Work Text:
“May the saints of all the stars and constellations bring you hope as they guide you out of the dark …”
The moment the Doctor realises that she might have accidentally pushed herself a bit too hard happens halfway through the incantation they’re holding for Eve. Which in retrospect is incredibly fortunate seeing as it could’ve easily happened earlier while they were still busy trying to prevent the ship from getting blown up or otherwise devoured by a lethal rogue Pting with a taste for compact particle accelerators. As they stand huddled around in the sterile blue and white lighting of the hospital, paying their respects to the fallen general, she breathes through the ache in her left side, a pain which nudges at her consciousness, periphery but incessant.
“… and into the light, on this voyage and the next …”
Alright — so, maybe not so periphery. Things hadn’t seemed that bad when she was rushing about, saving people, same old life, but now without any immediate mortal peril to contend with the adrenaline is starting to wear off and she’s beginning to think that there might be something slightly more wrong with her ecto-spleen than it just needing to ‘settle’. She shifts uncomfortably, trying to focus on reciting the proverb. On Eve.
“… and all the journeys still to come …”
Adjusting her stance was not a good decision. If anything, it makes things worse. Tendrils of pain shoot up from her side and around her ribs that she can envision twisting around her nerve endings like some sort of horrific tentacle-creature. That’s when she starts feeling really funny. The room starts fading, darkening around the edges. She blinks rapidly, trying to clear the haze away but it doesn’t seem to have any effect.
“… for now and forever more.”
As these final words leave her mouth they sound odd, like they’re not coming from her but instead someone else. She looks around the room, dazed.
“Doctor?”
Yaz’ concerned voice cuts through the fog now clouding up her brain.
“… Doctor?”
“Sorry, Yaz,” she gasps, waving her hand dismissively. Her ears are ringing. “Just … ‘Bit dizzy.”
“You really don’t look all that great.” Ryan rubs the back of his neck, looking around the room at the others. The troubled expressions of her new TARDIS Team, plus Durkas, Yoss, and Mabli suddenly make her feel incredibly self-conscious. Is that the type of Doctor she is now? A self conscious one?
She’s about to try rattling off another reassurance when a wave of vertigo causes her to stumble back a few steps and clutch at the nearby wall for support, her other hand wrapped around her side. And yup. This definitely feels about ten times worse than that time she had an entire hand cut off with a sword that one Christmas with the Sycorax. But then again, she did have the added benefit of excess regeneration energy back then. What she wouldn’t give for that right now. Rassilon, now she’s missing regeneration. She must really be on the brink of delirium. Pressing her forehead to the cool material of the ship she tries to breathe through the pain and nausea.
“You shouldn’t have been running around so soon after the mine.” She can hear Mabli say from across the circle. It sounds like she’s underwater. “From the injuries you sustained it seems you absorbed a majority of the blast while shielding your companions. You should sit down.”
“‘M fine. Just need a mo’.”
“‘Think you should probably listen to the medic on this one, Doc.” Graham sounds similarly concerned.
“I’m okay.” She experimentally attempts to straighten up and is met with another agonising stabbing sensation so sudden it sends black spots dancing across her vision.
By the time Yaz reaches her she’s barely upright. She only really dimly realises that she’s holding onto her elbow when she begins to slip to the ground, overcome by a bout of lightheadedness. Yaz manages to catch her before she falls completely, slowing her descent, but as she does so she jostles the Doctor’s side and she lets out a sharp gasp of pain.
“Sorry, sorry!”
As the Doctor slumps into Yaz’ chest she can feel her hand on the back of her neck, stabilising her. This and the wrist that now presses to her forehead are both cool, which is more than a bit alarming seeing as her body temperature is supposed to be much cooler than the average human’s, not the other way around.
As she squints up at the ceiling against the bright white light that now feels so much harsher than it did before, watching the amorphous blob that is now Yaz hover above her practically radiating anxiety, she can’t help but feel oddly calm. Is this a first for her? This seems like a first for her. It’s not that she hasn’t been vulnerable around her companions — her friends — before, but this time round she somehow feels less alone, like it’s not entirely up to her to constantly keep it together. She trusts them.
She’s just getting used to this peculiar feeling when suddenly there are foreign hands on her, shifting her into a seated position, and she momentarily panics, recoiling from the touch. Someone offers hushed reassurances and through the disorientation she feels Yaz’ hand squeeze her own, allowing her to regain enough composure to realise that it’s just Mabli at her right side, wrapping some sort of medical cuff around her arm. Through all this she keeps her gaze fixed on Yaz who still hasn’t moved, hovering in front of her. Her eyes are wide and worried and immediately the Doctor wants to say something to make her feel better.
“Thanks, Yaz,” she murmurs, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible so as to not jostle anything. It hurts if she inhales too deeply.
“You’re welcome.” A pause. “For … what exactly?”
“Ah!” She hisses through gritted teeth as Mabli presses something to her side. “Protectin’ the particle accelerator. Keepin’ everyone safe.”
“‘Just followin’ your orders.” Yaz shrugs with a small smile.
The Doctor shakes her head, ignoring the way it sets the room spinning again.
“No, s’not about me. You. You are brilliant, Yasmin Khan.”
She blushes, but then her expression quickly shifts to one that is a lot more solemn.
“Doctor …” Yaz’ lips are pressed into a firm line, brows drawn together. “Why didn’t you say somethin’? Why didn’t ya tell us you were hurt?”
