InsaneJournal

WHO: The human Doctor
WHAT: Dreams are often ugly things
WHEN: Tonight
WHERE: His bedroom
RATING: R for gore, adult themes, really twisted logic, and all sorts of bad stuff inside his head. Beware telepaths that are playing on the brain network.

Spoilers up to and including Torchwood's 'Children of Earth' and Doctor Who's 'The Stolen Earth/Journey's End'. (AU world/Pete's World so canon is a little warped)

STATUS: Complete




Donna and the Doctor were gone.

Those two facts together were double-edged blades. Part of him was pleased the Doctor was gone. The only person who knew him better than himself was himself. If someone had been about to expose him for what he was, he would have gambled it being the Doctor. Donna was the same. They were part of each other as much as he was the Doctor if one looked at it a certain way. Both of them gone was good for him and yet left a gaping hole.

He didn't know that Donna had passed on what she had learned to others who were very real threats to him now, or ones that he would have perceived in his twisted thinking as threats. Had he known, steps would have been taken to eliminate those or at least neutralize them.

John Smith dreamed uneasily. Nightmares and dreams came and went. Even in his sleep, he tended to barricade himself from the outer world. Blankets and sheets always ended up wrapped around him in a cocoon, pillows pulled around to protect his head and back.

It was so beautiful. It always had been. There was no place in the entire universe that was this perfect. A silver leaf fell past his eyes, catching the sunrise and seeming to be afire.

He had the key, but did it matter now that it had been turned?

Gallifrey was burning, Skaro was consumed, the planets were coming apart, and so were the galaxies. It was all falling, and it was all his fault. He was running even as he burnt with Gallifrey in an empty universe where there wasn't the faintest echo of another of his kind.

John Smith turned in his sleep, drawing the covers tighter around him. These memories weren't his and yet were. Burrowing into his pillow, his hands slid up to press against his ears to block out the cries of ghosts.

Rose was laughing as she came home early and caught him doing the dishes while dancing along with the music on the wireless. Setting the plates aside, he pulled her into his arms. She was still smiling as he spun her, bringing them forehead to forehead as he sang badly out of tune.

"My momma told me don't lose you 'cause the best luck I had was you, and I know one thing... that I love you."

She kissed him, and it was good. It was the best, and he was still 'John', not the thing he would become later.

He smiled faintly in his sleep, the death grip on his sheets relaxing some.

John walked down the hallways of the office building, loaded down with roses of every shade. A quick question at the reception desk, and he was pointed towards who he was looking for.

"Donna Noble?"

The redheaded woman looked up at him, and he felt his heart break a little when there was no recognition on her face. "What? You lost?"

"No, I have a delivery for you."

Her skeptical look said it all.

"Can I set these down somewhere?" he asked. "They're a little heavy."

Donna waved to the end of his desk. One by one, he carefully sat down all ten bundles of ten roses. Ten for the tenth regeneration. Ten for what she created from that tenth.

"Who's all this from?"

"I don't know, ma'am. It says 'Happy Birthday from a secret admirer'."

"Oi! You've got the wrong person!"

"It says right here 'Donna Noble', and you're Donna Noble, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, but-"

Sketching her a salute, he walked away. He hoped he made someone who saved universes feel as special as she was if only for a few moments. Behind him, he could hear the secretaries crowding around her and giggling over her 'secret admirer'.

He had lied to the Donna of this place. There hadn't been a meta-crisis in that world, and there had been other matters to tend to. She had told him that it wasn't fair, wasn't right that she had been affected so. He believed she had been better off and still wondered how much the Doctor had suspected of what was to come when 'John Smith' died out and the darker aspect overtook him.

"Keep your eyes closed," he said to Rose, his own hands over her eyes as they worked their way out to the garden.

"John, I have things I need to do," she said with an edge of irritation. More often than not that note was in her voice. Things were busy with her job, and he had the feeling of being left behind. Forgotten. Just as he had been when she heard the TARDIS dematerialize on that distant shore. She had run from him then to watch it go or perhaps to make the Doctor stop and not leave her. To not leave her with him. He could make it better with this though. It could all be like it was before.

"It'll be just a moment, Rose. Watch your step. There were are. Now open."

His hands drew away, and she opened her eyes.

"John..."

"Isn't she beautiful?" he asked.

Before them stood a bright red police box, so shiny that it looked newly painted. It somehow seemed smug as it sat in the decaying garden.

"Is it what I think it is?"

