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doyleTitle: She Dreams the Butterfly
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Zoe, Ten
Rating: PG
Notes: For the Second Doctor Era Ficathon for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mw_fics who wanted Jamie or Zoe regaining bits of their memory after The War Games.
Summary: Zoe talks to someone who might have the answers she's looking for.
Post-traumatic stress after the business with the Cybermen; that was what it said on the official report. Investigators had come out from Earth and everything. And considering half the Wheel’s crew were having nightmares or turning up late for duty or, in one more unusual case, declaring themselves Emperor Elect of the Universe and being quietly transferred back to Earth, Zoe thought it was monumentally unfair that she was the only one singled out for special scrutiny. She had laid out her case to Dr Corwyn, citing her intensive training in stress management, pointing out the brain chemistry therapy she’d gone through at the Academy to control her endorphin responses, and concluding with the inescapable fact that, when you got down to it, she was just far, far cleverer than the rest of the crew and so couldn’t be expected to gibber quite so much when something went wrong.
Corwyn had gone rather quiet at that, and then threatened to put her on the first ship back to Earth if she didn’t go along to the counselling session. Zoe sulked, and went.
The new psychiatrist (though they were never called that, only doctors) was from Earth Medical – some sort of specialist in alien contact trauma. He’d turned up, Zoe had heard, quite unexpectedly: there was still so much confusion on the station that nobody could remember who had been on duty when he had arrived. Nobody could even remember where his shuttle was docked, in fact, although this didn’t bother him very much. He said it would turn up again: it usually did.
The door was open before she could even lift her hand to press the buzzer.
“Zoe! Zoe Herriot!” The man behind the desk stood up, nearly knocking aside a stack of computer disks almost as tall as she was. “Come in, sit down. Lie on the couch if you want. You don’t have to, I just thought it’d add to the feel of the thing. I’m the Doctor, by the way.”
There was a sort of expectation and a hope in his eyes. Probably he thought she should have read some paper of his; people did think that was all she did in her library, sit and read books all day. As if she’d remember someone just called the Doctor. If his paper had come in for filing she would have sent it back as not properly referenced. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of you,” she said sweetly, and was surprised to see genuine pain cross his face as he sat down.
“No. Course not. Didn’t think you would.”
An odd thought struck her: he was a bit like Doctor Smith, who had saved them when the Cybermen had invaded. It wasn’t a comparison that stood up to much scrutiny when she thought about it properly. Doctor Smith had been small with black hair, quite a bit older than this new Doctor. He had brown hair, and brown eyes, and a brown suit that didn’t look in the least like an Earth Medical uniform. It did have a badge on the lapel with that institution’s logo, but he seemed to have drawn it himself, and in a hurry. And that look on his face when she’d said she’d never heard of him…
Every counsellor she’d ever met – and there had been lots, growing up, there were always lots of them around the special children – had had neuro training. Response inhibitors, all the better to be non-judgemental about the brilliant little darlings in their care. Rumour back at the Academy said that it was the only way they didn’t go mad from their patients’ mind games. “I’ve never heard of you” to any of them, however famous and self-important, would have got her a glassy smile and a “so what did you learn in school today, Zoe?”
She walked around the reclining couch that had been placed in the middle of the office and took the chair opposite the desk instead. “You’re not really a psychiatrist, are you? Or you’re not from EM, anyway.”
The ersatz psychiatrist sucked air in through his teeth. “Paranoid delusions, oh dear. Next you’ll be telling me this,” he tossed a card onto the table, “isn’t a set of orders from Earth giving me full authority over everybody on this station. Right up to the captain. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
It was what it seemed to be, she had to admit. But – and Zoe couldn’t be sure where this idea came from, because she was sure it wasn’t one she’d ever been taught - that wasn’t the same thing.
As soon as that thought entered her head the seal and the holostamp started to fade, until she was holding nothing but a blank piece of paper.
“There!” she said, and the Doctor said, “Oops…”
“I knew there was nothing wrong with me.” She folded her arms. “Dr Corwyn’s going to feel pretty silly when I tell her you’re in with the Cybermen, or whoever it is you’re working for.”
“I don’t really do well working for people. Especially if they don’t allow unions. Not very big on trade unions, the Cybermen.” He made a face, and she giggled before she could help herself. It wasn’t a sound she could remember making before.
“Tell me about the dreams,” the Doctor said, oh-so-casually.
“I don’t have dreams.”
“Oh, everybody says that. They just mean they can’t remember them, or their dreams are boring and they think that makes them sound interesting.”
She had never talked to anyone about dreams. After the first few nights she had thought of looking them up in the library, but she knew she would find the neurological explanations she already knew and wishy-washy books of interpretation she wouldn’t want to believe.
“Is it common,” she said carefully, “is it normal, I mean, to dream of places you’ve never been to? Never even seen pictures of?”
