Chapter Text
“Darling, wake up.”
You groan and squeeze your eyes shut, clumsy fingers grabbing at your blanket to pull the fuzzy thing over your eyes. The blankets smell good today. You’ve always used the same detergent, and it’s never failed you. Your brain is protesting, but your mouth hasn’t quite caught up yet, so all you do is mumble into your blanket, your mumbling roughly translating to “Five more minutes, please?”
“Love. Sweetie. Dear. Don’t make me pull out ‘sweetheart’, I know how much you hate it.” You hear a long, dramatic sigh, and you feel a weight sink into the mattress. The weight shifts, and you feel hands splayed out on top of the blanket, threatening to pull it away and rob you of some good, extra sleep. “Please wake up.”
“No,” you whine, vainly hoping that you’ll sink into the blankets and fall asleep before the idea of waking up becomes too tempting. It is getting a little hot... “Leave me alone.”
Another sigh. “You asked for it.”
“No, no -!”
Suddenly, the blanket’s yanked away - you wince at the bright light that filters through the room, and when your vision clears, you see your husband, John.
He smiles at you, and it’s brilliant. His hair is sticking out at ridiculous angles and yet he is still stunning, big beautiful green eyes shining in the light of the rising sun. “Hi,” he breathes out, and all you can think is that you have never felt so lucky in your entire life.
“Hi.” You smile back, and his smile grows wider. “Good morning.”
“Good morning to you too,” he says softly, reaching out to brush your hair from your forehead. “I was starting to wonder if you would ever wake up.”
“Sleep is good.” You raise your eyebrows and push yourself up into a sitting position - John moves to sit closer to you, his hand falling from your temple and into your lap. He wraps his hand around yours. “It’s an escape.”
“What, an escape from me? Am I that insufferable?” John lifts your hand to his mouth, laughing slightly. He presses his lips lightly to the inside of your palm, and butterflies erupt in your stomach. He slowly lifts his eyes to meet yours, mischief behind them, and suddenly you’re a schoolgirl with a crush, your heart racing at a simple kiss. “Well?”
Well, that wasn’t fair. “Are you trying something?”
John doesn’t move, but you know he’s hidden his smirk behind your hand - “Is it working?”
“Do you want me to tell you the truth?”
Oh, he’s definitely smirking now. “Of course.”
“You are a big flirt.” You pull your hand away with a laugh. John had always been mischievous, his affection expressed in teasing touches and words. “Is something up? What’s the occasion?”
“The occasion? There’s no occasion,” John says, and then his smile falls. You can see the gears in his head turning as he lifts his gaze to the sky, his lips open slightly in thought - and then, like nothing, he smiles again. “Although something is up. Close your eyes.”
“What, now?” You giggle, doing as you’re told.
“Yes, now,” John says. You feel him cup your face in his hands, and feel his lips on your forehead, and you catch the faint smell of pancake mix and blueberries amongst his distinctive smell. “I had to hurry before you got grumpy, and so there’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen, I’m really sorry -”
"I don't get grumpy!"
"Right, right…"
You feel him get off the bed and leave the room, his footsteps growing softer as he walks away. Distantly, there’s the clinking of plates and utensils, something being poured into a glass, and something muttered that you’re sure is a swear -
“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”
You do, and you can barely keep your jaw from falling open - laid out in front of you is a breakfast feast. Pancakes, perfectly stacked pancakes drizzled with just the right amount of syrup, dotted with the color of blueberries, and a steaming cup of coffee right beside it. The room smells amazing now, and you feel amazing. All you can do is stare incredulously at the meal laid out in front of you.
“Surprise!”
You look up at John, your mouth still wide open - he hands you a fork and smiles sheepishly, placing his hands behind his back. Standing in front of you, you finally notice the flour stains on his arms, and the bits of batter on his shirt. Shaking your head, you blink away tears.
“Oh no, don’t cry,” John says, quickly reaching forward to take your face in his hands again. He strokes your cheek with his thumb and you bask in the warmth of his touch - you are so lucky to have someone like him in your life. Forever. “I just wanted to make you breakfast.”
“Yeah, but - this is so nice, I can’t -” You reach up and hold his wrists. “Why?”
