A/N:-I am sooo dead, I know it! I can just about picture your angry faces – oh no, I got it wrong, it's those Magenta Kitkat-friendly Loan Sharks glaring at me. I KINDA forgot to repay my debts see … and I don't think I ever will have the money to… (SHH! Don't tell 'em that!)
I is sowwys. I keep finding myself distractions and Writer's Block and severe cases of vegetables and yummy cheese and Service Pack 3 and MSN and HPV injections and life and almost-practically-completely-forgotten-last-minute homeworks and … I'm just going to fill you with petty excuses, aren't I?
Me be shutting up now. I've Facebook and LJ and Bebo and MSN to do all ^THAT^ sorta rambling! Hehe! (Just tap me a PM if you want to add me on any of THOSE.)
Un-betaed to the highest catfish! :P
HI HO – on with the story then.
Disclaimer:-BREAKING NEWS: (START SCROLLING!)
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Not far to go yet, young parsnip. XP
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WeepingAngel123 DOES NOT OWN DOCTOR WHO or TORCHWOOD!
OH, JUST ONE MORE THING; I PROMISE:- THANK YOU MUCHIOS FOR THE FEEDBACK!
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Chapter 30 – Sober?
"Rose, you're …" He didn't finish.
Suddenly, he froze. The Dream-Doctor (very literally speaking, of course - ahem.) pulled me away from him in a violent fashion – was that worry and concern I sensed? – leaving me to make-do with the situation and steady myself by slamming my hands down on the spongy, springy material I sat upon.
Being rude again, I quipped mentally, an almost fresh memory of an encounter of Queen Victoria popping up in my head – I had very nearly forgotten about the whole "Walk of Life" thingamajig; every single memory of my life just seemed so much clearer now.
As brashly as he'd done before, his – dare I say it - scrawny hands were gripping my two arms again – tightly, might I just add, very tightly. It was almost if … oops… he'd just discovered and noticed something rather concerning and shocking… like … my blindness. Rose + dead white and scaled over eyes = very surprised Doctor – Dream-Doctor even.
All I could "see" was a never-ending channel of black with the teeniest-tiniest hint of light seeping through, so I wasn't too sure if my hypothesis was right. I had the slightest suspicion that it was.
"You're …" he paused, and I could suddenly hear all the worry, anxiety, pain, hurt, concern, surprise, confusion in his voice. And I was sorry. I wonder if this was how the real Doctor would react. It'd better be, or I'd hold a grudge against my mind forever. Oh well, I'd just have to endure the rest of this whacked-up dream … "You're …"
The "you're" trailed off into an uncomfortable silence that hung in the air like a layer of dust, yet his hands never slackened on their grip on my arms. I twitched uncomfortably. Suddenly, he jumped up in surprise and I followed suit.
"Hang on … Rose, you're blind?!"
His previous tone of voice - the one with the intense mixture of emotions - was compressed into one: pure and utter confusion. In fact, he sounded so confused, that it was almost a question. Smiling to myself, I imagined his facial expression right now – the classic extremely confused, considerably surprised and utterly fascinated look. I'd seen that confused look so many times before that I had no problems drawing up an image in my head. I could imagine those ancient, chocolate brown eyes wide - sometimes bespectacled, other times narrowed - and twinkling brightly initiating a penetrating gaze, deep creases etched into the flesh of his forehead, dark eyebrows raised and knitted together in bewilderment and that big mouth of his hanging open - but only ever so slightly.
"Took you long enough," I joked good-naturedly.
I had first-hand opted for a simple but sarcastically cheeky "Really? I never knew!", but the sensible, sane and downright serious part of my brain reminded me that my Dream-Doctor had probably already been tormented enough, by the discovery of my ... "condition", so I'd settled for the said and spoken latter instead.
But it seemed to me, that even saying that was a mistake.
"Rose!" he exclaimed. "This is not a matter to be laughing about. Y- You're blind! I mean, out of all the impossibles of and in the universe, you're blind! You could've been deaf, you could've been lame, you could've been mute, you could've been paralysed, hell – you could've even been turned into a fifty foot squid-"
"- hey! -"
"-but you just had to be blind!"
"Alright, I'm a blind, I get it. S'no big deal, Doctor. This is just a dream – my dream."
"No big deal? Of course, it's a big deal, Rose – you're blind!"
"So, I've heard …" I sighed wearily.
I heard the familiar, low-pitched buzz of the Sonic Screwdriver, before I felt an uncomfortably hot heat directed unequivocally at my impaired eyes soon accompanied by the low-pitched (but irritatingly loud) whine of the Sonic. My other four senses seemed to have all opened up and became stronger somehow.
