Another update? Already? I know, I'm a merciful overlord at times. What can I say? This chapter has been waiting to get out of me for years. I couldn't keep it in!
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, I love you guys! Enjoy! This one's a goodie. In a painful sort of way.
Recommended/optional instrumental tracks:
Magic Snow - Buffy Soundtrack
Rosalin and Adama - BSG Soundtrack
I was thinking 'bout her, thinking 'bout me
Thinking 'bout us, what we gon' be
Open my eyes yeah, it was only just a dream
Sam Tsui and Christina Grimmie - Just A Dream
It's everything you wanted, it's everything you don't
It's one door swinging open and one door swinging closed
Some prayers find an answer
Some prayers never know
We're holding on and letting go
Sometimes we're holding angels
And we never even know
Ross Copperman - Holding On And Letting Go
When Aliya woke in the TARDIS, she didn't immediately open her eyes or get to her feet. She needed a moment to gather her thoughts and feelings and bundle them as tightly as she could. They were threatening to spill over and there simply wasn't time for that.
Psychic pollen. The Dream Lord being the manifestation of what it found in the Doctor. Even just thinking about it made her want to be sick all over the glass floor.
Oh, she'd known the Doctor had darkness in him. He had destroyed Gallifrey, after all, and committed numerous atrocities before that, such as the mess with the Vervoids that had so complicated his trial with the Valeyard so long ago. But this? This taunting and threatening and talk of sadistic things as if they were pleasurable? This was something else altogether.
Strange, to consider that in many ways the Valeyard was much less frightening than the Dream Lord, even when they were one and the same. The only difference, of course, was that the Valeyard actually physically existed in the Doctor's future. Not that she was going to be thinking about that right now.
And yet...among all her disgust and fear and fury...there was devastation. For the Doctor, and for what the Dream Lord's words said about his opinion of himself. Oh Doctor, she thought miserably, why didn't you tell me? I could have tried to help you see the good in yourself. The idea that someone as wonderful as him could not, despite all his supposed arrogance, even tolerate himself? It was tragic and horrific to even consider.
She promised herself that if they got out alive, and if she could manage to forgive him for everything the Dream Lord had done, her new job was to show him the beauty she saw in him.
Right, so you love him, you can't hate him, you're furious with him, and crying for him, but you're thinking you want to show him his inner light while his inner dark plots to torture both of you?
When had her mind become so bloody cynical? Yes, she retorted, with absolute conviction, and showing him his inner light is only happening once the inner dark is long gone and...well, just a bad dream, albeit a really bad one.
"Aliya?"
Finally her eyes snapped open at the sound of the Doctor's voice. He was standing some distance away and didn't seem to have any intentions of approaching her. Wise of him. She didn't immediately reply, because he'd pulled her out of her thoughts, which had been busy enough to keep her from noticing anything physical about her surroundings.
Now she could feel the full heat of the furnace that the console room had become. She became aware of the path of a single drip of sweat travelling down the crease of her back, between her shoulder blades. And it was far from being alone. Her entire body felt sticky and her head foggy.
"How hot is it in here?" She asked as she stood up.
"About 70 degrees Celsius," he replied, his voice almost as distant and impersonal as hers, "It's incredibly lucky we're Time Lords and not human at this point."
Aliya turned her eyes to the glowing star shown in the round display on the wall. "That sun is getting close enough that soon it's not going to matter. Gallifreyan biology might be superior, but we're not immortal or indestructible."
"She tells the man who's regenerated eleven times," the Doctor muttered as he crouched to get a look at the mess under the console. "I think I've learnt that I'm not indestructible by this point."
"Is your memory deteriorating in your old age, or is the heat affecting your brain? This is your eleventh self, so you've only regenerated ten times," she corrected, coming to crouch down next to him and shake her head, "Honestly."
"Right," he said, not looking at her and instead focusing on the work. It never occurred to her to think that she might not know him quite as thoroughly as she thought she did.
