PEOPLE WATCHING ― doctor who

SIX

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CHAPTER SIX:
THE HAUNTING
OF HULL HOUSE

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IRIS hadn't had a nightmare in years.

Truly.

They used to be common as a child, but they'd stopped the older she got.

Iris always believed they were things she'd never dream of seeing — figments of her imagination.

Until she met the Doctor.

She'd forgotten about them with her Doctor, because everything seemed to disappear around him. All of her worries and fears and whispering voices — everything disappeared with the Doctor.

But now she was in another time period with a man who was similar to her Doctor, but incredibly different.

Different face, different personality, different mannerisms; different everything.

Iris tried to push it down, bottle it up and stick her worries and fears on a shelf in the back of her mind, but as day became night, the bottle fell and it all poured out of her.

Tucked against the corner of the bed, staring into the room, she watched every shadow in apprehension.

It didn't help that there was a supposed ghost around — which was an irrational fear as a child; along with venus fly traps and dinosaurs, before the real nightmares found her in waking life — and the quiet gnawing at her mind.

With every second that passed, Iris felt less and less exhausted and more and more terrified.

Her hands were rigid from gripping the sheets and her hair was stuck to her forehead in sweat.

It had been so long since she'd seen them.

She wished she could crawl out of bed and find her Doctor, tinkering around with the console or reading in his office.

Iris missed him.

And he was just in the other room, only...he wasn't.

Her thoughts trailed to the leather jacket this Doctor wore casually — something her Doctor had given her — and the way it comforted Iris and promised security.

Now it just made her feel out of place.

She wondered if he slept.

Probably not.

Her Doctor didn't sleep.

He claimed Time Lords needed far less sleep than humans and he didn't waste time he didn't have. Iris thought he was silly.

Everyone sleeps, she'd told him, even Time Lords.

But with the nightmare sitting next to her on the pillow, Iris realized why he didn't sleep.

It wasn't out of necessity or boredom; it was because he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes unless he absolutely needed to.

The thought broke her heart.

And the Doctor — the one with the leather jacket and harsh words — he was fresh from the true nightmares that haunted her Doctor.

His nightmares weren't fictitious or based on subconscious fears or childish terrors.

His nightmares were real and he'd faced them all and lost.

Iris didn't realize her feet had led her to the room across the hall until her hand was rapping against the wood.