Into the Howling: Chapter 7

[timelord1]

Title: Into the Howling
Rating: Teen
Pairing: 10/Rose
Category: Drama, Romance, Humor, Action/Adventure
SPOILERS: AU on end of Doomsday and points west.
Summary: What if things had happened just a bit differently there at the end, with the levers?
Notes: As always, mad love to the greatest beta trio on the planet: kelkat9, onabearskinrug and who_in_whoville. 

She weighed nothing in his arms. As tired as he was, weary to the marrow of his bones, he wished with all his might that he could feel the strain of lifting her weight as he carried her down the street, but there was almost nothing resisting his arms. She was breathing – he’d stopped several times to check as he trudged up the hill towards the building with the giant green crescent moon painted on the side – but he could not wake her for all the jostling and shouting he’d tried.
 
When he reached the hospital, which happily turned out to indeed be a hospital, he was met at the entrance by a pair of women who pried Rose out of his arms and took her down a hallway and out of sight. They had just done this, in London, after the bomb. He checked his pocket for the sonic screwdriver in case he had to force another hostage situation to get her proper care, then trudged to the admitting desk and handed the envelope of paperwork to the waiting clerk.
 
The clerk, a round-faced woman with a mop of springy gray curls and ears that came to sharp points, read through his paperwork and nodded to him as she began entering information into the computer. He wiped the sweat off his face and found that his nose was bloodied. He touched the side of it and winced. Seal-man had a wicked right cross.
 
“You are sick yourself,” the clerk said in Default. “And how’d you break your nose?”
 
The Doctor shrugged. “Recovering from a virus. The nose was a gift from a patron at the Wayfarer down the street.”
 
“There are two medical vouchers here, Mr. Doctor,” the clerk said, winking at him. “You should be seen. Stay away from the refugee bars from now on, if you value your face.”
 
“Once I know Rose is all right, maybe,” he answered. “May I go back with her? She doesn’t speak any language you will recognize.”
 
“You two are a long way from home,” the clerk said, handing the envelope of paperwork back to the Doctor.
 
The Doctor smiled and shook his head. “If you’ll forgive me sounding trite, my home was just taken back for treatment.”
 
“Good luck to you, Mr. Doctor,” the clerk said as she opened the door so he could go back into the trauma area. “Blessings.”
 
He found Rose in a room near the nurses’ station. She was being assessed by a green-skinned creature in a lab coat with four sleeves and two slits in the back to accommodate all of her arms and the pair of large iridescent wings that almost touched the ceiling of the trauma room. When she sensed the Doctor standing behind her, she turned with a smile. She had a pair of gigantic compound eyes and a small, doll-like mouth with blue-black lips. She spoke with the voice of a human toddler.
 
“You are a friend of this patient?” the doctor asked the Doctor in Default.
 
“Yes,” he answered, coming to stand on the other side of the bed.
 
“You have injuries of your own,” the doctor said.
 
“How is she?” the Doctor asked, looking down at Rose’s still form. She looked smaller than he remembered her to be; frail and almost withered. He didn’t know how she’d been able to stand and walk for as long as she had.
 
“She is suffering from exhaustion, more than anything else. Her vital signs are fair, but with rest they will improve. You came through the Void.”
 
The Doctor looked up into the doctor’s compound eyes. “Yes,” he answered.
 
“We don’t see many Void travelers. None of them human. Humans are not made to survive the Void – they’re fragile. The Void begins to claim them after time. Rips them apart, body and soul, until you’ve got a healthy, functioning body and nothing to put in it. How long were you stranded there?” the doctor asked. She put one of her three-fingered hands on the Doctor’s hand while adjusting Rose in the bed with two others.
 
“Two days,” the Doctor answered, surprised at how comforted he was by the insectoid’s touch.
 
The doctor nodded, and smiled at him, patting his hands. “It will take time, but your friend will recover.”
 
His shoulders sank with relief and he bit down on his bottom lip to keep any stray tears in check. He nodded, blinking hard, and then looked back down at Rose. “Thank you,” he managed. One drop fell free and darkened a spot on her coverlet.
 
“You were in the Void as well,” the doctor said. “For the same amount of time?”
 
The Doctor nodded. He knew where this was headed.
 
