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“That was all your bloody fault!” Donna shouts as she followed the Doctor back into the TARDIS.
“My fault? How is it my fault?!”
“‘Let’s go to the candle meadows of Karass don Slava! It’s amazing! Their plant life looks like glass!’ But you forgot the giant rampaging beasts, didn’t you?!” Donna barks out as she storms around the console.
“It’s not as if I exactly planned on landing in the middle of their stampede season,” the Doctor says defensively, “We just got a bit unlucky, that’s all. Anyway, it did create a beautiful effect in the trees. Like wind blowing through it.”
“Yeah, well that ‘wind’ kicked up a lot pollen, which is now in my hair.” Donna retorts and brushes some out to prove her point.
Instead of falling to the ground, the pollen floats in midair, shining with a purplish hue in large clumps. The Doctor is instantly transfixed, putting on his brainy specs and bending over the dust in order to get a closer look.
“Oh, it’s not just regular pollen, its psychic pollen,” the Doctor giggles before standing straight and putting on an almost serious professory face, “Mind parasite. Feeds off of peoples dark sides. I didn’t know there was any in this forest, to be honest.”
“Well, great. I may have been almost trampled to death, but at least I got some parasitic dust in my hair!” Donna exclaims, unimpressed. She waves a hand over the floating pollen and it flies away, gravitating towards the TARDIS console. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go wash all this ‘psychic pollen’ out of my hair and then I’m going to make myself a nice hot cup of tea.”
She turns and stalks out of the console room, adding in a voice just high enough for the Doctor to still hear, “Spiked with vodka.”
A few years, a memory wipe, and one regeneration later.
The Doctor leaps to his feet and almost falls right over. His head feels wonky, like some stuffed some tissue paper in it. God, he hates psychic dream states. But nevermind that right now, he has more important things to worry about. He pulls out his sonic and starts scanning the room, searching for anything that could have caused the Dream Lord to come into existence.
A signal takes him to the console. Just in the time rotor are a few large, shiny particles. He uses the sonic to pull them out into his hand.
“Hello, haven’t seen you in a while. What are still during in here?”
He’s interrupted by Amy and Rory, who come in looking dazed and confused. The Doctor holds out the particles he found for them to see, “Any questions?”
“Er, what's that?” Amy asks.
“A speck of psychic pollen from the candle meadows of Karass don Slava. Must have been hanging around for ages. Fell in the time rotor, heated up and induced a dream state for all of us.”
The Doctor stares down at the pollen. It should have gone out with the last console, yet somehow managed to stay. How? Always something he doesn’t know, isn’t there? And to think, it only got in here because it hitched a ride on Donna’s hair during a stampede.
Loves a redhead, the Doctor. The Doctor silently curses the Dream Lord for that comment.
The Doctor opens the TARDIS doors and blows the pollen into space where it spins and floats off where the Dream Lord will never be able to cause any more trouble. The Doctor hopes.