A/N I do not own the BBC or Doctor Who.
Chapter 36
"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad. Look at this X-ray. Your brain is completely see-through. But then, I've always been able to see through you, Doctor," the Dream Lord said, examining the X-ray. The Doctor looked around. They were in the nursing home, but the room was empty. He was wearing an unfinished jumper.
"What are you talking about?" Rose asked, looking at the man as though he was crazy. Maybe he was.
"Now then," the Dream Lord said, ignoring her, "the prognosis is this. If you die in the dream, you wake up in reality. Healthy recovery in –"
Donna interrupted, "Listen, mate, I haven't got a clue who you are or what's going on, but I'm telling you now that you'd better get us out right now or I swear I'll – "
He laughed, looking at her. "Oh, Donna Noble, you always did have a bit of a temper. Always a bit too impulsive. I guess that's what'll get you in the end. Or – has it already gotten you?" She paled, but her expression was one of anger, not fear. The Dream Lord only smirked. "That's right, you don't know, do you? This could all be a dream and tomorrow you'll wake up back at your mum's again, all alone…"
"Stop it!" Rose ordered, hands on her hips. "Don't listen to him, Donna, he's trying to mess with your head."
The Dream Lord's face fell into a sneer. "My God, I always thought you were smarter than this, Miss Tyler. Of course I'm trying to mess with your head; what do you think I've been doing this whole time?" He scoffed at her expression before turning back to look the Doctor in the eye. "As I was saying, you've got a world to choose. One reality was always too much for you, Doctor. Take two and call me in the morning." And then he was gone.
"Okay, I don't like him," Rory announced, holding tightly to Amy.
She pushed his arms off, turning to the Doctor with a reproachful look. "Who is he?"
The Doctor sat down in the plushy chair, rubbing at his eyes. "I don't know," he said, thinking, "It's a big universe."
"Why's he doing this?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe because he has no physical form. That gets you down after a while, so he's taking it out on folks like us who can touch and eat and…feel."
"What was all that about dying, though?" Rose asked, her eyebrows scrunched up together.
"He said that we'd face a deadly danger in each reality," Amy said hesitantly, "and so if we die in the dream, we wake up. If we die in the real one….I guess we just…die."
Donna frowned, looking rather worried. "But if Rose and I are in different dreams from you three, how are we supposed to know?"
The Doctor sat up straight, looking at her intensely. "You know where you went during the, err, other reality?"
Donna nodded. "Yeah. I was back at mum's, but it was like I'd never met you two. Never even heard of either of you or aliens or any of it. Like I was living in three years ago or something."
The Doctor didn't react verbally, but his mouth tightened into a line. He looked to Rose. "I was in Pete's world," she began, "and I was with you – the old you – but he…wasn't actually you. Like a twin brother or something. Called him John. We didn't have the TARDIS; we'd gone completely domestic. Living with my mum and Pete. Tony, too."
His face darkened even more, but he still didn't say anything.
"Okay…." Rory said, "But the deadly danger in this reality – what did he mean? Nothing deadly has happened here. I mean, a bit of natural wastage, obviously, but…."
The Doctor jumped to his feet, suddenly alert, and looked around the empty room. "They've gone. They've all gone," he muttered, referring to the elderly people that had been filling the room before. "Come on," he said before running out of the room, taking off the jumper as he did so and throwing it over his shoulder.
Rose and Rory followed immediately, running after him, but Donna slowed a bit to help a grumbling Amy down the stairs. "Sorry about all this," she mumbled to the perturbed woman, "he doesn't seem to understand how hard it is to run when you're pregnant," she added, jerking her head towards the Doctor, saying something about Ms. Poggit and shared dreams to Rory and Rose.
Amy looked at her curiously. "Have you ever been –"
Donna shook her head, a bittersweet smile on her face. "Not really, no."
Before she got a chance to explain, or rather, before Amy got a chance to ask, the Doctor raised his voice, walking around the four of them in circles, pulling at his hair. "I'm sure there's a dream giveaway, a tell, but my mind isn't working," he exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air, "because this village is so dull! I'm slowing down, like you two have!" he hollered, gesturing to Rory and Amy.
Amy glared at him for a moment, and then her face went pale and she clutched at her swollen belly with a little scream. "It's coming! Really, it's coming!"