"It's a TARDIS. I used Donna's solution and some of the things you got me from Torchwood. I sped it up enough. We can..."

She looked at him then as if he had killed something precious and irreplaceable. She ran back into the house. Confused, he chased after her until he reached her closed bedroom door. The sobs from behind it told him all he needed to know. If it were possible, he hated himself even more, or at least that part of him that had cast him off here in this place to be a poor stand-in puppet.

He turned to the side, burying his face back in his pillow. She had refused to go with him after that. Then had come her speech about needing time, needing space, and that the house was his. Not once did her eyes focus on him. The illusion had worn thin, and she was looking back on the beach to a fading away blue TARDIS.

"Rose is dead, John."

For a few seconds that stretched into an eternity, he was sure he was going to be sick. If so, he was aiming for Harkness' boots. Instead, he had nodded and sat down heavily in the chair.

"Did you-?"

"I heard you, Jack. What happened?" He asked, burying his head in his hands and willing the nausea to subside. He was always 'Jack', not 'Captain'. The Doctor had called Harkness 'Captain', and he refused to use it.

"We think it was murder, but we're still examining everything."

"I see."

"I could stay if you need..."

"No. I'd rather be alone, Jack. Thank you."

Harkness' hand on his shoulder had almost brought out that ugly side of him that didn't like to be touched, but he restrained it. It was one of the last times that he could or would bother to. What did worry him was the glance Harkness took over his shoulder to get a better look at the red police box in the dying garden.

A few moments after Jack left, the sound of a TARDIS dematerializing could have been heard if someone had still been around. Silence fell and took over the place where two people had once lived, leaving only the ghosts of Rose Tyler and John Smith. Let them have it. He had no more use for it.

He was tensed in his sleep, muttering in a language few people knew. It was a single phrase repeated over that the Doctor or the Master, the Traveler or the Sovereign, would have recognized: Gallifrey is burning.

The first step had been to find the person who was the Doctor in this dimension. He called himself 'Traveler', but it was mostly the same person. He wasn't surprised to find out that they shared the same past in a good many areas. How convenient.

"Do you remember what you said after you... or we... or he... took care of the Sycorax leader?"

"Where am I?"

"That wasn't what I asked."

The sonic screwdriver dipped momentarily making contact with the water. A nanosecond later the Traveler bit back a cry of agony, instinctively trying to get away from the pain that was everywhere as the electric charge hit.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" the human Doctor said with the patient tone one used when speaking to a small and not especially bright child. "Do you remember?"

The Traveler hissed in a breath, trying to get both of his hearts to fall back into their usual rhythm instead of erratic beats. "Yes."

"What was it?"

"I said, 'No second chances. I'm that sort of man'."

The accidental creature nodded slowly. "I've had a lot of time to think on this all, considering what I would do if I were, well, me. The conclusion I've come to is that he knew even then. He might have told himself that he was doing it for Rose, to give her a better life, but he knew. He purposely stranded me here on this dimension knowing what I was, what I was capable of, what would come to be so that he didn't have to see it happen. I was someone else's problem then."

The Traveler said nothing, merely looked stricken.

'John Smith' or 'Theta Sigma' flicked one of the dials on his sonic screwdriver. The calm bluish light faded out, replaced with a purple the colour of a forming bruise. "He, and you, knew better than anyone that the mind and thinking patterns of a Time Lord would never manage to exist in a human, even a Time Lord spawned one. I have the memories and psyche of an 'alien' well over nine hundred years old locked in a body that will die in a short human lifetime. I see the turn and spin of Time itself, feel its rush and push, and yet I am a victim to it. Surely he knew I would break under it."

"I didn't..."

"But you did consider the possibility when you found out I was here. I know you did because I did."

Again, there was nothing the Traveler could say, nothing he wanted to say when that sonic screwdriver swung dangerously close to the surface of the water that he laid in.

"Being you or you being me or he being us, I overcame. I found a way with Torchwood bits and pieces Rose got for me, I did a wondrous thing." The human Doctor smiled there, the pleasantness of it never reaching his cold eyes. Two fingers of his free hand lifted to his lips, a loud whistle like that calling a dog echoing through the cave. Just behind him, the air itself seemed to ripple as a red police box came into being where a large rock had been before. "I fixed the chameleon circuit while I was at it. Amazing the things a human thinks of that a Time Lord doesn't."

The Traveler looked from him to the TARDIS and back again, only to find the meta-crisis creature pointing a gun at him.

