When the Sun Sets ☼ Eleven x Reader

XXV - Nox Mortis

'A what?'

'A funeral invite.' you repeat, speaking more clearly. You had only opened the top half of the letter, and so who's funeral it was for, no one knew.

'Is this- is this why we're not in your wedding photos?' Rory stammers.

'No, no. No. It can't be, even the Dream Lord wouldn't go that far.'

'Oh, I would.' the ominous voice echoed in your head once again. 'You know I would, but I didn't. Although I should've done! That would've made this a lot more exciting.'

'So if it's not ours,' Rory starts. 'Who's is it?'

The room falls silent. No one wants to address the elephant in the room- no one wants to know. A little glimmer of hope suggested that maybe the name on that invite would be someone totally irrelevant to any of you, but that's not how the Dream Lord played this game, and you knew it.

Your finger trembled as you traced the edge of the paper. It was old paper, you could tell from the discolouration, but the pages were pristine. The only creases were the two that neatly sectioned the sheet into even thirds.

'I can't do it.' you say, dropping it down onto the table. You knew it was stupid, but something about the stigma around the weight of this name eradicated all rational thoughts you may have had.

Offering you a small- yet concerned- smile, the Doctor pulls the letter from the table. Sensing the tension in the room, he opened it quickly to avoid delaying the inevitable.

In loving memory of

Melody Pond

The stillborn daughter of Amelia and Rory Pond-Williams

The Doctor read the invite slowly, hesitating before he reached the last line. As the news reverberated around the room, the faces within it dropped. The silence was deafening. Nobody spoke.

'When's it dated?' Rory asks quietly, wrapping his arm around his wife's shoulders as a tear gracefully fell down her cheek. She hadn't made a sound. She hadn't even blinked.

'May 27th, 2011.'

'Oh god.'

Amy reached protective hand down and over her stomach, and Rory placed his on top of hers in solidarity as he kissed her cheek.

'But this is just a dream, right?' you reasoned. 'The Doctor and I aren't married outside of the dream, so surely this can't be real.'

'Some things are fixed, [Y/N].' the Dream Lord's voice sounded again. 'The Doctor knows that better than anyone. Some things in this dream are fabricated, others are not. This wasn't my work.'

Having the truth clarified didn't soften the blow for anyone. You nodded over to the Doctor, and then towards the door. He took the hint quickly, and the two of you left the couple alone in the office. You closed the door gently once the two of you were outside, and you took a seat on the top of the staircase.

'This is so awful.' you whisper, and the Doctor joins you on the step.

He nods silently in response, pulling you closer to him once he spots the tears in your eyes.

'It feels even worse because they have no children, and in this stupid dream we have two.' you comment. 'They deserve it so much more than we do.'

He simply nods once again, and rests his head on yours. The two of you sat together in silence. A comfortable silence, but still full of facetious tension. More so than the obvious fact of the matter, you were angry with the circumstances. Not only had Amy and Rory only just managed to comprehend the pregnancy, they now had to comprehend the grief of losing a child. And they had just over an hour to get over it and solve this cruel puzzle or the four of you would perish.

'Have you had any thoughts about your element of the phrase yet?' you ask.

'Not exactly. I don't suppose this would be any of our dreams, really. I couldn't wish this on anyone.'

'That's true. How are we supposed to determine who's dream this is when it's something we all equally hate?'

'I don't know. I guess since this was a fixed event, we can't really count it in the dream. This was an inevitable part of every futuristic dream simulation we could experience, and therefore it would have happened regardless of who's dream this is.'

'That's a good point.' you reply. 'So how can we narrow this down?'

'We don't have to.' Amy's voice sounds from behind you. The two of you stand and walk up the stairs to face the couple more clearly. 'I think we've cracked it.'

'Cracked it?'

'Yep. We've got it.' 

Amy and Rory lead you back into the office, where the two wax seals and their stamps were still discarded across the table. 

'The dream takes elements of all of our future dreams and puts them together.' Amy announces. 'The things we all want are more prominent, and the things only some of us want are less so. Like Rory always talks about how he wants to learn how to do card tricks- so there's a deck of cards on the coffee table downstairs- but the rest of us don't really care so we're not living in Rory's Card Trick Funhouse.'

'I thought you liked my card tricks.' Rory mumbles.

'Not the time, sweetheart.' replies Amy, patting him on the back reassuringly. 

'So that means-' you start.

'Yep. I think the fact we're in your house and dealing with your wedding invitations is a pretty big indicator. We must all subconsciously want you two to end up together.'

The Doctor looks at you briefly, and knows that if the air is allowed to settle, the atmosphere will soon grow incredibly awkward.

'That would explain the wax seal, too.' he says. 'The events of our life seem to be more important here, no offence, so the wax seal must be the one on our wedding invites.'

In his usual fashion, he claps his hands together and rubs them, stepping forward eagerly.

'So that's it? That's how we get out of here?' you question.

'It's worth a try.' Rory shrugs.

The four of you join hands in a sort of unspoken ceremony, and speak the words aloud.

'All four of us.'

'2019.'

'Angel.'

Supported only by each other's hands as you fall, you slip into a deep and sudden sleep.

[-]

'If only it were that easy.' the Dream Lord's voice echoed through the limbo once again. 'You see I made that far too easy for you. Some elements of the dream were fictitious, some were completely factual. Some were prophetic. Maybe if you'd paid a little more attention to the smaller details, you could save each other. For the angels are coming, Doctor. And even you can't stop them.'