Nothing to Lose
Author Note: This fic is AU and pairs the Tenth Doctor with Donna and is about the Doctor deciding to find a way to survive the radiation poisoning to avoid regenerating, because when he said he didn't want to go, he meant it – he very much wants to live, and decides to find a way to cheat death...
Summary:
After his exposure to deadly radiation, the Doctor is faced with a choice: To say farewell to his former companions and to face the inevitable, or to fight to hold on to the life he is not ready to leave behind.
The Doctor makes the choice to fight the radiation poisoning, and also decides to enlist the help of Donna – and after finding her sleeping and kissing her to draw out some of the power she absorbed to lend him some much needed strength, Donna Noble wakes to remember everything – but the memories no longer burn like fire in her mind.
The Doctor explains everything – and it is then Donna learns of his radiation exposure, and of how he has decided to fight to the bitter end to try and hold on to the life he is not ready to leave.
He explains that injecting heavily concentrated micro doses of medication will hold off the inevitable, but he can't last long on the shots, and must look to one of his other selves for the hope of a cure - his only chance of living a longer life in his current regeneration being a transfusion of bone marrow.
It seems simple enough, to send out a distress signal to reach through space and time, in the knowledge that at least one of his other selves would be willing to help – but it soon becomes apparent that other versions of the Doctor all agree on the same thing:
No one wants to tamper with the timeline...
As his condition weakens and the medication becomes harder to tolerate, the Doctor reaches out again to the only Doctor willing to listen, his future Twelfth incarnation, but despite his pleading, Twelve then tells him he would not want to run the risk of endangering his own future existence.
With all hope exhausted, the Doctor and Donna travel to a far away, peaceful planet where the Doctor, exhausted and ready to give up, waits for the end. But Donna has not given up on sending out the distress signal - and when it is answered again, help will come in the most unexpected way...
Rated T
Warnings: Heavy emotional rollercoaster, deals with the subject of life threatening illness and mortality, also adult themes and discussions.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and write for love of the fandom.
Chapter 1
The Doctor was alone in his Tardis.
He ached to his bones,and this was just the start of the pain caused by the radiation poisoning - he knew by the way his cuts and bruises had already healed, that it wouldn't belong until he regenerated.
Anger burned in his dark eyes as he fought back tears that were nothing to do with pain:
He didn't want to go.
He wasn't ready.
He still had so much to do...
Pain flickered through his body and he knew he was already starting to burn up a fever. Regeneration was his only escape from a painful death, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
For a split second he pictured himself revisiting old friends, seeing them one last time, perhaps even travelling back to 2005 to tell Rose she was going to have a great year...
And then what?
He wasn't ready for death.
He had been fighting it ever since the prophecy...
Suddenly, he knew what to do.
He wasn't ready to die – he was going to fight this...
The Doctor was sweating heavily as he took off his coat and tossed it aside, then he left the console room and made for the med bay, all the while thinking about what he kept in there in the event of acute radiation exposure.
He took off his jacket and tie and left them where they fell, reaching up to his throat to tug open the buttons on his shirt. Then he stripped it off and drew in a heavy breath as a trickle of sweat ran down his chest. His head ached, his body was burning with fever and the pain that sunk to his bones would get frighteningly worse without medication.
He had no time to lose.
The Doctor sat down in a reclining chair as a monitor flickered above him.
"Scan whole body and then administer blood transfusion," he ordered, "Own blood stock only – then rescan, and diagnose."
Then as the metal side of the chair slid down and a needle attached to a tube slid out, the Doctor gave a cry of pain as flickers of deep pain shot through his bones. By the time he had drawn in a second slow breath to try and breathe though the discomfort, the needle was in a vein and he looked down and watched as his own, stored blood that he kept for emergency purposes ran into his arm.
The Doctor continued to breathe slowly as he sat in the reclined chair and his shirtless upper body glistened with sweat. This would help, but not for long - he didn't have enough blood to constantly transfuse. He thought about his options:
He had acute radiation syndrome on a massive scale. He had taken far more of a lethal dose than most species could withstand. He was still alive – for now – because he was a Time Lord. Suddenly the Doctor felt as if he was playing a dangerous balancing game with his future lives,because if there was no cure and he refused to regenerate, he would die. Regeneration was his species way of cheating death, his way to repair and renew a damaged body cell by cell. But he didn't want that, not unless he had to. He was too determined not to go to take that route...
The needle felt cold and sharp and it stung as the blood continued to flow into his body. This was by no means a long term cure – this was a quick fix to give him time to think, to make his plans.
Time was short now and every second mattered.
The Doctor looked around the med bay, recalling what he stored there in case of emergencies:
Yes, he had medication capable of treating the radiation. High concentrated micro doses of drugs, implants that could be loaded into a device that looked like a small pistol and shot under the surface of his skin. The side effects would be terrible. The pain would be terrible. It would all be terrible, and he couldn't do this alone. He needed to delay the onset of the final stage of the poisoning to grab enough time to send out a signal, Tardis to Tardis.