Immediately, everyone went into a panic, each believing they knew the right thing to do. The Doctor was yelling at Rory. Rory was yelling at Donna. Donna was yelling at Rose. Rose was yelling at the Doctor.
Then Amy straightened up, her face going neutral. "It's not coming."
The Doctor stood, looking bewildered. "What?"
She put her hands on her hips, looking him right in the eye. "This is my life now and it just turned you white as a sheet, so don't you call it dull again, ever." There was silence as the Doctor looked thoroughly abashed. "Okay?" Amy added, looking for some sort of response.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"Yeah," she snapped, looking away from him. After a few moments of awkward silence, she left to go and sit on the swing in the playground beside them. A brief hesitation and they followed, led by Donna.
"Are you alright?" she asked Amy, squatting down to be at her level. Amy told her yes, but her body stayed in its closed-off posture, turned away from the Doctor.
Said alien was currently watching with narrowed eyes as Ms. Poggit stared at the children playing in the field. With a seriously creepy smile, she turned and walked away. "I dunno about you," the Doctor began, glancing back towards Rory and Amy, "but I wouldn't hire Ms. Poggit as a babysitter."
"What's she doing?" Rose asked, standing on her tiptoes to see the elderly woman.
The Doctor made a humming sound. "Yes, exactly. What is she doing? What does she want?"
He spun around suddenly as a loud chirping could be heard around them. "Donna! Rose! Don't get yourselves killed!"
With a final grumbled from Amy about how awful it was to switch back and forth like this, everything went dark.
DOCTOR WHO
"Morning," someone said, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. Rose's eyes shot open and she jumped up, pushing herself away from this person so violently that she fell straight over the side of the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. "Rose?" he asked, leaning over the edge, concern written all over his features.
His very familiar features.
Then it clicked. Dream Lord. Two realities. Pete's World. Right. "Sorry," she mumbled, "Bad dream."
"Are you alright?" he asked, not buying it.
She looked up at him. "Umm, yeah. I'm fine. John." This was strange. She'd had this dream the last time they'd heard the chirping, yeah, but they'd just been making sandwiches and talking about Rose's job at Torchwood (?). She'd never actually woken up next to the, umm, figment of her imagination? Doctor's secret twin?
His eyebrows were scrunched up in the middle, but he nodded slowly, appearing to accept her answer. He held out a hand to help her up and she took it, feeling strange that she remembered this body so well, but that it was so different. Because there was something very different about him; she just didn't know exactly what, yet.
A knock on the door drew her from her thoughts. "Rose! John! Be at HQ in five minutes – we've got a Code 483!" said the disembodied voice of Pete.
John saved her from having to reply, calling out, "Alright, Pete!" Then he turned to Rose. "Five minutes. Can you even get dressed in five minutes?"
She stuck her tongue out at him on instinct, easily falling into the familiar teasing relationship she had with the Doctor. Not that this was the Doctor, of course, but….right. Five minutes. Code 483. What was Code 483 again?
DOCTOR WHO
"Donna! Oh my god, Donna!" someone was shouting in her face.
She stretched her arms out and pushed them away, opening her eyes slowly. "What, mum?"
Her mother was hysterical. "You just collapsed, Donna! Are you alright? This didn't have anything to do with the Doct–"
Her grandfather slapped his hand over Sylvia's mouth with a warning glance. "Sorry, darling, your mum's gone a bit mad worrying about you," he said, slowly removing his hand.
She furrowed her brow. "What doctor?"
Wilf's eyes widened and he appeared to be scrambling for an answer. "Oh, you know, that one you worked with a few years back, always complaining about how he had a PhD and he was working in an office." He laughed nervously. "Remember?" Donna blinked, not remembering any of that. He hummed a bit. "You must've hit your head harder than you thought. Why don't you go and lie down for a bit, eh?" He prompted, helping her to her feet and nudging her in the direction of her room.
More than a little confused, she followed his direction, her feet automatically taking her down the hall. They started arguing as soon as they thought she was out of earshot, and she stopped to listen.
"We need to call him! Look at her; there's obviously something wrong!" her grandfather exclaimed, trying and failing to keep his voice to a whisper.
