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Helen woke up with a start, gasping for air.
With a heart thundering in her ears and her vision swimming, it took her some effort to get her bearings and actually understand where she was. It didn't look like her room in the TARDIS. It looked more like a little bedroom in the murky flat she used to rent in London, just before... Oh. No, that can't be!
Helen suddenly felt very numb. She couldn't have imagined it all, could she? It was just impossible. That meant... That actually meant a lot of things. Not gallivanting with Liv and the Doctor through time and space, not saving the day. Not facing new exciting cultures and learning the intricacy of new languages. Not solving difficult puzzles and getting out of the toughest situation unscathed. Not thwarting evil, not being able to help set things right. But... Being underappreciated – again, – being invisible, and having no rights or voice in anything that actually mattered.
The weight of it all crushed Helen, and she struggled to catch her breath, head reeling and eyes filling up with tears. Did she... did she dream it all up, wallowing in self-pity and helplessness just because she didn't get the promotion she worked so hard for? No, no, that didn't sound like anything even her fantastic imagination could produce overnight.
Did they bring her back, abandon her even, because they didn't need her anymore? She hoped not, they're her best friends, they just couldn't have done that to her. They couldn't, right? Helen felt sick and dizzy, unable not to entertain the dark thought. When she waved it away, another wave of anxiousness knocked her over even harder. Did something happen to the TARDIS? To Liv?! That would be something she couldn't forgive herself if that happened.
Helen shot up her head to look through the window... only to find an empty void behind it. No streets of London, no people rushing to get to work, no leaves rustling on the trees, just a vast nothingness that seemed to stare right at Helen. As if she saw and felt everything Helen felt, and Helen suddenly couldn't breathe. She tried to grasp for air, her ribs hurting like hell and lungs burning. She struggled to untangle herself from the sheets as quickly as possible. Her leg caught in and she stumbled right to the floor...
And woke up, panting and shuddering.
Her body aches all over. Muscles clenching and unclenching on their own accord, heart drumming away in her chest, and sweat sticky on her temples – that isn't her best night. Still, it isn't the worst.
When the room comes back into focus, Helen sees it wasn't her room either. In the dim warm light she recognises the furthest library. She must have fallen off her favourite lilac sofa, – she is sprawled on the floor and it takes all her efforts just to sit up. God, she just wishes the world stopped spinning just for a moment. A concerned hum of the TARDIS fills the air around her.
“I... I'm... Fine,” Helen starts, trying to sit up, but her voice sounds more raw and broken than she anticipates. “At least... It's home now.”
She spots a steaming cup on the arm of the sofa and smiles just a bit, finally able to catch her breath. Any liquid sounds like a miracle right now. Her mouth does feel like a desert, lips cracking and burning.
“Thank you. That's awfully kind of you,” she whispers hoarsely and pulls herself up. Staying up on her wobbly legs is a challenge she's not ready to face yet, so she just falls back on the sofa.
Breathing in and out, slowly, on the count, and sipping on the warm tea, she finally feels her body relax a little, giving in to the cosiness and TARDIS' steady humming all around her. The only vital thing is not to fall asleep just yet. Helen knows it by now all too well, she'll just be dragged straight back to the least pleasant places. Helen's been to a lot of them lately, she almost lost count.
After her return from Rykerzon, Helen rarely gets a night without such dreams haunting her and she counts each and every quiet one a blessing. She doesn't know why they happen. Why she so rarely even got them before and what has been triggering them now, over and over again. Maybe it is the trauma of surviving a hellfire. Or it could be the remains of Caleera's influence, still echoing through her mind, taking all kinds of forms. Maybe she's just got so much more to lose and it terrifies her to no end.
It hits her the hardest at nights like these. After a long day, when her body is absolutely exhausted from another mad adventure, her brain just goes into overload and won't shut up. Especially when there is no-one else around to (unknowingly) catch her. There rarely is. Helen doesn't want her best friends to be worried, so she… she just can't bring herself to tell. And if the dark circles behind their eyes keep getting harder to conceal, Helen doesn't say. She is so thankful no-one has drawn attention to it yet. She hopes they won't.