He needed bone marrow.
Only the Doctor could save the Doctor now...
As the last of the transfusion completed and the needle slid out of his flesh, he closed his eyes as the scanner ran its light over his body again. Pain flickered in his bones and he felt mildly sick. His head was still aching and he thought of pain relief and decided to wait to see the read out at the end of the scan. There would be a long list of medication available, and pain relief would be on that list.
At that moment as he sat up and the pain deepened and he trembled as he gripped the arm rest of the chair, pain relief was all he could think about. Then the monitor lit up as a long list of details came up:
He blinked as the wording blurred and then managed to focus.
It was a long, long list of strong drugs and a long list of side effects, too.
He touched the screen to agree to everything, because he still wanted to live even though the pain was frightening, then he saw pain relief on that list along with details of the micro concentrated doses of medication and the diagnosis that without bone marrow, his time would soon be up.
Without a donor, he would have three months.
The Doctor got up weakly from the chair, paused to watch the unit open up on the side of the chair, and then he took out the gun. It was pre-loaded with enough doses of medication to keep him alive for three months, but he wasn't going to take the first shot yet, not until he had showered and changed his clothes and then he would go and find the one person who could get him through this.
He had once made her forget everything, but that had been then.
Everything had changed now.
He was weakened, he could pull some of that power out of her and it would also help to hold him up, at least to function fully for as long as the medication kept him going until a donor could be found.
His mind was made up now:
He needed her, he needed Donna Noble...
Donna was sleeping on the sofa. She was wearing dark trousers and a loose fitting white top, she hadn't even kicked her shoes off, she had just laid back on that sofa and closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. The TV was on with the volume turned down, and its light flickered into the otherwise darkened room. Outside the moon was full and bathed the garden in a silvery light.
If she had seen a man open the door and creep into the front room where she lay sleeping, she wouldn't have recognised him,wouldn't have known anything but the fact that there was an intruder in the house.
He realised for a split second, she would get the fright of her life...
The Doctor stood over her, looking down at her as he wondered if he was being selfish. An engagement ring sparkled on her finger and he felt a slight sting of resentment as he guessed if she had not forgotten him,she wouldn't be planning to marry a human. She had been the one person who he could have seen a future with...It could have happened...
Maybe it wasn't too late.
Or perhaps it was too late for everything.
The Doctor wondered if the radiation was affecting his judgement and he hoped he was wrong about that, even though it was already in his bones and every major organ including his brain.
He glanced about the darkened room. It was gone nine thirty pm and the car was missing, so was her mother and Wilf.
Donna was alone.
Like it was meant to be.
Or maybe he was just desperate to believe that...
Donna gave a sigh and turned her head and for a moment he looked at her, watching her sleeping, feeling so much regret for the fact that he had been forced to make her forget everything. But thanks to the damage his body had sustained he could pull out some of that power now. It wouldn't cure him, but it would certainly be a tonic and right now his body was like a sponge, desperate to absorb anything remotely resembling regenerative power.
And most importantly, it would lift out much of what had been burned into her mind – not all, but most. She would certainly be more Donna than Doctor Donna, and best of all, thanks to his condition, it would not harm either of them...
As he knelt down beside her, he caught the sparkle of the ring on her finger as it reflected moonlight, he thought about how her life had moved on since he had left her. Then he guessed that maybe he shouldn't be worrying about the consequences any more, because he would most likely die before a donor could be found and then Donna would go back to this life she had made for herself.
Anything seemed possible.
Or perhaps nothing really was.
He didn't know any more.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, considering the shock she was about to get,and then he reached forward, placing his fingertips on her temples.
"Donna, wake up."
And Donna Noble gave a gasp, waking in the dim light to see a man leaning over her, his dark hair was damp and his face gleamed with perspiration and shadows darkened beneath his eyes. His fingertips were on her temples and heat was drawing out of her mind, through her eyes, through her mouth, and it burned like fire.
It burned like time itself.
He slipped a hand behind her head and pulled her towards him, his mouth locking with hers.
It wasn't a kiss.
The fire was being tugged out of her, until just a tiny ember remained, an eternal flame that would never darken somewhere deep in her mind.
And he let go of her and she sat up, hit with a stream of memories and emotions that made her eyes glaze with tears.
She stared at him.
He stayed at her side, looking back at her.
Donna kept her gaze fixed on him, recalling so much and then more as she remembered their reason for parting.
"Doctor?" she said in a hushed voice, and she reached out, wondering if this was a dream, until her hand connected with the shoulder of his coat, and she found him to be solid.
"It's really you?"
"Yes," he whispered,and then as she embraced him, he clung to her, thankful to hold her, as he wished he had held her long before, and told her everything before it had been too late...
Donna still felt bewildered as he let go of her, and then he leant heavily on the coffee table and then the arm of the sofa to get to his feet, before sitting down heavily beside her.
"But you made me forget -"
"I know."
"And you just -"
"I know," he said again.
She reached for the lamp and snapped on the light, and then her eyes widened as she stared at him.
