katherine_b (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katherine_b) wrote2011-08-22 08:08 am
katherine_b) wrote2011-08-22 08:08 am
Entry tags:
The Most Heeded of Doctors Part II
Title: The Most Heeded of Doctors
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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)
Part II
Startled, and just a bit more afraid, Donna dumps the box on the table – she doesn’t bother being quiet about it; the noise might rouse the Doctor and that would be a good thing – and lunges for the wall. Running her fingers over the rough blocks, she realises she has no idea where the door even stood. It has vanished as completely as if it never existed.
Donna can’t help wondering if there is even a TARDIS out there anymore, or if this room is somehow floating alone in the vortex.
She runs for the door that leads to the bathroom. She’s half-waiting for it to vanish beneath her fingers, but it opens at her touch and she feels her way towards the bath. She grabs the icy handles and hauls the buckets out.
At the doorway, she puts the buckets down again, using them to prevent the door from closing, and then snatches her towels off the rails and a face-cloth off the shower tap. These she flings into the bedroom, following them up with a bar of soap and the sponge on the sink.
She doesn’t dare to risk leaving anything behind after the way the door to the bedroom vanished, cutting her off from anything she may have forgotten in the kitchen.
Finally, grunting with the effort, she lugs the heavy buckets of solid ice into the bedroom and turns to look at the bathroom door.
To her boundless relief, it remains in existence.
She doesn’t want to have to imagine trying to cope without a toilet.
At this moment the water begins to boil and Donna moves across to turn off the hob. She will have to preserve the gas as much as possible since she isn’t going to be able to make use of the TARDIS’ cooking facilities.
Out of the corner of her eye, as she makes herself tea, she keeps an eye on the Doctor. She has to wonder if he is ill because of whatever is affecting the TARDIS or if it is the other way around.
The cup is almost too hot in her frozen fingers and in the end she has to wrap her scarf around it to hold it comfortably. She has always liked tea, but had never understood why the Doctor valued it so highly until she realises how much shaper her thinking becomes after even only a few sips.
With a renewed burst of energy, she unpacks the box she brought from the kitchen, laying all of the objects out on the table where she can see them easily. After putting the box on the floor under the table, she is about to turn to the cupboard when her eyes fall onto the small red package with the white cross.
Donna flips open the small first-aid kit she had purchased after spraining her wrist during one of her early adventures searching for the Doctor.
Her eyes immediately fall on an empty space in the middle. It is the place where she had put a bottle of aspirin that had not come with the original kit. She hasn’t opened this kit since she was at Adipose industries, so either the TARDIS or the Doctor has taken it away.
Then again, she realises suddenly, it wouldn’t do the Doctor much good if she had the bottle in any case. She would have no way of feeding the aspirin to him.
Sighing, she pushes the case away and turns to check the cupboard.
The shelves holding her clothes are empty, but there are more blankets than she had realised on the lower shelves and these she moves to put on the bed.
As she turns, Donna sees that he is moving, but not in a way that is a relief to her. He isn’t waking up and trying to get out of bed. Instead he is shivering so violently that the bed itself is shaking. Even as she dumps the blankets onto the bed, she hears the Doctor give an unsteady intake of breath and then the chattering of his teeth shatters the otherwise almost oppressive silence of the room.
Donna begins wrapping the blankets around him as best she can. He is shaking so violently that she’s almost afraid he will fall out of bed and injure himself. She tucks the blankets in around him, but he twitches free so violently that she almost wonders if he is having a seizure.
In the end, she runs around to the other side of the bed and dives beneath the blankets, sliding her arms around the Doctor and pulling him against her.
His head comes to rest on her chest, tucking in beneath her chin, but he gives no sign that he has felt her presence, continuing to shake in her hold. Donna rubs his back, making sure that the blankets are as tightly tucked in as possible to block out the icy air. Just in case he can still hear her, she keeps talking to him, doing her best to pretend that everything is normal.
“I never thought I’d say this, Doctor, but you’re very warm.”
That's an understatement. She can feel the heat from him as if he’s on fire. Still, considering the coldness of the room, the warmth is a welcome relief for her.
