Chapter Text
The Fourteenth Doctor congregated with Melanie, Donna, and Shirley as the Fifteenth Doctor made his preparations to travel across time and space.
“Right then,” the Doctor said, “Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen this, Shirley. I don’t see it often myself. Stand by!”
He watched as the new TARDIS started up. It had been a very, VERY long time since he had seen a TARDIS take off in this manner. Sure there was the time the Master stole his TARDIS back in two-thousand-seven and more recently the time the hostile action displacement system kicked in and left them stranded on a lost spaceship turned bomb at the edge of the universe. But he wasn’t able to enjoy watching a TARDIS depart those times, both had left him and his companions stranded in a very dangerous situation.
“Where’s he going?” Melanie asked.
“Everywhere.” The Doctor responded. He smiled and whispered a heart-felt “Good luck.” To his future self.
He sighed as he watched the new TARDIS vanish from the room. The sight was giving him chills. Except the chills didn’t dissipate, they held strong as he felt himself breaking into a hot, feverish sweat. He was suddenly freezing and burning at the same time. The edges of his vision were starting to grey as the room started to spin. He quickly attempted to steady himself by grabbing Donna’s arm. But it was no use, he could feel the strength draining from his body. His consciousness was waning fast.
Was this it for him? Would he vanish now? Was this how he would meet his end barely eighteen hours after his current life had begun? If he had had a normal regeneration he would have simply passed this off as regeneration sickness, he’d dealt with that before and would have been able to manage until he recovered. But he hadn’t had a normal regeneration. He had literally split into two different Doctors. And as a result, he had no idea what was happening to his body and he was terrified.
“Donna…” He gasped still gripping her arm like his life depended on it. Praying he’d have enough time to tell her that there was something seriously wrong with him and that he didn't know what it was.
“Doctor?” Donna asked. She sounded so far away but they were standing right next to each other. “Doctor, what’s wrong?” she asked as her worried face swam in and out of focus.
“Donna…I…” he gasped just before a thick veil of black suffocated him as he lost consciousness.
Donna…I’m scared.
Donna sighed as she felt the old Doctor, her Doctor, grab her arm as they watched the new Doctor head off in his TARDIS. She figured he was simply getting emotional watching something he hadn’t been able to enjoy in oh so long. But something about it was worrying her. His grip was a little too strong and it felt like he was shaking nearly uncontrollably. It didn’t feel like someone just holding on to her for emotional support, it felt more like someone desperately trying to keep themselves on their feet.
“Donna…” She heard the Doctor gasp weakly, his voice barely a whisper. Oh, this couldn’t be good.
“Doctor?” She asked. She looked over and immediately flew into a complete panic. His face had barely more colour than the white shirt he was wearing under his plaid waistcoat. An almost alarming amount of sweat had gathered on his brow in the less than sixty seconds it had been since she had last looked at his face. The Doctor looked extremely unwell. She knew there was something seriously wrong with him, and it terrified her. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”
“Donna…I…” He gasped just before his eyes closed and he crumpled to the floor. Nearly taking her with him. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
“Doctor!” Both Donna and Melanie exclaimed as they immediately dropped to his side.
“I need urgent medical assistance in suite seventeen,” Shirley called urgently into her phone, “I repeat I need urgent medical assistance in suite seventeen! Kate, I’m sorry, I also need you to report to suite seventeen as soon as you absolutely can.”
“Shirley, what’s going on?” Kate’s voice called.
“The Doctor collapsed,” Shirley said, “Mel and Donna are tending to him now.” She dropped her voice, “He looks deathly ill…”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Both hearts still beating,” Donna said after pressing her ear to each side of the Doctor’s chest, “But I can’t tell if his heartrate is abnormal nor not.”
“He doesn’t feel warm,” Melanie said as she placed her hand to the Doctor’s forehead, “So I don’t think he has a fever.”
