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Generally speaking, Mel didn’t worry when she and the Doctor got separated. She would do her thing and the Doctor would do his thing. Eventually, they would find their way back to each other. That was how it always was.
Mel wished she had any idea the Doctor was now, though. In fact, Mel had no idea where she was. She was following the crowd now, hoping that the locals knew a safe place to go after the tremors had started. It was hard, though—with every tremor, there were screams of fear. Some people had started to run, pushing or shoving others in an uncaring panic. Mel tried to stay off to the side as she followed the nervous crowd. Wherever the Doctor was now, she hoped that he was safe.
She had been amazed by the elaborate underground city on Vorasia where they had first landed here in the TARDIS. The tunnels were elaborate, made out of an ancient cave system, with homes and shops carved into the walls. There was even an underground electrical grid. The Vorasions were mouselike humanoids who had lived in these tunnels for their entire recorded history.
All of that was now at risk of being destroyed—recent mining projects by surface dwellers had made the cave systems unstable and prone to collapse. There had already been several smaller cave-ins in the weeks before Mel and the Doctor arrived. Now all there was left to do was stop the mining and evacuate the unsafe areas. Of course, doing that was easier said than done. Mel had tried to convince the local leaders that people needed to be evacuated. But it was hard to convince people to leave their entire lives behind, at least before the tremors had started.
Now, Mel was just another person trying to escape. She moved as quickly as she could, but it was hard finding her way through the crowd of people, some of whom were trying to drag their luggage along with them. She couldn’t really blame them for wanting to bring their belongings with them, not knowing if they would ever be able to come back.
There was a sudden cry as another tremor shook the tunnel they were in, and then the sound of metal screeching. Mel whirled around to look for the source of the noise and caught sight of a young girl a few metres back with her leg caught under a large metal lamppost. Mel ran back to help her, dodging terrified people running for their lives in the other direction.
“Help me, please!”
Mel and a few other Vorasians had stopped to help, and after a few minutes they were able to lift the lamppost and free the young girl. By the time she had been freed, the crowd around them had thinned out noticeably, with only a few stragglers still in the area. A Vorasian man who the young girl called “Uncle” eventually lifted her up into his arms, careful not to jostle her injured legs.
Mel watched them go, taking a moment to catch her breath. What she wouldn’t give for something cool to drink. Almost as soon as the girl and her uncle were out of sight, the walls began to shake again. None of them needed any excuse to begin running, and the next thing Mel knew, she was on the ground.
It felt like she’d been run over by a bus. Or at least what Mel imagined being run over by a bus would feel like. Mel tried to breath through the pain, forcing herself to focus on her surroundings. There was a layer of dust in the air that made it hard to see more than a few metres in front of her. Or maybe that was because more of the lights had been knocked out.
She made it to her feet unsteadily, feeling a jolt of pain as she pushed off a heavy crate that had been knocked onto her midsection—thank God she had been keeping up with her weightlifting, because the crate was heavy and she trying was to push it off at an awkward angle. Nothing seemed broken, but the entire lower half of her body sure felt bruised.
“Hello! Is there anybody there?” She looked around, but the other rescuers and the girl and her uncle were gone. She called out a few more times but there was no response.
The way back was now blocked completely by rubble. Mel swallowed nervously—if she had been a few metres back, she would have been completely buried.
The dust began to thin as she walked away from the collapse. After about fifteen minutes of walking, albeit with her pace lessened significantly, she found herself at a crossroads—two tunnels of roughly equal size that went in opposite directions. On both paths, the electric lights flickered ominously and discarded objects showed that both had likely been trafficked not too long ago.
She was alone, she was in pain, and she had no idea which way meant out.
Mel picked a tunnel at random and began walking. She really wished the Doctor was here.
Mel had been a voracious reader growing up. She had loved school, excelled in every subject, been the darling of nearly every one of her teachers. Maths had been her best subject, but she’d always loved a good story. She’d read everything: adventure stories, fairy tales, mysteries—she’d read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon during a long weekend away from school, just because she’d felt like doing it. She had even liked horror stories. They hadn’t bothered her, no matter how many times her mother had warned her that she’d get nightmares.
