The Doctor's eyes shot open and he found himself slightly disorientated waking up in a dream and knowing it was a dream. He took a moment to find his bearings before looking around to see what Danni's mind had created to form a dream designed to keep her docile as she died.
He couldn't say he was impressed. He hadn't expected to be just outside the polar base. They had been all across the universe together, and this was where her peaceful mind brought her? Perhaps they needed to talk about that.
Luckily it wasn't too hard to find her. Or, rather, find where she was going to be. The TARDIS was still parked where he expected her to be when they woke up again. He supposed that the TARDIS was the most important place in the universe to both of them, so where she was actually parked didn't make much of a difference. Maybe the polar base was her mind actually trying to remind her what was happening.
That was incredibly clever of her, actually, and he'd not realised it straight away. He was getting slow in his old age. He'd keep that little mistake to himself.
He didn't know why he hesitated at the door, nor why he raised his hand to knock, it just felt like the right thing to do. Even though it was his home too. That must have been the influence of the dream.
The door opened a moment later and there she was, his Danielle, wearing a festive red dress and a grin on her face.
"Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed happily. "We were wondering when you were going to show up. Come on, you're late."
She turned and headed back into the TARDIS like it was normal for her to open the door on him. Again, that had to be down to the dream.
"We?" he asked, confused as he followed her in. The TARDIS console was his own, which was nice. She had told him, back when he was trying to woo her back onto the TARDIS, that she'd been upset that he'd changed the theming without consulting her. He'd meant it to be a surprise for her at the time, but he understood why it came across as dismissive. He'd apologised, she'd admitted she loved it anyway so everything was fine, but it was nice to see her subconscious choose it anyway.
"Yeah," she replied, before turning to him, grinning in amusement. "What? You think you're the only one here? It's Christmas. We should be with the ones we love."
And as he looked around again, he noticed all the decorations that had been put up around the room. The dusting of fake snow on the time rotor that made it look like a snow globe, and the tree on the upper floor with blue and silver decorations added to the atmosphere.
The two men that were gathered around it were much less expected.
He stumbled slightly as he came to a stop at the sight of his past selves, who looked just as concerned as he would have expected himself to. Still, he felt himself straighten, immediately on the defensive even though they were just dream constructs.
"Ah, I see," he replied slowly. She nodded, either not noticing his shortness or just ignoring it completely.
"We're all together on Christmas," she said. "It's just what I've always wanted. Me and you, together."
That both warmed and broke his hearts, although he wasn't sure why it seemed to hurt to think that he was all she had ever wanted. She was about to head up to the upper floor with the other men when he grabbed her arm.
"Food will be ready soon," she was explaining. "But we can open some of the presents first..."
"Danielle," he said firmly, stopping her in her tracks. "You're asleep. None of this is real. It's killing you."
She just stared at him for a moment before deciding that he was lying. She rolled her eyes and turned back. "Stop messing around," she scolded him lightly. "It's only Christmas. It's not like I'm going to make you wear a festive jumper or anything."
"Danielle, you have to listen to me," he insisted, grabbing her hand and clasping it in both of his so she would keep her attention on him. "There's a pain, isn't there? In your temple, like an ice cream headache? One that won't seem to go away."
Her eyes widened slightly and he knew he'd hit something of a nerve at that point. But, at least, she suddenly seemed to be listening to him.
"It's-It's just a headache," she insisted and he shook his head.
"It's not," he promised. "It's the Dream Crab that boring it's way into your skull. All you have to do is wake up and it will go away. We'll wake up together."
"What's going on?"
He looked to his Tenth self, who along with Eleven had walked down the stairs to the pair. "She's dying," he explained to his other selves. "You're not real, none of this is real. If she doesn't wake up then we will both die."
"We?" Danni repeated quietly. "What did you do, Theta?"
"How do you think I'm here?" he retorted. "I'm asleep too, Danielle. We have to wake up."
She shook her head, shaking slightly. "No, no, this- this is real," she said forcefully. She was becoming more and more upset, he could tell, but he needed to make her see. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I am not going to lose you again," he replied. "Please, Danielle, listen to me. We have to wake up."
"Is that true?" Ten asked, sounding slightly suspicious and Twelve nodded.
"I wouldn't make that up," he snapped back. "None of us would. She's dying and if we don't wake up soon she'll die for good."
She shook her head. "It feels real," she insisted, although the way she wanted to start crying suggested she didn't believe that at all. "This is real. It's-It's Christmas, we're together. Why ruin it?"
"Because it's killing you," he said. "It's all nice because it's the anaesthetic, used to keep you quiet while it sticks a straw through your skull and eats your brain."
"Stop it!" she exclaimed, pulling back but he refused to let go of her hand. "Why are you doing this?" she cried. "We're happy, we're all happy!"
He didn't know what to do. Working her up wasn't going to get her to wake up, but he didn't have anything else up his sleeve. He hadn't expected such a strong denial from her, and to be honest it hurt a little that she was fighting him so vehemently. It was probably the Dream Crab trying to keep her in the dream to it could kill her, but when did she never believe him?
Eleven took a step forward, taking her other hand in his. "Danni-Girl," he said gently, pulling her attention away from Twelve. Her eyes were full of tears and all three Doctors felt so bad about making her cry, but even her constructs knew they were just that. "Come with me, eh?"
He walked over over to the pilot seat, sitting her down before kneeling in front of her. "Hey, it's alright," he reached up, wiping her tears away with his thumbs, keeping a reassuring smile on his face. Twelve wasn't best pleased that she was doing what he was saying, but even he had to admit Eleven always had a way to calm her down. "When you wake up you'll still be with him, so you're not on your own."
She shook her head meekly. "This- This has to be real," she whispered. "Please, I don't-" she looked up at Ten, then at Twelve before back at him, "I don't want it to be a dream."
"I know, I don't either." He grinned at her. "You always said you wanted to try out the possibilities." She giggled wetly at his cheek. "But we're not real. I know we're not, and so do you. Don't you want to be with the real me?"
"Always," she replied instantly. Ten walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it affectionately.
"We're always here," he promised. "Time travel is always possible in dreams. But maybe not one that's, you know, so death… filled?"
She looked up at Twelve, who had his pleading face on. The one he wore when he was terrified for someone, terrified for her. She shook her head, she couldn't even bear looking at him, and turned back to Eleven.
"I don't want to wake up again," she whimpered. "Not again, Theta, please."
He reached up to the back of her head, threading his fingers in her hair before pulling her forehead to meet his. He closed his eyes, as she did, and she took a moment of comfort from him. She could feel herself getting more and more upset, panicking at the very idea of having to wake up from yet another dream. She didn't want to lose him, any him, and if she woke up and Twelve wasn't there she didn't know how she was going to cope.
"Danni," he whispered. "My Danni-Girl." He pulled back just enough so they could see each other. "I'll be there when you wake up. I know how much he loves you and, considering I'm a figment of your wonderfully impressive mind," she giggled again despite crying, "that means you must know it too. He won't leave you."