"It's strange, Rose. The Sonic's not picking up anything. It doesn't sense that something's wrong – when it obviously is – just like earlier …"
Wincing as the irritable noise rattled my eardrums and the heat radiating from the Sonic made my eyelids feel like they were on fire, I sneaked a hand up and batted the offending object away cantankerously.
"Stop. Please, just … stop," I said. "It hurts."
On hearing my petition, he stopped immediately. I sighed in relief, but my ears were still ringing from the noise.
"Sorry," he murmured, fingers rubbing the area underneath my eyes. I leaned into his touch slightly. Why did this feel so real? "Should've known – the impairing of one of a human's five senses is the strengthening of the others …"
Blanking out the mad ramblings that followed – which I suspected was caused by his worry, I dreamily drifted away into my happy land of imagination and daydreaming. I sunk back into the soft, plushy thing that I supposed was a pillow. Subsequently, I conjured up an image of the Doctor raking a hand through his hair – that was probably what he was doing now actually – that great, great hair …
"-and that's the one thing – weeeell, one of the few things – the Sonic Screwdriver can't fix or cure! And what makes it even more unfair is that I went out the room for a bare 2 minutes and 23.5 seconds, tops, and what do I get when I come in? A non-possessed Rose – a non-possessed Rose who just so happens to have turned blind in the space of 2 minutes and 23.5 seconds! How unfair is that? I turn my back for one second – OK, maybe a bit longer than a second - and hey presto, I turn back round; you've gone blind. And I know I keep repeating myself but I really do have to make this clear and-" I felt a cool breeze brush my face- "Rose? Rose, are you even listenin' to me?"
"Wha'?! I, er, yeah."
There was a pregnant pause.
"Hang on," his voice had miraculously calmed back down into something more down-to-earth and serious, "did you just say that this is all just a dream?"
"Mm-hmm," I replied casually.
I felt my mouth opening, and I was soon continuing the conversation, "I mean, I'm jus' gonna wake-up, or somethin', in a minute, so there's nothin' to worry about … I prob'ly won't remember all this either, anyway. You won't even exist, when this dream ends."
"Rose," the Dream-Doctor said seriously, "this isn't a dream."
I just laughed, cocking my head to one side. "Prove it."
"I can't …"
"See!" I retorted cheerfully, opposed to his sombre tone.
He didn't reply.
The atmosphere suddenly seemed to change; the mood shifted. I tensed, frowning, as my fingers dug mercilessly into the flimsy cotton sheets beneath me. My heart started to hammer. What if the Dream-Doctor was telling the truth? What if this wasn't a dream? What if this was all real? What if … what if this Dream-Doctor wasn't a Dream-Doctor after all but the real Doctor himself? A whirlwind of "what if"s cropped up out of nowhere, filling my head with questions; until it felt like the darkness was spinning around me.
"This is real, Rose. All of this is real."
"Does that mean you're real too?"
"As real as anything!"
I pondered this.
"Alrigh' then, Clever Clogs … If all this is real an' I ain't just dreaming, then answer me this …"- I lowered my voice, doing my best to hide the hurt in my tone of voice - "what 'appened to your 'this reality's sealing itself off forever' theory, eh? I thought all the parallel universes were sealed off for good – this time. That's what you told me before you left us all here, anyway. How'd you get 'ere then? Go on then."
"It's worth a try," the Dream-Doctor/Doctor muttered.
For the next few minutes, my ears were filled with the Doctor's elongated rambles of an explanation of how he did the impossible and crossed into another universe. I was all for believing him until …
"Torchwood?! They're here too?!"
"Yup!"
"As in, Jack Torchwood."
"Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Mickey – and even Martha! Ooh, and we met that nice friend of yours – Aryl, I think her name was."
Apparently, Torchwood were probably the main reason why the Doctor was even here - in this universe - in the first place. There was more complicated talk of a special knife "…that can cut windows into other universes", a Weevil called Janet, his sudden liking for coffee, Martha Jones, tinkering in the TARDIS and an obsessive woman called Suzie.
"Don't tell me," I chuckled sceptically, "Jack's also got a glove that can bring back the dead, as well, has 'e?"
"Weeeeell, I certainly wouldn't put it past him." He paused, then sighed resignedly. "Oh, alright, if you must: Jack has a resurrection glove that can bring back the dead. The Resurrection Glove or Risen Mitten, they called it. But generally speaking, all the glove actually does it latch a simple psychic connection from the deceased to the wearer of the glove, by giving off a feed of blue neutronic kluegon energy, so the dead can come back to life for a certain amount of time. Very simple technology really."