“We wouldn’t be able to tell if he had a fever,” Donna said as she recalled a time when the Doctor ended up sick with a fever when she travelled with him fifteen years earlier. Even though he had actually admitted to having a high fever, which the TARDIS had confirmed, his skin had never felt warm to her, “His normal body temperature is something like fifteen degrees centigrade.”
Moments later Kate and several members of the medical staff entered the suite, “What’s the situation!?” Kate exclaimed as she took in the scene. She didn’t know what she had been expecting but it wasn’t what she saw. The Doctor lay unconscious on the floor. His face was almost stark white and was slick with sweat. She could hear his laboured breathing from where she stood as his chest heaved. He looked, as Shirley had said, deathly ill.
“He collapsed,” Donna said shakily trying to stay strong for her best friend, “He’s completely unresponsive but both hearts still beating. His heartrate seems strong but neither of us know if it’s abnormal or not.” She paused, “It could just be exhaustion but…I’ve seen him completely knackered before and he…didn’t look as bad as this.”
“Could it be from getting shot through with the galvanic beam?” Kate asked.
“The regeneration process would have taken care of any internal damage he sustained from that,” Donna explained, “He’s likely uninjured.”
“What should we do?” One of the nurses asked after she briefly assessed the Doctor’s vitals, “He’s not human. We have little training or even knowledge on how to treat an ill Time Lord.”
“Call for the chief medical specialist,” Kate ordered, “Tell her it’s an emergency of the highest priority. She’ll know what it means.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“For now bring him to the infirmary,” Kate said, “We can monitor him there while we wait.” She turned to Donna, “We’re bringing your family here for now. We’ll set them up in the living quarters until we get your house fixed up.”
“Tell them to meet me in the infirmary when they get here,” Donna said, “I’m not leaving his side.”
Donna sighed as she sat outside the private room they had set the Doctor up in. She had been at his side for a time, but after a while the sight of him lying there, unnaturally still while his face nearly blended in with the pillows, combined with the steady beep of the heartrate monitor they had managed to reconfigure to work with his body had become too much for her to bear. And for her own sake she needed to step out but she felt horribly guilty about it. Right before he had collapsed, the Doctor's face held a look of terror she had never seen him make. He needed her now more than ever but she was sitting out in the hall. The chief medical specialist hadn’t arrived yet and there was no way of knowing when they would get there.
“Mum?” A familiar voice called causing Donna to look up from her hands.
“Rose?” Donna asked as she looked and saw her daughter, husband, and mother standing there. She stood up and immediately rushed to her daughter and pulled her into a tight embrace, “Rose! Oh sweetie! Shaun, Mum are you alright?”
“We're fine,” Rose said returning the hug. She could tell her mother desperately needed a hug, “The people from UNIT made sure we were kept safe. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Donna insisted, “Just a little shaken.”
“What happened?” Rose asked, “The TARDIS just suddenly vanished.”
“I…kind of spilled coffee in the controls which caused it to go completely out of control,” Donna explained, “We met Isaac Newton in sixteen-sixty-six. Then we ended up at the edge of the universe with these Not-things that tried to take our appearance and steal our place in the universe. We barely managed to escape that. Then there was the Toymaker…”
“Where’s the Doctor?” Rose asked, “Is he okay?”
“Well…” Donna started, “We’re not sure at the moment.”
“Did he…regenerate?” Rose asked quietly.
“Sort of,” Donna said, “But it was different this time. He split into two different Doctors. They called it bi-generation. They beat the Toymaker in a game of catch. Then the new Doctor flew off and the old Doctor, our Doctor…he just collapsed…” She paused as she tried to keep herself from completely breaking down, “We don’t know what’s wrong with him…”
“Mum it’s okay,” Rose said, “I’m sure he’s going to be fine.”
“I almost wish…I had held on to the Metacrisis for a little while longer,” Donna said as several tears escaped her will and ran down her cheeks, “Then maybe…someone would know what was happening to him…and how to make him better.”
“Mum, you know why we couldn’t keep the Metacrisis,” Rose said, “It would have killed us eventually. It’s okay, he’s going to be okay. For now just try to relax, okay?”