It had always been easy to separate fiction from reality. She’d had a lovely childhood in Pease Pottage. She got along with her parents, had an easy time making friends. It was probably what had predisposed her to always try to see the best in situations, and in people.
But the bad thing about eidetic memory, of course, was that there were always some things that she’d rather forget.
Mel felt… dizzy. And tired, as if she had just ran ten miles on the treadmill, though she knew she hadn’t been walking for that long. She wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers. Surely if she just sat down for a few minutes and gathered her strength. But as soon as she lowered herself against the wall, the dizziness only seemed to get worse. She closed her eyes for a few moments, willing the world to still, so she could just think for a moment-
Mel had read an entire book on emergency medicine once. She had thought it might be useful, though the only opportunities she had ever had to try to apply it were during her travels with the Doctor.
She was suddenly remembering the section on shock very well. Symptoms included feelings of weakness, elevated heart rate, anxiety, confusion-
Thinking about that wouldn’t help her.
“Is anybody there?” Mel called out, her voice startlingly weak even as she tried to yell. “Someone please—I need help! I can’t walk.”
Surely the Doctor was looking for her. He would never leave without her. But the city and its surrounding cave system was large. It could take him days to find her…
With a sudden pang, Mel missed her parents more than she could ever remember missing them before. Would the Doctor go back home and tell them what had happened to her? She wouldn’t want to leave them wondering for the rest of their lives-
No, no. She couldn’t think like that. She was going to get out of this. The Doctor would come back for her. She knew that he would.
She continued to call out for help for what felt like ages. Surely someone would hear her eventually. Unless they had already completely evacuated this section of the city, of course. Or maybe she had gone the wrong way, to some abandoned tunnel where no one would ever think to look for her.
Mel was beginning to feel tired, a kind of deep exhaustion she rarely ever felt. It was getting harder and harder to even keep her eyes open.
“There you are!”
It was the confident voice of the Doctor. Mel felt suddenly so relieved that she thought she might cry.
“Doctor!” Mel looked up at him, trying again to summon the strength to get to her feet. She could see the moment he noticed something was wrong. His face fell and in an instant he was kneeling in front of her.
“Oh, Mel, you’re as pale as a sheet,” the Doctor said, placing a hand on her face. It felt strangely warm. “Are you injured?
“I think so,” Mel said, shakily. “I—there’s a pain near my stomach. I keep trying to stand back up, but I feel so tired.”
“You’re going to be fine, alright?” The Doctor said, clearly trying for his usual blustering confidence and failing to find it. “Just let me check-“
The Doctor took her arm in one hand, and with his other hand put two fingers against the inside of her wrist. As he measured her pulse, he said, “You humans, with your one heart. I don’t know how you expect to get anything done. It’s terribly inefficient…”
The Doctor was clearly trying for levity, so Mel tried to smile. But she felt so tired, she could barely do anything but flash her teeth for a second.
“Doctor, I feel—I feel cold,” Mel murmured, closing her eyes for a moment. She was just so tired. Now that the Doctor was here, though, everything would be fine. Maybe she could just rest for a moment-
“Mel!” The Doctor said sharply and Mel forced her eyes open. The Doctor had taken his coat off, she noticed. As silly as it was, he always looked strange without it. Gently, he draped it around her shoulders. It was much too large for her, of course, so it felt more like a blanket than a jacket. “Stay with me, alright?”
“Alright.” Mel tried to think of a joke about the Doctor’s colourful coat clashing with her outfit, but nothing sprung to mind.
The funny thing was, the Doctor’s coat was actually quite comfortable. Much softer and warmer than she had expected. She wondered if that was why he wore it so often. Mel knew that whenever she found a comfy jacket she liked she wore it every chance she got.
“Your pulse is a little high,” the Doctor said softly. “I’m going to take you back to the medical bay on the TARDIS and look you over, alright?”
