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Title: The Broken Link
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
country_who
Characters/Pairings: 10.5/Rose, The Doctor (11), OC's, The TARDIS
Genre: H/C, Romance
Rating: PG
Word Count (this chapter): ~3500
Summary: How long was the Doctor really gone when he returned for Amy? Because, Rule one is "the Doctor lies?" The Human Doctor has been living a happy life in the parallel world with Rose for nine years and their two kids. But, something the the Time Lord Doctor does back in his universe is threatening to end all that. How are Rose and the human Doctor going to cope?
Catch Up Here:
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6
Two more days passed and the Doctor wasn’t as fortunate as his first day in the TARDIS. His mind was slowly slipping away, and more and more of his time was spent living in the past. In his latest episode he had managed to slip into a Northern accent and apologize to Rose for taking her to see her planet die.
Rose stayed with him through all his ups on downs, rarely leaving his bedside in the TARDIS across the hall from the kids. Nothing seemed to be able to break the Doctor out of the constant cycle, as his synapses continued to break apart and separate more nerves from their places. When he was calm and not showing much pain, Rose read to him from Ava’s book. The Doctor traced the words and followed them like a guide to his memories.
They were tales about all the adventures he had ever told the kids about. The tales stretched from when he had first stolen the TARDIS from that junkyard to when he had destroyed the Daleks. Of course, Ava had written the stories all out of order. Time was all wibbly-wobbly after all.
“…The Doctor ran through the dungeons of the scary department store and found a very, very, very pretty girl down there. He took her hand and said one word—just one word—‘run.’ It was love from first sight,” Rose read in a soft voice filled with as much wonder as when that day was real. She turned the book in the Doctor’s direction and let him look at the picture Ava had drawn of a man dressed in all black running with his hand entwined with a girl with flowing blonde hair.
“They defeated the monsters and travelled together in space… because it also travels in time too,” Rose smiled and closed the book, setting it aside on the dresser beside the Doctor’s bed. “She’s spent ages on that book ya know.”
The Doctor gave a small smile and brushed some of Rose’s hair away from her face. “I know. I remember she wouldn’t let me, but I guess she changed her mind, right?”
A sympathetic smile spread across Rose’s lips as she nodded and placed her hand over the Doctor’s where it lay over the covers. “Yes, Doctor. You remember? She gave it to you were taken to hospital. She said staying in bed was boring without something to read.”
Struggling to recollect, the Doctor rubbed his eyes and made an attempt at a deep breath. It was a pitiful attempt, and as usual it ended in a coughing fit. Rose held onto him through it. They were entering the most important journey of their lives that would through their hardest name in their direction. And, Rose knew that if there was one thing that you needed for your longest journey it was a hand to hold.
~//~
John was in one of the TARDIS’s labs bent over a microscope and staring at the sample of blood from the Doctor. He had compared it to his own, but there was no chance of matching it. They might as well have been strangers to each other. Every cell in his body had exploded and rebuilt itself into a completely different pattern.
“It’s impossible,” John muttered in frustration. “I’m rubbish in this body.”
Picking up the little results that he had gotten, John stepped out of the lab and collided with Ava in the corridor. His papers went flying and fell to the floor in every direction. Ava stooped to pick them up, but as she knelt one of the papers seemed to catch her eye. She pushed the others aside, letting them fly even further apart from where they were.
“Oi, that’s rude,” John grumbled, but Ava held up her hand to stop him.
She traced her fingers over the intricate Gallifrean words and slid down onto the floor. She set it aside on the floor and took the papers John was just beginning to gather and order again. She spread them out and began skimming over them before he found the one she was looking for.
She pulled the sheet that she had pulled out before and compared it to the latest sheet.
“Look there,” Ava said pointing to one of the symbols on the first sheet.
“It’s the Doctor’s brain activity from two hours ago,” John said shrugging.
“And, here.” Ava took the other sheet of paper and pointed to a different symbol.
“That’s your brain activity when we ran that test two days ago,” John said not seeing the point. “Why?”
“They’re identical,” Ava said pointedly. Her hands went to her hips as she rolled her eyes at the man standing in front of her. “I’m five and you’re like five thousand. You’re s’posed to be smart.”
“I am,” John defended, crossing his arms and snatching the sheets away from the little girl. “And, I’m not that old.”
“Focus,” Ava chided him and began flipping through the other sheets of paper quickly.
“You’re five, how can you even read Gallifrean?” the Doctor asked. “Time Lord’s didn’t learn the symbols for sciences until they
were at least twelve.”
