Summary: Rose gets drugged. The Doctor finds the one who did it and plans to causes them pain. But some things get in the way, like getting captured.
Setting: Set after Dalek.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I wish I did. But I don't.
Author's Notes: This is written as "they're just friends" but it can be read as Nine/Rose if you prefer (which I certainly do).
Also, the POV switches around a bit, and that might get confusing. So for Chapter One, it's Rose's POV, and for Chapters Two and Three, it's the Doctor's POV.
If you hate it, review. If you love it, review. If you really don't care about it at all, review. Just please review. :)
Sort of spoilers for Dalek.
Chapter 1: Her Worst Nightmares
Rose was having a wonderful time.
She was at an alien restaurant with the Doctor, and he was telling her stories of his travels, many of which were quite funny. She almost didn't mind that their food hadn't come yet. What was taking the waiter so long?
She reached for her drink – a fizzy blue liquid that the Doctor said tasted sort of like root beer – but the Doctor grabbed it from her.
"Hang on, Rose," he said, pulling out the sonic screwdriver. "There's something about this drink…"
"How can you tell?" Rose asked, grabbing it back. "It's just a drink! What could be wrong with it?"
She took a gulp. The Doctor's eyes widened.
"Rose, no! It's–" was the last thing she heard before she blacked out.
When she woke up, she was in a strange bed and her head was throbbing.
"Doctor?" she called. A strange man looked up from where he was sitting next to her bed.
"That's me," he said. "You were out for a while there. We weren't sure if you were going to make it."
No, Rose thought. This was wrong. This man was not the Doctor. She looked around and realized that she was in a hospital.
Well, okay, he wasn't her Doctor.
"There's a man," she said. "He's tall, he has short, dark hair. He has a leather jacket. Oh, and he has a Northern accent."
"Was he the one who blew up the building?" the strange doctor asked her.
"Wha… no!" she realized that this man might not know what had happened and simply asked, "Where is he?"
"What's his name?" the man asked. Rose had no idea what to say. What would the Doctor have said? It depended on where and when they were.
"He's called the Doctor, but sometimes he goes by John Smith. Where am I? And what day is it?"
"You're in Cardiff," the man said. "It's the 17th of November, 2005. You've been in a coma for over half a year, ever since that building exploded. You're lucky to be alive."
That was impossible, she wanted to tell him. She'd been traveling with the Doctor that whole time.
"What about John Smith?" she asked. "He's probably been asking to see me."
"No, sorry," the man said. "We have no record of anyone by that name wanting to see you."
"What about the Doctor? That's what he calls himself," she said desperately. He had to have come at some point…
"No, I'm sorry," the doctor told her.
Maybe it had been a clone of her in the coma. And now the clone was off traveling with the Doctor, while she was stuck here on Earth. It sounded crazy, but since she'd met the Doctor, she'd believe almost anything. And it would certainly explain why the Doctor hadn't come to see her…
Suddenly her mother burst into the room.
"Oh, Rose, you're all right!" she exclaimed. "I was so worried…"
"Mum, where's the Doctor?" Rose asked quickly.
"Well, he's right there, of course," her mother said, pointing to the doctor in the chair.
"No, Mum, not a doctor. The Doctor. Capital D," Rose said.
"What do you mean?" her mother asked.
"You know what I mean!" Rose said, exasperated. "The Doctor. Who I go traveling with? The alien. With the TARDIS, the police box. Remember?"
"Ah," the doctor said. "I think I understand. Rose, you may have hallucinated while you were in your coma. The things that happened may have seemed real, but it was just your imagination."
"What? No!" Rose yelled. "It was absolutely real! I saw the end of the world, I met aliens, I was almost killed by a Dalek, I traveled through time… you can't just imagine all that!"
"Actually, the chemicals in your brain–" the doctor started, but Rose cut him off.
"No, I – I don't want a technical explanation, I want the Doctor!" Rose said desperately. It had to have been real…
"I'm sorry, Rose. I'm the only doctor here," the doctor told her. "It was a dream. Just accept that."
"No!" Rose cried. "He's out there, somewhere. I know it! And I'm going to find him!"
She got up and tried to run out of the room, but the doctor grabbed her arm and injected her with something.
"Hey! Let me go!" Rose yelled, trying to pull away, but whatever he'd injected her with made it hard for her to move, and she thought maybe it would be best if she just went to sleep for a little while…
When she woke up, she was on a hard surface. She opened her eyes and saw that she was in the TARDIS. She would have been relieved, except… where was the Doctor?
She got up and looked around. He wasn't in the control room. Maybe he was outside…
She opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out. There he was, lying on the ground.
And there, in front of him, was a Dalek.
She looked at the Dalek, looked at the Doctor, arrived at a horribly logical conclusion, and screamed. The Dalek hadn't noticed her before, but when she screamed, it looked up and saw her.
"EXTERMINATE!" it yelled, and shot at her. Luckily, the TARDIS seemed to have a force field.
Rose stumbled back into the TARDIS, shut the door, and collapsed on the ground.
This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. He was the Doctor, he wasn't allowed to die. He was supposed to always be there, grinning his manic grin at her, taking her hand and leading her into the heart of danger, but always out again, and somehow managing to save the world at the same time.
He couldn't die.
Maybe… maybe he was just unconscious. Maybe the force field extended to him, and the Dalek was just hoping it would disappear or something, maybe he was still alive…
She knew it was a long shot, but it was all she had.
