Chapter Text
Once again that night, the doctor felt himself slowly coming to, until he realized what had happened. His head suddenly throbbed with an unfamiliar pain, and he rubbed his temples slowly, letting out a groan of agony. Slowly opening his eyes, he stared at an orderly ceiling decorated in dark, tasteful tones, though he wouldn't admit it, remembering whose house he was in. Everything seemed to come back to him at once, he was definitely at Martha and Tom's house, Donna had somehow gotten lost, he doesn't know how he ended up in the dirt in front of their house and... did he see Rose? Was that a dream or a premonition? Was she really with him? He felt sick again but this time he knew nothing would come of it, he wanted to get up but still felt weak to do so, at least everything around him had stopped spinning.
"Oh, you're awake," he heard someone near him say in a startled whisper, but unfortunately for him, it wasn't the voice of the resident of that house he wanted to see... "Welcome back! Martha was already starting to freak out, afraid that you had somehow gotten seriously hurt, but I told her not to worry, it didn't look like you had any injuries that could worsen to any alarming level." Tom said in a voice that tried to be comforting and analytical at the same time, but that to the doctor's ears was just extremely irritating! Tom wasn't his doctor, so he wasn't supposed to speak to him as if he were somehow dealing with a patient, and it certainly wasn't his voice that brought him any comfort. Even so, the doctor only snorted in response, but that didn't seem to discourage the young man who approached him and sat on the couch across from the one the doctor was lying on.
"So…you're real!" He said, looking at the doctor in awe, as if he were meeting a childhood idol or something, which only irritated the doctor even more! "Of course I'm real! I'm right in front of you," the doctor grunted, his voice still hoarse and with a hint of irony in it. Even so, the young man remained unfazed, seemingly completely oblivious to how his presence bothered the doctor. He chuckled softly "Oh, yes, I carried you to this couch. I'm sure you're real," he said jokingly, but the doctor was sure he was bragging about bringing him here. "But it's still kind of unbelievable to me. I mean, Martha told me about you, lots of stories, but I…"
"You didn't believe her?" the doctor asked in a cold, suggestive voice. He really couldn't stand the idea of anyone thinking Martha would make up everything she'd experienced on her travels. Once again, however, Tom continued as if the doctor's tone wasn't cutting, which made him certain the young man was simply ignoring his barbs. "No, no, I believed her, even though it seemed absurd. I know Martha was telling the truth, and she loves to show me every little memento she kept from her travels with you to rub in my face how sincere she was," he reminded her fondly. The doctor might have found his overly sweet tone of voice when talking about Martha a bit cloying, but he would think about that later; right now, he was focused on the fact that she still remembered the time she spent with him and even talked about him! This lit a small flame of hope in his heart; maybe she didn't hate him after all.
"Yes, Martha is indeed an exceptional companion," the doctor says softly, for the first time in a long time remembering being with her without feeling a huge pain in his chest. At least until he remembers who he's talking to..."Oh, I can confirm that with absolute certainty." Tom responds excitedly, unaware that this answer made the doctor have to hold back the urge to turn around and punch him in the face! "Yeah..." said the doctor, his voice cracking and making him sound almost like a broken record and his fists, with barely contained energy firmly placed on either side of him on the couch. "And where is Martha anyway?" He asked frustratedly. He really wanted to see her again, a longing too great to hold back after so long. He could still feel the palm of her hand against his face and wouldn't admit that it gave him chills inside like it did, but deep down he knew. "Oh, she's in our room, sleeping. She was worried about you for a while and was already tired from her last shift, so I calmed her down and insisted she go to sleep while I kept an eye on you.”
Martha really still cared about him so much that she fought against her fatigue just to check on him, and once again a wave of warmth welled up in his twin hearts. He smiled and looked at the stairs near the sofa he was lying on, almost trying to get up to follow her into the bedroom, but he knew she needed rest, and his body shivered with the suppressed urge to run to her again. Tom beside him seemed to notice his conflicted state and gently placed a hand on his shoulder, but the doctor felt as if it were a stalk of sharp thorns poking him! "Hey, it's okay. She'll wake up soon. She just needs to rest, and you should too. You still look pretty tired. Martha once mentioned that you have dark circles under your eyes that never go away. I know you travel through time, but surely, going from one night to the next doesn't make you immune to the hours of sleep in between." And there he was, analyzing him like a damn patient again! But what the hell? The doctor wasn't his patient and didn't need that kind of help, much less HIS!
"I can manage my sleep on my own, thank you very much!" he muttered coldly, and somewhat rudely, he pulled his shoulder away from Tom's hand. Tom, still unfazed, just stared at him curiously. "I'm not human. I can handle fatigue very well, better than any of you can, and I'm much more resilient to it too. There's nothing to worry about, Tim!" he retorted dryly. For a split second, Tom seemed a little irritated by the mistaken mention of his name. "It's Tom!" he replied a little harshly. The doctor smiled mischievously; after all, this man had a flaw in the great wall of patience he'd built around himself. "Isn't that what I said?" the doctor asked, this time trying to sound innocuous, but sounding almost comical with his still hoarse voice, starting to cough immediately afterward. Tom just stared at him for a few seconds before going to get him a glass of water. "Thank you," the doctor muttered, almost in a whisper that exuded disgust. Tom just clicked his tongue and hummed softly.
