#mbb writes

<<You’re still on the TARDIS. You can’t move or see or otherwise process external stimuli because you’re in a medically-induced coma.>>

<well isn’t that wizard> reads the immediate response in a tone so reminiscent of Donna that the Doctor can’t help but laugh. <you wanna tell me why i’m in a coma?>

Smiling, the Doctor shakes his head. <<In the wake of the metacrisis-event, due to the external memories’ rapid deterioration of your brain, I’ve telepathically isolated the offending elements from your neural network and blocked them from re-entry>> he explains, typing between bouts of plugging in cables and adjusting dials on the electroencephalographic scope. <<Unfortunately, the best way to maintain the integrity of the telepathic blocks involves keeping your conscious mind safe from anything that might trigger the memory of the offending elements, which involves putting you in a persistent vegetative state until we can find a way to safely and permanently extract the metacrisis material from your temporal and parietal lobes, without damaging any of the surrounding tissue or neural pathways. Got it?>>

If the medscreen could convey an exasperated sigh, the Doctor imagines it would right about now. <in english please> the screen flashes at him.

The Doctor grins madly as he works, relief bubbling up in his head until he’s almost dizzy from it. He’s never been so happy for a companion to do the digital equivalent of offering him nothing but a blank stare; no more babbling about macrotransmissions or shatterfrying or mountains that sway in the breeze means his telepathic blocks are holding firm. That means no more Time Lord knowledge overwhelming human brains, which means that, for the time being anyway, Donna’s safe.

Which means, he realizes as he fishes his specs out of his pocket, that he may actually have a chance of saving her.

<<My memories are still in your head and you’re stuck in a coma until I can remove them>> he types to Donna. <<But don’t worry, in the meantime I’ve rigged up this handy-dandy medical transceiver and plugged it directly into your subconscious so we can still communicate!>>

<oh god no> flashes across the screen. <doctor do NOT make me a brain in a computer, i expressly forbid it>

<<Wouldn’t dream of it>> the Doctor replies before affixing the tiny webcam to the side of his specs.

<good>

<why do you need to talk to me anyways>

<or talk to my brain or my subconscious or whatever>

<not like i’ll be any help, can’t see or hear or do anything>

“Oh, ye of little faith,” murmurs the Doctor, slipping on his glasses and fiddling with the settings on Martha’s mobile phone. “When have I ever let you down?”

“That tatty old suit lets down my sense of fashion every single day,” mutters a digitized version of Donna’s voice, and the Doctor laughs, now, properly laughs. A spluttered sound of indignant surprise erupts from the webcam’s built-in speaker, and the Doctor laughs harder, imagining the shock that would sweep across Donna’s face right now, were it capable.

“Oh my god!” shouts Donna’s voice from the speaker, disjointed and tinny in that way that voices-projected-from-telephonic-devices often are, but still her voice, nonetheless. “Doctor, I can hear you!”

“Yes!”

“And you can hear me!” yells Donna’s voice.

“Oh, yes!” the Doctor shouts gleefully in reply.

“But how? I’m still asleep, aren’t I? I still can’t move or see anything—”

“Well, then,” says the Doctor, fiddling with more settings on the mobile as he smiles what may or may not be the universe’s smuggest grin, “Let there be light!”

He hits one last button and is rewarded with a high-pitched screech not unlike one that might rip out of a pterodactyl. “I can see!” Donna shrieks, and silently, the Doctor adjusts the webcam-speaker’s volume, lest Donna’s voice split his eardrums or manage to wake her own comatose body somehow. “Oh my god, I can see the TARDIS—her walls, I mean—and cabinets and lights and—you’re in the medbay, right? Oh, you are—cos that’s me over there on the bed, isn’t it? Oof, I look a bit peaky, don’t I? But how on earth—?”

“Oh, it was just a small matter of rigging together the right materials to tap into your subconscious mind. Simple enough, if you’ve got a spare mobile and travel-size electroencephalographic scope lying around. A direct line, if you will,” the Doctor laughs. “Doesn’t get much more direct than this!”

“This is bonkers, absolutely bonkers. I can’t believe you managed it!”

“Didn’t I mention, though?” asks the Doctor as he springs up, feeling lighter than he has in days—maybe weeks, maybe longer. “I’m brilliant!”

“You really are,” Donna concedes, and in any other situation, the Doctor might feel mildly insulted at how surprised she sounds to admit it. “So, what do we do, now? What’s the next step?”

The Doctor considers as he darts over to Donna’s body on the bed, double- and triple-checking her vitals, just to be sure. “Well, now that the imminent danger has passed, I suppose it’s time to do a little research, scan our local solar systems to locate the equipment we need to finish the memory extraction.”

“Sounds good to me. The sooner I stop being a vegetable, the better, and if anyone can fix that, it’s you.”

No, not just him, a stubborn little voice at the back of the Doctor’s head insists. Not him. Them. Because in all honesty, the only reason he’s got any hope at all right now is all because of—

He chuckles, silently chiding himself. He really can be an idiot, sometimes. Doubting himself. Doubting her. He should know better than to distrust Rose’s instincts, whether they’re telling her to help Donna or bolt back for the TARDIS at the last second or anything else; for all he knows, her intuition could very well be a side effect borne of the Bad Wolf phenomenon (but really, he suspects it’s all just her and her gut, in the end. She’s surprisingly insightful, for a human. Always has been. He’d do well to remember that, he thinks).

Looking down at the medscreen, at the numbers displayed across its surface showing a significant calming-down of Donna’s vitals, the Doctor softens. Rose was right, in more ways than one. The Doctor reminds himself to apologize to her at the first available opportunity—though really, he thinks as he stows the medscreen and all of its connected parts safely inside his pockets, wouldn’t she prefer that he showed her how right she was, instead of telling her?

“Hang on, how come my hands look like your hands?” asks Donna, interrupting his thoughts. “I mean, obviously they’re your hands, but it’s the wrong angle, like they’re coming out of me instead of you. Like a first-person videogame thing. Am I seeing the world through your eyes, right now?”

“Near enough,” the Doctor replies cheerfully.

“Okay, but—but not like. Not literally though. Right?”

“Strictly figuratively,” the Doctor laughs. “Don’t worry, Donna. It’s all in the glasses.”

“Oh, thank god. The thought of accidentally seeing you naked again makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.”

“On second thought, maybe I’ll leave you in the coma after all,” says the Doctor.

 ***

 Rose awakes with a start, tensing at the weight pressed against her, the unfamiliar room surrounding her. Her first thought is that she must have been knocked unconscious during a jump gone wrong—not terribly common, but it’s happened before—but as her eyes adjust to the semi-dark, taking in everything in the room from the curved ceiling to the carpeted floor to the telltale rough coral walls, recognition slowly filters in, and she remembers.

She made it. She made it back to this universe. She made it back to the TARDIS, back to the Doctor. (Doctors, plural? Both of them, then.) And he—

Oh. That weight, that body pressed close—that must be him. One of them is with her right now, isn’t he? Because this is his room, isn’t it? And if she turns over, Rose will see the Doctor lying in bed next to her, won’t she?

Her limbs still thick and heavy with sleep, Rose lazily rolls over to find the Doctor (the human one, she remembers, because that’s a thing, now), curled on his side and fast asleep. Slumber-tousled hair tumbles over a forehead smooth from worry, the Doctor’s mouth parted just slightly, his eyes shuttered, as if in prayer. It’s strange seeing him like this, not because of their years apart, not even because they’re both lying in his unfamiliar bed, but because Rose is casting about in her memories to recall the last time she ever saw him so quiet and unguarded, and she’s coming up empty-handed. She has seen him sleep before, technically; that’s not new. But she has never seen him really, properly vulnerable, in this body or any other. She’s never seen him look so human.

Human or not, it’s surreal to be so close to the Doctor right now, after so many years apart. So Rose just watches him for a moment, just taking everything in. Part of her can’t believe it, even though he’s right here, right in front of her. It’s all almost too much to absorb.

(Only almost, though. God, he’s pretty like this. Then again, he’s pretty much always pretty.)

Probably she should go ahead and get up (escape, she doesn’t think, before the moment swells too much in its sentimentality, before he wakes up and goes flighty, before she grows vulnerable herself), but struck with a sudden curious need, Rose shifts in the bed instead, one hand lifting up. She places her palm flat against the Doctor’s chest, gently, feeling its rise and fall with each deep inhale and soft exhale, before tracing a line down to the bottom of his ribcage. She can sense his heart beating, behind layers of tee shirt and skin and muscle and bone, pulsing quietly almost in time with her own.