"We can't, dad, you know that! If she remembers even a little bit of all that alien nonsense, it'll kill her!"
"Then we can ask him what to do – see if he can help at all!"
Her mum said something else after that, but Donna was too distracted to hear it. Alien nonsense. Alien. What the hell had her mum meant by alien?
DOCTOR WHO
"It's cold in here," Amy said, her arms coming up to wrap around her very un-pregnant body. "Have you got any blankets?"
He turned to the jump seat, expecting to see the pink fuzzy blanket that Rose liked to wrap around herself in the mornings, but he was met with nothing. Just the cold black leather of the seat. He cleared his throat. "Right, sorry. There should be some down there," he said, gesturing vaguely to the left. There was a cupboard there that had blankets and coats. Sometimes.
They walked in the direction he had pointed out, leaving him alone by the console. No Donna. No Rose.
The Doctor shook his head, telling himself to focus. He looked around him, grabbing an empty mug off the console – Donna never would've let him just leave it there like some sort of caveman – and looked at it for a moment before lying down on the grating and slipping through the little gap under the console. He stood up again once he got through, still holding the mug, and looked around. All of the lights were off. Because his ship had died. He set the mug down on top of a toolbox hanging from the ceiling – or would it be considered the floor? – and tried to open it.
The knob fell off.
He looked at it for a moment before shoving it into his pocket and banging the box with the side of his fist. The door dropped open, spilling out a strange assortment of objects. A whisk. Some string. A twisty piece of metal that may have at one point been a corkscrew. It was a very helpful toolbox.
He tried to ignore the sounds of his companions arguing over their marriage that was upcoming tomorrow, a rather indefinite time. Instead of focusing on their relationship issues, caused mostly by him, he took the mug and the whisk and jammed them together, successfully breaking the bottom of the mug apart. Some string to tie it together, half of the corkscrew fit in here, the other half here, connect these two things, and…presto!
The Doctor squished up to the topside of the console again, handing his creation to Rory with a command to wind it and the end of the string to Amy. "Attach this to the monitor, please and thank you."
Rory looked miffed, but began to wind it regardless. "I was promised amazing worlds. Instead I get duff central heating and a weird, kitcheny wind-up device," he grumbled.
"It's a generator," the Doctor corrected, looking at the monitor. "No, no, wind more! More!"
Rory obeyed. "Why is the Dream Lord picking on you? On us?" He was ignored.
The scanner blinked on and the Doctor clapped his hands together, but his expression fell immediately when he saw what was on the screen.
"What," Rory began, pointing at it, "is that?"
"A star," the Doctor muttered, "A cold star." He ran over and flung the doors open, letting in enough light to blind them as well as a burst of frozen air. "That's why we're freezing. It's not a heating malfunction. We're drifting towards a cold sun," he yelled over the sound of the wind rushing around them. Struggling to close it, he added, "There's our deadly danger for this version of reality."
Once the door was closed, Amy grinned, though her lips had gone blue from the cold. "So this must be the dream. There's no such thing as a cold star. Stars burn," she said in a problem-solved kind of tone.
The Doctor grimaced. "This one's burning. It's just burning cold."
"Is that possible?" Rory asked, shivering.
The Doctor groaned and, despite his constant claims of superior biology, he was cold. "I can't know everything! Why does everyone expect me to always –"
"Okay, this is something you haven't seen before," Rory said, trying to placate him, "So does that mean this is the dream?"
The Doctor made a frustrated noise, flopping down on the jump seat (the one that was entirely bare of Rose's blanket). "I don't know!" he growled, "but there it is, and I'd say we've got about fourteen minutes until we crash into it. But that's not the problem," he said, jumping up again.
"Because you're going to fix it?" Rory asked hopefully.
"No, because we'd have frozen to death by then."
DOCTOR WHO
Rose's breath caught in her throat as the creature leapt towards her, claws outstretched. She'd mistakenly backed herself into a corner, there was no way out. There was a faint chirping noise that her brain refused to register and she closed her eyes, the creature's claws inches from her chest. She was going to die. She was going to be ripped to shreds and die in some strange world, all alone in a corner because she hadn't remembered what Code 483 was in time. Hostile creature on the loose. Do not engage. Stupid mistake that was about to cost her her life. Lovely.