“Tell you what, mate,” she adds, resting her head against his, “I bet you never thought you’d be in my bed like this. Don’t go getting any ideas about it happening after you get better,” she goes on, wondering if she’s imagining that he seems to be shivering less violently.
“And you have to get better,” she adds in a half-whisper, tightening her hold around him. “Please!”
She turns her eyes from his face to look around the room, but realises that her view is slightly obscured. There is a misty haze that she realises is actually being caused by the heat coming off the Doctor hitting the icy air around them.
Gradually the Doctor’s shivering dies away. He lies motionless in her arms, and she is about to lay him against the pillows and get up to rescue the lamp, which is flickering dangerously, when a new sound interrupts into the room. A rough rattle makes her look around before she realises that the noise is coming from the Doctor, who is staring at the ceiling out of glassy eyes that don’t focus on anything including her.
His lips move, but Donna can’t make sense of the sounds. She’s not even sure if they are words.
“English, Doctor,” she prompts, although without much belief that he will respond. “Speak English.”
It’s clear that he either can’t hear her or isn’t able to do as she has asked. His voice, a low rasp, continues to mumble nonsensical syllables into her neck. His hands clutch at her sleeves, but when she slides her fingers between his, he pulls away as if her touch has burned him. Yet when she tries to free herself from his hold, his voice rises to a shout and he holds her even more tightly.
“All right, chum, make up your mind,” she grumbles after several struggles of this sort. “If you don’t like that, what do you want me to do?”
She doesn’t really expect an answer and isn’t surprised when she doesn’t get one. What does attract her attention, though, is that, when she moves him rather than just herself, he seems to be quieter.
Donna finds herself dredging up a memory she thought was buried forever – the last days of her father’s life when she spent so many hours beside his bed, trying to distract him from the pain he was suffering. Particularly in the last hours, when he was semi-conscious, he seemed to respond best to being held, just as the Doctor is now.
The wind-up lamp flickers, beginning to die, and Donna is thankful. She has always preferred to hide her tears in the dark.
The Doctor is definitely quieter as Donna rocks him back and forth.
She finds herself humming as she does so, the same as she did for her father. Even the same tune. Silent Night.
“Sleep in heavenly peace.” She sings the last part aloud, remembering how much she wished at the time that her father could have slept properly and without pain.
And at that instant she realises the Doctor is silent for the first time in some minutes.
He cries out in apparent protest when she falls silent. Even if she can’t make out the words, the tone of urgency is unmistakable.
Rolling her eyes, Donna begins The First Noël. O Come All Ye Faithful and Angels We Have Heard On High follow quickly after.
Each song brings back memories that Donna had thought were gone forever. Christmases with her family. Happy days. Mum and Dad. Grandparents from both sides. Everyone together singing carols and eating the huge meals Grandma Mott and Donna's Mum always cooked.
It’s ironic that Donna should be in the middle of I’ll Be Home For Christmas when she allows herself to remember the year that it all changed – the year Grandma Mott was in hospital, rather than being at home. The year Donna stayed at home alone on Christmas Day while her Mum and Dad and Gramps all went to the hospital. Only three visitors at a time in intensive care, so that was why she couldn’t go; to say goodbye, as it turned out. Well, that and her exams, which she failed because she’d been visiting her Grandma instead of studying.
Her mother had guilt-tripped her about that for the rest of her school-years, how disappointed Grandma would have been in her. When Donna left school and started working immediately instead of continuing her studies, there was more guilt. A pattern of the years to come.
Donna’s hands are starting to ache from the cold and the weight of the Doctor against her. She moves him slightly, grunting in pain as her chest throbs agonisingly in protest at the freezing air she is breathing in.
The song finishes and her mind goes blank. After a few seconds of silence, the Doctor begins to whimper, his hand closing over her cold, aching fingers in a crushing grip. She can’t free herself until she begins to sing again and he relaxes.
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed...”
Memories bring those words to her in a rush, memories of Christmases when she would stand next to her Grandma in church and sing the carols at the top of her voice.