"I hate seeing my face on you."

The pistol fired and the Traveler began his next regeneration as Theta walked away.

The tenseness to his body faded away, falling back into that somewhat memory. He had shot the Traveler in the face, but the water had been incidental. Like a human, he had taken advantage of the situation. He rolled onto his other side, pulling his covers tighter around him in a winding sheet. The Traveler had confirmed for him everything he suspected, that his rapidly twisting about logic knew to be true. The Doctor had done this to him on purpose. In return, he would destroy what the Doctor loved and hopefully, oh so hopefully, the walls would weaken someday and the Doctor could see what his kindness on that distant seashore had brought home to him.

The Torchwood agents had surprised him in Tampa. He hadn't expected them in America of all places. He had come walking out of the candy shop only to have them surround him.

"You will return to Torchwood Three with us under orders of Captain Jack Harkness," one had said.

The daylight murders had made the newspapers for a week. No one had clearly seen the weapon he used, something he attributed to Torchwood's intervention rather than him caring. He had clipped out one of the pictures where the blood splatters had reached the other side of the street. They looked black in the grainy newsprint.

Jack had been furious and taken up the hunt personally, or so the rumours ran.

He hadn't wanted to kill them, not at first, but there had been no way he was returning to Cardiff or anywhere else he didn't want to go. The only option left with them surrounding him so closely and threatening had been to draw his Cellular Disruptor. It came down to him versus them. With only one life, it was too precious to waste. However, he had ideas. There were more than a few planets with ideas of near-immortality and how to achieve it.

And he knew of a statue.

The entire building was on fire, but he walked through it. This alien race hadn't been much of a challenge, but he had gotten what he needed. A few scrolls were tucked in his pockets, the Cellular Disruptor Mark I held loosely in his right hand.

"Enough."

The single word had been spoken calmly but echoed around the burning warehouse like cannon fire, near deafening in its power. Blocking the exit ahead of him was a man who really wasn't a man at all, at least not a human one. Theta felt himself snarl before he got control of himself.

"John Smith," the Sovereign said in a slow drawl.

"Doctor John Smith," Theta replied with a grin.

"I used 'Jack Smith' in this dimension, but I suppose that's the best I can expect from someone such as yourself. Incomplete knowledge is the curse of the ill-put together."

"Says the one with a phobia of a good rhythm line."

The Sovereign's expression turned ugly as he started towards Theta. The Cellular Disruptor was brought to bear and fired. The blast of corrupted Time passed right him.

"Something wrong?"

"This isn't real."

"It's real enough."

Theta ran. At every turn and door he fled through, the laughing Time Lord kept appearing at his elbow. Somehow the other had gotten him, gotten into his mind, and now he had to find the only protection he knew of.

"Pitiful little insect that you are with but a single touch of grace. The Master? I do like that. And you have his memories. How lovely. I asked him once how two civilizations burning felt, and he never told me. What about you?"

The flames were rounding up around him (Gallifery is burning-burning-burning, Gallifrey is burning and so am I), but he turned a cornre, dodged through a tunnel. He finally found what he was looking for. He pulled open the door, and the trap was sprung.

The Untempered Schism flared in all its glory, filling the landscape of Theta's mind. It was the only shield he could drag up to try and protect himself.

"You dare!"

The storm of the Sovereign's fury broke across his mind. The memory that wasn't truly his of the Schism was torn apart by the Sovereign along with the rest of his psyche. When he awoke, it was a week later, and he was on the other side of the universe. His TARDIS was barely intact, somehow upside down with him lying in a mental and physical wreck on the ceiling.

A twitch came and went, fingers curling tightly enough to leave bloody half-moons on his palms. They had met only once after that, and that had been necessary to protect the entire dimension. He had escaped as soon as possible, running like the one he had come from.

He crouched by a dying Jack Harkness, reaching down to pluck one of the darts from the man's skin. "Hydrochloric acid if that's what you're trying to ask while flopping about like a landed fish. I figure if it can pickle steel, it must be doing horrific things to your spine. Do you know why I like to torture you, Jack? Can't answer? I'm sorry, so very sorry. It's because the Doctor's hearts would break if he knew. The idea that someone was hurting his 'Captain' due to him might very well break part of him. I must be off though. Time flies and all. Goodbye, Jack."

The Cellular Disruptor fired then. Looking down at his gore-slicked trainers (and remembering he just got them yesterday... ruined already) Theta suspected Jack had died before he got to splatter him. Disappointing.