Blunt hope was the only thing that got her through her months in Rykerzon prison in the end. Sheer force of will not to let go, even in the darkest of hours. Even when the remains of control slipped through her fingers. Even when anything she had to remind her of their previous life was the little picture of Liv she drew from her memory in her worn out notebook with data and occasional logs. Even when she doubted her friends would ever find her again and she had exhausted all the options of the offworld communication.
No. She is not there anymore, Helen reminds herself and tries to shake it off, moving to sit a little straighter. She needs to take a shower but there's no way she'd get there on her own. Her body is spent, she couldn't have been sleeping more than 3 hours a day in the last few weeks. Adventures and constant running help a lot, but being back aboard the TARDIS, tired and literally falling down, her mind still wouldn't let her sleep, working miles a minute. Chamomile tea helped only that much. She would collapse from exhaustion only to be woken up sooner rather than later either by the alarm, or, worse – and sadly, more frequent, – by the nightmares.
Even though Helen thinks she saw them all, they just keep coming. Recurring and new, leaving her even more drained and weak than she was before going to bed. Even though she keeps hoping she would see right through them, every time they only tend to get worse and more cruel in some little ways. Every single time she fails to tell a dream from the truth and every time something kills her from inside. It's only a matter of luck she has managed to wake up right before it happens so far.
Of course Helen tried to analyse all of those dreams she remembered. It wasn't easy, but it gave her hope that maybe one day she would find a way to make them stop. She could write a paper on unconscious cognitive processes by now. If she ever got to write it, she'd certainly list several types of night terrors she experienced.
Recurring ones, hitting closer and closer to home with every time. Like tonight. The ones where she is… abandoned, alone, left in the dark. Or even better, – here she always chuckles darkly, – where her recent life is nothing but a dream. Helen can't tell which idea hurts more. The sole thought ripped a hole inside.
Next would be stand-alones, on a variety of topics, from apocalyptic worlds with bombing, ruins and radiation, to being eaten alive by huge alien rats while hiding underground or trying to run a rebellion. From most ridiculous terrors hiding in plain sight, to slightly disconcerting changes in an ordinary world that tend to escalate at a breakneck speed. None of those dreams are pleasant. All of them somehow mean war. In all of them they try to save the day but to no avail. They are helpless and can't do a thing to reverse the situation or even help at all. Those aren't pleasant either.
The worst of all, Helen thinks, would be those Liv isn't in. The ones Helen forgets she exists. Post factum of course she understands that. In the dreams she still explores the universe but there's no-one beside her to guide her. No-one she cares so deeply about she'd move the universe for. No-one to catch her when she falls.To stop her when she gets over the top. In those she often acts on her ambitions, on the unresolved potential, thinking herself superior and 'knowing what's best', punishing the cruel and destroying the millions that were brave or silly enough to go against her in the process.
Such dreams Helen regrets deeply. After those she fears herself and her unleashing destructive potential more than anything in the world. After those she avoids mirrors and hides from her friends in the TARDIS' innumerous rooms and corridors.
Helen understands where the last ones come from. It's her hope of seeing Liv again that always kept her sane and going, even at the darkest of times. It's the hope of having Liv close to her again, seeing her smile or snark sarcastically at the Doctor, watching her get into an awful lot of trouble – and staying right by her side through thick and thin, – that's what fuels her. That's what keeps that newly found all-encompassing darkness at bay. That's what keeps Helen from herself, from the sudden darkest thoughts and slips she couldn't help but entertain, even though she promises herself she wouldn't ever act upon them.
Well, Helen still did them in dreams. When there is nothing nobody holding her back, she is more like Caleera – no, Sonomancer – than she'd ever like to be. The very thought that she could be the cause of massive destruction and so many people dead makes her sick and disgusted with herself.
