep, Thief. You were having a nightmare, and struggling against something. I was the one holding you down; I'm sorry if it scared you, I just wanted to stop you from harming yourself" explained Anna. The Doctor rubbed his eyes and tried to remember what he'd forgotten…oh, yes. "Weren't you asleep? I didn't wake you up, did I?" he asked worriedly.
Anna shook her head. "I was actually coming to tell you that I had a nightmare, as well" she admitted, adding "but I'm sure it's just stress", because the Doctor looked alarmed.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, and Anna raised an eyebrow. "If I tell you about my nightmare, do you promise to tell me about yours?" she asked.
"Yes" the Doctor replied obediently.
With a deep breath Anna described her nightmare. "Then the Master took off his welding mask and…and it wasn't the Master at all, it was you" she explained.
The Doctor looked ill. "This is strange, bad strange. Not strange as in 'you're having nightmares' strange; it's just strange because…I had the same nightmare. Or rather, the next part of your nightmare…I dreamed that I'd gone mad, really properly mad, and I had turned you into a Paradox Machine, to bring back the Time Lords. But I wouldn't! I swear I would never hurt you, even if I did go off the deep end, which I really hope I won't because I rather like being reasonably sane!"
Anna placed her hands on the Doctor's shoulders and smiled at him. "Deep breaths, Doctor. Though it is odd that we had some sort of shared dream; perhaps our bond is closer than we thought" she smiled, moving her hands to the back of the Doctor's neck and drawing him in for a kiss. He grinned as they came apart. "Well, we have had seven hundred odd years to get close…though I still find it a bit annoying that you know more about me than I do about you" he grumbled.
"What do you mean?" asked Anna, "we know everything about one another".
"Oh yeah? What was my favourite ice cream flavour in my…fifth incarnation?"
"Strawberry"
"What's my favourite colour right now?"
"Orange, and I can't imagine why"
"I don't know what you're talking about. How old am I? Wait, no, no on second thoughts don't answer that" he added hurriedly. Anna raised an eyebrow. "So, your point is…?"
"My point is that I don't know what your favourite ice cream or colour or…idiom is, or how old you are! Granted you'll probably never tell me that last bit, but still!"
"Well, that's easy. My favourite ice cream flavour is bubble gum and my favourite colour is TARDIS blue, naturally. And actually I don't know what your favourite idiom is, but in case you were wondering mine is 'out of the blue'. Get it? Like 'out of the blue box?"
The Doctor faked laughed. "So basically all your favourite things are blue. Well, now I know what to get you for Christmas – anything, as long as it's blue" he deadpanned.
Anna rolled her eyes. "Ha, ha, very funny. Can I go back to bed now?"
Before the Doctor could think of a witty answer, he felt a sharp jab in his side and his mind, courtesy of the psychic paper. Tugging it out, he flipped the wallet open to reveal one word written in familiar cursive handwriting: Falling. This was followed by a series of co-ordinates.
Without stopping to wonder how River had found the time to write her message down whilst plummeting to the ground, the Doctor rushed to the console and dematerialised as quickly as he could. Anna helped by telepathically moving the controls that the Doctor couldn't reach, and it wasn't long before they materialised on the side of a stone building. The Doctor ran over to the doors, pulled them both open, and moments later River careened into his arms.
River's head reeled from the sudden shift in gravity, and it took her a moment to register that she hadn't fallen into the TARDIS pool as she'd been expecting. "Err, River? You're crushing my ribs" squeaked her husband – ex-husband, River reminded herself sharply. She stood up and wiped her dress down with her palms.
The Doctor saw a mixture of relief, sadness and pain flick across River's face in the split second their eyes met; then her gaze shifted to a spot over his shoulder and her face became a smiling mask. It was like staring at a brick wall. "At least my dress isn't soaked through, I suppose that's one good thing" she said a little too cheerfully, adding as if it were an afterthought, "thank you, sweetie"
"You're welcome" he replied, a little taken aback at her use of his old pet name.
"Anna! You regenerated, I see" she commented politely. "Yes, two months ago" Anna replied, looking River right in the eye. "It's nice to see you again, River" she said sweetly.
River smiled, although it looked more like she wanted to snarl. "Likewise. How's the baby? Figured out what the gender will be, yet?" she questioned. The Doctor interrupted; "We don't know yet, we want it to be a surprise. We've thought of names though. Jason if it's a boy, and Hope if it's a girl" he explained.
For a moment River's gaze softened. "Those are lovely names…but I'm not really here to discuss that, if you don't mind. No, actually I came here to ask for your help, Doctor" she explained.
"With what?" he asked, and River pulled out a roll of parchment from some hidden pocket on her dress. "These papers reportedly have clues to the location of an ancient civilisation on the planet Maya, that disappeared four thousand years ago. According to legends, the thinkers of ancient Mayan civilisation built a rudimentary space ship and left when they realised their civilisation was crumbling, ended up on Maya, and then vanished all over again" she explained.
The Doctor peered at the arcane symbols and inquired "so why do you want my help? This seems like something you can handle on your own" he said. He'd meant it as a compliment, but to River it was a sting. "I can" she said swiftly, "and I would go on my own, but the prison warden sent me on this mission with a literal armada to go along with me. I ditched them all somewhere in Tokyo, but I thought I'd be a good girl and get myself the equivalent of an armada" she said flirtatiously.
The Doctor handed the parchment back to her and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It does sound interesting" he conceded, scratching his cheek. "Can Anna come too?"
"Oh, it's really too dangerous for someone with an unborn child. There'll probably be lots of running, you wouldn't be able to keep up" she explained to Anna, her voice filled with fake sympathy.
"It's nice that you're so concerned about your niece, River. Or nephew, I suppose" replied Anna. She understood why River would be upset with her, but that didn't mean she had to sit back and take it. River was old enough to know better.
The Doctor, who was completely oblivious to the slights either woman was making, said awkwardly, "Err, yes, perhaps it'd be better if you stayed here, Anna. I'll be home soon, I promise". He kissed her and tried to ignore River's eyes boring into the back of his head. "Lead the way, Dr Song". He gave her a salute and she winked at him in return, before nodding at Anna.
After they'd left, Anna locked the door behind them, setting it to unlock automatically at the Doctor's or River's approach, and wondered what to do. She felt an odd flutter that could have been the baby kicking, and smiled. "What are you trying to tell me, darling?" she asked the unborn baby. The baby seemed to kick again, somewhere on her left side. The corridor to her left led to the kitchens, bedrooms, and the library. "You want me to read you a bedtime story, hey?"
Taking the slight lilt in the baby's telepathic song, Anna headed for the library. She settled down with her novel and began to read aloud, absent-mindedly rubbing her stomach at the same time. Well, she might as well encourage a love of literature from an early age.