Author’s Note: Written for the Reverse Remix, Comment Edition for amaresu, a remix of her “Breaking Pieces.” It’s probably worth it to read that first to better understand this one. 🙂 Also, I quoted one line of that story in mine.

It’s not the first time Charley has remembered something that never happened. This time, at least, she doesn’t remember dying. Or not only dying, rather. There was dying, at the end.

What she remembers most is living. And not just living, but loving. There was a woman–and surprisingly, the most shocking thing about that part is how shocking it isn’t–and they were lost somewhere alone together. But not afraid, never afraid.

It comes in dribs and drabs, mostly in her dreams. So much so that at first Charley thinks it’s just the TARDIS, playing with her mind. But the memories are too clear, too real to be anything else.

Sometimes they flood all her senses. She hears a voice, infinitely dear in spite of its harsh Lincolnshire accent. She hears her own voice calling a name that is no one’s she knows: “Lucie.” She remembers blonde hair shorter and straighter even than Charley’s own. She sees it gleam in the artificial light of some sort of space station, and feels it run like silk through her fingers. She can taste the stale, recycled air and the warmth of a kiss, and recall the smell of a well-worn, well-loved leather jacket. She feels the touch of small, lightly calloused hands that know every inch of her skin, inside and out. And she sees a smile that is never without a hint of mischief, along with a frown that can twist her heart into knots even in recollection.

Because that’s the other thing she remembers. That they were both in mourning, at least at first. Mourning someone they had both known, and loved in their own ways. And that frightens Charley in an entirely different way, for there is only one person in her life that she could imagine having in common with someone from another time.

Perhaps the TARDIS is warning her, somehow. Though, if that were the case, why it allows so many of the memories that slip through to be fond ones, Charley hasn’t the foggiest.

The Doctor might be able to answer that, but to ask would require a good deal of explaining first that she’s not yet found the courage to do. If this had been her Doctor, her first Doctor, it might be another matter. She can hardly tell this one that she fears becoming caught up in yet another paradox without confessing to those she’s already caused.

That and “I think your ship is giving me memories of things that haven’t happened yet so I can save your life” sounds just the slightest bit ridiculous even to her.

Then comes the day when they hit a patch of turbulence in the vortex worse than any Charley has experienced since they ventured into the divergent universe. The TARDIS is shaking so badly that the Doctor has to shout to be heard: shout that he’s going to try to materialize, lest they be shaken entirely to pieces.

In that moment, Charley remembers something else.

“You mean that the explosion was caused by them materializing in the same spot? You don’t think the Doctor lived through it, do you? Either of him.”

“No!” she cries out, pouncing on the Doctor just as he’s about to throw the lever and pulling him away from the controls. The TARDIS shudders violently once more, throwing them both to the ground. Livid, the Doctor sputters at her. “Charlotte, what in the name of good sense do you think you are doing? The TARDIS can only withstand so much of this–“

The shaking stops. The Doctor frowns. “Oh.”

And just like that, the memories are gone, leaving behind only the knowledge that she’d had them once.

Charley should feel happy. She’s saved the Doctor’s life, preserved his timeline so that he would still have a chance to become the man she first met. But for some reason, all she feels is hollow, as though she’s lost something incredibly valuable in the process.

The Doctor picks himself up and gives Charley a look she’s becoming all too accustomed to. It’s the one that says she’s a mystery he is determined to solve. Any other time and this would worry her, but right now she feels as weary as though she had lived another life in just a few short minutes. All she wants to do is crawl into bed.

Something in her can’t but hope that she might dream.