Dreams and Nightmares 2
Prologue
The scream jolted the Doctor awake, leaving him hyperventilating as he tried to slow his hearts from their fast rhythm. Another nightmare involving mental and physical anguish, most of it not his own.
"Sleep is overrated," he grumbled, sitting up to allow his legs to go over the side of the bed. He hated that he was sleeping alone. He wiped his face with his right hand, pushing the depressing thought away, at least for the time being. He knew the depression would return just as it did every night she was far away from him. His amazing Grace. Oh, how he missed her!
With a sniff, he stood up from the bed. Since he was awake, he figured that he might as well get his day started, beginning with a hot shower and a change of clothes. Breakfast was a simple meal consisting of an apple and a mug of tea. After breakfast, he moved through the TARDIS towards his next task for the day. There were still eleven or twelve storage rooms to sort out, each their own den of disaster thanks to his previous attempts to keep himself occupied while living on planet Earth. The last time he'd been in a storage room engaged in an act of, as he put it then, aggressive boredom therapy was the day he'd realized he'd fallen in love with his landlord. His amazing Grace. Dr. Grace Smith, neé Holloway. His wife.
Entering storage room number one, he immediately and methodically collected and put away everything that had been scattered around the room. He repeated his actions with most of the other storage rooms, though there were a couple he decided to eject, rooms and contents together, as he realized he really didn't need any of the contents. That alone saved him a little time.
After many hours of work - he'd lost track but he guessed it to be more than two days worth - he at last came to the final storage room, the one he'd been putting off until last. There was an object against the wall just across from the door, some unbreakable knick knack one of his companions had picked up on some trip to some planet. He wasn't even sure what the object did or who had purchased it but the sight of it brought a gentle smile to his face as the memory of why the object wound up where it currently lay.
He knew he had to be quite a sight to Grace when she opened the door and only barely dodged the object he'd thrown. He hadn't been aiming at her. He hadn't been aiming at anything at all, to be fair. So when he saw that she was unharmed, he just grinned broadly at her.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she exclaimed, stunned.
"Aggressive boredom therapy."
"What?" As she gaped at her surroundings, his words slowly filtered through her mind. "Wait a minute…" she said, still stunned. "You did this because you were bored?"
The Doctor nodded slightly. "Pretty much. Yeah."
He chuckled slightly, remembering fondly how his attempts to explain his actions had led to them both laughing until tears came from their eyes. Picking up the object - upon inspection, he realized that it was a trinket box - he turned towards the door and opened it, revealing the mess he had made which had brought on the bout of laughter. He stepped through the door, allowing it to close behind him. Placing the trinket box on a shelf, he then proceeded to carefully pick up each item from the floor and put them back where they belonged.
"I think I'll just close the door and hide it."
"Oh, no, you don't. All little boys have to clean their rooms before they can go out and play."
"Is that so? What if I refuse?"
"Well, then… I'd have to tickle you."
His gaze followed the memory to the wall on the far side of the room, the wall he and Grace had hit during his retreat from the threat of being tickled. He remembered the taste of her lips during their first kiss. Technically, it was their third kiss but it was the first he'd received from her in his current incarnation. He remembered the feel of her hair in his fingers, the touch of her hands as they started to undress each other. He'd almost succumbed to the temptation completely but he'd forced them apart, knowing that the act of love-making would link him and Grace, making her his mate for the rest of her life. A week later, though, he didn't have to worry about stopping himself from going too far.
"Why are you so intent on me having today off? Where exactly were you thinking of us going?"
He scrunched his nose slightly as he thought of the best way to express his intentions. "Oh, I thought we'd just find a nice quiet little place where we could… oh, I don't know… get married?" He gave her a winning and genuine smile and then waited for her reaction.
It had been so perfect! They'd been so happy together. And then the Master happened and everything changed.
"No! Thete, please! No!"
"Oh, Grace," the Doctor murmured as he sat against the wall. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He never finished cleaning the room.
