So if you missed the announcement: Peter Capaldi is the 12th Doctor. And if you think he looks familiar, that's 'cos he was in Doctor Who. Season 4: The Fires of Pompeii.

...The same episode the title of this story came from, as a matter of fact. o.o

The first dreams had been a week apart and he'd hardly given them a second thought. But then they started occurring every few days. That was when he began to write them down. Now they were happening almost every night and he was sure to record every detail he could remember when he awoke. On the occasions he awoke in the middle of the night, he would roll over and reach for his journal, which he kept on his nightstand, and scribble things down furiously, occasionally sketching things when he felt like had to.

After that first day, it became a routine for John to bring his notebook with him to work. It was difficult to tell what Elliot was thinking but the little boy seemed to enjoy hearing all about his mad dreams. He should probably be making a visit to third floor and reading his journal to a psychiatrist but instead he was reading them to a cancer patient on the fifth. At least Elliot couldn't label him a loony and get him fired.

He saw a lot of himself in Elliot. Even though the boy had been very unfriendly to him when he first arrived, after learning more about him from the other children, he'd felt he had to help him after the fight with Devin. It was heartening to see him then befriend Macy Clearwater and then heartbreaking to see him quickly descend into depression upon her departure.

Elliot was doing better now that John spent time reading to him. Yesterday he told him about the Doctor's travelling companion: a beautiful woman named Rose. She had blonde hair and brown eyes, she was small enough that her head tucked right under his chin, but tall enough for him to easily kiss—no, tall enough for the Doctor to easily kiss. When it came to Rose, it was especially important to make that distinction. What he felt for her was just apart of his dreams. The Doctor loved her. He did not. She and the Doctor were dreams. He was not.

Violet was not either.

He shook his head quickly. Best to not go down that road. Really. Besides, it was always advised that one never date a coworker. The awkwardness that could ensue if the relationship doesn't work out aside, it's not healthy for both members to be constantly around each other. Especially in his line of work. He couldn't allow himself to distracted from the people who relied on him. Even if the distraction was a pretty woman with blonde hair and brown eyes.

Stop it.

After lunch, he stopped at his locker to grab his notebook then headed to the playroom where Elliot and the others in his ward would be. He was waiting for him at the table where he normally sat, drawing away as usual. The boy had a promising career ahead of him as an artist if he beat leukemia.

As if sensing his approach, Elliot raised his head and looked right at him with piercing eyes that knew far too much for one so young. If he were honest, John would admit that Elliot could make him feel uneasy. The way he stared at him sometimes, like John was a puzzle he was solving, but couldn't find where all the pieces went. And the way he had a knack for drawing things exactly John had pictured them.

After the first day, Elliot started drawing scenes from what John read to him and they were exact in almost every detail. There had to be a logical explanation for it, of course. The kid liked science fiction. Perhaps they were each taking inspiration from the same show. He would show him rudimentary doodles of the creatures and things in his journal, Elliot would look long and hard at the images, and the next day present him his renditions, which were always far better than John's. He drew a Dalek so perfectly that John was almost afraid of it.

Elliot didn't wait for John to ask, immediately flipping back to the drawings he'd made since yesterday. John shifted around in the child-sized seat until he was relatively comfortable, then leaned forward to look. He should've expected it. Really, he should've. After all, she'd played a big role yesterday, but seeing her there on the paper before him made his breath catch. Rose.

Her hair fell like a curtain over her shoulders and she had a rose tucked near her right temple. She smiled up at him like she knew something he didn't. She was beautiful.

The next page was her again, but unlike the other one, it was in full color. She stood in the doorway of the Doctor's blue box, a gold light streaming out, surrounding her. Her eyes glowed dangerously and a ball of light seemed to be building in the palm of her raised hand.

Elliot tapped the words scrawled beneath the picture with his finger.

Bad Wolf

John gave his head a quick shake. "Quite. You really are good at coloring, Elliot. How did you get her to glow?"

As usual, Elliot didn't answer. He flipped to the next page. Three Daleks standing between two panels with the light from the blue box hitting them head on. He knew what was happening here. The Doctor was in the floor just a few feet away, between them and Rose, and was just as horrified as they were. He'd sent her away to save her while he stayed behind to defeat the Daleks and ultimately perish himself. But she'd come back for him as a creature of time itself. She'd saved him.

Rose was always coming back to him. The Doctor never could understand why.

Elliot flipped one final time and the Daleks were dissolving into dust.