“So, though your paperwork says you are human, you are clearly not.”
 
The Doctor looked up into the doctor’s strange eyes again. “Is that going to be a problem?”
 
“There must be a reason you chose to keep your species private,” the doctor said. “We have a great respect for patient confidentiality on Qennda, as long as the Confederacy is not in power. I can be better equipped to treat you if you tell me what you are, but if you would prefer to keep it secret, I’ll do my best to help you as much as I can.”
 
“If I had said what I was in the refugee zone, I would have been detained,” the Doctor said. “I am Gallifreyan.”
 
“I’m sorry for the loss of your planet,” the doctor said as she came around the bed to take a look at the Doctor. “At least, in this universe. Have a seat and I’ll examine you.”
 
“I was infected with a virus on a planet in another universe,” the Doctor explained as her four hands deftly manipulated a scanning thermometer, stethoscope and otoscope while pulling down one of the Doctor’s eyelids to peer into his eye.
 
“And it looks like you recently lost a pretty nasty fight,” the doctor said, touching the sides of the Doctor’s nose. “Either that or you like to open doors with your nostrils. That’s broken. Would you like it re-set, or are you one of those types who thinks a crooked nose adds character?” the doctor winked one of her big eyes at him.
 
“Go ahead,” he answered, nodding his head in Rose’s direction. “She likes me pretty.”
 
The doctor opened a cabinet and brought out a pair of metal rods. The Doctor winced and sat on his hands to keep himself still.
 
“Oh, I’m joking,” she said, setting the rods down and taking another device out of the cabinet. “What do you think this is, Skrel?”
 
The Doctor chuckled. “I don’t know Skrel, but I’m certainly glad you’re not planning on jabbing those sticks up my nose. I’ve had enough trauma for one day.”
 
“No,” the doctor answered, grabbing the top of the Doctor’s head to hold him still as she clamped a big white device onto his face. “We do it this way.”
 
Three sharp points pierced the sides of his nose and he had time to say “Ow!” before there was a quick jerk, a wet thunk, and the device fell free into one of the doctor’s waiting hands. The Doctor’s jaw dropped and he made a sad little sound in the back of his throat, looking up at the doctor in shock.
 
She grinned at him. “You’ll thank me later. Never know it happened at all.” She reached out and gently pinched his cheek. “Pretty as a summer sunset. Now, here’s the rundown for you: bedrest, fluids, a bit of pampering from our nurses. You’ll be good as new in a day or so. For your friend, a few days longer. Here’s the rub for her: once she gets better, she’d better start looking for a job and find a house on Qennda. She can never cross the Void again.”
 
The Doctor’s face hardened. “Never?”
 
The doctor shrugged her four shoulders. “If you want to lose her, you can do whatever you want. If you want to keep her around, keep her out of the Void.”
 
“What about once she’s recovered?” the Doctor asked.
 
The doctor shook her head. “The Void’s effect is cumulative. If you take her in there, within minutes she’s going to deteriorate back to this state, to get worse from there. You will kill her if you take her into the Void again. I cannot be more clear than that.”
 
The Doctor nodded. “I understand.” He looked down at Rose, then back at the doctor. “You’re sure the Void does no damage to the body?”
 
The doctor crinkled the space on her face where a nose might have gone. “What good is a body without that which it was meant to house?”
 
He nodded distractedly and drew his chair up beside Rose’s bedside. “I’ll sit with her for a while,” he said. He knew what he was going to have to do when it came to it. Rose wasn’t going to like it, and he wasn’t going to be much of a fan of it himself, but there would be no other way. He had to get her home if he could, no matter the risk to him. Or to her.
 
“She needs rest,” the doctor said, a shade of sternness coloring her delicate voice. “You understand that well enough?”
 
“Of course I do,” the Doctor answered. “Thank you, Doctor-?”
 
“Whut,” the doctor answered.
 
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow. “How’s that?”
 
“Whut,” she repeated, holding out her hand for him to shake.
 
“I said thank you,” the Doctor said, a little louder this time.
 
“Yes, I heard you,” the doctor said, grinning. “It was a pleasure, Doctor.”
 
The Doctor nodded. “Doctor.” When she was gone, he turned back to Rose to pick up her hand and kiss the back of her fingers. “Why is it all the really weird things happen when you’re sleeping?”
 
