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undiscovered-horizon · 2 days ago

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"Dream a little dream of me" - 11th Doctor x Reader

[TW: major character death, grief]

SUMMARY: When you, Doctor's love long gone, show up in the Dream Lord's reality, the decision becomes a lot harder for him to make.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 4k

based on 5x7, "Amy's choice"

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It was only a glimpse - a piece of flowing, lilac material seen in the corner of his eye. Although it wasn’t much, hardly anything, it was enough. The Doctor’s thoughts rushed in the direction of you. Yes, he really liked how pastels looked on you.

But it wasn’t you, obviously. It simply couldn’t have been. You didn’t buy ownership of the colour lilac, did you? It could have been anyone! Anything! A two-headed dog on a unicycle with a lilac party hat!

As much as he tried to reason himself out of this melancholy and “what ifs”, the notion lingered in the back of his head. Like an itch he couldn’t reach to scratch and so elected to ignore it. That didn’t mean the sensation suddenly disappeared.

"Right, so we had some sort of psychic episode." The Doctor seemed suspiciously calm while delivering that news as if it was hardly the first time it had happened to him.

"But how?" Amy dwelled on the subject. The experience was a little too strange and unsettling for her to simply let it go. "How can something like that happen?"

The Doctor shrugged slightly. "Well, there's a-"

Amy continued to stare at him with wide eyes but not a word left the Doctor's mouth. All colour left his face, his eyebrows became a little slanted in an expression of sadness and shock. Some melancholic cloud rendered his vision blank as though his mind had slipped into a world next door; he was remembering something he couldn’t bring himself to forget.

"Doctor?" she asked quietly but he wasn't listening to her. Not anymore.

"No," the Doctor whispered to himself.

He began frantically looking for something. Whipping his head around, he was running from one corner of the room to the other, clearly searching or checking. The Doctor even knocked on different surfaces, restlessly listening to the echo of whatever was underneath.

“Where is this coming from?!” he shouted. “Where is it?!”

Neither Amy nor Rory had seen the time-traveller in such profound distress. They couldn’t even begin to guess what caused his sudden breakdown. Whatever it was, they silently agreed that it was not anything recent; no, this pain had been festering for decades, if not longer. Unattended, unaccepted, it had grown into something too grievous to be understood by those, who had not experienced it. Perhaps, seeing his change of demeanour, Amy and Rory didn’t want to empathize with the Doctor. What madness could such grief bring?

Both Amy and Rory watched the Doctor in confusion. As the ridiculous, frantic search kept going, the man only became more unstable. What began as denial has turned into a true frenzy; madness brought by something that kept eluding him. The Doctor was ignoring the couple’s questions and so they were planning on simply grabbing him to force the answer out of the man.

But then Rory noticed something - a detail that was as unmistakable as it was impossible.

"Can you hear it?" he asked Amy. "It's like... someone's singing."

The comment made the Doctor suddenly stop. He turned on his heel to face his companions. With pale skin and reddened eyes, he looked seriously ill.

“So it’s not just me,” he said more to himself than anyone else. By the tone of his voice, it was hard to tell whether he considered this revelation positive or negative.

Among the whirring of engineering, a soft hum was audible. It sounded absentminded as if the enigmatic musician was preoccupied with something else and decided to sing to fill the overwhelming silence of the ship. For a moment, all three of them listened to the faint humming echoing throughout the emptiness of the TARDIS:

“Birds singing in the sycamore trees, dream a little dream of me.”

As though on command, a resounding birdsong forced them to sleep again.

The next time the three of them woke up in the TARDIS, their anxiety only multiplied. Neither of them could be sure which world belonged to fantasy and which to reality. Such lack of certainty of one's sanity, like a tree without roots, could only lead to madness and the death that always followed it.

"This could be a dream too!" Rory argued. Between the mundane and the fantasies closest to his heart, it was awfully hard to make up one’s mind. Especially if the outcome could prove unfavourable.