“Well, you deserve to have nice things.” John exhales, looking up at the ceiling before pressing his forehead to yours. “Someone as beautiful as you deserves to have nice things.”
“Oh, don’t start,” you complain, but John just laughs and presses a chaste kiss to your lips. You, with your bedhead and your chapped lips and your sleepy face, beautiful. You weren’t really complaining at all. There’s a buzzing noise from the nightstand on the other side of the bed - “Hey, I think that’s your phone.”
“I don’t have a phone,” John says innocently.
“You have a phone, and you have work,” you counter. You realize you’re winning when he lets go of your face and rolls onto the other side of the bed to check his phone.
“I’m going to be late!” you hear him gasp, and you bark out a laugh - John turns to face you, scandalized, his face pale. “This is no time to be laughing at my misery!”
“It’s the perfect time to be laughing at your misery.”
“I’m sorry, I got carried away making breakfast -” John scrambles off the bed, rushing to the closet and pulling out a coat. He switches between the closet and the full-length mirror propped up beside it, running his hands through his hair and adjusting his coat. “Bon appetit! Enjoy your pancakes, sweetheart, I’ve got to -”
“Wait!” you cry out, stopping him in his tracks. “Wait. C’mere, I’m not letting you leave without a hug from me.”
“But of course,” he says, quickly walking to you and leaning down so he can wrap your arms around you. You press kisses to his neck, his jaw, and finally his lips, attacking him with affection as a small “thank you” for the breakfast. It’s the least you can do for your lovely husband, the perfect man that you’ve somehow managed to snag from everyone else. How did you even manage that?
“I won’t keep you,” you whisper, and he pulls away. “Go, you clever boy!”
John beams at you and rushes out of the room - you hear the front door slam not long after. You settle into your pillows and pick at your pancakes; they taste divine, of course, and you sit on your bed silently eating your pancakes while enjoying the sound of distant birdsong. Chewing on a particularly syrupy piece of fluffy pancake you remember that you’ll have to clean up the “mess” John mentioned earlier, and you smile, having a plan already set for the day.
You spring to your feet with a renewed sense of vigor, gathering up your empty plate and mug, and carrying them into the kitchen. You smooth your gloved hands over your apron and get to work washing all the plates left in the sink - and then you frown. You don’t remember when you got dressed, or when you put those gloves on, and what you ate last night. The thought passes quickly before you shake your head and continue scrubbing at an already spotless plate.
You dry off the last of the plates, placing it neatly onto a metal rack before grabbing a broom and sweeping the floor - you’d narrowly avoided choosing carpet as your flooring when you were renovating, before John had swooped in and saved the day by picking out some classic floorboards.
The dust and lint gathers into a pile in the corner, and you lean on your broom, admiring your home.
You were lucky to have bought such a nice house. It wasn’t too big, but had enough space for you to be able to decorate and plan for the future. Very lucky indeed...
There’s a “photo wall” near the kitchen that you like to look at. It’s sparse, but there are a lot of mementos there to remind you of the important things. Among the usual decorative pictures of forests and gardens there are pictures of you and John - pictures of the two of you at your wedding, posing and laughing and drinking with friends. Wasn’t your dress frilly that day? Or was it loose? Wasn’t your hair in a bun? John didn’t wear a bowtie, you think...
You squint at the photos. Your gaze is drawn to one of the wedding pictures, one from the reception where you’re standing with all your bridesmaids. You’re drinking and laughing, holding a champagne flute in your hand, but you can’t make out the bridesmaids faces. They’re fuzzy, and where are their mouths? Their eyes? The photo blurs like the photographer taking it had moved his hand while trying to take the shot.
Your grip on your broom tightens. It feels like years and years ago, and the details escape you now.
You shouldn’t focus on those things. You’re happy here, with John - but maybe you should go find your bridesmaids, it’s been so long since you’ve last seen them. What were their names again? You’re sure Jenny was one... but you don’t know a “Jenny”.
You can feel your nails digging into the broom’s wooden handle now, threatening to leave crescent-shaped marks into its surface. The details escape you, now.
And the details don’t matter.
You sweep quickly, the pile of lint and dust and pieces of wood growing steadily bigger. Soon enough the house will be spotless again, and John will come back from work and you’ll kiss him until you have to clean the house again.
