katherine_b (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katherine_b) wrote2010-04-22 06:15 am
katherine_b) wrote2010-04-22 06:15 am
In Dreams Part I
Title: In Dreams 1/6
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor has come in response to the summons he received. But the reason for him being called is not at all what he was expecting.
Characters: Ten, Donna, Sylvia, Wilf, Ood Sigma.
A/N: Written as a result of a prompt given to me byjuliet316 and time_converges after they, under the guise of DoctorDonna purchased my soul at the April Support Stacie auction. They asked for a fic in which “Donna and the Doctor are having the same (or similar) dreams. What's causing it, and what do they do about it? As shippy as you can make it, please. :)”
A/N 2: The lyrics on each part are from the Roy Orbsion song that shares its name with the title of this fic.
“In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams, I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine.”
Part I
The Doctor stops at the doorway of the TARDIS and exhales a massive breath, trying not to think about what is waiting for him on the other side. Four knocks. It is returning. The end of time.
The end of everything.
Is it any wonder he doesn’t want to go out there?
“Well, get on with it,” he tells himself, his voice echoing in the silence console room. He can’t help noticing the dull, toneless quality of his voice and tries to pep himself up. “Allons-y then, eh?”
Cold wind gusts into the TARDIS, bringing with it a scattering of snowflakes, as he pulls open one of the doors and sidles out, hearing the joyous singing becoming stronger once he’s on this side of the doors.
The familiar figure of Ood Sigma is already standing a short distance away, just as he was on that snowy street in 2059.
For a moment, as the Doctor thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his duster, they simply look at one another. The Time Lord feels almost unaccountably nervous about speaking, as if, by saying nothing, he can avert the topic of conversation that will inevitably lead to discussion about his own fate.
He swallows painfully as the Ood’s translator ball lights up.
“Come,” Ood Sigma says simply, and turns away.
The Doctor stares at the Ood’s back for a moment in surprise. He had expected whatever conversation would take place to occur here in the snow. For a wild instant, he wonders if it’s possible to run from his fate, to escape the end he can feel closing in on him.
Then common sense kicks in and, with a sigh, he shuts the TARDIS door and begins to trudge through the snow in the Ood’s footsteps. He lifts up the lapels of his duster and tucks his chin into his collar. Usually he would be mesmerized by the snow falling lightly around and on him, but not now. Not here.
Not when every step reminds him of the loss of his best friend.
He’s focusing so hard on not thinking about her, or about the meta-crisis, or about anything, at least as much as he can manage, that he almost bumps into the back of Ood Sigma, who has stopped at the mouth of a cave.
“Please,” he says in his soft, pleasant voice, “enter. Here we may get warm.”
“You know, I’ve never quite understood,” the Doctor begins as he ducks beneath the low stone lintel, “quite why your people end up on a planet that is covered in snow for almost the entire year.”
“This is the home of the Ood,” Ood Sigma tells him from close behind. “We have no say in where we came from, any more than did the Time Lords of Gallifrey.”
“Mmm.” The Doctor rubs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I guess it was a pretty stupid question.”
“Your thoughts are troubled,” Ood Sigma tells him as they enter a larger open area with a fire, in front of which are two chairs and a small table. “It is not foolishness so much as an attempt at distraction.”
“Yeah, well,” the Doctor sits down in obedience to the Ood’s gesture, “when I’ve got a woman telling me my song is ending, and an Ood appearing in the snow from the other end of the Universe, it’s clear that something big is coming.”
“You require sustenance,” Ood Sigma says as he takes the other chair. “You have not been as attentive to your needs as heretofore.”
Even as he finishes speaking, footsteps cause the Doctor to look around and he sees a second Ood enter the room, carrying a tray of tea things. The Doctor looks narrowly at the newcomer. Although all Ood are more or less identical, at least as far as he’s concerned, he can’t help feeling as if there’s something different about this one.
“You have met before,” Ood Sigma says quietly, perhaps having picked up on his thoughts. “This is Ood Halpen.”
