A/N: A great big 'thank you' to FallLennon. I can't tell you how much your reviews meant to me. The highlight of my week. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
And I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!
Emerald Green
Chapter Two
What Dreams May Come
The ache in her heart returned as it beat wildly. What a strange detail to include in a dream.
"What?" Yes, there was the clever response she had wanted to give. 'What'.
He ran his hands down his thick purple blazer, as though straightening his clothes to make a good impression. A cloud of warning around his seemingly casual attitude told her that the straightening of his clothes was a lie. "It's my favorite television program. I watch it all the time." He paused. "Well, not all the time. Some of the time. But for me, some of the time is really a lot of time."
She knew she looked ridiculous wearing her deer-in-headlights look and a worn red T-shirt, but given this strange turn of events in her dream, it didn't seem to matter. "What?"
The Doctor turned, pushing buttons and flipping switches on the console seemingly at random. "Yep. You know the one. You won an award for it." He paused again to glance up at her through the strands of hair falling into his eyes. "Shame it got cancelled when it did."
"What?"
The pleasant act dropped so suddenly it left her feeling even colder. He turned and stalked towards her with such sure steps, she found herself pressing herself back onto another console, careful not to hit any buttons. "Is 'what' the only word you know?" He stopped a foot in front of her, still towering over her. "If you wanted to trick me with the image of an actress, you really ought to have a little more in your vocabulary. What are you – a Dalek puppet? Zygon? Multiform?" He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the familiar sonic screwdriver. She froze as he scanned her, and looked at the results. "Human. How could you be human?"
Phoebe, Heather, Olivia, Eleanor, Nina, Ivy, Xyla. Molly drew in a slow breath. "Okay. I would like to put in a formal request to wake up now. I don't like this dream anymore."
"You're not dreaming," responded the Doctor. Then he looked thoughtful, ran the screwdriver over himself, looked at the scan results, and frowned. "Neither am I." He slipped the sonic back into its pocket, and turned back to the center console, moving a monitor around to look into it.
"Of course I'm dreaming," she argued. "How could I be on the TARDIS if I wasn't?"
He glanced over his shoulder at her, away from the image that looked like vital signs. "So you know what this is? You know where you are?"
Molly folded her arms over her chest. "Yeah. I mean, I'm actually in bed, but I know where this is, too."
He shoved the display away in disgust when it didn't give him the answers he wanted. He turned back to her. "Tell me how you got aboard the TARDIS."
"I told you, I didn't," she said, now almost shouting. Wake up, wake up, she begged herself. "I'm asleep. I'm dreaming that I woke up on the floor of the TARDIS and I loved it for about two whole minutes before you showed up and ruined it."
The Doctor rushed her suddenly, and as he reached out and gripped the skin of her arm and squeezed, she cried out.
"See? Not dreaming," he insisted, letting her go.
She rubbed the spot on her arm. "I feel pain in my dreams, you jerk!"
His look of confusion almost had a tint of danger in it. "Who are you?" She'd almost never heard his voice raised like this on the show. "I know you're not really Lydia Hart. Whatever sent you made a mistake if they thought I'd fall for this. It's ridiculous! What was even the point? Why put someone who looks like an actress from a television program I watch on the TARDIS? What are you for?" His voice implied he was asking himself for an answer more than he was asking her.
Molly's head was swimming. Nothing was making any sense in this dream. "Who is Lydia Hart?"
A bit of doubt crept into the Doctor's eyes. "The actress you're pretending to be."
"I'm not pretending to be anyone." For once. "And I'm definitely not an actress. I'm not even a good liar."
"Yeah, the dreaming bit you won't let go of is a dead giveaway of that," he replied dryly. "If you're not pretending to be Lydia Hart, then who are you supposed to be?"
One upside to this dream: being able to introduce herself as herself, at last. "I'm Molly Quinn."
