HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sorry for this one taking quite a while, it was just tricky, plus holidays got busy. Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter, and I hope you enjoy this one! The end is in sight, and a lot of things are going to be coming out!

I'm not trying to stop a hurricane

I'm not trying to shake the ground below

I'm just trying to find a way to make it back home

Home - American Authors

What if it makes you lose faith in me,

what if it makes you question every moment you cannot see

What if what I want makes you sad at me

And is it all my fault or can I fix it please

Cause you know that I'm always all for you

What If - Safetysuit

The Doctor woke on the floor of the TARDIS with bile in his mouth and he swallowed it before scrambling to his feet and seeing Aliya still on the jump seat. Tears sprung to his eyes as he recalled what the Dream Lord had done to her with his body, the horrible things he'd said and the worse things he could have done if Aliya hadn't managed to knock him out.

He scooped her up again, ready to face Torchwood now that he could be slightly more assured of her safety. With any luck, she was with River now, or beating him to a pulp in the other TARDIS. Both sounded fine to him.

Once out of the police box, he stood on the lift and waited as it brought him down into the Torchwood Hub. There was a flurry of activity in the underground base, with Gwen and Jack shouting orders to the others and sometimes getting shouts of argument in return.

"Dad!" Jenny called when she spotted him. "She was right, it's the Daleks!"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack asked him, coming to stand by the lift as the Doctor stepped off it with Aliya in his arms. "I mean don't get me wrong, your timing's great, but-" His eyes went to Aliya, and his meaning wasn't lost. "She went up, like she knew you were coming. And you just talked. After everything, I didn't think that was possible."

"Tell me about the Daleks," the Doctor said, pointedly avoiding Jack's veiled questions and instead heading for the couch he could see that would be an ideal place to set Aliya down until she woke up. "How far away? How many?"

"A whole fleet, and close," Jack answered.

Esther, the blonde American that the Doctor remembered due to her being the doppelganger of Aliya's first body (with a few significant differences, thankfully) but also just a rather charming person from the few times they had met, joined them.

"Hey, we haven't met, but you're the Doctor, aren't you?"

Of course, the Doctor thought, in this world we never met. "Yes, I am. Esther Drummond, am I right?"

She blinked. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Some people here speak very highly of you. So, Esther, what have you got for us?"

"Nothing good, sorry, just transmissions that confirm they're definitely not here for the summer break," Esther said, forcing a smile. "Do you want to hear, or-"

"I imagine it's just a whole lot of one particular word that I've heard more than enough times," the Doctor said, and shook his head, "No thank you, Esther, that's fine."

"Doctor?"

He and Jack turned instantaneously to see Aliya having risen from the couch. She was staring at the Doctor with tears welling in her eyes. He took a few steps towards her only to have her take one backward and hit the couch with the back of her calves.

"Tell me it was him," she said desperately, eyes pleading.

"It was him."

She nodded, slowly, and catapulted herself at him to start crying into his shirt. "I was so scared," she whispered, "I've never been so scared in my life. And that's not even gone, I'm still terrified."

"I know, and I'm sorry," he said into her hair, stroking it with one hand and rubbing her back with the other, "I'm so sorry."

"What the hell is going on?" Jack demanded. "You two shouldn't be in the same room, let alone doing...whatever the hell it is you're doing."

"Jack, with respect, not now," the Doctor told his friend, and went to take Aliya's head in his hands only for her to push and stumble away from him just before he could. The blatant terror in her eyes made him remember being present while the Dream Lord taunted her. Despite not being in control of it, he could remember the feeling of her fragile neck in his hands - the very hands he'd just tried to put near that same area. He winced.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said, unable to do anything but eye his hands warily, "He-"

"I know."

"What?"

"Aliya, it was him, but I was there. He made me watch."

"Oh." Humiliation flooded her face, which was ridiculous because none of it was her fault. "I wish you hadn't...hadn't seen."

"Hadn't seen? Aliya, I'd have been more worried if I hadn't known what was happening, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Now stop being ridiculous and make yourself useful, we've got a Dalek invasion on our hands," he told her firmly. He had been worried it was too insensitive of a thing to say, but she just sniffed and lifted her head a bit higher, seeming glad for the change in subject and the prospect of useful things to be doing.

"Alright, just point me in the right direction."

"No, I want an explanation," Jack insisted, coming to stand between them. "You're not making sense, either of you, and if we're all going to work as a team we need to be on the same page. And I need to know what page the two of you are on."

"I'll protect her, and Jenny, and this world, with my last breath," the Doctor said stonily, "Nothing else to discuss."