“Ooh.” The Doctor arches an eyebrow, gratefully seizing on the new topic of conversation. “This must be nearly killing you, Mr Halpen.” He can’t help eying the steaming cup that has just been put down in front of him with a certain degree of suspicion. “Or is it going to kill me instead?”
“Natural Ood must never kill, sir,” Ood Halpen says as if reciting a lesson, which does nothing to reduce the Doctor’s anxiety.
“If it’s going to turn me into one of you,” the Doctor begins, but Ood Sigma interrupts.
“It is tea,” he says firmly. “It will do nothing more than warm you, and I believe you are in need of it.”
“Oh.” The Doctor picks up the cup and saucer, blowing on the steaming tea to cool it, before looking up again. “Thank you,” he adds rather grudgingly as Ood Halpen nods and then leaves the room.
“You are often cold these days,” Ood Sigma says, turning his large eyes on the Doctor. “Inside and out.”
“Yeah,” he agrees softly, lowering the cup into his lap without having drunk anything and staring into the fire because he doesn’t want to look at the Ood.
“You do not eat,” Ood Sigma goes on. “And you do not rest.”
“I do enough,” he shoots back, unhappy at this series of accusations, not all of which are entirely false.
“The rare moments that you sleep,” Ood Sigma continues, “describe to me your dreams.”
The Doctor starts, slopping tea into the saucer, as he turns to stare at the Ood in astonishment. Whatever he might have expected from their conversation, this certainly wasn’t it.
There’s a long pause. It’s clear that Ood Sigma will wait as long as necessary for a response. Patience personified, as he already knows.
“My dreams haven’t changed in a century,” he replies in the end, doubtful that that will satisfy his questioner.
He’s right.
“And of what do you dream?”
He stares into the dancing flames for a moment before speaking. “Solitude,” he admits at last. “Being alone.”
“Loneliness?” Ood Sigma retorts, although the Doctor doubts that it’s intended as a question.
“If you already knew,” he snaps, “why ask?”
“The dreams of the DoctorDonna are the same.”
The Doctor slams the tea down on the table, ignoring the cup that rolls off the saucer and onto the floor, where it smashes on the rocks, spilling his untouched tea. “Now let’s get this straight, once and for all, Ood Sigma,” he barks out, pointing an accusing finger at his questioner. “There is no more DoctorDonna. I took that away from her in order to save her life. There’s no longer any such person. Got that?”
“The power of the DoctorDonna is returning,” Ood Sigma says, blinking calmly. “It can be resurrected to what it was at its zenith.”
“I don’t believe that,” he shoots back, trying to keep a grip on his rising temper.
“There is a way.”
Ood Sigma’s voice is so calmly assured that the Doctor feels his rage and frustration intensifying by leaps and bounds.
“If there was,” he explodes, “don’t you think I would already have done it? That I would have done everything I could in order to save her – to let her keep her memories of me and everything she achieved?” He blinks fiercely at the tears he can feel burning in his eyes. “Do you think I wanted to lose her?!”
“If you delay, you may lose the DoctorDonna forever,” Ood Sigma says in reply, and the Doctor wonders if he was even listening. “With every one of her dreams, she slips closer to being irretrievably beyond your reach. And,” his voice deepens a little, “the loss of the DoctorDonna would, given time, allow greater threats into the Universe than it has ever before faced.”
“What do you…?”
“And furthermore,” Ood Sigma continues, “the loss of the DoctorDonna will also mean the loss of the Doctor.”
“Wow, that’s such amazing news to me,” the Doctor snaps, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I did say that I’ve already had people telling me I’m going to die, didn’t I? And considering you were one of those people…”
“I said nothing of death.” The calmness of Ood Sigma’s voice acts to check the Doctor’s outburst. “I said simply that your song must end.”