The Doctor's gaze slowly shifted from confused to incredulous. He laughed and turned and stalked away, and then turned back to her. "You expect me to believe you're a character from a television program?"
Molly blinked twice. "What?"
The Doctor waved a warning finger at her. "Now, don't go starting that again."
She took a couple steps towards him, but still felt the need to hold her hands up as though to show she was unarmed. He was, after all, a madman with a box. "You think I'm from a TV show?"
"The problem here is that you expect me to think you're from a TV show."
She stared for a moment, unable to process this strange new plot twist in her dreams. "I'm not from a TV show. You are."
The Doctor looked offended. "I am not!"
"Yes, you are," Molly insisted.
"No, you are!"
"No, you!"
"No, you!" The Doctor closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, we're not doing that." He looked at her intently, but she was relieved to see that his eyes were a little wider, a little softer. He pointed to her again. "So, you really believe you're Molly Quinn, and that she's a real person?"
"I'm Molly Quinn, so yeah, I'm going with real."
He pointed to his chest. "And that I'm from a show?"
Molly shrugged. "Actually, I'm saying you're a dream based on a show, but basically, yeah."
"Well, I'm very real, I promise," he responded seriously. But slowly a grin broke out across his face. "I'd make a great one, though. Brilliant, really. It would be the best show ever aired on television. It would be called 'The Doctor Saves the Universe' or 'The Coolest Time Lord', or something."
"It's called Doctor Who."
The grin immediately disappeared. All levity he'd displayed leaked out of him, less like a leaking faucet than a leaking dam. She could swear the temperature dropped three degrees. This wasn't the dark and dangerous expression. This was what she'd deemed the Ancient Doctor in her head while she watched the show. In that moment, there was no doubting that he was over a thousand years old.
"Say…that…again." His voice was barely above a whisper but impossible to miss.
She didn't want to. Afraid of what would happen next, her whole body tensed, Molly breathed out, "Doctor Who."
The Doctor rushed forward at her again, but this time she managed not to lean away from him. He stared deep into her eyes, once again looking for something, some way she was a dangerous enemy, and she prayed for only the second time in over a decade that he didn't find it. Then, slowly, he began to shake his head. "No." He said solidly, and then spun away from her and repeated with more of a quake in his voice, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no…" Again, he pulled levers and pressed buttons, and words sped by on the monitor so quickly it took her a moment to realize it was in circular Gallifreyan. "I got away from it. I got away. It can't be back now!"
"Wha-" She stopped herself and tried to think of a better word to express her confusion. "…whomst?" That word choice made her sound like an idiot, but it was too late to take it back now.
"The question. It's like the crack in the wall," the Doctor explained quickly, but once again she felt he was explaining it to himself. She may as well have been the rubber duck people used to explain a code to in order to find bugs in the program. "Exploding everywhere in space and time all at once. It must be leaking out to other dimensions, too, other universes." He spun back around and approached her again, this time taking her shoulders in his hands. "Quickly…in the show, in my show, in Doctor Who - do they ever say my name? My real name?" His eyes held a sharp panic, and a longing for her to give him some relief from it.
She, of course, knew exactly why. "No," she replied gently, hoping to reassure this strange dream Doctor. "No, they never say it. No one knows what it is. I'm not even sure if the writers do, really."
His eyes closed and he hung his head with a sigh of relief. His body almost seemed to collapse in on itself as the tension was released. "Good. That's good." He let go of her and almost seemed to stagger as he moved back to the monitor. "Do you know what it means? The title?" It was almost too casual, his voice. He didn't want her to know how important it was, if she didn't already know.
But she did. "Yeah. It's from when you went to Christmas, to Trenzalore. The Time Lords were looking for confirmation-"
He turned to her again. A shadow appeared across his face, and then just as suddenly disappeared. He looked tired. "How do you know about all this? Are you from Christmas? Did the church send you? Do you know Clara?"
Molly leaned her hip against the console. The stress was causing her muscles to tense, and the tightness made the scar in her back ache in a way that forced her to notice it again. "I already told you how I know."
