Title: Nightmares

Author:Glinda

Category: Angst…possibly slight supernatural overtones due to featuring a premonition.

Season/Spoilers: 9Doc nothing after World War Three I don't think…

Warning: Character Death…but not really (see author notes)

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just play with them! They belong to the BBC.

Author's Notes: a lil fic I wrote last Thursday. So anyone who's sensitive about Thursday's events might be well advised to avoid it. As explanation I should point out that my best friend was in London that day and I couldn't get through to his mobile. I wrote this to try and take my mind off my fear. The ending came from the intense relief I experienced when he texted me to let me know he was okay. This is dedicated to all those people who are still waiting to hear for friends and loved ones...I can't even begin to imagine...

It had been one of those horrible dreams. The ones where you know you're dreaming but no matter how hard you try to wake up you can't. She used to have them a lot when Rose was younger. There's so many horrible things that can happen to a pretty little girl, especially one as trusting as her Rose. They stopped when Rose punched that loser of a boyfriend she'd dropped out of school for and told him exactly where he could stick the engagement ring after he'd cheated on her the second time. In the dream Rose had never run off with the Doctor, vanishing without a trace for twelve months, turning up sporadically for brief chaotic visits with wild tales of space stations and alien invasions. She'd got a job in another department store, opposite side of the river, but much better pay. There'd been an explosion on the underground that morning and she'd been so glad that Rose always took the bus to work. They said it had been a power surge, a train had derailed. So Jackie had caught a bus and headed for Great Ormond Street Hospital, nasty as a train derailment was, her niece still needed visitors. The bus had got stuck in traffic, so she got off, thought she'd get some exercise and probably get there faster if she walked. But she never got there. She came round the corner and saw the red double-decker bus that she'd seen Rose get on that morning stopped among abandoned cars, behind a police cordon. It wasn't quite the same though. The number was right, the shell-shocked driver sitting on the pavement with a blanket wrapped round his shoulders was familiar from dozens of mornings, the destination on the sign showed it hadn't made it to where Rose worked yet. The bus her daughter had got on that morning had had an upper deck, she remembered clear as day Rose running up the stairs, toast in hand. Nevertheless she pushes forward through the silent, stunned onlookers, she has to get to her little girl. At the edge of her senses she hears the murmered rumours.

"A co-ordinated attack on the underground and buses."

"Seven explosions. Four confirmed as bomb blasts. What about the other three?"

"Fatalities but no-one knows how many."

"The roof went straight up in the air."

"Think it looks bad from here, the back of the bus completely collapsed!"

"Someone doesn't want London to celebrate getting the Olympics."

"Nah, it'll be about that summit up in Scotland, the G…thingee…4?"

"The G8 you idiot!"

"Bloomin' anarchists!"

"Probably them Al'Quaida lot, them who've got the Egyptian ambassador."

"Could be them Palestinians or Israelies…their always blowin' up buses."

"Might be some weird cult thing. Like that stuff in Japan years ago. Gas in the underground."

"Emergency services are doing a good job though, got everything under control pretty quickly."

"The had some big training session on this sort of thing a couple of weeks back, they've been expecting something like this."

But it doesn't matter to Jackie. It doesn't matter how the bus came to lose its roof. Or who made it happen. Or that the police are doing a good job of keeping the passing public, calm, safe and informed. That it isn't safe to cross the police line. All she cares about is that Rose was on that bus. That she always rides on the top deck. That the only people coming off that bus right now are on stretchers or wrapped in blankets. And that the police officer won't let her past because they haven't cleared the area for secondary devices.

Everything moves in slow motion. And the voices seem to fade away. She fights her way through. Running like she hasn't been able to since she hurt her knee doing the 100 metres at school when she was 14. She drops to those damaged knees of hers beside one of the blanket swathed bodies and gently pulls it away. She looks so young lying there on the pavement. There's only a small burn on her arm, a cut on her forehead, just at the hairline, and a film of soot over her beautiful hair. Nothing serious. But she knows that's not true. The blood from that cut should be trickling down her cheek by now but its pooled there, congealed rather than clotting.

She feels a firm hand on her shoulder pulling her away and she lets it. A familiar Northern voice speaks as the owner of the hand helps her to her feet.

"Come on now Jackie, let her go." She looks up into the Doctor's accusing eyes as he continues. "You should have done that a long time ago."

She wakes up in a cold sweat with a sob dying on her lips. It's morning. Rose is fine, she tells herself as she makes toast and watches the breakfast news. She's almost convinced herself when an underground train de-rails just outside Liverpool Street Station. Except it wasn't a power-surge like they thought. There have been others all across central London. She grabs the walk-about phone from its cradle and dials the number they gave her when Rose came back after a year and the world nearly ended. It connects and Rose's sleepy voice complains about the early hour. Jackie scolds her for being a lazy lump while her daughter protests that in Tardis time it's actually 4am. Jackie smiles round the lump in her throat, Rose might as well be in America with a time delay like that. Teases her daughter about that as well. Anything to keep her daughter rambling in sleepy indignation while the tears stream down her own cheeks. Jackie Tyler has never been a particularly complex person. She's never really believed in much. Churches were for weddings and funerals. She doesn't believe in fate or destiny, she only reads her horoscope to get a laugh, and pleasant shudder when it comes true. She doesn't really believe in conspiracies, though she's quite sure that most of the people in power in Britain are a bunch of chancers. But sometimes she wonders if she should. On the BBC news in front of her the bus from her dream has its roof blown off.

"No, no reason. Can phone my daughter for a natter if I like can't I? Just…Tell that Doctor of yours to take good care of you, ok? Yeah, Love you too Rose. Bye."

She walks through an eerily silent London heading for Great Ormond Street (her niece still needs visiting after all) happily giving away all her change to soot coated commuters so they can use the pay phone to let their loved ones know that they're alright. It's such a small thing but against the vastness of what happened today there's so little else she can do. The mobile networks are all down but she can't bring herself to care, somehow, because the one mobile in the entire universe that matters is working. Her little girl is safe, with the Doctor. She's still getting used to that idea. And at the back of her mind she wonders. Did he know? Was that why he came back for Rose? Did he go to check up on her and see her die? Rose had saved his life, was it just his way of evening the score? Or could he not bear the thought of her dying? She remembers the fear in his voice when he thought he might loose Rose and she thinks she knows the answer.