The road less travelled...

Title: The Most Heeded of Doctors
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: “Illness is the most heeded of doctors; to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain, we obey.” (Marcel Proust)
Characters: Ten and Nurse!Donna.
A/N: This is written for the sixth Travellers Tales with the prompt ‘fever’ and also for me because I was feeling manky when the plot bunny bit. However it is officially dedicated to dana_cz who deserves to feel better. (Although it’s taken so long to write that she probably does by now. Oops.) Hope this helps!
A/N 2: I’ve both read and written fics where the Doctor is ill and the TARDIS helps Donna to take care of him. I thought it might be interesting to see what happened if the TARDIS was also ill and Donna was completely on her own.

Part I

Donna shifts in her sleep, mumbling in protest as she feels something poke her.

“Doctor,” she mutters, “go away.”

But the poking continues and finally, reluctantly, Donna forces open her eyes – to find herself utterly alone in her room.

She has to squint to make sure of this, because even though the lights beside her bed and in the ceiling are lit, they are so weak that only about half of the room is illuminated. Frowning, with the sense that something might be wrong, Donna throws back the covers and sits up, swinging her feet down onto the floor. Yelping, she pulls her feet up again and then reaches down with her hand to touch the carpet.

It’s almost shockingly, unbearably cold.

Something is definitely wrong.

Reaching across for the pile of clothes she discarded onto a nearby chair before putting on her pyjamas, she picks up her socks and slips them on. Then she drags on her dressing gown and eases out of bed, sliding her feet into her slippers. In her cupboard is a pile of blankets she never expected to need considering how the TARDIS usually keeps her room toasty warm, the way she likes it. Taking one, she wraps it around her shoulders, seeing her breath puff out in clouds, and ventures out into the silent, cold hallway.

“Doctor?”

Her voice echoes and dies away. Mustering her courage, because things about this situation are frightening her, even if it would take wild horses to drag the admission out of her, she tries again.

“Doctor, where are you? Is something wrong?”

The doors along the passageway stand half-open so that she has to peer around each one to check for the other living occupant of the TARDIS. She’s puzzled at the order of the rooms, which for once make some degree of sense – bedrooms and bathrooms clustered together, then the study and library, followed by an extravagant dining room Donna has never seen before, which is located next to the kitchen. Finally she enters the living room.

This last room is only illuminated by one lamp, standing on a table at the end of the couch, not fully lit although it’s brighter than any other she’s seen so far.

Dim as it is, it’s enough for Donna to make out a form slumped on the floor in a long, brown coat, his upper body within the circle of light and the rest of him hidden in darkness.

“Doctor!”

Donna drops to her knees next to his motionless body and rolls him over so that she can see his face. Relief washes over her at the lack of any visible injury, but he fails to respond to the gentle shake she gives him and her heart sinks again.

“Doctor, please wake up!” she begs, chafing his hands between her fingers, and then, when he doesn’t move, she lightly taps his cheek in an attempt to rouse him.

It takes her a moment to realise what’s wrong – that the skin beneath hers, rather than being pleasantly cool or even cold considering the temperature of the air around them, is instead hot and dry. She presses her fingers against his neck, feeling the double beat of his pulse, which is bounding and, even with her ignorance of what is normal for a Time Lord, feels far too fast. Easing a finger beneath the tight collar of his shirt, she can feel that his skin is clammy and damp, and his shirt is cold with a combination of the icy floor and the perspiration she suspects is pouring off him.

The coldness is making itself felt in her own body, too, creeping up her legs through the mat on which she is kneeling. Her breath is visible every time she exhales and she looks down to find that, although it isn’t regular, a cloud of visible air appears in front of the Doctor’s face at intervals so that at least he’s breathing.

She shakes him again, but without much hope of getting a response.

The lamp on the desk flickers and dims, which Donna guesses is a warning from the TARDIS that power is about to die completely.

“Useless bloody lump,” she mutters, unsure whether her words are directed at herself or the unconscious Doctor. She gives up trying to wake him and instead moves around behind him so that she can slide her hands in beneath his arms.

His head lolls limply against her chest as she drags him towards the door. She almost trips over the blanket around her shoulders and eventually shakes it off, leaving it behind on the floor. The carpet has vanished, although whether it’s because the TARDIS is doing what she can to help by clearing the floor, or because the effort of maintaining it is too much for the failing ship, she’s not sure.