Ten's hand was still on her shoulder, his thumb rubbing over her in comfort. She had known that it wasn't real. Ten hadn't been particularly talkative even though she remembered him being a blabbermouth, and it upset her to think that it was because she couldn't quite remember his way with words to replicate. Eleven felt much more close to what she remembered, but the tweed had given that away as well.
She was just so afraid of waking up. She always was, now. Missy had done such a number on her that sleep scared her to death. If she woke up and he wasn't there. If she was on her own…
She turned to look at Twelve, silently begging him to help her. He could see her fear on her face and he wasn't sure where it had come from, but he assumed it was part of the Dream Crab's influence. He held out his hand to her.
"Never be afraid, my Danni-Girl," he told her. "No matter where we are, I'll keep you safe."
Her lips pulled up into a smile, desperately wanting to believe his words. She stood up and walked over, taking hold of his outstretched hand.
"Okay," she replied softly. "What do I do?"
"Take a deep breath and focus on waking up," he instructed. "Image opening your eyes and falling out of the dream. It should happen naturally for you." He squeezed her hand. "I'll be there."
"Promise?" she asked meekly and he nodded.
"Promise," he said and she nodded once again, reaffirming that she was really going to do this. They were going to wake up.
As she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she thought about how wrong his words were. He wouldn't be there when she woke up, Missy would.
~0~0~0~
Clara had been watching them both so closely that when they both woke up, she shot back in complete surprise. The Dream Crabs dropped off their faces onto the floor and the Doctor gasped first, quickly sitting up as he came back into the land of the living.
Danni took a moment longer, but as she sat up she didn't seem as desperate to breathe as her husband did. She was panting, trying to catch her breath, but her eyebrows were furrowed. Something was wrong and Clara moved closer, ready to ask her what it was.
"Danni, Danni!" the Doctor cried, not noticing his wife's turmoil as he rolled over, grabbing her arm. "Look at me!" Her eyes snapped to him. He relaxed but her eyes searched his, still looking so confused. She had been so certain that she was going to wake up with Missy, how was she looking into his eyes?
Then their attentions were pulled back to the Dream Crabs, which were writhing in agony on the floor, screaming. Then, in unison, they disintegrated into dust and carapace pieces.
The Doctor helped Danni off the floor, moving them away from the remains as if they could still hurt her. "You're okay, you're okay," he murmured, rubbing her arms as if trying to warm her. Still, she didn't say a word, keeping her eyes on the ground and the dust. He hadn't expected her to be so scared of waking up, especially considering the danger they were in. She was probably just coming down off that.
Ashley commanded her crew to collect some of the remains of the Dream Crabs to study as Clara joined Danni on her other side. "Are you okay?" she asked gently. Danni's gaze snapped to her and Clara frowned, reaching forward to offer her own comfort. "It's okay, you're awake now."
Danni shook her head minutely once, her hearts racing as the last thought in her head before she'd woken up repeated again and again. Why had she thought that? Why was she so focused on not waking up with Missy? Why did her temple still hurt?
She moved away from both of them, rushing to a mirror that was hanging on the wall, tilting her head and pulling her hair back so she could see her temple. Her hands shook slightly, her eyes filling with tears again as she saw the unblemished skin. There was no wound, no sign of anything trying to suck out her brain for lunch.
"Danielle?" the Doctor called and she turned. He was watching her, concerned by her behaviour and she felt her panic flare up over her anger.
"You lied," she stated firmly, causing the others to pause in their actions and turn to her.
"Lied?" he repeated and she nodded, taking a step towards him.
"You said I would wake up with you," she continued, her voice rising. "You promised me!"
"And you did," he reassured her. "Look, we're right here..."
"Then why do I still have the headache?" she countered. "We're still dreaming! You promised me, Spaceman! You can't leave me!"
"Alright, alright," Clara quickly rushed forward as the Doctor froze on the spot. He obviously had no idea why she was so upset or what to do as she seemed to work herself up into a panic. Clara, on the other hand, was the one who could handle this a lot better. She placed a hand on each of her arms as she stood in front of the blonde, forcing Danni to look at her. "One thing at a time," she said in her teacher voice. "What headache?"
"The one we all- we all have," Danni explained, her voice such a rush she stumbled over her words. "The one in your temple." Clara's eyes widened slightly, because she knew exactly the headache Danni was talking about because she was feeling it too.
"Is it the ice cream pain?" Shona called over, tapping her temple. "Just here? Cos I've got that."
Bellows frowned, raising her fingers to the same temple. "It's the cold, I think. Some sort of reaction," she offered and Danni shook her head.
"We all have the same headache," she replied. "I was told I had the headache because I was dreaming. And, if I woke up, I was going to be with husband but… but," she turned to the Doctor, "you knew about the headache. I thought it was just because you'd come to find me, but it's because you'd bloody noticed it. You knew we weren't waking up together!"
"Danielle, calm down," he snapped firmly, knocking Clara out of the way. "Yes, I knew. I wasn't certain until I came into your dream but then I knew."
"Then you lied to me," she retorted. "You didn't tell me, you kept that from me. You don't get to leave me, Spaceman. I'm not waking up on my own again!"
"And you won't," he promised. "We all have the same headache, which means we're all still dreaming."
"But I woke up," she insisted. "You helped me. You told me to, how can I wake up and still be dreaming?"
"Have you ever woken up from a dream and discovered that you're still dreaming?" he countered. Her shoulders sagged slightly and he saw the comprehension break through her panic. That was good, he needed to get her calm so they wouldn't die.
He turned to the others, explaining to them as well as to her. "Dreams within dreams. Dream states nested inside each other. All perfectly possible, especially when we are dealing with creatures who have weaponised our dreams against us."
Bellows frowned, shaking her head. "I don't know about anybody else, but I'm pretty certain I'm awake right now."
"Which is odd, when you think about it," the Doctor countered.
"Odd?" Ashley pressed.
"Impossible, in fact," he continued. "How can any of us be awake?"
"What do you mean?" Danni asked him.
"Remember how we all first met, in the infirmary?" he asked her and she nodded. "All those creatures coming down from the ceiling, attacking us. We never stood a chance. How did we survive that?"
"Well, Santa saved us, didn't he?" she pointed out. "He blew the wall down then sent them all to bed."
"Exactly," he confirmed. "Don't you think that's a bit strange?"
"We live in a time machine and I've been to, what, three separate universes in my life," she countered. "Strange is relative."
"Fair point," he conceded. "Wherever we are, we need to try and work out if this is a dream or not."
"And how do we do that?"
He turned to Clara, a remark on his tongue about how she'd used their dream against them. But, then, he remembered that she actually hadn't had any control over it so maybe she wasn't the best judge after all.
"Follow me," he declared, a plan forming in his mind quickly. He kept hold of Danni's hand and pulled her behind him, heading for the control room. Santa was in there, talking on his mobile phone and Danni shot him a little bit of a suspicious look as he walked away from them all to continue his conversation. The way Theta was talking about him made her wonder if he was actually real or not. She really hoped so.
The Doctor let go of her hand to walk over to one of the many shelves, quickly looking it over before moving to the next one. "What are you looking for?" she asked as he skimmed over the books.