"You look awful! You look really ill, what's wrong with you?"
The lamplight had done nothing to disguise the pallor to his face or the dark shadows under his eyes. He was visibly perspiring as if running a fever and his usually fantastic hair was soaked through and darkened with sweat.
"Something happened," he said to her,"I need to explain. And then I need you to come with me to the Tardis, I'm in trouble and I can't get through this without you."
And then he told her everything.
The battle with the Master.
The radiation chamber, and how he had saved her grandfather.
Donna had listened in shocked silence, and when the Doctor had finished speaking, her first thought was for her Gramps.
"He hasn't said a word! He never told me -"
"You had to forget, I wanted to protect you from reminders."
"And what about now?This isn't exactly protecting me!"
"It doesn't matter now. I'm shot through with more radiation than my body can handle. I'm desperate to absorb power – your kind was just right to set me straight...for a bit, anyway... it's a short term fix..."
He paused.
"I have enough meds to keep me going, to fight off the worst of the effects of the radiation but its not nearly enough. I don't want to regenerate, I'm not ready, I don't want to give in to this and become a new person, not yet!"
Desperation shone in his dark eyes.
"And I need your help, I can't get through this alone. I'm dying, Donna, I'm dying and I'm trying to save myself!"
Donna stared at him, hearing him say those words had made her feel as if the floor had just given way.
"Dying? Oh my god, no..."
She drew in a sharp breath as her eyes glazed with tears that she fought hard to keep back. The Doctor was in a terrible situation and she wasn't about to make it worse by becoming useless and weepy on him.
"But you said you can save yourself?"
Since he had absorbed some of her energy, the sweating had lessened and he seemed a little stronger now.
"I've got three months of highly concentrated micro doses of medication – patches that go under the skin to fight off the damage, or at least hold it back from worsening. Very advanced and very effective chemotherapy."
Now she felt like her heart, which had been aching for him, had just broken in half.
"Chemo?"
"It's not going to be easy and it won't be pretty and I can't do this alone. I have three months to track down one other version of myself and persuade him to be my donor. I need bone marrow. That will give me maybe another fifty years or more before the remission ends, and when that time comes, I have to regenerate– I can accept that, and I'm willing at the end of that time to return to the time and place I should be to regenerate. I just need those extra years, I can't go yet."
"Fifty years would be better than nothing," Donna said to him, and she reached out and closed her hand over his, "Might not be long to you, but it could be a life time to -"
"To who?"he asked.
Her gaze was locked with his. She had held back that last word, but now she wanted to set it free.
"Us," she she replied in a hushed voice, "You and me. I never wanted to leave, I was supposed to stay with you forever. "
The Doctor managed a smile despite his pain.
"Maybe you will," he said to her, "Fifty years is a long time when you make the most of every single day."
"What are you saying, Doctor?"
As he held on to her hand, his fingertip brushed her engagement ring.
"Maybe nothing. It's your choice."
Donna fell silent, looking down at the ring on her finger and then holding the Doctor's hand a little tighter, a gesture that gave him more hope than he dared voice aloud.
"Where's the family tonight?" he asked.
"Out to dinner, mum's birthday – my treat, but I was working late so I couldn't go with them."
"Instead you fell asleep on the sofa and woke up to find me here...me and this terrible situation. I'm so sorry but I had no one else to turn to."
He met her gaze again.
"You don't have to do this. It's up to you."
Donna let go of his hand and got up from the sofa.
"I think you know I've already decided," she replied, and then she grabbed a notepad and pen from the table and hastily wrote a note:
'Gramps, the Doctor is in trouble. I may be gone a long time. He needs my help, he's not well. And don't worry about my memories waking up again, he fixed it for me. I'm okay. I'll call you. Give mum an excuse for me, love Donna .'
The Doctor got up, and was relieved that movement was a little easier now. He went out to the hallway and watched as Donna ran upstairs with the note, then she came back downstairs, grabbed her jacket and her bag and headed for the front door.
"I left the note under his pillow. He'll cover for me," she said, then she opened the front door and they left the house together and walked back towards the place where the Tardis was waiting.
As they reached the blue box and the Doctor opened the door, the glow from within only seemed to emphasise the shadows under his eyes and the lines on his face that were usually light when he smiled, that were now etched deeper by pain.
"Are you sure?" he asked her, "Because this is going to be very hard and I may not survive it. You don't have to do this."
"Oh yes I do," Donna said in that tone of voice that told him she was taking no nonsense from him at all, "I'm with you, no second thoughts – there never was a choice. I'm here."
"Thank you," he said quietly, and then he opened up the door and they went inside, then the door closed, and moments later the Tardis vanished from sight, taking the Doctor and Donna far from Earth and up into the starlit velvet night of space.
As the ship drifted peacefully, the Doctor leant on the console as he tried to hide the pain that ran through his body, and on seeing such understanding in her eyes as she stepped closer and told him quietly they would sort this out together, he felt sure Donna would never know how grateful he was that thanks to her, he didn't have to face this nightmare alone...
