His Death
Relationship: 10th Doctor x reader
Summary: you get kidnapped and the Doctor gets shot. You both think the other is dead, but things work out very well. (Not an established relationship)
Warnings: mentions of your and his death but not graphic
Genre: hurt and comfort
You struggled. You bit and scratched and kicked and screamed, anything to get those mercyless hands off of you. The Doctor was running towards you, screaming your name in desparation with his coat billowing around him.
When you looked at him, everything in you froze. There was someone behind the Doctor, and they were holding what was unmistakeably a gun. Alien, big and shining silver, but a gun nonetheless. You opened your mouth to scream, to warn him, but there was a flash of light and the time was up.
The Doctor fell. This wouldn't mean anything if he got up, but he didn't. You could see he wasn't breathing, even though they were dragging you away from him. He laid limp where he'd fallen, and then you caught a sight of his eyes.
His eyes were open, and they were empty. The sound that tore out of you wasn't human.
~
You didn't know how long you had screamed. You didn't know when you had stopped. There had been slaps after that, and hits, but you didn't feel the pain. You didn't feel anything.
They hooked you up to the machine and some part of you knew it hurt, knew it wasn't right. But that part was far away, drowned in the great white nothingness that had consumed everything when he fell.
There was no point to anything now.
~
Maybe you would have woken up on your own eventually, or maybe you wouldn't have. The point is you didn't have to find out.
~
There was shouting, and sparks and terror, but you didn't hear any of it.
Then there was a face, a beloved face swimming in your vision, and the world came back into focus.
"Y/N!!! Y/N!!! Answer me!!!" The Doctor's terrified brown eyes were staring into yours. His hand was on your cheek. Warm.
"You're alive," you breathed, and the dam burst.
"You're-alive-you're-alive-you're-alive-you're-alive-you're-alive-" You surged around his neck and his arms immediately clutched you back.
"I'm here. I'm here. I've got you," his pained voice joined your chanting. "I've got you..."
When you ran out of breath, you noticed you were shaking, and crying and holding onto him for dear life. Then you noticed he was too.
"I thought I'd lost you," he confessed into your shoulder in that moment of silence. He sounded so broken and you hated it. He was still shaking in your arms. You both had tears on your shoulders and you were holding each other with the same desparation coursing through your veins.
After who knows how long, you finally smelled smoke in the air. You didn't want to let go, but it was time.
"Let's get out of here," you murmured to the Doctor. He begrudgingly let you go, immediately taking hold of your hand. That was when you looked around the room for the first time, and-
"What happened?"Â you gasped in disbelief.
The corner you were standing in was like an island in a sea of wreckage.
The computer wall was on fire but one part was still managing to throw sparks. The large table in the middle had been broken in three parts and its legs were nowhere to be found. There was so much burnt paper, shards of glass and parts of machinery littering the floor you wondered how you would get to either of the doors. The medical-technical thing you had been tied into was turned on its side with its innards spilling out. You finally noticed the shouts down one of the halls.
You turned to the Doctor, eyebrows raised in question, but before you asked, he simply repeated, "I thought I'd lost you." His voice was quiet but tight with pain. When he finally met your eyes, you saw the terror hadn't left his, but you were glad to find relief in there too. You squeezed his hand.
He continued in harder tone, "And the people who helped me had lost a lot too."
You nodded, "Alright." You wouldn't ask about the violence it took him to get there, and most of you didn't care. They had hurt him. They had tried to kill him. His empty gaze flashed before your eyes and your whole body flinched at the memory.
"Y/N?!!" There was terror in his voice as he franctically looked you over for injuries again.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," you reassured him while your hands found his shoulders. You made sure to catch his gaze as you asserted, "I'm okay."
When tension left his frame, your palms settled on his chest, right above his hearts. Your eyes followed them. You took in a shaky breath. "I just remembered how you looked-" Damn it you were NOT going to cry again.
"I'm here. I'm alright." He gently tilted your chin with one hand while the other pulled you closer by your waist. Now it was his gaze searching yours. "I'm alright."
There was so much care in his deep brown eyes as he offered you a small smile, your heart ached at the sight. You just breathed deeply and nodded, then slipped your hand back into his. "Which way?"
You just had to suck it up until you were both back in the TARDIS. There would be enough time to have breakdowns later.
He got the message, and off you went.
~
The TARDIS hummed when he unlocked the door and let you in first. You held hands until it was time for the Doctor to start the dematerialization process.
As soon as you were in the Vortex, he turned to you with fear still in his eyes. With open arms, he softly asked, "Can I?"
You wrapped yourself around him and he clung to you just as desperately. You thought neither of you planned on letting go, you would just stand there and breathe until the stars blinked out of existence. That sounded like a good idea.