When she felt nothing, she opened her eyes, her breath coming out in a sigh of relief at what she saw. She was laying in the grass at the park, Donna looking down at her with a worried expression. "You okay?" she asked, offering her hand to help her up. "You took the longest to wake up."
Rose took the hand that Donna offered and looked down at her chest once she stood. Nothing. "Yeah," she said, her voice coming out a bit breathless. "'m fine. Think I've just died, but I'm fine."
Donna's yes widened, her jaw going slack. "What?!"
Rose waved her off, "No, really, I'm fine. Look," she said, putting her arms out to the sides and turning in a circle for examination. "I'm fine."
"Oh my god," they heard Amy say.
With a glance at each other, they both ran over to the others. The Doctor was wiping his hand off on his pants and there were little piles of sand everywhere. "What is…."
"The children," Amy said, horrified.
A chill went through Donna as she caught her meaning. She looked down at the sand piles, now realizing that they all had articles of clothing and toys buried inside of them. "Oh my god," she said, her hand coming up to her mouth. "What happened to them?"
The Doctor looked to where a group of elderly people was walking, all of them with the same blank looks on their faces. "I think they did."
"They're just old people," Amy protested, but the Doctor was adamant.
"No, they're very old people. Sorry, Doctor Rory, I don't think you're what's been keeping them alive," he said, his voice tinged with the faintest genuine apology.
"Hello, peasants," cried the Dream Lord, strolling in with a hat and a parasol. He stopped when he saw the crowd and feigned shock. "What's this, attack of the old people? Oh, that's ridiculous. This has got to be the dream, hasn't it? What do you think, Amy?" He turned to her and was instantly right up in her face. "Let's all jump under a bus and wake up in the TARDIS. You first."
"Leave her alone," the Doctor ordered.
The Dream Lord looked him up and down, his eyes finally stopping at the Doctor's face again. "Ooh, do that again. I love it when he does that. Tall, dark hero. 'Leave her alone'," he said, imitating the Doctor.
"Just leave her!" Rory said, fearing the Dream Lord would turn back to his fiancé again. Rose shook her head absently; he should've just stayed quiet.
"Yes, well, you're not quite so impressive, are you?" he sneered, looking at Rory. At his ponytail. "But I know where your heart lies, don't I, Amy Pond?" he teased, looking back at her.
Her face turned nearly the same color as her hair. "Just shut up and leave me alone."
He feigned surprise. "Oh, haven't told anyone yet, have we? Too ashamed? But listen. You're in there." He smirked at her. "Loves a redhead, our Doctor. Now, I hate to say it, he's more partial towards blondes." The Dream Lord laughed evilly and added with a glance at Rose and her bleached hair, "Even phony ones."
She glared at him, but said nothing. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"Enough!" the Doctor snapped. "Drop it. Drop all of it. I know who you are."
The Dream Lord rolled his eyes, but he looked a bit wary. "No, you don't."
"Course I do," the Doctor told him, "No idea how you can be here, but there's only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do."
The Dream Lord's lips curled up into a smile. "Never mind me. Maybe you should worry about them," he said, looking over the Doctor's shoulder at the group of old people.
The Doctor turned to look at them and when he turned back, the Dream Lord had vanished. The old people were advancing on them.
Rory stepped in front of Amy with a little wave to the crowd. "Hi. Hello."
The Doctor caught on quickly, smiling nervously. "Yes, hello! We were wondering where you'd gone. To get reinforcements, by the looks of it," he said, his façade dropping briefly when he saw how many there were. "Are you all right? You look a bit tense."
"Hello Mr. Nainby," Rory said to the man closest to him, ignoring the Doctor's quiet warnings. "Mr. Nainby ran the sweet shop. He used to slip me the odd free toffee." He smiled at him, but it dropped instantly when the man hoisted him up by the collar and threw him backwards as if he weighed nothing. "Did I not say thank you?" Rory squeaked, standing and groaning at the pain in his backside.
"How'd he do that?" Donna asked, bewildered and more than a little frightened.
The Doctor put his arm out in front of her, as if that would protect her from them. "I suspect he's not himself. Don't get comfortable here. You may have to run. Fast."
Amy groaned, putting a hand over her belly. "Can't we just talk to them?"
