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Tweak says, "Holy Mama!"

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shone) wrote in

valloic,
@ 2022-04-02 09:57:00

Melody Williams & Dan Torrance

WHAT: Mel opens up about her/River's nighmares a little, and Dan begins to teach her to lucid dream
WHERE: The Snooze Room
WHEN: After this
WARNINGS: Nothing of note
STATUS: Complete

Mel might have been more open than River, but she still felt what River felt, the anger, the hatred, and yes, the pain.

Mel found River's personality and emotions were taking the driver's seat more and more often since she found herself in Vallo. Maybe it was the nature of this place or maybe it was always going to end this way. Hadn't she already felt, in some way, that remembering River's life invalidated her own? She looked like her, felt like her, was more than willing to bet they'd be impossible to tell apart at this stage. She still wasn't entirely clear on how it had happened, but her best guess, given what she'd learned, was that somehow the mark had drawn an alternate version of herself through a rift and into, well, herself. Making River's less of a past life and more of a simultaneous one.

Her life still felt real to her, but River's felt… It felt like more. And she missed it, missed being her, missed the Doctor, the stars, the running.

But if she and River were to coexist, she needed to learn to deal with River's demons as she had, to acknowledge her trauma and find a way, as Melody, to live with it. She had River's memories and experiences, but some part of her was still just…Melody Williams. And Mel's life hadn't equipped her to handle the things River had experienced or, for that matter, the things River was likely to do in the future.

She made a conscious effort to relax. It was easy to trust Dan because River had, and River didn't trust easily. And it helped that it didn't look particularly clinical. This still wasn't exactly the sort of thing she was eager to do.

"I appreciate this, Sweetie."

“Of course. It’s no trouble at all,” Dan replied, settling in one of the Snooze Room chairs. He wore his scrubs, with his stethoscope around his neck, and while he looked every bit the nurse the place they were in really didn’t feel as if a clinic functioned right outside these doors. The walls were a calming blue, a perfect summer day - on the beach, maybe, the type of day where you could just breathe in the salty ocean air and watch seagulls dip into the water for food. That type of blue that, when the horizon blurred, you couldn’t exactly tell where the ocean met the sky anyway - and the temperature was Goldilocks perfect (not too hot, not too cold) as well).

He had changed the sheets after washing them, and the cozy bed was now sporting yellow-and-white striped sheets (banana striped, apparently), something nice and cheery. The other furniture in the room was also cozy - a small couch (sometimes people preferred to sleep on that instead of a bed), a table and chairs. It was his first time meeting Melody in here and he would do whatever he could to help - this was a tough transition, as it were, merging your consciousnesses.

“Can you tell me a little about the nightmares? Full detail not necessary, but - whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Mel sat on the couch, legs crossed and hands folded neatly in her lap, looking stiff if not entirely uncomfortable. For months now, she'd been fighting a losing battle, trying to keep River out, pretending she was someone else or someone she used to be. But she'd known, in that mansion, the moment she'd shot that first guard without even thinking. It had been instinct. River's instincts. And she couldn't keep ignoring who she was.

"You know who River was, who she was meant to be, who I was meant to be?" Maybe she was still trying to gauge how much he already knew, and maybe she was just trying to give herself more time. "I dream a lot about the early days, about Kovarian and her nightmare room, about the orphanage, about that damn astronaut suit. The genuine terror of a child not raised on Gallifrey facing my first regeneration, and even my second."

“I know who she was meant to be - what she was taught, even if she didn’t necessarily become that,” Dan said, adjusting the stethoscope around his neck. It was ‘blinged out’ in rhinestones, those gifts from Claire never going to waste - she often picked out new charms for him to wear on his work tools, just so he could keep being fabulous and fashionable. He thought it was sweet of her. “The Doctor and - how teaching her to think like him was a mistake.”

It was, especially if they’d wanted her to kill the Doctor - she hadn’t, of course. She’d fallen in love with him instead, and from what Dan heard of their wedding it had been an amazing sort of experience. Reality unraveling like a coarse rope frayed at both ends all around them, yes, but on top of a pyramid - he imagined Melody had those memories now too. “But she didn’t talk much about Kovarian. More general than anything else - I didn’t push for details.”

At the mention of the Doctor, she smiled, if faintly. She missed her. Him? It was all very hard to keep straight these days. She smiled, too, at his rhinestone-adorned stethoscope before dipping her head in a small nod.

"Quite the mistake." She already knew he knew how that had turned out, so she continued, "Kovarian considered me a failure, something of an experiment gone wrong. See that's all I ever was to her. Not a child. A means to an end. Yet she called herself my mother. And then they sent me to the orphanage, with only the Silents and a man whose mind was so warped…"

She trailed off, letting her emotions settle. Mel might have been more open than River, but she still felt what River felt, the anger, the hatred, and yes, the pain.

