Series 1: Episode 6: Dalek Epilogue:
"No, Hugh. Run, run. Just run!" Valarie woke up writhing in pain, her back irritating her as she itched at her back, the wounds not healing properly. She undid the bandages and washed it again before reapplying the ointment she'd found in the TARDIS medical bay and then reapplied them with her vest on top. It stung and burnt her but she winced through it, getting up from her bed in the TARDIS. She got her robe like normal, not being able to go back to sleep. Trusting the TARDIS to take her to the kitchen like she always did, she took off down the corridors.
"Thank you darling." She whispered to the TARDIS that being her new pet name for her machine. She went to the cereal, knowing the toaster would make too much noise and poured herself a bowl of Coco Pops, eating it right there and then without bothering to turn the lights on. She knew the kitchen well enough in the dark, this being her normal routine for the past few nights and was silent, her phone left in her room, opting to simply sit in silence. Valarie kept eating in the dark until the light was turned on without her doing anything and she jumped, almost spilling the milk over the bowl as she looked around quickly, putting the bowl down.
"Hello?" The Doctor asked as he walked in. "Valarie?" He asked, seeing her. "What are you doing, its 3:00 in the morning." He told her as she tucked her messy hair behind her head sheepishly.
"Nothing." She told him as she got up, ready to run out of the room.
"Valarie, the TARDIS is worried. She sent me a note telling me what's happening with you and I'm worried as well." The Doctor stopped her as she began to chug down the leftover milk in the bowl. His words stopped her in her tracks and she turned around from the sink and looked at him.
"What? What did she tell you?" She asked, feeling sick.
"That you've been having nightmares and that you have been coming here for the past few days. And you've been going on only a few hour sleep. I may not be a medical doctor but I know enough to know that what you're doing to yourself isn't right." He told her as he walked forwards to talk better. She put her hands around herself as she gave in, moving to sit down again. "What's wrong?" He asked comfortingly.
"I don't know. Every time I go to sleep these images just come. They won't ever go away, they just keep coming. Every night, every time I go to sleep." She repeated, holding her head, about to break down.
"What images?" The Doctor gently prompted as she sat down on the stool resignedly, tears pooling in her eyes.
"Hugh. All my friends, the soldiers dying. The General, the Dalek even. I just see them all, they all appear, always. Sometimes it focuses on one, sometimes the different times I try to go back to sleep it shows me all of them dying at once. Sometimes I'm too scared to go back to sleep." She told him, everything pouring out of her as she hung her head. The Doctor brought a stool around to sit in front of her. Once he did, she flinched, tears flooding her vision as she gently shook.
"How long has this been going on?" He asked, at a loss of words for anything else to say.
"Ever since I came into the TARDIS." She told him brokenly. "But the past few days. Like the TARDIS said. I, I couldn't go back to sleep. I kept waking up and I just couldn't do it. So I came here instead. I just wake up instead." She elaborated, her voice barely translating through the tears.
"Valarie…" The Doctor whispered, his hearts breaking to see his new companion like this.
"I'm sorry. I just can't. Seeing them again, like this, it just hurts." She spoke, her voice barely above a whisper as she did.
"Of course it is." He sympathised. They sat in silence for a while, the Doctor awkwardly placing an arm around her. After she had calmed down a bit, he tried to suggest how he could help her. "What if I could help you?" He asked as she looked up.
"How?" She asked, wiping at her tear-stained face.
"What if I could make you sleep without the dreams? Just nothing." He suggested a bit nervous, knowing she might reject his help and he wouldn't know what else he could do for her apart from that. Dream patches wouldn't be the best as their side effects included drowsiness and Valarie was too important for them have drugged up. She'd saved their butts a lot for only one adventure and she'd been doing a lot of it by herself.
"That would be great but what would it cost? There's always a cost." She told him knowingly.
"I just have to use my telepathic skills." He boasted slightly, making Valarie burst out into watery laughter. "I put my hands to your head like this." He spoke, demonstrating as she looked at them worriedly. "Then you have to open your mind, and I can make you sleep." He told her as she breathed harder, almost scared at the thought.
"I just have to open my mind?" She asked and the Doctor nodded with a small smile. The TARDIS thrummed in assurance and she swallowed before closing her eyes and wiping her face roughly before controlling her fear and using it to open her mind. She breathed it out and the Doctor entered her mind. He saw her fear but he saw her excitement and want to learn about time and space. He saw her grief and torment and want to save others but he also saw her life before the TARDIS but he chose not to pry into that, mainly staying on emotions and sad, recent experiences.