*****
 
The Doctor and Rose were admitted to the same room and twenty minutes after they were settled in, the doctor from the trauma room came in and closed the door. She was carrying a phlebotomy tray, and as one of her hands pushed up his sleeve to tie a blue rubber tourniquet just below his elbow, another put a needle in her teeth so she could remove the cap.
 
“How different is your vascular structure?” she asked as she slid the needle into the side of his wrist. He winced.
 
“You don’t do this very often, do you?” he asked, the last two words coming out under a great deal of strain as she backed the needle out and tried again. “Try fourteen degrees to the right.”
 
“Sorry,” the doctor said, eyeing the door. “I have to be quick.”
 
“Would you mind telling me why?” His teeth went on edge as she missed again and tried on the other arm. One of her hands was holding a gauze pad on the two wounds she’d created. She got the IV started on his other hand on the first try with only a little groaning on the part of the Doctor.
 
All four of her index fingers pointed in the Doctor’s face. “Do not, under any circumstances, mention to anyone in this hospital that you are Gallifreyan. Refuse to be treated or assessed by anyone but me. Do you understand?”
 
He nodded. “Why the secrecy?”
 
“Sole survivors are of particular interest to our government,” the doctor said. She snatched up the phlebotomy tray just as a nurse knocked and let herself in.
 
“Oh, hello Doctor Whut,” the nurse said with a smile. “Phlebotomy was just on their way up to start Mr. Doctor’s IV.”
 
“Oh,” Doctor Whut said with a fluttering of her wings. “I was just having a conversation with Mr. Doctor and realized it has been weeks since I started an IV and wanted to keep in practice. Third try – not bad. Run D5 for the next twenty-four hours and make certain that he eats.” She pointed the last three words in the Doctor’s direction, and reached out to tweak the end of his nose with one hand. He yelped and she grimaced.
 
“Also, give him a couple draughts of Morphidal for the nose. Sorry,” she said to him with a smile. “I will check on you two crazy kids in the morning. Sleep!”
 
“Morphidal?” the Doctor cried as she started out the room. “Seriously, I don’t –“
 
Doctor Whut turned and bugged her bug eyes at him. “Yes. Morphidal. For the pain you are feeling. You’re only human, after all.”
 
The Doctor’s face went slack as he understood it was time to play along. “Ohyes. Of course. I must be in shock.”
 
“Yes. Shock,” Doctor Whut said, glaring at him. “Now, stop talking and go to sleep!”
 
The Doctor flopped back into his bed and drew the sheet up, closing his eyes. He opened them a crack in time to catch Doctor Whut giving him one last wink before disappearing into the hall. The nurse assessed Rose, then came to the side of the Doctor’s bed and put her stethoscope in her ears.
 
The Doctor made a face. “Nope. I’m refusing treatment, thank you. I’ll be seen by Doctor What, and that’s it.”
 
The nurse tilted her head to one side. “Doctor who?”
 
He pointed at the door. “Doctor What. She was just in here?”
 
“Oh, you mean Doctor Whut?” she said, inflecting the name as if it were a question. “She is marvelous. Are you sure I can’t just listen to your heart?”
 
“No, thank you,” the Doctor said as pleasantly as he could, folding his arms in front of his chest. “How’s my friend?”
 
“She is improving,” the nurse said. “Void wasting takes a few days to get over, but I promise she’s going to be all right.”
 
“As long as she never crosses the Void again,” the Doctor muttered, turning so he could look at Rose.
 
“Afraid so,” the nurse said, making her expression appropriately sympathetic. “You two are our newest permanent residents. Qennda isn’t a bad place. I’m sure you’ll be very happy here.”
 
The Doctor nodded to her as she left the room. As soon as she was gone he snagged his IV pole and got out of bed to sit at Rose’s bedside. The last bit of tension he was holding in his hearts released when she opened her eyes and sighed.
 
“We’re stuck here?” she asked, reaching for his hand.
 
“It’s going to be all right,” he said. He stroked her hair and held her hand and for nearly an hour the Doctor said nothing at all.

Chapter 8

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Thank you!!! :)

Coming soon - I'm almost halfway through it, so the wait shan't be long...I hope! :)