Title: The Doctor That Came In From The Cold (1/2)
Author: Snow'sLuckyCat (aka Sharma aka jsl aka me)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Categories: Hurt/Comfort / Humor / Angst
Rating: PG-ish (for action, whump, and weather problems)
Character: The Tenth Doctor
P.O.V.: First person, multiple. Told from within various characters'
heads, and whom I usually switch between, at each line break of
"XXXXXX" that appears within the story...
Spoilers: Up through 4x16 aka "The Waters of Mars" (though a bit vague).
Summary: What happens when The Doctor gets stranded at the North Pole?
A/N: This two-shot was inspired by the Doctor Who Christmas 2009 Ident from
BBC1 that had reindeer, a snow-buried TARDIS, and an only slightly miffed, but
very creative, Tenth Doctor all within its slight-but-fun, 30-second time frame... :D
Disclaimer: Nothing of Doctor Who (not the Tenth - nor any other - Doctor, nor
David Tennant, nor Russell T. Davies, nor Julie Gardner, nor any past, current,
or future logos) belongs to me. I simply am playing in the sandbox that BBC &
RTD made. But, I swear not to throw sand & to always play nice. :) Oh & I don't
make any money off this, as I only write for fun, NOT profit. :)
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hey, Ol' Girl. Steady on!" Again though, the TARDIS violently shook around me,
like it hadn't heard my lament. The next fierce shimmy easily slammed me back
against one of the console couches.
What was going on?Frantic thoughts of a sickly, or, worse yet, dying TARDIS danced through my
head like wildfire. My ship had been perfectly fine mere moments ago. I ran
a quick hand through my unruly brown hair, steadying myself with the other,
trying desperately to figure out what had gone awry. But, I couldn't think of
anything, so I carefully climbed back up, grabbed at the trusty mallet that is
always kept hanging within my reach, and banged it down four or five times
upon the console hard enough to give my right hand the shakes temporarily.
Usually, that tactic worked and the TARDIS would right herself after that.
This time, she just tipped and tottered again, even more precariously.
"Now, we'll have none of that..." I warned, glaring at the centre blue column
that still steadily pumped up and down.
The responding sudden movement was more than hard and erratic enough
to send me toppling up and over the seat behind me and crashing to the floor.
The back of my head hit first and hit hard enough for me to see stars and then
nothing for at least a minute or two.
Then though, after a final, gentle bump - a landing bump, I belatedly surmised -
all was quiet again. Except for a low moan of sorrow inside my head and the
industrial-sized power drill currently painfully burrowing into also said head.
And even though the former sounded apologetic and was very soft, sensing
both together was enough to finish rousing me back to complete wakefulness,
possible concussion be damned...
"Where have you landed us this time? I thought we were going to stay in the
Vortex a little longer. And are you okay now? Or do you need a bit of a lie-down
still?" I spit out.
I then stagger upwards, as dizzying of a process as that is, and shuffle back to
stand next to the console, forgotten, dropped mallet remaining, forlorn, upon the
ground. Instead of more banging, I try a different, calming approach: a loving pat to
the console's coral surface, sending my own thoughts of apology into the swirling
heart of the TARDIS residing just beneath the control panels. She purred back at me,
seemingly content once more, though apprehensively hoping for more time to settle
as well, I'd imagine.
"...Well, I suppose I'm off to investigate then." I reply to her wish for spare time.
"That way, you can rest up for a bit, and get your head right. Let's just hope we're
not on a different planet this time. I've had enough of those for a while, thank you
very much."
A dissenting wail sounded. "Oh, pish-posh. A bump on the head is no big piffle. I've
had worse, as you well know. And I'll be back before you know it," I blithely protest,
already donning my trench coat over the brown pinstripe suit I already wore.
The TARDIS was not convinced and wailed again.
But, I'd already started towards the doors, mind made up. And soon, the doors
were open and I was through them and gone from the sight of her interior workings.
Distantly, in the back of my mind, I heard her sigh and knew she was setting herself
in for what she and I both hoped was a short, non-eventful wait for me to safely
return from my solo walk, once she was up and ready to jaunt off again...
XXXXX
The trees are thick, the snow is very deep and fluffy, and I'm beginning to think
there is a very good chance that I am, in fact, on another planet. After all, my
current surroundings don't look too much at all like the Earth of the modern
era's year-round global warming condition.
I tug the collar of my coat up a bit further, as a chill cuts through me, making
me shiver, all the time wondering if maybe this exploration hadn't been such
a brilliant idea after all. It wasn't snowing yet, and it had yet to do anything
since I'd first stepped from the TARDIS and into the sparse tree cover around
its square-shaped, makeshift landing pad.
