gotosleep_idiot | Mata Test Drive Memerz

She laughs a bit at the last part, "Don't know! I haven't been there yet! Want to go traveling with me?" She is getting way too much enjoyment out of being able to say that.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. "Just as long as you remember there's only one... me...."

And the sentence tapers off there. He pulls a face.

"I know for sure you and I never had this conversation, but then who was it with?"

It was with Clara... Which is why it is confusing for him. He can't remember it.

"And only one me!" Rose asserts confidently, but tilts her head at the question, "Bit of deja vu, then?"

"Thank God there is only one Rose Tyler. The universe would be in trouble if there were more."

But it's an almost fond kind of teasing.

He shakes his head to answer her question. "No. More than that. I'm certain I've had this conversation with someone."

He closes his eyes for a minute trying to parse it.

"Probably with Clara.... Another companion... But my memories of her are... a bit scrambled."

Hopefully, by not saying they're missing entirely, it will prevent Rose from asking too many questions.

"I should hope so," in regards to the universe being in trouble with more than one, "I cause enough trouble without a double, yeah?"

Still, she looks a bit puzzled for a bit. "Sorry. Don't think I've met her, yeah?" She scrunches her face to the side, "Is that a problem?" All of it. Her not knowing Clara, the Doctor's memories of her being all scrambled, and anything else, besides.

"Considering we're stuck in a place that is only the reality of someone's dreaming, I'd say it's a problem, yes."

He won't talk too much about himself. Will try not to reveal too much to Rose... because he plans to get out of here ASAP.

She shakes her head, glancing back at the Doctor. "No, you've got that backwards. Everywhere else is dreaming. Now you're awake." She bit her bottom lip quietly but added all the same, "You hear the call and woke up. Hello."

"How do you know? How can you possibly know you're awake?"

All of this his hauntingly familiar to the Dream Crabs.

"Because here's the thing, Rose: No one knows they're not dreaming. Not one of us. Not ever. Not for one single moment of our lives."

He's definitely changed again. Not just physically, of course, but personality, and grown, there's so many things, it's almost a whiplash. Doctor... but...

She frowns, remembering the planet she can't even name now with the microscopic something-or-other that fed off left-side brain waves -- no wait, was it right-side? The creative side, anyway, so they caused hallucinations, and then there she was hallucinating the doctor saving her, and even walked right into an insane asylum....

But the good thing about that memory? She brightens up, remembering how she was able to tell real from not, and what the Doctor told her back then too.

"Say something clever I couldn't possibly think of!"

Because Jack had actually been able to pronounce a whole bunch of stuff even about the Holy Jagafress and planets she didn't recognize but --

That wouldn't help the Doctor.

She furrows her brow, bites her bottom lip, and thinks hard. What external thing could she do that the Doctor wouldn't be able to expect her doing? Be able to dream her doing?

She abruptly reaches for his free non-clapping hand and tries to hug his chest hard. "I missed you," she tells him assertively, completely sure that the Doctor's self-doubts, self-loathing, self-everything would never normally expect for or account for that in any way at all. There was nothing about herself she could tell him he wouldn't know or expect. But she could still find ways to surprise him, she was sure.

Except this Doctor has travelled with Clara. She was all about the hugs. Even if she mostly respected the fact that he didn't do hugs.

"Rose, don't... I'm not a hugging person now."

And he tries to squirm out of her touch.

"What is it with you humans and hugging anyway?"

Once he's out of her grip he straightens himself up and brushes off his clothes.

"There's only one reliable dream test that I know. The Helman-Ziegler test. But, in order to do it, we'd need something that we've both read. Like..."

Wait. Rose wasn't an English teacher. What would she have read?

"Like something by Jane Austen."

She nods her head. "I've read Pride and Prejudice. And um..." What else had Jane Austen written? Crime and Punishment? Tenth grade English don't fail her now. She could have gone to med-school. If she'd taken her A-levels and hadn't always been skipping out to look at boys. Damn boys.

"Oh! Charles Dickens!" Of course. Because the Doctor was a total Dickens fanboy, and Rose would never ever forget that. "And not just the Christmas Carol," which they both lived. And in the Doctor's case, more than once. "Okay, so what we do with the book-He-man-Zeeger-test?" Yes, she is awesome with names.

"And hugs are good for you, Doctor. You're a doctor, you should know that." She's just saying, but she did pretty instantly let go.

"Fine, so what we need to do is find a book both of us have read, but neither have memorised. The way it works is this: they would be identical in the real world. But since they don't exist in our memories, in a dream, they can't be."

He shrugs. It's rather basic, when you think about it.

"Hugs are not good for me any more. Touching isn't good for me right now."

There is weight to his last sentence. Rose would be better off not to touch him. And he won't be responsible for his actions if she does.

She glances at him. That's.... a very strange statement. And Rose has a very bad habit of touching things she shouldn't, like you know, daleks of all things, but she's trying to learn to keep her hands mostly to herself and out of harm's way. Still, she files it away, even in spite of her protests. "No one should go without any kind of contact, Doctor." Hadn't that been part of the problem with living flesh turned human that the cat nurses created in New New York? Then again, she never could completely figure out how the devil possessed people and if the Doctor said not to touch him...

