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“DOCTOR!!” Rose shouted, worry showing in every decibel of her scream as she could only watch while her husband ran for his life away from the angry Androzanians.
He and Rose still didn’t know what exactly they had done to offend the colonists, but they supposed it was something truly awful caused by an oversight of his, if they were chasing them with unrefined spectrox-tipped weaponry. Perhaps it was one of his humorous–or so he thought–jabs at their predicament, having run out of sustainable energy production and forcing them back to a less technologically advanced civilization.
Of course, he quickly amended that there was nothing wrong with that, just that it was interesting to him as a time-traveler, but it was clearly a sore subject. One the Androzanians were not likely to forgive him over.
He continued to run, and they continued to catch up, until they were practically on top of him. Luckily enough for them, the Doctor was only mere feet away from Rose’s outstretched arms, peeking out of the TARDIS.
“Arms in!” The Doctor shouted, and when Rose shook her head, he shook his head angrily. He should have known his wife wouldn’t listen; she was always so damned stubborn. “Fine. Don’t get poked!”
Rose bit her lip and then decided to pull one arm in, leaving her left free for him, just in time to grab his arm at the elbow and tug him in with one arm and slam the door shut behind him. The thunking of bodies and spears jarred them slightly, despite knowing not even a supernova would cause the doors to budge.
After stopping a moment to turn to Rose and start laughing, sounding slightly unhinged in doing so, the Doctor stumbled into the console room, his feet less coordinated even than normal, but Rose couldn’t keep her own exasperated laugh from bubbling up. It was astonishing, funny even, how they had managed to escape this time! Truly.
The adrenaline rushing through the Doctor’s body from the running and laughter even managed to cover up the pain from the blisters quickly spreading across his body from their point of origin.
“Well, Doctor?” Rose asked when he took his position at the helm—or, rather, the controls?—of the TARDIS, just like always, and put in some coordinates; ready to start a new mission with not even a moment’s pause. “Where to next?”
The Doctor grinned from ear to ear and huffed another laugh, clearly still amused by the narrow escape. He looked rather pale, and his brow was sweaty, but Rose attributed that to his sprint into the TARDIS just before the Androzanians caught his coattails.
But, in a moment–in just a flash–his smile fell, his body stiffened, and his eyes widened. It was a bit terrifying if you asked Rose. “...Doctor?” She asked, and the man quickly changed coordinates and turned to look at her like a tour guide trying not to alert you of a tiger waiting just behind you.
“Rose,” he replied in a strained, almost breathy voice. “I’m afraid I have some rather bad news.”
And just like that, the TARDIS lurched and his knees gave out and he collapsed. He was unconscious almost the exact moment she caught him, and with a great amount of dread, she noticed the arm which had stabilized him around his back and up between his shoulders was a bit damp and wet. She explored the wound with her fingers and noted it was already mostly healed already, but the damage was done: that heart wasn’t beating anymore.
“Doctor?… DOCTOR?!” She called out, uncaring of how loud she was. No one could hear, anyhow. They were safely inside the TARDIS, flying through the vortex, except her husband was anything but safe and the TARDIS was going fairly easy for once.
The man stirred slightly, which was good, Rose supposed. He wasn’t… dead… yet, at least. She hadn’t known he could die, that he wasn’t always capable of regeneration. What had happened?! Why was he dying and not burning up or something?!?!!
She had to go somewhere, find someone who could help. She only had limited knowledge of his anatomy, but someone out in the universe had to know. But WHO?!
Something hummed in her mind, then, at the very back of her brain. It was warm and inviting, if also a bit panicked. She instantly knew it was the TARDIS, probably from her stint as Bad Wolf–of which her Doctor had reluctantly informed her about, worried she’d start burning up again. She hadn’t.
Rose opened her mind to the TARDIS and was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of information, images, snapshots of the Doctor so many years ago, of Gallifreyan anatomy, of a queen bat and her milk, of spectrox toxaemia and the symptoms.
When it was over, Rose gasped, her eyes widening as she looked around in a slight daze before settling on her husband again, who was now conscious, but only just.
“You… talked to her?” He asked, a blistered and warm hand reaching up to her face, his glassy eyes still managing to convey how proud he was.
“More like she talked to me,” Rose couldn’t help but joke lightly, placing her hand over his for a moment before swallowing thickly and removing his hand from her face. Her heart twinged at the pained look on his face. “You told me not to get poked, but didn’t listen to your own advice?!”
“Wasn’t-” The Doctor flinched at a particularly painful twinge in his blood vessels, breathing heavier before the pain subsided enough to speak again. “Wasn’t exactly intentional.”
“We need queen bats’ milk,” Rose stated, and she resisted a smile as her Doctor, once again, gazed upon her with such adoration and pride.
“We do. I don’t know if we have any, though.”
“Only one of your hearts is still beatin’, Doctor. I think you ought to be certain.” Rose shot back, watching his eyelids become heavier and hoping he could give her a general location to search, a direction, something.
The TARDIS landed.
The Doctor motioned her down, and she bent more at her waist so her ear was level with his mouth.
“Theta Sigma Lungbarrow,” He whispered. When Rose pulled back, his eyes possibly held more love than she had ever seen them display before.
“... Wha?” Rose replied, wondering what he was going on about, and her husband had the audacity to huff out a weak chuckle.
“My name,” He replied, gulping down stomach bile before a whole-body twitch took over for a second, the poison running its course quicker this time as it spread to all his organs. “Time Lords, we only tell our names when we’re-” Another spasm, more violent this time. “About to die. It’s the rules.”