Ms. Poggit stepped forward, her mouth opening much wider than it ought to, contorting around the edges, until something was visible inside. Something green.
Amy froze. "There's an eye in her mouth."
"There's a whole creature inside her," the Doctor said, scanning the woman with his sonic screwdriver. "Inside all of them. They've been here for years, living and waiting."
Donna backed up quite a bit, revolted. Rory seemed to agree with her. "That is disgusting. They're not going to be peeping out of anywhere else, are they?"
The eye shout out a thick green gas, aimed directly at them. The Doctor dodged it and then stood again. "Run," he ordered, gesturing with his hands. "Okay, leave them, leave them. Talk to me. Talk to me. You are Eknodines. A proud, ancient race. You're better than this," he said, trying to distract the creatures from his friends. He looked back to them. "Run!"
Rory and Amy took off immediately, Amy struggling to run in her condition, but Rose and Donna were more hesitant. He looked at them both, desperation in his eyes, and gestured once more for them to run. Rose took Donna by the hand and, against both of their instincts, they ran, leaving the Doctor to face the aliens alone.
Not knowing the town at all, unlike Rory and Amy, Donna and Rose just ran out in some vague direction down the road, only trying to get away from the old people that seemed to pop up everywhere.
A scream made Donna stop and Rose spun around to yell at her. "Come on!" she cried, glancing at the four old women coming up behind them.
Donna shook her head, pointing to the house just beside them. A little boy was curled up on the steps, screaming, as the old man on the sidewalk drew ever-closer to him. Without even batting an eye, Donna picked up a backpack that had been forgotten on the ground and swung it, hitting the man square in the back. He fell to the ground and she dropped the bag and stepped over him, muttering, and "Sorry."
Rose blinked in shock, her brain still about ten minutes behind. The women behind her started to make strange little hissing noises that jolted her back into the present. She ran across the street to Donna and the boy.
Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirp.
Rose's eyes widened. If they fell asleep out here in the open like this, the old people would definitely kill them without thinking twice. Donna seemed to realize the same thing, as she frantically jiggled the doorknob. "It's locked!"
It was a small house, more of a cottage really, and didn't appear to have any other doors. But it did have a window.
Wincing at what she was about to do, Rose pulled the sleeve of her jacket down over her hand and drew her elbow back, her old Torchwood and UNIT training kicking in. The punch was almost natural to her, but the pain in her knuckles and the glass raining down on her arm was not. Reaching through the broken window, Rose fumbled around inside for a minute or two until she caught the lock and turned it. She pulled her arm back out of the window, trying to ignore the glass cutting through her clothes, and opened the (now unlocked) door.
"Wow," Donna commented. "Nice trick. You ought to teach me that."
Rose grinned. "If we make it out of this alive, I will."
Chirp.
Chirp.
She went into the house, Donna just behind her, tugging the boy along by the hand. They'd only just shut the door when Donna fell to the ground, completely unconscious. Or rather, asleep.
Rose looked down at herself, still perfectly awake, and felt a growing sense of dread. If she wasn't falling asleep, that must mean that she really had died in the dream. So that one was definitely the dream. Right?
DOCTOR WHO
"Ah, it's colder!" Amy said, pulling the blanket tighter around herself.
The Doctor sat upright. "Okay, we need to decide which one is real. All three of us, right now, need to come to the same conclusion."
"This one's the dream," Rory said confidently.
"He could be right," Amy agreed. "The science's all wrong here. Burning ice?"
"No, no, no. Ice can burn. Sofas can read. It's a big universe. We have to agree which battle to lose. All of us, now."
"Okay, which world do you think is real?" Amy asked him.
He hesitated. This one felt real, but…Donna and Rose weren't….
"This one. Definitely this one," Rory said, saving him the trouble of having to answer.
"Nine minutes till impact," the Doctor mumbled. ""I dunno what the temperature is, but I can't feel my feet. And…other parts."
"I think all my parts are just fine," Rory couldn't help but point out.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Stop competing."
"Couldn't we call for help?" Rory asked, reaching for the phone.
The Doctor swatted his hand away. "Yeah, because the universe is really small and there's bound to be someone nearby," he snapped, the chill getting the best of him.