Looking smug, Ava snorted. “I’m clever. My daddy says so. Now, could we get back to this and figure out how to fix him. Because, all you’ve been doing for the past two days is mope.”
“Fine,” John capitulated. “Now, since you’re so clever will you explain to me what’s so significant about your findings?”
“It means that we’re the same,” Ava said pointedly. “I can help him then right?”
John gave her a small grin, as he picked her up into his arms and held onto her tightly. “No, Ava.”
“Why, not?”
“Because you’re not old enough, if it was in about three years from now then you could, but…” John murmured softly to her. “It won’t work.”
“Can’t you try?” Ava asked, sniffing slightly and wiping her nose with her shirt sleeve.
“I can’t risk it,” John told her. “Your mother would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you. There’s too much danger in you
trying to link to your father with the strength that would require.”
Ava nodded slightly, but didn’t seem to agree. Instead, she wiggled from John’s grasp and started walking down the corridor again.
“Ava, wait,” John called after her.
Turning back around, Ava stared at him as if sizing him up. “I wanna see Dad.”
John nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
Ava nodded while she let John join her and walk down the hall into the Doctor’s room.
When Ava and John stepped inside, the Doctor and Rose were sitting next to each other on the bed. The Doctor was staring at her with a wide smile. He motioned for her to join him.
“Dad?” Ava was wary of him. The last time she saw him this morning he kept saying she couldn’t be his because his Ava was a baby.
“Hello, Ava,” the Doctor greeted his daughter warmly.
“You remember?” Ava asked fearfully.
“Of course I do,” the Doctor said softly, while she ran up to him and gave him a hug. “How could I forget my Ava?”
“You already did,” Ava whimpered. The hurt in Ava’s voice made the Doctor’s heart shatter in his chest.
“I never will again,” the Doctor promised, while he pulled Ava closely to himself. He glanced over her shoulder at John holding a pile of papers. The look in his face told the Doctor that John hadn’t found anything out. Ava picked up a flatness in her father’s voice. She didn’t know exactly what was causing it, but she had a pretty good idea. A small cry escaped her and a tear wet the Doctor’s t-shirt.
Rose reached over and rubbed her daughter’s back lovingly. Ava shifted from the Doctor to Rose and wrapped her arms around her mother. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Can you take me to bed, Mummy?” Ava asked softly. She didn’t know what time it was, but she knew that all she wanted right now was to sleep. Maybe if you slept during a nightmare, you woke up in a dream.
~//~
Jack was sitting up in bed with a math textbook sitting on his lap. He scowled at it and closed it letting it fall to the floor, but it appeared right next to him again. The ship hummed stubbornly, while Jack opened the textbook again and tried to understand the lesson.
“I don’t want to,” Jack told the ship, but she didn’t reply to the young boy.
“What’cha doing Jack?” Rose asked, as she and Ava walked into the room.
“Nothing,” Jack muttered, but the TARDIS hummed to Rose—who let a smile stretch over her face.
“I’d listen to her if I were you, Jack,” Rose told him, while she let Ava slip under the covers of the twin bed opposite Jack’s. “She’s stubborn.”
“I can tell,” Jack said with a scowl.
Rose chuckled as she took the textbook from Jack, gently stroking the wall and silently asking the TARDIS to loosen up.
“You want a story tonight?” Rose asked Ava.
“Uuhuuh,” Ava said shaking her head from side to side. She slid her glasses off her nose and snuggled deeper into the covers.
“Alright,” Rose said softly. “You, Jack?”
“I guess not,” Jack denied, while he watched Ava shake her head behind Rose’s shoulder.
“Okay then, goodnight, you two,” Rose said, kissing them both on the forehead before walking out.
~//~
Papers were being exchanged between John and the Doctor. John could tell the Doctor was having trouble comprehending the findings, but it made him feel better to have him look.
“Ava’s very clever,” John muttered distractedly.
“Yeah, she is, always has been,” the Doctor agreed. “She’s pretty far ahead of her class even though she’s been moved up about four times now.”
“And, Jack?” John asked, as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to buzz the Doctor up and down. When he read the reading, he swallowed thickly.
“He’s clever too, but I think he hides it,” the Doctor admitted. “He tries to fit in.”
John nodded watching the Doctor carefully. He was getting tired, but John had read the scans and knew that sleep wasn’t an option right now. “Stay awake, Doctor.”
“Why?” The Doctor closed his eyes and coughed deeply trying to catch his breath.