Helen doesn't know if she can keep going like that anymore. At this rate she'll only be a burden or, worse, she will get someone killed because she's being too slow or inaccurate. She needs rest but she can't find it. She doesn't know if there is some drug, or potion, or mind-manipulation (however she hopes it'll never come to that ever again), anything that will ease the nightmares. Only... she can't bring herself to tell her friends the truth – how was she to ask for help? That was one vicious cycle.
Helen sits there – on her favourite sofa that suddenly feels entirely too big and alien for her, – hugging her knees to the chest. There, in the middle of the night, in the furthest nook of the TARDIS, she feels so utterly alone. She usually likes this little library more than the other, big one, which usually shows up when one comes looking for books, or the one in the console room. It's quiet and calming here, books piling on the floor as well as lining up on the shelves, and one can find the most peculiar of volumes dusting and ready to jump into your hands. However that also means that Helen doesn't know how long it will be till someone finds her there.
Turns out, not so long at all.
“Hey, here you are,” comes a soft voice from behind her, when she’s tired enough to give in and go back to sleep (and to hell with consequences).
Helen jerks but doesn't have any strength left to jump up, as her reflexes tell her to. She didn't sense anyone coming in. She turns her head to see Liv walk closer and sit right beside her, very much in her personal space. The sofa doesn't feel endless anymore, quite the opposite – Helen is very aware how small-ish and cramped it is. Still, the TARDIS must have hidden all the other chairs and puffs that used to stay here, and there isn't anywhere else to sit. So she decides not to read too far into Liv's actions. Not that she could right now, with her mind racing miles a minute. One small sofa feels somehow too much for one and too little for two.
“You okay? I've been looking for you everywhere.”
Helen looks up to see her best friend's eyes full of concern and something else, something deeper she caught a glimpse of from time to time. She never quite understood what it was and just assumed it's Liv's compassion as a medic.
Is she okay, really? That's one hell of a question.
“Fine,” she croaks and sets her head on her knees again, suddenly insecure and self-conscious. “Couldn't sleep.”
Helen knows she has to elaborate further, and she wants to, she really does. Liv is the only person in her whole life she trusts so completely and without any question. Deep inside Helen feels whole and safe because Liv is here. Helen senses her worry for her, it’s almost palpable by now.
It would be so much easier if she could tell her. She knows it. They will figure something out, together. Like they always do. She tries to say something and... she can't. Her throat feels too sore to elaborate. Has she been shouting in her sleep?
“So I see,” Liv hums and puts her hand ever so lightly on Helen's shoulder. “Come here. Lean on me. Believe me, it'll help.”
She leaned on the arm of the sofa and opened her arms invitingly.
Liv somehow appears properly professional, like the brilliant med-tech she is, but Helen also hears softness and care in her voice. Her heart swells and she wants nothing more than to comply. So… she does. She doesn't question what Liv is doing up this time of night or how she managed to find her. Not that it matters much after all.
What matters, that Liv is here, she came looking for her, she cared enough. That she's here, right on the same little sofa, her presence calming Helen's nerves like no-one could ever do. Settling into Liv's embrace, her back against the med-tech, with Liv's hands coming around her waist, grounding her to here and now, – it all feels like coming home. Helen sighs in relief and leans further back. She notices the cold slipping away and the clutches of fear inside her dissipating. Slowly. Steadily, too. She's home.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she will tell Liv everything, no matter the cost. She somehow knew that if anyone could catch her, stop her from falling into the deepest of despair, it would be Liv. Helen feels Liv nuzzle against the crook of her neck, and feels so much warmth and affection inside her it almost hurts.
When Helen's eyes flutter shut and she succumbs to a – finally – dreamless sleep, she misses the light kiss Liv places to the crown of her head before falling asleep herself, arms secure around Helen, holding her close.
The TARDIS materialises a warm blanket around them both and dims the lights. She gurgles with content and concern. Bringing the feisty one to her favourite clever one was a very good idea after all if she thought so herself.