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!"

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I know.

Her breath was hot and measured, air shared with the Doctor, held close. What he exhaled, she inhaled, and they were tangled up so tightly in one another very little was fresh or new.

I know.

"You are going to survive this Doctor," she assured him, the words formed without hesitation. "I will not allow for any other option."

Reinette held him tighter and considered her options. Her own memories, oddly his own giver to her through previous connection, still existed if the TARDIS. While they might offer some comfort later, for now they were most likely only causing the Doctor more pain. Swiftly she brushed those aside.

Strength was one thing. Her strength of will was quite another. But the Doctor was struggling -- no. Failing. And if something was not done soon they would most likely fall together. There was nothing else for it.

It was a fumbled attempt, the first time attempted, but slowly, carefully, Reinette attempted to draw up some of his pain. Just enough to allow him to finish the wall.

He felt her drawing in his pain and he pushed. Pushed her away as firmly and strongly as his mind could. His body, too. He felt himself be propelled away from her, landing firmly on the floor. He cried out sharply in pain, but he couldn't couldn't couldn't let her take any of it.

"No!" he hissed, "You can't take it, Reinette. It'll kill you, there's too much!"

He tried to pull himself away from her as well, but he could only barely drag his body a few inches before exhaustion took over, and he fell onto his face. The pain of his jawbone connecting with the floor was muted with the ache of the rest of him.

Reinette was pushed back as if struck by a physical blow, her back caught against one ornately carved bedpost. All of her air was pushed out out by the force of it, but as she struggled for more it was fresh, and she managed to find strength from that.

And a certain amount of anger.

"It will kill you if I do not," she argued, starting to crawl back towards his prone form, before changing her mind. She turned instead and from behind her she yanked free one of the finely made sheets from her bed. She could hear the Doctor spasming with the pain again, bone striking floor.

Crawling back towards him Reinette braced herself before pulling his exhausted form up against her chest once more. Then taking the sheet she wrapped it tightly around both their chests, lashing it closed with several tight knots. Her time with her embroidery found new purpose. "I am not leaving you Doctor," she said plainly, fighting for level voice. "You might as well become accustomed to my presence."

She might have been making several points then.

He was near limp from exerted effort, and it made Reinette ache how his limbs might have belonged to a child's doll. She lifted his hands up to her temples once more.

We try this again.

Was she tying him up?

"You stupid, stubborn woman!" he hissed, trying to struggle but finding it completely impossible. Every muscle in his body was so weak. Everything hurt, and he wanted to feel his stomach where the burning hole was. The part of him that needed his TARDIS burned and stung and ached and---

He tried to her away again, but eventually relented, taking her hands and allowing her to assist with the blocking off of his own past.

He wondered if he would resent her, later, for helping him do this.

A wave of pain took him before he could answer himself.

His thoughts bled into her own almost instantly so that yes, Reinette knew the connection had been reformed.

Yes, she informed him firmly, I am fully prepared for the resentment.

But at least he would be alive to feel it.

She was helping him turn his back on the stars. How was he expected to feel anything else? His legs, his body -- all of the Doctor continued to struggle agaist their efforts, though Reinette attempted to cushion whatever blows she could.

But now instead of attempted to take the pain once more, Reinette chose another tactic. He had fought the other too much, wasted too much strength. Where her efforts had been controlled before? Now, she literally poured every ounce of her strength through their connection, and attempt to balm his wounds long enough to meet their task.

When he felt the pain begin to ease, he feared again that she was trying to take it from him, but realized that, in fact, she was attempting to heal it. He couldn't deny her that.

The pain eased with her and the more bricks he lay between himself and the diseased part of him. Each one was easier than the last, until he could feel a wall there, a wall between himself and the hole that was his TARDIS.

He shuddered and clung to Reinette as though she were his only lifeline. In many ways, he realized, she was.

Reinette did not rest until she had examined the wall. It stood tall and straight, the bricks sure. There was a brief flare of anger at herself, for her part in what had just happened. At what what she had all but forced him to do.

Reason told her it was what had to happen, and yet Reinette far preferred it when they had no reasons.
She did not pull back yet, allowing her presence to remain, to comfort where it might. The sheet about them made her arms useless in many ways, but she close to hold him still.

It was done. He was separated. All that was left was a dull throb over his arms, legs, and the feeling of something missing from his mind. Like an amputated limb, he reached out in his mind and could swear he felt something there, but it was gone. Held behind a brick wall that was solid, secure, and firm.

Tears stung at his eyes from the loss, and the shame of the scene that brought him here, tied to Reinette. Her angel, her protector, and he was cradled in her arms, held there because she wouldn't let him go.