“Because,” John started, while he pulled the Doctor up to a sitting position to rouse him. “If you fall asleep now, you’ll fall into a REM cycle and remain in a constant dream state for as long as your body holds out.”
“Don’t care… tired,” the Doctor argued weakly. He let the John get him into a seated position, while he felt bile rising in his throat. “Gonna… be sick.”
The Doctor’s breathing was coming in short gasps now while he doubled over clutching at his stomach. He was sick in a bucket the TARDIS had hastily placed at his disposal. Sweat ran like rivers down his face and back.
“Come on, Doctor,” John muttered, taking off the covers from the bed and shaking the Doctor vigorously. “Stay with me.”
Letting his eyes slip shut, the Doctor grunted something incomprehensible to no one in particular.
It was at that moment that Rose walked into the room. Her eyes were as saucers as she took long, awkward steps towards her husband. She sat on the edge next to her and gripped his shoulders forcefully.
“Doctor,” Rose gently, but her voice had a cut to it. “Doctor, look at me.”
Complying slowly, the Doctor stared at Rose, letting his hand reach up and touch her cheek softly. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Rose replied. The usual joy and mirth in her voice from their greeting was absent. “Talk to me, Sweetheart. Tell me a story.”
“You know all my stories,” the Doctor muttered, trying to drift off.
“I don’t care,” Rose muttered. “Tell me about yesterday. What’d we do yesterday?”
“We went to Women Wept again,” the Doctor muttered. “You said that’s where you wanted to go.”
Rose nodded encouragingly. She remembered that day. It was shortly after she had lost her first Doctor and gained the lanky, rude, not-ginger, brilliant Doctor. Her heart clenched as the Doctor told her about how they ran. She still wasn’t sure how either of them had managed to keep their balance throughout the night.
“It was your hand in mine,” the Doctor murmured. “That kept me standing.”
“I thought it was yours in mine that kept me up,” Rose made a pitiful joke. She let her thumb drift across the Doctor’s knuckles in a steady, constant pattern.
“You were beautiful,” he whispered.
John moved to the other side of the bed, pressing his stethoscope into the Doctor’s single heart. Rose looked up at him, but the Time Lord didn’t give her any encouraging signs.
“That’s it my Doctor,” Rose said softly, she stroked his cheek and kissed his forehead.
Clutching at his head, the Doctor turned away from Rose violently, he shook violently as he tried to keep a hold on the memories he was losing. “I… don’t… I remember… I know… Rose…”
“Keep talking Doctor, tell me about everything that’s been going on.” Encouragement flooded over the Doctor as he nodded.
Over and over again he told her what he did ‘yesterday.’ He told her about the time they spent together. His rougher attitude was immediately familiar to Rose as he continued to drift farther into his personal past. He talked for almost half an hour before the inevitable happened. The Doctor drifted off
The Doctor screamed.
It was vial and archaic in Rose’s ears as she tried to hold onto him, but he pulled away. John moved in from where he had been
sitting silently watching the Doctor. He put all of his weight into holding the Doctor onto the bed; while, he threw himself from side to side—flailing like he was an invisible child’s ragdoll.
“No!” the Doctor screamed. “I won’t! Don’t make me! I can’t!” The Doctor shifted between Gallifrean and English erratically, while he clamped his eyes shut tightly against an unknown force. “Please, Rassilon, Please! I can’t! Let me die with them… let me go too…”
The Doctor trailed off as images of the Time War flashed before his eyes. John held his put his hand to the Doctor’s forehead and tried to calm him with soft Gallifrean, but it was futile. He was deaf to anything John or Rose said right now.
“He’s reliving the Time War,” John explained. “He doesn’t know he’s not there now. That’s why he couldn’t sleep. He’s reliving his nightmares.”
Rose shook her head and placed her hand on the Doctor’s cheek.
“Can’t you do something?” Rose asked. Her voice cracked with emotion; while she brushed back some of his soaking wet hair. “Make him better?”
John bent over in his chair, resting his chin on his hands. After a moment’s thought he nodded slowly. “There is. I can’t fix him, but
I can draw his memories out so he knows what’s going on.”
Nodding vigorously, Rose stood up. “Do that, then.”
John’s new green eyes misted over slightly as he stared at the Doctor lying in the bed. He shivered terribly with his face twisted in agony. He couldn’t tell if it was from the pain of remembering the Time War or the pain from falling through his mind.