No-one in her life, she thought, had ever watched her quite so intently, as if she might disappear if he took his eyes away. “I should say so,” he said. “Are they happy, these dreams?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes frightening.”
“But exciting?”
“Oh, always.”
He smiled.
“And sometimes,” she said, “just after I wake up from one it feels much more real than this; as if my life here is the dream.” Perhaps we’re both mad, she thought, me for these thoughts and him for nodding along as if he believes me. Perhaps Corwyn knew and she thought we’d be company for each other. “But this is real,” she said. “The library and the people I work with and the Wheel. The Cybermen were real. Earth is real. Dreams are just something my brain throws up as it processes things I do when I’m awake.” She held herself very still. “There aren’t really places that are bigger on the inside than the outside.”
This was where he would tell her it was all true, everything she’d dreamed, that it was a… a memory and not a dream at all, and she’d lived whole years in that second of dizziness outside the Doctor’s machine when her world had seemed, without asking her permission, to tilt a few degrees sideways.
He looked at his blank piece of paper, turning it in his hands. “You probably never get to see how that dream ends, Zoe,” he said, sounding very tired. “It might seem exciting, it might seem happy, but that’s not how it finishes up. You’ll be better off where you are,” he added, so quietly he could have been talking to himself.
She waited for something else, and when nothing came she left him there alone. At the door she turned back and said, “I’m not unhappy here, Doctor,” though she couldn’t understand what made her say it. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”
**
“Did you see the doctor?” Corwyn knew already, of course, she would have checked the logs for Zoe’s movements. Asking was just a matter of form, a politeness, perhaps an act of kindness to a colleague who had been acting – well, acting as if she didn’t belong here, even more than usual.
“It was very helpful,” Zoe said. “I think I’ll be fine now.”
“That’s wonderful.” She nodded at the tablet in her hand. “You looked engrossed. Interesting book?”
“That boy who was with Doctor Smith, Jamie – I had the urge, suddenly, to look up his people’s history. This tablet must be faulty. Instead of the index it turned to the Battle of Culloden.” She started to say something about the need to view history logically and dispassionately but the words that were so ordered in her head didn’t come out that way. “I think he must have died. I had a dream that he was there and he died and I don’t know what’s real.”
“Oh, Zoe, you’re not crying? Over some silly war hundreds of years ago?” Dr Corwyn put her arm around Zoe's shoulders; gently, very gently, as if she might shatter at the slightest touch. “I didn’t know you could cry! There, dear. You’re probably tired. Everyone’s tired.” See, she might as well have said, you’re just like the rest of us, just another human being after all.
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Zoe, Ten
Rating: PG
Notes: For the Second Doctor Era Ficathon for
mw_fics who wanted Jamie or Zoe regaining bits of their memory after The War Games.Summary: Zoe talks to someone who might have the answers she's looking for.
Post-traumatic stress after the business with the Cybermen; that was what it said on the official report. Investigators had come out from Earth and everything. And considering half the Wheel’s crew were having nightmares or turning up late for duty or, in one more unusual case, declaring themselves Emperor Elect of the Universe and being quietly transferred back to Earth, Zoe thought it was monumentally unfair that she was the only one singled out for special scrutiny. She had laid out her case to Dr Corwyn, citing her intensive training in stress management, pointing out the brain chemistry therapy she’d gone through at the Academy to control her endorphin responses, and concluding with the inescapable fact that, when you got down to it, she was just far, far cleverer than the rest of the crew and so couldn’t be expected to gibber quite so much when something went wrong.
Corwyn had gone rather quiet at that, and then threatened to put her on the first ship back to Earth if she didn’t go along to the counselling session. Zoe sulked, and went.
The new psychiatrist (though they were never called that, only doctors) was from Earth Medical – some sort of specialist in alien contact trauma. He’d turned up, Zoe had heard, quite unexpectedly: there was still so much confusion on the station that nobody could remember who had been on duty when he had arrived. Nobody could even remember where his shuttle was docked, in fact, although this didn’t bother him very much. He said it would turn up again: it usually did.
The door was open before she could even lift her hand to press the buzzer.
“Zoe! Zoe Herriot!” The man behind the desk stood up, nearly knocking aside a stack of computer disks almost as tall as she was. “Come in, sit down. Lie on the couch if you want. You don’t have to, I just thought it’d add to the feel of the thing. I’m the Doctor, by the way.”
There was a sort of expectation and a hope in his eyes. Probably he thought she should have read some paper of his; people did think that was all she did in her library, sit and read books all day. As if she’d remember someone just called the Doctor. If his paper had come in for filing she would have sent it back as not properly referenced. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of you,” she said sweetly, and was surprised to see genuine pain cross his face as he sat down.
“No. Course not. Didn’t think you would.”