John forced himself to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat and smile. "Brilliantly done."

Elliot smiled.

"Ready to hear more? Today's little…adventure takes place a while after that last one. At least a year, I'd wager." This was nothing unusual. John's dreams jumped around all the time. The Doctor had been alive for nearly a millennia and John never quite knew what point of his life would feature next.

"They've got someone new with them. I don't know her name yet, I'm afraid, or what she really looks like. I never saw her face. But she's shorter than Rose by a few inches, she's got dark skin, and black hair that she likes to wear up."

He nodded.

"I don't know how she met the Doctor and Rose, either, they didn't say, but from the way they acted I reckon she's been around a little while. They're right here in modern America, too. A town called Blackwood Falls up in New England. How about that? They're having an adventure in America for once, even though it…happens to be the part of the country with 'England' attached to it."

Elliot rolled his eyes. Two days ago he'd interrupted the story to hold up a sign that read in big, blocky letters: WHY IS IT ALWAYS ENGLAND?

John chuckled. "And the best part? It's Halloween. Free candy! But it's not all fun and games afraid—but, really, when is it?"

Elliot smiled and leaned onto the table to listen. The bad guys were the remnants of an ancient alien species called Hervoken. They were very tall with thin bodies, extremely long hands, and enormous heads like jack-o-lanterns, and they were the enemies of a species called the Carrionites and they had been at war many eons ago. One lone Hervoken ship escaped while rest of their species were banished to the darkness. They lay dormant in the earth for a long, long time, until the ship was repaired in the early 21st century and they planned to repower the ship using the inhabitants themselves.

Like any normal dream, the tale was disjointed, with pieces missing and events happening out of order—and since John wrote things down in the order in which they happened in his dream, he often had to mark his place and read something from later before going back—and it was never from anyone else's point of view. He'd recently purchased a journal that he planned to copy all the stories into soon in the order he dreamt them—although he'd rearrange them so all those events were read in the right order. He was also in the process of creating a timeline of these stories so there would be some way to determine chronological order later on.

When John was finished reading, he shut the journal, and set it down on the table to wait for Elliot to finish drawing. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips, and his arm jerked around randomly as he guided the pencil across the paper. John wondered what had captured his interest enough to prompt an early start. He leaned forward to have a look.

Elliot's hand froze and he lifted his head, glaring at him pointedly, and waited until John retreated before going back to work.

John let his eyes drift across the room. The other children weren't paying the two of them any mind having long since grown accustomed to him. They probably liked having him there, too, since his presence tended to prevent trouble, with the exception of the occasional 'I was playing with that!' arguments. The monitors usually resolved those without his help though he did like to throw stern looks at the troublesome kids to back them up.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he suddenly knew he was being watched. He glanced around the room but saw no one staring so he turned towards the door. He figured it was a woman from the height and build and the shoulder-length blonde hair, but she darted away before he could get a good look at her face. Frowning, he started to get up, but then Dr. Violet Lewis walked into the room. For a second he thought it might've been her in the doorway but he realized that wasn't true. Violet's hair was more of a sandy blonde than bleached and a few inches longer than the other woman's.

She saw him looking and smiled warmly at him. His heart beat just a little bit faster and he smiled back.

He felt something prod his arm. He looked down at Elliot just as he tapped him again with the end of his pencil. Seeing he had his attention, he set the pencil down and held up his sketchpad for inspection. John recognized the creature immediately as one of the Hervoken. He raised his eyebrows but found he really wasn't surprised at the accuracy, not after the drawings of Rose earlier. He was still reeling from it.

John smiled. "Spot on."

Elliot's mouth twisted as if to say of course.

"Now, second order of business, I've purchased a journal to copy these into. Leather bound, sturdy paper, with a lock. I'm going to start copy everything into it soon, but I'm going to need pictures. Interested?"

His eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and he nodded vigorously, holding up his sketchpad.

"No, no. You keep that. The pages won't fit so what I'll do is, while I'm writing, I'll leave empty spaces on the page for new drawings to be added in. Sound good?"

Elliot nodded again.

"I'll bring the journal in as soon as I start working on it. You can read it and fill in the spaces how you want. I hope you can draw small."

Elliot's mind was buzzing after Dr. Smith left to go about the rest of his day. He would be on call tonight so that meant no new dreams tomorrow. That gave Elliot plenty of time to look and decide what he wanted to put in the journal. His eyes widened as something occurred to him. I was just asked to illustrate a book!

He couldn't wait to tell Macy when she came to visit.