"Something identical," he replied. "The Helman-Ziegler test," he explained to them all. "The only reliable dream test that I know." He picked up four books from the middle of many. "Ah. Your base manual. I take it none of you have memorised this." He walked over and handed each of them one.
"Oh. I haven't, I haven't read it," Shona admitted, but that was what he was looking for.
"These books should be identical in the real world. But as they don't exist in your memory, in a dream, they can't be. Agreed?" He asked them all, to which the four crewmembers nodded. "Danielle, give me any two digit number."
She blinked for a moment. A two digit number? Why?
"Um, sixty one," she offered. His small smile at her said she'd done the right thing, which was good.
"All right, all of you, turn to page sixty one and look at the very first word. Right, when I point at you." They all flipped through their books until they reached the correct page. When they did, the Doctor pointed at them, starting with Ashley.
"Isotope," she read off and he pointed to Bellows, who frowned.
"Extremely," she read off, confused as to why the words were different.
It was as the Doctor expected, and so he pointed at Albert. "Inside," the man read off.
"Chocolate," Shona read last, raising the book to her chest as she looked around at them all. "Why did I get chocolate? What's that about?"
It was quite a clever test, really, Danni realised. None of them had got the same word because there were just so many words, and the chances of their brains choosing the same ones were pretty slim. And, as their brains were filling in the words then they literally could have read anything. What had the Doctor called the test? The Helman-Ziegler test? She'd have to remember that. It was lucky there had been four copies of the same book.
She frowned to herself slightly. Why did that sound wrong to her? It didn't sit right, like she was missing something painfully obvious. The Doctor would most likely point it out soon enough and she'd kick herself for missing it. Either that or she would say something that would jog his brain into noticing it. They had quite a good team going.
"Well, we'll do it again," the Doctor declared after the protest that it was just a mistake. "Danielle?"
"Ninety one," she offered, but she turned to Clara instead of watching them all flip through. Was it something to do with Clara? If something was wrong with Clara, she knew that Clara would tell her. Would the Doctor, though? Now that he didn't seem to care too much?
No, that was a lie. If he didn't care, he wouldn't be so cruel to her. The fact that he was just proved there was still a friendship there to be saved.
Clara caught her eye and seemed baffled by the sudden attention on her. Danni didn't feel embarrassed, though, at being caught out. She just wanted to work out what felt so weird about them having four books.
Was it because most companies they came across wouldn't have spent the money on four manuals when one would have done just fine? Or was it because she had grown to be slightly wary of manuals after living with the Doctor so long?
"We," Ashley read out, pulling Danni's thoughts out of her thoughts.
"Are."
"All."
They all waited for Shona to read out her own word, but she just stared at the book, her own brows furrowed. Whatever was on the page had obivously really worried her.
"Shona?" the Doctor asked and she looked up.
"Dead."
They all fell silent at the terrifying sentence they'd just read out together. The test suddenly felt a little bit cruel, but Danni couldn't help but feel a sense of morbid fascination at the way their subconsciouses were working together to warn them of the danger they were in.
"Since the attack in the infirmary, nothing has been real?" Ashley asked in a panic.
"The attack is still going on," the Doctor hissed in reply. He hated being right. "This is it!"
"We've been dreaming since then?" Albert asked, not quite believing what he was seeing in front of his eyes.
"Oh, for Easter's sake!" Santa exclaimed, startling them all slightly as he re-entered the control room with his elves in tow. "Of course you've been dreaming. Haven't you been paying attention?"
They stood in a row, Santa in the middle as the elves looked just as exasperated as their apparent boss.
"Rudolph," Ian the elf laughed. "Did you see the nose?"
"The North Pole? Come on, with stripes?" Wolf taunted with a shake of his head.
This is a dream!
Even though it made sense, none of them could quite believe it. Not only was everything that happened a dream, but their dream was trying to save them by letting them in on the secret?
"This makes perfect sense," the Doctor breathed before he started a slow circle around Santa and his minions. "The Dream Crab tries to make the dream as real as possible to trap you inside it. It creates dreams within dreams so you can never be sure if you are really awake. But your brain knows something is wrong. Your subconscious fights back. This is your mind trying to tell you this isn't real!"
"So it gives you me," Santa finished for him. "Sweet Papa Chrimbo."
"It gives you comedy elves," Ian continued. "Flying reindeer."
As the Doctor was nodding in agreement, Santa motioned towards him with his thumb. "A time-travelling scientist dressed as a magician, who somehow managed to bag a younger and prettier wife," he added, sounding like the very idea was preposterous. Danni flushed happily at Santa's description of her whereas the Doctor straightened, rather insulted.
"No. No, no. Hang on. No, no, no, no," the Doctor snapped. "She is- she is my wife!"
"Yeah," Wolf laughed. "And both of them are living in a phone box."
The Doctor turned to Danni, looking absolutely baffled. "She's a spaceship in disguise," he stated.
"I know, sweetie," Danni replied gently, humouring his confusion. "I live there too, remember?"
"You see how none of this makes any sense?" Santa continued and the Doctor glared at him.
"Shut up, Santa."
Santa straightened slightly, insulted at being told to shut up. He turned away from the Doctor and to the rest of the people in the room. "I have watched over you all your lives," he reminded them. "I've taken care of you from Christmas to Christmas."
"But you're not real," Bellows pointed out, reminding Danni that she had been so happy to meet a guy who didn't exist. That this wasn't like when they'd found Robin Hood in the middle of Sherwood Forest. Santa was all in her head. How was she supposed to show him off to Amy now?
"And yet that never stopped me," Santa retorted. Danni stepped towards him, her hand raised slightly.
"So, let me get this straight; you're not real?" she asked him and he nodded. Her face fell and she almost pouted. "But I got a selfie with you! I was going to show it to Amy! How am I supposed to show that off if you're not bloody real?"
None of them could quite believe that was what she was worried about. They'd all just been told that they were dying and she was complaining about a missed photo opportunity.
"Alright, I have to ask," Clara started as she turned to Danni, hand on her hip. "Why aren't you scared?"
Danni frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you know, when I first met you, you were scared of everything," Clara pointed out.
"And then I got better," Danni protested. "I'm a lot older than I was. I've learnt."
"No, she's right," the Doctor added with a frown on his face. "I don't like that she is, but you should be more worried than this. We're in dreams within dreams and you were terrified of waking up, but not of actually being asleep or your brain being eaten."
Danni looked to her husband, her brows furrowed. He seemed to be staring at her suspiciously, and she didn't like it. "Do you think I'm a dream?" she asked slowly. "I'm- I'm not, am I?"
"You tell me," he replied, walking closer to her, head slightly tilted as he watched her closely. "Why aren't you scared?"
She stared back at him for a moment, kind of hurt that he thought he thought she wasn't real. She felt real. She was certain she was real. She turned to look at everyone else, whose experience meant that she was being shot suspicious looks from all round. She wasn't particularly scared, no more than normal, but why would she be? The Doctor would save them, and it wasn't like it was the scariest thing she'd ever seen.