“Okay,” Donna said as she wiped the tears from her eyes, “Oh, I was offered a job.”
“Are you kidding?” Sylvia asked, “Only you would manage to find a job while the entire world goes mad.”
“Yeah, I know,” Donna said, “Only me. I was the one who helped figure out what was making everyone go mad. And the woman in charge offered me one-hundred-twenty thousand quid and five weeks holiday.”
“What!?” Sylvia gasped, “That’s…wonderful. But is it safe?”
“Mum, it’s one-hundred-twenty thousand a year who cares if it's safe,” Donna said, “It’s a far cry from the most dangerous job I’ve had. Remember H.C. Clemments?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Sylvia said, “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Donna said with a weak smile, “You can head down to the living quarters they set you up in. I’m going to stay here with the Doctor at least until the medical specialist arrives.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Rose said, “I think you need a little support right now.”
“Thanks…” Donna said, “I’m sorry Shaun…I just need to be there with him…”
“It’s alright,” Shaun said, “Go take care of him.”
“Thanks.” Donna said as she walked back into the Doctor’s room followed by her daughter, “Sorry Mel, I had to step out…”
“It’s alright,” Melanie said, “He hasn’t changed much since you left.” She spotted Rose, “Is this your daughter?”
“Yes,” Donna said as she pulled a chair up to the Doctor’s bedside, “This is Rose.”
“Oh Donna she’s beautiful,” Melanie said, “Hi I’m Melanie. I traveled with the Doctor too a long time ago. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Rose said as she stood behind her mother and put her arms around her, “He’s going to be okay mum. He’s strong, he’ll pull through.”
A few minutes later one of the nurses entered the room, “The specialist just got here. She’ll be here shortly.”
Martha Jones-Smith couldn’t say she was surprised when she was called back to UNIT headquarters because of a "priority-one medical emergency." She had almost expected it. She had heard that the Doctor had been battling someone known simply as the Toymaker at UNIT headquarters and "priority-one" was UNIT code for anything involving the Doctor.
She had been assigned to the safe-zone at the Chiswick flyover. And while there, she had done a quick medical evaluation on a woman named Sylvia Noble, her teenage granddaughter Rose Noble, an elderly man named Wilfred Mott who kept insisting that the Doctor was going to save them, and Rose Noble’s father Shaun Temple. She, and everyone else there had been made aware that that group was of the second-highest priority level they could assign, they were Donna Noble’s family and they were to be given preferential treatment. She had noticed Donna’s absence but didn’t dare ask her family about her whereabouts. Given what had been happening, she knew there was a good chance that Kate Lethbridge-Stewart was keeping Donna in an even more secure location. A location that even her own family was likely not aware of.
“Thank you for coming Martha,” Kate said, “We just didn’t know what else to do.”
“What happened?” Martha asked.
“The Doctor collapsed following the battle against the Toymaker,” Kate explained, “We’re not sure what’s wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Right through here.” Kate said as she stopped at a private medical room.
Martha entered the room and her jaw immediately dropped. She didn’t quite know what was more shocking. The Doctor she would be examining was the Doctor she had travelled with way back in two-thousand-seven, except he looked like he had aged about fifteen years. The last file she had read on the Doctor stated that the Time Lord had been a blonde woman. So was the Doctor she would be examining the Doctor the woman had regenerated into? Or had the Doctor she travelled with somehow managed to find his way to twenty-twenty-three at some point between the Dalek’s invasion of Earth and when he would regenerate in late two-thousand-nine?
Then there was fact that Donna Noble was sitting by his bed and was gently sponging his forehead while the teenage girl she had briefly met with in Chiswick hours earlier sat with her head on Donna’s shoulder. Martha had been told that if Donna remembered anything about the Doctor she would die. They even had a protocol they were to follow in the event something triggered her memories of him. She was wondering if she would have to tell someone to get the serum the Doctor had left with her after he had to wipe Donna’s memory.
“Donna…” She gasped, “Donna Noble?”