"Well done. Just breathe, concentrate and sleep." He whispered as she did just that before collapsing in his arms. Her breathing calmed and she seemed at peace as he picked her up, taking her back to her room which the TARDIS helpfully put it closer to the kitchen. He laid her under the covers and the TARDIS took off her robe for her with a well-aimed teleport. He patted the wall affectionately as his way of saying thank you. He walked out as she slept peacefully and the next day stopped Rose from waking her up too soon, just letting her sleep to catch up after so long without any sufficient sleep.
She woke up at midday and wandered into the main TARDIS control room, her hands getting tied up in her dressing gown as she tried to wipe away any sleep from her eyes. "Rose? Doctor?" She called as she stumbled blearily into the room. She gripped the railing, reeling away from the light and managed to open her eyes properly. "Doctor?" She asked again as she sat in the chair. As if on cue, he walked into the console room and smiled at her as she almost fell back asleep on the chair, barely blinking herself back awake.
"Hey Valarie. Feeling better?" He asked and she got up, only to sit back down again.
"Yeah, my head is much better. I'm still a bit tired but I can actually feel myself moving now." She told him, resting peacefully on the chair. The Doctor gave her a smile at her response. "But Doctor, how did you do it? Telepathic skills yes, but I feel like if I go to sleep, it might not happen again." She explained, still trying to understand. "The dreams I mean." She elaborated, nervously trying to get him to understand what she was asking.
"I entered your mind. I saw what your thoughts were and I…" The Doctor trailed off sadly.
"Doctor?" Valarie asked, fear creeping into her voice. She knew all about her thoughts and how overactive her thoughts were and worried about what he did.
"I suppressed them." He told her as she swallowed nothing, fear chasing her heart as it jumped to her throat.
"How?" She asked, holding her head. She'd gotten up and all sleep she'd been fighting back was gone, Valarie Waters was wide awake.
"I," He started, going to apologise but thought better of it. "You kept remembering the deaths, and trying to change what happened, or what you thought happened, so I suppressed them." He stumbled over his words and Valarie took a step back, gripping the railing so hard her knuckles were starting to hurt but she barely registered it.
"So, the dreams won't come because you sped up the grieving stage?" Valarie asked incredulously, the disgust obvious in her voice.
"Yes." The Doctor breathed, barely able to say it.
"Oh my God. Doctor? My friends, my family? The soldiers I fought with died, and now I'm just to forget how much I loved them? How much they meant to me?" She asked, tears springing to her eyes.
"No, it was never meant to be like that. I never meant for that to happen." The Doctor tried to defend, moving closer. "I promise, it was never my intention but it was all I could think of." He put his arm around her frozen body guiding her back to the seat.
"But Hugh…" Valarie trailed off as the tears flooded down her face.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have." He told her, comforting her in a side hug.
"Doctor, what do I do?" She asked, needing orders or some sort of direction to function. She'd forgotten how much the soldier ways were taught into her and how much she needed them after so long. She still needed some sort of direction when she was so lost.
"Just grieve, rest. It's ok." He soothed as she cried her heart out for everything and everyone, the vision turning black after a while as she cried herself to sleep. She woke up again covered in sweat and tears in the wet bedsheets as she looked around.
"Doctor? Rose?" She called out, wiping away the water from her eyes as Rose came running in.
"Valarie? Are you ok?" She asked, calming her as she did a few deep breathing exercises with her to stop the flood of tears. "Are you ok?" She repeated once the woman had stopped crying.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." She told her, wiping sweat pressed hair from her forehead.
"Wait here, I'll run you a bath." Rose told her, running out of the room quickly as Valarie composed herself, trying to make sense of what had been happening.
"The Doctor, the dreams. What happened?" She whispered softly to herself as she remembered what happened before the darkness. She got up, only to crumble holding onto the wall as she tried to stand on her shaking legs. She took a few more steps before Rose ran back into the room and helped her to the bath, locking the door for her but trusting her to be stable enough to get in the bath herself. She lay in the water, savouring its smooth feel as she floated just above the bottom, laying her head back on nothing as she rested before opening her eyes and washing herself properly.