An odd thought struck her: he was a bit like Doctor Smith, who had saved them when the Cybermen had invaded. It wasn’t a comparison that stood up to much scrutiny when she thought about it properly. Doctor Smith had been small with black hair, quite a bit older than this new Doctor. He had brown hair, and brown eyes, and a brown suit that didn’t look in the least like an Earth Medical uniform. It did have a badge on the lapel with that institution’s logo, but he seemed to have drawn it himself, and in a hurry. And that look on his face when she’d said she’d never heard of him…
Every counsellor she’d ever met – and there had been lots, growing up, there were always lots of them around the special children – had had neuro training. Response inhibitors, all the better to be non-judgemental about the brilliant little darlings in their care. Rumour back at the Academy said that it was the only way they didn’t go mad from their patients’ mind games. “I’ve never heard of you” to any of them, however famous and self-important, would have got her a glassy smile and a “so what did you learn in school today, Zoe?”
She walked around the reclining couch that had been placed in the middle of the office and took the chair opposite the desk instead. “You’re not really a psychiatrist, are you? Or you’re not from EM, anyway.”
The ersatz psychiatrist sucked air in through his teeth. “Paranoid delusions, oh dear. Next you’ll be telling me this,” he tossed a card onto the table, “isn’t a set of orders from Earth giving me full authority over everybody on this station. Right up to the captain. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
It was what it seemed to be, she had to admit. But – and Zoe couldn’t be sure where this idea came from, because she was sure it wasn’t one she’d ever been taught - that wasn’t the same thing.
As soon as that thought entered her head the seal and the holostamp started to fade, until she was holding nothing but a blank piece of paper.
“There!” she said, and the Doctor said, “Oops…”
“I knew there was nothing wrong with me.” She folded her arms. “Dr Corwyn’s going to feel pretty silly when I tell her you’re in with the Cybermen, or whoever it is you’re working for.”
“I don’t really do well working for people. Especially if they don’t allow unions. Not very big on trade unions, the Cybermen.” He made a face, and she giggled before she could help herself. It wasn’t a sound she could remember making before.
“Tell me about the dreams,” the Doctor said, oh-so-casually.
“I don’t have dreams.”
“Oh, everybody says that. They just mean they can’t remember them, or their dreams are boring and they think that makes them sound interesting.”
She had never talked to anyone about dreams. After the first few nights she had thought of looking them up in the library, but she knew she would find the neurological explanations she already knew and wishy-washy books of interpretation she wouldn’t want to believe.
“Is it common,” she said carefully, “is it normal, I mean, to dream of places you’ve never been to? Never even seen pictures of?”
No-one in her life, she thought, had ever watched her quite so intently, as if she might disappear if he took his eyes away. “I should say so,” he said. “Are they happy, these dreams?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes frightening.”
“But exciting?”
“Oh, always.”
He smiled.
“And sometimes,” she said, “just after I wake up from one it feels much more real than this; as if my life here is the dream.” Perhaps we’re both mad, she thought, me for these thoughts and him for nodding along as if he believes me. Perhaps Corwyn knew and she thought we’d be company for each other. “But this is real,” she said. “The library and the people I work with and the Wheel. The Cybermen were real. Earth is real. Dreams are just something my brain throws up as it processes things I do when I’m awake.” She held herself very still. “There aren’t really places that are bigger on the inside than the outside.”
This was where he would tell her it was all true, everything she’d dreamed, that it was a… a memory and not a dream at all, and she’d lived whole years in that second of dizziness outside the Doctor’s machine when her world had seemed, without asking her permission, to tilt a few degrees sideways.
He looked at his blank piece of paper, turning it in his hands. “You probably never get to see how that dream ends, Zoe,” he said, sounding very tired. “It might seem exciting, it might seem happy, but that’s not how it finishes up. You’ll be better off where you are,” he added, so quietly he could have been talking to himself.
She waited for something else, and when nothing came she left him there alone. At the door she turned back and said, “I’m not unhappy here, Doctor,” though she couldn’t understand what made her say it. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”
**
“Did you see the doctor?” Corwyn knew already, of course, she would have checked the logs for Zoe’s movements. Asking was just a matter of form, a politeness, perhaps an act of kindness to a colleague who had been acting – well, acting as if she didn’t belong here, even more than usual.
“It was very helpful,” Zoe said. “I think I’ll be fine now.”
“That’s wonderful.” She nodded at the tablet in her hand. “You looked engrossed. Interesting book?”
“That boy who was with Doctor Smith, Jamie – I had the urge, suddenly, to look up his people’s history. This tablet must be faulty. Instead of the index it turned to the Battle of Culloden.” She started to say something about the need to view history logically and dispassionately but the words that were so ordered in her head didn’t come out that way. “I think he must have died. I had a dream that he was there and he died and I don’t know what’s real.”
“Oh, Zoe, you’re not crying? Over some silly war hundreds of years ago?” Dr Corwyn put her arm around Zoe's shoulders; gently, very gently, as if she might shatter at the slightest touch. “I didn’t know you could cry! There, dear. You’re probably tired. Everyone’s tired.” See, she might as well have said, you’re just like the rest of us, just another human being after all.