Donna looked up and immediately smiled, “Martha!” She gasped as she stood up, rushed over and pulled her into a hug, “Oh Martha it’s so good to see you again!”
“Donna, what’s going on?” Martha asked, “I thought if you remembered the Doctor…you would die. And the Doctor…is he the version we travelled with back in the two-thousands?”
“Long story short, he’s regenerated four times since we travelled with him, technically five times if you count what happened today. He somehow got his old face back and I got my memories back without dying,” She said, “Thanks to my daughter Rose.”
Donna’s short version of everything that had happened did NOT make her any less confused. If anything, it only added more questions to the laundry list she already had going.
“Mum, you know her?” Rose asked.
“Of course I know Martha,” Donna said, “I helped save the world with Martha, twice! How do you know her?”
“She was at the safe-zone in Chiswick,” Rose said, “She did our medical evaluations when we were checked in.”
“So what happened today?” Martha asked. She could ask for the longer version of Donna’s story once they figured out what was wrong with the Doctor, “What caused him to collapse?”
“He got shot through the chest by the galvanic beam by the Toymaker which caused him to start regenerating but he bi-generated instead and split into two,” Donna explained.
“Hold on, he split in two?” Martha asked. She remembered the time he had explained that he had been able to regrow his hand after getting it cut off in a swordfight on Christmas. But splitting into two people was a whole new level of impossible, even for the Doctor, until she remembered that his severed hand had eventually become a human version of the Doctor, somehow. So perhaps the Doctor splitting into two wasn’t so farfetched, “So there are two of him?”
“There are two Doctors now,” Donna said, “Yeah.”
“Does the other one look like him? Like with what happened in two-thousand-eight?”
“No,” Donna said, “The other one is different. The other Doctor is the one he was supposed to turn into but they’re doing rehab out of order. If it makes you feel any better the Doctors don’t really know how it happened or how it works either.”
Okay never mind this was a whole new level of impossible, even for the Doctor.
“Alright,” Martha said as she started examining the Doctor. She tried to remember what he had told her about how to measure his heartrate and what was considered normal, “Did he complain of any symptoms before he lost consciousness?”
“No,” Donna said, “One moment he was fine and the next minute he was unconscious on the floor. Given how fast he went from being fine to being not fine he might not have had the time to complain.”
Martha nodded as she continued her examination. She wasn’t finding anything physically wrong with the Doctor. However, given the Doctor’s slightly rapid heartrate, his laboured breathing and the amount of sweat that kept accumulating on his brow, she had reason to believe he was running some kind of fever. But she had no way of checking his temperature, “Donna, is there anyway we could get to his TARDIS?” she asked, “I have a feeling he’s running a fever but I don’t have a thermometer that can measure his temperature.”
“His TARDIS is in suite seventeen but I don’t have a key anymore. He never got around to giving me a new one.” Donna said, “And the only thing he had on his person was his sonic screwdriver. I know he was keeping the key in his coat pocket, but I haven’t seen his coat in hours.”
“I’ll go check the main war room,” Melanie said, “That might have been the last place he had it.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Martha said.
“We could always try using his sonic screwdriver,” Rose suggested, “He used it to create a sort of screen when the Meep’s spaceship was crashing. Granted he wasn’t entirely sure how he did it…”
“The problem with that would be whether or not it would give his vitals in a language we could understand,” Martha said, “The TARDIS doesn’t translate his written native language. I know when I travelled with him, he altered a thermometer to give temperature readings in centigrade and in numbers I could read but there’s no way of knowing if he still has it.”
“Donna,” Melanie’s voice called over an intercom in the room a few minutes later, “The Doctor’s TARDIS key was in his coat pocket. Do you want me to meet you in suite seventeen?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Donna said, “We’ll meet you there.” She turned to Martha, “Do you want to come with me? Don’t worry, I doubt the TARDIS would be able to run off with her counterpart unconscious in bed.”
“Okay,” Martha said.
“Can I come too?” Rose asked, “I want to see what the TARDIS looks like on the inside.”
