Doctor
The Doctor was getting worried. Very worried. Ally hadn't spoken to either of them in weeks and now whenever she walked into a room they were in she would just walk straight back out again. The first time Rose had told him what Ally had said about everything being her fault he didn't know what to think. When she'd first got here she kept shouting at him saying the complete opposite, but now?
He could tell she wasn't sleeping. Actually, he hadn't seen her sleep once since she'd arrived.
Then he began to notice that she was holding her left arm wrong.
Alicia
Things were beginning to get to much for me. I can't stay awake for much longer, but it's not like I can just ask the Doctor to come sleep with me. He doesn't even know about that yet. I may be living with a Doctor but he's not the Doctor I want, and Rose just wouldn't understand. There's no way I could possibly explain what I need to them. Not here, not now.
I don't know if the lack of sleep has anything to do with it, but I just can't get rid of this guilt. I just can't deal with being in my own past anymore. It's killing me.
I needed some kind of peace, and if it didn't give me peace then it should at least keep me awake for a little longer. Peace. Anything to get peace. Something to take the pain away from what I'd done.
So I went to the medical room and found a scalpel. At first I began to push the knife in lightly so that it only just began to draw blood, but it wasn't good enough. So I made another cut, deeper this time. It felt so much better, so good to get this out. I did a few more before washing my arm. The cuts weren't to bad, they wouldn't take long to stop bleeding. Then I washed the scalpel and put it back where I found it.
When I left I saw the Doctor and felt guilty. About an hour later I felt something on my arm, 'don't do that.' But it didn't stop me from doing it again. And again, and again. Until I cut right through the skin. The next day I went back. The peace I'd got from before was gone and so were the scars, so I picked up the scalpel from before and made another cut. I wanted to be able to see the marks of what I had done. I wanted a reminder. The cuts were long and deep. Four of them, each of them worse than the next. Each one felt better too. I liked the pain, I liked to see the blood running down my arm into the sink. But it wasn't working. It didn't take away from the guilt of before, and the new guilt that would soon come. I tried to make them look like accidents but I new he wouldn't be fooled. I was right, another message came. 'I know somethings wrong, tell me.' But I couldn't tell him.
I didn't want anyone to know what I'd done, especially not him. The cuts were getting deeper and the messages were harder to read. This wasn't helping but I kept doing it anyway. It got to the point where I had to started wrapping bandages around my arm. It made me happy to undo the bandages and see the success of the scars I made.
Doctor
One night the Doctor heard screaming. Rose was in the control room, with him. He knew it was Ally. The screaming was loud and it didn't stop. Alicia was on the floor, it looked like she'd collapsed from exhaustion. He tried shaking her but it didn't work. He tried talking to her, that didn't work either. He became more forceful until he had to make a choice.
He connected with her mind and was even more shocked at what he saw inside her mind. It was a war zone in there. One he recognised. It wasn't even something she probably made up. It was the time war and it was his least favourite memory. But how could Alicia even know about this? In such detail. But that meant he had to find her more. He saw her, she was one of the children.
"Ally, come here, follow me." At first she didn't respond. "Ally trust me." She turned in her nightmare, she knew he was there.
"Come on Ally, follow me, it's just a dream."
"But it isn't, is it?" He didn't expect her to say that. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"How could I tell you?"
"How can I trust you if you don't let me know you? I'm your Guandan. I have a right to know everything."
Then the dream finally started to fall away. Away into Alicia's more recent sub-conscious. Here was another nightmare, one of her own. It was the explosion from the TARDIS. Then there was the loneliness as she remembered being ripped away from one place to another.
Then the dream folded.
Rose
Rose looked on in fear. Ally was writhing and screaming and the Doctor was going pale. She knew she couldn't do anything to help which made it worse. For once this was an adventure she didn't want to be a part of anymore. So she turned and walked to the kitchen to think with a cup of tea.
