Doctor Who Oneshots

Restless Dreaming~ TenRose

Whenever the Doctor had restless sleep, the TARDIS would often be restless as well.

She, the spaceship with a soul, would be tired and cranky and unable (or unwilling) to land on the correct street, or even in the correct star system. Consequently, the Doctor would have tried to get sleep for once the previous night, and in failing, he and all around him seemed to be chaotically affected.

"Why do you always do this to me? On days like this?" The Doctor would mutter with sad eyes whenever the TARDIS would violently rock him and Rose. "I'm just trying I get us to Cardiff!"

"Maybe she doesn't want me to go home!" Rose would yell over the noise, grinning.

"Maybe your mum's in a bad mood, and she's warning us," the Doctor would joke, despite his yawn of exhaustion.

"Could be."

But the Doctor knew it wasn't a foreboding of Jackie's temper (which could very well be part of it), or even a foreboding of any other disaster. On nights when he had many nightmares and no restful sleep, he knew it was the psychic link setting a firery weariness between him and his beloved time machine.

~~~

One particular week, the Doctor had some of the worst dreams he'd had in a long time. It was after their time on Krop Tor, the Impossible Planet under a black hole. He had almost lost his TARDIS, his Rose, and his life; and if he had lost the first two subjects, he wouldn't have cared about losing the last one.

The dreams-- or nightmares would be a better term-- consisted of the fears of the day mixed with other fears: losing Rose on an alien planet, or losing her to the mortalness of humankind; losing the TARDIS, the only thing he owned, which brought him to his companions and his beloved Rose Tyler; and of course, as always, being the last Time Lord alive. These were the thoughts that always haunted him, but in this week, they were the worst in a very long time.

Rose had only a few times before heard the Doctor struggle with his nightmares like this, and those times were in their early adventures: shortly after she had run away with him, shortly after the Time War. From across the hall, where she slept in her own bedroom, she heard his cries and strangled shouts. Before, in the early days, she had just left him alone, assuming that he would want to just return to sleep, and not be embarrassed by her interfering. But now, Rose knew that the Doctor would rather have, and needed, a hand to hold when he had these night terrors.

She was awoke with a start, as she had before, and nearly jumped out of bed at the sound of the Doctor in trouble. It was simply instinct to go to him when he was in trouble now, so she did.

Slowly opening his door, she crept into his darkened room. She had found him there only a few times, for he rarely ever slept. "Superior biology" and whatnot, she had always figured, but now she thought that maybe it could be because if the nightmares, too.

The Doctor was tossing and turning in his bed, still under the spell of whatever fear had decided to taunt him tonight. Rose switched on a nearby lamp, which turned out to be just the right amount of light; enough to see, but not enough to spook him awake.

Rose gently sat herself next to the Doctor on his bed. She reached out to shake him awake, but before she could, she was shocked to hear her name muttered through the tears he had been crying.

"Rose..." He mumbled. Was he awake? Had he seen her come in? Rose's hand was frozen in the air above him, not sure what to do.

"No... You can't take her..." he almost inaudibly said. Now Rose knew. Someone in the Doctor's nightmare was trying to her away from him. Rose was both touched and saddened by the words. She needed to wake him, to free him from the nightmare.