"She's been passing out," Jack said, pointing at Aliya, "You carried her in, you saw it."

"I am too, Jack! We're both going to keep dropping in and out and I can't explain why, all you can do is work around it. Now, what have we got in the way of defence?"

"Well-"

"Forget defence, let's just get them first," Aliya said, with a hardness in her tone that made from frown. Then again, it was the Daleks. "We could teleport onto their ships, blow them up from the inside. We've done it before."

"Yes, because sneaking around Dalek ships is a great plan when we keep falling asleep every five or ten minutes," the Doctor retorted, and she sighed when she clearly realised he had a point.

"This whole thing is such a mess."

"Yeah, it is." Jenny approached them. "And I think I deserve to know what's going on with the two of you. Jack too, if you haven't told him anything either."

"There isn't time to explain," Aliya told them, "All you need to know is that we're good. And we're dream sharing, so if we keep waking up and seem suddenly a mile ahead that's why."

"Can't explain the dream sharing, though, so don't ask," the Doctor added.

Jack and Jenny shared dubious looks. "That's it? That's all we get?" They both asked.

"Sorry, but yeah."

"But-"

That was when the sound of birds filled the Doctor's ears. He immediately looked to Aliya, who was similarly distracted.

"I can hear the birds again," she said, with resignation, "Can you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Even as Jack and Jenny tried to protest, they blurred out of his vision when he began to fall backward onto the hard Hub floor.

The Doctor woke up on the glass of the console platform with a painful ache between his legs. It only took him a second to remember that it was the rather brilliant work of the woman lying a few metres away, who eyed him with a great deal of uncertainty.

"You've got a hell of a knee on you," he remarked, wincing as he got to his feet. "And I say that with great admiration." For a moment she didn't show much of a reaction, but finally her mouth twitched with what had to be amusement as she moved to sit on the bottom step of the flight that led to the corridor.

"Thanks."

The other thing that had the Doctor uncomfortable was the heat of the room. If he were to guess, he'd say that it was at 40 degrees celsius currently, which was a standard temperature for some of the more extreme places on Earth. But it was still rising, and not particularly slowly. Thankfully, both being of Gallifrey, they would be able to last much longer than humans.

"Given everything that's happened, can I sit down, or would you rather have me sort of...away?" The Doctor asked awkwardly, jerking his thumb towards the side of the console platform where she wasn't.

Her different coloured eyes regarded him with an expression he wouldn't read. Under the circumstances, he couldn't blame her for being guarded. Thankfully, a softness filled her eyes after a few moments.

"No, I'd actually quite like to have you closer," she said. He wondered if that was hard for her to admit but didn't dwell on the thought. Her hand reached for him, and he took it as he came to sit on her left with their shoulders all but touching. His free hand covered hers where his other already held it, his frown thoughtful as he considered just how precious she was to him. And how much danger she was in because of that.

"...I'm sorry," he managed to say eventually, a huge lump of guilt rested in his throat.

"Hey," she murmured, her thumb caressing the back of his hand as her fingers slid between his to hold his hand all the tighter, "Don't be. This isn't your fault."

The Doctor turned to look at her. He could feel that his eyes were a little wet. "But it is. All of this, all of it."

"Why? How can it be?" Her eyes pleaded with him, and it hurt like hell to deny her the information she craved - the information she deserved. But he was too weak to give it to her. "Why won't you tell me?"

His right hand gripped hers tighter where they were locked together, while his other brushed hair behind her ear. He knew from the way she watched the movement that she could see the shaking in his limbs.

"Because I'm afraid," he whispered. Aliya immediately wound her free arm around his waist and buried her head in the space between his neck and shoulder. He welcomed the embrace with more of his hearts than he would ever admit and let his head drop to rest on top of hers.

"Welcome to the club," she replied, and if she'd been able to see his face, he'd have forced a smile. As it was, he just held her a little tighter and pressed a kiss to the top of her head that was so light she hopefully couldn't feel it.

For nearly half a minute they stayed in that position, feeling that little bit safer amidst the horror.

"Well, isn't this sweet."

Both Time Lords jerked their heads up to see the Dream Lord smirking at them from where he was pretending to lean on the console.

"Piss off," Aliya told him, not making any move to shift from her current place of being more or less in the Doctor's arms. "We're dealing with your deadly dangers, we don't need you turning up just to make snide comments and then leave."

"You know as well as I do, Ali, that I do a lot more than make snide comments."

The Doctor felt her fidget against him as she spoke again. "As if I'd forget having your filthy hands all over me."

