Rose and Ten one shots.

Nightmares.

The TARDIS engines whir softly as we smoothly glide through time and space. I am sitting on a patched deep red couch in a living room area of the TARDIS, with Rose Tyler curled up against me. We had started off the night with a movie, to get our, (Well, mostly her) mind off the perilous adventure of the day. It's late now, the TARDIS has dimmed the lights. I glance down at my lovely companion, with her eyes closed, and her breathing quiet and steady. I will never understand why humans sleep so much. I stand up, careful not to disturb her slumbering form. She shifts slightly, causing her golden hair to cascade over her face, and murmurs something unintelligible. My hearts flutter rebelliously, and I chide myself internally. I lean down, and lift her gently. Her eyelids flutter slightly, but stay closed. She subconsciously shifts closer to me, pressing her face into my jacket. I smile at her fondly, and begin carrying her to her room. The TARDIS lets me arrive quickly. The pale pink door is slightly ajar, and I nudge it open carefully with my foot.

Walking inside, I gently place her on her bed, and pull a plush blanket over her. I walk softly to my room, and lie on my bed. It's more of a formality than anything, I only really need to sleep about once a week, but I normally find myself putting it off for months at a time, to avoid the nightmares. They are always awful, showing me all of my worst fears, over and over. I guess that's what happens when you destroy your entire race. I sigh, and stare up at my ceiling, which at the moment is depicting the galaxy formation that earth is found in. I attempt to count the different stars and planets, but give up after I hit five thousand. The image on my ceiling varies from night to night, sometimes showing me entire galaxies, sometimes an up close shot of a blade of grass. I'm never exactly sure how it chooses, probably something to do with its telepathic field or- My train of thought is interrupted by a screen flashing on the wall. I glance over at it, and it reads, LIFE FORM OUTSIDE DOOR. Who would be outside my door at this hour? I mean, it must be Rose, of course it's Rose, but why?

I slip out of bed, and walk over to the screen. I instruct it to give me a visual. It obliges, and I see that it is indeed Rose. Her hand is poised, ready to knock, but she can't seem to bring herself to actually do it. She starts to turn away, so I quickly walk over to the door, wondering what she needs. I open it slowly, and it emits a quiet creak. She whirls around, eyes wide with fright. "You alright?" I ask, somewhat worried.

"I-" She stammers. She's shaking slightly, and looks ready to burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Considerably worried now, I step forward and pull her into a tight hug. I feel her shuddering against me, as if she's trying desperately to hold back tears.

"It's ok, it's alright," I mutter softly. She presses closer to me and starts crying silently. I'm at a bit of a loss on what to do, I'm not really the best at comforting crying humans. This continues for a bit, I'm not sure how long, but eventually the sobbing slows, and then stops entirely. I release her, and pull back a bit. Obviously still shaken from whatever happened in the first place, she sniffs, and wipes her downcast eyes with a trembling hand. I gently tilt her chin up, so she's forced to make eye contact. She looks slightly uncomfortable, and I suddenly am aware of how close we are. I blink, and step back, hoping the dimmed lights hide the colour that has risen on my face. "So, what happened?" I question gently.

She shakes her head, "I- It was nothing, I'm sorry." She looks at me apologetically, and turns to go back to her room, obviously hoping we will have both forgotten the whole thing by morning. I almost let her go, but at the last second, grab her hand and pull her back around to face me.

"You and I both know it wasn't simply "nothing" Rose Tyler. Come on," I start walking to the TARDIS kitchen, tugging her along with me. I gently push her into one of the armchairs positioned there, and proceed to make a pot of peppermint tea. Once it's done brewing, I pull two mugs out of the cabinet and pour the fragrant mixture into each. I take one in each hand, and walk over to where Rose it sitting. I hand her hers, and sit in a chair opposite her with mine. She sips her tea and avoids my gaze. "Rose, please tell me what happened, maybe I can help, are you homesick? I can take you back for a visit if you like, or is it something I said? Did I do something wr-"

She interrupts my paranoid ramblings. "No Doctor, it's not that, I'm sorry, it was just a dream, that's all, nothing real." She takes another sip of tea. I am taken aback by this turn of events. None of my other companions have ever mentioned this happening to them, so I've always just assumed that humans didn't have dreams. Now that I know they do, I'm sure that the others must have had some awful ones, and just couldn't bear to tell me. I'm quite glad now that I pursued the topic with Rose, I'll have to be more careful with night-time adventures from now on. Rose is looking at me now with curiosity. "How do you deal with them?"

I give her a small smile, and try to decide how to answer this. I normally deal with them by avoiding sleep altogether, but this doesn't seem like a good answer. I decide on something that's slightly vague. "I don't."

"So Time Lords don't have dreams then? Or-"

I contradict her. "No, we do have dreams, sorry, I meant I don't deal with them very well."

She looks at me sadly. "Doctor?" I look at her expectantly. "How often do you sleep?"

I debate whether I should lie or not. "Well, Time Lords only need to sleep for about a seventh of what humans need, so I normally sleep about once a month."

She looks at me, half amused, half sad. "I know basic math Doctor." I smile slightly.

My hand is resting on the arm of my chair. She reaches over and squeezes it tightly, not saying another word. I break the comfortable silence. "Here, as long as neither of us plans on going back to bed, I want to show you something." She releases my hand, and I stand up, setting my tea on the counter. She does the same, and then re-entwines her fingers with mine. We walk off, hand in hand, to the console room.

At the moment, we are flying just above the earth's atmosphere, and the sun's just beginning to rise for London. I grab a blanket with my spare hand, and hand it to Rose. She releases my hand, and takes the blanket. I take another for myself, and walk to the TARDIS doors. They open, giving us a stunning view of the earth below. I wrap the blanket around myself, and sit down in the doorway, dangling my legs over the edge. I am leaning against the doorframe. I feel Rose sit down next to me. I look over at her. Her eyes are fixed on England being bathed in light below us. She tucks her legs under her, and rests her head lightly on my arm. I adjust my position to make this more comfortable for the both of us. Pulling her slightly closer, I drape my arm over her shoulders, with her head now resting on my chest. She slips her arms around my waist, and when I look down a few minutes later, has drifted back to sleep.

Ah humans, the silly apes can go through anything and still be sound asleep five minutes later. As I'm watching her peacefully sleeping, I have a clever idea. I take my hand off of her shoulder, and move it to her temple lightly. I sit up straighter, and put my other hand on the other side of her head. She moves, and mutters something I can't understand. When she goes still again, I press my index, middle fingers, and thumbs to her head firmly. Maybe I can't stop myself from having bad dreams, but I can help Rose Tyler with hers, and that's just as good. I close my eyes, and carefully probe her consciousness with mine, avoiding her personal thoughts and memories as best I can. I embed my consciousness into her current thought stream, and think of happy things.

I think of the adventures we've had together, all the fun, all the planets we've visited, and all the things I plan on showing her when she wakes up. I feel her consciousness growing lighter by the second. She shouldn't be threatened by nightmares now anyway. I quickly exit her consciousness, and put my arm back around her shoulder. She has a small smile on her face now, and I find myself smiling as well. I kiss her forehead lightly, and turn back to the sunrise. Sweet dreams Rose Tyler, sweet dreams.