"Right, but how do I know you're not a trick?" He looked thoughtful, his gaze rising to the top of the TARDIS. He was looking for every possibility, she figured. And as a Time Lord, he must have seen countless. Yet, he searched them all very quickly, and looked at her again two seconds later. "Tell me something they've shown on the show that only I would know. There must be something."
Her eyes widened with surprise. This was the worst trivia night she'd ever been to. How was she supposed to come up with something out of the blue? "Um. Um. I don't know! There's been a lot of seasons, and its time travel, it's hard to keep straight who knows what when," she explained. She wasn't surprised to see him nod knowingly, and cross his arms over his chest, waiting. He would know all about how hard it was for humans to keep track of time travel.
She straightened up and began pacing in small circles as her mind raced, her arms still clasped around herself to protect herself from the cold. "Uh. DoctorDonna?" She turned to look at his face, and though there was surprise, she could see it wasn't enough. She continued pacing, watching her bare feet walk across the cold TARDIS floor. "No. No, Donna's the only one who doesn't remember that. I guess Wilf could've told me. Um. The crack eating Rory's existence? Rose meeting you on Bad Wolf beach to say goodbye? The Statue of Liberty as a Weeping Angel? The Journey to the Center of the TARDIS? You and Clara go to the engine room to find out that the TARDIS engine exploded. Big friendly button? No, of course not, Clara remembered that. Maybe Waters of Mars? What's her name…Adelaide Brook? She asked you to state your name, rank, and intensions. You said 'Doctor; doctor; fun'. Would anyone have recorded that?"
Molly turned to look at the Doctor's reaction. He stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and she watched his face as he processed this information in record speed. He almost looked proud for a moment, and then confused, concerned, and even afraid, all in quick succession. And then he settled back on pride. He stood straight, ran a hand through his hair. "I'm a TV show," he said with satisfaction. "I bet it's a fantastic show. Is it your favorite?"
Molly rolled her eyes. "It was until right about five minutes ago. Don't know if I'll ever watch it again after this."
"Well, yeah, that is a problem," the Doctor replied, his self-satisfied grin fading a little. "We'll need to find a way to break back into your universe and drop you off."
"That's not the problem!" Exasperated, Molly turned away from him. She tried to stalk off, but was met with a counter of switches a half step later, and growled in frustration. She turned left to move away from him. "I just need to wake up, that's all I need. This is getting ridiculous. I want to wake up." She paused, and then began slapping the top of her left hand with her right hard enough to make the sound echo, over and over again.
"Wait, no-" The Doctor dashed around the other side to grab her right hand, preventing another slap. "What are you doing?"
Molly yanked her hand away. "Trying to wake up! This is the worst dream I've ever had, and that's really saying something!" Her words were coming out sharper than she'd intended, but her heart hurt physically and emotionally and it wasn't as though it mattered if her disappointment showed. He wasn't real. "I don't want this stupid dream to taint the Doctor for me, and I'm not letting my dumbass brain ruin my comfort show!"
The Doctor frowned. "Well, one, you're not asleep, stop saying that," he said. "Second – why are you so mad about this dream? Why wouldn't you want to be on the TARDIS? Isn't meeting me cool?"
"No, meeting you isn't cool," she growled. "You're a jerk who keeps invading my personal space and making threatening faces at me!"
"'Jerk'?" he repeated, sounding as though his feelings were hurt, and then something seemed to connect. "Oh! Right – of course – I did the - " His head tilted forward, and the blood-chilling dangerous madman appeared again. But it quickly melted away into a more apologetic expression as he wrung his hands together. "- thing. Sorry. To be fair, I was confused. Fictional characters don't normally pop up on the TARDIS."
"Donna did."
"Well, Donna wasn't fictional, was she?" The Doctor sighed, exasperated. "And that was supposed to be a once in a lifetime thing - even for my lifetime."
