{First of all, I would like to apologize for my last oneshot. I know it upset a lot of you, but hey, it upset me too when I saw it in the Tumblr post! (And when I was writing it). Anyway, sorry. No hard feelings? Thanks. }
Request by @wander_over_xoxo!
Prompt: Ten and Rose are stranded on a ship, and Rose is near death. Will the Doctor be able to save her? (I summed it up so I don't give away the whole plot!)
Enjoy!
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"Brr. Doctor, I'm cold," Rose hugged her arms and shivered as she walked to the Doctor's side. He was typing on an some alien keyboard on the control panel of some alien ship. Jardragoonian, or something like that, Rose thought the Doctor said. All she cared about was getting warm. "Can you turn up the heating or something?"
The Doctor didn't reply for a moment, because he was too deep in thought as he typed things into the ship's computer to find out what had happened to it's passengers. When he and Rose had landed--by mistake--on this ship, after having a look around, they soon found that everyone who had been on it had died. Of course, the curious Doctor had to find out what happened to them. How could he not?
The Doctor realized Rose had spoken, and replied. "What? Sorry, yes--cold. Umm..." He turned away from the keyboard and looked around the room for a thermostat of some sort. "This looks right..." He found a meter with a short lever next to it, which had foreign temperature levels next to it. He put his hand on it and tried to push it up, to no avail. "It's stuck," he sighed. "Sorry."
"S'fine. Just as long as we get out of here and back to the warm TARDIS soon," Rose said as she rubbed her arms. "Why are we here again? I thought we were going to a beach. It's sounds a lot better their than here right now."
"Rose, we just found a ship full of people who have died for some unknown reason. You think I'm going to just leave them all alone, drifting in space?" The Doctor looked at her skeptically then returned to his typing and monitor reading.
"Well, we could come back after we get some sun..." Rose sighed. "No, you're right I guess. Need to help the people, and respect the dead."
"There's my domestic Earth girl," the Doctor said as he continued to read through the ship's files.
"I can't tell if that's a compliment or an insult, you know," Rose said as she leaned against the control panel next to him.
"Um...compliment!" The Doctor replied distractedly.
"Surrre," she said, laughing.
"Really! You're the heart, I'm the brains. One less thing I have to do."
"You have two hearts!" Rose exclaimed.
"Both of which add up to only half of it a human heart." He glanced at her as he spoke.
Rose laughed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Doctor." She stood up straight and walked around the room they were in: the pilot's control room of the ship. The ship was still running itself, although according to the Doctor's estimate, no one had tended to it for a few months. "That was when they all suddenly died," he had observed.
"So, what were they like, the Jardragoonians?" Rose asked as she continued to observe her surroundings.
"Oh, a great race of people, Rose. They believed in devoting their lives to science; well, it was their religion! Never started any wars-- not on purpose-- and always tried to maintain the peaceful balance that corresponded to their environment's," the Doctor paused. "Also, they were the first in their star system to invent aerodynamics and...chips."
Rose laughed. "Chips?"
"Yep."
"Then as far as I'm concerned, they're the best race in that galaxy. Not to play favorites..." Rose joked.
"You do love your fried potato slices, don't you? Sometimes I think that the human race revolves around it." The Doctor stood and walked to another screen in the room and began to type again.
Rose was about to object, but suddenly she felt a pang in her forehead, almost like the sudden jolt of a brain freeze from a cold treat, but worse. She groaned quietly and put her hand to her head. Feeling disoriented from the ache, she staggered to a chair to sit down, her face contorted slightly to try to calm the throbbing pain.
"What's wrong?" The Doctor turned to her only slightly, still transfixed by his work.
"Just a bit of a... headache. I think," Rose stuttered, her hand still at her head.
"Probably the cold, and the different oxygen levels. You'll be okay. Just tell me if it gets worse," the Doctor said.
Rose said nothing, because the headache had grown so intense that any movement sent a throb of more pain to her head. This was a problem because she was still very cold, and needed to reach a sheet of some sort she had spotted in the chair opposite her. Rose tried to slowly, carefully reach over to grab it, but she wasn't careful enough. The most intense pang throbbed in her brain, causing her to fall from her chair and cry out.
The Doctor heard her fall and he was quick to rush to her. "Are you okay? Is it still the headache?"
