The mirror was fogged and cracked in a few places. Its ornate frame, once illustrious gold was now rusted, lost to wear and time. Something stirred behind it that frightened Lucy. But what appeared on the other side of the mirror was not the horrifying girl she had met in Wales, nor her own reflection. Instead she saw a mask, one designed to cover the whole face save the eyes. These spaces were empty, the nothingness somehow conscious and staring back at her. The mask itself was as careworn as the mirror. Its silver and gold filigree was flaking, exposing faded white porcelain. The mask enlarged, or was it drawing closer? It expanded beyond the boundaries of the mirror and disappeared. Left in its place was a snarling jackal which quickly disappeared. Lucy could feel her ears ringing now and she recognized the shriek of the banshee. The mirror showed her every villain she had ever faced, from her father to her nightmares from childhood, from the leader of the Krillitanes, to the queen of the Lunabelsey, from the Alliance of the Sun, to the nagging regret she'd felt at not leaping at things and taking chances like Juliet did. They all flashed before her eyes, all the while the banshee's scream echoed in her ears. Lucy remembered what the Doctor had said, that to escape them, all she had to do was wake up. So if she knew she was dreaming, that the Somnium Parasites were causing this, she could control the outcome. She lashed out and smashed the mirror with her fists and it exploded in tiny shards all around her. But instead of waking up, Lucy was staring at her own bleeding arms, the glittering pieces of the mirror surrounding her.

Lucy looked up when she heard the laughter. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was inside her and it was far away. At last, she saw the Queen of Hearts walking towards her, laughing all the while. She was swinging round a flamingo and followed by the disembodied smile of the Cheshire Cat. The White Rabbit hopped in front of them and the queen grew outraged. She swept the flamingo at him and took off his head in a scene of bloodless violence. Lucy briefly registered her childhood obsession with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. In the end of the first book, Alice awoke to find that she'd dreamt the whole thing. Lucy tried to do the same now, envisioned herself in the clearing in the Black Forest, the Doctor and Juliet looking worriedly over her. But when Lucy opened her eyes, it was to find the now disembodied head of the Cheshire Cat. He shook said head at her and said, "I'm afraid it won't be that easy, Miss Blake. It won't be that easy at all." And then he disappeared and Lucy was falling through blackness, down the proverbial rabbit hole.

She found herself now in a recurring nightmare she'd had since the incident with the mirror. Several nights a week, Lucy awoke in a cold sweat at the lingering feeling it left her. On one occasion, Lucy had actually screamed aloud and the Doctor had run into her room and held her, neither of them saying a word. He knew better than to press her with questions and she couldn't bring herself to speak of the dream. But she'd found immeasurable comfort in his arms and had almost been grateful to the dream for making the Doctor come to her and console her. But there was no Doctor now to rouse her from this.

Lucy was in her old home, the one she'd lived in as a child. And someone was trying to get in. Someone was trying to get her. She began running around the place, locking every door and securing every window. There was more of each in the dream-house than there were in Lucy's actual childhood abode. And every time Lucy bolted a window or turned the lock on a door, she knew, she just knew that whatever wanted her had almost gotten in. Finally, there was only one door left. But it was at the very end of a very long hallway that didn't actually exist in the real house. Everything was red. The carpet, red; the paint, red, the ceiling, red; the dim lighting, red. And every few inches along the wall were small mirrors, perfectly level to reflect from Lucy's shoulders up. The mirrors were old and flaking, just like the one in her very first Parasite-dream. Lucy was racing now to get to the last door. She had only ten paces left, five, four, three. And then, just before she could reach it, she saw the knob turn.

The Doctor was trying to hold Lucy down as she screamed, whatever the Somnium Parasites were showing her, finally loosening her tongue. Juliet rushed over from her seat on the chaise in Lucy's room. She shoved the Doctor out of her way and held her twin in her arms, softly singing the lullaby their mother had crooned to them so long ago. "Please wake up, Lucy, please wake up." She rocked her back and forth, but Lucy remained as lethargic as ever. Juliet laid her back down and bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears.

"She's got to do it on her own." The Doctor said. "The Somnium Parasites are in her head and she can't hear us; it's like she's really sleeping." Juliet ignored him, and kept her back to him so that he could not see her cry.

They had left the Black Forest immediately after Lucy had collapsed. The Doctor had swiftly picked her up and they'd rushed all the way back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. "Won't the parasites follow us?" Juliet had asked, panicked.

"No, they can't last long in the open air. They require darkness to thrive and only go out to the outside to die, or if they're really desperate, like with Lucy."

"Is she going to be alright when she wakes up? I mean, she'll still be-"

"She'll be fine. The waking up is the hard part." Juliet had swallowed hard at that point, not liking the sound of that. They'd finally made it back to his ship and promptly deposited Lucy in her own room, on her own bed.