"Put these on, both of you," Amy ordered, holding up the blankets. But they weren't exactly blankets…
"Oh, a poncho," Rory grumbled, "The biggest crime against fashion since lederhosen."
"Here we go. My boys," Amy said. She giggled. "My poncho boys. If we're going to die, let's die looking like a Peruvian folk band."
"We're not going to die," Rory promised.
The Doctor frowned. "No, we're not, but our time's running out. If we fall asleep here we're in trouble. If we could divide up, then we'd have an active presence in each world, but the Dream Lord is switching us between the worlds. Why? Why? What's the logic?" He began to pace, his frustration getting to him.
"Good idea, veggie," the Dream Lord snarked, appearing in front of them. "Let's divide you three up, so I can have a little chat with our lovely companion. Maybe I'll keep her, and you can have Pointy Nose to yourself for all eternity, should you manage to clamber aboard some sort of reality."
"Can you hear that?" Rory asked, looking around.
Chirp Chirp.
"No," Amy said, confused and a bit worried.
The Doctor looked over at her. "Amy, don't worry. We'll be back. Don't worry."
Then they were asleep and she was alone with the Dream Lord.
DOCTOR WHO
Rose sighed, looking at the door. She and the boy – Steven, he told her – had locked the door and put a chair in front of it, but the old people kept banging on it. The poor door would probably give out soon, and then where would they be?
Just then, Donna woke up with a gasp. She looked around and groaned. "Oh, bloody hell, this isn't much better than that other world," she grumbled. And then, "What's that?"
Rose looked to where she was pointing. The window. She got up on her knees and her eyes widened at what she saw. A bunch of younger people were climbing into a van just outside the house next door. The Doctor was driving it.
Donna looked to the front door. "Could we make it through them?"
"We can hit 'em with the chair," Steven suggested, sounding much too happy to be the victim of his world falling to pieces. Could be the end of the world and he was excited about it? Kinda reminded her of the Doctor.
"Yeah, alright," Donna said, "Good plan."
"But you shouldn't normally hit people," Rose added, not wanting to encourage the boy to just go 'round hitting people with chairs. "Only this once."
He nodded eagerly and Rose nearly laughed. "Alright. Donna, would you like to hold the chair, or do you want me to?"
"I will, thanks," she said grimly, picking up the chair by its arms. "I'll only hit 'em if they come after us," she said, as if making a promise to herself. Probably something to do with the morality of whacking an elderly person with a chair.
Rose took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and swung it open, backing up to allow Donna space the get through. After the slightest hesitation, Rose picked up Steven, ignoring his protests, and ran after her.
Turns out that even with the creatures inside of them, the old people weren't much faster than, well, old people. Donna only had to swing the chair at one particularly spry old man with a hat. Once they were clear of the old people, Donna threw the chair to the side and waved her arms to get the Doctor's attention. He leaned out of the window, hollering at them to hurry up.
There was a man leaning out of the open door with his hand out, and Rose handed him Steven before hoisting herself up, squishing past them to get to the Doctor.
"Hello, dear," he said cheerfully, his foot coming down on the gas as soon as he saw Donna get safely inside the van. "Nice to see that you haven't died!"
Donna came up as well, effectively squishing everyone who was close to the front seat. "What happened to talking to them?" she asked, laughing.
He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. "You can't please everyone," he told her, "and old people are rather partial to holding grudges." He spun the wheel around to turn off onto a little street by an empty field before stopping abruptly. "Everyone out! Try not to die, please!"
Rose laughed as the passengers unloaded. "Do you even have a driver's license?"
He looked mildly offended. "Of course I do," he insisted as the doors shut and he started to drive again.
Donna snorted. "When'd it expire, then?"
He thought for a moment. "1980 something, I believe. Not entirely sure."
"You're mad," Rose told him. He just laughed and smiled at her before looking back to the road. They drove much faster than they should have and ended up in front of Rory and Amy's cottage in no time. The cottage swarmed with the attacking elderly.
The Doctor thought for a moment, then he said, "Alright, this isn't going to be easy, but I need you to follow me exactly. Both of you, do everything that I do. Got it?"
They nodded, though Donna looked a bit nervous at what he would do. Without explaining anything, he hopped out of the van. "Come on!"