“Yeah, same thing,” the Doctor says impatiently. “As I was saying…”
“You are resigned to a fate of which you are not even aware?” Ood Sigma tilts his head slightly to one side, his voice, as ever, soft. “A prophesy can have many meanings. The only person who can decide for certain what such a thing means, Doctor, is you.”
“And I developed this magical power when?” he sneers, not even bothering to try and check his anger and frustration as he sits back in his chair so firmly that it groans beneath him. “Past experience suggests that what I want never matters – in fact,” he adds bitterly, “what I want is usually the one thing that doesn’t happen!”
“And what are these things you most want?” Ood Sigma asks again. “Not,” he goes on before the Doctor can speak, “of the dreams you have when you close your eyes, but the deepest dreams and desires of your heart?”
The Doctor gapes at him, temporarily silenced. “I…” he says in the end. “I don’t…”
“It is not necessary to utter them,” Ood Sigma goes on. “However you must know them inside yourself and understand the extent of them. Only once you are fully aware of what you seek does it become possible.”
“My dreams don’t just become reality because I want them to,” the Doctor objects, having recovered his voice by this point. “When did I achieve that sort of power?”
“Your desires became significant,” Ood Sigma tells him, “with the birth of the Time Lord Victorious.”
The words hit the Doctor like one of Donna’s infamous slaps and he cringes back in the chair, his hearts pounding in his ears and his mouth nauseatingly dry. In fact, the memory of that gunshot that took Adelaide Brooke’s life causes bile to rise in his throat, and he wishes he hadn’t spilled the tea because he feels like he needs something to avoid being sick.
“I…” His voice shakes and he takes a moment to control it. “I learned my lesson,” he says slowly. “That was the most dangerous I’ve ever been. The worst side of me – out of control. I,” he closes his eyes, trying not to think back to what he had felt during that time on Bowie Base One, “I can’t risk letting that out again,” he says, making the vow to himself once more. “I can’t give that side of myself a chance, or I’m no better than the Master.”
“You mean you won’t take risks,” Ood Sigma replies, and there’s a hint of reproof in his tones. “But sometimes that is the only way forward, even if the end is not visible to you.”
“When I take risks,” he says through gritted teeth, “people die.”
“Is it better to act as you have been doing of late?” Ood Sigma asks politely, although there is an undertone that makes the Doctor uneasy. “To leave them behind? Tell me, Doctor,” he goes on, leaning forward a little, “who has suffered most from your abandonment?”
“I never abandon them,” he bursts out, anger flaring again. “I leave them for their own good – their own safety! I have to!”
“And how are they now?”
“They’re good,” he argues, unhappy with where this conversation seems to be leading. “They’re fine. They’re – happy. I checked on them to make sure!”
“All but one,” Ood Sigma points out, and the Doctor feels a shudder work its way up his spine.
“I can’t see her,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “If Donna sees me – if she ever remembers me, even for a moment, then she’ll die! And she’s not suffering,” he rushes on almost desperately, because this idea hurts more than any other. “She can’t be, because she can’t remember!”
“And yet she dreams,” Ood Sigma says once it’s clear the Doctor has finished. “She dreams of the same things you do – loneliness and fear. And what’s more,” he goes on, even as the Doctor feels the regret he has always felt for his actions with Donna deepen, “she dreams of you, Doctor.”
Fear grips his hearts and his urge to be sick strengthens as he sits upright in his chair. “But… she can’t,” he protests feebly. “If she does, if she remembers…”
“The Ood are protecting her,” Ood Sigma assures him. “We block the memories of her dreams. But,” he adds soberly, almost ruefully, “we can do nothing for her emotions. We cannot stop her suffering the pain that your abandonment has left in her. We cannot stop her knowing that she is lacking something – someone. And we cannot stop her missing the DoctorDonna.”
He’s broken, utterly and completely, by the accusations and ideas that have been flung at him. He’s unsurprised at the realisation that tears are trickling slowly down his cheeks.
“What,” he asks helplessly, “should I do?”
He can’t help feeling that there is a kindness in Ood Sigma’s large, gentle eyes. “No matter what you may believe,” comes the soft response, “the DoctorDonna needs you. And you need her.”