"Now, let's just try and fix this-" She choose a very colourful Gallifreyan word that had him lifting both near non-existent eyebrows at her, "-of a mess. I don't particularly want to talk to you until this is all over."
"And I don't think I want you to," he admitted, surprising her slightly, before adhering to her suggestion and beginning work on the tangle of wires, just as they had been doing back before they had known what was going on. How were they supposed to concentrate now, with all that was happening?
We'll concentrate because if we don't fix this, we'll burn, Aliya told herself grimly. She joined him and they worked in silence until the Dream Lord's influence took them to the next dream.
It was unexpected but pleasant to wake and be partially in River Song's arms. The other woman smelt of rich earthy oils and also carried a personal scent that was one of the most pleasant Aliya had ever encountered (the Doctor's being her most preferred, of course, though she'd sooner go through a painful regeneration than admit that to anyone). The knowledge that there was a strong chance she'd have to wake up from this dream for a final time and never know that smell again except in memory was something she hated. But she would hope with everything she had, until the last possible moment, that this was reality. That the Doctor had never looked at her with any kind of hatred in the green eyes he possessed now.
And, rather more importantly, that River Song was still wonderfully, beautifully alive and breathing.
"River," Aliya said, smiling a little, "Thanks for stopping me from getting bruises."
"You're a bit more breakable than he is," her friend said, grinning, "I happen to place a lot of value on your head, and prefer it undamaged and without concussion."
"That makes two of us." The two of them shared a strange half embrace as they got to their feet, and found the Doctor watching them sullenly. Aliya sighed. "Look, just because I'm currently furious with you doesn't mean I'm going to be selfish." She pulled River over to him and made sure the married couple were facing each other. "We could be on very limited time. So spend it with her instead of worrying about what I think of you. It's really not nearly as important and there's nothing you can do to change it anyway."
She went to walk on ahead, but did look back over her shoulder to be sure he was doing as she said. Sure enough, all it took was a moment of being faced with River Song before the hardness vanished from his eyes and he was kissing her soundly, with his hands buried in her bounty of hair. It wasn't a particularly short measure of time before they finally began to follow their friend through the forest. They walked in relative silence for several minutes, though she could hear the two of them talking in low tones amongst themselves. What she could make out sounded flirtatious and affectionate, and it made her smile and briefly forget just what a hell they were currently in.
"Doctor, you can sense the TARDIS much better than I can, are we going the right way?" Aliya eventually asked, given that they had no time to waste.
"Yes, I think so, though we could probably veer right just a little more."
They fell silent and continued to walk until Aliya could hear them come to a stop behind her after nearly a minute.
"Sweetie, what is it-"
Aliya turned around just in time to see the Doctor physically push River to the side, only to be hit by the small creature that flew into the space she had just occupied. It attacked the Doctor's face with such speed and ferocity that Aliya couldn't be entirely sure of what had happened until River shot the thing dead.
"It bit me," the Doctor remarked, grimacing as he touched his hand to his punctured cheek. It came away bloody from the small parallel cuts.
"Are you alright?" Aliya asked automatically, even if she was supposed to be being wary of him. He nodded.
"Just stings."
The dead creature on the ground resembled a squirrel but was ebony in colour, and like the panthers, had long fangs. Before she could move to examine it more closely, however, Aliya found herself getting sleepy, and could see the Doctor struggling to keep his eyes open as well.
They woke in the Cardiff sidestreet to the familiar sound of Dalek voices.
"THE TAR-DIS IS LO-CA-TED!"
"WHERE IS THE DOC-TOR?"
"Shit," Aliya said under her breath, glancing at the Doctor who was touching his cheek where he had been wounded in the other dream. "Doctor, what are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said immediately, shaking his head, "It was just really starting to hurt. In the other dream, I mean. Not...here. Obviously."