She got out of the TARDIS again and went over to him. She placed her hand on his chest, trying to feel his double heartbeat… but there was nothing.
She looked up at the Dalek and realized that it was about to shoot her.
She didn't care.
The Doctor was dead.
And then she saw it, the beam of light coming at her, and–
She opened her eyes.
How was she not dead? She'd seen the Dalek shooting her, she'd felt it… so why wasn't she dead?
She tried to sit up, but she was chained down. She turned her head to the left and saw that there was someone in the bed next to hers, also chained down. Her eyes… everything was so blurry, so at this distance she couldn't tell for sure. But the person looked a lot like the Doctor.
Her heart twisted when she remembered that he was…
"Well, Rose Tyler, you've done it now," the man who should be dead said to her.
"Doctor! You're alive!" she cried, amazed. "How…?"
"Well, if I am, it's no thanks to you," the Doctor told her. "You were completely useless back there."
"Sorry…" Rose whispered.
"Well, I'm getting out of here," the Doctor said, sitting up, and Rose realized he must have unlocked his bonds with the sonic screwdriver. She waited for him to get her out too, but he just started walking away.
"Doctor, what about me?" she asked. The Doctor turned to her.
"I don't want you anymore, Rose," he said, and she stared at him in shock. "You're a liability. You almost got me killed. Again. That's happened too many times for me to just ignore it. Goodbye, Rose Tyler."
Then he turned and walked out.
"Come back!" Rose yelled. "COME BACK! Don't leave me here! DOCTOR!"
But he was gone, and she heard a female voice say, "Excitement levels critical. Sedative administered."
"Wait, stop! No! You can't do that to me!" she yelled.
And then everything went black.
She woke up. She was no longer in the bed. She was lying on some hard, flat surface. She groaned when she remembered what had happened.
The Doctor had abandoned her.
Her heart broke at the realization. The Doctor, her Doctor, the only one she really trusted anymore… he'd left her.
She wanted to go back to sleep. At least then she could forget the pain for a while. Maybe if she tried to escape, they'd give her some more sedative.
She opened her eyes and looked around in amazement.
She was back in the TARDIS. The Doctor was standing over her, holding a syringe. He dropped it instantly when he saw her looking up at him.
"Oh, Rose, thank goodness you're all right!" he cried, dropping to his knees and taking her hand. He helped her sit up.
What was going on? Just a little while ago he'd told her he didn't want her anymore.
"Rose, what do you remember? I need you to tell me. What happened after you drank that stuff in the restaurant?" the Doctor asked her.
"I…" Rose said, confused. "I woke up. I was in a hospital. On Earth. Why?"
"Keep going, Rose. Tell me everything that happened from then until you woke up just now."
"I was in a hospital," Rose repeated. "They told me I'd been there since… since the shop exploded. Since I met you. And then no one remembered you except me, and the doctor – the hospital doctor – told me I'd imagined all of it. And I tried to get out, but they… knocked me out."
"Go on," the Doctor told her.
"Then when I woke up, I was in the TARDIS," she said. "But you weren't. So I went outside and you were lying on the ground. And there was a Dalek, and I thought… I thought you were dead. And then it shot me, but somehow I didn't die, because I woke up, and I was lying in a bed. Maybe a hospital bed… and I was chained down. And you were there, in the bed next to mine. And you got mad at me for not saving you from the Dalek. And I'm sorry, I really am," she told him. "I would have, I would have at least tried, even if it got me killed, if I'd just woken up a little sooner…"
The Doctor's face softened. "It's all right," he said.
"Then you got up, and you…" Rose stopped. He knew what he'd done. Why was she telling him?
"What did I do?" the Doctor asked her with a strange look on his face. She realized that he honestly didn't know what had happened. She wondered how he could have forgotten.
She couldn't tell him what he'd done. It was too painful…
"Nothing," she said quickly. "It doesn't matter."
The Doctor took her chin and tipped it so she had to look him in the eyes.
"Please, Rose," he said gently. "I need to know."
"You left," she said. "You left me there. You told me I was a liability, and you didn't want me anymore. And then you left."
"Oh, Rose," the Doctor whispered, hugging her tightly.
"And then they sedated me," Rose said into his jacket. "And when I woke up, I was here."
"Rose," he said, leaning her back, holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes. "Please believe me when I say that I would never, never leave you. None of that was real. It was a drug. Someone drugged you through that drink. It was meant to force you to live out your worst nightmares, over and over. I got it out of your system as quickly as I could… oh, Rose, I'm so sorry…"
Her worst nightmares. She blushed a bit when she realized that they had all been about losing the Doctor in some way.
The Doctor looked shaken. "Whoever did this is rich," he said. "Very rich. That kind of drug isn't cheap. And they know me, too. They know how to hurt me. This is bad."
"How to hurt you?" Rose asked. Had they drugged him, too?
"I could hear you," the Doctor said, pain in his eyes. "They fixed the drug so I could hear everything you said. When you screamed, it… and I couldn't help you, not until I found the antidote."
He'd been able to hear her? She thought back frantically. What had she said?
"I have a sample of the drug now, so I can trace it back to whoever sold it. And they'll tell me who bought it," the Doctor said.
"What if they won't tell you?" Rose asked.
"They will," the Doctor said quietly, and the look in his eyes would have terrified Rose if she hadn't known that he was on her side. "Trust me, Rose. They will."