She turned back to her husband. "I guess my nightmares are normally scarier than this," she offered with a little bit of a shrug. "I mean, you're here, Clara's here, Missy isn't here. I've even got Santa and his helpers. Compared to my normal nightmares, brain eating crabs are a little bit of a breeze."
She smiled at him and while it made complete sense, he filed it away for something he needed to help improve. If compared to this her nightmares were worse then he wasn't doing a good job at scaring them away. That was his job; the man who fought the monsters and won. He took hold of both of her hands, pulling her a little closer.
"We'll make sure this is the scariest thing to happen to you," he told her. Clara's eyes widened slightly at the words, her surprise echoed in everyone else but Danni. He surely couldn't have meant what he had said. Why would he want her to be scared?
But Danni gave his hands a squeeze, still smiling. "Thanks, sweetie," she replied gratefully, because she had understood him completely. She leant up to give him a kiss but Santa stepped forward and between them.
"Enough of that," he told them. "Come here, come on. Join hands."
The Doctor shook his head as the others slowly stepped towards him, still not convinced. "Look. No. Look, we don't need all this touchy-feely stuff," he snapped.
"Shut up, Doctor," Santa retorted. Danni kept hold of her husband's hand as she headed towards Santa. "Join hands. Come on, concentrate."
"Why?" Bellows demanded.
"You are deep inside this dream, all right, and it is a shared mental state," Santa explained, much to Danni's delight. She loved the part where everything was explained. "So it is drawing power from the multi-consciousness gestalt which has now formed telepathically and..."
The Doctor caught the happy look on Danni's face and shot Santa a dark look, pointing at him menacingly. "No. No, No, no, no. Line in the sand!" he exclaimed. "Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation."
Santa rolled his eyes. "Alright. As the Doctor might say," he put on a rather bad Scottish accent, "'Oh, it's all a bit dreamy-weamy.'"
"Why don't you just go and, and make a naughty list?" the Doctor retorted.
"I have, mate, and you're on it."
"Alright, alright," Danni said firmly, stepping in between the pair before a fistfight started. "Enough of that, the pair of you!" They both backed away slightly at her firm look. "We're all dying, except Santa here who apparently isn't real. Don't you think we should be dealing with that instead of arguing?"
The Doctor nodded. "He started it," he grumbled.
"Ah!" Danni snapped in return in warning. "I will put you in a time out."
"This is very sweet," Ashley said sardonically. "But right now I have an alien life form wrapped around my face, and apparently it's digesting my brain." She turned to Santa. "When you speak, how do I know it's not the Dream Crab?"
"Ooo, good question. Spoken like a scientist," Santa replied, clapping her almost mockingly. Obviously the Doctor had got under his skin.
"Can I put it another way?" Clara spoke up. "Why would the part of our brain that is trying to keep all of us alive choose you for a face?"
"Oh, good question," Danni agreed, turning to Santa. "Why is that?"
"Is anyone else asking that?" he asked them all.
Shona raised her hand. "Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All of us." She pointed at all four of the crew members before pointing at him. "All of us. Why you?"
Santa let out a small breath in disbelief before turning, walking away. "Why me?" he asked, laughing slightly before taking a place between his two elves. "It's the North Pole, it's Christmas Day. You're dying. Who you gonna call? Just one last time, huh? One last Christmas, as if your lives depended on it. Please! Ho, ho, ho. Believe in Santa."
Danni had always loved a monologue from an impossible man. Just like with the Doctor, it filled her with happiness, and excitement, and genuine awe. This was what made her life so extraordinary. Even now, even though he wasn't real, she was with Father Christmas!
They all took a moment before placing down the manuals, forming a circle. Danni dragged the Doctor over, placing him between Clara and herself as he protested about having to hold hands with anyone.
He looked to his side at their companion and started shaking his head. "Oh no," he said firmly. "I'm not holding hands with her."
"Fine," Clara replied simply with a shrug. "I'll just hold hands with Danni, then."
They both watched out of the corners of their eyes as he processed this information. "No, no, I will only hold hands with Clara and Danielle," he declared. "No one else."
The two women shared an amused look, leaning forward just slightly to see each other around him. Sometimes he was just too easy to predict.
Danni looked over her shoulder to ask Santa if he knew how they could wake up, but he was gone. "Oh," she said in disappointment. "He's gone."
"We're waking up," the Doctor explained to her. "That part of the dream is over. We're on our own now."
"Well, then. What do we do?" Albert asked.
"That pain in your head. Make it worse. Head towards it," the Doctor instructed.
"And you'll be there when I wake up?" Danni asked him and he nodded.
"I promised then, and I promise now," he told her. "Barely any time will have passed at all. The attack is still in progress. We'll still be together."
His sincerity relaxed her and they all closed their eyes.
"Good luck. Stay calm," Ashley instructed as calmly as she could. "And God bless us, every one."
~0~0~0~
Danni felt like she hadn't taken a breath in much too long. A Dream Crab fell off her face for a second time, twitching on the floor next to her along with the ones that dropped off everyone else's faces. She curled up slightly on her side, taking gulps of air as the patients that were still descending on them squealed and writhed in pain.
The Doctor was the first on his feet, but he always was, and he quickly helped Danni onto hers as well. There was a mad dash to get everyone out of the infirmary without getting caught, this time without Santa's help, but they all managed to get on the other side of the door safely.
"Everyone all right?" the Doctor asked them all as they panted for breath. There was universal nodding as everyone was just happy to not be dying any more. "Good." He muttered before holding up his hand, waving once. "Bye." He turned, stalking off. "Don't dawdle, Danielle."
Danni, who just looked at Clara in surprise at the sudden exit, blinked for a moment before smiling at the rest of the stunned and slightly lost crew. "Um, I'll just..." she motioned over his shoulder. "He's not very good with goodbyes." She turned and dashed after him, leaving Clara to try and sort it out.
Who evidently didn't want to, because she was on Danni's heels the moment she could be.
"Doctor," Danni hissed. "We can't just leave them there."
"No need for chatting, you'll only get attached," the Doctor disagreed as he led them both outside and into the snow. "This isn't Facebook."
"But they have no idea what they're supposed to do," Danni pointed out. "Shouldn't we, you know, contact UNIT or something?"
"When they tell the people they're working for what has happened, they will contact UNIT," the Doctor told her. "They're fine."
"You see, I don't think they are," she pressed. "In fact, I think the fact that four of them are still dying is..."
She trailed off, falling to a stop as her eyes widened in surprise. Four of them. There wasn't four of them, there was eight of them. Eight members of staff, but only four manuals. If there was going to be a cost-cutting measure for the base then they would have only been provided with one manual. Providing half of them with manuals made absolutely no sense.
Which meant there was only four people on the base. Which meant the people in the infirmary were...
The Doctor didn't seem to notice her suddenly being hit with this revelation. He did stop, though, only to turn and face her in exasperation. "Look, we've only just woken up," he snapped. "Something you were terrified of doing just a moment ago. Can't we just, you know," he used both of his hands to point at the TARDIS, "just go? I just want us to..."