"They wired me into a spacesuit. And then it hunted me. When I got free of it, I wandered the streets for a while. Until eventually, I got sick, leading to the regeneration before this one. I guess they thought it was safe to let me go because they never really stopped watching me, waiting." She chuckled, without humor. "Do you know I wasn't the only one?"

“Not the only one they trained? How many others like you were they hoping to find?” Dan asked, since as far as he could tell - there was only one Melody. One River Song, one unique conception and one person so intricately woven within the fabric of space and time. But organizations, people like the mother Melody didn’t have, often got greedy. Too ambitious.

Also the more they talked about Melody’s (River’s) nightmares, the more he devised some kind of plan for helping her with those - whatever he ended up with though, he was sure they’d come to some kind of conclusion together. That’s why he was asking these questions, to get a better sense of things. “And usually I teach people how to lucid dream - though I’m not sure if you already know how, or if that would help in your case. If so, I can do that. If not, we can come up with something else. Plus if you want to take a nap here, I can use the Shining to ease you into sleep. Nothing invasive or painful.”

She shook her head. “Not find. Make. They were cloned using my DNA. The first,” she broke off in a short, dry laugh, “I’ve just realized I’m not even entirely sure how many there were, they were at Demon’s Run, the day I was born. They must have fled in the chaos, never really knowing who or what they were. By the time I learned what had happened, found them, they’d formed their own sort of cult. One of them had regenerated, and the others apparently saw it as some kind of divine ability. He used them to find out how many lives he would have. It was nothing but madness. I got there in time to watch one brother die and kill the other myself.”

It was easier to frame it that way, to leave Lily out of the story entirely. How would she even explain that the brother she’d killed, the brother she’d hated for what he’d done to the others, had also been the sister she’d loved and who she’d hoped to protect. And that, ultimately, she’d had to be the one to send her to her death as well.

“And then later, when she’d been abandoned by the Order because she refused to give up on the notion of killing the Doctor as they had, she used my genetic imprint to create four others, young women she did raise with the same purpose. Not quite in the same way she trained me. Like I said, she thought I’d gone wrong. She treated them...better, if superficially so, hoping they wouldn’t run off with him the moment the Doctor showed them a hint of kindness. And it worked. Fortunately, I was able to make them see things...differently. Last I saw of them, the three that were still alive anyway, they were trying to overcome the neural block that prevents us from harming Kovarian.”

She wondered about Brooke sometimes. If she’d made enough of a difference or if the next time she lost her temper they’d be short another sister. But she knew, at least, she was reasonable. Brooke wouldn’t risk killing the Doctor again, not having seen the cost.

“I’ve never had any reason to learn how to lucid dream before, Sweetie. Apart from the occasional run of vivid dreams, sometimes nightmares, during or after certain digs, I was never an especially active dreamer. But I’m willing to try, if you think it will help.”

The idea of cloning was even worse, honestly. And messed up. “Of course she put in a block to prevent harm - always thinking,” that was where Dan responded with his own dry laugh. “But there’s always a way around things like that too.” He hoped that River’s ‘siblings’ found it as well - that the cycle of violence would end and Kovarian would be dealt with.

As for lucid dreaming, Dan thought that it might be a good idea - especially if Melody hadn’t attempted the techniques yet. He had a few students come and go, but it seemed to be beneficial for most who did the ‘homework’ and practiced and really mastered how. “Well, alright - first thing, I always tell people who are practicing lucid dreaming to keep an actual dream journal,” he advised. “It helps to enhance awareness, since the idea is to recognize that you’re dreaming while you’re doing it - and then change it.” There were other steps too, but he’d start with that one.

"A good scientist always has a failsafe,” Mel responded without thinking, “It wouldn't do to have your experiments grow up and kill you.” But her sisters were violent, perhaps even more so than her, and they were patient. She had no doubt that, in the end, they would either find a way to kill Kovarian or keep her caged there, tormented, until she died anyway.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. River kept a diary most of her life. It was originally meant just to keep track of where she and the Doctor were in each other’s timelines, but it was the only place I could ever really be honest about anything.” She smiled. “And you may have noticed, I don’t hold as much back as she did. Not yet anyway.”

Dan smiled a bit, a warm expression. “I’ve noticed,” he said, affection in his tone - and noticing, in this case, wasn’t a bad thing. Just one of the differences between River and Melody, even if they were closer and closer to becoming the same and merging. “That should be good, then. Also - reality checks. You do those everyday. It increases metacognition just so you’re more aware of everything.”

It sounded weird, maybe, but what did he mean by reality checks? “You check the clock and make note of it - make note that time is passing normally. Or you press into your palm with your index finger,” he added, demonstrating with his own poke. “If you do this enough every day, you’ll start to do it in your own dreams and be able to realize that you are dreaming and gain lucidity. It’s prep for the brain. Kind of like exercising a muscle.”