That’s my life, whispers the voice in the back of your head, and you believe it. I am happy. I am content.
“I am happy,” you mutter as you place the broom down, letting in lean against the side of one of the kitchen counters. The pile of dust is gone, you swept it out of the door. You walk towards the living room, the soft surface of the sofa beckoning you to lay on it and just take a nap. Forget about all the racing thoughts in your mind. You said sleep was an escape, and you have to escape now. "I am content."
But your feet take you somewhere else. You lead yourself down the hallways, away from the living room, and now you’re standing in front of a beautifully painted blue door.
You don’t recognize the door, but it’s familiar. Your brain helpfully supplies it as the laundry room, which is always clean and doesn’t need cleaning ever, but you’re drawn to how faded it is. You lift your hand and drag your fingers across its surfaces. You feel old paint and memories behind this door, and you don’t have to open it.
Your fingers inch closer and closer to the doorknob and you don’t need to open it -
The door swings open slowly with a soft creak. It’s pitch-black in there. You feel a soft breeze against your face - you take a small step inside, clinging to the doorway, squinting through the darkness. The darkness almost feels solid, like a barrier, keeping you out.
Or, you think as you spot a flickering flashlight on the floor, it’s keeping something in.
You pick up the flashlight, tapping it a few times until its flickering stops. Your fingers curl around its sleek metal handle. You wave it around, watching it cut through the darkness to reveal -
The flashlight clatters to the ground. Writing. Words, scrawled all over the walls in your handwriting, frenzied rambling trailing from the walls to the ceiling. Don’t forget, try not to forget. Among the crazed writing are drawings, messy sketches of you and John together in places you don’t recognize. Arrows pointing to John labeled “Doctor, Doctor”.
“No, no, no...” You feel weak, you feel wrong. This can’t be real. It’s not real. Where am I? Who am I?
And etched into the wall right in front of you, surrounded by your name: Remember who you are.
You blink, breathing heavily, and you’re outside. The door was never open. The door was never there. You trace your fingers against the wall, and it just feels like a wall. It’s just a wall. A wall with some really nice wallpaper, wallpaper that you picked out not long before the wedding. You agreed on flowers, because they were nice to look at - didn’t you agree on stripes?
You keep blinking. You can still see its silhouette in the split second where your eyes haven’t fully closed yet, and when they’re not fully open.
But there was a door. You could have sworn there was a door there, it led to the laundry room - you feel all over the wall and find the place where the doorknob should be, and you feel something solid but see nothing. What the hell is going on –
“Darling, I’m home!”
John’s voice rings out from behind you and you suck in a breath, whipping around to see him come in through the front door. The sun’s already set. Darling. He’s never really called you darling, hasn’t he? You take in a shaky breath, and call back - “Yes, honey?”
John lifts his arms for a hug, grinning brightly and dressed in completely different clothes from when he left. “Where’s my lovely wife?”
My lovely wife, I was never your lovely wife, but you rush into his arms anyway. He stumbles back at the force of your embrace, slowly wrapping his arms around you and patting your hair. This is comfort you’re used to, but not in this context. And now all the things he did this morning seem so different - “Hey - what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m-” Not sure about who I am. John’s hold loosens on you slightly, and he leans away from you to look into your eyes. “I think something’s wrong.”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s ever been wrong,” John says. But everything is wrong - how is he not getting it? “But tell me.”
“The laundry room,” you mumble, even though that place was definitely not the laundry room. John’s eyebrows furrow slightly.
“We’ve never had a laundry room.” He looks over your shoulder at the place that’s just a wall, and frowns. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“But - there was a door there,” you say, wrenching yourself away from John’s arms and walking to the wall. The wallpaper flickers between flowers and stripes. You feel against the wall until you hit something solid, something round. “There’s a door here right now.”
John squints. “I don’t see it.”
“Look,” you stress. You grab his hand and place it on the doorknob, and when you look up the door is back, beautiful and blue and now you know what it reminds you of. “Open the door.”
“Darling, I don’t -”
“Stop calling me darling and open the door, Doctor!” you snap, and John pulls his hand away from the doorknob, his mouth hanging open in shock.
“That’s not my name,” he insists. “You’re not feeling well.”