"Doctor," Danni started.
"Not be separated yet again, is that to much to ask?" he continued as if she wasn't speaking.
"Doctor," she tried again.
"They can look after themselves!"
"Doctor!" she exclaimed and he sighed.
"What?" he snapped.
"There were only four manuals," she told him with a tone that suggested he should see what she was suggesting.
He didn't. "And?"
"And there's eight of them!"
He stared for a moment at her as if he was trying to understand what she was saying. She could see him quickly joining the dots in his mind as Clara frowned.
"So?" she asked. "What does that mean?"
Danni turned to her. "It means that we're still asleep," she explained rapidly. "We've not woken up properly. We're still dreaming."
Clara looked slightly stunned at this new information, but then she gasped, pointing at Danni a couple of times. "Santa!" she exclaimed. "He was on my roof!"
They all stared at each other for a moment before, almost comically, they turned and headed back towards the door that would lead them back into the base. "You know what I hate about the obvious?" he asked them both.
"What?" Clara asked in reply.
"Missing it!"
They found the crew members back in the control room, all looking rather exhausted but still very much fine. The Doctor waved his hands about. "As you were. No saluting," he told them all, even though none of them were. He looked them over with a frown. "Are you the same people as before?"
Clara's brows furrowed. "Of course they are!"
"Oh, sorry, I deleted you," he dismissed like it wasn't a big deal.
"Doctor!" Danni exclaimed angrily as Shona looked positively annoyed.
"Well, that's not a very nice attitude, is it?" she retorted.
"That's because he can be rude when he's being smart," Danni explained to her. "It's not an excuse, but it's been almost a thousand years, I've done the best I can."
The Doctor had made his way over to the manuals but paused with them in his hands. "A thousand..." he started, sounding incredibly confused because that was almost four hundred years more than he would have estimated. But then again, he had more important things to worry about than his loss of memories. Still, it sat strangely.
"Nevermind. Four manuals, yes?" he asked and they all nodded.
"Yes, why?" Ashley asked him.
"One each?" Danni asked and again they all seemed rather confused over the questioning.
"One each, yes," Albert confirmed. "What's the problem?"
"Well, the problem is, you can't see the problem," the Doctor explained. "For instance, you, gobby one." He chucked one of the manuals to Shona.
"Shona," Danni told him. "I've warned you once, Doctor."
"Yes, yes, Shona," he quickly rambled off. "When we first met you in the infirmary, what were you doing?"
"Mmm. It's a long story," she replied, not quite sure what it had to do with anything.
It had to do with everything. The Doctor chucked another manual at Ashley, who barely caught it before it hit her. "Uptight boss one. What is the primary mission of this polar base?"
"It's a long story," she replied with a little bit of a laugh, even as her words caused her to pause for thought.
He chucked another manual to Bellows. "Startlingly sure one," he said, much to her confusion. "What brings you to the North Pole at your age?"
"It's a long..." she paused as she realised her words were just the same as the rest. "Story."
The Doctor shot her a nod to let her know she was on the right track as he chucked the last manual to Albert.
"Okay, why are they all giving the same answer?" Clara asked. "Because that is a tiny bit freaky."
"Because we're all still asleep," Danni reminded her. Her hands were clenching and unclenching by her side and her panic was steadily rising. She hadn't felt this anxious about their situation since they'd first landed, even in her dream with the Doctors she had just not wanted to be alone. No, still dreaming, still not knowing was really starting to wear down the nerves she'd carefully been holding together since it became apparent that she might not wake up by his side.
She'd woken up too many times without her husband. It was becoming too much.
"We're still asleep," she repeated softly. "When we landed on your roof we were following a signal, but I don't know where from, or where to. Do you remember?"
Clara shrugged. "It's a long story," she said without thinking. Then she thought about it. "Oh."
"Dreams," the Doctor declared and Danni's attention was immediately back on him. She knew that tone of voice. He was getting into his 'clever' mode, about to show everyone where they'd missed the obvious and she loved it. "They're funny. Ha, ha, ha." He waved his hands about. "They're disjointed. They're, they're silly. They're full of gaps. But you don't notice, because the dream protects itself. Stops you asking the right questions. For example, why do you have four manuals, one each, when you have a crew of eight?" The crew blinked, staring at him bewildered as this piece of information seemed to be brand new to them. The dream had stopped them seeing the obvious. "Or did you forget about your friends in the infirmary here?" He motioned to the monitors, which still showed a feed of all the unconscious patients.
"But we woke up!" Albert protested.
"Dreams within dreams," the Doctor countered. "I warned you."
Yeah, he had warned them. Danni couldn't stop the anxious energy coming out in each squeeze of her hands into fists. She just wanted to know she was awake. She just wanted to know that she wasn't going to be away from his side. She just wanted to know that she wasn't with Missy anymore, and the Doctor's words were less than reassuring in that regard.
"Danielle?" he called and she snapped out of her thoughts, turning to him. He was looking at her in concern and she had to wonder if he'd called her name more than once. She didn't ask, though.
"Yes?"
"Page number," he commanded. "Make it a good one."
She stared at her husband, whose mere presence was enough for her to try and fight through her worry. He always made her feel better. "Twelve."
The little turn up of his lips said that he knew exactly why she had chosen that number and that also made her smile.
They all opened their books.
Very, very, very dead.
"And who's going to be the first to admit it?" the Doctor asked them all.
"Admit what?" Ashley asked.
"That we've all still got the headache," Danni finished lowly, unable to look anyone in the eye. She had to pull herself together. It was getting out of hand. If she was dreaming about him in a shared dream, he had to be there, right?
"Doctor?" Clara rushed over to the monitors, her sudden movement pulling the two Time Lords along with her. "What are they doing?"
The patients in the infirmary were slowly sitting up once again, making their way towards the cameras that were watching them.
"They're waking up," Danni breathed as she caught sight of one of their name badges. Her theory had been right. The patients were the crew. "They're escalating the situation."
"I don't understand," Ashley said.
"Well, look at them. Go on. Look at them. Look at them properly," the Doctor told them. Slowly the crew walked over to the monitors, doing as he said. "Look who they are. They're you. The Sleepers are you!"
"How can they be us?" Shona asked as she couldn't tear her eyes from the screen. She finally noticed her name tag on one of the patients, but how did that even work?
"Because we're dreaming, all of us. This base isn't real. None of us are actually standing in the room." He motioned between himself and Danni. "Danielle and myself are probably asleep in our TARDIS. Clara, you must be in bed." He turned back to the rest of the crew. "God knows where the rest of you are, probably scattered all over the world. But wherever you are, the Dream Crabs have got us, and we're all being networked into the same nightmare."
"What are they doing?" Bellow asked as the Sleepers slowly made their way towards the cameras.
"It's your subconscious again. The Sleepers represent the part of your mind that's already surrendered to the attack. These are dream images of what's coming to kill you."
"That's me? That's actually me?" Albert exclaimed, walking closer to the monitor that was showing his own Sleeper on it.