The Dream Lord outright laughed at that. It was a chilling sound. "You mean his hands."

Without hesitation, Aliya retorted, "No, I mean yours."

He moved his smug and satisfied look to the Doctor. "She's rather cute when she knows absolutely nothing, isn't she? Is that why you haven't told her yet? No, it's because you're a flophead wuss, isn't it? You know that she'll likely never let you near her again when she knows the truth."

"Shut up," the Doctor said, holding Aliya even tighter, "Just shut up."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Despite the sneer, the Dream Lord dissipated.

"Just tell me," Aliya whispered once they were alone again, her fingers curling in his tweed jacket.

"I can't."

"Why not?!" She pulled her head away to stare at him with confusion and hurt shining in her eyes. "What could be so bad that you can't tell me?"

He shut his eyes. "You'll hate me. You'll never look at me the same way."

"You idiot," she said furiously, her hands coming to cup his face, "Do you think I care for you so little that anything you tell me could make me hate you?"

Did she mean that? The twist of in his hearts simultaneously wanted to believe it and reject it. But even if she thought she believed it...she wouldn't be accounting for the Dream Lord, whom she openly despised and with good reason, to be a part of him.

"No," he murmured, struggling to look her in the eye, "I think you care for me blindly."

Aliya's hands released him as if he'd burned her and she slid away from him. "Blindly?" She repeated, speaking the word as if it were poisonous. "I care for you in a number of ways, some of them far from good, but caring for you blindly? I think I'm one of the only ones who doesn't."

"Really? With telling me that nothing could make you stop? That sounds blind to me, when you have no idea what you're promising."

"Our friendship is unconditional!" She shouted, her face twisting. "That doesn't mean I don't see you for what you are. Your other friends, you're a god to them, a wonderful madman who stole them away from their lives and expanded their world exponentially."

"And how do you see me?"

"As you are. My friend. The boy who dreamed even when everyone, including me, told him it was impossible. The man who has travelled and fought and lost, all of his life. The man is so wonderful yet utterly imperfect" Aliya got to her feet as she spoke, but spun so that she was still facing him. "You committed genocide against our people and destroyed our planet! Nothing you tell me could be worse than that! I should hate you, but I can't, no matter what you do or how much of an arse you are!"

The Doctor was at a complete loss for words. "But-"

"No buts!" She insisted, pointing her finger at him. "I thought it was obvious, but since you're a moron, I'll say it once, so that we're clear. I am not running away. You cannot scare me off. I. Am. Staying. With you. Until the last breath leaves my last body. Or yours." She inhaled deeply and her shoulders sank. "Be a coward if you want. But no matter what the truth is, it won't turn me from you. You're stuck with me. So consider that my ignorance is putting me in danger, and get over yourself so that we can beat this."

"It's not that simple," he said, tiredly.

"Of course it is. Dream Lord, I want to be in the other dream. I need River Song, I can't handle this level of stupid alone right now."

When she dropped to the floor, the Doctor was relieved when he could feel himself doing the same, and could only hope that they would be in the same dream again.

The first thing the Doctor experienced upon waking on a clifftop was surprise. Had the Dream Lord actually been helpful for once? Aliya's expression of great disdain made it was obvious that at least she didn't seem to think so. It also explained the question that River then asked.

"What the hell has he done now?"

"Don't even get me started," Aliya muttered. The Doctor, for once, decided to remain silent. "Let's just keep moving across so that we can find a point to get down."

"Get down?"

"It's what we agreed on while you were out, Sweetie," River said quickly. "No point in putting a geographical barrier between us and our only way off planet."

"Fair point."

Because they'd lacked in time to climb particularly high in the first place, within ten minutes they'd managed to come down in a different part of the jungle. The Doctor was just relieved to have his feet on solid ground again, though the thought didn't linger for long when his brain was still rather focused elsewhere.

"Aliya, about earlier-"

"No-"

"Just let me-"

"No! Until you pull your head out of your arse, I don't have anything to say to you."

They glanced to the side and saw River standing there with crossed arms and a middling but wavering degree of patience.

Though the Doctor opened his mouth to speak, Aliya beat him to the punch when she pointedly said, "River, could he say anything to me to make me hate him?"

"Of course not."

"Two out of three immediately disprove that," the Doctor said sourly.

"And one of the two prove we got over it and I grew to the point where it's not longer possible." Aliya's voice was steady, given the emotional stakes for them all in the tumultuous situation. "Besides, I'm holding out for the one out of three that says none of that ever happened." When he shot her a sceptical look, she rolled her eyes and let her arms tightly encircle River's shoulders from the side. "For reasons that actually have very little to do with you. My mind doesn't know where home is anymore...but I know where I want it to be." River turned her head so that the two women could smile at each other, and River's hands came up to rest on Aliya's arms.