Can’t bear it. I hate Christmas.
That was what she had said to the Doctor. She wonders now if she would have done better to give him an explanation. Did he deserve one? Probably. Maybe it would have made him act differently.
Even if it snows?
She would never dare tell him that that action was what changed her mind. If he had simply asked again, invited her along, pushed her to come, she might have said yes. She might have allowed herself to believe that he was ‘normal’ enough that she could feel safe around him. Making it snow changed all that.
Of course, now she likes the fact that he's alien, but then it was almost the worst part of the whole day. She half-expected him to be a Racnoss in disguise or something. Green skin and big eyes, like her Gramps always said.
She can only shake her head at her own ignorance and stupidity as she looks down at the man - so clearly just a man! - in her arms.
The only song she can think of as Away in a Manger ends is Frosty the Snowman. She hums it because her throat is starting to hurt, and because it means she doesn't have to slur over the words that sometimes slip her mind.
That, she remembers as she continues to hum, was one of the songs that was playing incessantly wherever she seemed to go during that in-between Christmas, after the time with Lance and the Racnoss and the Doctor, and before the red-letter day when she went to Adipose Industries.
For the first time since then, Donna thinks about that Christmas. She remembers wondering, when it was so quiet, whether the Doctor was involved. Donna wishes she had asked the Doctor more about the time between their meetings. She knows that she spent a lot of that time - that year - thinking about the Doctor. A tiny part of her wonders if he ever thought about her.
She stops, her throat too sore to continue. Besides, she can't think of a single other song to sing, and even the tunes of those she has already sung are vague in her mind.
The Doctor is starting to shiver again and doesn't even react when she falls silent, which worries her. She slips her fingers between his and he doesn't pull away. He doesn't respond at all, in fact.
It takes her a moment or two to think about what she should do next.
She's shivering, too, and the pain in her chest and stomach is increasing.
After a moment she unpeels the scarf from around her neck and wraps it around the Doctor as best she can.
His teeth chatter loudly in the silence of the room.
She wriggles out of the jacket she is wearing on top of everything else and covers him with it.
He continues to shiver.
Donna flips the blankets on her side of the bed so that they cover him instead, tucking them around him so that he's as warmly covered as possible.
He finally stops shivering.
Donna gazes drowsily at the basket of dirty clothes in the corner. She knows there is still a few things in there that she could put on - a couple of t-shirts, a few pairs of socks, her other pyjama pants.
But she will be even colder if she gets up.
And besides, she's so tired.
A documentary she watched once about explorers in the snow said that it was dangerous for people in cold climates to sleep when they got tired.
Donna feels that there's no point in fighting it.
Even if she wanted to get out of bed, she can't remember which leg she should move first.
In any case, getting out of bed wouldn't help her to escape the cold.
The TARDIS is dead.
The Doctor will be soon, if he isn't already. Donna looks down to see that his cheeks are pale now, instead of flushed red.
He isn't breathing.
She knows he has a system that helps him breathe. It's not so bad for me. She can't remember what it's called now. But she also knows he can't use it forever.
She can’t help the TARDIS.
She doesn't know what's wrong with either the ship or the Doctor, and she can't fix it.
All she can do, she realises with a sort of resigned fatalism, is to die here with them.
Somehow that idea makes sense. It even seems appealing. Didn't she promise him forever?
Dona curls herself around the Doctor's limp body as best she can and closes her eyes.
Next Part
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)
Part II
Startled, and just a bit more afraid, Donna dumps the box on the table – she doesn’t bother being quiet about it; the noise might rouse the Doctor and that would be a good thing – and lunges for the wall. Running her fingers over the rough blocks, she realises she has no idea where the door even stood. It has vanished as completely as if it never existed.
Donna can’t help wondering if there is even a TARDIS out there anymore, or if this room is somehow floating alone in the vortex.
She runs for the door that leads to the bathroom. She’s half-waiting for it to vanish beneath her fingers, but it opens at her touch and she feels her way towards the bath. She grabs the icy handles and hauls the buckets out.