“I suppose,” Donna said, “I’d rather have you see it under my supervision than the Doctor’s. Knowing him, he wouldn’t hesitate to take you off god only knows where. He likes to show off to first-time fliers.”
“Thanks so much Mel,” Donna said as she took the key from the other red head, “Let’s hope the TARDIS can help us.”
Martha sighed as she looked at the TARDIS. It looked almost the same as it had fifteen years ago. There were only subtle differences, the sign on the door was now black and the TARDIS looked like it was a slightly different shade of blue. But she wasn’t sure if it was just the lighting in the room or not. It made her wonder if maybe the outside of the TARDIS changed as the Doctor did. She heard the door unlock then followed Donna, Melanie, and Rose inside.
She gasped as she looked around the console room, it was completely different than the one he remembered. “It’s…so different,” She said, “It’s beautiful.” The new interior was so much brighter and cleaner than the one she had spent so much time in.
“Sweetie?” Donna called tentatively. It had been so long since she had spoken to the TARDIS and she had no idea if the TARDIS would even respond, “The Doctor’s taken ill and we need a thermometer to check his temperature. Do you happen to have a thermometer we could read?”
After a few moments, the lighting in the console room flashed red. The TARDIS had checked every single thermometer the Doctor had but none of them could give a temperature reading the humans could read.
“That’s okay sweetie,” Donna responded, “We’ll figure something out.”
“I’ll see if someone in IT can create something that can measure his temperature,” Martha said, “But for now all we can do is just let him rest and hope he doesn’t get worse.” She paused, “I don’t think there’s anything we can really do for him until we find out what’s wrong with him.”
There were so many things she wanted to ask Donna but figured it could wait until tomorrow. From the sound of it, she had had one hell of a day.
“Alright,” Donna said, “Rose sweetie, you can go back to the living quarters they’ve set us up in. Tell dad, gran, and granddad, I’ll be staying with the Doctor tonight.”
“Alright,” Rose said as she took one more look around the console room even though she had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time she would see it. “Have a good night.” She said as she hugged her mother, “I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetie.” Donna said.
Something was bothering the new Doctor. Something about the way his past-self looked before he left was nagging at him. It was also nagging at his new TARDIS. Who was, in turn nagging him incessantly to go check on the other Doctor. She then reminded him, he had to return the shirt, tie, and trainers anyway.
“Alright, alright,” the Doctor said, “I’ll go check in on the kid. Lead the way.”
The TARDIS hummed in content as she materialized in UNIT’s infirmary, right in front of the room the “past” Doctor was resting in.
The new Doctor quietly entered the medical room and his hearts dropped. His “former self” was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. He looked impossibly frail. If it weren’t for the stubble and his freckles, there would have been absolutely no colour to the older-younger Doctor’s face. The medical staff had set up a, likely unnecessary, nasal cannula to provide, again likely unnecessary, supplemental oxygen and had somehow managed to rig a human heartrate monitor to work for a Time Lord without it perpetually screaming like a banshee. Which impressed him, unless of course they had simply found a way to mute the device. But even if that was the case he still had to give them props for it.
Donna Noble was asleep on a cot on the opposite side of the room. And while she looked significantly healthier than the older-younger Doctor, mentally, she probably wasn’t faring much better than him. They had both had one hell of a day but neither was getting the rest they rightfully deserved.
“Oh, oh you poor thing…” the new Doctor said gently in Gallifreyan as he placed his hand to the other Doctor’s burning forehead, “Regeneration sickness, worse than we’ve ever had it…and I can imagine it gave you a proper fright.”
He couldn’t help but feel a tad guilty over the older-younger Doctor’s condition. They had both “regenerated” that day so why was the version of him who looked like a gentle breeze would be enough to do him in, the only one dealing with the nasty after-effects? It was probably the last thing he needed, “I guess once you finally stopped, it all drained out of you and you ended up like this. I’m sorry this is happening to you.”
He quietly scanned the older-younger Doctor with his new sonic screwdriver and retreated back to his TARDIS.