Mel nodded, trying to keep her eyes open. The next thing she knew, she was in the Doctor’s arms, as he walked at a hurried pace down the tunnels. Under normal circumstances, Mel would probably be mildly amused at how easily the Doctor carried her, like she hardly weighed a thing. At the moment, all she wanted to do was close her eyes and not open them again for a long time.
The Doctor was warm and solid and Mel was so very tired…
Mel opened her eyes and saw bright white. She blinked, and a few moments later recognized the TARDIS medical bay. She had been tucked into one of the beds. A colourful quilt had been tossed over the plain white sheets. She sat up in bed and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no pain on doing so.
There was a monitor next to the bed showing her vital signs, though she couldn’t immediately tell how it was collecting the data. Curiously, there were no monitors attached to her body that she could see.
“Mel?”
She turned to see the Doctor sitting at her bedside. He looked… ruffled. He still wasn’t wearing his coat (Mel vaguely registered that it was still wrapped around her shoulders) and his hair looked more unkempt than usual. There was a conditioner she’d been meaning to recommend to him to keep the frizziness down—oh, maybe some other time. He looked terribly worried.
“Hi, Doctor,” Mel said softly.
The Doctor gave her a small smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better. A little tired, maybe. How long have I been asleep?”
“Oh, not much more than a day or so,” said the Doctor. “You fell asleep on the way back to the TARDIS. I was able to look you over and get you a quick nanite injection to stop the bleeding. Really, Mel, they don’t call me ‘the Doctor’ for nothing, you know.”
“I thought you weren’t that kind of doctor,” Mel said.
“My dear Melanie, I’m every kind of doctor,” the Doctor replied.
Mel frowned at him. “Wait. Stop trying to distract me. What bleeding?” She certainly didn’t remember any bleeding. Though the nanotechnology stuff the Doctor was taking about sounded interesting. She’d had to ask him about it later. Why was it that whenever they visited the future, it was always collapsing underground cities and evil sentient vegetables, and never any fun futuristic technology?
Any hint of levity vanished from the Doctor’s face. “I… Mel, you were seriously injured in the collapse,” he said, very gently. “There was some internal bleeding, which caused you to go into shock.”
“Oh,” said Mel.
She imagined the Doctor carrying her pale and limp body through the caves. Racing back into the TARDIS, depositing her on a medical bed. Trying to help save her life. Waiting by her bedside for her to wake for God knows how long.
I could have died, she thought, feeling curiously numb. If the Doctor hadn’t found her when he did…
“The TARDIS medical nanites have fixed you up completely, though, and you should be back to your usual self in a couple of days.” The Doctor said, attempting a cheerful tone.
But he did find me, Mel thought. He found her, and she was fine. The Doctor would never have left her behind.
“But what about the people?” Mel asked, thinking of the little girl and her uncle. She hoped that they had gotten out safe. “We have to go back and convince them to fully evacuate the city.”
“Ironically, I convinced the governor to agree to move the city to a more stable cave system a few minutes before the collapse that injured you.” The Doctor looked thoughtful. “It’s up to them now, I’m afraid.”
“That’s good,” Mel said. She wondered how the Vorasions would fare. Would they be able to rebuild? Maybe one day the Doctor would take them back here and they would find out. But maybe not. It was a big universe.
“Do you have any recommendations for me, Doctor?” Mel asked, deciding to try for cheerfulness as well. “Just rest and fluids?”
“I always knew you were a smart one,” said the Doctor as he reached for something on the table beside them. “Speaking of fluids… I made sure to use your protein powder and everything, just how you like it.”
The Doctor handed her a glass of carrot juice. Strangely enough, it was still cool.
“Oh, thank you, Doctor!” Mel took a sip.
It tasted just how she liked it. She hadn’t known the Doctor had ever paid attention to how she made her health juices. All it had taken to get him to stop complaining and show an interest was… er, her almost dying. “You didn’t make any for yourself?”
“Mel, you surprise me,” the Doctor said. “I would never dream of taking such a… nutritious beverage from an injured woman.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Doctor,” Mel said, grinning.
The Doctor smiled back at her. “Anything for you, Melanie.”