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The Shadow of Death

Summary:

It was bad this time. It was really bad.

Work Text:

They really couldn't get Rory into the Tardis exam room fast enough.
Drops of blood was scattered from the doorway, across the console room, down the hall, and on the floor of the exam room. Rory's shirt had caught most of the blood.
"Just stay with us, Rory," Eleven was saying encouragingly as he and Ten carefully placed the barely conscious human onto the table.
"Damned things, I can't believe we let them hurt him," Ten muttered under his breath, fury clearly heard in his tone, as they began to examine Rory.
The other Doctor remained silent as he winced at the rib sticking out of Rory's left side. He was furious too, but he knew he had to remain focus on the task at hand.
~
When their human wasn't in immediate danger any longer, the Doctors let some of the tension out of their shoulders and continued working quietly.
Rory was under anesthesia and attached to a heart monitor, so the steady beeping of the machine filled the unbearable silence.
"You had that look on your face today," Eleven commented to Ten as he sat down to take a break.
"What face?" Ten asked as he washed his hands. His button down shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows just like his other half's and their jackets laid somewhere discarded.
"You were afraid," Eleven replied lowly, head bowed and fringe shielding his eyes, "You thought we were going to lose another one."
Ten turned off the sink and dried off his hands, eyes trained on the blank wall and nose filled with the stench of dried blood and too many deaths on his mind.
"Another one," he echoed, "I don't think my hearts can take another one."
Neither dared state the obvious, that Rory was only human and therefore had a significantly higher chance of dying before either of them.
"You're thinking too loudly, Theta," whispered the older Doctor as he stood up and placed a hand on Ten's shoulder, "Come, let us sit and watch over him."
Ten could only nod as he sat down in a chair beside Eleven's, staring at a sleeping Rory.
~
Some time later, they woke up to Rory grumbling something about needing water and if all the blood in the bin was his.
"Definitely yours," Eleven answered in response to the blood question as he stood up.
"Bloody hell, I probably could pass for a corpse then with all the blood I lost."
Somehow, that made the Doctors smile. They still had their Rory.

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