But how was he supposed to know what to do? It wasn't like just drawing in a sketchpad. The pictures had to tell the story just as much as the words did. There were even some books that didn't have words at all. He glanced at the bookshelf across the room. Plenty of picture books over there, maybe they could give him an idea of what to do.

Pushing his chair back from the table, he hurried over to the bookshelf, carefully avoiding the other kids and the toys littering the floor. He took a moment to scan the titles and then started grabbing some picture books he recognized and then a few small novels. Two kids stopped what they were doing and stared at him. He ignored them and struggled to balance the stack of books in his arms. He decided twelve was enough to be getting along with for the moment and he carefully made his way back to the table. The thud as the stack hit the table attracted the attention of a few more kids.

Still paying them no mind, he sat back down and picked up the first book, The Pokey Little Puppy, and started to read.

In Elliot's mind there'd always been three types of things worth reading: picture books, novels, and comics. Comics and novels were at opposite ends of the spectrum—one using only pictures and the other using only words—with picture books occupying the space in between. But picture books were mostly for babies so they could get used to words and pictures.

As he slowly made his way through the pile of books, he came to the decision that Dr. Smith's journal should be more like a novel than a normal picture book. He was very good at describing things with words and adding in too many pictures would be redundant and a waste of space. Plus, anyone who read it would have to be older than the age group that normal picture books were aimed at. The irony of that didn't escape Elliot since he was still in that age group.

One of the Bearenstine Bears books he was reading gave him a really good idea. One of the pictures, instead of a scene, was just of a particular object that was being talked about that page. On another page there was just a picture of the new character being introduced.

Elliot reached over and grabbed his sketchbook. He flipped through the pages until he reached the stuff he'd drawn from Dr. Smith's journal and then slowly made his way through them. He hadn't really thought about it before, but he hadn't drawn very many scenes. It was mostly just pictures of the separate people, places, and things that his mojo had picked up on.

And that was another thing.

He frowned as he thought about it again. Whenever he listened to Dr. Smith read, certain images would just appear in his mind the same way memories and images did from other people. Like the dreams were memories. But that was impossible because that would mean the doctor was…well, the Doctor!But he couldn't be.

Dr. Smith was a strange man and everything Elliot picked up on from him was warped and murky, except for the things from his dreams. The exact opposite of how it was for everyone else…. But Dr. Smith was human! You couldn't just switch species like that! Well, some vampires and werewolves could, but that was venom and magic and blood and stuff. An alien couldn't become a human.

Still, it'd be cool though.

But even though the dreams were like normal memories, about half of them were incomplete. Like some things were cut off or the details were blurry or missing altogether. After several hours of frustration the first time, he decided to not bother with those incomplete drawings.

There'd been one today: the nameless woman with Rose and the Doctor. He'd seen her like she was standing right in front of him, arms folded, hair pulled up, with a red leather jacket. Her head was there and he knew what shape it was but her face had been missing. Well, not missing, exactly, it'd been there, but it'd been like trying to pick out the details of a penny at the bottom of a dirty pond. Even now, focusing as hard as he was, he couldn't make her face clear up.

"Okay, everyone!" He recognized the voice Miss James, the British student doctor, but didn't look up. "Everyone needs to put their toys and books away now."

It was nagging at him. It felt like her face should obvious but he just couldn't see it. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he shut the sketchbook and resolved to try drawing her later. Maybe that would give her face time to clear up.

He carried the books back over to the shelf and one of the girls helped him put them away. He didn't know her name. She'd never told it to him.

The next morning he wasn't scheduled for anything so he sat on his bed and continued to work on his drawing of the nameless woman. He was nearly done but she still remained faceless. He'd even gone into very intense detail with the shading to give his brain more time to work on clearing her face up but it just wouldn't make sense.

Dr. Smith came by to check on him before he went home but Elliot didn't show him the sketch of the woman. Instead he flipped to one of the pages he used to write on and informed him that he had lots of ideas for the journal.

John read and reread the sentence three times before smiling at the boy. "Good to hear. Tell me all about them on Thursday. I need to get back to my flat before I drop."

Elliot's eyes widened and gestured towards the door and John laughed. "Don't worry, I've got another hour left in me, I think." He repeated the gesture. "Alright, I'm going. Have a good day, Elliot!"

Elliot gave him a quick thumbs up and, laughing, John headed for the lockers.