"No, it's a metaphorical construct representing a psychic attack within a shared dreamscape. Do please keep up," the Doctor snapped. He didn't have time for idiots when he needed to get his wife and the rest of them safe and awake again.
"But it's me!" Albert exclaimed again, leaning in even closer.
"Don't get too close," the Doctor warned but, as always, they never listened to him. As Albert reached forward to the monitor, the hand of his Sleeper counterpart reached to the camera. And then through the camera, straight for Albert's shirt.
No one saw her move, but Danni was by his side like a shot, pulling him away before he could get sucked him and shoving the heavyset man away from the monitor. The Doctor instinctively moved forward to save her, but the look on her face said she didn't need saving at all. In fact, it said she was absolutely livid.
"What the actual fuck are you doing?!" she shouted at the stunned man, who only stuttered slightly in reply. "Have you never seen a movie in your life? Have you never seen The Ring?! Why the hell would you move close to it?!" Her voice was rising to an almost shrill level and it became painfully clear to both Clara and the Doctor that her worry came from somewhere other than the idiot in front of them. "Why don't you just listen to what's going on around you?! It could have killed you, you stupid, little..."
"Okay, okay!" Clara exclaimed, stepping in between the two before Danni could attack him further. The Sleepers on the screens seemed to have stopped their attacks as everyone's full attention was off the danger and on the raging woman in the control room. "What is going on? What's gotten into you?"
Danni's wide eyes scared Clara. "I'm not waking up again," she swore. "I can't, I can't do it again. Again and again, and he's never there! I'm not waking up to find her watching me again!"
Clara frowned. "Her?" she repeated in confusion.
The question had all of Danni's anger fade to panic and terror and worry. "Missy!" she exclaimed before looking over at her husband, who had actually been too stunned at her outburst to do anything but stare. Everything he had learnt about comforting her had flown out of the window at the sight of her tears. "Time and time again, everytime I woke up, she was there. She's always there. I don't- I can't wake up again and it not be you." Her words trailed off, falling to barely a whisper.
"Of course I'm going to be there," he told her in a tone that said she was stupid for thinking otherwise. "Of course I am." He walked over, placing his hands on her arms and making sure she was focusing on nothing but him. "I saved you, remember? You are safe. Well, apart from the parasite currently eating your brain. We have to leave before they kill us in the dream."
He was right, she was overreacting but she was just so terrified. It was never him, it was always her.
"What happens if you're not there?" she asked him, her voice hitching at the end.
"Then I will find you," he promised. "I'm always going to find you." She smiled slightly, his words pacifying her panic enough for her to realise they were still in danger.
"What happens if we die in the dream?" Shona asked.
"You'll wake up in the real world, dead," he replied shortly. A quick glance at the monitors showed the creatures reaching through like Albert's Sleeper hand had done. "Look out, they're coming through. Out! Outside, now! Run, run, run, run! Run! Clara, run. Run, all of you, run. Run!"
He waved them all out, practically pushing his wife through the door before picking up a fire extinguisher. It didn't do much, he hadn't expected it to, but he tried all the same. He had to save them all. He had to save her. He had to prove he could do it, although for the life of him he couldn't work out why.
He dashed out into the snow, following the rest of the rather cold humans into the outside world. He quickly sonicked the door locked in a last ditch attempt to keep the Sleepers away.
"Doctor, what do we do?" Danni asked him, arms wrapped around her to try and hug the little warmth left in her jacket. "They'll kill us if they get out!"
"But it, it's just a dream!" Shona exclaimed through her shivering.
"This dream almost killed your friend here," the Doctor snapped, storming over to his wife to rub her arms vigorously. He wasn't going to save her just for her to die from the cold.
"It can't have been trying to kill me," Albert protested.
"Everything is trying to kill you," Danni retorted firmly. "The whole universe is out to kill everything in some way. Stop being stupid! If we don't wake up, we're going to die too!"
"But how?" Clara asked them both. The Doctor looked around, keeping his wife as close as possible. He couldn't lose her now, not with her so close. He had to keep her safe, and the one place in the universe he trusted her to be completely protected was the TARDIS.
As the Sleepers started punching the door so hard they made dents in the metal, he began pulling Danni towards the TARDIS. "The TARDIS! Come on!" he instructed them all.
"It's not the real TARDIS!" Danni protested. "She's just a dream."
"Well, let's hope that we dreamed it really well, then," he retorted. The doors opened and they skidded to a stop in the snow as three figures stepped out, two short and one tall, all with Dream Crabs on their faces.
"It's us," Clara breathed in horror as the Doctor felt like slapping himself for not thinking of that sooner.
"Of course it's us. We're dreaming too!"
"Oh, my God," Shona breathed and they turned around to see dozens of Sleepers slowly making their way towards them.
"How is that possible? How can there be so many?" Bellows exclaimed in a full blown panic. Danni couldn't blame her. She clutched the Doctor's arm tightly, burying her face in his arm as she thought about what was waiting for her if she woke up. She'd never be allowed to just die. She didn't want to wake up.
"The logic of a nightmare," the Doctor said as an explanation, and they all understood. If a nightmare wanted to scare you, it would, even if it had to bend logic to do so.
"So tell us how to wake up!" Shona exclaimed. "Because you're always talking like you're so clever, going on and on. So tell us what to do!"
Normally Danni would have scolded her for shouting at her husband, but she just wanted him to say he didn't have a clue. It was such a conflicting feeling, because she wanted him to be safe and awake, but every part of her wanted to stay asleep.
"We have to leave this place," the Doctor told them all.
"How?" Bellows exclaimed.
"Use your imagination. Dream yourselves home!"
"But how?"
He grinned to himself. It came to him quickly and suddenly, like a smack on the head. Oh, Danni was going to love this.
"Come on, it's Christmas, the North Pole. Who you gonna call?"
They all heard the jingling of bells and looked upwards at the sky and away from the suddenly not so terrifying threat. Santa, with his reindeer, were circling them, flying downwards to the ground until he parked just by them. None of them had ever been so relieved to see a figment of their imagination before.
"Get in the sleigh!" Santa exclaimed and none of them needed telling twice. The crew climbed in the back where the presents would have been. The Doctor helped Danni onto the seat behind the man in red before climbing in the front next to him. Clara quickly slid next to Danni and the Time Lord clung to her friend tightly.
"Fortunately, I know all your home addresses. Yah!" He whipped the reins and they were flying into the sky.
"So what happens now? This is us just waking up, right?" Clara asked and he nodded.
"Could be," he replied in the kindest voice he'd used towards her that night. He glanced back at his wife, who was holding onto Clara, but her terror seemed to have gone. He didn't want to bring, so he kept the other possibilities to himself.
"You want to take the reins, Doctor?" Santa asked him and Danni watched as her husband tried to brush it off as a childish idea.
"You're a dream construct, currently representing either my recovering or expiring mind," he pointed out.
"Yes, but do you want a go?" Santa asked him, and the Doctor struggled for just a moment longer before grinning.