"Besides that," Molly continued, placing her hands on her hips, "You'd think that if this was some kind of trick, they'd have given me some actual clothes!"
The Doctor opened his mouth, hesitated, and looked her up and down again. "Oh. Right." He seemed to be blushing a little as he turned around. "That…might've been the most obvious sign. For someone so clever, I can be a bit slow." He slid his jacket off, pulled the sonic screwdriver out and stuck it in his pants pocket, and then held the jacket out behind him towards her. "Here."
Without hesitation, she grabbed the jacket and slipped it on. It was one he'd worn around Clara, she remembered, and was made of warm, thick fabric, for which she was grateful. She was starting to see some of her pale skin turn pink with cold. She wrapped the front around her and buttoned it closed. It wasn't much longer than her shirt, but it made her a bit more modest. "Thanks. It's safe to turn around now."
The Doctor turned, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand as though expressing embarrassment. "Sorry about that," he commented softly. "Bit warmer?"
"Would be a lot warmer if you could wake me up."
The Doctor rolled his eyes, turned to the TARDIS console, and swiped his finger up something that looked like a mother-of-pearl touchpad. He took a few steps to his right and typed on a square keyboard of pastel rainbow buttons, took another couple steps and wound a crank, and then walked all the way back around to stand behind Molly, and pulled a lever. The whole room shook, and Molly took a step back to keep her balance.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"I'm tired of the dream thing," the Doctor announced. "It's boring." Molly had just a moment to appreciate the beautiful sound of the TARDIS landing up close when the Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders and started leading her towards the door. She tried to plant her feet, but he was stronger than she was, and had better momentum. When they arrived at the doors, he reached around her and pulled them open. In front of them was a red desert, a white misty wind swirling about the surface. Despite the two suns, the world looked like it was in perpetual twilight, with both suns and stars burning in a red sky at the same time.
"Where are we?" she asked breathlessly.
"Criazaga S3-8. Uninhabited. Breathable atmosphere – just barely," he added quietly. She stood and stared in wonder at the bright yellow suns, smaller than hers. She tried to absorb the idea that this was an alien planet, that she wasn't on Earth, that this was a whole world in which no one lived, but the thought of it was too vast to take in all at once. She felt as though she didn't have the tools to grasp the concept of it. At least it was a dream, and she wasn't missing much if she didn't memorize this feeling. Still, it was the closest she'd ever come to actually standing on an alien planet.
"Okay," said the Doctor after a moment of silence. "Off you pop." And he began shoving her forward.
Molly shrieked and grabbed each side of the door, digging her heels into the ground and leaning as far back against him as she could. "What are you doing?! Stop it!"
"I told you, I'm tired of the dream thing. I'm dropping you off." He pushed a little harder.
Molly's eyes were wide with panic, her heart pounding painfully. No, no, no! "You can't do this! You can't just leave me here!" The beautiful expanse of empty planet went very quickly from a wonder to a terror. "No! Stop! I'll die!" She couldn't die here, she couldn't! She'd promised!
"What's it matter, if you're dreaming?"
Her body realized the truth before her mind did. She gasped hard, her arms dropped, her knees grew weak and failed, and she pitched forward from the pressure of the Doctor's shoves. As she began falling into the red expanse, she felt his arms wrap quickly around her middle and pull her back into the TARDIS. She wanted to pull away immediately, but had to take a moment to get enough air in her lungs to make her body move.
Finally, she spun away from the alien planet to face the actual alien, and stare for a few seconds with wide eyes.
"Oh, my stars," she breathed. "This is-"
"Yeah." The Doctor was smiling.
"You're-"
"Yeah."
"Real!"
The Doctor's smile widened and he spread his arms out and gestured towards her with excitement. "So are you!"
"No! I'm not!" When the Doctor tilted his head with confusion, Molly paused and rethought her words. "No, I mean, I am. But I'm not – I can't be – I'm not a fictional character on a TV show!"