But, it is quickly getting darker and not because of coming dusk either.
Heavyset clouds loom overhead now.
I look up and get hit squarely in the eye with the first of what would very
probably be many new snowflakes to fall from the sky.
So much for a good, ol' fashioned jaunt.
Sighing, I head back the way I'd come, intent only upon hopefully avoiding
a chiding I-told-you-so chuckle from my TARDIS once I gained re-entry to
her infinitely warmer-than-outside inner recesses...
XXXXX
"Basher!" I call out into the snowy darkness from the safety of my comparatively
comfortable doorway. "Lancer! Rancer! Nixen! Gromit! Lucid! Bonner! Blipzen!
It's time! Where are you? You're not still grazing, are you? We have much to do
and little time to do it in! Come, boys!"
However, no answering or distant mewls of assent flitted back to my ears. They'd
been gone for hours though and it was getting dark. A blizzard was coming. And
it was only two days before Christmas Eve, and there was still, as I'd just shouted
into the empty wind, much to be done for the children of Earth and their families,
before the time came for their storied annual journey.
I hoped they weren't lost. They'd never gotten lost before. Now, waylaid by a
distraction? That could have happened. But, for hours? Something may very well
have gone wrong to affect this reality, although I dearly hope it's not true and that
none of them are hurt...wherever they'd wound up getting off too.
I turn to my wife, who's drinking hot cocoa with cinnamon and expectantly looking
up at me from behind her half-moon spectacles.
"I'll be back in a while, Martha."
"Have those deer of yours wandered off again, m'dear?" Very astute, she is.
"Looks about the size of it. I'll be back soon. They can't have gone too far."
"Hurry home soon then, dear. I don't want you getting lost too. I'll tell Harry and
George what has happened. They'll do what they can while you're gone. As will I.
Good fortunes to you, my dear, my heart, my love, my life..."
A mutual grin and a mutual wink and I'm off into the wonderland surrounding my
cavernous home, with my trusty lantern to guide me and the trusty snowshoes
upon my feet to stabilize my long, loping gait.
XXXXX
Where is she? The TARDIS should have been right over this rise.
The whipping wind has long since left me chilled from my hair down to my
toes. No, it's left me more than chilled. I'm frozen stiff. I can no longer
accurately feel my fingers or toes. And that's even though I'm pretty sure
that my toes are still stuck in socks and shoes and my hands are still
stuck deep into the pockets of my trench coat. At least, I think they are.
Would I ever find her? Had aliens moved her to their hidden tower of worship?
Had they destroyed her, thinking her to be an enemy's vessel? Or was she still
lying undiscovered somewhere in this barren wasteland of snow, snow, and
more snow, quietly bemoaning my lack of promised quick return?
I can't tell how much time had passed.
The snow that's still steadily pelting me has obscured my vision of everything
beyond more than a couple of inches in any direction that I face.
That's how I miss the end of the rise I'm on and the beginning of a steep
drop-off on the other side of it. I stumble and try to catch myself, but my
sluggish movements are ineffectual and down I go, landing in a nearly
senseless heap at the icy bottom.
And the snow still doesn't let up.
Head spinning for the second time that day, I try to figure out which way is up and
move in that direction, only to have gravity and a dull ache pull me back down. I
wonder if I could summon the TARDISto where I am? It would save me the trouble
of having to walk any more on tired legs. I'd only need to crawl a few feet. I could
do that. I'm sure I could. I'm a Time Lord. The last of my kind. Surely, I'm not going
out like this. Surely not with just a whimper.
Fishing out the sonic from the inside pocket of my suit jacket takes more time than
usual, concentration dimming to only focus on my fingers gaining purchase on the
cylindrical device. My hand closes around something - I think - and withdraws
automatically. It's the grey shape of the sonic. And I stare at it cock-eyed for a
second, trying to figure out what to bloody do with it...
The TARDIS. I need this thing to summon her to me. Somehow...It's quite apparent now I can't make it to her.
I can hardly think straight.
Numbly, I halfway sit up and at last depress the correct button. The screwdriver
extends to its full length, making a choked whirring noise as it does so. But, she
doesn't come. She forsakes me. And, after another long moment, I drop my hand
and give up. I secretly wonder if this is my punishment for declaring myself "Time
Lord Victorious" and screwing around with a fixed point in time by trying to save
Adelaide and the others who were with her: to die wherever here is, so far away
from the TARDIS - so far away from my home - and all alone.