"But this feels real,” Amy continued. “I know I said it before but this time I mean it. Out of all the places, why would we be in Leadworth? It can’t be real.”

“Upper Leadworth,” he corrected her. As much as he tried, it was still quite obvious Amy’s question upset him. “And, well-”

“Examine everything!” The Doctor interjected the couple’s quarrel. If he was frenzied before, now he came off as paranoid. “Look for all the details that don’t ring true.”

“Like what?” Amelia asked.

The Doctor pressed his lips into a thin line. For an imperceptible second, his chin quivered.

“Like her,” he said as he pointed somewhere.

Confused, Amy and Rory followed the direction of the accusatory index finger. At its very end stood you - a stranger to them but painfully familiar to the Doctor. The lilac slip dress you were wearing seemed fitting for a vivid dream. Still leaning against the railing on the upper floor balcony, you gave the three a small wave. Out of everyone, you were the only one completely unbothered by the brain-racking scenario. Strangely enough, you must have been standing there for some time now and yet the couple noticed you only when the Doctor pointed you out - almost like it was he who was responsible for your appearance.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rory asked slowly. To him, you looked perfectly normal. Almost too normal, all things considered.

The Doctor suddenly began to tremble. He put his arm down only to nervously rub his hands together.

"She's dead," he whispered. The quietness of his voice makes the cracking and wavering almost inaudible. His eyes did not dare look towards his companions.“Has been for a while now.”

Despite answering his question, the Doctor didn’t quite satisfy Rory’s curiosity.

“Sorry, who is that?” he inquired further. “Or… was?”

“A long story,” the Doctor responded. Judging by the melancholy dripping from each of his words, he was using a diplomatic euphemism. “Ancient history actually,” he said in a forced cheerful voice as he looked at his friends. “Well, not literally ancient. Just someone from long ago. A lifetime ago, in a manner of speaking.”

Yes, he was a different man when he met you. When you died, he became someone else, too. Truthfully, he never stopped changing: as each new day separates him further from you, he continued to grow into a shell of who he once could have been. How strange this thought truly was, that he must remember you for longer than he had known you…

"Then this must be the dream,” Amy stated decisively. Whether it was the Doctor’s confession or the vision of a domestic, boring life, she seemed convinced. She couldn’t have actually chosen mundane, quiet Leadworth, could she?

But the Doctor isn’t quite as certain. In his mind, a complicated puzzle required an equally complicated solution.

"No, we're missing something,” he said. “It would be too easy."

What he really wanted to say was ‘it would be too easy for me to choose’. Never once in his life did a good thing come easy or free. Why should it now? Why should he suddenly have an opportunity to end this dull pain where his hearts used to be?

The Dream Lord’s reveal answered as many old questions as it posed new ones. Although ‘decide which one is real’ was just one objective, it was a highly complicated one. At least a thousand inquiries hid behind those five words; inquiries for which they didn’t have the time. The only thing they could be sure of is that the puzzle isn’t impossible - now, where would be fun in that? Except for that one fact, there was nothing that tethered them to their true lives.

Despite their jackets, Rory and Amy began to feel the gnawing cold. Space was cold, much colder than they could even imagine. With fear, confusion and desperation thrumming in their chests, the heatless atmosphere became something more profound. The shivering of their bodies only fed into anxiety; their mind and hearts were turning into stone.

The couple’s spat with the Doctor was cut short:

“You should get blankets,” you interjected. Strange, how the dead person’s voice is the last warm thing about the TARDIS. “It’s really cold in here.”

All things considered, you didn’t seem bothered by the drop in temperature. In fact, you appeared exactly as you did the last time they saw you. The lack of change makes Amy and Rory exchange a questioning look. Surely you must be proof that the life in Leadworth is the real one, right?

