Cocoon

October 31st, 2006

Author's Notes: He has just got Donna to where she is supposed to be, but has not yet met Martha. I'm taking a guess that the Doctor will be alone for an episode or two. Set between Runaway Bride and Smith And Jones.

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Chapter One - All Wet

He strolled across the grassy knoll, hands stuffed into his pockets against the icy blast that swept up from the sea. His overcoat billowed behind him like a loose cape and his hair danced crazily around his head giving any onlooker the impression that it was trying to escape. The moors were bleak at this time of year, worse in winter, if you could imagine worse. Snow covering the grass and heath that stretched out as far as the eye could see could be worse, he supposed, but he couldn't see how. Colder, perhaps, but not worse.

Above his head a storm had amassed, black and brooding. It had yet to drop its accumulated wealth of rain, preferring to horde it all right up until the last minute. Whenever that might be. So far, the scenery had acted as a buffer against the another far deeper storm, one less physical. But the barrier seemed to be losing its appeal and its strength.

As he drew to a halt, the Doctor's dark eyes surveyed the landscape taking in the peace of the place, despite the weather it granted him a moment of calm between the nightmares that had plagued him for the past week and his thinly spread sanity. He had never had bad dreams before, equating them more to a deep and abiding need for something. He always strived to get what he needed, and if he got a little of what he wanted along the way then that was good too. Nonetheless, he needed for nothing. As far as he knew. Other kinds of nightmares came from interference in the psychic field, variations that were unexpected or unwelcome happened occasionally. As a rule he tended to sleep less and work harder during such times, and he slept very little as it was.

The Doctor's dreams often reflected what he had done, said or seen, just as it was for humans. A hold-over from his mother, he supposed. But these were not 'sorting out the day' dreams. These were horrible images, the cries of something far more potent and frightening than his many thousands of waking moments had shown him, and more fearsome than his imaginings could conjure up. No one, ten or even a hundred horrors from his life combined could explain the images that crowded his mind. And he wasn't even asleep.

The disjointed and unconnected fragments of images, voices and sensations were beginning to converge on him again, swamping his mind. He lifted his head with a gasp, begging the sky to flash with lightening, roll with thunder, the wind to howl around him, the sea to crash against the rocks far below him all the louder... anything to drown out the wailing, keening cries he could not answer.

Where are you, daddy?

He didn't know how to answer.

A moment later he opened his eyes, alerted by the rain falling all around him. He was on his knees, a scream ringing in his ears. It faded from his lips just as he began to realise that the agonised cry had been his.

The Doctor blinked several times before lifting his face to the rain that fell in huge drops from the roiling black clouds overhead. He was soaked to the skin in seconds and his body was shivering with the cold. These things he understood. Wet, cold, wind, storms... things he could name, explain, were a comfort to him. But the voice...

Where are you, daddy?

The Doctor clenched, slamming his eyes tight shut against the inner barrage. Gritting his teeth he ignored the rivers of water cascading down the curves of his face and tried to grasp a thought of his own. Any thought would do, even as the child's voice boomed inside his mind louder than ever.

"I'm not your father," he answered.

But the voice only droned on.

Where are you, daddy?

He was trembling now, the effort it took simply to breathe draining him of strength as quickly as the wind and rain leeched the warmth from his body. He gritted his teeth. "I am... not... your father!" he grated.

The Doctor flinched, waiting.

The resultant silence was as deafening as the voice had been. That in itself was a shock. He opened his eyes to find himself staring straight down the cliff face onto the jagged rocks below. With a startled cry, the Doctor shuffled back from the edge just as clods of earth and grass broke away and disappeared into the angry surf.

Both his hearts told him that he should run, but where was he supposed to hide? He needed answers. He had to find them before he lost his mind. The child was becoming ever more persistent, but he did not recognise the boy.

Rising on shaky legs he gazed about him, desperate to understand, to get away, but where? There was no one on this world who knew him, who could understand what he was going through. With a stuttered sob he realised that his one hope of that was gone, across the void. Her name drifted to his lips unbidden, but it was pointless to dwell too long on what he had lost. His entire life was filled with losses; he had to think.

There was no one... wait... think! There was... yes. There was one. He began to run, stumbling over hidden shale now covered in grasses and heather, a few stubbly gorse bushes snagged on his coat. He careened over the rim of the hill and saw the TARDIS standing right where he had left her, rain-lashed and blue. He stepped inside, slamming the door on the onslaught, as if it would help, but the torment was inside his mind. With the noise of the ferocious storm shut out, all he could hear now was the little boy and the endless drip of water from his clothes.

He squelched his way to the console and scanned for alien tech. An almost impossible task, the entire planet was littered with junk either crashed, shot down, stolen or accidentally left behind by a myriad species. One small piece was going to be difficult…

The console bleeped.

"Yes!" he barked. "Find it, find it!"

There was a triangulation beam circling around the screen, satellite images zoomed in, giving him a perfect view of a city, a town, a street and then a house. He could go in closer, but he decided not to. He couldn't wait, he needed to get there now.

Time was of the essence, never before had he realised the incongruousness of that statement. Funny, a pun, laughable... what time? What year? He had last seen her eight months ago, and the Daleks and Cybermen had been gone for four months. He wiped his face with a palm, trying not to think about what had happened since.

He had got rid of Donna, what an adventure that had been. She was a bolshy loudmouth, but then he could hardly talk. Actually, yes he could, that's what made him a loudmouth. He was alone again; that's what he was, alone. Before Donna had cropped up on his doorstep, the inside step, he had been on the beach with Rose. How his heart had leapt and then sank just as quickly. How he had desperately wanted to hear her say yes, but his dreams had been dashed to pieces. She hadn't been pregnant.

He couldn't think of that now, he had to get to her. "Mind if I drop in, Sarah Jane?" he whispered as he flicked the re-materialisation controls.

The TARDIS slid into an empty alcove in the spare room of the semi-detached house, and the Doctor rushed outside, already calling her name.

"Sarah Jane?"

At first there was no answer as he slowly turned, taking in the room. Child's toys, a single bed and a chest of drawers filled the space, his TARDIS almost looked as if it had always been there, filling the otherwise empty gap between the chimney breast and the wall.

"Sarah Jane?" the Doctor cried again. He looked down, realising that in his frantic rush to get here he had not thought to change his clothes. He lifted his head as the door opened and he swallowed, embarrassed. "Um..."

The man standing there eyed him in surprise. "Who the hell are you?"

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To be continued…