"Yeah. All right!" Santa handed him the reins and Clara watched Danni as she smiled softly, watching her husband having the time of his life. He struggled to get them on a straight path – not the best driver, who would have guessed? - but soon he was flying them all in a straight line.
"Look at me!" he cried, overjoyed. "Danni-Girl! Look at me!"
If Clara didn't know any better, she would have said Danni winced at the nickname, but she knew that the Doctor bringing out the old nickname was something Danni cherished when it happened.
One by one, everyone started to remember the lives outside the dream. It had gone pretty deep. None of them were scientists, in fact Shona worked in a shop of Albert didn't work at all. They all slowly woke up and Clara suspected none of them would remember their little adventure.
Well, she, Danni and the Doctor would, she was sure of it. Time travel changed your perception of things, and she suspected dreams were just another thing they'd see that no one else would.
She still didn't understand why Danni wasn't falling into the joy her husband was feeling, though. Usually when the Doctor was this happy then Danni was as well. It was sickly sweet, and a part of her life with Danny Pink she missed terribly.
She brushed the thought aside, though, and nudged her friend. "What's wrong?" she asked Danni. "We're waking up."
Danni's lips tilted in a mockery of a smile. "Exactly," she replied before turning in her seat to Clara. "I remember."
Clara frowned. "Remember what?" she asked. Danni seemed to take a moment to think of her reply, which just worried Clara further.
"You know when the Doctor saved me from Missy?" she asked Clara in return, who nodded.
"Of course, he never shuts up about it," she replied with a little hint of annoyance in her tone, even though she didn't mean it. He could brag all he liked, because Danni was safe and sound.
"I bet," Danni said with a little laugh. "Tell me about it."
"Why?" Clara asked, confused.
"Just- Just humour me, yeah?" Danni pressed. "Tell me."
Clara shrugged. "Well, it's a long story, isn't it?"
The way she said it was incredibly casual, but the absolute coldness that washed over her afterwards was anything but. Her eyes widened and she finally saw the way Danni was barely holding it together. The tears were in her eyes but they weren't falling. Her lips were pressed together tightly.
"I-I don't understand," Clara whispered.
"When you wake up, will you be with him?" Danni asked instead of explaining. "Where are you? Are you at home, or on the TARDIS?"
"I- I think I'm on the TARDIS," she replied because her memories were still a little fuzzy. "With you and the Doctor. I know it!"
"When you wake up, go to him," Danni begged her quietly, taking both of her hands while the Doctor was still distracted. "Don't let wake up on his own. Please, Clara."
"No, no, I don't understand," Clara repeated firmly. "How can you be here with us if you're not with him?"
Danni's lips pulled into a sneer. "You're here by accident. I'm here by design."
"What does that even mean?"
"Well, it a Kantrofarri," Missy explained as she held up the creature aloft. "And it's either going to show you that your husband doesn't care where you are, or it's going to melt your brain into a lovely soup."
"It means that you can't let him be on his own when he wakes up," Danni replied firmly, her voice low as she tried to keep her husband from hearing. "It's going to hurt him. Don't let him be on his own."
"He won't want me there," Clara replied softly, her own tears flowing. She clung to Danni tightly, pulling her into a hug. She couldn't believe that this was happening. Danni was going to be ripped away from them and there was nothing they could do.
"Where are you?" she asked quickly, pulling back. "Tell him. He'll remember. He'll want to know."
Danni shook her head, laughing wetly and hollowly. "I don't know," she replied. She sounded so devastated. "She never lets me know. She likes to keep me completely dependant on her."
"Tell him anyway," Clara begged. "You can't let him wake up without knowing. It'll break his heart..."
"His heart is going to break either way," Danni interrupted. "Please, Clara. Let him have this. Wake up, and find him for me. Look after him. Tell him I know he's coming for me. Tell him." Danni swallowed, pushing down her own pain. There was nothing either of them could do. "Tell him I'm not scared."
"But you are," Clara whispered and Danni nodded.
"Tell him otherwise."
Clara didn't say anything more. She disappeared from view and Danni knew that she had woken up. All she could hope for was that she remembered and that she ran to her husband as fast as she could. The Doctor wouldn't want Clara there, but Danni knew Clara would do as she asked and stay with him no matter what the Doctor treated her like in return.
She looked at the back of her husband's head, listening to him chatter and laugh happily with Santa. She knew that it was going to hurt him so much, but the reason she didn't tell him now was for her own selfish reasons. If he found out, if he realised for even a moment they weren't together, he'd startle himself out of the dream and she wasn't ready to lose him yet. He'd have to wake up soon, but they'd wake up together, even if they'd be in separate places when they finally did so.
She stood up very carefully, climbing onto the seat next to him. He almost lost control of the sleigh making sure she didn't fall, but he was too happy to be annoyed.
"Do you want a go?" he asked her and she shook her head.
"Since when did you let me drive anything?" she asked in reply. He took a moment to think about it, then nodded in agreement.
"Good point."
She smiled and leant on his arm, closing her eyes. It wasn't real, but it felt it. For a moment she was back home with him. For a moment Missy wasn't holding her captive, watching her every move like a hawk, twisting reality around her to make her think that the Doctor was there time and time again. For a moment, she was safe.
"I love you," she told her husband, who looked down at the top of her head.
"I love you too," he replied softly. He didn't like the pain that the words brought up. It didn't make any sense. Loving her was easy, and wonderful. Nothing about loving her should make him want to cling to her tightly and never let her go in such a panicked fashion. "Danielle?" he asked lowly, confused. He knew she could feel it too by the way she shook against him. "What's wrong?"
She wanted to hold onto the happiness, but she could feel the reality around them fading and she couldn't keep the fear at bay like she'd wanted to. "I know you'll find me," she whispered. "Hurry up, Theta, please. She's already done so much. Find me. Please."
"Find..."
He didn't have time to gasp. He didn't have time to question her. His mind suddenly was flooded with an absolutely horrific realisation. All he had time to do was look into her beautiful, brown, terror-filled eyes and he shot up off the floor, gasping for air.
He was in the TARDIS. He wasn't on the sleigh. The sleigh wasn't real. He reached up, hands shaking as he ran his hands through his rough, raggedy hair, shaking his head as the realisation continued to beat at him like a wave refusing to be ignored.
She wasn't here.
He shot up off the floor and ran to the console, smashing every button with an urgency that he used to try and drown out what he already knew. She wasn't on the TARDIS, she wasn't anywhere. She hadn't been saved. He hadn't saved her. It was all just a dream.
He could hear the footsteps echoing on the metal of the floor in the hallway and, even though he knew better, he spun in the hope that the TARDIS was just playing a trick and that Danielle was about to jump out and say surprise.
Clara appeared in the doorway and promptly froze. She hadn't expected to find him staring at her, manic eyed and waiting. She hadn't expected him to be awake, but then again barely any time at all seemed to have passed so she wasn't sure if how long they'd had together.
A wave of pity hit her. He thought she was going to be Danni, didn't he?
"This is all your fault," he stated suddenly. He didn't even seem angry at her. The words still hurt, though, but she had learnt a while ago to just let him say them. Months and months of running and searching and dead ends had taught her that once he'd ranted and raved, his energy would come back. If it meant that he could find Danni quicker, she would take all the abuse he could throw at her.
