She was running and it felt like she'd never stop. She weaved in and out of a line of trees and scraped her left shoulder on another twig, but it didn't stop her. She sneaked a glance behind her and saw them on her tail. They had gotten the children and some of the adults, but they wouldn't catch her. She kicked off her shoes to give herself an advantage, as the small heels were making it difficult to run in the forest. She saw a sparkle in front of her and as she got closer she realized that it was a lake. Quickly she got into the water. She could stay in the water but the Daleks couldn't touch it. With her head above the water she looked down at her reflection in the rippling water. Her large brown curls cascaded down to her waist and her blue eyes seemed to reflect the blues of the dark sky above her. She was wearing a dress with a corset top and it was ripped and torn from the twigs snagging at it. The yellow fabric was blood stained and burnt from the Daleks narrowly missing her with their guns. When she got back she would be safe. The Daleks came floating towards her and she threw herself under the water. Once they left she would get out. She looked up and waited. They weren't leaving. No of course they weren't, they wanted to finish her off. Her lungs burned but she didn't dare come up for air and give up to the Daleks. She fought the urge to live.
"Ruby!"
She awoke with unshed tears at the corners of her bloodshot eyes. The Doctor had shaken her awake and his eyes were wide with fear. Her lungs once again turned cold as she took a breath of fresh air. He placed one of his hands on her back and the other on her stomach so that he could hoist her in an upright position. Ruby put her face in her hands as she caught her breath. The Doctor took his hand off of her stomach and grabbed a glass of water.
When he offered it to her she gently pushed the glass away. "No, not water. Anything but water." Her dream was still too real for her to allow herself near any water.
"Well let me guess. When I came in here to wake you up you weren't breathing, and your face was sorta going red, and then purple. You weren't really thrashing, but you were twitching and jerking. Now, if you add in your reluctance to drink water I think that means that you had a dream that you were drowning," he paused for a moment, staring at Ruby. "Well, am I right?"
Ruby didn't let out a smile or answer for the next minute or so. She finally looked up and asked him the one question that completely caught him off guard. "What exactly is a Dalek? I mean what do they want with us?"
"Well, Daleks are…well first of all they're not really all tin and metal like you saw yesterday. That's more of a protective shell that surrounds the real Dalek. It's something so fragile and delicate."
"Can't you just get inside of them somehow and get to that one weak spot?" Ruby asked.
"If you could find me a way to do that, I would…I would probably kiss you." He quickly changed the subject, causing Ruby to smirk. "Daleks can only be opened up by themselves. Everything inside of them is operated by themselves and there had never been anyone to even come close to discovering how they do it," the Doctor's face became stern and his lips thinned. "But what they want with us is nothing. They don't want anything to do with us. They consider us weak and lesser just because we're different. I would say that they fear change, but they don't have fear. All they have is hate and the desire to kill everything and everyone that isn't like them." Ruby glanced down and that his hands were curled into white-knuckled fists. His face was taught and from where she was sitting she could her him grinding his teeth. His deep brown eyes held a burning fire inside of them.
Ruby dared to speak, just to make him stop, to calm him down. "Doctor? You're scaring me," her voice shook slightly
He slowed down his breathing and met her gaze. "I'm sorry. I just…why did you bring it up anyway?" He was curious now.
"Well they were in my dream. There were a lot of them though. I'd say about six of them were chasing me through the woods. They had killed everyone else, all of the children too. They were tailing me. Well, it wasn't me, but at the same time it was. I looked completely different, but was still myself. Now, as I was running I was wearing a very old styled dress so I'd say that it was a few hundred years ago. I saw a lake and I jumped in it to get away and hid beneath the water. They were waiting though, waiting for me to resurface, and I wouldn't. I didn't want to be killed by them. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of killing me themselves."
The doctor raised one eyebrow and said, "Are your dreams always like this?"
"No, not at all. I don't normally have dreams. Oh well, it was just a dream anyways. I'm just being stupid." She adjusted her body to make herself more comfortable and only then did the Doctor take his hand off of her back. With the absence of is hand, the small of her back felt oddly cold. She sat cross-legged on top of the bed and asked, "So what's for breakfast? I am starving."
The Doctor smiled and said, "Well I was thinking we could have omelettes. I make them with practically anything you want and cheese that melts so perfectly-"
"Eww," she cut him off. "Cheese is the antichrist! It's so deceiving!"
The Doctor stared at her for a split second and then burst out laughing. "Wow! I haven't laughed like that since…" He stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked down with a sad blank look on his face. It was the quickest change in mood since her mother's PMS. But if a man acts like this then there's something wrong.
"What is it?" Ruby asked. "What's wrong?" she said it softly enough to make him look up.