“We were right,” the Doctor said as he fed the scan results into the computer and looked over the data, “The poor kid’s really not doing well. Body temperature nearly twenty degrees, nineteen point seven. They’re gonna need to get that down…Heartrate rapid given his fever but still within normal parameters, oxygen levels slightly below normal but he doesn’t need supplemental oxygen they’re giving him, brain activity normal despite his condition…no physical injuries. His Artron and Lindos levels are high but he's still within twenty hours of regenerating twice so at least for now it's not a concern. I was right, he has regeneration sickness and it’s being exacerbated by extreme exhaustion. It’s going to take a while for him to recover from this. But he should be fine once it runs its course.”
He then quickly ran off to the medical storage room. As savvy as they were when it came to all things extraterrestrial, UNIT probably didn’t have anything they could safely use to keep the other Doctor’s raging fever under control. Human medications were usually either completely useless, barely effective, came with bizarre and-or concerning side-effect, or down-right deadly for Time Lords. And even if they had access to his TARDIS they wouldn’t be able to read the medicine labels anyway. He grabbed a thermometer that would measure his temperature then altered it to give the readings in centigrade and with number the humans caring for him could read. He also grabbed a fever reducer that dissolved in the mouth so they could administer it while he was unconscious, as well as something they could use to keep him nourished and hydrated until he was able to eat again. He then took a small memo pad out of a drawer and wrote down the dosing instructions for both medications in English as well as a “brief” note to the medical staff.
He exited the TARDIS and walked back into the medical room. He placed the medication bottles, thermometer, and the dosing instructions on the counter where he knew someone would find it the next morning. He placed the clothing and trainers he had accidentally borrowed on one of the chairs, minus the pants for obvious reason. He walked up to the bed and carefully slipped two of the fever reducing tablets into the older-younger Doctor’s mouth before putting a perpetually-cold, cold compress on his forehead.
“You’re gonna be okay kid,” He said in their native tongue as he gently kissed the top of the other Doctor’s head. Even as a Time Lord, he had to admit that calling a man who looked at least a decade older than him “kid” felt a little strange, “You just need to let your body and your mind rest for a while. Take care of yourself for me. If you don’t live for at least another three decades, I’m not going to be happy with you.”
He then walked over to Donna, “Take care of him for me,” he whispered softly in English before gently planting a kiss on the top of her head, “He needs you more than he’ll ever admit.”
He then returned to his TARDIS and went back to exploring all of time and space.
Donna awoke to what sounded like a TARDIS dematerializing and her eyes snapped open. There was no way the Doctor was remotely healthy enough to pop out for a midnight trip across the universe. And if he had regained consciousness and decided to pop out for a midnight trip across the universe, she was going to kick his arse when he returned. She was about as relieved as she could be when she saw that the Doctor was still lying in the bed on the other side of the room. But there was a cold compress resting on his forehead that hadn’t been there when she had turned in. There were also two small pill bottles and another object she couldn’t make out from where she lay sitting on the counter near the bed. Her curiosity got the better of her and she got out of bed to investigate. The object she couldn’t make out looked like a normal thermometer but there was a note along with it. A note written by the new Doctor.
“Martha was right, he does have a fever…” She muttered as she skimmed the letter.
Most of it was dosing instructions for the medications he had left, a memo about how the supplemental oxygen they were giving him was completely unnecessary, a few sentences about how he was genuinely impressed they managed to get a human heartrate monitor to track a Time Lord’s heartrate not only accurately but quietly, and a rough estimate on how long it would take for him to recover. There was also a sentence in the Doctors’ written language that, if Donna had to venture a guess, could have been about the pants he had “stolen.” But one line near the very end of the note stuck out to her and was what she needed to read more than anything.
“Don’t worry, he’s going to be alright.”
Donna sighed in relief as she placed the note back with the medication bottles before returning to the cot. She closed her eyes and slipped into a slightly more restful sleep than she had been in knowing that the Doctor was going to be okay.