Next Part
Author:
katherine_b Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor has come in response to the summons he received. But the reason for him being called is not at all what he was expecting.
Characters: Ten, Donna, Sylvia, Wilf, Ood Sigma.
A/N: Written as a result of a prompt given to me by
juliet316 and time_converges after they, under the guise of DoctorDonna purchased my soul at the April Support Stacie auction. They asked for a fic in which “Donna and the Doctor are having the same (or similar) dreams. What's causing it, and what do they do about it? As shippy as you can make it, please. :)” A/N 2: The lyrics on each part are from the Roy Orbsion song that shares its name with the title of this fic.
Part I
The Doctor stops at the doorway of the TARDIS and exhales a massive breath, trying not to think about what is waiting for him on the other side. Four knocks. It is returning. The end of time.
The end of everything.
Is it any wonder he doesn’t want to go out there?
“Well, get on with it,” he tells himself, his voice echoing in the silence console room. He can’t help noticing the dull, toneless quality of his voice and tries to pep himself up. “Allons-y then, eh?”
Cold wind gusts into the TARDIS, bringing with it a scattering of snowflakes, as he pulls open one of the doors and sidles out, hearing the joyous singing becoming stronger once he’s on this side of the doors.
The familiar figure of Ood Sigma is already standing a short distance away, just as he was on that snowy street in 2059.
For a moment, as the Doctor thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his duster, they simply look at one another. The Time Lord feels almost unaccountably nervous about speaking, as if, by saying nothing, he can avert the topic of conversation that will inevitably lead to discussion about his own fate.
He swallows painfully as the Ood’s translator ball lights up.
“Come,” Ood Sigma says simply, and turns away.
The Doctor stares at the Ood’s back for a moment in surprise. He had expected whatever conversation would take place to occur here in the snow. For a wild instant, he wonders if it’s possible to run from his fate, to escape the end he can feel closing in on him.
Then common sense kicks in and, with a sigh, he shuts the TARDIS door and begins to trudge through the snow in the Ood’s footsteps. He lifts up the lapels of his duster and tucks his chin into his collar. Usually he would be mesmerized by the snow falling lightly around and on him, but not now. Not here.
Not when every step reminds him of the loss of his best friend.
He’s focusing so hard on not thinking about her, or about the meta-crisis, or about anything, at least as much as he can manage, that he almost bumps into the back of Ood Sigma, who has stopped at the mouth of a cave.
“Please,” he says in his soft, pleasant voice, “enter. Here we may get warm.”
“You know, I’ve never quite understood,” the Doctor begins as he ducks beneath the low stone lintel, “quite why your people end up on a planet that is covered in snow for almost the entire year.”
“This is the home of the Ood,” Ood Sigma tells him from close behind. “We have no say in where we came from, any more than did the Time Lords of Gallifrey.”
“Mmm.” The Doctor rubs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I guess it was a pretty stupid question.”
“Your thoughts are troubled,” Ood Sigma tells him as they enter a larger open area with a fire, in front of which are two chairs and a small table. “It is not foolishness so much as an attempt at distraction.”
“Yeah, well,” the Doctor sits down in obedience to the Ood’s gesture, “when I’ve got a woman telling me my song is ending, and an Ood appearing in the snow from the other end of the Universe, it’s clear that something big is coming.”
“You require sustenance,” Ood Sigma says as he takes the other chair. “You have not been as attentive to your needs as heretofore.”
Even as he finishes speaking, footsteps cause the Doctor to look around and he sees a second Ood enter the room, carrying a tray of tea things. The Doctor looks narrowly at the newcomer. Although all Ood are more or less identical, at least as far as he’s concerned, he can’t help feeling as if there’s something different about this one.
“You have met before,” Ood Sigma says quietly, perhaps having picked up on his thoughts. “This is Ood Halpen.”