She spent longer than she ever had in the water, just floating as she left her mind blank and empty but when she finally left and got dressed by the TARDIS's wonderful taste, a long, tight-fitting shirt with a denim jacket and jeans, and left to try and find the Doctor in the console room. "Hey Valarie, how are you doing now?" Rose asked, rushing over to her as Valarie stumbled into the room, her skin still raw and hot from the water while her head felt like the water was still in it.
"Better, much better." She assured as they walked up the steps. "Where's the Doctor?" She asked, looking around.
"He went on another trip." Rose tutted, seemingly annoyed with him leaving her behind.
"So what are you still doing here?" Valarie asked, earning a confused look before seeing it morph into a smile as she dashed out of the room into whatever was out there. She watched as the doors closed before getting up and walking away, hoping to get to her room but it seemed the TARDIS had other ideas. She found herself in a library of sorts and put her hand to the wall to talk to her. "Darling, what am I doing here?" She asked, feeling a thrum of energy as response and she assumed she had something to do in here and decided to look around instead. She browsed the aisles and saw books from all ages and on all sorts of topics ranging from spaceship engines and the Magna Carta to banana growing.
The last one made Valarie laugh as she saw it, deciding to pick one out tentatively, encouraged by the TARDIS's temperature rise whenever she raised her hand. She eventually settled on a book about the Shadow Proclamation and its guidelines on time and space travel. A small coffee table was positioned next to a blue velvet chair behind her with pillows plumped up and ready to sit on and Valarie stumbled back into it before falling into it. She fell comfortably into it, adjusting slightly to be better suited to it, tucking her legs in.
Valarie didn't know how long she'd been sat there, reading through it all, not really taking it in but finding certain laws she decided to keep in her mind for later life. Valarie kept reading until she heard footsteps entering the library and quickly closed the book, placing it on the table and getting ready to run when she saw a flash of black leather and relaxed back into the chair. "Hey Valarie?" The Doctor spoke, more as a question as to whether they were good again or not.
"Hey Doctor. You alright?" She asked, showing him her forgiveness. She was ok with him for now, but she was still hurt by what he did.
"Yeah I guess. Are you ok?" He returned the question as he walked in, moving to stand next to her.
"Yeah." She obliged before moving onto the real questions. "Doctor?" She asked, trying to get his attention. "You know earlier?" She asked tentatively, before being interrupted by the Doctor.
"It was reversed." He reassured her, not waiting for the inevitable question. "When you understood what happened and you remembered, the floodgates opened and the memories came back." He told her as she battled with her conflicting emotions. She didn't know if she should be happy or sad about what she was being told. "What you thought came back but… maybe not in. Full strength." He finished, scared of her reaction. He didn't know what it was but he knew that Valarie was important. Something about her told his Time Lord senses that she was someone he should keep around. The way she connected with the TARDIS was only one indication. There were many others but the biggest was mostly that he was the only soldier the Doctor had liked since the Time War.
"So, it's going to start again?" Valarie asked with a slight swallow, wondering why she was hesitant about the dreams she had grieved over.
"I'm not sure. This has never been attempted before." He told her as she blew out a breath, readying herself both mentally and physically for the coming terror of the dreams she had to face.
"If it does, do you have anything for it?" She asked, surprising them both. "Not the telepathy but anything else." She quickly added, remedying her earlier question and kick-starting the Doctor's voice which was momentarily out of action.
"I'm not sure," He admitted as Valarie accepted the answer. "But there are a lot of hospitals I know where they can help." He reassured, only succeeding in making Valarie nervous. She'd never liked hospitals and to think of alien remedies was terrifying as she had only just gotten to grips with the fact there were other planets and civilisations out there.
"Well, it might not come back." Valarie suggested, not wanting to show how much the idea affected her. The Doctor acknowledged her suggestion with a nod but it seemed more like a nod to her fake optimism rather than understanding her nervousness. "Doctor?" She asked again, seeming to come up with subjects and questions whenever there was a lull in the conversation. "Do you sleep often?" She asked, the questions leading up to a request.
"Not often no, I usually have adventures by myself when you are recharging." He told her, seemingly happy to move onto a subject he knew more about. Himself. Valarie laughed quietly at his wording of 'recharging'. He must not be very big on sleeping between adventures. She wondered how Rose kept up with the alien.
