Disclaimer: I'm not making money off of this story cause Doctor Who is owned by someone else! Go figure! I do "own" the "characters" Ziayvria and Siobhan, though I will admit that they are also my own children [though younger] in real life. And no parent ever "owns" their kids, do they? *^_^*
Enjoy!
Chapter 3: Dinner & A Nightmare?
The Doctor was running as far as his long, thin legs could move him, but he could see that the more environmentally adaptive claws of the girls' captors were giving them a distinct advantage. He grew even more concerned about his ability to catch them in time and save the girls when he saw they were running to a ship that was next to a high sliding peak up ahead. He knew he had to act real fast or the girls would be lost to him, and he WOULD NOT ALLOW THAT, he thought to himself!
It had been many, many decades since he had practiced this particular trick, but he knew of no other option. He pulled out a long rope he kept in one of his dimensionally big Time Lord pockets of his jacket, that he kept for escaping danger emergencies, tied it in a lasso like knot, and swung it around his head like in cowboy movies. He hoped that his training in this from such legends as Roy Rogers would be sufficient enough as he threw it with all of his might at the two alien captors.
Rassillon must have heard his silent prayer for success, as he managed to get the big loop around both of them, and he pulled tight to close the loop around them, and then held on tight as he ran towards them before they could use their claws somehow to pull free.
The girls, who were held up high around the monsters shoulders, were not pinned by the loop, and as soon as the monsters let go they jumped out of their grasp and ran as fast as their little legs could carry them to the Doctor.
As soon as the three met up the Doctor scooped them up in his arms and spun them around, typical companion style, kissing them both on the forehead.
"Doctor, thank God you saved us! We were so afraid!" Siobhan said, tears in her eyes.
"Thank you Doctor, I thought they had us for sure!" Zia added, tears in her eyes too!
"OH, I wouldn't let anything happen to my new companions, Would I?! You know me! I would have found a way to save you two!" he said smiling and still hugging them tight. He personally was very grateful his lasso trick had worked, cause he knew how close the girls had come to not being saved, and that scared him more then he cared to admit.
"I'm so tired and hungry! Can we get something to eat!" Siobhan said, apparently fully trusting in the Doctor to keep her safe now, amazingly enough. Zia nodded in accordance with her sisters words.
"In just a minute! I'm going to make sure our two captives come with us, and are taken securely away to a holding facility. Otherwise they may try to take you two away again. Hold on and I'll just slide them over…" he said, putting the two girls down and pulling the rope and allowing the monsters to get closer to where they stood, "Okay, let's go to the nearest restaurant platform and get something to eat. I don't think these guys will be going anywhere in the short time it'll take us to get to the restaurant!" he said.
He scooped up Zia and put her on his shoulders, piggy back style, and carefully held Siobhan's hand with one of his own, while pulling along the rope with his free hand. Together they walked about a half mile's distance to where the nearest teleportation pads were, and quickly were all, monsters included, whisked away to the nearest restaurant, which was far enough away in actual distance that it couldn't be spotted from their previous location.
When they got there, he immediately walked up to the podium where several Borgians stood waiting to sit new customers at a table, and told them about the alien kidnappers. They immediately used a communications device to call for security, which came promptly via other teleportation pads, complete with rather formidable looking guns and restraining devices. In just a few minutes time the two aliens were restrained very securely and whisked off with the security personnel to another location, to be held until further notice.
Meanwhile, another Borgian instructed the Doctor and his two "children" to please follow him to a table. Given their horrible predicament, and the fact that the Borgians thought that the Doctor was royalty, they seated them at one of the best tables, and waiters came to them immediately with drinks and menus and pillows to make them as comfortable as possible while they ate.
The chairs they were seated at were tall and very soft, and of a velvety red color that was luxuriant to sit on. The girls gratefully sat in them and had to fight the urge to go to sleep. The pillows were placed under and around the girls to assure their utmost comfort and their ability to reach the table meant for adults only. The Doctor was given pillows to keep him "propped up" comfortably while he ate.
Siobhan and Zia looked at the picture menu for human children, as they requested after the Doctor told them to tell the waiter what their race was. The Doctor explained to them that he was requesting a Gallifreyan menu, as they actually still had one even after his race had died off.
They all ordered, with Zia and Siobhan ordering gourmet Macaroni and Cheese, and the Doctor ordering something that had such a hard name to pronounce that Siobhan and Zia gave up trying to repeat it, after fumbling around with the word and laughing.