"Well I had this…friend, you see. Rose was her name. And she's…well she's gone," he spoke slowly as if it was painful for him to recall.
"I'm sorry. I can kinda relate as well. I had this boyfriend with the name of…um…Bob. Robert! Bobby!" The Doctor smiled and Ruby continued her story of her imaginary boyfriend. It seemed to cheer him up. "Yeah and so one day I turned to tell him he needed to tie his shoe and he wasn't there. He just disappeared into thin air." She reluctantly quenched her thirst with the water that the Doctor had brought her. "But really, I am sorry."
"Oh that's all right. I was the one to put a damper on the situation."
Ruby laughed and said, "Wasn't I the one who brought up the Daleks. Anyway, I'm hungry and besides, this is a completely innocent and easy way to change the subject. Now do you know how to make pancakes?"
So here he was. Making the batter for the fluffy breakfast food with Ruby sitting at the vast table behind him. While mixing the milk in, he got some batter in his suit. "Oh, come on!" He quickly cleaned it off, but still turned around and shook the wooden spoon at Ruby. "This," he indicated where the batter had fallen onto his jacket, "Is all your fault, you know? If you didn't think that cheese tasted bad." He turned back to the batter and started to mix the clumps out.
"I never said it tasted bad. I just said it was the antichrist."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ruby searching through cabinets and drawers. "But who doesn't like cheese? Unless you're lactose intolerant, which you are obviously not, because you are having me make pancakes with milk. Not liking cheese is almost as bad as not liking edible ball bearings. What are you doing?!" he exclaimed.
"I'm putting an apron on you so that you don't get anything on yourself. What does it look like I'm doing?" After slipping the loop over the Doctor's head she went around the back of him and started to tie the apron around his waist. She had quite the view before her, too. Unlike most men, the Doctor had a very nice bum. "I don't want to be held responsible for ruining your blue suit. It is well tailored." Yet even as the Doctor turned to give her a chastising glare he found it quite funny that she was so blatant about her compliments.
"Your pancakes are ready." He took out a plate and slid the pancakes from the pan to the plate. With a bottle of syrup, he placed the plate in front of Ruby, who looked like she was about to bite into a slice of heaven.
After a few bites of the dessert-like breakfast, Ruby was suddenly aware of the Doctor's continuous stare. "Why aren't you eating? Are time lords like camels when it comes to food? You eat once and can live for days."
"Yeah, something like that. Sorry for the staring."
Ruby continued eating, only with an aim to tease the Doctor. She put the pancake onto the fork and tried to be as annoying as possible. "Look at its fluffy texture. It just soaks up that sweet syrup like a sponge," she teased. She put the food in her mouth and made very dramatic sounds to taunt him. "Mm! It's so good! Too bad you don't want any!"
He stared at her with his eyebrows raised and then got himself a glass of water. Then he downed the entire glass. "Ah, now that is good! H2O!" he said with a mad grin that made laughter bubble out of Ruby's throat.
Still laughing, Ruby got up and washed her plate off. "Well, I'm going to get dressed. I'll be back." Ruby walked out of the kitchen and made her way down the hallway to her room. She had quickly gotten used to all of the crazy twists and turns and was there in a matter of minutes. After going through the drawers one more time she found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with her favorite TV show on it. Life on Mars. After putting on the classic T-shirt and jeans combo, Ruby grabbed her iPod from yesterday's pant's pocket and attached it to the stereo system. She made her way to the bathroom and grabbed a toothbrush. She was rhythmically brushing her teeth when she heard a Billie Piper song come on. Ruby spit out the minty foam and quickly rinsed her mouth.
"I love this song!" she announced to no one. With a pivot of her wrist she hired the volume on the stereo and jumped around to the beat and started singing the words to her toothbrush. "Because we want to! Because we want to!" She jumped and kicked the air with the skill of her martial arts classes. "Why do you always say what's on your mind!" She jumped around in pure joy. "Because we want to! Because we want to!" She threw her head from side to side and bumped into something. When she turned around she realized that it was the Doctor. She stopped dead in her tracks.
"Because we want to! Because we want to!" He looked utterly ridiculous dancing about the room. "Come on! Why did you stop?"
"Stop what?"
Now he stopped dancing as well. "You were just dancing. Why'd you stop?"
"No I wasn't."
"Yes you were, I just saw you-"
"Doing nothing."
"But you were singing and-"
"Doing nothing and definitely not singing."
"So you're saying that-"
"You just walked in here, and saw NOTHING and started jumping around making a fool of yourself. Yup, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now come on let's go!" She marched out of the room with the Doctor close behind thinking of how strange his new companion was. He caught up to Ruby and she turned to him and asked, "So what exactly did you see me doing in there?"
"Well, I saw-"
"Nothing!"