It’s all very different. But not bad different.

“I thought I was the rude one,” mutters the Doctor, eyes still solidly shut.

Rose twitches. “Huh?”

“I thought,” the Doctor repeats, eyes sliding slowly open, “that I was the rude one.”

There goes her plan. “Oh, don’t worry,” Rose chuckles. “You’re plenty rude.”

“Says the person trying to tickle me awake.”

Cringing, Rose starts to draw her hand back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

The Doctor stops her hand before it can withdraw very far, anchoring her fingers and palm solidly back against his chest. “S’all right,” he mumbles, blinking sleep away. “Probably a good time to get up anyway.”

He’s right.

Neither of them moves.

“Did you end up getting any actual sleep last night?” Rose asks.

“Do you know, I think I did, after…” the Doctor starts to say, and trails off. Rose can practically see the memory of the night before as it replays in his mind, and admittedly, it’s a little difficult to tell in the semi-dark, but is he blushing? “After you came in,” he says hurriedly. “What about you?”

“Yeah,” says Rose, hiding a grin. “I’m good.”

He smiles at her then, almost shyly. “Good.”

And that marks a good time to get up, Rose thinks. For her to put space between them before he has the chance to. 

(Except he still hasn’t moved his hand from hers. Palm pressed against his chest, Rose can feel his heartrate pick up beneath her fingers, and suddenly she’s very warm, and moving seems difficult.)

“But, like I said, probably good to go ahead and get up,” the Doctor says quickly, and Rose imagines that if his hand weren’t full of hers, he’d be nervously tugging on his ear right about now. “You know. Get the day started, and all that.”

“Probably. What time is it?”

At that, the Doctor blinks just a little too much, fully awake now. “Well,” he says, drawing the word out. “That’s sort of an interesting question, isn’t it? What time is it. Difficult to answer, considering the relativity of time (especially on the TARDIS), and taking into account that there’s no real universal chronometrical measurement or standard, and we’re really just relying on observations alone, which can vary greatly depending on the observers’ proximity to a gravitational mass—”

“You don’t know,” Rose realizes aloud.

After stuttering for a second, the Doctor closes his mouth. He shakes his head, the motion tight.

“Because of the metacrisis?

He nods.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it.

He shrugs. “It’s no worries.”

“Not even a few worries?” Rose asks, lips quirking in a small smile.

“Eh, I’m sure I can manage without the time sense. Plenty of species do. Now, the bypass, on the other hand...”

As if on cue, the Doctor starts to yawn, only to snap his mouth shut halfway through. “Oh,” he says, nose wrinkling in disgust. “Rose, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think I might have morning breath now.”

Rose chuckles. “Many of us do.”

“Well, isn’t that wizard,” the Doctor says drily. “Being human is just wonderful, can’t imagine why I never tried it long-term before.”

“It’s not all bad, you know.”

“Hmph. I’ll believe it when I see it,” he grumps. “Or hear it or smell it or feel it or taste it, as the case may be.”

Humming thoughtfully, Rose takes a moment to consider. Her fight-or-flight instinct is still murmuring quietly in the background, telling her that this is as good a moment as any to end the conversation, go ahead and get up and wash up and go about their day, whatever it may bring; the sooner she leaves this warm little cocoon, after all, the sooner Rose will be able to build her walls back up, retreat back to safe territory. Before things get out of hand. Before she has a chance to get hurt again. (Before any of them do.)

She ignores it.

“That,” Rose says, scooting just a little bit closer to him (just the littlest bit closer, mind), “sounds like an awful lot like a challenge.”

“Oh?” asks the Doctor, eyebrow arched in amusement.

“Yes,” she says solemnly, nodding. “Tell me: what do your human eyes see?”

“Plenty of stuff. It’s not my physical sensory capabilities that concern me.”

“Humor me.” Rose curls her fist against his chest. “What do you see right now?”

Beneath his ribcage, Rose swears she feels his pulse skip a beat. “Well,” says the Doctor, “not to belabor the obvious, but I see you. In my bedroom. In my bed, of all places.”

“That’s not so bad, is it?” Rose asks cheekily, tongue pressed against the back of her teeth.

The Doctor grins at her in a way that makes something flutter in her stomach. “Not bad at all,” he concedes.

Rose smiles. “And what can you hear?”

“All the same things you can, I imagine. Your voice, my voice, the TARDIS’ hum,” the Doctor counts off, “the buzz of the temporal-spacial equinometer, the quiet hiss of the life support system, faint overtures of the Vortex—”

“Right, of course I can hear all of that,” teases Rose, rolling her eyes.

“The sounds of you wriggling in the sheets like the squirmy little thing you are…”

With a laugh, Rose’s smile widens. “How’s about your nose?”

The Doctor wrinkles said nose again. “Aside from my aforementioned temporary halitosis, let’s see. It’s picking up on a hint of recycled oxygen courtesy of the TARDIS, traces of residual space matter from our time onboard the Crucible, traces of the toothpaste you used last night…”

He leans in closer, making a show of sniffing her hair. “Moringa oleifera, arginine, extracts of Fragaria ananassa, other components of your shampoo. Still partial to strawberry, hm?”

“Now you’re just showing off,” Rose laughs, and he laughs too, nodding enthusiastically.

They are very close now.

The Doctor hasn’t moved his hand, still holding hers against his chest, but that’s all right; Rose’s other hand is free, and, feeling brazen, she reaches up with it now, to run her fingers through the Doctor’s gloriously rumpled hair. If his hair is any different from his Time Lord counterpart’s, she can’t tell; it’s still thick, smooth, stupidly pretty. Her fingertips glance against his scalp first, scraping lightly after, and the Doctor’s eyes threaten to shutter closed, fluttering like he’s fighting to stay awake.

“What do you feel?” Rose asks him.

The Doctor hums deep in his belly, the sound rumbling against Rose’s fingers. “Sleepy, if you keep doing that.”

Rose’s hand slowly drifts downward, tracing a path from the Doctor’s ear down to his shoulder, joining its counterpart on the Doctor’s chest.

“Suppose you’re going to suggest I eat some candy or a biscuit next,” the Doctor chuckles wryly. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Certainly. What better way to appeal to my sense of taste and thereby prove your point?”

Rose considers for just a split-second before she draws in close to kiss him. It’s impulsive, and her heart races in her ears for all that it’s a short and sweet and chaste kiss, but it’s worth it for the small sound of surprise the Doctor makes when her lips meet his, and the dazed look on his face when she pulls back.

The Doctor blinks at her. “Do you know,” he replies, just the tiniest bit breathlessly, “I might be willing to slightly revise my stance on my newfound humanity.”

“Just slightly?”

“Just a little bit,” the Doctor agrees before leaning in to return the kiss. His lips work softly against hers, the pressure light, relaxed, and Rose melts into it immediately, even as some distant part of her brain still reels in disbelief that this sort of thing happens, now, that this is something they can do—that they can see each other, and hear, and smell, and feel, and, as the Doctor’s lips part to grant entry to Rose’s tongue, taste. Rose’s tongue glances against his briefly before retreating and he chases after her, suddenly starving. Distantly, she thinks she should tease him that his morning breath isn’t that bad after all; presently, she wonders how the Doctor would react if she pulled off his boxers, if he would rather straddle or be straddled. Her hands fist in his tee-shirt, his pulse speeding up against her knuckles as she pulls him in until they’re so close, they’re nearly touching, the scant space between them nearly buzzing with the desire to be bridged.

The Doctor breaks the kiss long enough to catch his breath, and if Rose didn’t know any better, she’d think he was gasping. “We,” he starts to say, and swallows. Sighs. “Erm. We really should…”

“Get up now?” Rose supplies, but she doesn’t move away, closes the whisper of a gap between them instead.

“Hmm. We should,” says the Doctor, even as he bends down to press a kiss, featherlight, to the pulse point beneath Rose’s jaw.

Her breath hitches in her throat and she fights not to let her eyes fall shut. It’s impossible not to feel a little giddy at the closeness of him, the sudden sensation of their bodies sliding together, skin achingly close to skin; she wonders if that’s as true for him as it is for her, with all his fresh new cells and nerves buzzing beneath thin layers of clothing and pretense. 

“Yeah,” she sighs, hands slipping down to the elastic of his boxers. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, last night was—”

“Unexpected, but inspired?” asks the Doctor as he kisses her neck.

“And probably a little too much, too soon,” Rose adds, playing with his waistband. “Better to ease into this sort of thing, right?”

“That would be very responsible of us.” 