“It’s not that simple, Rose,” John insisted. “If I go into his mind and bring those memories back it would severely weaken the little bit of mental shields he has left. Not to mention the rapid influx of memories. It might shatter him.” John paused for a minute. His eyes darting like green missiles from the Doctor to Rose. “It’s like this…imagine an egg that you wanted to fill with more…egg stuff… you would have to drill through the shell first and probably crack it in the process, and then if you tried to force fill the egg, those cracks would be magnified and the whole thing would shatter.”
John’s eyes stared hard at Rose for a second—his face deadly serious. “He would die tonight, Rose. Without a doubt.”
Rose sniffed and nodded. She looked at her husband. He was stark white, glistening with sweat and weak. He had drifted so far back and for good now, which he was passed when they even knew each other. She let her hand drift to his chest and feel the erratic beating of his heart beneath her gentle touch.
“How long can he last like this?” Rose asked in barely a whisper. Her hazel eyes challenged John slightly behind a mist of tears.
“Tonight,” John mumbled.
“Then at least let him know what’s going on,” Rose begged him. “He’s told me a bit about the Time War—I can’t even imagine what he didn’t tell me—but, you know. You know what he’s going through right now again. How could you just let him sit there through it?”
John shook his head. “I’d kill him.”
“You’d give him his life back.”
“He’d still be dead.”
Rose stood up, and faced John. “He’s not living now. It’s torture. You said either way he dies tonight, then isn’t it up to us to make him comfortable? Make him feel as at home as possible? Let him be himself?”
John studied Rose. She never did change did she? She was always having her own line of what’s right and what’s wrong—a line that she wouldn’t let anyone cross. She put a hand on the Doctor’s bicep and squeezed it tightly. “Please, Doctor.”
John nodded, gently motioning Rose aside. “Alright, just stand back for a minute.”
John stepped forward, gently touching the Doctor’s temples and closing his eyes. The Doctor tensed under the strange sensation.
He raised his arm to resist John, but Rose gently lowered it to the bed, while she gently stroked it.
“Relax, Doctor,” John almost cooed. “Let me in.”
The Doctor’s face calmed as John took a deep breath and tried to mend what was broken.
After a few minutes, John stepped back and roused the Doctor by giving his shoulder a firm shake. “Come on, Doctor.”
The Doctor groaned and looked up at John. His face was the picture of exhaustion, but he gave John a grin that told him everything, ‘thank you.’ John smiled back at him gently, letting his eyes drift to Rose who was still holding the Doctor’s hand. The look was enough for the Doctor to follow.
“You remember now?” Rose asked softly.
“Yeah.” The Doctor’s voice was barely audible, but Rose hung on it. “Everything.” The Doctor gently reached out and brought his
hand to Rose’s abdomen. He carefully traced circles into the life growing within her. He was still mystified by it. Under muscles, tissues, and fluids was a tiny life he had helped to make. Something flashed inside the Doctor’s eyes. Nine days left. That’s what John had said and the TARDIS was never wrong when it came to babies.
“He’s sleeping,” Rose whispered to the Doctor. “Must be tired like his daddy.”
John slowly stepped out the door of the room to collide with two kids leaning against the door.
“What are you two doing?” John whispered harshly, while he shut the door behind him. “I thought your Mum put you to bed.”
“She did,” Ava said.
“You talk loud,” Jack said. His head hung lowly, and John regretted chastising them.
“Hey,” John picked up Jack, took Ava’s hand and led them into the kitchen. “What d’you say to some hot chocolate?”
Ava shrugged and sat on one of the chair, while Jack didn’t reply to the question and only clung on closer to John. Moving his hand up and down Jack’s back, John didn’t show any signs of putting him down, as he worked with one hand through the kitchen.
“Is Daddy okay?” Jack asked.
John sighed and shook his head. “He’s very sick, Jack.”
“You promised to fix him though,” Jack pointed out.
“I know.”
“So, help him,” Ava said pointedly.
“There’s nothing left to do, Ava,” John confessed. “I’m sorry.”
Ava shook her head and leaned forward on her hands. Her brown hair, loose from any ties or clips, fell like a curtain around her face. John abandoned the mugs and sat down next to her, reached his free arm around her shoulders. She tried to turn away at first, but John held onto her and soon she was leaning into him.
~//~
The TARDIS had dimmed the lights in the Doctor and Rose’s room. Rose’s hand was still wrapped tightly around his. She didn’t know how long ago the Doctor had slipped away from her. Ever since it happened, she felt like Time had just frozen. Maybe it did. What was the point if he wasn’t there?
Rose took a deep breath and finally let go of his hands. She pressed her lips against the Doctor’s closed eyes. With a murmured ‘I love you,’ Rose walked out of the room.
