Doctor Who - 01 - Past Future Continuous

09. Dreams

Donna woke up with a sigh and instantly sat up in her bed. It was quiet in the house; she could clearly hear the ticking of her narrow silver watch left on the bedside table. She picked it up and checked the time in the lamplight. It was four o'clock in the morning.

Reflexively she put her hand into the drawer, but she could not find her notebook. She looked under the bed, but it was not there as well. She started searching for it, but stopped after a while and cowered on the edge of her bed. She knew that if she continued to look for the notebook, she would forget her dream.

"We are running through narrow streets," she whispered, trying to preserve images from her dream. "It's dark and hot. Hard to breathe. Ashes fall from the sky; no, not only ashes; cinders and tiny bits of pumice as well. We are surrounded by frightened crowd. And he's squeezing my hand. And he's dragging me somewhere, dragging me along, to some safe place. But I don't want to be safe. I'm guilty; I'm guilty of this catastrophe. It's my fault... It's our fault..."

She buried her face in her hands, fingers rubbing her temples. Headaches were getting unbearable. It seemed that for every dream about that (wonderful) man she had to pay in currency of a terrible migraine. In her bedside table's drawer she had a blister of paracetamol, but paracetamol had stopped working a long time ago. She got up heavily, and cautiously, careful not to wake up family members, she walked to the kitchen. She poured some tap water into the mug and sat at the table. She would not be able to fall asleep anyway.

"I'm wearing a strange dress," she whispered into the darkness. "And the people around us are wearing strange clothing. Ashes, pumice and weird clothes, I could swear that we are in Pompeii. It's Pompeii. And it's Volcano Day."

"Donna?"

"What? Oh, sorry, Gramps. Did I wake you up?"

"I wasn't sleeping. Umph..." Wilfred hit his knee against the leg of the chair and groaned in pain. "Why are you sitting here in the darkness?"

He found a switch and the kitchen was flooded by the light. Turning, he noticed that Donna was squinting, hiding her face in clasped hands.

"Donna, child, what's going on?"

"No, nothing... It's too bright..." He caught notes of tiredness and pain in his granddaughter's voice.

"You have a headache again?"

"It's nothing. It's just a migraine."

"Donna..."

"Yeah, I know, I should go see the doctor, do some check-ups. But I know it's nothing. Just a migraine. That's all."

Donna lowered her hands and looked at Wilfred with a forced smile, which disappeared instantly, once she noticed her grandfather's reaction.

"Wha...?"

"Eeerm..." He looked around quickly, picked a tea-towel from the chair's backrest, doused it in cold water and handed it to Donna. "Eeerm... nothing, really... just... you have a nosebleed."

Surprised, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Blood shone in the light of the ceiling lamp.

"Press it to the bridge of your nose; I'll see if we have some ice."

"Gramps..."

Wilfred looked at her above the fridge's door. Donna sat there, hunched, fiery hair emphasising her pallor. Last few months achieved something unattainable for previous countless diets – she grew slim; her green eyes, surrounded by dark circles of tiredness, seemed very large in her narrow face.

"Gramps, am I...?"

"Of course not, what are you talking 'bout, everything's going to be fine, it's just a headache, for God's sake, there's nothing to worry 'bout, you'll be all right, you have us and everything is going to... everything... is going to... be fine..."

"Dad?" Sylvia's sleepy voice interrupted Wilf's increasingly chaotic mumble. "Donna? What are you doing in the middle of the night? What ha... Donna, what happened?"

A droplet of blood fell from Donna's nose and splattered on the table top.

"Sylvia..."

"Gramps. Mum." Donna's voice trembled with emotion. "When are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"I'm not blind, you know? I can see something's going on. Mum. You've never been so... compliant. It's not normal. Something's wrong. Something's wrong with me. You – both of you – look at me as if... as if... I had something on my back..." She stopped suddenly, face contorted in pain. Her eyes rolled upwards and before Wilf or Sylvia had a time to react, she hit her head against the table top. The grandfather managed to catch her before she slid down from the chair. He put his hand on her brow, and cradled her head in the crook of his arm.

"Oh, God!" Sylvia said.

Gently stroking his granddaughter's auburn hair Wilfred met her terrified gaze.

"It's high time," he said. "It's high time we made this phone call."