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Harry stands up as the cell door slides open. Two Kaled guards have the Doctor in a tight grip, and they shove him into the cell. The Doctor loses his balance and falls to the floor with a horrible thud. As Harry scrabbles to help the Doctor to his feet, the guards leave and close the door behind them, locking Harry and the Doctor back inside the cell.
“Are you all right?” he asks, slipping his arm around the Doctor’s waist and easing him upright.
The Doctor stumbles, his legs weak, so Harry is quick to ease them both back onto the metal bench. The Doctor slumps against Harry, hanging his head forwards like he doesn’t have the energy to sit upright.
“I’ve been better,” the Doctor mutters, smiling weakly.
“I bet you have,” Harry says. He rubs his partner’s back and sighs. “What did they do to you?”
“Just interrogated me,” he says, his voice rather flat. The Doctor proceeds to tell Harry all about his interrogation; from what Harry gathers, he just rambled on about stuff even he didn’t really understand, and they just wrote it all down. He smiles weakly. “I guess infodumping has its uses.”
Harry smiles. “It certainly does. Do you think they’ll send for me?”
“Unlikely. I don’t think they’ll get any more from you than they did from me. But if they do, just tell them a load of rubbish. They’ll lap it up.”
“Yes, of course.” Harry frowns, studying the Doctor closely. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
The Doctor stops leaning on Harry, bracing his hands against the bench as Harry sees him wobble. “Other than gripping my arms far too tight, no.”
He doesn’t elaborate, but Harry understands. Having his arms squeezed like that probably hurts the Doctor a lot more than it would hurt Harry. That’s the problem with having a hypersensitive sense of touch.
“But I know they’d shoot me the moment I step out of line,” the Doctor says, leaning his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “They always put the most trigger happy thugs in charge of the prisoners.”
“I know what you mean,” Harry says, remembering the many times someone has pulled a gun on him in the reasonably short time they’ve spent on Skaro. “But at least they haven’t hurt us.”
“Yet,” the Doctor mutters.
Harry chooses to ignore him. They need to stay positive, and pessimism is the last thing they need at a time like this. But he doesn’t tell the Doctor this, because he is certain the Doctor would tell him to shut up. After all, it’s difficult to stay positive in a situation as bad as this.
---
They dissolve into silence. Harry’s mind is reeling; he still can’t quite believe that the Time Lords have done this to them, dumping them on a planet soon to be inhabited by the most dangerous creatures in the entire universe. They don’t even have the TARDIS; the only way they can leave is to use that Time Ring. And, no offense to the Doctor, but Harry has a feeling that his clumsy, forgetful partner might just misplace it. Not that that matters any more, considering how the Time Ring (along with all the Doctor’s other possessions) has been confiscated.
Beside him, the Doctor digs his hands into his now empty pockets. Harry hears him sigh.
“I wish I hadn’t given them my stuff,” he says. “I really want a jelly baby. And my yoyo.”
The Doctor’s tone is flippant, but Harry knows he’s actually being serious. He knows how much the Doctor hates being separated from his favourite things; having them around him keeps him calm, and he starts to panic without them. And he must be hungry; after all, they haven’t eaten since... well, for a long time, and jelly babies are a rather energising snack.
But at least he still has his scarf; his long, multi-coloured scarf is a comfort object, and the Doctor is known to majorly panic when he and the scarf are separated. The last time someone took his scarf off of him (a prison guard who ignored the Doctor’s increasingly aggressive reminders to leave his scarf alone), the Doctor had a meltdown. It was an all round unpleasant experience, and Harry has always been careful to never separate the Doctor from his scarf.
“They’ve got everything,” the Doctor says, and his voice quivers slightly. It’s only a fleeting tremble, but it’s enough to tell Harry that the Doctor is getting close to breaking down. “All my stuff. And the Time Ring.”