"Where do they come from, Doctor?" she'd asked.

"Oh, well, they're as old as this galaxy. They floated down with the makings of the Earth and are as much a part of it as the ground you stand on, as the air you breathe. There are so many things hiding in the dark corners of the universe, some of them benevolent, some of them malignant. So rarely are they stumbled across that they leap at any opportunity."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"There's no telling, really. It could be hours. It could be longer. We just have to wait. She has to do this all on her own." The Doctor seemed more saddened by this than by anything else. And truly, he was.

Lucy was still recovering from her recurring nightmare, shown by the Somnium Parasites in even higher clarity, like she was watching a high-definition television. Now she was surrounded by blackness. She was still standing and yet there was no floor. She was neither stationary, nor falling. She was in Purgatory. In a way, this was the worst dream ever. She would just stay here forever, alone for eternity with her increasingly morbid thoughts. So now, she tried to find a way out. She tried to control her dream, not to wake up, but to control what was happening. The solidity of the blackness changed. She felt more closed in, like she was in a bottomless pit, instead of an endless vacuum. Well, that was something. She tried imagining chinks of light coming through the blackness. That didn't quite work, but some spots seemed a little greyer. She clawed at the black wall around her and light indeed tried to shine through.

Lucy now felt herself falling instead of drifting. She felt that the Parasites were angry; had she been starting to succeed in waking up? Had she been going about it in the wrong way before? She thought maybe now that she had been, that she should gain control instead of just trying to wake up. She hated being a prisoner in her own head. This would not go on for much longer if she could help it.

At long last, she felt herself hit the ground. And now the blackness was gone. The ground upon which she stood was made of concrete. The sky above her stretched on, as endless as Purgatory had been. She walked along the road, which now seemed to be winding and was made of gravel. She thought that maybe this was her new torture. She was to walk forever in search of a way out. Lucy stopped walking and the road stopped moving with her. Her own sister's image appeared to her, face impassive. Upon seeing that Lucy was no longer walking, Dream Juliet's gaze turned questioning. "Have you given up, twin? Maybe that'd be best. The Somnium Parasites have been so hungry for so long. And you've experienced so much. They could feed off of you for lifetimes. Yes, stay, Lucy. Stay in your dreams forever." This Juliet had Lucy's twin's voice, but none of her warmth.

"Why are you telling me this, Jules? What's the point of me listening to you? You're just a construct of the Parasites. None of this is real." Juliet only smiled and replied,

"Why indeed? Perhaps, Lucy, you should focus on trying to wake up. That seemed to make you happier at any rate." Lucy chose to ignore her dream sister. Whatever she said, it wasn't really Juliet. This was just a dream. Lucy could feel the whole vision writhing. The Parasites were angry again. Lucy was no longer their puppet; she was beginning to grow bored with their images, their conjurings. Whatever their emotions, the scene dissolved and a new one took its place.

Lucy was staring at what she knew had happened with Coryn Lu Reaux, but instead of she and Coryn lying on the metal tables, it was Juliet and the Doctor. She was facing the two people she'd seen dead on the floor, their name plates saying A500 and A600. "Choose." A500 said. And suddenly, Lucy knew what had really happened here. This had been the dilemma that the Doctor had been presented with. And now she felt that she was going to be sick. They wanted him to choose Lucy's life or Coryn's? And now she had to choose between Juliet and the Doctor.

"No, I won't do it." She said and for some reason she knew that the Doctor had done the same thing, had not actually made a decision. She had a brief flash of the scene that had actually taken place. A500 would decide for him, A500 killing Coryn, killing A600 because she'd been unable to kill Lucy, the Doctor killing A500, learning his name, injecting Lucy with adrenaline, and then Lucy waking up. Lucy gasped and stared again at the two menacing figures before her. None of them would die, not even in a dream. But A500 apparently still had a mind of his own and he plugged his gun into Juliet's heart. Lucy was furious and screaming. She ran at him, hitting every available surface she could find of him. But he shoved her away easily and Lucy staggered back several paces. Lucy needed the T.A.R.D.I.S., there was no other way around it. And there appeared the blue box, ready and waiting. She ran inside and opened a box that was sitting, waiting for her on a shelf. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland seemed to be following her everywhere. Inside the box was a mushroom. She tried to remember which side made you larger and which one small, and then tried to think which one would be advantageous to her. She went with the left side, having no other options and bit into it.She stayed the size she was and so rushed back out to the room. Her sister was still dead on the table and A's 500 and 600 had disappeared. The Doctor was sitting up, smiling at her. When she smiled back, she felt her skin begin to glow. She looked down at her arms, her fingers, yes; her skin was radiating golden light! And now the Doctor was shrinking away from her, was frowning. Lucy didn't know what to think and then the Doctor started to cry. He just looked her over and said, "What have I done?"