At the doorway, she puts the buckets down again, using them to prevent the door from closing, and then snatches her towels off the rails and a face-cloth off the shower tap. These she flings into the bedroom, following them up with a bar of soap and the sponge on the sink.
She doesn’t dare to risk leaving anything behind after the way the door to the bedroom vanished, cutting her off from anything she may have forgotten in the kitchen.
Finally, grunting with the effort, she lugs the heavy buckets of solid ice into the bedroom and turns to look at the bathroom door.
To her boundless relief, it remains in existence.
She doesn’t want to have to imagine trying to cope without a toilet.
At this moment the water begins to boil and Donna moves across to turn off the hob. She will have to preserve the gas as much as possible since she isn’t going to be able to make use of the TARDIS’ cooking facilities.
Out of the corner of her eye, as she makes herself tea, she keeps an eye on the Doctor. She has to wonder if he is ill because of whatever is affecting the TARDIS or if it is the other way around.
The cup is almost too hot in her frozen fingers and in the end she has to wrap her scarf around it to hold it comfortably. She has always liked tea, but had never understood why the Doctor valued it so highly until she realises how much shaper her thinking becomes after even only a few sips.
With a renewed burst of energy, she unpacks the box she brought from the kitchen, laying all of the objects out on the table where she can see them easily. After putting the box on the floor under the table, she is about to turn to the cupboard when her eyes fall onto the small red package with the white cross.
Donna flips open the small first-aid kit she had purchased after spraining her wrist during one of her early adventures searching for the Doctor.
Her eyes immediately fall on an empty space in the middle. It is the place where she had put a bottle of aspirin that had not come with the original kit. She hasn’t opened this kit since she was at Adipose industries, so either the TARDIS or the Doctor has taken it away.
Then again, she realises suddenly, it wouldn’t do the Doctor much good if she had the bottle in any case. She would have no way of feeding the aspirin to him.
Sighing, she pushes the case away and turns to check the cupboard.
The shelves holding her clothes are empty, but there are more blankets than she had realised on the lower shelves and these she moves to put on the bed.
As she turns, Donna sees that he is moving, but not in a way that is a relief to her. He isn’t waking up and trying to get out of bed. Instead he is shivering so violently that the bed itself is shaking. Even as she dumps the blankets onto the bed, she hears the Doctor give an unsteady intake of breath and then the chattering of his teeth shatters the otherwise almost oppressive silence of the room.
Donna begins wrapping the blankets around him as best she can. He is shaking so violently that she’s almost afraid he will fall out of bed and injure himself. She tucks the blankets in around him, but he twitches free so violently that she almost wonders if he is having a seizure.
In the end, she runs around to the other side of the bed and dives beneath the blankets, sliding her arms around the Doctor and pulling him against her.
His head comes to rest on her chest, tucking in beneath her chin, but he gives no sign that he has felt her presence, continuing to shake in her hold. Donna rubs his back, making sure that the blankets are as tightly tucked in as possible to block out the icy air. Just in case he can still hear her, she keeps talking to him, doing her best to pretend that everything is normal.
“I never thought I’d say this, Doctor, but you’re very warm.”
That's an understatement. She can feel the heat from him as if he’s on fire. Still, considering the coldness of the room, the warmth is a welcome relief for her.
“Tell you what, mate,” she adds, resting her head against his, “I bet you never thought you’d be in my bed like this. Don’t go getting any ideas about it happening after you get better,” she goes on, wondering if she’s imagining that he seems to be shivering less violently.
“And you have to get better,” she adds in a half-whisper, tightening her hold around him. “Please!”
She turns her eyes from his face to look around the room, but realises that her view is slightly obscured. There is a misty haze that she realises is actually being caused by the heat coming off the Doctor hitting the icy air around them.
Gradually the Doctor’s shivering dies away. He lies motionless in her arms, and she is about to lay him against the pillows and get up to rescue the lamp, which is flickering dangerously, when a new sound interrupts into the room. A rough rattle makes her look around before she realises that the noise is coming from the Doctor, who is staring at the ceiling out of glassy eyes that don’t focus on anything including her.
