rude_not_ginger | AU RP for ambitious

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AU RP for ambitious_woman

Illness

A Time Lord shouldn't be separated from his TARDIS. He knew this, it was a fairly simple, fairly straightforward rule that every Time Tot was taught back in the nursery. Time Lord and TARDIS were connected, part of a whole, part of a sum and all that. There were horror stories that Ushas used to tell over nightcom about Time Lords who had been without their ship for long periods of time and went insane, or worse. The "worse" was, of course, described in accurate, gruesome details, much to the 'ooooh'ing and 'aaaahhh'ing of those listening in.

The Doctor just never believed he'd be on the end of that sort of experience.

His ship was a lifetime away. More than that, lifetimes away, and he could feel it. He could feel the lack of a ship in his mind and it ached. More than ached, it was as if a large part of him was missing and he'd only just lost the anesthetics keeping the sensation of missing away.

He had meant to do a good deal today, most of which involved bothering the cook into frying chips and rewriting Reinette's library. These were his main plans, and they were good ones.

As it was, he was curled up on the floor of his bedroom, the shakes and stomachache from the night before having finally decided that his lack of response on the matter was unacceptable. He cried out sharply, a noise that only vaguely sounded human, and may have been a name.

"Reinette!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Their rooms were as always, there rooms.

No, of course that was not true. Her room remained her own of course, but the Doctor had only been in possession of his for the sum of eight months. Day after day collected since she had been unable to send him home. Since then he had busied himself. With the parts of clockwork men, her books, and even making the space adjoining hers, more his own.

But what continued to speak to Reinette most? Was the door. Just as the mental connection they sometimes sought? On some occasions the door stood open, and inviting. And on others, it was firmly shut. A suitable sign that the Doctor needed his own space, and own time. It was something Reinette both respected, and understood.

Today? It was shut.

Which was shy she was startled from her reading to hear her own name, cutting through the carved wood in painful degrees. The novel slid to the floor as she stood, crossing the room and entering the Doctor's own without hesitation.

When she found him on the floor? Something like dear twisted in her gut. As she somehow found a way to pass one of her own lingering illnesses onto him? She knew he did not lend himself to sickness but this --- was their connection somehow at fault.

She dropped to the floor, taking his head in her lap and checking for fever.

"Here," she murmured. "I am here."

It was pain. Searing and sweating pain, and he could've sworn there was an enormous hole in his gut where something should've been---or perhaps it was his brain, where the symbiotic nuclei was implanted. Whatever it was, there was something missing and why couldn't she just see it?

He clung to her, his hands and body slick with sweat of the effort to simply not die or whatever it was that his body was trying to do.

"It's the TARDIS," he hissed against her, "My body's trying to get me to go to the TARDIS, it's been trying to for months, but now it's screaming!"

Head still in her lap the Doctor's arms were wrapped about Reinette with surprising force, pulling close. So very close. She could see every line, every pore, every single ounce of paid as it masked itself as sweat and literally poured from his body. His words, hot against her skin.

Her gaze flickered to the water pitcher by the bed and cursed her lack of thought for not reaching for it first. She brought her mouth close to his ear instead, in an attempt to drown out the screams.

"Tell it you are coming," she urged firmly. "Promise her you are returning. I was told as much once. Try and tell her," Reinette pushed, not letting the edge of desperation come into her voice. She could not call the doctors, and there was no one she could go to. "Make her listen."

God, she was trying. He could tell she was trying, but it hurt, and she didn't understand. He wanted her to understand, but there was no way he'd share this. This feeling, this pain.

"It's not the TARDIS, it's my body, it's trying to save me from losing her, as a warning that it's been too long, we're too far apart. It doesn't realize that there's nothing I can do about it!"

His body spasmed, and he could swear his brain was ripping from his skull, trying to go to the 51st century all by its lonesome, it hurt that badly. He cried out, then let out a noise very like a whimper.

Reinette held his as best she could while the Doctor's body spasmed, but he had always been stronger then her. In the end all she could truly accomplish was assure herself his head did not strike the floor.

His body was betraying him, she she felt helpless to watch. Is this what Louis had felt like? How did he bear it?

There was opiates -- laudenum. But they were temporary at best, and from Reinette's observations? Addictive at work. And she was sure they would only serve to mask the problem.

"Have you seen this happen before," she pressed. "What can I do?"

"It's more of a myth than an actuality," he gasped for air, "A sort of story your parents tell you to keep you from being bad. This is to keep Time Lords from abandoning their technology, it just doesn't happen and---"

The last of his words were cut off by another spasm, and he felt his body hit the floor, though his head was cradled by Reinette. He managed to open his eyes, though even the dim light of the room was scorching his retinas. She looked so terrified. He was terrifying her, and he couldn't stop it, couldn't take her pain because he was overflowing with his own.

"Don't leave me," he whispered, his voice small and terrified, "Reinette, please don't leave me."

