Who: River & Dan What: Lucid Dream Training, Baby Steps. When: Today. Where: Snooze Room. Ratings/Warnings: Some mentions of an unpleasant childhood, hints at abuse, discussions of murder. Status: Complete!
When she’d said this was something she wouldn’t even consider were it anyone else, River had meant it. Even now, she wasn’t entirely sure it was something she wanted to do. But even at the Doctor’s side, she still suffered from nightmares. It had been worse since The Library, though she would never tell her wife that.
And with nightmares came lack of sleep, and even she required some sleep. She didn’t want to reach a point where she might not be fully in control. She didn’t want to give old habits a chance to take over. If speaking with a friend about her nightmares was what it took to ensure her lovely wife stayed alive and well, that’s what she would do.
Taking a breath, she pushed the door open. “I hope I’m not too late. Time never was my strong point.”
Having River make an appointment at the clinic was - well, Dan wouldn’t say there was no purpose to it, because at the very least it gave him a window to work around. He’d get the Snooze Room ready, he’d make sure he didn’t schedule himself to be in any long surgery or something like that, and so forth - every person had their quirks, and he supposed this was one of hers. It even sort of made sense, why time wouldn’t be her strong suit.
So when she arrived he was ready, standing there in the waiting room in his scrubs and not-so-fashionable sneakers, stethoscope around his neck and a handy nurse’s tool belt strapped to his waist. He offered a genuine smile in response. “No problem - glad to see you,” he said sincerely, and he meant that. It had been a little bit of a raincloud when River disappeared that first time - they’d been making progress on their friendship, opening up; she had been making progress. Then Vallo just took all that away but, regardless, he was happy to see her back now.
“Welcome to the Chakrabarti Clinic.” It was the first time she was here, wasn’t it? Clean lines, splashes of color, good lighting - the setup was welcoming, though the Snooze Room had zero medical feel to it and that was the point. “Come on back though, I’ll show you my - not office. It’s a lot more cozy, I think.”
It was funny how a race so obsessed with time produced so many individuals who didn’t seem to care to pay it much mind. Oh, her sense of time was excellent. She just never did seem to manage it well when it came to the little details. Too busy managing the broad strokes, maybe. She couldn’t say what the Doctor's excuse would be.
But she was here now, smiling softly to cover her nerves. She didn’t do anxious. “I like the uniform.”
River took another measured breath, taking in the rest of the clinic as she followed him. She may not trust many people, but Dan had proven to be someone she could talk to, a friend. Still, she couldn’t quite shake the unease, almost dread.
Had she mentioned she’d killed her husband? Had she ever bothered to mention she’d tried again?
The Snooze Room was comforting - or at least, Dan did his darndest to get it to that point. The lighting was as warm as autumn’s color palette, lots of rich tones to the space in terms of the cozy furniture but the walls were blue, a calming serene sea. Temperature-wise, it was a perfect sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit - a kiss of that whisper-cool air and the best temperature to get some comfortable shut-eye. On the bed he’d put a fresh pair of sheets; they were organic cotton and printed with springtime plants and flowers - the throw pillows were flowers too, celebrating spring.
“Feel free to sit anywhere,” Dan advised - there was a table and chairs, in addition to the bed, along with a sofa; plenty of options here in the Snooze Room. “Most people don’t collapse in bed right away, they sort of have to ease into it.”
He imagined it’d be similar with River - but they could talk about things, and go over the process for learning how to lucid dream. Hopefully it would help her - so far though, it seemed to be doing good things for the others he’d been working with so he found that pretty encouraging. “When you’re comfortable, we can start with your nightmares? Whatever you’d like to tell me about them.”
Comforting, it may be, but somehow, the bed still made it seem…intimidating. River slept only slightly more than the Doctor. She wasn’t entirely time lord or Gallifreyan. As the Doctor had often reminded her in the past, she was all too human. She couldn’t go until she collapsed.
The sofa she could do. She sat somewhat cautiously at one end, for a moment seeming not to know what to do with her hands. Eventually, they settled in her lap, and she smiled at him again, nodding. “Right.”
But she was quiet a long time after that, not quite looking away but not quite looking at him either.
“I've told you about my past,” she said finally, “That I was meant to kill the Doctor. And I did kill him, once.” She realized how that must sound and shook her head. “It's complicated.”
She looked away then, down at her hands. “You know I was a weapon, that I went to prison to protect him, that I died saving him. I’m not sure I ever told you what came before. Or after.”
Dan settled on the sofa too - it was more like the size of a loveseat, in this office he’d converted into a space for sleep and dreams. Not something he ever thought he’d be doing - but he’d come so far since arriving in Vallo over a year ago, beginning in hospice as an orderly (like he did back home) and then advancing to CNA status and now, nursing. He had a couple semesters of school left and then he’d officially be a registered nurse and it was equal parts amazing and surreal.
As long as he got to help people - that was what truly mattered to him. Frazier had been a sleepy little town, the buildings kind of this weird jumble of different styles; rickety shops lining Main Street and made of wood, brick houses, looming stone churches. Everything baked in the sun during summertime and was buried in snow in the winter - autumn was an in-between that carried a chill in the air and it was all the better if you had someone to go home to. Normally, Dan didn't.