Rose, her hands and the rest of her body shaking, weak from the pain, pointed to her head slowly and tried to nod. Tears were now streaming out of her eyes, and she breathed shaky breaths.
The Doctor gently lifted her up to the chair again, sitting her in it as she clutched her head with her eyes shut. He took off his own jacket and put it on her, then saw the blanket and quickly wrapped it around her.
"How could you get a headache that fast?" The Doctor asked quietly, as if talking to himself. "I mean, the cold must have something to do with it, but what else?" He scanned her with his sonic screwdriver, then flicked it up to read it. "You were perfectly healthy before, and I can't see anything else going on now, at least not from the scan..."
He looked around the room. Questions were buzzing through his head: questions from how the creatures on this ship died to how Rose got so ill so quickly--
"Ah," the Doctor whispered. Then he panicked, something he usually didn't of when it came it an alien situation. But his Rose was in danger.
First, he had to make sure Rose was stable. Not healthy, obviously, but at a stable enough health that he could leave her for a minute to figure out what had happened to the Jardragoonians. The solution to that problem would lead him to the solution to Rose's problem.
He rushed to the computer to scan his recent findings. "So they always kept the ship at a constant warm temperature: 205.7 fuînts-- about 20 degrees Celsius for Rose." He muttered the facts to himself, for it often helped him solve things quicker to think aloud. "Usual oxygen percentage: about 21 percent, like Earth's. . ." He checked the last temperature average and the last oxygen percentage average per week in the ship's virtual log. "But before they died... It was about -10 degrees Celsius, with..." The Doctor gasped. "54% Harchronian?!" The Doctor knew that: "That would kill them all in less than twenty minutes! They wouldn't see it coming!" He looked over to Rose, who now pressed both of her hands to her head, and was shivering violently. He felt a familiar pang in his heart.
"They didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming," he said quietly.
I put her in danger, he thought. That was a pain in his heart that hurt him very often. He pushed the thought aside and tried to focus on first getting Rose safe again.
Cursing in Gallifreyan, the Doctor realized how long they had been on the ship: almost fifteen minutes. "The only solution is to get her to the TARDIS," he said, hurrying over to Rose. Her eyes were shut tight, probably to shut out the ship's bright light, the Doctor supposed. He felt so, so sorry for her.
"Rose, love," the Doctor soothingly and as calmly as possible said, "I'm going to get you to the TARDIS now." He tried to put his hands under his arms to lift her up, but she cried out in distress.
The Doctor took a deep breath. "Okay. That's not happening. Guess I'll have to carry you." He said quietly. He slowly and as gently as possible put his arms underneath her legs and one of her arms and lifted her up. She groaned softly but with less pain than before, so he proceeded out the door.
It was a good two minutes walk to where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS on this ship, possibly three if he had to walk slowly, and that was if he remembered how to get back right away. But Rose won't make it if she had to wait that long! the Doctor's mind screamed at him.
"Guess this is an emergency," the Doctor said to himself, then struggled to pull the sonic out of his pocket while still steadily holding Rose. He flicked it up while pressing a button, pointed it slightly in the direction of the TARDIS, and thought. "Point and think," that was all he had to do to get the TARDIS to come to him. He only used this special trick in emergencies, because it took so incredibly long to reprogram the sonic to be able to do it again, to summon the TARDIS. Plus, he considered it traveler's cheating in his book.
Within a minute, the TARDIS fully transported to his spot, right outside the original control room's door. Clumsily snapping his fingers-- it was hard to do it right because of Rose in his arms-- the doors of his loyal machine opened, and he was quick but careful to walk through them. He snapped his fingers again to close the door.
"TARDIS," the Doctor said softly, in order to not alarm Rose's already weak senses, "Lead me to the infirmary, quick as possible, please."
The TARDIS hummed in obedience and switched some rooms around, so that the infirmary would be the first room he got to, after the console room.
The Doctor walked in and gently set Rose down on one of the hospital-like beds. She squirmed and groaned at the change, and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. The Doctor went to dim the lights, just enough that she could be comfortable while he could still see.
"TARDIS, set temperature for 0 degrees Celsius, then work your way up-- slowly-- from there," the Doctor ordered. "Can't give her too quick of a change, or that would make her worse."