Am I even going to have time to regenerate? Am I even going to have enough
strength left to do so, if I do have the time?
Then, I see a familiar black-bodied lantern crest the top of the next hill, the one
facing me, and hear a distant whooshing sound.
Belated success is at hand...
And then?
I see nothing.
XXXXX
"What have we here?" I muse aloud, light held aloft, lighting my way down a
gentle slope to better investigate what I'd just seen.
A great big brown something had just given out and collapsed into the snow. I
hoped it wasn't one of my lost reindeer. As I approached it cautiously, the form
begun looking less and less like it was an animal of any kind. The brown was
not fur; it now appeared to be a trench coat, and not a very thick one at that.
A bright light suddenly flared and sparkled for an instant, tightly cocooning itself
around the figure, but also temporarily blinding me.
After a moment my sight returned, and I turned back just in time to see the
undulating, golden wave highlight the face of a young man in his 30's. A
man with unruly dark brown hair, long sideburns, a narrow, pointed nose...
and a large, eggplant-colored bruise currently covering part of his forehead.
Then, as I leaned over and touched the strange man for the very first time -
he was solid, but skinny - the otherworldly light fully dissipated. And I was
again left with just my comparatively dim lantern to show the way back home.
Questions swirl in my mind like a Kansas cyclone.
How did a man so clearly not dressed for the weather, what time of year it was,
or even where he was on Earth, have gotten this far on seemingly just his own
two feet. Had something or someone else attacked him? Or had he just fallen
of his own accord and bumped his head? The snow WAS pretty deep and
treacherous in this part of the woods, if you didn't know where you were going...
And, speaking of that, where had this man been going?
Hunkering down next to him, I feel for a pulse at his wrist and then his neck. There is
a steady one, to my great, but relieved, shock, although it sounds a bit odd to my ears.
A bit like a double-timing beat. Like a samba rhythm. Though I can simply fathom why
for now, with no clear answers coming...
The man is out cold and does not hear any of my words used for gaining his attention.
At least not at first.
Something of my concerned voice must register somewhere within his cold-addled
mind, for he eventually stirs. "TARDIS? Cold. Why?" he disjointedly complains.
"I haven't seen a...TARDIS. What does one look like?"
"Who're you? Where is she? What have you done to..." his voice trembles and
then trails off. Chocolate brown eyes pop wide-open then. And he starts struggling
to move. Tries to sit up again, to turn towards me, even if I believe doing any of that
might just be a bad idea in the long run. The man doesn't seem like he has much
energy left, and I wouldn't want him to waste energy that he needn't waste.
"Calm down, son. Calm down," I say, trying to reach him with quiet advice, though
I myself am feeling anything but calm.
In response, he deflates, this time unknowingly face-planting against the duster,
made of wool, that I was wearing, rather than the snowy ground below us.
"Well, at least, I won't die alone," he mumbles softly against my shoulder, right
before his eyes slip shut and he goes limp again.
XXXXX
A frantic booming noise sounds against the door.
I run to it and open it, not knowing what to expect, but definitely not expecting
what I found awaiting me on the doorstep.
My husband was there, but it wasn't him that first caught my eye. It was what he was
carrying over his shoulder. Or rather who he was carrying. It was a man. A man I had
never seen before. A human man, dressed in strange clothes for both this type of
weather and this type of place. And from the rest of the look of him, he was also
quite unconscious and very possibly hurt.
"Oh gosh! What's happened, dear?"
I pull my husband gently inside and shut the door behind him. He shakes his head
and hair free of free of residual snowflakes and stomps his booted feet before
answering, never letting his unusual burden shift too far from his grip.
"I found him out cold near the grazing meadows. He was exhausted and delirious
even when I roused him. And, no, before you ask, I have no idea where he came from.
Kept mentioning something called a TARDIS, whatever or whoever that is," he explains.
"Well...Did you have any luck with the reindeer?" I ask, content to let any other questions
about the extra man now inside my home - like a name to call him by - go unanswered
for the time-being.
"Nope. None. Not one sign of them. All I found was him. And he was carrying this," he
continues, holding up what appears to be some sort of metallic tool for me to see.
"Is that a...screwdriver?" I ask, incredulous.
"If so, it's like one I've never seen before," he says before placing the unusual object
on a nearby counter, out of the way for, then turning back to me. "Where can I put him?"
I think about the guest room for a moment. But, it hadn't been cleaned since our son
had last visited, and I didn't want this strange man shacked up in a bed and room that
still had the scent of Charlie about it, no matter how much of a clean freak he continually
portends himself to be, now that he's in his early twenties...