Here, he had a whole family. It was the best, honestly. Family and friends. Friends with so many unique stories that led to who they were. “What came before?” he asked, figuring they could start there.
River's own story was long and twisting, full of lies and careful half-truths. It had ended before she was even born, and yet it had fallen on her shoulders to make certain it never unraveled.
It was such a simple question, and she’d invited it. What came before, before she was River Song?
“I was raised by a religious order, trained and conditioned for the sole purpose of destroying the Doctor.” She offered him a very faint smile. “I’m a very well-trained assassin. They called him a monster, and at turns, a god, and I was to be his perfect counter.”
This time, River's smile was soft and she looked at him properly. “You've met her. She's always different, of course, but never unrecognizable. How could I be expected to believe the things they said?”
Sometimes, she thought she’d fallen in love with the Doctor the day she’d met her, the day she'd nearly killed him.
“But I wasn’t free of them. I’ve never been free of them.”
The lingering fear had always been there, was present even now, but saying it aloud?
It was true, Dan did know the Doctor - he couldn’t imagine the term ‘monster’ being applied to describe her, or any other iteration whether male or female. In a way it seemed like they were always meant to be together - he’d thought that then too. Some things were simply written in the stars, interwoven, not going anywhere no matter what you did or how much control you believed you had.
“Did this religious order - did they find you, afterward?” he wanted to know. It must have been so strange - to meet so many incarnations of the same being, the Doctor, and see how they changed each time but yet inherently remained the same. And it must be even harder to lose them too, whenever it was their time.
“After Berlin?” Had she mentioned Berlin? “I killed him the day we met, and then I saved him.”
She didn’t mention the personal cost. It was irrelevant. Given a choice, she’d do it all over again. “Then he left and I went chasing after him, but I thought that was it, it was over. I hadn’t done what they’d wanted.”
River sighed, gaze fixed on the arm of the sofa, where her fingers were idly rubbing at invisible dirt. “The night before I graduated, they came for me, drugged me, put me back into that damned spacesuit, and I waited on the bottom of a lake to kill the man I loved all over again.”
Now it was becoming more clear, what exactly River had nightmares about - the vicious cycle of that must feel like a stain that wouldn’t wash away. Dan was glad she was here, that she wouldn’t have to worry about any of that, but he also knew that the memories and the feelings associated with them - with the trauma - just didn’t disappear, even if she and her wife were currently in a world that was considered ‘safe.’
Well. Safer than a religious order out for murder, anyway. You just had the occasional monster (terrifying or annoying, it was a sliding scale) or weird ‘quirk,’ like people turning into puppets when they got mad. No big deal.
“Is that what you dream of?” He wouldn’t make assumptions. “Being found, the lake, having to kill the Doctor?”
River didn’t answer immediately, but her fingers stilled against the sofa.
“Sometimes.” She had nightmares about that suit. She’d had nightmares about it since she was a child, and they’d only gotten worse after Utah. Being on the bottom of that lake, knowing why she was there, she'd had a sense of all that water and darkness, the weight of it closing in on her.
“But the Doctor survived. He had a plan, cheated at his own death.” River looked up at him. “That’s when I went to prison.”
So much of her life in a cage.
“He visited, though, like he promised, took me away some nights. He already knew me, but from my perspective, it was all still very new. I loved him, very much. I still love her. But like that day on the lakeside, that doesn’t make any difference. I’m not always in control.”
Yes. Yes, she was saying she’d tried to kill him.
Dan didn’t blame her. She’d been - well, basically taken from her parents as a baby, forced to grow up a certain way and with a certain goal; raised to be a weapon, conditioned to do the dirty work of this shadowy organization. “You broke out of the conditioning overall but - it’s hard, I’m sure,” was his observation, and it was an understatement. He knew that. Knew that type of thing just didn’t go away, maybe not completely.
“Just to clarify - you do sleep...like a human would?” he inquired next, because he knew River was human but she also had some extra abilities and interesting DNA. He wasn’t a geneticist and he wasn’t about to study her under any kind of microscope, but he just wanted to know how to best approach this.
Though given her abilities, it probably wouldn’t take her as long as it might take the average person to teach her brain how to lucid dream - for most, it took weeks. For her, maybe not so much.
Her laugh echoed hollowly. “It will always be there,” she murmured bitterly. And that was something she’d had to accept a long time ago. Ultimately, that was why she was here. The idea that she might lose control again haunted her, that she might come back into herself to find she’d once again done what she’d been created to do.
“I imagine so, yes,” she answered, half-shrugging, “A little less.” River once again eyed the bed suspiciously. “I’m somewhat telepathic, if that makes a difference.”
She wasn’t sure if that would be helpful or detrimental.