“Yeah,” Rose pants as the Doctor insinuates one of his legs between hers. “We should take things slow. Make sure…”

“No one gets hurt?”

She slips a finger beneath his waistband. “Are you talking about the two of us, or—”

“Much as I hate to admit it, this equation has three variables.” The Doctor nips her collarbone, soothing the hurt with his tongue after, sending heat pooling deep in Rose’s belly. She fights the urge to grind down on the Doctor’s thigh. “And as much as I’d like to pretend it doesn’t matter,” the Doctor continues, as if he doesn’t notice how hot and wet she suddenly is, “the other me is bound to have conflicting thoughts about all of this.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t keep pushing me away,” says Rose, running a teasing thumb along his hipbone, relishing the feel of him stiffening against her.

“A fair and rational point,” the Doctor concedes, even as he shudders and kisses the swell of her breast, his lips warm and soft through the fabric of her shirt. “But I’m not sure how much rationality applies in situations like this.”

Rose pulls back enough to properly look at him. “He’s not the one who let me in,” she tells the Doctor, her gaze hard. “He’s not the one who stayed.”

“So is this a reward for me, or a punishment for him?” the Doctor asks. 

He doesn’t look angry, or sad. There’s no blame in his tone. His expression is perfectly neutral, like a scientist putting forth a vague hypothetical. Rose sees through it immediately.

“There’s no one else in this room,” she tells him, “but you, and me.”

The Doctor nods. “Good,” he breathes, and Rose kisses him again, fiercely this time. It’s a bruising thing, greedy even, but neither of them are complaining as Rose’s tongue slides over his, slick and warm and sweet. The Doctor groans into her mouth as her thigh brushes against his cock, as she finally surrenders to the urge to grind down on his leg; his fingers knot in her hair as he takes control of the kiss and it’s only a little frantic, the way they’re clinging to each other, and it’s awkward, this tangled mess of clothes and limbs, but it’s delicious, too, the friction and the need and the way the Doctor maybe-accidentally bites her lip when Rose’s hand slips into his boxers to stroke him from base to tip.

He’s hot in her hand, hot and hard and wonderfully human and his reactions are human too, as he abandons the kiss in favor of burying his face in the join of Rose’s neck and shoulder, panting, his hands flying down to clench her by the hips, pulling her into him. A moment later and he’s pulling at her tee shirt, dislodging her hand from his shorts so he can strip her shirt all the way up and off. After urging Rose onto her back, the Doctor takes just a second to appreciate the view, his eyes at half-mast and lips just parted, before he dips down to kiss her breasts. Swearing under her breath, Rose arches off the bed, into his touch; he rewards her with his fingers on one nipple and his mouth on the other, teasing both to stiff, sensitive attention.

His thigh is still wedged between hers and Rose grinds down wantonly, practically whimpering, grateful for the chance to relieve the mounting ache throbbing between her legs. She wants so badly to touch him again but it’s difficult, positioned the way they are, and it’s only made more difficult when his hand leaves her breast in favor of sneaking beneath the waistband of her borrowed boxers, brushing featherlight and tentative over the seam of her sex. At that point it’s almost impossible to think about anything but his mouth on her breast and his fingers gently stroking her and how it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s almost perfect, and she reaches down to guide him, push his fingers into her slick wet sex and show him how she likes to be fucked.

Rose clamps down on any cries that might try to escape as the Doctor picks up on her rhythms, fingers fucking her gently at first, then—at her grasp tightening on his wrist—more, harder, until sweat starts beading on Rose’s forehead and breasts and she can feel her climax tensing deep in her belly, coiling tighter with each delicious thrust. The Doctor is a fast learner. (Of course he is.) But she wants more.

“Off,” Rose says breathlessly, pushing at the Doctor’s waistband until he seems to get the hint, propping himself up on one elbow as he removes his hand from Rose’s boxers. But instead of immediately disrobing, he looks at his hand thoughtfully for a moment, and even in this dim light, Rose can see how slick his fingers are, nearly glistening from her. She has approximately half a second to feel embarrassed before the Doctor’s tongue darts out to taste his fingers. Rose just stares as he plunges his fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around the tips, like he might do with a strange new specimen he just encountered, or perhaps one of his very favorite jams. He hums appreciatively and Rose only just manages to stifle a whimper as renewed heat floods between her legs.

The Doctor glances up at her, removing his fingers from his mouth with an obscene smack. “Rude?” he asks innocently.

“Very,” Rose says, pulling herself up by his shirt so she can kiss him again. He tastes like sex. Like sex and something sweet and something musky and animal, primal. He tastes incredible. Struck with indescribable need, Rose pulls at the Doctor’s clothes and this time he definitely gets the hint, sitting back just long enough to strip off his shirt and boxers before returning to help Rose wriggle out of her (his) shorts and Rose might knee him in the ribs a little but before she has a chance to apologize he’s covering her mouth with his, claiming any words that might tumble out. Settling between her thighs (and god, but that’s glorious, the feel of them sliding together, skin on skin at last), the Doctor urges her legs over his hips and around her waist. After teasing her for a moment with his hand, fingers sliding through slick heat to make sure she’s ready for him, absolutely sure—and she absolutely is, almost embarrassingly so, though she can feel herself tightening with anticipation—he pushes inside.

The fullness is almost overwhelming. Rose bites down on his shoulder to keep from crying out.

He draws in a sharp breath. “Is that—?”

“It’s good,” Rose stutters against his neck. “It’s good. You’re good.”

The Doctor leans back to look at her, concerned. He thinks he hurt her. Rose shakes her head—he didn’t hurt her—well he did, just a little bit—well, she’ll be a little sore later—but good sore—and she doesn’t mind, she was a little overeager herself, she just tensed up is all, excluding last night it’s been a little while since she’s done any of this, and this is all stuff that can be discussed later, and don’t you dare stop now, don’t you dare—and she pulls him down by the shoulders for a kiss.

“Don’t stop,” Rose pants into his mouth.

“Right,” he says, distracted, between kisses and bites. It’s a question, not a declaration; for her, not for him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t push further, though Rose can tell he’s aching to. His whole body is humming under her hands, sweating with the effort of holding back. But she’s adjusted to him now, enough that the stinging has given way to warmth and she really, really wants him to start moving. Her hips roll forward, pushing him in deeper, until Rose can feel the full length of him inside her. The Doctor groans at the back of his throat.

“Good?” Rose prompts, chest heaving.

“It’s—ah—good,” he grits out. His hips start moving, grinding against her with slow, long thrusts, his eyes clenching shut. Rose suspects this is the moment his respiratory bypass would be kicking in, in the other body. “Very good,” he gasps.

They fall into a rhythm, pushing and pulling and sliding together, fingernails digging into each other’s backs and hips and shoulders—they’re definitely going to find each other’s marks, later. But for now, Rose arches up and kisses the Doctor’s throat, mouth drawing a path up to his jaw, lips pressing against the space behind his ear until she can feel his heartbeat hammering there. She nips at the sensitive flesh and hears him bite back a curse; she grins so he can feel her teeth on his skin. The Doctor slides his hand back between them and his thrusts pick up in speed and urgency. Tension starts building up again, low in Rose’s abdomen, down where they’re joined, where he’s teasing them both. Little shocks of pleasure ripple through her, previews before the main event. 

It’s almost too much, the sensory overload—she very nearly wants to push him away, wants the maddening tension to stop, wants to shatter into a thousand glittering golden pieces. She bucks against him wildly, her toes curling at the feeling of him meeting her stroke-for-stroke, her breath leaving her in a staccato. Their exhales are punctuated by gasps and groans as they clutch at each other, Rose reaching up to drag her fingers through his hair again, her fingernails scraping against his scalp. She feels his responding hum deep in her own sternum and pulls him up for a kiss, mouth open, tongue sliding against his.

After a moment, the Doctor breaks off the kiss, his face twisted in concentration. “Oh,” he gasps out, his voice ragged and husky, words breaking in the air. “Oh, Rose. Oh, fuck.”

Now it really is too much. Rose lets out a shout and her eyes slam shut as she comes, shuddering, muscles clenching deliciously around the Doctor. She arches off the bed, scrambling at the Doctor’s back for purchase as he empties into her with a muffled groan. His thrusts slowing to a stop, the Doctor slumps over her, only to roll off onto his back immediately afterward, chest and stomach heaving as he gasps air back into his lungs.

It’s very quiet in the room, except for how they’re both panting like they just ran a marathon. Lightheadedness swells up in Rose’s skull, complementing the something that feels an awful lot like tenderness settling nicely behind her ribs.