His lips move, but Donna can’t make sense of the sounds. She’s not even sure if they are words.
“English, Doctor,” she prompts, although without much belief that he will respond. “Speak English.”
It’s clear that he either can’t hear her or isn’t able to do as she has asked. His voice, a low rasp, continues to mumble nonsensical syllables into her neck. His hands clutch at her sleeves, but when she slides her fingers between his, he pulls away as if her touch has burned him. Yet when she tries to free herself from his hold, his voice rises to a shout and he holds her even more tightly.
“All right, chum, make up your mind,” she grumbles after several struggles of this sort. “If you don’t like that, what do you want me to do?”
She doesn’t really expect an answer and isn’t surprised when she doesn’t get one. What does attract her attention, though, is that, when she moves him rather than just herself, he seems to be quieter.
Donna finds herself dredging up a memory she thought was buried forever – the last days of her father’s life when she spent so many hours beside his bed, trying to distract him from the pain he was suffering. Particularly in the last hours, when he was semi-conscious, he seemed to respond best to being held, just as the Doctor is now.
The wind-up lamp flickers, beginning to die, and Donna is thankful. She has always preferred to hide her tears in the dark.
The Doctor is definitely quieter as Donna rocks him back and forth.
She finds herself humming as she does so, the same as she did for her father. Even the same tune. Silent Night.
“Sleep in heavenly peace.” She sings the last part aloud, remembering how much she wished at the time that her father could have slept properly and without pain.
And at that instant she realises the Doctor is silent for the first time in some minutes.
He cries out in apparent protest when she falls silent. Even if she can’t make out the words, the tone of urgency is unmistakable.
Rolling her eyes, Donna begins The First Noël. O Come All Ye Faithful and Angels We Have Heard On High follow quickly after.
Each song brings back memories that Donna had thought were gone forever. Christmases with her family. Happy days. Mum and Dad. Grandparents from both sides. Everyone together singing carols and eating the huge meals Grandma Mott and Donna's Mum always cooked.
It’s ironic that Donna should be in the middle of I’ll Be Home For Christmas when she allows herself to remember the year that it all changed – the year Grandma Mott was in hospital, rather than being at home. The year Donna stayed at home alone on Christmas Day while her Mum and Dad and Gramps all went to the hospital. Only three visitors at a time in intensive care, so that was why she couldn’t go; to say goodbye, as it turned out. Well, that and her exams, which she failed because she’d been visiting her Grandma instead of studying.
Her mother had guilt-tripped her about that for the rest of her school-years, how disappointed Grandma would have been in her. When Donna left school and started working immediately instead of continuing her studies, there was more guilt. A pattern of the years to come.
Donna’s hands are starting to ache from the cold and the weight of the Doctor against her. She moves him slightly, grunting in pain as her chest throbs agonisingly in protest at the freezing air she is breathing in.
The song finishes and her mind goes blank. After a few seconds of silence, the Doctor begins to whimper, his hand closing over her cold, aching fingers in a crushing grip. She can’t free herself until she begins to sing again and he relaxes.
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed...”
Memories bring those words to her in a rush, memories of Christmases when she would stand next to her Grandma in church and sing the carols at the top of her voice.
Can’t bear it. I hate Christmas.
That was what she had said to the Doctor. She wonders now if she would have done better to give him an explanation. Did he deserve one? Probably. Maybe it would have made him act differently.
Even if it snows?
She would never dare tell him that that action was what changed her mind. If he had simply asked again, invited her along, pushed her to come, she might have said yes. She might have allowed herself to believe that he was ‘normal’ enough that she could feel safe around him. Making it snow changed all that.
Of course, now she likes the fact that he's alien, but then it was almost the worst part of the whole day. She half-expected him to be a Racnoss in disguise or something. Green skin and big eyes, like her Gramps always said.
She can only shake her head at her own ignorance and stupidity as she looks down at the man - so clearly just a man! - in her arms.
The only song she can think of as Away in a Manger ends is Frosty the Snowman. She hums it because her throat is starting to hurt, and because it means she doesn't have to slur over the words that sometimes slip her mind.