"Come this way," she almost immediately messed up by grabbing his hand, but firmly stuck her hands in her jacket pocket. "There's a library. I don't know if they have it, but they should have something else we've both read and not memorized if nothing else."

"Given the kinds of touch I experienced recently, not sure you'd still say that."

But that's all he's going to say about his experiences in the Confession Dial. The story is too long and painful to tell. Besides with all the 'Clara-holes' it's too hard to remember.

He also shoves his hands into his pockets as he followers her. "I hope they have two copies, because that's the only way this really works."

She frowns. She doesn't want to know, because as far as she's concerned, she's going to stay with the Doctor forever and ever the end, and she knows that's crazy and probably impossible, but she likes impossible. In any case, no sense learning spoilers for what she's totally, absolutely going to live through.

"Mm. Yeah, let's hope." Or they can find a book they do have two of, maybe. Did you ever read any Dr. Seuss, Doctor? Because they have a lot of that for the sake of teaching children or other species how to read. She grins impishly though, trying to test how similar he is or not, "You're still dashing though."

"Dashing?"

He's not sure how he feels about that. Sandshoes was dashing. Even Bowtie was dashing. He's just attack-eyebrows.

"If you say so."

She laughs. "What, you don't think so?" And she skips on ahead, clearly in a better mood now that he's there. "I didn't think you'd age well," she spun around to stick her tongue out at him teasingly, "And yet~ Only a tenth the worry lines, and the hair is actually kind of nice." She means it too, and she's pleased to still be able to surprise him.

"It took me awhile to adjust to it. Though, now that I've had it awhile, I don't mind it."

He still likes to hear confirmation every now and then that he's not just 'grandpa'.

"Dashing," she insists with a grin, and she makes a gesture with her hand to signify she means it. "Bit grumpy, yeah?" because of whatever awful things he'd been through and/or missing Rose, "But still handsome." Another nod. And while she'd normally argue the Doctor absolutely was the last person in need of an ego-boost, he still seemed a bit too down not to use one.

He is a bit too down to not need all the boosts he can get. Killing himself over 230 billion times had that effect on him.

And he can't help the awkward grin that makes its way across his features.

"Erm. Thanks." He gestures. "Library is this way, right?"

Yup, that would do it.

And oh god, that smile should not be so cute. BUT IT IS. Proving to Rose at least, that she definitely needed to deal with her crush on a massive dork. All the mental sighs, but Rose is a happy puppy enough for the both of them as she leads him in, "Yup! And there's this giant museum with all sorts of weird stuff in it! Again, probably nothing major to you, but you still might find something even you haven't seen before, I'd wager."

"That'd be good. I actually do enjoy moments of not knowing something. - It happens so rarely..."

And again, he features cloud slightly. He's said that before too. Not to Rose, this mouth said it to... maybe Clara? Why?

Whoever he said it to before, Rose doesn't know or seem to mind, she laughs all the same. "Surprises and hugs are both good for you, probably."

She blinks, suddenly remembering that most surprises for the Doctor hadn't been that good but... "Oh! And no one dies here! They all come back, isn't that fantastic?" And terrifying. And zombie-y. And afterlife-y and scary as she can possibly imagine. But she's in the rare position of surprising and trying to cheer up the doctor so... all smiles about it, it is. "Which isn't to say, there's no consequences for death or anything, it's just... Everybody lives. Happily ever after." Which is probably a good thing that they're at the library and she starts scouring for books with two copies they both might have read.

The Doctor will just skip over talking about how he'd met ghosts and how they came back 'murdery.' Because she's just given him another 'teachable moment' and if there's one thing the Doctor likes to do, is teach.

"No consequences for our actions is bad. Very bad. It leads to social breakdowns. And there's no such thing as 'Happily Ever After'. That's just a lie we tell our selves because the Truth is so hard."

The Doctor hasn't gone to Darillium yet. Hasn't met River in this body, but the truth of that statement is still true for him right now and he will repeat it until his voice falls out. He follows her down the stacks, more to see what kinds of books are her.

"I suppose all of these books came into existence with Bending. And when you read them, there's some kind of Bending that goes on. This test is going to be difficult here."

Because how will they know if things are wrong because of Bending, or because of the dream states. Well. To be fair it doesn't matter. Such Bending doesn't exist in their universe that he knows of, and Bending itself is something that happens in dream states.

"I suppose..." Rose muttered quietly, a temple throbbing idly. This was so opposite the way she'd reunited with the Doctor's younger counterpart she was practically getting a headache thinking about it. But being told that Happily Ever After was just a lie, made her half determined to find a book that specifically ended with that just to push that button on him.

"Even if it's made by bending, shouldn't it still work? So long as neither one of us were the one to bend it, yeah?" Although bending was still a bit beyond her in general.

She pulls out two identical-looking books of human fairy tales, since she's pretty sure the Doctor would have grown up on Time Lord ones or whatever that entailed. "How's this?"

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I will be quoting LAST CHRISTMAS so much in this game. So. Much.

XDDD Oops

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My replies are getting short, I might goto sleep soon.

You read my mind XD I'm only still up to get one or two last tags in

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