“I’m feeling very well, thank you very much,” you grumble. Remember who you are. “Please, just open the door. For me.”
John - but also not John - stares at you, his mouth set in a hard line. You recognize that look and you recognize him, who he really is, and he’s not your husband. After a moment, he sighs, places his hand on the doorknob, and twists it, flinging the door open.
The room is illuminated now, all of the scratched writing clear to see - Remember, you have to remember who you are. There are so many more sketches now, and they blur and shift right in front of your eyes. You’re all in places you recognize - Starship UK, ancient Egypt, the planet of the Gargotins. You grab John’s hand and lead him to one of the sketches on the wall.
“I remember this,” John mumbles. He presses his hands to the wall. “This was a dream I had. You and me together at the end of the world.”
“When?” you ask.
“L-last night,” he replies. You grab the front of his shirt and he gasps.
“Then what did we do last night?”
“I don’t remember.”
The whole dream shatters when you find one, tiny, hairline crack in the illusion. There was never a “last night”. “You don’t remember or you don’t know?!”
John opens his mouth to say something, but then he closes it, deep in thought. You can see the gears turning in his head - just like the morning, when nothing was wrong and everything was perfect and he was your husband - but they’re turning too slowly, which isn’t like who he really is. The room starts to darken, the writing that’s brought you back fading away. You’re running out of time.
You grip his shirt tighter and shake him. “You need to remember! Who you really are - it’s got to be locked in your big brain somewhere! You’re not John Smith, you’re not my husband, you’re The Doctor!”
“The - the Doctor…” he stammers, raising his hands to his head, his eyes widening in realization.
“Yes, that’s you! Two thousand years old! An alien! Come on!”
“The Doctor - I am the Doctor!” Suddenly, the Doctor grins and grabs you by the shoulders, pulling you into a tight hug. He laughs, his arms wrapped around you, squeezing you slightly before he lets go. “Oh, it feels good to be me again. Hair - good. Eyes - still got ‘em. Bowtie -” His hand shoots up to his collar. He frowns when he doesn’t feel anything there - “Could be worse.”
“Doctor, where are we?”
“Dunno. I can’t tell if it’s a simulation or an actual set. If it’s a simulation, then it’s not a good one.” The Doctor whirls around, examining the walls. He lifts his hand to place it in his jacket, looking for his sonic - then he groans when he realizes he was never wearing a jacket. “Empty pockets!”
“Oh, again?”
The entire room shakes and you stumble - the voice sounds like it’s coming from everywhere without a clear source, and it also sounds vaguely annoyed. The Doctor quickly grabs your hand and squeezes it tight in silent comfort, and now you wish he hadn’t done all of those things in the morning. You glance at his serious face and silently thank whatever gods are out there that he hasn’t mentioned any of it, at all.
“Marlene. Marlene!”
There’s another voice, timid and shy. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Subjects 11A and 11B have escaped immersion. Again. For the fifth time this cycle. Did you forget to intensify their wipes?”
“No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
“They’re awake now, so they’re no use to us. Reset them and -”
“WAIT!” Your plea comes out louder than expected. The Doctor glances at you, and when you meet his gaze, confusion and concern swim in his eyes. “At least tell us what’s going on!”
“Sorry, 11B, but that’s classified information. You should know, you’ve asked me this before.”
“Well, it would do us a world of good if we knew!” the Doctor says loudly. “Who are you?”
“I’ll say it again. Classified information.” There’s a spitting sound, and then another laugh. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Well then make time!” you shout, and the Doctor pulls you closer to him.
“Oh, 11A, or should I say the Doctor. Not so ‘Oncoming Storm’ now, are you? Do you want me to tell you what happens to your poor little companion if you keep going like this? Or do you want a demonstration?”
“What it’s talking about?” You look up at the Doctor. His eyes are trained on the ceiling, and they’re burning with anger.
“I don’t know. Keep quiet,” he mutters. Then, raising his voice again, “We’ll keep trying! We’ll keep trying to get out!”
You hear a deep chuckle. “Then good luck. Reset them.”
A wave of exhaustion passes over you, and through your haze you reach out for the Doctor - you still have to keep him safe -
You’re out before you even hit the floor, the Doctor’s hand still wrapped in yours.