I was running as always and my heart was racing. The monster was within reach, it was about to get me. The light ahead of me seemed to be dimming, leaving me to the dark. I was crying, begging not to be left there. Then I saw him. His hand was outstretched, palm up, waiting for me to place mine into his. My eyes moved up and met his. Those deep brown eyes, so dark. I reached out and grabbed his hand, calling his name. And as our hands touched the light became blinding, the darkness receded. The dream ended.

I jerked awake and found myself looking into those same brown eyes, etched with concern and worry. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in his arms. But then everything came back to me. And I pulled my hand out of his.

"Where the hell did you go?" I demanded, my voice croaky at first but growing in strength as I continued talking. "You left! You said you'd be back!"

"And I am…"

"But you went somewhere! You just… you just went!" I'd got out of bed and was standing up by now. So was he. Damn. He was a good few inches taller than me; it was much harder to argue from this angle.

"Rose, I'm sorry, the TARDIS was playing up and…"

"That old excuse!" I rolled my eyes. "So where have you been?" I looked at the clock. "You've been gone hours!"

"Rose!" Mum came back in through the door, carrying two cups of tea. "You're awake!"

"Of course I'm awake!"

"Are you feeling better?" Mum handed me a cup of tea and felt my forehead, much to my disgust. "That was some dream you've been having. No doubt related to something you've seen lately?" She made the question mark obvious, looking from me to him.

My eyes met his. "No, nothing like that Mum," I said. "Just… just a dream." As she moved to give the other tea to him, I spoke again. "He's not staying."

"He's not?"

"I'm not?"

"No, you've… you've got stuff to be doing, haven't you?" I said pointedly.

There was hesitation before he nodded. "Oh yes, stuff to do, things to… do." He nodded very decisively. "Yes, must be off, Jackie, sorry about the tea. I'll… I'll be back later." He looked at me. I wasn't sure what to read into his expression. Was he saying sorry? I wasn't really sure what I was making him apologise for. He'd come back, after all. But I couldn't help thinking he was hiding something from me, not telling me something. I'd been feeling like that for ages and it scared me. Because what could be so bad that he couldn't tell me?

This dream thing had unnerved him, I knew that. It was like every time I mentioned it something shut down inside of him and a wall jumped up between us. He'd told me not to worry, that it was just a dream, that everyone had bad dreams from time to time. But there was something else, something he knew that he didn't want to tell me. And that's what was scaring me now.

Later that afternoon something came through the letterbox. Mum was on the phone as usual, so I could at least manage to get up and to the door without her going crazy at me. She only cared about me, didn't want me to get hurt. It's just her care sometimes became a bit stifling and made me want to run as fast as I could.

It was a parcel. I frowned as I picked it up. Brown paper, tied up with string. Very old-fashioned. Very the Doctor. I pulled the string off and the paper fell away. A note fluttered to the ground. I picked it up and read it, squinting at his awful handwriting:

I'm sorry. Wear this tonight. It'll match your shoes.

I took the dress out of the parcel and shook it out. It was red, the exact same red as my new shoes. Fitted to the waist and then slightly flared. Knee length. It was perfect.