The Doctor dropped his arms, and it almost seemed as though he was pouting. "Okay, I might really leave you here." But as he turned and walked away, he snapped and the TARDIS doors behind her closed.
Molly half-jogged to catch up with the Doctor despite the pain it caused her, who was already punching more buttons. He swung the monitor around to face her, and stepped out of the way.
And there – on screen – was her. Or, someone who looked exactly like her, saying some very familiar things.
The actress was lying on a bed – her bed from New York – wriggling to get comfortable on it as she groaned, holding a phone to her ear. "Aunt Loren was at that wedding?"
A man appeared on the screen, tall, with sharp features and pale blond hair, wearing the same boring suit any boring banker would wear, pouring a cup of coffee in his kitchen with a pile of mail beside him. He looked an awful lot like Aiden. "Yeah. She's pissed. Wants to uninvite you for Thanksgiving."
"Tragedy," the actress muttered, the word muted over the phone.
The actor playing Aiden scoffed. "What happened?"
It cut back to her bedroom. "Someone was following me," The other Molly muttered into the phone as she pressed it tightly against her ear. "Again."
"Did you deserve it?"
"I might've," she said casually. "But you're my cousin, you're supposed to be on my side."
Molly was breathless as she watched her life play out before her. She remembered it all well, for it being such a long time ago. She even remembered the blanket scrunched up under her back.
"Okay," she whispered. "I believe you." She paused a moment, narrowing her eyes. "Wow. I really am, like, properly pretty."
The Doctor took a breath, held still for a moment, and then sighed. "Oh," he began with disgust, and switched the monitor off. "What's with you lot and always flirting with yourselves?"
"Like you never did that."
"That's different."
"Why?"
"Because – because it is!" The Doctor turned and leaned back against the console, and folded his arms. "Anyway, we've more important things to think about."
"Like?"
"Like – like – like how you got here!" His voice suggested she was an idiot for not thinking of it. To be fair, she probably was. "And how we get you back."
"And why I'm here," Molly added. She turned to her side, leaning her hip against the TARDIS so she could face him, and relieve some of the pressure in her spine.
He glanced at her. "What do you mean, why? There isn't always a why."
"Yes, there is," she said, her voice now implying his own idiocy. "Think about it. Whenever something this weird happens, has there ever not been a reason?"
The Doctor looked over the top of her head as he searched his memory. "Well…this one time…or when…" he frowned, and then smiled and looked back down at her. "Okay. Also why."
Something in Molly's brain clicked into place, and slowly, she started grinning. "Wait. Wait. The TARDIS is real."
The Doctor waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, we've already established that."
"No, I mean…" but Molly couldn't quite put it into words. Instead, she slowly began walking around the console, looking for blank space. She settled on a spot between sections of controls. She put both palms flat down on the surface, and looked back up at the swirling blue light.
"Hi there," she greeted, aware her voice was friendlier than it had been since she'd woken up. "I'm Molly. Molly Quinn. You know that already, but it's only polite to introduce myself properly." She glanced at the Doctor, who was watching her with curiosity, and almost anticipation. She smirked, and lowered her voice, though not so much the Doctor wouldn't be able to hear. "You're actually everyone's favorite character, you know. You have way more merch than everyone else combined."
The Doctor looked offended. "Oi! I'm the one that does all the interesting stuff!"
Immediately, Molly heard a switch flip on the other side, and the floor began to rumble, and again Molly gripped the console tighter for balance. Evidently, that had been the wrong thing to say.
For a moment, Molly closed her eyes and relished that beloved sound of the TARDIS. Then, as she thought about spinning through time and/or space, she felt lightheaded and sick. Hurtling through some time vortex or Tipler cylinder was one of the scariest things she could think of. While physically fine, she still suddenly felt like she was in the front seat of a rollercoaster with a hundred loops and no seatbelt.