"Well, I think Daleks are a bigger issue right now than your personal comfort." She crept to the end of the sidestreet to see a pair of Daleks moving past in what appeared to be a patrol. "Looks like they've settled quickly." She dug in her pocket for her phone and called Jack. "Jack, we just woke up and there's Daleks everywhere. What's the situation?"
"We turned off all our broadcasting tech so that they can't see that we're a threat, but it means we're here in the dark. Figuratively and literally, and Marion and Rex are getting tetchy."
"Did Esther get anywhere with making a disabling transmission?"
"Thanks to your detailed input in the biology section of the Dalek profile in the computer, yeah, maybe, but she's on her laptop now so it might take a bit longer."
"Tell her she's amazing and to keep it up. The rest of you guys just sit tight, alright? No point in any of us getting killed for no reason."
Aliya hung up before he could reply and noticed that the Doctor had moved to stand with her by the corner of the buildings that made up the street entrance. The Daleks were heading away from them, meaning that it was in theory safe to move out of their hiding spot.
"Daleks, it had to be fucking Daleks," Aliya said as they walked out onto the street, "There is a 66.6% chance that this is the invention of your mind. And they bloody terrify me, so I'm blaming you."
"I know they terrify you, I imagine that was the point."
"Yeah, well, you can imagine I'm really fucking thankful you know me so well right now!"
"These dream scenarios will have come from your mind too, so it's not just my fault."
Given that psychic pollen was a mind parasite, it occurred to her that he had to be right. "Right. Fair point. I suppose it couldn't find enough in me to manifest like the Dream Lord."
"Of course it couldn't. Any darkness in you is directed at others, not yourself, it'd be too difficult to turn it against you, and there's not enough of it to last more than minutes at the most."
"How would you know?"
The Doctor stopped to give her a piercing look that made her want to cover herself with her hands even though she was wearing clothes. "I know you, Aliya, inside and out. Regardless of everything that's happening, don't ever think I don't."
She was still deciding on how she wanted to process that and form an answer when the cry of a Dalek stole her attention.
"IT IS THE DOC-TOR! EX-TERM-IN-ATE!"
While the Time Lords had idiotically stopped to chat in the street, the two patrolling Daleks had turned around to come back their way and spotted them. Unlike so many of those who had come before them, these Daleks wasted no time, and pointed their weapons at their oldest foe.
Aliya didn't even think. She spun so that she was in front of the Doctor and facing the creatures who had already fired their death rays.
The last thing she remembered was not one but two shots of burning lightning ripping through her torso and shredding her internal organs in a millisecond.
"Aliya! Oh god, Aliya, wake up!"
Aliya became aware of River staring down at her and shaking her shoulders roughly. But the more pressing issue was that she'd just been shot and killed by Daleks. No Time Lord could regenerate after two direct shots to the chest from Dalek weaponry. She had the memory of the agony caused by the death ray's damage to prove it.
But I'm here. Which means that world wasn't real.
Her first reaction to that knowledge was to hug River quickly, and joyfully, because it meant that there was now a larger chance that the world they were in now was real, just as she'd hoped from the beginning.
"The Doctor might be along in a minute," Aliya said, rather cheerfully. Unless he's become a truly phenomenal runner or has managed to try and negotiate with them.
River, however, wasn't sharing in her good mood. For the first time, Aliya noticed the redness around her friend's eyes and in the despair in them.
"River, what is it?"
"I don't think he will."
"Why?"
"Sweetie, he..." River couldn't even get words out, her voice was so choked. Aliya snapped her head to look at the Doctor who was only a metre away. His skin was an unnatural pale purple and his body much stiffer than it would have been had he merely been sleeping. "It...was some of the most potent venom I've ever seen. Only took half a minute. He didn't even...he didn't even glow."
"No, no…" Aliya crawled over to him, to see that the small bite he'd received was red and inflamed against an otherwise chalky face. Her hand touched his undamaged cheek. It was ice cold.
