Daydreaming, Claire Bennet walked in the warm sun through a tingly flash of even brighter light. She passed through that tingly brighter light into frigid blackness, dying. In his Level 5 cell, Noah Bennet entered the fifth level of sleep, dreaming vividly of his Claire.
He saw his baby girl falling and burning, burning and falling, toward what he knew as an alien world. He also knew she was dead. He knew Claire was dead, because he had been dead, had dreamed the death dream, before being revived by his daughter’s blood. Therefore, he felt and understood the intersection of Claire’s death dream with his now living one.
Bennet inwardly screamed at the mind numbing horror of Claire lying stranded beyond his reach. He screamed as she revived and died, died and revived, from lack of oxygen. Suddenly, Claire’s death dream ended. After an eternity or a moment, her beautiful living dream form materialized in his cell. She was not alone.
The man wore what Bennet would have in a perfect world – a brown, pinstriped suit and trainers. Why did he think trainers? Instinctively, he tried an experiment. He thought of the word for sneakers in Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, and Welsh. No matter what language he tried, though, sneakers became trainers. “That’s interesting,” he thought.
“That’s my ship’s translation circuit,” affirmed the man. “I’m the Doctor, by the way.”
“I’m Claire’s father,” answered Bennet.
“Yes. I know who you are,” replied the Doctor.
“I told him everything, Dad,” said Claire, “after he rescued me.” Bennet didn’t mean to look exasperated, but he must have. “Fair’s fair,” Claire insisted. “The Doctor’s an alien and deserved to know the Company would run tests on him the same as me.”
A space traveling, dream walking, telepathic alien with a translation circuit defaulted to UK English rescued Claire after she fell on to a planet without a breathable atmosphere. But, what did she fall through?
“She fell through a rift in the Space-Time Vortex,” answered the Doctor. “It was already a weak spot, further compromised by teleportation incidents.”
“Nakamura,” Bennet seethed.
“Among others,” said the Doctor. “Twitchy ability at best. I’ve sorted the rift for now.”
“For now?,” asked Bennet, terrified. “You mean it or another one could take Claire from me, again? Unacceptable!”
Claire sat down by her father, hugging him close. “You can’t control everything to keep me safe. I’ll always die. It’s enough for me to die on my own terms.”
“But, you didn’t die on your own terms, Claire-Bear; you fell through a sodding hole, dug deeper by someone else. Bugger that translation circuit!,” yelled Bennet.
“But, I went out the door on my own, Dad,” soothed Claire, kissing Bennet on the head and snuggling deeper into his chest. “I’m warm, now.”
“She froze from exposure to space,” explained the Doctor, “then burned when she entered Claire’s atmosphere. Add psychosomatic shock and her thermostat went haywire.”
“Claire?,” asked Bennet, crying and holding his daughter even tighter.
“Yes,” replied the Doctor. “She plummeted on to a brand new world, so I named it after her.”
Bennet saw the pride in her eyes and heard it in Claire’s voice. “Look, Dad. The Doctor made me a souvenir.” She showed him a teddy bear shaped glass pendant with blue-green grains inside it. “It’s sand from Claire,” she said. “He was there to collect it anyway when he found me.”
“I collect sand from every world I visit,” the Doctor explained.
My life is restored with a planet named after her, because an alien collects sand. “Thank you, Doctor. If I can ever repay you,” assured Bennet.
“You already have,” responded the Doctor. “It’s enough that I got to spend time with your daughter, keep her safe, and collect sand with her. She reminded me of my granddaughter.”
The Doctor answered Bennet’s quizzical look. “I’m a great deal older than I appear,” he said smiling wistfully. “I am…was a grandfather.”
“On my world,” continued the Doctor, “children were taken from their families at the age of eight for initiation into the Academy. Initiation consisted of exposure to the Vortex your daughter fell through. Beholding the full scope of space and time caused some little ones to be inspired, some to run, and others to go mad.”
The Doctor took a deep breath and went on. “To make a very long story short, I knew that my granddaughter was genetically predisposed to Vortex Madness and that the authorities wouldn't spare her the trial, taking what you would call a very Darwinian view. To save her, I became her guardian, stole an old ship, bundled her aboard three days before her eighth birthday, and ran.”
Tears sparkled in the alien’s eyes as he finished. “I saved her. When she was 16, I let her go to live a sane mortal life and to die a sane mortal death. But, I kept running, because I was happiest running to keep her safe…to keep everyone safe, even though it hurt.
“That’s why we’re here in a dream, instead of busting you out,” said Claire. “Meeting the Doctor has helped me understand that you’re happy protecting me, even if it’s breaking our hearts. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Baby.” Bennet held his Claire, his world, safe from the universe outside their dream, until she and the Doctor faded away.
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