Alicia
When I woke up he was looking down at me, more pale than I had seen him since the incident when I was eighteen. He moved away so I could sit up. I was lying in a corridor. I must have finally run out of energy. Not that it came to much good, but I still need to sleep. I'm not very strong at the moment. I can barely stand.
Doctor
What happened to her? It was heartbreaking to watch her in there. Seeing his memories shouldn't even be possible. But what about what she said? What did she know? And that last nightmare. That was hers wasn't it. He'd never really thought where she'd been before she'd turned up in the control room. But that looked like the inside of the TARDIS, and she survived that explosion. That must have been why the DNA she hosted was regenerating when he tested it.
Right now he needed to help her get some sleep though.
"Here hold on." He picked her up and took her to her bedroom. Laying her on the unused bed he tried to think of his next move.
"Can you stay with me?"
"Of course" He didn't move away, he didn't do anything.
Alicia patted the bed. "Hold me, like you used to?" It was a small whisper, like there was nothing left of her. She was like a small skeleton at the moment.
So he climbed on the other side of the bed and pulled her in like he did with the other, younger Alicia in her home. She soon fell asleep in his arms. Her injured arm tried to move in closer.
He took the chance to find out what was wrong with her arm so he pulled up the arm of her top. He found a clumsily made bandage with blood slowly seeping through it. He undid it and saw all of the scars she had made. The old ones that were nearly gone, the scabs she'd been picking and right at the end a cut so deep he thought he could see the muscle in her arm. He saw the writing that said 'don't make me do this Ally'. Then he remembered that Ally wasn't the only one feeling these cuts. What did he mean when he wrote that? What was he about to do? He went to get a new bandage, even though he'd barely been gone a minute Alicia was starting to cry in her sleep. When he finished with the bandage he pulled her close and whispered "Oh Ally, what am I going to do with you?"
Alicia
When I woke up I saw the fresh bandage on my arm. He must have noticed. I wasn't careful enough. Now he knew what I'd been doing. I still walked down to the medical room, just like all the other days and picked up the same knife. He hadn't thought to move it. I removed part of the bandage and began to make a new cut before I dropped the knife. I couldn't help the scream. I couldn't move my right hand. Any of it. I fell to my knees on the floor where I stared at my arm.
Doctor
The bloodcurdling scream could be heard all through the TARDIS. The Doctor ran as fast as he could sliding round corners to see Ally on her knees half cradling her arm. He didn't miss the scalpel on the floor. It didn't take any time at all for him to be right in front of Ally trying to talk calmly.
"It's alright Ally, can I have a look?" She bit her lip and moved her arm closer to him as best she could. She tried to pull away when he touched it."Sorry, I just need to have a look." Almost every single bone in her hand and wrist was broken. He couldn't help but sigh, a little confused. Did he do that?
"Don't try and help, I deserve it." The small whisper hurt. What could she have possibly done to feel this way?
Alicia
I couldn't see what he was doing. I was crying through the pain, through the anger and the guilt and the desperation.
"I wish you would just talk to me." I pursed my lips and shook my head making my hair go everywhere. Then I drew a breath in sharply. "Whatever it is it can't be as bad as you think it is."
"How do you see me?" I mumbled knowing he could probably hear it. I winced each time I felt something on my skin.
"What do you mean?"
"What am I to you?" I didn't get an answer, not until he stopped poking my hand with something cold. "A Guandan. Ally I see you like a Guandan."
That's not the answer I wanted. "What does Guandan mean to you?"
He paused. "I think you're asking the wrong person."
I opened my eyes to look him in the eye. "But you're my Guandan, who else am I supposed to ask?"
He looked down. "I'm not your Guandan am I though. Your Guandan is the one you grew up knowing, not the one you came back to. He knows you better than I do now."
I began to cry. Was there no hope for me?
"I'll tell you what, as soon as we're done in here we'll see if we can find your Guandan."
Doctor
It was a risk, but it might be a risk worth taking. If they used the psychic circuits they should be able to find the one person she needed.