But the TARDIS came to a standstill soon enough. She tried to catch the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and took her hands off the console before the Doctor could notice her fingers had turned white with how hard she'd been trying to grip the flat surface.
"Well, let's see where you took us, showoff," the Doctor grumbled, and headed for the door. Molly moved after him, until he threw the doors open and all she could see was stars. She immediately stopped moving.
"Ah, yes, of course," the Doctor said, looking out at something hidden below them. He turned to face Molly. "Come on, then. Let her show off for you."
Molly tried to take a step forward, and found she felt she was as frozen as stone. "Uh, can't."
"What do you mean, 'can't'? Come take a look."
Molly shook her head. "I can't. I can't move."
A concerned expression on his face, the Doctor approached, pulling the sonic out of his pocket. "What do you mean, you can't move? Are you hurt? Trapped somehow?"
"I guess the show never mentioned."
"Never mentioned what?"
"I am fucking terrified of space," Molly confessed.
Now the Doctor froze. "…of space?"
"Yeah."
"You're terrified of space?" he asked again, incredulously.
"Yep."
The Doctor tucked the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket. "You realize the TARDIS is a spaceship?"
"Yes."
"'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'," the Doctor said. "That includes the word 'space'."
"I am aware."
"Well," the Doctor began, sounding frustrated, and gesturing to her bare feet glued to the floor. "You can't just stand there, you'll insult her."
Molly swallowed. "I am willing to risk that."
"I'm not," argued the Doctor. He glanced back at the pillar of light that essentially was the TARDIS. When he spoke next, his voice was softer than she'd heard it since she'd arrived, full of a kind of gentle encouragement. "Alright. We'll do this together. One step at a time." He reached out and offered her his hand.
There it was. The dream, the dream probably every fan had. The Doctor extending a hand out to them to show them something incredible. Her heart fluttered in her chest, this time without pain. She hated to admit it, but sitting in front of the TV in one foster home and then another and then another, she'd longed for it so much she'd almost prayed for it. The longing had followed her into adulthood for a while, and grew more painful in its intensity whenever she'd met a failure. The image of the Doctor reaching a hand out to her – first Eight, then Nine, then Ten, then Eleven - had been her safe place as much as the show itself had been. And here it was in front of her. How could she say no?
But the terror still won out, until she looked up into his eyes. The gentle encouragement in his voice was there tenfold, and he had a small smile on his lips. He seemed genuinely excited to show the stars to her.
She drew in a slow, deep breath, and closed her eyes. There had been tears building in her eyes that she hadn't noticed, and at the closing of her lids one had escaped. She didn't bother to wipe it away, and instead opened her eyes and took his hand with her left.
"Okay," she breathed. "But very, very slowly. Please."
As his hand closed around hers, she shivered, from the cold of his touch in combination with the cold in the room, yes, but most of all from the solidification of what she'd dreamed for since she was thirteen, and ready to start learning to be a person again.
"Of course, Molly," he agreed. "At your pace."
"My pace is not at all," she reminded him. "So maybe at yours."
He nodded, smiling. "Okay. Okay. One step at a time," he repeated softly. He took a step back, but she found she wasn't able to take one forward. He took another, and her arm was extended as far as it could go, but still, she couldn't move. "You're going to have to come with me, a bit," he reminded her. She nodded, and managed to inch her foot forward. She took another deep breath, and forced her to lift her leg and take a proper step. "Good. Let's do another one."
Trembling, Molly took another step. He took another step back, and she took another forward. She found it was easier to keep walking when she looked in his eyes, not at the ground, or at the terrifying expanse of void behind him.
Oh. She shouldn't have thought about the void. A little over halfway there, her legs went still again, her knees locked. Her eyes stared past his head at the black and stars ahead, so much more threatening now that they weren't on a TV screen while her father watched his astronomy documentaries.
"Molly…Molly, look at me, not at the door," the Doctor urged her.
Molly shook her head. "I can't. I really can't."