He can't be dead, not here, this is the real one, this is where everything was supposed to be perfect…
Her perfect world shattered when the fingers at his wrist found no pulse.
"This isn't fair!" She yelled, at River, at herself, at the bloody Dream Lord, who may have just managed to kill himself as he'd probably wanted to be able to do for years.
River knelt on the other side of the Doctor's body. Her hand rested lightly on his chest and stroked the fabric of his shirt. For the first time that Aliya had ever seen, she looked completely lost, her eyes wide and vulnerable and shining with grief.
"He pushed me out of the way," she murmured, "This should have been me."
"Don't you dare say anything like that," Aliya said fiercely, "I've lost you once, River. Never again."
River shook her head, not understanding but without the current conviction to question it.
Either the Doctor's alive, or River is. You can't get both, a voice in Aliya's head said, and the Time Lady shut her eyes as tears threatened to gather at their corners.
Thinking about a world without the Doctor was like trying to picture a solar system without its sun. He gave things meaning, by seeing the beauty in the universe and saving everyone he could from terrible fates. He was simultaneously the best and most flawed person she'd ever known. He was her best friend and she loved him more than she could often contain or even comprehend.
But River Song was...River Song. Brilliant, kind, funny, fierce, and beautiful. And although the other world said they had been doing it for years, the prospect of living without River was a bleak one, especially when the woman was sitting opposite her and was so alive and shining. Even in mourning.
"This isn't fair," Aliya said again, more to herself than anyone else, "I want both of you. Why can't we all just-" Her voice broke and any words that she'd planned just fell away. Then her gaze fell back down to the Doctor, and the true weight of the realisation that the Doctor was lying dead in front of her hit her with no mercy. Sobs forced their way out of her mouth and she let her head fall onto his chest as she soaked his shirt and River's hands in seconds. "You stupid bastard, why couldn't you just love yourself, like we did, like you pretended to...if you'd been able to see how wonderful you are, none of this would have happened…"
River's hands moved to stroke Aliya's hair, and when she spoke, her voice was smooth and soft despite being just as broken. "Sweetie, you're not making any sense."
"The man I've been in love with for a thousand years just died!" Aliya cried, lifting her head up a little. "I'm allowed to speak nonsense if I like!" When she noticed the other woman's uncharacteristic silence and staring, Aliya just threw her hands up with frustration. "What?"
River's face made it plain that she had been completely thrown. "You're in love with him?"
The Doctor became aware of the fact that he was screaming Aliya's name as her lifeless body fell back against his with the force of the blasts it had absorbed. As he let himself drop to the ground with her, two new blasts saw Jack standing behind the now fried Daleks.
"Oh god," Jack said, his face twisting as he properly took in the scene, "Is she going to-"
"No," the Doctor gasped. He hated to have to say it. "She's gone. She's...she's just gone."
"I'm sorry." It wasn't necessary to say aloud. Jack's grief, even if it was a molehill compared to the Doctor's own, was written all across his face. The only difference was that the Doctor had the grace of a half hope that she was still alive. More than a half hope, actually. 66.6%.
All the same, that was 33.3% less than he'd like.
He pulled her body closer until it rested across his lap and he could tuck her head under his chin, a bit like how they had been in the TARDIS dream not long before, when she'd been making promises with all her pretty words. The words he had spurned at the time but now would pay to hear again with one of his limbs.
If this is real, then I don't want it.
Amy's words came back to him, and for the first time he could feel true understanding of them vibrate through his very bones as it never had before.
"Oh dear, Doctor. Looks like she cared too much, in the end, didn't she? At least she died knowing the truth about you."
The Dream Lord was the absolute last person the Doctor wanted to see at that moment.
"Leave us alone."
"Us? How quaint. She's long gone, Doctor. And you know that." The Dream Lord chuckled, and when the Doctor glanced up, he was straightening his bowtie in a way that could only be described as smug. "The funny thing is that it really doesn't matter."