She tries to shut that line of thought down before it can get too far. Because any minute, Rose thinks, he’ll spring up; time to go, time to move on to the next great adventure, time to pretend none of this ever happened. That’s how he would have reacted before, she knows (or she suspects, rather, as if he would have even let things progress so far, before), and there’s no reason to pretend he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing now, last night’s venture notwithstanding. That, Rose reasons somewhere in the pleasant post-sex haze that seems to have replaced her brain, was just a fluke. It’s much more like him to push her away, or to run. Which means it would be better for her, really, if she was the one who left first. So she’s going to. Before he does.

Any minute now.

A few long seconds tick by, and Rose can’t help but notice neither of them is moving away.

Huh. Imagine that.

Tentatively, eyes still fixed glasslike on the ceiling overhead, Rose extends her hand somewhere in the netherspace beside her, where she can hear the Doctor breathing, where she can feel the dip in the mattress that signifies his weight pressing down. She doesn’t have to reach far; her hand finds his almost instantly, or maybe his finds hers, their fingers twining together regardless of the sweat cooling on their skin. She offers a little squeeze, and the next exhale that leaves the Doctor sounds suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

A lazy smile quirks Rose’s lips. She doesn’t know why she’s so surprised. She did say he was the one who let her in, after all. It’s just nice, she supposes, to be right about something for once. (It’s very nice to be right about him.)

“I must say,” says the Doctor, still sounding just the littlest bit winded, “you make a very compelling argument in favor of this whole humanity business.”

“Damn right I do,” Rose mutters, and they both laugh.

 ***

 Grinning ear-to-ear, it’s all the Doctor can do to keep from running as he strides down corridor after corridor toward his bedroom, hands in pockets and a whole heaping helping of pep in his step.

“Can’t help but notice this isn’t the way to the console room,” pipes up Donna’s voice from the webcam speaker.

“Nope,” says the Doctor, popping the p at the end. “Got to make the rounds first, wake up all the non-comatose humans. And I wouldn’t mind a moment to freshen up in the bath as well. And yes, I will take off the glasses first,” he says before Donna has a chance to.

“You better.”

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he laughs, reaching for the handle on the bedroom door. “I’ll make sure nothing has a chance to offend your delicate—”

The sound of laughter from inside the bedroom stills his hand. 

...human sensibilities, he thinks and forgets to say, but it doesn’t matter. The Doctor fully expected to open the door and see his room, painted dark by synthetic night and occupied by a bed and one (1) singular sleeping human—which, of course, is still a strange thing to see, this whole other version of his current self outside the confines of a mirror or any other reflective surface, but still: expected. What he did not expect, however, was not just one human in his room, but two. And after the events of last night, he certainly did not expect to hear either of them laughing. And apparently together.

To be fair, it isn’t the sound that sends his stomach plummeting so much as the implications accompanying it.

Probably he should turn and go, give them some privacy, but he’s too busy lingering and simultaneously chiding himself for lingering. He and Rose shared a bed plenty of times before—well, not always a bed, per se, sometimes more of a bedroll or a cot or a prison bunk or the occasional pile of prickly sneeze-inducing hay—so there’s no reason he should be standing and staring like this, no reason at all for him to be gaping at the door to his room like some kind of slack-jawed idiot. It doesn’t matter what they might or might not have got up to in there, besides sleeping. He’s a Time Lord, for goodness’ sake. He doesn’t—he can’t—care about any of this. He’s better than all this. He’s got to be.

“Wow,” pipes up Donna, cutting through the sluggish silence like a knife through jelly, and the Doctor jerks back from the door before the sharp sound of her voice has a chance to disturb anyone and make the situation even more awkward than it already is. “They didn’t waste any time at all, did they?”

The Doctor does not reply, preoccupied with collecting some thoughts and working overtime to push others away, racing to put as much distance between himself and his room as possible. This doesn’t change anything, he knows. He’s still got things to take care of. He still has research to do. He still has to help Donna. He still…

Jaw set, he grits his teeth against the unwelcome feelings trying to swell up uncomfortably in his throat. What’s wrong with him? Isn’t this what he planned for? Isn’t this what he designed?

(Isn’t this more or less what he knew would happen, when he pushed her away for the umpteenth time? When he told her she wasn’t welcome here, with him?)

“Doctor?” asks Donna’s voice, unusually quiet, now. “Are you all right?”

The Doctor shakes his head in an attempt to clear the nonsense away. “Of course I am,” he replies. “I’m always all right.”

 ***

 He knows he should feel guilty, on some level, allowing himself any measure of happiness while Donna’s in crisis and his other self is so busy tending to her. But the human Doctor is finding it increasingly difficult to dampen his grin whenever Rose so much as glances his way, and when she returns his smile, lashes fluttering and lips curving shyly upward as the two of them make their way to the console room, it takes every ounce of the Doctor’s considerable willpower to keep himself from pulling her into the universe’s tightest, happiest hug. If he were a cynical man (and goodness knows, at times, he has been), he’d chalk up all this giddiness to the postcoital hormones fizzing pleasantly in his veins. Just chemistry, pure and simple. But right now, he’s fairly certain the only chemistry involved here is how hopelessly drunk he is on her.

Of course, then they step into the console room, and the Doctor is forcibly reminded that, much like with actual alcohol, when humans forget to pace themselves, afterward they get to deal with fun little things like hangovers and other delightful consequences.

“There you two are!” pipes up his other self, darting about the control desk, flipping switches and pulling levers. “I was starting to think you’d sleep the whole day away, the both of you. Of course, Rose, you always did sleep like the dead, metaphorically speaking—you could put Donna’s coma to shame—but it’s surprising even to me how quickly your particular brand of circadian rhythms has spread to those around you. Suppose it only makes sense, given the matching human physiologies and all. Still, you two missed quite a lot while you were out, so you’ve got a bit of catching-up to do, the both of you.”

He sounds cheerful enough, bordering on oblivious, but this is a manner the human Doctor remembers all too well, recognizes with startling clarity once viewed from the outside—he’s just a little too nonchalant, just a little too casual, yet somehow manic at the same time as he makes a show of checking monitors and typing commands and pressing buttons, perhaps, just a little harder than he needs to, unable to look either of them in the eye as he does so.

He already knows. Somehow, he’s figured it all out. He knows everything. Of course he does.

Speaking of hangovers, the Doctor’s starting to feel just the littlest bit queasy.

“How’s Donna doing?” he calls out anyway, ignoring the sick feeling twisting in his stomach.

“Oh, right as rain,” Donna’s voice chirps out of the blue. “Thanks for asking!”

Rose and the Doctor both jump. “Donna?” asks Rose in disbelief, glancing around the console room as if Donna may manifest from thin air at any moment. “Donna, was that you? Where are you? What’s—”

“You rigged her up to a medical transceiver, didn’t you?” the Doctor realizes immediately. “And it worked?”

“Apparently,” says Donna. “‘Course I’m still stuck in the medbay, still put under and all that. But he’s got a camera or something sort of rigged up to his specs, so even though I’m asleep, I still can see and hear everything he does. Isn’t that genius?”

“Wow,” Rose breathes. “Are you all right, Donna? You’re not still in pain, or anything?”

“Can’t feel a thing. Could probably use an extra blanket, though, knowing how cold he keeps the place.”

Laughing, Rose shifts her focus to the other Doctor, shaking her head in wonder. “This is incredible,” she says earnestly. “God. You’re brilliant.”

“Thanks,” replies the other Doctor with a grin that’s just a little too tight. “Of course, it’s just the first step of a much longer process, it isn’t exactly a tenable long-term solution to keep Donna rigged up like this—”

“No brain-in-a-computer for me, ta.”

“—but it’s a good first step nonetheless.”

“What’s step two?” asks Rose.

“Step two for me is scanning the nearby systems to find the equipment needed to extricate the offending material safely from Donna’s brain,” replies the Time Lord Doctor, tilting his head distractedly at the monitor as he types in another command. “Step two for you lot, I suppose, is whatever you want.”

“Great,” says Rose. “We want to help you.”

“No need,” the Doctor insists. “I’ve got it all under control. And you know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen. Speaking of, have you two eaten yet? The galley’s fairly well-stocked at the mo, lots of good proteins and complex carbohydrates at your disposal. I’m sure you two are famished after everything you’ve both got up to last evening. Humans tend to rack up quite the appetite, activities like that.”

The Doctor’s blood pressure drops like a stone. He glances at Rose to find her face carefully composed, her earlier excitement already fading like it was never there. 