Author:
country_whoCharacters/Pairings: 10.5/Rose, The Doctor (11), OC's, The TARDIS
Genre: H/C, Romance
Rating: PG
Word Count (this chapter): ~3500
Summary: How long was the Doctor really gone when he returned for Amy? Because, Rule one is "the Doctor lies?" The Human Doctor has been living a happy life in the parallel world with Rose for nine years and their two kids. But, something the the Time Lord Doctor does back in his universe is threatening to end all that. How are Rose and the human Doctor going to cope?
Catch Up Here:
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6
Two more days passed and the Doctor wasn’t as fortunate as his first day in the TARDIS. His mind was slowly slipping away, and more and more of his time was spent living in the past. In his latest episode he had managed to slip into a Northern accent and apologize to Rose for taking her to see her planet die.
Rose stayed with him through all his ups on downs, rarely leaving his bedside in the TARDIS across the hall from the kids. Nothing seemed to be able to break the Doctor out of the constant cycle, as his synapses continued to break apart and separate more nerves from their places. When he was calm and not showing much pain, Rose read to him from Ava’s book. The Doctor traced the words and followed them like a guide to his memories.
They were tales about all the adventures he had ever told the kids about. The tales stretched from when he had first stolen the TARDIS from that junkyard to when he had destroyed the Daleks. Of course, Ava had written the stories all out of order. Time was all wibbly-wobbly after all.
“…The Doctor ran through the dungeons of the scary department store and found a very, very, very pretty girl down there. He took her hand and said one word—just one word—‘run.’ It was love from first sight,” Rose read in a soft voice filled with as much wonder as when that day was real. She turned the book in the Doctor’s direction and let him look at the picture Ava had drawn of a man dressed in all black running with his hand entwined with a girl with flowing blonde hair.
“They defeated the monsters and travelled together in space… because it also travels in time too,” Rose smiled and closed the book, setting it aside on the dresser beside the Doctor’s bed. “She’s spent ages on that book ya know.”
The Doctor gave a small smile and brushed some of Rose’s hair away from her face. “I know. I remember she wouldn’t let me, but I guess she changed her mind, right?”
A sympathetic smile spread across Rose’s lips as she nodded and placed her hand over the Doctor’s where it lay over the covers. “Yes, Doctor. You remember? She gave it to you were taken to hospital. She said staying in bed was boring without something to read.”
Struggling to recollect, the Doctor rubbed his eyes and made an attempt at a deep breath. It was a pitiful attempt, and as usual it ended in a coughing fit. Rose held onto him through it. They were entering the most important journey of their lives that would through their hardest name in their direction. And, Rose knew that if there was one thing that you needed for your longest journey it was a hand to hold.
~//~
John was in one of the TARDIS’s labs bent over a microscope and staring at the sample of blood from the Doctor. He had compared it to his own, but there was no chance of matching it. They might as well have been strangers to each other. Every cell in his body had exploded and rebuilt itself into a completely different pattern.
“It’s impossible,” John muttered in frustration. “I’m rubbish in this body.”
Picking up the little results that he had gotten, John stepped out of the lab and collided with Ava in the corridor. His papers went flying and fell to the floor in every direction. Ava stooped to pick them up, but as she knelt one of the papers seemed to catch her eye. She pushed the others aside, letting them fly even further apart from where they were.
“Oi, that’s rude,” John grumbled, but Ava held up her hand to stop him.
She traced her fingers over the intricate Gallifrean words and slid down onto the floor. She set it aside on the floor and took the papers John was just beginning to gather and order again. She spread them out and began skimming over them before he found the one she was looking for.
She pulled the sheet that she had pulled out before and compared it to the latest sheet.
“Look there,” Ava said pointing to one of the symbols on the first sheet.
“It’s the Doctor’s brain activity from two hours ago,” John said shrugging.
“And, here.” Ava took the other sheet of paper and pointed to a different symbol.
“That’s your brain activity when we ran that test two days ago,” John said not seeing the point. “Why?”
“They’re identical,” Ava said pointedly. Her hands went to her hips as she rolled her eyes at the man standing in front of her. “I’m five and you’re like five thousand. You’re s’posed to be smart.”
“I am,” John defended, crossing his arms and snatching the sheets away from the little girl. “And, I’m not that old.”
“Focus,” Ava chided him and began flipping through the other sheets of paper quickly.
“You’re five, how can you even read Gallifrean?” the Doctor asked. “Time Lord’s didn’t learn the symbols for sciences until they
were at least twelve.”