The lamp goes out as soon as she is over the threshold, and the room, like all of the others, is thrust abruptly into darkness. The only light, dim as it is, is coming from Donna’s own room. Luckily, in this rearranged TARDIS, that doorway is not far away, because the Doctor isn’t as light as he looks.

“I swear, Spaceman,” she grunts as she drags him in that direction, “once this is over, I’ll never call you skinny again!”

The door closes behind her as soon as they are both in the bedroom and Donna is about to lay the Doctor on the floor to catch her breath before somehow getting him up onto the mattress when she realises that the carpet has also vanished in here, leaving a bare concrete floor with a thin layer of rime over it. Similar icy patterns have crept up the now-unadorned walls.

Looking around, she sees that, instead of the sumptuous pieces she has come to know and love, the furniture has been reduced to a basic double bed, a table and a simple wardrobe. She can only hope that her clothes are still there because she is going to need everything she owns to keep both of them from freezing to death.

A pair of plain blue pyjamas has been draped over the bed, and she manages to drag and pull the Doctor’s unmoving body until he is lying beside them. Flopping back on the bed, Donna lies there for a moment to recover from the effort of getting them both in here. At least she’s not cold anymore.

Even as she stares up at it, the single, bare bulb in the ceiling that has replaced her ornate 15th century French chandelier flickers and dies.

Startled, Donna jerks into a sitting position, reaching down to make sure that the Doctor is still there, as if the dark has somehow stolen him away. Reassured that he is, and keeping her thoughts fixed on the present, rather than letting herself think about cannibalistic shadows, she scrambles off the bed and gingerly makes her way over to wardrobe.

Opening the doors, she feels forward in the darkness, instinctively reaching for the shelf on which she had placed a canvas bag that had stood her in such good stead during that year of searching for the Doctor.

Her fingers brush against rough fabric and, with a yelp of victory, she snatches up the bag, tearing open the straps and pulling out the small collapsible wind-up lantern, which activates as she pulls up the lid.

The light is an immediate relief.

Carrying the bag over to the table, she is about to unpack her other emergency supplies when she catches a glimpse of the Doctor out of the corner of her eye and realises that he has to be her priority ahead of her own comfort.

Leaving the light where it is – enough that she will be able to see what she’s doing, without being close enough for her to see absolutely everything! – she crosses the floor and, because it’s the easier end, begins to take off his shoes. The knots that look so ridiculously complicated are actually quite simple and slide off with a few firm tugs. Socks she leaves on for additional warmth. With a bit of an effort she manages to get him out of his trousers, which are damp to the touch.

She’s too focused on the task to address the eternal question of boxers versus briefs. Instead she concentrates on getting the Doctor into the pyjama pants provided by the TARDIS. That done, she stands on the mattress, her arms once more beneath his shoulders, and pulls him up the bed. Finally, after much effort, once she has rearranged his pyjama pants, which were partly pulled down again by her actions, she is able to pull the blankets over his legs.

That done, she heaves a sigh and straightens her aching back before beginning to remove his arms from the sleeves of his coat. She doesn't try to remove the coat from beneath his body, instead leaving it on the bed to wrap him in it again once he’s out of his damp shirt. The tie comes off easily. Undoing the buttons on his shirt, she grabs the pyjama jacket and undoes it before leaning the unconscious Doctor forward so he is lying against her chest. That done, it’s a simple matter to remove the jacket and shirt before stripping him of his damp t-shirt and dressing him in the pale blue flannelette jacket. She gently lies him back against the pillows, which are piled up behind him so that he’s sitting partly upright, then she eases his limp arms back into his brown overcoat, and covers him with the blankets.

Pillows are scattered over the other half of the bed and she tucks these in around the Doctor to try and insulate him against the cold. In the dim light, she can see the colour burning in his cheeks, and his skin is unpleasantly hot when she rests the back of her hand against his forehead. A bead of perspiration trickles out of his hairline and begins making its way down his face. That he is ill is clear enough, his fever raging, but she has no idea of what's wrong with him and, which she hates more, no idea of how to help.

“Please, Doctor,” she whispers almost desperately, although without any conviction, “wake up and tell me how to fix you.”

When there is no response, she inhales a shaky breath – only to feel the cold like a sharp slap in her nose and throat. The warmth brought about by her efforts of getting the Doctor into bed has faded and she can feel the cold creeping into the pyjamas she is still wearing.