“You talking about everything with the Daleks and the end of the world?” Rose asks coolly. “Or the sex?”

If she were physically present, the Doctor imagines Donna’s jaw would drop open at that, at the bold frankness of it. Now the blood comes rushing back into his cheeks til he thinks he might catch fire from it. Rubbish human body and its rubbish autonomic nervous responses.

His other self does not look away from the monitor in front of him. “I’m sure the latter is absolutely none of my business,” he says pleasantly.

“You’re right. It’s really not.”

“Yeah, it’s not really any of my business either,” Donna pipes in. “So could we maybe turn the transceiver off for this—”

“Fair enough,” interrupts the Time Lord Doctor, “but then that does beg the question of why you brought it up.”

“It was gonna come up sooner or later. I’d rather bring it all out into the open now. Or would you rather I made passive-aggressive jibes about you two and you lot and snide comments about late-night activities?”

“Honestly, it would be delightful if we didn’t comment on any of this at all.”

“Great,” Rose laughs weakly. “So just ignore it and it’ll go away, just like we always used to do?”

“That’s what you came back for, isn’t it? To get back to the way things used to be.”

“I came back for you!”

“All right,” says the human Doctor loudly, surprising himself and everyone else. “That’s enough!”

No one responds, the console room silent except for the glass column grinding quietly away over the hum of the TARDIS. The Doctor glances between Rose and his other self, pulse pounding sluggishly in his chest, the sick feeling in his stomach growing heavier with each passing moment. The other Doctor still won’t look at either of them.

“That’s enough,” he says again, quieter this time. “We can all have a good row about this later. Our priority right now is taking care of Donna. Everything else can wait. Right?” he adds to Rose, arching an eyebrow meaningfully.

Jaw set and gaze hard, eyes flashing, for a moment it seems like Rose is going to argue with him. But she quickly relents, tension easing from her shoulders. “Right,” she says quietly, nodding.

“Right?” the Doctor snaps at his original self.

The Time Lord Doctor doesn’t look at him, too busy staring at his monitor. “Right in theory,” he murmurs, slowly. “But in practice…”

“What?” asks the human Doctor impatiently. “What is it?”

His original self scans the readings on the monitor again and again, as if different information may yield itself on repeat viewings. Whatever he sees there makes the tight, forced grin melt right off his face. His brow furrows in alarm.

“Doctor?” asks Rose, concerned, now.

In lieu of responding, the original Doctor pushes away from the control desk, racing toward the TARDIS doors. With a great heave, he throws them open, to reveal—

Nothing.

No planet surface beams at them from outside the TARDIS. There is no sun, no stars, no vortex. No light, no dark. No warm, no cold. An empty, silent, colorless expanse extends as far as the eye can see.

“Oh, no,” murmurs Rose, clutching a hand to her stomach.

“What is that?” demands Donna’s voice. “Is something wrong with your glasses, Doctor? I can’t see.”

“That’s because there is, quite literally, nothing to see,” says the original Doctor quietly, shaking his head.

He turns to face Rose and the human Doctor, eyes wide with fear. “We never made it out to the other side,” he says. “We’re trapped in the Void.”

***

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter [forthcoming]]

***

“How much longer d’you think it’s gonna be?” he asked Dyana. “Feels like it’s been hours.”

“It has been hours,” replied Dyana, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against a pillar. “Not that I’m too keen on them rushing into things. Don’t really want to become someone’s property any sooner than I have to, thanks.”

“Nah, it won’t come to that. The Doctor will talk some sense into the Council, if nothing else.”

Dyana offered a wistful smile. “That would be nice. Wouldn’t get your hopes up, though.”

“Trust me, he’s got a talent for it. Only took him six words to uproot our entire government back home.”

“Sure it did,” teased Vareem.

“It sure did!” Mickey replied. “I wasn’t exaggerating. Just six words, and he toppled the whole thing. Poof! Done and done.”

Vareem frowned. “That’s sort of terrifying.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Well, I reckon it’s not so great for Harriet. And probably not for the people who work for her. And probably it’s causing some problems in the long run,” said Mickey thoughtfully. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine. Point is, he takes care of things. That’s what he does. And sometimes Rose ‘n me, we help. Isn’t that right, Rose?”

Rose did not reply, lost in thought as she sat still on a fluffy white hospital bench, staring at nothingness like it wronged her. A flash of silver peeked from her wrist and upper arm, two of several high-tech mesh bandages peppering Rose’s body, slapped here and there over bruises and cuts. The bandages were good stuff, futuristic high-tech mesh infused with something that would greatly expedite the healing process, or at least that was what Mickey had garnered from the physician’s explanation—the physician, not the Doctor, because he’d waltzed off the moment they’d arrived. Strange, that; Mickey would have expected the Doctor to insist on tending Rose’s wounds himself, or at least he’d hover over the physician while they did it and drive them batty explaining everything they were doing wrong. But no, he’d vanished almost immediately. Mickey wondered why.

A flurry of raised voices erupted from the monitors, pulling Rose’s attention and Mickey’s, too. They both watched as an onscreen Doctor and Rose bickered heatedly. Mickey had every intention of teasing Rose about it, but stopped upon glancing back at her; her gaze sharpened into a glare, her mouth tightening at the sight of the Doctor onscreen, tiny and digital and utterly confused, and oh dear, but this would be a very bad time for teasing, wouldn’t it?

Mickey’s brow furrowed in concern. “Rose?”

Wordlessly, she pushed up from the bench and stalked out of the room.

 **

 “All right,” Rose said impatiently, pushing aside the privacy screen—didn’t matter how he might try to hide, she’d recognize the telltale whir and buzz of the sonic screwdriver anywhere. “We can’t keep dancing around this, Doctor. We’ve got to—”

The Doctor’s gaze snapped up to hers, eyes wide in alarm, but that wasn’t what killed Rose’s words, left her breathless, nor was it the sight of him shirtless and exposed, though that was certainly unusual in its own right. No, it was the bandages, dozens and dozens of them. Some of them were wrapped round his arms, others pasted on his shoulders, others still slapped on his flanks, curled around his ribs and peeking round from the back; stepping to the side, Rose could see even more bandages slathered along his spine. What few patches of skin left uncovered by the bandages were dotted with little pink cuts and bluish-yellow bruises and angry purple welts, a perverse sort of rainbow playing out across his skin.

Bruises and cuts and wounds, a whole tapestry of hurt, and—and how long had he been wearing those special healing bandages, now? They’d been waiting here for hours, hours, and the bandages had already helped Rose and the others so much—so why did it look like the Doctor had fought and lost a round with a heavyweight champion? Or were the original wounds just that bad? When had he even gotten those wounds?

Had he been hurting this entire time, and Rose just hadn’t noticed, somehow?

“God,” she breathed, aghast. She reached out to touch him, but drew back at the very last second. She didn’t want to put pressure anywhere he hurt. “What is all this? What happened?”

“Erm, like you said earlier, average line-of-duty stuff,” said the Doctor just a little too quickly, avoiding Rose’s gaze. He continued his work with the sonic, scanning something in his hand--that pet-chip-thing, by the looks of it--and he frowned. “Just a couple of action hero wounds. Normal stuff. Standard. Run-of-the-mill, even. Nothing a couple of Beznisian battle-bandages can’t cure—and isn’t that funny, that they’ve got battle-bandages here? Definitely unexpected, considering the technology outside these walls doesn’t appear to have advanced much past the Middle Ages, but then, I suppose we’ve encountered stranger and more out-of-place things, haven’t we?”

Rose swallowed against the suspicion bubbling up sickly in her stomach. “Doctor, how’d you get hurt?”

“I just told you,” said the Doctor, pocketing the sonic and the pet-chip. “Standard stuff. Nothing worth discussing. Certainly nothing worth worrying about.” He stood up, grabbing his shirts from where he’d discarded them and pulling the tee-shirt over his head, only wincing a little as he did so. “Now, they did offer me some acetylsalicylic acid to help with the discomfort, and that actually is worth worrying about, because you know what they say about Time Lords and acetylsalicylic acid: they don’t mix. Or rather, they shouldn’t. They occasionally do. But that’s why you always have a handy spare bar of chocolate on hand!” He pulled on his oxford and hastily buttoned every other button. “There’s a bit of advice for you: Always keep spare chocolate around, Rose Tyler; you never know when you might need a good source of simple trigclycerides.

“Anyhoo, now that we’ve all had a chance to rest and recover a bit, I rather think it’s time to get going, don’t you? Shall we collect Mr. Mickey and the TARDIS and call it a day?”