Looking smug, Ava snorted. “I’m clever. My daddy says so. Now, could we get back to this and figure out how to fix him. Because, all you’ve been doing for the past two days is mope.”
“Fine,” John capitulated. “Now, since you’re so clever will you explain to me what’s so significant about your findings?”
“It means that we’re the same,” Ava said pointedly. “I can help him then right?”
John gave her a small grin, as he picked her up into his arms and held onto her tightly. “No, Ava.”
“Why, not?”
“Because you’re not old enough, if it was in about three years from now then you could, but…” John murmured softly to her. “It won’t work.”
“Can’t you try?” Ava asked, sniffing slightly and wiping her nose with her shirt sleeve.
“I can’t risk it,” John told her. “Your mother would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you. There’s too much danger in you
trying to link to your father with the strength that would require.”
Ava nodded slightly, but didn’t seem to agree. Instead, she wiggled from John’s grasp and started walking down the corridor again.
“Ava, wait,” John called after her.
Turning back around, Ava stared at him as if sizing him up. “I wanna see Dad.”
John nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
Ava nodded while she let John join her and walk down the hall into the Doctor’s room.
When Ava and John stepped inside, the Doctor and Rose were sitting next to each other on the bed. The Doctor was staring at her with a wide smile. He motioned for her to join him.
“Dad?” Ava was wary of him. The last time she saw him this morning he kept saying she couldn’t be his because his Ava was a baby.
“Hello, Ava,” the Doctor greeted his daughter warmly.
“You remember?” Ava asked fearfully.
“Of course I do,” the Doctor said softly, while she ran up to him and gave him a hug. “How could I forget my Ava?”
“You already did,” Ava whimpered. The hurt in Ava’s voice made the Doctor’s heart shatter in his chest.
“I never will again,” the Doctor promised, while he pulled Ava closely to himself. He glanced over her shoulder at John holding a pile of papers. The look in his face told the Doctor that John hadn’t found anything out. Ava picked up a flatness in her father’s voice. She didn’t know exactly what was causing it, but she had a pretty good idea. A small cry escaped her and a tear wet the Doctor’s t-shirt.
Rose reached over and rubbed her daughter’s back lovingly. Ava shifted from the Doctor to Rose and wrapped her arms around her mother. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Can you take me to bed, Mummy?” Ava asked softly. She didn’t know what time it was, but she knew that all she wanted right now was to sleep. Maybe if you slept during a nightmare, you woke up in a dream.
~//~
Jack was sitting up in bed with a math textbook sitting on his lap. He scowled at it and closed it letting it fall to the floor, but it appeared right next to him again. The ship hummed stubbornly, while Jack opened the textbook again and tried to understand the lesson.
“I don’t want to,” Jack told the ship, but she didn’t reply to the young boy.
“What’cha doing Jack?” Rose asked, as she and Ava walked into the room.
“Nothing,” Jack muttered, but the TARDIS hummed to Rose—who let a smile stretch over her face.
“I’d listen to her if I were you, Jack,” Rose told him, while she let Ava slip under the covers of the twin bed opposite Jack’s. “She’s stubborn.”
“I can tell,” Jack said with a scowl.
Rose chuckled as she took the textbook from Jack, gently stroking the wall and silently asking the TARDIS to loosen up.
“You want a story tonight?” Rose asked Ava.
“Uuhuuh,” Ava said shaking her head from side to side. She slid her glasses off her nose and snuggled deeper into the covers.
“Alright,” Rose said softly. “You, Jack?”
“I guess not,” Jack denied, while he watched Ava shake her head behind Rose’s shoulder.
“Okay then, goodnight, you two,” Rose said, kissing them both on the forehead before walking out.
~//~
Papers were being exchanged between John and the Doctor. John could tell the Doctor was having trouble comprehending the findings, but it made him feel better to have him look.
“Ava’s very clever,” John muttered distractedly.
“Yeah, she is, always has been,” the Doctor agreed. “She’s pretty far ahead of her class even though she’s been moved up about four times now.”
“And, Jack?” John asked, as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to buzz the Doctor up and down. When he read the reading, he swallowed thickly.
“He’s clever too, but I think he hides it,” the Doctor admitted. “He tries to fit in.”
John nodded watching the Doctor carefully. He was getting tired, but John had read the scans and knew that sleep wasn’t an option right now. “Stay awake, Doctor.”
“Why?” The Doctor closed his eyes and coughed deeply trying to catch his breath.