"So, if I wake up too early again, could you please…?" She trailed off, wondering how to phrase it. "Could I come here and learn?" She asked, hoping he would get the hint. Saying it any other way was too embarrassing and made her seem like a child, the image which she had spent her entire life trying to break.
"I could teach you." He offered, saying what Valarie had wanted to but it seemed too childish, especially as the Doctor only seemed about 2/3 years older than her. She considered saying yes when it was phrased that way but her choice was made for her when the Doctor elaborated. "I saw your passion for learning and to better yourself. You were amazed at the new worlds, I know some great planets you should visit." He offered, changing how he worded it and Valarie nodded, trying to hide her enthusiasm. Learning about new planets and species was probably the best way to occupy the time in which she was spending awake, trying to hide from her dreams.
"Sure, that would be great." She agreed, picking up her book again. "I'm already reading the Shadow Proclamation Guideline book." She told him with a small laugh as she held it up.
"Ah, that's boring, you don't want to read that." He told her, sweeping it out of her hands and getting up. He was in his element now, explaining things. He slotted it back into the bookshelf and browsed it, walking around with new energy in his step as he pulled out another. "Ah! Now this is something you want to read!" He told her, racing back and handing it to Valarie who jumped up, ready to have a laugh instead. She flipped it over, looking at the title and laughed.
"Alien Planets 101?" She asked incredulously, laughing as she flipped in over in her hands. "Seriously?" She asked again, seeing the small hardback.
"Well, got to start somewhere right?" He asked as Valarie laughed again, walking away with the book in hand.
"Whatever you say Doctor." She smiled, laughing at him. She opened it quickly, reading as she walked, her pace slowing incredibly as she did. She reached her room in half as much time as she could have but she barely noticed, too caught up in her book to see the change.
The next morning was as she expected. She got up earlier than she should, the dreams were back. With less force but she still felt the terror. Except, Valarie had forced herself to go back to sleep instead and had gotten a few hours of good sleep before the dreams took a turn again. She kept the clothes she had on, not bothering to change as she brushed her teeth and woke up, still in her dressing gown. Valarie brushed her hair, putting it in her normal ponytail before walking out, trusting the TARDIS to take her where she needed to go.
She found herself in the library with the same blue velvet chair like yesterday but with an additional red velvet one and coffee table beside it with tea and toast. The tea was in a cup with "Be a soldier." Written on it, making Valarie sniff, failing at laughing but attempting something in acknowledgement of her old life.
Valarie guessed the red chair was where the TARDIS wanted her to sit. So she did. She sat down, having brought the book she was reading the night before and started to carry on where she'd left off. The Doctor was right, it was an interesting read. She found she had a permanent smile on her face, reading it, which sometimes progressed into a laugh at certain points. "Enjoying my pick?" The Doctor asked, walking in as he had had an alert from the TARDIS that she was awake.
Valarie looked up in surprise at his quiet entrance, her finger holding the page open so she wouldn't lost it. "Yeah, I hate to admit it but it is actually quite good." She smiled, shifting as she sipped her tea gently.
"See? Been around for couple hundred years me, I do know my stuff." He told her with crossed arms as he walked over, dropping the superior façade as soon as he adopted it.
"I don't doubt that now. It's surprisingly easy to understand, where did you get it?" Valarie asked after satisfying his ego enough.
"The Ood. Surprisingly good writers. They also understand humans quite well." The Doctor mused with a smile, almost wondering why himself. "I'm not sure how, they haven't had much contact with the race." He spoke, talking to himself.
"Well, I'm sure you'll find out in the future." Valarie laughed, dismissing the answer, concentrating on her tea which was rapidly cooling as she tried to drink it quick enough to enjoy the warmth.
"Hmm." The Doctor murmured in response, snapping out of it quick enough. "Anyway, do you have any questions?" He asked, sitting down in the blue chair opposite, seemingly magicking up a cup of tea for himself.
"I thought you were going 'teach me'?" Valarie challenged, closing the book again.
"Well, there can be no learning without questions." He told her, pretending to impart some great wisdom on the ex-soldier. "Just like that now." He nodded to the question she'd just asked and Valarie rolled her eyes, knowing he was right. "So we start off with questions and then I'll answer them. I'm sure you have a lot of them, sarcastic or not." He smiled, low-key bashing her but she just laughed, smiling it off. She did have a lot of questions. And she was ready to learn everything the Doctor could offer. She was ready for everything and anything the world could offer. So she began.
"Well…"
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