Slight mentions of PTSD (nothing major)

Stuck on the Slow Path (6)

"Where do we start?"

Dawn's voice came softly through the deep silence of the room, and hardly managed to reach the Doctor's ears, let alone his brain. The teen cleared her throat and squeezed her friend's hand tighter. "Doctor; what did the alien do exactly? Did it have a weapon? Claws?"

Kate gave Dawn an encouraging smile, stepping beside the pair. "If it was electrical impulses, we can disable it from here...Doctor!"

The Doctor jerked as his name was called his eyes still glazed over, staring at a spot on the distant wall. Slowly, his mouth fell open. Dawn noticed a tremble in his lips. The Time Lord was terrified. As he spoke, his voice wavered slightly. "It...it wasn't that. It was...worse. Much worse."

He sank to a crouch, rubbing his hands over his face agitatedly. Dawn knelt beside him, rubbing his back. Kate merely bent over, her eyes glistening with worry. "What happened?"

The Doctor's hands lowered. "The Time War. It...it must be telepathic. It brought images of the war back. It did the same to the UNIT soldiers...they were confused. They were afraid. They didn't know what they were doing."

Dawn felt her heart drop to her stomach as she realized what must have happened. Kate turned her face to the floor. "It's like it's weaponising our bad memories. Inflicting PTSD on everyone at once. How can it do that?"

The Doctor shook his head, but he seemed absent, staring into the distance. Just when Dawn thought he hadn't heard Kate's question, he replied, "My defenses were useless."

Dawn nudged him lightly. "Don't beat yourself up. It's bloody telepathic."

"I used to be better at blocking that sort of thing. I used to be able to close the doors to memories I didn't want shown. It broke down all of my doors so easily."

The Doctor released a sigh, and they sat in silence for a moment, until Dawn stated, "It reminds me of a Boggart. Taking your biggest fears and using them against you. It's like a Boggart mixed with a Dementor."

The Doctor smiled, if only slightly, and then widened his eyes. "We need joy."

Kate rolled her eyes as the Timelord jumped to his feet. "Doctor, I love Harry Potter as much as you do, but honestly, this is putting too much faith in J.K. Rowling."

The Doctor grabbed Kate by the shoulders, more awake than he had seemed all day. Dawn felt her lips curl into a smile. The wild blue eyes of her companion danced in the light of the daylight streaming through the shattered window to the left. A grin even played at his features. But when Dawn caught the despair still lingering in his eyes, she felt her smile falter. He was acting. She knew him too well to be fooled.

"Trust me, Kate. This is science. This will work." His voice was strong, and full of childlike energy, but it did nothing to bring back Dawn's trust that he was actually okay. She made a mental note to watch him carefully for the rest of the day.

He stood to his fullest height, spinning around the room full of miserable, terrified people. "We can't fight fear and guilt with fear and guilt. We need happy. We need positivity. That's what everyone says, isn't it?"

Dawn grit her teeth as she watched him fly across the room like a carnival ringmaster, stirring the exhausted, hurting people into motion. She almost called out his name, but a young soldier did her job for him. His eyes were rimmed with pink, and his gun lay broken on the floor beside him, just next to another young man, lying still on the concrete. "We can't always be happy, sir. We've just lost so many people. We've just...we've just…"

The Doctor leaned close to the man. "I know. Trust me, I know. But we need to be happy. For them. For the people who care about us. So that we can protect them. So that we can stop the monsters. So smile, eh? A smile today can save the world."

The Doctor glanced around the room as he paced back to Dawn. A few more faces were turned to him in curiosity. Some even risked optimism. "Take every bad memory you have and lock it away. We need only good things today. That's the only way we'll survive. Tell everyone you know. Tell the world that joy is going mainstream again. Think only happy thoughts."

As the soldiers and scientists went to their phones and looked up various cat videos and google articles, Dawn took a deep breath. A heavy weight sat in her chest, and her stomach was flooded with fear, dread, and every other bad emotion one could feel in their stomach. The Doctor's empty, tired eyes met hers and he smiled, though it only quirked one half of his mouth. "Happy, Dawn. Happy, happy, happy."

The teen looked down, trying her best to find joy, but all around her was death and destruction. "Humanity isn't exactly an optimistic race. It's going to be impossible to make them all happy. People have been trying that for centuries."

"It's our only chance, Dawn."

The teen faked a smile, but all she could think about was the fight she had with the Doctor earlier that day and the horror she had felt when she saw the people lying on the dirty floor. Sometimes being alive just meant you had to shed a few tears and frown a frowns. The Doctor was trying so hard, though, and his smile would've looked genuine if Dawn hadn't seen the darkness in his eyes. So she grinned, toothily, and texted Bryant and Fitz to do the same.