Their meals came back after 10 minutes, and they all ate, finding every bite to be some of the best food they had ever eaten. The girls both tried some of the Doctor's Gallifreyan dish, and thought it was so good that the Doctor decided to share more of his food with them, and he ate some of their Mac and Cheese.
Afterwards they all went back to where they had parked the TARDIS, and the girls were so tired from their ordeal that the Doctor had to carry both of them to the guest bedroom, next to his, that he had the TARDIS prepare for them. The TARDIS made sure to make the bedroom be designed for kids, with plenty of kid clothes in the dressers and closets, and plenty of toys, and a door that opened up right into the Doctor's bedroom, in case they needed anything during their sleep, since they were young kids.
He took off their shoes and socks and lay them both to rest in beds that were lying next to each other, with a small table in between holding a lamp. He covered them up in their blankets, with them already fast asleep from exhaustion. Not even aware of what he was doing, he kissed them each on the forehead before he turned off the light and went back to the control room to rematerialize the TARDIS from the main lobby of the vacation planet to the orbit of the planet in space, where he knew they'd be safe.
After making sure that everything was fine on his ship, he too went into his bedroom, changed into what he wore to sleep, and got into bed. Though usually he didn't need much in the way of sleep, this time he was quite tired, after the painful surprise attack from the first monster on Earth, having to keep the girls safe, having fun with them on the Borgian's vacation planet, and then having to do a daring rescue, and the fine meal, he was ready to rest!
He fell asleep quickly.
Siobhan and Ziayvria were fast asleep, both dreaming of their wonderful fun time with the Doctor going down the slide, when they were both startled to wakefulness by the sound of someone screaming. At first it appeared to them in their dream as one of them starting to fall off the slide and screaming in fear, but when they woke up they realized the screaming was in the waking world, not the dream world.
Siobhan, not being able to initially remember where they even were, quickly fumbled around the table she could barely make out in the dark, and almost knocked down the lamp before she found its switch and turned it on.
"Where are we?" Zia asked immediately.
"Judging from the looks of things, and what I remember of bedrooms on the TARDIS in Doctor Who, my guess is a bedroom on the TARDIS! I think I vaguely remember the Doctor putting us to bed after we finished eating. But that would mean the only one screaming would have to be the Doctor…"
"Why would he be screaming on his own safe ship?" Zia asked, looking at the door that they guessed must lead to his room, as the other door they could see lead out to the hallway.
"I don't know, but he hasn't stopped, so we need to see what's wrong!" Siobhan said getting up off the bed and walking to the door. Ziayvria followed her and when they got to the door they opened it.
Inside, the Doctor's room looked as black as the center of a black hole, with no light to be seen anywhere, though the light coming in from their bedroom allowed their eyes to adjust, and they could barely make out the Doctor's bed, tucked in the far corner. Somehow they imagined he would have some big, king sized bed like their father, but instead it was just a single bed, with just enough room for him to comfortable sleep. It was hard to make out to much more about his bedroom with out the lights on.
The girls could see, however, that he was tossing back and forth under his blanket, and as they suspected, he was the source of the screaming. They carefully walked to either side of the bed, a little bit unsure of what to do. Usually, for them, it was an adult, their mom, dad, or a grandparent usually, that would come to them, the kids, during or after a nightmare, to help calm them down, and ask them to talk about it, so they are not so afraid anymore. But this time it was they, the kids, coming to the help of an adult, and not just any adult, but the Doctor of all people.
Ziayvria looked to her sister for guidance, barely making out her wreath of thick blond hair in the light coming in from the other room, "So should we wake him up then, like mom and dad do with us when we're stuck in a nightmare?"
Siobhan thought for a few seconds, and then decided that made the most sense, "Yes, I can't see any other sensible option, sis. On the count of three, gently but firmly shake his shoulder on your side. One, two, three."
They both shook his shoulders, calling out his name to get him to wake up from his horrible nightmare. After a few minutes of consistent shaking and calling, he bolted up out of bed, and the TARDIS, responding to his wishes, turned on some very soft light throughout the whole room.
"Doctor, are you okay? You were screaming really loud for a long time, and it took us awhile to wake you up," Siobhan asked, concerned.
"Yeah! I thought only kids had bad nightmares like that! What did you dream of, those monsters that grabbed us or something?" Zia added, also concerned.
It took the Doctor a few minutes to orient himself, after abruptly waking up from the dream, a dream that he had been having ever since he had to say goodbye to all his previous companions after the Daleks were defeated, with the help of his double. Every time he slept, which wasn't a lot, but was enough to make these dreams very disturbing, he dreamt the same thing.