He had just enough time to, with a jolt, remember very belatedly that he wasn't the only one who cared deeply about River and whether she was actually alive, before the sound of birds began to fill his head. Aliya's grip on River visibly slackened, and the Doctor was glad to see his wife helping his friend reach the ground gently as the two Time Lords were taken by sleep.

The Doctor woke on the hard Torchwood floor and his first reflex was to grab Aliya and pull her close. Thankfully, she allowed it, if only because she wasn't entirely awake yet.

"I'm sorry," he told her sincerely, brushing her hair from her eyes in a gesture of good faith, "I forgot-"

"Forgot that I loved her too?" She breathed, her eyes focusing quickly. "Still do, just like you do? Well, maybe not just like you do, but, yeah. So are you done being a-" His hand covered her mouth before she could call him something undoubtedly creative and unpleasant. While a part of him would probably have been amused by it, he could feel the eyes of Jack, Jenny and Esther on them. And so could Aliya, apparently, since she then turned and looked up to snap at them, "What? Have we turned purple, or grown beaks? Isn't there something you lot should be doing?"

When the three blinked with surprise and slight offense, the Time Lady cringed.

"Sorry," she immediately said, rubbing her temples, "This world makes me cranky."

Considering it was the world where she was supposed to hate him, and her most dominant memories supported that here, the Doctor wondered if a life without him had made her cranky, or if it was something else altogether, such as being stuck somewhere as mundane as Earth.

Without thinking, he brushed his fingers across the back of her hand where he'd grabbed in his haste upon waking. Her head snapped to look at where he'd touched her, and she lifted her gaze to give him a tiny smile, but pointedly took her hand back as she did so.

"Come on, Lundar, we've got Daleks to send packing," he said cheerily as he got up and offered her a hand. "Jack, situation update."

"They'll be landing on the planet in a few minutes, and there isn't anything we've been able to do."

"Course there isn't, they're Daleks," the Doctor said, waving his hands to be sure that everyone present understood the gravity of the word and the creatures behind it. "The be all and end all. You lot keep working here, maybe see if Esther can't build a charge that might disable some on landing, anything is better than nothing! Aliya, up to the pass with me. There's something we need to look for, here and in the other dreams. It could be the key to everything."

"Dad, those are Daleks, you should take me to look after you," Jenny argued, but both the Doctor and Aliya shook their heads forcefully at the mere suggestion.

"I'm the one who needs to look after you. Which means you stay here. You'll be more help here anyway. Bullets generally don't even tickle Daleks."

They took the lift up to the Roald Dahl Pass, which was currently free of Daleks, only to find themselves facing the Dream Lord instead. He was pacing and tapping his chin with his fingers, as if they were late for some sort of important business meeting.

"About time the two of you got up here. We've got serious business to discuss. It's the eleventh hour, Doctor," the Dream Lord said, smirking at the double meaning in the statement, "And she needs to know the truth. So will you tell her, or shall I?"

"Don't do this, not now," the Doctor asked, in a low tone that thankfully made it sound much less like a plea than it actually was.

"But why would I pass up the opportunity to watch her faith in you fall?" The Dream Lord sneered, stepping forward until he was in his face. "It's what you deserve, it's what you've deserved since the beginning-"

"Who are you?!" Aliya cried, staring at him with wide eyes. "Who could you be, to hate him so much?"

The Dream Lord turned to advance on her instead. She held her ground. "I think you know. I think you've suspected, in the back of your mind, the truth so terrible you couldn't even make yourself consider the possibility. Not consciously." He spun on his heel, chuckling as he walked away from her. "It's the hatred that gives it away, actually. That's how he knew who I was the first time, you know. He said that he had no idea how I could be there, but that only one person in the universe hated him as much as I did."

"No," she whispered, moving her eyes to the Doctor, who shifted uncomfortably at seeing the desperation in her for him to dispel all the suspicion and implication. "You can't possibly-"

"Why else would I be so interested in you?" The Dream Lord asked her, smirking. "Do you really think anyone else in the universe even cares about you? And you said it yourself, Time Lords aren't easily possessed, so how could I do it?"

"I said there was something we had to look for," the Doctor said, shutting his eyes as defeat settled in his hearts. He prepared himself to lose her. Potentially forever. "It'll be what's causing the dreams."

"What?"

With the last bit of strength he had, and a minuscule sigh, he let his eyes open to hold hers and said, "Psychic pollen."