Rose shook her head desperately at that, not ready to lose him so soon after they’d wed. Though, she supposed, anytime was too soon to lose him. When he started to droop in her grip, well, she panicked.
“Doctor, you canNOT die on me! Not now!!” She shouted, not even managing to feel slightly sorry when he flinched, because it woke him up a bit more than before.
“Might not have a choice, love,” The Doctor whispered back. “You know, having only one functioning heart and all.”
Rose, pointedly not listening, threw back, “You know why you can’t leave me now?”
And the Doctor, being sassy but his love and worry showing on his face, replied, “I have a feeling you’re about to tell me-“
“Because I’m pregnant!!!”
The Doctor–Theta, Rose’s mind corrected–froze at that. They sat in silence, one which would be comical if it wasn’t for the fact that he was also in the process of dying–for real, this time.
Rose panted with anger and fear as she waited for a response she wasn’t entirely sure would come before, finally, Theta gulped.
“…. Right.. Not dying today. Think think thINK! Not dying today, gotta think,” And Rose could sigh, or cry, with relief, because he was finally starting to sound like himself again. “Okay, can’t move. Paralysis already kickinggg-” He was cut off with a couple spasms in short succession. “Kicking in, along with the spasms. Alright.”
Rose let him think aloud, knowing it helped him, especially when he couldn’t really pace.
“How about- OOH! THE HOSPITAL WING!!” If he could thump himself on the forehead, or run his hands through his already-mussed hair, he most certainly would, thought Rose. “Rose! Love! In the hospital wing, there’s a vial. It looks–well–it looks like milk, but there’s only a bit of it. The TARDIS will help you find it.”
Rose gently laid the Doctor–calling him Theta just felt so weird, right now; possibly because he thought he was going to die–down before taking off like a shot.
“Be quick, though: my vision’s fading, and I can’t really feel my hands or feet!” He called after her.
“Oh, well, no pressure, then!” Rose shouted back, remaining open to the TARDIS’ flashing visual directions.
It took a while, and Rose cursed, for once, just how big the interior of the TARDIS was, but finally she was there and rummaging through every drawer and cupboard she could find. When it took longer than she suspected, and she still couldn’t find it, the TARDIS flashed an image of her Doctor breathing shallowly and whimpering, probably to make her work faster.
“NOT HELPING!” Rose shot back to the room, rummaging slightly faster. “If you want to help, show me the vial! Where it is! Anything but that!”
And, suddenly, she sent Rose a vision of what the human woman could only assume was a refrigerator. When she whirled around, she saw the actual thing and lunged for it, whipping the door open and quickly locating and grabbing the vial. Then, she was off again to reach her Doctor in time.
It seemed she was losing it quicker than she thought, though, because when she arrived, he was motionless, his lips were blue, and he wasn’t breathing.
“No!” Rose shouted before removing the cork from the bottle, lifting his limp upper body, and pouring it down his throat, hoping more of it went down his esophagus than down his trachea. When nothing happened, she threw the glass across the room and held him with both hands, staring into his unblinking, open eyes. “NO!!!”
The TARDIS lights flickered, a siren going off, and Rose recalled when the TARDIS wouldn’t work because the Doctor was unconscious. Perhaps it was fighting to hold on, too; to help despite it all, despite the lowest of odds for this working.
With one last light flicker, a couple images flickered into her mind, too: CPR, but alternating between the left and the right. A big ole whack, both hands in a fist, to both his shoulder blades. Good, thought Rose. Good, clever girl.
The lights went out, and all was cold and dark.
But, Rose didn’t let that stop her.
“No! You are not dyin’ on me; not today, Doctor!” She called out before starting chest compressions on his left heart, the bum one. Then, she moved on to the right one. It wasn’t working, though; and she knew she wasn’t going too fast, she was singing “Stayin’ Alive” like her old schoolteachers taught her.
“Alright, last shot,” She mumbled to herself before turning him over, putting a mental note to ask him just what makes him so heavy if he’s thin as a rail, once he wakes up. (If he wakes up, she wouldn’t allow herself to ponder.)
She used all her brute strength to slam her fists into one of his shoulder blades, wincing slightly at the loud CRACK! that sounded in response, before doing the same with the other. Then, she waited a moment, listening carefully for something, anything. Nothing happened.
“DAMN IT!!” She screamed, tears finally pouring down her face, before she tried again.
Once again, nothing.
“DAMN IT ALL!!” She screamed into the dead, empty TARDIS.
After a moment’s pause, she turned her husband over to see his open eyes again. Why did they have to be open?
She closed them, before leaning over and crying into his freezing-cold chest. It had always been cold, what with his natural body temperature being so much lower than hers, but now it felt like touching liquid nitrogen. It hurt to hold his face in her hand, but she refused to let it stop her. This was for her, this was to say goodbye. They’d done what they could. He’d gotten her out of there, and landed the TARDIS somewhere, presumably her home, before all hell broke loose. She wouldn’t leave him and the TARDIS, though. Not yet. When she did leave, she’d take him with her, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
No. Instead, she leaned over him and sobbed.
“Why did you leave me? You said you wouldn’t, said you never would, so why did ya?” She whimpered into his exposed throat before anger took over, and her fist slammed right into his chest, his breastbone, and she shouted, “I’m carrying our child!! HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME?!”
And, just like that, she heard a gasp and the lights came back on.