“Because,” John started, while he pulled the Doctor up to a sitting position to rouse him. “If you fall asleep now, you’ll fall into a REM cycle and remain in a constant dream state for as long as your body holds out.”
“Don’t care… tired,” the Doctor argued weakly. He let the John get him into a seated position, while he felt bile rising in his throat. “Gonna… be sick.”
The Doctor’s breathing was coming in short gasps now while he doubled over clutching at his stomach. He was sick in a bucket the TARDIS had hastily placed at his disposal. Sweat ran like rivers down his face and back.
“Come on, Doctor,” John muttered, taking off the covers from the bed and shaking the Doctor vigorously. “Stay with me.”
Letting his eyes slip shut, the Doctor grunted something incomprehensible to no one in particular.
It was at that moment that Rose walked into the room. Her eyes were as saucers as she took long, awkward steps towards her husband. She sat on the edge next to her and gripped his shoulders forcefully.
“Doctor,” Rose gently, but her voice had a cut to it. “Doctor, look at me.”
Complying slowly, the Doctor stared at Rose, letting his hand reach up and touch her cheek softly. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Rose replied. The usual joy and mirth in her voice from their greeting was absent. “Talk to me, Sweetheart. Tell me a story.”
“You know all my stories,” the Doctor muttered, trying to drift off.
“I don’t care,” Rose muttered. “Tell me about yesterday. What’d we do yesterday?”
“We went to Women Wept again,” the Doctor muttered. “You said that’s where you wanted to go.”
Rose nodded encouragingly. She remembered that day. It was shortly after she had lost her first Doctor and gained the lanky, rude, not-ginger, brilliant Doctor. Her heart clenched as the Doctor told her about how they ran. She still wasn’t sure how either of them had managed to keep their balance throughout the night.
“It was your hand in mine,” the Doctor murmured. “That kept me standing.”
“I thought it was yours in mine that kept me up,” Rose made a pitiful joke. She let her thumb drift across the Doctor’s knuckles in a steady, constant pattern.
“You were beautiful,” he whispered.
John moved to the other side of the bed, pressing his stethoscope into the Doctor’s single heart. Rose looked up at him, but the Time Lord didn’t give her any encouraging signs.
“That’s it my Doctor,” Rose said softly, she stroked his cheek and kissed his forehead.
Clutching at his head, the Doctor turned away from Rose violently, he shook violently as he tried to keep a hold on the memories he was losing. “I… don’t… I remember… I know… Rose…”
“Keep talking Doctor, tell me about everything that’s been going on.” Encouragement flooded over the Doctor as he nodded.
Over and over again he told her what he did ‘yesterday.’ He told her about the time they spent together. His rougher attitude was immediately familiar to Rose as he continued to drift farther into his personal past. He talked for almost half an hour before the inevitable happened. The Doctor drifted off
The Doctor screamed.
It was vial and archaic in Rose’s ears as she tried to hold onto him, but he pulled away. John moved in from where he had been
sitting silently watching the Doctor. He put all of his weight into holding the Doctor onto the bed; while, he threw himself from side to side—flailing like he was an invisible child’s ragdoll.
“No!” the Doctor screamed. “I won’t! Don’t make me! I can’t!” The Doctor shifted between Gallifrean and English erratically, while he clamped his eyes shut tightly against an unknown force. “Please, Rassilon, Please! I can’t! Let me die with them… let me go too…”
The Doctor trailed off as images of the Time War flashed before his eyes. John held his put his hand to the Doctor’s forehead and tried to calm him with soft Gallifrean, but it was futile. He was deaf to anything John or Rose said right now.
“He’s reliving the Time War,” John explained. “He doesn’t know he’s not there now. That’s why he couldn’t sleep. He’s reliving his nightmares.”
Rose shook her head and placed her hand on the Doctor’s cheek.
“Can’t you do something?” Rose asked. Her voice cracked with emotion; while she brushed back some of his soaking wet hair. “Make him better?”
John bent over in his chair, resting his chin on his hands. After a moment’s thought he nodded slowly. “There is. I can’t fix him, but
I can draw his memories out so he knows what’s going on.”
Nodding vigorously, Rose stood up. “Do that, then.”
John’s new green eyes misted over slightly as he stared at the Doctor lying in the bed. He shivered terribly with his face twisted in agony. He couldn’t tell if it was from the pain of remembering the Time War or the pain from falling through his mind.