"The hell it doesn't matter-"
"Doctor, who're you talking to?" Jack asked worriedly. The Doctor just ignored him. He didn't have time to explain to someone who was likely, hopefully, a figment of a dream.
"This is the last time I'll tell you, Doctor. You need to think about what it is I want."
It was so tempting to just snap at his darker self, but the practical side of him finally gave in and thought hard about everything the Dream Lord had said.
"Last time it was about Amy...now it's about you."
Amy's men. Amy's choice.
"Aliya and yourself share something that can't ever be erased...not even by River Song."
"...now it's about you…."
The Doctor's women. The Doctor's choice.
Even though River had been dead, there had been a lingering feeling of obligation, that the Doctor's affections should have lain with her and only her for many more years, even decades. Realising that he was in love with Aliya had shaken him to the core, and so he'd taken to trying to avoid her so that he could sort through his head and decide how to proceed.
Clearly they'd hit some psychic pollen along the way, completely by accident. But his darker side, the Dream Lord, had taken the core of the problem and given him an effective - if sadistic and horrific - way to work it out.
And that meant he knew which world was real. Which one had to be, not by emotional necessity but logic. Because it wasn't about Aliya versus River. It never had been, and the Dream Lord knew that. Despite the implications, it had never been about the Doctor's choice.
It had been about accepting that River was gone, and that the woman who was his best friend was someone he could find a new happiness with.
River Song being well and truly dead, after being given the hope of her being alive, was a hammer to his hearts. But he'd made a hopeless sort of peace with it a long time ago, and mourned his wife in every way possible. It was almost a relief to know that the pain had been real and not imagined.
And it suddenly became very obvious that if she had the chance, she'd be yelling at him to kiss Aliya senseless at first possible opportunity and let her know just how precious she was to him.
New determination filled the Doctor. He rose to his feet and called out at the top of his lungs for every Dalek that could hear to come and get him.
Aliya could only stare. Were they really having this conversation?
"Of course I do," she said slowly, "River, you know that."
"Well, I do now, and I mean now that you mention it, it explains a lot, but-"
"No, River, I mean, you know that." A stone had found its way to Aliya's stomach. It steadily grew as suspicion turned into something much closer to awareness of the truth that was unfortunate but impossible to ignore. "You told me, at the Library-" She trailed off.
"...this is the invention of your mind…"
"...will have come from your mind too…"
It was so simple. Such a simple mistake on the Dream Lord's part, yet entirely expected.
"Oh, River," Aliya whispered, "I'm sorry." She got up, and stepped over the Doctor's body because it had in the space of a few seconds lost all of its importance. River just blinked and stood up too, though not without several worried glances back down to her husband's body.
"You don't have to be sorry for anything, sweetie," she said, her lack of understanding written all over her face.
"...I know. But here's the thing." The Time Lady took a deep breath. It was crucial to say it out loud, because it wasn't going to feel real until she did, and an illogical part of her felt that she owed River an explanation. "We rescued you from the Library, and that was possibly the best day of my life. But that means you should know that I love the Doctor, because before the Doctor convinced me to help him save you, I went to see you and say goodbye." River frowned, but Aliya didn't give her a chance to speak. "But you see...the Doctor doesn't know about that, about what we talked about…"
"But that didn't happen-"
"It did," Aliya said, feeling a tear dripping down the length of her nose, "And these dreams, every detail about them comes from our minds, from me and the Doctor, so that it's all as real as we could know or think it to be. But not you." She grabbed River's hands and held them as tight as she could. "If I'm right, the Doctor, arrogant tosser that he is, assumed that he was the expert on River Song, that nothing that I knew about you could be anything his knowledge hadn't already put into you. So you, River, are perfect in every possible way...but he doesn't know that you knew I love him, so...you don't know either."