It was easy to read her thought process: the matching of psychic pollen's function with their situation; the words of the person who hated him the most; the fixated and undeniably intimate nature of the Dream Lord's knowledge of her...

And then she broke.

"No!" Aliya's face twisted into pure devastation as her knees gave out on her. She muffled a scream by biting the back of her own hand while tears of shock sprung to her eyes. The Doctor's natural urge was to go to her, to comfort her and tell her that everything was going to be alright, but he couldn't do it now. Or possibly ever again.

He could see it, the truth that she now knew, that every foul word that had fallen from the Dream Lord's lips wasn't the taunting of a madman or a new foe. It was all from the person in the universe she had put all of her trust into. The person she had claimed to never be able to hate, no matter what, and promised to never abandon. Her pretty words fell away to nothing in the face of the harsh reality he'd tried to warn her of.

Her reddened eyes shot between the Doctor and the Dream Lord with horror, while the latter just stayed silent but smug.

"You hate yourself so much," she whispered, looking at them both, "So much more than I wanted to believe. More than I could. That's what you meant…" Her gaze lingered on the shorter man as she addressed him. "It was his hands that hurt me. Anything you did or said, it was all him, and it was all true!"

"And you can blame me for everything, for all of it, when we're out of this," the Doctor said wearily, unable to get out anything that wasn't stone cold and practical, so strong was his self-loathing. "But remember, about anything he said to you-"

"That you said-"

"Rule number one, that's all I'm asking you to remember until we can talk about this properly."

Aliya went still, and regarded the Dream Lord with new and unreadable emotion in her eyes. "The Doctor lies."

"He wants to hurt both of us, and he'd do anything to achieve that."

"Which means you want to hurt both of us, and would do anything to achieve that!" She yelled at him. "Is this supposed to be reassuring me, or are you so determined to prove me wrong that you're trying to make me despise you?"

"That's not all I want, Doctor, and the moment you realise what it is that I do want, you'll have the truth of it all," the Dream Lord said, ignoring her entirely. "In more than one way, you could even say that I'm even trying to help you."

"By causing me and my closest friend pain," the Doctor spat, scowling at him, "Spin another one."

"I may despise you, Doctor, but I'm also selfish by nature. I am helping you, provided you don't die horrifically...but I'm not passing up these chances to make you really have to hurt. To work for and deserve what you're going to get."

The Doctor didn't have the time or patience for riddles. "Aliya, come on, we need to find somewhere with more cover, since we'll probably be sleeping again soon and Daleks are almost here."

"Yes, have a nice sleep, there's a good plan, let's keep you two together, when that's the last thing she wants."

Aliya, thankfully, followed the Doctor when he headed for a backstreet. But she flinched when he tried to touch her on the shoulder, even as birdsong filled their ears.

"Don't," she muttered as they went down, "Just don't."

It was far from the best time to voice the most important question he would probably ever ask her. But he couldn't stop himself. "Do you hate me?"

Her answer was a mere whisper as the darkness closed in on both of them. "No. But you did all of this. And you hurt me. I don't hate you...but on the inside I am weeping for you and I'm fucking furious. If we get out of this alive, Guardians help you."

So she knows...but what's that going to mean for them? One chapter to go, and I like to think there will be a few definite surprises by the end of the chapter, but not all of them bad. What I can promise is emotional turmoil in buckets. :D

Also, I've made an 8tracks character mix for Aliya, which if I do say so myself turned out very nicely. The link is on my profile, along with links to the other mixes for this series and my other mixes, so definitely check them out, especially if you're musically inclined.

I'm so excited for the next chapter it's driving me crazy, and you guys should be too. Some of you know why. ;)

Love you all, and see you soon because this next chapter is going to spill from my fingers,

-MayFairy :)

Anonymous Review Replies:

Yaaaas - wow, thank you so much! Your review made me so incredibly happy because it was so kind. The best Doctor/OC fanfic? I certainly can't ask for much higher praise than that. I could never just rewrite episodes, I would die of boredom, plus I've never really enjoyed fanfics that did that. Copying an episode and just throwing some extra lines in for an OC doesn't seem like proper writing to me, and I have original fiction in my sights for the future so, yeah. Original plots, and actually interesting episode AUs are my thing. And the honouring of other romantic interests is so important, especially with the Doctor, who has loved so many people so deeply. I'm a huge multishipper, so honouring his other romances is as easy and natural as breathing. I'm also so happy that you love Aliya and don't think she's a Mary Sue. That's the dream! Hope to hear from you about this chapter! :)