“Doctor…”

“Speaking of chocolate, it’s probably time we restocked, or added to the current stock, as it were. You can never have too much chocolate, you know. It’s demonstrably proven to be the one thing in the universe you can never have too-much-of—”

“Doctor, please,” Rose interrupted, firmer this time. “Would you just—”

“Finish saving the day, first? Yes, of course,” said the Doctor. He grabbed his suit jacket and pulled it on. “Give a good speech, give a good glare, give the baddies a good what-for, don’t you reckon?” He whipped his coat about his shoulders with only the tiniest of grimaces. “Oh, and good job on recognizing what the pet-chip-thing was, by the way. It gave me a couple ideas, so I scanned and poked around a bit and I think it might end up being rather important after all. But isn’t that always nice, when something so small actually ends up being rather big in the grand scheme of things? Always a fun revelation, never a dull moment there.

“All right, shall we?” he asked, setting off before Rose had a chance to answer.

She hung back for a moment, hesitating. Even if she didn’t recall every moment of the adventure today—which she did, in startling detail—the footage playing on the screens overhead, over and over and over again, would have reminded Rose that there was no rational explanation of how the Doctor had sustained those wounds. There was no moment when he would have received them, no time he could have received them, and there was certainly no reason. Except as she watched the scene playing out onscreen, following the progress of her tiny digital self as she struggled to steer a sickly-glowing dragon, and it disappeared behind the mountainside in a hail of fire and a thunderous boom that shook the speakers around her, Rose realized that there was, in fact, a moment when the Doctor could have been hurt, and moreover, there was certainly a reason.

(And the screen flooded black with smoke, and Rose remembered awakening, groggy and sore but relatively unhurt despite everything, and what had happened to the dragon, and where was the Doctor, and was he hurt, and later, Mickey couldn’t believe she’d survived, and how…?)

Worrying her lip between her teeth, Rose followed after him.

 **

 The Doctor, Dyana thought with a sick-clenching throat, was going to get them all killed.

(It was not surprising that the guard had no inclination to bring the Doctor and co. before City Council; what was surprising was how easily the Doctor managed to convince them otherwise, and how suddenly, in a matter of seconds it seemed, the group was bursting through the Council doors.)

“About time,” Mickey muttered under his breath, but everyone else stayed quiet as their Golden Guardsman guide typed a series of characters into the keypad next to the chamber door. Dyana couldn’t guess what held Rose or the Doctor’s tongue, but a look over at Vareem let her know that Vareem, too, was likely clenching her teeth against the urge to vomit, fighting all of the instincts screaming at her to run, run, run while she had the chance, that they were both silent for the same reason:

This was it, for them.

Their entire lives had been building up to this single event, this single conversation, this one moment, a slice of time dangling their futures precariously over the knife-sharp edge of a narrow precipice. After this handful of moments, one way or the other--whether they were punished for their insolence, executed for their crimes, or maybe, just maybe, pardoned and offered freedom--their lives would forever change.

The robotic chime of the keypad sliced through the silence, paving the way for the heavy groan of the doors as they swung inward, revealing, bit-by-bit, the darkened chambers within. The second the doors parted enough, the Doctor surged on ahead, Rose and Mickey following immediately after; Dyana and Vareem hung back, frozen in uncertainty and fear. It was all good and well for Rose and her blokes to forge ahead without a second thought, but they didn’t know the Council like everyone on Hohm did. They didn’t know enough to be afraid.

(For all her plans of rebellion, Dyana had never imagined she’d meet the Council in the flesh--she had hoped to escape the Championship with her freedom intact, or die trying. Never had it crossed her mind that fate would bring her here, face-to-face with her planet’s own personal devils, confronting the pieces of filth responsible for so much death and destruction. The very same monsters who had sanctioned the her sister’s murder.)

Dyana closed her eyes against the memory that fought its way to the surface, her fists clenching in anger. She forced herself to drink in a deep, calming breath. It didn’t matter how terrified she was. She would do what she could with this chance--a chance her sister never got.

Swallowing hard, she grabbed Vareem’s hand, squeezing it; Vareem squeezed back, as if in thanks. Dyana led them both in.

Blinking against the dark, Dyana waited for her eyes to adjust as the Councilors murmured in response, and she grimaced at what she saw. It was about what she’d expected, a mixture of old money and new tech, marble pillars and velvet curtains blossoming out of the semi-darkness amidst softly glowing lights and screens. A grand table spread out before them, a great polished wooden thing that cost more than Dyana’s family could earn in an entire generation; behind it, gilded in the finest golds and silks and gems and slim electronic accoutrements the surrounding systems had to offer, sat a half-dozen humans and horse-people, gazing down imperiously.

The Council. Dyana felt Vareem shudder next to her.

Rose glanced back at the two of them and offered an encouraging smile; Dyana knew she was telling them, without words, the same things Mickey had said earlier. The Doctor will help fix everything. It’ll all work out in the end.

Gods, Dyana hoped they were right.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the Councilors.

“Six hours and fourteen minutes,” the Doctor announced as he strode confidently forward. “And eleven seconds, in case you were wondering.”

The Council stared down at the group, each of them distinctly unimpressed. “Guard, we did not send for these offenders. Why have you brought them before us?”

“And counting,” continued the Doctor, consulting his wrist as if he wore a timepiece there--which, he didn’t. “That’s more enough time to collect the facts and render a decision, wouldn’t you say?”

“We would not,” said another Councilor. “We have not yet decided your fate.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about your decision,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “I’m talking about mine.”

The Council stared down at them, unimpressed. “Guard, remove the offenders,” ordered the Prime Councilor, “and report to your superior for suitable punishment.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said the Doctor, waving his hand dismissively before the guard could reply. “In fact, here in a few moments, none of this--” he continued, gesturing to the room around him, “--will be necessary, because here in a few moments, none of this will be in operation. See--”

Flashing the Council a cheeky grin, the Doctor rummaged around in his pockets, presenting a slim black wallet that he flipped open, displaying its contents for all to see. Normally Dyana might have delighted in seeing all of these stuffy upper-crusts breaking out of their dusty indifference, some of them stiffening in alarm at the sight of the wallet while others grew pale, but she didn’t understand--when the wallet flashed her way, all she saw inside was a small white paper that simply read: Trust me :D.

She and Vareem glanced at each other in confusion, then turned to Rose, a question half-formed on their lips. Rose shot them a little wink.

“See, things are about to change around here,” said the Doctor, absolutely beaming with mischief.

Even the Prime Councilor seemed surprised at what she saw in the wallet--which, Dyana could only imagine, must have differed wildly from what she and Vareem each saw, somehow. “I see,” the Prime Councilor murmured. Her gaze switched back to the Doctor, her mouth pressed into a thin smile. “My apologies, High Commander. We were unaware the Shadow Proclamation had chosen to honor us with their presence today. Were we not?” she asked, glancing at her fellow Councilors, as if perhaps one of them had invited a guest to the party without her permission. Dyana wondered if any of the lower Councilors would end the day without a head attached to their neck.

“Had we known a member of the Proclamation would deign to enter our humble competition, we would have proceeded quite differently,” said the Prime Councilor. “Forgive us, High Commander. You and your party are, of course, free to leave, winnings and usual fees fully intact, and we will deliver your ship promptly.”

“Excellent, most excellent. And after that, you’ll dismantle the Championship, lift your technology ban, and all of you will resign from office, effective immediately.”

The Council broke out in a murmur, but the Prime Councilor simply glared at the Doctor, her smile tightening unpleasantly. “We beg your pardon?”

“Which you most certainly will not receive,” replied the Doctor. “I’m not interested in winnings or usual fees, whatever they might be--”

“Sounds an awful lot like bribes,” muttered Rose darkly.

“--which, I suppose, sort of makes me your worst nightmare, doesn’t it?” the Doctor laughed. “After all, you must have had great success bribing anyone who came before me, mustn’t you? It’s the only thing that makes sense with all of the statutes-violations and felonies bloodying up your ledger. No way you’d have been permitted to run things so poorly for so long, otherwise.”

The Prime Councilor drew back, eyes flashing. “High Commander, those are very serious allegations, none of which, I assure you, you have any evidence to support.”

“So you’re not forcing people into your stupid little knockoff Olympics, then?” Mickey demanded.

“Or promoting the use of kidnapping and date-rape drugs?” added Rose.

“Or denying us access to vital and sometimes life-saving technology?” blurted out Vareem.