“You’re dead, you can’t be cold,” the Doctor retorted, his voice laced with uncharacteristic indifference. For some reason, he didn’t even bother to look in your direction. A strange device of a hand-held whisk and a corkscrew was more interesting to him than his late lover.

“I didn’t say I was,” you answered. “You’re the one feeling cold, sweetheart.”

Your words made him suddenly turn around. He looked at you with squinted eyes, a symptom of suspicion. In slow steps, the Doctor made his way towards the balcony you were standing on. Should the circumstances be a little different, the scene would have befitted a romance novel - a lovesick gentleman coming to his lady’s home, too sick with longing to patiently wait for their next meeting. The events on the TARDIS, however, were more akin to a gothic horror.

The Dream Lord’s words rang in his head. ‘I’ve always been able to see through you, Doctor.’

Could it be? Could their captor be cruel enough to use your likeness to toy with him?

“How can you know what I’m feeling?” the Doctor probed. Unconsciously, he rubbed his hands together, giving away the bustle of his troubled mind.

With a smile on your face, you answered him with a question: “Why do nightmares always know how to scare you?”

“They’re not sentient, nightmares can’t exactly know anything,” he began. “When you’re dreaming, it’s basically like being in the eye of the storm but instead of the wind, it’s your own thoughts. The monsters in your nightmares scare you because they have access to everything you’re thinking about.” The Doctor fell silent for a second. Then, his shoulders slouched. A pale shadow of grief danced across his features as his eyes glazed over. “Oh,” he whispered under his breath.

Perhaps the poets were right - the world did end with a sigh. Although, could it ever end if it never started in the first place?

Still as chipper as ever, you clapped enthusiastically. “Very clever! Now go grab some blankets before all three of you dream of the North Pole.”

Then you giggled and it was possibly the worst thing you could have done. The Doctor’s chest momentarily tightened, his breath taken from him. Must you laugh exactly the way you did? Can’t you take pity on the man you’re haunting and not remind him of the treasures he can never possess again?

“Are you alright?” asked Amy. She knew it was a silly question considering the moment but couldn’t help herself. The Raggedy Doctor from her childhood stories looked like a shadow of a memory, a mare; he appeared closer to a husk, whose creator kept remembering they had forgotten to put inside some vital piece.

“Don’t worry about little old me,” he reassured her. The lie was in no way convincing. “Get some blankets, they should be right over there.” He pointed in the general direction of an alcove-turned-storage.

With the couple gone, the Doctor turned towards you once again. You were just standing there, hands resting against the railing. The soft adoration in your eyes tore at his hearts. He missed the way you looked at him but he knew that none of this was real. Not in the way he wanted it to be. If your appearance was Dream Lord’s doing, there would be nothing to curb the anger brewing inside the Doctor.

“Are you really here?” he asked quietly, lest Rory and Amy hear. “Or are you only a nightmare?”

Maybe calling you a ‘bad dream’ sounded awful at first but there was a lot of truth in that. He couldn’t fear losing you as it had already happened. However, it is even more terrifying to find what was once lost, while knowing it can be taken at any moment. Without miracles this time.

You leaned your body forward against the railing. “Define ‘real’ and ‘here’.”

“Are you Dream Lord’s doing?”

You cocked your head from side to side. “Yes and no.”

Multiple wrinkles creased his forehead as he furrowed his eyebrows. “It can’t be both, has to be one or the other.”

“Does it, though?” you asked. The tone of your voice made it sound like he just asked something stupid. “Did the Dream Lord create the dream of a couple settling down in an English village or did he just materialize someone’s existing dream?”

The Doctor pondered for a moment. He wanted a straightforward answer but it seemed like, even as a ghost, you knew him all too well - he always preferred to solve the puzzle on his own.

He moved his lips to ask you another question when Rory and Amy came back with blankets.