"But this isn't a dream, sweetie," River said desperately, her eyes wide with concern as she gripped Aliya's hands with a force that hurt, "Whatever might be happening to you, please don't think that this place isn't real. I've lost my husband today and I can't lose you too."
Had losing River been this hard the first time? It might have been more real, but this time there were more memories, albeit fake ones, and the hope that she'd had that River had been alive. Her very chest felt like it had collapsed in on itself.
"I'm sorry, River, but this isn't real. You're the perfect copy, but you're missing memories your creator didn't know about," Aliya said, wanting to be sick from her own words and the panic they were putting in River's eyes, "And leaving you is the last thing I want to do but I don't have a choice. There's one more world left and it's real and the Doctor and I are in danger. The longer I wait, the more likely it is that we burn to death."
"How can you think I'm just a copy?" River's eyes were wet too, and Aliya let herself sob just once as she lifted her hands to pull her into a bone-crushing hug.
"You're not, you never could be."
The two women clutched each other in desperation that was equal but opposite. Aliya could have happily stayed in that embrace for hours or days but knew that with the Doctor's life and her own at stake she couldn't.
She pulled away so that her hands could hold River's face and touch her flawless cheek with the tiniest movement of her thumb. That earned her a smile, albeit a teary one.
"No matter what, you're River Song and you will always be real to me," Aliya whispered, "Every dream, every parallel, every illusion or figment of my imagination. Always. Because you're my friend and I love you. Always will."
Without even thinking, or knowing why she did it or what she meant by it, she kept her hands where they were and used them to lean in and kiss River. Slowly and softly, with every bit of grief and apology and longing poured into the touch, so that even if the other woman thought she was currently crazy, she understood just how much she was going to be missed. How much she was loved, by the Doctor and by Aliya.
When their lips finally separated, and not before lingering perhaps longer than they should have, Aliya leaned away from River's wide eyed face. Written all over it was a curious mix of shock and ardency, which was to be expected, but also melancholy. Likely because she was starting to see that Aliya was intent on going, even if she didn't understand where, and never would.
"I love you too, sweetie," River said easily, and Aliya took her right hand from River's face to wipe at her own, at the tears that were starting to cloud her vision.
"I know," she choked out, and held her gaze so that she wouldn't notice what her left hand was seeking out, "And I'm sorry." She let herself grip River's hand again with her right hand, as if there was a chance of River being able to follow if she did it hard enough. Her left closed around the alpha mison blaster at River's hip.
As she brought the gun up, and pointed it at her own temple, there was just enough time for River's face to contort with horror as she realised what was about to happen.
"Goodbye River," Aliya whispered before pulling the trigger.
The Doctor had woken in the TARDIS as he knew he would, only to find Aliya still asleep, meaning she was still with River. The River who wasn't real, just a dream both of them had wanted so badly that she was the perfect temptation.
He knew that he should have been working on trying to repair the TARDIS, but a realistic part of him suspected that there was no way to repair the damage, unless the Dream Lord saw fit to return the memory of how he'd damaged it in the first place. And for that to even have a chance of happening...Aliya had to wake up. But not just wake up. She had to kill herself in the other dream.
But how could she know to do so? He'd even heard her say it. That world was the one she hoped more than anything was real. She wouldn't let it go lightly. And there was no way of reaching her, because now that he knew what was real, he knew for sure that the Dream Lord couldn't allow him to tell her. The only way she was coming back to him was if she died.
Over and over again, he saw her get hit by the Dalek rays in his mind's eye, her body convulsing in his arms as she was killed in one horrific instant.
Even though he knew it hadn't been real, the memory was still as vivid as the reality he sat in, and disturbed him as such. He just couldn't shake it, and the overwhelming feeling of grief lingered, as if he'd lost her even though he knew he hadn't. Not yet, anyway.