DOCTOR WHO
"Amy, I want to do something for you," Rory said, shuffling around in the bag behind him. He turned around again with a pair of scissors and took them to his ponytail before he could think twice.
Amy gasped, her hand over her mouth. A little laugh. "I was starting to like it."
"Oof."
They looked over in alarm, only to see the Doctor fall in through their window, Rose and Donna copying him moments later. Donna slammed it shut after she regained her balance.
"Sorry," he said, "had to stop off at the butcher's."
"What do we do now?" Rory asked him.
He frowned. "I don't know. Thought the freezing TARDIS might be real, but now I'm not sure at all."
Rose shook her head. "This is real. I died, in the other world. So this one has to be real, yeah?"
The Doctor sat up, immediately going to her. "What?"
"Oh!" Amy exclaimed, startling them all. They looked over to see her clutching her belly in pain. It was obvious that she hadn't heard a word any of them had said. "I think the baby's coming."
"Honestly?" Rory asked, looking a bit less than believing.
"Would I make it up at a time like this?" she ground out with a huff.
"Well, you do have a history of…." he trailed off as she glared at him. "…umm, being very lovely."
There was a bang at the window.
"Why are they so desperate to kill us?"
"They're scared," the Doctor said absently, still examining Rose for mortal injury. Or signs of life. She didn't really know. "Fear generates savagery."
There was a crash and a thud. Rory stood up and cautiously went to investigate, only for Ms. Poggit to spring up from seemingly nowhere and spray him with that awful green gas. He tried to dodge, but it caught him in the chest and he staggered back, pained.
"Rory!" Amy cried, rushing to his side.
The Doctor leapt across the room and shoved the woman backward, slamming the window shut behind her. When he turned back around, Rory's entire left side had dissolved into ash and he was mumbling something to a crying Amy. A split second more and he was completely gone, leaving behind only a pile of black ash, the tiny granules slipping easily through Amy's fingers.
"No," she mumbled, looking completely stunned. "Come back."
Rose knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, the only comfort she could offer.
Amy didn't seem to even have noticed. She looked up at the Doctor, desperation in her voice as she said, "Save him. You save everyone. You always do. It's what you do."
He just looked at her, his mouth open and his hands held out in a helplessly sorry gesture. "I can't. Not always," he mumbled, pain in his voice.
Her face went cold. "Then what," she spat, "is the point of you?" After a moment, she stood up. "This is the dream. Definitely. If we die here, we wake up, yeah?" she asked, already walking to the door.
"Unless we just die," he said, quick to remind her.
"Either way, this is my only chance of seeing him again. This is the dream," Amy said, sounding so sure of herself that they might have believed her. Maybe.
"How do you know?"
"Because if this is real life, I don't want it. I don't want it without him." And then she walked out, not looking back to see if they had followed. Regardless of which was the dream, Amelia Pond would not be walking through that door again.
"Doctor, we have to stop her," Rose said, anguished, "This is the real one!"
"Yeah," Donna said, backing her up, "Rose died in her dream. If she died, that means this is reality!"
The Doctor's eyes widened, filled with shock, at first. Then realization. Then relief. Then horror as he realized what Amy was about to do. Then his eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to stop her. We're going to go with her," he told them, his face lightening with every word. "Don't you see? The Dream Lord can't have any power over the real world, because he's….never mind, not important. He has no control over the real world, so he was offering us the choice between two dreams! We have to die in both of them!"
Donna frowned. "Are you sure?"
His grin faltered slightly. "Let's go. Got to catch up with Amy!" And then he ran out the door, leaving a very worried Donna and a frankly terrified Rose behind.
By the time they caught up, the Doctor was already with Amy and they were headed towards a van. The elderly were not attacking. "Why aren't they running at us?" Donna asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "It's just a dream. Probably."
They got into the van.
"Are you sure?" Rose asked, looking first at Amy then at the Doctor.
"Rory isn't here," Amy said, her emotionless façade breaking to reveal the hysteria lurking just beneath the surface. "I didn't know. I didn't, I didn't, I honestly didn't, till right now. I just want him" she mumbled, gripping the wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
The Doctor smiled a tight-lipped, fake little grin at her. "Course she's sure. I'm sure, too."