"What happened?" Clara asked instead of acknowledging his words. She stepped into the console room. Keeping him on track might help him. "I woke up next to a pile of dust. How did they even get on the TARDIS?"
"Probably when we landed on the volcano," he replied shortly. He'd gone to the volcanic planet because it was where he had intended on taking Clara when she'd asked for lava. The whole dream sequence had been based off the planet, and part of him had wondered if Missy had taken her there to taunt him a little bit further.
There hadn't been any signs of her, but there wasn't any signs of her anywhere. Just stories that people couldn't seem to place.
He said no more and, after the short tense silence Clara waited through to see if he was going to shout at her further, she took another few steps forward. "I asked her if she knew where Missy was keeping her," she explained softly. "She said Missy didn't let her know."
"Don't be stupid," the Doctor snapped at her. "She wasn't even- even real. You were talking to a figment of our joint imagination."
He sounded angry, but stutter showed that he was devastated by the idea that not only did he not know where the woman he loved was, but that he was being taunted by images of her. Clara shook her head.
"No, she was real," she said firmly. "She said Missy had put her there to make her see you weren't coming. She wanted me to tell you that she knew you were coming for her."
"You have no idea if she was real or not," the Doctor replied, as if the case was closed and he was right. She guessed that, even though he would give anything for it to be Danni, for it to have been her and him not even know might have been too hard for him to bare. But she knew that the little reprieve from being separated would help him more if he accepted it.
"I do," Clara replied. "Do you know what she said to me? Do you know what, more than anything, she wanted me to tell you? Hmm?" He opened his mouth to reply but she didn't let him. "She wanted me to tell you that she wasn't scared." His mouth hung open slightly as his words trailed off and she knew that she had him. "If we had dreamt her up we both would have made her terrified of everything, but she wasn't, because when she won't admit she scared we both know she is. If we had dreamt her up she would have begged for our help." She pointed at him. "You would have made her blame you, because that's what you're like. She was just worried about you. She wanted you to hurry, but not to worry. That is Danni to the core."
He pressed his lips together, turning away from her for a moment and she steeled herself for the tirade about to come her way. The one about how she didn't know Danni as well as he did, and how dare she even suggest otherwise.
The Doctor wasn't preparing his words, he was trying to settle his own emotions. They had all flared up and were bubbling around inside of him and he couldn't let them overwhelm him. She had been in the dream which meant that, at least somewhere, she was still alive. He wasn't fighting to find his dead wife. He was still fighting to save her. That should have given him strength, and drive, to continue his search but he couldn't focus on that.
She had wanted him to know that she wasn't scared.
It was a lie. He knew it would have been. He knew that, no matter what, his Danielle was strong and she would be resisting and surviving anything Missy was throwing her way. But he also knew that she had to be terrified, and that her words were a comfort to him only because it meant she was still herself. That in the midst of the horror that he could only imagine happening to her, she was still herself. She was still looking after him.
Clara watched as he ran another hand through his hair, watched the way he seemed to deflate, his shoulders falling, and the way he refused to even look at her. She knew how close he was to crumbling or raging at the universe and held her breath to see which one it was so she could handle it appropriately.
He started flicking switches and the TARDIS shuddered into flight. She stumbled slightly and had to grab hold of the railings on the stairs to keep herself from falling over. "Where are we going?" she asked before a thought came to her. Her eyes widened and she took in a sharp breath. "Can you follow the dream?" she asked hopefully. "Trace it back to her?"
He didn't reply for a moment as he just continued to fly the TARDIS to wherever he was taking her. He then turned. "You look awful," he told her bluntly. "A rest will do you good. I'm dropping you off home for a couple days."
She ignored the insult and just frowned at his plans. "But I thought you wanted me to help find her," she said. "I want to help find her. I can go back home afterwards."
"I can't have you messing things up being exhausted," he countered. "I will pick you up in a couple of days. Sleep. Shower. Do whatever it is you humans do to recharge."
She was exhausted, but they all were. "What about you?" she asked. "You're just as worn out as me."
He scoffed. "You seem to think that I'm as weak as you lot," he retorted. "I have other people to worry about other than you, Miss Oswald. I have an army of people I need to go pick up. Perkins is in the Inforarium, I need to see if he's found anything out and I can't have you hanging around being all… tired."
A rest did sound nice. And he had a time machine, he could just pick her up a couple of days later for her and a moment later for him. "Is that the place where he had to wear the eyepatch thing?" she asked anyway, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"Anything concerning me or Danielle is memory proof. How else is he supposed to remember what he's found?" he retorted as the TARDIS landed. He said it like it made so much sense, but as usual he kept everyone out of the loop.
"Alright, fine," she snapped, heading for the door. "Two days, Doctor, or I'm coming for you."
He quickly followed, almost shoving her out of the door. "Yes, yes, you're very frightening and domineering. Two traits that must come in very handy with your students. Get some rest and don't call."
He shut the door in her face and took his screwdriver out of his pocket, pointing at the console and setting them into flight once again before Clara realised that he'd rushed her out without much choice. He slid to the floor, back against the door as he stared into the console room, the numbness falling over him again.
Missy was taunting him. Not only had she hidden Danni in plain sight across the universe, she now had the knowledge and means to taunt him with his wife directly. If Missy could connect them via dreams and yet have him know absolutely nothing at the end, then she really did have the upper hand. She'd taken Danni, and whatever little game she was playing, she had truly won.
His fight had gone. He could feel it being rapidly being replace by a hopelessness that he wasn't sure he could fight through. He would look for the rest of his lives for Danni, but he'd never find her. Missy would make sure of that. He was never going to see her again.
As the tears fell thick and fast, all he could think about was how he had failed her. His Danielle. Who had looked to him for safety, for help, to be saved from hell. He'd failed her, and she was going to be punished for the rest of time for his crime.
~0~0~0~
Sorry for the little break between the chapters, but as you can see this was a mammoth of a chapter so I hope it was worth it XD
The little Missy snippet is from chapter 9 of Undone, for those who want to nip back for the full scene.
I don't really have much to add, to be honest. So I'll jump straight into reviews :)
Reviews!
Midnight Alley - Thanks sweetie!
Naventis - I hope this answered your question, sweetie! Thanks :)
whitedwarf - Thanks sweetie! You're always so lovely to me. I don't think I deserve it. A little devastated I think is the answer to that question.
J. J. Jefferys - Hope you enjoyed this, sweetie :)
Authora97 - That was the plan! Hope you liked this one too :)
LoveandAngst - Ah, she was real after all. Hope you liked it XD
serenitysaiyan - Well, maybe not secrets. We'll get more into in the next chapter or two XD
melremade - Thanks sweetie! Hope you liked it :)
Quinnmarie - Not quite! Yeah, Missy is quite cruel, isn't she? We'll see more as time goes on.
bored411 - There's a little bit of the aftermath here, but I can't tell you more than that I'm afraid. Thanks sweetie :)