“Ooh.” The Doctor arches an eyebrow, gratefully seizing on the new topic of conversation. “This must be nearly killing you, Mr Halpen.” He can’t help eying the steaming cup that has just been put down in front of him with a certain degree of suspicion. “Or is it going to kill me instead?”
“Natural Ood must never kill, sir,” Ood Halpen says as if reciting a lesson, which does nothing to reduce the Doctor’s anxiety.
“If it’s going to turn me into one of you,” the Doctor begins, but Ood Sigma interrupts.
“It is tea,” he says firmly. “It will do nothing more than warm you, and I believe you are in need of it.”
“Oh.” The Doctor picks up the cup and saucer, blowing on the steaming tea to cool it, before looking up again. “Thank you,” he adds rather grudgingly as Ood Halpen nods and then leaves the room.
“You are often cold these days,” Ood Sigma says, turning his large eyes on the Doctor. “Inside and out.”
“Yeah,” he agrees softly, lowering the cup into his lap without having drunk anything and staring into the fire because he doesn’t want to look at the Ood.
“You do not eat,” Ood Sigma goes on. “And you do not rest.”
“I do enough,” he shoots back, unhappy at this series of accusations, not all of which are entirely false.
“The rare moments that you sleep,” Ood Sigma continues, “describe to me your dreams.”
The Doctor starts, slopping tea into the saucer, as he turns to stare at the Ood in astonishment. Whatever he might have expected from their conversation, this certainly wasn’t it.
There’s a long pause. It’s clear that Ood Sigma will wait as long as necessary for a response. Patience personified, as he already knows.
“My dreams haven’t changed in a century,” he replies in the end, doubtful that that will satisfy his questioner.
He’s right.
“And of what do you dream?”
He stares into the dancing flames for a moment before speaking. “Solitude,” he admits at last. “Being alone.”
“Loneliness?” Ood Sigma retorts, although the Doctor doubts that it’s intended as a question.
“If you already knew,” he snaps, “why ask?”
“The dreams of the DoctorDonna are the same.”
The Doctor slams the tea down on the table, ignoring the cup that rolls off the saucer and onto the floor, where it smashes on the rocks, spilling his untouched tea. “Now let’s get this straight, once and for all, Ood Sigma,” he barks out, pointing an accusing finger at his questioner. “There is no more DoctorDonna. I took that away from her in order to save her life. There’s no longer any such person. Got that?”
“The power of the DoctorDonna is returning,” Ood Sigma says, blinking calmly. “It can be resurrected to what it was at its zenith.”
“I don’t believe that,” he shoots back, trying to keep a grip on his rising temper.
“There is a way.”
Ood Sigma’s voice is so calmly assured that the Doctor feels his rage and frustration intensifying by leaps and bounds.
“If there was,” he explodes, “don’t you think I would already have done it? That I would have done everything I could in order to save her – to let her keep her memories of me and everything she achieved?” He blinks fiercely at the tears he can feel burning in his eyes. “Do you think I wanted to lose her?!”
“If you delay, you may lose the DoctorDonna forever,” Ood Sigma says in reply, and the Doctor wonders if he was even listening. “With every one of her dreams, she slips closer to being irretrievably beyond your reach. And,” his voice deepens a little, “the loss of the DoctorDonna would, given time, allow greater threats into the Universe than it has ever before faced.”
“What do you…?”
“And furthermore,” Ood Sigma continues, “the loss of the DoctorDonna will also mean the loss of the Doctor.”
“Wow, that’s such amazing news to me,” the Doctor snaps, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I did say that I’ve already had people telling me I’m going to die, didn’t I? And considering you were one of those people…”
“I said nothing of death.” The calmness of Ood Sigma’s voice acts to check the Doctor’s outburst. “I said simply that your song must end.”
“Yeah, same thing,” the Doctor says impatiently. “As I was saying…”
“You are resigned to a fate of which you are not even aware?” Ood Sigma tilts his head slightly to one side, his voice, as ever, soft. “A prophesy can have many meanings. The only person who can decide for certain what such a thing means, Doctor, is you.”