The Doctor sighs, rocking back and forth on the uncomfortable metal bench. Harry doesn’t know what to say, how to reassure him. He doesn’t even know if he can reassure him.
“And we don’t know where Sarah is,” he continues, digging his fingers into his hair. “We don’t know what’s happened to her. We don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“Come on, Doctor,” he says, patting the Doctor’s arm. “It’s all right. Try to calm down.”
“Calm down?!” the Doctor cries, standing up sharply. He spins around, staring down at Harry, his hands clamped against the sides of his head. “Calm down! How can I calm down, Harry? Everything’s gone wrong! Sarah...”
The Doctor screws his face up, biting down hard on his lip. He starts to shake, his hands clenching into tight, trembling fists. He takes deep, shaky breaths, but that doesn’t seem to calm him down.
“Harry...” he whispers, and his voice cracks. “Sarah... I...”
The Doctor turns to face him, opening his eyes. For a second, Harry can see agony in his teary eyes, before he spins back around and smashes his hand against the wall.
“Doctor!” Harry cries.
“It’s all gone wrong!” the Doctor roars, and Harry has never heard such fear and anger and confusion coming out of someone all at once.
Letting out a sob, tears start to stream down the Doctor’s face. He cries out and punches the wall again, so hard it makes Harry wince and the whole room echo with the sound of his fist smacking against metal.
“Wrong wrong wrong!” the Doctor yells, smashing his hand against the wall with every word. He continues to mouth the word as his voice fades away, a nonverbal episode setting in as usual for a meltdown. But Harry has never seen a meltdown quite like this.
His breathing rapid and jagged, the Doctor hurtles around the cell, not appearing to know what he’s doing or where he’s going. Which he obviously doesn’t, because Harry knows all that’s going on inside the Doctor’s head during a meltdown is pain and terror.
Despite feeling totally numb at watching the Doctor have a violent meltdown, Harry realises that he isn’t completely helpless; there is something he can do to help. Harry pulls off his jacket and bundles it up into a ball. And then, carefully approaching the Doctor, Harry steps in front of him, holding the balled up jacket out in front of him like a punching bag.
“Come on, Doctor,” he says, making sure to keep his voice low, not wanting to hurt the Doctor’s sensitive ears. “Try and redirect it. Redirect the stims.”
The Doctor taught Harry and Sarah about redirecting stimming after a particularly bad meltdown. He told them that if he was having a meltdown and hitting his head against something, they needed to give him something soft to hit his head against instead. Obviously, a jacket isn’t ideal, but it’s better than a wall.
He wonders if the Doctor can hear him over his cries and the horrible sound of his hands and his head smacking against the metal wall, but the Doctor turns towards him. His knuckles have split open, blood dribbling down his hands and leaving red smears on the wall. Tears run down his face as he sobs, letting out loud, cracking sobs, and it still disturbs Harry to see him like this even though he’s seen this happen several times before.
“Come on. Hit this instead.”
The Doctor snatches the jacket and pins it against the wall. Screwing his face up, the Doctor starts to pummel it with his bloody fist and then his forehead, effectively padding the wall and softening the blows.
“That’s it,” Harry says, but he knows the Doctor isn’t listening.
He can’t sit down and just watch this happening, but Harry also knows he can’t intervene (it would make the Doctor feel even worse, and he would probably get hurt himself; the Doctor doesn’t mean to, but he will hit anything that touches him when he’s overwhelmed like this). So he just stands just out of the Doctor’s reach, silent in case speaking hurts the Doctor’s ears, hoping the meltdown will be over soon.
---
After a while, the Doctor stops hitting himself. Stumbling dizzily (he must have a horrible concussion), he drops to his knees and curls up on the floor. The Doctor hugs his knees to his chest, rocking himself back and forth as he presses his sore, swollen face against his knees. He is still crying, but the sobs are quiet; all Harry can hear is his thick, heavy breathing and occasional sniffs.