One bled into another, a victory into a defeat.

"Don't move, John."

"My name isn't 'John'. It's 'Theta Sigma'. I prefer Theta though."

"Theta then."

"Are you going to shoot me, Jack? In cold blood and in the back? I don't think so."

"If necessary. Keep your hands where I can see them. Last warning."

His hand dropped onto his Disruptor, and that was where he had made his mistake. At this point, he had killed twenty or so Torchwood agents who had tracked him down. He hated being forced to move from one place to another constantly, and still, he didn't want to leave Earth yet for some reason. Jack Harkness hit him in a rush with the force of a freight train, throwing him down to the ground. Physically, he was no match for Harkness. The immortal had size and weight on his side, not to mention familiarity with hand to hand combat. A sharp sting hit his arm as a syringe was jammed in. Pinned down beneath the other, all he could do was squirm and shout until the drug began to take effect.

The world spun drunkenly as Jack flipped him onto his back and monitored his vitals until his team arrived to take custody of him.

John Smith turned his head to hide more in his pillows as that memory drifted through. For five years he had rotted away in the prison beneath Torchwood Three, buried so deeply in the earth that when he first saw sunlight after escaping he was blinded. There had been escape attempts, nearly succeeding in one as the deep scarring across his back was testament to. Strange that he hadn't scarred from any of his other deaths, but Ianto Jones catching him between the shoulder blades with a double barreled shotgun had. At least it got rid of the mole there.

"How did he get out?" the voice he supposed was Owen Harper demanded.

Tilting his head back a little, Theta could see a fine mist of his blood sprayed over the door of his TARDIS. Even with the agony of most of thoracic vertebrae feeling blown apart his mind demanded his unresponsive body move to crawl through her doors if he had to. He could hear her in his mind screaming in digital to come to her, let her protect him. He was slowly dropping to his knees.

"I don't know," Ianto said tightly.

Jack Harkness' severed hand was weakly let loose to bounce an inch or so away. Handprint IDs were such a pain.

He landed on his back, agony flaring anew. Everything tried to white out, and he fought it down, head turning to look at them as blood bubbling up through his nose and mouth with each breath he tried to fight for from ruptured lungs. Owen was pale but keeping the gun on him. Ianto's face was devoid of any expression, but Theta could see in his eyes that he wanted to pull the trigger on him again.

"The retina-"

"Not now, Owen," said Ianto in that blank voice.

Theta forced his misfiring and dying nervous system to obey him enough for him to uncurl his hand enough for the orb within to fall out... and sway hanging from the severed optic nerve trapped between his fingers.

It was nearing an end, thankfully. Being less distinct and less painful to be trapped in nightmares of his own memories.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Jack, let's take my TARDIS and go. I'll take you anywhere and show you anything you want. We'll bring Ianto. We can go everywhere in the universe. Please!"

"You have to calm down. Owen says you've been up for two days and -"

"Have you ever seen a forest fire? A big one?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever notice that all the animals will run from it at first, even when it's still small. Wolves will go alongside deer and not attack them, too concerned with escape."

"What are you getting at, Theta?"

"If they wait too long though, animals will blunder right into the heart of the fire and flame-flame-flame-flame."

"Theta, what is wrong, damn it?"

"Don't-Don't. Jack, please, let's go. All three of us. Please."

"I can't. You can't. You're not well."

Theta had stepped back from the forcefield, burying his hands in his hair and staring out at Jack Harkness. The Time-Lock was approaching, and he could feel it coming at him from all sides as if he were in the middle of a slowly closing net. It was terrifying in a way he couldn't verbalize. He was already repeating words, sounding as if he were breaking down. Stress always did it to him. "Please."

"No."

He sighed, sliding his hands over his eyes. "In a thousand years, you'll remember that he didn't come to help you, before or after. That's-That's what you'll remember."

"What?"

John sighed, that misery blunted in the dream as it began to lift and let go of him. He hadn't known what was coming, but a Time-Lock was enough to scare him, especially one as powerful as that one was. It wasn't just an event or a person, but the whole planet. He had barely gotten out before the noose pulled tight, escaping the next day when Jack and Ianto had gone to investigate something about children. He had left Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato dead in his wake along with a few other agents. Their deaths hadn't happened before that in his world, but he had known somehow they were supposed to be.

The dreams fell apart then, letting him rest finally.