“Our people have been denied nothing,” the Prime Councilor said sharply. “The Honorable Council ensures that the people of Hohm do not descend into anarchy and chaos. We are not your mothers and fathers; it is not our place to award trinkets and treats. We cannot be blamed for those of you who have not earned your way.”

“And what about giving us away as bloody prizes, huh?” Dyana spat out before she could stop herself. “What about pawning us off on a bunch of rich off-worlders, just moving us like we’re so much rubbish? You gonna tell us you don’t do that, either?”

The Prime Councilor turned Dyana’s way. Dyana forced herself to hold the woman’s gaze even as she shuddered at the cold.

“Certainly the Honorable Council would never do such a thing,” replied the Prime Councilor. “But should any member of our population choose to volunteer themselves as bride-prizes in the Championship, we will not stop them; your lives are your own, to do with as you choose.”

“Horse shit,” Dyana tried to say, but her words were trampled by the Prime Councilor’s continued insistence that “Freedom, on Hohm, is valued above all things, even the freedom to devote oneself as a winning token. We cannot strip our people of their liberty to make such decisions, however inadvisable they may seem to others. We will not deprive our people of the right to choose.”

“Except we don’t choose at all,” Dyana argued. “Your Champions choose for us.”

“And is it not a great honor to be chosen by one of our Champions? For our Champions to pay a generous price in your name, to fight and compete and strive for your hand?”

“No!” shouted Dyana. “We don’t want that--you know we don’t want that!”

“Save your breath, Dyana,” said Vareem, pulling her back with a gentle hand on her arm. “It’s not like they can hear you over their jangling purses, anyway.”

Dyana managed not to pull out of Vareem’s grasp, but only just barely, and only because she was surprised at Vareem’s candor in front of the Councilor. She didn’t think Vareem felt so strongly about all of this. She’d never been happier to be wrong.

“It is unfortunately true that few things speak louder than money,” the Doctor agreed. “Which, I suspect, is why most of your Champions, especially the wealthy offworlders, pay such a hefty fee to enter the Championship. Does that sound about right?” he asked Dyana and Vareem. “Forgive me if I’m wrong; it’s just a hunch, as Mr. Smith and I didn’t exactly enter the competition via the usual circumstances, sort of bypassed the whole exchanging-of-money bit.”

“You’re not wrong,” Dyana replied. “They call it an entry fee or a fee to participate, but everyone knows what it really is. They put out a call to everyone in the surrounding systems, and anyone with money can pay a fortune to come here and either compete for a wife or watch the blood spilling from the stands. We’re out there risking our lives, stripped of our freedom, and rich offworlders just sit there and watch it like it’s bloody theatre.”

“All while the Council sits up here with their silks and their gold and they watch everything from behind their pristine screens,” Vareem spat.

“And they don’t even allow us to own so much as a telecommunications device.”

“Of course they don’t,” scoffed Vareem. “Otherwise they know we’d band together and stop them getting rich off violence and selling us as slaves!”

“We’re Hohm’s greatest export,” Dyana said bitterly.

“As I said,” the Prime Councilor replied, her voice as smooth and cool as the marble surrounding them, “you have no evidence to support your claims. Nor, I assure you, will you find any.”

“You know, on some level that may be true,” the Doctor admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. “On the other hand, I’m certain there are scores upon scores of native Hohmish citizens who would loudly object to their mistreatment at your hands, if given the opportunity to do so--is that an accurate presumption, Dyana? Vareem?”

“Yes,” Vareem nodded, as Dyana muttered a sharp, “Very.”

“Although, if pressed by the Proclamation, I’m certain you would do your utmost to convince your citizens into stating otherwise,” the Doctor continued, to the Prime Councilor, “via your usual methods of coercion, pressure, threats, violence, et cetera et cetera. There’s the video footage of the Championship, of course, but certainly that could be easily erased, if it hasn’t been already. And unfortunately an official investigation into your many (many) sentient-beings’-rights violations could take weeks, months, possibly years, even if we did have physical, tangible evidence at our disposal. Sadly, folks like Dyana and Vareem don’t have that sort of time.

“You know what they do have, though?” the Doctor asked, and here his smile grew downright manic. “They have us,” he said, gesturing to Rose, Mickey, and himself. “And one of us has some of your oft-requested evidence conveniently hiding right in his pockets.”

He withdrew something from his coat-pocket, a small, rectangular silver thing with a series of numbers stamped across its face, and tossed it onto the table before the Prime Councilor. It clattered over the wood and slid to a stop beneath the Prime Councilor’s nose; unmoving, she peered down at it, lip curled in a disgusted sneer. “What is this?” she asked.

“That, my dear Prime Councilor, is an identifying integrated circuit, also known as a passive integrated transponder tag, outfitted with the very latest in local radio frequency identification and remote control technology; in short, as my brilliant friend here just happened to notice, it’s a pet chip,” the Doctor explained. “But Doctor, whatever are you doing with a loose pet chip floating about your considerable pockets? you might ask. Why, I’ve got a loose pet chip floating around my considerable pockets because I found it in the arena after the oh-so-mysterious explosion of a dragon, and it has yielded a surprising amount of helpful information, I would answer. In fact, I would go on to say, a scan of this particular pet chip just so happens to inform me that its original  host was a squamata basilisk draconus, a species that is massively illegal to be imported, purchased, or otherwise owned in this quadrant of the universe due to its status as an endangered species.”

“You want to shut us down because of illegal animal ownership?” asked one of the Councilors, amused.

“No, I want to shut you down because you’re denying your people access to things they want and need purely in the name of control, you’re turning a profit off violence, you’re running a thriving slave trade, and you’re dabbling in illegal pet ownership,” the Doctor replied. “Oh, and the fact that you murdered a endangered animal in cold blood. Can’t overlook that.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the Council, but the Prime Councilor did not flinch. “Once again, I must assert that you have no evidence to support your claim--”

“Ah, but I do! It’s right there on the chip. It’s oh-so-helpful and absolutely packed with information. For example, it tells me who engineered the dragon, and when, and where, and why, and most importantly, for whom. And that whom is you!”

The Prime Councilor glared at him. “The Honorable Council would never--”

“Now, admittedly the chip doesn’t tell me how or why you inserted a remote detonation device into your pet dragon, but it doesn’t have to; anyone with a working brain can tell you that,” the Doctor breezed on as if the Prime Councilor had never spoken. “You, being fully aware of this creature’s status as an endangered (and therefore protected) species, asked the engineers of this specimen to implant a remote detonation device in case something happened and you needed to take dramatic action very, very quickly--say, for example, a devastatingly handsome agent from the Shadow Proclamation just happened to drop by unannounced, or a pair of disgruntled Championship participants stole your dragon for a joy ride and flew a little too close to the sun, figuratively speaking, and you lot got nervous. All you needed to do was press a little button, and boom goes the dragon.”

He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, “Unfortunately for you, the dragon might have gone boom, but that pet chip? It’s made out of none other than some of your very own Hohmish ore, and that stuff is nigh indestructible. The chip survived totally intact, with all your damning evidence written right across its face. Really, you should have made your money exporting your ore instead of your citizens, but you know what they say: hindsight’s 20/20, though there’s no time like the present to start sporting a pair of spectacles.

“Anyhoo, I may not have physical proof that you’re violating your people’s rights, but I have plenty of physical proof to charge you with multiple counts of violations of Proclamation Article 72.3 subsection 17-B, being the illicit breeding and destruction of an endangered, protected species,” said the Doctor, his hands clasped behind his back like an office manager delivering an only-mildly-unpleasant presentation to his wayward employees. “My report is on its way to my superiors right now, with the full details. Once they receive it, and find you guilty of your charges--which, make no mistake, they certainly will; dragon-breeders are notorious for turning on their clientele, no confidentiality amongst thieves I’m afraid--you’ll be stripped of your titles, fined of all your wealth, and thrown into a Proclamation prison for a minimum of ten years.”

A self-indulgent little laugh escaped his lips. “And once you’re locked away in prison, it’s only a matter of time before your other crimes are uncovered. After all, with you lot in the brig, who’s going to intimidate your citizens into silence for you?”

Finally, the Prime Councilor had the decency to look nervous, and inwardly, Dyana rejoiced.

“We could kill you where you stand,” the Prime Councilor said, her words slicing the air like shards of ice.

“Could do, but it wouldn’t stop the report from going through,” the Doctor replied. “It’s already on its way. No one can stop it going through, except me.”

Councilors whispered nervously amongst themselves in a low susurrus of mounting desperation. “What do you want?” the Prime Councilor asked the Doctor.