"You're havin' a righ' laugh, you are!" I accused. "Not only 'ave you got a knife that can cut windows into other universes, but there's a glove that can bring back the dead too!"
I laughed harder, rolling onto my stomach and burying myself into my pillow. This was one heck of a dream. I mean, how crazy can one get? A Life Knife, a Resurrection Glove … My brain was certainly doing a good job at making things up.
"You - are – joking," I said.
"… Why would I be joking?"
"You tell me," I replied cheekily. I deftly turned onto my side, feeling the small dip of the mattress as I moved; my eyes were still clamped shut. "There you are, you're doing it again."
"Doing what?" I could hear the confusion in his voice; I felt my grin broaden
"Joking."
"I can assure you that precisely 99.999999999% of my words are 99.998999% true and serious in every way – and I am not joking!"
"Yeah, you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Yeah … you are!"
"No … I'm not!"
"Yeah, you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Yeah, you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Yeah, you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Yeah, you are!"
"Giving up?"
"No!" I said, just a little too quickly. "I mean, I jus' …" I paused, and then gabbled my next words with no care or precaution whatsoever, "don't see the point of initiating in such childish behaviour."
"You, Rose Tyler, just can't accept that I'm right and you're wrong."
"Shut up. And I'm right; you know it."
"Are not."
"Am too."
"Are not."
"Am…"
The Dream-Doctor cut across my sentence.
"On second thoughts, let's not go down that road again."
"Yeah …" I agreed.
Ah, silence … and that meant we were going down the 'I'm-not-dreaming' thing path again. I really didn't want to go that way again. Mad, as it sounded, I just wanted to believe that this all wasn't real. Because I didn't want to be blind, and I didn't want to face (or be anywhere near) the proper Doctor again, either. Not really, anyway; at least, not after the last time he left me.
"Rose Tyler, I am appalled!" he exclaimed suddenly. I jumped up in shock.
"You what?" I said, dazed.
"You've dangled from a barrage balloon in the middle of the Blitz, wearing the Union Jack on the front of your shirt; you've ripped open the TARDIS console and looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, where nobody has ever dared to, and survived – well, all thanks to me of course; you've witness me regenerating; you've met the Prime Minister and the President of England; you've been possessed by a talking piece of skin called Cassandra; and you've even met a Werewolf! And if that's not enough, you even successfully built a Dimension Cannon to travel across different universes! Yet – all that information in mind - you simply refuse to believe that I'm just too clever for you and successfully managed to find a way into this universe, without dooming the entire Multiverse!" He paused for breath. "You're not buying this, are you?"
"Nope."
"There's nothing I can say to make you believe me, is there?" he breathed.
"Nope," I repeated, grinning.
"Absolutely, positively nothing I can say to make you realise that this is not a dream, or at least convince you otherwise?" he checked.
"Nope."
"Well then, you've left me no choice."
I frowned. Suddenly I felt the rustle of sheets and- "Ow!" I yelped, feeling the sore tingling of my arm. "You pinched me! Wha' was that all about?"
I hissed at him; I swung my arm out aiming to hit him, but I missed and ended up smacking thin air. Stupid impaired vision …
"Wha's that gotta do with anything?"
"You did say-" enter the innocent, adorable face of his -"that nothing I said would make you believe me. You never said about doing something to make you believe me. 'Pinch to see if you're dreaming – and if it hurts, you know you're not' - I believe that's how the old Earth saying used ta go. And unless I'm mistaken, I do believe that undignified shriek you gave me had something to do with that pinch hurting …" I could hear the mega-watt grin in his voice. "Now do you believe me?"
He was right; that pinch did hurt and I did feel the pain – and you weren't supposed to feel physical pain in dreams, right?
Thinking about it, judging from my past dream experiences, I can't really remember a time when I actually did feel physical pain in a dream. So, did that mean he was right and I was wrong?!
Whatever the matter, I wasn't about to let this last strand of hope go so easily.
So I stayed silent.
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A/N:- Yeshity-yesh, me knows, me knows, it should REALLY be "Shareen and I"but this is from Rose's POV after all. ;D
Cheese is good for you.
And so is a pwetty little review – do feel free to pressure me into doing another update. (I may or may not post one today, 'cos 'tis mon pere's birthday! There's been one hell lotta birthdays of friends and family this week! My eyes have been glued to this screen for five hours now, and I'm starting to hallucinate rainbows and milkshakes and pistachios and David Tennants 'cos my eyes are starting to betray me now into a state of tiredness and ze side-effects are starting to kick in again. So, me best be offs now.)
=D =D =D =D =D