And he had left her before. So many times in her youth, he'd simply vanished into his own time, into the world he knew, and now it was all he could do to beg her to stay. He didn't want to be alone. And he knew that was selfish, especially if he were to die (and legend stated that a Time Lord separated from his TARDIS would lose the ability to regenerate), and she would have to witness it.

All he could think was how he couldn't be alone, and the floor didn't burn cold so badly with her to warm him.

This was not a myth, and now was not a story.

His sweat was bleeding through the bodice of her gown and in some ways Reinette would have preferred blood. At least she had some experience with blood. But it was her address the question, privately, that she could not bring herself to ask aloud.

Are you dying?

To let the words breathe air seemed to suggest they had at least the possibility of being real, and true. But as their gazed locked, Reinette was unable to look away, and in that unable to avoid that very possibility.

She attempted a smile, soft and brief and most likely gone to quickly to be recognized.

"I have nowhere else to be," she assured him, reaching to touch the Doctor's forehead again, desperately hoping that somehow---

His forehead. His mind.

"Build a door Doctor," she touched a temple. "Build a wall of them, if you must. Around the pain. Do not let go of her just -- put her away for now." Reinette knew much of such things. "If you are --- if it hurts to much, then let me help," she offered quietly. "I think I can help."

The Doctor's hand shot out, catching her wrist in a grip that was hard enough to bruise.

"NO," he snapped, "No, Reinette, you can't help, it hurts too much!"

With no other options, he tried as she suggested. Worked on building a wall around his memories of the TARDIS, of being connected, but every time he brushed the memories, the wall crumbled and the pain began again.

"I can't focus, I need something---a-a-a-a sedative, anything, just something to stop it for just a few moments!"

The moment Reinette made the suggestion she came to the conclusion that it was their only option. After all, they had no one in this, but themselves. She had often spent their evenings apart wishing to find things that might further her connection with the man in the next room. But never for something like this. Never could she wish for this.

Again, her eyes flickered to her own room, and the laudenum that was there, abandoned after one of her more painful bleedings.

"I..."

Reinette hestiated, aware of the Doctor's hurt and heat. The way his body trembled still, next to her own.

"I cannot do it," she apologized, hating the way the words tasted. "It would dull your wits just when you need them the most."

He was going to have to build that wall. High and strong and sure, something that would last until he returned him. Shoddy, drugged workmanship was sure to crumble, and that was not an option. Reinette would wish lingering sickness on no one. But especially ---

No. It was not for him.

With a certain expertise she ignored his objection and ignored the pain in her wrist, instead using her own arm to pull his hand closer, higher until she could untangle his fingers and press them to her temple. Then she lifted the Doctor's other prostrate arm and did more of the same.

She trusted him to reach for what he needed the most.

No, nonononononononono---

He didn't realize he was saying the words over and over even as she tried to connect to him. No, he couldn't. He couldn't, oh, but it hurt, and he was so scared.

"If you take this pain, it will kill you, Reinette, you're not strong enough," he said, struggling to keep his eyes open, "And if you die now, then everything is in vain. Please, please, please don't make me have to lose you, too. You're all I have left."

He put his hands to her temples, but instead of giving her the pain, he pulled from her her strength of will. He had to stay alive, he had to build this, he would.

Brick built up in his mind around the wound within, and he could build, albeit slowly, even if memories were brushed. His body shuddered and shook as if he was cold despite his body's heat.

Her mind, Reinette had often thought, was the lone single part of herself that had not offered a betrayal of some fashion. It had always been strong, even as the rest of her was not. And that was what she could offer the Doctor now.

...nonononononononono.

He was scared. So deeply scared and Reinette was ure that she had never once seen him thus before. In her own life, or the the times before she had traveled through. Was this it then? Had she finally met the Doctor's nightmare?

The loss of the TARDIS had always been a lingering sadness that filled rooms and empty, undefined spaces. But within the Doctor's mind it was shard, and real, and Reinette could feel the loss literally ripping him in half. Had is escalated this quickly? Or had she been blind to his hurt, too secretly pleased to finally have him from one day into the next.

In apology, both for that, and her actions, Reinette pressed forward.

She did not seek his pain, even though it consumed everything. For him she imagined a fire honed blade, searing though flesh and heart and mind. For herself it merely seared, burning skin and air. But Reinette knew without doubt the pain was nothing compared to the Doctor's own.

In her mind her fingers wrapped themselves around his, working each of the bricks with him.

Everything was heavy and hard and yet the wall was building as though he was moving twice as quickly. He felt strength that---

Some of the bricks tumbled, and he curled up into a fetal position in Reinette's lap, curling towards something that gave him comfort when everything was pain and fear.

Couldn't his body just understand? He wanted the TARDIS back as much as it did. He wanted to touch the cool metal of the console and feel his old friend in his mind and have that freedom, but he made a choice and sticking to it was more important than any---

More pain, more shakes. He felt hands in his, and he worked his mind again, though most of his strength was simply going to not crying out again.

AU RP for ambitious_woman

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