If there had been a doubt in his mind, some inkling that she only kept him around because she felt obligated to, it was gone. She had to love him, to hold him as she did, to force him to do what he did to keep him alive.

That was a comfort, at least.

Reinette moved carefully to untie them, but the Doctor's earlier struggles had only served to tightened the knots, making them impossible, even for her familiar hands.

When they were ready they were going to have to somehow reach her sewing kit. Until then, they remained secured tightly together. Her hands moved to his back instead, palms down and fingers slightly curled.

"It is only for now."

Reinette was a dealer in truths, just as this was. But the words seemed epty and small and she was disapointed in them. Still? The truth.

"Only for now."

Now. For now.

He shuddered, the remaining bits of energy in him gone, and sighed against her. Oh, what a mess he was. What a terrible mess for her to hold up.

"The stars," he murmured, "I've always wanted to show them to you. Give you a piece of that world you would thrive so well in."

He felt the tears again, and this time they didn't hesitate to spill over. There was the shame, as well, stronger this time, because the Doctor didn't cry, and most certainly didn't cry in front of anyone.

"Now it's gone, Reinette. It's gone. Three thousand years away."

His tears had very few places to travel but between them, mingling with the sweat and sorrow that was already there. Her own face was damp and it occurred to Reinette that they must have been shed as they built the wall, in the face of the Doctor's pain. She had been completely unaware of them, else Reinette would never have allowed them to happen.

"The stars are still here," Reinette spoke quietly. She brushed the Doctor's hand to her temple again. "Here, what you shared with me. And just outside as well. Maybe not their best, or brightest, or how you have known them. But they are still here. And you are still here as well."

The last, the most important.

He closed his eyes, and held her tighter. There was pain and there were tears and sweat and it was shared, and that terrified him. He never shared pain, never shared his suffering, he was always strong because he had to be. Yet, here he was, sharing it with a human he met not even eight months ago. Allowing her to hold him up, to help him because he couldn't help himself.

She probably didn't realize how important this moment was. Oh, she may have had an idea, but she didn't realize, couldn't fathom how much he needed her, how attached he'd suddenly become to her.

And self-preservation was out of the way, because he needed her to survive this moment, and thus became connected to her.

"Don't leave me," he found himself murmuring. It was a childish thing to ask for. After all, they all left, in the end.

Reinette laughed.

The sound was raw, and wet, originating from a throat think with emotion and coated in emotion. But still, it was laughter. Something that is no way mocked what sat between them. They were both cut open it seemed, much of them exposed.

He would not be here, after all, if she had not called to him. If she had solved the issue of the Clockwork men before he was forced to be cut off from his home.

Reinette shifted slightly, as if you remind him of how they were bound.

"Where would I go, Doctor," she offered.

And yet, he was exhausted. She was as well, and perhaps too much so to translate her wit. It was time for more plain speaking.

"There is nowhere else I would rather be," she offered, the words tangling into his hair.

"I don't know," he replied, honestly, letting out a bit of a laugh himself, "I don't know. Anywhere else?"

It's what he would've done. Run as far and as fast as he could from the cowering, sweating, screaming man on the floor. And, yet, she pulled him closer, tried to take his pain, even though he told her it would kill her.

"I just don't want to be with anyone else right now. Not even me."

He usually did so well, just being alone. Just having space, time, everything to himself. Just then, however, he needed to have her hold him, to fill the void, be a piece of his empty mind. That was, perhaps, selfish. He couldn't find a way to care.

Reinette made a decision then. To either coax him into her own bed that evening, or to join him in his own. For the only purpose of being there as he rested -- it could not quite be called sleep to her -- and again there as he awoke. The idea of that sort of alone as companion upset her, for him.

Which made no sense. It was not the sort of company he normally kept, she knew that. And the lack of it, thus, should not disturb. But it felt wrong. In many ways as the wall did.

"You do not have to be with yourself in this moment," she countered. "You are my company, and I am yours."

Her eyes found his own.

"Should we move?"

He nodded, slowly, a grateful smile appearing on his face. For all that he was terrible with 'thank you's, he felt the emotion of gratitude, and tried to express it in some way.

"I think," he said, "That we're a bit...uh, entwined, at the moment."

He couldn't see the knots, but they felt tight, and he knew he'd struggled enough to bind the two of them well against each other.

A small, but genuine smile appeared to match his own, something inside her unsettled in the right way as the Doctor appeared to distance himself from his initial collapse.

Just how long had he been there, injured, before crying out?