He dreamt about the planet Midnight, and the shuttle ride he had taken without Donna, where he had gradually gained the distrust, for no good reason, of almost everyone else on the shuttle, and because of their fear of the creature that had taken over one of the passengers, and how that passenger was now pretending to be herself, when it was still the creature, it had made them all turn on the Doctor, still in the paralyzing grip of the monster.
And every time he dreamt he went through the same horrible ending. The crew members would be pulling him towards the doors, to be thrown out into the vaporizing effects of Midnight's searing conditions. But unlike in real life, where he had been saved by the stewardess, alone on his side, realizing what has happening and sacrificing her life to save his by grabbing the passenger taken over by the monster and throwing them both overboard, instead, the stewardess was also against him, and no one was there to save him, and they threw him out. He awoke then with the very vividly remembered pain in the dream of searing heat destroying every part of his body, slowly.
This time had been no different, it wasn't until he had reached the outside of the shuttle in his dream that he had woken, he hadn't even been aware of the girls trying to wake him until they had spoken to him after he awoke.
He looked around quickly at his room, reassuring himself that he was still safe and sound in his TARDIS. He took in the moderate sized desk against one wall, with a few papers and pens neatly arranged; and the tall dresser to the other wall with the few clothes he needed stored neatly folded inside. The big walk in closet in the other corner was the only other thing in the room. He hadn't realized how Spartan his bedroom really was until looking at it in this context, with these two little girls around him, concerned for his welfare, just like his own kids had been when they were still alive and young, and when his bedroom had been much more domestic and personal.
"Oh, I'm Fine! No need to worry about me! I'm the one that's supposed to be looking out for and worried about you, remember?" he teased, smiling at each of them in turn.
The girls weren't convinced, as they had seen each other after nightmares trying to brush off their fears to their parents, and their parents always saw through it, and continued to get them to get to the root of their fears in the dreams, talking about it and working it out until they were no longer afraid.
The girls decided the Doctor was no different, "Do you have the nightmare a lot, or is this the first time," Siobhan asked.
The Doctor looked at Siobhan, amazed at how maturely concerned and perceptive she was, "I'm afraid I've been having this dream ever since the event in my life that the dream is a memory of happened to me, when I was still with Donna."
Zia smiled real brightly and grabbed the Doctor's hand to get his attention, "My sister and I have seen all those episodes of your adventures, at least 2 times! Tell us which adventure it was, maybe it was in your show and we can help you work through it, just like mom and dad does with us when we have nightmares!"
Again, the Doctor was amazed at the caring these girls had for him, even if he was in a show they loved, they still didn't "know" him, and they were so young, and yet they wanted to help. He still didn't know about how wise it was to burden such young children, already going through a lot, with such a horrible nightmare of a situation. But then he realized that if they had watched it on his show, then they already knew about it. He decided to tell them about that horrible day in the Midnight Shuttle.
"I remember that both Siobhan and I were crying when we saw that episode and them throwing you out! That was so horrible of them!" Zia said fervently after the Doctor finished.
"You can say that again Sis! But Doctor, whenever Zia and I have a nightmare about something that happened to us, then our parents have always told us that we have to, somehow, confront our fear, so that we understand it, and hopefully aren't afraid of it anymore. So doesn't that mean that you should find a way to go back to Midnight, safely, and investigate? Isn't that what you love to do anyway?" Siobhan asked.
The Doctor stared at Siobhan in amazement at how smart and insightful she was for her age.
"Hey, I know! You could land the TARDIS right around that area of Midnight that the shuttle got stuck! You always said in the show that no one, not even an army, could break down the doors of the TARDIS! So we could land her down there, take readings and stuff from her, and see if we can find out more about that 'thing' that got into that woman and caused such horrible things to happen!" Zia said, smiling hugely at having come up with such a wonderful idea.
Again, the Doctor now stared at Ziayvria in amazement, realizing that she was as smart and insightful as her older sister, and she was even younger! Who were these kids! How had they become like this?, he thought.
He thought about their idea and realized that as long as they stayed in the TARDIS with shields up, there was no real way anything could get inside, and they could then learn more about the mysteriously beautiful planet of Midnight. He also realized that the girls' insight into getting rid of his fears was right.
"You two are the smartest human girls I have ever met! We will go to Midnight! But, not until YOU TWO get more sleep!" he said, grinning and grabbing them both in a warm hug.