"Just put him on the couch over there for now. Try to make him as comortable
as you can. I'll go and see if I can fix up Charlie's room for him in the meantime.
I shouldn't be too long."
"You always know what to do, love." He smiles softly and I turn away, concern
in head, but relief in heart.
Who was this man and where did he come from? Would we get any answers to
either mystery once he woke up again?
XXXXX
I'm not a healer.
I'm a builder.
Callouses and tools, that's me.
Bandages and poultices and cleaning and clothing, that's more my wife.
The humming coming from the next room hasn't stopped, so she's still hard at work.
Not for the first time, I look down at my handiwork. He'd come awake only once, briefly
and wordlessly, during the entire process. Which was a small miracle, considering I'd
undressed him, put his sopping wet clothes and socks and tennis shoes by the fire to
dry, and redressed him in warm, dry clothes, and bundled him up in blankets to stave
off any possibility of serious hypothermia or frostbite. His lips and fingernails were finally
pinking up again, as was the bruise and gashes on his forehead. It was still an angry-
looking mass, but my wife could easily fix that up. She'd dealt with far worse before.
Not for the first time that night, I wondered if I did the right thing in bringing him here. I
knew I couldn't very well leave him out there in such harsh conditions to die. Especially
not alone. But, I already have a job to do and reindeer to still find. I can't just babysit this
man of whom I know nothing about during the most important time of the year for both
my helpers and I. I can't take time out to deal with the problems of one person, when so
many others are already counting on me, can I?
"...Well, it's all done."
I hadn't heard Martha come back in, nor heard her humming stop, so caught up
in my own head was I.
She sees what I've done and nods her approval. I don't tell her about the two
heartbeats that I thought I'd heard earlier, however. She'd probably just think
me crazy or hard-of-hearing anyway...
"Now, all I need to do is dress that forehead of his...And then we can get him into
the other room and into a proper bed, something he doesn't seem to have slept
in for quite a while by the look of things."
She gets the bandages and ointments and ice packs out and sets to work,
tending to the man's most noticeable injuries, the bruises and the abrasions
marring his youthful face and scalp.
XXXXX
The first sensation I feel - and I had no idea that I'd feel anything at all again -
is warmth. Almost too much of it, in fact.
Oh, and I'm still me too. The old me, with the same teeth, and the mole on my
back, in between my shoulder blades, and the sideburns or really bad skin...
I open my eyes and look 'round. But, everything's a bit blurry, if I'm honest.
Blobs of color here. Blobs of color there. All unmoving. I guess I'm alone then.
But, unless someone's been doing some major re-decorating in the time I've
been unawares, I'm not aboard the TARDIS. In fact, I don't know where I am,
aside from inside somewhere. Have I been Doctor-napped?
I wonder who brought me here. Where were they now? I couldn't hear anyone.
Wiping a hand over my eyes, my fingertips brush up against something foreign.
Or at least it seems to be foreign. I still can't see very well. I blink a few times and
the blurriness recedes, except for 'round the edges. Something fluffy is behind my
back, a pillow - in fact, a few pillows - a pillow pile. A pile of pillows.
I chuckle at the word play. It's a low, harsh, guttural sound, however, one that's
quite unused to coming from this me's mouth. Come to think on it, the inside of
my throat feels raw. Sore. Dry. I need some water...or better yet...tea. Tea's
always good. Free radicals and tannins and all that, you know?
I wonder where they keep the tea things here? If they even have tea things here?
I don't see a bell. So, I guess I wasn't truly infirmed or confined or anything. I see
nothing wrong with me having a jaunt to see the sights of wherever I'd wound up.
Something is tickling at my memory though, but it's not readily coming forward.
There's something I need to find, isn't there? I think. But, what? What had I
been doing before I was here, being warm and toasty? And why was I here?
Did someone need my help?
Shrugging out from underneath the covers is an ordeal. An unusually laboured
one. By the time I'm free of the tangle of sheets and quilts, I'm panting quietly.
I'm starting to actually internally feel that something is amiss. My body just isn't
cooperating as quickly as is normal.
Was I being drugged? Was I a captive after all? What was going on?
And who or what was behind it?
Mind made up, I push off from the wrecked cocoon of pillows and coverlets rucked
up behind me on the bed, intent on taking to my feet and seeking answers in the
next room. Knees already threatening to buckle, I grab onto the foot of the bed to
stabilize some sort of dodgy, dogged, determined traction between bare feet and
a smooth wooden floor.