Glancing around the room, Harry spots a security camera. He wonders if the Kaled security guards are watching this. And he also hopes the Doctor doesn’t notice the camera, because he would get incredibly embarrassed to know someone other than Harry or Sarah had seen him having a meltdown.
With his arms holding his legs up to his chest, Harry can clearly see the Doctor’s hands. They are coated in trails of congealing blood, deep cuts across most of his knuckles. Despite being a doctor and used to blood, it makes Harry feel a bit sick to see the Doctor injured and bloody. Especially considering he couldn’t stop the Doctor hurting himself (not that he would, because restraining him would be very wrong), and he doesn’t have anything with him to treat his injuries. Basically, everything is messed up and wrong, and Harry bloody well hates it.
---
Eventually, after what feels like hours but is no more than ten minutes, the Doctor’s meltdown ends.
Slowly, he eases himself upright, screwing his eyes up in obvious dizziness and pain. His eyes are bloodshot and bleary when he opens them, but they still focus clearly on Harry. He opens his mouth to say something to Harry, but no sound comes out. But Harry understands; the Doctor often goes nonverbal after a meltdown. Luckily, all three of them are fluent in sign language.
“How do you feel?” Harry asks, keeping his voice quiet.
Bad, the Doctor signs, wincing as he flexes his sore hands.
“I bet you do,” Harry says. “Would you like me to help you up?”
Please.
Carefully, not wanting to hurt any of the Doctor’s bruises, Harry helps the Doctor to sit back on the bench. Just like earlier, he slumps against Harry. But this time he is dizzy and injured and looks like he will faint if Harry lets go of him.
Sorry, the Doctor signs.
“Ssh,” Harry sooths, as though the Doctor spoke. He runs his fingers through the Doctor’s curly hair, letting the Doctor rest his head on his shoulder. “You don’t need to apologise, old thing. It’s all right.”
If the Doctor wasn’t feeling so bad, Harry is sure he would snap at him and tell him not to patronise him (which isn’t his intention, but the Doctor is known to read things incorrectly). But, now, the Doctor does nothing. He simply leans against Harry, weak and limp and silent, exhausted from having had such a horrible meltdown.
---
When they finally meet up with Sarah, the three of them hug, amazed to be finally back together. They hug the way they usually do, their arms looped around each other in a proper three-person cuddle.
“We thought you might be dead,” the Doctor says, his voice still a bit flat and shaky after going nonverbal. He presses his sore face against Sarah’s shoulder, and Harry is certain he’s trying to hide the tears in his eyes.
“I thought you might be dead,” Sarah says, her voice muffled from where her face is pressed against Harry’s shoulder.
After what seems like forever but still should have been longer, they pull apart. As much as he wants to, Harry knows they can’t cuddle forever; after all, they still have to deal with Davros and the Daleks.
Sarah grins, looking a bit tearful out of the relief of being reunited. But then her eyes widen when she looks at the Doctor. In the hours since his meltdown, the Doctor’s face has started to bruise. He has a black eye, and horrible pattern bruises across his forehead and chin. His hands are sore too, his split knuckles scabbing over and turning blue-black as the bruises blossom.
“Doctor?” she says, horrified. “What happened to you?”
The Doctor stares down at the ground, starting to chew on his lip. He always feels terribly embarrassed after a meltdown. Harry supposes it’s a remnant of the abusive rhetoric used when he was forced through ‘behaviour therapy’ as a child.
“Meltdown,” the Doctor mumbles.
Sarah sighs, giving him a sad, understanding smile.
“He was worried about you, weren’t you, Doctor?” Harry says.
“I was terrified. It made me panic. I had a meltdown.”
“Well I’m all right,” Sarah says. “I’m safe. We’re back together.”
“Yes, we are,” the Doctor says, and he smiles weakly as he hugs Sarah tightly and Harry kisses her forehead and they just hold each other, because they’re back together and Sarah’s safe and the Doctor’s feeling better, and things are as they should be again.