“Not too much of a difference - though in this case, it may even help a little,” Dan mused. Maybe that was why he felt particularly connected to River as well - he was empathetic towards other telepaths, those with the Shining in some form or another. “First thing - and I start pretty much everyone off with this. We call them reality checks - you do them multiple times a day. Set an alarm to go off every two or three hours and then when it does you focus on something, like the appearance of your hands. Do they look normal? If they do, you’re not dreaming. If your reflection in the mirror looks normal, you’re not dreaming. Push your hand through a solid object - if it can’t go through, you’re not dreaming.”
Maybe it seemed weird, but there was a purpose for the whole thing. Just one step, a simple one, but it really did help. “If you do this multiple times a day your mind will get used to doing it when you’re asleep as well - so if you see you’re dreaming, you can change the dream. Change the outcome.”
It was a way to take control back - that was the thing with nightmares. They didn’t allow for control, they just happened and the dreamer was powerless to stop it. Unless they knew how.
“Start doing that and then come back and we can move on to other steps. Oh, and I always recommend keeping a dream journal also - write down everything you dream about, even if it’s the same thing every night.”
That seemed…simple enough, and River looked slightly relieved. She could do this. She would do this.
She nodded and reached out to touch his arm with a small smile. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t the easiest task, getting to the heart of River. She’d been taught to hide what she was thinking, what she was feeling, never to show weakness or let anyone in. Her human side had failed them, of course, always too emotional, always caring too much. But she’d still been forced to live with secrets and lies.
Even with the Doctor, she was still learning not to hide the damage, to move forward together without fear of destroying her own past along with the future.
She slid a battered blue diary out from…where had she been hiding that anyway? “I don’t think keeping a journal should be a problem. I’m rather an expert.”
Oh, well, there you go. Dan smiled a little at the appearance of the diary - reminded him of that TARDIS, with a water park on the inside; outward appearances were deceiving. “Sounds good,” he chuckled a little, adjusting the stethoscope around his neck. “If you want, you can take a nap here and I can help you fall asleep - no bad dreams either, I’ll make sure of it.” Because River was telepathic, he’d be able to keep tabs easier - so that was one benefit there.
“If you’d rather not, that’s fine too. I usually offer it as an option because sometimes people just need a good rest, if they haven’t been sleeping well. It puts them in a better frame of mind to start lucid dream training.” And honestly, he was a big proponent of healthy sleep habits as well - it was amazing the good it did for a person’s health, both mental and physical.
River had been giving the bed wary looks nearly from the moment she entered the room, unsure if this was really where she wanted to be or what she wanted to do. Sleep wasn’t necessarily something she did much of anyway, preferably only when she could convince the Doctor to, if not sleep, at least lay next to her. It was hardly ever something she did in the presence of anyone else.
She glanced down at the diary in her hands, running her fingers over the worn TARDIS blue cover, then she nodded again. “Okay. I’ll try.”
Sleeping could definitely be a precarious thing - and especially in an unfamiliar environment? Well. He understood how wary a person might be about it - there was never any pressure, however. Some came into the Snooze Room and flopped right down into the comfort of those cloud-like sheets and pillows (he always washed and changed everything in between visits - with something natural and unscented, since he wanted to be covered if anyone had sensitive skin or allergies). Others took some coaxing and time to feel comfortable enough to delve into a nap.
It was honestly what made his job so interesting - no, he hadn’t ever pictured he’d be doing this, but he was glad that he got a chance to be here and get it done.
“Perfect,” he said, getting up to pull the covers back - or River could sleep on top of the covers if she wanted, that was okay as well. “Go on and get comfy. And when you do, think of a happy memory for me. Pull it to the forefront of your mind.”
She'd travelled through time and space, had the sort of adventures most people couldn't imagine, and this might be one of the strangest experiences she’d ever had.
Her diary was carefully tucked back into its hiding place among her pockets, like a security blanket. Even now, when it wasn’t necessary, she didn’t care to go anywhere without it, and she was glad it had still been with her when she’d turned back up here. Funny how her gun and sonic seemed to once again be missing, however. Every girl's favorite wedding accessories.
River did as requested, choosing a memory. It wasn’t a day with her husband and his baby face and bowtie. It wasn’t even a day on Darillium. It was the day her wife had given her a tour of the TARDIS, when she’d shown her the stars.
Dan settled in a chair by the bed, so he was nearby. He wouldn’t stay and stare the whole time (because that was creepy) but he’d make sure she eased into a peaceful slumber with the help of a memory. A beautiful memory, certainly - the stars were embedded into the black of night, pearls in velvet, and Dan sank into it too. A connection forged, with a flex of the Shining - it was that memory he focused on, the way it felt. All that awe and wonder at seeing the galaxies spinning and swirling up close there in the TARDIS.
And affection too, of course - it was clear that River loved her spouse in any form; being so close to the stars like this, seeing it in her memories, it was almost like music. As if the stars were the notes on an inky night sky - he latched onto the feelings associated with that memory, and projected them back. Nothing to be afraid of, he murmured without moving his mouth - his psychic tone was soothing too. Just going to sleep.
He gently pulled the mental blinds closed and turned out the lights - there was no tossing and turning, no staring at the ceiling for however long. No nightmares to interrupt. Sleep.