Where people got tripped up was not doing the reality tests everyday - but it was something you needed to be focused and disciplined about. He’d seen Nick, for example, have great success with it - and man, Nick had been one of his top lucid dreaming pupils. Dan missed him for a few reasons.

They were so close to being the same person, and the divide had long become blurry to Mel herself, as desperately as she’d tried to keep their lives apart. It was clear in the way she couldn’t help but talk about River’s experiences as her own and the way she alternated her pronouns, sometimes without even noticing, when she spoke of her. But how could some small part of her not remain stubbornly Melody Williams after so long believing that’s who she was?

And Melody felt a knot of tension unwind as she listened to him, nodding her understanding. “It’s a good reminder you’re alive, too.” Something she’d never actually thought she’d worry about. After all, she wasn’t the one who’d died. But it turned out, the mind played all sorts of tricks when two lives and personalities were trying to fit into a space meant for one, including sometimes making you question if one of those lives might not exist at all. “Anything else?”

“It is,” Dan agreed - he’d used reality checks for similar reasons. Or just status checks, wellness checks - something to ground you and keep you tethered, so you didn’t go floating off into some kind of pit of anxiety. “Pretty easy to do, too. I think that’s a good start for now - try that for awhile, everyday, and also keeping track of your dreams and we’ll see where you’re at in a couple of weeks? It takes some time to really get used to the process and teach your brain but I’m sure you’ll pick up on it soon enough.” He had faith there.

His own nightmares had gotten a lot better since he personally had learned to lucid dream - but everyone’s nightmares were different and for Dan his involved the odd geometric patterns of the Overlook Hotel’s carpet. A hedge maze, mist and fog sweeping in like eerie fingers, like ghosts that were never truly gone - when he lucid dreamed, he knew enough to change that. To run away from it, to turn it into something bearable.

Then there were the nights he was so exhausted from working and chasing after Claire all day, he didn’t remember his dreams at all.

“Do you want to take a nap here too?” he asked. “Sometimes people like to get a few good winks in, to feel refreshed. I can help nudge you there, with the Shining.”

He made it sound easy enough, a matter of taking one step at a time. She could do that. And even if it didn't help her nightmares, in the end, she hadn't considered how useful it might be to have a way of grounding herself in reality, reminding herself her life wasn't another construct of The Library.

Finally, she nodded. "All right."

Fair enough, then. “Go ahead and get comfy wherever you think is best - shoes on or off, on top of the blankets or beneath. Anything works,” Dan encouraged, shifting on his seat in case he needed to move. He usually took up a post near wherever the other person slept, just so he could keep watch and help them drift off into comfortable slumber using a loose mind link. “And when you do, think of a happy memory for me. Pull it to the forefront of your mind.”

When it was at the forefront, it was easier for him to latch onto - so he didn’t have to go digging. Sometimes people let him, but most of the time he kept it simple. Most of the ones who came into the clinic to utilize the Snooze Room didn’t exactly have the greatest experiences with telepathy or others rooting around in their heads, and he never wanted to make it worse. He realized the amount of trust it took to even sleep around someone else anyway, even if the room was specifically designed to encourage the best sleep possible.

Mel nodded again, glancing toward the bed. It was…strange, the thought of trying to sleep with someone watching her when she already wasn’t sleeping well. But, well, she already wasn’t sleeping. What could it hurt?

When she laid down, it was on top of the covers, but she did toe off her shoes.

As conflicted as she may have been these days when it came to her own identity, the memory she chose was entirely her own. She focused on her brother, his last visit, well before everything had gotten so complicated. He’d been insistent she was still too committed to her ex-wife. She’d told him he was a fine one to talk about commitment with the string of broken hearts he’d been leaving. A typical argument for them, with only best interests at heart. But that particular night, she'd been declared the winner, and Anthony got to do the cooking and clean up as ‘punishment.’ Just as well. If she'd lost, they’d have ordered in. Mel couldn’t cook to save her life.

If she missed anyone as much as she missed the Doctor, it was her brother.

Ah, sibling relationships - one of Dan’s favorite things, though he didn’t have much time with his own sister before he’d died. Or any time at all, really - she hadn’t even known they were related and he hadn’t either, save for a feeling and Abra’s very intuitive way of calling him ‘Uncle Dan’ for reasons that didn’t just have to do with - well, it worked at the moment.

Still, it was a warm feeling - fondness but also frustration, something rich and fulfilling. The Shining unfurled, a red carpet that went on and on, and he linked solidly with Melody; it was pretty easy, actually, since he’d already been connected to River on some level. Maybe Mel too - he couldn’t hear her when she’d been in the dangerous cannibal party house, but if she’d been anywhere else it’d likely have been possible.

He focused on the memory. On the feeling it invoked - he let it envelope them both. Sleep, was his gentle command - and he reached in, about to pull the mental blinds closed, so she’d have a good nap and wake up feeling refreshed. Ready to face the next day, whatever Vallo would bring.

Sleep.

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