"What are you talking about, Doctor? I just controlled the dream, I know I did. I'm going to wake up at any minute, I know it."

"No, I've condemned you, Lucy. What have you become?"

And then the Doctor turned away from her and got into the T.A.R.D.I.S. and left her. He wanted nothing more to do with her, she knew it. He was abandoning her.

"No!" she screamed, long and loud.

Lucy was still screaming when she realised she was in her own room aboard the T.A.R.D.I.S. The Doctor was holding her shoulders and she looks at him, eyes wide, worried. Would he turn away from her again? What had that particular dream meant? And there was Juliet getting up from the chaise, not dead at the hands of A500. Juliet stroked Lucy's cheek, wiping away the single tear she had let fall.

"What did they show you, Lucy? What did you dream?" the Doctor asked, worried and fascinated at the same time.

"Oh, not now, Doctor, don't make her talk about it now. She needs rest." Juliet fretted.

"Rest?" Lucy asked, incredulous. "Don't you think I've had enough sleep to last me a while? I don't mind talking about it a bit, but I'll not go into great detail. I dreamt several dreams. I saw things that still don't make sense, I saw dad, and I saw all the people we've had to fight. I dreamed this recurring nightmare that was made so much worse by the Parasites. Then I saw things that I think might have been…warnings." She looked pointedly at the Doctor, and he nodded, almost indiscreetly. "But, Doctor, what will happen to the Parasites now that I'm awake? Are they still in my head, waiting for me to fall asleep?"

"No, they're dead now. They can only live in the dark of their homes and in their sleep induced environments. Now that you're awake, your brain killed them for you." Lucy didn't know whether to laugh or to vomit.

"I'm sorry I picked such an awful place, twin." Juliet said, once again stroking her hair.

"Oh, Jules, you picked a fine place. It was me who had to go wandering about. Could have had a nice picnic or something; and instead I have to go explore caves with brain-eating parasites in it." Lucy and Juliet laughed somewhat nervously.

Lucy looked over at the Doctor, who seemed bursting with energy. She could tell he wanted to talk to her. "Tell you what, Jules. I could really fancy a cup of tea. You want to go put the kettle on?" Juliet nodded and Lucy and the Doctor watched as she left. When he was certain she was gone and out of earshot, the Doctor drew Lucy in close.

"Doctor, this morning, before we even got to Germany, I had this weird dream. My mother told me that I was built, was born to withstand almost anything. She said that soon I would have my greatest trial yet and that, by traveling with you, I was already preparing myself. Do you have any idea what that means?"

The Doctor did, but he was not about to share this hypothesis with her, it frightened him too much. He pursed his lips a bit and frowned. Looking into her deep blue eyes, he knew he had to give her some answer though. "Honestly, Lucy, I might, but the thought is, is so half-formed, I, I-I have no grasp of it. I think your mother's right though. You certainly were built to last." Lucy smiled a little wistfully and heard the kettle whistling. She knew she didn't have much time before Juliet was back.

"I saw, because of the Parasites, what happened with Coryn and me." The Doctor's face fell and gave the slightest tremor. "Only, it was different, you know. Instead of me and Coryn on those tables it was you and Juliet. And that A500 bloke, he killed Juliet. And before he could kill you, I sort of realised I needed the T.A.R.D.I.S. and it just appeared. And I went inside and there's this mushroom on a box and I eat half of it and all of a sudden I'm glowing and I go back outside and you look at me like you've done the most horrible thing, and, and Doctor, you just left me there! In the dream you left me! That's when I woke up, for real."

The Doctor's idea solidified a little more when Lucy told him first of the real dream she'd had this morning and then of the Parasite infected one she'd had last. But he looked her sagely in the eye and said, "Lucy, you know I'll never leave you. You're far too important and far too much fun." Lucy offered him a small half smile again and he quickly gave her a small kiss on the cheek.

Lucy was sure the Doctor had felt her shiver when he kissed her cheek. She had no time to dwell on the lingering sensation, because presently, Juliet came back in with tea and sandwiches. They all sat on the floor, resolving not to speak of dreams and prophecies, of runway shows and stars. Juliet did most of the talking, telling them about her various experiences in Mumbai. The Doctor didn't offer his own exploits, just breathed in Lucy's scent, Lucy who was sitting so close and was at last, no longer a prisoner in her own mind. But he feared for what she might have yet to face. All the signs were pointing in the same direction and he wasn't sure he liked it. He also wasn't sure there was any way around it. And he also still wasn't entirely sure what it was. And things that he was unsure of tended to bother him. For now though, he decided to be utterly British and put aside the uncomfortable feelings and enjoy his tea.