The Doctor woke up in a walk-in fridge at the butchers. The alien-pensioners kept banging on the solid, metal door. Somehow, he had to get out of there without turning into a pile of dirt. There had to a way…

He lifted his gaze and suddenly froze in place. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the temperature that rendered him immobile but something else stuck in the cold prison.

Someone else.

“Why are you here?” he asked. Seeing his dead lover drove him insane as did having to guess which world is the real one. But the late lover appearing in both realities? That could surely get him committed to some intergalactic hospital.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you answered. “A walk-in fridge is hardly a nice spot for a break.” A grimace entered your face as you looked around the room only to see various cuts of raw meat.

The Doctor quickly scrambled to his feet. Whether it was conscious or not, he fixed his hair and bowtie. Old habits die hard, as they say. Paradoxically, the strange situation emboldened him. The man crossed the room in strides. The last time he stood barely centimetres away from you was long ago. A lifetime ago, like he said earlier.

“Aside from me, Amy and Rory, you’re the only thing that appears both here and in the TARDIS,” he stated. His eyes bore into yours, continuously searching for something, a piece of information that would make this weird dream reality start making sense. “But you’re not real,” he said slightly quieter, as though more to himself than you. “So how does that work? What’s your purpose?”

The word ‘purpose’ fell from his lips like a spat of venom. He suspected that you played a sinister part in Dream Lord’s even more evil plan; like the creature in front of him could never be more than a dirty ruse.

“Remember your question about being the Dream Lord’s creation?” you asked. Although he continued staring at you, the Doctor gave you no indication of an answer. “He needs an idea, a dream, that he can base the alternate reality on. That’s what he meant when he said he can see right through you. He looked and saw me.”

Heavy banging on the door startled both of you. Even if you’re something of a fever dream, you did exactly the same gasp he’d heard you do over a thousand times. The accuracy was nothing short of maddening.

"But why are you here?” The Doctor gestured to the less-than-hospitable room you were standing in. “Why would he put you in both places? What's the trick?"

A sad, pitiful smile entered your face. Normally, he’d dismiss such a reaction from anyone. He didn’t want others’ pity. But some part of him craved it when it came from you. The grief she had shoved as deep as he possibly could suddenly came up to the surface. It begged to be seen, acknowledged; it pleaded for you to see your face in itself. It wanted you to see how much love remained that the Doctor could no longer give you.

"There's no trick,” you explained in a soft, low voice. “I was supposed to only be a distraction, an estranged lover found in some English village but you just couldn't help yourself, could you?"

"Me?” he said under his breath. The welled-up tears in his eyes threatened to spill at any moment. They slightly quivered along with the rest of his body. He looked sick. “What do you mean?"

"I'm in both realities because I’m in both hearts.” You poked his chest playfully. "I guess the Dream Lord underestimated just how much of me there is inside that pretty little head of yours. My image is seeping through.” Then, you started laughing at something. “You're dreaming a little dream of me,” you said between giggles.

Your skin felt surprisingly warm against his hand as the Doctor gently brushed your cheek. It was wrong in a sense - you had been long gone and dead people weren’t warm to the touch, they didn’t radiate life. Despite his age, experience and nature, he was only a man. A man with a broken heart at that. So there was no power in this universe or the next, that could stop him when the one he had been longing for was painfully close.

His throat tightened. “It’s my favourite dream,” he managed to croak out. The Doctor took a deep, slow breath. The loud banging grounded him slightly, reminding him of the current peril. He grabbed your shoulders in a firm yet loving hold. “But I still don’t understand how you can be here and in TARDIS,” he continued in a more-or-less normal tone. He managed to swallow his woe. For now. “One of them is real and if you are a dream brought to life, how can you exist outside of it?”

“Because I’m a memory,” you explained. It all seemed so obvious when you said it. “Rory’s dream is only a fantasy but I’m not. Dream Lord made me appear but you made me stay.” You tightly held the lapels of his jacket to accentuate your point. “I’m more vivid than a dream should be, so whatever he’s using to control you is not working properly. It can’t tell if I’m real or not.”