“Didn’t — want to be selfish,” she winces. “Now I’m beginnin’ to think that that actually sounds really appealing.”
“I don’t even know if you could be selfish if you tried.”
The Doctor lets out a light huff of laughter that then shifts to a groan. “‘Wish that were the case.”
“You really are impossibly stubborn, y’know that?”
“‘Might’ve been told that a couple times over the years, yeah.”
With the help of Durkas and Ryan the Doctor is, not without protest, eventually relocated back to the hospital room the gang first woke up in. After administering a low grade sedative Mabli ends up wrapping a physiological regulator band around her waist in order to accelerate the process of re-stabilising her damaged organs, which is pretty rudimentary for sixty-seventh century tech but should work well enough. At this point she’s so exhausted can’t even muster up the strength to provide Mabli with a detailed rant about the future developments PRBs go through heading into the sixty-eighth century so instead she just settles for mumbling something about fifty-one being an excellent choice of number. She drifts off to the distant sound of baby noises and soft chatter.
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
When the Doctor next awakens the first thing that permeates the thickness of sleep is the sound of hushed voices. They merge and blend together, seeping into her dreams.
“She’s bloody daft sometimes, isn’t she?”
“To be fair she was a bit preoccupied before with saving all of our lives.”
“‘Dunno. She seemed pretty against anyone helping her even while Ronan was doing that ceremony-thing.”
“It’s not like she’s very used to havin’ other people round to look out for her innit?”
“Surely she hasn’t been alone for that long …”
As she slowly drifts back to lucidity she can start to make out who’s talking. A conversation between Yaz, Ryan, and Graham. It’s beginning to feel like she might be eavesdropping so she makes a show of shifting in bed, blinking as her eyes adjust to the familiar blue and white light.
“Doctor!” Yaz exclaims, plopping herself down by the Doctor’s feet, causing the mattress to bounce.
“‘Morning.” She stifles a yawn. “Or rather, night? It’s always night in space. Sort of.”
“It’s nice to see you’re somewhat back to normal.”
“You gave us a proper good scare back there.” Graham’s sitting in a chair by her bedside with a MedBlanket across his lap along with some sort of reading tablet.
She shrugs. “Ah, well. Right as rain now, aren’t I? It was nothing. Nothing serious, anyway.”
Sitting up properly now, she lifts up the hem of her t-shirt and gently moves her fingers around, putting light pressure on different areas around her ribcage through the regulator band. The pain above her abdomen has now pretty much completely vanished and it feels like everything is up and running again. Which … really should have taken longer.
“How long have I been asleep for?”
“‘Been out a couple of days now. We’re almost back to the mainland. Wherever that is. ‘Better not be any more aliens down there promising an ‘absolute risk to life’. I need at least one cup of tea between near death experiences.”
No wonder she feels like she’s been asleep for weeks. She’s only used to really needing one hour of sleep at a time. Is this really what it’s like for humans? It must be exhausting. She makes a mental note to ask Yaz some questions later about what it’s really like to sleep for such long amounts of time and also whether she ever gets bored of it.
Six days …
It’s been too long. Much too long.
She glances around the room, suddenly restless. The plain white hospital room is, now that she thinks about it, incredibly small and the fact that there’s no way out, thousands of miles of space separating her and her ship makes her anxious in a way she hasn’t felt since those long few nights after she first crash-landed in Sheffield. These were spent sleeping on Ryan and Graham’s sofa, while her days were occupied with trying to parse Stenza technology and its many cryptic layers, all the while fending off a very acute and very unfamiliar sense of claustrophobia.
“We’re not moving quickly enough.” She says decisively, throwing the sheeting off her bed, swings her legs off of the side, ready to get up.
“Is this about the TARDIS?” Ryan asks quickly.
“She’s gonna be right angry with me …” The Doctor is now talking more to herself than anyone else, growing increasingly agitated. “And what if someone steals her? Only I’m allowed to steal her. I’ve — I’ve only just got her back.”
She’s startled back to reality by Graham’s hand on her knee, solid and reassuring.
“Listen, Doc. Just take a breath, okay?”
She finds herself close to tears, but she listens to him anyway, takes a deep, shuddering breath in. When it feels like she’s not about to sprint for the door he seems to feel he’s able to continue.
“You’re gonna get her back, all right. From what I’ve heard, you always do.” Graham claps her on the shoulder. “Y’know — you and the box. All of time and space. 'Bit of a narrative you’ve got going on there.”
“‘Bit.”
“Everything’s gonna be fine in the end.” Yaz shoots her one of those comforting smiles she does that truly does seem to light up whatever room she’s in. “Plus — aren’t you the one who’s always bangin’ on about the importance of hope?”
Good ol’ Yaz. She’s correct, of course.
At this the Doctor just sits back, looks around at her three friends, crowded around her bed, and smiles. Sure they’re all in various states of dishevelment and are technically all still inpatients of a medical facility, but here they are. Safe, healthy, alive. These three brilliant humans she has the privilege of calling her new family.
“Oh no,” Ryan says. “Why’s she got that look on her face?”
“C’mere, you lot.” She leans forward, pulling of them into a tight hug — one that Ryan tries to act like he’s too cool for and that Graham is a bit embarrassed by — but a good hug nonetheless.
“By the way,” she quickly says, half-muffled by the material of Yaz’ jacket. “Sorry for almost gettin’ everyone killed with a sonic mine. ‘Just wanted to slip that in now while we were havin’ a moment rather than later.”