MIDNIGHT CONSEQUENCES
edited as of march 29th, 2020
She doesn't know how long it took to reappear inside of the TARDIS. However, Charlotte assumes in the time between now and when she jumped from the emergency exit that she subconsciously blocked off the memories from outside the shuttle and quickly fell unconscious... Only to wake up in a room made of light shades- the walls white and the baby blue bedsheets over her body.
Blinking her eyes open, she thought perhaps the whole Midnight fiasco was a nightmare. One, that when thinking about it, made her much more awake than moments prior. However, once distinguishing herself in the TARDIS medical bay, she figured it very much wasn't one. Something felt wrong, though- something, that in her delirious state, she couldn't pinpoint.
Then, it hit her like a truck. The normal weight of her bed head was nowhere. Placing a hand on top of her head, she discovered not even a strand of hair. Not on her eyebrows, not on the top of her had, and not even one eyelash.
Alarmed, she sat up straight on the stiff hospital bed. Pulling her arms in front of her, her mouth quickly fell to the floor... both of her arms were covered in tiny, pink scars on her much tanner skin. To anyone else they were unnoticeable, but to her they stood out like a sore thumb.
Jumping up from the bed, she hissed in pain after putting too much weight too quickly on her legs. Cringing with every step, she went to the medical bay door in the hospital gown- to focused on her pain to take in the lack of IVs or medical equipment attached to her. Surely, if someone was hurt as much as she, they would've had to have something?
Opening the door, she was met with an empty TARDIS corridor. Seeing the metallic-grey walls, she immediately knew she was either in the Twelfth's or late Eleventh's era. Looking back and forth, she yet again saw no one. Disappointed, Charlotte sighed as she began her trek through the hall for anyone.
Luckily, the TARDIS could see from how she walked slowly and how an arm was stretched to the walls, furious with how she struggled with every step on her search for anyone, that the woman was in need of help. Hell, right now Charlotte wouldn't mind Amy and Rory trapped during The Doctor's Wife.
And seeing this, the TARDIS moved the console room much closer than it previously was.
Glancing up from her feet, Charlotte's frustrated face turned hopeful at the sound of laughter. She turns a corner and spots herself at the bottom of a set of stairs inside the console room. Spying over the railing, the ex-brunette sees the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald with their backs pressed to the TARDIS door- laughing as they pant from their run. Her eyes widen when she hears ruckus coming from outside.
"Charlotte!" Seeing her as well, the Doctor's eyes widen, not expecting her to wake up this early. Ignoring the indistinguishable sounds outside, he ran to her aid. Cupping her face in his hands, he moved it around, looking for any new worrying things. Meanwhile, Charlotte looks at him confusedly as their closeness.
"Anything hurt at all? Sore?" Seeing no answer, but also giving her no time to respond, he pushed on. "Anything at all?"
Trying to speak for the first time, she found her throat completely dry. She began to cough from her attempt to speak and he let go of her face but looked at her worriedly. "You..."
"I what? If there is anything I can do, tell me Char."
"... Sound like Jackie."
He pointed a finger at her smug face. "Shut up. Clara! Help me out!"
"What about the cavemen?!" She hollered to him as they continued to bang on the doors.
"Aren't getting in anytime soon," he replied. And so, with help from Clara, they together escorted an unhappy Charlotte to the medical bay. The TARDIS, not pleased with the Doctor allowing the cavemen to ruin her new paint job, decided to put the medical just a tad bit further away.
---
It was later into the day, when the TARDIS finally left the prehistoric age, and when Clara was off her own in their ship, that the Doctor was finally putting the stethoscope back into his waistcoat. "Other than your slight dehydration and pain in your left leg, everything is fine."
Charlotte set down the water bottle and looked up to the Doctor dumbly. "What about my hair? What happened to it?"
He sits on the edge of the bed beside her. "Well, when you left the shuttle, you were exposed to the high amounts of the X-tonic radiation," he pauses, thinking about what to say next. "Because of it, your hair was turned to dust and... If you were there any longer, even by a millisecond, you would've as well." She looks at the ground, unsure of what to think with that information.
"Around twelve hours ago, you appeared in the console room screaming," he adds on. Still speechless, she looked at his eyes and saw some sort of weakness she hasn't seen yet but looked so familiar. A type that shows more than it tells; one where she could see the worry for her even if it wasn't intended to be shown.
Instinctively, she responded with, "I'm sorry."
He quickly shakes his head. "No, it's not your fault. You believed you were doing the right thing and didn't know the consequences."
"But I did," she tells him, recalling how she knew Sky would be turned to dust. "I didn't even think about dying." Her eyes wrinkled when she was caught by a surprising thought. "How did I survive?" She asked the Doctor, who remained seemingly thoughtless as he looked around the medical bay.
Once he was about to say something, they were both caught off guard by Clara's voice saying, "Knock, knock," as she knocked on the open door. They looked up at her as she looked around the room in exasperation. "The TARDIS is doing it again." But just as the Doctor was about to stand up to help her, she looked to the right of the door and sighed when she finally found the bathroom. "There it is!" She exclaims, rushing over to it.
However, only a second later, Clara ran past the medical bay from the left.
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Next up: Hide (The Corridors of Caliburn)
A/N: quarantine as really brought out my creativity ngl. sponsored by my mom's work computer i'm using for school.
GIF FROM claire-helps ON TUMBLR