"You can," he insisted. She could see him bend over a little, trying to catch her gaze again, but when it failed, he stood straight. "Tell me what you find so terrifying about space."
"Floating through the void," she replied, her voice low. "If you're buried alive, you can dig. If you're drowning, you can kick. But once you're free floating out in space, there is nothing you can do. No way you can fight. You just suffocate and freeze and float slowly away, forever. Helpless."
"The TARDIS has shields that protect us," he explained. "We'd have already been sucked out into the vacuum otherwise." He seemed to realize what he'd said and winced. "Sorry. But it's true. You are perfectly safe."
"Doesn't matter," she said. "Even if it's never once failed, that doesn't mean it never will. You should know that better than anyone. And all my brain can think is - if it's never happened yet, then it's due."
She could see the Doctor thinking out of the corner of her eye, but all she heard was the roaring of space. If it was really audible or not didn't matter, it filled her ears and eyes and soul nonetheless.
"Hey. Look at me." Looking away from the void to the Doctor as he'd asked was one of the most difficult things she'd ever accomplished. "I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. I'll walk behind you and hold on to your shoulders. Even if the shields fail – which they won't – I'll be holding on to you and I'll pull us both back in time. I promise." He searched her eyes, though what for she didn't know. "The TARDIS wants you to see this. Believe me, it's beautiful."
Molly took a ragged breath and blinked away the tears blurring his face. "Alright. Let's do it."
He released her hand and moved around her, and gently placed a hand on each shoulder. Slowly, he moved her forward. She wanted to keep her eyes closed until they were there, but was scared of accidentally stepping over the edge. So she watched as her fear slowly approached.
At last, they reached the TARDIS doors. She kept her eyes locked on one star opposite them, not willing to look around, feeling as though she might slip and fall if she did.
"Okay. Look down."
"Nope."
"It's okay," said the Doctor, and he squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "I've got you."
She made a deep whining noise, but slowly forced her gaze downward. And then all the breath left her all at once, and the reason for her dizziness went from terror to the dancing of stars in her eyes.
Yes, there were thousands upon thousands of stars. There were so many of them she felt as though the space below her should be made of solid starlight, but still there managed to be a background of darkest black, making the stars seem even brighter. But it wasn't the stars that made her feel as though she could never hope to see something so beautiful again. It was the swirl of shimmering colors before her that looked as though they were shining through a gap in the universe, shifting from a robin's egg blue to a mix of pink and purple that put a million sunsets to shame. Lines of gold shifted through them, like little flowing streams, and in the center of it all was something that looked like a delicate, iridescent bubble. But most awe-inspiring of all was the layer of something glittering over the top, reminding her of a thin sheet of ice with fresh snow dusted over the top, sparkling underneath lamplight. Despite herself, part of her wanted to fall into it.
"The Polychrome nebula," the Doctor whispered in her ear, a tone of reverence in his voice. "Humanity won't discover it for another few thousand years, but it's been here since before your planet was born. You see what looks like glitter spilled over the top of it?" She nodded, feeling his cheek against her hair. "Diamonds, millions and millions of diamonds from two meteorites that collided here. It's a nebula covered in diamonds." He wasn't able to keep the excitement from his voice now. She probably wouldn't have been able to, either, if she could speak.
It was overwhelming. Looking down on something human eyes had never seen, the most incredible thing she would ever see in all her life. She felt like she was floating. A laugh of delight started to build in her chest.
"What are you thinking?" asked the Doctor.
She didn't even bother attempting to filter her thoughts, or to escape the embarrassment of them. She couldn't while filled with so much awe. "I can't believe that the TARDIS and the Doctor are showing me something amazing. The most amazing thing I'll ever see."
She heard the Doctor chuckle. "I can't believe I'm showing Molly Quinn something amazing." She laughed at the absurdity of the idea that the Doctor felt anything like she did at that moment, but rather than sad, the mirth was light.
He continued, "But who said we're stopping here?"