Her body was sprawled across the glass floor, all bare skin starting to be covered by a glossy sheen of sweat as the heat rose to sweltering levels. All he could do was sit on the floor nearby, his back against the console, and watch her with the hope that she would wake soon. A human would already have been dead from the heat, and not for the first time (though it was the first for this particular reason) he thanked the universe that she was a Time Lord, though it was absurd to think of her as being anything else.
Ordinarily, his sense of time was acute and pinpoint accurate. But between the extreme heat of the room and his overwhelming worry for his best friend, it was gone. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, waiting, and as time continued to slip by he still couldn't be sure how much of it he was running out of, or what he had left.
And then she moved.
With a gasp, Aliya woke, shaking intensely in a way that had him wanting to rush to her to be sure she was alright. But with her waking - and therefore their victory - came the flood of knowledge of what the Dream Lord had done to the TARDIS. To ensure their continued living, the Doctor quickly ducked under the console to perform the very small adjustment needed to set everything right. They started to drift away from the sun, and the TARDIS hummed with life as she became operational once more.
With one of his girls taken care of, he hurried to the side of the other one, who was still shaking.
But she wasn't injured. She was crying. Sobbing, in fact.
"Aliya," he whispered, and failed to get any more coherent words out because there weren't any that could have adequately described the all consuming relief in his hearts.
"Doctor?" Her watery eyes opened to look at him, and she abruptly launched herself up and into his arms. The arms that had been waiting just for her, to wind around her back and hold her to him as tightly as they could because she was alive and here. Her own arms wound around his neck and they were both crying into each other, for dying, for losing River again, for the joy of seeing each other safe. "You died, you died in that dream and I thought that I might never see you again, you stupid arse…"
"You jumped between me and two Daleks. I thought I might never see you again, you idiot."
A funny choked laugh escaped her throat and hit the bare skin of his shoulder. "Sorry."
"Yeah, you should be." His hand stroked her sweat-dampened hair and he realised that she was perched on one of his legs, one of hers on either side of it in the strange sitting embrace they'd found themselves in. Add to that his shirtless state and the fact that her shorts and top left her legs and stomach bare, and their skin was actually touching in a whole range of new places. At any other time, and in any other situation, that might have distracted him. But he couldn't think of anything less important. "How did you know that dream wasn't real?"
Aliya lifted her head from his shoulder so that he could see her face. Judging by the sorrow on it, the Doctor suspected that whatever she was about to tell him was the reason she'd been crying when she woke up.
"River," she said simply, her lips trembling, "The Dream Lord didn't get her quite right. There was something she should have known, but didn't. So I said goodbye, and got close enough to grab her blaster and finish myself off."
"He knew she was what we wanted the most, that's why he put her in there," the Doctor murmured, shutting his eyes for a moment.
"I felt like I was killing her, not myself."
"She died a long time ago. And she will always be in our hearts but we have to keep moving. We have been for years already. And we'll keep running, you and me, forever, yeah?" He smiled softly at her, and she smiled back.
"Yeah," she whispered. Then she frowned. "How did you know this dream was the real one? Or did the Daleks just get you too?"
"No, I knew," he admitted, "Because I realised what the Dream Lord was trying to do."
"What?"
The Doctor inhaled carefully. "He was trying to help me accept what it was that I wanted. What I needed. And to let go of what was stopping me."
Aliya's frown only deepened. "I don't understand. Is it something you can explain?"
"Yes, I think so." He brought one of his hands around to tuck a clump of hair behind her ear and make a lingering journey down to cup her face. While they hadn't moved any closer - and that would have been barely possible anyway - the sudden rush of realising that this was actually something he was about to do made it difficult to keep his hands steady.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" If her wide eyes were anything to go by, she genuinely hadn't worked it out yet.
He nervously smiled at her and gave her a funny sort of shrug. "Something incredibly stupid, ridiculously impulsive, and potentially dangerous."
There was just enough time for her to look even more confused before he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was tender, gentle, and questioning. Her entire body went stiff against him initially, but her mouth parted slightly under his after only a moment's delay. The hand that was still at her back pulled her closer and as she relaxed against him he felt a triumph in his chest.