And, then, out of the nowhere that's behind my back...an unfamiliar voice.
"My name is Martha and where in the white, green, blue, and brown earth
do you think you're going off to?"
I quickly stand, ram-rod straight, surprised, on the defensive, hearts beating
hard and fast. Way too fast. And what had already been a tenuous grasp on
the metallic bed frame to start with falters, slips. My clammy fingers slide away
and grasp at empty air. And I would've fallen had not the owner of the voice
quickly decided that falling again was not in my best interest.
"Hello," I say to the new presence that's carefully supporting me about the waist.
XXXXX
The glazed, unfocused eyes tell me he's still not really seeing me or much of
anything else. But, that doesn't seem to keep him from talking...or moving. I'd
just laid down for the night when I'd heard the bedsheets being noisily shifted.
Eventually, the touching of toes to a creaky, hardwood floor had followed.
I'd hurriedly come down the short hallway and opened the door to see our guest
shaking like a leaf but standing resolutely. Like he needed to be somewhere more
than he needed to be aided or coddled by me. But, now, he seemed conversational,
albeit in an odd manner.
"Martha? I knew a Martha once," he muses, head lolling drunkenly, "She left me.
Ages ago now, I'd wager. You're not her, are you? You don't look like her. Too white
in the follicles. Your name Jones too?"
"'Fraid not, young man."
"Just as well." He lapses into silence again.
And I wonder if he's gone to sleep sitting up.
But, then...
"Where are we? Your home, you said. But, where's your home?"
"The North Pole."
He scoffs at this. "Don't be ridiculous. Aren't there only polar bears and glaciers 'round?"
"Apparently not," I counter wryly.
He gives me a hard look.
"What's the matter?"
"I'm trying to see what you are. What you really are. You're not a Slitheen. Or a Krillitane..."
What are those, I wonder? Aliens?
"I should say not," I tell him.
"Oh, all right then. I'm too tired to figure you out right now anyway," he relents.
"Care to tell me your name then? Your eyes tell me you're not actually young
enough to be called a young man." When he'd looked at me hard, I'd seen
something ancient in his eyes. Something old and weary. Something lonely
and everlasting. Something not belonging to a human being. The two hearts
had been a clue. But, the full reality? Would I find out? Would he tell me his secret?
It now looks as if both his brain and mouth have become stuck. Open-mouthed,
slack-jawed, and silent. Then, words come flying out. At crazy speeds. And with
no breaths in between...
"Oi! Where are my manners? Why didn't you say so earlier I'd not introduced myself? I mean,
I need to to be a good guest. As you've been a good host. At least you seem to 'ave been.
And I've been no doubt such a burden. And oh look! There seems to be a bandage on my
head. Why would I need a BAAAAANDAGE on my headdddd? Did I fall? I wonder if I fell.
Some latern found me somewhere. Somewhere there was snow, and......TARDIS! I've
lost her, haven't I? Listen, you haven't seen a blue box, have ya? I think she may be
'round here somewhere. She can't have gone far, not without me. No sirree, pop the p!"
He grins then, but this time he looks like a madman.
No more was he the soft-spoken, tired man from before. Blue box? TARDIS?
TARDIS had been one of the words he'd said to my husband a few hours ago...
"Who or what are you?" I find myself muttering in awe.
"Seem to have missed my name again, have I? Well, I'm the Doctor, that's who. And as
for what? I don't go crowin' 'round about this too often nowadays, yah see. Trying to keep
a low profile after being involved in some pretty nasty timey-wimey business, but..." he
leans in closer to me, whispers his secret, "...I'm a Time Lord."
And then he giggles.
XXXXX
I don't know what made me tell her. Or what made me giggle. I'm not quite feeling
like myself. I assume that this has something to do with the telling. And the giggling.
After all, she could still be a Slitheen. And I could still be her prisoner. And the TARDIS
could also still be out there.
But, woozy has become my new state-of-being, apparently, and I find myself listing -
or maybe I'm being helped? - back into the warm cocoon I'd previously vacated. My
fast-talking alone had sapped the energy right out of me.
There would be no escaping tonight.
Perhaps maybe tomorrow --
This bed sure IS brilliant.
And if there's snow still around?
Well, I'd rather not wait until...ZZZzzz...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
TO BE CONCLUDED...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
END NOTES: Any and all positive or critical feedback is welcome (as long as it's done in
a polite manner), as this is my first Doctor Who story ever and I probably need all the help
I can get. The concluding part to this should be up later on this week, but I'd also appreciate
anything that you all have to say about this chapter, on its own merits...THANKS! :D