That, she remembers as she continues to hum, was one of the songs that was playing incessantly wherever she seemed to go during that in-between Christmas, after the time with Lance and the Racnoss and the Doctor, and before the red-letter day when she went to Adipose Industries.
For the first time since then, Donna thinks about that Christmas. She remembers wondering, when it was so quiet, whether the Doctor was involved. Donna wishes she had asked the Doctor more about the time between their meetings. She knows that she spent a lot of that time - that year - thinking about the Doctor. A tiny part of her wonders if he ever thought about her.
She stops, her throat too sore to continue. Besides, she can't think of a single other song to sing, and even the tunes of those she has already sung are vague in her mind.
The Doctor is starting to shiver again and doesn't even react when she falls silent, which worries her. She slips her fingers between his and he doesn't pull away. He doesn't respond at all, in fact.
It takes her a moment or two to think about what she should do next.
She's shivering, too, and the pain in her chest and stomach is increasing.
After a moment she unpeels the scarf from around her neck and wraps it around the Doctor as best she can.
His teeth chatter loudly in the silence of the room.
She wriggles out of the jacket she is wearing on top of everything else and covers him with it.
He continues to shiver.
Donna flips the blankets on her side of the bed so that they cover him instead, tucking them around him so that he's as warmly covered as possible.
He finally stops shivering.
Donna gazes drowsily at the basket of dirty clothes in the corner. She knows there is still a few things in there that she could put on - a couple of t-shirts, a few pairs of socks, her other pyjama pants.
But she will be even colder if she gets up.
And besides, she's so tired.
A documentary she watched once about explorers in the snow said that it was dangerous for people in cold climates to sleep when they got tired.
Donna feels that there's no point in fighting it.
Even if she wanted to get out of bed, she can't remember which leg she should move first.
In any case, getting out of bed wouldn't help her to escape the cold.
The TARDIS is dead.
The Doctor will be soon, if he isn't already. Donna looks down to see that his cheeks are pale now, instead of flushed red.
He isn't breathing.
She knows he has a system that helps him breathe. It's not so bad for me. She can't remember what it's called now. But she also knows he can't use it forever.
She can’t help the TARDIS.
She doesn't know what's wrong with either the ship or the Doctor, and she can't fix it.
All she can do, she realises with a sort of resigned fatalism, is to die here with them.
Somehow that idea makes sense. It even seems appealing. Didn't she promise him forever?
Dona curls herself around the Doctor's limp body as best she can and closes her eyes.
Next Part
no subject
Wonderful, as always, and such an evil cliffhanger. ;)
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I freely admit I'm being very mean to all three of them, but it does given Donna a chance to remember the good parts of her life as well as the bad ones.
*hands you teddy bear and hot chocolate*
no subject
Donna's rather practical a lot of the time. Much more so than the Doctor has probably ever been. The sheer determination she can show in the face of hardship, when she's convinced that something is worth fighting for, is awe-inspiring.
This makes two stories that have me nervous about what'll happen next...
no subject
And yes, I think that's another area in which Donna has skills the Doctor does not. Awe-inspiring is one of the best descriptions of her!
no subject
Also, this is the best explanation for Donna hating Christmas that I've come across. Well done.
no subject
And thank you. It's a bit of a struggle to come up with a solid, sensible ideas sometimes and that one made the most sense to me.
no subject
I teared up completely at that point!! [Shall I say, "Bloody hormones!!"?]
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You know what would make this whole thing perfect? If after the Doctor and the TARDIS get better (which of course they will,) they turn around and take care of Donna together^_^ Because they're a team like that.
While I'm adoring every minute of this, I couldn't help but think in the middle of this chapter that I really missed the Doctor's voice/dialogue, hehe. It's so quiet without him up and bouncing around!
Absolutely cannot wait for more^_^
no subject
And it's a very strange dynamic, isn't it? Great long paragraphs of description, and you're right, there is a distinct lack of energy in his absence. Very strange.
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I am very intrigued to see how you will turn everything around...
no subject
And we shall have to see!
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Monday 22nd August 2011