"That we are," Reinette admitted the truth, even as her fingers reached to try the knots again.

"We need to get to my room, somehow. Then I can cut us free. Can you move?"

That was quite the question. Moments ago, he couldn't even breathe without feeling the effects on every cell in his body, but now everything just ached.

Her bed. She wouldn't leave him, wanted him to be there. He felt the sudden desire to cry again, though he couldn't figure out why. It was a different sort of emotion than the tears before were invoked from.

"I'll have to try," he said, nodding his head slowly, "After all, triumph starts with 'try' and ends with..."

They were both battered and bruised, of that Reinette had no doubt. Him much moreso than her, yet both the sort that would wear even worse tomorrow. She would most certainly need to dress in something with sleeves.

"...and ends with umph, yes," Reinette smiled. There was pleasure there, however small, at the familiar between them. Though she would never make such an undignified sound as that as she attempted to stand, and guide the Doctor with her.

Reinette's hand grasped the Doctor's own, fingers lacing.

He took her hand and allowed her to help him up. His legs were wobbly, could've been made from straw rather than bones, the way they felt, and he was just so weak. So much longing that was hidden just below the surface, and so much he'd simply cut from himself.

His eyes went down to her arm, where dark imprints of his fingers already began to mar her ivory skin. Another thing of hers he'd damaged since arriving, to be added to the collections of vases, books, and parakeets (just the one) he'd injured before.

He lifted her hand, and pressed his lips gently to her skin, to the bruise, pressing a kiss there. It was an entirely too intimate act for everyday, but, as always, he lived in the moment. And that moment? It felt right.

Reinette was no longer a child. In fact, she did not think she was ever that child. The one that believed that you might kiss something, and make it better.

But you could make it recognized, or appreciated, or understood. And while she expected none of those things from the Doctor that day? That he struggled past his own weakness to give them? It meant a great deal to her. Much of which Reinette was afraid might be apparent on her face.

Wordlessly, she took a step backwards, guiding him towards the dooorway between their two rooms. She backwards to his forward, Reinette felt it allowed to watch him more carefully, and assure herself he would not fall. It had every potential to be awkward, only their purpose preventing it from being so.

He moved with her, keeping his eyes locked on hers. As long as he could see her, and only her, he could make it. Not the room where he collapsed, not the world where he was trapped, just her.

A romantic notion, he figured, but, still. She was what was keeping him from falling, from giving up, from stopping fighting. They were sharks who nudged each other on, to make sure they kept swimming.

And there it was. That strange notion to tell her he loved her. He was pretty sure, especially now, that he did. It wasn't an emotion he was used to feeling, not a sensation he was used to experiencing, but from his memories on the subject, he was pretty sure he was in love with Madame de Pompadour.

"I-I'm sorry," he murmured, though he wasn't entirely sure for what. There was such a long list of things to apologize for, not the least of which was sweating and crying all over her dress.

Reinette was quite willing to give the Doctor her rapt attention, and listen to him on almost any subject. Except for that sort of apology. For after all, in saving her, he had trapped himself. That still held true, and overshadowed almost anything that might come after.

"Hush," she ordered warmly, not willing to discuss such a topic.

The continued to move, step echoing step as Reinette traveled backward and into her own room One hand remained anchored to the Doctor's arm. As if to assure herself that he was there, not still prostrate on the floor. She had begun to doubt her ability to assist him. So seeing him standing, even if it was a struggle?

Perhaps, Reinette decided, she did not speak more because she could not speak more.

He did as instructed, and silenced himself. As they neared the bed, he raised his free hand to loosen his ascot. It was soaked through with sweat---not the most attractive of sights, he imagined---and he let it drop to the floor. His boots, unlaced as he had been lacing them when he collapsed, slipped off his feet as well, leaving a trail of ascot, left boot, right boot from the door to his room.

And there he was. Without his shoes, he had no real way to run anymore, and that was all he knew how to do; run away. Now, he was trapped in a world he didn't truly understand, with no shoes and no direction.

At least she was not abandoning him.

Once they reached the bed Reinette reached behind her, never once letting her eyes leave the Doctor as she fumbled sightlessly for the sheers. It made sense to look for what she needed, but there was something in his gaze she could not pull away from.

Fingers curling over the silver handles, she lifted the sheers and slipped them carefully between their two bodies. For all that they were needed, she fought not to think of them as an intruder, and unwanted. Salted by his sweat and seasoned by his hurt, they were still connected in ways Reinettee wished to understand more.

But they could not go through the rest of their time together wearing a sheet. With one careful turn of her wrist, Reinette set them both free.

AU RP for ambitious_woman

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