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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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.

In some ways, Reinette wished he would cry out.

By holding back the pressure was only building, more hot steam curling in his mind, and around both of them. The air itself burned.

She pulled him closer until he was almost in her lap, cradled in the folds and silks of her skirt, face against that sweat-soaked bodice. More than once the shaking threatened to send them both sprawling to the floor, and Reinette knew she was struggling to maintain the balance of physical and mental.

Reaching out, she lifted what bricks she could, applying mortar, placing them in his hands. She was willingly cutting the Doctor off from a part of herself, and for that Reinette was faced with no small amount of self hatred. But what other option did they have?

Silently, within his mind, she found a way to whisper parts and pieces of stories and fantasies, of French fairytales and even stories created by children about men that lived in fireplaces. Anything to ease the pain.

There was no time for self-hatred, only panic. Panic and speed and desperation. Cutting off his nose to keep his face from pain, he was right there. No, no, not cutting it off. Blocking it while it healed. A tourniquet. He had to think of it like that.

It had hurt for months, so many months, and he tried to stuff those memories behind the wall, just the little pains he pushed aside. Too much effort for an already strained mind, and he had to let the memories float back into his conscious while he built.

Heal, heal, he had to heal...Another wave of pain struck him, and this time he did cry out, a sharp, high-pitched and terribly scared noise. He was losing the TARDIS and possibly himself and more than likely the woman who was too damn stubborn to listen to him when he said it wasn't safe.

His scream was sharp, and raw, and nearly shattered their connection. For all the it was needed, it was unexpected as Reinette's features tensed in concentration as she focused on remaining where she was needed most.

The sound sent more brick and mortar crumbling, and she was startled that as they crashed, one struck her arm, and she felt it, the contact jarring. Was it the nature of what they were attempting?

Favoring her other hand Reinette reached and picked up the offending bit of stone, before reapplying it to the wall. It was a part of her now, as much as him.

Part of his mind registered her pain, and the brick that struck her was hot, but it was muted and dull and that terrified him as well. Why was it so muted? Where was his ability to feel?

Hidden behind this reaction his body was having. The wall grew higher, and his body went into last-ditch efforts to try to reassert itself. He felt the cappliaries in his fingers---his precious fingers with which he did so, so much---burst, and bruise and blacken. It made it almost impossible to lift the brick, and it only made contact with his memories even more physically painful.

"I can't win," he felt himself whisper through gritted teeth, "There's nothing I can do, Reinette, I can't finish this."

As his fingers bruised, the heat against Reinette's temples increased fivefold, as his body was aware of her role in what was happening. Angry, and accusatory, it all threaded between their connection.

And Reinette understood it. For all of her masks, for all of her distance, she was a woman often ruled by her emotions. Few knew as much, but the Doctor had always recognized that easily. And now she was returning that insight with this. Cutting him off from an inherent part of himself. The Doctor, and his stars. They belonged together, that was always known.

This was temporary, Reinette pushed herself forward. Only temporary.

"This is not a victory," she countered, reaching for another brick even as she secretly wondered how much longer they could do this. "This is a necessity. We will do this Doctor," it was all but a command. "We will finish this."

Her voice dropped, softened. The strain just barely masked.

"This is nothing you must do on your own."

It was like self-amputation. He was cutting off a large chunk of who he was, and he was putting it behind a wall. Slicing off the diseased flesh and praying that it had not already spread to the rest of him.

Everything hurt. It hurt so bad. The bricks and mortar were only barely able to contain him. He was spilling everywhere.

Reinette, I'm so scared.

He could only imagine if he'd dealt with this sooner, it would've been like dealing with a spray of water, rather than a flood.

He was too weak. "I-i-if I don't make it, I need you t-t-to find a way, to get a message---"

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.

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AU RP for ambitious_woman

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