He didn't run into Violet on the way like he'd hoped but he did nearly knock Martha James over as she was exiting the women's locker room. She was far more alert than he was and she caught him by his upper arms. She released him, her hands hovering a few inches away until she was sure he wasn't going to topple over, and smiled at him.

Martha was a bit of an enigma. She was from London like he was and they both arrived around the same time. That in itself was strange. What were the odds two Londoners would move to the exact same town and both get jobs in its hospital? There was this feeling in the back of his mind that he knew her and she acted like they were old friends sometimes but she agreed that they'd never met before now. They hadn't even come from the same part of London or attended the same medical school or worked in the same hospital before now. But when he'd first met her she'd looked, well, alone and scared but she'd done a good job of hiding it. For some reason he simply couldn't explain, he'd felt like he should take her on as one of his charges.

The way her eyes had lit up was almost enough to make it worth it.

She seemed rather fond of him. Part of him wondered if she fancied him but the more logical part of him argued that there was no real sign of that. If anything it was just that enjoyed the company of someone who understood what it was like to be a foreigner in a country that was so similar to her own and yet glaringly different. Someone who knew how to appreciate a cup of tea, and longed for a nice plate of fish n' chips that didn't come from the local Long John Silver's, and didn't know the difference between the NFL and AFL. Or why a victory in the NFL merited shotguns being fired off in celebration.

But sometimes she stared at him when she thought he wasn't looking. Like she was waiting for something that never happened. Sometimes she just seemed utterly shocked at things he said and did. Things that, in his mind, at least, weren't out of the ordinary. Like his hair, he didn't style it or anything, and she found it utterly bizarre. The day he'd arrived after shaving off his sideburns she'd looked scandalized. Just yesterday he was at lunch and one of his students offered him a pear. He hadn't known she was watching him until he took a bite, nodded, and she dropped her water bottle.

Martha was strange all right, but it was nothing her skills didn't make up for. She was a smart young woman and she knew her stuff. The way she responded to situations seemed to indicate she also had a lot of experience. Far more than her peers at the same level. It was more than a difference in curriculums. She said things with confidence like she was used to her judgments being accurate and was sure this one would be as well, whereas her peers were just a bit hesitant, thinking they might be right but their lack of experience made them question themselves. Yet she wasn't arrogant and she took instruction well, particularly from him.

"Easy, doctor," she cautioned. "We can't have you falling over."

And that was another thing. Normally she'd call him John or Mr. Smith like all the others but once in a while she called him 'doctor' like it was his name. It always threw him off.

"I'm alright," he said.

She looked him up and down critically. "No you're not. You really look like you're about to fall over."

"Just a long night. I'll be fine."

She nodded. "And how's Elliot?"

"Good. He's—he's doing good. He's a bit busy with a project he agreed to help me with."

"Wouldn't have anything to do with what's in that notebook, would it?"

John smiled. "I'm moving it all into a journal. Elliot's agreed to do the art for it. He has remarkable skill. He draws the things I come up with better than I can."

"Well, if your art skills are anything like your penmanship skills, that doesn't surprise me."

"Oi!"

Martha grinned. "Get outta here, Mr. Smith. Go sleep."

John didn't own a car. He'd never found it necessary in London and certainly didn't here. Bridgeton had it's own small bus system that he could rely on if he didn't feel like walking the three miles between his flat and the hospital. His conversation with Martha had almost caused him to miss the bus but he managed to fly across the street to the bus stop before it departed.

He sank into one of the seats at the front of the bus and leaned his head against the window. The familiar shuddering of the bus as it cruised along was relaxing and he had to force his eyes to stay open. When he saw his building coming up, he pulled the cord and picked up his jacket off the seat beside him.

"Good night," the driver said knowingly as John passed him on his way out. John chuckled.

He pulled his keys out of his pocket as he trudged up the stairs to his flat. The first floor was silent except for snatches of the radio he could hear through the doors. On the second floor, he could clearly hear The Price is Right theme song coming through the door to apartment 2A, and in 2B the two kids were shrieking at their telly. Today it was something about clues. The third floor was completely silent since his neighbor worked during the day and the dog never barked.

John smiled as he let himself into his flat. Everything was normal.

Deciding to forgo a quick meal, he set his stuff down in his room and immediately changed into his pajamas. He pulled the blue notebook from his bag and placed it on his bedside table next to the pen. He shut the curtains against the midmorning sunlight then collapsed gratefully into bed. He was asleep within minutes.

*hums Wonderpets song* Yeah I know it's short. Sorry. But the next chapter is longer!