~
(If either of you noticed you kept touching more than ever, you sure as hell didn't bring it up. Considering you both had thought the other was dead, it wasn't that surprising. You were too shaken to stay apart, needing the comfort of each other's presence more than ever.)
(And friends did this, right? Friends who had just seen their friend die? It wasn't like it meant anything more?)
(You knew you two had entered into an emotionally uncharted territory a long time ago. That was at the same time both beyond dangerous and calming - there could be so many missteps and each one could hurt or break you, but this thing here that you'd built with him felt so good, so unimaginably good you wouldn't have parted with it for anything.)
Eventually you did break apart. You felt like you could have fallen sleep standing up, but the thought of wearing the smelly clothes on your back any longer disagreed with you. The Doctor let you go, but did not look happy about it. You took hold of his hand, not wanting to lose the comfort either.
"Fifteen minutes," you began. He raised his eyebrewos in confusion and you went on. "Fifteen minutes to shower and change, then we meet in my room to have a sleepover. Sound good?"
He looked relieved. "Yes. Very," he nodded gratefully and you smiled.
"Good. Let's go."
~
(You didn't want to ask how he'd survived; you hadn't even thought to. You didn't need or want to know, you just clung to the fact that he had.)
You almost fell asleep in the shower, but the thought of the Doctor, alone, was enough to make you move. Finally comfortable in your pajamas you stepped out of your bathroom.
He was sitting on your bed, looking a bit lost. The scene was so domestic it struck you as odd, and it came with that little sting of knowing he didn't love you like you loved him. But that was the least of today's pains and you let it go. He's alive.
He turned around at the sound of the door opening and found your eyes. Now the softness in the sight of him wrapped around you like a blanket and you never wanted it to end. You smiled and walked to the bed.
"Come on," you said to the Doctor as you pulled the covers back. The lights turned off and you welcomed the darkness.
You were reaching for each other before you even laid down. He ended up with his head on your chest, his arms hugging your middle. You tangled your fingers in his soft hair with the other hand around his shoulders. You were grateful for the Doctor's warmth, the weight of him, the feel of his breath on your skin. You clung to these reminders.
You thought he was listening to your heartbeat in the same way.
"You weren't there when I came to," he said into the dark, his voice distant and quiet, as if he would awaken a monster if he spoke any louder. "The last thing I remembered was you screaming as they dragged you away. You screaming for me." It turned harsh as he tried to keep emotion at bay.
"And I wasn't there. I didn't do anything and you were gone." His raw pain and self-loathing came like blood out of a wound and you pulled him even closer. You tried to reassure him but he continued before you could speak. "I knew what they wanted from you. And I knew I was out of time." Despair was loud and final now, that had been the end of him. You felt hot tears seep into your shirt.
"I was out of time, but l was alive. I couldn't even die properly." Amused bitterness seeped into his voice and your hand fisted the cloth on his shoulder.
"No," you shook your head into his hair. "Please no. Never that," you told him, willing him to understand.
The Doctor took a shuddering breath and went on, almost a whisper. "That's how the others found me. But they needed help, they were desparate and a part of me could go on on that. So I did. Just went where they wanted me to and opened doors."
"And there you were," you felt the Doctor smile into your shirt as disbelieving joy filled his voice. "There you were, hooked up to the energy compressor but breathing." He seemed to have trouble doing that now.
"You're alive," and oh, the light in his voice could outshine stars.
"Yes," you answered with a smile. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. I've got you," your words echoed his.
He sighed. Tension slowly leeked out of his body as the fact that danger had passed sank in. The Doctor relaxed against you, every inch of you touching. He nuzzled his cheek into your shirt and the silence that followed was welcome.
You didn't know how much time had passed when he spoke again. "You're prescious," he said softly and you forgot how to breathe. "You are so, so prescious to me and I don't-" his words ran out. The Doctor was an eloquent speaker, so you were astonished that an emotion for you had made him speechless.
"I can't lose you." His admission was raw, as if imprinted on the fabric of the universe, a fact. The dark echoed with it.
"You won't," you said and your voice was final. "You wont." You had made a decision and the universe would bloody listen. You would make it listen.
You held him to you tighter, as if you could keep the two of you together just by doing that. "Doctor, since I've started travelling with you, l've seen lives, worlds, destinies turn and change on one person's words, on one being's choice," you whispered to him. "And this is it. You keep me and l keep you and that is final."
You could feel him smile into your shirt, and you were glad your words had managed to calm him.
"Yeah?" he breathed and you grinned in turn.
"Yeah."
He giggled, actually giggled, nuzzling his cheek your shirt. The sound made your heart dance.
He sighed in content and together, you slowly drifted off to sleep.