As Amy started the car, though, the Doctor leaned over and kissed Donna on the forehead, pulling her close to him for a tight hug. "Die. In the other dream, die," he told her, his face grim. She nodded, looking mildly sick.
Then the Doctor released her and wrapped Rose's hand in his own, squeezing it tightly. He was scared. Hell, Rose would even dare to say that he was terrified. He pulled her up against him, her small frame tucked against his chest, his chin on her head. "Absolutely sure," he mumbled, weaving the fingers of his free hand into her hair.
The van started to move.
Faster.
They were headed straight for the house.
Faster.
Rose gave a little squeak and buried her face in the Doctor's chest as the house got impossibly close. She braced herself, eyes shut tightly, for impact. The van shot forward at a breakneck speed and then –
DOCTOR WHO
"So, you chose this world. Well done. You got it right," the voice made them all look up.
And the Doctor was suddenly aware that he was very, very cold, and it was not entirely due to the absence of a certain warm blonde pressed against his chest. He was pretty sure there was ice on his hands and feet. Among…other parts.
"And with only seconds left. Fair's fair. Let's warm you up," the Dream Lord said, snapping his fingers. The ice was gone. So were Donna and Rose. The Dream Lord kept babbling about how glad he was they'd chosen the right world, but the Doctor ignored him, heading straight for the console.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rory asked, sounding more than a little concerned.
"He's lying. I'm going to blow up the TARDIS."
"What?!" Rory and Amy shouted simultaneously, horrified.
He smirked. "Too late for you to stop me, terribly sorry."
He slammed his fist down on the button.
DOCTOR WHO
Donna Noble was standing in the middle of an empty parking lot, holding her granddad's old war gun up to the side of her head. She didn't know why. She didn't want to kill herself. Not at all. But it felt like…she had to. Like something was telling her to.
"God," she mumbled to herself, "hope I haven't been hypnotized or something."
She was crying.
DOCTOR WHO
"Any questions?"
Rory looked around, his eyes the size of tea saucers. "Yeah, one. What the hell?"
The Doctor held something up, a little sparkly thing that looked like a grain of rice. "A speck of psychic pollen from the candle meadows of Karass don Slava. Must have been hanging around for ages. Fell in the time rotor, heated up and induced a dream state for all of us. Psychic pollen. It's a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. Must've picked my mind. By the way, terribly sorry about all of that."
"So that….psychic pollen or whatever, that's the Dream Lord?"
The Doctor blinked, taken aback. "No, I thought I'd just explained. The Dream Lord was me. Fed off of my darkness."
Amy narrowed her eyes. "But all of those things he said about you, you don't really believe all of that."
He didn't answer and Rose slipped a hand inside of his and gave it a comforting squeeze, knowing that only time would change his opinion of himself. She fancied herself meaning a lot to him, but no one could wipe away his darkness entirely. Not alone, at least.
"So," he asked instead of answering, "Where to next?"
"Actually, Doctor," Donna interrupted, "I think Amy has something to tell Rory. About how we got here."
The woman looked at her feet and Rory turned to her, bewildered. "Amy?"
"Haven't you got any questions about how we got out of our dreams?" Donna asked, prompting Rory, whose eyes lit up.
"Um, yeah, actually. What I don't get is, you blew up the TARDIS, that stopped that dream, but what stopped the Leadworth dream?"
"We crashed the van," Amy told him, matter-of-factly. She still wasn't looking in his eyes.
"Oh. Yeah. I….don't actually remember that bit," Rory admitted, his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.
Amy hesitated. "No. You'd already….you died."
There was a pause as he digested this information with a quiet "oh." And then, "Okay. But how did you know it was a dream? Before you crashed the van, how did you know you wouldn't just die?"
She finally looked up to meet his eyes. "I didn't."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh," she said, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pulling him to her for a heated kiss. Donna looked away, trying in vain to give them a bit of privacy.
"Should we just…go down to the swimming pool for a while, or….?" the Doctor trailed off, waiting for the couple to answer.
Rory shrugged, not looking away from his fiancé. "I don't care. We'll do whatever Amy wants. Amy's choice."
A/N I'M SO SORRY I WAS ON VACATION AND DIDN'T REALIZE THAT I WOULD HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INTERNET SO I COULDN'T POST THIS I'M SORRY