“Ooh, is that another veiled reference to a bribe? How exciting. It just so happens that what I desire is for you--all of you--to resign from your posts, effective immediately.”

“You can’t be serious,” one of the Councilors balked.

The Doctor laughed. “Of course I can! In fact, for every time you argue with me, or say any other silly or inane thing, I’ll add another punishment to the list. This time, you get to donate seventy-five percent of your total net worth to your citizenry.” He grinned beatifically. “Would you like to argue some more?”

“Please, be reasonable,” protested another Councilor, and the Doctor just chuckled in response. “And now I’m banning you from the planet Hohm altogether,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, you’re off the planet. All of you. It’s that, or prison for a decade.”

His grin grew sharp. “A decade, if you’re lucky.”

This time no one dared argue with him; the only response the Doctor received was a bunch of open-mouthed, disbelieving stares.

“Uh-oh, hear that?” asked the Doctor, pointing to the imaginary timepiece on his wrist. “Sounds like it’s make-a-decision-already o’clock.”

“You would really break our world like this?” asked the Prime Councilor. “Break our foundations, shatter our economy, leave our people leaderless and wandering?”

“I’m sure your new Councilors-in-interim will smooth things along nicely.”

“There are no other Councilors. We have not chosen successors.”

“Nor would any reasonable person permit you to. I am referring, of course, to Dyana and Vareem,” the Doctor replied, brow quirked in amusement, as if the Prime Councilor was terribly stupid. “Both excellent candidates for Councilor-ship. That is, if they’d like the job?”

All eyes turned to Vareem and Dyana, and Dyana’s throat ran dry. She had strode into the arena fully expecting to escape, or die trying. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined any of this would happen. Never had she dared hope that she would help make it happen! And now, this bright, shining gift sat just before her, the chance to help guide her world into the future, to make things better for everyone, to give every person on Hohm the choices they needed, the choices they deserved…

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She wished her sister had lived to see this. She would have been so, so proud.

“Yes,” Dyana whispered, warmth blossoming from her cheeks to her fingertips to her toes, bringing joy and hope and relief flooding with it. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Me too,” added Vareem, nodding emphatically.

The Doctor beamed at them. “Wonderful. You’ll both do brilliantly. I’m certain of it.”

He turned back to the Council, clapping his hands together in anticipation. “All right! You’ve got a choice before you, which quite frankly in rather generous considering the choices you’ve robbed your people of over the years; you can voluntarily resign, leaving behind most of your fortunate and all of your privilege and prestige, but living otherwise modest lives somewhere far, far away from the people you’ve hurt, or, my report goes through, my superior officers at the Shadow Proclamation get a nice little arrest warrant handy, and the swift hammer of justice strikes fast, hard, and without mercy.”

His smirk was one of the smuggest things Dyana had ever seen, as if he knew the answer even before asking, but wanted to savor the satisfaction of it, anyway. “So,” said the Doctor. “Which’ll it be?”

 ***

 Rose was willing to bet the Councilors had never made a decision so quickly in all their pampered lives.

“How are you doing?” she asked in a low voice, sidling up to Dyana as they watched the Council exiting their chambers, some of them leaving with heads held high and proud while others slunk away like perhaps, if they tried hard enough, they might disappear into the shadows before anyone caught them. “You gonna be all right?”

Dyana shrugged, eyes wide. “I think so? I don’t know. I never expected anything like this to happen. I think I’m sort of in shock, actually.”

Chuckling, she shook her head. “Kind of funny, though--they’ve been so horrible, for so long, made such a huge mess and made things so bad for so many people--only to be brought down by something so small.”

“Ah, I sort of love it when that happens. Poetic justice.”

Dyana shifted, shooting Rose a glance full of suspicion. “And you deliver that sort of thing often, then? The poetic justice?”

“We’ve been known to,” said Rose with a smile.

“As agents of the Shadow Proclamation.”

“But of course,” replied Rose, tapping the side of her nose knowingly, and the two of them laughed.

They both fell quiet as a pair of Golden Guards wheeled in the TARDIS from its hiding spot somewhere in confiscation-land, watching as Vareem poked about the ship in confusion and Mickey excitedly explained it to her. The Doctor was oddly quiet as he looked on, patting the TARDIS doors in greeting, like the arm of an old friend.

“Wouldn’t have mistaken any of you for the authoritarian type,” Dyana said thoughtfully. “Doesn’t really seem like any of you care too much for any sort of rules.”

As if he could sense her watching, the Doctor glanced Rose’s way. Their gazes locked. His expression was neutral, perfectly inscrutable. But something about it twisted in Rose’s gut anyway.

“But then again I didn’t think the Doctor’s paper-thing said anything important, so, I dunno,” Dyana continued. “I guess looks can be pretty deceiving, huh?”

The Doctor ducked into the TARDIS, breaking their gaze. Rose frowned.

“Yeah,” she murmured, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I guess so.”

 **

 “Okay, look. I know you don’t want to talk about this,” Rose called out, closing the TARDIS doors quietly behind her. “Not really, not in any way that actually means anything. And that’s fine. You don’t have to talk. Just listen.”

Surprised, the Doctor looked up from the console, watching wordlessly as Rose fidgeted in place. God, why was this so difficult?

She swallowed, loudly. “You hurt me,” she said. “Back on that spaceship. Back in France. You said things and you did things that hurt me.”

Before the Doctor had a chance to reply, Rose shook her head, rushing along with, “Maybe you didn’t mean to, maybe you didn’t think about it that way. Maybe you didn’t think about it at all. And I mean, I guess that matters, at least a little. But when you share your life with someone--because that’s what we’re doing, Doctor, we’re sharing our lives right now, that’s what’s happening whether you want to call it that or not--when you share your life with someone, you have to think about how your actions affect others. You have to.”

The Doctor didn’t reply, just kept watching her, his brow knit in concentration, or maybe concern.

“I know you’re hurt because of me,” Rose said, her voice quiet. “Because you protected me. That’s what happened, yeah? I don’t remember, and it was too dark and smoky to make it out on the screens back there--but you kept me safe when we were falling. Right? Cos I don’t have barely a scratch on me, but you look beat to hell under all those layers. So you must’ve protected me, put your arms around me and broken the fall, somehow. You must have done.”

Now the Doctor couldn’t meet her gaze, scratching his neck uncomfortably as he looked away.

“I wanted to say thank you for that,” Rose said, forcing her words to stay clear and strong, not to shake the way they wanted to. “I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you. Honestly, I’d probably be dead several times over if it wasn’t for you. Of course, the same is probably true in reverse. But that’s what we’re both there for, yeah? To watch out for each other, keep each other company, keep each other safe. To trust each other.”

Drawing a deep breath, Rose closed her eyes. “What you did a few days back--leaving us behind on the spaceship, kissing Reinette and bragging about it after--that was a violation of trust,” she said, her cheeks flushing red-hot with embarrassment. “Whether or not you meant it that way. It was--it felt like a betrayal.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him; big mistake. He was staring into the distance, mouth tight, jaw taut, fingers clenched round the edge of the control desk. To an outsider, it might have appeared that he was fighting not to be angry at Rose; Rose knew him well enough to suspect he was trying not to show his anger with himself. The thought broke Rose’s heart.

She kept going.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” she said, carefully. “But you need to know how it felt to me.”

Silently, the Doctor issued a curt nod.

Rose suppressed a sigh. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she felt disappointed, somehow. Although really, she’d given him the option not to speak, so maybe she shouldn’t be surprised he was taking her up on the offer. Still, she’d hoped…

But that didn’t matter. She’d said her piece and he’d heard it, and acknowledged it, at least a little bit. That was worth something, right?

Rose turned to leave, to give the Doctor some space, but stopped in her tracks at the sound of him clearing his throat.

“Rose?”

She turned back to look at him, her heart convulsing painfully in her chest, so hard she thought her ribs might crack from it. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” said the Doctor, slowly. “What I did--it was a betrayal.”

Now Rose’s pulse was hammering in her ears. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

The Doctor’s gaze met hers. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Relief flooded Rose like waters through a broken dam. Before her brain had a chance to make any choice in the matter, her feet had carried her across the console room, up the stairs, and launched her straight into the Doctor, her arms wrapping snugly round him, purely of their own volition, she was sure. She squeezed him tight in a reassuring hug and he responded in kind, embracing her in a way that felt only a little bit desperate. Rose buried her face against his shirt and let out a long, pent-up sigh of release.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, her voice muffled by his shirt.

The Doctor did not reply, but hugged her harder instead.

***

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