(Takes place shortly after the Big Finish Audio episode "The Fearmonger". For anyone who hasn't listened to it, there's a monster who manipulates people's already existing fears in order to prey on that emotion, Ace is a little afraid of the Doctor, and she gets shot at one point. That's really all you need to know for this to make sense.)
Humans are so very, very fragile. It's a lesson it seems he needs to learn anew every few decades or so, and the reminder is always unpleasantly harsh.
Ace lets him peel away her jacket and gently push her sticky, red-stained sleeve aside until he can see the wound underneath. "Pulled at the stitches," he tells her. "Perhaps all that running around wasn't the best idea."
She manages a grin, though it turns quickly into a grimace and low, sharp hiss of breath as the Doctor's fingers prod carefully along her shoulder. "Yeah, well. Didn't really have much of a choice, did I?"
"No," he says quietly. "I suppose you didn't."
Ace says nothing to that at first, and the silence – usually so comfortable here in the TARDIS – stretches on awkwardly as the Doctor continues his exam. She clears her throat. "I don't have to go back to that hospital, do I?" she asks. "They were about ready to release me, anyway. I should be fine healing up here, long as we don't get caught up in any more riots, right?"
"No, I don't think returning there would be necessary. Or particularly wise, considering how we left. Rest should be all you need, once we get this cleaned up again." He steps back, allows himself a brief smile. "Doctor's orders."
The sight of her rolling her eyes at him is the best thing he's seen in weeks.
It isn't as though he doesn't warn his travelling companions that the journey might be dangerous. Nearly always, he does. Perhaps he hadn't used the exact words with Ace, but she'd already been swept through time and space once by the time they met. She knew what could happen better than most.
Maybe he's the one who really needs those words said aloud.
The Doctor leaves her mostly to herself while she recovers, bringing to her bedside food and tea and books from his library to occupy her time. She's developed an interest in the sciences of worlds beyond her own, something he's quite happy to encourage, even if the results are more than occasionally explosive. He sometimes considers digging out his old Academy textbooks and taking some time to fiddle with the translation circuits or else see if he can manage a workable interpretation of the Gallifreyan for her. Ace always picks things up so quickly, and he's curious to see how she might handle such advanced material.
For now, though, he keeps mostly to the console room, letting the TARDIS drift where she will and only idly watching where she goes, trusting her to keep them safe and steady during the recovery.
"Are you avoiding me, Professor?"
Ace's voice is light-hearted, almost teasing, when she says this, but the Doctor can see a clear, crinkling line of worry to her brow when he turns at the door to face her. She looks small sitting there in the wide, white bed with her back up against the headboard, small and vulnerable in a way he hasn't seen her for some time.
"No, no," he says, waving a hand in dismissal. "I just thought you might like some time to yourself after… well, after everything."
"I don't want that. I want– " She cuts herself off abruptly, biting at her lip. She looks down at her lap, where her hands are tangled in the sheets, and shakes her head. With a deep breath, she lifts her chin and meets his eye again. "I meant it when I said I'm not really that afraid of you. You know that, right?"
"Yes, I know," the Doctor says calmly, "but I also realize that means there is some fear, and I didn't want to push you."
She makes a frustrated noise. "'Course there is, but I wouldn't have got back in the TARDIS with you if it was that bad." She frowns and looks away again, drumming her fingers on her knee as she gathers her thoughts. "It's not you I'm afraid of. Not really. It's not even the things we do or what could happen to us."
The Doctor steps closer, tilting his head. "What is it, then?"
She shrugs, still keeping her eyes averted. "Merlin, yeah?" she begins. "There's a million stories about him, some from different dimensions, even. And if that's you…" She looks up, catching his gaze and holding it. "I never heard one story about Merlin and the stupid tagalong kid following after him."
He stops himself from suggesting she should brush up on her Arthurian mythology before making such a claim, from explaining that Merlin has his share of companions and apprentices, some even as young and stubborn and beautifully clever as her. He does not tell her – Ace, emerging from the water soaked to the bone, coughing and gasping for breath, the mythic sword clutched in her trembling fingers – that the Lady of the Lake has nearly as many names as Merlin. And nearly as many ways to break his hearts and leave him behind.
Instead, he tells her, "Fortunately, there isn't a single word of that phrase that anyone with sense would use to describe you."
It wins a smile from her, small and fleeting but undeniable, and a short huff of laughter. "You know that's not the point."
He steps closer again and places hands on the bed, the tips of fingers coming to rest just beside the bend of her knee beneath the sheets. He can feel her body heat radiating out, so much warmer than his own. "What is it you want, Ace?"
Her hands settle on top of his, fingers curling around his palms. "Just stay, all right? I don't need space or time to myself, I just want you here." Her grip tightens and her voice quiets. "Don't leave me behind just yet."
The Doctor lets out a soft sigh and leans forward, letting his head drop until his forehead is resting against hers. "I've no intention of doing that," he promises.
She presses in a little closer, hesitates, then tilts her chin away and kisses him briefly on the cheek. "Good," she says, pulling back. "You'd have a hell of a time trying to get rid of me, anyway."
He's been selfish with Ace, keeping her by his side for so long. He's deeply fond of every one of his traveling companions, but there are some he finds harder to let go of than others, even when he knows it's well past time.
The long way home, he'd called it when he first opened his doors to her. The scenic route.
But it's been years, now, by any measure of time he cares to use. Ace's old school friend thought she'd aged well, but it wasn't unbelievable to him that she could be in her 30s just as he was. The Doctor can hardly drop her back off right when and where she first vanished, not anymore.
He looks down at Ace, sleeping peacefully with her cheek resting against his shoulder.
He supposes the only thing to do is keep on being selfish.