"Marta even said that you let your pride and arrogance get the better of you sometimes and so you wouldn't let anyone help you," Tom said carefully as he watched him, as if wanting to see his reaction. The doctor only snorted angrily in response. "That's quite... human, for a Time Lord.” The doctor clung tightly to the glass of water as if it were his only anchor in a state of calm. How dare he speak of him as if he understood him as well as Martha did? They didn't know each other! He knew nothing about him except from what Martha had told him! It wasn't even close to being enough! "Immortal aliens and all that aside, doctors also tend to be the worst patients. I know you're probably not feeling very comfortable with this." The glass in the doctor's hands creaked slightly, almost imperceptibly, a slight increase in pressure, a gentle release of the tension his body was trying so hard to hold. "I'm not a patient, I don't need care.” Not yours! He didn't add.
"Denial is part of the journey," the young man said in an amused voice. This made the glass creak, but Tom didn't seem to notice. "Martha said you play this game of denying how you feel a lot, too." The doctor's restraint nearly snapped, and he turned to his former partner's fiancé, his eyes blazing with anger. Martha told me this, Martha told me that, Martha, Martha, Martha! He won't stop talking about what she said for a second! Does he do this just to provoke me? I don't need to know what she said about me to him! I don't want to know how happy they were alone and spoke of me as a lost memory, I don't even want to think about how much Martha compared her life with me to what it is now with him! He thought as he stared at Tom, who continued to show how much the doctor's presence didn't bother or threaten him. In fact, he seemed intrigued by him, he seemed minimally interested in knowing who that alien with whom his fiancée had gone through so many impossible adventures really was! He seemed curious to know more about it, almost slightly excited, but not at all irritated.
Even when his patience slipped slightly, he managed to pull himself together and care for him above it all, like a doctor caring for people. Really looking at him, it actually seemed like he was watching him as if he were one of the bratty children he sees at his hospital, and this made the doctor's fury rise! He wasn't a helpless person who needed to be cared for by him. When he was in a matter of seconds from throwing what was left of the glass in his hands at Tom's head, the young man approached him more as if in a challenge. "You don't like the situation you're in and I imagine that's because this is all unusual for you," he concluded, this made the doctor really stop to listen to him. "If you're as invincible as Martha said, being in this state is not something you're used to and from what you yourself demonstrate, you don't really like receiving help," he said calmly. Analyzing again the doctor thought, trying hard not to entertain the thought of how Tom had this in common with Martha, a gift of doctors for sure.
"Believe me, I know that sometimes accepting help is difficult, but it's for your own good. Martha just wants you to be well, and I know you don't want to make her worried." With that, the doctor lowered his head, upset. Martha stayed with him until she was too tired for that. In every sense of the word, he couldn't make her worse off. "We'll help you whether you want it or not, I'm sure, but it'll be better if you do," he offered, chuckling lightly, surely not noticing how this tore the doctor apart. We, he said, WE, he and Martha...they'll be together all the time, they'll get married sometime...they...I...Martha is with him… The Doctor's brain seemed about to go into a trance, but he shook his head and took a deep breath trying to get it out of his mind, he was NOT going to cry in front of Tom, much less go into his devastated state like he sometimes did in the TARDIS. It had been a few months with him there, not in this place, not with Martha…
Finally putting down the glass of water and handing it to Tom, he sighed deeply and said something in his native language through gritted teeth, thankful the young man wouldn't understand a thing. He ran his hands nervously through his hair, refusing to look at Tom. "It's not been an easy night," he said finally. Tom's smile widened, a certain joy that he was cooperating, and the doctor just shook his head, knowing it wouldn't last. "No, I don't think so," he commented, returning to the couch next to the doctor. This time, the doctor stopped to examine him on the couch beside him, sprawled out, seemingly at peace and staring at the stairs as if he wanted Martha to appear as much as he did, but not because he didn't want to be alone with him, but because he simply wanted to see her again. And it was something the doctor could only dream of, living with someone like that, in a mundane house like this, seeing this person every day, every hour, every minute, and knowing it still wasn't enough, wanting to be with this person more and more, and happy simply to be with them, knowing they chose you and want to spend all these small, ordinary moments with you.
A mischievous smile formed on Tom's lips as he turned back to the doctor. "You're not categorizing my movements for a complete diagnosis of me, are you?" He asked playfully, and the doctor simply grunted in response, again turning away from him, which made the young man start to laugh. The doctor just rolled his eyes. "Doctor skills?" he muttered, and he was sure Tom was nodding his head in confirmation, but he still refused to look at him to be sure. "Indeed," he replied breathlessly with laughter. "You talk so much about what Martha said about me, has she ever told you how annoying YOU are?" the doctor asked petulantly. "Honestly, yes, she has," he said in a enchanted voice, as if the thought awakened the purest feeling of love in him. And this would have awakened another wave of hatred in the Time Lord, if it hadn't awakened utter anguish instead. He curled up on that side of the sofa, finally letting a tear fall for a time he couldn't lose because he would never have it, but he knew the man beside him could, and he envied that with all his being! And he hated himself for having denied it in the past, too. God, he was pathetic and he was happy that he was only allowing himself to be minimally vulnerable there because the other man with him couldn't see, but if he thought that Tom knew little about him because it was only what Martha told him, he knew little about the young man because he was only watching him in his relationship with his ex-partner too.
Little did the doctor know how Tom hadn't missed how much his body trembled at the mere mention of his fiancée, how he wilted when he mentioned their relationship, how clearly shaken he was on that couch, wanting to escape like someone who'd been abandoned in a scary place and just wanted to go home, or how perfectly that human knew the source of the Time Lord's pain. But at that moment, they both preferred to pretend it was just their extreme naivety, at least until the only person who could shatter that illusion appeared on that staircase at any moment.