That is, until she wrenched her mouth from his and jerked out of his arms so fast that she fell over on her side and hit her head on the jump seat on her descent.
"No," was all she said even as she clutched her head and winced.
Bemused, the Doctor just gaped at her. "What?"
New tears, different ones entirely, formed in her eyes while her face twisted with something he was shocked to recognise as torment. "You don't get to do that." She scanned over the amount of bare skin they were both showing, noticing it for the first time. "You can't just expect me to-" Her hand covered her mouth as the tears started falling.
"Aliya, I'm sorry, I thought-"
"Thought that now was a good time? Now that you 'know what you want'?" She cried. "Your wife just died, again, and we were both just kissing her! And this is your next move? For a Time Lord, your choice of timing is nauseating!"
"Wait, what?"
"It doesn't matter." Aliya got up and ran up the stairs, but the Doctor had just had his hearts thrown back in his face and wasn't about to let that happen without at least getting a sensical explanation. Everything coming out of her mouth was incomplete and that didn't give him a clear idea of what the actual problem was.
"Aliya, wait!" He hurried after her and with his long legs caught her in the hallway. Physically caught her, since she refused to stop when he called out.
"Let go of me," she breathed, her eyes shut tiredly. He was thankful to hear no fear or animosity in her voice. Just misery that he hoped desperately to cure.
"Is my hearing going or did you say you kissed River?"
"I did. It's not important."
He blinked. "You kissed my dead wife, shoot me for wanting to know why."
Her eyes opened just to roll at him. "It wasn't romantic. Not...not exactly, it just...it was goodbye. Now, please...let go of me."
"So this is about her?"
"No!" Aliya laughed, at him, but there was no humour in it and the pain remained vivid in her face. "It's about you, expecting something from me that I can't give you." She wrenched her arm out of his grip. "Come and find me when you want your friend back. Not before."
The Doctor watched her walk away from him and wondered how he had misjudged everything so badly. She'd definitely been in love with him, and he knew that because it had once been the problem, but it seemed that his worst fear (a fear he hadn't even known until just now that he'd been carrying for several years) had come true. Through all of his ignoring and mistreatment of her...she no longer did.
It hit him like a serrated knife, twisting in his gut. The one thing he'd never expected was for Aliyanadevoralundar to not be in love with him. And now, with all he knew and felt, he wasn't quite sure if he knew how to live with that.
He touched his bowtie absently while his mind continued to race. Regardless of how clear his conclusion seemed, she hadn't actually outright said that it was because she didn't love him, or didn't want to be with him. She did kiss me back, or I thought she did.
The Doctor was still sure that he was right in thinking she no longer loved him, but he cared enough to want to be completely certain, though he couldn't for the life of him imagine what other explanation there might be for what she'd said and how she'd reacted. The trick though, was how to be sure when he needed to be giving her space and continuing to be her friend. The last thing he wanted her to think was that he was pushing his case. The very thought made him shudder.
But they were best friends, and if they couldn't communicate properly with each other, then what was the point?
If she didn't love him, he was going to hear her say it outright before giving up completely. And when she did, he would accept it and be content with loving her from an arm's length (he'd certainly had enough practice over the centuries with all the people he'd loved). But he would hold onto his minuscule hope until then.
*peeks through fingers* Please don't kill me. I know the kiss and what happened after might be the exact opposite of what you guys have been hoping for, but I promise there's good reasons behind it. Next chapter we get Aliya's POV and straight away will learn why she reacted how she did (because obviously we know the Doctor's theory couldn't be further from the truth).
And THEN we get a teeny one chapter arc to push them into having to talk properly. :D
Since I'm still on holiday, I have a lot of writing time, so I'll hopefully be updating again soon! And remember, feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome!
Love you all,
-MayFairy :)