A vivid memory… was that really all you were? Could he be haunted not by a ghost but by the afterimage of a phantom? As rejoiced as his grieving heart was to see you, the truth about your appearance made the reunion all the more painful. In no way, shape or form were you standing there, holding onto him. He was simply imagining it. Of course you were a perfect copy of the way he remembered you, down to the moles and stray strands of hair.

Maybe one day he would realize the poeticness of the truth. At first, you were a dream brought to life to torment him. But then it was his love for you, his live memory, that made you something more - that made you almost human. And one day, perhaps the Doctor would realize that you had done the same to him, although not as literally.

"If you are Dream Lord’s creation,” he started thinking out loud, “you know what is real and what isn’t.” His warm, ever-gentle, trembling hands cupped your face once more. “Tell me, please,” he whispered. “Somewhere out there, Amy and Rory are about to die and I need to do something."

There was that look of pity again. Staring fondly at your lover, you carefully took his hands in yours and lowered them. For a moment, the time stood still. The metal banging sounded far away, nearly unreal; like a commotion heard in a dream.

"You know the answer already, dear,” you told him. The sincerity in your voice and in your eyes only worked as proof. “I told you."

He looked at you, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

The lullaby-like melody filled the fridge as you quietly hummed the old song. If the Doctor closed his eyes, he’d be able to see the scene like it was yesterday: you and him, a jazz club in Chicago, sometime in the 1950s. But his eyes remained open. He did not want to invite a dream of the past - not when it could be used against him.

"Stars shining bright above you," he whispered the lyrics. His voice suddenly broke and the Doctor frantically shook his head. "No, I can’t. If I get this right, you will be gone."

Was he actually considering that? Now he may earn that ‘madman’ title he had been after for so long.

Your arms wrapped around him in a tender embrace. The Doctor’s desperation and heartache seeped from his very soul as he held you tighter than he ever did. His hands clawed at the fabric of your lilac dress. It felt just as he remembered. Hot tears began rolling down your neck and shoulder. His entire body trembled as he fought for each shallow breath. The most feared man in the universe, undone by a smiling girl wearing a pastel slip dress.

"It's just a dream," you calmly reminded him. In a soothing gesture, you petted his head."It is real until the sunbeams find you and then it'll slip away like a speck of dust on a wind. You'll forget this. And when you fall asleep again, I'll be right here as if nothing had ever happened."

As much as you could, you leaned away from the Doctor. His fearful, teary eyes searched your face for any sign of trouble or a goodbye. He knew it was bound to happen but that didn’t comfort him, quite the contrary. The Time Lord was terrified of running out of time.

“You’re even more beautiful than the day I lost you,” he whispered.

Feeling your hands against his face, he allowed himself to close his eyes; to pretend for a moment. You tried to wipe away his tears but it was in vain. The longer he felt your presence, the more it broke his heart that it was just a memory. You weren’t really there, he was just an old, lovesick fool remembering what it felt like to be loved.

“But you didn’t really lose me, did you?” you asked. The question made the Doctor open his eyes. He looked at you, confused. “I’m burned into your memory. Forever laughing at your silly jokes, comforting you when you’re feeling down, giving hope when the world seems bleak. Always waiting for you to find me.”

Gently holding the sides of his head, you kissed his forehead.

"Don't go," he begged quietly but the ghost of you was already gone. He knew what he had to do. Somehow, the Doctor also had to find a way to convince Rory and Amy that the world in which they live a small-town happy life isn't real. Despite that, those two weren't the most difficult to convince: most of all, he had to convince himself to choose life over plummeting to his death by your side.

______

a/n: tbh I just went for finishing a half-done WIP to get the gears going and as it turned out I made this WIP in 2022, so a time-travel theme feels appropriate lmao. In other news, this is me trying to get back to fanfic writing. We'll see how it goes!

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