“And I developed this magical power when?” he sneers, not even bothering to try and check his anger and frustration as he sits back in his chair so firmly that it groans beneath him. “Past experience suggests that what I want never matters – in fact,” he adds bitterly, “what I want is usually the one thing that doesn’t happen!”
“And what are these things you most want?” Ood Sigma asks again. “Not,” he goes on before the Doctor can speak, “of the dreams you have when you close your eyes, but the deepest dreams and desires of your heart?”
The Doctor gapes at him, temporarily silenced. “I…” he says in the end. “I don’t…”
“It is not necessary to utter them,” Ood Sigma goes on. “However you must know them inside yourself and understand the extent of them. Only once you are fully aware of what you seek does it become possible.”
“My dreams don’t just become reality because I want them to,” the Doctor objects, having recovered his voice by this point. “When did I achieve that sort of power?”
“Your desires became significant,” Ood Sigma tells him, “with the birth of the Time Lord Victorious.”
The words hit the Doctor like one of Donna’s infamous slaps and he cringes back in the chair, his hearts pounding in his ears and his mouth nauseatingly dry. In fact, the memory of that gunshot that took Adelaide Brooke’s life causes bile to rise in his throat, and he wishes he hadn’t spilled the tea because he feels like he needs something to avoid being sick.
“I…” His voice shakes and he takes a moment to control it. “I learned my lesson,” he says slowly. “That was the most dangerous I’ve ever been. The worst side of me – out of control. I,” he closes his eyes, trying not to think back to what he had felt during that time on Bowie Base One, “I can’t risk letting that out again,” he says, making the vow to himself once more. “I can’t give that side of myself a chance, or I’m no better than the Master.”
“You mean you won’t take risks,” Ood Sigma replies, and there’s a hint of reproof in his tones. “But sometimes that is the only way forward, even if the end is not visible to you.”
“When I take risks,” he says through gritted teeth, “people die.”
“Is it better to act as you have been doing of late?” Ood Sigma asks politely, although there is an undertone that makes the Doctor uneasy. “To leave them behind? Tell me, Doctor,” he goes on, leaning forward a little, “who has suffered most from your abandonment?”
“I never abandon them,” he bursts out, anger flaring again. “I leave them for their own good – their own safety! I have to!”
“And how are they now?”
“They’re good,” he argues, unhappy with where this conversation seems to be leading. “They’re fine. They’re – happy. I checked on them to make sure!”
“All but one,” Ood Sigma points out, and the Doctor feels a shudder work its way up his spine.
“I can’t see her,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “If Donna sees me – if she ever remembers me, even for a moment, then she’ll die! And she’s not suffering,” he rushes on almost desperately, because this idea hurts more than any other. “She can’t be, because she can’t remember!”
“And yet she dreams,” Ood Sigma says once it’s clear the Doctor has finished. “She dreams of the same things you do – loneliness and fear. And what’s more,” he goes on, even as the Doctor feels the regret he has always felt for his actions with Donna deepen, “she dreams of you, Doctor.”
Fear grips his hearts and his urge to be sick strengthens as he sits upright in his chair. “But… she can’t,” he protests feebly. “If she does, if she remembers…”
“The Ood are protecting her,” Ood Sigma assures him. “We block the memories of her dreams. But,” he adds soberly, almost ruefully, “we can do nothing for her emotions. We cannot stop her suffering the pain that your abandonment has left in her. We cannot stop her knowing that she is lacking something – someone. And we cannot stop her missing the DoctorDonna.”
He’s broken, utterly and completely, by the accusations and ideas that have been flung at him. He’s unsurprised at the realisation that tears are trickling slowly down his cheeks.
“What,” he asks helplessly, “should I do?”
He can’t help feeling that there is a kindness in Ood Sigma’s large, gentle eyes. “No matter what you may believe,” comes the soft response, “the DoctorDonna needs you. And you need her.”
Next Part