The Doctor's eyes scanned the room, and landed on an oxygen mask. "Aha." He bounded to it and brought it to Rose, gently setting it over her mouth and nose. After a minute, she began to relax her muscles, including her eyes, which now rested closed and peaceful in a light sleep.
The Doctor, breathing a sigh of relief, stroked his fingers along her cheek. Thinking he heard her sigh at the gesture, he smiled.
I saved her. Thank Gallifrey, I saved her! The Doctor thought.
He was suddenly reminded that there was still an entire ship full of dead Jardragoonians outside the TARDIS, and he needed to tend to the deceased. Knowing Rose was now okay, he returned to the control room.
"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry," the Doctor said aloud as he observed the dead species on the ship. He knew that all he could do was send a distress call out and hope that someone would find them soon, and respectfully return them to their home soil.
On the main computer unit, the Doctor left a small note:
"Died of Harchonian over-contamination in air, be careful. Please return to home planet of Jardragoon respectfully.
Rest in Peace,
A friend."
The Doctor regretfully walked back to the TARDIS. He shook his head as he back-stepped into his ship, looking back and whispered, "I'm sorry I couldn't help you." He looked down as he closed the TARDIS door behind him.
"Doctor?" He heard a faint voice say, and he looked up to see Rose rubbing her eye with the back of her hand.
"Rose," the Doctor flung his coat over the railing and walked to her. "You have to get back. You're not well. C'mon," he urged, but still speaking in a soft voice around her, in case the headache might return. He put lightly pushed her with his hand on her back toward the infirmary. Rose, who was too weak to protest anymore than a huff of breath, allowed him to guide her.
As the Doctor helped Rose back into the infirmary bed, she asked, "What happened?"
The Doctor sighed. He had been dreading the question, because his own inner thoughts had been taunting him about it's answer. He sat down in a chair next to her bed and tried to act like everything was fine. "Oh, the Jardragoonians? I figured out that they just had a heating malfunction and an air-contamination- the gas Harchronian. That's all. Nothing sinister at work there." The Doctor faked a smile.
"Well, that's good. I mean, good that it wasn't a giant planned genocide or something. But. . . What happened to me? I remember being really cold, and having this awful headache, but then I fell, right?" The Doctor nodded, and Rose persisted to speak, despite her current weakened state. "I think I blacked out, or ..."
"Yes, you fell. And then I brought you into the TARDIS. I had to save you," the Doctor's voice cracked, and Rose now realized that his eyes were watering. "I don't want to have to save you anymore, Rose. I want you to live, safe and happy."
Rose watched stunned as a single tear slid down the Doctor's cheek. "I-I...It's okay, I'm fine," she stuttered out, trying to sound reassuring.
"No, it's not." He looked down, his tone now frustrated rather than sad. "Someday, some terrible day, I'm not going to be able to save you, Rose!" The Doctor heaved a shaky sigh and put his face in his hands and balanced his elbows on his knees. "Everyone leaves me in some way," Rose just barely heard him mutter.
"Doctor..." Rose tried pushing herself up, and realized that she was regaining strength. Now she just needed to lend the Doctor some strength. "I'm not going to leave you."
"You wouldn't be able to help it," the Doctor sadly said as he looked up at her, shaking his head.
"Yes I would! I mean, come on Doctor. Would either of us let anything ever separate us?" Rose smiled kindly at him.
The Doctor smiled slightly for a moment, but again it dropped into a frown. "Rose... Do you feel safe with me?"
" 'course I do! I get to travel with the Oncoming Storm." She grinned.
"Really Rose. Do you honestly, truly feel safe with me?"
"Yes. Always." Rose nodded seriously.
The Doctor sighed. "You mustn't ever put yourself in danger for me. Never, under any circumstances. Got it?"
"Got it. Now, cheer up, mate!" Rose put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "We are going to be fine. Nothing's going to happen to us, not if you or I can help it."
The Doctor looked at Rose's hand out of the corner of his eye, then suddenly grabbed it, and...kissed it. Rose laughed loudly.
"Bless you, Rose Tyler. You'll always be the one to save me." He grinned, and Rose grinned back.
And they were always saving each other, and they were always fine.
~~~
Okay, so I'm not good at conclusions. Oh well. Hope you enjoyed the fluff/angst/fluff.
Thanks to @wander_over_xoxo for the request, I enjoyed writing this!