With shaking fingers, her teeth clenched to stop them chattering, she drags clothes out of the wardrobe and pulls them on over her pyjamas to keep in as much warmth as possible – t-shirt, shirt, jumper and the thick coat she wore on the Oodsphere. She pulls leggings over her pyjama pants and then adds another pair of stretchy dress pants, and finally her jeans, even if she can’t do up the fly and button. She even puts on two more pairs of socks before sliding her feet back into her slippers.

Feeling rather like the marshmallow man, she digs out two beanies and a scarf (her other scarf, she remembers with some chagrin, is at the bottom of a swamp on a planet in the Martol galaxy, and she never did make good on the promise of the Doctor taking her somewhere she could get another). Cramming the green headgear over her own head and wrapping the scarf around her so that part of it covers her mouth and nose to warm the air she breathes, she moves to the bedside and slides the other over the Doctor’s hair.

At least she’s warmer, although the air on the uncovered skin of her face is still unpleasantly icy. She moves back to the table and begins unpacking the small camping bag that had proved its worth on so many occasions during the year that she was looking for the Doctor. Apart from the lantern, she has two back-up flashlights, a small propane stove and a first-aid kit, all of which she has used on various occasions, although never quite as extreme as this. There is also a one-person picnic kit, and Donna opens it and fishes out the folding cup. She picks up the lantern and takes the cup into the ensuite leading off her bedroom.

The tap is frozen and she has to use the sleeve of her dressing gown to cover the icy metal to avoid her hand being stuck to it as she attempts to turn the stiff lever.

Nothing happens.

Donna can’t tell whether the water is frozen in the tap or if the TARDIS simply has no life in her to pump water into the pipes, but not even a drop falls into the cup.

What she can tell is that, if she can't get water for both herself and the Doctor, they will both be in serious trouble.

There's the swimming pool, but she doubts it will be drinkable, at least for her. Perhaps the Doctor has some alien internal system that can filter brackish water, but she certainly doesn’t.

She turns to leave the room, but the moving light cast by the lantern in her hand casts a shadow and allows her to see objects in the bath that she hadn't seen before. Frowning, she crosses the room and stares down at the two large buckets, full to the brim of frozen water. A thin, black object lying on one of the buckets reveals itself to be an ice pick.

“Thanks, old girl,” Donna whispers, wondering if the TARDIS can still hear her.

Kneeling on the icy wooden floor - even the tiles have disappeared - she attacks the ice with the pick, chipping away until small chunks begin to break off. Finally she has enough to fill the cup and she takes it and the ice pick back into the bedroom.

A glance shows that the Doctor hasn't moved.

Donna sets up the stove and, her fingers trembling, manages to light the gas. It flickers for a moment and she is starting to wonder if the room is too cold for the stove when the flame finally strengthens. She sets the cup containing the ice onto the hob and then picks up her lamp and leaves the room.

The light casts strange shadows as she crosses to the kitchen. The cupboards still exist, but they are without doors. The rest of the furniture is gone. An empty cardboard box stands in the middle of the room and Donna doesn’t waste time. She all but lunges for the cupboards, making instant decisions about what she should take and what she can leave behind. In the end, she takes chocolate, bread, biscuits, tea and all of the bananas she can find. The skins are already turning brown in the cold air, but she’s frozen enough bananas to know that the flesh inside will be fine. From the fridge, the residual temperature of which almost feels warm considering the coldness around her, she chooses milk, eggs and butter. That should give them some variety in food for a while in any case. Her small camp cooking kit will suffice for most things, but she does take the kettle off the stove so that she can boil more water than her little travel kettle can manage. After a moment’s thought, she adds a saucepan and a frying pan.

Heavily laden, with the lantern resting on top of everything else to light the way, she leaves the kitchen. It’s not far to the doorway of her bedroom, but she is already gasping by the time she arrives. The cold makes every breath painful, an ache that is starting to settle in her gut and her chest, but which also seems to drain the energy from her arms and legs. Her steps are a slow shuffle over the threshold and she nudges the door closed with her shoulder, not wanting to lose any of the precious heat that might be trapped in here.

There is a flicker on the edge of her vision, and by the time she turns around, the door she has just come through has vanished, leaving a plain, unpainted wall.

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