“It’s not that simple, Rose,” John insisted. “If I go into his mind and bring those memories back it would severely weaken the little bit of mental shields he has left. Not to mention the rapid influx of memories. It might shatter him.” John paused for a minute. His eyes darting like green missiles from the Doctor to Rose. “It’s like this…imagine an egg that you wanted to fill with more…egg stuff… you would have to drill through the shell first and probably crack it in the process, and then if you tried to force fill the egg, those cracks would be magnified and the whole thing would shatter.”
John’s eyes stared hard at Rose for a second—his face deadly serious. “He would die tonight, Rose. Without a doubt.”
Rose sniffed and nodded. She looked at her husband. He was stark white, glistening with sweat and weak. He had drifted so far back and for good now, which he was passed when they even knew each other. She let her hand drift to his chest and feel the erratic beating of his heart beneath her gentle touch.
“How long can he last like this?” Rose asked in barely a whisper. Her hazel eyes challenged John slightly behind a mist of tears.
“Tonight,” John mumbled.
“Then at least let him know what’s going on,” Rose begged him. “He’s told me a bit about the Time War—I can’t even imagine what he didn’t tell me—but, you know. You know what he’s going through right now again. How could you just let him sit there through it?”
John shook his head. “I’d kill him.”
“You’d give him his life back.”
“He’d still be dead.”
Rose stood up, and faced John. “He’s not living now. It’s torture. You said either way he dies tonight, then isn’t it up to us to make him comfortable? Make him feel as at home as possible? Let him be himself?”
John studied Rose. She never did change did she? She was always having her own line of what’s right and what’s wrong—a line that she wouldn’t let anyone cross. She put a hand on the Doctor’s bicep and squeezed it tightly. “Please, Doctor.”
John nodded, gently motioning Rose aside. “Alright, just stand back for a minute.”
John stepped forward, gently touching the Doctor’s temples and closing his eyes. The Doctor tensed under the strange sensation.
He raised his arm to resist John, but Rose gently lowered it to the bed, while she gently stroked it.
“Relax, Doctor,” John almost cooed. “Let me in.”
The Doctor’s face calmed as John took a deep breath and tried to mend what was broken.
After a few minutes, John stepped back and roused the Doctor by giving his shoulder a firm shake. “Come on, Doctor.”
The Doctor groaned and looked up at John. His face was the picture of exhaustion, but he gave John a grin that told him everything, ‘thank you.’ John smiled back at him gently, letting his eyes drift to Rose who was still holding the Doctor’s hand. The look was enough for the Doctor to follow.
“You remember now?” Rose asked softly.
“Yeah.” The Doctor’s voice was barely audible, but Rose hung on it. “Everything.” The Doctor gently reached out and brought his
hand to Rose’s abdomen. He carefully traced circles into the life growing within her. He was still mystified by it. Under muscles, tissues, and fluids was a tiny life he had helped to make. Something flashed inside the Doctor’s eyes. Nine days left. That’s what John had said and the TARDIS was never wrong when it came to babies.
“He’s sleeping,” Rose whispered to the Doctor. “Must be tired like his daddy.”
John slowly stepped out the door of the room to collide with two kids leaning against the door.
“What are you two doing?” John whispered harshly, while he shut the door behind him. “I thought your Mum put you to bed.”
“She did,” Ava said.
“You talk loud,” Jack said. His head hung lowly, and John regretted chastising them.
“Hey,” John picked up Jack, took Ava’s hand and led them into the kitchen. “What d’you say to some hot chocolate?”
Ava shrugged and sat on one of the chair, while Jack didn’t reply to the question and only clung on closer to John. Moving his hand up and down Jack’s back, John didn’t show any signs of putting him down, as he worked with one hand through the kitchen.
“Is Daddy okay?” Jack asked.
John sighed and shook his head. “He’s very sick, Jack.”
“You promised to fix him though,” Jack pointed out.
“I know.”
“So, help him,” Ava said pointedly.
“There’s nothing left to do, Ava,” John confessed. “I’m sorry.”
Ava shook her head and leaned forward on her hands. Her brown hair, loose from any ties or clips, fell like a curtain around her face. John abandoned the mugs and sat down next to her, reached his free arm around her shoulders. She tried to turn away at first, but John held onto her and soon she was leaning into him.
~//~
The TARDIS had dimmed the lights in the Doctor and Rose’s room. Rose’s hand was still wrapped tightly around his. She didn’t know how long ago the Doctor had slipped away from her. Ever since it happened, she felt like Time had just frozen. Maybe it did. What was the point if he wasn’t there?
Rose took a deep breath and finally let go of his hands. She pressed her lips against the Doctor’s closed eyes. With a murmured ‘I love you,’ Rose walked out of the room.
